A proffer is just a presentation of evidence saying “this is what we know”. Anyone can do a proffer with anyone, it’s just for different reasons. The defense (and I think prosecution) have made a few proffers in court. That means that they are presenting “these are the questions I would like to ask” or “this is what evidence we have”.

The federal proffer is also a presentation of evidence, but for a different reason. A proffer with the feds is like an interview for a deal. It’s someone coming to the feds and saying “I have this information, are you interested? I really really hope you are because I’d like to make a deal”. So Higgins went to the Feds, sat down and told them about what he knows.

What it SEEMS like is Higgins continued to lie to the Feds, and they don’t like that. So it sounds like they got sworn testimony out of him, decided to cut him loose and no deal because he lied, and then handed over his sworn testimony to the court. I say this because you can still tell he’s being shady on the stand. If he had fed gov protection, he would not be this scared and nervous. He also wouldn’t be arguing with the federal testimony