Category: LindseyHalligan

The worst attorney general in America strikes again

Posted on by Lisa Needham

Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.

Welcome to another week of the justice system being, well, not great! At least this week, we can mix things up a bit. 

Of course, there’s no way a week could go by without more news about interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan. But we’ve also got a couple trips to state courts this time around, with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton continuing to be racist and awful, and Washington state dropping some really dystopian surveillance-state stuff on us all. 

Your weekly Lindsey Halligan update: Not great for Lindsey

Lindsey Halligan—everyone’s favorite insurance lawyer turned defense attorney for President Donald Trump turned Smithsonian Institution anti-woke scold turned interim United States attorney turned surprise texting pal—is extremely busy fending off so, so many motions. That’s the fallout when you agree to be the vessel for Trump’s retribution efforts. But what if Halligan had even more to worry about?

Enter the request from watchdog group Campaign for Accountability that both the Florida and Virginia state bars investigate Halligan for, well, everything. 

Fam, is it good when the bar complaint about your behavior runs 17 pages? And has, like, multiple subheadings? We’ve got the so-called investigations of both former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. We’ve got the Comey and James grand jury proceedings and indictments. Do we have the unsolicited texts to Lawfare’s Anna Bower? Hell yeah we do. 

Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, shown in August.

The complaint alleges that Halligan likely violated an ethics rule about making false statements of fact or law to a tribunal, given that it looks like she just might have had a wee bit of trouble telling the truth to the grand juries in both her big cases. That weird unsolicited text exchange with Bower? Well, that one might violate the rule against lawyers making extrajudicial statements that could interfere with the fairness of a jury trial.

There’s an ethics rule specific to prosecutors that bars them from filing a case if they know it lacks probable cause. To be fair, it might not be that Halligan willingly violated that rule. After all, it could be that she has no idea what probable cause actually requires. 

That brings us to the allegation that’s got to sting the most here: that Halligan may have violated the rule requiring a lawyer to provide competent representation and to have "the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.” 

Man, it has to feel rough when a bar complaint about you runs down your paper-thin resume as evidence that you are so out of your depth that perhaps a state bar should sanction you. 

Ken Paxton continues to be the worst

When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is not abusing the power of his office by suing the makers of Tylenol, he is abusing the power of his office by trying to shut down a nonprofit that works to increase civic participation and voting by Latinos. 

And now the group is fighting back. Jolt Initiative sued Paxton to try to stop him from revoking their nonprofit charter. 

Paxton’s efforts are a transparent effort to suppress the Latino vote by deliberately conflating voter registration drives with illegally registering noncitizens to vote. Now, Paxton’s filing against Jolt didn’t actually allege that they registered noncitizens to vote. No, it’s that holding voter registration drives near DMV locations “illuminates its unlawful motive.” 

Huh? Well, since citizens can register to vote at the DMV, having voter drives near the DMV, of course, means you are trying to register noncitizens. No, really, that’s Paxton’s argument. 

Paxton’s stretching here because let’s face it, the only way he and his pals will continue to hold power in Texas is by suppressing the vote. 

President Donald Trump, shown on Nov. 9.

Only the best people

In 2020, during his first term, Trump tapped Joshua Kindred for a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska. Kindred’s lifetime seat turned out to be pretty short, though, as he quit after an investigation alleged that he had an “inappropriately sexualized relationship” with a law clerk, created a hostile work environment for clerks that featured abusive sexual conduct and sexual harassment, sent vulgar texts about his sex life, and then lied about everything to the chief judge. 

Last year, the U.S. Judicial Conference even referred Kindred to Congress for potential impeachment—even though he resigned—saying his behavior was so reprehensible that Congress should review it.

And now, not only does Kindred not have his judge job, but also he is also no longer allowed to practice law in Alaska. The state Supreme Court disbarred him, dropping a 67-page decision detailing his malfeasance. Really a top-notch judicial pick you got there, Trump. 

The 8th Circuit gets somehow even suckier

In its quest to become a rubber stamp for conservatives, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit overturned a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that had found that Home Depot unlawfully terminated someone for having “BLM”—as in “Black Lives Matter”—on their work apron. Home Depot allowed people to personalize their aprons but allegedly told the employee, a person of color, they had to remove it since the company’s policy said that work aprons were not an appropriate place for religious beliefs, causes, or political messages. Home Depot also helpfully explained that if they had to let someone have “BLM” on a work apron, they would also have to allow swastikas.

