Comey Accuses Trump of Basing Case Against Him on “Personal Bias”

Former FBI Director James Comey is hoping to get the indictment against him dismissed by proving President Donald Trump is on a vindictive quest to send him to prison. Easy enough, right?

In a 51-page filing Monday, Comey’s legal team called for the government’s charges against the former Trump ally to be dismissed because of the president’s “vindictive animus.” Last month, the former FBI director was charged with lying to Congress regarding his testimony to Senator Ted Cruz in a 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“Such a vindictive and selective prosecution violates the First Amendment, Due Process Clause, and equal protection principles,” the filing stated, noting that the case should be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning that the verdict could not be appealed by the government.

The filing evoked the laundry list of times that Trump had made public statements attacking Comey since he was ousted from FBI leadership in 2017. Since then, Comey has openly criticized Trump during the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, writing in his memoir that Trump was “unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values.”

“In response to Mr. Comey’s protected speech, President Trump has resorted to personal attacks and calls to retaliate against Mr. Comey through punishment and imprisonment,” the filing stated. Comey’s legal team wrote there was “objective evidence” that Trump harbored genuine animus toward their client, based on the president’s clear “personal bias.”

As recently as September, Trump mistakenly posted on social media a private message to Attorney General Pam Bondi directing Comey’s prosecution, and the president has all but admitted his direct involvement in the proceedings. Not to mention that Comey’s name appeared on the “enemies list” penned by Trump’s new FBI Director Kash Patel. In any case, Trump’s hatred for Comey has been long-standing and well documented.

In a second filing Monday, Comey’s attorneys argued that the case should be nullified because Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s former personal lawyer, whom he recently installed as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had been “defectively” appointed.

“The United States cannot charge, maintain, and prosecute a case through an official who has no entitlement to exercise governmental authority,” the motion said.

Americans don’t want their representatives to bow to the pressures of the government shutdown.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are hearing the same message from their constituents, whether they’re in vulnerable districts or partisan strongholds, reported MSNBC Monday: “Keep up the fight.”

“Almost to a T, I hear from people that they want us to keep fighting for them, that they want us to stand up and they don’t want us to cave,” Democratic Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal told the network.

The pressure would suggest that Americans are not interested in having their parties reach a resolution to continue funding the government. Instead, they’d rather the shutdown carry on.

“It won’t surprise you, being from a red state, that most of the calls are encouraging Republicans to stand their ground and keep up the fight,” GOP Indiana Senator Todd Young told MSNBC.

More than 700,000 federal employees have been furloughed under the auspices of the shutdown, according to a report from the Bipartisan Policy Center. Congress has yet to pass either a stop-gap funding measure or full-year appropriations bill to bring the shutdown to a close. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has axed thousands of federal employees.

Monday marked the twentieth day that the government has stayed shuttered as Republicans and Democrats disagree over how to fund Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget, which included details to slice billions from Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid.

Democrats—and their constituents—have insisted that party representatives hold firm until they can find a way to salvage the subsidized health care programs. But a major hitch looms on the horizon: Open enrollment for Obamacare plans begins on November 1. If the shutdown is not resolved by then, millions of Americans will be forced to make a decision about their health coverage without knowing whether premiums will come down.

Democratic Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin told MSNBC that “the vast majority of people I’m hearing from and seeing insist that we hang tough to resolve the health care crisis and the government shutdown at the same time.”

“We don’t have the luxury of choosing here,” Raskin said.

The issue, remarkably, has not gotten a lot of play in congressional offices around the country. Politicians on both sides of the aisle remarked to MSNBC that they were surprised by the minimal volume of calls about the shutdown their offices have received.

“I know there are a lot of Americans who are anxious about the shutdown, but I just don’t know that, until the last couple of days, there’s been a whole lot of engagement,” Young told MSNBC last week.

A 2–1 majority on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday granted President Trump a major legal win, ruling to allow him to deploy the National Guard in Portland, against the wishes of the state of Oregon, which had filed a temporary restraining order to pause the deployments. The victory was made possible thanks to two Trump judges.

Judges Ryan D. Nelson and Bridget S. Bade—both first-term Trump appointees—voted to affirm the president’s decision to “federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard for 60 days to protect federal personnel and property at the Lindquist Building, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, Oregon.” Judge Susan Graber, a Clinton appointee, was the lone dissent.

“We conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority under 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3), which authorizes the federalization of the National Guard when ‘the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States,’” the affirming judges wrote. “The evidence the President relied on reflects a ‘colorable assessment of the facts and law within a ‘range of honest judgment.’’”

This is the exact kind of situation in which the right would start to bemoan “activist judges.” They went on to compare the anti-ICE protests in Portland to Shays’s Rebellion in the eighteenth century, which resulted in nine deaths, dozens of woundings, and two eventual executions.

