raw story
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neglected, see what fresh hell roundups
target enemies list
SEE RW VIOLENCE MILITIA RADICALIZATION
SEE HAAKE
GOOD ON PROVACY DOD INFLUENCERS
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RawStory NO LNX $
RawStory
Secret donors paid millions to Clarence Thomas-linked law firm with Supreme Court cases
Alexandria Jacobson, Investigative Reporter
September 21, 2026
Secret donors paid millions to Clarence Thomas-linked law firm with Supreme Court cases
Clarence Thomas attends the swearing-in ceremony of Pam Bondi as attorney general at the White House. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters
A conservative law firm with deep ties to Justice Clarence Thomas, President Donald Trump and a history of arguing more than a dozen cases on hot-button right-wing causes before the Supreme Court took in more than $33.5 million from nonprofit dark money networks, according to new watchdog research.
Consovoy McCarthy, a boutique conservative law firm started in 2014, brought in more than $29 million since 2015 from nonprofits associated with Leonard Leo, a co-chair of the Federalist Society, a Project 2025 contributor and architect of the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, alone, according to tax filings analyzed by True North Research, a progressive investigative research firm.
Leo has a well-documented history of using his networks to funnel money to ultraconservative causes, from working to limit access to abortion medication to supporting anti-trans laws.
ALSO READ: Bombshell memo on horrific race massacre exposes complicit FBI: 'They lied like crazy'
Nonprofits do not need to disclose the identities of their donors, and when such groups support political causes without revealing the sources of their funding, it's considered “dark money.”
Consovoy McCarthy has “become a go-to for these far-right networks, especially networks tied to Leonard Leo ... who's seeking to impose his agenda on all Americans by weaponizing the court system,” said Alyssa Bowen, deputy director at True North Research.
“We've seen Consovoy McCarthy undertake a ton of cases furthering Leo's agenda as they're enriching themselves with Leo cash and cash from other far-right dark money operatives.”
Have a tip? I want to hear it.
I'm an investigative reporter covering politics and government accountability. If you have information the public should know — inside government, a campaign or anywhere power operates with too little scrutiny — I want to hear from you."
I protect sources and can communicate securely and confidentially.
Alexandria Jacobson
Investigative Reporter, Raw Story
alexandria@rawstory.com
Consovoy McCarthy took in money from nonprofits associated with other conservative activists like Edward Blum, who has brought at least eight cases to the Supreme Court, mostly about race-conscious college admissions and voting rights.
“You've got money funneled through a nonprofit organization, you don't really know if there's a wealthy mega donor or special interest helping bankroll the legal arguments that are appearing before a court,” said Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, a bipartisan nonprofit that advocates for reducing the influence of money in politics.
“You don't know if a wealthy donor or special interest is helping underwrite this type of legal advocacy when so much money flows through a nonprofit network.”
Consovoy McCarthy argued high-profile cases before the Supreme Court, including Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which effectively ended affirmative action in 2023 and was spearheaded by Blum.
The biggest nonprofit contribution Consovoy McCarthy took in was more than $1.8 million from Students for Fair Admissions in 2018.
In total, the firm took in nearly $8.8 million from the nonprofit founded by Blum, according to tax filings.
“There's a lot of money behind the legal challenges to a lot of these high-profile cases that we see from voting rights law to affirmative action cases, other race-conscious policies,” Beckel said.
“These are very hot-button issues right now, and where there's heat, there's fire, and when you've got the ability to bring big guns into the courtroom, there's some donors who are more than willing to have their money help pay for that type of legal representation all across the ideological spectrum.”
The firm also represented Trump in his effort to conceal his tax returns.
Six of Consovoy McCarthy’s 11 partners clerked for Thomas. Another clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.
“When you've got many of your partners previously clerking for a specific Supreme Court justice, that can give you an edge in the courtroom. That can give you an edge in recruiting and landing new clients. It can give you an edge in landing major cases before the Supreme Court,” Beckel said.
“These are individuals who might have a particular insight into how Clarence Thomas approaches the decisions that he makes on the bench. If you've got lawyers with special insights into how a Supreme Court justice thinks, that can be very lucrative.”
Thomas McCarthy, co-founder of Consovoy McCarthy, Blum and Leo could not be immediately reached for comment for this story.
'Sad state of politics'
The 85 Fund, managed by Leo, is formerly known as the Judicial Education Project and is the oldest in his dark money network. It gave Consovoy McCarthy $5.65 million between 2016 and 2023.
America First Legal Foundation, co-founded by Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and a recipient of funding from the Leo-connected donor-advised fund, DonorsTrust, paid Consovoy McCarthy nearly $235,000 in 2022.
Do No Harm, a medical and policy advocacy nonprofit associated with Blum and funded by Leo's network, paid Consovoy McCarthy more than $1.4 million total in 2022 and 2024. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated Do No Harm as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that promotes conversion therapy.
Consovoy McCarthy was paid more than $544,000 from the Project on Fair Representation, founded by Blum.
“There's a coordinated effort by a few billionaire-backed political operatives that are throwing … their weight behind legal cases that undermine policies that help people and benefit politicians or billionaires,” Bowen said.
Speech First, which says it works to protect free speech rights on college campuses and is associated with the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, paid the firm more than $7.3 million total between 2018 and 2024.
The U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, which works on “defending Trump-era deregulation in court,” paid Consovoy McCarthy nearly $200,000.
Defending Education, formerly Parents Defending Education, which advocates for removing critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion from schools, paid Consovoy McCarthy $4 million total since 2021. Blum is a board member.
These nonprofits have been considered dark money networks with lack of transparency about their funders.
“Dark money has an incredible influence in the judicial system, as well as the political arena writ large,” Beckel said.
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August 31, 2026
Our military has never seemed weaker on the global stage thanks to Cadet Bones Spurs' regime carrying out Project 2025’s planned changes to the U.S. military.
Aside from renaming the Defense Department to the Department of War during peacetime, the other shredding of our esteemed military being carried out right in front of us includes everything the Heritage Foundation wanted: ending diversity programs, reversing reproductive care travel policies, and reviewing high-ranking officer promotions for political alignment.
Then there’s renaming warships after terrible people, stranding the USS Abraham Lincoln, and manufacturing a war in Iran to distract from the Epstein Files, because the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East just weren’t enough.
Trump has a long history of openly disrespecting our armed forces, because that’s what weak, thin-skinned, jealous bullies do when they come face-to-face with their opposites. He takes no responsibility for the egregious body counts — both foreign and domestic — attributed to his two administrations. A weakened American military makes our country vulnerable to attacks from our enemies, which is exactly what Putin wants. It pairs nicely with the visuals of the vandalism in D.C. perpetrated by only one person; Putin’s puppet himself delivered the weakest version of our country as a 250th birthday present for Daddy Vladdy.
But there’s really no better example of how much Trump hates the military than his installation of former Fox News Talking Head and fellow thrice-married serial philanderer “Punch-Drunk” Pete Hegseth as the “Secretary of War.” Bringing his brash Broski braggadouchery to the MAGA base, “Kegseth” — a nickname he’s rightfully earned thanks to his multiple drunken public appearances — served in the National Guard from 2002 to 2021 and has now turned the Pentagon into a frat house with its own Green Room where he can get his makeup done before doing the world’s worst photo ops.
Together, Trump and Kegseth went scorched earth on the Pentagon and purged anyone who wasn’t going to choose loyalty to Trump over America. Under the guise of getting rid of anyone who was pro-DEI initiatives, they fired high-ranking military leaders from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Senior Service Officers, and also blocked the promotion of at least 45 officers.
During his controversial tenure, Hegseth has been focused on strutting around and putting on pretend shows of strength. Colin Jost’s impression of Hegseth on SNL is so spot-on, it’s scary while also being funny/not funny.
Aside from making a mockery of our military on the global stage, Hegseth has been obeying orders by pulling a Bari Weiss and firing three employees of the venerable military publication Stars and Stripes after they reported — accurately — about the abhorrent conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Kind of like how the White House posted a “Leftist Influencers” List on its website to target three independent political content creators after they reported — accurately — on Trump’s health amid multiple “annual” visits to Walter Reed within the same calendar year.
Or how Trump constantly bullies the press instead of ever answering their questions.
It’s just weird how they keep trying to punish people who are just doing their jobs.
Anyway, Stars and Stripes (S&S) — which still has a print edition! — has reported on the United States Armed Forces and their communities since the Civil War era.
While it operates from within the Department of Defense War, it’s independent and editorially separate from it, and its First Amendment rights to report on military actions and other issues relevant to our military has been guaranteed by Congress.
Of course, none of that matters to Punch-Drunk Pete and the Epstein Bestie who keeps taking naps on camera while behind the Resolute Desk. While they’ve made it abundantly clear that they couldn’t care less about the conditions our servicepeople must live under, they care very much about the optics of a disaster like the one aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Rather than apologizing and taking responsibility or, I don’t know, properly taking care of every member of our armed forces with dignity and respect so that they wouldn’t be considering suicide, Kegseth and Trump are just worried about their bad actions making them look bad.
So Hegseth, who can’t do a pull-up and has dumbed down every press conference from the Pentagon, ordered Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin to fire journalist Lara Korte. When Slavin refused, Hegseth fired them, as well as publisher Max D. Lederer Jr., for “insubordination.” All three are now on “administrative leave” awaiting a court ruling after they filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Hegseth, Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, DOD public affairs official Andrew Brey, and the DOD itself.
I guess Trump and Kegseth have to decide if it makes them look worse to admit the truth, or to fire the people who report the truth they don’t want to admit to. They are both threats to national and international security. The least qualified person to ever oversee our military is one boozy brunch away from accidentally launching a nuke over a perceived slight.
All of this makes my brain cry, because I’m so tired of the stupidest people carrying out the most obvious yet also stupidest plot to destroy our democracy from within. Stars and Stripes has been around since THE CIVIL WAR ERA and the drunk guy from Fox News and the handsy host of The Apprentice shouldn’t be anywhere near it.
I can’t stress that enough, because now we’re hearing that Hegseth is “seriously considering” a presidential run in 2028, which is just too stupid to think about. Although, I can’t say I wouldn’t enjoy watching Sen. Jon “Hotticus Finch” Ossoff shred Punch-Drunk Pete in a debate.
I’ve had a lifelong respect for our military, and I can only hope that once Democrats flip Congress, they’ll be investigating Hegseth and his staff for war crimes as part of their campaign of accountability for the Trump regime.
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aquired alternet ?
John K. Byrne (born March 24, 1981) is an American publisher and writer. He is co-owner of Raw Story Media and AlterNet Media, which publish the online progressive political news sites RawStory.com and AlterNet.org respectively.[1] Prior to Raw Story, he wrote briefly for The Boston Globe and McClatchy Newspapers and has been published in The Atlantic.[2]
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Trump ally's claim about 'left-wing violence' just doesn't add up
Former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf testifies in the Senate. Picture: Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution.
Jordan GreenNovember 02, 2025 |
Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s appearance before a Senate hearing on political violence this week resurfaced inconvenient remarks for a witness called by Republicans intent on painting rising political violence as a left-wing problem.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) read back Wolf’s Senate testimony from five years ago.
“White supremacist extremists, from a lethality standpoint over the last two years … are certainly the most persistent and lethal threat, when we talk about domestic violent extremists,” Wolf said at the time.
On Tuesday, before the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, chaired by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Wolff offered a strikingly different assessment.
“The increase in politically motivated violence over the last several years has been driven largely by radical, left-wing extremist groups and individuals that believe violence is a legitimate means to achieve political goals,” Wolf testified.
Wolf is now executive vice president of the America First Policy Institute. Founded in 2021 and closely aligned with Trump, former leaders include Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Secretary of Agriculture Brook Rollins and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
In a statement to Raw Story, Wolf did not disavow his 2020 assessment on white supremacist violence, but said: “America has experienced a historic rise in left-wing violence, especially following President Trump’s second election victory.”
At the time of Wolf’s September 2020 hearing, the U.S. had experienced a series of mass shootings by white supremacists, including Patrick Crusius, who killed 23 people, mostly Latinos, at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in 2019, and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
Both killers echoed Donald Trump’s rhetoric depicting immigrants and refugees as an “invasion” or “invaders.”
