Justice & Legal

Justice Department charges James Comey a third time Monday, over a leak two earlier FBI investigations closed without charges.

By The Wrecking CrewThe Remedy Desk · the evening edition, 1 November 2026

I'm not defending the Department. The Department doesn't need defending. I'm putting the week in order, which nobody else has bothered to do.

Monday. Justice filed a third case against James Comey, two counts of leaking information related to national defense, in federal court in Washington. The Guardian notes the filing gives few details, and that the government alleges the leak in 2016, with an unnamed person. Few details is what a charging document is for. Two earlier FBI investigations into that same leak closed without charges, which the other side reads as an answer and I read as two looks that missed something. By Friday a judge had called the third prosecution a possible exercise in futility, and prosecutors had suggested a fourth charge anyway. That is the process continuing.

Also Monday, a judge ruled the administration unlawfully fired Comey's prosecutor daughter, who had worked on the Epstein sex-crimes case. Different matter. The receipt says the administration, which is a wide word, and I would rather it stayed wide.

Also Monday, on Truth Social, the president wrote that anybody reporting voter fraud "will be paid $1,000,000 upon the arrest and conviction of those that created the Fraud." Call it a bounty if you need the word. It is a public-integrity measure with a performance clause: it pays on arrest and conviction. The count of named cases to collect on stands at zero, and the dollars paid out stand at zero. Zero dollars is a disciplined program.

Then the courts. A letter from senior Justice officials, reported on 17 October, warned California's local officials of criminal investigation and possible prosecution if they "knowingly tabulate ballots" cast by suspected noncitizen voters. On 22 October it emerged that a federal judge in California had ruled late Wednesday that Homeland Security violated the Voting Rights Act by sending agents door to door to ask people about their immigration status and whether they had voted. On Saturday a judge ordered the Justice Department to halt threats to election workers, a temporary restraining order running through November 16.

I was handed the number four. I count the California ruling, the firing ruling and Saturday's order, and the firing ruling went against the administration, not against my Department. So I have two. Possibly three. I cannot produce a fourth and I am not going to invent one — strike the fourth, take my three courts in one month. Did I say three courts in one month? That isn't a defense. That's a schedule.

Two agencies, though. Homeland Security searched Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington home on 12 October. On 16 October, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told CBS News the probe was a "strong case" headed for a grand jury. On 31 October, Mullin told the Post the case was "large." Is two agencies better for me? Hold that.

Nineteen days sit between the search of a sitting member of Congress's home and the change of the adjective. You search first and size it after. That's — I wouldn't put that in a letter. Strike it; the ordering is fine, the ordering is routine. On 18 October the former president called the search "so appalling," an adjective and not a filing. The outlet that carried the push to remove her reports that only Congress may do that.

Two agencies. I said I would come back to it, so: two agencies is not half of one. It's two.

The calendar. Three employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder's office were subpoenaed this week and ordered into federal court on November 4, the day after the election. Fifty-three of the sixty battleground House and Senate races being held November 3 sit in districts or states with at least one Trump-appointed judge who, under oath, would not admit the president lost in 2020. That is coverage. Did I say coverage? Two days left.

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