Posts

“Epstein Is Dead:” Pam Bondi Is Neglecting Live Sex Trafficking Prosecutions to Criminalize Democrats

/43 Comments/in , , /by

A week ago, on January 8, Donald Trump bitched out his US Attorneys (as well as those play-acting as US Attorney) — some, apparently, by name — because they are not focusing enough on prosecuting his perceived adversaries.

Dozens of U.S. attorneys, who lead prosecutors’ offices around the country, went to the White House Thursday for what was supposed to be a ceremonial photo shoot. After Attorney General Pam Bondi introduced the group of prosecutors, Trump criticized them as ineffective, saying the group was making it difficult for Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to do their jobs, the people said.

[snip]

Among his grievances with prosecutors, Trump complained that the Justice Department hadn’t yet brought a case against one of his most prominent Democratic adversaries, Sen. Adam Schiff of California, the people said.

The department has been investigating whether Schiff engaged in mortgage fraud. The senator has called the probe a bogus attempt at political retribution.

The president criticized some specific prosecutors by jurisdiction and said he felt betrayed, the people said.

[snip]

Trump’s blowup at Justice Department prosecutors comes as the president ramps up pressure on the agency to more aggressively pursue his priorities. He has complained repeatedly in recent weeks about Bondi, calling her an ineffective enforcer of his agenda.

As WSJ noted in its story on this, the day after Trump’s tantrum, Jeanine Pirro sent a subpoena to Jerome Powell, setting off a crisis for Trump.

Also in the wake of that attack, the Minnesota US Attorney’s Office decided to investigate Renee Good’s network rather than the guy who shot her, Jonathan Ross, leading to the resignation of six AUSAs in MN and possibly some in the Civil Rights Division in DC, though Pam Bondi — who looked stunning for a 59 year old a year ago but now looks like shit — now claims she fired those MN AUSAs and Harmeet Dhillon claims the Civil Rights attorneys left for other reasons.

Donald Trump has made it the top focus of his DOJ to prosecute his enemies, and as a result, DOJ has been hemorrhaging experience for a year now.

That’s on top of the singular focus on Stephen Miller’s jihad against immigrants, which has led DOJ to reassign lawyers from national security cases to immigration cases (indeed, that’s one of the stated reasons why Bondi fired Robert McBride, because the First AUSA for one of the key national security divisions in the country didn’t sufficiently chase immigration cases).

But there’s another staffing choice that became public in recent weeks.

As multiple outlets have covered and as Jay Clayton detailed in two letters (January 5; January 15) to Judges Richard Berman (who presided over the Epstein case) and Paul Engelmayer (who picked up the Ghislaine Maxwell case after Alison Nathan moved to the 2nd Circuit) — DOJ has dedicated up to 580 people (the 500 reported last week, plus another 80 added this week)  to replicating the review that over a thousand FBI personnel did a year ago, this time accounting for victim privacy and “independent privileges” not permitted under the act.

To date, the Department has employed over five hundred reviewers to review and redact millions of pages of materials from the investigations into Epstein and his convicted coconspirator, Maxwell.2 The SDNY alone, in conjunction with the Department, has dedicated significant resources (including AUSAs as well as other SDNY personnel), which this week has been supplemented by approximately 80 attorneys from the Department’s Criminal Division, who will coordinate and work with SDNY during the review of documents identified as likely to contain victim information. As part of that review, the Department is identifying not only those materials the publication of which are required under the Act, but also those that carry independent privileges as well as the need to redact victim-identifying information, among other things. Act, § 2(c).3

3 Any materials withheld on this basis of course will be disclosed in a report to Congress. Act § 3.

We still have no explanation for what the hell Bondi did in the last review, such that she has to dedicate 580 attorneys to replicate the review (though the explanation probably lies in the matters DOJ plans to claim privilege over).

But not only is the need to replicate the work that taxpayers already paid for drawing from national security cases, but it is drawing from other high profile sex trafficking cases.

On Tuesday, Judge Valerie Caproni, who is presiding over the prosecution of the Alexander brothers — who are accused of trafficking seven women and a girl (with more victims accusing the brothers) using means not that dissimilar from Epstein’s modus operandi — laid into prosecutors for delays in turning over discovery for a trial currently due to start this month.

On Tuesday, another federal judge in the Southern District of New York told prosecutors to hold off of the Epstein assignment to focus on another marquee sex crime prosecution: the case of Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander — a trio of wealthy brothers in real estate accused of using their status to rape and traffic dozens of women.

With that case set to head to trial later this month, U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni told prosecutors that they need to focus on expeditiously sending over discovery materials.

“A few people can be strung from the Epstein case given that these people are on trial,” said the Obama appointee. “Epstein is dead.”