U.S. counterterrorism officials also took note of the 2019 massacre carried out by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Crusius cited Tarrant as an inspiration. So did Payton Gendron, who killed 10 African Americans at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. in 2022.
Tarrant’s attack catalyzed the emergence of the term “saints” among white supremacists to glorify terrorists. The U.S. Justice Department is currently prosecuting three Terrorgram leaders on terrorism-related charges.
“White supremacist violence is clearly not the primary threat facing our country today,” Wolf told Raw Story. “All you have to do is look at the data, which has changed significantly in the last five years.”
Wolf cited incidents often mentioned by the administration and allies to make the case that political violence now emanates from the left: the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, two attempts on Trump’s life, the attempted assassination of conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and attacks on centers that offer an alternative to abortion services.
He did not cite the murder of Minnesota Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband by an abortion opponent; a recent death threat against Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) by a Jan. 6 rioter; or the bludgeoning of Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), by a QAnon follower.
Nor did Wolf mention some 1,500 individuals pardoned by President Trump over the Jan. 6 assault on Congress.
William Braniff, a former director of DHS’ Center for Prevention Programs under President Joe Biden testified alongside Wolf.
Braniff agreed that violent incidents are on the rise. But he told the subcommittee, “Violent events do not fit neatly into any one ideological category.”
Braniff noted that DHS contracted with the University of Maryland in 2005 to create a global terrorism database, by congressional mandate. In March, the Trump administration canceled funding.
Drawing on the database, Braniff said: “This year, compared to last year, terrorism events are up 67 percent. Fatalities are up nearly 150 percent. Americans are dying from ISIS-inspired, white supremacist, antisemitic, anti-government, anti-vax, anti-law enforcement and nihilistic attacks.”
‘Black Lives Matter and antifa riots’
In 2020, when Wolf flagged white supremacist violence, he was overseeing DHS as the first Trump administration deployed federal agents against protesters in Portland, Ore., a harbinger of the current standoff at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the city.
On Tuesday, Sen. Schmitt and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) cited rioting related to protests against the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, a familiar Republican talking point.
“There is an epidemic of politically motivated violence,” Cruz said. “And the politically motivated violence in this country is overwhelmingly emanating from the left. We saw that during the Black Lives Matter and antifa riots across the country, as cities across America burned.”
Schmitt complained that some studies of political violence “systematically ignore antifa and Black Lives Matter riots.”
Michael Knowles, a podcast host at the conservative outlet The Daily Wire, complained in testimony that “the Black Lives Matter riots, overtly leftist demonstrations that left dozens of people dead … fail to show up on registers of left-wing political violence.”
Cruz, Schmitt and Knowles did not delve into who was responsible for such violence. The data suggests they were presenting an incomplete picture.
Drawing on data provided by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), and multiple news reports, Raw Story counted 34 deaths plausibly linked to racial justice protests and unrest in 2020, not counting the police killings that sparked protests. Of those, three appear to involve perpetrators directly linked to Black Lives Matter, “antifa” or their supporters.
On May 28, 2020, the second night of rioting in Minneapolis, rioters set fire to a pawnshop. The charred remains of 30-year-old Oscar Lee Stewart Jr. were found in the ruins. Montez Terriel Lee was convicted of arson and sentenced to a decade in prison.
The following month, 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. was shot inside a stolen Jeep Cherokee that sped through an area of Seattle known as the CHAZ — Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone — and occupied by protesters. No charges have been brought, but bystander video appears to implicate an activist security team patrolling amid fears of a right-wing attack.
In late August 2020, Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, was fatally shot in Portland, Ore. Michael Reinoehl, the self-described “antifa” shooter, claimed self-defense. Before he could be apprehended, Reinoehl was killed by federal agents, an event President Trump described as “retribution.”
Danielson’s death is the only politically motivated homicide in the U.S. linked to an identified antifascist in the past quarter-century.
In contrast, one study found that white supremacists and other right-wing extremists killed at least 329 between 1994 and 2020.
The circumstances of Danielson’s shooting remain unclear. As noted by ACLED, Trump supporters were staging a car caravan through downtown Portland, and some right-wingers “sprayed pepper spray and shot paintball guns at counter-demonstrators rallying in support of the BLM movement and against police brutality, as well as journalists.”
The entry also notes video showing right-wing demonstrators driving vehicles through left-wing counter-demonstrators attempting to block the streets.
‘Might shoot looters’
Eight other deaths in 2020 could be linked to racial justice protests, if not directly.
In some, civilian bystanders were killed by criminals who appeared to be exploiting chaos. Victims include David Dorn, a retired police captain in St. Louis whose widow spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention; Chris Beaty, a former college football player murdered in Indianapolis while assisting a woman being mugged; and Marvin Francois, a photographer killed in a robbery while leaving a protest in Kansas City.
Among the most shocking deaths associated with the 2020 protests is that of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, shot by an alleged Bloods gang member manning a barricade in the area where Rayshard Brooks was killed by Atlanta police. Julian Conley was convicted of murder and other offenses, and sentenced to life in prison.
But in at least 23 cases — roughly two thirds — Raw Story found that perpetrators of unrest-related deaths were not linked to Black Lives Matter, antifa or their supporters. They include five people killed by police, one killed by the National Guard, others killed by motorists and shopkeepers, a man with severe mental illness, and a security guard for a news crew.
In one example, Steven Carillo, an airman active in the far-right Boogaloo movement, took advantage of unrest after Floyd’s death to murder David Patrick Underwood, a federal security officer guarding the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., and Damon Gutzwiler, a Santa Cruz County deputy sheriff attempting to serve a warrant.
Raw Story’s analysis tallied 11 Black Lives Matter protesters killed: roughly equal to the number of unaffiliated civilians.
Two — Summer Taylor and Robert Forbes — were struck by vehicles. Barry Perkins III was dragged by a tractor-trailer. Others, including James Scurlock and Italia Impinto, were shot.
Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran marching with BLM protesters in Austin, Texas on July 25, 2020, was fatally shot by Daniel Perry, a former soldier who reportedly searched for locations of protesters and told a friend he “might go to Dallas to shoot looters.” Perry was convicted of murder, then pardoned by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Perhaps most memorably, Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two BLM supporters during unrest in Kenosha, Wis. in 2020. He was acquitted on all charges.
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WASHINGTON — At the insistence of President Donald Trump, U.S. House Republicans launched a new Jan. 6 investigation earlier this month. This time, though, the GOP is investigating the investigators, namely the bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which finished its exhaustive work two years ago.
“I want to see all the docs and find out how many lies were told by the people that were sitting on that committee,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) — who was referred to the Ethics Committee after refusing a request to testify from the first Jan. 6 panel — told Raw Story. “That's what I want.”
While the vote setting up the initial Jan. 6 select committee was bipartisan, earlier this month the new Select Subcommittee on January 6 was approved on a party line vote.
“Trying to rewrite history, that's just kind of clearly what they've done since January 6th, so this all fits the narrative,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), who served on the initial committee, which disbanded before the GOP took the House in 2023, told Raw Story. “It’s dangerous.”
It’s not just Democrats waving warning flags. Moderate Republicans say their leaders are making a mistake.
“I just feel like both sides lost their minds, because having the debate again is kind of bad for the nation,” retiring Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told Raw Story.
Regardless, Trump wants it.
Unlike a GOP-led J6 investigation in the last Congress, this time House Republicans have subpoena power and are promising to use it.
‘What are they looking for?’
Before releasing their 845-page report in 2022, the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee interviewed upwards of 1,000 witnesses and reviewed more than a million pages of documents.
That’s why its chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), and other former members decry the new GOP effort.
“The question is what are they looking for? We have no idea. We stand by the work of the committee. Anybody — whoever — wanted to come talk to us, we invited them,” Thompson told Raw Story before dismissing what he sees as an effort to change the narrative.
“They're trying to, but it doesn't change the facts,” Thompson said.
Republicans beg to differ.
“The sham committee did an injustice,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told Raw Story. “The only thing they did is they wanted to blame Trump for everything. They weren't out there to seek the truth. We have an opportunity now to help kind of clear the air and let the American people know.”
On Jan. 6 2021, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” in support of his lie that the 2020 election was stolen. They then marched from the White House to the Capitol, most seeking to block certification of Joe Biden’s win.
Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides. After returning to power, Trump issued more than 1,500 pardons or acts of clemency, affecting convictions for offenses as serious as seditious conspiracy.
Nehls is one of five Republicans on the new J6 subcommittee. He’s already come to many conclusions, as laid out in his 2022 book, The Big Fraud: What Democrats Don’t Want You to Know about January 6, the 2020 Election, and a Whole Lot Else.
“Why was the Capitol so ill prepared that day?” Nehls asked Raw Story. “I tell you why, because the leadership of the Capitol Police and others didn't want to share the intelligence reports, and they were f------ clear.
“It was quite clear that things were going to get stupid up here.”
Nehls isn’t the only Republican pushing a narrative. In December, the new subcommittee chair, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), released a report recommending former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), a member of the original J6 panel, be investigated by the FBI “for potential criminal witness tampering.”
"Right now, we're casting a pretty broad net trying to bring in any documents that were not preserved or we don't currently have," Loudermilk said. “Basically going out to all the organizations that provided information to the original select committee.”
“How much is your job, as you see it, or your mandate, to investigate the original J6 committee?” Raw Story pressed. “Or how much is your job investigating what happened Jan. 6, 2021?”
“It's both,” Loudermilk said, “because there are decisions being made in some elements based off that report that should not be made. In fact, because that's the official report, they've literally ruined people's lives from that.”
Loudermilk has plenty of questions.
“Did the FBI have actionable intelligence that this was happening? And what did they do with it? Did they pass it to Capitol Police? Was it passed on? Same with Homeland Security. We're investigating there, and we have reason to believe they had intelligence, it wasn't passed on.”
After an 18-month investigation, the bipartisan committee referred Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. Loudermilk and other Republicans claim much remained unanswered.
“How did this Capitol get breached? Regardless of who did it, it should have never been breached,” Loudermilk said.
“An unarmed mob was able to get in the Capitol, you can't find anything in their report about that. ‘Pipe bombs’ are mentioned five times only in passing, but ‘Donald Trump’ was mentioned over a thousand. So that's why we're looking into it.”
In fact, court records show rioters were armed with weapons including firearms, tasers and knives, as well as makeshift implements used to attack police.
Loudermilk was investigated by the initial Jan. 6 committee after video surfaced of him giving a Capitol tour the day before the attack. Like other Republicans, he refused to sit for an interview.
‘Run the tape’
Democrats plan to hammer home that Loudermilk and other Republicans repeatedly rebuffed fact-finding efforts.
“We can go back to some of the people who didn't testify before and who blew off their subpoenas to see if they're ready to testify,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story.
Since serving on the initial Jan. 6 committee, Raskin has become top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, making him an ex-officio member of the GOP’s new panel.
While he dismisses the investigation, Raskin promises to use his perch to highlight the terror of Jan. 6, 2021.
“It's going to be an opportunity for us to talk about the tremendous damage inflicted on the police,” Raskin said.
While Raskin is the only carryover from the initial select committee, other alumni also see Trump’s effort to rehash Jan. 6 as a chance to remind the nation of the attempt to overturn the will of the people that culminated in the brutal attack.
“Ridiculous, but it will give us an opportunity to run the tape over and over again. Why do they want to do this?” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told Raw Story.
“We found the facts. We posted them. It's terabytes of information. Anyone can get it. They're trying to erase history.”
‘Whitewashing’
Even some in Trump’s own party are questioning his goal.
“Why can't we just say those who hurt cops, they were wrong?” Bacon told Raw Story.
“They deserve to be punished — 140 cops were injured. I don't know why we can't have just some honesty, that there were some bad apples in this whole crowd. They deserve to be punished.”
Not according to Trump, who granted blanket pardons. Democrats see the new committee as an extension of that effort.
