Appeals court rejects Trump DOJ ballot demand; Comey charged for third time amid midterms

A federal appeals court on Monday rejected the Trump administration's emergency bid to prevent California from counting mail-in ballots from approximately 20,000 voters suspected of being noncitizens. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, found that the Justice Department had appealed prematurely, granting a federal judge only a brief window to consider their demand. The court also noted that the "emergency" claimed by the administration was partly self-created due to delays in filing the lawsuit, allowing California to continue processing votes ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.

Concurrently, former FBI Director James Comey was charged by the Justice Department for a third time, facing two counts related to allegedly leaking national defense information in 2016. These charges, filed as a "criminal information" on October 26, 2026, accuse Comey of leaking details regarding U.S. email surveillance to a national news outlet and conspiring to do so. Comey's legal team contends the new charges are an invalid attempt to bypass the 10-year statute of limitations and that prior investigations into the matter yielded no grounds for prosecution.