See InnerCity Press’ live tweeting here.

So here’s how Pam Bondi has used the resources at DOJ.

DOJ has been firing or chasing out personnel — about 5,500 people, according to Justice Connection, not all of them lawyers — since Trump started. A great many of those ousted were ousted, whether by choice or firing, because they refused to pursue Trump’s unethical weaponization.

That’s not good enough, Trump said last week. He needs the hollowed out DOJ to pursue his enemies faster.

Meanwhile, Pam Bondi is so incompetent or corrupt, she has to replicate work she already did, reviewing the Epstein files. 1,000 FBI personnel last March, 580 attorneys now. As a result, she’s neglecting current sex trafficking prosecutions.

And we have yet to tally what the impact of the reassignment of attorneys who focus on real national security issues. Many of them are chasing Stephen Miller’s fever dreams.

On Same Day Robert McBride’s Firing Is Reported, Stan Woodward “Errs” His Grievances

/29 Comments/in , , , , /by

A slew of outlets — starting with MS and including NYT but not including ABC, which usually gets the details right — have reported the firing of Robert McBride because, the MS headline claims, he “declined to pursue James Comey case.” All suggested that, even with the appeal of Lindsey Halligan’s firing before the Fourth Circuit (the Fourth just granted DOJ’s request to stall two weeks and keep the two appeals consolidated), McBride’s sins involved recharging the case in EDVA, even though DOJ abandoned its attempts to reindict Letitia James (on the mortgage fraud; now they’re pursuing hairdresser fraud) before it appealed.

No one mentioned news of the firing happened on the day the SDFL grand jury convenes, or the Comey-related role McBride has been willingly playing, as the single non-defense lawyer litigating Dan Richman’s efforts to get his files returned.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward’s latest prank — an “erring” of grievances — may explain McBride’s firing.

When last we checked in on the Richman litigation before Christmas, after spending some time making sure that someone had ethical skin in her courtroom, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly attempted to juggle the genuinely complex issues before her, granting one after another notice of defiances masquerading as emergency motions for delay for the government, before — seemingly — issuing a final order on December 23, requiring the government to turn over all materials it had, but allowing it to delete the single no-longer classified file they used to obtain the materials back in 2017.

For the foregoing reasons, the Court shall GRANT IN PART the Government’s [22], [33] Emergency Motions to Clarify and Modify the Court’s Order and AMEND its [20] Order dated December 12, 2025, to make explicit that the Government may delete the purportedly classified document identified in 2017 from any material that it returns to Petitioner Richman. Because the Government has not shown that it has a lawful right to retain and use any of the materials at issue, the Court shall not otherwise alter its Order to relieve the Government from its obligation to return those materials to Petitioner Richman.

The next day, in a filing signed by Todd Blanche, Lindsey Halligan, and McBride, DOJ asked for an emergency extension. Again. Because of the holiday, they couldn’t technically remove that single classified file they supposedly removed back in 2017.

7. However, because of significant operational constraints caused by the imminent Christmas and New Year’s holidays (i.e., the lack of sufficient, technically qualified Government personnel in the Washington, DC area for the remainder of this week and the next), which make the current compliance deadline fall a mere one business day after the Court’s revised clarifying order, the Government anticipates that it will not be able to review all electronic storage devices containing classified information, delete that information, and return those devices to Richman’s counsel by December 29, 2025.

But on Christmas Eve, they were going to delete that file.

Days later Kollar-Kotelly granted that extension while reiterating that they only thing they were allowed to do was to delete that file.

Then Stan Woodward, the guy who defended all the people covering up Trump’s crimes across two criminal investigations, got involved. Without filing a notice of appearance — so Stan has no ethical skin in this game — On January 2, he effectively indicated that DOJ was going to defy Kollar-Kotelly’s order, because deleting that single classified file would destroy the forensic copy of this.

In the days since the Court last extended the foregoing deadline, the undersigned counsel has endeavored to negotiate in good faith with counsel for Petitioner-Movant the particulars of the parties’ understanding of what compliance with the Court’s Orders requires. For example, classified information cannot be deleted from the government’s forensic copy of electronic media without the destruction of the entire media. Thus, although the Court’s Orders, “permit the Government to permanently delete a single classified document from the material seized from Petitioner Richman’s personal computer hard drive . . . from any of these materials before returning them to Petitioner Richman,” ECF No. 41 at 2, such limited deletion of classified information from a forensic image is not technologically feasible.

Now, this may be bullshit. Richman’s lawyers, at least, understand that DOJ still retains the actual hard drive, not a forensic copy. The reasons why they believe that are mostly redacted, but it appears the serial number on the subsequent search warrants matches the serial number of Richman’s original hard drive, meaning they kept the original and gave him a different hard drive.

