TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2026
As we all know, the answer is yes: On Saturday, October 17, we closed our report with remarks which have been described, by at least one site, as a "record shattering statement."
We were describing the way we Americans might be able to find our way out of our current journalistic / political / academic mess. It's considered bad form to quote oneself. Today, we make an exception:
We Americans can't fact-check or name-call our way out of our current national mess—"back out of all this now too much for us," as Frost confusingly had it.
Instead, we'll need to emerge into a world of deepened American values—some of them seeming to be a bit Reddish, some of them tilting toward Blue.
If we want to emerge from our current (dangerous) mess, we'll need to concentrate on values. And some of the values on which we settle may tend to come a bit more from what is currently the reddish end of the pile.
We thought of that "record shattering" suggestion as we perused Elie Honig's recent piece for New York magazine. Honig is a senior legal analyst for CNN. He's also a regular contributor to New York.
Honig's essay concerns the ongoing pursuit of Rp. Ilhan Omar by the current DOJ. The headline seems to tilt in a Blue direction. Under current circumstances, the opening grafs may perhaps seem to tilt Red:
DoJ’s Ilhan Omar Probe Reeks of Politics
Last week’s search of Ilhan Omar’s home was abnormal in several key respects, and she’ll have an opportunity to contest the government’s actions if she does find herself on the wrong end of an indictment. But the truth is, at this point, anyone who definitively proclaims Omar’s guilt or non-guilt is just guessing. Let’s start with what we do and don’t know.
We do know that federal prosecutors obtained approval from a federal magistrate judge, Matthew Sharbaugh, to search Omar’s home. (Magistrates are appointed by district court judges—not by the president—and can exercise certain administrative judicial powers, including review and approval of search warrants.) That means prosecutors convinced the magistrate judge that probable cause that a federal crime was committed exists and that investigators would find evidence of that crime in the place to be searched. We also know that prosecutors have issued at least a dozen subpoenas, which do not require any judicial review or approval. We don’t know, however, precisely what evidence prosecutors marshaled to convince the judge to sign off or how strong the current case is against Omar or others.
Say what? Anyone who "definitively proclaims Omar’s...non-guilt" would just be guessing at this point? Is Honig allowed to say that?
Clearly, he's allowed to say it, but does it make any sense? After all these years of rumor-peddling on grimy MAGA programs like Gutfeld!, is it possible that Rep. Omar has actually done something wrong? Something for which she could (reasonably) be criminally charged? Something for which she could lose her citizenship?
Honig, who isn't a MAGA adherent, says the answer is yes/ (Meaning yes, it's possible.) He also says it's possible that the answer will turn out to be no.
(Concerning that magistrate judge, the Wall Street Journal's James Freeman has reported that "when he was a lawyer in private practice, Mr. Sharbaugh donated to various Democratic political campaigns, including those of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden." So there's also that.)
Honig runs through various possibilities, dismissing certain procedural objections which have been raised against a possible prosecution. As he closes, his headline comes into play—the recent announcement seems baldly political, he now seems to say:
[W]e know that Trump and his allies would delight in an Omar prosecution, regardless of the strength of the evidence. The president has used grotesque, inflammatory language to attack Omar’s ethnicity, race, national origin, and family, often calling for her to “go back” to Somalia, as he has continued to do after the search. The appearance of a sitting president’s pliant DoJ investigating one of his nemeses in this way is disturbing...
Then there’s the question of timing. Federal authorities searched Omar’s home just 22 days before a midterm election in which the incumbent Democratic U.S. representative from Minnesota is on the ballot. That timing ordinarily would violate the Justice Department’s traditional practice—sometimes referenced colloquially as the “60-day rule”–of refraining from overt law enforcement actions (like executing a search warrant, which is plainly visible to the public) during the run-up to an election. There’s no binding law here. But the DoJ has imposed the prohibition on itself, for decades and under both political parties, to prevent prosecutors from influencing an election, or even appearing to do so.
The timing here looks grimy, Honig says. That doesn't mean that there might not be some violation of law, he says once again as his essay closes:
The problem here isn’t necessarily the investigation of Omar itself; it’s the timing of the search warrant on the brink of an election. Omar might be guilty of some crime, or perhaps not. We’ll find out, eventually. Either way, the Justice Department has done institutional damage to itself, yet again, by letting politics drive its prosecutorial tactics.
Has Rep. Omar done something wrong? Honig says he doesn't know; we ourselves have no idea.
More generally, is it possible that one of us Blues did something wrong at some point in time? Everything is possible, including even that!
As a nation, are we ever going to pull ourselves out of our dangerous downward spiral? If so, Blues and Reds will have to agree on an obvious point:
Sometimes, people make mistakes (or not). But are we ready to say, as tribal beings, that people we favor on our own side can sometimes, just maybe, be wrong?
In our view, the timing of the DOJ's announcement is just flatly wrong. Has Rep. Omar ever done anything wrong? Here at this site, we hope not.
