Trump White House Aide Lindsey Halligan Has Made Some Major Makeup Mistakes

It quickly became clear that Donald Trump might have a new worst lawyer on his hands when he appointed the seemingly unqualified Lindsey Halligan to the role in September 2025. Halligan's new job got off to a rocky and embarrassing start when her multiple apparent mistakes caused confusion in the courtroom within her first week in the role. Halligan doesn't seem to have the experience typically required for a major case like prosecuting James Comey — she was an insurance lawyer for about a decade, after all. 

What she does have is experience as Trump's personal attorney (since 2022). This was clearly enough to get her the gig. Beyond that, she absolutely looks the part for someone in the Trump administration. She has long blonde locks, a background as a beauty queen, and she has the Republican makeup trend down pat.

There are certain cosmetic trends that have become popular among the ladies in Trump's inner circle. For instance, you could almost watch the MAGA makeover ruin Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's sense of style in real time, something which has happened to several women after they joined the administration. For Halligan, though, it's clear that she was already up on the Trump trends even before the president tapped her for the important role. Halligan is obviously a fan of harsh, heavy makeup, and while her beauty routine certainly fits in well among the MAGA crowd, that definitely doesn't mean it's a good look.

Across all of Lindsey Halligan's makeup looks, it is easy to see what she views as the most important detail of her signature style: a severe smokey eye. During a Fox News appearance in August 2025, the lawyer donned a makeup look that perfectly encapsulated her bizarre beauty routine. Halligan applied intense wings to her eyes, making them appear almost double the width they actually are using dark eyeshadow. While this does draw attention to her eyes, it looks too intense for any occasion other than red carpets or a Halloween party.

We've all heard the saying that "eyebrows are sisters, not twins." From the looks of it, this is a mantra Lindsey Halligan applies to most details of her makeup. When Halligan attended the 2025 US Open alongside Donald Trump and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, photos showed just how lopsided her makeup looked. Her signature harsh eyeshadow was in two entirely different shapes on her eyes, and her blush placement was drastically different on both sides. If her makeup was subtler, this asymmetry would have been easier to ignore.

Lindsey Halligan was in her mid-thirties when she became the interim United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. It was immediately clear, though, that she was still using the makeup tips she learned in her mid-twenties, since her look was straight out of 2015. During an interview with Real America's Voice in October 2023, her multicolored eyeshadow was nothing short of extreme, and the look was particularly distracting when she blinked and revealed just how much product her eyelids were carrying.

Lindsey Halligan doesn't always go quite so overboard with her multicolor eyeshadow looks. She does, however, rarely seem to ditch the thick eyeliner under her eyes. In 2022, Halligan headed to the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse to defend Donald Trump in the lawsuit regarding his alleged mishandling of classified material from his first presidency. A pic of Halligan walking alongside other members of Trump's defense team shows just how dark and dramatic her eyeliner was. For this particular look, she also had way-too-dramatic lip liner to match.

It may be hard to believe that Lindsey Halligan appeared on Newsmax looking like this in 2025, since her appearance here feels particularly dated. She had a mostly neutral makeup aesthetic, except for the extra dark eyeshadow on the outer corners of her eyes. As usual with Halligan's makeup, her high contrast eyeshadow didn't look well-blended, creating a stark line between the inner and outer corners of her eyes. This was exacerbated whenever she blinked and definitely looked a bit distracting.

Lindsey Halligan clearly prefers particularly heavy makeup looks. Of course, she does tone down her beauty routine at times, but even then, it looks heavy and under-blended. In a photo that was snapped of her in the Oval Office in March 2025 while Donald Trump signed executive orders, it's evident that Halligan went easier on her lashes and lips than usual. Nonetheless, her harsh blush and signature excessive eyeshadow still made the makeup seem both unnatural and unflattering, which is the MAGA way.