Nicholas Lewin at least believes DOJ gave Richman a different hard drive back in 2017, effectively stealing his actual hard drive in defiance of the consent he gave.

If so, it’s not a forensic image.

And, anyway, someone should have started asking — I know I did — why the Associate Attorney General and the President’s third defense attorney involved in just this matter got involved in a seemingly minor issue that seemed to be settled at all.

Nevertheless, for reasons (probably professional comity) that I cannot fathom, Richman’s lawyers agreed to discuss how DOJ could get out of complying with Kollar-Kotelly’s order, so long as DOJ promised it wouldn’t do anything with his stuff. Kollar-Kotelly granted that extension too.

At that point, it was clear to me at least, DOJ had succeeded in dicking Kollar-Kotelly around long enough to facilitate a different grand jury — the one in SDFL and possibly convened before Aileen Cannon — to issue a warrant and therefore create competing orders from two District Courts.

Then, last night at 7:50PM, and so well after McBride was fired, Stan Woodward asked for another extension. With a flourish, the guy who badly struggled with basic technical issues during the stolen documents case elaborated on his blather about forensic copies (again, if it’s true that DOJ kept Richman’s original hard drive, then this is all bullshit).

The Parties dispute what the Court has authorized the United States to delete. However, when a device contains classified information the only way to properly remove that information is to destroy the device and all the information on that device. Put differently, the United States cannot delete just the documents containing classified material from the device. Further complicating matters is the fact that regardless of the presence of classified information, a single file cannot be deleted from a forensic copy of a device. Either the entire forensic copy is deleted or none of it is. Nevertheless, Petitioner-Movant has requested the United States not destroy any devices containing classified material absent further Order of the Court. The United States will honor this request and hopes the Parties can propose language for the Court’s consideration promptly.

But the bulk of Woodward’s filing consisted of, as he described it, “erring” his grievance that — around the time McBride may have disappeared –Richman’s lawyers did not immediately respond to Woodward’s attempts to keep a full set of Richman’s data on January 10.

To that end, the United States provided counsel for Petitioner-Movant a draft joint consent motion proposing modification to the Courts Orders on December 31, 2025, following a call to outline the contours of the same with Petitioner-Movant’s counsel the previous day. On January 5, 2025, Petitioner-Movant’s counsel wrote to question whether an agreement between the Parties was conceivable. The United States requested a call with counsel for Petitioner-Movant the next day, January 6, 2026, but counsel for Petitioner-Movant advised they were unavailable before January 8 for such a call. Given the desire for the United States to promptly resolve this matter, the United States implored counsel for Petitioner-Movant to provide a redline to the proposed consent motion, which counsel for Petitioner-Movant did after business hours on January 8. The United States provided further edits to the joint motion the next morning, on January 9. Since that time – and at the time of this filing – the United States has not received feedback on that draft despite representations that such feedback would be forthcoming on January 10.

Despite the undersigned representing to Petitioner-Movant’s counsel multiple times a desire to resolve this matter promptly, no agreement has been reached. The undersigned does not err this grievance lightly, but does so only out of respect for the Court’s deadline and out of regret for not seeking an extension earlier. [my emphasis]

It’s Richman’s fault, Woodward suggests by claiming grievance, not his own.

I have no idea whether Kollar-Kotelly saw the news that the only line prosecutor who filed a notice of appearance before her got fired in the middle of all this, but she seemed unimpressed that Woodward was erring grievances about delay when he filed his motion for an extension well after hours the day of his deadline.

The Court is in receipt of the Government’s Unopposed 45 Motion for Extension of Time. Given the late hour of this filing, which the Court received at 7:50 p.m. this evening, and with the understanding that the Government has complied with the Court’s 20 Order (as clarified and amended) in all respects except for the narrow unresolved issues identified in the 45 Motion, it is ORDERED that the deadline for the Attorney General or her designee to certify compliance with the Court’s Order is STAYED through January 13, 2026. The Court otherwise DEFERS RULING on the Government’s 45 Motion for Extension of Time. The Court shall resolve the 45 Motion by further order in due course.

She’s going to deal with it today.

But by firing McBride (who would have had cause to talk with EDVA judges about the supposedly intact copy DOJ stored in their SCIF, another of the crimes for which he was fired), there’s no longer anyone with real ethical skin in the game before Kollar-Kotelly, just Donald Trump’s defense attorneys, all of whom have chummy ties with Aileen Cannon.

Effectively, the promises not to access Dan Richman’s stuff have become virtually unenforceable.

Update: I missed that Stan Woodward did file a notice of appearance on January 2. It remains true that Trump’s defense attorneys likely aren’t that worried about bar complaints.

