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Former FBI Director James Comey's legal team filed a motion on Monday arguing that key charges against him should be dismissed because of what they call “smoking gun evidence” of improper political influence.

Comey is charged with one count of making a false statement to Congress and another of obstructing a congressional proceeding.

But in the filings, his attorneys accuse President Donald Trump of directing the Department of Justice to prosecute Comey because of longstanding animus — and they point to the ex‑President’s public and social‑media attacks on Comey as evidence.

“The indictment in this case arises from multiple glaring constitutional violations and an egregious abuse of power by the federal government," the filing said.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz reported that a centerpiece of the defense’s argument is a collection of 60 pages of social media posts attributed to Trump, in which he repeatedly criticized Comey and called for him to be prosecuted.

The defense posits that those posts demonstrate that had Trump not ordered the Justice Department to act, Comey would not have been charged.

Comey’s attorneys argue that the appointment of Lindsey Halligan as U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, which led the indictment, was unlawful. They say career prosecutors had declined the case and that Halligan, who previously worked for Trump, was installed in order to secure charges at the statute‑of‑limitations deadline.

The indictment against Comey stems from his 2020 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, during which he said he had never authorized anyone at the FBI to be an anonymous source in a media leak. Prosecutors claim he did.

Legal experts note that motions to dismiss on the basis of selective or vindictive prosecution are very rarely successful — the burden is high. The question for the judge will be whether the evidence of Trump’s statements and the circumstances of the prosecutor’s appointment rise to the level of unconstitutional prosecutorial misconduct.

A trial is scheduled for January 5.

CNN's Brianna Keilar pressed Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) Monday on whether it was appropriate for the U.S. or its proxies to negotiate directly with Hamas, a designated terrorist group.

During a segment on CNN, the anchor asked: “How are you viewing the U.S. negotiating directly with terrorist groups?”

“Well, look, I can only look at the results that we got. I don’t think anyone thought Hamas would ever release every single hostage. It’s a miracle. So, obviously, the results work, and now we’re in a much better position to go after Hamas because they don’t have the leverage of these hostages. So I support President [Donald] Trump," Fine said, calling himself "an intense guy."

Keller pressed again: “I’m talking about the negotiating directly with terrorists. Does that inform your thinking on how other conflicts might be solved?”

Fine said he believed it did.

“I think what it shows is that when President Trump leans in and focuses on dealing with all of the parties, he can generate results. We need that same result in Russia and Ukraine. And I think that sort of intense focus is the right way to go. It got results here," he said.

The tone shifted when the anchor turned to another controversial topic: Fine’s recently-introduced “No Shari’a Act" in Congress, and his comments on “Islamification” of America.

Keller asked: “You said to Laura Loomer, a controversial far‑right activist, about your bill that 'We have to be focused on the problem' — you talked about the problem being the Islamification of America. You said 'We can see what happened in France, we can see what happened in the U.K., we can see what happened in Dearborn. And we have to say, we don’t want that.'What did happen in Dearborn? What do you mean by that?”

“Well, the mayor of Dearborn, in a city that has become 50 percent Muslim, told a Christian minister … that he was no longer welcome there because he did not want a road named after a terrorist. That is what we're dealing with in this country," he said.

"And when you have a radical Jihadi‑like [New York mayoral candidate Zohran] Mamdani possibly being elected in the City of New York, we’ve got to … deal with that."

The anchor then mentioned Trump's outreach to the Muslim community.

“Donald Trump, as you’re well aware, courted Muslim‑American, Arab‑American voters in Dearborn," she said. "He won Dearborn on his way to winning Michigan. He has nominated Muslim American mayors in Michigan, not far from Dearborn, including Dearborn Heights, to be ambassadors … a population that really mattered a lot to him. How do you square what you’re saying with what he has said and how he has viewed these folks?”

"I don’t think they’re inconsistent. Not all Muslims believe in terrorism. The problem is a large percentage do. And what President Trump is doing right is he is engaging with the ones that I consider radical — the ones who want peace with Christian and Jewish communities, who want peace around the world, to set them up to be successful. That’s the way we solve this problem," Fine said.

When pressed further whether he might be “lumping people together,” Fine said: “No. … I’m very clear about this. I believe we have gotten this wrong. The radical Muslims are the ones who want peace. They’re the ones in the UAE, the ones in Dubai, many in Saudi Arabia, who want peace. But it is the mainstream, the imams, that we can see over and over and over again, who call for the destruction of the West. And we cannot be afraid to call it out. We have to recognize that there is evil in this world, and we have to fight it every day.”