Okaaaaaay.

In overturning the NLRB’s ruling, the 8th Circuit panel managed to completely eclipse the racism of Home Depot with some breathtaking racism of their own. You see, there were special circumstances here, according to the panel. This Home Depot store is in New Brighton, Minnesota, and the court determined that the “conditions” facing the store “gave rise to legitimate safety concerns.”

What concerns? Well, you see, George Floyd’s murder. No, really:

The activity in dispute was not a display at a random location in the United States; it was not at a normal moment in time; and it was not a generic message for equal rights or employee protection. [The employee’s] BLM message was broadcast only a few miles from the site of George Floyd's murder.

“A few miles” is doing a lot of work here. New Brighton is a suburb of Minneapolis that abuts the opposite end of the city from where Floyd was murdered. It’s several miles away … by freeway. 

This must have been during the unrest, then, right? 

Nope. The judges decided that an employee wearing “BLM” on their uniform in February 2021—months after Floyd’s murder and the subsequent protests—was “a clear risk to customer and employee safety,” and that the slogan reasonably threatened the security of the workplace. 

Just come out and say that you are going to let companies be racist. It would save us all a bunch of time. 

Flock data is a public record, and that is not great!

A few months ago, you might have heard about Texas deputies reportedly using Flock Safety, an automated license-plate reader, to track down someone who had allegedly had a self-managed abortion as part of a “death investigation” and possible prosecution. 

Sure, the deputies said they were just trying to find her to check on her welfare, and that’s why they reportedly conducted a nationwide search of over 83,000 Flock cameras and reviewed her text messages about the abortion. 

So, what could be worse than cops tapping into a giant network of surveillance cameras whenever they feel like it? Glad you asked.

How about if, at least in Washington state, everything from those Flock cameras are public records and therefore can be requested by anyone? Why should law enforcement have all the fun of using a dystopian surveillance tool to track people? Better to just throw open the doors to every bad actor!

And speaking of bad actors. Eight Washington state law enforcement agencies had already shared access to their Flock networks directly with U.S. Border Patrol.

So, a private company built a vast network of surveillance cameras. Which police have access to. And maybe in some places, anyone does. And maybe in other places, Border Patrol does as well. This surveillance state sucks.

The justice system’s falling apart—but the worst people are losing

Posted on by Lisa Needham

Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.

Welcome to another week where we try to make sense of the justice system in an era where it is basically self-destructing. This week, though, we can report that it was a bad week for some of the worst people you know.

Do you loathe U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan? You’re in luck, because she is getting dressed down by the judge in her ridiculous prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey. 

Hate Gregory Bovino, the cosplay-Nazi brute leading the administration’s violent occupation of Chicago? He did not have a good time in court this week. 

Think House Speaker Mike Johnson is laughably pathetic? Watch him suck up as hard as possible by slamming the Supreme Court and trying to hand over even more of Congress’ power to Trump.

Are we really doing this again?

House Republicans just can’t stop threatening to impeach, well, lots of judges, but they have a particular hatred of Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge for the District of Columbia.  

So, what is it this time? This one is a bit tough to follow, because it requires you to be fully steeped in the Deep Lore of Jan. 6. Somehow, Boasberg should be impeached because he authorized former special counsel Jack Smith to issue nondisclosure orders so that the legislators Smith was seeking phone logs from were not notified of the request. 

Texas Rep. Brandon Gill has a bone to pick with Judge James Boasberg for doing his job.

That is apparently, at least according to Texas Rep. Brandon Gill, who is very much not a lawyer, illegal and threatening, and come on, this stuff is exhausting. Oh, also, Boasberg has weaponized the judiciary on behalf of former President Joe Biden, which would be a super-odd thing to do given that Biden is no longer president and presumably isn’t trying to puppet-master the judiciary. 

What this clutch of House members is actually most mad about is that Judge Boasberg had the gall to tell the administration it had to turn around the planes of detainees they were deporting under cover of darkness. Of course, the administration just defied that order anyway.

