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(ALEXANDRIA, Va.) — Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty Wednesday to both counts in a federal indictment, and his attorneys said they will seek to have the case dismissed for vindictive and selective prosecution.

A federal grand jury indicted Comey on Sept. 25, just days after President Donald Trump publicly demanded Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department act “now” against Comey and other political opponents.

Comey is charged with one count of false statements and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding, related to his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020.

The plea was entered by his attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who asked for a jury trial. 

The judge read the charges and said they carry a penalty of up to 5 years in prison with a $250,000 fine.

He asked if Comey understood the charges, and he replied, “I do, Your Honor.”

A trial date was set for Jan. 5.

The judge asked how long the government anticipated the trial lasting, and the government said 2-3 days.

The judge said that he was prepared to move forward with a speedy trial. The government said the case was “complicated,” but didn’t appear to object to the trial date in court.

“This doesn’t appear to be a complicated case,” the judge said.

Fitzgerald agreed, saying, “We see this as a simple case.”

Comey has been a longtime target of Trump’s criticism over his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump on Monday, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, called Comey a “dirty cop” and claimed it was a “simple case.”

But the Comey matter has thrown the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia into turmoil, according to sources. The previous U.S. attorney, Erik Siebert, resigned over pressure from the Trump administration to bring criminal charges against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump said he fired Siebert.

Trump then handpicked Halligan, a White House aide and his former defense attorney, to replace Siebert and lead the office. Halligan presented the Comey case to the grand jury, despite prosecutors and investigators determining there was insufficient evidence to charge him, ABC News reported at the time.

Comey attorneys told the judge Wednesday they plan to file a motion challenging the lawfulness of Halligan’s appointment, but that will be heard by a different judge appointed by the chief judge of 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

The judge on Wednesday instructed the government to respond to those motions by Nov. 3 and directed the defense to respond by Nov. 10. The judge said he wants the case to be fully briefed by Nov. 19 and said hearings will be planned for Nov. 19 and Dec. 9. 

Oral arguments will be held Dec. 9 on the defense’s motion to dismiss because of grand jury abuse, “outrageous government conduct” and other motions Comey’s attorneys did not disclose.

Both the defense and the judge expressed some confusion as to why the government said there would be a substantial amount of classified information involved in the case.

At one point Fitzgerald said that he believed the government should have figured out the issue with classified information before bringing the case. It appears the “cart has been put before the horse,” Fitzgerald said. 

The judge said there should be no reason the case gets off track because of classified information.

“We will go through the fastest CIPA process you have ever seen in your life,” he joked, referring to the litigation that occurs around cases involving classified information. 

The judge also said, “I will not slow this case down” over the government’s obligations to produce discovery to the defense. 

Comey was in court Wednesday for the first time since he was indicted last month, where he was joined inside the Alexandria, Virginia, courtroom by Fitzgerald and attorneys David Kelley and Jessica Carmichael. 

The government was being represented by Halligan and Nathaniel “Tyler” Lemons, a prosecutor from the Eastern District of North Carolina. 

Comey’s wife and his daughter, Maureen Comey, were seen arriving at the Alexandria courthouse ahead of the proceeding.

Comey has denied any wrongdoing and has said he looks forward to a trial.

Ahead of Wednesday’s arraignment, the Department of Justice added two assistant U.S. attorneys from out of state to work on the case.

ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler, Alexander Mallin, Peter Charalambous and Ely Brown contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Following an unprecedented surge in election-related litigation, the Supreme Court on Wednesday was. considering reviving a lawsuit challenging an Illinois law that allows officials to count mail-in ballots received within two weeks of Election Day. 

The Supreme Court heard arguments about the broader question of who has the right to file a federal lawsuit challenging election law, the outcome of which could not only revive the mail-in ballot case but also open the door to a wave of new legal challenges to election laws. 

Republican Rep. Michael Bost and two presidential electors filed a lawsuit in 2022 to challenge the Illinois law, arguing that counting mail-in ballots beyond Election Day constitutes an illegal extension of voting beyond the timeframe set in federal law. 

Two lower courts threw out the lawsuit after concluding that the congressman lacked standing — or the legal right to bring a lawsuit — because the plaintiffs could not prove the policy harmed them. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in June, adding to one of the high court’s most consequential terms in recent history.

 President Donald Trump and his allies have long criticized the practice of mail-in voting, using it as ammunition to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election. In August, Trump vowed to “lead a movement to get rid of” mail-in voting, though his campaign had encouraged voters to use mail ballots. 

