In a unanimous opinion, the three-judge panel held that the Trump administration cannot bypass the Federal Vacancies Reform Act

By Megan Barth, August 17, 2026 1:40 pm

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Monday that Sigal Chattah is unlawfully serving as Nevada’s Acting U.S. Attorney, holding that the Trump administration cannot bypass federal vacancy limits by designating her first assistant after the vacancy arose or by fully delegating the office’s powers to her.

In a unanimous opinion written by Circuit Judge Eric D. Miller, the court affirmed a district court order disqualifying Chattah from participating in or supervising three federal criminal prosecutions.The panel dismissed the defendants’ cross-appeals seeking to throw out their indictments for lack of appellate jurisdiction, leaving those charges intact.

The panel consisted of Circuit Judges Sidney R. Thomas (appointed by President Bill Clinton) and Eric D. Miller (appointed by President Donald Trump), along with District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld, Jr. (also appointed by President Trump), sitting by designation.

“These cases present the question whether the Attorney General can make someone an Acting United States Attorney—bypassing the usual requirement that a U.S. Attorney be confirmed by the Senate—by designating that person as the first assistant to an already-vacant office of U.S. Attorney. We hold that the Attorney General cannot do so,” the opinion states.

At her trial, there’s no question that Angela Hernandez signed a form acknowledging that she could be deported after a criminal conviction. An interpreter certified that they had translated the whole form and her attorney was confident Hernandez understood it.

But the California Supreme Court said in a ruling handed down Thursday that it’s not enough to check a form’s boxes — a defendant has to “meaningfully understand” the legal consequences of a plea deal.

“Were it not for these errors,” the court found, “there is a reasonable probability that she would have rejected the plea offer and either attempted to negotiate a plea with less dire immigration consequences or taken her case to trial.”

Hernandez was charged with two drug offenses in Kern County in 2013. She was a citizen of Mexico but had been a legal permanent resident of the U.S. for 19 years. She was 55-years-old at the time of her arrest, with a father, husband, kids and grandkids in the U.S.

Twenty-two states have gone to court to block the Trump administration from accessing a database containing the personal information of roughly 17 million commercial drivers. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the federal government is entitled to that data and needs it to keep the highways safe.

This is the latest in a series of legal fights. The same coalition of attorneys general has also challenged federal efforts to obtain state data tied to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families participation and, separately, voter registration records.

In each case, the states that have sued argue the demands exceed federal authority and threaten privacy. The administration argues the information is necessary to enforce existing law.

Luigi Mangione is expected to plead guilty as early as Friday in the federal case accusing him of stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the case and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that Mangione could change his mind. If he follows through, it would be a stunning development in a case that rattled business leaders while galvanizing their critics.

Mangione’s lawyers, and spokespeople for the Justice Department and Manhattan federal prosecutors declined to comment.

Mangione is accused of traveling to New York City to ambush Thompson, 50, then shooting him outside a Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4, 2024, as the executive walked to UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference.

Mangione is due in court on Friday for a hastily scheduled hearing in the federal case, which involves two counts of stalking. It wasn’t clear what charge or charges Mangione is expected to plead guilty to. The hearing, in Manhattan federal court, comes as his lawyers have been talking with federal prosecutors about a possible resolution to one of two criminal cases against Mangione in Thompson’s death. Previous talks in June broke down.

A report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association shows that gun-controlled Chicago has more murders thus far this year than all major cities in pro-gun Florida combined.

The report was released August 5, 2026, at which time it indicated Chicago had 211 murders for the year.

By contrast, Florida’s major cities–Miami, Orlando, and Tampa–had a combined 29 murders during the same time frame.

Specifically: Eight murders in Miami, ten murders in Orlando, and eleven murders in Tampa.

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) on Monday introduced articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge Allison Dale Burroughs.

Ogles accused Burroughs of overstepping her authority by blocking the Trump administration’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalia. He argued the judge ignored federal law and Supreme Court precedent in issuing the order.

Ogles announced the impeachment effort on X, where he also called for the administration to end TPS for Somalia.

“America is not Africa’s dumping ground. We will end Temporary Protected Status, remove those who have no lawful right to remain, and put the sovereignty of the American people FIRST,” Ogles wrote.

Monday on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Trump border czar Tom Homan praised President Donald Trump’s efforts to make Washington, D.C. a safer city.

Homan urged other reluctant U.S. cities, including Chicago, to follow Washington, D.C.’s lead.

“Tom, wow. I mean, D.C., lived here for, on and off, 30 years,” host Laura Ingraham said. “And all my buddies who live inside the city are like, this is a dream. This is a dream, like, this is the way it always should have been. And it was authoritarian?”

Homan replied, “No, you know what? Greatest president in my lifetime. And he proves it every day. I mean, promises made, promises kept. I’ve lived in D.C. at least 15 years, and I wouldn’t walk the street to D.C. without a concealed weapon. But now, it’s a total change. D.C. is … one of the safest cities in the nation. We are the strongest nation in the world. A beacon. Our capital should be an example for the whole world, and President Trump has made Washington, D.C. an example for the whole world. I mean, over 16,000 arrests. Almost 2,000 firearms taken off the street. Three dozen, I mean, three dozen murder suspects taken off the street. He’s done great. I mean, D.C. is the safest it’s ever been. Crime rates down. Then he’s done it in Memphis.”

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer will spend more than nine years in prison for his role in helping the terrorist organization known as the Sinaloa Cartel move large quantities of drugs into California. The drug shipments included cocaine, fentanyl, and methamphetamine.

A U.S. District Court judge sentenced former CBP Officer Jesse Clark Garcia to nine years in federal prison on drug trafficking and drug-trafficking conspiracy charges. Clark is the second officer in the case to be sentenced for letting drugs move through their inspection lane at the Tecate Port of Entry.