This will probably be as successful and fact-free as the misconduct charge the administration tried to slap Boasberg with. This seems to have languished for a while, but what Attorney General Pam Bondi alleges is the mostest worstest thing a judge could do was to mention, in a private gathering of judges, that he was worried that the Trump administration would disregard court orders and trigger a constitutional crisis. 

Right on both counts, Boasberg!

This most recent treat time at the Supreme Court really sucks

Is it really treat time when it is a constant stream of treats? It’s no longer special or surprising that the Supreme Court’s six conservatives are absolutely in the tank for President Donald Trump. 

Want to illegally remove members of independent boards even though the law prohibits it? Have at it! 

Want to racially profile people so ICE can more easily detain them, even though the Fourth Amendment prohibits it? Sure! You do you, boo! 

But this latest one is super bleak, with the Supreme Court clearing the way for the administration to kick transgender and nonbinary people in the teeth some more by blocking them from having a passport that reflects their gender identity. This is, of course, not a ruling in a case that has been fully litigated. This is just the usual Supreme Court thing, where whenever a lower court says Trump can’t do something, he runs to the Supreme Court so they will block the lower court’s ruling. 

So, it’s literally an emergency if Trump is not allowed to misgender and torment trans people right now, even as the case proceeds through the courts. This is a court that welcomes Trump’s project to hurt trans people just because he can, and they’re gosh darn happy to get to help out. 

No treat time for Halligan in the Eastern District of Virginia

Things continue to go swimmingly for everyone’s favorite real estate lawyer turned Smithsonian anti-woke director turned Interim U.S. Attorney—maybe?—Lindsey Halligan. 

Halligan was likely flying high when she succeeded at carrying out Trump’s demands to indict Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. However, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to Halligan that there were about a zillion other steps in front of her in terms of actually convicting Comey or James. 

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan

Fam, is it bad when the judge in your case says you seem to have an attitude of “indict first” and investigate second? That seems bad, right?

The DOJ had been ordered to turn over grand jury materials in the Comey case for the judge to review and determine whether to release them to Comey. One of Comey’s motions is to unseal the grand jury testimony, given that it seemed like Halligan was just doing Trump’s bidding with the indictment, the inaccuracies in the actual indictment, and that every career prosecutor said they wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole.

So, even though they were ordered to provide everything, the DOJ seemed to have left out remarks from Halligan herself, who is the sole person who presented the case to the grand jury. The judge issued what could only be called a “Did I Stutter?” order and gave Halligan 24 hours to produce the remainder. Have fun, Lindsey!

No treat time for Bovino in Chicago

Is there a better example of the absolute depravity and Nazi cosplay of ICE than Bovino? Just an absolutely irredeemable dude, perfect for Trump’s war on immigrants and blue cities.

Gregory Bovino loves to defy court orders when it comes to terrifying immigrants.

Like Trump, Bovino thinks court orders are optional, so he and his band of cretins just kept terrorizing Chicago even after the judge issued a temporary restraining order stopping them from tear-gassing children without warning and using less-lethal munitions just because he feels like it. Bovino didn’t just ignore that order, he flagrantly, gleefully violated it. So on Thursday, Judge Sara Ellis upgraded her temporary restraining order to a preliminary injunction, which is also a “Did I Stutter?” order. 

Of course, the administration is already whining about how their stormtroopers in Chicago are facing serious threats but showing “incredible restraint” and they’re gonna appeal, of course. 

And if you’re wondering how long it took Bovino and his thugs to violate the injunction? Pretty much immediately, with agents firing pepper balls at a car that pulled up next to them, because how dare Chicagoans drive near this band of trigger-happy Nazis. Surely that’s a shootable offense, right?

Looks like Johnson does actually know something?

Aww, poor Speaker Johnson. The only good thing about watching him relentlessly lie every day is that you can tell it is eating away at him. Not because it bothers him, but because he sucks at lying. He’s too much of a wuss to bluster, too overconfident to actually prepare, and catastrophically bad at speaking off the cuff. 

This week, Johnson had the weight of the world on his slumping little shoulders. He had to spin the GOP’s catastrophic losses in Tuesday’s elections. He has to pretend there is a secret plan to fix health care. 

But at least that’s novel. Most days he just declares that he doesn’t know anything about anything … well, anything bad that Trump is doing.

