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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NEW: A week before Donald Trump surged past Hillary Clinton to win the presidency, author Michael Wolff approached Jeffrey Epstein with a proposal to "finish" Trump's candidacy.
MORE: The emails released by Congress reveal Epstein's vast connections -- and how he used them to track and influence Trump's orbit during his first term.
Epstein routinely opined to associates about Trump's policy moves , he advised foreign dignitaries and business leaders about Trump and he even tracked Trump's Air Force One travel (to avoid conflicts with his own frequent flights from S. Florida .politico.com/news/2025/11/1…
The emails released today shed new light on Epstein's vast influence network — foreign leaders, political bosses, billionaire executives, journalists, government officials — and how he used them to track and affect Trump's first term.
Some of the exchanges are extraordinary...
NEW: Jeffrey Epstein said in emails that he had been advising the Russian government on how to deal with Donald Trump, one of several cases in which he wielded his connections to try to influence the course of foreign affairs. w @nahaltoosi
@nahaltoosi In other emails, Epstein described his relationships with foreign leaders, advised Steve Bannon on how to increase his influence in Europe and offered his (mostly, but not entirely, dim) assesment of Trump to those who asked. politico.com/news/2025/11/1…
Judge Murphy cites to my Oct. 31 story about the extraordinary, one-sided rebuke judges have given to the Trump administration's policy of mass detention for immigrants facing deportation proceedings: more than 100 judges had ruled against the administration in around 200 cases.
The stats from two weeks ago included judicial rejections from :
-Biden appointees (50)
-Obama appointees (31)
-Trump appointees (12)
-George W. Bush appointees (12)
-Clinton appointees (6)
-Reagan appointees (2)
Compared to two judges who sided with the administration:
In the last two weeks, the number has skyrocketed in similarly lopsided ways. The current count, as of yesterday:
140 judges have now rejected the administration's policy of mass detention without bond — in at least 335 cases. The updated states, by my count:
Biden appointees: 60
Obama appointees: 38
George W. Bush appointees: 14
Trump appointees: 14
Clinton appointees: 10
Reagan appointees: 2
George H.W. Bush appointees: 2
Five judges have now sided with the administration
The sentencing memo by Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White noted that Taylor Taranto, pardoned by Trump but facing sentencing for other crimes, spread "conspiracy theories" about the attack. It also noted that Taranto stalked Barack Obama's neighborhood after Trump posted (and Taranto reposted) his address on Truth Social. politico.com/news/2025/10/2…
UPDATE: The original sentencing memo has been removed from the court docket, an unusual maneuver as new prosecutors take over the case. politico.com/news/2025/10/2…
BREAKING: Judge Immergut has called a 10PM (ET) hearing on Trump's effort to circumvent her National Guard order by calling up California troops.
NEW: Judge Immergut could quickly halt Trump's deployment of CA guard troops to Portland, a workaround that tested her warning that Trump's initial callup was illegal and based on false claims about the unrest facing ICE.
@joshgerstein @jonesblakej UPDATE: Hegseth today called up 400 members of the Texas National Guard, with Gov. Abbott's apparent permission, to be deployed "where needed, including in the cities of Portland and Chicago." politico.com/news/2025/10/0…
Judge IMMERGUT, a Trump appointee to the bench, ruled that Trump's call-up was based on false claims about unrest in Portland and that Trump's own statements were "simply untethered to the facts." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
MORE: Immergut issued a stark warning that the efforts by Trump to make a bad-faith justification to call up the guard risked plunging the country into a form of unconstitutional military rule.