COMEY sworn in for his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning.
GRAHAM keeps misstating Carter Page's relationship with the CIA. He was an "operational contact" which is different than a "source" or someone being "tasked" by the CIA.
Comey keeps pointing this out.
Here is the explicit distinction, as explained in the Horowitz report. Being an operaitonal contact "does not allow for operational use of a U.S. person or tasking of that person." justice.gov/storage/120919…
IMPORTANT: COMEY says that if he used the term "legit" to describe Flynn's calls to the Russians, it was meant to say the calls were "authentic" and not "fabricated."
Flynn team has used the "legit" phrasing to suggest Comey meant the calls were appropriate and above-board.
In fact, Flynn's attorneys in court yesterday used this interpretation, which Comey says today under oath is incorrect.
NEW: Comey says he's concerned about DOJ's decision to drop the Flynn case and that a key page of FBI notes cited by the Flynn defense has been incorrectly interpreted. w/ @AndrewDesiderio
COMEY now says that neither Obama nor Biden made any suggestion about investigating Flynn under the Logan Act. That conflicts with another Flynn-team interpretation of the same set of notes — one Trump echoed on the debate stage last night.
GRAHAM says that FBI agents purchased liability insurance because of the Flynn investigation.
But William Barnett, the lead Flynn agent who Graham just cited approvingly, said that suggestion was improbable and that the liability insurance discussion wasn't tethered to Flynn.
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BREAKING: The Supreme Court has struck down President Trump's tariff authority, saying his claim of emergency authority to issue sweeping tariffs to America's trading partners was unlawful. supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf…
Roberts, writing for the majority, says Trump's claim of an emergency to issue unbounded tariffs on whoever he feels like flies in the face of decades of law and practice. supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf…
Gorsuch, in his concurrence, worries that granting a president sweeping new powers based on vague delegations from Congress would risk "permanent accretion of power in the hands of one man." supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf…
NEW: Judges are asking increasingly pointed questions about why ICE is detaining pregnant/nursing mothers — and whether a 2021 policy sharply restricting the practice remains in force.
They’ve ordered many released, warning of threats to safety/health.
The admin has told different judges different things re the policy. But outgoing spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin did defend the treatment of pregnant women in their custody and added “being in detention is a choice.” Self-deportation, she said, is another.
ICE's policy to sharply limit detention of pregnant/nursing mothers was adopted in 2021. It says ICE shouldn't detain pregnant/nursing mothers unless there are "exceptional circumstances." What are exceptional circumstances? Threats to life or national security. politico.com/news/2026/02/1…
Some people do Friday Zillow. We do Friday habeas. Here are some cases of people who have been detained by ICE and ordered released by judges who said the detention was illegal. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Mexican man with no criminal history and six US citizen kids.
BREAKING: The Trump administraiton has committed a mass violation of ICE detainees' constitutional rights in MN, effectively blocking their acess to attorneys in the Whipple building, a judge ruled tonight.
NEW: A federal judge excoriated the Trump administration for claiming it lacked the resources to give ICE detainees constitutionally required access to lawyers — despite surging law enforcement to detain them in the first place.
The rebuke came as the administration also dropped criminal charges against two men it claimed had attacked an ICE officer, who fired a gun in the fracas. “Newly discovered evidence” conflicted with the original headline-grabbing account, DOJ said. politico.com/news/2026/02/1…
NEW: Federal judges are increasingly furious at what they see as a pattern / playbook of defiance by the Trump administration to court orders in immigration cases — in Minnesota and around the country.
1) WHISKING DETAINEES TO OTHER STATES: ICE has made a practice of pinballing people from where they're arrested to facilities in Texas, New Mexico or elsewhere, and sometimes more than once. It can complicate or defeate challenges to their detention.
2) BLOWING OFF DEADLINES: When detainees sue for release, the administration is increasingly blowing off court-ordered deadlines to response. It's become almost routine and has led judges to order release in some cases. politico.com/news/2026/02/1…
Two men were recently charged with assaulting an immigration officer in MN with a snow shovel and broom, which led to a shooting ICE claims was defensive. The case made national headlines.
The men moved in court earlier in this week to prevent ICE from deporting witnesses who they say can rebut the charges. Their trial judge, Paul Magnuson, agreed.
However...
One of the witnesses, a 19-year-old woman who appears to be the partner of one of the defendants, was apparently picked up by ICE the same day as the incident and transported first to Texas and then to New Mexico.
Today, a judge in New Mexico noted demanded details about the woman's detention, noting that MN offered her a U visa for witnesses to a criminal investigation and that she's being held under mandatory detention policies that most judges – including Judge Strickland – have ruled unlawful.
UPDATE: Judge Strickland in New Mexico has now further enjoined DHS from relocating or deporting the witness.