Month: November 2025

The justice system’s falling apart—but the worst people are losing

Posted on by Lisa Needham

Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.

Welcome to another week where we try to make sense of the justice system in an era where it is basically self-destructing. This week, though, we can report that it was a bad week for some of the worst people you know.

Do you loathe U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan? You’re in luck, because she is getting dressed down by the judge in her ridiculous prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey. 

Hate Gregory Bovino, the cosplay-Nazi brute leading the administration’s violent occupation of Chicago? He did not have a good time in court this week. 

Think House Speaker Mike Johnson is laughably pathetic? Watch him suck up as hard as possible by slamming the Supreme Court and trying to hand over even more of Congress’ power to Trump.

Are we really doing this again?

House Republicans just can’t stop threatening to impeach, well, lots of judges, but they have a particular hatred of Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge for the District of Columbia.  

So, what is it this time? This one is a bit tough to follow, because it requires you to be fully steeped in the Deep Lore of Jan. 6. Somehow, Boasberg should be impeached because he authorized former special counsel Jack Smith to issue nondisclosure orders so that the legislators Smith was seeking phone logs from were not notified of the request. 

Texas Rep. Brandon Gill has a bone to pick with Judge James Boasberg for doing his job.

That is apparently, at least according to Texas Rep. Brandon Gill, who is very much not a lawyer, illegal and threatening, and come on, this stuff is exhausting. Oh, also, Boasberg has weaponized the judiciary on behalf of former President Joe Biden, which would be a super-odd thing to do given that Biden is no longer president and presumably isn’t trying to puppet-master the judiciary. 

What this clutch of House members is actually most mad about is that Judge Boasberg had the gall to tell the administration it had to turn around the planes of detainees they were deporting under cover of darkness. Of course, the administration just defied that order anyway.

This will probably be as successful and fact-free as the misconduct charge the administration tried to slap Boasberg with. This seems to have languished for a while, but what Attorney General Pam Bondi alleges is the mostest worstest thing a judge could do was to mention, in a private gathering of judges, that he was worried that the Trump administration would disregard court orders and trigger a constitutional crisis. 

Right on both counts, Boasberg!

This most recent treat time at the Supreme Court really sucks

Is it really treat time when it is a constant stream of treats? It’s no longer special or surprising that the Supreme Court’s six conservatives are absolutely in the tank for President Donald Trump. 

Want to illegally remove members of independent boards even though the law prohibits it? Have at it! 

Want to racially profile people so ICE can more easily detain them, even though the Fourth Amendment prohibits it? Sure! You do you, boo! 

But this latest one is super bleak, with the Supreme Court clearing the way for the administration to kick transgender and nonbinary people in the teeth some more by blocking them from having a passport that reflects their gender identity. This is, of course, not a ruling in a case that has been fully litigated. This is just the usual Supreme Court thing, where whenever a lower court says Trump can’t do something, he runs to the Supreme Court so they will block the lower court’s ruling. 

So, it’s literally an emergency if Trump is not allowed to misgender and torment trans people right now, even as the case proceeds through the courts. This is a court that welcomes Trump’s project to hurt trans people just because he can, and they’re gosh darn happy to get to help out. 

No treat time for Halligan in the Eastern District of Virginia

Things continue to go swimmingly for everyone’s favorite real estate lawyer turned Smithsonian anti-woke director turned Interim U.S. Attorney—maybe?—Lindsey Halligan. 

Halligan was likely flying high when she succeeded at carrying out Trump’s demands to indict Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. However, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to Halligan that there were about a zillion other steps in front of her in terms of actually convicting Comey or James. 

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan

Fam, is it bad when the judge in your case says you seem to have an attitude of “indict first” and investigate second? That seems bad, right?

The DOJ had been ordered to turn over grand jury materials in the Comey case for the judge to review and determine whether to release them to Comey. One of Comey’s motions is to unseal the grand jury testimony, given that it seemed like Halligan was just doing Trump’s bidding with the indictment, the inaccuracies in the actual indictment, and that every career prosecutor said they wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole.

So, even though they were ordered to provide everything, the DOJ seemed to have left out remarks from Halligan herself, who is the sole person who presented the case to the grand jury. The judge issued what could only be called a “Did I Stutter?” order and gave Halligan 24 hours to produce the remainder. Have fun, Lindsey!

No treat time for Bovino in Chicago

Is there a better example of the absolute depravity and Nazi cosplay of ICE than Bovino? Just an absolutely irredeemable dude, perfect for Trump’s war on immigrants and blue cities.

Gregory Bovino loves to defy court orders when it comes to terrifying immigrants.

