The Kafka Story Inside Trump’s Godfather Trilogy

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I’ve written several times (one, two, three) about the possibility that Maurene Comey’s wrongful termination lawsuit might provide transparency on DOJ’s larger weaponization against people like her father.

But (aside from vindication for Ms. Comey), I always conceived it in terms of the specific disclosures it might bring. Because she claims she was fired because of Trump’s gripes about her father, if the lawsuit survives motion to dismiss, Ms. Comey might well get more details of how Trump installed his Insurance Lawyer just in time to try to prosecute her father. (Indeed, Judge Jesse Furman, who presides over this case, suggested in an order he might grant Ms. Comey discovery before the motion to dismiss.)

A filing submitted in advance of a hearing scheduled for tomorrow reveals it may be more than that.

As part of a discussion in defense of suing now, before Merit Systems Protection Board adjudicates her case, Ms. Comey revealed a lot of what has been going on at MSPB, which normally would review Civil Service violations like her firing.

It starts by arguing that MSPB cannot adjudicate novel legal issues, such as whether the President can unilaterally ignore the Civil Service Reform Act.

[T]he MSPB lacks expertise to adjudicate this novel dispute: whether, as the government will likely argue, Article II of the Constitution overrides a federal employee’s rights under the Civil Service Reform Act (“CSRA”) and the Bill of Rights. See, e.g., Jackler v. DOJ, MSPB DA-0752-25-0330-I-1, DOJ submission, available at: https://washingtonlitigationgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Jackler-Motion.pdf. Because this case raises foundational constitutional questions with respect to the separation of powers, the MSPB is not the appropriate forum for this dispute. See Axon Enterprise Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, 598 U.S. 175, 195-96 (2023) (district court retains jurisdiction over “collateral” claims “outside the [agency’s] sphere of expertise”); Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, 510 U.S. 200, 212, 214-215 (1994) (claims not of type Congress intended to be reviewed within statutory structure if “wholly collateral” to statute’s review provisions and “agency expertise” not “brought to bear on the statutory questions presented”) (cleaned up).

Then, it notes that all the legal precedents requiring people with termination complaints to first go through MSPB process are predicated on the MSPB being independent of the President.

Second, the Supreme Court decisions that outline the MSPB’s jurisdiction presumed an MSPB that functioned independently of the President, which is no longer true. The “CSRA’s adjudicatory scheme was predicated on the existence of a functioning and independent MSPB,” See Nat’l Ass’n of Immigr. Judges v. Owen, 139 F.4th 293, 304 (4th Cir. 2025) (rejecting channeling to MSPB because “Congress enacted the CSRA on the bedrock principle that the members of the MSPB and the Special Counsel would be protected from removal on political grounds, providing them independence from the President”). However, the President has pronounced that independent agencies must follow his interpretation of the law. See Exec. Order 14215 (Feb. 18, 2025) §§ 1, 2(b), 5, 7 (directing that the President and the Attorney General “shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch,” and their “opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees”—including on “so-called independent agencies”; “No employee of the executive branch… may advance an interpretation of the law… that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law”).2 Further, the President terminated the sole Democratic member of the MSPB Board and insists he has the unlimited right to do so,

Then, it noted that in the days after Ms. Comey wrote this in her complaint (Ms. Comey is represented by Margaret Donovan, who is handling several other Article II and other politicized firings) …

As of September 1, 2025, 891 PFRs are pending.47 Finally, on information and belief, in recent cases, the Government itself has argued before the MSPB that the CSRA is unconstitutional because it violates the President’s alleged Article II prerogatives, and that the MSPB has no jurisdiction over a challenge to an Article II removal. The MSPB, for its part, has previously ruled that it does not have the authority to adjudicate the constitutionality of statutes. 48 On information and belief, the MSPB is currently treating agencies’ Article II-based challenges to its authority consistent with this precedent, which is to say, it is declining to rule on the issue.

… The Office of Legal Counsel all of a sudden decided that the MSPB, and not Article III courts, should decide constitutional matters.

Indeed, the MSPB itself has repeatedly concluded that it lacks authority to adjudicate such sweeping constitutional questions, see Malone v. DOJ, 14 M.S.P.R. 403, 406 (1983), and until two months ago, so did the government, as discussed below, see Dkt. 1 ¶ 84.

[snip]

[A]nd the Department of Justice recently and suddenly reversed its position and now insists that the MSPB must review constitutional issues, compare Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Slip Opinion, 49 Op. O.L.C. __ (Sept. 26, 2025), to, e.g., Dkt. 1 ¶ 84 (alleging that the government argued, before September 15, 2025, that MSPB has no jurisdiction over a challenge to an Article II removal). The OLC’s reversal came immediately after an MSPB administrative judge declined to rule on the constitutionality of Article II removals; that issue is now on appeal to the very Board that the President has ordered must adhere to his interpretation of law. This is a thorough evisceration of the MSPB’s independence. As a matter of due process and constitutional principle, the President’s decision to remove a career civil servant without cause, in violation of Congress’s explicit prohibition, cannot fairly be adjudicated by an agency that is subservient to that same President.

Then it reveals that MSPB has been dismissing cases, like hers, challenging her firing on Article II authority until it decides whether the President’s Article II authority can override civil service protections, which is where Kafka gets invoked.

Third, any MSPB proceeding would be futile. On November 25, 2025, an MSPB administrative judge notified Ms. Comey that the MSPB intends to dismiss her appeal without prejudice, while awaiting a ruling from the Board (now beholden to the President) about whether the President’s Article II power overrides the CSRA. Today, the government consented to that dismissal. To the best of our knowledge, Ms. Comey is not alone. Since November 17, 2025, MSPB administrative judges have dismissed without prejudice multiple MSPB appeals of “Article II” firings, and the government has acquiesced in each case. See, e.g., Law360, “Ex-US Trustee Director’s Firing Appeal Tossed, For Now,” November 21, 2025 (citing Tara Twomey v. DOJ, MSPB DC-0752-25-1950-I-1). This procedure is Kafkaesque: the Executive Branch maintains it can fire Ms. Comey without the due process afforded by the CSRA, yet insists that she submit adjudication of that question to the body created by the CSRA, all while advocating for the premature termination of the CSRA process. Meanwhile, the Executive Branch contends it can dictate the outcome of her appeal (should it eventually proceed) by controlling the “authoritative interpretations of the law” and removing any decisionmaker who dares to disagree. This scheme has been transformed into a dead end that provides no due process. See Carr v. Saul, 593 U.S. 83, 93 (2021) (“It makes little sense to require litigants to present claims to adjudicators who are powerless to grant the relief requested.”). It is not what Congress intended. See Axon Enterprise, 598 U.S. at 191 (plaintiffs need not submit to administrative process where they would face “an illegitmate proceeding, led by an illegitmate decisionmaker,” because “being subjected to such an illegitmate proceeding causes legal injury” that “cannot be undone”); Thunder Basin, 510 U.S. at 212 (Congress did not intend to preclude district court jurisdiction where statutory scheme “forecloses all meaningful judicial review”). [my emphasis]

Thus far, Ms. Comey has not mentioned that John Sarcone, the only one willing to defend against this lawsuit, is playacting at being US Attorney just like Lindsey Halligan is or was.

Just to add to the abuse of power going on here.

It all sounds like the kind of case that could be headed for SCOTUS.

For now, Ms. Comey has more modest goals, like figuring out whether the President personally fired her, or whether some flunky (or former Defense Attorney) at DOJ did it for him.

First, initial discovery can be narrowly tailored, if necessary, to critical questions relating to the circumstances of Ms. Comey’s termination, including who made the decision and on what basis.

[snip]

For example, if the President terminated Ms. Comey, then the question before the Court is whether the President’s Article II powers supersede Congress’s Article I powers and the Bill of Rights. On the other hand, if, as the White House claims (Dkt. 1 ¶ 51), someone within the Department of Justice terminated Ms. Comey, then the Court must decide the additional question of the extent to which the President can delegate his alleged Article II power to supersede Article I.

Of course, even that detail may intertwine with her father’s potentially ongoing persecution.

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Four Shots at an Unarmed Boat in Uncontested Waters

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Twenty-eight paragraphs into the story that first focused attention on the murder Pete Hegseth ordered back in September (though as it notes, Nick Turse first revealed the second shot just days after the attack) is this revelation: it took four strikes to kill first the people then destroy any debris from the targeted boats.

