In posting this AP story, PBS (10/12/26) did exactly what the Trump administration wanted, putting “Ilhan Omar” and “criminal” in the same headline.
With the midterm elections shaping up to be a stinging rebuke of his gold-plated presidency, the tempo of Donald Trump’s political prosecutions—a hallmark of his second term—has increased. Headlines and story-framing lead paragraphs, however, routinely fail to highlight the authoritarian nature of these persecutions.
A typical story from the Washington Post (10/12/26)—headlined “Federal Agents Search Rep. Ilhan Omar’s DC Home”—waits until the seventh paragraph to clearly inform readers that the 6 a.m. raid on the vocal Trump critic may have been politically motivated. And even then, it’s up to Omar to make the case herself, despite Trump as usual having already said the quiet part out loud.
Omar is “garbage” and “should be thrown the hell out of our country,” Trump ranted in back-to-back days in December (NBC News, 12/3/25). The following month, Trump’s years-long fixation with Omar led to his privately calling on Minnesota US Attorney Daniel Rosen to “prosecute Ilhan Omar” (New York Times, 10/28/26). Rosen’s office is overseeing the investigation of Omar.
Asked about the raid, Trump made little effort to hide his hand. “I think she’s a terrible person, but that’s really up to the DoJ,” Trump said unconvincingly from the White House. “I have nothing to do with it.”
Yet this political hit job produced credulous headlines like “AP Report: Federal Agents Search Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Home as Part of a Criminal Investigation” (PBS, 10/12/26).
Documenting the poop
When the Trump administration finds a pretext to go after a political enemy, you can count on the New York Times (10/29/26) to take the pretext as seriously as possible.
In an in-depth follow-up, the New York Times (10/29/26) examined whether Omar committed marriage fraud nearly two decades ago to help a man obtain his green card.
The Times, rather than highlight how Trump’s prosecution of Omar is straight out of the strongman’s playbook, instead left it to the congresswoman and her fellow Democrats to make the case. (Even still, the Times failed to quote former president Barack Obama, whose eloquent defense of Omar began: “It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say”—X, 10/18/26).
The Times took a similarly authoritarian-curious approach regarding Trump’s ongoing efforts to overturn Alaska’s crucial Senate race should the Democrat prevail. “The New York Times put its investigative efforts, not into Trump’s threat to democracy, but into attempting to document that he might have a point,” wrote Ari Paul for FAIR (10/30/26).
“Imagine that a mob boss puts out a hit on his neighbor because he thinks the neighbor’s dog pooped on his lawn,” FAIR editor Jim Naureckas wrote on Facebook (10/30/26). “The New York Times would publish an investigative report documenting that the dog probably did poop on the lawn.”
‘Abandoned any pretense’
The Washington Post piece (10/12/26) on the Trump raid on Ilhan Omar’s house has an ominous quote from border czar Tom Homan (“it needs to be looked at”)—the same Tom Homan who the Trump administration declined to prosecute after he was caught on tape taking a $50,000 bribe from undercover FBI agents.
Some outlets brought up concerns about Trump’s selective prosecutions further down in stories, which is too little too late. Most readers don’t make it past the headline, which in the Washington Post’s case offered a business-as-usual impression that the good guys were investigating a suspected baddy.
A quote from Trump’s border czar Tom Homan reinforced that narrative—but only because of a glaring omission that kept the naked politicization of Trump’s DoJ hidden from readers. Homan had himself been the subject of a federal investigation, only it was shuttered when Trump returned to office. Homan was caught on tape accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as business executives looking for government contracts (MS NOW, 9/20/25).
Trump’s willingness to turn a blind eye to Homan’s shady dealings is far from a one-off. “The Trump administration,” ProPublica noted (10/20/26) in its recent investigation into congressional corruption, “has abandoned any pretense of prosecuting public corruption.”
Even as Trump and his cronies get a free pass, the president’s critics continue to be targeted like clockwork—if not more rapidly in the closing days before the midterms.
“The blitz comes as Justice Department leadership is under pressure to show progress before the election on Trump’s priorities,” the Wall Street Journal (10/28/26) reported. “Even if the cases fail, as several prior ones have, they have generated the kinds of headlines that Trump praises.”
‘An unusual twist’
The headline of this New York Times article (10/26/26) treats talking to the New York Times as a crime.
With gas prices near record highs and Trump’s popularity near record lows—thanks to his war of choice with Iran, something he promised to avoid—it’s not hard to see why Trump wants to change the narrative.
Fortunately for Trump, his former personal attorney Todd Blanche is now his eager-to-please attorney general. And Blanche has jumped into action, unleashing his powerful office on his boss’s enemies, despite the DoJ typically staying quiet in the two months prior to an election. (Blanche has also offered more direct assistance by hitting the campaign trail himself, a partisan move with little precedent—Wall Street Journal, 10/28/26.)
Blanche’s October surprises continued late into the month, with the DoJ bringing federal charges for now the third time against former FBI director James Comey, only this time without first getting a sign-off from a grand jury or judge. (“Turns out ham sandwiches are harder to indict,” quipped the presiding judge.) The timing of the charges against the Trump critic raised further questions, not only because of their proximity to the election. “In an unusual twist,” the New York Times (10/26/26) reported,
the new charges were unsealed hours after a federal judge in New York ruled that the Trump administration had unlawfully fired Mr. Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, from her job as a prosecutor in that city.
The Times’ story is headlined only “Justice Department Brings More Charges Against Comey, Accusing Him of Leaks.” A more accurate headline might read, “Ahead of Midterms, Trump Targets a Familiar Foe.”
‘Cases in which evidence is lacking’
The day after the charges against Comey were unsealed, a DC grand jury declined to bring charges against Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide in Trump’s first term. Trump’s DoJ targeted Hutchinson over her testimony before Congress, which tied Trump to the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“It was once rare for grand jurors to rebuff prosecutors and turn down a request for an indictment,” the New York Times (10/27/26) noted:
But such failures have become more common for the department under Mr. Trump, who has pushed prosecutors to seek indictments even in cases in which evidence is lacking.
It’s time for journalists and headline writers to show the same level of skepticism as grand jurors, and challenge Trump’s authoritarian prosecutions in their leads and headlines.
Featured Image: Washington Post depiction (10/12/26) of Homeland Security carrying off Ilhan Omar’s property.
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