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"Anna, Lindsey Halligan Here." My Signal exchange with the interim U.S. attorney

190 points by ilamont 1y ago

actionfromafar 1y ago
No takesies-backsies, Anna Lindsey Halligan! :-D I don't get it. The Trumpsters play it like it's already a dictatorship. You can't threaten the press like this so soon. That only works when you have a firm grip on power and a credible history of jailing and exiling journalists. It's like she watched Hegseth drunk texting in Signalgate and thought, "which journalist could I add on Signal".
- fzeroracer 1y ago
  This entire admin functions like giving the worst posters on a forum unbridled power. The only thing they care about is owning their perceived enemies. When you look at it that way, the fact that all of them behave like children and make the dumbest decisions possible all make sense.
  - netsharc 1y ago
    What's cause and what's effect there? The fact that they have the emotional (and sometimes intellectual) intelligence of 6 years olds means what they mostly care about is the "pwnage"...
- afavour 1y ago
  > The Trumpsters play it like it's already a dictatorship I feel like a lot of them genuinely think that we’re past the point of no return and they will experience no repercussions. I’d have expected Halligan to have a different view given her legal training, but…
  - slg 1y ago
    The percentage of the US population that voted for Trump went up roughly half a percentage point from 2020 to 2024 and most of American society has responded as if that makes him a permanent dictator. And it isn’t just his supporters, most Democratic politicians and ostensibly apolitical corporations are behaving that way too. I don’t get it.
    - harimau777 1y ago
      I don't think that people are afraid that he will become a dictator because of his popular support so much as because no one is standing up to his abuse of power. There's also the fact that MAGA is putting their thumb more and more on the election scales. I'm already not sure I think the next election will be fair considering how much MAGA has cheated already.
      - slg 1y ago
        >I don't think that people are afraid that he will become a dictator because of his popular support so much as because no one is standing up to his abuse of power. This is frustratingly self-reinforcing. Why is "no one... standing up to his abuse"? Because "no one is standing up to his abuse".
        mmooss 1y ago
        It's trendy on the left, including among leaders, to resign, to talk about being powerlessness and afraid, etc. Today's NY Times had an article interviewing pro-Palestinian protestors mostly saying it. What a bunch of losers. And who would support them? Who is going to advocate for people who won't advocate for themselves? Have you ever heard a leader talk like that? Is that what they remember Churchill saying, standing alone against the Germans? MLK facing the overwhelming racist power structure, law enforcement, etc.? Washington at Valley Forge - 'to my soldiers, I feel really hopeless. The Brits are the most powerful military in the world and we're just a ragtag, irregular local force. There's nothing we can do. I'm going to resign, cross the Delaware, and return to my farm to wait out the war with my family.'
    - rand846633 1y ago
      The control of the supreme court as well as the demonstrated willingness to support a coup make the threat seem real.
    - afavour 1y ago
      It’s not entirely without reason. Just look at the electoral map proposed in NC: Trump won 51% of the vote, the GOP will be set to control over 80% of the NC House. And the Supreme Court gives permission to do whatever. You’re right to call out Democrats too. It baffles me. Like Trump destroying the East wing of the White House. Universally not popular (not necessarily unpopular with all but no one is cheering it). Where are the press conferences being held outside to highlight it and show the people how little regard Trump has for the “People’s House”. It’s an easy lay up.
  - freen 1y ago
    It’s a commitment device: if the only way you’ll stay out of jail is if Trump is elected, you do anything you can, break any laws, whatever, to get Trump elected. Because then you won’t go to jail. See Santos.
  - njovin 1y ago
    In her defense, she's an insurance lawyer who got onto Trump's good side by bad-mouthing how woke The Smithsonian is. She doesn't exactly have a depth of criminal justice experience to draw from.