The boat in the first strike was hit a total of four times, twice to kill the crew and twice more to sink it, four people familiar with the operation said.

It took the most powerful military in the history of the world four shots the get the job done.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

That fact lies at the core of a whole bunch of other senselessness about Trump’s feckless rule. There’s Trump’s release of Juan Orlando Hernández, a proven high-level threat, even as forces that normally prevent turbulence in the Middle East gather off of Venezuela’s oil fields. There’s the many ways, starting with the destruction of USAID and definitely including Trump’s trade war, that has added to global instability. There’s the cost involved in drone-striking small boats. There’s the neutering of legal advisors who might have saved Admiral Frank Bradley from being underbussed by the guy who promoted him. There’s the pretend press corps filled with nutballs and cranks that ensures that Whiskey Pete will never be challenged with actual knowledge.

But at root, you’ve got Pete Hegseth sitting atop that most powerful military boom boom boom boom, treating it like a children’s game.

And he doesn’t realize that on this, his first attempt, and twice more after that, the most powerful military in the history of the world could not take out an unarmed boat in uncontested waters with one shot.

Donald Trump thinks murderboats make him look strong (though the video he released of this one hid that it took four shots to get the job done).

Pete Hegseth thinks murderboats make him look strong.

But holy hell, can we talk about how feckless the reality is?

Update: This timeline of the conflicting things Trump and his minions have said about the September 2 strike is useful.

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Dan Richman Wants His Data Back

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There are a number of articles (Reuters, Politico) describing discussions about reindicting Jim Comey and Letitia James. Neither addresses the issue I lay out here — namely, that the ultimate goal of the Comey prosecution, at least, is to support the Grand Conspiracy in Florida, perhaps by obtaining at least probable cause that Comey lied to cover up the import of (Grand Conspiracy nutballs claim to believe) the “Clinton Plan” CIOL and Comey’s decision to release a memo documenting Trump’s corruption.

More importantly, neither addresses a new wrinkle: That Dan Richman wants his data back. (Anna Bower first noted the suit.)

Last Wednesday, Richman moved under Rule 41(g) to get his property, in the form of an image of his computer made by the Inspector General, as well as emails and additional content obtained derivative to that.

While there are redacted bits describing the original imaging by DOJ IG of the computer and the overcollection at that stage (as well as the warrants themselves, which would have been unsealed by now if the indictment hadn’t been dismissed), it relies heavily on and largely tracks William Fitzpatrick’s ruling effectively cataloging the many Fourth Amendment violations involved in the searches of Richman’s data, which Richman points to in order to claim that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly need not consider the normal balancing considerations.

While the government may argue that it needs the Hard Drive to obtain evidence to prosecute Mr. Comey, the Comey case has now been dismissed and any charges related to the underlying conduct are time-barred. [citation omitted] (noting that had Mr. Comey not been indicted, the statute of limitations would have expired on September 30, 2025). Even if the case were to somehow proceed, the government should be barred from using evidence from the Hard Drive. The materials from the Hard Drive that the government presented to the grand jury in the Comey case were only identified by the government because it (1) exceeded the scope of the Warrants and seized non-responsive data, (2) illegally retained materials it should have destroyed or returned, and (3) searched the illegally seized and retained data without a warrant.

As Comey was preparing to move to suppress this content, the Loaner AUSAs claimed that he had no Fourth Amendment interest in Richman’s data. That was contestable for at least a subset of the data. But Richman clearly has a Fourth Amendment interest in it.

If this effort by Richman is successful, in particular his request for “a temporary restraining order enjoining the government from using or relying on in any way the improperly seized materials until such time as the Court can further consider the merits of his claims,” all the data would become inaccessible, both for any reindictment of the false statements indictment or for the Grand Conspiracy conspiracy.

Oh sure, the FBI could attempt to obtain new warrants — or subpoena Richman for the same material. But much of their use of this data (Exhibits 8, 9, and 10 post-dated Richman’s departure from the FBI, and Exhibits 3 through 7 involved sourcing for which Richman was public) did not fit basic criteria arising from the imagined crimes, Richman leaking information while still at FBI. Of what the Loaner AUSAs presented to the grand jury, they’d be stuck with the “Clinton CIOL” that the jury no-billed.

And to get the files they really want — Exhibit 10 — the FBI would undoubtedly rely on the tainted searches Richman invokes here to justify demanding the return of his data. Plus, there’s a chunk of data DOJ unlawfully seized that went through 2019; if DOJ found anything enticing in there, it too would become inaccessible.

Kash Patel’s FBI fucked up pretty badly in the way they searched Richman’s data for dirt on Jim Comey. The dismissal of the indictment might have otherwise shielded them from consequences. But at the very least this effort may thwart their ongoing witch hunt targeting Comey.

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Alina Habba: A Parking Garage Lawyer with $1 Million in Sanction Penalties

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In the first appellate court decision on Donald Trump’s persistent effort to put Insurance Lawyers, Election Deniers, and other sundry actors play-acting as US Attorneys, the Third Circuit has unanimously ruled that Alina Habba really is nothing more than a Parking Garage lawyer.

Habba is not the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey by virtue of her appointment as First Assistant U.S. Attorney because only the first assistant in place at the time the vacancy arises automatically assumes the functions and duties of the office under the FVRA. Additionally, because Habba was nominated for the vacant U.S. Attorney position, the FVRA’s nomination bar prevents her from assuming the role of Acting U.S. Attorney. Finally, the Attorney General’s delegation of all the powers of a U.S. Attorney to Habba is prohibited by the FVRA’s exclusivity provision. Therefore, we will affirm the District Court’s disqualification order.

This ruling, if applied elsewhere, would cause problems for Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer, Sigal the Election Denying Laywer, and Bill the Chapman Nut, as well — including Essayli, whom a judge ruled could act as First AUSA.

Abbe Lowell, who represents Letitia James in EDVA, argued this case before the court.

The Third Circuit ruling comes even as the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Alina the Parking Garage lawyer is not only just a Parking Garage lawyer, but a frivolous one at that, sustaining the $1 million in fees on her and her liege Donald Trump.

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MAGAts Outraged Comey Indictment Dismissed on Same “Technicality” Trump’s Was!

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In the wake of Judge Cameron Currie’s order dismissing the Jim Comey and Letitia James’ indictments, right wing Trump supporters have contorted themselves into knots trying to claim that Comey and James got special treatment, rather than simply the application of clear precedent to their case.

A technicality!!!!!!

The funniest wail from these MAGAts is their claim that Comey and James only got off on a “technicality,” so we can go ahead and consider them guilty.

In point of fact, Comey pointed out in a filing last week that the Loaner AUSAs have yet to point to any instance that fits the terms of their claimed alleged lie.

Here, the government has repeatedly failed to provide a coherent factual basis for its theory that Mr. Comey authorized Mr. Richman to be an “anonymous source” in news reports regarding the Midyear Exam investigation while Mr. Richman was “at the FBI.” Of the communications following Mr. Comey’s October 28, 2016 letter that the government cites in both briefs, none reflect Mr. Comey authorizing Mr. Richman to be an anonymous source. For instance, the communications show Mr. Richman discussed materials that were already public, like Mr. Comey’s letter to Congress. See, e.g., Opp. at 3 (“Wittes and I are spending a lot of time saying your letter means exactly, and only what it says.” (emphasis added)); id. at 3-4 (quoting the defendant as telling Mr. Richman that Richman’s contributing to a New York Times Opinion piece “would [be] shouting into the wind,” and “that they would ‘figure it out’” without Richman’s contributions). And even where the government alleges that Mr. Comey encouraged Mr. Richman to speak to the press in late October and early November 2016, there is no indication that Mr. Richman did so anonymously; to the contrary, one of the exhibits the government cites references Mr. Richman’s televised interview with Anderson Cooper. Opp. at 4 (citing ECF No. 138-6, 138- 7). The remaining communications cited by the government in its Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Indictment Based on Vindictive and Selective Prosecution suffer from numerous defects, but most critically, all occurred after February 7, 2017, when Mr. Richman left the FBI. This alone makes the government’s theory that Mr. Richman was “at the FBI” when these communications occurred incomprehensible.