Fine’s “No Shari’a Act” legislation has drawn criticism from civil rights groups for its potential to disproportionately target Muslim Americans.

The Florida Republican has a documented history of inflammatory remarks about Muslims and Muslim‑Americans.

Civil rights groups note that he has referred to Muslims as terrorists, celebrated the killing of a Muslim‑American activist and was designated by Council on American‑Islamic Relations (CAIR) as an “anti‑Muslim extremist” for what they described as “a pattern of violent, dehumanizing rhetoric toward Muslims and Palestinians.”

Disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-New York) is out of prison after receiving a commutation from President Donald Trump on Friday, October 17. Santos, in 2024, pleaded guilty to criminal charges that included wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

One person who is furious about the commutation is Richard Osthoff, a disabled, New Jersey-based military veteran who accused Santos of stealing $3,000 that was raised for his dying dog via GoFundMe. The money was raised for surgery that the dog needed to survive, but the dog died.

During a Monday afternoon, October 20 appearance on MSNBC, Osthoff had scathing comments about the commutation and Trump's treatment of veterans in general.

When Jansing noted that Santos, under the commutation, "doesn't have to pay restitution," a frustrated Osthoff commented, "His whole thing is about keeping money away from people that he owes money to. And I'm not surprised that he doesn't want to pay them back. He's laughing all the way to the bank right now."

Jansing pointed out that Santos, after his release, told CNN's Dana Bash he wants to "make amends" for past actions — a claim that Osthoff doesn't believe.

Osthoff told Jansing, "He's been so rude to me. He's lied about me. He's defamed me on TV dozens of times. He has no remorse."

The disabled veteran went on to lambast Trump for the commutation.

"I still haven't eaten since I heard that," Osthoff angrily told Jansing. "That was three days ago. I was really just sick to my stomach for the president of the United States to stick me in the gut with a knife — and every other veteran and every other military member to get a knife in the gut. He also knifed Holocaust victims, Holocausts survivors and 9/11 survivors and victims in the gut by letting this guy out this early. He should have done at least half of his seven years. This is disgraceful."

Osthoff continued, "President Trump — this is another thing in the long line of his disrespect for our military and our veterans. He wouldn't go to a Marine Corps cemetery in France because the weather didn't agree with him. He calls us suckers and losers — what's in it for us?.... It's disgusting. He hates us."

Osthoff argued that Santos "walking out of prison" is a "complete travesty."

"The same with the January 6 people," Osthoff added. "This is a president, a rogue president now, just using his pardon power like a cudgel against everything that's decent, good and holy. It's shameful and a disgrace. And I'm almost ashamed that I served my country now. This is not the country I raised my hand three times to reenlist for. That man disrespects the military and veterans and just about everybody that walks that doesn't wear a red hat every single day."

Yet another foe of President Donald Trump was indicted on federal charges when, on Thursday afternoon, October 16, a grand jury indicted former National Security Advisor John Bolton on 18 counts pertaining to alleged mishandling of classified government documents.

The Bolton indictment follows recent U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indictments of two other Trump foes, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, on allegations of mortgage fraud. Attorney George Conway, a Never Trump conservative, is attacking the James and Comey indictments as "flimsy" at best.

Former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Miles Taylor — himself a Never Trumper who Trump called for a federal investigation of — analyzed the Bolton indictment during a Saturday morning, October 18 appearance on MSNBC's "The Weekend," emphasizing that the possible motivations of federal prosecutors are crucial in this case.

Taylor told an MSNBC panel that also included The New Yorker's Jelani Cobb and hosts Jonathan Capehart, Jackie Alemany and Eugene Daniels, "There's another question that no one is asking here. And it's a rhetorical question, and it's going to be really hard to get in the conscience of these prosecutors. But the question is this: Do those prosecutors, did they know, that if they didn't bring these charges against John Bolton, that they would all be fired?"

Taylor continued, "It's a rhetorical question, because they obviously know that. They have looked just down the street at (another) prosecutor's office, and they've seen if there are cases that aren't brought against the president's enemies, that's it — your career is over. And these aren't superheroes. These are good, honest public servants. But they are people who need a paycheck. These are people who have families. These are people who have to survive, and they are seeing that lives are ruined if they don't bring cases.

