When it comes to Hillary Clinton's loss, there is plenty of blame to go around. Some observers have a new target, though, that takes some of the heat off FBI Director James Comey: his boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The Washington Post reports that Lynch could have demanded Comey not send his fateful letter to Congress that informed the lawmakers — and the nation — of a renewed look into Clinton's emails after messages were discovered on a laptop belonging to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. "If [Lynch] thought [the letter] violated department policy or was otherwise a bad idea, she could have ordered him not to send the letter," said Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith. "It was an astonishing failure of leadership and eschewal of responsibility, especially if Lynch really thought what Comey did was wrong."

Justice officials reportedly concluded that neither Lynch nor her deputy should tell Comey to withhold the letter, in part because they weren't sure how Comey would react and also because they were concerned about the optics of a potential leak. "Lynch and her advisers were nervous about how it would look if people found out that she, a Democratic presidential appointee, told Comey to keep secret from Congress a new development in the Clinton investigation," The Washington Post writes. "Instead, they tried to convince Comey that he had never promised to update Congress at every turn. He had merely said he would 'look at' any new information in the case."

It didn't work. But while Comey came to bear the brunt of the blame of Clinton supporters — as well as of Clinton herself — Lynch has mostly made it out unscathed. Read more about her decision not to intervene at The Washington Post. Jeva Lange

Michael Bloomberg wants the Democrats back on top.

The former New York mayor and businessman will infuse $80 million into the 2018 election, mostly helping Democratic congressional campaigns, The New York Times reports. While Bloomberg is politically independent, he has vocally opposed Republicans during the Trump presidency will likely support candidates who lean the other way.

"Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, have done little to reach across the aisle to craft bipartisan solutions — not only on guns and climate change, but also on jobs, immigration, health care, and infrastructure," Bloomberg said in a statement Wednesday. "As a result, Congress has accomplished very little."

While helping Democrats pick up 23 seats and win the majority is Bloomberg's main focus in the House, Bloomberg also explicitly said he'll support gubernatorial candidates on both sides of the aisle. And he's only here for moderate candidates — aka, no one who wants to impeach the president, per Bloomberg's statement.

Republicans in small congressional races usually land stronger financial support than Democrats, but Bloomberg could upset that dynamic, the Times suggests. Bloomberg-funded ads could tip moderate suburban districts to the left — and tip the House as well. Kathryn Krawczyk

Attorney Michael Cohen is stepping back from politics and the current administration.

President Trump's former fixer stepped down from his position as deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee's Finance Committee, ABC News reported Wednesday.

In a rare move, Cohen diverged from Trump in the announcement, condemning his former boss' policies that have been separating immigrant families at the border. "As the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor, the images and sounds of this family separation policy [are] heart-wrenching," Cohen wrote. "While I strongly support measures that will secure our porous borders, children should never be used as bargaining chips."

Cohen is entangled in the ongoing investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that is probing the Trump campaign's role in Russia's meddling in the presidential election. He said that his legal troubles were one reason he decided to leave his role at the RNC, which he had held since April 2017. "This important role requires the full-time attention and dedication of each member," wrote Cohen. "Given the ongoing Mueller and [Southern District of New York] investigations, that simply is impossible for me to do." Read more at ABC News. Summer Meza

In West Virginia's 3rd District, which President Trump won by 49.3 points in the 2016 election, Democratic candidate Richard Ojeda holds a sliver of a lead over Republican Carol Miller, the latest Monmouth University poll, released Wednesday, found. Forty-three percent of voters said they were with Ojeda, while Miller held onto 41 percent.

Curiously, Trump is still popular in the district: He has a 66 percent approval rating, with 49 percent of voters strongly approving of him. "Unlike other hotly contested House races in the country where dislike of the president is giving Democrats a boost, this West Virginia district seems to be competitive because the Democratic candidate has his own populist persona," observed the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, Patrick Murray. Despite running as a Democrat, Ojeda has said he voted for Trump in 2016.

David Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report responded to the poll by tweeting that he will be moving the district from "likely Republican" to "lean Republican." The poll reached 428 voters in West Virginia's 3rd District between June 14 and 19, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percent for the full sample. Read the full results here, Jeva Lange

President Trump has continually emphasized that he was powerless to end his administration's policy of separating immigrant families at the border, blaming Democrats for laws that required the practice even though the separations began after Trump began his "zero tolerance" immigration policy last month and no law exists that mandates parents be separated from their children.

Now, Trump is reportedly poised to sign an executive order that would halt the separations. Many of his critics, Democrats and Republicans alike, have been pointing out that Trump could have reversed his own policy any time, or that he could have told Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to stop the practice. An executive order would cast doubt on all his previous statements when he claimed that only Congress could pass legislation to fix the problem, The Washington Post reports.

Watch some of the instances when Trump and Nielsen claimed their hands were tied below, via The Washington Post. Summer Meza

The San Francisco Police Department has identified a suspect in the murder of at least five gay men in the late 1970s, CNN reports. The killer, who was known as "the Doodler" because he would sketch strangers in bars, could have killed as many as 14 different people. "I'm looking at five murders," said Inspector Dan Cunningham. "But I'd be a fool to say he didn't do more."

While police repeatedly questioned one man in connection to the murders in the 1970s, they never caught the Doodler — who would leave bars with the men he sketched, then stab his victims to death. A drawing of the Doodler was released in 1975 based on three men who were assaulted by a person that detectives at the time believed was their killer. "We have a suspect in the assault that spawned the sketch," explained Cunningham.

After the recent arrest of the suspected Golden State Killer, investigators are hoping they might be able to get usable DNA samples from blood samples taken at two Doodler crime scenes as well. The Doodler today would be in his early 60s, if he is still alive; the police have updated their sketch of him to look as he would now. Jeva Lange

Some migrant children separated from their parents at the border are barely children at all. They're babies.

Infants as young as 3 months old have ended up in Michigan after their parents are detained far away, the Detroit Free Press reports. They arrive on planes in the middle of the night, often with no idea where they're headed, and are placed in foster homes, says a foster care supervisor.

That's a far cry from the account of a Homeland Security official, who told BuzzFeed News on Friday that "we do not separate babies from adults." Yet the next day, an 8-month-old and an 11-year-old arrived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, after weeks away from their parents, per the Free Press. They're among 50 immigrant children — average age: 8 years old — who have landed in Michigan instead of "tender age" detention facilities near the border.

Michigan foster parents are used to taking in unaccompanied migrant children. But the migrants are usually old enough to cross the border alone and know how to find their families already here, New York Times immigration reporter Miriam Jordan said on The Daily podcast Wednesday.

Children arriving in Michigan today are only getting younger, the foster care supervisor told the Free Press. They now come to the U.S. with family, but are torn away when their parents are detained, and they may go a month without even reaching their parents on the phone. Read more at the Detroit Free Press. Kathryn Krawczyk

Michael B. Jordan fans, rejoice: The first trailer for Creed II is here.

The clip, which dropped Wednesday, takes everything to the next level: The stakes are higher, the foe more menacing. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone shine as they reprise their roles of Adonis Creed and Rocky Balboa, respectively, in the sequel to 2015's Creed.

The trailer begins as Jordan's Creed finds himself struggling to keep his father's legacy alive as he continues to build his own, and ultimately builds to a pivotal reveal: Viktor Drago — the son of Ivan Drago, whose infamous punch killed Creed's father Apollo in Rocky IV — steps up to challenge Creed.

Creed earned more than $170 million worldwide and earned Stallone a 2016 Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Stallone wrote the screenplay for Creed II himself, and Steven Caple Jr. has signed on to direct. The film will reunite Jordan with Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, who is an executive producer on the film.

Creed II is set to hit theaters Nov. 21. Watch the full trailer below. Amari Pollard