And exhibits another Loaner AUSA submitted in the government’s response to James’ vindictive prosecution claim show that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer was gaslighting Anna Bower when she was stalking her.

More astonishing, though, is that these indictments were dismissed on the very same “technicality” — that the prosecutor was unlawfully appointed — that Judge Aileen Cannon invoked to dismiss Trump’s far better substantiated stolen document case (though Cannon was a newbie judge departing from decades of precedent, while Currie is a senior judge simply following existing precedent).

Indeed, Judge Currie even cites Cannon’s opinion dismissing Trump’s indictment for the principle that everything had to be unwound.

In such a case, “the proper remedy is invalidation of the ultra vires action[s]” taken by the actor. United States v. Trump, 740 F. Supp. 3d 1245, 1302 (S.D. Fla. 2024). “Invalidation ‘follows directly from the government actor’s lack of authority to take the challenged action in the first place. That is, winning the merits of the constitutional challenge is enough.’” Id. (quoting Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau v. All Am. Check Cashing, Inc., 33 F.4th 218, 241 (5th Cir. 2022) (Jones, J., concurring)).

To make things more awkward, in the hearing on this, Judge Currie asked Pam Bondi’s Counselor, Henry Whitaker, about that precedent and he partly disavowed it, and in doing so, noted that Bondi had other means she could have put Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer in place to indict Comey and James, means she did not take.

THE COURT: Mr. Whitaker, let me ask you one last question. Do you believe that U.S. v. Trump, decided by Judge Cannon, in, I believe, 2021, was wrongly decided?

MR. WHITAKER: Well, I think it’s certainly not controlling here, Your Honor, because in United States v. Trump, Judge Cannon held that various statutes that existed, some of which I’ve cited here today, did not authorize the appointment of a special counsel. But here, in a very important distinction between this case and Trump, is that we have available to us a number of statutes that the United States did not have available in making those arguments. For example, you know, you couldn’t have appointed Jack Smith as an AUSA under 542. I mean, we could have — we certainly could have done that with Ms. Halligan. You couldn’t have appointed Jack Smith as an assistant to a United States attorney under 543. We certainly could have done that with regard to Ms. Halligan.

But, I mean, look, to the extent that — and I do think that mostly what was driving Judge Cannon’s decision in that case was sort of the unique and broad authority that the special counsel possessed sort of free of supervision, which, of course, is an element that we do not have here. But I will say this: Like, look, to the extent you can read Judge Cannon’s decision as suggesting that the Department of Justice does not have authority under, for example, 28 U.S.C. Section 510 to appoint Main Justice attorneys, which would basically knock out most of the Department of Justice as it existed for the past, like, 50 years, yes, we certainly do disagree with that, and we agree that the attorney general has full authority to make appointments under statutes like 28 U.S.C. Section 510 and 509, and that source of authority would fully support Ms. Halligan being an authorized attorney to the government even though there may have been a paperwork error, a citation error in her appointment order.

A Clinton appointee swooping in to steal the case

Which brings us to the second complaint: that it was somehow improper for Currie, a Clinton appointed senior judge from South Carolina, to swoop into EDVA and end the case.

But that is precisely the process used in the three other districts where judges have ruled similar interim appointments unlawful, with a fourth (also involving Tish James) still in process.

When Julien Giraud, father and son, and Cesar Humberto Pino challenged Alina Habba the Parking Garage Lawyer’s involvement in their cases, the Chief Judge from the Third Circuit appointed an out of District judge to preside, Matthew Brann, a Republican appointed by Obama.

Shortly thereafter, the Honorable Michael A. Chagares, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, designated me for service in the District of New Jersey pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 292(b) and reassigned this matter “and all related cases” to me.36

When a bunch of defendants in Nevada challenged Sigal Chattah the election denier lawyer’s involvement in their cases, the Chief Judge from the Ninth Circuit appointed an out of District judge to preside, David Campbell, a George W Bush appointee.

The Nevada District Court Judges recused from hearing these motions to dismiss, presumably because the motions implicate their own power to appoint an Acting U.S. Attorney. See 28 U.S.C. § 546(d). Exercising her authority under 28 U.S.C. § 292(b), Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Mary Murguia designated the undersigned judge to hear and decide these motions. Doc. 21.

When some Los Angeles defendants challenged liar for ICE goons Bill Essayli’s involvement in their cases, the Chief Judge from the Ninth Circuit appointed a different out of District judge, Michael Seabright, another George W Bush appointee, to preside over their challenges.

ORDER (U.S.C. § 292(b)) by Chief Circuit Judge Mary H. Murguia as to Defendant Jaime Hector Ramirez: Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 292(b), I hereby designate the Honorable Michael Seabright, United States Senior District Judge for the District of Hawaii, to temporarily perform the duties of United States District Judge on an as-needed basis for the Central District of California beginning on 9/8/2025, and ending on 12/31/2025, and for such additional time required in advance to prepare or thereafter to complete unfinished business.

And when Letitia James challenged subpoenas issued by John Sarcone after he falsely claimed NDNY judges had named him as US Attorney, the Chief Judge from the Second Circuit appointed an out of District judge to preside over that challenge, Lorna Schofield, another Obama appointee.

Of note, all these challenges to Pam Bondi’s playacting US Attorneys had started before Bondi installed Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer on September 22, and Judge Brann had already ruled Alina Habba’s appointment to be unlawful.

Bondi was on notice that what she was doing with Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer was going to be challenged and had been successfully challenged. And she didn’t even attempt any of the gimmicks she is using elsewhere to keep Trump hacks in place, those means cited by her own Counselor in court — in part because she couldn’t. She had already used one of those tricks, installing Maggie Cleary as First AUSA, when Trump insisted it had to be Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer.

These cases might have been dismissed on other grounds. But the unlawful appointment dismissals are entirely of Bondi’s doing.

Stop blaming judges appointed by whichever President when Bondi is 100% to blame.

The Blue Slip gaslight special

Finally, there are even right wing dumbasses claiming that this is about Blue Slips, the Senate tradition that US Attorneys and Judges must have the support of both Senators before being confirmed.

To be fair, Todd Blanche did go on Fox News and falsely claim that is what this is about.

The way you know Blanche is lying is because Trump told us himself, when he ordered Bondi to install Halligan.

“[W]e almost put in a Democrat [sic] supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job.”

What he’s talking about is that Trump himself nominated Siebert with the support of both Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.

Siebert was someone everyone agreed on — Trump installed him, EDVA’s judges reinstalled him, Trump nominated him — until Siebert concluded, apparently with Blanche’s concurrence, that there was not probable cause to indict Jim Comey.

All this whining is nothing other than cope.

If you complain that Democrats aren’t supporting qualified nominees, you should be outraged that Trump pulled Siebert.

If you complain that unconflicted judges decide these issues, you’ve got one.

If you really had a problem with appointments clause dismissals, you should be demanding that Trump stand trial for stealing nuclear documents and stashing them in a bathroom.

But what you shouldn’t do is blame anyone other than the person responsible, Attorney General Pam Bondi.

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Blind Man’s Bluff in the Jim Comey Docket

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Threshold issues

The very last thing Judge Michael Nachmanoff asked Michael Dreeben in Wednesday’s hearing on Jim Comey’s bid to throw out his indictment for vindictive prosecution, before turning to prosecutors’ argument, was whether he should wait and address all of Comey’s challenges at once or deal with vindictive prosecution on its own.

THE COURT: All right. Thank you. But before you sit down, let me just ask you, do you think that the other pending motions, including the issue of literal truth and ambiguity and the other matters that are yet to be litigated, are so wrapped up in vindictive prosecution that the Court should deal with them all at one time, or do you think that the Court can and should deal with vindictive prosecution separately?

MR. DREEBEN: I think vindictive prosecution, like our motion based on the appointment of the U.S. attorney, are threshold matters that the Court should resolve as a threshold. Mr. Comey would like to see both of those motions resolved because they both go to the very heart of whether a prosecution in this case is permissible, one by virtue of a challenge to the official who brought it, the other by virtue of whether it complies with the Constitution to bring a prosecution at all.

