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LAWFARE by TRUMP 2

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THIS IS LAWFARE/WEAPONIZATION OF DOJ AGAINST HIS OPPONENTS

SEE VIOLENCE 5, DEATH THREAT BC PAINTS TARGETS ON ENEMY

NTBCW HIS BS CLAIMS OF PERSECUTION/PROSECUTION = LAWFARE DOJ WEAPON

ESTB 1 18 25 ON ED FUCKING MARTIN DOJ JIHAD--> PARDONS FAKE ELECTORS

see FBI 3 DOJ 3

SEE FASCISM ~ CHECKS MCIVER

SEE PARDON TRUMP

SEE FAIL ON COURTS

PROJECTION? I GET TO DO IT TO THEM BC THEY DID IT TO ME; PLUS REVISION J6 USSR STANK

SEE BONDI KASH ED FUCKING MARTIN ARREST JUDGE

SEE COMEY LETITIA BOLTON INDICTED

KIRK SHOOT JIHAD ON LEFT 925

see resign protest = fail PIRRO

SEE RETALIATION, FOR LEGAL WEAPONIZATION BS

SEE DEEP STATE RUSSIA-GATE LIE GASLT REVISION

SEE PRESS SUPPRESSION VIA DEFAMATION FCC ETC

see DEFAM EG WSJ FAIL 5 26

springsteen gaga women singer celebs illegal contrib?

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, "HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE?WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN? ISN'T THAT ILLEGAL? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ, OPRAH, AND BONO? I am calling for a major investigation."

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AVOID GRAND JURY?

Head-scratching Comey legal strategy reveals major internal strife at DOJ

The Justice Department had ten years to indict former FBI Director James Comey for what it claims was his "disclosing classified information." So, why didn't they?

Former federal prosecutors Barbara McQuade and Joyce Vance both detailed in columns Wednesday that "the charges are fatally flawed — which the Department of Justice is either too incompetent to realize or too dishonest to care," as McQuade wrote.

As Vance pointed out, the crime they've claimed Comey violated "is 18 U.S.C. § 793, which covers crimes involving receipt, possession, transmission, etc., of National Defense Information." She said it should sound familiar because it mirrors the charges President Donald Trump faced for stealing classified documents when he left the White House in 2021. Trump then refused to return the documents.

The case became known on Monday when the court unsealed a document formally charging Comey. As with other recent indictments out of the Washington D.C. District Attorney's office, this one didn't go to a grand jury for a criminal indictment. A grand jury is required in most felony cases under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"Instead, it is what is referred to as an 'information,' a piece of paper signed by only the prosecutor. An information may be used for misdemeanor offenses, which do not have Fifth Amendment protections, or when defendants have waived their right to be indicted, usually when they are planning to plead guilty," said McQuade, noting she doesn't see it applying in either case.

Vance explained, "It used to be unusual for a grand jury to refuse to indict. Now it’s becoming increasingly common, and the government’s new move to bypass grand jury scrutiny altogether speaks volumes about the quality of the revenge docket cases DOJ is willing to bring to please the president."

The same happened in the recent case against former FBI agents who worked to protect the 2020 election from foreign interference.

Both legal eagles also wrote that there are statute-of-limitations issues. According to the Justice Department, they submitted the "information" filing because the statute of limitations was about to run out. If it's too late, they can't charge. It's a ten-year limit; however, there's a caveat.

“Except as otherwise expressly provided by law, no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years next after such offense shall have been committed," Vance quoted, with her own emphasis.

However, it appears the DOJ wants to charge Comey with the 10-year espionage. Vance pointed out that the language there is very specific: “An indictment for any violation of title 18, United States Code, section 792, 793, or 794, other than a violation constituting a capital offense, may be found at any time within ten years next after such violation shall have been committed.”

The DOJ didn't secure a grand jury indictment for either the five-year or 10-year limitations. The DOJ filed only "information" in the case. That's why Comey's lawyers argue it should be thrown out.

But the DOJ claims other statutes allow limitations deadlines to be paused, so it should do the same here.

"It’s certainly a creative argument," wrote McQuade. "Neither party cites a case that directly addresses the issue, probably because no competent prosecutor investigating a prosecutable case has ever waited more than 10 years to seek an indictment." She expects the judge to throw it out based on the law's text.

But it prompted McQuade to ask how the DOJ messed up if it wanted to indict Comey so desperately. The Trump administration already knew about the situation, *The New York Times* reported. Comey corrected misinformation that appeared in reports, but "the subject was legally prevented from addressing itself."

McQuade said that if that's true, it seems to lack the sinister "willfulness necessary to be a violation of the Espionage Act." She said that most prosecutors wouldn't bring such a case. But this is the Trump Justice Department, which appears to be working through a list of foes, from former FBI agents to former Justice Department lawyers to former Trump White House staffers who testified at the Jan. 6 committee hearings. Even the Washington D.C. Bar Association hasn't been safe.

McQuade wondered if perhaps the reason they didn't go to the grand jury before their Oct. 5 deadline was "maybe they’re just inept. Maybe they were too busy carrying out the president’s other vendettas. Maybe they just lost track of the time."

Another possibility, however, is less able to be mocked. The DOJ may have known it couldn't persuade a grand jury because its evidence didn't establish enough facts to believe a crime was committed. "And if they are unable to establish probable cause to obtain an indictment, then they most certainly would be unable to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial," McQuade said.

So, it's possible the DOJ pressed forward with the case it knew it couldn't prove. Then the prosecution itself becomes the punishment. This has been the allegation of the Trump administration's use of the Justice Department by legal scholars. Cases are being brought against Trump's enemies list not for the purpose of justice, or even to win a case, but to cost the individual money and to publicly attack them personally while using taxpayer funds to do it, as Just Security's Adam Klasfeld and Ryan Goodman wrote in late 2024 before Trump was even elected.

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an 1026

A Republican election official says she is being threatened with investigation and criminal liability after defying the Trump administration's demands, warning that threats to American elections are now coming from inside the federal government.

Lieutenant Governor of Utah, Deidre Henderson, who oversees elections in the heavily Republican state, revealed the extraordinary pressure she has faced to give up sensitive voter information during an interview with CBS News' 60 Minutes.

Henderson states that election officials are usually threatened with attacks on election integrity coming from non-governmental actors and cyber criminals, but is now receiving pressure from the President Donald Trump administration.

"In the past two elections that I oversaw as lieutenant governor, the threats were all external: non-state actors, cyber security threats and other things," she said to correspondent Lesley Stahl before adding, “But now we also have threats coming from within our own government."

She said the Justice Department unlawfully demanded that states surrender their complete voter registration lists, including confidential information which is protected under state law.

Henderson said officials were asked to provide Social Security numbers, full dates of birth and driver's license numbers. She said federal authorities did not offer any reasonable explanation for their demands or how they planned to use the information. Henderson and 29 other states from both parties refused to give in to the demands.

After the refusal, she received a September letter from the DOJ's Civil Rights Division stating she was under investigation and involved in ongoing litigation over compliance with federal election laws. The department also threatened her with potential criminal or civil liability if she did not preserve the voting records. The dispute came after the DOJ filed a federal lawsuit seeking Utah's voter data.

The Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox defended Henderson after the letter became public.

"It is wrong for the DOJ to investigate or threaten the lieutenant governor for carrying out her responsibilities under Utah law," Cox wrote at the time.

Trump administration officials have argued the voter records are necessary to identify noncitizens improperly registered to vote. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, told CBS that there are potentially thousands of cases under investigation.

But Henderson said Utah's own review found just 52 questionable registrations out of more than 2 million voters. The administration has sued states that refused to provide complete voter lists, even as officials say privacy laws protect the data they seek.

This warning comes at a time when a broader federal campaign is underway, including the seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia and legal action against California over alleged noncitizen voting. The California secretary of state has challenged the government's evidence and said it is threatening eligible voters.

Henderson has no plans to back down from the threats and said she will continue to resist the DOJ’s requests.

"I have to tell myself it doesn't matter what the consequences are, as long as I feel like I'm doing what's right," she said, continuing: "I think this is an important thing for me to do, holding these guardrails, holding the line. Someone has to."

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CONTEXT

AN 10 26

According to a new exclusive report by the Wall Street Journal published on Thursday, the Department of Justice is seeking to relitigate the legacy of disgraced former President Richard Nixon. “For nearly two years, the Justice Department has made it a priority to investigate people who previously investigated President Trump,” writes the Journal. Now, “the department is reviewing whether the special prosecutor’s office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct, according to people familiar with the matter, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon’s resignation.”

According to the Journal, Geoff Shepard – a former Nixon aide turned Watergate historian and revisionist – recently delivered a two-hour presentation at Justice Department headquarters that laid out his theory that the deep state took Nixon down. The title of his 78-page slide deck was “Watergate As Lawfare," and the language used by Shepard is notably similar to that wielded by Trump when complaining about investigations against him, as he has long asserted that “deep state” actors have waged “lawfare” against him on behalf of his opponents.

“The review comes at a moment of renewed interest in the Nixon legacy,” writes the Journal. “Republicans see in the combative former president, who was loathed by the press and besieged by investigations, a historical analogue for Trump. During remarks at the Nixon Presidential Library this summer, Vice President JD Vance made the comparison explicit.” In Vance’s estimation, “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people — the same institutions — tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.”

The Journal reports that a senior Justice Department official invited Shepard to come to Justice Department headquarters and make his case before the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal watchdog that investigates allegations of misconduct. Ironically, notes the Journal, “the office itself is a product of the Watergate era, one of a number of changes aimed at shielding criminal investigations from White House influence.” Shepard has previously requested an investigation into his theories during the Biden Administration, but was denied.

“Shepard has served as a sort of godfather for the Watergate revisionists,” writes the Journal. “Mainstream scholars have long concluded that Watergate generated a genuine constitutional crisis and that Nixon, not those who investigated him, was guilty of a malfeasance which not only doomed his presidency but also led to overhauls that significantly curtailed executive power. Nixon’s tenure has been of growing interest to Trump, Vance and the larger conservative movement. Trump has asked former Nixon aides on several occasions why Nixon resigned rather than fight it out. The current president also has moved to roll back many post-Watergate overhauls, challenging limits on presidential authority to fire inspectors general and career civil servants.”

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AN 10 26

On Thursday, an insider from President Donald Trump’s first administration laid bare the true level of danger posed by the Reflecting Pool renovation debacle. While it became something of a joke, according to Miles Taylor – who served as Homeland Security’s Deputy Chief of Staff, leaked White House secrets, and himself became targeted for revenge – the affair proves how far Trump and his collaborators in the Department of Justice are willing to go to use prosecution as a means of “retaliation.”

“As you may remember,” writes Taylor, “former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was detained by National Guardsmen at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, indicted on a felony carrying ten years in prison, and publicly branded a vandal by the Secretary of the Interior. The pool liner he touched was already peeling (as Interior’s own engineers had flagged eight days earlier), a consequence of Trump’s rushed and botched makeover of the National Mall ahead of America’s 250th celebrations. Prosecutors already knew about the renovation errors. Yet they indicted Hearn anyway.”

Ultimately, the case blew up in humiliating fashion when U.S. Attorney and longtime Trump ally Jeanine Pirro was forced to admit the whole thing was baseless. Trump raged that she “choked” and pushed for the DOJ to keep up the prosecution, but finally, the charade ended last week when a federal judge dismissed the charges “with prejudice,” meaning the government could never try again. Now, Hearn’s lawyers have asked watchdog groups at the DOJ and Interior to investigate how the case came about.

Trump’s efforts to weaponize the DOJ have forced Taylor to do the same, who writes, “After Trump signed an executive order falsely accusing me of stealing classified information and committing treason, he stripped my security clearance and ordered the Department of Homeland Security and the Attorney General to investigate me. The order identified no wrongdoing. It didn’t need to.

The offense was that I had publicly revealed the depths of his incompetence and corruption. That June, my lawyer Abbe Lowell filed a formal complaint with the inspectors general of DOJ and DHS. We asked a simple question: are your departments being used to punish dissent, and are your employees aware they’ve been directed to violate the constitutional rights of an American citizen in the process? The answer was already visible. People I went to high school with were getting calls from federal agents. Multiple U.S. government employees whom I was friends with were fired for mere association. I was told they were already digging through my emails. Sixteen months later, I’m still waiting for a serious answer.”

As Taylor notes, he and Hearn are far from the only targets of Trump’s prosecutorial revenge. In cases regarding former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Leticia James, and more, career lawyers working for the government “were pushed out for refusing to sign onto bogus cases, and the ones who stayed came under grave pressure to bring charges against the president’s enemies, whether or not they had evidence.” Those who collaborated with the administration’s schemes did so knowing they were using bad evidence, asserts Taylor, writing, “The officials who executed the order against me knew that a president isn’t allowed to declare someone guilty of a crime and then have them investigated in order to find some kind of evidence. These were all lawyers who swore an oath to the Constitution and were bound by professional rules that forbid exactly this. They made a choice, and they made it knowing the law was on the other side.”

