With a pivotal midterm election due next week, President Donald Trump's Justice Department has launched a burst of high-profile actions and prosecutions. Defense lawyers, Democrats and other critics say the timing and the choice of targets are no coincidence and point to politics.
In October alone, the department stepped up an investigation into Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar by searching her home. It also charged two former FBI officials with falsely downplaying what they knew about investigations involving Hunter Biden, disclosed a new effort to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, and failed in an attempt to indict a former White House aide who gave dramatic but disputed testimony about Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The department has also filed lawsuits in Alaska and California tied to next week's voting.
Many of the moves target vocal Trump critics or issues that energize the Republican base. In Washington, a heavily Democratic city where prosecutors have repeatedly struggled to win indictments over the past year, the department has also skipped grand juries to file what are effectively placeholder cases against Comey and the former FBI officials.
David Laufman, a senior Justice Department official under both parties who helped oversee the Hillary Clinton email investigation, was blunt. "Never in the modern history of the Department of Justice has there ever been such a brazen disregard for time-honored norms and protocols in conceiving of or undertaking politically sensitive investigations," he said. The department responded that it is "following the facts and the law, not anyone's political timetable."
The department has long avoided overt investigative steps against candidates in the weeks before an election, and attorneys general have regularly reminded staff of that principle. The department says this is an informal practice, not a written rule, covering roughly 60 days before an election. It argues that "the standard is purpose, not proximity to Election Day." The practice was tested in 2016, when Comey told Congress 11 days before the vote that the FBI was revisiting the Clinton inquiry. Democrats and the department's inspector general sharply criticized that decision.
Attorney General Todd Blanche has said the department does not operate independently of the White House and that he is no different from his predecessors in serving a president. He denies that investigative decisions are political. Omar is on the ballot Tuesday in Minnesota's 5th District. Agents seized her phone and have issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to relatives, in a probe tied to her immigration paperwork. A federal judge approved the warrant, and Blanche said last week the decision "had nothing to do with what's happening in November."
The two former FBI officials were charged by complaint rather than indictment, which Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui called unusual. Prosecutors later tried to add a charge by filing a new complaint without the required judicial finding of probable cause. "Everything is a little sideshow on top of a sideshow," Faruqui told them. An FBI agent testified Tuesday that the investigation began right after a July Trump speech on election security and was ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel.
Newly unsealed papers revealed Monday that prosecutors are seeking a third criminal case against Comey since Trump's return, alleging he leaked classified information a decade ago. With the statute of limitations nearing expiry, prosecutors used an uncommon legal tactic to extend their window for seeking an indictment. Comey's lawyers call it invalid and politically motivated and want it dismissed, with a hearing set for Friday.
Trump said he knew nothing about the new case but called Comey "a dirty cop." Comey said in a video statement: "I'm still innocent, I'm still not afraid of these people," adding that he still believes in the independent federal judiciary. Meanwhile, a Florida investigation that Trump allies hoped would support a theory that past law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against him has shown signs of faltering, with staff turnover and postponed grand jury testimony, according to people familiar with the matter.
