New FBI raid on Dem was brought on by fired Trump official to help with midterms: MS NOW

Federal agents have raided the office of a Virginia Democratic legislator who was instrumental to her party possibly picking up four additional congressional seats.

The FBI served multiple search warrants at the office of state Sen. L. Louise Lucas in Portsmouth as part of what sources described as a major corruption investigation, and MS NOW's Carol Leonnig reported that former interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan had made an investigation of the 82-year-old lawmaker a top priority.

"Louise Lucas is a state fairly prominent legislator in her state, but not known nationally, and the FBI and the Department of Justice have been investigating her for several years, three years, I'm told by a source familiar with the probe," Leonnig said, "and that investigation has been looking at evidence suggesting that she solicited or accepted bribes."

Leonnig reported that Halligan believed that prosecuting a prominent Democrat in the state would be political beneficial to Republicans.

"I'm told by this source, and this has been ongoing for some time," Leonnig said, "that when Lindsey Halligan, one of [President Donald] Trump's very closest allies and a former lawyer of his, had been running the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Virginia, she had been pressuring and pushing prosecutors to bring charges against Lucas, believing that that would be important, a high-priority case."

"I'm told that Halligan believed it would be good for the White House to be able, before the midterms, to accuse a prominent state Democrat in Virginia with bribery," she added.

Lucas, the Senate president pro tempore, pushed for her fellow Democrats to push for four additional seats, rather than just three, on a mid-decade redistricting map aimed at boosting the party's chances in November's midterms.

"Prosecutors in based out of Norfolk were not sure this was the strongest case in the world, but Halligan felt very strongly that it should be pressed," Leonnig said. "Now, of course, this action by the FBI, as reported by Fox News, is embarrassing to Lucas, embarrassing to the Democratic Party and also to the governor of that state, because Lucas is a close ally of hers, and now what we know from this is the probe is really quite active. But as for charges, we shall see. They may be sealed at this moment, or they may never come. We're somewhere in the middle of those two."

Halligan departed the job after a federal job concluded she had overstayed her interim appointment, and Leonnig said she would not be permitted to be involved in this case.

"It would be inappropriate for her to be involved as she departed as the interim U.S. attorney, after federal judge concluded that Halligan's indictments of various people Trump had targeted were to be dismissed because she had been illegally appointed, running far outside the 120-day period for a U.S. attorney to be appointed, nominated and confirmed by the Senate," Leonnig said.