“It’s time that the Republicans get tough and stop it, because the Democrats want it. It’s the only way they can get elected,” Trump said then.

When a federal district judge threw out Bost’s lawsuit in 2022, the decision stemmed from the question of whether the congressman and the electors had the grounds to sue, not the merits of his legal argument about mail-in ballots. The court ruled that Bost’s claims about being harmed by the policy — including having to use campaign resources during the post-election ballot counting period — were a “generalized grievance” that did not provide him standing to sue.  

To bring a lawsuit in federal court, a plaintiff generally needs to establish that a particular action injures them, that the action stemmed from the person he or she is suing, and that the court’s solution would resolve the harm. 

Together with electors Laura Pollatrini and Susan Sweeney, Bost argues that the mail-in ballot policy not only harms his election prospects but also causes a “pocketbook injury,” because candidates need to continue staffing their campaigns through the ballot-counting period. 

“When it comes to elections, candidates running for office plainly have the most at stake. They put their lives on hold and spend countless hours and millions of dollars organizing and running campaigns,” their lawyers wrote. “When the dust settles, the candidates either win or lose, with months of effort and untold expenditures either vindicated or forever lost.”

The Illinois State Board of Elections has pushed back by arguing that the potential impact on Bost’s “electoral prospects” is too speculative and that political candidates are under no requirement to continue staffing their campaigns after the election, effectively making the injury that Bost claims he suffers voluntary. 

Illinois has also argued that allowing Bost to bring the lawsuit would open the floodgates of frivolous lawsuits “to challenge any election rule on the books for purely ideological reasons” and cause local governments to spend more time fighting lawsuits and less time administering elections.

The Trump administration has supported part of Bost’s argument about having the right to sue over the ballot policy, though Solicitor General D. John Sauer pushed back on the claim that candidates have broad claims to bring election-related lawsuits. 

“This Court can …. establish a clear rule for standing to litigate disputes over election laws: candidates have standing to seek prospective relief challenging a rule governing the validity of ballots so long as there is a risk that the ballots at issue could affect the outcome of their election,” Sauer wrote in an amicus brief.

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(WASHINGTON) — Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson, a 30-year-old progressive activist and lawmaker who gained national attention as one of the “Tennessee Three,” is launching a primary challenge against longtime Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen.

Pearson’s campaign, framed around the slogan “It’s About Us,” highlights Memphis’s 22.6% poverty rate — nearly double the state average — and pledges “urgent solutions to persistent crises” in Tennessee’s only Democratic congressional district.

Pearson’s bid is part of a broader wave of intraparty contests pitting younger progressives against long-established incumbents.

Cohen, 76, has represented Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District since 2007. Earlier this year, he told Axios he intended to seek reelection.

“My constituents need help from D.C. and I’m effective in bringing home important funding,” he said.

Pearson, expelled from the Tennessee House in 2023 after leading a gun control protest, was later reappointed and won a special election, cementing his status as a rising progressive voice.

In Pearson’s campaign launch video, released Wednesday, he told voters, “I’m proud to be one of us, a Memphian, born and raised who understands how to build bridges across race, identity, ethnicity and generations in order to build the future that we want to live into.”

Tennessee’s 9th District, based in Memphis, is the state’s only Democratic stronghold after redistricting in 2022.

“The same issues that people are facing today in this district, are the same issues that Justin faced as a child, and the same issues that Justin’s parents faced when they were kids,” Usamah Andrabi, communications director for the group, Justice Democrats, told ABC News. “At a certain point, you have to ask yourself, maybe it’s time for new leadership?”

Andrabi said the group is focused on elevating a new generation of leaders, pointing out Pearson was just 8 years old when Cohen first won the seat. The group framed Cohen as a man who has been in office for four decades, calling him an “absentee congressman.”

Cohen remains popular in his home district, winning reelection with more than 70% of the vote in a four-way primary in 2024 and more than 71% of the vote in the general election against a Republican challenger.

Pearson is Justice Democrats’ third endorsement of the cycle, following Angela Gonzales-Torres in California and Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney.

Founded in 2017, the group has helped elect several members of the “Squad” — including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, Ilhan Omar in Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley in Michigan and Rashida Tlaib in Michigan — and unseat five long-serving incumbents.

Pearson’s campaign platform includes labor rights and living wages, affordable housing, Medicare for All, environmental justice, federal investment to combat poverty and gun reform.