With all this in mind, Taylor argues that the country should look to the slogan Trump used in 2019 during the probe into his possible collusion with Russia: “Investigate the investigators.” As Taylor concludes, “The process of accountability starts with the inspectors general, even the ones Trump installed after firing seventeen of their predecessors in his first week. These letters create a real-time record of misconduct — opening lines in eventual investigations into how Trump’s prosecutors were directed to bring fake charges against people as a means of retaliation. But it can’t end there. Every prosecutor who signed an indictment they knew they couldn’t prove should face disbarment or prosecution. Every official who retaliated against a citizen for protected speech should end up in a courtroom. And the next Justice Department should reopen every one of these cases… and turn the focus on the investigators themselves."

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AN 10 26

Punchbowl News reports that former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson is next on President Donald Trump's revenge list.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division presented evidence to a federal grand jury this week alleging that she "lied to Congress," sources told the outlet.

Hutchinson spent several days testifying to the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 after the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump has long maintained that what she said was a lie, so a key piece of the case will be whether the DOJ can prove something she said was false, particularly in the Washington D.C., federal court, which has not been a successful place for District Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

Among her more jarring allegations were that a Secret Service agent told her that the president lunged at him as he drove back to the White House following the speech on the Ellipse. According to Hutchinson, Trump wanted to go to the Capitol to see his supporters as they marched. He'd promised them moments before that he would be with them, but the Secret Service hadn't planned for that.

She also alleged that Trump didn't care about the magnetometer catching his supporters carrying guns, making it clear that he knew they weren't there to hurt him.

So far, Trump has used his Justice Department to target former FBI director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, prosecutors who investigated him, law firms connected to opponents and news organizations whose coverage he dislikes.

Reuters even documented at least 470 targets of administration retribution by November 2025, including 112 revoked security clearances.

But even failed indictments didn't stop Trump. After Comey posted an image on Instagram showing seashells spelling out "86-47," he was targeted by the FBI and DOJ, claiming he was making a credible threat against the life of the president with the post.

The campaign has also extended beyond criminal investigations and firings of government staff. Trump ordered restrictions on law firms’ security clearances, federal contracts and even access to government buildings, including the federal courts.

Trump swears he's not pursuing any revenge. As recently as Wednesday, Trump alleged that he could have "gone after" Hillary Clinton, and former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama — but hasn't.

Critics argue the pattern turns government power into a tool for personal punishment. He's forcing the targets to spend buckets in legal costs and face

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mma

Checking in on Trump’s war on the press since his White House Correspondents’ dinner speech

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 08/25/26

One month ago, the White House Correspondents Association gathered for its annual “dinner that celebrates the First Amendment” with President Donald Trump.

Journalists assembled in Washington, D.C., sat impotently as the president delivered remarks that mixed empty platitudes about his “respect for your profession” with withering insults directed at individual reporters. The evening “was a public humiliation for the White House Correspondents’ Association” that “left the association looking naïve about its decision to invite the man who has spent years using both his personal and government means to wage war against the free press and its ability to report on his actions,” Status’ Jon Passantino wrote.

Trump’s behavior was extremely predictable given his long record of vitriolic attacks on journalists and news outlets — not to mention his administration’s frequent use of state power to try to cudgel them into line. And the president’s long war on free speech and the free press has continued without pause since he broke bread with reporters at the Waldorf Astoria on July 24.

Since then:

None of this seems likely to convince the WHCA to change course, and it’s unclear what if anything Trump could do to the press that would result in the rescission of his invitation for next year’s dinner.

The organization’s leadership has moved from an employee of one pro-Trump media oligarch to another, with Weijia Jiang, senior White House correspondent for David Ellison’s CBS News, succeeded by Jacqui Heinrich, White House correspondent for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. And Heinrich told New York magazine earlier this month: “This dinner precedes President Trump. It will continue after President Trump. And we will invite the president no matter who the president is every year.”

“I thought it was valuable to have him taking part in a tradition that recognizes the importance of the free press,” Heinrich later added, without addressing who it might benefit or how. “And he’s already said he’s going to come next year. It’s going to be at the Hilton. If they want to complain about it, that’s fine, but it’s happening.”

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AN 7 26

On Tuesday, NBC News confirmed that the Justice Department has sent threatening letters to election officials spanning every state and Washington, D.C., asserting that they could “face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting.” According to NBC, the letters are the latest move in President Donald Trump’s effort to promote his false claims of widespread noncitizen voting and “assert more federal control over state elections.”

As NBC explains, “The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain ‘clean voter lists.’” And as NBC notes, noncitizen voting is so rare it’s almost nonexistent, “but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.”

The DOJ letters assert that state election officials “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” any noncitizen voting. They also emphasize that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a voting registration list or who helps noncitizens receive and cast ballots in any way could be subject to criminal liability, and that “an intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation.”

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

According to Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican election official who received one of the letters, the threats amounted to “truly bizarre behavior.”

Posting on social media, she revealed, “Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution. I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts. This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights.”

Per NBC, “While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.”

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an 6 26

President Donald Trump appointed Bill Pulte to serve as acting director of national intelligence, tapping him to manage the entire national security apparatus of the United States. The "unorthodox" pick reportedly came from longtime GOP operative Roger Stone, Semafor reports.

According to Semafor, MAGA forces joined together to convince Trump that, despite his lack of intel experience, Pulte could still manage the 17 intelligence agencies that the post oversees.

Pulte will serve in the job while also remaining in his current job as Federal Housing Finance Agency Director. This adds to Pulte's other job, chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

What Stone, Trump and other MAGA allies believe is that Pulte can use his "attack-dog mentality" in "waging an internal war to ramp up the declassification of sensitive information," according to the Tuesday report.

“He’s like a bulldozer,” said a source familiar with Pulte when speaking to Semafor about Pulte. “Bulldoze the bureaucracy and accelerate document releases and declassifications.”

Stone is best known for his ongoing loyalty to former Republican President Richard Nixon, whom Stone has tattooed on his back. The self-described "dirty trickster" has remained a close confidant and informal adviser to Trump since the 1970s and became a key part of the 2020 "Stop the Steal" movement. He was later convicted on seven counts of lying to Congress and obstruction of justice relating to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Trump commuted his sentence before Stone served a day in prison. He was later pardoned. He's also known for his conspiracy theories and spreading unfounded rumors about Trump's critics.

CNN reporter Kevin Liptak commented after the announcement that Pulte has used his post as the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to target some of Trump's foes.

"This, I think, suggests that the president will put in this position someone whohas gone after this retribution campaign, who has advanced some ideas of vindication against some of his enemies," the reporter said.

Semafor noted that the biggest barrier to Pulte will be the U.S. Senate. For him to take on the job, Trump needs the votes and right now it doesn't appear he has them.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, “I don’t see any evidence of his qualifications for that job, but I’m willing to listen.”

“We don’t need a weaponized DNI, we need professionals there,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) also told reporters on Tuesday. “If he’s somebody we want in that position permanently, he’s got a lengthy road ahead of him.”

Stone wouldn't comment on the record about his involvement in picking Pulte, Semafor reported.

The one positive of the nomination, a banking lobbyist told Semafor, is that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Pulte don't get along. With Pulte otherwise engaged, Bessent will be able to focus on housing issues.

“If I was Bessent, my wheels are turning right now, like: ‘What can I accomplish in the housing space while I have this open field?’” the banking lobbyist said.

Democrats appear ready for a fight.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a statement about Pulte on Tuesday, saying, “Today, President Trump is rewarding his lackey — who has no national security experience — with a perch atop our nation’s intelligence community. What could go wrong?”

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MMA

  1. ### Newsmax host: “E. Jean Carroll, you're never going see a lick of that money, and I think you're going see prison”

05/29/26

May 28, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports

GREG KELLY (HOST): So, political enemies, political enemies. What — does that make you special? It really doesn't. It doesn't. The Constitution has a few things to say about all of this stuff, and it has a lot to say about the president's power. And the Department of Justice, they think they're very, very special. Right? The Department of Justice. Have you ever heard them talk about themselves, like, as if they are, I don't know, better than everybody else, as if they're their own branch of government?

...

KELLY: It sounds wholesome in a way. Right? The people's lawyer, the people's lawyer. No. The Department of Justice is a component within the executive branch. The executive branch. You guys are not independent. You're not. You shouldn't be. This is a fiction, post-Watergate fiction, and it's gone into hyperdrive with President Trump. President Trump.

The executive branch is President Trump. 77.3 million votes in the 2024 election makes him the executive branch of government. This is a building. It's the Department of Justice. It's part of the executive branch. The people who work there are employees of the executive branch. And let's pretend they all quit. They all quit. They just walked out. All those career prosecutors, if they quit, and let's say all of the good guys suddenly got sick or the CIA poisoned them and nobody could come to work. President Trump, according to the Constitution, could actually walk in to a courtroom and submit paperwork saying, I believe this guy is guilty, and this is my affidavit. It's — there's nothing wrong with that. It is — now, they have regulations, and they have their customs, and they have their norms, but you can't find norms in the Constitution. It's the Constitution, baby, and he's on solid ground.

And E. Jean Carroll, you're never going see a lick of that money, and I think you're going see prison.

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  1. ### Newsmax host on Democrats: “I want the DOJ to crush these people. ... I want revenge. ... I want my tax dollars to wreck these people.”

05/29/26

May 28, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Carl Higbie: Frontline

CARL HIGBIE (HOST): Well, when Democrats do unprecedented things, you have to counter with unprecedented means. If you take a swing at the king, libs, you better not miss, and you missed in a major way.

:{Look, I don't really care. The DOJ buried the little guy with their sham January 6 investigation, and I am totally fine with going tit for tat here. Don't give me the oh, when does it stop? We didn't start this. They did. It stops when we get even. Even. Like, Old Testament even. Because then, they will know that there is a cost for doing the stupid things that they did, especially with this — you can't just lie about somebody raping you and use it as a political talking point to sway a national election.

They should be going after Christine Blasey Ford too, if you remember. Her — no specifics lady who accused Brett Kavanaugh of raping her. She had even fewer details than E. Jean Carroll. Three, four decades later, mysteriously just pops out of nowhere when he was up for a Supreme Court seat. He didn't remember who she was. Then he gets confirmed, and now where is she? No charges. Just vanished. Lady, if it was such a big deal that you went wall-to-wall media interviews, Kavanaugh was such a bad guy. She didn't file any charges, not all not only leading up to that for 40 years, but nothing after he got confirmed. She just let it go? OK.}:

I want to see every single one of those people charged, tried, and locked up for this. Because if we don't, years from now, when Trump is gone, they're going to do it all over again to somebody else, and they may not have billions of dollars of their own money to back it up. Democrats will do whatever they want because there's apparently never any consequences. Remember when they use these bogus cases as a justification to literally remove Trump from the ballot in places like Colorado and Maine. You want to talk about unprecedented, Trump's unprecedented. Dude, you guys took the guy off the ballot. Libs couldn't throw him in jail, they couldn't beat him at the ballot box, so they literally removed him from the ballot until SCOTUS stepped in.

:{I want to — I want the DOJ to crush these people. I'm fine with my tax — I'll pay more taxes for that. And if you can't find them guilty, no problem. Just do what they did. I don't know. What did they do to the January — oh, that's right. The January 6 people. They locked them all up, and some of them didn't get a trial. They were in solitary confinement for years. They tried to bury those people. You know what? And if you can't do that, just bury him in legal expenses like they did to Mike Flynn. That's right. They charged him with things and things and more things, and then he had to sell his house, and he was out of money and had to plead out of it. Like, I don't care anymore.

We the people, reelected Donald Trump despite all the mudslinging by the left because we want it, and I'm just going to call it what it is. I want revenge. I do. OK. Dems violated every norm. Now I want my tax dollars to wreck these people. You can call me petty from whatever ivory tower you sit in, but I don't care. I will tap dance on your political grave with a smile on my face because I am just like probably almost every one of the other 80 million people on the Republican side that is sick and tired of this stuff.}:

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RWW 5 26

Mark Meckler says that his top priority for choosing candidates in the midterm elections is whether or not they will prosecute and jail those who allegedly targeted Trump and his supporters.

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AN 5 26

Trump's retaliation against Mark Kelly called out by retired military official - Alternet.org

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an 5 26

Intel community can’t find documents Trump wants to use to go after ex-adviser - Alternet.org

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AN 5 26

The Donald Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), under former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and now, Acting AG Todd Blanche, hasn't been shy about targeting the president's adversaries for criminal investigations — from New York State Attorney General Letitia James to outgoing U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. And former FBI Director James Comey is now facing a grand jury indictment — a prosecution that, Bloomberg News argues in a May 14 editorial, "marks a new low" for the Trump-era DOJ.