Our other motions are very important, and we have a series of them that challenge other aspects of the prosecution. As I’m sure the Court is well aware, there are issues relating to the conduct of the prosecutor in the grand jury. But this one and the appointments issue stand at the threshold. They’re the gateway to all further motions, and those should be resolved at the outset of the case, in our view.

Dreeben, calling vindictive prosecution and disqualification (which Judge Cameron Currie had heard the week before) “threshold” matters, said they should be decided at the outset.

That may explain Nachmanoff’s decision at the very end of the hearing to deny Jessica Carmichael’s request to move up the next motions hearing — the one that would address the other issues Nachmanoff asked Dreeben about — from December 9, what would be almost three weeks (including the Thanksgiving holiday) from that day, to the prior week.

There’s also a motion to move up the next oral argument, which is set on December 9th. I commend everyone’s enthusiasm for trying to move this even faster, but the Court is reluctant to do that. I believe that it was Ms. Carmichael that had a conflict, and I will permit counsel to appear without Ms. Carmichael, who’s local counsel, so that she doesn’t have that issue, but I will keep the current schedule that we have.

If Nachmanoff does treat the vindictive prosecution challenge as a threshold issue, then he may hope to rule before holding another hearing. If Nachmanoff were to rule for Comey on vindictive prosecution (or Currie were to disqualify Lindsey Halligan, as is likely), the December hearing might be delayed anyway during an appeal, possibly all the way to SCOTUS.

It’s worth noting that Comey’s appellate lawyers — Ephraim McDowell in the disqualification hearing and Dreeben in the vindictive prosecution one — argued these District level motions hearings. As I noted when they were added, Comey walked into these challenges preparing to fight this all the way to SCOTUS.

The Comey prosecution may go away, pending appeal, in less than 20 days, via one of at least two ways. Indeed, given Judge Currie’s promise to rule before Thanksgiving, it could go away in the next week (again, pending appeal).

I lay that out as a way to understand some other things that have happened since Nachmanoff’s hearing.

The drama

But first, the drama, which started shortly after Dreeben answered that question about threshold issues.

Loaner AUSA Tyler Lemons had barely started his argument when Nachmanoff questioned the prosecutor’s claim that the grand jury, “returned a true bill.”

THE COURT: Well, we’ll have some questions about that —

MR. LEMONS: That’s correct, Your Honor.

THE COURT: — but I’ll let you get through your argument.

Shortly thereafter, Nachmanoff challenged Lemons’ claim that Comey was relying on, “newspaper articles, anonymous sources, innuendo, [and] conjecture.”

THE COURT: Well, let me stop you there. With regard to the words of the president, whether it’s the post from September 20th or his answers to questions from reporters, you’re not suggesting that those aren’t things the president has said, are you?

Immediately before the drama of the declination memo, Nachmanoff bristled at Lemons’ insinuation that Erik Siebert, whom — the EDVA judge noted — had been appointed as US Attorney by the judges of EDVA, was involved in “machinations.”

MR. LEMONS: Absolutely, Your Honor. What I’m referring to is the newspaper reports that are relying on anonymous sources as to the machinations of former U.S. Attorney Siebert or to other decisions that essentially are not directly quoting the president or someone else.

THE COURT: Well, let me stop you there.

MR. LEMONS: Yes, sir.

THE COURT: I’m not sure what machinations you’re referring to. Are you referring to the fact that Mr. Siebert was the interim U.S. attorney and then appointed by the Court, and then either resigned on September 19th or was fired by the president on September 19th?

MR. LEMONS: Yes, Your Honor. And I guess more specifically referring to any sort of — across, it sounds like multiple cases, not just this case — any reluctance or willingness to pursue cases in this Court.

That’s when Nachmanoff spent several minutes slowly cornering Lemons into admitting, in spite of direction from Todd Blanche’s office to avoid doing so, that he did not just know of a declination memo, but had read it.

THE COURT: Well, was there a declination memo?

“Was there a declination memo?” was question one. Questions ten and eleven in the colloquy, which also included Nachmanoff reminding Lemons he was “counsel of record in this case” and then getting him to explain that Todd Blanche’s office had instructed him to dodge these questions, went this way:

THE COURT: And had one been prepared?

MR. LEMONS: My understanding is that a draft prosecution memo had been prepared.

THE COURT: All right. And did you review that?

MR. LEMONS: I — yes, Your Honor, I did.

That still wasn’t the most dramatic part of the hearing, of course.

Lemons finished his argument, and then Nachmanoff returned to that question, the grand jury presentment. From the start, he mentioned it would be useful to hear from Lindsey, but he did allow Lemons to explain what he thought had happened, first.

THE COURT: Well, I have a couple more questions before you sit down.

MR. LEMONS: Okay.

THE COURT: At the beginning of your remarks, you said that the grand jury had returned an indictment and there’s a presumption of regularity with what happened, but as we know from other litigation in this case, there have been some questions and some attempts to resolve those issues, and Ms. Halligan submitted a declaration on Friday that explained, in part, in response to the question from Judge Currie about what happened after the grand jury began to deliberate, and then what went on —

MR. LEMONS: Yes, Your Honor.

THE COURT: — after that. And I’ll ask you these questions, but it may be more direct to ask Ms. Halligan directly.

In spite of noting that it might be easier if Lindsey explained all this, Nachmanoff let Lemons explain what he understood had happened at length, including that the EDVA grand jury coordinator had had direct communications with the foreperson.

The judge asked Lemons the question about whether the full grand jury had voted on what he referred to as the second indictment three times, which is when he finally invited Lindsey to speak, as counsel of record. She barely said good morning before she interrupted the judge.

THE COURT: And so that the record is clear, when the grand jury return was taken, only the foreperson was in the courtroom, correct, the rest of the grand jurors were not present; is that right?

MR. LEMONS: Can I have a moment, Your Honor?

THE COURT: You can. Ms. Halligan, you can come to the podium. You’re counsel of record. You can address the Court. It might be easier. Good morning.

MS. HALLIGAN: Good morning.

THE COURT: So am I correct that, as is the usual —

MS. HALLIGAN: No, Your Honor.

THE COURT: — practice, that the grand jurors were not present, just the foreperson?

MS. HALLIGAN: The foreperson and another grand juror was also present, and Judge Vaala corrected the record in open court, and the foreperson said in open court, We only no true billed Count One, we want to true bill Count Two and Three, and the foreperson signed that indictment.

THE COURT: I’m familiar with the transcript.

MS. HALLIGAN: Okay.

THE COURT: But I just wanted to make sure that the entire grand jury never had the opportunity to see the second indictment. You may sit down. Thank you.

The government, of course, has now refuted this account, thinking it helps them to claim that Halligan (and Lemons) stood before the judge and misinformed him, all because a confused foreperson said that the entire grand jury had voted for the two-count indictment, which served primarily to corrode any presumption of regularity DOJ is afforded.

From the start (and so when he asked whether he should wait on the other challenges), Nachmanoff had at least those two questions, the grand jury and the declination memo, in mind, and also, probably, how Lindsey could have assessed the case in the three days before indicting.

THE COURT: Well, that’s why I was asking you the questions about the declination memo and the prosecution memo, because she was appointed on September 22nd, and she went into the grand jury on the 25th, and I believe what you’re saying is that she made an independent evaluation of the case and concluded to move forward with it in that time period, in those couple of days. And so my question is, what independent evaluation could she have done in that time period?

MR. LEMONS: Your Honor, I think that — that discussion is inevitably one that we would have if you order expanded discovery.

Michael Dreeben, in rebuttal, asserted that the irregularity with the indictment was obtained is yet another cause to dismiss the indictment, and asserted that Nachmanoff didn’t need to see what the declination memo said to dismiss it.

Nachmanoff closed the hearing not just by denying Carmichael’s request to advance the next motions hearing, but by ordering both parties to brief a case.

I have some housekeeping matters to address. I would like, especially in light of our argument today, both parties to address the case of Gaither v. United States, 413 F.2d 1061 (D.C. Cir. 1969), and it addresses this issue regarding the foreperson signing an indictment. And I know you have your objections due at 5:00 p.m. today, so I wanted to make sure the government was aware of the Court’s interest in addressing that case, and, of course, the defense can address it in turn when they file their response.