But apparently he paid attention to Wednesday’s Supreme Court arguments on tariffs, and he is very disappointed in Justice Neil Gorsuch. Johnson is unhappy that Gorsuch expressed concern that Trump’s tariff scheme is a power grab from Congress. Yes, that’s the head of one of the bodies of Congress whining that the judicial branch isn’t signing on to let Trump take Congress’ power away. Jesus, man. Have some dignity.

Trump’s new favorite prosecutor is flubbing it big time

Posted on by Lisa Needham

On Monday afternoon, former FBI Director James Comey dropped two motions to dismiss his criminal case. Both are related to, in part, the antics of one Lindsey Halligan, everyone’s favorite insurance lawyer turned interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

This likely made for a not-fun Monday afternoon for Halligan, but then her day got hilariously worse when Lawfare’s Anna Bower dropped her story that Halligan had texted her out of the blue, via Signal, about the prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Bower had tweeted about the Oct. 11 New York Times story revealing that James’s great-niece lives in the Virginia home that is the basis for the mortgage fraud case against James, and that she had testified to a different grand jury that she lived there for many years without paying rent. 

That seems to be what made Lindsey Halligan lose her mind and contact Bower to complain that “your reporting in particular is just way off.” 

New York Attorney General Letitia James, shown in 2019.

This was probably exceedingly confusing for Bower, who does not work for The New York Times, did not write the story, and was doing no reporting. Instead, Bower had merely tweeted about the story.

Nevertheless, every time Bower asked Halligan what was false about the story or her characterization of it, Halligan offered a grievance-fueled response like, “Continue to do what you have been and you’ll be completely discredited when the evidence comes out.” 

Just after Bower contacted the Department of Justice on Monday afternoon for a comment and to confirm the texts were authentic, Bower’s Signal flickered to life with Halligan saying, “By the way—everything I ever sent you is off record. You’re not a journalist so it’s weird saying that but just letting you know.” 

There’s so much to unpack here. 

Halligan referred to Bower as a reporter multiple times in their previous exchanges. More importantly, you can’t declare something off the record retrospectively, much less days after the fact. But when Bower explained this, Halligan came up with a different rationale: “It’s obvious the whole convo is off record. There’s disappearing messages and it’s on signal.”

It is gobsmackingly stupid to think that because you communicate on Signal and set your messages to disappear, it is off the record by default. Even setting that aside, there’s another big problem here: Halligan admitted she had set her phone to automatically delete messages that were official government communications, which are generally supposed to be preserved. (Also, hello? Ever heard of screenshots?)

Is this a good time to mention that Halligan studied broadcast journalism in college and could not feasibly have avoided learning what “off the record” means? Also, did she learn nothing from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal fiasco?

Actually, she probably did, which is that Hegseth suffered no consequences whatsoever. 

And Halligan likely won’t lose her job over this, because Trump actually loves this sort of petulant, aggressive weirdness. But she might lose her job over Comey’s motion to dismiss based on asserting that Halligan was unlawfully appointed. Not because Trump cares, but because the courts do.

Two of Trump’s other temporary U.S. attorney appointees, Alina Habba and Sigal Chattah, have already been disqualified because the administration’s attempts to string together temporary appointments to avoid the Senate confirmation process are, well, not legal. Halligan is running up against the same issue and could suffer the same fate. If she does, it could render the indictment against Comey void. If she’s not legally in the job, she can’t legally indict anyone. 

And yes, that would apply to the James case as well, should James go that route. 

Former FBI Director James Comey, shown in 2017.

Comey’s other motion wouldn’t result in Halligan losing her job, at least not as far as a court is concerned. Comey argues the indictment should be dismissed because he is being both vindictively and selectively prosecuted.   

Vindictive prosecution is exactly what it sounds like—that the prosecution is motivated by general animus toward the defendant. And Comey has everything he needs to make that argument. After all, Trump admitted that he fired U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert in favor of Halligan when Siebert wouldn’t bring charges, and then Trump celebrated the indictment on social media, making sure to thank Halligan and FBI Director Kash Patel. So thoughtful! 

To prove selective prosecution, Comey has to show that other similarly situated people were not prosecuted for the same actions. Fortunately for Comey, Trump has multiple past appointees who allegedly lied to Congress.