Update: Kollar-Kotelly has given DOJ a week from today.

MINUTE ORDER: Upon further consideration of the Government’s 45 Motion for Extension of Time, it is ORDERED that the Government’s 45 Motion is GRANTED to the following extent: It is ORDERED that the deadline for the Attorney General or her designee to certify to this Court, with specificity, that the Government has complied with this Court’s 20 Order dated December 12, 2025, as clarified and modified by any subsequent Order of this Court, including the provisions regarding both the return of certain materials to Petitioner Richman and the deposit of certain materials in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, is EXTENDED to 5:00 p.m. ET on January 20, 2026.It is further ORDERED that the parties shall file a joint status report, no later than 9:00 a.m. ET on January 16, 2026, advising the Court of (1) the progress of the Government’s efforts to comply with the Court’s 20 Order, and (2) whether Petitioner Richman possesses a copy of any files or other materials that the Government proposes to delete or destroy on the basis that they are stored on a device or in an image that contains classified information.As previously ordered, the Government and its agents shall not access Petitioner Richman’s covered materials, except for the limited purpose of deleting the purportedly classified memorandum already identified in the record, or share, disseminate, disclose, or transfer those materials to any person, without first seeking and obtaining leave of this Court. Signed by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on 01/13/2026.

The Government Attempts to Gag Dan Richman from Speaking about His Own Data

/17 Comments/in , , /by

There’ve been a flurry of government filings in the Dan Richman case.

In addition to correcting Lindsey Halligan’s confusion over her own identity and that of Robert McBride, the government has written an emergency request asking for a week to comply with Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s order to destroy all evidence after depositing a copy with EDVA.

Only, the entire motion reneges on that claim.

Some of the government requests are reasonable — they’ll promise not to access the data in the interim week, they don’t want to return the Jim Comey memo that was up-classified after he sent it to Richman in 2017 because it is now classified, and they don’t want Pam Bondi to make promises herself (which is different from Todd Blanche doing so).

To that latter end, though, they cannot imagine any reason why it’d be necessary for someone at Main DOJ — and not someone at EDVA — to certify compliance, not even given Pam Bondi’s repeated intrusion in this matter.

The Attorney General has directed appropriate Department of Justice personnel to seek clarification of the obligations imposed by this Court’s order and to take steps to comply with those obligations. But there is no practical or legal reason to require the Attorney General to immediately and personally certify compliance on the unusually expedited timeframe imposed by the Court’s order, rather permit her to rely on any of her hundreds of attorneys and officers, including any attorney employed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia or the Department of Justice, generally.

The reason why, of course, is that lawyers have shared this information between — at least — EDVA, WDVA, and SDFL. And the only people with authority over all those offices are Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche.

In a footnote, the DOJ request preserves a request for reconsideration, which makes you wonder whether there’s not more going on.

5 The Government maintains its position that the Government did not engage in an impermissible search in the 2025 investigation, nor did the Government engage in an unreasonable seizure by continuing to hold the documents obtained by the Government through a lawful search warrant in 2019. Petitioner Richman voluntarily provided these documents pursuant to consent, and while the consent agreement with Petitioner Richman includes limitations on searches, it does not provide, in the event of a prohibited search, for return of property or render continued possession of the property an unlawful seizure. Accordingly, this Court erred in treating any impermissible search as authorizing this Court’s order under Rule 41(g)—which addresses unlawful or harmful seizures—and the Court should grant reconsideration on that basis.

In a paragraph that could invite estoppel considerations, half of Trump’s defense team from his Florida prosecution (in which Todd Blanche and Lindsey Halligan argued the government had no business seizing records because their retention violated the Federal Records Act) argued that they can’t turn over the materials because … they’re covered by the Federal Records Act.

The Government is simultaneously complying with a litigation hold put in place pursuant to a preservation letter from counsel for James Comey.3 See Gov. Ex. 1 at 19. The Government further understands that copies of portions of the relevant files are in the possession of government personnel (e.g., having been printed, saved locally, or emailed). Finally, the Government understands that the relevant files may include e-mails and other electronic communications between Petitioner Richman and James Comey, when both individuals were employed at the FBI, and regarding government business. 4 Such files are undoubtedly property of the Government and are likewise required to be maintained by the Government, and in the Government’s possession, pursuant to the Federal Records Act of 1950.

3 The Government’s compliance with the order may also implicate the Government’s obligation to maintain files pursuant to the Federal Records Act. See 44 U.S.C. § 3301 et seq.

4 Indeed, as the Court noted in its December 12, 2025 opinion, the Arctic Haze investigation in part concerned alleged “theft and conversion of public records.” See ECF No. 19 at 8; see also 18 U.S.C. § 641.

