The ‘WTF Is Happening’ Guide to Trump’s Litigation Bonanza

When Trump re-assumed office 10 long months ago, he vowed to “totally obliterate the deep state,” and go after his alleged enemies “hiding” in government jobs. And after some hirings and firings, he’s finally found the perfect person to do that dirty work: Lindsey Halligan. 

In Trump’s latest litigious attacks, Halligan’s name has been front and center. When the Department of Justice charged New York Attorney General Letitia James with alleged bank fraud and making false statements last week, the indictment was signed only by Halligan. (Typically, filings are endorsed by other prosecutors who help gather evidence.) If that sounds familiar, it’s because Halligan was also the only one to sign the indictment against former FBI Director James Comey in September for purportedly lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. 

James and Comey are just two of the president’s most prominent targets caught up in his retribution campaign, which has picked up in the few weeks since Halligan joined the picture in September. But how did she get there—and how is she moving so quickly?

Here’s everything you need to know about Halligan, Trump’s new prosecutor who—hold onto your hats—has zero prosecutorial experience.

From pageant queen to insurance litigator

According to the Washington Post, Halligan first met Trump when she attended an event at the Trump International Golf Club in November 2021. Coming from court and dressed in a suit, she reportedly caught the president’s eye and months later, she became a core part of his legal team. 

Halligan grew up in Broomfield, Colorado; went to a private Catholic high school where she was a star softball and basketball player; and attended college in Regis University in Denver. There she befriended Erika Kirk and advanced as a finalist in the 2009 and 2010 Miss Colorado pageants. So far, so Trump-y. As a law student at the University of Miami School of Law, she was “very smart, respectful, and well-liked,” and often underestimated due to her good looks, one of her law professors anonymously told the Washington Post. After graduating, she became a home insurance litigator at a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, firm; she was made partner there in 2018. (Lest you think she’s ever done anything decent, her job was defending insurance companies being sued by homeowners.) 

In 2022, when the FBI obtained a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago and confiscated 15 boxes of presidential records, Halligan was the second lawyer to arrive on scene. In 2023, she also went on the conservative channel NewsMax to say Trump’s fourth indictment—in which he was charged for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results—should be “removed.” The indictment, she said, “is exactly the type of state interference in a federal officials’ duty that [the] primacy clause of the [U.S.] Constitution prohibits… But let’s remember how easy it is to indict someone.” 

Worth emphasizing that there are serious questions about whether or not Lindsey Halligan is even legally in her job

— Quinta Jurecic (@qjurecic.bsky.social) 9 October 2025 at 16:51

How did we get here?

In 2025, Halligan joined Trump’s White House as an adviser, and in March, she was assigned the role of “saving” the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., which Trump feared was too “woke.” Speaking to Fox News, Halligan worried aloud about how much the museum focused on “negative aspects” of U.S. history: “The fact our country was involved in slavery is awful—no one thinks otherwise. But what I saw when I was going through the museum, personally, was an overemphasis on slavery.”