“The president, on day one, pardoning 1,500 insurrectionists, criminals — violent criminals — was a whitewashing, an attempt to rewrite history,” Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) told Raw Story. “Most importantly, he was pardoning himself. This is a continuation of that.
“It's so infuriating. Just distraction, that's what the administration wants. A little more whitewashing. Absolutely.”
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A new low even for MAGA – but they're about to go lower
REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
Sabrina Haake, Raw Story May 05, 2025
Last week, Trump held a campaign-style rally on the campus of Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan. To the delight of his MAGA fans, he trotted out the same personal grievances he’s been serving up since 2015.
Despite achieving fewer legislative accomplishments during his first 100 days than any president since the 1950s, Trump told his adoring crowd that he had “accomplished more in three months than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years.”
If aiding the enemy, defying court orders, and taking a chainsaw to federal services are “accomplishments,” then Trump is accomplished indeed.
MAGA delights in Trump’s cruelty
After his usual braggadocio, Trump pivoted to video recordings of abject cruelty. Behind the podium, Trump displayed large screen videos of the inhumane treatment of helpless migrants he deported to El Salvador's notorious gulag, CECOT. He brayed, still without evidence, “The worst of the worst are being sent to a no-nonsense prison in El Salvador… watch this!”
“This” was a series of video clips showing hundreds of men he has imprisoned without due process, without a hearing, and without credible evidence that they committed any crime. “This” was a video showing men brutally bent over, having their heads shaved bare, and forcibly shoved into concentration camp-style cages that sleep 75 to 80. “This” was Trump priming his already violence-prone base into a bloodthirsty frenzy, as they exploded in raucous approval of his inhumanity, thundering, "USA! USA! USA!"
According to an affidavit from the Human Rights Watch, prisoners held in CECOT are denied communication with the outside, and only appear before courts in online hearings, often in groups of several hundred detainees at the same time. The Salvadoran government calls them “terrorists” who “will never leave” the prison.
El Salvador, governed by a man who controls the media and calls himself a “cool” dictator, denies human rights groups access to its prisons, and allows journalists to visit only under highly staged circumstances. In videos produced during these visits, prison authorities brag about men held in completely dark solitary confinement cells.
Trump’s stochastic violence against judges
Trump also used the rally to showcase his continued attack on judges, whom he called “communist radical left judges,” claiming they are trying to ‘seize his power.’ Nodding to the courts’ inability to enforce their own orders, Trump warned the world: “Nothing will stop me.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio concurs. At least week’s cabinet meeting, to which Trump invited the media, each cabinet member tried to out-flatter the next person by praising Trump. Seated to Trump’s right, Rubio announced that questions regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man sent in error to El Salvador — specifically, what steps the White House was taking to facilitate his return — were off limits to the media. “I’ll never tell you that, and you know who else I’ll never tell?” Rubio jeered.
“A judge,” he answered himself, “because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States.”
Due process is not a matter of foreign policy
Vice President J.D. Vance also describes the rule of law with sarcastic bombast. He has slammed critics, including federal judges, for “weeping over the lack of due process.”
The Fifth Amendment protects all persons, not just US citizens. It guarantees that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law;” it does not say, ‘no citizens.’ Trump, Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Vance act as if they’ve never heard of it, despite its storied American history. Trying to assume the role of the courts in deciding what the law is, they keep declaring, falsely, that their abuse of immigrants is about “foreign policy.” It isn’t. It’s about the US Constitution, the lynchpin of democracy, without which we don’t have one.
After the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that Trump must facilitate Garcia’s return from El Salvador, Trump took to social media to turn a legal block into a PR strategy. He wrote that he is “being stymied at every turn by even the U.S. Supreme Court…which seemingly doesn’t want me to send violent criminals and terrorists back to Venezuela… If we don’t get these criminals out of our Country, we are not going to have a Country any longer.”
Revealing his complete ignorance of how legal immigration works, he added, “We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years. We would need hundreds of thousands of trials for the hundreds of thousands of Illegals we are sending out of the Country. Such a thing is not possible to do…MAGA!”
It’s as if, despite tanking last year’s border bill just so he could campaign on it, he’s never actually considered that processing immigrants requires paperwork.
VP Vance, who knows better, says it’s up to Trump—and himself— to decide what due process is, and what it requires. “To say the administration must observe “due process” is to beg the question: what process is due is a function of our resources, the public interest, the status of the accused, the proposed punishment, and so many other factors.” No. It isn’t. It’s not up to Vance and Trump’s discretion because the Fifth and 14th Amendments, and well established precedent, mapped out what due process requires — notice, a hearing, and an opportunity to be heard — decades ago.
Trump is a symptom, not a cause
It’s a sick disease of the mind, this urge to oppress others for power, but Trump didn’t invent it. Neither did Hitler, Mao Zedong, or Stalin. It’s been there since we stopped living in tune with the earth, and started living in our heads. It’s our collective fall from grace, a phenomenon worsened exponentially by social media.
Watching our experiment stumble brings deep personal anguish, like watching someone you love destroy themselves. You’d give your own life to help, but they have to save themselves.
A minority of Americans- 23%- approve of what Trump is doing and would loudly cheer “USA!!” at videos of human suffering. These are the same people who used to applaud public lynchings; before that, they salivated at public stonings, witch burnings and Caligula’s public displays of torture. It seems they will always be with us; the only positive is that there are far more of us than there are of them.
ALSO READ: Trump is a troll – but this 'ugly' selfie demands a damning response
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are or have been published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News, State Affairs, and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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Trump’s clown car cabinet is driving off a cliff
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reacts as she walks towards the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Sabrina Haake, Raw Story May 03, 2025
UPS, the United Parcel Service, just announced that it is laying off 20,000 employees and closing 73 of its buildings by the end of June. It attributes the downturn to reduced shipping volume from its largest customer, Amazon, due to Trump’s tariffs.
When a division of Amazon considered telling consumers the truth, by posting the costs tariffs added to the price of each imported product, the mere possibility set the White House on attack mode. Trump immediately called Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, who reassured him Amazon would never do such a thing, while Karoline Leavitt accused Bezos of a “political and hostile” act just for thinking about it.
When a presidential team of incompetent egoists calls truth-telling a “hostile act,” we’re in trouble.
Ruinous economic indicators prompt ruinous deflection
Trump’s first quarter report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis reflects a sharp contraction in the economy, showing an annual decrease in the GDP of 0.3 percent. Compared to Biden’s last quarter, when “real GDP increased 2.4 percent,” the data suggest that perhaps Trump isn’t the economic genius he claims to be.
These are not partisan data; that the Bureau falls under the US Department of Commerce suggests Trump may soon hobble its reporting capacity. For now, the data show economic contraction, reflecting a colossal reversal from Biden’s expansion. Wall Street sums up Trump’s first 100 days in office as the “worst for the stock market in half a century.”
On brand, when faced with these data, Trump lied, deflected, and blamed his predecessor, posting,“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th. This… has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that (Biden) left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”
Trump continues to manufacture Biden’s “bad numbers”
Trump can’t stop parroting his own campaign lies about Biden’s economy. During the 2024 presidential campaign, when he wasn’t manufacturing a border invasion to enrage people, Trump repeatedly attacked Biden’s economy. It worked. While remaining mum on how his own COVID-19 mismanagement worsened the economy, he convinced 49% of voters that they were impoverished, despite economic indicators to the contrary.
After commerce reports came out this week, Trump doubled down. During an embarrassing televised cabinet meeting orchestrated to praise himself, Trump confirmed that he sought to undo everything Biden did to improve the economy, stating, “We came in and I was very against everything that Biden was doing in terms of the economy. … We took over his mess in so many different ways.”
Trump and his cabinet may drink their own economic Kool-Aid, but Wall Street is abstaining. Multiple indicators confirmed that Biden delivered the strongest post-COVID economic recovery in the world, including: growth and job creation that exceeded G7 and other advanced economies' growth in 2024; inflation control despite global inflationary pressures; avoidance of the post-COVID recession predicted by many; wage gains; strong market performance with record S&P 500 highs; and stellarinfrastructure investment that Trump, in a toddler-esque pique of jealousy, is scrambling to unravel.
During Biden’s term, the U.S. added 16 million jobs, low earners were experiencing wage growth, inflation levels approached the Federal Reserve’s target, and unemployment hit a 54-year low. By these metrics, Biden performed economic jujitsu, delivering an economy that The Economist called “the envy of the world.”
Teaching Trump media how to lie better
After Trump officially blamed Biden this week for economic contractions caused by his own ill-conceived tariffs, he went further, instructing right-wing media how to spin bad economic news of the future. During his televised “Praise Dear Leader” cabinet meeting, Trump told his preferred outlets (Fox, Newsmax, OAN) that they should also blame any economic downturns in the second quarter on Biden.
Trump showed similar intransigence during an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man Trump is keeping in an El Salvador prison despite a Supreme Court order to facilitate his return. Trump insisted during the interview that an obviously photoshopped picture showed Garcia with “MS13” tattooed on his knuckles. When Moran told Trump that the image was clearly photoshopped, Trump acted like a tyrant. He first suggested Moran owed him something – it was thanks to Trump that Moran got the interview at all. Frustrated by Moran’s continuing refusal to lie, Trump told him, “you’re not being very nice,” before pivoting to attacking media as a whole, saying this “is why people no longer believe the news … It’s such a disservice…”
Discussing the Supreme Court order to facilitate Garcia’s return, Moran stated the obvious — that Trump could simply pick up the phone, call El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, and get him back. Trump confirmed that he is, indeed, flouting the Supreme Court’s authority, stating, “I could…. And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that.”
In one interview, Trump vacillated between being the all powerful Oz, and the cheap salesman behind the curtain. When Moran reminded him that the high court ordered him to return Garcia, Trump deflected, incredibly: “I'm not the one making this decision. We have lawyers who don't want to do this.”
Trump’s clown car cabinet is driving off a cliff
After the Supreme Court slapped the administration and ordered Garcia’s return with a 9-0 decision, White House adviser Stephen Miller simply lied about it. Miller claimed on Fox News that the administration had “won” the case, “clearly,” prompting a conservative columnist to retort, “Nope, you lost. Unanimously.” Fox viewers, of course, won’t hear that rejoinder as Fox anchors continue to throw falsehoods at the wall to see what sticks.
As Team Trump continues governing the country like a made-for-Fox-TV reality show, real-life consequences are piling up. China just canceled orders for American pork, soybeans, and lumber, putting US farmers in “full-blown crisis” mode.
Maybe, like dolls for Christmas, farmers can make do with selling one or two hogs instead of 30. As Trump put it during a town hall Wednesday night, he plans to defeat public skepticism over his tariffs through deception. “I just think that I’ll be able to convince people how good this is.”
NOW READ: Trump's rampage is out of control — but there's one way to stop it
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are or have been published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News, State Affairs, and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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‘I miss lynch mobs’: The secretary of retribution's followers are getting impatient
Retired Lt. Col. Ivan Raiklin and self-styled "secretary of retribution" Ivan Raiklin at the Republican National Convention
(Jordan Green / Raw Story)
Jordan Green March 09, 2025
A recent X post by Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army lieutenant general who bills calls the “secretary of retribution,” prompted a flurry of comments endorsing violence and vigilantism directed at four mayors who testified before Congress on Wednesday.
Raiklin, who last year circulated a so-called “Deep State Target List” against President Trump’s enemies while calling for “livestreamed swatting raids,” re-posted a video of Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, delivering a fiery lecture to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, all Democrats.
“One of you said you’re willing to go to jail; we might give you that opportunity, good mayor,” Higgins said, likely referring to Johnston, the Denver mayor.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) declared that she intended to refer the four mayors to the Department of Justice for prosecution, while holding up papers that she said would be delivered to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Raiklin wrote in his post re-sharing the video of Higgins’ remarks: “If these mayors are not arrested, WeThe People [sic] will be compelled to reconsider our relationship with government.”
The two men appear to be acquainted: Last July, Raiklin posted a photo on X that showed him clasping hands with Higgins outside Fiserv Forum during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Higgins did not respond to an email from Raw Story for this story.
