President Donald Trump is intensifying his push to secure Senate confirmation for Lindsey Halligan as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, even as her nomination faces steep resistance rooted in a long-standing Senate tradition and complications stemming from her recent disqualification from the same office.
Lindsey Halligan, whose earlier actions as interim U.S. attorney led to indictments that were later invalidated, submitted a 28-page questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. It marked the first movement on her nomination since Trump formally submitted her name to the Senate on September 30.
The questionnaire arrived more than two weeks after a federal judge barred Lindsey Halligan from continuing as interim U.S. attorney, ruling that the circumstances surrounding her appointment violated the statutory framework governing temporary federal prosecutors.
“She’s the president’s nominee. It is our hope that she is confirmed, and submitting her questionnaire is part of that process,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said following the filing. News of the submission was first reported earlier on Wednesday.
Despite the administration’s efforts, Lindsey Halligan’s nomination is stalled by the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition. The Judiciary Committee’s Republican majority confirmed that it has not received the required blue slips from Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.
Blue slips so named for the color of the paper have for more than a century empowered home-state senators to approve or block judicial and U.S. attorney nominees in their states. Without both senators’ approval, nominees generally cannot advance out of committee.
“Nominees without blue slips don’t have the votes to advance out of committee or get confirmed on the Senate floor,” a Judiciary Committee spokesperson said.
Judiciary Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, defended the tradition, calling it “a fundamental example of our system of checks and balances” that prevents any one party from unilaterally installing officials who do not reflect local values. While Grassley has stated that he “wants President Trump’s nominees to be successful,” he has resisted the president’s repeated demands to abandon the practice.
Trump visibly frustrated, blasted the blue slip process Thursday morning on social media, arguing that it allows Democrats to unilaterally block highly qualified Republican nominees.
The rule, he wrote on Truth Social, is “making it impossible to get great Republican Judges and U.S. Attorneys approved to serve in any state where there is even a single Democrat Senator.” If a Democrat refuses to return a blue slip, he said, “it is OVER for that very well qualified Republican candidate.”
Trump specifically called out Grassley for allowing the “scam” to continue, and urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to “get something done, ideally the termination of Blue Slips.”
Lindsey Halligan had no prosecutorial experience when she was tapped by Trump to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Her legal career has focused primarily on insurance litigation, and she has previously represented Trump in a federal criminal case involving his retention of classified documents, as well as in his defamation case against CNN.
Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Halligan as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia on September 20, one day after the previous interim U.S. attorney, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from Trump.
Within days of her appointment, Lindsey Halligan presented evidence to a federal grand jury that resulted in the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey on charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. In mid-October, she secured a separate indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James, accusing her of filing false claims on mortgage records. Both Comey and James have denied wrongdoing.
However, on November 24, Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie dismissed both cases, ruling that Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. attorney was “defective” and that all actions taken under the improper appointment “must be set aside.” Currie found that her installation violated the statutory mechanism governing interim appointments, rendering the indictments invalid.
Halligan is not the only Trump nominee facing the fallout of these appointment disputes. Earlier this week, Alina Habba another former Trump lawyer whom the president appointed to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey resigned from her interim post. Habba cited the “flawed blue slip tradition” as one reason for stepping down, after she too had been disqualified by a federal judge over the legality of her temporary appointment.
With no blue slips forthcoming from Senators Kaine and Warner, significant legal controversy surrounding her previous role, and internal tension within the GOP over Senate norms, Halligan’s confirmation prospects appear increasingly slim.
Still, the White House has signaled it will continue to push for her approval, even as Trump escalates public pressure on Senate Republicans to dismantle a system he sees as a barrier to reshaping the federal legal infrastructure with his preferred appointees.
