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Nov. 19, 2025, 9:20 AM EST / Updated Nov. 19, 2025, 9:34 AM ESTBy Gary Grumbach and Owen HayesJames Comey will appear before a federal judge in Virginia on Wednesday as his attorneys argue that the former FBI director is facing a “selective and vindictive” prosecution by the Trump administration, a key hearing that could determine the future of the case.Comey was charged in September with making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding, days after President Donald Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey and others. Comey pleaded not guilty to the charges.Comey’s lawyers believe the Trump administration has singled out their client because of his protected speech and what they call Trump’s “personal animus” toward Comey. Trump fired Comey as FBI director in 2017 after the two clashed over the Justice Department’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Comey had been an outspoken critic of Trump since then. “The Constitution forbids the government from prosecuting an individual based on his protected speech or based on a government official’s animus toward the individual,” attorneys for Comey wrote in filings. “Objective evidence establishes that President Trump directed the prosecution of Mr. Comey in retaliation for Mr. Comey’s public criticisms and to punish Mr. Comey because of personal spite.”Comey’s team has provided the court with pages of examples of Trump’s disparaging posts and comments about the former FBI director. The posts are likely to play a role in Wednesday’s hearing, especially Trump’s message to Bondi. Legal experts told NBC News in September that Trump’s post could backfire.Comey’s lawyers want U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff to dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be brought for a second time. These types of motions rarely succeed in court, but legal experts say if there was ever a situation where it would succeed, this case may be the one.Patrick J. Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at UB Greensfelder, told NBC News the evidence supporting Comey’s effort is incredibly strong, despite the high bar for such motions.“This is that rarest of all beasts. This is actually a vindictive prosecution,” Cotter said. “If there is ever going to be a vindictive prosecution motion that is successful, it will be this motion.”Cotter pointed to the evidence that Trump ordered the attorney general to indict Comey and others, and his long-standing animus toward the former FBI director.The Trump administration argues the charges against Comey are legitimate.“The societal interests in this prosecution are readily apparent and overwhelming. The defendant is a former FBI Director who lied to Congress about his conduct while at the helm of the Nation’s primary federal law-enforcement agency. His prosecution implicates societal interests of the highest order,” DOJ wrote in a filing. Comey, it says, “asks the Court to take the extraordinary step of dismissing his indictment because — he says — he is being vindictively and selectively prosecuted. Given the deep-seated separation-of-powers principles at stake, his request can be granted only if “the Constitution requires it.”Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whom the Trump administration indicted in October, separately filed motions to disqualify acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan from her post on the grounds that her appointment was unlawful.Trump named Halligan, a former Trump personal lawyer with no prior experience as a prosecutor, after her predecessor resigned under pressure to indict Comey and James.A separate judge, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, earlier this month accused the DOJ of taking a “indict first, investigate later” approach to Comey’s case.Gary GrumbachGary Grumbach is an NBC News legal affairs reporter, based in Washington, D.C.Owen HayesOwen Hayes is an field producer for the NBC News Washington bureau.Ryan J. Reilly contributed.

- Latest News - November 19, 2025

James Comey will appear before a federal judge in Virginia on Wednesday as his attorneys argue that the former FBI director is facing a “selective and vindictive” prosecution by the.