As of Friday evening, Raiklin’s post had been viewed more than 50,000 times, and had been reshared almost 900 times while garnering 168 comments. Raiklin’s follower count on X has grown to almost 235,000.
The comments from X users responding to Raiklin’s post include calls for vigilante justice and violence mixed with irritation directed at Bondi for not taking enough action in their view. The Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against Johnson, the Chicago mayor, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer and against New York Gov. Kathy Hochul over laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Pritzger and Hochul, both Democrats, have scorned the lawsuits, with Pritzger calling it “garbage” and Hochul deriding it as “worthless.”
Among the responses to Raiklin’s post, some X users called for outright violence, while others proposed some form of extrajudicial process along the lines of sovereign citizen activity.
“I suggest we organize and go to war against our government like our forefathers did,” one user wrote.
Another user posted a meme of George Washington, accompanied by an imagined quote by the first American president reading: “Me and my homies woulda been stacking bodies by now.”
“A real insurrection is still possible,” yet another wrote.
One user asserted incorrectly that “citizens can form their own grand juries.”
“Why wait?” he wrote. “Start now.”
Another asserted: “We the people have the right to form and exercise trained militias. Now is the time for these militias to be on standby awaiting deployment.”
Much of Raiklin’s influence among Trump’s more extreme followers rests on his experience as a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former civilian employee of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, not to mention his seemingly unflagging zeal, prolific social media presence and hypermasculine presentation.
“I am ready, Ivan!” one X user wrote. “You make the call and millions will follow. Our patience are running increasingly thin [sic]. For me, I’ll give it 6 months max.”
Another user wrote: “I didn’t suffer for four years to hear empty promises. The first [arrest] might be the hardest, but they get easier as you go. Let’s get going. Be like a serial killer and become a serial arrester.”
Another simply wrote: “I miss lynch mobs.”
While declining to specifically address the comments under Raiklin’s post, the FBI said in a statement provided to Raw Story that the agency “takes all potential threats seriously and works with our law enforcement partners to determine their credibility, share information, and take appropriate investigative action.
“As always, we encourage members of the public to remain vigilant and immediately report anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement,” the statement continued.
Raw Story reached out by email to Raiklin for comment. He said a transcript of 42-minute video depicting him walking around Washington, D.C. and talking about a supposed Jan. 6 coverup by Republican House members would constitute his response to this story.
The comments about Bondi, who Trump appointed to lead the Department of Justice — roughly a dozen in all — were uniformly disparaging.
“Arrest them what the f--- dumb blondie @AGPamBondi,” one user with the screen name “ClownPuncher” wrote in response to Raiklin’s post. Another baselessly accused the attorney general of “actively protecting Democrats.”
An inquiry submitted to the Department of Justice by Raw Story seeking comment from Bondi for this story went unreturned.
Comments about other Trump administration officials were similarly negative, with one calling FBI Director Kash Patel a “disappointment” and another belittling Border Czar Tom Homan by writing, “If Tommy Boy doesn’t have it in him, Trump needs to get someone who can do it.”
Other X users variously suggested that even Trump and Raiklin himself are not truly committed to arresting the president’s political enemies.
“They’re not going to be, Ivan,” wrote a user with the screen name “Truth Seeking Vet.” “I’m afraid POTUS ‘made a deal’ with the demonrats to get back into Office. I hope and pray I’m wrong, but time will tell.”
One deeply paranoid user suggested Raiklin is an infiltrator who is in league with Democrats and federal law enforcement.
Another called Raiklin out for claiming last year that all he needed to carry out a plan to arrest Trump’s enemies was sympathetic prosecutors and sheriffs, and volunteers.
“I thought you were doing it, deputizing sheriffs, didn’t even need Trump to win,” the user wrote. “What/who is stopping you?”
Raiklin serves on the board of directors of America’s Future, a nonprofit led by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who formerly led the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama and briefly served as national security advisor during Trump’s first term.
Raiklin and Flynn jointly shared master of ceremonies duties at an awards ceremony held by America’s Future at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 18.
On Friday, Raiklin published a video of the awards ceremony in an X post where he tagged President Trump to publicly thank him for “opening up Mar-a-Lago” to Flynn’s organization.
Trump did not respond.
NOW READ: 'The Hard Reset': Here's how the U.S. is exporting terrorism around the world
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'Nothing is beyond our reach': Extremist site accused of 'grooming' teen attackers exposed
An image taken by school shooter Solomon Henderson and shared in his diary features a character from the Soyjak website. It's thought to be based on Patrick Crusius, who carried out a mass shooting in El Paso.
(Taken from Solomon Henderson's diary.)
Jordan Greenand Raw StoryFebruary 01, 2025
Before taking a handgun out of his backpack and walking into the cafeteria at Antioch High School in Nashville, where he opened fire and killed another student before taking his own life on Jan. 22, 17-year-old Solomon Henderson posted a link to an online screed filled with violence and unfiltered racism.
His message gave “special thanks” to Soyjak.party, an imageboard website whose anonymous users and administrators post bigoted memes based on a stock set of caricatures that typically make fun of liberals, sensitive men and trans people.
Using the insider lingo of the community, Henderson closed his post with a sign-off, “Remember keep jakking ‘teens,” followed by the website’s emblem, an octopus-like creature wrapping its tentacles around the globe. The emblem was accompanied by the slogan, “Nothing is beyond our reach.”
Henderson is one of three teenage attackers who have carried out shootings — and in one case a knife attack — over the past six months that extremism researchers have linked to a subset of the Soyjak community known as the Soyjak Attackers Video Fandom, or SAVF.
In the hours after Henderson’s school attack, investigators at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism monitored discussions among the anonymous users on the Soyjak website.
“We watched as they started panicking about losing their website out of fear because they believed the Antioch shooter had been groomed to carry out the shooting by their imageboards,” Carla Hill, the center’s director of investigative research, told Raw Story.
Henderson was a Black teenager whose writings revealed a deep immersion in white supremacist ideology. His consumption of extremist content appears to have manifested as a loathing for himself and other Black people, as he grappled with personal difficulties.
Henderson also identified with the involuntary celibate, or incel, movement, whose members blame women and society for their lack of romantic success.
The title of Henderson’s screed combined the two ideas by marrying a racial slur against Black people with the suffix “cel,” adding a parenthetical to explain that he was an “involuntary” Black person.
“We felt like the Antioch shooter was driven to self-loathing by what he saw online,” Hill said. “That’s how he came to be a self-hating person.”
Other terrorist attacks — such as the car-ramming recently carried out by an ISIS sympathizer in New Orleans and the 2019 mass shooting by a white supremacist at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas — have proven to be significantly more lethal, but Henderson’s attack has unnerved extremism researchers as a harbinger of an emerging hybrid threat that is harder to pin down.
Hill took notice of three intertwined “driving forces” behind Henderson’s attack.
“There’s the incel space — various incel spaces — we found him in those. Soyjak crosses over with that,” Hill said. “Then, he was in spaces that glorify violence and gore and school shooters. Third, he was in these reactionary imageboard sites like Soyjak that serve as a hub for all kinds of extremist discourses, including antisemitism, accelerationism, white supremacy and misogyny.”
Through his participation in overlapping fringe internet subcultures where members use multiple social media platforms to celebrate white supremacist mass murder, dabble in the occult and engage in degrading interpersonal drama, Henderson connected online with 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who fatally shot a fellow student and teacher before taking her own life in Madison, WI, in December.
And Henderson took inspiration from an 18-year-old Turk named Arda Küçükyetim, who carried out a knife attack at an open-air café near a mosque in August. Rupnow participated in an online group that held a pre-arranged viewing party to watch Kücükyetim carry out the attack on a livestream.
Küçükyetim and Rupnow were also “part of” the Soyjak Attacker Video Fandom,” according to a report written by two pseudonymous authors and published by Marc-André Argentino, a senior researcher at the Accelerationist Research Consortium.
A screed left behind by Ryan Palmeter, a 21-year-old white supremacist who fatally shot three Black people in a Dollar Store in Jacksonville, FL in August 2023, also bears the imprint of the Soyjak community. A graphic included in Palmeter’s document includes a Soyjak character known as Chudjak, who is said to have been inspired by Patrick Crusius, the El Paso shooter. The word “soy” is emblazoned across Chudjak’s T-shirt in the graphic. The reference caught the attention of Henderson, who referenced him in his writings as a “soyteen,” the term that insiders use to describe a member of the community.
Similar to Palmeter, Henderson and Küçukyetim published screeds in advance of their attacks that celebrated previous white supremacist shootings, reviewed their meticulous planning and gear, and provided encouragement to readers they hoped would emulate their actions. (Rupnow also engaged in this ritualistic practice, but it’s unclear what she wrote because she left her Google document on private before taking her own life.)
As part of an iterative effort to promote accelerationist violence calculated to bring about the collapse of society, Henderson and Küçükyetim’s posts shared one specific facet: They recommended documents produced by the Terrorgram Collective, which was recently named as a specially designated global terrorist entity by the U.S. State Department.
Terrorgram first emerged in 2019 and, within a couple years, coalesced into a tight-knit group that produced PDFs with highly stylized graphics that combine terrorist propaganda, white supremacist hate, and tactical guidance. Terrorgram’s propaganda venerates white supremacist mass murderers by calling them “saints.”
Terrorgram’s publications function like a virus that finds a receptive host in fringe online extremist communities such as Soyjak, and then infects individuals who attack society at large through mass shootings and other lone-actor violence.
Henderson shared instructions on how to perpetrate attacks on social media from a Terrorgram Collective publication, among others, according to Argentino, and links to three of the publications appear in his screed.
Küçükyetim, meanwhile, shared PDFs of three Terrorgram publications on Telegram, according to a federal indictment of two Terrorgram Collective leaders. Dallas Humber of Elk Grove, CA, and Matthew Allison of Boise, ID, the Terrorgram leaders, were arrested less than a month after Kücükyetim carried out his attack. Humber and Allison were indicted on 15 counts, including conspiring to provide material support for terrorists, and could face up to 220 years in prison if convicted.
On the morning of his attack in the northwestern Turkish city of Eskisehir, according to the Humber/Allison indictment, Küçükyetim posted in a Telegram group chat: “Come see how much humans I can cleanse.” The post included links to a livestream and PDF files of the Terrorgram publications.
Hill and her team at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism found the group chat. A Telegram account they identified as Natalie Rupnow's joined the chat through an invitation, which meant that she had been connected somehow to the other members of the chat prior to the livestreamed attack, Hill said.
Hill told Raw Story that Rupnow participated in a post-play discussion to evaluate the merits of the attack. Rupnow remarked that Küçükyetim had been “caught” and that the death toll was “0 probably,” but that he deserved “credit” for at least trying.
Humber and Allison also took note of the attack.
“He included the Terrorgram books and other Saint manifestos in his file dump, gives shoutouts to the other Saints in his manifesto and references several Hard Reset passages, he was 100% our guy,” Humber wrote in a chat with Allison, according to the indictment.
“But he’s not white, so I can’t give him an honorary title,” she added. “We still celebrating his attack tho, he did it for Terrorgram.”
When Rupnow posted her screed on X before opening fire at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, WI on Dec. 16, Henderson replied under the post: “Livestream it.”
Later that day, after the attack, he expressed excitement that “the newest skool shooter followed” him on two of his X accounts.
In his diary, Henderson appears to speculate that he may have influenced Rupnow.
“It’s weird how we had similar takes and views, but not really because she followed my account,” he wrote.
“Arda was right!” Henderson added. Then he quoted directly from Küçükyetim’s screed: “Remember, I and the other saints will not forget what you did…. In this way, you will motivate future saints.”
It’s not clear whether Henderson directly interacted with Küçükyetim. In his diary, Henderson described Küçükyetim as “an ultimate saint” and “someone I was inspired by,” while cryptically adding, “maybe I didn’t know him.”
The transfer of terrorist motivation and camaraderie in each of the attackers’ screeds is part of a negative feedback loop, along with group chats and other social media posts, that is ensnaring some teenagers who are globally linked to one another through the internet.
