A time of reckoning for Trump's attorney general

David French of The New York Times writes:

October was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month for the Department of Justice.

The worst moment happened on Oct. 5, when the department made a third attempt to prosecute James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The first attempt, an indictment for lying to Congress, failed when a federal court dismissed the case because the prosecutor was appointed illegally. The second, an indictment for threatening the president by posting a photo online of a collection of seashells on a beach that were arranged to say “86 47,” is still pending.

Comey, however, has filed two motions to dismiss — one based on his free speech rights and the other claiming that the government has engaged in vindictive prosecution.

The case is absurd on its face. In a 1969 case, Watts v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a far more explicit threat — the defendant had said that he would resist the draft, but “if they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.” — was nothing more than “political hyperbole” and protected by the First Amendment.

The third attempt is, if anything, even more specious. The Department of Justice filed what is called a criminal information (not an indictment), claiming that Comey leaked classified information that ended up in The New York Times in October 2016.

This is not the first time that the Trump administration has considered bringing this charge. Trump administration prosecutors looked into this incident in 2017 and 2019 and declined to bring charges both times.

But there’s now a new sheriff in town — Todd Blanche, the attorney general of the United States and President Trump’s former personal lawyer — and Todd Blanche does what Trump says.

To be clear, an information isn’t an indictment. It can’t actually start Comey’s case. The Fifth Amendment says, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury.”

Instead, it’s a unilateral filing by prosecutors that has the effect of sometimes tolling (that is to say, stopping) the statute of limitations. It can only actually start a federal felony prosecution if the defendant waives his right to indictment by grand jury, which Comey has not done.

In fact, the Department of Justice admits that it filed the information for the purpose of tolling the statute of limitations. It was filed on the very day that the 10-year statute of limitations was set to expire. In effect, they’re hoping it can serve as a place holder that keeps the case alive until a grand jury finally indicts.

But there’s a problem — a big problem. While some federal criminal statutes allow the department to toll the statute of limitations with an information, this one does not. As Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, wrote in National Review, the relevant statute requires an indictment within 10 years. It makes no reference to an information.

In other words, this legal filing is a bad joke. The lawyers who brought it should be ashamed of themselves, and they should be sanctioned by the court.

But that’s not the only legal embarrassment from the last month. On Monday, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that the Department of Justice acted illegally in 2025 when it fired Maurene Comey, James Comey’s daughter, a highly respected prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury refused to indict Cassidy Hutchinson for perjury. Hutchinson was a key witness in the House of Representatives’ investigation of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

Hutchinson joins a long line of political opponents that Trump has tried — and failed — to indict, including Attorney General Letitia James of New York and six Democratic lawmakers who had posted a video saying that members of the military had a duty to disobey illegal orders.

It is extremely rare for federal grand juries to refuse to indict. I’ve known prosecutors who’ve gone their entire careers without seeing a “no true bill” (the technical term for the refusal to indict). Under Trump, it’s a regular occurrence.

It gets worse. Also on Tuesday, Zia Faruqui, a federal magistrate judge, eviscerated Trump administration prosecutors after they tried to add a new charge against two former F.B.I. officials charged with lying to Congress without seeking court approval.

The judge ordered the new complaint struck from the record. “It is inappropriate,” he said. “I am surprised that a complaint unsigned by a judge was filed on a docket where I am unaware of that ever happening in this court.”

“Everything you are doing is just giving me more and more concern,” he said.

I’m going to stop there, but even as I do, I feel as if I’m misleading you. I’m stopping because of space, not because that’s the end of the outrages. In case after case after case, the Department of Justice is targeting Trump opponents, making frivolous arguments and engaging in vindictive, meritless prosecutions.

I blame Trump, but I also blame Blanche. He doesn’t understand his own job.

We all know that Trump has an extreme view of executive power that renders him a virtual elected monarch. His administration’s actions extend well beyond conventional unitary executive theory, which puts a premium on presidential control over the executive branch. He treats the law as his plaything, deciding on his own whim which laws will be enforced and which ones will not.

It is true that the president is the boss of every cabinet official. He can fire them at will. But it is also true that the attorney general is different from every other member of the cabinet.

Unlike, say, Pete Hegseth, Blanche has three masters, not one. The attorney general and all the lawyers working for him also answer to the judiciary, which not only decides the cases he brings; it also governs the conduct of D.O.J. officials in court. And he also answers to the bar — rules of ethics are binding on every attorney, including government attorneys.

In addition, Trump may be Blanche’s boss, but he is not Blanche’s client. Blanche’s client is the government of the United States, including its various agencies. Blanche owes his fiduciary duty to the government (and, ultimately, the Constitution), not to the president.

In the criminal context, these additional obligations have profound meaning. In a 1935 case, Berger v. United States, the Supreme Court said, “The United States attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all, and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.”

Read those words, and then ask yourself: Does that sound like Todd Blanche to you?