“This campaign isn’t about one person,” Pearson said in a statement. “It’s about building a movement our community can see itself in.

Pearson’s campaign is part of a broader pattern.

In Washington, D.C., Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a nonvoting member of the House, faces two challengers in next year’s primary, D.C. Council members Robert White Jr. and Brooke Pinto.

In Connecticut, Rep. John Larson is facing primary challengers, including former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin and state Rep. Jillian Gilchrest.

Bilal Dabir Sekou, a political science professor at the University of Hartford, said the trend shows Democrats are increasingly willing to challenge longstanding members of their party.

“What’s interesting is people are stepping up and primarying people, almost like there’s an insurgency going on within the party,” Sekou said.

He added that Democrats are grappling with a generational shift, citing former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stepping down from House leadership in 2023.

“A lot of that older leadership wants people who are like them,” he said. “If they step aside, they want to step aside for someone who looks familiar to them, in terms of policy preferences and in terms of style and approach.”

Republicans are also grappling with challenges from within their own party.

For example, in Texas, Sen. John Cornyn, 73, faces primary challenges from state Attorney General Ken Paxton, 62, and Rep. Wesley Hunt, 43.

In addition to the support Pearson has received from Justice Democrats, another group, Leaders We Deserve, a youth-driven political organization founded by gun-violence survivor David Hogg, has pledged $1 million for his race.

“In this moment of crisis, I’m calling on Representative Steve Cohen to pass the torch to Justin J. Pearson — a transformational leader who can inspire a new generation,” Hogg said in a statement. “Memphis deserves a next-generation leader like Justin — a tested fighter who will deliver opportunity, affordability, safety, and justice to his constituents.”

“From his successful work stopping the Byhalia Connection oil pipeline, which threatened the drinking water of more than one million people in the Memphis area, to his fearless stand in the state capitol for stronger gun safety laws after the 2023 Covenant school shooting, Justin J. Pearson has repeatedly shown the kind of backbone needed to confront powerful special interests, from big oil to the gun lobby,” Hogg added.

Charlotte Bergmann is a Republican running for the 9th Congressional District seat.

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(WASHINGTON) — Winsome Earle-Sears faces strong headwinds in her campaign to be Virginia’s next Republican governor.

She’s been outpaced in fundraising and lags in polling behind her Democratic rival, Rep. Abigail Spanberger. And the support from one voice that could narrow this race is largely absent. 

President Donald Trump has yet to endorse Earle-Sears, Virginia’s current lieutenant governor. While slamming Spanberger during an event in Virginia for the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary over the weekend, Trump did not mention Earle-Sears, a Marine Corps veteran, at all. 

Earle-Sears and Trump’s relationship turned tepid in 2022 after the lieutenant governor suggested it was time for the Republican Party to “move on” past him and declined to support his third White House bid.

“A true leader understands when they have become a liability. A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage. And the voters have given us that very clear message,” Earle-Sears said at the time.

Trump then undercut Earle-Sears on Truth Social, writing that he “never felt good” about her, and that she was a “phony.” 

ABC News has reached out to The White House, Earle-Sears’ campaign and the Virginia GOP for comment. 

Attorney general’s race

And now, as Republicans are at high risk of losing control of Virginia’s governor’s mansion, their chief executive and others in the administration are nowhere to be found on the campaign trail for Earle-Sears.

Yet they’re not completely withdrawn from Virginia politics. 

Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have joined the chorus of Republican voices calling for the resignation of Democratic attorney general candidate and former Virginia delegate Jay Jones after text messages to then-fellow Virginia delegate Carrie Coyner surfaced detailing a hypothetical situation about then-Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert getting “two bullets to the head.” 

The National Review reported Jones also wished for Gilbert’s wife to “watch her own child die in her arms so that Gilbert might reconsider his political views.” 

Coyner, a Republican, claimed in a note sent to her constituents this week and obtained by ABC that Jones meant to text someone else initially, but was OK with chatting when he realized it was her. She says once she expressed “alarm” about the messages, Jones “continued to try to justify his initial statements by phone and by text.”

Jones has apologized for the messages, telling WRIC that he “sincerely and from the bottom of my heart, want to express my remorse and my regret for what happened and what I said that language has no place in our discourse, and I am so remorseful for what happened.”

In a statement to ABC News, Coyner also alleged that in a separate phone call in 2020 during a conversation about police qualified immunity, Jones suggested that the death of a few officers might result in fewer police-inflicted killings. 