Like Trump, Bovino thinks court orders are optional, so he and his band of cretins just kept terrorizing Chicago even after the judge issued a temporary restraining order stopping them from tear-gassing children without warning and using less-lethal munitions just because he feels like it. Bovino didn’t just ignore that order, he flagrantly, gleefully violated it. So on Thursday, Judge Sara Ellis upgraded her temporary restraining order to a preliminary injunction, which is also a “Did I Stutter?” order. 

Of course, the administration is already whining about how their stormtroopers in Chicago are facing serious threats but showing “incredible restraint” and they’re gonna appeal, of course. 

And if you’re wondering how long it took Bovino and his thugs to violate the injunction? Pretty much immediately, with agents firing pepper balls at a car that pulled up next to them, because how dare Chicagoans drive near this band of trigger-happy Nazis. Surely that’s a shootable offense, right?

Looks like Johnson does actually know something?

Aww, poor Speaker Johnson. The only good thing about watching him relentlessly lie every day is that you can tell it is eating away at him. Not because it bothers him, but because he sucks at lying. He’s too much of a wuss to bluster, too overconfident to actually prepare, and catastrophically bad at speaking off the cuff. 

This week, Johnson had the weight of the world on his slumping little shoulders. He had to spin the GOP’s catastrophic losses in Tuesday’s elections. He has to pretend there is a secret plan to fix health care. 

But at least that’s novel. Most days he just declares that he doesn’t know anything about anything … well, anything bad that Trump is doing.

But apparently he paid attention to Wednesday’s Supreme Court arguments on tariffs, and he is very disappointed in Justice Neil Gorsuch. Johnson is unhappy that Gorsuch expressed concern that Trump’s tariff scheme is a power grab from Congress. Yes, that’s the head of one of the bodies of Congress whining that the judicial branch isn’t signing on to let Trump take Congress’ power away. Jesus, man. Have some dignity.

‘We have made history’: Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi to retire

Posted on by Associated Press

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi will not seek reelection to the U.S. House, bringing to a close her storied career as not only the first woman in the speaker's office but arguably the most powerful in American politics.

Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco for nearly 40 years, announced her decision Thursday.

“I will not be seeking reelection to Congress,” Pelosi said in a video address to voters.

Pelosi, appearing upbeat and forward-looking as images of her decades of accomplishments filled the frames, said she would finish out her final year in office. And she left those who sent her to Congress with a call to action to carry on the legacy of agenda-setting both in the U.S. and around the world.

“My message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” she said. “We have made history. We have made progress. We have always led the way.” 

Pelosi said, “And now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.” 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tears her copy of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in 2020.

The decision, while not fully unexpected, ricocheted across Washington, and California, as a seasoned generation of political leaders is stepping aside ahead of next year's midterm elections. Some are leaving reluctantly, others with resolve, but many are facing challenges from newcomers eager to lead the Democratic Party and confront President Donald Trump.

Pelosi remains a political powerhouse and played a pivotal role with California's redistricting effort, Prop 50, and the party's comeback in this month's election. She maintains a robust schedule of public events and party fundraising, and her announced departure touches off a succession battle back home and leaves open questions about who will fill her behind-the-scenes leadership role at the Capitol.

An architect of the Affordable Care Act and a leader on the international stage, Pelosi, who's 85, came to politics later in life, a mother of five mostly grown children. She has long fended off calls for her to step aside by turning questions about her intentions into spirited rebuttals, asking if the same was being posed of her male colleagues on Capitol Hill.

In her video address, she noted that her first campaign slogan was “a voice that will be heard.”

And with that backing, she became a speaker “whose voice would certainly be heard,” she said.

But after Pelosi quietly helped orchestrate Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, she has decided to pass the torch, too.

Last year, she experienced a fall resulting in a hip fracture during a whirlwind congressional visit to allies in Europe, but even still it showcased her grit: It was revealed she was rushed to a military hospital for surgery — after the group photo, in which she's seen smiling, poised on her trademark stiletto heels.

Pelosi's decision also comes as her husband of more than six decades, Paul Pelosi, was gravely injured three years ago when an intruder demanding to know “Where is Nancy?” broke into the couple’s home and beat him over the head with a hammer. His recovery from the attack, days before the 2022 midterm elections, is ongoing.

Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Pelosi faced a potential primary challenge in California. Left-wing newcomer Saikat Chakrabarti, who helped devise progressive superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s political rise in New York, has mounted a campaign, and state Sen. Scott Wiener is also reported to be considering a run.