Nothing about this claim is consistent with a goddamn thing Blanche and Halligan argued before Aileen Cannon in 2022.

Not.

A.

Thing.

As noted, the government wants to avoid giving Richman the stuff they’ve copied and emailed, deeming those government records.

It repeats this concern in its request for clarification.

b. It is similarly unclear to the Government whether the Court means for the Government to provide Richman with all copies of portions of the covered materials that are in the possession of government personnel (e.g., having been printed, saved locally, or emailed) in addition to a full and complete copy of the covered materials, or whether the Court intended that such documents be destroyed by the Government. The provision of such documents to Richman might in some cases (e.g., if a document from the covered materials was attached to an email sent by an attorney for the Government) seriously implicate the Government’s attorney-client privilege, the attorney work-product doctrine, attorney-client confidentiality, the deliberative process privilege, and, potentially, other applicable law, including, but not limited to, sealing orders accompanying the search warrants and any potential grand jury material subject to Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

And then it repeats it in the order itself!

3. Other than providing full and complete copies of the covered materials to Richman (not including any classified information) and the Classified Information Security Officer for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the Government shall maintain the original evidence (and any other portions of the covered materials in the possession of the Government) and shall not access the covered materials or share, disseminate, or disclose the covered materials to any person without first seeking and obtaining a Court order.

This is the opposite of what Kollar-Kotelly ordered. They’re asking only for the protective order, not the return — or at least destruction — of Richman’s property!

Most interestingly, though, the proposed order seeks to prevent Richman from using the hypothetically returned data — his own data!!! — for any purpose other than “this proceeding,” which would permit him to expand his Fourth Amendment complaints, but not to bitch (or sue) about what they did with his data.

8. Materials produced to Richman pursuant to this Order may be used solely for purposes of this proceeding and shall not be disclosed, disseminated, or used for any other purpose absent further order of the Court.

The problem, of course, is that it is his data. DOJ would be returning this data because … it is his data. While this may be in the order for no reason other than boilerplate, this would gag Richman from talking about what the FBI did when they conducted unlawful searches of his data (which evidence would be withheld anyway on the other complaints).

Sorry, FBI, maybe you shouldn’t have conducted warrantless searches of someone’s data if you wanted to withhold evidence othe unlawful searches of Dan Richman’s data you did.

But a judge has ruled it is his data — it belongs to him. And the notion that you’re going to gag him about what the data looked like after being returned from six years of FBI custody defies the very claims of property rights that Judge Kollar-Kotelly has already granted.

Update: Judge KK clarified her order on these two issues, while granting the delay (but complaining that DOJ didn’t raise them in briefing).

Further, this Court’s Order directed the return of Petitioner Richman’s own materials (and any copies of those materials), not any derivative files that the Government may have created. See Order, Dkt. No. 20, at 1 (directing the return of the original materials, copies of those materials, and any materials “directly obtained or extracted” from them); see also id. at 41 (explaining that the Court would not bar the Government from “using or relying on” the relevant materials in a separate investigation or proceeding). Accordingly, compliance with the Court’s Order will not intrude upon any of the Government’s privileges.

Finally, it was not the Court’s intention to require a personal certification of compliance by the Attorney General of the United States. The Court’s Memorandum Opinion makes clear that a designee of the Attorney General could discharge this responsibility. See Mem. Op., Dkt. No. 21, at 4 (“The Court shall further ORDER the Attorney General of the United States or her designee to certify …. “). The Court also understood the certification of compliance to be among the responsibilities that the Attorney General may delegate in the routine performance of her duties. Consistent with these understandings, the Court shall clarify its Order to specify that a designee of the Attorney General may certify compliance.

Ed Martin and Lindsey Halligan posing together in his office. They both look really weird, with him being bottom-heavy and forward leaning,and her propped up on ugly shoes.

Lindsey Halligan Can’t Tell the Difference between a Man, a Woman, and a Ham Sandwich

/29 Comments/in , , , /by

Oh hey!

If it’s Thursday, it must be get no-billed by the Letitia James grand jury again!

Virtually every outlet (Politico, NYT, WaPo, AP, CNN) reports that DOJ tried again to indict New York’s Attorney General, once again getting no-billed by the grand jury. Maybe, just maybe, there’s not probable cause that Attorney General James did what frothers claim she did?

The day was not entirely a loss for Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer Masquerading as a US Attorney, though.

She almost managed to comply with Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s order yesterday to comply with Judge KK’s earlier order from last Saturday.

Before Judge KK’s deadline of 10 AM, Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer Masquerading as a US Attorney filed something called, “NOTICE of Appearance by Lindsey Halligan on behalf of UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (Halligan, Lindsey) (Entered: 12/11/2025),” dated Monday, which looks like this:

The metadata shows that Fay Brundage created the document. It also shows that it was actually created on December 8, as if they thought the better of actually filing a notice of appearance.