The attorney general is no ordinary lawyer, and neither are the attorneys who work for the Department of Justice. Trump is their boss, but the Constitution is their true master, and no president can compel them to violate ethics rules or court orders.

Last month, I wrote a newsletter urging a Democratic House and Senate (should the Democrats win control on Tuesday) to follow Senator Elissa Slotkin’s advice and hold the administration’s most malevolent actors accountable for their worst misdeeds. It’s time to resurrect impeachment. I mentioned Pete Hegseth. I should have mentioned Todd Blanche too.

His “high crime” is corrupting the Department of Justice, and only a decisive act of political hygiene can cleanse the D.O.J. of MAGA’s terrible stain.

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Indiana carried out execution this morning, Florida and Alabama on deck today

The 33rd Execution of 2026

An Indiana man who admitted killing his girlfriend’s two children was executed early Thursday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled for the same day in the U.S., reported The Associated Press.

Jeffrey Weisheit killed the children, ages 8 and 5, by setting fire to his girlfriend’s house in the Evansville area in 2010.

Weisheit died at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. The lethal injection started just after midnight and he was pronounced dead at 12:45 a.m., according to Noelle Russell, Indiana Department of Correction chief communications officer.

She said Weisheit’s final meal was barbecue ribs and he had no final words.

Florida and Alabama were also set to carry out executions Thursday, which would mark the second time this year that three people in the U.S. would be put to death on the same day.

It will be Florida’s 19th execution this year under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — matching a record set by the state in 2025 — but the first this year in Indiana.

The death penalty has faced renewed scrutiny following the September failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, although courts have rejected efforts to halt other executions since she survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Lawyers had asked for a life sentence for Weisheit

Lawyers wanted Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun to allow Weisheit, 50, to undergo brain scans in an effort to reinforce their argument that he has a history of head injuries and mental health problems. Braun declined, and he also turned down a request to reduce the sentence to life in prison.

Weisheit’s latest objection centered on the state’s planned use of lethal drugs purchased from a pharmacy that is facing a disciplinary hearing next week at the Indiana Pharmacy Board. The Indiana Department of Correction said that it’s confident “in our ability to humanely carry out” the execution.

Following the execution, Braun issued a brief statement noting Weisheit’s case was reviewed many times by state and federal courts.

“These reviews have never resulted in an overturned sentence,” he said. “Today, Weisheit’s sentence has been carried out as ordered by the court.”

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said that the execution provided “long-awaited justice for Alyssa Lynch and her brother Caleb, two innocent children whose lives were stolen in an act of unspeakable cruelty.”

Florida on the verge of tying last year’s execution record

In Florida, Jesse Guardado confessed and quickly pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a 75-year-old woman inside her Walton County home in 2004 before stealing her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to support his drug habit. She had helped him get a job and housing.

A federal appeals court in 2024 said that Guardado, now 64, had received a “full and fair” hearing during the death penalty phase of his case.

Florida has carried out more than half the 32 total executions in the U.S. so far this year. DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has said that his goal is to bring justice to families who have waited decades for the death sentences to be carried out.

Alabama man convicted of killings when he was 19

Michael Taylor, 54, faces execution in Alabama, 35 years after fatally beating an older couple with a metal bar during a robbery in their Gadsden home. Police arrested the 19-year-old Taylor with the victims’ Cadillac, an hour away in Birmingham. The execution would be the state’s third this year.

Death penalty opponents had urged Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to reduce Taylor’s sentence to life in prison, noting his age and immaturity at the time of the killings. She declined.

“If the state kills Michael, it is not the 19-year-old who made the worst mistake of his life who it kills. But the mature, well-respected, God-fearing man sitting in that cell today,” said Esther Brown of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The state plans to execute Taylor by lethal injection after a judge declared a nitrogen gas method unconstitutional. His attorneys objected to the last-minute switch to lethal injection since he selected nitrogen gas as his method several years ago, but a judge ruled against Taylor.

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The great rebuke!

  "I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!"
                                                    -Donald Trump, 11/3/26

As of early Wednesday morning, Democrats were projected to win at least 250 House seats, with Republicans winning a minimum of 160 seats, according to the CNBC Election Desk.

A number of Democratic candidates won in House districts that were redesigned by Republican-controlled state legislatures with the intention of easing the way for GOP candidates to win.

Democrats were on track to hold at least 54 seats in the Senate, with Republicans likely to hold at least 42 seats. The big Democratic winners on Tuesday night include James Talarico in the Texas Senate election. He overcame an unprecedented flurry of $224 million in spending by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to boost the candidacy of Republican nominee Ken Paxton, the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general.

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Today day is Election Day, if you haven't voted get to the polls

 According to Ballotpedia:

All 435 districts in the U.S. House of Representatives and 33 seats in the U.S. Senate are up for election. Five of the House's six non-voting members are also up for election.

There are 36 gubernatorial offices up for election in 2026. Heading into the 2026 elections, there are 26 Republican and 24 Democratic governors.