The oddities of a three-judge docket

Now, I’m going through this exercise not to share the drama from the transcript, much of which got covered in real time, but because I want to understand how the hearing on Wednesday — particularly Lindsey’s confession about the grand jury — jumbled what would have happened and will happen in the brief window before December 9, when some or all of this might be launched on its way to appeal, possibly all the way to SCOTUS.

Here’s what happened and will happen in the week since the hearing; I’ve color-coded response chains:

November 19: Vindictive prosecution hearing before Michael Nachmanoff; Nachmanoff denies motions schedule change, orders CIPA schedule, orders briefing on Gaither

November 19: Government objection to Fitzpatrick order giving Comey grand jury transcripts, writing up interactions between grand jury coordinator and grand jury foreperson and seemingly confirming that court reporter left after rest of grand jury left

November 19: Government brief on Gaither (responding to Nachmanoff’s order)

November 19: Insanely stupid Lindsey Halligan interview with NYPost misrepresenting record and attacking Judge Nachmanoff

November 20: Comey Reply on fundamental ambiguity

November 20: Comey Reply on Bill of Particulars (including exhibits on discovery, kicking off graymail)

November 20: Government notice “correcting” record, including return transcript

Later November 20: Comey Reply on his motion for grand jury materials

November 21: Consent motion to set CIPA hearing on December 9 instead of filing CIPA 5

November 21: Comey Response to government objection to Fitzpatrick order

November 21: Motion to dismiss because there is no indictment

November 21: Amended motion to dismiss because there is no indictment

November 24: Comey requested response date on MTD no indictment

November 26: Expected Cameron Currie ruling on disqualification

November 26: Comey motion to suppress due

Start from the end: with a motion to dismiss because there is no indictment, which Comey almost immediately amended. As the citations page makes clear, this is substantially Comey’s response to Nachmanoff’s request for briefing on Gaither.

As Comey explains in a footnote, rather than just responding to Gaither, he’s using belated disclosures — from the discovery about the Fourth Amendment and attorney-client violations, from William Fitzpatrick’s opinion on the grand jury transcript, and regarding the failure to present the second indictment — to submit a separate motion to dismiss to be considered along with the other ones.

Mr. Comey respectfully submits that the Court can and should consider this motion along with Mr. Comey’s other dispositive motions. ECF Nos. 59 [vindictive], 60 [disqualification], 105 [fundamental ambiguity]. Those motions are fully briefed, and the government has filed its notice concerning Gaither v. United States, 413 F.2d 1061 (D.C. Cir. 1969). See ECF No. 201. The defense requests that the Court direct the government to file its response to this Motion—if any—by November 24, 2025.

He is effectively attempting to squish this motion to dismiss into the window when Nachmanoff will be deciding the vindictive prosecution motion and Judge Cameron Currie will be deciding the disqualification motion, with the unrealistic request that the government have to respond over the weekend to also squish it into that same window.

Dreeben did say he was going to file another motion to dismiss and Nachmanoff did not object, but he’s trying to squish that motion into this window when the judges are deliberating.

The new motion to dismiss overlaps in significant part with two other filings submitted since the hearing: Comey’s reply on his request to get grand jury transcripts, and Comey’s response to the government’s objection to William Fitzpatrick’s order that he get those transcripts.

In his reply, Comey explains how all of these documents fit together.

1 The absence of a valid charging instrument will be the basis of a forthcoming motion to dismiss [that is, the Gaithner briefing as motion to dismiss].

2 As the Court is aware, Mr. Comey will file his response to the government’s appeal of Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick’s order for the government to disclose the grand jury proceedings on Friday, November 21, 2025. This reply brief responds to the government’s arguments in opposition to the motion (ECF No. 184) to disclose the grand jury proceedings and highlights additional irregularities that have surfaced further warranting disclosure. Mr. Comey’s response to the government’s appeal of Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick’s order will explain why Judge Fitzpatrick’s ruling is well supported by fact and law warranting affirmance and address the government’s opposition to that ruling. These litigation streams present two related, but separate, avenues to order the government to produce the grand jury proceedings.

And the seeming cause for amendment to the motion to dismiss — a replacement of one claim about how Lindsey Halligan integrated privileged material in the grand jury…

Ms. Halligan referred to those materials in her presentation to the grand jury and elicited extensive testimony about privileged materials from Agent-3. ECF No. 192 at 14.

With another…

In turn, Ms. Halligan extensively questioned Agent-3 about communications between Mr. Comey and Mr. Richman during Agent-3’s testimony before the grand jury. ECF No. 192 at 14.

… reveals one of the things going on. In all three documents, Comey aggressively accuses the government of purposely seeking out privileged material in advance of the presentment.

Agents knowingly reviewed and printed out dozens of pages of privileged communications between Mr. Comey and his lawyers and appear to have presented at least certain of those privileged communications to the grand jury in this matter.

Thus the delicate balance Comey tried to correct with the amendment: they’re pretty sure Miles Starr did not just present tainted testimony, but that Lindsey cued him with tainted questions, but that overstates what they can say without seeing the grand jury transcript.

Both those sentences must rely on this passage of Fitzpatrick’s opinion (they cite the unredacted version rather than this one; the redacted discussion starts on the next page).

The government’s position is that the grand jury materials “confirm the baselessness of the defendant’s claim that privileged information may have been shared with the grand jury.” ECF 172. While it is true that the undersigned did not immediately recognize any overtly privileged communications, it is equally true that the materials seized from the Richman Warrants were the cornerstone of the government’s grand jury presentation. The government substantially relied on statements involving Mr. Comey and Mr. Richman in support of its proposed indictment. Agent3 referred to these statements in response to multiple questions from the prosecutor and from grand jurors and did so shortly after being given a limited overview of privileged communications between the same parties. The government’s position that privileged materials were not directly shared with the grand jurors ignores the equally unacceptable prospect that privileged materials [page break] were used to shape the government’s presentation and therefore improperly inform the grand juror’s deliberations.

Both sides are working at a disadvantage in this argument. The government complained that it couldn’t see what Comey shared in ex parte submission to Fitzpatrick (and, generally, complained that it hadn’t been able to get its filter protocol).

2 Although the docket indicates the government provided the materials for in camera review, Dkt. No. 179, the docket does not reflect that defendant submitted ex parte information to the Magistrate Judge. However, the magistrate judge referenced the defendant’s ex parte notice in its opinion. See Dkt. 191 at 7.

In his response, Comey described some of what was included in that.

Pursuant to Judge Fitzpatrick’s order during the hearing, the defense filed an ex parte sealed submission to guide Judge Fitzpatrick’s review, which was supplemented with evidence that the government had produced to the defendant, such as the privileged communications the government’s agents printed out and used in September 2025 after their warrantless search of the materials seized from Daniel Richman.

[snip]

Mr. Comey plainly had an expectation of privacy in his communications with his lawyer, which was clear from the face of the communications the government agents reviewed and printed in September 2025, ECF No. 172-2 at 2,2 as set forth in the ex parte submission the defense submitted to Judge Fitzpatrick.

But unlike the government, Comey doesn’t know precisely what was said about the Richman texts to the grand jury, in particular whether Halligan’s promise of more evidence — a reference the government did no more than to confirm in its response by saying, “the government anticipated presenting additional evidence were the case to proceed to trial” — pertains specifically to the Comey side of the Richman texts.

Plus, both seem to be trying to hold their fire. Perhaps Comey is waiting on the motion to suppress — which may be held in abeyance if Judge Currie rules for him. Surely, he is guarding his privilege claim.

And, after admonishments from Fitzpatrick, the Loaner AUSAs dropped their reliance on the Richman texts in their Bill of Particulars response, so they’re probably trying to avoid knowing Fourth Amendment violations.

So neither will say what I keep saying: On the morning before the grand jury presentment, Spenser Warren provided others with a two page printout of Richman texts, all of which preceded the moment when the FBI knew Comey had retained Richman. But someone went back into that unscoped material they knew to include privileged texts and printed out at least eight pages of texts, going well beyond the time Comey had retained Richman.