"Comey's purported crime came a year ago, when he posted a photograph on social media of seashells arranged as '86 47,' and writing, 'Cool shell formation on my beach walk,'" the Bloomberg editorial board explains. "The Justice Department alleges that the photo constituted 'a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States.' According to the president, eighty-six is 'a mob term for 'kill him.' Trouble is, most Americans use the slang term in the same way that Merriam-Webster defines it: to eject or ban a customer (i.e., 'eighty-six them'), or 'to reject, discontinue, or get rid of (something).'"

The editorial continues, "As Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged, the phrase 86 47 'is used constantly' by Americans who aren't indicted for it. Comey's post may have been in poor taste, but to state the obvious, it doesn't equate to a murder hit."

Bloomberg's editorial writers stress that the Comey indictment fits into a "troubling pattern" of "dubious" and politically motivated Trump DOJ investigations of everyone from former CIA Director John O. Brennan to Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California).

"The message the administration is sending — crossing the president risks criminal charges, while playing ball can get you out of trouble — is a destructive one," the Bloomberg board warns. And it may yet get worse. ... Some of the president's loyalists contend that he's merely treating his enemies the way they treated him. Not so."

The writers add, "It's fair to debate whether several local and state cases brought against him were tainted by politics, but the blatancy and scope of the political retribution now being pursued by the federal government has little precedent in American history."

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an 5 26

Anonymous sources tell Bloomberg that the Department of Justice and President Donald Trump’s prosecutor allies in Florida are letting white collar crime suspects go unprosecuted while Trump pursues his political enemies.

“Shortly after ascending to the top of the Justice Department last month, Todd Blanche gathered prosecutors in Miami to press for results from a highly sensitive probe into some of President Donald Trump’s perceived political enemies,” reports Bloomberg. “Blanche and Jason Reding Quiñones, the relatively little-known US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, have ramped up the months-long investigation into politically charged allegations that former senior government officials acted illegally years ago to undermine Trump.”

But “more than a dozen former prosecutors and defense lawyers” — speaking anonymously — say “there is mounting concern that the pursuit of Trump’s agenda has triggered an exodus of experienced prosecutors and hampered Miami’s expertise in building major white collar crime and narcotics trafficking cases.”

According to Bloomberg, many expressed concern that the high-profile drug, corruption, fraud and money laundering prosecutions that the district is known for will “fall by the wayside” while Trump sends his DOJ lieutenants and GOP allies to fucus on the doings of Biden and Obama from years ago.

Several dozen attorneys in the Southern District of Florida have been fired, quit or retiredsince Trump’s second term began in January 2025, which undermined the talent pool for prosecuting complex cases, say anonymous sources familiar with the office. One unit dedicated to prosecuting economic crimes is down to about a dozen attorneys from the more than 30 it traditionally had.

“A top Blanche aide earlier this year relocated to be a prosecutor in the office. Then, last month, an attorney overseeing the investigation was replaced with former US attorney and Trump loyalist Joseph diGenova following a disagreement over how best to proceed, according to people familiar with the situation,” reports Bloomberg. “Multiple grand jury subpoenas have gone out in recent weeks, and FBI officials have been conducting a flurry of interviews, said people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing a confidential probe.”

But as prosecutors neglect investigations against legitimate suspected wrongdoers, Bloomberg reports Trump’s focus on his political hit list is coming up dry with prosecutors struggling with cases against current and former government officials considered to be enemies of the president.

“Charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey in Virginia were dismissed last year,” said Bloomberg, and an additional case against Comey last month in North Carolina has kindled criticism that US law enforcement is being directed wielded for retribution for Trump.

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AN 4 26

DOJ indictments are converging with MAGA media narratives

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 04/30/26

Recent Justice Department indictments whose validity have been questioned by legal experts demonstrate an increasing alignment of the Trump DOJ’s activities with the narratives of the MAGA media echo chamber.

President Donald Trump has long sought to use federal law enforcement to punish his enemies, and under former Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ and FBI launched scattershot and apparently pretextual probes targeting figures like Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff over behavior unrelated to the president’s gripes.

But since Trump’s former personal lawyer Todd Blanche became acting attorney general last month, the president’s federal retaliation machine has seemed to sync up more closely with long-running talking points of his propaganda arm rather than simply focusing on the same targets.

Federal charges were filed or unsealed in recent days against the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group; former National Institutes of Health official Dr. David Morens; and former FBI Director James Comey. Legal experts have said that each of these cases are either weak or concern behavior common among Trump administration officials.

Each set of charges, however, has buttressed MAGA arguments, and provided their proponents with fresh opportunities to leverage them for content. And they foreshadow the potential fruits of DOJ’s ongoing “Grand Conspiracy” investigation, which unifies a string of conspiracy theories promoted by Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity under the auspices of Joe diGenova, a Republican lawyer and longtime fixture in right-wing media.

James Comey

Citation

Fox News

The target. Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 until May 2017, when Trump fired him over his handling of the federal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which the president describes as a “hoax”; he subsequently became a key figure in the right’s “deep state” conspiracy theories. The DOJ indicted Comey last year over congressional testimony he gave in 2020, but a judge dismissed the case, ruling that the appointment of the prosecutor who filed the indictment (and replaced a U.S. attorney who had questioned the case) had been unconstitutional.

The charges. Federal prosecutors on April 28 charged Comey with one count of “Threatening the President” and one count of “Transmitting a Threat in Interstate Commerce” related to a now-deleted May 2025 Instagram post in which Comey posted a photo of shells arranged on a beach to spell out “86 47” and commented, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” In the press release announcing the charges, Blanche said, “The temperature needs to be turned down, and anyone who dials it up and threatens the life of the President will be held accountable,” while FBI Director Kash Patel added, “James Comey disgracefully encouraged a threat on President Trump’s life and posted it on Instagram for the world to see.”

The underlying right-wing media narrative. MAGA pundits have argued that recent examples of political violence targeting the right are the result of overheated commentary from Democrats and the media, often erasing incidents of right-wing political violence and ignoring violent rhetoric from the likes of Trump in the process. Numerous Fox News personalities suggested last May that Comey face an investigation or charges over his post, with Jesse Watters calling for it as “retribution.” And the indictment came days after a gunman allegedly targeting the president was stopped trying to breach the perimeter at the April 25 White House Correspondents Association’s annual dinner, which Trump, the White House, andhis media allies subsequently blamed on criticism from Democrats and journalists. VID]

The response from legal experts.“Supreme Court precedent has placed a high bar for convictions in threat cases like these, and former prosecutors and First Amendment scholars alike were highly skeptical the new prosecution would be successful,” CNN reported. Even some lawyers who are Fox News contributors aren’t buying DOJ’s argument — George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said on Fox that Comey’s Instagram post would “very likely be viewed as protected speech if it was the basis of a criminal indictment” and “have a hard-time standing up in court,” while Andrew McCarthy wrote at National Review that the “bogus” indictment is a “farce,” called Comey’s conviction “inconceivable,” and added: “Of course, when the Justice Department abuses power this way, as it has repeatedly, it shreds its credibility with the courts and undermines the integrity of all its work.”

The response from the MAGA right. While the indictment drew skepticism on Fox’s daytime coverage, the network’s evening programs championed it on Tuesday night. MAGA lawyer Mike Davis said on The Ingraham Angle that the charges were “a long time coming,” offered “cheers” to Blanche and Patel, called Comey’s post “a clear threat,” and claimed, “There have been people who have gone to prison for a lot less than this.” Hannity, meanwhile, mocked the idea that “86 47” could mean anything but “get rid of Trump,” and hosted Fox legal analyst Gregg Jarrett to claim that Comey “surely knew what the phrase meant” and that “if he tries to claim free speech as a defense, that's not going to work.”

Dr. David Morens

Citation

Fox News

The target. Morens is an expert in public health and infectious diseases who served from 2006 to 2022 as senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The charges. The Justice Department announced on April 28 that Morens had been charged with “conspiracy against the United States; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal, or mutilation of records; and aiding and abetting,” specifically by using his personal Gmail account to conduct what prosecutors allege was government business in order to avoid public disclosure. Blanche alleged in the press release that Morens “deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19,” while Patel claimed that “circumventing records protocols with the intention of avoiding transparency is something that will not be tolerated by this FBI.”

The underlying right-wing media narrative. The right-wing media echo chamber responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in part by turning Fauci into a hate object. Its participants also claimed that the coronavirus originated through a lab leak from a Chinese virology facility and its development may even have been funded by American tax dollars, rather than the prevailing view that the virus initially spread among wild animals before jumping to humans at a market in Wuhan, China. Morens and his email practices came under scrutiny from congressional Republicans and right-wing media in 2023 and 2024. While the Justice Department suggests Morens was acting to suppress the lab leak theory, The New York Times reports that the DOJ’s investigation “has so far yielded no evidence that scientists or health officials were involved in research that started or spread the coronavirus outbreak” and his emails in the indictment “do not show him trying to conceal evidence of a lab leak.”

The response from legal experts.Scott Amey, general counsel at the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, told The New York Times that “the allegations are quite concerning,” but also “noted that senior members of the Trump administration have themselves been accused of trying to evade federal record-keeping laws.” Indeed, The Washington Post reported last year that top Trump administration national security officials were communicating over their private Gmail accounts, and in March 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared operational details of an impending U.S. military strike over an unsecured Signal chat with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other Trump administration officials, and Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally added to the chain.

The response from the MAGA right. The New York Post reported on — and effectively generated — “pressure on DOJ to prosecute Anthony Fauci” in light of Morens’ indictment. Its Thursday article claimed that “critics say Fauci … bears the most responsibility and that he should be hauled into court,” citing the head of a right-wing think tank, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, and a former DOJ official who is now national political reporter at the right-wing media outlet Real America’s Voice.

The Southern Poverty Law Center

Citation

Fox News

The target.The SPLC is a nonprofit civil rights organization best known for its monitoring, researching, and reporting on white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and others it describes as “hate and antigovernment extremist groups” that “make up some of the most extreme elements of the hard right.”

The charges. The Justice Department revealed April 21 that a grand jury had returned an indictment charging the SPLC with “11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.” DOJ alleges that by using paid informants to infiltrate hate groups, the SPLC “secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups” from 2014 to 2023, including to one individual who “was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ event in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attended the event at the direction of the S.P.L.C.” Blanche claimed in a press release that SPLC was “manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” while Patel alleged the group “engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors.”

The underlying right-wing media narrative. As the American right adopted positions previously espoused only by explicit white supremacists, the SPLC drew its ire by expanding its monitoring to include “extreme” right-wing elements that were nonetheless accepted within its mainstream, like Turning Point USA. Right-wing media figures denounced SPLC’s characterizations of TPUSA after the assassination of its founder, MAGA operative Charlie Kirk, in September 2025, and the following month, Patel said the FBI was cutting ties with the group, which he described as a “partisan smear machine.” Right-wing media figures have also pushed back hard against links between Trump and the deadly Charlottesville event, and described white supremacy itself as a “hoax.”

The response from legal experts.The SPLC indictment “may contain serious legal defects that could lead to a full or partial dismissal because it struggles to articulate the elements of the alleged crimes,” CBS News reported after consulting former federal prosecutors. “Legal experts say it is not clear exactly how the SPLC's statements to donors represent material falsehoods or omissions, or why its past use of paid informants would run counter to its mission of dismantling white supremacist groups, a tactic that federal and local law enforcement also utilize to infiltrate and break up criminal organizations,” the report added. Andrew Weissmann, who led the DOJ Fraud Section from 2015 to 2019, likewise wrote in a piece for Just Security that DOJ’s claims “may sound superficially plausible in a press release against an organization dissimilar to the SPLC, but nothing in the speaking indictment against the Center appears to meet the legal standard required” for the charges.

The response from the MAGA right.Right-wing pundits have gleefully parroted the DOJ allegations, using them both toattack the SPLC and to suggest that the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally had been a false-flag hoax instigated by the left as a way to sabotage Trump. Fox personalities alone have mentioned the SPLC nearly 400 times since the indictment’s release, according to a Media Matters review. (The indictment was “huge breaking news,” as Hannity put it before hosting Patel to accuse the SPLC of the “ultimate definition of hypocrisy.”) Trump himself has picked up the story, rambling about how “Southern Law” is a “total scam” in an interview with CBS over the weekend. The president said in part:

I see these No Kings which are funded just like the Southern Law was funded. You all that Southern Laws, financing the KKK and lots of other radical, terrible groups. And then they go out and they say, oh, we’ve got to stop the KKK. And yet they give them hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. They work. It’s a total scam run by the Democrats. It shows you that, like Charlottesville, Charlottesville was all funded by the Southern Law. That was a Southern Law deal, too. And it was done to make me look bad. And it turned out to be a total fake. It basically was a rigged election. This was a part of the rigging of the election. And that’s what you really should be doing. I mean, I hope one of your 60 Minutes episodes, which really hasn’t changed very much for the last few years, I’m surprised. But one of those episodes should be on Southern Law, and the fact that they spent millions and millions of dollars on absolute far right and just bad, bad groups, and then they’d use those groups and they’d say, these are Republican groups, and we’re coming to your rescue, and they’re the ones that have funded it, and they’re the ones that kept them, keep them going. Pretty sad.

