“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

That was President Donald Trump’s demand in a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the state in the 2020 election. Raffensperger, citing the results of numerous lawsuits and three rounds of vote counting, refused, making him one of the few Republican officials to publicly stand up to Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Now, six years later, the Trump administration is sending one of its own to Georgia — where the president was once charged with election interference — in an apparent effort to find those phantom votes and retroactively validate Trump’s debunked claims. Even more troubling, the prosecutor  — who has ties to Trump allies — received a special appointment from Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate election fraud cases nationwide, according to Bloomberg Law.

When the FBI raided Fulton County’s main election office last week, St. Louis U.S. Attorney Thomas Albus was listed as the prosecutor who’d sought the warrant, not the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, who would ordinarily have jurisdiction. The appointment of Albus raises concerns not only about the potential for manufactured crimes but also about the risk of undermining the integrity of elections in 2026 and 2028.

The warrant suggests that federal prosecutors are now pursuing a theory that Trump was not the perpetrator of election fraud, but its victim. “People will soon be prosecuted for what they did,” Trump said recently.

Albus’ appointment bears resemblance to that of Lindsey Halligan, who was appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after the Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney there was removed for refusing to indict James Comey and Letitia James. Halligan, a former insurance attorney who had been working in the White House, promptly filed indictments against the two, but both were ultimately dismissed after a court found Halligan’s appointment was invalid.

Unlike Halligan, Albus’ appointment appears to be lawful under a federal statute that permits the attorney general to direct “any other officer of the Department of Justice” to “conduct any kind of legal proceeding, civil or criminal … whether or not he is a resident of the district in which the proceeding is brought.” But sidelining Atlanta U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg in favor of Albus is concerning nonetheless — especially given his ties to Trump allies.

First, Albus previously served as the top deputy to former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and appears to have been working in that role when Schmitt joined a 2020 lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to challenge the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The lawsuit, filed without evidence of fraud, was an audacious last-gasp attempt to overturn the results. Even Georgia’s Republican Attorney General Christopher Carr urged the Supreme Court to reject Texas’ request, joining other states in warning that the suit amounted to what Pennsylvania called an attempt to “overthrow the votes of the American people and choose the next president of the United States. That Faustian invitation must be firmly rejected.”

The Supreme Court dismissed the case, saying that Texas lacked standing to challenge elections in another state.

Albus’ career also moved in lockstep with that of fellow Missourian Ed Martin, the former interim U.S. attorney in Washington whose name was withdrawn when it became clear he lacked sufficient votes to win Senate confirmation. Martin, an election denier who represented some of the Jan. 6 defendants, now works as Trump’s pardon attorney and leads the DOJ’s “Weaponization” Working Group.

Martin and Albus both worked at the Bryan Cave law firm early in their careers, and Martin served as chair of the Missouri Republican Party, making it likely that the two are well acquainted.

While no one is guilty of impropriety by association, it is difficult to believe that Bondi would have appointed Albus without Martin’s input. Martin’s track record at the Justice Department has shown that he views his work through a political lens, as demonstrated by his social media post upon becoming pardon attorney: “No MAGA left behind.” It seems likely that Trump and Bondi would want another loyalist overseeing the election fraud investigation, and that Albus would be their choice.

Additional warning signs about the investigation include FBI Director Kash Patel’s recent firing of the head of the bureau’s Atlanta field office. While the reason for the termination has not been publicly disclosed, Patel has previously fired agents for participating in investigations involving Trump and individuals who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The special agent in charge of a field office would oversee any search conducted within their jurisdiction and would be positioned to push back against a search they perceived as improper. With the firing, Patel effectively cleared the way for the Fulton County search to proceed unopposed.

The Fulton County investigation also coincides with the DOJ’s lawsuit against several states, including Georgia, to obtain their voter rolls. Two courts have already ruled against the government, with an Oregon judge calling the Justice Department’s suit “a backdoor to grab” the personal information of Oregon voters. Is the Fulton County search warrant simply a way to obtain records to which the DOJ is not otherwise legally entitled?

Finally, an especially unusual twist to the raid of the election office was the appearance of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard at the scene. It is difficult to conceive of any role for the DNI in the execution of a domestic criminal search warrant.

The role of the director of national intelligence is to coordinate intelligence collection across federal agencies and keep the president apprised of threats to national security. The only suggestion of any foreign role in the 2020 election was made by Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who made wild and unsupported allegations that the Dominion and Smartmatic voting systems were created in Venezuela at the direction of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to ensure he never lost an election.

