Deputy AG fires judge-appointed U.S. attorney in Virginia clash

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on X that he had fired James Hundley shortly after federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia unanimously appointed Hundley as the court’s interim U.S. attorney, setting up a direct institutional clash over who controls vacancies in a politically sensitive prosecutor’s office.

“EDVA judges do not pick our US Attorney. POTUS does. James Hundley, you’re fired!” Blanche wrote on social media, abruptly rejecting the judges’ selection. Hundley, a lawyer who “handled criminal and civil cases for more than 30 years,” did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday evening.

The judges’ action came after Chief Judge M. Hannah Lauck declared the EDVA position vacant and entered an order directing the clerk of court to post a vacancy announcement and solicit applications; the court’s posting listed an application deadline of Feb. 10. Under the statute cited by courts in similar disputes, a district court may appoint an interim U.S. attorney to serve until a Senate-confirmed candidate is in place. That is the authority the judges invoked in naming Hundley.

The Justice Department and the White House disputed that interpretation. A DOJ statement said, “It is the United States’ position that Ms. Halligan was properly appointed as interim United States Attorney, a position the United States has maintained in part based on internal legal advice from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.” The White House, through spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, said Bondi “lawfully appointed Lindsey Halligan as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia” and that the Trump administration “has every confidence in its U.S. attorneys.”

Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump lawyer, was nominated for the EDVA U.S. attorney job on Jan. 13 and the Senate had not acted on that nomination at the time of the court order. DOJ has at times referred to Halligan as “United States Attorney and Special Attorney” in EDVA, and the department argues that its internal legal advice supports her continued service.

The conflict is the latest in a string of personnel disputes in the Eastern District, an office that has handled politically sensitive matters and “pursued cases against foes of President Donald Trump.” Last week, a top EDVA attorney was fired in a dispute over whether he would lead an effort to re-indict former FBI director James Comey, an episode that underscored how prosecutorial staffing decisions in EDVA can have outsized political and legal consequences.

Legal scholars and litigants are likely to test the competing claims in court. The dispute pits a statutory reading that empowers a district court to fill an interim vacancy against a Justice Department position that emphasizes executive appointment power and relies on Office of Legal Counsel advice. If continued, the standoff could delay or complicate high-profile prosecutions and affect staffing, morale, and case continuity in a jurisdiction known for handling national security and public-corruption matters.

Key factual questions remain unresolved publicly, including the full identity and authority of the official referenced as Bondi, the status of any formal personnel paperwork from DOJ terminating Hundley, and the content of the court’s written order declaring the vacancy. Those documents will shape whether this confrontation becomes a short administrative dispute or a broader test of separation-of-powers limits on U.S. attorney appointments.