Capehart described the indictments against Bolton, James and Comey as a "rolling Saturday Night Massacre," referring to a Watergate-era scandal during Richard Nixon's presidency. And he got no argument from Taylor or Cobb.

Taylor told the panel, "That brings us to John Bolton. I'm not saying there's nothing there, but what I'm saying here is—back to the earlier argument of selective prosecution—would they have brought it under normal circumstances? Because it looks like the Justice Department sat on it for years. That it was a zombie case, and that zombie, incredibly, came back to life this year. Why? Are we to believe that it's a coincidence that Donald Trump started demanding that John Bolton go to jail, and then they resurrect this case?"

- YouTube www.youtube.com

A major bombshell from the Donald Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) came down on Thursday afternoon, October 16 when hawkish neocon John Bolton — who served as national security adviser during Trump's first administration — was indicted on 18 federal counts for allegedly mishandling classified government documents.

In a video posted by The Bulwark late Friday night, October 17, conservative attorney George Conway offered legal analysis of the Bolton indictment — which, he told host Sarah Longwell (a conservative strategist and fellow Never Trumper), has more substance than the indictments of two other Trump foes: New York State Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.

But Conway, one of Trump's most scathing critics on the right, also implied that Trump resents Bolton and other foes because he resents "smart people." And the attorney warned that Trump's disdain for intellectualism is a classic "fascist authoritarian" trait.

Conway told Longwell, "The whole attack on immigration is xenophobia, and xenophobia is a classic characteristic of fascist authoritarian movements. But another aspect of fascist and authoritarian movements is anti-intellectualism. They're against smart people who read books and do things. The whole attack on science that we're seeing at the universities, in CDC (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), at the NIH (National Institutes of Health) — there's just this urge to take out the smart people, to take out the people who are hoity-toity, who they think look down on the people who vote for the fascist authoritarian. And it's part of the way that an authoritarian likes to divide people."

Conway didn't mince words when talking about the recent federal indictments of Trump foes.

"In a nutshell, the other two cases — the Comey case and the James case — look like b– – from the get-go. You read the complaints, the indictment, and you said, 'What?!' How does this make any sense?.... The complaints look flimsy, they don't make any sense on their face. The difference with Bolton's is you can see what the charges are."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is the latest to lash out at Karoline Leavitt over the White House press secretary’s Thursday attack on the Democratic Party, during which she alleged it is “catering” to “Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.” Leavitt’s widely-denounced remarks came as Republicans on Capitol Hill repeatedly targeted the nationwide “No Kings” Day protests set for Saturday as “Hate America” rallies.

“The Democrat Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals,” Leavitt said on Fox News on Thursday afternoon. “That is who the Democrat Party is catering to — not the Trump administration, and not the White House, and not the Republican Party, who is standing up for law abiding Americans, not just across the country, but around the world.”

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Jeffries blasted Leavitt, but first took aim at a variety of Republicans over controversial issues and what he described as “racist” and “antisemitic” remarks.

“We’ve already seen a rise in political violence and hatred in America,” the Democratic leader began. “And then you’ve got swastikas apparently appearing in the offices of Republican members of Congress.”

“You’ve got Young Republicans engaging in the most antisemitic and racist speech possible,” he continued, referring to a Politico report that drew condemnation of the group’s members.

“Like, this is apparently who many of these people are,” he said.

“They are ripping the sheets off, in plain view of the American people. Their words, their actions, revealing themselves in so many different ways.”

“And then you got Karoline Leavitt, who’s sick,” he charged. “She’s out of control. And I’m not sure whether she’s just demented, ignorant, a stone-cold liar, or all of the above.”

“But the notion that an official White House spokesperson would say that the Democratic Party consists of terrorists, violent criminals, and undocumented immigrants — this makes no sense.”

“That this is what the American people are getting from the Trump administration, in the middle of a shutdown,” he observed. “So their actions continue to speak for themselves, which is why they’re on the wrong side of public sentiment.”

MAGA podcaster Steve Bannon – who was President Donald Trump's chief White House strategist in his first term — told right-wing streaming channel Real America's Voice that the Project 2025 didn't happen overnight, but was "years in the making," and that President Donald Trump is "Chief Executive Officer" of the country and can do what he wants.