And whatever the reason for the reticence on both sides, unless you are misrepresenting the questions at issue (and remember, there is no transcript of the exchange Comey had with Ted Cruz included among the 14 exhibits that appear to have been presented to the grand jury), there is no sound reason to present any of these texts. None could be proof that Comey had authorized Richman to share this information while at FBI, because Richman had left months earlier. None could be proof that Comey lied to Chuck Grassley on May 3, 2017 about serving as a source for stories on the Russian investigation (which Grassley called the Trump investigation), because they all postdated Grassley’s question. None could be proof that Comey intended to obscure all this in September 2020, because he had already told Susan Collins about all of this on June 8, 2017. Contrary to what Loaner AUSAs claimed in their urgent bill for a filter protocol (authored by James Hayes), nothing in the public record supports a claim that Comey and Richman (and Patrick Fitzgerald) were conspiring to leak classified information.

The only crime Comey committed was exposing Donald Trump’s corruption, which led to a Special Counsel investigation that showed abundant evidence Trump obstructed the investigation into his ties with Russia.

But in his effort to mislead a grand jury to believe that was a crime, Miles Starr may have knowingly and unlawfully surveilled attorney-client communications without a warrant much less a filter protocol.

As of now, Nachmanoff has not ruled on either parallel request to grant Comey grand jury access (he said he would rule on the filings, without a hearing), though a footnote to the motion to dismiss, “reserves the right to supplement this Motion with further facts and argument if and when the grand jury materials are disclosed to the defense.” So unless and until he does, the record will remain what it is, with vague gestures from both sides about a conflict at the heart of this case, potentially excluded from the record if this thing gets appealed.

When caught lying, troll

Meanwhile, of course, Lindsey Halligan is already resorting to the tactics she learned from her boss, falsely misrepresenting a question Nachmanoff posed about Dreeben’s belief, laid out in Comey’s reply to prosecutors’ arguments about imputation (which I laid out here)…

MR. DREEBEN: That is certainly correct, and that is an additional obstacle that supported the court’s factual conclusion that imputation was not appropriate on the facts of the case. But we, of course, have a very different situation. In the hierarchy, the president stands at the top, and he has declared himself to be the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. He has vested in him executive power, which includes supervision of the Department of Justice. The U.S. attorneys help him carry out his responsibility to see that the laws are faithfully executed, and as we argued in the brief, that is not just a theoretical constitutional structural argument; it is actually an argument that applies to the facts of this case because the president has taken on the responsibility and the authority to direct the Justice Department to take actions in the investigatory and prosecutorial realm that he thinks should be taken, and he has, in effect, substituted himself for the U.S. attorney as the decision-maker, and the facts of this case reveal that that’s why his vindictive motive is imputed to the prosecution. No, he didn’t go into the grand jury, but exercising the authority that’s vested in him, he brought about the prosecution through the chain of causation that we described earlier.

THE COURT: So your view is that Ms. Halligan is a stalking horse or a puppet, for want of a better word, doing the president’s bidding?

MR. DREEBEN: Well, I don’t want to use language about Ms. Halligan that suggests anything other than she did what she was told to do. The president of the United States has the authority to direct prosecutions. She worked in the White House. She was surely aware of the president’s directive. She didn’t have prosecutorial experience, but she took on the job to come to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and carry out the president’s directive, and this was a directive to the attorney general. I think we know that the attorney general is highly responsive to the president’s directives. She doesn’t say, Excuse me, Mr. President, this is my job.

The makebelieve US Attorney for EDVA instead falsely claimed this was a direct expression of Nachmanoff’s own opinion.

Interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan suggested Wednesday that the Biden-appointed judge overseeing the criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey violated judicial conduct rules by asking if she was a “puppet” of President Trump.

District Judge Michael Nachmanoff asked Comey’s defense lawyer if he thought Halligan, the prosecutor who brought the indictment against the former FBI boss, was acting as a “puppet” or “stalking horse” of the commander in chief, during a hearing in an Alexandria, Va., courtroom.

“Personal attacks — like Judge Nachmanoff referring to me as a ‘puppet’ — don’t change the facts or the law,” Halligan exclusively told The Post.

“The Judicial Canons require judges to be ‘patient, dignified, respectful, and courteous to litigants, jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and others with whom the judge deals in an official capacity’ … and to ‘act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,’” she continued.

Lindsey’s attack in the NYP was similar to the one prosecutors made in their response to Fitzpatrick’s order (which Comey addressed in response).

Federal courts have an affirmative obligation to ensure that judicial findings accurately reflect the evidence. Canon 2(A) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges requires every judge to “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and mpartiality of the judiciary” and to avoid orders that “misstate or distort the record.” Canon 3(A)(4) requires courts to ensure that factual determinations are based on the actual record, not assumptions or misrepresentations. Measured against these obligations and the rule of law, the magistrate’s reading of the transcript cannot stand.

They’re trolling.

They’re doing precisely what Trump always does when caught in a crime: he trolls and attacks rule of law.

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Seventh Circuit Panel Allows Trump To Assault Chicago Residents

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On November 6 District Court Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction barring the federal government from attacking Chicago residents engaged in lawful protests.  Judge Ellis also  certified a class for this litigation. It consists of

All persons who are or will in the future non-violently
demonstrate, protest, observe, document, or record at Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement.

The defendants sought a stay pending appeal. On November 19, a panel consisting of Michael Brennan, Frank Easterbrook, and Michael Scudder complied, freeing Trump’s goons to attack us without restraint.

The facts of the case are well known. Masked thugs are caught on camera shoving protesters to the ground and zip-tying them, shooting people with pepper balls, teargassing kids, holding people for hours without charges, and much much more. The evidence is set out in a detailed and very long Opinion and Order entered by Judge Ellis on November 20.

The legal standards for issuance of a preliminary injunction are also well known, at least they used to be before John Roberts and the Fash Five held that Donald Trump cannot be held accountable for breaking the law or violating the Constitution in Trump v. US and then drastically slashed the power of the judiciary to restrain law-breakingl in Trump v. CASA.

The Seventh Circuit Rationale

The panel says that the defendants are likely to succeed on the merits.

A. The order is overbroad

1. The Injunction binds the named defendants, their lawyers and people acting in concert with the defendants. Too broad?

That’s simply absurd. Of course the order binds the defendants and those acting for or in concert with them. They were duly served. They engaged in motion practice, participated in discovery, and appeared at the hearing. They had a full opportunity to be heard. They were found to have violated the constitutional rights of the class members. Perhaps in the future, these three can explain exactly why defendants shouldn’t be enjoined from breaking the law.

2. The panel coplains that the Injunction requires “… the enjoined parties to submit for judicial review all current and future internal guidance, policies, and directives regarding efforts to implement the order….”

No it doesn’t. Here’s the relevant section:

6. It is further ORDERED that Defendants shall issue guidance to officers and agents to implement this Order. Defendants shall file with this Court such guidance and any directives, policies, or regulations implementing the guidance within 5 business days of issuance of the Order, with a continuing obligation to immediately file with this Court any subsequent changes or revisions to that guidance or implementing directives, policies, or regulations through the period of this Order.

This doesn’t call for judicial review. It prevents the defendants from hiding their non-compliance from the attorneys for the class members.

3. The order is too “prescriptive”. “For example, it enumerates and proscribes the use of scores of riot control weapons and other devices in a way that resembles a federal regulation.”

Apparently the panel didn’t realize the extent of the duplicity of the defendants and their lawyers who routinely claim innocence because an order is not precise. For example, the head of the Customs and Border Patrol, Greg Bovino, wrangled with Judge Ellis in open court about the number and location of identifying marks on the costumes of his agents.

Or perhaps the panel thinks one or more of the identified weapons is just fine. Here’s a short list of some of them from §1,c if the Injunction:

… kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs), Compressed Air Launchers (e.g., PLS and FN303), Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) Spray, CS gas, CN gas, or other chemical irritants, 40 mm Munitions Launchers, less-lethal shotguns, Less-Lethal Specialty Impact-Chemical Munitions (LLSI-CM), Controlled Noise and Light Distraction Devices (CNLDDs), Electronic Control Weapons (ECWs)

B. Standing

The panel says the class members have no reason to fear imminent future harm. They should just wait around and see if any federal agents beat them senseless or tear gas their eighborhood. The panel says they know from media accounts that Bovino and his goon squad are gone, so why worry? Perhaps they missed the media reports of violations of the Injunction by defendants within a week of issuance.

Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are accused of firing pepper balls at moving vehicles, deploying tear gas and flash bangs in Little Village [a heavily Hispanic neighborhood] and exposing a 1-year-old and her family to chemical munitions as they traveled to a local warehouse store {they shot chemical weapons through the window of the care with the child in the back seat.].

But sure, this insane suggestion is warranted.

C. Irreparable harm to defendants.

The panel quotes this obscene sentence from Trump v. CASA: “Any time that the Government is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes enacted by representatives of its people, it suffers a form of irreparable injury.” Does this authorize Trump’s goons to violate people’s Constitutional rights as long as they claim to be enforcing a statute? Apparently these judges think if Trump claims to be enforcing the law, it’s a terrible harm to, I don’t know, maybe government agents,  if they can’t violate our constitutional rights.

D. But maybe they’ll issue their own order

The panel assures us that maybe some day they’ll read the record and think up their own order. They ignore the massive effort put in by Judge Ellis and her staff (special shout-out to her clerks and office staff for the clear and coherent opinions and orders, since the panel just dismissed all of their work.)

I know I speak for the toddlers and families in Little Village, Belmont-Cragin, Albany Park and the rest of my beautiful city when I say how grateful we are for their willingness to at least consider protecting us from chemical attack.

The Bigger Picture

Now Bovino and his goon squad have moved on to Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Chapel Hill, and other Democratic cities in North Carolina. They’re using the same tactics. One of the incidents in this story is a Kavanaugh Stop: “… an agent smashed in the window of a US citizen’s truck and the man, who is Hispanic, was temporarily detained.” This is a clear example of the indifference of the judiciary to individual Constitutional rights under the rules set by John Roberts and the other anti-democratic members of SCOTUS.

The only rights the SCOTUS majority will protect are those of the Imperial President.

 

=======

 

Update: I had a suspicion that the panel just typed up a couple of sentences from the defendant’s’ motion. Here’s a link to the 24 page motion and a very long appendix. The brief is signed by Brett Shumate and Yaakov Roth, among others, from DoJ. These guys think they are free to assault my neighbors with no restraints. The ugly tone of this motion is, to my perhaps prejudiced eye, mirrored by the ugly tone of the panel.

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Trump Trips over Own Feet Hastening Parallel Retreats

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It is official conventional wisdom.

Trump is retreating on Jeffrey Epstein.

Or rather, Democrats led by Ro Khanna, survivors, and a handful of Republicans who could not give a fuck, starting with Tom Massie, forced Trump to retreat.

Retreat. RETREAT!! Bill Kristol wrote.

And they’re laughing at the position it puts Mike Johnson in. (Well, not CNN. CNN pretends Johnson had a “strategy” on Epstein.)

President Trump’s stunning reversal on the “Epstein files” discharge petition has undercut months of work by Speaker Mike Johnson.

Why it matters: The Epstein issue has plagued the House since the summer. Now the speaker is about to suffer a clear defeat over Reps. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna’s (D-Calif.) discharge petition.

  • Johnson cut the week short before the August recess after Democrats forced multiple votes on releasing the files. He then kept the House out of session for nearly two months — a move that, intentionally or not, delayed the discharge petition from reaching the floor.
  • “What I am opposed to is the reckless disregard that was used in drafting this discharge petition,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday.

But on Sunday, Trump reversed months of calls to block an Epstein vote, saying Republicans should vote for it. On Monday, he said he’d sign the bill.

  • Tuesday’s vote is expected to pick up significant GOP support, including from Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), the highest-ranking woman in the House GOP leadership.

Zoom in: Johnson’s posture about the legislation hasn’t changed, a source familiar with his thinking told Axios.

  • But after months of railing against it, he opened the door Monday to supporting it.

The focus here is on Mike Johnson. Not the way Democrats chased Johnson out of DC a week early this summer, literally stealing him of the power of his gavel, then forced his members to stay home (and Adelita Grijalva to wait to be serve her constituents) for two months while Americans suffered the costs of the shutdown.

It doesn’t consider that by undercutting Johnson, Trump risks destroying the way he set Johnson up as his functionary. Trump and Johnson are both treated as the agents here.

Both NYT and CNN view this as a rare retreat from Trump.

For the first 10 months of his presidency, Mr. Trump has steered the narrative and bullied Congress into doing whatever he wanted with almost no pushback. But as Republicans gear up for midterm elections and some begin to plot a future after Mr. Trump, the Epstein episode is a rare instance in which he has lost control.

For months, House Republicans had dreaded the prospect of a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Such a moment would leave them torn between pressure from a fervent base demanding that they support the release of the files and a vengeful president who was demanding the opposite.

Mr. Trump’s about-face was a bow to the inevitable that came after it had become clear that many, if not most, Republicans were planning to support the measure, wary of appearing to aid in a coverup for a sex offender.

Kyle Cheney is one of the only people noting that this is not coming in isolation, citing these six (he says seven) signs that Trump is losing his grip.

  1. Republicans refuse to back down on Epstein vote
  2. Indiana GOP lawmakers don’t bite on redistricting
  3. Warning signs appear for tariffs at the Supreme Court
  4. No luck on the filibuster or the blue slip, either
  5. Trump gets a one-two punch after pardoning 2020 allies
  6. MAGA rebukes Trump on 50-year mortgages, H1B visas

He included seventh on social media: 7) Voters overwhelmingly rejects Rs in off-year elections.

I’d add to this list: Trump’s coalition is also unraveling over whether they should be enthusiastic champions or opponents to Nazism, both a squalid fight played out in real life, and potentially useful given revelations that one of his House Nazis, Paul Ingrassia, also interceded to help accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate.

If we use it right, we can use the anti-Nazi backlash as a way to offer an exit ramp to Republicans fleeing the ship, one JD Vance, at least, intends to go down with.

But the Epstein retreat comes amid another important retreat, one only partly captured by Cheney’s list. Last week, the reality that American can’t grow (much) bananas or coffee caught up to Trump and after he single-handedly spiked the price of key breakfast goods, Trump started to retreat — like the Epstein vote — before his partners-in-crime, this time the Supreme Court, abandoned him.

Trump is trying to do with tariffs what he is also trying to do with Epstein, squeeze some victory out of his defeat, float rebates as a way to avoid explaining to voters that Trump single-handedly made Barbie unaffordable for Christmas and, depending on how SCOTUS rules, the possibility he created an enormous hole in his budget and the onerous process of paying back importers.

Both of these may be (attempted) tactical retreats. Pam Bondi may attempt to bottle up the Epstein files at DOJ. Some of Trump’s stupid tariffs were lawfully enacted, and also stupid.

But it’s important to note that these retreats are happening in parallel, not least because tariffs are one area where Republicans have always agreed with Democrats, even while hoping someone else would make the problem go away.

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Stephen Miller Prioritized This Guy’s Shame Over Children Being Raped

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There have been a slew of articles in recent days about how DHS and DOJ are neglecting important concerns to instead chase Stephen Miller’s racist fever dreams.

NYT has a long piece summarizing the stories we’ve heard piecemeal of 60 DOJ lawyers who’ve left. MS-NOW reveals that an FBI SWAT team is babysitting Kash’s girlfriend.

And NYT has a story that incorporates FOIAed data with interviews about what DHS investigators aren’t doing because they are instead chasing migrants.

Homeland security agents investigating sexual crimes against children, for instance, have been redeployed to the immigrant crackdown for weeks at a time, hampering their pursuit of child predators.

A national security probe into the black market for Iranian oil sold to finance terrorism has been slowed down for months because of the shift to immigration work, allowing tanker ships and money to disappear.

And federal efforts to combat human smuggling and sex trafficking have languished with investigators reassigned to help staff deportation efforts.

[snip]

Homeland security investigators worked approximately 33 percent fewer hours on child exploitation cases from February through April compared to their average in prior years, according to a Times analysis of data obtained through the F.O.I.A. lawsuit.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Hany Farid, a computer scientist who helped create software used by law enforcement and technology companies to detect child sexual abuse material. “You can’t say you care about kids when you’re diverting actual resources that are protecting children.”

It includes a story of a child who got lost as agents were pulled off to chase immigrants.

Earlier this year, special agents at Homeland Security Investigations found online videos showing violent sexual abuse of an unidentified young child.

