Department says purpose, not proximity, guides its work
The Justice Department escalated several investigations and brought headline-making cases involving critics of President Donald Trump in the month before the 2026 midterms. Defense lawyers, Democrats and other critics said the timing and targets were political, while the department rejected that interpretation. The actions include a federal search of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home, criminal charges against two former FBI officials, a revealed fresh attempt to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, and an unsuccessful attempt to indict a former White House aide who gave disputed testimony about Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Lawsuits in Alaska and California related to next week’s voting are also part of the pre-election activity.
The cases have largely been directed at outspoken critics of Trump or at issues that have animated his Republican base. Critics cite that pattern in arguing that the timing reflects political influence; the Justice Department rejects that characterization.
Prosecutors also used an unusual route in the cases against Comey and the former FBI officials. By filing criminal complaints instead of grand jury indictments, they created what were effectively placeholder cases at a time when prosecutors in the heavily Democratic nation’s capital had repeatedly struggled over the past year to secure indictments. David Laufman, who served as a senior Justice Department official across Democratic and Republican administrations and helped oversee the Hillary Clinton email investigation, criticized the approach. “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,” Laufman said.
In a statement responding to the criticism, the Justice Department said it was “following the facts and the law, not anyone’s political timetable.” The department also said, “The standard is purpose, not proximity to Election Day. Department policy does not require the Department to stop ongoing work during an election season.”
The disputed timing has an institutional context. The Justice Department has historically sought to avoid major action before an election, particularly overt investigative steps or other public actions that could appear intended to affect an electoral outcome. Successive attorneys general have issued departmentwide memoranda during election cycles, reminding employees not to take investigative actions designed to help or hinder a candidate. The department described the practice as informal rather than a written rule. It generally applied to overt actions within 60 days of an election and was intended to prevent prosecutors from choosing the timing of an action to affect the vote.
The practice was famously tested in 2016, when Comey, then the FBI director, told Congress 11 days before Election Day that the bureau was revisiting its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information because of newly discovered emails. Comey has said he felt he picked the least destructive option available. His decision-making was harshly criticized by Democrats and the Justice Department inspector general.
Attorney General Todd Blanche has said the Justice Department does not exist independent of the White House and has insisted that he is no different from his predecessors in serving a president. He has denied that the department’s investigative decisions are political. Even before this month’s cases, the Justice Department had initiated multiple inquiries involving the president’s perceived adversaries.
Trump allies had hoped a Florida-based investigation would prove that former law enforcement and intelligence officials who scrutinized Trump over the previous decade had conspired against him. The investigation has shown signs of faltering amid a spate of staff turnovers and delays. According to multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, investigators in recent weeks postponed scheduled grand jury testimony for multiple witnesses.
Among the most politically delicate moves this month, federal agents searched the home of Omar, one of the most outspoken congressional critics of the president. She is on the ballot Tuesday for another term representing Minnesota’s 5th District. Federal agents seized Omar’s phone in the search and issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to some of her relatives, as investigators probe issues related to her immigration paperwork. A federal judge approved the search.
Blanche defended the timing of the search last week. “I can tell you unequivocally that the decision to seek a search warrant had nothing to do with what’s happening in November,” he said.
The Justice Department later charged two former FBI officials with making false statements to Congress about their knowledge of a laptop the department says belonged to Hunter Biden. The case emerged from an investigation that began immediately after a July speech on election security by Trump and was ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, according to testimony Tuesday from an FBI agent assigned to the probe. The magistrate judge overseeing the case described the decision to charge the former officials by complaint instead of a grand jury indictment as unusual. Prosecutors then tried to add another charge by filing a new criminal complaint on the court docket without the required judicial finding that probable cause exists. “Everything is a little sideshow on top of a sideshow,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui told prosecutors.
On Monday, newly unsealed court papers in a separate case revealed that prosecutors are attempting to bring the third criminal case against Comey since Trump returned to the White House. The case accuses the former FBI director of leaking classified information a decade ago. With the statute of limitations set to expire earlier this month, prosecutors used an uncommon legal tactic to extend the time in which they could seek a grand jury indictment. Comey’s legal team has described the tactic as legally invalid and politically motivated and is asking the judge to dismiss the case. A judge is scheduled to hear arguments Friday.
Asked about the latest case against Comey, Trump said this week that he did not know anything about it. The president added, “He’s a dirty cop, James Comey.” In a video statement Monday, Comey responded: “Well, they’re back — again. It would almost be funny if it weren’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice — one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing’s changed with me; I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid of these people — and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.”