Judge Kills Trump’s Revenge Cases Against James Comey, Letitia James

Donald Trump’s revenge prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey—and New York Attorney General Letitia James—have been thrown out of court.

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled Monday that interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience prior to this role, was improperly appointed by the Trump administration, agreeing with Comey’s defense team. The ruling means that the federal indictments of Comey and James are dismissed.

“Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role since September 22, 2025,” Currie wrote in her opinion. “All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment … constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside.”

The judge tossed the case “without prejudice,” meaning Trump could try to bring forward the cases again on the same charges. Halligan received her job after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, was pushed out of the role for refusing to prosecute Comey and James.

Comey was facing charges of making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation, but even aside from Halligan’s appointment, the indictment was full of flaws, leading U.S. District Judge William Fitzpatrick to take the rare and unusual step of allowing Comey’s legal team to review grand jury materials. James was charged with mortgage fraud, but Trump officials appear to have obtained her records illegally, resulting in several Fannie Mae employees being fired simply for doing their jobs and trying to protect her personal information.

Both cases seem to be clear examples of Trump targeting his political enemies, as Comey was on his bad side for investigating Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, and James successfully prosecuted Trump for financial fraud in 2024. Will Trump try to bring back the charges and risk losing again, or has he learned his lesson?

This story has been updated.

Federal immigration agents detained a 17-year-old Oregon high school student during his lunch break on Friday by breaking his car window. 

Christian Jimenez of Newberg, Oregon, was driving his father’s car at 12:30 p.m. Friday when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped him off-campus, his older brother Cesar Jimenez told Oregon Live. The young Jimenez told the agents that he was a U.S. citizen, but an officer said, “I don’t care” and told him to “get out of the car” as they broke the car window and arrested him. 

He was then taken to ICE’s facility in Portland and wasn’t released until just before 7 p.m. that day. According to his brother, Jimenez now faces charges of “interference or obstruction of investigation.” 

Unidos Bridging Community, an immigrant rights organization, said that Jimenez was one of four U.S. citizens detained by ICE in the Portland area last week, including two people recording ICE arrests. Hundreds of people in McMinnville came out to protest on Jimenez’s behalf on Saturday, waving signs. 

“A 17-year-old minor being abducted in broad daylight—whether people agree with that or not, it’s just unacceptable,” local resident Abraham Mejia, attending his first-ever protest, told TV station KGW. “It hits home, and it makes you feel almost fueled that you need to do something about it, and that’s why I’m here today.”

Federal agents have been arresting U.S. citizens for months under the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda and lying about it. As of mid-October, at least 170 citizens have been detained, a number that seems to keep growing each day. Until Congress intervenes, these blatant violations of basic rights, perhaps even the Constitution, can only be interrupted by court orders.  

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent thinks that people struggling with rising inflation should simply move from a blue state to a red state.

“I can tell you.… You know the best way to bring your inflation rate down? Move from a blue state to a red state,” Bessent declared on MSNBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “Blue state inflation is half a percent higher, and that is because they don’t deregulate, they keep prices up. Energy is higher.”

What a baffling, tone-deaf statement. How would people already struggling with rising prices have the time or money to uproot their jobs, homes, and families to move to a state that has a few thousand more Republican voters?

“Move to a red state where the general cost of living and quality of life is worse, pay is worse, you have fewer protections, less access to healthcare, are less safe, but hey, you’ll save half a penny per dollar on your groceries,” one X user replied. “Fucking ghoul.”

“Great message. Tired of high grocery prices? Sell your home, find a new job, buy a new home, move somewhere else, start life over. Magic!” wrote another. “Now your grocery bill is $10 less.”

This blue-state-versus-red-state narrative that Bessent, the GOP, and even many Democrats push is so tired. There are poor, working-class Americans struggling to survive in “coastal elite” states like New York and California just like there are in the deep South and the Rust Belt. Bessent’s comments only further distract from the much larger issues of impending recession and economic inequality.

There’s no way anyone had this on their bingo cards: Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says she’s had enough of childish antics. 

The former die-hard Donald Trump fan took a moment on Monday to call out her critics—who now include the president she’d once pledged her loyalty to—following her announcement that she would resign from Congress in January. 

“Everyone just runs their mouths but results are the only thing that matter to the American people. Smears, lies, attacks, and name calling is childish behavior, divisive, and bad for our country. Memes and red meat rants do nothing. Actions speak louder than words,” Green wrote on X. 

“Be quiet, be kind, be humble and fix the real problems that are crushing Americans. Not foreign country’s problems. Not the donor’s problems,” she wrote. “The American people’s problems that both political parties created and dumped on the American people.”

Of course, the Republican firebrand has levied more than her fair share of outlandish lies and name-calling during her time in office.  

Her mention of “childish behavior” seems to be a reference to Trump’s post on Truth Social Saturday, in which he resorted to schoolyard taunts to address the resignation of “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown,” claiming that the Georgia Republican “went BAD.”

Trump had doubled down on the nickname Monday morning, praising a Fox & Friends segment that also bashed Greene—except he confused a prerecorded clip during the show for a live one.

Democratic activists are looking to overhaul the party’s presidential primary process with ranked-choice voting.

Proponents of the idea have privately met with Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin and other leading party officials who want to see ranked-choice voting in action for 2028. Those behind the push include Representative Jamie Raskin, the nonprofit Fairvote Action, and Joe Biden pollster Celinda Lake.

Axios reports that ranked-choice supporters told a DNC breakfast meeting in D.C. that they believe it would unify and strengthen the party, prevent votes from being “wasted” after candidates withdraw, and encourage candidates to build coalitions. The publication quotes DNC members as being divided on the issue, with some being open and others thinking that it is best left to state parties.

Raskin told Axios that ranked-choice voting “favors positive politics rather than negative politics, and that’s a great thing for the Democratic Party primaries.”

“Oftentimes there’s a sense of acrimony and bitterness that can last decades. Think about the race between Hillary and Bernie Sanders,” Raskin added.

The change would only happen by getting past the DNC’s rules and bylaws committee, then the majority of the committee’s 450 members, and then state Democratic parties. Some states would also have to change their election laws. Some localities already use it for local and state elections, including Alaska, Maine, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and most famously, New York City, where Zohran Mamdani’s upstart campaign used ranked-choice voting to triumph in the Democratic mayoral primary.

Will the Democratic Party go for it? Party moderates might be skeptical, considering that in 2016 and 2020, the current system produced their preferred presidential nominees in Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. But the 2016 primary fight also fueled discord between progressives and moderates as the contest between Sanders and Clinton went late into the primary process, with some blaming it for Clinton’s loss in the general election.

If the Democrats institute ranked-choice voting, it would certainly grab attention and give the party pro-democracy credentials, allowing more candidates a chance to win. But that may inspire pushback from the party’s old-guard—even as the Democrats continue to articulate a vision for the future.