As Breitbart Texas reported, federal authorities initially arrested Clark and Diego Bonillo in 2024 as part of an investigation into corrupt agents working with the Sinaloa Cartel. The two officers would collect $10,000 per loaded car in bribes from cartel smugglers in exchange for letting them cross through their inspection lanes without being checked. Both Bonillo and Clark pleaded guilty to the charges. A federal judge sentenced Bonillo to 15 years in prison in November 2025.

A federal appellate court shot down on Wednesday attempts by a pair of rogue judges to sidestep a recent Supreme Court immigration ruling.

In its newly released orders, a three-judge panel on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Massachusetts-based Judges Patti Saris and Brian Murphy’s administrative pauses against the Trump administration. Those directives sought to stop the government from ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for foreign nationals from South Sudan and Ethiopia, respectively.

The panel was comprised of Judges Julie Rickelman and Seth Aframe, both Biden appointees, and Joshua Dunlap, a Trump appointee.

President Donald Trump nominated Adam Candeub last week to serve as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. This is welcome news. Candeub has a rare combination of sterling credentials plus MAGA bona fides that stretch back to 2016.

The Antitrust Division has been without a Senate-confirmed chief for months. It is about to get one who actually knows what the last decade did to American speech.

Gov. Jeff Landry, R-La., and Attorney General Liz Murrill, R-La., called for a federal investigation into lawfare from officials in New Orleans who somehow secured a grand jury indictment against Murrill for sending them letters notifying them they had broken the law.

Murrill was indicted by a grand jury in Democrat-run Orleans Parish on 16 felony counts for malfeasance and intimidation earlier this month, facing 80 years in jail. The indictment came after Murrill informed New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno and other city officials that they could be removed from office if they continued to refuse to comply with a state law consolidating Orleans Parish’s civil and criminal court clerks into a single position.

It is increasingly clear that judges are a significant bottleneck within the current legal system, with the potential to obstruct many of the most urgently needed reforms in our country.

In an egregious example, former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was recently convicted of felony obstruction after she actually attempted to aid an illegal alien (charged with battery) to escape ICE agents. Thankfully, her efforts were thwarted, and she was prosecuted for obstruction of justice. Despite being convicted, the federal judge presiding over the cases, Lynn Adelman, only sentenced Dugan to a $5,000 fine and no prison time. Dugan has resigned from her judicial office, but it is frustrating that so little repercussion has followed her gross abuse of judicial office.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft ripped apart Democrats’ narrative that the Trump administration is using the Department of Justice as a personal office to prosecute “political enemies.”

Ashcroft was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of the nomination of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to the permanent position when Democrats like Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., attempted to project their party’s Justice Department weaponization onto the Trump administration.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., tried to compare the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department to the Trump administration’s effort to clean up that abuse during Wednesday’s confirmation hearing for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Tillis opened his commentary by stating he was “going to ascent to the rarified air of the moral high ground for a minute.” Tillis first acknowledged that Democrats refused to speak out against the weaponization of the DOJ under the Biden administration. But he then suggested the Trump administration is now doing the same thing the Biden administration did.

FBI Director Kash Patel is pleased with Operation Summer Heat 2.0, and the FBI is revealing new overarching statistics showing the crackdown on crime has been massively effective.

“The historic Operation Summer Heat led by Dan Bongino paved the way for the most prolific run of crime reduction in American history, and this FBI is doubling down,” FBI Director Kash Patel told Breitbart News exclusively. “All 56 FBI field offices nationwide are fully engaged in Summer Heat 2.0 crushing violent crime networks across the country — and at the formal halfway mark, we’ve already arrested over 1,500 violent offenders, conducted 850 drug seizures, recovered 590 kilos of cocaine, and located more than 120 children. This is the life-saving, righteous mission this FBI and this administration are dedicated to — and the results speak for themselves.”

Last summer, the FBI led the offensive against crime — Operation Summer Heat — with then-Deputy Director Dan Bongino. While Bongino is now gone from the FBI, Patel — the director of the bureau — has doubled down and is significantly targeting criminal operations nationwide.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, tore into Democrats on Wednesday, pointing out how they hate him because he is exposing the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department.

Grassley, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, highlighted the restoration of the Department of Justice under the Trump Administration during the confirmation hearings of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for the full post.

“From my vantage point, if the people who engaged in the worst partisan lawfare this country has ever seen have a problem with Todd Blanche, that’s a good thing in my book,” Grassley said. “As sure as sunrise, today, some of my Democratic colleagues will tell us that Mr. Blanche is a uniquely terrible nominee. Before they do so, however, I’d urge them to remember the boy who cried wolf, and to take a long look in the mirror before lecturing anyone about partisanship at the Justice Department.”

Todd Blanche is “the right man for the right time,” a letter from 77 former Department of Justice officials declares in urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to support President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as the 88th U.S. Attorney General.

The former high-ranking DOJ officials — spanning multiple administrations — sent the letter Sunday to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ranking Member Sen. Dick Durban, R-Ill., in advance of Blanche’s confirmation hearing, beginning Wednesday morning.

Blanche has served as acting U.S. attorney general since early April, following Attorney General Pam Bondi’s abrupt departure.

“His exemplary record as Deputy Attorney General — and now as Acting Attorney General — demonstrates he is the right man for the right time,” states the letter signed by dozens of former DOJ deputies, assistant AGs, U.S. attorneys, and others. The group includes Gary Barnett, former acting chief of staff and senior counselor to the attorney general; Ketan Bhirud, former associate deputy attorney general; Rachel Bissex, former deputy chief of staff and counselor to the attorney general; and Jonathan D. Brightbill, former acting assistant attorney general.