“During the debate on repealing qualified immunity for law enforcement in Virginia, legislation Jay Jones supported, I stated that I believed that removing qualified immunity would make officers hesitate when making split second decisions, which would lead people and police officers to get killed. Jay stated that if a few police officers died maybe they would move on and stop killing people. His statements were and still are disqualifying, people should not have to die to prove Jay Jones’ talking points,” Coyner said to ABC. 

Jones denied those remarks in a statement to ABC: “I have never believed and do not believe that any harm should come to law enforcement, period.”

Vance, on X, claimed Jones was “fantasizing about murdering his political opponents” and Trump labeled Jones as a “radial left lunatic” while offering his endorsement of Jason Miyares, Jones’ Republican opponent. 

On this issue, the White House and Earle-Sears align — she’s also called for Jones to drop out, and has even cut an ad featuring screenshots of the aforementioned texts. Earle-Sears and Virginia Republicans are attempting to link this scandal to Spanberger, who say her recent advice on the campaign trail to “let your rage fuel you” as motivation to resist against Republicans is incendiary.

Spanberger has not called for Jones to step aside, yet said in a statement that she feels “disgust” for his language and condemned violent language in politics.

Still,  Earle-Sears  has less than a month to use this scandal as momentum and inch closer to Spanberger — with or without White House aid. 

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(WASHINGTON) — The top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee is urging Republicans to hold a hearing on whether the Trump administration committed ethics violations at the beginning of the government shutdown by providing politically charged out-of-office email replies for government employees.

Ranking Member Bobby Scott, D-Va., said multiple federal agencies violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities during their official duties, when they used government messaging that disparaged and blamed Democrats for the shutdown.

“Multiple Executive Departments under the jurisdiction of our Committee have taken political actions in apparent violation of the Hatch Act and other statutes,” Scott wrote in a letter first obtained by ABC News. “I write to ask you to hold hearings on these acts as soon as possible,” Scott said.

The federal agencies under the jurisdiction of the House committee — including at the departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture — are using public statements on their websites that label the lapse in appropriations a “Democrat-led” shutdown while blaming the “radical left.” 

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) also encouraged federal employees across the government — including at the departments of Labor, Justice and Education — to create out-of-office email messages denouncing “Democrat Senators” for causing the government shutdown, multiple sources confirmed to ABC News.

The approach appears to differ with each agency. Some federal departments did not send out any out-of-office email guidance.

However, multiple furloughed employees at the Department of Education report their out-of-office replies were automatically reset without their permission to say: “Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.”  

One Department of Education staffer told ABC News, “They [the agency] did it after everyone left.” “[I’m] so p—ed,” they said.

The employee added, “We as career government employees need to be neutral when carrying out our jobs. This is such bull—-.”

Several federal workers, including the Education Department staffer, expressed concern to ABC News that adding the messages to their email accounts would violate the Hatch Act. The Education employee, furious about the message, stressed that federal workers are supposed to “serve all people of this country.”

The employee continued, “That [automatic reply] message is what anyone seeking assistance from a government worker is going to see.”

In his letter to Education Committee Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., Scott condemned the out-of-office reply practice.

“The act of altering the messages of non-partisan employees to literally put political speech in their mouths is incredibly egregious, and may be a violation of additional federal criminal statutes,” he wrote.

The letter comes as negotiations to fund the government are at a standstill as the shutdown stretches past a week.

Meanwhile, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) — a union representing federal government employees whose automatic reply messages were replaced last week — sued the Department of Education for allegedly replacing the emails with messaging that parroted the Trump administration’s talking points.

“Forcing civil servants to speak on behalf of the political leadership’s partisan agenda is a blatant violation of federal employees’ First Amendment rights,” the AFGE said in its suit.

AFGE represents approximately 800,000 federal workers across the government, including most of the remaining staff at the Department of Education.

In a statement to ABC News, Madi Biedermann, the Department of Education deputy assistant secretary for communications, said, “The email reminds those who reach out to Department of Education employees that we cannot respond because Senate Democrats are refusing to vote for a clean CR and fund the government.”

“Where’s the lie?” Biedermann added.

Democracy Forward, the public education advocacy nonprofit representing the plaintiffs in the case, accused the Trump administration of engaging in partisan political rhetoric.

In a statement to ABC News, Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said: “This is beyond outrageous.”

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