According to a person familiar with the episode, Halligan found her account on the Pacer was not set up to file the special master request electronically and had to deliver the brief in person.

During the drive from Ft Lauderdale, where she was based, to the US district court in West Palm Beach, she got stuck in traffic on the highway and realized she would not make it to the courthouse before it closed for the weekend. Halligan did a U-turn and drove back to Ft Lauderdale, where the case got assigned to the Trump-appointed US district judge Aileen Cannon.

Halligan attended the subsequent court hearing on the special master request as the third-chair lawyer, one of the only times she was at counsel’s table in a federal courtroom.

Within months, Halligan was in Trump’s political orbit.

When Trump hosted a watch party for the 2022 midterms at Mar-a-Lago, Halligan sat at Trump’s table with Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s longtime confidant and personal lawyer; Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy; and Sergio Gor, director of the White House presidential personnel office.

It’s like - it’s so bad, but you have to keep reading.