American Oversight Launches Investigation into “Interim” U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s Use of Signal to Discuss Political Prosecutions

Today, American Oversight launched an investigation into interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s reported use of Signal to communicate with a journalist about the prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James — one of President Trump’s perceived political enemies. 

Halligan, whose status and authority as interim U.S. Attorney are being contested in court, later attempted to retroactively claim her Signal messages to the reporter were off the record. According to reports, she set her messages to automatically delete after eight hours — conduct that, if true, would constitute a clear violation of the Federal Records Act and the Department of Justice’s own records-retention rules, which require the preservation of official communications.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the DOJ seeking Halligan’s Signal communications about government business and related DOJ records about her use of the app.

“No one can go ‘off the record’ to avoid following the law, not even someone acting as a powerful interim U.S. Attorney. That Halligan used Signal to discuss government business and configured her messages to automatically delete raises serious concerns that she is actively violating the law and attempting to hide the record of her actions — including that she may have revealed sensitive grand jury information,” said Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight. “What makes this all the more alarming is the context: Halligan appears to have engaged in this conduct while leading prosecutions against the president’s perceived political enemies — heightening concerns that her lawlessness is part of a broader pattern of politicized and unethical behavior within the president’s Justice Department.”

Since her controversial and legally contested appointment in September, Halligan — Trump’s former personal attorney — has led the politically charged prosecutions of New York State Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey — both longtime targets of President Trump’s public ire. The career DOJ prosecutor who refused demands to bring charges against James was fired after she failed to find probable cause. Similarly, the DOJ prosecutor who refused to bring charges against Comey after finding insufficient evidence was forced to resign following increased pressure from Trump.

Within weeks of becoming interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Halligan secured indictments against both James and Comey, underscoring the administration’s escalating efforts to weaponize the DOJ against perceived political opponents.

Earlier this year, American Oversight was the first organization to file a lawsuit in the Signalgate scandal after The Atlantic revealed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior administration officials used Signal to discuss sensitive military operations. Since then, our litigation has prompted a court order to preserve records and exposed a broader pattern of recordkeeping inadequacies across multiple agencies. The Pentagon’s inspector general also subsequently launched an evaluation, which has since reportedly been provided to Hegseth. American Oversight has requested its release.