Let’s roll back to Trump’s first term. As noted in Comey’s motion, there was then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions allegedly making false statements to Congress about his communications with Russia. There was Trump’s then-head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, allegedly lying about his use of a personal email account while he was Oklahoma attorney general. Then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price allegedly fibbed to Congress when he denied getting a sweet discount on buying shares of stock. And remember Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin? He allegedly lied about whether OneWest Bank, where he had been chairman and CEO, had used robo-signing of foreclosure documents.  

It’s tough to get more similarly situated to Comey than these four are. They were all high-level political appointees, all accused of lying to Congress, but only Comey was charged. 

Halligan is wildly overmatched here, but judging by her interactions with Bower, she remains blissfully unaware of that. She clearly thinks she’s running circles around everyone else, that she’s a unique genius who figured out how to indict Trump’s enemies when no one else could. 

In reality, she has no idea what she’s doing and no business doing any of it, which means it will be a delight to see what her office manages to file in response to Comey.  

Trump team faces critical shortage of morally flexible lawyers

Posted on by Lisa Needham

It’s hard to find good help these days. What’s a president to do when all he wants is to use the might of the state to persecute his political enemies, but all of these pencil-necked geek attorneys keep saying things like “sir, there is no case here”? 

President Donald Trump’s retribution jamboree is being stalled out by career Justice Department prosecutors worried about stupid things like “the law” and “ethics.” 

Lindsey Halligan, interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia

Take Elizabeth Yusi, a career prosecutor who has been an assistant U.S. attorney for about 15 years. According to MSNBC, Yusi will be telling Lindsey Halligan, a real-estate lawyer who has been interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for about 15 minutes, that there’s no probable cause to prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud. 

How dare she? 

Looks like Halligan is going to have to roll up her sleeves and take care of this herself, just like she did with bringing charges against former FBI Director James Comey. Sure, the indictment was comically thin, and sure, she didn’t manage to make one of the ginned-up charges stick, and sure, she had to present it to the grand jury herself. 

Halligan, of course, was installed in her job because she’s perfectly happy to take on the shoddiest, most vindictive prosecutions. She was brought in to bring charges against Comey after her predecessor, Eric Siebert, said he wouldn’t. 

Trump took a victory lap after Halligan secured an indictment against Comey, but for all the fanfare over that, there is so much more that has to happen before Trump can live out his fantasy of putting Comey behind bars. 

Sadly for Trump, all of those steps require prosecutors. Many, actually. 

At the moment, Halligan might need to consider a crash course in trial preparation, because as of Tuesday, no career attorneys from her office have entered an appearance in Comey’s case, even though the arraignment is on Wednesday. Though to be fair, Halligan probably doesn’t know about this, since she’s never been a prosecutor and her only client as a defense attorney was Trump.

Instead, it looks like Halligan is going to bring in prosecutors from outside her office. Can’t wait for a passel of freshly minted Liberty University School of Law graduates to handle a politically explosive and high-profile prosecution. Well, at least those who weren’t smart or vicious enough to land a clerkship with the many Trump judges eager to mold new baby fascists.

Meanwhile, when it comes to the Trump administration’s eagerness to have one state invade another, it seems to all rest—legally speaking—on the shoulders of one lawyer: Eric Hamilton. 

A protester stands draped in an American flag as officers try to disperse protesters near an ICE facility in Portland on Oct. 5.

Hamilton handled Sunday night’s hearing about deploying National Guard troops to Oregon and was then bundled off to Illinois to argue about how cool and legal it would be if Texas troops were deployed to Chicago.

Normally, of course, there is a veritable army of DOJ attorneys to handle these things. But between resignations and purges, the DOJ doesn’t have a lot left in the tank. 

The agency lost 70% of its civil rights division. The top national security prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia was just purged. Multiple high-level prosecutors who refused to sign off on the DOJ’s quid pro quo with Mayor Eric Adams were also fired. Two-thirds of the attorneys tasked with defending Trump’s signature initiatives—like birthright citizenship and immigration—have bolted. And Trump has rapidly depleted the entire federal attorney bench. 

This is also why there’s such turmoil among some U.S. attorneys right now. Trump knows he can’t get people like Alina Habba—another of his former personal attorneys—or Halligan confirmed by the Senate. But he also knows that only the most bone-deep partisan loyalists will do his bidding. 