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NYT 4 20 26

As a sprawling inquiry expands into whether former federal officials committed crimes in investigating President Trump, two unusual factors could ease the way toward securing the indictments he craves.

A former lawyer for Mr. Trump’s campaign, Joseph diGenova, has been selected to lead the inquiry after a career prosecutor in Miami was removed from that post this week, a senior law enforcement official said on Saturday.

And at least part of the investigation appears to be using a grand jury based in Fort Pierce, Fla., overseen by a federal judge, Aileen M. Cannon, who issued rulings favorable to Mr. Trump during the classified documents case against him, the official added. Mr. diGenova is expected to split his time between Miami and Fort Pierce.

Together, the moves show how the Justice Department under Mr. Trump’s control has been willing to embrace politically charged tactics and unorthodox personnel decisions in its efforts to satisfy his demands to prosecute his perceived foes — even as other prosecutors loyal to him have encountered forceful pushback from courts against his wide-ranging retribution campaign.

Mr. diGenova, 81, who served as a U.S. attorney in the Reagan era, has been given the title of counselor to the attorney general and detailed to the Southern District of Florida, where the U.S. attorney, Jason A. Reding Quiñones, another Trump loyalist, is supervising the inquiry.

Mr. diGenova’s appointment comes after Maria Medetis Long, a senior career prosecutor in Miami who had been in charge of the investigation, was abruptly removed from the case. Ms. Medetis Long, who leads national security investigations for Mr. Quiñones’s office, is said to have objected to moving forward with a portion of the inquiry focused on John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director.

The law enforcement official familiar with the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive internal issue.

Because Judge Cannon is the only federal jurist in the Fort Pierce courthouse, she could be in a position to make critical decisions if Mr. diGenova uses the grand jury there to subpoena documents or witness testimony and the recipients balk, asking her to quash the demands.

Judge Cannon was criticized by an appeals court in 2022 after she effectively stalled the investigation into Mr. Trump’s mishandling of classified documents by appointing a so-called special master to sort through reams of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida. Later, Mr. Trump praised her lavishly, calling her “strong” and “brilliant,” after she tossed out the indictment altogether, ruling that Jack Smith, the special counsel who filed the charges, had been improperly appointed.

In another unusual move, Christopher-James DeLorenz, who worked as a law clerk for Judge Cannon during the documents case and later served as an aide to Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, was sent from the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington to Mr. Quiñones’s office earlier this year and is working on the portion of the inquiry that is focused on Mr. Brennan, the official said.

Mr. diGenova will work on the Brennan matter, too, but also the broader inquiry.

Last year, Mr. Trump’s allies began pushing for what they referred to as a “grand conspiracy” case that would portray all of the criminal inquiries of Mr. Trump as a unified plot to violate his constitutional rights. The conspiracy, by their telling, began with the investigation into Russia and its potential ties to the 2016 Trump campaign, then extended to the classified documents and 2020 election indictments.

That far-fetched theory would allow the Justice Department to scrutinize in a single case matters that would normally be barred by the five-year statute of limitations. It would also give Mr. diGenova and Mr. Reding Quiñones the authority to scrutinize events that took place in Washington from their jurisdiction in Florida.

The Justice Department has also given Mr. Reding Quiñones special authority under a statute known as Section 515, the official said. That would enable him to bring indictments in jurisdictions where he is not the U.S. attorney.

While many details remain unknown, Mr. diGenova is inheriting an inquiry whose most developed portion appears to be focused on trying to find a basis to charge Mr. Brennan with lying to Congress over a January 2017 intelligence community assessment. It concluded, among other things, that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election in part because Moscow hoped to improve Mr. Trump’s chances of winning.

As the top federal prosecutor in Washington in the 1980s, Mr. diGenova secured an espionage conviction against Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst who passed sensitive information to Israel. He later became a political commentator who gravitated toward Mr. Trump during his first term in the White House.

Mr. diGenova has claimed the Russia investigation was a law-enforcement plot to frame Mr. Trump and keep him out of the White House during his first presidential campaign. In 2020, as part of the legal team for the Trump campaign, Mr. diGenova said that Christopher Krebs, a cybersecurity official who had contradicted false pro-Trump claims of election fraud, should be “shot.” (Mr. diGenova later apologized.)

A special counsel appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr in Mr. Trump’s first term, John H. Durham, already scrutinized the actions of senior law enforcement and intelligence officials involved in the early stages of the Russia investigation.

Image

John O. Brennan testifying during a 2017 Senate hearing on possible Russian interference in the 2016 election.Credit...Al Drago/The New York Times

When that inquiry began in 2019, Mr. diGenova was among the Trump supporters who celebrated, telling Fox News that he believed people like Mr. Brennan, James R. Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, would go to prison.

“James Comey, Brennan and Clapper have said to themselves, ‘Which one of us is going to pay the Barr bill?’” Mr. diGenova said, adding, “This conspiracy began with John Brennan and ends with John Brennan.”

But Mr. Durham, who completed his investigation in 2023, did not find a basis to prosecute any of them, and Mr. Barr later said the Durham investigation found that the C.I.A. had “stayed in its lane.”

Grand jury subpoenas already issued under Mr. Reding Quiñones have sought records related to the 2017 intelligence community assessment. The effort appears focused on trying to build a perjury case against Mr. Brennan over a 2023 deposition to Congress. At the time, he discussed the relationship between the assessment and the Steele dossier, a compendium of later-discredited political opposition research making various claims about Mr. Trump and Russia.

The F.B.I. had wanted to include information from the dossier in the intelligence community assessment, but C.I.A. analysts balked. Mr. Brennan, in his testimony, told lawmakers that “the C.I.A. was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the intelligence community assessment.” Ultimately, as a compromise, a summary of the dossier was attached to the assessment as an appendix, as Mr. Brennan had long said.

Documents the Trump administration declassified last year complicated that account by showing that a sentence in the main body of the assessment alerted readers to the existence of the appendix, although they also showed the appendix had a header stating that its claims did not contribute to the judgment. Released files also showed that C.I.A. analysts had objected to the appendix, too, but portrayed Mr. Brennan as having pushed back in support of the compromise arrangement with the F.B.I.

Last October, Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and a Trump ally, made a criminal referral, saying Mr. Brennan’s statement about the C.I.A.’s opposition amounted to a false statement. Mr. Brennan’s lawyer, Kenneth L. Wainstein, has said it did not.

Last December, Mr. Wainstein wrote to the chief federal judge in South Florida, Cecilia M. Altonaga, urging her to block the Justice Department from steering the case to Judge Cannon. The Justice Department, he wrote, appeared to be planning to “manipulate grand jury and case-assignment procedures” to put the investigation under her.

It has not been clear whether Judge Altonaga took any action. But the broader investigation has since expanded, including with subpoenas issued earlier this year for documents about the F.B.I.’s investigation into ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

Charlie Savage writes about national security and legal policy for The Times.

Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.

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DEM DOCL

A former Trump campaign lawyer who backed President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss has been appointed to a Florida-based U.S. attorney’s office leading a sprawling probe into a slate of former federal officials who investigated Trump.

Joseph diGenova’s appointment to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida comes shortly after journalistsreported that he is taking over the “grand conspiracy” investigation into intelligence and law enforcement officials, against whom Trump has long vowed to seek retribution.

In announcing the appointment Monday, Jason Reding Quiñones, U.S. attorney for southern Florida, said on social media that diGenova would be “stepping into a senior advisory role on key legal, policy, and enforcement matters.”

“With decades of experience—including serving as U.S. Attorney for D.C. under Ronald Reagan—diGenova brings deep expertise in federal prosecution and high-stakes investigations,” Quiñones said.

DiGenova’s appointment to oversee the conspiracy probe marks another significant blow to the DOJ’s longstanding independence from the White House. It comes just over a week after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche publicly claimed that Trump has a “right” to order investigations into his enemies.

Though Quiñones said that diGenova would help “advance the Department’s mission to protect Americans, enforce the rule of law, and ensure impartial justice,” the grand conspiracy investigation into Trump enemies features many hallmarks of past politically motivated probes initiated by Trump.

Jason Reding Quiñones (right0, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, shaking hands with former Trump campaign attorney Joseph diGenova in Florida on April 20, 2026. (Photo: U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida)

DiGenova joined the U.S. attorney’s office after Maria Medetis Long, the previous senior federal prosecutor overseeing the probe, was removed from the case. She had questioned the legal viability of future charges, the New York Times reported.

Specifically, Medetis Long objected to moving forward with a portion of the inquiry focused on John Brennan, the former CIA director.

Her removal echoed personnel changes that placed Trump’s former personal attorney at the helm of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia before it pursued criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both of those criminal cases were dismissed by a federal judge last year.

Comey, whom Trump has branded a “dirty cop” and “leaker” for initiating the FBI’s probe into alleged links between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, has received a subpoena in the grand conspiracy investigation.

The exact parameters of the investigation are unclear, but prominent allies of the president and Quiñones have said it centers on the far-fetched claim that the former officials allegedly conspired to prevent Trump from exercising his constitutional and federal rights starting from his election in 2016 through his federal indictments in 2023.

While the statute of limitations on most federal crimes is five years, Quiñones’ office has been able to scrutinize actions beyond those limits by alleging a conspiracy against Trump.

In total, prosecutors overseeing the sprawling investigation have issued over 130 subpoenas so far.

Part of the investigation appears to be using a grand jury seated in Fort Pierce, Florida, overseen by Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who showed the president unusual deference while presiding over special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents investigation against the president after his first term in office.

In 2020, DiGenova and his wife, lawyer Victoria Toensing, were part of a legal team that included Rudy Giuliani, then Trump’s personal attorney, challenging the results of the 2020 election. He also pushed conspiracy theories alleging election fraud during that vote.

Before that, diGenova and Toensing reportedly collaborated with Giuliani in efforts to extract compromising information on Joe Biden from Ukrainian officials during the last years of Trump’s first term. At the time, Toensing categorically denied their involvement.

That attempt to undermine Biden’s candidacy in the 2020 vote would eventually lead the House of Representatives to impeach Trump.

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an 4 26

President Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch and others has been thrown out of court.

U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles in Florida, an appointee from President Barack Obama, ruled that “Because President Trump has not plausibly alleged that defendants published the article with actual malice, both Counts must be dismissed."

The judge also said that Trump could file a new amended lawsuit if he wishes, but he only has until April 27 to do so.

Last year, the WSJ reported that there was a book celebrating trafficking Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. In the book, Trump submitted a little skit of a conversation about "secrets" the two shared. It was within a drawing of a woman. Trump alleged it was false, but the page was revealed showing that the drawing did exist.

As an appellate lawyer, Gabriel Malor said, "Trump can replead."

Economist Teresa Fort commented, "There needs to be some penalty for bringing lawsuits that will be dismissed like this. There is a huge cost for defendants to deal with them."

A few people suggested that theWSJ sue Trump.

"Since most everything Trump does is illegal or a lie, fighting back pays off. He banks on the fact that his victims can’t afford to do so. Those who can, win," said Michael Curry.

"Stupid defamation lawsuits are a real threat to free speech. The story was true. It was well documented. And the President still managed to make a newspaper pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to report it," wrote lawyer Andrew Fleischman.

He explained that the WSJ was denied legal fees because Trump could still amend his complaint and suit.

"I am still surprised they did not raise the failure to give five days notice before suing, which has been successful in Florida federal district courts," said Fleischman.

He also recalled, "Republicans used to be all about tort reform. But many lack the stomach to support a federal anti-SLAPP to deter these stupid lawsuits until our litigant in chief shuffles off this mortal coil."

"In dismissing (without prejudice) Trump’s lawsuit vs WSJ over that Epstein birthday card, the judge shows why a reporter — asking someone for comment and quoting their response fully — is a smart legal, as well as ethical, thing to do," explained journalist Bill Grueskin.

"Yeah, tough to prove actual malice over a newspaper printing a real document you signed," quipped reporter David Weigel. "And lied about," added lawyer Scott Greenfield.

