Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman at NYT:
President Trump’s handpicked federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia is racing to present a case against James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, to a grand jury before a deadline early next week, according to officials familiar with the situation.
Lindsey Halligan, a former defense lawyer for Mr. Trump who was hastily appointed after the president forced out her predecessor last week, is rushing to draft an indictment under withering pressure from the White House. The president has demanded the department go after one of his foremost enemies, even though career prosecutors determined there was insufficient evidence to indict Mr. Comey.
Prosecutors have been looking into whether Mr. Comey should be charged with lying to Congress in connection to the F.B.I. investigation of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, which the president claims was a witch hunt aimed at destroying him.
Ms. Halligan, who had no experience as a prosecutor before her recent appointment, could seek to bring charges as early as Thursday, but is expected to take action by Tuesday, when the statute of limitations on Mr. Comey’s congressional testimony expires, according to officials who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The latest on Cash Homan:
Fola Akinnibi, Rachel Adams-Heard, and Sophie Alexander at Bloomberg:Earlier this year, as a surge in arrests pushed immigration detention centers across the US to their limits, the Trump administration wanted more jail space. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was leading the way on a $45 billion project to detain more immigrants than ever, but the effort was stalling.
White House border czar Tom Homan, who’d said he was picked to run the biggest deportation operation in US history, helped keep the process going — working to move immigration detention contracts through the Department of Defense.
But Homan wasn't supposed to be involved in contracting at all. Former consulting clients of the border czar were seeking lucrative detention-related work that the administration’s agenda promised. And federal regulations advise those who’ve recently consulted for companies competing for government business not to involve themselves in the contracting process. To quell any concerns, Homan said in December he would recuse himself from anything having to do with government contracts.
In June, it became clear that wasn’t the case. According to a detailed account of a Defense Department meeting that month, a Navy official noted Homan’s participation in a military contracting process, saying the border czar had been “briefed by industry,” government parlance for meeting with private companies seeking contracts. Homan was then expected to discuss the matter with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, according to the account.