“It’s not like a conversation in real life where if I told you something crazy you would be like, ‘Wait a minute,’” Hill said. “It’s an echo chamber that allows anything to go. They’re not getting healthy feedback. It builds on things that trouble them, and causes real-world problems.”
The proliferation of accelerationist terrorism through online radicalization is a challenge that law enforcement is not equipped to handle alone, she said.
“It’s going to take everyone,” Hill said. “It’s going to take parents talking to kids about how what you see on the internet could be false and horrible. And the tech community somehow trying to stop the spread of this.”
NOW READ: Incompetence and chaos as Trump 2.0 crashes and burns
This story is the first in a three-part series exploring how violent online subcultures provide the opportunity for teenagers attracted to accelerationism and inceldom to network and encourage one another to carry out terrorist attacks.
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New Jack Smith documents reveal millions spent on Jan. 6 rally - Raw Story
new documents unsealed in Donald Trump's criminal Jan. 6 case disclosed $3 million spent to get people to the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol building.
Among the nearly 2,000 heavily redacted pages of evidence for charges against Trump related to an attempt to steal the 2020 election were documents relating to a budget and trip plan for the day.
The evidence is being considered by Judge Tanya Chutkan before she rules if Trump is immune to criminal charges under a Supreme Court decision. Trump's team opposed the papers being unsealed.
USA Today reported an unnamed organization spent $3 million to bring guests and protesters to D.C., and on ad buys to encourage people to make the trip. The actual costs of the event itself were under $400,000.
"Several versions of the “Confidential – Not To Be Disclosed” document are included, with some redactions, and appear to have been prepared for House Jan. 6 Select Committee investigating the attacks, which disclosed some of the information," reported USA Today.
Read Also:Behind the legal tactics Trump is using to dodge justice for January 6
Among the recipients of the money was the conservative group TurningPointAction, which got $1 million, according to the papers.
chase bank 906 jefferson shorewood Ill
Donald Trump Jr's super PAC, "Save the Senate" got a $500,000 payment.
The Tea Party Express got $400,000 and $200,000 was sent to a redacted name that was recruited "to assist with his organization efforts," the documents say.
There was also a $200,000 donation to the Republican Attorneys Generals (RAGA) Rule of Law Defense. FOR LEGAL SERVICES THEY HAD PROVIDED?!
Meanwhile, "$300,000 was budgeted for speaker fees and travel for VIP speakers and a busing program to bring in rallygoers within a 180-mile radius."
A $100,000 payment was given to a redacted group to cover "the estimated cost of their hotels, private flights, car services and private security for about 10 to 15 of its members.
See some of the screen captures of the documents below or at the link here....
UNREDACTED J6 DOC
GPO-J6-DOC-CTRL0000021632_00010
SEVERAL VERSION 250K TO C3 AND 750k TO TPACTION C4?
200K JONES?!
BLUEBONNET = WREN
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Retribution is at the center of Donald Trump’s third presidential election campaign.
“I am your warrior,” Trump proclaimed earlier this year. “I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
Trump’s loyal surrogates have duly embraced the project — perhaps no one more zealously than Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency employee, who bills himself as the former and would-be president’s “future secretary of retribution.”
Raiklin is seeking to enlist so-called “constitutional” sheriffs in rural, conservative counties across the country to detain Trump’s political enemies. Or, as he says, carry out “live-streamed swatting raids” against individuals on his “Deep State target list.”
“This is a deadly serious report,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story. “A retired U.S. military officer has drawn up a ‘Deep State target list’ of public officials he considers traitors, along with our family members and staff. His hit list is a vigilante death warrant for hundreds of Americans and a clear and present danger to the survival of American democracy and freedom."
READ:Trump's far-right army is threatening bloodshed — believe them
Raskin called on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to “denounce this dangerous plot and to repudiate threats of, and planning for, political violence from any quarter. Bipartisan opposition to vigilante violence and assassination plots is essential for American government to continue.”
The list Raiklin has been circulating since January is extensive.
It includes numerous Democratic and Republican elected officials; FBI and intelligence officials; members of the House Select January 6 Committee; U.S. Capitol Police officers and civilian employees; witnesses in Trump’s two impeachment trials and the Jan. 6 committee hearings; and journalists from publications ranging from CNN and the Washington Post to Reuters and Raw Story — all considered political enemies of Trump.
Julie Farnam, a former U.S. Capitol Police employee named on the list who as assistant director of intelligence and interagency coordination warned about the potential for violence in advance of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, said she would not be intimidated by the list.
“Any hit list is designed to impart the silence and fear of those named on it,” Farnam told Raw Story. “But silence is victory for those who write such lists. Conversely, speaking the truth without fear will always be the undoing of those who seek to intimidate and spread hate in our world. I can never be silenced.”
In addition to Farnam, the list includes nine current or former U.S. Capitol Police employees. The agency declined to comment for this story.
Raw Story is not publishing the full list given the potential risk posed to people unaware that they’re on it.
One individual named on the list who spoke on condition of anonymity noted that Raiklin is associated with retired Lt. General Michael Flynn.
“And Trump himself has repeated on dozens of occasions calls for revenge, retribution and retaliation,” the person told Raw Story. “This is another example of that broader phenomenon of revenge against political enemies that animates the former president and his entire movement, and for that reason should concern us all.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to emails requesting comment for this story.
‘Attack on our democracy’
The accusations of “treason” and other imagined offenses leveled by Raiklin against these individuals are typically based on fanciful legal theories and outlandish factual claims, if anything at all.
For example: Raiklin, in a podcast, suggested without evidence that the unidentified person responsible for setting pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee on Jan. 6, 2021, was “a subordinate-surrogate of the Capitol Police Board,” which oversees the Capitol Police.
But Raiklin is nothing if not self-assured that the “evidence” he’s gathering on anti-Trump “deep state” plotters is real. So real, it seems, that Raiklin claims the material — fully revealed — would establish probable cause for county sheriffs across the nation to issue arrest warrants for various high-ranking officials who have, in one way or another, run afoul of Trump.
Under Raiklin’s objectively bizarre plan, the sympathetic sheriffs would deputize some 75,000 military veterans — veterans he claims have been pushed out of service because they refused to comply with COVID-19 vaccine mandates — to carry out the arrests.
Raiklin has gone so far as to pitch his plan to a group of far-right sheriffs who met in Las Vegas in April.
Public records requests filed by Raw Story with dozens of county sheriff offices reveal that word of Raiklin’s efforts has reached the email inboxes of sheriffs from Wisconsin to Oklahoma.
But Raiklin’s effort to enlist these sheriffs appears to be foundering: Not one has openly signed on, and even some who are sympathetic to his cause publicly warn that his plan violates due process.
Undaunted, Raiklin has attempted to build relationships with conservative members of Congress, and aides to two Republican lawmakers who chair influential House committees confirmed to Raw Story that they are familiar with him.
An overriding reason for why Raiklin hasn’t been entirely marginalized or relegated by fellow conservatives to the realm of kooks and gadflies?
Raiklin uses the kind of hyperbolic language that Trump himself uses — and that Trump’s base eats up.
He gives federal agencies and media outlets Trump-like nicknames such as “FB-Lie,” “Faux-litico” and “National Poison Radio.”
“My nickname is the Deep State marauder, aka the mauler,” Raiklin told a group of election deniers in New Jersey earlier this year. “And I like using ice picks instead of poking the bear.”
In a video posted in May to X, which now accrued more than 10 million views, Raiklin said, “Expect to see live-streamed swatting raids of every single individual on that Deep State target list, because the precedence has already been set.”
Notwithstanding Raiklin’s claim that his plan would be “legal, moral and ethical,” swatting — the false reporting of an emergency to garner a response from law enforcement for the purpose of harassing a target — is illegal.
Raiklin has nevertheless promoted the idea in podcast interviews, multiple posts on X, a press conference and conversations with prominent far-right extremists.
In recent days, Raiklin’s rhetoric has escalated beyond setting out future hypothetical scenarios for retribution.
He mocked one former federal employee blocking him on X while suggesting that the targeted individual “wants me to speak to him in person” and asking him for his “preferred punishment for committing treason.”
And during a podcast, he claimed to be surveilling a U.S. Capitol Police employee, whom he mentioned by name, “both physically and digitally.”
Experts worry that provocative rhetoric from figures such as Raiklin could impose a climate of fear on civil servants simply trying to do their jobs. Even worse, Raiklin’s rhetoric could inspire violence against them.
“The idea that you would target anyone that was there on the basis of allegiance to the rule of law and the Constitution is really scary,” Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told Raw Story.
Stier’s organization promotes professional, merit-based civil service as a pillar of good governance — a notion that he said is being increasingly challenged.
“This represents, in my view, an attack on our democracy,” Stier said. “We have a rule of law. If any civil servants are violating the law, there are mechanisms in place to hold them accountable. Vigilantism is not the way to have a society function.”
Raiklin responded to a phone call requesting comment by posting a recording of the voicemail on his X account on Tuesday, while commenting: “Looks like Elements of the Deep State Target List have asked @jordangreennc of Raw Sewage to try to find out more about my list….”
Later, he acknowledged a set of written questions submitted by Raw Story but didn't answer them, while accusing Raw Story and "domestic terrorist leftists" of hounding him.
"Look at my entire Deep State target list," Raiklin said. "That is the beginning. This is the scratching of the surface of who is going to be criminalized for their treason, okay?"
One prominent media organization named on Raiklin’s “target” list expressed concern for its journalists, five of whom also appear on the list by name.
“The conspiracy theories underpinning this list are baseless, and the calls for targeted harassment are dangerous,” Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the New York Times, told Raw Story. “The Times reporters on the list are simply professional journalists doing their jobs. Swatting is a criminal offense, and in the event of any instances directed at our employees, the Times will work with law enforcement to prosecute those responsible.”
Said Raw Story Publisher Roxanne Cooper: “Purposefully threatening and endangering the safety of working journalists is both reprehensible and illegal, and the American public should reject and denounce anyone who engages in such behavior.”
CNN, Reuters, the Atlantic and American Oversight declined to comment on Raiklin. Emails to the Washington Post, Politico, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC, whose journalists are also named on the list, went unreturned.
Who is Ivan Raiklin?
As the 2020 election approached, conspiracy minded Trump supporters with active Twitter accounts were in abundance. Most never broke through the incessant MAGA noise, or merely added another note to its election denialism dissonance.
Raiklin was different.
He was a seasoned veteran with a background in military intelligence who wound up playing a small but significant role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election in Trump’s name.
Following a distinguished career in the U.S. Armed Forces in which he served as a military attaché to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and foreign affairs specialist assigned to the Ukraine Crisis Team, Raiklin left the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2017 to run for U.S. Senate in Virginia, according to the Washington Post.
At the time, Raiklin’s candidacy in 2018 provided little indication of the MAGA loyalist relishing the destruction of Trump’s enemies that he would become.
If anything, Raiklin fashioned himself as a force of apolitical positivity.
“The reason I’m running is that we’ve had such a negative political atmosphere the past couple years,” Raiklin told theCourierin Iowa. “I want to inject a ‘positive disruption’ in the political conversation. Being a veteran of 20 years, I’m pretty much a political agnostic.”
But Raiklin didn’t get far: He failed to garner a sufficient number of signatures to make it onto the Republican primary ballot. And when he sued the Virginia GOP and the state Department of Elections, claiming that he was unfairly excluded, a federal judge tossed out the suit.
Following his disappointing foray into electoral politics, Raiklin began his turn toward Trump’s MAGA movement.
In 2019, he appeared at a QAnon-themed fundraiser for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, whom Raiklin met in 2010. (Flynn and Raiklin have become close in recent years, with Raiklin urging Trump to select Flynn as his vice presidential running mate and Flynn featuring Raiklin in his current speaking tour.)
Roughly a week after the 2020 election, when major media outlets had called the election for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, Raiklin went on Alex Jones’ conspiracy theory show InfoWars and confidently predicted that Trump would ultimately obtain the necessary number of electoral votes to secure reelection.
“I absolutely guarantee it,” he said. “One hundred percent. Unequivocally. Full stop. There is no possibility that he does not reach 270.”