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an 3 26

'Wrong answer': Conservative CPAC audience cheers impeachment - Alternet.org

'John Brennan's days as a free man are numbered': CPAC speaker - Alternet.org

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an 3 26

During his first presidency, Donald Trump bitterly clashed with two conservative U.S. attorneys general he appointed: first Jeff Sessions, then Bill Barr — who drew a lot of criticism from Democrats for his handling of the Robert Mueller Report but infuriated Trump by refusing to go along with his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. However, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, critics say, is crossing lines that Sessions and Barr wouldn't have dared to cross by using the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as a tool of retaliation against Trump's foes.

In an article published on March 5, The Guardian's Peter Stone details the way in which Trump and Bondi are encouraging DOJ's rapid "politicization."

University of Michigan law professor and former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade, a frequent legal analyst for MS NOW, told the Guardian, "The weaponization of the DOJ has been truly breathtaking. They are looking for crimes to pin on their political rivals. Investigations against (U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman) Jerome Powell, (Minnesota Gov.) Tim Walz and others seem to be efforts to intimidate them into submission. DOJ prohibits this kind of fishing expeditions to smear people without factual predication that a crime has been committed."

McQuade's "points," according to Stone, are "underscored" by an FBI search of an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia.

"The FBI raid followed a DOJ lawsuit against Fulton County in December seeking to obtain records, including ballot stubs and signature envelopes from the 2020 election," Stone notes. "Despite lacking clear legal authority, Bondi has sued 30 states, including five on 26 February, seeking their voter registration lists, which contain personal information, in moves that seem to overlap with Trump's bogus accusations of widespread voting fraud in many states…. In a blunt and revealing memo last February, Bondi wrote that all DOJ employees must 'zealously advance, protect and defend' the interests of Trump in his role as the nation's chief executive."

Conservative Donald Ayer, who served as deputy U.S. attorney general under the late GOP President George H.W. Bush, told The Guardian, "The president's scowling face over the door is a constant reminder of all that he has done to dismantle the Justice Department as the trusted custodian of fair and evenhanded justice."

Another DOJ alumni interviewed by The Guardian is Randall Eliason, now a George Washington University law professor.

Ex-federal prosecutor Eliason told the publication, "Trump has succeeded in completely politicizing the Justice Department. This Justice Department has been transformed into a political wing of the Trump Administration, using the power of the justice system to punish Trump's enemies and reward his friends with little regard for the law. Some say he has turned it into his own personal law firm, but that's too generous — even a law firm generally would follow legal rules, obey court orders and not bring frivolous cases."

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FAIL IN CT

AN 2 26

The New York Times reports a Washington D.C. grand jury has again refused to acquiesce to President Donald Trump’s quest to prosecute his political foes, with the paper calling the rejection “a remarkable rebuke” from ordinary citizens.

The Times reports: “Federal prosecutors in Washington sought and failed on Tuesday to secure an indictment against six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video last fall that enraged President Trump by reminding active-duty members of the military and intelligence community that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders, four people familiar with the matter said.”

The *Times* additionally reports it was already remarkable that the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington — led by Trump ally Jeanine Pirro — even authorized prosecutors to approach a grand jury with an indictment of the six members of Congress, all of whom had served in the military or the nation’s spy agencies.

It is rare for grand jurors to snub prosecutors’ indictment requests, considering prosecutors get to dominate the jury with one-sided arguments leading up to their decision. However, the Times reports it has happened with increased frequency with Trump’s Justice Department “as his appointees push ahead with questionable cases.”

It is doubly surprising considering the president of the United States accused Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and the other legislators of seditious conspiracy and said they could potentially be put to death. The U.S. Department of Defense later announced that it was launching an investigation into Kelly for participating in the video warning active-duty troops to not follow illegal orders from Trump and also threatened to court martial the NASA astronaut.

But the jury apparently disagreed on all counts and refused to indict any of the legislators incriminated by Trump.

Trump’s targets also Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and four colleagues in the House: Jason Crow (D-Colo.) Maggie Goodlander, (D-N.H.), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa).

Kelly is already suing the Pentagon over its attempts to punish him.

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AN 2 26

In 2022, President Donald Trump sued the Pulitzer Prize Board members, but that is now coming back to haunt him.

Law&Crime reported Monday that the board members' legal counsel is subpoenaing the full, unredacted copy of former special counsel Robert Mueller's report to verify claims Trump made were "defamatory."

Trump has filed several demands for depositions from board members in Okeechobee County, Florida, but the defendantsformally sought the report as well as "all documents and communications exchanged between" Trump and Mueller's team.

The request "includes but is not limited to […] any negotiation" with Mueller about Trump's records or his "answers to written questions," the 2016 hack of the DNC by Russians, and the WikiLeaks dump that followed, information on the Trump Tower Moscow project, Trump Jr.'s 2016 Trump Tower meeting, and more, quoted Law&Crime.

According to Trump, the Pulitzer board is responsible for reports by the New York Times and the Washington Post, which won awards for their 2017 coverage of the Russia scandal that the president still disputes. Trump continues to demand that the paper's prizes be rescinded, even nine years later.

Since the Pulitzer Prize is the "pinnacle of American journalistic achievement," Trump claimed that the award "carries very important connotations," and comments from board members "damaged" his "reputation, profession, and business." They allegedly "wrongfully imply criminal" and "un-American conduct" by Trump around what he calls the "Russia Collusion Hoax."

"The Pulitzer Prize Board has an established, formal process by which complaints against winning entries are carefully reviewed," the board told Trump when he first filed the lawsuit.

The board said that it commissioned "two independent reviews of the work submitted by those organizations to our National Reporting competition. Both reviews were conducted by individuals with no connection to the institutions whose work was under examination, nor any connection to each other. The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes."

The Mueller report, made public, never alleges collusion between Trump and Russia. Instead, it highlights "numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign." So, the members requested access to that full, unredacted report.

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AN 1 26

A Reagan-appointed judge just shot a warning flare up into the night

:{:{Thom Hartmann January 21, 2026 }:

Nebraska mom Jamie Bonkiewicz filmed her interaction with Secret Service agents and police who came to her door because of a tweet.

“The Secret Service came to my door today because of a tweet. No threats. No violence. Just words. That’s where we are now.”

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is going after multiple Democratic members of the House and Senate, the governors of two states, the mayor of Minneapolis, and any Republican who speaks against Trump or his lickspittles:

Jerome Powell, Lisa Cook, Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin, Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Chris Christie, Jack Smith, Christopher Krebs, James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton, Tim Walz, Jacob Frey, Miles Taylor…

Are we really losing our fundamental freedoms under Donald Trump?

Back in 1994, I was invited by a parents group in Singapore to speak about education and ADHD; my book on the topic had just made the cover of TIME magazine. I flew in, they put me up in the city/state’s fanciest hotel, and late the following afternoon I gave my speech. When, during the Q&A afterward, somebody asked me how best to institute the public school reforms I’d suggested, I said words to the effect of, “Get politically active, get your politicians involved, as they control and fund the schools.”

The room went completely quiet, which I thought odd, but then the conversation moved on and I didn’t think about it again until a few hours later when I arrived back at the hotel. My room had been ransacked. The bed was askew, drawers emptied, my suitcase all over the floor, even my toiletry kit spread across the bathroom floor.

When I called down to the hotel’s switchboard to let them know what had happened, the manager came up to my room and carefully told me that the police had visited my room while I was out.

“You must have done or said something suspicious,” he told me. That’s when I remembered the eerie silence in response to my suggestion that people get politically active.

America isn’t Singapore. Yet.

Or Russia, where even standing in the street with a blank sign will get you prison time. Yet.

Or Hungary, where posting on Facebook against Viktor Orbán will get you thrown into jail. Yet.

But we’re sure as hell moving in that direction.

Retired professor Barbara Wien stood outside Stephen Miller’s home passing out “No Nazis in NOVA” [North Virginia] fliers with his picture and the slogan, “Wanted for crimes against humanity.” Three weeks later, she was visited by agents of the FBI, the Secret Service, and a Virginia state policeman, because Miller’s podcaster wife had reportedly called them.

In addition to intimidating Wien, they had a search warrant signed by a judge and took her phone. The New York Times notes:

“The activist … has not been charged with any crime, though the Virginia State Police still have her phone. The investigation remains active, leaving it unclear whether law enforcement has since gathered additional evidence.”

Her lawyer told the Times about his client and the activists who’d been distributing similar flyers in town:

“They were speaking truth to power, and that is really at the core of our Constitution. It’s a principle and a right that our country was founded on.”

True, but the Trump regime doesn’t care about the law.

Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson had been reporting on Trump’s corruption and reorganization of our government, so FBI agents showed up at her home and took her phone, her laptop, and her sports watch, which had a record of everywhere she’d visited for the past few weeks. They were apparently looking for the names and locations of the federal employees she may have interviewed. As theTimes reported:

“It is exceedingly rare, even in investigations of classified disclosures, for federal agents to search a reporter’s home. A 1980 law generally bars search warrants for reporters’ work materials, unless the reporters themselves are suspected of committing a crime related to the materials.”

True, but the Trump regime doesn’t care about the law.

Meanwhile, a Reagan-appointed federal judge in Boston just said out loud what millions of Americans are feeling in their gut. U.S. District Judge William G. Young, hardly a lefty firebrand, looked at the evidence in front of him and concluded that the Trump administration is using the machinery of the state to punish speech it doesn’t like.

“I find it breathtaking,” Young said, that he was forced to conclude that “high-level officers of our government — cabinet secretaries — [were] conspiring to infringe the First Amendment rights of people with such rights here in the United States.”

Young was presiding over a case involving the arrest and threatened deportation of non-citizen college students and scholars who spoke out on Palestine. What troubled him wasn’t just the individual cases, but the pattern. The brown-nosers around Trump, he said (without using that word), appeared to be deliberately chilling dissent by turning immigration enforcement into a political weapon.

“The record in this case convinces me,” Young said, “that these high officials — and I include the president of the United States — have a fearful view of freedom. A view that defines the freedom here in the United States by who’s excluded.”

In other words, free speech for those who agree with Trump, Miller, Vance, Noem, et al, but fear, harassment, and punishment for those who don’t.

Then Young went farther, in a way judges almost never do. He openly described Trump’s governing style as authoritarian:

“It’s fairly clear that this president believes, as an authoritarian, that when he speaks, everyone — everyone in Article II — is going to toe the line absolutely.”

When a Reagan judge with impeccable conservative credentials and four decades on the bench is sounding alarms about authoritarianism and the collapse of First Amendment norms, it’s not partisan noise. It’s a warning flare shot up into the night.

But, of course, the Trump regime doesn’t care about norms or the Constitution. And if what’s going on isn’t clear enough, Stephen Miller posted last night about Minneapolis:

“Local and state police have been ordered to stand down and surrender.”

I spent decades doing international relief work in some of the worst places on the planet. I’ve had government soldiers threaten my life, police put automatic weapons in my face, and government ministers on three continents solicit bribes from me and my organization.

I’ve met with political prisoners and families whose members were murdered by the state for simply having the wrong political view. I’ve held children as they stopped breathing from starvation and had an aid worker shot to death in front of me.

This is the road to third-world-style-governance that our corrupt felon of a president has put America on. He justifies the execution of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, sets his rabid mobs on judges who don’t rule the way he wants, intimidates reporters and sues news outlets to shut them up, and is now threatening to deploy the full force of the federal government to silence dissent, criminalize protest, and punish individual speech he finds inconvenient.

He’s destroying our European alliance to the benefit of his friend and mentor Vladimir Putin, writing to the Norwegian Prime Minister as if Trump alone can determine American foreign policy like some sort of emperor or America’s mad king:

“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace…”

He’s dragging this country step by step toward the sort of strongman state like the ones I used to work in, where loyalty matters more than the law and fear crowds out personal freedom. He’s overseeing a rapid and radical transformation of America from a democratic republic into a strongman oligarchy where billionaires like him, Elon Musk, the 13 billionaires in his cabinet, and the 140 billionaires who supported him in 2024 run the show.

He’s turned America into an oligarchy, in other words. Rich people buy pardons, corporations buy regulations and subsidies they want, and average people are screwed, particularly if they complain too loudly.

But history teaches us that oligarchies are unstable systems of government.

They typically either collapse from their own internal rot (as happened here in 1932 when the Republican Great Depression brought down the oligarchs of the Roaring Twenties) or get overthrown by their own people (as happened here in the 1860s when the fascist Confederate system that had taken over the Old South was destroyed by the Civil War).

And when oligarchies don’t collapse or get overthrown, they morph into tyranny; usually that happens within a single generation.

That’s what happened in Russia. It went from the chaos of the 1990s oligarchy to Putin’s authoritarian state in less than 20 years. It’s also what happened in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán took a newly-liberated democracy and turned it into an authoritarian state in less than a decade. It’s also what’s happening right now in Turkey, the Philippines, Brazil, India, and multiple other countries around the world.