And at the same time, Robert McBride filed something called, “NOTICE of Appearance by Robert Kennedy McBride on behalf of UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (McBride, Robert) (Entered: 12/11/2025),” also dated Monday, which looks like this:

The metadata for that show no one changed the metadata from the original US Courts template created in 2008.

Hours and hours after Judge KK’s deadline, Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer Masquerading as a US Attorney filed something called, “NOTICE Certificate of Compliance by UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (Halligan, Lindsey),” meant to comply with this order from Judge KK.

The United States and its agent, the Attorney General of the United States, are ORDERED to identify, segregate, and secure the image of Petitioner Richman’s personal computer that was made in 2017, his Columbia University email accounts, and his iCloud account; any copies of those files; and any materials obtained, extracted, or derived from those files (collectively, “the covered materials”) that are currently in the possession of the United States.

The United States and its agents, including the Attorney General of the United States, are further ORDERED not to access the covered materials once they are identified, segregated, and secured, or to share, disseminate, or disclose the covered materials to any person, without first seeking and obtaining leave of this Court.

Here’s the language of the certificate of compliance, which is also dated December 8, which — hey! — is closer than Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer Masquerading as a US Attorney normally gets.

On December 6, 2025, the Court entered an Order [DE 10] stating that the government would “identify, segregate, and secure the image of Richman’s computer that was made in 2017, his Columbia University email accounts, and his iCloud account; any copies of those files; and any materials obtained, extracted, or derived from those files . . . currently in the possession of the United States.” The Court further ordered the government to not access, share, disseminate, or disclose these materials without further permission of the Court. Finally, the Court required the government to certify compliance with the Order by 12:00 p.m. ET on December 8, 2025.

The metadata shows that our good friend James Hayes — the guy in the thick of efforts to try to use material unlawfully accessed — is back, if only in spirit.

According to Carol Leonnig, Lindsey will be formally nominated to be US Attorney (which was already in the works). But Chuck Grassley pushed back on Trump’s complaints about the confirmation process (though without mentioning blue slips specifically). Honestly, it would be a lot of fun to have a Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer confirmation hearing.

But she may be too busy studying up on the difference between a man, a woman, and a ham sandwich.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly Demands Someone at DOJ Put Ethical Skin in the Game

/59 Comments/in , , , /by

Around mid-day (maybe my time? maybe yours?), everything went wrong in the Dan Richman docket, in his bid to stop DOJ from violating his Fourth Amendment rights in their bid to indict Jim Comey.

The Clerk alerted the filers of four of the last filings they had fucked up.

Richman’s attorneys — lawyers from NY who filed docket # 9 and 15 — had filed a document signed by the people who posted it under someone else’s PACER login. The Clerk reminded Richman’s lawyers the person who actually signs into PACER to file something must have signed the document.

The other error was potentially more serious. DOJ’s two filings, 12 and 13, which were DOJ’s identical bid to lift the restraining order on accessing Richman’s data and opposing Richman’s motion for a TRO, noticed a different error. Best as I can explain it, the guy who filed this stuff, John Bailey, is not on the filings at all.

Not scintillating, perhaps. But nevertheless a testament to the fact that this docket, with its NY lawyers for Richman and a mix of shady lawyers for DOJ, were not doing what the clerk’s office checks to make sure the people actually making court filings have ethical skin in the game.

This came after another apparent problem in the docket. By all appearances, Pam Bondi had blown off Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s order that someone at DOJ confirm they were following her order that the entire government will stay out of Dan Richman’s stuff until Friday.

The Attorney General of the United States or her designee is further ORDERED to certify that the United States is in compliance with this Order no later than 12:00 p.m. ET on Monday, December 8, 2025.

It turns out DOJ’s failure to file anything on the docket was just another problem with the docket.

After both DOJ and Richman filed their filings yesterday (which I wrote about here) and after neither responded to Judge KK’s order that if they want to discuss these files, they may need to do a filter protocol, Judge KK weighed in again.

She noticed the same thing I did!! None of the people making these claims wanted to put their own ethical skin in the game. This is, significantly, what she seemed to be looking for when she made sure Richman got someone to file a notice of appearance.

Today’s order reveals what happened with her order to file a notice of compliance by Monday: They emailed it, two minutes before her deadline (but fucked up Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer’s filing … and anything else would frankly shock me at this point, because this has happened with pretty much everything filed under her name since she first showed up for Trump).