It's a classic example of how Trump’s followers often act on Trump’s wishes or anticipate his desires without receiving specific directives.
For months, Trump had been saying that the only way he’d lose the election is if Democrats stole it through fraud. Now, Trump had lost, and Raiklin was arguing that Trump was winning, against all evidence.
Raiklin, in essence, operates as an agent of Trumpism independent of Trump.
And as the 2024 election nears, the same dynamic is apparent: Trump articulates the broad themes, and his supporters scramble to put them into practice.
“Stand back and stand by” set the stage for the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021, and now, “I am your retribution” serves as a solicitation to supporters such as Raiklin to put together specific plans for retribution against Trump’s political enemies.
‘Operation Pence Card’
Raiklin’s primary contribution to the effort to overturn the 2020 election is a memo he drafted for the benefit of Trump’s presidential campaign.
Entitled “Operation Pence Card,” it proffered a novel legal argument that Vice President Mike Pence held the authority to set aside electoral votes from states narrowly carried by Biden.
The plan is widely associated with attorney John Eastman, who now faces charges of racketeering and conspiracy in Georgia, and with conspiracy, fraud and forgery in Arizona.
But Raiklin actually tweeted out his plan one day before Eastman drafted his now-infamous stop-the-steal memo. And Raiklin wielded enough influence that Trump himself, on Dec. 23, 2020, retweeted Raiklin’s “Operation Pence Card” tweet to his tens of millions of followers.
Around the same time, Raiklin dined with then-Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who attended a meeting at the White House along with other House Republicans to discuss plans to object on Jan. 6 to the congressional certification of the presidential election — the final, generally ceremonial step before a presidential inauguration.
On Jan. 4, 2021, Raiklin had told Jerome Corsi, a longtime conspiracy theorist, that with regard to Trump supporters descending on Washington, D.C. en masse: “I am not calling for any violence, but at the same time, I can’t stop people from committing it.”
Raiklin was present at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 when a pro-Trump mob breached Congress’ defenses and temporarily stopped lawmakers’ electoral vote certification. Raiklin has not been charged with any crime related to the attack.
Following the Jan. 6 attack, the Army Reserve opened an investigation into whether Raiklin violated its rules against partisan political activity, but by early 2022, the service had cleared him of wrongdoing.
Raiklin has said the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Homeland Security have also investigated him, but those investigations likewise concluded without formal accusations of wrongdoing against Raiklin.
“So what does that trigger me to do?” Raiklin said during a presentation to a group of election deniers in New Jersey in February. “It weaponizes me against them. And so, since they haven’t found anything, and you’re investigating me, sir, I have the capability and capacity to start digging into you, your family, your friends, your associates — every single thing that you do in your life.”
Whitewashing the crimes of violent J6 rioters
While avoiding prosecution himself, Raiklin has eagerly taken up the cause of defendants who claim they were wrongfully prosecuted for their role in the Jan. 6 attack.
In June, Raiklin held a press conference in Detroit to promote his “live-streamed swatting raids” scheme. He did so alongside Treniss Jewell Evans III, who served a 20-day prison sentence for illegally entering the Capitol. Also speaking at the press conference: Sarah McAbee, the wife of a former sheriff’s deputy who is currently serving a 70-month sentence for assaulting a Washington, D.C., metropolitan police officer.
Ronald Colton McAbee, Sarah McAbee’s husband, wore patches with the word “SHERIFF” and the emblem of the anti-government Three Percenter movement on his clothing while taking part in an hours-long battle at the mouth of the Lower West Terrace Tunnel on Jan. 6.
A GiveSendGo campaign to support his wife applauds McAbee for answering “the call to stand up for our nation,” but following his conviction the Department of Justice described him as witnessing rioters knock an officer defending the U.S. Capitol to the ground. McAbee’s response was the opposite of rendering aid, according to the government.
After the officer was kicked and stripped of his baton by rioters, the government contends that “McAbee stepped into the archway, grabbed the officer’s leg, and pulled him further toward the crowd. When a second MPD officer stepped off the police line to assist the downed officer, McAbee stood up, yelled at the officer who had stepped out to assist, and then swung his arms and hands towards the officer’s head and torso. McAbee made contact with the officer and was wearing the reinforced gloves at the time of the assault.”
In the run-up to Jan. 6, Raiklin had baselessly ascribed the legitimate election of Joe Biden to “domestic fraud” committed by people “potentially under foreign actors’ payroll.” Now, at the press conference in Detroit in June 2024, Raiklin was inverting the violent crimes committed by Trump supporters to portray them, not the officers defending the Capitol, as the victims.
“You need to know who is coming after us,” Raiklin said, naming two people who are part of the U.S. Capitol security apparatus. Without presenting any evidence, Raiklin accused one of the men of “weaponizing and working with the DOJ… to criminalize against Sarah’s husband.”
Cultivating relationships with House Republicans
All the while, Raiklin is forging ties with Republican lawmakers who are sympathetic to the Jan. 6 rioters.
While leveling outlandish charges of criminal misconduct at federal civil servants, Raiklin has become a familiar presence at congressional committee hearings controlled by Republican lawmakers eager to downplay the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, or, alternately, shift blame to Democrats for the violence.
Raiklin has sat in the gallery behind the witnesses in at least five House committee hearings over the past year.
Among them: the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), the House Oversight and Accountability Committee chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).
“I don’t just sit back behind the witnesses when I’m in the House,” Raiklin said on a podcast in May. “For 15 months, I’ve been grinding day in and day out talking to dozens of members of Congress giving ideas on what needs to be done.”
On another podcast, Raiklin said: “The only person that understands this is a guy by the name of Barry Loudermilk…. Why? Well, because he’s doing the right thing. And I get an opportunity to explain this to him and his staff regularly.”
Nick Petromelis, an aide to Loudermilk, told Raw Story he, Petromelis, is “familiar” with Raiklin.
Loudermilk ignored a request from the now-defunct House Select January 6 Committee to explain a tour he gave to constituents on the eve of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. His committee deposed Farnam, the former U.S. Capitol Police intelligence leader who is on Raiklin’s target list, last month.
Austin Hacker, an aide to Comer, likewise said he, Hacker, was aware that Raiklin had attended House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearings.
Despite promising in late May that he would find out whether Comer had personally spoken to Raiklin, Hacker stopped responding to follow-up messages from Raw Story.
Raiklin said on a podcast in May that he has sent his “Deep State target list” to Comer, Jordan and the Administration Oversight Subcommittee chaired by Loudermilk.
Hacker told Raw Story that Comer, his boss, does not have the “target list” document. Aides to Jordan and the House Administration Oversight Committee did not respond to emails from Raw Story seeking confirmation that they received copies of the list.
None of the three House members responded to requests for comment about whether they support Raiklin’s antics.
Raiklin has singled out other members of Congress for praise. Of Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who filed legislation to hold U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland in “inherent contempt,” Raiklin said she “has exhibited the maximum courage that her position allows.”
Luna’s legislation would hold the attorney general in “inherent contempt” for refusing demands to turn over audio of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview with Biden, related to Biden’s retention of classified documents in the garage of his Delaware home. “Inherent contempt” is a tool that would allow the House sergeant-at-arms to take Garland into custody and compel him to sit for a congressional proceeding. Raiklin told one podcaster that he “saw” Luna at a congressional hearing in May.
Luna’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
‘Go to the maximum level’
While cultivating ties with members of Congress, Raiklin has been lobbying sheriffs — with mixed results — to join his effort.
To reach potentially sympathetic sheriffs, Raiklin has focused on an organization called the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association.
Under the leadership of Richard Mack, a former sheriff from Arizona, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association has promoted the controversial view that county sheriffs are the highest law in the land and are within their rights to ignore any federal and state laws that they deem to be unconstitutional.
But Mack told Raw Story he has severed ties with Raiklin since talking with him in early June, and that he disapproves of Raiklin’s rhetoric.
During the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association’s annual convention during April in Las Vegas, Raiklin asked a panel of sheriffs if they would “be willing to go to the maximum level to create consequences for these federal actors” whom he claimed had committed “seditious conspiracy.”
The response was less than promising.
Still, the potential for violence should not be discounted, according to Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights and someone who has been monitoring the far right for more than three decades.
“It is certainly not out of the realm of possibility to see them using the office of the sheriff and posses they wish to create to start rounding up political opponents,” Burgart told Raw Story. “Right now, in the far right, the promotion of post-election violence and bloody political retribution has become disturbingly commonplace. In that context, the results of the election are almost an afterthought — only important in determining whether their murderous rage will have state sanction.”
While the far-right’s willingness to escalate may increase as the election approaches, at the time of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention in April, the two elected sheriffs on the panel were taking a cautious approach.
Sheriff Bob Songer from Klickitat County in Washington state told Raiklin that much as he might want to help, he doubted many prosecutors would be willing to press charges.
Sheriff Dar Leaf from Barry County in Michigan, put it more forcefully.
“We’re not going to be able to just go out and arrest,” he said. “We’ve got to do a grand jury indictment, just like the Constitution says.”
Leaf’s far-right credentials would seem to make him a prime candidate for Raiklin’s project. He gained national notoriety in 2020 when he suggested that members of an anti-government militia accused of attempting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer might have been trying to carry out a citizen’s arrest.
Leaf has falsely claimed that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and a lawyer representing Leaf reportedly sought evidence from an ad hoc group organized by lawyer Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn in December 2020 that could be used to justify “issuing probable cause warrants to sequester Dominion voting machines.”
But if Raiklin and his allies were discouraged by Leaf’s response at the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention, they haven’t given any indication of it.
During a podcast appearance with Mark Finchem, a former Arizona state representative who took part in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, Raiklin said he was certain that the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association could help “identify which county sheriffs would be clamoring, clamoringto prosecute these scum.”
“I know one,” Finchem replied. “Dar Leaf in Barry County, Michigan.”
Reached by Raw Story earlier this month, Leaf said that despite fielding a question from him at the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention, he doesn’t know who Raiklin is.
Leaf reiterated his rejection of Raiklin’s plan by expressing an aversion to politically motivated prosecutions.
Furthermore, Leaf warned that if indictments were obtained through grand juries “stacked” with Trump supporters, any criminal activity uncovered through depositions would be thrown out “because we started out breaking the law.”
Among dozens of other sheriff’s offices across the country contacted for this story, two in Wisconsin — Burnett County and Polk County — confirmed receiving an email with the subject heading: “Ivan Raiklin Requests Deputization of 80K Veterans” that linked to Raiklin’s video and encouraged them to get in contact.
“Please Watch this viral video that has garnered 9.8M views in 5 days,” it reads. “Important you understand. Remember your Oath.”
Raiklin’s name landed in one other sheriff’s inbox through a subscription to the “General Flynn Newsletter,” which is promoting the documentary about the former national security adviser.
The email, received by Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado in Oklahoma, describes Raiklin as a member of a team “hand-selected” by Flynn to provide event attendees “with an informative and unforgettable experience.”
The email describes the “General Flynn was Framed Evidence Wall,” a visual prop that Raiklin uses prior to each film screening that presents “an exhaustive timeline and link analysis of all the major political and government officials at the most senior levels that weaponized against General Flynn to prevent him from exposing their corruption.”
During his months-long campaign, Raiklin has continuously referenced Mack and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association in an effort to build credibility for his plan.
During his press conference with Treniss Evans in Detroit, Raiklin mentioned that the previous evening he’d “had a very long conversation with a guy by the name of Sheriff Mack” on the topic of “vetting and communicating with sheriffs.”
On a livestream of the press conference, Raiklin displayed a photo of the two men huddling over a laptop, suggesting a collaborative effort.
In a recent interview, Mack told Raw Story at the time that he had been “getting all sorts of calls” about Raiklin.
But since that meeting, Mack said he has soured on Raiklin’s plan.
“I’m afraid I don’t approve of some of his language, the hyperbole, the rhetoric,” Mack said.
For the same reason, Mack said, he resigned from the Oath Keepers. Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right group that recruited from the ranks of retired law enforcement and military veterans, is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy at a federal prison in Cumberland, Md.
