As the Justice Department's criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey looks increasingly imperiled, U.S.Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan and other DOJ officials are leveling unusual public attacks at the judge overseeing the case by mischaracterizing comments he made at a Wednesday hearing. "Personal attacks -- like Judge Nachmanoff referring to me as a 'puppet' -- don't change the facts or the law," Halligan said in an statement exclusively to the New York Post. "A federal judge should be neutral and impartial.
Instead, this judge launched an outrageous and unprofessional personal attack yesterday in open court against US Attorney Lindsey Halligan. DOJ will continue to follow the facts and the law," DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said in a statement posted to 'X' Thursday. Trump's words loom over Comey case as judge weighs tossing indictmentThe statements refer to an exchange between U.S.District Judge Michael Nachmanoff and Comey's attorney Michael Dreeben in which Nachmanoff questioned whether their position was that Halligan was serving as a "puppet" or a "stalking horse" for President Donald Trump in his orders for retribution against Comey. But Nachmanoff never asserted directly that Halligan was a "puppet," and didn't dispute in court when DOJ attorney Tyler Lemons flatly rejected that characterization. "So your view is that Ms.
Halligan is a stalking horse or a puppet, for want of a better word, doing the president's bidding?" Judge Nachmanoff asked Dreeben during the exchange.Former FBI Director James Comey speaks to the media after giving a private deposition to the House Judiciary and House Government and Oversight committees on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 7, 2018.Joshua Roberts/Reuters"Well, I don't want to use language about Ms.Halligan that suggests anything other than she did what she was told to do," Dreeben replied.
"The president of the United States has the authority to direct prosecutio...