  - netsharc 1y ago
    What does that "point of return" look like, and who's going to actually enforce it? The regime has ignored courts' orders... I feel like only a military coup can actually do anything now. Because I expect the 2026 or 2028 elections to be held more with Russian, Turkish, or Hungarian standards rather than 80's Hollywood movie idea of America's standard. The Dems and courts are going to cry foul, and the regime will just laugh at their faces and continue to rule.
    - afavour 1y ago
      I think the protests over the weekend show that if the 2026 election were subverted then a lot of the population would take to the streets. Once the army fires on peaceful protestors protesting a corrupt election? That’s the point of no return.
      - slg 1y ago
        >Once the army fires on peaceful protestors For what it is worth, this weekend was roughly the 7th or 8th peaceful protest I have attended so far this year. It was the first in which I did not directly see a government employee firing something at a peaceful protester.
      - netsharc 1y ago
        I hope there'll be enough military service people who'll defy unlawful orders, but I fear they have "Follow your superiors" drilled into them from the very start. I remember reading on forums a decade or two ago comments by some Americans who believed in their exceptionalism, that they would never be like Nazi soldiers who just followed orders...
      - cool_man_bob 1y ago
        > I think the protests over the weekend show that if the 2026 election were subverted then a lot of the population would take to the streets. Ok? They’ll be pummeled by the police and natguard again. Maybe whatever sort of “revolutionary republican guard” Trump eventually creates for himself too.
    - consumer451 1y ago
- mmooss 1y ago
  > The Trumpsters play it like it's already a dictatorship. You can't threaten the press like this so soon. They've successfully threated ABC News, CBS News, the Washington Post, and more into submission.
josefritzishere 1y ago
This is not the behavior of a licensed, professional attorney.
- netsharc 1y ago
  Article: > Later in the week, I verified that the text exchange had genuinely been with Halligan—or, at least, with Halligan’s phone. "My brother hacked my phone, I swear!"
- mmooss 1y ago
  It's bizarre to me how many professionals turn into raving idiots working for the Trump movement. Look at Gulianni, and many more who have filed error-riddled court cases and made absurd arguments. There is something politically tactical about making extreme claims - it shifts norms, signals extremism to followers, etc. - but why shoot yourself in the foot like Halligan and many others?
wrs 1y ago
This administration seems to be “playing government”, like little kids “play house”. Assuming a role without understanding what the role actually is, using words they’ve heard the grownups use without knowing what they mean, declaring new rules whenever they don’t like how the game is going. I just hope the grownups come back before the kids burn the house down completely.
- nyc_data_geek 1y ago
  The grownups have left the building, and the brats have guns.
  - consumer451 1y ago
    You thought politicians were bad? We gave TV personalities the nuclear codes! But hey, woke is dead!? Actual photo of the historic East Wing of the White House today: https://i.redd.it/vchtk38rijwf1.jpeg https://i.redd.it/vchtk38rijwf1.jpeg ___ I once got scammed out of $350 for some speakers sold out of the back of a van, in traffic. I could not admit it for years. I kept pretending they were great, even in front of my audio engineer friends. How do we bring our friends who got politically scammed, in from the cold? We all get scammed sometimes.
    - Freedom2 1y ago
      It's not very hard to admit when we're wrong. Some even consider it a power. From my experience working with Americans, you often have to drag them kicking and screaming to have any humility, let alone have them admit when they are categorically wrong. Perhaps this cultural trait is one of the major reasons why the US is in the situation it's in.
      - consumer451 1y ago
        > It's not very hard to admit when we're wrong. Some even consider it a power. I consider it one my super powers. I am a big guy, and I've been told that I speak somewhat authoritatively in-person, even when I may have no business doing so. I don't mean it, but that's how I come off to people apparently. Seeing the look in peoples' eyes when I readily admit ignorance or fault is lovely. I think I see a sign of relief. It has opened doors for me. But being scammed... oof... that's a whole other thing that makes me feel emasculated as hell. I would prefer to never mention it anyone, thank you very much. I am not saying this proudly, it's just my honest self-reflection. I get the feeling that I am not alone in this.
