Lindsey Halligan sends multiple texts to legal reporter
By Tara Suter
Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, reportedly sent multiple texts to Lawfare journalist Anna Bower related to New York Attorney General Letitia James’s (D) recent indictment.
In a report published Monday, Bower says Halligan reached out to her Oct. 11 and texted with her for two days. Bower writes that she had initially posted on the social platform X about New York Times reporting on the indictment and links to James’s family.
“NYT reports that Letitia James’s great niece lives in the home that is the subject of the indictment,” Bower wrote in her X post earlier this month. “The niece reportedly testified before a *different* grand jury, telling them that she had lived there for many years without paying rent. James visits regularly.”
“This is important exculpatory evidence bc the indictment accuses James of seeking a ‘second home’ mortgage when in reality she intended to use it as an ‘investment’ home by renting it,” Bower then continued in another post.
Bower reported Halligan reached out to her about 30 minutes after the latter post. The Lawfare report also included a link to what it reports are screenshots of Bower and Halligan’s conversation, in which Halligan claimed Bower was “reporting things that are simply not true.”
“What am I getting wrong?” Bower later asked Halligan.
“Honestly, so much. I can’t tell you everything but your reporting in particular is just way off. I had to let you know,” Halligan responded in another message.
Bower later sent the initial X post to Halligan, asking her if she is “saying that something I said in this post is inaccurate” and what that inaccuracy would be. She then kept pressing Halligan on what she got wrong, with Halligan responding at one point, “I can’t tell you grand jury stuff,” according to Lawfare’s report.
Prosecutors have claimed James bought a home in Norfolk, Va., in 2020 as part of an agreement called a “second home rider,” which required her to stay in and use the property as her secondary residence and let her obtain favorable loan terms.
James instead rented the property to a family of three, according to prosecutors, when the favorable terms wouldn’t have been accessible for an investment property.
According to Lawfare’s screenshots of the messages, Halligan later told Bower that “everything I ever sent to you is off record,” with Bower then countering that the interim U.S. attorney does not “get to say that in retrospect.”
The Justice Department (DOJ) confirmed to Lawfare on Monday that Halligan’s messages were authentic. Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement to Bower that she “clearly didn’t get the response you wanted—which was information handed over to you without having to dig into the facts of the case to craft a truthful story.”
The New York Times told Lawfare the DOJ had not brought up any problems with its report, adding that it was “confident in the accuracy of our reporting.” When reached for comment, a Times spokesperson sent The Hill a similar statement.
A DOJ spokesperson told The Hill in an email Tuesday that “Lindsey Halligan is doing an outstanding job making Virginia safe again and won’t be distracted by lazy reporting from a blogger uninterested in the facts.”