While Pelosi remains an unmatched force for the Democratic Party, having fundraised more than $1 billion over her career, her next steps are uncertain. First elected in 1987 after having worked in California state party politics, she has spent some four decades in public office.

Madam speaker takes the gavel

Pelosi’s legacy as House speaker comes not only because she was the first woman to have the job but also because of what she did with the gavel, seizing the enormous powers that come with the suite of offices overlooking the National Mall. 

The first female speaker of the House.

During her first tenure, from 2007 to 2011, she steered the House in passing landmark legislation into law — the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank financial reforms in the aftermath of the Great Recession and a repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy against LGBTQ service members.

With President Barack Obama in the White House and Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada leading the Senate, the 2009-10 session of Congress ended among the most productive since the Johnson era.

But a conservative Republican “tea party” revolt bounced Democrats from power, ushering in a new style of Republicans, who would pave the way for Trump to seize the White House in 2016.

Determined to win back control, Pelosi helped recruit and propel dozens of women to office in the 2018 midterm elections as Democrats running as the resistance to Trump’s first term.

On the campaign trail that year, Pelosi told The Associated Press that if House Democrats won, she would show the “power of the gavel.”

Pelosi returns to the speaker's office as a check on Trump

Pelosi became the first speaker to regain the office in some 50 years, and her second term, from 2019 to 2023, became potentially more consequential than the first, particularly as the Democratic Party's antidote to Trump.

Pelosi regularly stood up to and defeated Trump during his first term.

Trump was impeached by the House — twice — first in 2019 for withholding U.S. aid to Ukraine as it faced a hostile Russia at its border and then in 2021 days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Senate acquitted him in both cases.  

Pelosi stood up the Jan. 6 special committee to probe Trump's role in sending his mob of supporters to the Capitol, when most Republicans refused to investigate, producing the 1,000-page report that became the first full accounting of what happened as the defeated president tried to stay in office.

After Democrats lost control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, Pelosi announced she would not seek another term as party leader.

Rather than retire, she charted a new course for leaders, taking on the emerita title that would become used by others, including Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California during his brief tenure after he was ousted by his colleagues from the speaker's office in 2023.

Trump foe Boasberg hit with articles of impeachment

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, is formally introducing impeachment articles against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Tuesday for his role in the "Arctic Frost" probe.

Republican allies of President Donald Trump have been criticizing Boasberg after news broke that he was the judge who signed off on subpoenas and other measures in former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe.

"Chief Judge Boasberg has compromised the impartiality of the judiciary and created a constitutional crisis. He is shamelessly weaponizing his power against his political opponents, including Republican members of Congress who are faithfully serving the American people within their jurisdiction," Gill told Fox News Digital.

"Judge Boasberg was an accomplice in the egregious Arctic Frost scandal where he equipped the Biden DOJ to spy on Republican senators. His lack of integrity makes him clearly unfit for the gavel. I am proud to once again introduce articles of impeachment against Judge Boasberg to hold him accountable for his high crimes and misdemeanors."

MAJOR PHONE CARRIERS REVEAL JACK SMITH'S SUBPOENAS FOR REPUBLICAN SENATORS' RECORDS

Gill's resolution accused Boasberg of one count of abuse of power, according to text obtained first by Fox News Digital.

"Ignoring his responsibility to wield the power of his office in a constitutional manner, Chief Judge Boasberg granted Special Counsel John L. Smith authorization to issue frivolous nondisclosure orders in furtherance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation project codenamed ARCTIC FROST," the text said.

"These nondisclosure orders covered Members of Congress who were acting in accord with their legislative duties and privileges guaranteed by Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution."

WHO IS JAMES BOASBERG, THE US JUDGE AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP'S DEPORTATION EFFORTS?

The redacted Arctic Frost documents were made public late last month by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. They included subpoenas of phone records for 10 senators and one House lawmaker, and gag orders sent to Verizon and AT&T instructing them not to notify lawmakers of the subpoena. Verizon complied, but AT&T did not.

Both the subpoenas and gag orders were signed by Boasberg, according to the documents — a detail that prompted fresh criticism and indignation from Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who blasted the investigation as "worse than Watergate" and a gross violation of prosecutorial powers.

Under the Stored Communications Act, federal judges exercise discretion in signing off on such orders — they are not automatic. It is unclear what materials Boasberg would have reviewed in this particular case before authorizing the tolling records of the senators, as much of the information and materials in the probe remain classified or are heavily redacted. 

Republicans named in the subpoenas have argued they are potential violations of the speech or debate clause of the U.S. Constitution, which protects lawmakers from being arrested or questioned by law enforcement for things they say or do in their legislative roles. 