drivingmenuts 1y ago
This is an administration of Karens (sorry if your name is actually Karen). They want to bitch and moan about perceived injustices and have been given an immense power to prosecute those "injustices", regardless of justification. The people who are supposed to reign in those actions have abdicated responsibility in its entirety. What a shitshow.
- phkahler 1y ago
  The problem with Russia gate is that even if it was fabricated by the FBI as partisan politics, prosecuting the guilty will look like partisan politics from the other side.
  - mmooss 1y ago
    That's their plan, to demonize it and politicize it to the point where it's politically very difficult. It's not a new playbook.
treis 1y ago
[flagged]
- Jtsummers 1y ago
  Yes, it quotes several of them and at least twice links to the screenshots of the exchange.
- freen 1y ago
  You can read the entire exchange for yourself, it’s a link. At the bottom of the article.
- prawn 1y ago
  https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26190909-signal-screenshots/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26190909-signal-scre...
  - fishmicrowaver 1y ago
    I read this but where's the beef?
    - pitpatagain 1y ago
      It's not that there's a single money shot message, it's that the conversation throughout is just stuff that no normal prosecutor would ever say anything but "no comment" about in regard to an active case. The prosecutor is not supposed to be disclosing information from the grand jury, and then spends a shockingly long signal thread talking on record with a journalist that constantly implicitly discusses/confirms information they aren't supposed to be talking about at all. It doesn't reach the same level as the Hegseth Signal leak, but it's really bizarre stuff.
      - Jtsummers 1y ago
        > It doesn't reach the same level as the Hegseth Signal leak, but it's really bizarre stuff. A lot like Signalgate, it's the fact of the messages as much as (if not more) than the messages themselves that matter. It demonstrates unprofessional behavior. In Signalgate, discussing what should have been classified details in an inappropriate forum and without ensuring only authorized people were present (still wrong to use Signal, but at least not broadcast to a journalist). In this case, just everything about it is unprofessional. Reaching out to a reporter who highlighted details from other reports asking her to correct details but not saying what should be corrected. None of it is professional and the "it was all off the record" at the end is a comical display of incompetence. This is sitcom stuff, but real life.
rand846633 1y ago
Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre Is using chatGPT…
skeaker 1y ago
All context and legal implications aside, this is just so embarrassing for Lindsey. The screenshots of the texts would be hard to read if they weren't so funny. I do wonder how Signal deleting the texts automatically would be interpreted in a legal context.
- rchaud 1y ago
  Presumably the "case" was shopped around to various attorneys, until they finally found one who agreed to move forward with it. That she had never prosecuted a case before is probably just a coincidence.
  - sillywalk 1y ago
    She was one of Trump's personal attorneys, and then a senior associate staff secretary.
jmuguy 1y ago
I think that Halligan thinks that Anna Bower wrote the NYT piece she was commenting on. Our only hope really is that these people are too incompetent to actually do the whole dictatorship thing very effectively.
netsharc 1y ago
Haha holy smokes, got to the end of the article and it reminds me of this: mhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Hf_BKEfnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Hf_BKEfnY (The Thick of It, by Armando Ianucci - also the creator of Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - is a political satire TV series about bumbling government employees).
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  These fictional characters seem so normal compared to the actual real life dorks we have now. How do you even do satire now?