“It’s not where CSPOA can go,” Mack said, adding that he and Raiklin “are not working together at all.”
Since early June, Mack said that the two men have not spoken or exchanged any emails.
“Quite frankly, he talks about that list of 350 people — I’m sure they can afford lawyers,” Mack said. “It reeks of lawsuits, and it doesn’t follow due process.”
During his press conference with Evans, Raiklin said the two men are planning to attend the Sheriffs Association of Texas’ annual conference in Fort Worth, Texas, this month and pitch their plan.
“I would say that my inbox has been interesting lately with the amount of sheriffs that have an interest in seeing Texas uphold the United States Constitution, and preserve the way of life that we’ve come to expect as constitutionally guaranteed,” Evans said during the press conference.
But Mack said Raiklin’s score is currently 0.
“I know a lot of sheriffs, especially in Texas,” Mack told Raw Story. “I do not believe he has a single sheriff aligned with him. He’s never been able to give me a name.”
‘It’s so easy to learn where they live’
While cultivating relationships with members of Congress, lobbying sheriffs and recruiting volunteers to join posses tasked with detaining political enemies, Raiklin has also forged relationships with other extremists, seeming to cast about for a legal rationale in support of his scheme.
Over the past six months, Raiklin has appeared on at least three podcasts with Dr. Pete Chambers, who helped organize a “Take Our Border Back” convoy earlier this year to support Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s defiance of the federal government.
Like Raiklin, Chambers is a retired lieutenant colonel who formerly served in the Army Special Forces. Following his retirement from the military and later, in 2022, from the National Guard, Chambers joined the “sovereign citizen” group, whose members shot a man and took him hostage in 1997.
Chambers said when he watched Raiklin’s viral video outlining his plan to carry out “live-streamed swatting raids” against his “Deep State target list,” he recalled that he said to himself: “Ivan, you’ve just kicked open the door, and we’re going to have to back your play. And we can. And we’ve got the receipts to do it.”
During the conversation between the two men, Chambers referenced something called “the doctrine of lesser magistrates.” Although the term is rooted in the 16th century Protestant Reformation in Europe, it was more recently popularized by Matthew Trewhella, a Wisconsin pastor who has advocated killing abortion doctors.
Michael Flynn has recommended Trewhella’s 2013 book, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates: A Proper Resistance to Tyranny and a Repudiation of Unlimited Obedience to Civil Government,as “a masterful blueprint showing Americans how to successfully resist tyranny.”
Trewhella’s book also received a plug at the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention where Raiklin attempted to sell the sheriffs on his “live-streamed swatting raids” plan.
Chambers seemed to acknowledge the improvisational nature of applying a 16th century religious doctrine to an ideological battle with Trump’s political adversaries in the United States of America in 2024.
“We’re building a plane and flying it here, I would say,” he said. “However, it is legal, moral and ethical…. If we can get together and develop the alliances of these sheriffs, then we decrease the space that these people can then maneuver.”
‘Gonna face those guns’
Next week, barring something cataclysmic, Trump will officially become the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee.
Trump will become the nominee despite being convicted of 34 felonies in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case in Manhattan, and he still faces dozens of additional federal and state charges despite a recent Supreme Court ruling that granted Trump — and any future president — immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” they took as president.
Trump is as defiant as ever.
“I did nothing wrong. We’d have a system that was rigged and disgusting. I did nothing wrong,” Trump said June 27 in his debate against Biden.
On a parallel track, Raiklin’s embrace of lawlessness appears to be growing stronger.
In June, Raiklin published a 76-minute video of himself speaking with Cliven Bundy, a 78-year-old Nevada rancher who is perhaps the ultimate icon of the far-right anti-government movement. In 2014, Bundy’s refusal to pay grazing fees to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management led to an armed standoff between the FBI and militia members, along with other supporters, including Richard Mack from the CSPOA.
Raiklin flattered Bundy during the exchange as “quite the legend,” while describing the federal government as “the most corrupt institution on the planet.” The two men agreed that “the militia” — a term used to describe armed citizens — “puts a check on the federal government.”
The rhetoric used by the two men became increasingly confrontational, with Bundy accusing the federal government of plotting to kill Americans. Cliven Bundy noted that his son, Ryan Bundy, was wounded, and a friend, LaVoy Finicum, was killed during a traffic stop during the Malheur National Forest occupation in Oregon in 2016.
“They don’t have those bullets to fight our enemy across the border,” Bundy charged. “They’ve got those bullets to kill us in America.”
Raiklin then quoted the Bible to suggest the proper response was “an eye for an eye.”
Bundy lamented that sheriffs across the country did not heed his call in 2014 for them to disarm federal agents in their jurisdictions.
“I said, ‘If you don’t disarm them, one of these days you’re going to face those guns,’” Bundy recounted.
“Now, we’re getting closer,” he quickly added. “Gonna face those guns.”
Raiklin, in response, appeared to advocate for doxing federal agents.
“Oh yeah, we’re not only going to do that,” he said. “Again, they’re going to experience the most peaceful, legal and moral, ethical and patriotic endeavor they’ve ever experienced in their life. Every one of them. Because we have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people that will facilitate them experiencing that.
“Because it’s so easy to learn where they live,” Raiklin continued. “Each one. Where their homes are. Who they’re related to. Where they frequent. What kinds of vehicles they own. What kinds of devices they own and that they emit GPS geo-tracking data. Which social media apps they use. We monitor all their communications.”
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Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado told Fox News on Wednesday she intended to take legal action against the political action committee widely credited with making Madison Cawthorn the youngest member of Congress to lose a primary.
Following Cawthorn's defeat in May, the American Muckrakers PAC announced they were targeting Boebert, who is also a first-term Republican.
On Tuesday, the PAC published salacious allegations about Boebert working through a "sugar daddy" website prior to her election to Congress.
The group said "their team and volunteers have uncovered that Lauren Boebert was an unlicensed, paid escort and met clients through SugarDaddyMeet.com. Text messages show she was bankrupt at the time and looking for some 'side income' and called her work 'pay to play.' She was paid to 'escort' with wealthy men," the group alleged.
"According to our investigation, Boebert was hired by a wealthy male client in Aspen, Colorado, who was a Koch family member. Boebert's rich client subsequently introduced her to U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) in Aspen," the group alleged. "After meeting with Senator Cruz, Boebert was encouraged by Cruz to run for political office. When Boebert announced her campaign for Congress in December 2019, Senator Cruz donated at least $136,250.00 to the Boebert Campaign and helped her raise large sums of money during trips Boebert made to Texas."
Boebert is now denying the accusations.
"Boebert's attorney sent a letter to the American Muckrakers PAC regarding the claims that she was an 'unlicensed paid escort' who had 'two abortions,' pledging to bring 'civil defamation' lawsuits against the PAC," Fox News reported.
Boebert said she would be undeterred by the "blatantly false and disgusting accusations."
"I am not going to stand by and pretend this is normal behavior," she told Fox News.
On Twitter, Boebert threatened criminal legal action.
raw story tom b an 4 16 22
According to former Republican National Committee spokesperson Tim Miller, nothing better demonstrates that even the “good Republicans” like Sen. Mike Lee (UT) engaged inhare-brained schemes to help Donald Trump steal the 2020 presidential election, than Lee’s text messages leading up to the Jan 6th insurrection.
As Miller notes in his Bulwark column, there has existed a narrative that there were “good” Republicans who were not involved in plotting to keep Trump in the Oval Office no matter what voters decided, and then there were the fanatics who saw no problem with running roughshod over the Constitution.
With CNN reporting that Lee and fellow Republican Rep. Chip Roy (TX) were frantically texting former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows asking for help in disrupting the certification of the vote, Miller suggested that the “insane” wing of the party is deeper than people think.
With Lee and Roy’s texts demonstrating a swing from full-throated support for overturning to becoming appalled by the conspiracy theories and legal reasoning being put forth by former Trump attorney Sidney Powell, Miller wrote that the whole affair was a “clown show.”
“Among the self-appointed responsible Republicans, the story of Trump’s attempted election theft goes something like this: The former president had a few CRAZYpeople around him providing bad advice. Rudy and Lin Wood and Sidney “Release the Kraken” Powell and their ilk were egging on a strategy that was never going to work and that nobody was actually on board with,” Miller began. “Meanwhile, the rest of the players were maybe not profiles in courage, but they were trying to do the right thing. Just, you know, behind the scenes. Some were encouraging Trump to be more presidential—to finally do that growing into the office they had promised he would do four years ago now that he had lost.”
“The real story is that the circus was in town and even the supposed ‘good Republicans”’were happy to put on their clown make-up,” he added.
Listing off a series of the texts Lee sent to Meadows, Miller wrote that they are evidence that, “The true story is that ‘good Republican’ Mike Lee and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows were forcing the crazy into the Oval Office at the most combustible time imaginable.”
Noting that Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) were openly trying to derail the certification of the 2020 vote, the former RNC official said Lee was just as bad — but doing it covertly
“In the end, Lee might not have voted to overturn the election but he was every bit a part of the coup as Cruz and Hawley and the rest. As it turns out this wasn’t the case of ‘responsible’ people trying to nudge things in the right direction in private,” he wrote before concluding, “It was a case where one posse of clowns was so insane that they were giving away the game. While the ‘responsible’ clowns like Mike Lee did everything in their power to figure out how they could keep the madman in power, without getting Rudy’s hair dye on their face.”
You can read the whole piece here.
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According to a report from Politico, attorney John Eastman -- who was leading the charge to overturn 2020 presidential election results that ousted Donald Trump from the White House -- is receiving new scrutiny over his relationship with Justice Clarence Thomas.
In light of revelations about texts being exchanged between Ginni Thomas and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, where the wife of the Supreme Court justice was passing on conspiracy theories and urging the Trump's inner circle to do what they could to remain in power, one member of the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th insurrection said he has some questions for Eastman.
As Kyle Cheney reports, "Eastman spent the final weeks of Trump’s presidency driving a strategy to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory, a plan that relied on legal theories so extreme the Jan. 6 select committee says they could amount to criminal conspiracy and fraud," before adding, "The select committee has evidence that when a top Pence aide challenged Eastman’s plan on Jan. 4, 2021, Eastman initially told him he believed two Supreme Court justices would back him up. One of them was Ginni Thomas’ husband, Justice Clarence Thomas."
Politico is reporting that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is raising concerns about Eastman and Justice Thomas.
"Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told POLITICO that the new details raise important questions about whether Eastman had a specific reason to believe Justice Thomas would support his radical gambit, or if he was simply voicing a hunch," Cheney wrote before noting, "Eastman’s attorney Charles Burnham did not respond to questions about whether Eastman maintained ties to the Thomases or communicated with either of them in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 defeat. There’s no known evidence that Eastman was directly in touch with either of the Thomases during his campaign to pressure Pence to subvert the results."
According to Politico, "Eastman had reason to know Thomas’ views well: He clerked for the George H.W. Bush appointee in the 1990s before becoming a mainstay in deeply conservative legal circles."
The report goes to note that when investigators asked Eastman if he had any reason to believe that the Supreme Court would support his plan to have former vice president Mike Pence refuse to certify the election and throw it back to the states, his response was to plead the 5th Amendment.
What has raised red flags was testimony from Pence lawyer Greg Jacob who told the committee that Eastman had told him that at least two Supreme Court justices might support his plan, with Jacob saying he couldn't recall if Eastman named the other justice.
You can read more here.
omg yikes
https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/trump-2655520362/
no lnx
'Barely concealed bloodlust': Claremont Institute laid out detailed plan for using cops to overturn Trump’s election loss
Travis Gettys and Raw Story November 08, 2021
The right-wing Claremont Institute published a report in mid-October 2020 that gamed out a scenario where Donald Trump would remain in office through an alliance between law enforcement and militant extremists.
The report was prepared by attorney John Eastman, who authored a memo laying out another strategy for keeping Trump in office, and former Trump deputy national security advisor K.T. McFarland, as well as Kevin Roberts, then-executive director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, alt-right figure Jeff Giesea and right-wing blogger Charles Haywood, reported The Bulwark.