Tyranny doesn’t typically pop up fully formed and all at once. It comes incrementally, moving step by inexorable step, until it hits a tipping point where it can no longer be stopped. Even days before that tipping point is reached, most people still think the system will correct itself, that once everyone figures out what’s happening, things will go back to normal.

They’re almost always wrong.

America is now in that dangerous zone between oligarchy and tyranny. Because of the corrupt Supreme Court Citizens United decision and its 1978 parent Bellotti, our nation’s oligarchs have controlled our politics for a solid 40 years.

They own the media, have captured the courts, and have bought most of Congress. The question for today is whether they’ll be satisfied with their comfortable oligarchy or whether they’ll join Trump and the GOP’s push for America’s final transition to outright dictatorship.

Steve Bannon told us what the goal was: “Deconstruct the administrative state.” That’s tyrant-speak for dismantling the institutions that might dare or have the ability to constrain oligarchic power.

As a result, we’re in a race against time and the window for successful action is narrowing. Every week that the Trump regime isn’t seriously challenged in the states, courts, the press, or at the ballot box, America’s oligarchs tighten their grip. Every election they buy makes the next election easier to purchase. Every judge they install makes the next judge easier to intimidate or buy off.

This isn’t alarmism: it’s the historical pattern, repeated across dozens of countries and thousands of years. I’ve seen it, repeatedly, with my own eyes.

Oligarchies either collapse or they become tyrannies; there’s no third option.

Thus, the only real question now is whether enough of us will recognize what’s happening while there’s still time to stop it. Republics like ours die — like Russia and Hungary did — when ordinary people convince themselves that the warning signs aren’t real. At least until the knock on the door comes for them.

And then, of course, it’s too late…

---}:

 ===

AN 1 26

President Donald Trump is rapidly losing faith in one of his most senior-level Cabinet members, and his complaints about her have lately become more frequent.

That's according to a Monday article in the *Wall Street Journal, which reported that Trump views Attorney General Pam Bondi as "weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda." The *Journal cited unnamed administration officials and others close to the president in reporting that Trump is angling for Bondi to be more aggressive in using the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pursue his political enemies.

The Journal further reported that Trump is now considering naming various special counsels to handle investigations into his opponents, as he is unhappy with the pace of Bondi's DOJ in filing criminal charges against his chief rivals. The president is reportedly upset with how the DOJ has handled the investigations of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The cases against Comey and James were ultimately dismissed after Lindsey Halligan — who Trump appointed to the replace U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert after he was pressured to resign for saying there was insufficient evidence to bring cases — was found to have been improperly appointed.

Trump is also reportedly upset with Bondi over her handling of documents pertaining to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. According to the Journal, the president publicly agreed with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles when she told Vanity Fair that Bondi "completely whiffed" on the Epstein files and caused months of political consternation for Trump. The president is also reportedly upset that Bondi hasn't done more to investigate the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

The complaints with Bondi also reportedly run deep within Trump's MAGA base. Former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon claimed that Bondi was "bleeding support" from Trump's "most loyal troops" due to a perceived lack of urgency.

"Folks are desperate for action and just haven’t seen it," Bannon said.

The Journal's report comes on the heels of a recently announced DOJ investigation into Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell renovation of its Washington D.C. offices. Powell has maintained that the investigation is due to him refusing to accede to Trump's demand that the Fed lower interest rates. Despite the report, the White House is praising Bondi on the record, with Trump telling the outlet: "Pam is doing an excellent job. She has been my friend for many years. Tremendous progress is being made against radical left lunatics who are good at only one thing, cheating in elections and the crimes they commit."

Click here to read the Journal's full report (subscription required).

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an 12 25

A judge has released documents naming Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's office as responsible for telling Tennessee U.S. Attorney Robert McGuire that targeting Kilmar Ábrego García was a "top priority."

An order from Dec. 3 was unsealed late Tuesday showing Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. reviewed about 3,000 government documents in his chambers and allowed "a few dozen" to be turned over to Ábrego's defense team.

In 2019, under the first Trump administration, Ábrego was given a work permit in the U.S. and a federal judge ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador. Under President Donald Trump's new administration, however, Ábrego was taken into custody while driving his 5-year-old son home. Despite a judge's attempts to stop it, Ábrego wad deported to a brutal prison in El Salvador.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to bring Ábrego back to the U.S. It took more than two months for the administration to comply with the demand. Upon returning him, the Justice Department then charged Ábrego with human smuggling in the middle district of Tennessee stemming from a 2022 traffic stop. It has been an ongoing battle to deport him ever since, emblematic of the battle between the administration and the federal court system.

U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg has initiated contempt proceedings because the Trump administration defied his orders.

The newly-released documents not only confirm the orders were intentionally ignored, but it also proved the Justice Department only pressed to prosecute Ábrego after it mistakenly deported him. Ábrego's legal team is now alleging "vindictive prosecution."

McGuire previously swore he alone was behind the indictment of Ábrego, but the new documents show Blanche telling McGuire that an indictment was a “top priority." He said that the DOJ wanted it “sooner rather than later” and they even oversaw its content, noted Lawfare's Roger Parloff.

Legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said that releasing the documents to Ábrego's lawyers "is bad news for the Trump administration, which is going to have to defend itself against Ábrego Garcia’s claim he’s being vindictively prosecuted. But that claim is supported by some of the government’s own emails."

The vindictiveness case "hinges on timing," Parloff explained in a BlueSky thread. "For 3 years the government took no steps to charge him for his 11/30/22 traffic stop. It sent him to CECOT on 3/15/25 and on 4/1/25, closed his arrest file."

"Only after Ábrego won his Maryland civil case, with the Supreme Court on 4/10/25 ordering the government to facilitate Ábrego's return, did the government reopen Ábrego's criminal case," Parloff added.

Blanche confessed to Fox News in an interview that the reason they went after Ábrego was "a judge in Maryland" accused the government of doing something wrong.

"That sounds vindictive," said Parloff.

---

---

// JRNL Fail

The Trump administration’s chum cycle

Media allies are fed bogus information they use to promise prosecutions of the president’s enemies

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 12/18/25 11:39 AM EST

The promise of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to his MAGA media allies, was that Trump loyalists installed at the heads of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies would finally reveal the “deep state” corruption behind the myriad investigations into his misdeeds and bring his political enemies to justice. While the administration’s actual document releases have proven little, its strategy of chumming the water with red meat for the MAGA base has worked on the Trumpist propaganda corps, which has taken the bait and used it to demand a wave of arrests and prosecutions.

In the latest such salvo, Fox News Digital reported Tuesday morning that “the FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in 2022, but moved forward amid pressure from the Biden Justice Department,” citing “newly declassified documents” to which the outlet apparently received exclusive access. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and FBI Director Kash Patel quickly promoted Fox’s story; so did Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who said he had received the “shocking new docs” that day and alleged they proved that the FBI’s search of the president’s home had been a “miscarriage of justice.”

But as legal reporters who had followed the Trump documents case swiftly noted, the GOP’s spin was nonsense.

The right’s propaganda apparatus nonetheless sprang into action.

MAGA slop artists like Benny Johnson rushed to social media to hype the “massive” story and demand “charges and arrests” in response.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon discussed the “blockbuster” story during his December 16 show with right-wing propaganda magnate John Solomon, who suggested the documents were “the most important document to date” and “could lead” to criminal charges or a civil suit from Trump.

That night, Solomon was on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show telling millions of viewers that the news, which Hannity termed “a bombshell revelation,” could trigger “legal consequences.” (Trump himself subsequently posted a clip of the segment on social media, then denounced “the FBI’s CRIMINAL RAID.”)

On Newsmax, host Greg Kelly even declared that “Jack Smith belongs in jail” over the Mar-a-Lago search, a bizarre conclusion given that Smith was prosecuting war crimes in Europe at the time and would not become special counsel until two months later.

Video

Citation

From the December 17, 2025, edition of Newsmax'sGreg Kelly Reports

We’ve been seeing iterations of this pattern throughout this first year of Trump’s second term: The Trump administration chums the waters by handing over documents related to one of the myriad past investigations into the president’s actions; the president, top Trump officials, and Republican officeholders say they show a massive scandal; and mainstream reporters point out their narrative is farcical while MAGA media stars call for the indictment, arrest, prosecution, jailing, and perhaps execution of their political enemies.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard triggered a firestorm in July with her bogus claim that former President Barack Obama directed a “treasonous conspiracy” against Trump in 2016. While the documents she cited as evidence, originally provided to Fox, proved nothing of the sort, her claim was nonetheless accepted as gospel by MAGA media figures who spent weeks regurgitating her claims and demanding arrests of a litany of purported culprits. The president himself even posted to Truth Social an AI video featuring Obama being arrested and imprisoned.

In August, the purported “Clinton Plan” emails in a newly declassified annex to special counsel John Durham’s 2023 report supposedly unveiled a “plot” against Trump, leading to calls for Hillary Clinton’s imprisonment (Durham had assessed that the emails in question were forgeries created by Russian intelligence).

Two months later, it was FBI documents purporting to show that special counsel Jack Smith had been “spying” on GOP senators that led to right-wing outrage and calls for his arrest (the FBI had reviewed the toll records of senators in order to establish who Trump and his alleged co-conspirators were trying to contact before and during the January 6 insurrection).

And now it’s the Mar-a-Lago search coming under scrutiny based on similarly dishonest readings of documents the administration has released.

Maybe this is all part of the Plan B that DOJ “Weaponization Working Group” head Ed Martin laid out in May — to “name” and “shame” people who the Justice Department proved unable to indict. If that’s the case, a rude awakening may be in store for the right-wing media figures who predicted “justice” was coming — and for the audiences who believed them.

But one can’t put anything past an authoritarian president who has installed loyalists who treat the Justice Department as his personal law firm, purged the law enforcement apparatus of anyone who thinks otherwise, and frequently demands probes into his political foes that his underlings scuttle to carry out.

The constant right-wing celebrations for Trump’s revenge tour can only increase the pressure on law enforcement to try to somehow bring cases against his foes. Indeed, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered a grand jury probe into Gabbard’s nonsensical accusations in August; three months later, Reuters reported that prosecutors were drafting grand jury subpoenas “to investigate Obama-era intelligence officials.”

We’ll see where that goes in 2026.

// MMA

  1. ### Tulsi Gabbard’s Russiagate conspiracy theory can’t even survive a softball Fox News interview

08/06/25 12:43 PM EDT

  1. ### NY Times reported John Durham found the “Clinton Plan” emails were likely created by Russian spies. Right-wing media are running with them as legitimate.

08/01/25 4:44 PM EDT

  1. ### Why the right-wing media apparatus is suddenly yelling about Jack Smith supposedly spying on GOP senators

10/07/25

===

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wiles said trump prom to stop retal tour 90 days 12 25

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an 12 25

Nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 2, Jason Reding Quiñones is a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) District of Southern Florida. Now, according to The Guardian's Peter Stone, Quiñones is "expanding an investigation" of former FBI and intel officials who, in 2016, probed Russian interference in that year's U.S. presidential race. But many legal experts, Stone reports, view Quiñones' efforts as a "fishing expedition."

"The investigation's apparent focus is to identify ways to criminally charge ex-FBI and intelligence officials who have already been investigated and effectively exonerated by two special counsels and a Republican-led Senate panel, which mounted exhaustive inquiries into Russia's efforts to boost Trump in 2016," Stone explains in an article published on December 17.

"Led by Jason Reding Quiñones…. who is close to (U.S.) Attorney General Pam Bondi and other key MAGA allies, the inquiry accelerated with a flurry of subpoenas in November and new prosecutors to expedite what has been dubbed a 'grand conspiracy' investigation. Among others, subpoenas have reportedly gone to ex-CIA director John Brennan, who led the 2016 Russia inquiry; James Clapper, the ex-director of national intelligence; Peter Strzok, a former FBI counter-intelligence agent who helped lead the Russia inquiry; and Lisa Page, an ex-FBI lawyer."

Two prosecutors assigned to Quiñones' probe, according to Stone, resigned. And former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich views the probe as politically motivated.

Bromwich told The Guardian, "There is simply no factual basis for this investigation. It violates both DOJ and FBI standards that require a factual predicate. It is a fishing expedition where it has been clearly established — by two prior independent counsel investigations and a congressional investigation led by the current secretary of state —there are no fish. The government has refused to provide the basis for venue in Florida; nor has it been willing to describe the statutory violatiosns it is pursuing. That is unprecedented in my 40-plus years of federal criminal practice.”

Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former DOJ prosecutor who is often featured as a legal analyst on MS NOW, is equally critical of Quiñones' efforts.

Noting that previous investigations of the 2016 probe "ended with a whimper," McQuade told The Guardian, "The idea that Trump loyalists are now going to investigate again should make us all suspicious of their motive. If evidence sufficient to support criminal charges existed, we would have seen it by now."

*Read Peter Stone's full article for The Guardian at this link.