190 points by ilamont 1y ago

No takesies-backsies, Anna Lindsey Halligan! :-D I don't get it. The Trumpsters play it like it's already a dictatorship. You can't threaten the press like this so soon. That only works when you have a firm grip on power and a credible history of jailing and exiling journalists. It's like she watched Hegseth drunk texting in Signalgate and thought, "which journalist could I add on Signal".

fzeroracer 1y ago
This entire admin functions like giving the worst posters on a forum unbridled power. The only thing they care about is owning their perceived enemies. When you look at it that way, the fact that all of them behave like children and make the dumbest decisions possible all make sense.
- netsharc 1y ago
  What's cause and what's effect there? The fact that they have the emotional (and sometimes intellectual) intelligence of 6 years olds means what they mostly care about is the "pwnage"...
afavour 1y ago
> The Trumpsters play it like it's already a dictatorship I feel like a lot of them genuinely think that we’re past the point of no return and they will experience no repercussions. I’d have expected Halligan to have a different view given her legal training, but…
- slg 1y ago
  The percentage of the US population that voted for Trump went up roughly half a percentage point from 2020 to 2024 and most of American society has responded as if that makes him a permanent dictator. And it isn’t just his supporters, most Democratic politicians and ostensibly apolitical corporations are behaving that way too. I don’t get it.
  - harimau777 1y ago
    I don't think that people are afraid that he will become a dictator because of his popular support so much as because no one is standing up to his abuse of power. There's also the fact that MAGA is putting their thumb more and more on the election scales. I'm already not sure I think the next election will be fair considering how much MAGA has cheated already.
    - slg 1y ago
      >I don't think that people are afraid that he will become a dictator because of his popular support so much as because no one is standing up to his abuse of power. This is frustratingly self-reinforcing. Why is "no one... standing up to his abuse"? Because "no one is standing up to his abuse".
      - mmooss 1y ago
        It's trendy on the left, including among leaders, to resign, to talk about being powerlessness and afraid, etc. Today's NY Times had an article interviewing pro-Palestinian protestors mostly saying it. What a bunch of losers. And who would support them? Who is going to advocate for people who won't advocate for themselves? Have you ever heard a leader talk like that? Is that what they remember Churchill saying, standing alone against the Germans? MLK facing the overwhelming racist power structure, law enforcement, etc.? Washington at Valley Forge - 'to my soldiers, I feel really hopeless. The Brits are the most powerful military in the world and we're just a ragtag, irregular local force. There's nothing we can do. I'm going to resign, cross the Delaware, and return to my farm to wait out the war with my family.'
  - rand846633 1y ago
    The control of the supreme court as well as the demonstrated willingness to support a coup make the threat seem real.
  - afavour 1y ago
    It’s not entirely without reason. Just look at the electoral map proposed in NC: Trump won 51% of the vote, the GOP will be set to control over 80% of the NC House. And the Supreme Court gives permission to do whatever. You’re right to call out Democrats too. It baffles me. Like Trump destroying the East wing of the White House. Universally not popular (not necessarily unpopular with all but no one is cheering it). Where are the press conferences being held outside to highlight it and show the people how little regard Trump has for the “People’s House”. It’s an easy lay up.
- freen 1y ago
  It’s a commitment device: if the only way you’ll stay out of jail is if Trump is elected, you do anything you can, break any laws, whatever, to get Trump elected. Because then you won’t go to jail. See Santos.
- njovin 1y ago
  In her defense, she's an insurance lawyer who got onto Trump's good side by bad-mouthing how woke The Smithsonian is. She doesn't exactly have a depth of criminal justice experience to draw from.
- netsharc 1y ago
  What does that "point of return" look like, and who's going to actually enforce it? The regime has ignored courts' orders... I feel like only a military coup can actually do anything now. Because I expect the 2026 or 2028 elections to be held more with Russian, Turkish, or Hungarian standards rather than 80's Hollywood movie idea of America's standard. The Dems and courts are going to cry foul, and the regime will just laugh at their faces and continue to rule.
  - afavour 1y ago
    I think the protests over the weekend show that if the 2026 election were subverted then a lot of the population would take to the streets. Once the army fires on peaceful protestors protesting a corrupt election? That’s the point of no return.
    - slg 1y ago
      >Once the army fires on peaceful protestors For what it is worth, this weekend was roughly the 7th or 8th peaceful protest I have attended so far this year. It was the first in which I did not directly see a government employee firing something at a peaceful protester.
    - netsharc 1y ago
      I hope there'll be enough military service people who'll defy unlawful orders, but I fear they have "Follow your superiors" drilled into them from the very start. I remember reading on forums a decade or two ago comments by some Americans who believed in their exceptionalism, that they would never be like Nazi soldiers who just followed orders...
    - cool_man_bob 1y ago
      > I think the protests over the weekend show that if the 2026 election were subverted then a lot of the population would take to the streets. Ok? They’ll be pummeled by the police and natguard again. Maybe whatever sort of “revolutionary republican guard” Trump eventually creates for himself too.
  - consumer451 1y ago
mmooss 1y ago
> The Trumpsters play it like it's already a dictatorship. You can't threaten the press like this so soon. They've successfully threated ABC News, CBS News, the Washington Post, and more into submission.

josefritzishere 1y ago

This is not the behavior of a licensed, professional attorney.

netsharc 1y ago
Article: > Later in the week, I verified that the text exchange had genuinely been with Halligan—or, at least, with Halligan’s phone. "My brother hacked my phone, I swear!"
mmooss 1y ago
It's bizarre to me how many professionals turn into raving idiots working for the Trump movement. Look at Gulianni, and many more who have filed error-riddled court cases and made absurd arguments. There is something politically tactical about making extreme claims - it shifts norms, signals extremism to followers, etc. - but why shoot yourself in the foot like Halligan and many others?

wrs 1y ago

This administration seems to be “playing government”, like little kids “play house”. Assuming a role without understanding what the role actually is, using words they’ve heard the grownups use without knowing what they mean, declaring new rules whenever they don’t like how the game is going. I just hope the grownups come back before the kids burn the house down completely.