“The President federalized the militia to ensure that the law could be fully enforced ... Shays’s Rebellion … occurred during the Articles of Confederation period,” the affirming judges wrote. “General Washington feared that American republicanism might fail as the ‘mobbers’ tried ‘to shut down courts’ and attacked government officials who ‘earnestly [sought] to obey [and enforce] the laws that the people themselves had authorized.’ This episode left an indelible mark on the Founders. They designed the Constitution to provide a Union that could safeguard the lives of law-abiding Americans trying to enforce the nation’s laws the next time a Shays’s Rebellion arose.”

In her dissent, Judge Graber dispelled any such notions.

“Those rebellions shared several salient characteristics, including a large number of participants relative to the population and to available law enforcement, a wide geographic scope, evident organization and leadership, widespread use of arms, intense ferocity, and the creation of extreme difficulty restoring control by means of ordinary law enforcement,” she wrote. “What occurred in Portland differed in every dimension. As already noted, there is no evidence of organization or leadership, widespread use of arms, ferocity, or difficulty exerting control by ordinary means.”

She then used examples from police themselves to demonstrate that there was no “urgent need” for federal involvement, and warned against “political theater” in the judiciary.

“We have come to expect a dose of political theater in the political branches, drama designed to rally the base or to rile or intimidate political opponents. We also may expect there a measure of bending—sometimes breaking—the truth,” Graber concluded. “By design of the Founders, the judicial branch stands apart. We rule on facts, not on supposition or conjecture, and certainly not on fabrication or propaganda. I urge my colleagues on this court to act swiftly to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur.”

Oregon’s attorney general Dan Rayfield chimed in shortly after the ruling was announced.

“We are on a dangerous path in America. A panel of Ninth Circuit judges has chosen to not hold the president accountable: They just granted the federal government’s motion to stay our first TRO, which prevented the president from deploying Oregon National Guard troops in Oregon,” he wrote on X. “We will oppose the government’s motion to dissolve the second TRO, and we urge the full Ninth Circuit to vacate today’s decision before the illegal deployments can occur. We’ll continue to fight for Oregon’s laws and values no matter what—and we’ll continue to share updates.”

President Donald Trump is reportedly spending millions more on weapons for his masked militia descending on American cities.*

Independent journalist Judd Legum reported Monday that between Trump’s inauguration and October 18, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has increased weapons spending by 600 percent compared to the same period last year. In the last nine months, ICE has spent a whopping $71,515,762 on purchases of “small arms, ordnance and ordnance accessories manufacturing.”

“Small arms” include armor, explosives, chemical weapons, pistols, and rifles. “Ordnance and ordnance accessories manufacturing” refers to other materials, such as artillery, barrels, extractors, and mounts.

For comparison, in 2019, ICE spent just $5.7 million on the “small arms” category through October 18, and during Trump’s first administration, the government spent an average of $8.4 million per year.

Clearly, Trump has plans to ramp up his federal immigration crackdown, which has gone hand-in-hand with his federal takeover of American cities. In Chicago, federal agents have conducted violent arrests of U.S. citizens and journalists, fired a pepper ball at a faith leader, unleashed tear gas on police, and shot two people, killing a father of two.

While bolstering his private army, Trump is planning to eliminate funding for SNAP benefits—starting four days ago.

* This article has been updated throughout to account for corrections made to Legum’s article. ICE did not purchase “guided missile warheads,” and the percentage increase in weapons spending was overstated.

President Donald Trump said his new 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building.” But footage from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Monday afternoon shows a crew tearing down the facade of the East Wing to make way for the garish structure.

An image obtained by The Washington Post shows a construction machine dismantling the side of the East Wing, which was added in 1942. Collapsed walls can be seen in the photograph, as can exposed rebar, with windows lying in a pile of debris on the ground.

As McClatchy White House correspondent Emily Goodin reported on X: “Bulldozers are taking down the façade and parts of the roof now. Windows have been removed. Trees were seen being taken from the property,” and the “area is fenced off and closed to staff.”

Asked in July about the possibility of East Wing demolition for the ballroom’s construction, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt answered, quite vaguely, that the wing would “be modernized” and “the necessary construction will take place.” Leavitt also said East Wing offices—including that of the first lady, the White House Military Office, and the visitors office—would be “temporarily relocated” while it is “being modernized.”

Observers online were shocked by this manifestation of Trump’s apparent belief that, as president, he owns “the People’s House”—to say nothing of other American institutions he’s sought to reshape (most in a less physical sense) to his liking.

“So any president can just start destroying portions of the White House? Is that how this works?” wrote Jim Acosta, independent journalist and former CNN White House correspondent, on X.

“Okay come on guys,” Gregg Carlstrom of The Economist quipped, “isn’t Trump taking a literal backhoe to the White House just a little heavy-handed as a metaphor?”