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AN 12 25

Donald Trump's efforts to sue the Pulitzer Prize board over defamation claims took a turn for the president last week, according to a new report from Law & Crime, after the board demanded extensive documents in discovery pertaining to everything from his psychological history to his prescription medication use.

Trump first sued the board back in 2022over a statement the board released defending prizes it awarded in 2018 to the New York Timesand theWashington Postreporting related to collusion between his first presidential campaign and the Russian government, after Trump demanded that the prizes be rescinded. The board's statement explained that "two independent reviews" of the reports awarded in 2018 showed that no aspects of them were refuted by special counsel Robert Mueller's Russian collusion findings, despite Trump's claims.

In claiming defamation from this statement, Trump's lawsuit nevertheless called the Russia connection a "now-debunked theory," and alleged that he suffered reputational harm and damages from it.

As of Thursday, the case had reached the discovery phase, with the Pulitzer board submitting a 12-page filing with a "litany of broad discovery demands" for Trump's legal team. In addition to demanding more typical documents pertaining to Trump's various lawsuits and claims about the political impact of the Pulitzer Prizes, the board also requested a wide range of documents detailing much more personal and intimate details.

This includes "all" of the president's tax returns dating from 2015 to now, so as to show any potential financial harm caused by the Pulitzer board's actions. It also requested health records and prescription histories to demonstrate proof of Trump's claims of mental and physical anguish.

"To the extent You seek damages for any physical ailment or mental or emotional injury arising from Counts I-IV of Your Complaint, all Documents (whether held by You or by third parties under Your control or who could produce them at your direction) concerning Your medical and/or psychological health from January 1, 2015, to present, including any prescription medications you have been prescribed or have taken," the filing explained. "For the avoidance of doubt, this includes all Documents Concerning Your annual physical examination. To the extent you do not seek such damages in this action, please confirm so in writing."

Per the filing, Trump's legal team could potentially avoid providing some of these sensitive materials by deciding not to pursue damages specifically for the alleged harms they pertain to.

The board's filing also leaves open the possibility for Trump's team to claim that certain materials are privileged and cannot be provided, though it will have to explain why.

"With respect to your responses to the following Requests, if any information is withheld because of a claim of privilege, state the basis for your claim of privilege with respect to such information and the specific ground(s) on which the claim of privilege rests," the filing noted.

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trump lawfare press suppress

court VENUE SHOPPING AILEEN CANNON

an 12 25

Donald Trump is suing the BBC for defamation over a Panorama documentary from October 2024, but according to an analysis of the suit's claims by Britain's The i Paper, the "audacious" effort could be undone by a "massive presumption" the lawsuit has yet to prove.

Trump's legal team accused the documentary Trump: A Second Chance?of “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 presidential race by way of a “false, defamatory, deceptive, inflammatory and malicious depiction" of him. The BBC previously conceded that the president's main sticking point with the film — an edited version of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech at The Ellipse in Washington D.C. that made it seem like he directly told the crowd to "fight like hell" ahead of the Capitol Riots — was the result of an "error of judgment" by the production and offered him an apology.

The network did, however, argue that there were no grounds for claiming defamation due to the documentary. Trump disagreed and is now seeking $10 billion in damages, or roughly £7.5 billion.

In an analysis of the legal filing, The i Paper's Simon Marks noted that Trump's suit is lacking one crucial piece of evidence at the heart of its argument: proof that any actual person changed their vote after watching the Panorama film.

"The lawsuit notably fails to identify a single viewer of the documentary in Florida who might have been misled or aggrieved by its content," Marks explained. "Instead, it relies on a massive presumption that someone, somewhere in the state, must have seen it, speaking of 'the immense likelihood that citizens of Florida accessed the Documentary before the BBC had it removed.'"

Marks also noted that the suit attempted to paint "the BBC as a broadcasting powerhouse in the sunshine state of Florida" in order to justify its claims.

Trump is suing the network in a Florida court, with his and the BBC's legal teams having gone back and forth over whether or not there is legal standing for this venue. Trump's side argued that since the BBC News website is available in Florida, the case could be brought in the state. The network pushed back, claiming that the Panorama documentary was not available in the US due to geoblocking. Trump's side countered that the film was available on the BritBox streaming platform, and could potentially have been viewed by Florida residents using a virtual private network (VPN) service.

"Trump’s legal team will be aware that Grand National-style hurdles lie ahead for the US President before any trial gets underway," Marks wrote. "The lawsuit’s failure to identify a Florida viewer who either complained about the documentary in the immediate aftermath of its transmission or changed their vote as a result of seeing the film could prove to be the complaint’s Achilles heel. Further, the US Constitution’s First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech applies to all the speakers interviewed in the documentary, and past evidence suggests that Florida judges may not be impressed by the lawsuit’s grandiose claims..."

Marks further noted that a prior Trump defamation suit against the*New York Times*, to the tune of $15 billion, was tossed out by a Florida judge.

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AN 12 25

Ex-assistant AG says Trump DOJ 'going to re-indict' after Halligan flubs

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an 11 25

IFrame Content

President Donald Trump’s Department of Defense is now targeting a sitting U.S. Senator, one of six Democratic lawmakers who appeared in a video reminding members of the U.S. Armed Forces and the Intelligence Community of their right to refuse to obey an illegal order.

U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a retired astronaut and former naval officer, along with the other five said, “threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.”

“Our laws are clear,” they added. “You can refuse illegal orders.”

In an official statement on social media, the Department of Defense alleged it has “received serious allegations of misconduct against Captain Mark Kelly, USN (Ret.).”

It added, “a thorough review of these allegations has been initiated to determine further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.” The statement also said, “federal laws such as 18 U.S.C. § 2387 prohibit actions intended to interfere with the loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces.”

President Trump last week in a series of social media posts promoted hanging the six Democrats.

“It’s called seditious behavior at the highest level,” the president also charged. “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be Arrested and put on trial. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example must be set.”

“Seditious behavior, punishable by death!” he continued.

Critics blasted the Pentagon’s move.

“Sen. Kelly didn’t tell troops to defy lawful orders, he reminded them of their duty to refuse unlawful ones, which is literally what the UCMJ and decades of military precedent require!” wrote The Bulwark’s Evan Rosenfeld. “Pretending that doing so is ‘misconduct’ is complete propaganda and not rooted in law.”

Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio called it “Pretty extraordinary to call out a sitting senator in this way.”

The Bulwark’s Sam Stein labeled it “ham-handed,” and Bill Kristol of Defending Democracy called it “Naked authoritarianism.”

But The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg noted that the video “looks to have been an official one for which [Kelly] would enjoy Speech or Debate immunity.”

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ABOVE THE LAW

Trump’s Lawyers Go To Iowa To Learn How To CivPro

Oops.

By Liz Dye and Andrew Torrez on July 01, 2025

Donald Trump’s lawyer Edward “Sideshow Bob” Paltzik is gonna learn him some civil procedure if he has to step on every rake in Iowa. And he might!

His adventures began in December of 2024, when he and local counsel Alan Ostergren filed a trollsuit in Polk County District Court against pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register for aggravated getting a poll wrong. The case was premised on the theory that the “poll” was actually a super-secret conspiracy by Selzer, the Des Moines Register, and the Register’s parent company Gannett to defraud Iowa “consumers” by supplying defective “merchandise” in violation of Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act.

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But perhaps the president’s sparklemagic counsel should have spent less time on their whizbang theory and more time hiring a process server. In the event, they only managed to serve Gannett, a Delaware company doing business in New York, which instantly filed a notice of removal, bouncing the case into the US District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. And that’s how young Eddie learned about snap removal!

But Trump’s legal team had another trick up its sleeve! On January 31, they amended the complaint adding two Iowa lawmakers, US Rep Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former state senator Bradley Zaun, as plaintiffs. The move was a transparent attempt to get the case remanded to state court by defeating diversity jurisdiction. In fact, Selzer hadn’t even polled Zaun’s race. Which is how Paltzik learned about fraudulent joinder, as well as judicial discretion. Exercising the second, Judge Rebecca Ebinger declined to find the first, but nonetheless ruled that the lawmakers were not “indispensable” parties and denied the motion for joinder. On May 23, she ordered Trump to file an amended complaint without the rando politicians in seven days.

Judge Ebinger did give the plaintiff a gift of sorts, though. Noting that snap removal hadn’t been definitively blessed by the Eighth Circuit, she certified the issue for interlocutory appeal. Trump immediately accepted the invitation and secured a brief stay until July 18 to file his amended complaint.

But time waits for no clown, and in the meantime the Iowa state legislature unanimously passed a bill to create an expedited motion for media defendants to dismiss SLAPP suits that target the freedom of the press. That bill, House File 472, was signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds on May 19 and takes effect on July 1.

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By Above The Law

Had Trump filed his amended complaint on June 1, as instructed, he’d have been in the clear. But amending his complaint on July 18 would likely have subjected his garbage suit to the fee-shifting provision of the new anti-SLAPP law in the unlikely scenario that he was able to persuade the Eighth Circuit to remand him to state court.

And so, with that anti-SLAPP clock ticking, Trump’s lawyers put on their MAGA hats and hatched a clever plan to get back into state court one day before the new law was scheduled to go into effect. On Monday, they filed a notice of voluntary dismissal in federal court and simultaneously re-filed in state court. If they could just remember to serve the Iowa defendants first, they’d be home free!

Except … THEY FORGOT ABOUT THEIR APPEAL TO THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.

Trump’s pending appeal divested the trial court of jurisdiction to dismiss his case. He needed to dismiss that appeal before voluntarily dismissing the complaint in the district court. Which he could have done, even without the defendants’ consent, so long as he did it first (and gave the court sufficient time to enter an order of dismissal).

And that’s how counselor Paltzik learned about Rule 42 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure!

Hours after Trump tried to nope out of his lawsuit, Gannett moved to strike the notice of dismissal as improper. Today, Judge Ebinger ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond to that motion to strike within 24 hours. Can’t wait to see what vagaries of civil procedure these geniuses learn next!

It’s difficult to imagine what they’ll say, but given that this is the team that thinks being wrong about math is a tort, they’ll undoubtedly come up with something. But for all intents and purposes, even if they win, the federal court will enter an order of dismissal dated July 2 or later. And that means the deadline for Trump to sneak into state court ahead of the new anti-SLAPP law has almost certainly come and gone.

*Liz Dye and Andrew Torrez produce the Law and Chaos Substack and podcast.

Topics:

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an nyt 11 25

Dozens of former US Department of Justice attorneys have now gone on record to describe the unprecedented corruption of federal law enforcement taking place during President Donald Trump’s second term.

In a lengthy story published on Sunday by theNew York Times, the former DOJ attorneys described rampant politicization of prosecutions, directives to dig up evidence on Trump’s political foes, and orders to drop investigations into potential terrorist plots and white-collar crimes.

Several attorneys told the paper that the corruption of the DOJ began on Trump’s very first day in office when he issued a blanket pardon to everyone who had been convicted of rioting at the US Capitol building on his behalf on January 6, 2021, in a last-ditch effort to prevent the certification of former President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Gregory Rosen, who oversaw the unit at the DOJ that prosecuted January 6 rioters, told the Times that he felt “numb” seeing the pardons of the rioters, but he nonetheless facilitated the pardons because he understood they were within the president’s constitutional powers.

Mike Romano, a prosecutor who worked on January 6 cases, said that he had to resign as soon as he saw the broad scope of the pardons, which included rioters who were guilty of assaulting police officers.

“It’s incredibly demoralizing to see something you worked on for four years wiped away by a lie—I mean the idea that prosecution of the rioters was a grave national injustice,” he said. “We had strong evidence against every person we prosecuted.”

The mass pardon of the Capitol rioters was only the beginning, as prosecutors said that this politicization soon swept over the entire department.

In early March, for instance, Trump signed an executive order targeting law firms that had in the past represented prominent Democrats. Among other things, the order demanded federal agencies cancel government contracts with the firms and strip the firms’ employees of their security clearances.

The orders also accused some of the firms in engaging in supposed racial discrimination for maintaining policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Dena Robinson, a former attorney at the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, told the Times that the DEI investigation into law firm Perkins Coie was a particularly extreme example of the department’s politicization under Trump.

“The idea of the investigation was that Perkins Coie supposedly engaged in illegal discrimination against white men,” she explained. “But Perkins Coie is an extremely white firm—only 3% of the partners are Black. When my colleague pointed that out, the leadership didn’t care. They’d already reached their conclusion.”

Robinson said that this attitude was emblematic of how Trump appointees conducted investigations: They begin with desired conclusions and systematically ignore evidence that undermines them.

“I wouldn’t even call it the Justice Department anymore,” she said. “It’s become Trump’s personal law firm. I think Americans should be enraged.”