"Despite the authors' pretensions to scholarship and rigor — 'for a simulation to be valuable, the other side gets a vote and actions must be based in realism' — the final document is a frenzied and paranoid piece of work, revealing of the anxieties and aspirations of the authoritarian right," writes columnist Christian Vanderbrouk. "Practically, the report is an instruction manual for how Trump partisans at all levels of government — aided by citizen 'posses' of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers — could, quite literally, round up opposition activists, kill their leaders, and install Donald Trump for a second term in office."
Most of the predictions in the report, titled "79 Days to Inauguration," did not come to fruition, such as the authors' belief that some states' voting results would be fatally tainted by cyber attacks and suspicious fires, and left-wing mobs did not converge on Washington, D.C., to incite violence, and police did not execute antifa/Black Lives Matter leaders as part of a federal operation.
"A barely concealed bloodlust runs through the report," Vanderbrouk writes. "This isn't a serious wargame or a policy study so much as a bowdlerized retelling of The Turner Diaries."
The report was produced in response to the bipartisan Transition Integrity Project's (TIP) exercise on "Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition," which considered the prospect of Trump refusing to concede an election loss and made recommendations for avoiding a crisis -- which seems to be the opposite intent of the Claremont Institute's exercise.
"To the extent that the Claremont-TPPF report offers recommendations, they are mostly focused on how to emerge victorious from the chaos, including preparation 'for destructive urban unrest [with] potential targets includ[ing] ballot counting facilities, government buildings, especially state capitols and city halls, as well as television and radio studios,'" Vanderbrouk writes. "The Claremont task force seems either resigned to—or perhaps energized by—the view that 'prudent steps are likely to be spun as preparations for a military takeover or coup and may result in negative consequences either way.'"
"Either way. It's as if they're steering into the violence instead of trying to avoid it," he adds. "The message is clear:do whatever it takes to crush your opponents and all will be forgiven in the second Trump term."
https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/paul-gosar/
raw reed
Messages leaked to the *Washington Post* implicate Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) in a plot to create a so-called "Brooks Brothers Riot" in his home state to block President Joe Biden's victory.
Woodrow Johnston, the vice president of political consultancy McShane LLC, told an undercover liberal activist posing as a Trump supporter that Gosar wanted to use the far-right Proud Boys gang to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election in Arizona.
"We might need to do the same here in Nevada," Johnston added in his message.
The protests that Johnston organized remained peaceful and did not actually disrupt vote counting.
Even so, Johnston's boss, Rory McShane, distanced his consulting firm from efforts to organize protests against certifying the election.
"I was unaware of these texts, but I know Mr. Johnston was not working on behalf of any client or organization," he said. "Our management team has met with Mr. Johnston. I'm confident he sees the error of what he did."
Gosar's office claimed that the Trump-loving Arizona congressman was not in contact with Johnston and denied coordinating any election-related protests.
The original "Brooks Brothers Riot," which took place in Florida more than two decades ago, was organized by Republican campaign operatives who successfully disrupted the vote recount in the Miami-Dade County election office after the 2000 presidential election.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/relentless-corruption-and-sheer-madness-are-donald-trumps-super-powers/
no lnx
random 220 what fresh hell
Relentless corruption and sheer madness are Donald Trump’s super powers
President Donald J. Trump delivers his State of the Union address Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020, in the House Chamber in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)
Written by Joshua Holland / Raw Story February 16, 2020
This article was paid for by AlterNet subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.
Welcome to another edition of What Fresh Hell?, Raw Story’s roundup of news items that might have become controversies under another regime, but got buried – or were at least under-appreciated – due to the daily firehose of political pratfalls, unhinged tweet storms and other sundry embarrassments coming out of the current White House.
Seven days after he took office, Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13769 which barred migrants from a handful of Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. Hundreds of travelers were detained as they arrived here and tens of thousands of people had their visas suddenly revoked. For many Americans, it was clearly a bridge too far. Some had hoped that he would grow into the job, or that his bigoted campaign rhetoric would give way to a more responsible tone after he won, and the Muslim ban was evidence that those hopes had been misplaced as Trump moved to codify xenophobia.
With minimal organizing, thousands of people took to the nation’s airports to protest the policy.
Today, three years and three weeks later, Trump is crowing on Twitter about a New York Times story detailing how he’s basing his re-election campaign on his simmering resentments and paranoia. He is using customs and immigration enforcement to openly extort New York state into dropping investigations into his personal businesses. He’s brazenly retaliating against his own regime officials for testifying in his impeachment hearings. Meanwhile, his Attorney General, hand-picked after writing a brief arguing that it’s kosher for a president to exercise his or her powers toward corrupt purposes, is overruling career prosecutors to grant leniency to Trump’s henchmen when their crimes are unearthed. While federal investigators look at potential crimes committed by Trump’s personal attorney as he sought to fabricate a scandal about one of Trump’s Democratic foes, others within the agency are simultaneously colluding with that very attorney to advance that effort. Our nation’s top law enforcement agency has adopted a relentless focus on finding support for the president’s* unhinged conspiracy theories.
As Trump rants and raves, there are no crowds gathering spontaneously outside of US Attorney’s offices around the country to protest Bill Barr’s unprecedented corruption of the Department of Justice, . We may be outraged, but we seem to run out of gas. Trump’s behavior is so consistently venal and outrageous that we’ve become inured to it. Abuses of power that would be huge scandals under any other president of either party elicit ritualistic condemnations, but are ultimately just Trump being Trump.
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Overwhelming our sense of decency with a constant stream of outrageous comportment is Trump’s super-power. It’s impossible to even keep up.
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David Axelrod
@davidaxelrod
In this crazy world, almost nothing is said about the fact that @realDonaldTrump is rehiring his 29-yr-old former body man, forced from the WH earlier for failing a vet & with no personnel background, to direct hiring ACROSS THE ENTIRE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!https://www.axios.com/johnny-mcentee-white-house-d1c29eee-8b0a-4c4d-8ba4-9355f3c27f4f.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top …
Johnny McEntee
Ex-Trump aide John McEntee to lead White House office of personnel - Axios
He's been hand selected by Trump, who sees him as the ultimately loyalist.
axios.com
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4:49 AM - Feb 14, 2020
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*****
Speaking of the DOJ, an agency “anti-human trafficking grant program is facing internal complaints, after two nonprofits were denied funding in favor of two less established groups whose applications were not recommended by career DOJ officials.” According to Reuters, “the awarding of more than $1 million total to the two groups, Hookers for Jesus in Nevada and the Lincoln Tubman Foundation in South Carolina, has triggered a whistleblower complaint filed by the Justice Department’s employee union to the department’s Inspector General.”
*****
In related news, the FBI is revamping its efforts to curb homegrown terrorism after years of criticism that it downplayed or turned a blind eye to violent right-wing extremism. As part of those efforts, reports The Daily Beast, the FBI will now focus on “abortion violent extremism.” But they mean terrorists on “both sides” of the debate, despite the fact that the FBI could point “to just one episode of pro-choice-inspired terrorism—one that did not involve an actual act of violence, but rather a threat in an online comments section.”
*****
It’s hard to say whether these people are just trolling us at this point…
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Friday in an encounter the American side apparently wanted to keep under wraps.
The State Department made no announcement of the meeting, which took place in Lavrov’s own dedicated meeting room at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, where the major annual conference of politicians, policymakers and security experts is held. Pompeo’s aides also did not provide any readout after the meeting ended.
Russian journalists traveling with Lavrov were aware of the meeting in advance, and wrote about it afterward.
*****
Probably not…
Something strange happened in mid-December involving Oleg Deripaska, the Russian oligarch.
Late last year, the U.S. government signaled that it was about to level a new round of sanctions targeting people and entities linked to Deripaska, according to two Western officials with knowledge of the communication. Back in April 2018, the U.S. sanctioned the oligarch, who once lent millions of dollars to convicted Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort as part of a decades-long relationship between the two men. Over the following months, Deripaska’s allies made a deal with Treasury to limit Deripaska’s control over the companies in exchange for sanctions relief…. In the year since then, it’s been all quiet on the Deripaska sanctions front.
Until December, that is. What’s strange is that despite the signal, Treasury didn’t follow through and the sanctions—which would have targeted the unnamed people and entities because of their proximity to Deripaska—didn’t materialize. It’s been two months since the U.S. indicated that the new sanctions were about to come out, and there’s been no movement from Treasury on the oligarch. The two months of inaction has stirred suspicions of political interference in the sanctions process.
*****
Return on investment…
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“Trump has proposed a 25 percent cut to the signature military fund designed to offset Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, according to the Defense Department’s budget documents unveiled Monday.”
Rep. Val Demings
@RepValDemings
Today Senate Republicans blocked THREE election security bills.
Two would require that illegal foreign election interference be reported to the authorities.
The other would make voting machines harder to hack.
All blocked.
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11:15 AM - Feb 11, 2020
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*****
We are fortunate that these malignant and corrupt ideologues aren’t more competent…
Caitlin McCoy
@CaitlinMcCoy_
The final rule that went to OMB last month is "...sprinkled with glaring numerical and spelling errors (such as “Massachusettes”), with 111 sections marked 'text forthcoming.' The cost-benefit analysis showed that consumers would lose more money than they would gain." YIKES. https://twitter.com/CoralMDavenport/status/1228065396554653696 …
Coral Davenport
@CoralMDavenport
The Trump administration has rolled back nearly 100 environmental rules. But Trump's attempt to take down his top regulatory target,the US's largest #climate change rule, are in meltdown. "They look like they’re headed to a legal train wreck."https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/climate/trump-fuel-economy-rollback.html …
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2:29 PM - Feb 13, 2020
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*****
Type Investigations has an important story about how the Bureau of Land Management has, “over the past several years, ignored longstanding requirements that stem from the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act; approved mines and drilling without adequate review, turning the region into a ‘clearinghouse for federal permits’; and taken personnel off mining inspections in order to expedite development.”
*****
This will disappear down the memory hole in short order….
“A White House memo justifying the U.S. strike that killed Iranian military leader Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January makes no mention of an imminent threat, which was President Trump’s rationale for the attack.
*****
Children aren’t born into this world harboring bigotry.
Since Trump’s rise to the nation’s highest office, his inflammatory language — often condemned as racist and xenophobic — has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.
*****
Last week, we mentioned that a 65-degree temperature recorded at Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula set a new record for the continent.
That record appears to have held up for four days. This week, “a weather research station on Seymour Island in the Antarctic Peninsula registered a temperature of 69.3 degrees (20.75 Celsius) on Feb. 9.”
*****
And we leave you this week with a couple of pieces of good news, via the courts…
Washington Monthly
@monthly
#BREAKING:The D.C. Circuit Court just shot down Trump’s Medicaid work requirement. Last week, @r_m_larochelle & @lsdeprez wrote about this move as part of the administration's war on the social safety net. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/02/07/donald-trumps-assault-on-the-social-safety-set/ …
Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s Assault on the Social Safety Net
It's a policy of death by a thousand cuts.
washingtonmonthly.com
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9:11 AM - Feb 14, 2020
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Stephen Wolf
?
@PoliticsWolf
Whoa, this is a major win for Native American voting rights in North Dakota.The GOP passed a voter ID law that blatantly excluded most tribal-issued IDs, but the backlash against it helped activists raise money to provide free IDs in 2018 & Native turnout hit historic highs https://twitter.com/kira_lerner/status/1227989452838010880 …
Kira Lerner
?
@kira_lerner
New: The North Dakota secretary of state settled two lawsuits brought by Native American tribes over the state’s strict voter ID law. The state agreed to accept tribal IDs and allow people who don’t have a residential address to vote https://campaignlegal.org/press-releases/secretary-state-agrees-settle-voter-id-lawsuits-entering-consent-decree-north-dakota …
Fact checker reveals Trump stole credit from Obama with 1 outrageous lie 56 times in 2019
Travis Gettys / Raw StoryJanuary 1, 2020
President Donald Trump has repeatedly lied about a veterans bill that was actually signed by his predecessor. The president claimed credit for giving veterans a new health care option in…
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