Badlands Daily: 10/5/26 - Russia’s Plague Lab Leak, Jack Smith’s Phone Dragnet and DOJ vs ERIC

CannCon is back from a sweltering weekend in Tampa with a Packers win and a full docket. It starts in Siberia, where a lab worker's death from a suspected plague has nearly 200 people under observation, and with why, after COVID, nobody trusts the officials telling us not to worry. His fix for gain-of-function research: give it its own island, far away from the rest of us. Then the Ninth Circuit pauses the reinstatement of a fired Seattle U.S. attorney, Justice Alito says he has a suspect in the Dobbs leak, and President Trump calls for mandatory prison time for fraudsters and for the officials who look away. Newly released Plasmic Echo memos show Jack Smith's team tracked Susie Wiles' calls with Trump's lawyers and with journalists, and FBI agents left their notes blank after meeting John Brennan. Plus a congressman's case that Nixon was pushed out, the DOJ taking a look at the Watergate prosecutors, Thomas Crooks' drone flights and a 12-year wait for his records, the DOJ demanding answers from ERIC over DMV data, and Mark Ruffalo, newly minted election skeptic.