Eventually, all that the DOJ will have left are people who previously represented Trump in some personal capacity. Fortunately for Trump, that’s a lot of people. Unfortunately for the rest of us, they all suck.

Trump moves even closer to indicting his enemies—first stop, Comey

Posted on by Emily Singer

The pace at which President Donald Trump is committing impeachable offenses is quickening.

On Wednesday, multiple media organizations reported that Trump's new U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia is planning to seek an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey—even though the Department of Justice does not believe probable cause exists to charge Comey with a crime.

The news comes days after Trump already fired the former U.S. attorney for the EDVA, Erik Siebert, because Siebert wouldn't heed Trump's demand to charge his enemies with crimes.

That’s an impeachable offense in and of itself. But now, Trump's replacement is actually following Dear Leader's orders and will seek charges against people Trump has vowed to get retribution against. It's a terrifying and stomach-churning instance of lawfare that should get Trump impeached and removed from office, but won't because Republicans are cowards who excuse Trump no matter how deplorable his actions.

Interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan

MSNBC, which first reported the news, said interim EDVA U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan will move to charge Comey with lying to Congress. She will do that even though Halligan was told by DOJ officials that in a memo that, "there isn’t enough evidence to establish probable cause a crime was committed, let alone enough to convince a jury to convict him," according to MSNBC reporter Ken Dilanian.

Comey would be the first Trump "enemy" charged by the Trump administration.

But Trump is also demanding that Halligan indict New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff with mortgage fraud, even though there is no evidence that either committed that crime.

Halligan is reportedly gearing up to charge James—who Trump loathes because she successfully sued Trump for business fraud, with a judge finding Trump liable for inflating his net worth in order to receive more favorable loans.

Aside from using the power of the presidency to try to jail his opponents, Trump is also trying to silence dissent and speech he doesn’t like.

Trump’s Pentagon is attempting to limit what reporters can report. And Trump is trying to pressure media organizations to remove programming from the airwaves in order to avoid being hit with costly lawsuits (see Kimmel, Jimmy).

What’s more, Trump is also closing criminal investigations into his allies (see Homan, Tom), and engaging in blatant corruption by giving out pardons to people who line his pockets with crypto cash.

"The point here is to get a few of Trump's political adversaries in jail, but the real point is a tried and true tactic of despots all over the world, which is to just harass and intimidate their political opposition so that protesters don't show up, candidates don't run,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Thursday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “That's how democracies die."

Murphy: "The point is to get a few of Trump's political adversaries in jail, but the real point is a tried & true tactic of despots all over the world, which is to just harass & intimidate their political opposition so that protesters don't show up, candidates don't run. That's how democracies die." [image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) September 25, 2025 at 9:17 AM

Top Trump aide: Who really cares about slavery?

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

A senior White House official thinks the Smithsonian museums are way too caught up on that whole slavery thing.

During a Wednesday appearance on Fox News, White House senior associate Lindsey Halligan discussed President Donald Trump’s push to make the renowned museums parrot his racist, revisionist history of the United States. After conceding slavery was “awful,” she quickly pivoted to underplaying it and chastising the museum.

“What I saw when I was going through the museums personally was an overemphasis on slavery. And I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we've come since slavery,” Halligan said. “Our country is a country of progress, and it's the greatest country in the world. And we should be able to take our kids, our students, through the Smithsonian and feel proud when we leave. There's a lot of history to our country, both positive and negative. But we need to keep moving forward. We can't just keep focusing on the negative.”

YouTube Video

Halligan's "Don't Worry Be Happy"-style monologue echoes her boss’ insane remarks on social media, criticizing the Smithsonian for being “WOKE” and overly focused on “how bad Slavery was.” In July, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History briefly scrubbed mentions of Trump’s first two impeachments from an exhibit on presidential impeachments and resignations, though it later added them back in a strongly modified form. 

The White House also plans to rewrite history across the Smithsonian ahead of America’s 250th anniversary, which will be celebrated next year.

Similarly, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Department of Defense has purged Black American military heroes from its websites.

The ongoing white supremacist project to rewrite history and underplay the significance of slavery—which dominated U.S. history and prehistory—is one of the administration’s most ignoble pursuits. It dishonors the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers who gave their lives fighting for a more perfect democracy.