In response to this Court’s [10] Order dated December 6, 2025, Attorney Robert K. McBride sent an email to this Court’s Chambers at approximately 11 :58 a.m. ET on December 8, 2025, attaching a document certifying the Government’s compliance with the Court’s [10] Order, along with proposed Notices of Appearance for himself and Attorneys Todd W. Blanche and Lindsey Halligan. 1

1 The document that the Court is construing as a proposed Notice of Appearance for Attorney Halligan was attached with the filename “NOA Halligan,” but the substance of the document appeared to be a Notice of Appearance for Attorney Blanche. Another document attached to Attorney McBride’s email, entitled “NOA Blanche” was identical to this document except that it omitted Attorney Blanche’s Bar number.

She then laid out the two problems I did here. “[P]roviding documents by email is not a substitute for filing them on the docket.” “Attorney Bailey’s electronic signature does not appear in the body of the Government’s [12] Response and Motion–only the electronic signatures of Attorneys Blanche, Halligan, and McBride appear-and Attorney Bailey has not filed a notice of appearance.”

And then she laid out the problem with it — the reason I’ve been watching it closely this week.

To ensure that counsel who are accountable for the Government’s representations and legal positions in this matter are accurately identified in the official record of this case, it is ORDERED that all counsel of record for the Government shall file notices of appearance no later than 10:00 a.m. ET tomorrow, December 11, 2025.

She needs someone to hold accountable. She needs ethical skin in the game.

And then she ordered someone to file a certification of compliance on the docket, like she originally expected, by tomorrow morning.

It is further ORDERED that, no later than the same deadline, 10:00 a.m. ET tomorrow, December 11, 2025, the Government shall file on the docket its certification of compliance with this Court’s [10] Order dated December 6, 2025.

Who knows what happens next?!?!

What I do know is Todd Blanche and his buddies are awfully squirmy about what they’re doing. And I’m not the only one who noticed.

Update: Here are two other dockets in which Todd Blanche played a key role:

  • In LaMonica McIver, in which he is witness, substitute US Attorney, and the guy who bypassed PIN, only the AUSAs appear.
  • In Jeffrey Epstein (and Ghislaine Maxwell), in which Blanche was the only signer of the original motion to unseal and in the district where he worked as an AUSA, he did file a notice of appearance, before others filed after him. Of course he got admitted in DC via representing Trump.

Update: Welp. DOJ failed. Robert McBride and Lindsey Halligan filed notices of appearance (albeit in each other’s names). Todd Blanche did not.

But they did not, as Judge Kollar-Kotelly ordered them to do, filed their certification of compliance to the docket.

The False Claims Todd Blanche, Robert McBride, and Some Lady Impersonating a US Attorney Tell to Justify a Crime

/39 Comments/in , , , /by

Update: I realize that DOJ never complied with this part of Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s order.

The Attorney General of the United States or her designee is further ORDERED to certify that the United States is in compliance with this Order no later than 12:00 p.m. ET on Monday, December 8, 2025.

This court filing is a smokescreen.

DOJ — in the persons of Todd Blanche, some lady impersonating a US Attorney, and First AUSA Robert McBride — have responded to Dan Richman’s demand that they stop illegally rifling through his data.

It’s a remarkable filing for two reasons.

First, they cite a bunch of precedents claiming that one cannot use Rule 41 to thwart a prosecution. Best as I can tell, every single one of those precedents pertain to someone trying to withhold his own property to thwart his own prosecution. Michael Deaver trying to stop a Special Prosecutor investigation of himself. Paul Manafort trying to thwart a prosecution of himself. Justin Paul Gladding in a case where he was trying to get his own non-CSAM data back after a conviction. A grand jury case where the subject of the investigation tried to get his files back.

None of these apply here.

Effectively, Todd Blanche is saying Dan Richman has to lay back and enjoy digital compromise to allow the FBI to prosecute his friend and who cares if they’re breaking the law to do so.

But I’m also struck by the lies Blanche and the lady impersonating a US Attorney tell along the way. Consider this passage.

Richman served as a special government employee at the FBI between June 2015 and February 2017.1 Shortly after his departure from the FBI, the Government began investigating whether Richman had disclosed classified information to The New York Times concerning Comey’s decisionmaking process concerning the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. See CM/ECF No. 1-1 at 3. The investigation demonstrated, among other things, that Comey had used Richman to provide information to the media concerning his—that is, Comey’s—decisionmaking process concerning the Clinton email investigation and that Richman had served as an anonymous source in doing so.

During the course of the investigation, the Government sought and obtained four search warrants in this district authorizing the Government to search for and seize evidence of violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 641 and 793 from certain email accounts utilized by Richman, a hard drive containing a forensic image of his personal computer, and his iCloud account.2 See CM/ECF No. 1-1 at 3.