Trained to hunt down pedophiles who use the internet to distribute illegal imagery, the H.S.I. agents spent weeks analyzing the footage to try to identify the child and infiltrate the online networks that had shared and may have directed the abuse, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation.

But the agents working the case have since been asked to go out in the field and help arrest undocumented immigrants. The reassignment has hindered progress toward identifying and rescuing the child, said this person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation. The person said that the agents, no longer able to spend as much time undercover online, had lost contact with a key source they had cultivated over years in the online world of abusers.

But the story that really brings the misplaced priority home for me is this criminal complaint, noted in the latest CourtWatch, charging an American citizen with assault “involving physical contact” for spitting at — and filming — a Supervisory Border Patrol Agent in the parking lot of an Anaheim Home Depot on November 6.

When I first saw the picture accusing Robert Cortez of being the one guy out of 15 protesting Border Patrol in that parking lot of being the guy who spat at “JA” (as the alleged spitee is called), somehow managing to first “hit his right arm and [then] splash onto his face,” on what appears to be his left side, I couldn’t see the spit in the picture in the affidavit at all.

I see it there, now, on the strap of his helmet.

It’s the affiant’s day job — hunting child exploitation — that gets me.

3. I have been employed as a Special Agent (“SA”) of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) since 2023, and I am currently assigned to the Child Exploitation Investigations Group in Orange County. Prior to my employment as a Special Agent, I was employed as a Border Patrol Agent with USBP from 2018-2021. My responsibilities as a Special Agent include investigating crimes involving the sexual exploitation of minors, including, but not limited to, offenses involving travel in foreign commerce to engage in sexually explicit conduct with minors, and offenses involving the production, possession, distribution, and transportation of child pornography.

This guy’s day job is hunting down assholes who rape children.

Instead of doing that, he is avenging poor JS, who might feel shame for being filmed — and spat on — while snatching workers from a Home Depot parking lot.

And now DOJ is going to spend time and money to try to cage this guy for trying to shame those snatching his neighbors.

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Trailer Park Slum Lord: The Generational Corruption of Bill Pulte

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The thing about Bill Pulte’s corruption is that a fair number of Republicans seem have it in for him, too (as laid out in this Politico piece in September).

That may help to explain the 3,000 word profile airing the family’s dirty laundry while detailing that Pulte’s closest ties to his family’s developing empire are to some decrepit trailer parks.

He did not issue press releases about the five mobile home parks his companies acquired in Florida for about $3 million in the two years before he was nominated to become the F.H.F.A. director in January.

Recent visits to two of the mobile home parks revealed a broken fence and overflowing trash bins. The dozen or so trailers at the parks were aging. Some had windows covered with faded American flags and cardboard. Duct tape patched torn screens.

Documents show Mr. Pulte was the signatory on a $2 million mortgage taken out on three of the properties in August 2024. The woman listed as an agent on some of the mobile home parks also works in his charitable organization. In January 2024, he told an interviewer on an investing podcast that the “Pulte Family” was buying mobile home parks and planning to revamp them amid a market of rising rents.

In the same interview, Mr. Pulte said he planned to make them into “nice communities.”

But his companies have been slow to make repairs, said residents of three of the parks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.

A resident of one property, in Lake Worth in Palm Beach County, said he had gone months without a working stove, despite asking the management company to fix it. Another resident said he had spent $300 to repair his broken air-conditioning unit. Some trailer park leases warn tenants that if they miss rent payments, which are due weekly, “they will be removed for trespassing by the local sheriff!!”

At some properties, rents have been rising. A resident at a mobile home park in Cottondale in the Florida panhandle said in a filing in Jackson County Court this summer that his monthly rent had increased to $950 from $550 after Mr. Pulte’s company took over. At a park in Ruskin, south of Tampa, rents recently rose $100 a month — about 16 percent — to pay for a new dumpster, several residents said.

None of the mobile home properties carry the Pulte family’s name.

One of the quickest ways to taint someone in Trump’s eyes is to make him look squalid.

Meanwhile — and purely by happenstance — the Epstein dump James Comer released to distract from Trump’s knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking included a document that seems to be Epstein’s side of the split with Trump.

In a February 1, 2019 email first sent to himself (possibly BCCed to someone else?), and then sent to Michael Wolff, Epstein transitions directly from a claim in one of the letters from which Comer was trying to distract — that Trump came to his house a lot while someone Epstein trafficked was there, purportedly Virginia Giuffre — to his description over the fight about the property that Trump would one day launder into cash from Dmitry Rybolovlev, the fight that Trump had also publicly used to explain the split. Much of Epstein’s focus was on his suspicions that Trump didn’t have the money to buy the mansion in the first place and probably didn’t pay taxes on it.

But amid the description, Epstein describes that “his friend pulty the developer” was part of Trump’s bid. If that is Pulte, it would be Pulte’s father who, like Trump’s dad, fronted him in the real estate business. [Update, corrected per this report. h/t DrAwkward]

In Epstein’s mind, then, there’s a tie between Trump’s knowledge he “stole” his spa girl and the fight over the Palm Beach mansion, a fight in which “pulty the developer” played some part.

But all that is in the past.

Let’s move onto concerns about the present and future.

AP reports that an aide to Pulte pulled information on single home mortgage rates and shared it with a competitor. When Fannie executives pointed out this was collusion, they were fired (another part of the explanation for Pulte’s purge last month).

A confidant of Bill Pulte, the Trump administration’s top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing data from Fannie Mae to a principal competitor, alarming senior officials of the government-backed lending giant who warned it could expose the company to claims that it was colluding with a rival to fix mortgage rates.

Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Fannie Mae executives were unnerved about what one called the “very problematic” disclosure of data by Lauren Smith, the company’s head of marketing, who was acting on Pulte’s behalf.

“Lauren, the information that was provided to Freddie Mac in this email is a problem,” Malloy Evans, senior vice president of Fannie Mae’s single-family mortgage division, wrote in an Oct. 11 email. “That is confidential, competitive information.”

He also copied Fannie Mae’s CEO, Priscilla Almodovar, on the email, which bore the subject line: “As Per Director Pulte’s Ask.” Evans asked Fannie Mae’s top attorney “to weigh in on what, if any, steps we need to take legally to protect ourselves now.”

While Smith still holds her position, the senior Fannie Mae officials who called her conduct into question were all forced out of their jobs late last month, along with internal ethics watchdogs who were investigating Pulte and his allies.

This effort seems to stem from Pulte’s response to Trump’s orders to push builders to build more single family homes.

Pulte’s power over the mortgage lending industry is unusual. Not long after his Senate confirmation, he appointed himself chairman of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which hold trillions of dollars in assets. The companies serve as a crucial backstop for the home lending industry by buying up mortgages from individual lenders, which are packaged together and sold to investors.

The three competing roles present the potential for a conflict of interest that is detailed in emails reviewed by AP. Like many matters of public policy in Trump’s Washington, it appears to have begun with a social media post.

In October, Trump criticized the homebuilding industry, which he likened to the oil-market-dominating cartel OPEC.

“They’re sitting on 2 million empty lots, A RECORD,” the president posted to his social media platform, Truth Social. “I’m asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going.”

“On it,” Pulte posted in response on X.

That is, Pulte may have abused his overlapping roles running the country’s housing finance in an attempt to solve the fact that he’s not otherwise good at his job.

And so he tried to cheat.

And when caught cheating, he fired the people who caught him.

The fact that Pulte keeps getting caught botching his day job — the one that, when he fails, could tank the entire US if not global economy — has not distracted him from his real love: framing Trump’s enemies.

This time, Eric Swalwell was the target.

A top housing official in President Donald Trump’s administration has referred California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell to the Justice Department for a potential federal criminal probe, based on allegations of mortgage and tax fraud related to a Washington, D.C., home, according to a person familiar with the referral.

He is the fourth Democratic official to face mortgage fraud allegations in recent months.

Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, alleged in a letter sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday that Swalwell may have made false or misleading statements in loan documents.

The matter has also been referred to the agency’s acting inspector general, this person said.

“As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me,” Swalwell said in a statement to NBC News.

Perhaps Pulte has a whole portfolio of flimsy claims about Trump’s enemies in a folder somewhere, to deliver up to Trump every time someone, even some Republican, raises real concerns about his basic competence.

Thus far, it seems to have insulated him from any real accountability.

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