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Trump attacks the integrity of elections in build-up to midterms

Ahead of the midterm elections, President Donald Trump has systematically demolished institutional guardrails that prevented him from overturning the 2020 presidential election, ProPublica’s reporting has shown.

Trump has empowered his loyalists to try to transform the voting process. He launched an unprecedented — and largely unsuccessful — effort to find noncitizen voters. And he tried to restrict mail-in voting.

The reporters at ProPublica have spent much of this year covering Trump’s efforts to exert more federal control over elections. Here are five takeaways from their reporting.

1. The Trump administration has sought greater federal control over elections.

In April, Doug Bock Clark and Jen Fifield reported on Trump’s efforts to “take over” the midterm elections, detailing how the administration has discarded or diminished endeavors across the federal government to protect the voting process or block foreign interference. Those efforts have included cutting staff on election-related teams at federal law enforcement agencies and finding ways to exert greater federal control over voting. 

Our reporting led by Peter Elkind revealed that the Trump administration harnessed Homeland Security Investigations’ personnel, technology and legal authority to try to back up Trump’s unproven claim that illegal voting by noncitizens is tilting elections toward Democrats. Administration officials insisted the effort spearheaded by HSI was producing meaningful results. Our analysis of Justice Department data found, as of May, 41 alleged noncitizens were charged with voting illegally or other election-related crimes. Earlier this month, CBS reported 156 people have been charged since the beginning of the second Trump administration.

2. Trump has pushed out career officials — and is coordinating with a conservative grassroots organization to transform elections.

At least 75 nonpartisan career officials who’d held roles at federal agencies related to election integrity and safety have been fired or left the government.

Two dozen Trump appointees — including many from the election-denial movement — have been hired. Ahead of the midterms, current and former government officials and election security experts have expressed concerns that once-fringe actors who’ve espoused debunked conspiracy theories about elections are now in positions to control the narrative around the voting process. (A DHS spokesperson said it hires “experts with diverse backgrounds who go through a rigorous vetting process.”)

3. Trump officials asked a cybersecurity agency to secretly acquire a voting machine — and hack it.

A few months into Trump’s second term, political appointees at DHS asked its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to procure a voting machine, hack it and report the findings so they could be given to the White House, two former administration officials with knowledge of the request told Clark and Andy Mannix.

4. The White House floated an idea that would’ve shut down virtually all mail-in voting.

The White House initially proposed a change for the Postal Service that would’ve been even more disruptive than the rule the Supreme Court rejected in September.

As Fifield and Elkind reported, the Trump administration suggested all ballots be delivered through certified mail, meaning voters would need to be home to sign for delivery of their ballots. The Trump administration dropped this plan after the USPS said it would be too difficult to execute. It instead proceeded with the executive order that would’ve forced postal workers to serve as gatekeepers, deciding which ballots would be delivered and which wouldn’t.

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Voters in Virginia will decide if former felons right to vote will be restored automatically

More than 200,000 Virginians who regained their voting rights after a court ruled earlier this year they never should have lost them based on a Reconstruction-era law. 

In addition to that case, Gov. Abigail Spanberger restored about 60,000 others’ rights over the summer, reported The Virginia Mercury.  

But the third in a slate of constitutional amendments on Election Day ballots will determine if voting restoration will become automatic after incarceration, or remain a petition-based system. 

Proposed Constitutional Amendment Question 3

Question: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended (i) to provide for the fundamental right to vote in the Commonwealth, (ii) to revise the qualifications of voters so that a person convicted of a felony is not entitled to vote during his period of incarceration but is automatically invested with the right to vote upon release from incarceration, and (iii) to update the existing prohibition on voting by persons found to be mentally incompetent to instead apply to persons who have been found to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting?

Virginia’s constitution permanently disenfranchises people with felonies unless a governor pardons them or they successfully petition a governor to restore their voting rights. That process is subjective and not always transparent.

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ICE agent indicted in Houston for aggravated assault

 A grand jury in Texas on Friday indicted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who struck and injured a Mexican construction worker with a vehicle in Houston this month, reported The New York Times.

The agent, Mario Alberto Morales, 33, is facing state charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, said Sean Teare, the district attorney in Harris County, which includes Houston. He added that Mr. Morales has not turned himself in. It was unclear whether the defendant had legal representation.

The worker, Miguel Parra Hernandez, 48, an undocumented immigrant, was driving to his job on the morning of Oct. 10 when federal immigration authorities tried to pull him over in unmarked vehicles, according to Houston immigration advocates.

When Mr. Parra Hernandez stopped the car, he and a passenger tried to flee. ICE has said that Mr. Parra Hernandez had run in front of one of the agency’s vehicles and was struck. But surveillance video from a nearby business appeared to show Mr. Parra Hernandez and another man running away as an ICE vehicle veered around the corner and appeared to hit Mr. Parra Hernandez from behind.

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