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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleNov. 19, 2025, 6:00 AM ESTBy Peter Guo and Jay GanglaniHONG KONG — Japan has been feeling the sting of China’s economic retaliation as their diplomatic spat over Taiwan worsens, with travel agencies canceling group tours and fears mounting over an outright ban on Japanese seafood and movies.China hinted that it might halt seafood imports from Japan on Wednesday after warning its citizens to avoid traveling there and postponing the release in China of at least two Japanese movies.The two largest economies in Asia have been locked in a war of words that began when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told lawmakers on Nov. 7 that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could force a military response from Tokyo. It was the first time such a comment had been made by a sitting prime minister of Japan, a U.S. ally that has a mutual defense pact with Washington.The first day of the auction at the Hamasaka fishing port in Toyooka, Japan, on Nov. 6.Buddhika Weerasinghe / Getty ImagesChina, which claims self-ruling Taiwan as a breakaway province to be seized by force if necessary, has repeatedly demanded that Takaichi retract her “egregious” remarks, saying it will take “severe” countermeasures if she refuses.Though unspecified, Beijing’s threats have fueled concerns for Japan’s already fragile economy that is heavily dependent on China, especially as Tokyo grapples with the effects of U.S. tariffs.On Wednesday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested that China might reimpose its ban on imports of Japanese seafood because Japan has “so far failed” to provide documents proving the quality and safety of its aquatic products.China resumed importing seafood from all but 10 Japanese prefectures earlier this month after suspending imports two years ago over the release of treated radioactive wastewater from Japan’s wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.Takaichi’s comments on Taiwan have triggered “strong public outrage in China,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said. “Under the current circumstances, even if Japanese aquatic products were exported to China, they would have no market.”China’s newest sign of economic retaliation came days after authorities advised Chinese citizens not to travel to Japan, saying Takaichi’s “blatantly provocative” Taiwan remarks posed a “significant risk” to the safety of Chinese people in the country.Japan, which says it continues to prefer a peaceful solution to the Taiwan issue, has also advised its citizens to take extra safety precautions while in China. “The government will continue to closely monitor the situation, including the impact of the series of measures by China, and take appropriate action,” Minoru Kihara, the Japanese government’s top spokesperson, told reporters Tuesday.Following the government’s instructions, several major Chinese airlines have started offering free refunds or itinerary changes for eligible flight tickets to and from Japan.While the number of canceled flights was not immediately clear, some travel businesses have reported disruption and losses amid the China-Japan tensions.A Chinese tour group visit the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo on Monday.Greg Baker / AFP via Getty ImagesEast Japan International Travel Agency, a Tokyo-based tour operator offering tailored services to Chinese tourists, said about 70% of its group tours had been canceled, marking a “significant surge,” and that new inquiries had also decreased about 90%.“Normally, the period from late December to the Lunar New Year is peak season for corporate incentive travel,” Yu Jixin, the agency’s vice president, told NBC News in an emailed statement. “But this year, almost none of these groups are expected to visit Japan.”Beijing Huatu International Travel Agency said it had suspended bookings for Japan-related tours until further orders from Chinese authorities.“We are all Chinese people of flesh and blood,” it said Monday in a statement on RedNote, China’s Instagram-like platform. “We will never waver when it comes to the fundamentals of right and wrong.”At least two Japanese movies, “Crayon Shin-chan the Movie: Super Hot! The Spicy Kasukabe Dancers” and “Cells at Work!,” will have their releases postponed in mainland China, state-backed media China Film News said Monday.Chinese film importers and distributors said they made the “cautious” adjustment in response to viewers’ “widespread and intense dissatisfaction” with Takaichi’s remarks.Tanjiro Kamado in “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle.”Sony PicturesThe delays were announced as Japanese anime sensation “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” has raked in more than $60 million since its Chinese premiere on Friday, accounting for 50% of the country’s daily box office through Wednesday, according to data from Chinese box office tracker Beacon.The pausing of film premieres by China, though a “fairly normal practice,” sends a “clear signal” to Japan, said Hong Zeng, professor of cultural studies at Hong Kong Baptist University.“This is not an isolated gesture within the film sector,” Zeng said, noting that it would be “surprising” if all these actions taken by Beijing, including its travel warning, “were merely coincidental.”Peter GuoPeter Guo is an associate producer based in Hong Kong.Jay GanglaniJay Ganglani is NBC News’s 2025-26 Asia Desk Fellow. Previously he was an NBC News Asia Desk intern and a Hong Kong-based freelance journalist who has contributed to news publications such as CNN, Fortune and the South China Morning Post.Arata Yamamoto contributed.