Are we about to hear a new conspiracy theory linked to Venezuela and Nicolás Maduro, whom the Trump administration accused, deposed and arrested on drug charges in January? With the prospect of a life sentence hanging over him, Maduro has every incentive to tell Trump what he wants to hear.

Elections in the U.S. are entrusted to each of the 50 states to administer. Officials like Raffensperger and Carr put their duty to the people of their state before their allegiance to their party. Can we trust Albus to do the same?

Barbara McQuade is a professor at the University of Michigan Law school, a former U.S. attorney and author of “Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America.” She wrote this column for Bloomberg Opinion.

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In an outrageous expansion of its authority, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now authorizing its agents to arrest anyone they suspect of being undocumented, even if the officers don’t have a warrant and the person isn’t a flight risk.

The directive, contained in a memo obtained by the New York Times, reverses long-standing ICE policy and effectively renders the warrant requirement itself empty. Coming on the heels of another legally indefensible memo, which purported to allow ICE agents to enter the homes of suspected undocumented people without a judicial warrant, the new policy shows that ICE isn’t just exploiting legal loopholes to create massive sweeps. Instead, it reveals an agency actively attempting to change the legal landscape to turn itself into an all-powerful police force.

Federal law permits ICE to make warrantless arrests under only two circumstances. The first is when an agent sees someone actively crossing the border illegally. That scenario isn’t relevant to the current ICE sweeps, which take place in cities far from the border.

The second situation in which the law allows a warrantless arrest, the one addressed by the new memo, is if an ICE officer “has reason to believe” that someone is in the U.S. without legal authority and “is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest.”

As even ICE has been forced to acknowledge, the phrase “reason to believe” in the statute means that the agent must have probable cause to think that the person is undocumented. That standard, borrowed from the context of criminal arrest, appears protective of individual rights.

But in a decision in its emergency docket last September, the Supreme Court disastrously eroded this protection by allowing street stops based merely on “reasonable suspicion” — a standard lower than probable cause. A solo opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh then extended reasonable suspicion to include factors like appearing Latino and speaking Spanish.

That brings us to the new memo, which addresses whether ICE agents can then arrest the person who has been stopped. Until now, it has been the long-standing practice of ICE to permit warrantless arrests only when the officers determined that the person stopped was a flight risk, meaning that they would be unlikely to show up for a court hearing. And until now, ICE has acknowledged that this rule was required by the statute’s demand that someone be “likely to escape” before they can be arrested without a warrant. In practice, that made it relatively unusual for ICE agents to carry out a warrantless arrest.

The new memo fundamentally transforms the meaning of the words “likely to escape.” It claims that a person who has been stopped is likely to escape if they are “unlikely to be located at the scene of the encounter” by the time an arrest warrant could be obtained. Since just about anyone would walk away from an ICE arrest if they could (at least under current circumstances), it follows from this interpretation that anyone stopped by ICE is “likely to escape” — and therefore may be subjected to warrantless arrest.

The memo says that ICE’s previous position about the meaning of the statute was “unreasoned” and “incorrect.” But it’s the new interpretation that is unreasoned and incorrect. According to ICE’s interpretation, there would be no reason to ever require the issuance of a warrant, given that ICE agents can, under the new theory, effectively arrest anyone who wouldn’t stick around once stopped. Put another way, ICE’s new interpretation turns the statute into a dead letter.

I realize all these legal technical details are a lot. So let me put it simply. Under the new memo, ICE agents can detain anyone they think might be undocumented, based on factors like ethnic appearance, language, and where you happen to be hanging out when they stop you. Once they’ve stopped you, they can claim to have probable cause that you’re undocumented (for example, because you don’t have proof of citizenship on you). Then the officers can simply arrest you, without a warrant.

The total package amounts to a sweeping authorization for ICE agents to roam the streets, grab just about anyone they want, arrest and detain them.

It’s not only that such proceedings are un-American. It’s that they are plainly unlawful under the legal regime that is supposed to apply. The warrant requirement for an ICE arrest, established by statute, is meant to function as a protection against exactly the kind of massive, non-specific sweeps ICE is now performing.

Similarly, the requirement of a judicial warrant before entering a home is a foundational safeguard of individual liberty.

The good news about ICE’s attempts to get around the law is that they will come before the courts. The courts should affirm that the statute means what it says: “likely to escape” means that ICE may not arrest a person without a warrant unless they are a flight risk. Judicial interpretation of federal law is a cornerstone of preserving the rule of law itself. ICE’s actions are terrifying, and meant to be, but the law remains one of the tools that can be used to resist a descent into a police state.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People.”

