The judge presiding over New York Attorney General Letitia James’ mortgage fraud case on Friday rejected a motion seeking to compel federal prosecutors to maintain a log of all their communications with the media.Defense attorney Abbe Lowell had filed the request last week, following James’ arraignment on charges of bank fraud and making false statements. The motion cited a report alleging that U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan exchanged a series of encrypted Signal messages with a reporter regarding the case,
“[T]he defendant does not demonstrate that it is necessary for the Court to order the government to track communications with the media in any particular form,” wrote US District Judge Jamar Walker in his six-page order.
“The defendant’s request that the government be required to keep a communication log is DENIED,” the Biden-appointed judge ruled.
Walker further wrote that while Halligan’s Signal chat with Lawfare senior editor Anna Bower earlier this month was “unusual,” he nevertheless declined to offer an opinion “on whether they were improper in any sense, either legal or ethical.”
He went on to order federal prosecutors to follow all rules of the court but did not suggest that they had violated any so far.
He also ordered a “litigation hold preventing the deletion or destruction of any records or communications having to do with the investigation or prosecution of this case.”
Halligan’s Signal messages to the reporter were configured to automatically disappear after eight hours, The Post reported.
The judge did not address whether Halligan’s communications — which reportedly disputed a New York Times story revealing that James’ grandniece told a grand jury she had never paid rent on the Norfolk, Va., property at the center of the case — constituted material subject to discovery requirements.