- Latest News - November 19, 2025

Japan has been feeling the sting of China’s economic retaliation as their diplomatic spat over Taiwan worsens, with travel agencies canceling group tours and fears mounting over an outright ban.

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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleNov. 19, 2025, 6:00 AM ESTBy Kevin CollierMany of the largest and most widely established state-sponsored online propaganda campaigns have embraced using artificial intelligence, a new report finds — and they’re often bad at it.The report, by the social media analytics company Graphika, analyzed nine ongoing online influence operations — including ones it says are affiliated with China’s and Russia’s governments — and found that each has, like much of social media, increasingly adopted generative AI to make images, videos, text and translations.The researchers found that sponsors of propaganda campaigns have come to rely on AI for core functions like making content and creating influencer personas on social media, streamlining some campaigns. But the researchers say that content is low quality and gets little engagement. The findings run counter to what many researchers had anticipated with the growing sophistication of generative AI — artificial intelligence that mimics human speech, writing and images in pictures and videos. The technology has rapidly become more advanced in recent years, and some experts warned that propagandists working on behalf of authoritarian countries would embrace high-quality, convincing synthetic content designed to deceive even the most discerning people in democratic societies.Resoundingly, though, the Graphika researchers found that the AI content created by those established campaigns is low-quality “slop,” ranging from unconvincing synthetic news reporters in YouTube videos to clunky translations or fake news websites that accidentally include AI prompts in headlines.“Influence operations have been systematically integrating AI tools, and a lot of it is low-quality, cheap AI slop,” said Dina Sadek, a senior analyst at Graphika and co-author of the report. As was the case before such campaigns started routinely using AI, the vast majority of their posts on Western social media sites receive little to no attention, she said.Online influence campaigns aimed at swaying American politics and pushing divisive messages go back at least a decade, when the Russia-based Internet Research Agency created scores of Facebook and Twitter accounts and tried to influence the 2016 presidential election.As in some other fields, like cybersecurity and programming, the rise of AI hasn’t revolutionized the field of online propaganda, but it has made it easier to automate some tasks, Sadek said.“It might be low-quality content, but it’s very scalable on a mass scale. They’re able to just sit there, maybe one individual pressing buttons there, to create all this content,” she said.Examples cited in the report include “Doppelganger,” an operation the Justice Department has tied to the Kremlin, which researchers say used AI to create unconvincing fake news websites, and “Spamoflauge,” which the Justice Department has tied to China and which creates fake AI news influencers to spread divisive but unconvincing videos on social media sites like X and YouTube. The report cited several operations that used low-quality deepfake audio.One example posted deepfakes of celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and former President Barack Obama, appearing to comment on India’s rise in global politics. But the report says the videos came off as unconvincing and didn’t get much traction.Another pro-Russia video, titled “Olympics Has Fallen,” seemed to be designed to denigrate the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. A nod to the 2013 Hollywood film “Olympus Has Fallen,” it starred an AI-generated version of Tom Cruise, who didn’t participate in either film. The report found it got little attention outside of a small echo chamber of accounts that normally share that campaign’s films.Spokespeople for China’s embassy in Washington, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, X and YouTube didn’t respond to requests for comment.Even if their efforts don’t reach many actual people, there is value for propagandists to flood the internet in the age of AI chatbots, Sadek said. The companies that develop those chatbots are constantly training their products by scraping the internet for text they can rearrange and spit back out.A recent study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit pro-democracy group, found that most major AI chatbots, or large language models, cite state-sponsored Russian news outlets, including some outlets that have been sanctioned by the European Union, in their answers.Kevin CollierKevin Collier is a reporter covering cybersecurity, privacy and technology policy for NBC News.

- Latest News - November 19, 2025

Many of the largest and most widely established state-sponsored online propaganda campaigns have embraced using AI, a new report finds.

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