Judge rejects Trump admin request for order to segregate 20,000 Calif. ballots

🔮 We will not be intimidated by a sham investigation."

🔮 Judge says court will investigate government officials in DC golf course case The judge wants to know if lawyers tried to mislead her over Trump's plans.

🔮 Attorneys for former FBI Director James Comey are set to appear in court in Washington, D.C., Friday in their emergency push to have a federal judge dismiss the criminal allegations lodged against him by the Justice Department that accuse him of allegedly mishandling classified information more than a decade ago.

🔮 A House Democrat is asking congressional appropriators for guardrails that would prevent President Donald Trump from exploiting a loophole in federal law to buy the East Potomac Golf Course that he's been pushing to renovate with taxpyer funds.

🔮 "Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch," U.S .District Judge David Carter wrote in his Wednesday order.

🔮 Bill Essayli, a controversial Trump-installed leader of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Central District of California, argued in the hearing that the administration was simply pushing for the state to be in compliance with federal law barring non-citizens from casting votes. But state officials and other legal advocates opposing the DOJ lawsuit countered that the litigation violated longstanding Constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections -- and could have chaotic consequences for the state in tabulating final vote counts in the weeks ahead.

🔮 I'm frustrated that I got it in the middle of the night, but I'm much more concerned that it's filed on the public record." The assistant U.S. attorney in the hearing, John Borchert, struggled repeatedly as Faruqui asked him to explain the government's conduct, which the judge said was unlike any case he had ever seen in the history of D.C.'s district court. Faruqui ultimately granted the request from Flores' and Benavides' attorneys to strike the amended complaint from the docket and said he would continue Tuesday's hearing to determine whether prosecutors established probable cause in their initial complaint filed last week. "Why today on this one case have you changed the entire history of how you charge cases?" Faruqui asked of Borchert.

🔮 She could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday.

🔮 "The United States seeks a court order to prevent Defendants from certifying the result of the November 2026 United States Senate election if '(1) [Dan S.] Sullivan does not win the election; and (2) had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan been cast instead for [Dan S.] Sullivan and Alaska's rank-choice process played out accordingly, [Dan S.] Sullivan would have won the election.'"

🔮 Appeals court rejects Trump admin's voting lawsuit against California The court sent the suit back to a district court, which will hear it on Tuesday.