Bannon credits Project 2025 architect and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, along with Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, America First Policy Institute founder and current U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, Tea Party movement leader and former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

"All these groups working together with really Miller and Russ and the Viceroy Mike Davis, saying 'We're gonna drive the narrative here on Article 2 powers of the president,'" Bannon said, referring to Article II of the U.S. Constitution that establishes the executive branch and outlines the powers and duties of the president.

Davis founded the Article III Project (A3P) in 2019, a conservative non-profit advocating for the appointment of right-leaning federal judges.

Bannon, who spoke alongside former senior Trump official Rep. Brian Harrison (R-TX), says that Trump is the "Chief Executive Officer of the country — that means he can fire who he wants — and the Appropriations Bill is a ceiling, not a floor. He can hold money back and pound money as Commander in Chief."

In a recent Wall Street Journal piece on Trump feeling emboldened, Bannon "likened Congress to the Duma, the Russian assembly that is largely ceremonial.”

In the interview Friday, Bannon goes on to say that Trump can pretty much do what he wants, though "that's the big challenge we've had," he says.

"He can repel invasions, he can go after our enemies, and most importantly, I think it's been so different, he is the chief magistrate and chief law-enforcement officer of the United States government so the Justice Department and the FBI are not hermetically sealed away from the executive branch," Bannon says.

He also said they've only just begun to expand Trump's powers. "Everything we’re doing... It’s not gonna stop," Bannon said.

Indivisible organizer Ezra Levin told CNN anchor Dana Bash that there’s a reason Congressional Republicans and their affiliates are attacking protestors this weekend.

Bash pointed referenced a Wall Street Journal reporting that the Trump administration is planning to overhaul the IRS, with one if its goals being the pursuit of left wing groups like Levin’s.

“He’s already got a list of potential targets, I can't imagine that Indivisible, which helps plan these giant protests against the president, … would not be on it. Are you preparing for this?” Bash asked.

“Well, Dana. What do they say? First, they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win,” said Levin. “We're one step from winning. They're not ignoring us. They're not laughing at us. They are worried about peaceful, broad-based protests all around the country. And that's true of any authoritarian regime anywhere in the world.”

“The number 1 thing they fear is peaceful protests, because authoritarian regimes depend on convincing the populace that they are alone and weak and that [the regime] is all powerful. So, I'm not surprised,” Levin added. “But it is really troubling and it's unconstitutional and it's illegal. But we're not going to back down.”

Bash played a series of clips of Republicans bashing protestors, including one with House Speaker Mike Johnson describing them as the “Pro-Hamas wing” of the Democratic party.

Levin admitted that the GOP is ramping up its hostility against angry voters, but questioned why they were escalating their rhetoric at this time.

“The question is, why are they coming at us now?” asked Levin. “And it's because they are worried that they are losing their grip on power. They are worried that other people in blue states, red states and purple states, in rural communities, in Trump country, are going to see the public doesn't support them. And that makes them scared.”

“I think what they're doing is backfiring. Our numbers are skyrocketing,” Levin added, citing more than 2,600 protest events planned across the nation and “more RSVPs” than at the June “No Kings” protests.”

- YouTube youtu.be

On Thursday afternoon, October 16, ABC News and others reported that former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), now 83, "fell to the ground" in a hallway "as he made his way to Senate votes."

McConnell's fall was also reported by Newsweek's Amanda Castro.

According to Castro, "Senate Republican Mitch McConnell stumbled and fell in the Russell Senate Office Building basement Thursday after a reporter pressed him on whether he supports ICE 'kidnapping' working people off the streets. The exchange ended with McConnell, 83, waving to the cameras and appearing uninjured."

Video of McConnell's fall was posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Trending Politics' Collin Rugg, who posted, "JUST IN: Republican Senator Mitch McConnell trips and falls to the ground in the Russell basement as a reporter asked him a question about ICE. Reporter: 'Do you support ICE taking working people off the streets and kidnapping them?' McConnell was helped up and appeared to be okay. He was seen waving to the camera. Video: @ErikRosalesNews."

McConnell, first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, served as both Senate majority leader and Senate minority leader in the past. But after many years leading the GOP in the chamber, McConnell announced that he was resigning from that position in 2024. And Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota) was sworn in as Senate majority leader after the Senate's current GOP majority was seated in January 2025.

Despite stepping down as the Senate's top Republican, McConnell plans to serve out the rest of his term.