Texts from James prosecutor don’t violate ethics rules, experts say

Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia appointed by President Donald Trump, is facing new scrutiny after a reporter posted private messages Halligan sent to her.

However, legal experts say the exchange was, at worst, an unpolished effort by an inexperienced prosecutor to counter faulty reporting, not a breach of ethics. According to screenshots published by Lawfare, Halligan contacted reporter Anna Bower on Oct. 11 through the encrypted messaging app Signal to dispute portions of Bower’s coverage of the government’s indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).