Those protections are not absolute, however, and the clause remains the subject of ongoing, spirited debate over the separation of powers and what degree of protection members of Congress should enjoy from the other two branches of government.

It is not the first time Boasberg has caught negative attention from Trump or his allies.

The federal judge was the target of Republican impeachment threats earlier this year after he issued an order temporarily pausing Trump’s migrant deportation flights to El Salvador.

Gill and other GOP lawmakers pushing impeachment resolutions backed off of those threats after House Republican leaders suggested it was not the most potent route to affect change.

Boasberg’s role in ‘Arctic Frost’ probe sparks fury from GOP senators, despite local rules

Posted on by Latest Political News on Fox News

Republican senators issued a torrent of criticism against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg this week after it was revealed that he had signed off on subpoenas and gag orders issued as part of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation — though a cursory review of court rules suggests it is far less provocative than lawmakers have claimed.

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., were among the Republicans who blasted Boasberg as an "activist" judge, and Cruz, for his part, suggested Boasberg should be impeached. 

"My assumption," Cruz fumed, is "that Judge Boasberg printed these things out like the placemats at Denny's — one after the other."

MAJOR PHONE CARRIERS REVEAL JACK SMITH'S SUBPOENAS FOR REPUBLICAN SENATORS' RECORDS

At issue were subpoenas and gag orders issued by former special counsel Jack Smith's team as part of its probe into President Donald Trump's actions in the wake of the 2020 election. 

The redacted documents were made public this week by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

They included subpoenas of phone records for 10 senators and one House lawmaker, and gag orders sent to Verizon and AT&T instructing them not to notify lawmakers of the subpoena. (Verizon complied, AT&T did not.) 

Both the subpoenas and gag orders were signed by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, according to the newly released documents — a detail that prompted fresh criticism and indignation from some of the Republicans in question, including Cruz, who blasted the investigation in question as "worse than Watergate" and a gross violation of prosecutorial powers.

Blackburn blasted Boasberg as an "activist" judge. Some lawmakers further argued for his impeachment as a result of his involvement. 

In fact, his role in the process is far from surprising. 

WHO IS JAMES BOASBERG, THE US JUDGE AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP'S DEPORTATION EFFORTS?

Local rules for the federal court system in D.C. explicitly state the chief judge "must hear and determine all proceedings before the grand jury." The subpoenas and gag orders signed by Boasberg were signed in May 2023 — roughly two months into his tenure as the chief judge for the federal court.

It's unclear whether Sens. Cruz or Blackburn were aware of this rule, and they did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. 

But it's also not the first time Judge Boasberg previously noted his oversight of these matters as the chief judge for D.C. — including in the special counsel probe in question. 

Boasberg explained the rule in question in June 2023, when he granted, in part, a request from media outlets to unseal a tranche of redacted documents related to the subpoena and testimony of former Vice President Mike Pence in the same probe. (He explained in a lengthy public memo that he did so because the press movant were seeking record that Pence himself had discussed publicly.) 

Still, the controversy comes as Boasberg has found himself squarely in Trump’s crosshairs, after he issued a temporary restraining order in March blocking Trump’s use of a 1798 wartime law to deport hundreds of Venezuelan nationals to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

Until that point, however, Boasberg had largely avoided making headlines. 

JACK SMITH DEFENDS SUBPOENAING REPUBLICAN SENATORS’ PHONE RECORDS: ‘ENTIRELY PROPER’

A graduate of Yale, Oxford University and Yale Law School, Boasberg clerked for the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before joining the Justice Department as a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C.

He was tapped in 2002 by then-President George W. Bush to serve on the D.C. Superior Court, where he served until 2011, when he was nominated by President Barack Obama to the federal bench in D.C. in 2011. 

His confirmation vote soared through the Senate with a 96-0 vote of approval, including with the support of Sen. Grassley and other Republicans named in the subpoena. 

Boasberg in 2014 was appointed by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to a seven-year term on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA Court, comprised of 11 federal judges hand-selected by the chief justice. 

Former special counsel Jack Smith, for his part, has since defended his decision to subpoena the Republican lawmakers' phone records, which Fox News Digital reported includes phone records for a four-day period surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. 

They did not include the contents of phone calls or messages, which would require a warrant, but they did include "[call] detail records for inbound and outbound calls, text messages, direct connect, and voicemail messages" and phone number, subscriber, and payment information.

 His lawyers told Senate lawmakers in a letter earlier this month that the decision to do so was "entirely proper" and is consistent with Justice Department policy.

Fox News's Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.