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How does a Republican lose by 14 points in a safe conservative Texas state Senate seat that President Trump carried by 17 points in 2024? Answer: When there’s a voter backlash against the Trump Administration, notably its mass deportation debacles.

That’s what happened Saturday in a special election to fill a GOP seat in Tarrant County in the Fort Worth area. Democrat Taylor Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, romped over Republican Leigh Wambsganss, who had a Truth Social endorsement from Mr. Trump and vastly outspent Mr. Rehmet.

The election timing was awful for Republicans in the wake of the two killings by immigration agents in Minneapolis. Ms. Wambsganss has been a leader in the parental-rights movement in school boards and wasn’t a bad candidate. But state politics is often national these days, and the 31-point vote swing in a little more than 14 months can only be explained as part of a rising tide of opposition to Mr. Trump’s first year and a sour public mood.

Democrats and independents came out in droves, as they did in last November’s races, while GOP turnout was down. This has been the trend throughout 2025 and the New Year, with an average swing in double digits toward Democrats in special elections for the U.S. House.

This comes amid a debate on the right over what themes to stress to avoid a GOP washout in November. Even after Minneapolis, some of MAGA’s mouthpieces are saying the GOP should run more forcefully on immigration enforcement. This was White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller ’s strategy in 2018 as he helped to blow up a bipartisan immigration reform compromise on Capitol Hill. The GOP lost a net of 41 House seats.

The Miller strategy isn’t likely to fare better this year, as the polls show voters turning against the way Mr. Trump is pursuing mass deportation. In the wake of the Minneapolis shootings, Mr. Trump has said he wants to dial back the confrontations on the street. That’s smart, but he’ll also have to dial back Mr. Miller, who is the mastermind of the mass deportation strategy.

Mr. Miller ordered the immigration bureaucracy to fill a quota of 3,000 migrant arrests a day. This was bound to result in agent intrusions into homes and businesses, since there aren’t that many criminal migrants to fill such a quota each day.

Immigration has overall been a winning issue for Republicans, but it works better as a reaction to Democratic border enforcement failures. Mr. Trump has already largely closed the border. But immigration enforcement that turns ugly in the streets is turning off the swing voters who will determine who wins the race for Congress this year.

— The Wall Street Journal

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By DAVID FISCHER, Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — Winged babies shooting heart-shaped arrows might get most of the credit on Valentine’s Day, but the real magic behind millions of romantic bouquets happens in a cargo warehouse at a South Florida airport.

Agricultural specialists at Miami International Airport will process about 990 million stems of cut flowers in the weeks before Feb. 14, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Around 90% of the fresh cut flowers being sold for Valentine’s Day in the United States come through Miami, while the other 10% pass through Los Angeles.

Roses, carnations, pompons, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums and gypsophila arrive on hundreds of flights, mostly from Colombia and Ecuador, to Miami on their journey to florists and supermarkets across the U.S. and Canada.

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Miami’s largest flower importer is Avianca Cargo, based in Medellín, Colombia. In preparation for Valentine’s Day, the company is transporting about 19,000 tons of flowers on 320 full cargo flights, CEO Diogo Elias said Friday in Miami. They’re running more than twice as many flights compared to normal.

“We fly flowers for the whole year, but Valentine’s is special,” Elias said. “Much more concentrated on roses, red roses especially. More than 50-60% are red roses at this time.”

Customers buying flowers will likely see an increase in price this year. Christine Boldt, executive vice president for the Association of Floral Importers of America, said the cause is largely related to tariffs placed last year on imports from Colombia and Ecuador, along with a new minimum wage enacted this year in Colombia.

“This adds significant dollars to the bouquets that are coming in,” Boldt said. “Every consumer is gonna have to face additional costs.”

Despite higher prices, Flowers continue to make up one of MIA’s largest imports, airport director Ralph Cutié said. The airport received almost 3.5 million tons of cargo last year, with flowers accounting for about 400,000 tons. More than a quarter of those flowers are shipped before Valentine’s Day, marking a 6% increase over last year.

“The mother, the wife, the girlfriend in Omaha, Nebraska, that gets their flowers for either Valentine’s or Mother’s Day, chances are those flowers passed through our airport,” Cutié said. “And that’s something we take a lot of pride in.”

CBP agriculture specialists check the bundles of flowers for potentially harmful plant, pest and foreign animal diseases from entering the country, CBP senior official Daniel Alonso said. Inspectors on average find about 40-50 plant pests a day, the most common being moths. Pests are turned over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which determines the potential threat.

“Our rigorous process is vital to safeguarding the floral and agricultural industries, ensuring that our imported flowers are not introducing any pests or harmful diseases,” Alonso said.