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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HAPPENING NOW: Taylor Taranto, a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant who was convicted for bringing weapons to Obama’s neighborhood, has returned to DC and has been roaming Rep. Jamie Raskin’s neighborhood — alarming police.
Today, DOJ asked a judge to immediately re-jail him.
Taranto lives in WA state but drove across the country in recent weeks. He has filmed ominous videos from the Pentagon parking lot and was wandering Raskin’s Takoma Park area at 2am. DOJ says it’s nearly identical conduct to what he was charged for in 2023.
Judge Nichols, who convicted Taranto in a bench trial earlier this year, is weighing whether to detain him immediately for violating his supervised release conditions.
HAPPENING NOW: Rahmullah Lakanwal makes his initial appearance in DC Superior Court, from a hospital bed, on charges for last week's National Guard shooting.
He's being apprised, through an interpreter, of the murder charge against him as well as charges of possessing of a firearm during commission of a violent offense, assault w intent to kill while armed.
Prosecutors are asking the judge to keep Lakanwal detained during pretrial proceedings. Lakanwal, who does appear to be in pain, says he can't open his eyes. His attorney is advising him not to speak.
The cases have surged as ICE reclassified millions who have resided in the United States for years as “arriving aliens” or “applicants for admission” — making them subject to mandatory detention typically meant for those who just crossed the border. politico.com/news/2025/11/2…
NEWS: The criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James are gone. A federal judge ruled that the appointment of Lindsey Halligan as the lead prosecutor was illegal.
DOJ could try again, but there are other headwinds.
JUST IN: A federal judge says one of the Venezuelan men — illegally deported to El Salvador in March before he was swapped back to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange — is now missing, possibly a victim of the violence he was seeking asylum from.
Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee in MD, says the administration flagrantly and repeatedly defied her orders to provide regular updates about the man’s return. But she stops short of finding contempt bc it was Rubio, who isn’t named in the lawsuit, who was responsible for communicating w El Salvador
BREAKING: Prosecutors in the Comey case just told the judge that they’re under orders from the Deputy Attorney Generals’s office not to disclose whether career prosecutors wrote a memo recommending *against* indicting Comey prior to Halligan going to the grand jury.
AUSA Tyler Lemons told Judge Nachmanoff that he hasn’t gotten permission to disclose what could be considered “privileged” or “work product” material. He did say he asked to review and possible declination memo and has seen “drafts.”
NEW: The prosecution of James Comey is hanging by a thread, besieged on all sides by challenges to the legitimacy of the prosecutor, the grand jury process and the motives for bringing the case in the first place.
w/ @joshgerstein