Comey provided relevant testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee shortly before his employment as FBI Director was terminated, and again in September 2020. In May 2017, he testified in response to questioning from Senator Grassley that he had never authorized someone at the FBI to serve as an anonymous source regarding the Clinton email investigation. And in September 2020, he reaffirmed that testimony in response to questioning from Senator Cruz.

1 The government has provided the concise factual summary herein out of an abundance of caution as a result of the Court’s December 6, 2025 temporary restraining order (the “TRO”). See CM/ECF No. 9 at 4. Should the Court have meant the TRO to permit the government to use materials obtained via the relevant search warrants as part of this litigation, the government is prepared to provide a more detailed factual summary if necessary.

2 The investigators sought to obtain evidence of violations of 18 U.S.C. § 641 because it appeared that Richman and Comey were using private email accounts to correspond regarding official government business, i.e., that their correspondence were “record[s]” of the United States. See id.

First, the passage makes a confession, one that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer Impersonating a US Attorney’s Loaner AUSAs never made: the use of May 2017 files involving attorney-client privilege had no basis in the prosecution, because they long post-dated the time Dan Richman left the FBI.

The filing misstates the genesis of Arctic Haze and the focus on Dan Richman. The investigation didn’t start by focusing on Richman. The focus on Richman appears to have started when John Durham discovered his communications while rifling through the image he shared with the Inspector General (a detail that seems quite sensitive, given the redactions).

The claim that the investigation demonstrated that Comey used Richman,

to provide information to the media concerning his—that is, Comey’s—decisionmaking process concerning the Clinton email investigation and that Richman had served as an anonymous source in doing so.

Is not backed by anything in the public record. Richman was not anonymous when doing this in fall 2016, and there’s no evidence that Comey asked Richman to do this in February 2017, where he was also an on-the-record source.

This filing obscures the fact that when Comey told Chuck Grassley he had not leaked anything anonymously, it preceded the time when Richman did share his memos anonymously, and he disclosed that publicly a month later, meaning it could not conceivably have been a lie on May 3, 2017 (before he shared the memo) or after June 8, 2017, in September 2020, because he had already disclosed it.

McBride claims he’s not using the unlawfully accessed materials in this filing, but he did disclose something new: that Richman and Comey were investigated under 18 USC 641 not because Comey shared a memo that the Inspector General would later rule was official FBI material, but because they were conducting official business on personal accounts (which is rich given that Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer masquerading as US Attorney used Signal for official business).

The lies are important for a reason beyond the cynicism: They obscure that if the FBI tried to get a warrant for these very same files, they would never be able to access the files they want.

And so they’re telling Dan Richman to just lay back and enjoy the Fourth Amendment violations.

Update: Richman’s response says exactly what I did (but in fancy lawyer-speak): The citations DOJ relied on all pertain to someone trying to get their own content back to prevent their own prosecution.

[I]n every single case cited by the government on this point, the movant was the target of an active investigation or the defendant in a charged criminal case. See In re Sealed Case, 716 F.3d at 604, 607 (observing that “the [DiBella] Court . . . found that each motion was tied to a criminal prosecution in esse because both movants had been arrested and indicted at the time of appeal” and that the movant in the case before it was “the subject of an ongoing grand jury investigation”) 6 ; Martino v. United States, 2024 WL 3963681, at *1 (3d Cir. Aug. 28, 2024) (movant was the “subject of an ongoing grand jury investigation” and brought a Rule 41(g) Motion tied to “his criminal prosecution”) (emphasis added); United States v. Nocito, 64 F.4th 76, 79 (3d Cir. 2023) (movant entities were owned by person charged with crime); In re Grand Jury, 635 F.3d 101, 105 (3d Cir. 2011) (finding DiBella’s second requirement met because “the property was seized in connection with an ongoing grand jury investigation of which the appellant is a target”) (emphasis added); In re Warrant Dated Dec. 14, 1990 & Recs. Seized From 3273 Hubbard Detroit, Mich. on Dec. 17, 1990, 961 F.2d 1241, 1242 (6th Cir. 1992) (involving “records . . . sought in connection with a criminal investigation of the appellants for tax evasion, filing of fraudulent tax returns, and conspiracy”).

Professor Richman is not a subject, target, or defendant. Though the government elides this fact, it bears repeating: because Professor Richman is not a prospective criminal defendant, he has no suppression remedy to address an ongoing violation of his constitutional rights. His property was seized five years ago, pursuant to warrants tied to a separate and since concluded investigation, and there is no indictment and no pending criminal case.

I actually think they might envision including him in a Grand Conspiracy indictment. But they’re pretending they’re not currently working on this and so got too cute for their own good — he notes that they twice dismissed his claims of irreparable harm because he was only at risk of being a witness at trial.