{"id":737,"date":"2026-05-30T09:10:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=737"},"modified":"2026-05-30T09:10:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:10:50","slug":"the-smackdown-of-a-very-incompetent-trump-lawyer-is-delicious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=737","title":{"rendered":"The smackdown of a very incompetent Trump lawyer is delicious"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Kak\u00b7i\u00b7sto\u00b7cra\u00b7cy- (kak\u0259\u0307\u02c8st\u00e4kr\u0259s\u0113): a government <u>by the least suitable or competent citizens<\/u> of a state<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A \u2018kakistocracy\u2019 is a system of government where the most unfit, <u>incompetent, and unscrupulous individuals<\/u> are in power. Such a system does not reflect rational decision-making. Instead, Trump\u2019s kakistocracy is emerging as the consequence of <u>systemic failures<\/u> (by Trump\u2019s design), <u>corruption<\/u> (ditto), and <u>societal dynamics<\/u> (manipulated, but not wholly created, byTrump).<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=735\">The Strange Case of Mark Niemoeller<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Malevolence may also be a factor. Outside his naked lust for power, profit, and retribution, Trump has shown little interest in governing. After DOGE trashed <u>most federal services<\/u>, the only departments left fully operational are Trump\u2019s well-funded instruments of power and control: ICE\/ DHS, the FBI, the DOJ, DOD, Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the US military.<\/p>\n<p>But as Trump seeks to grossly expand his reach through these entities, it is gratifying to watch his hand get slapped back, largely due to his and his administration\u2019s incompetence, by federal courts insisting on the rule of law.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sheer incompetence led to the dismissal of Trump\u2019s pet prosecutions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie <u>threw out Trump\u2019s cases<\/u> of political retribution against James Comey and Letitia James after a parade of incompetence.<\/p>\n<p>The cases were <u>dismissed without prejudice<\/u> when Currie <u>ruled that Lindsey Halligan, Trump\u2019s interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was acting without authority<\/u> when she obtained the Comey and James indictments. This slap came not for Halligan\u2019s career-ending errors, like failing to present the <u>complete indictment to the complete grand jury<\/u>, misstating the law <u>to jurors<\/u>, or for doing Trump\u2019s <u>illegal partisan bidding<\/u>, but because her appointment as the interim U.S. Attorney was <strong>unlawful<\/strong>under both federal law and the US Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>The arcana of judicial appointment procedure may seem boring, even inconsequential, but what Trump tried to do with Halligan demonstrates that it is anything but. Judicial appointments are governed by the article II <u>of the Constitution<\/u>, and <u>28 U.S.C. \u00a7 546<\/u>. Under these authorities, a president gets to appoint interim U.S. attorneys for a 120-day appointment. When that 120 day period runs out, the authority to fill the position then shifts to the federal judiciary, not the president acting through his Attorney General.<\/p>\n<p>That shift is enormously consequential. It was designed to block rogue actors from appointing one interim US attorney after another, running through a roster of unethical lawyers willing to break the law by pursuing cases based on politics rather than law.<\/p>\n<p>That is exactly what happened with Halligan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Trump tried to install a revolving door of lawless sycophants<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Judge Currie held that the initial 120-day appointment clock began in January with <u>Trump\u2019s appointment of Erik Siebert, the previous interim U.S. Attorney<\/u>. Seibert\u2019s 120 day interim period expired on May 21, 2025, but the district court judges, following federal law, <u>reappointed Seibert to serve<\/u> until the vacancy was filled. Trump then nominated him for the full-term position, so he continued to serve.<\/p>\n<p>However, in September, Siebert refused Trump\u2019s request that he <u>pursue criminal charges against Trump\u2019s political enemies James Comey and Letitia James<\/u>. Trump loyalists claimed that James falsified property records to receive <u>better loan terms<\/u>, and that Comey made a <u>false statement to Congress<\/u>, despite the lack of evidence. Seibert spent five months investigating, but ultimately determined there was <u>not enough evidence to proceed<\/u> with either case. (When Fair Housing officials agreed in internal memos that James committed no crime, <u>they were dismissed<\/u>.)<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=733\">\u2018We\u2019ve had enough\u2019: Battered Trump voters vow to \u2018break rank\u2019 with GOP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Because Seibert refused to pursue unethical and unsupported indictments, Trump <u>wanted to fire him<\/u>, but Seibert beat him to the punch and resigned in September. At that point, AG Pam Bondi <u>backdoor installed Halligan<\/u> as Seibert\u2019s replacement, but that decision was up to the courts, not Trump. Because Halligan was not legally appointed to serve as interim US attorney, the court ruled that she had no authority to pursue the Comey and James indictments and <u>threw them out.<\/u><\/p>\n<p><strong>Trump\u2019s legal clowns keep dropping balls they shouldn\u2019t be juggling<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When Seibert said no, he wouldn\u2019t risk his law license to pursue Trump\u2019s wet dream prosecutions unsupported by law, <u>he wrote a \u2018declination memo<\/u>,\u2019 a standard memo outlining the reasons why. That memo featured prominently in a related hearing that revealed yet <em>another<\/em> lawless DOJ move.<\/p>\n<p><u>DOJ counsel refused to answer Judge Nachmanoff\u2019s simple \u2018yes or no\u2019 question<\/u> about whether Seibert wrote such a memo. When Nachmanoff got irritated by the DOJ lawyer\u2019s cagey responses, he pressed until the lawyer finally admitted the reason for his reticence: Because Todd Blanche, Trump\u2019s Deputy Attorney General, <u>instructed him not to admit the declination memo existed<\/u>.<\/p>\n<p>Federal trial attorneys know that lying by omission to a federal judge, or a lack of candor in response to any judge\u2019s inquiry, if proved, is <u>grounds for disbarment<\/u>. I\u2019ll go out on a limb here and predict that many of Trump\u2019s DOJ lawyers will find alternative careers when Trump leaves office.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, these dismissals are gratifying because they prove that evil intent can be thwarted\u2014trumped, if you will, by vast incompetence.<\/p>\n<p>As a 30 year litigator, I know it is unseemly\u2014unprofessional, even\u2014 to enjoy seeing <u>a strident lawyer with more confidence than competence<\/u> get her comeuppance for acting unethically.<\/p>\n<p>But in this space, I\u2019m a political writer suddenly laughing at the realization that authoritarianism can\u2019t prevail here because it requires competence. It\u2019s funny as hell and the schadenfreude is delicious.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1<\/em><em>st<\/em><em> and 14<\/em><em>th<\/em><em> A defense. Her Substack, <\/em><u><em>The Haake Take<\/em><\/u><em>, is free.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=731\">Social media cackles as prosecutor deserts Trump\u2019s \u2018stupid\u2019 Comey prosecution<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kak\u00b7i\u00b7sto\u00b7cra\u00b7cy- (kak\u0259\u0307\u02c8st\u00e4kr\u0259s\u0113): a government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a stateA \u2018kakistocracy\u2019 is a system of government where the most unfit, incompetent, and unscrupulous individuals are in power. Such a system does not reflect rational decision-making. Instead, Trump\u2019s ka&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The smackdown of a very incompetent Trump lawyer is delicious - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=737\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The smackdown of a very incompetent Trump lawyer is delicious - Next Address America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kak\u00b7i\u00b7sto\u00b7cra\u00b7cy- (kak\u0259\u0307\u02c8st\u00e4kr\u0259s\u0113): a government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a stateA \u2018kakistocracy\u2019 is a system of government where the most unfit, incompetent, and unscrupulous individuals are in power. 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