Dem
53
Ties
2
GOP
45
The DoJ continues its rampage against Donald Trump's perceived political adversaries, even though it's being continuously thwarted by grand juries and federal judges. There is one small, but recurring, problem: The cases are bogus and have no legal basis.
First up are the Comeys, who are proving to be more-than-worthy adversaries of a president who is obsessed with abusing the powers of his office, along with the vast resources of the Department of Justice, to attack anyone who has dared criticize him or anyone associated with someone who has criticized him. Maurene Comey, a respected and talented federal prosecutor who successfully prosecuted cases against Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, was summarily fired in July 2025. Her offense was that she is the daughter of James Comey, the former FBI director who dared to resist Trump's attempted weaponization of the FBI and DoJ in his first term. She sued for wrongful termination because, as a career prosecutor, she is protected by federal law that prohibits turning bureaucrats into political cronies.
On Monday, a district court ruled in Comey's favor on both statutory and constitutional grounds, finding that the government had violated due process, separation of powers principles, and federal administrative law. The judge awarded her back pay. Given that Trump and agency heads have emptied departments of civil servants, this victory will probably encourage more of those servants to challenge their firings. The government has said it will appeal and no doubt this will wind up in front of the Supreme Court, where there's no telling how the Republican majority will rule. Given their support for the unitary executive theory and their rulings allowing Trump to summarily fire independent agency heads, they could find that Congress doesn't have the authority to limit the president's ability to fire anyone. In that case we'd return to the spoils systems that the legislature enacted laws to combat. In fairness, that was a mere 150 years ago, so we really don't have much evidence that such laws work. Anyhow, for now, chalk one up for another Comey.
As for James Comey, mere hours after Maurene won in court, a new charge against him was unsealed by a federal judge. The new charge accuses him of leaking national security information. In case you're wondering if this case is as weak as the sea shells case or the perjury case that was thrown out, the DoJ did not manage to get a grand jury indictment. Instead, they filed what's called a "criminal information" under seal earlier this month. They can't proceed unless and until they get a grand jury indictment, and Comey's lawyers are saying that the 10-year statute of limitations ran on October 5, when the document was filed. The charge stems from a New York Times article from October 5, 2016, about a surveillance warrant issued secretly to Yahoo to search for e-mails related to a terrorist organization. The DoJ claims that Comey directed staff to contact the Times to correct some inaccuracies in a different article about the case and revealed classified information. Comey's lawyers say this was investigated in Trump's first term and no wrongdoing was found.
Once again, the DoJ had to recruit lower level prosecutors from Texas and Florida to sign off on this garbage, alongside Trent McCotter. McCotter, who is listed as the Acting Deputy Attorney General, also signed off on the last-ditch effort to interfere in California's elections. Between Stanley Woodward and him, they have become the go-to stooges for Trump-related prosecutorial abuse.
The feds also continue to pursue other former underlings who dared to cross Trump. Cassidy Hutchinson, former White House aide, went to the top of Trump's enemies list when she told Congress what she had been told and what she had witnessed regarding Trump's behavior on January 6, 2021. Earlier this week, a grand jury rejected an indictment federal prosecutors brought to charge her with perjury over her Congressional testimony about Trump's role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Prosecutors inside the DoJ had warned that the evidence was insufficient to charge her with a crime but that hasn't stopped the office from carrying out Trump's retribution campaign. So, they continue to get humiliated by grand juries who expect evidence that a crime has been committed. And grand juries sit for months and hear multiple cases, so the more the DoJ keeps bringing these weak cases, the harder it will be for them to secure indictments, even when it doesn't involve Trump's adversaries.
Interestingly, or ominously, the Hutchinson case was brought by the Civil Rights Division, which is Harmeet Dhillon's. She seems to have appointed herself as Trump's muscle. Needless to say, the mission of the Civil Rights Division does not include bringing trumped-up (Trumped-up?) charges against those perceived to be disloyal to the king. The revelation about the non-indictment came about in an unexpected way. During a recess in a hearing in a different criminal case, also involving bogus charges against former FBI agents (keep reading), Neville Hedley, the acting senior litigation counsel (is anyone serving without an "acting" title in any of these positions?), walked in to tell the magistrate judge Zia Faruqui that the grand jury had issued a no true bill or a "non-concurrence." Hedley did not identify the defendant but the press who were assembled for the hearing in the agents' case quickly figured out who it was and reported it.
The hearing that Faruqui was presiding over involves Trump's relentless pursuit of former FBI agents over—wait for it—Hunter Biden's laptop. Are we really supposed to believe that this administration is concerned about a president's relative potentially profiting off the presidency? Do they really want to highlight that issue? Right before an election where Trump's corruption is front and center? Apparently, yes... yes, they do. And they also want to highlight their mind-boggling incompetence. Once again, they've managed to piss off a federal judge with underhanded and unlawful behavior.
As with the latest Comey case, former FBI agents Nikki Floris and Bradley Benavides were charged with a criminal information instead of an indictment. And it was signed by a prosecutor from Missouri who then tried to add a new charge without getting the judge's approval or securing an indictment. Faruqui, a federal magistrate judge, was not amused and warned that the prosecutor's behavior made it seem as though the case was brought for an "ulterior motive." He added: "Everything you are doing is just giving me more and more concern... Why today, in this case, have you changed the entire history of how you charge cases?" The judge threw out the new complaint. He also noted the agents' stellar record and that they each won multiple awards while serving at the FBI. One FBI agent testified at the hearing and called the case a "distraction" from his public corruption cases.
The hearing on the motion to dismiss continued into a second day on Wednesday, with defendants' attorneys questioning current FBI agents about the origins of the investigation. Even if the DoJ gets past this stage, they still need to secure an indictment from a grand jury, which they are clearly having trouble doing. The clown show continues. (L)