nyc_data_geek 1y ago
The grownups have left the building, and the brats have guns.
- consumer451 1y ago
  You thought politicians were bad? We gave TV personalities the nuclear codes! But hey, woke is dead!? Actual photo of the historic East Wing of the White House today: https://i.redd.it/vchtk38rijwf1.jpeg https://i.redd.it/vchtk38rijwf1.jpeg ___ I once got scammed out of $350 for some speakers sold out of the back of a van, in traffic. I could not admit it for years. I kept pretending they were great, even in front of my audio engineer friends. How do we bring our friends who got politically scammed, in from the cold? We all get scammed sometimes.
  - Freedom2 1y ago
    It's not very hard to admit when we're wrong. Some even consider it a power. From my experience working with Americans, you often have to drag them kicking and screaming to have any humility, let alone have them admit when they are categorically wrong. Perhaps this cultural trait is one of the major reasons why the US is in the situation it's in.
    - consumer451 1y ago
      > It's not very hard to admit when we're wrong. Some even consider it a power. I consider it one my super powers. I am a big guy, and I've been told that I speak somewhat authoritatively in-person, even when I may have no business doing so. I don't mean it, but that's how I come off to people apparently. Seeing the look in peoples' eyes when I readily admit ignorance or fault is lovely. I think I see a sign of relief. It has opened doors for me. But being scammed... oof... that's a whole other thing that makes me feel emasculated as hell. I would prefer to never mention it anyone, thank you very much. I am not saying this proudly, it's just my honest self-reflection. I get the feeling that I am not alone in this.

drivingmenuts 1y ago

This is an administration of Karens (sorry if your name is actually Karen). They want to bitch and moan about perceived injustices and have been given an immense power to prosecute those "injustices", regardless of justification. The people who are supposed to reign in those actions have abdicated responsibility in its entirety. What a shitshow.

phkahler 1y ago
The problem with Russia gate is that even if it was fabricated by the FBI as partisan politics, prosecuting the guilty will look like partisan politics from the other side.
- mmooss 1y ago
  That's their plan, to demonize it and politicize it to the point where it's politically very difficult. It's not a new playbook.

treis 1y ago

[flagged]

Jtsummers 1y ago
Yes, it quotes several of them and at least twice links to the screenshots of the exchange.
freen 1y ago
You can read the entire exchange for yourself, it’s a link. At the bottom of the article.
prawn 1y ago
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26190909-signal-screenshots/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26190909-signal-scre...
- fishmicrowaver 1y ago
  I read this but where's the beef?
  - pitpatagain 1y ago
    It's not that there's a single money shot message, it's that the conversation throughout is just stuff that no normal prosecutor would ever say anything but "no comment" about in regard to an active case. The prosecutor is not supposed to be disclosing information from the grand jury, and then spends a shockingly long signal thread talking on record with a journalist that constantly implicitly discusses/confirms information they aren't supposed to be talking about at all. It doesn't reach the same level as the Hegseth Signal leak, but it's really bizarre stuff.
    - Jtsummers 1y ago
      > It doesn't reach the same level as the Hegseth Signal leak, but it's really bizarre stuff. A lot like Signalgate, it's the fact of the messages as much as (if not more) than the messages themselves that matter. It demonstrates unprofessional behavior. In Signalgate, discussing what should have been classified details in an inappropriate forum and without ensuring only authorized people were present (still wrong to use Signal, but at least not broadcast to a journalist). In this case, just everything about it is unprofessional. Reaching out to a reporter who highlighted details from other reports asking her to correct details but not saying what should be corrected. None of it is professional and the "it was all off the record" at the end is a comical display of incompetence. This is sitcom stuff, but real life.

rand846633 1y ago

Justice Department spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre Is using chatGPT…

skeaker 1y ago

All context and legal implications aside, this is just so embarrassing for Lindsey. The screenshots of the texts would be hard to read if they weren't so funny. I do wonder how Signal deleting the texts automatically would be interpreted in a legal context.

rchaud 1y ago
Presumably the "case" was shopped around to various attorneys, until they finally found one who agreed to move forward with it. That she had never prosecuted a case before is probably just a coincidence.
- sillywalk 1y ago
  She was one of Trump's personal attorneys, and then a senior associate staff secretary.

jmuguy 1y ago

I think that Halligan thinks that Anna Bower wrote the NYT piece she was commenting on. Our only hope really is that these people are too incompetent to actually do the whole dictatorship thing very effectively.

netsharc 1y ago

Haha holy smokes, got to the end of the article and it reminds me of this: mhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Hf_BKEfnY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Hf_BKEfnY (The Thick of It, by Armando Ianucci - also the creator of Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - is a political satire TV series about bumbling government employees).

actionfromafar 1y ago
These fictional characters seem so normal compared to the actual real life dorks we have now. How do you even do satire now?