Another aspect of the DOJ under Trump that has drawn scrutiny has been his use of pardons for political allies, including his decision last month to pardon Changpeng Zhao, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges in 2023, and who had helped boost the value of the Trump family’s own cryptocurrency venture.

A new investigation from ProPublica found that Trump’s use of the pardon hasn’t just been relegated to prosecutions that took place during Democratic administrations.

The ProPublica report found Trump had wiped out convictions in “at least a dozen criminal cases that originated during his first term,” many of which involved politicians convicted of taking bribes or engaging in kickback schemes.

Frank O. Bowman III, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Missouri, told Pro Publica that the Trump pardons taken together are part of what he described as “the systematic destruction of the Justice Department as an objective agency that seeks to uphold the law and fight crime.”

In addition to this, Joseph Tirrell, former director of the Departmental Ethics Office, told the Times that the Trump DOJ has been hacking away at rules that bar law-enforcement officials from accepting gifts.

In one instance, Tirrell said he tried to intervene to stop DOJ employees from accepting cigars given by mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor and a soccer ball from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

“I felt like I really had to go to the mattress to convince the AG’s office: You can pay for the item or you can return the item or you can throw the item away,” he said. “There’s no other way to do this.”

Shortly after this, Tirrell said he got a call from the FBI general counsel inquiring “about changing exceptions to the gift rules because his boss, [FBI Director] Kash Patel, felt like he should be able to accept more expensive gifts.”

Tirrell said that he then reminded the counsel that “his client was not Mr. Patel, but the United States.”

Patel in recent weeks has come under scrutiny for some of the perks he’s taken during his time as FBI director, including using the FBI’s private jet to fly to a wrestling event where his girlfriend, country music singer Alexis Wilkins, was performing the national anthem.

MS NOW reported on Monday that Patel has also given Wilkins “a security detail made up of elite FBI agents usually assigned to a SWAT team in the FBI field office in Nashville,” an unprecedented arrangement for the girlfriend of the FBI director.

Christopher O’Leary, a former senior FBI agent and MS NOW law enforcement contributor, said that there is “no legitimate justification” for granting Wilkins this level of security.

“This is a clear abuse of position and misuse of government resources,” he said. “She is not his spouse, does not live in the same house or even the same city.”

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// m traitor g no not dangerous, brn fail

no x gfx pix

an 11 25

President Donald Trump is targeting his former FBI Director in a series of social media posts, including a repost that accused Christopher Wray of treason.

Trump reposted a post on Monday that placed Wray among sixteen people — including several former FBI officials — and labeled them as “Obama’s Russia HOAX Treason Club.”

Those depicted as members of the alleged “Treason Club” include Wray’s predecessor, former FBI Director Jim Comey; former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe; former CIA Directors John Brennan and Gina Haspel; former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Another post that Trump reposted accused former Director Wray of lying when he testified before Congress that he did not put FBI agents in the crowd on January 6.

Trump wrote: “Wray lied!!!”

The president also reposted a post he wrote in September, that reads in part, “It was just revealed that the FBI had secretly placed, against all Rules, Regulations, Protocols, and Standards, 274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax.”

Trump did not appear to provide evidence that supported his allegations.

Wray has denied there were FBI agents in the crowd as some form of operation.

A September Associated Press headline reported: “Alleged FBI documents do not prove federal agents incited Jan. 6 Capitol attack.”

Trump has also been calling for the prosecutions of his political adversaries, including U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director Comey, and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

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mma

  1. ### Fox's Howard Kurtz on DOJ’s Eric Swalwell probe: “You wonder whether it's part of the retribution campaign since it's all Democrats being referred”

11/13/25

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an tc 11 25

In recent weeks, Donald Trump’s supporters have begun to align around the idea that a Democrat-led “grand conspiracy” – potentially involving former president Barack Obama – has been plotting against the US president since 2016. The narrative is that the 2016 Russia investigation, which resulted in the Mueller inquiry was part of this deep-state opposition to Trump, as was the investigation into the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

The focus of the fightback by Trump’s supporters is in Miami, where a Trump-appointed US attorney, Jason A. Reding Quiñones, has begun to issue subpoenas to a wide range of former officials.

This has included former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, all of whom were involved in the federal investigation into alleged links between Russian intelligence and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The way the so-called conspiracy is unfolding will feel familiar to anyone who has watched US politics closely in the past decade. There’s been a constant stream of allegations and counter-allegations. But the narrative from the Trump camp is that the powerful “deep state” forces have been arrayed against the president. The “two-tier” justice system that has persecuted Trump can only be rebalanced by pursuing those who investigated him in 2017 and 2021.

The Grand Conspiracy contains similarities with other prominent conspiracy theories and how they spread. The QAnon movement, whose most famous claim is of a global paedophile ring run out of a Washington pizza parlour involving senior Democrats, is one where disparate claims are sporadically and partially evidenced. The political potency of these claims does not sit in the individual pieces of evidence but in the overarching story.

The story is that hidden government and proxy networks manipulate the truth and judicial outcomes and that only through pressure from “truthers” (what many people in the US who believe conspiracy theories call themselves) will wrongdoers be brought to account. Once these ideas are popularised, they take on a momentum and a direction that is difficult to control.

Campaign of ‘lawfare’

Soon after his inauguration, Trump set up a “weaponization working group” within the Department of Justice. Its director, Ed Martin, said in May that he would expose and discredit people he believes to be guilty, even if the evidence wasn’t sufficient to charge them: “If they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed.”

In the US the norm has been to “charge crimes, not people”, so this modification fundamentally changes the focus of prosecutors.

Former FBI director James Comey responds to his indictment by grand jury in September.

The recent subpoenas in Florida show this principle at work, effectively making legal process into the punishment. Even without full court hearings on specific charges, being forced to provide testimony or documents creates suspicion around those who are targeted. Criticism from legal officials that this is a “indict first, investigate second” method suggests that this is a break from historical norms.

Lawfare, defined as “legal action undertaken as part of a hostile campaign”, doesn’t require a successful prosecution. It merely requires enough investigative activity to solidify a narrative of suspected guilt and enough costs and pressure to seriously inconvenience those affected by it. In the new era of digital media, it’s enough to degrade the standing of a political opponent.

In that way, political retaliation has become a prosecuting objective. This is clear from what the US president has indicated in his frequent posts on his social media platforms for his enemies, such as former FBI director James Comey, who investigated his alleged links to Russia, or Adam Schiff, the senator who led his impeachment in 2019.

Hardball politics or authoritarianism?

Political scientists argue that authoritarianism is something that happens little by little. Some of these steps involve using state power to target political opponents, degrading checks and balances and making loyalty a legal requirement.

There are reasons to believe that the US seems to be tracking this trajectory currently, certainly when it comes to using the Justice Department to harass the president’s political enemies and pushing back against court judgments while attacking the judges that have issued them.

Further slides towards authoritarianism are possible because of the political potency of contemporary conspiracy movements. The right-wing QAnon movement, for example, has been exceptionally agile. It has offered its followers identity, community spaces and a logic that encourages active participation, exhorting believers to “do your own research”, for example.

In the wake of the near daily addition of material from the investigations into the allegations that the late financier, Jeffrey Epstein, ran a sex trafficking ring, involving some influential US citizens, many American citizens have concluded as a general truth that their elites do hide things. This makes it far simpler for broader conspiracies to gain traction and more difficult for politicians and journalists to work out what is conspiracy and what is evidence. This is creating a problematic feedback loop – hints of wrongdoing fuel public suspicion, and public suspicion fuels the idea of a further need for investigation.

But to suggest that anyone has control over this would be wrong. These movements can just as easily consume those seen as supporters as they do those seen as enemies. Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s determination to release the full and unredacted Epstein files could well produce negative outcomes for some Maga supporters, including prominent ones.

So, the transformation of legal process into public spectacle in America is suggestive of a drift towards authoritarianism. America’s famous “constitutional guardrails” of separation of powers, independent courts, juries and counsels will be pivotal in preventing this. They will need to stand firm.

The grand conspiracy theory might be more about seeking to isolate, and financially and emotionally exhaust opponents, while at the same time destroying America’s system of checks and balances. It might work.

Robert Dover, Professor of Intelligence and National Security & Dean of Faculty, *University of Hull

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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notus

amelia Benavides-Colón

November 13, 2025

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s director, Bill Pulte, on Thursday marked Rep. Eric Swalwell as the latest foe of President Donald Trump to face a criminal referral for alleged mortgage fraud, according to multiple reports.

Swalwell, a Democrat who has long spoken out against Trump’s administrations and served as an impeachment manager during his second impeachment trial, also filed a civil lawsuit against the president and his allies in 2021 for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

“As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me,” Swalwell said in a statement.

Pulte alleged in a letter sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday that Swalwell may have made false or misleading statements in loan documents for his $1.2 million Washington property, NBC News first reported.

Swalwell is the fourth Democratic official to be accused of mortgage fraud by Pulte. The others include New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.

A grand jury last month criminally indicted James for bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution over a Virginia property she allegedly listed as a second home but used as a rental property for her niece.

Cook was fired in August from her role at the Fed over Pulte’s allegations, though a federal court in the District of Columbia has ruled that she may remain in the role while her legal challenge remains pending. Her case has made its way to the Supreme Court, which announced it would hear oral arguments starting in December.

Trump accused Schiff of engaging in a “sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud,” in a July post on Truth Social. NOTUS reported in August that the senator formed a legal defense fund to fight the allegations.

“The allegations against Senator Schiff are transparently false, stale, and long debunked,” Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney in New York and Schiff’s lawyer for the case, wrote in a statement sent to NOTUS on Tuesday. “The bias here is glaring.”

In his statement Thursday, Swalwell says he has no plans of dropping his lawsuit against the Trump administration.

“I refuse to live in fear in what was once the freest country in the world,” Swalwell said. “Of course, I will not end my lawsuit against him. And I will not stop speaking out against the President and speaking up for Californians.”

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11 25 ggl

AI Overview

Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte has referred Rep. Eric Swalwell for a potential federal criminal probe over alleged mortgage fraud, sending the matter to the Department of Justice and the FHFA's Acting Inspector General

. Pulte has made similar referrals regarding other Democrats, and the FHFA Inspector General's office is now reportedly without a top internal watchdog, raising questions about the impartiality and independence of these referrals.

ppref

$

top watchdog out at FHFA

The agency's Office of the Inspector General website now reads that its top position “is currently vacant.”

By:

Cassandra Dumay

| 11/03/2025

The Federal Housing Finance Agency no longer has a top internal watchdog, according to its inspector general website.

Reuters reported Monday that acting Inspector General Joe Allen was facing termination. The outlet previously reported that FHFA Director Bill Pulte had circumvented the inspector general’s office by making criminal referrals on alleged mortgage fraud against Trump adversaries Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The agency's Office of the Inspector General website now reads that its top position “is currently vacant.”

FHFA did not return request for comment.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said in a statement that Pulte “has some answering to do – what happened to the watchdog overseeing his agency?”

“What does Pulte have to hide as he continues to use his role to investigate President Trump’s perceived political enemies while failing to lower housing costs for the American people?” Warren added.

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ref 1

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The internal watchdog for the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency is being removed from his role, four people familiar with the matter said, at a time when the housing regulator is playing a role in President Donald Trump's targeting of perceived political enemies.

The ouster of Joe Allen, FHFA's acting inspector general, follows the agency's director, Bill Pulte, becoming an outspoken voice in support of the Trump administration. Across the government, the Trump administration has so far fired or reassigned close to two dozen agency watchdogs, who police waste, fraud and abuse. It has also defunded the group that supervises those offices.

Read about innovative ideas and the people working on solutions to global crises with the Reuters Beacon newsletter. Sign up here.

The FHFA did not immediately respond to emails and a call seeking comment. The four people spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to discuss internal moves at the agency.

Created after the 2008 financial crisis, the FHFA is typically a low-profile regulatory office, but Pulte has launched a new hotline targeting mortgage fraud and made public criminal referrals against a series of Trump foes including New York Attorney General Letitia James, as well as Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook and California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff.

Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who was hand-picked for the job by Trump, subsequently indicted James after her predecessor declined to do so, citing a lack of evidence.

Allen received notice of his termination from the White House after he made efforts to provide key information to prosecutors in that office, according to four sources. The information he turned over was constitutionally required, two of them said, while a third described it as being potentially relevant in discovery.

His ouster also came about as he was preparing to send a letter to Congress notifying lawmakers that the FHFA was not cooperating with the inspector general's office, three of the sources said. These individuals said the FHFA director would typically have been notified of such a letter. Reuters was unable to independently determine whether Pulte was informed.

James has pleaded not guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of lying to a financial institution. Her legal team is seeking to have the case dismissed, claiming Halligan's appointment was unlawful and the prosecution is vindictive.

Trump previously publicly called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to bring charges against James, along with several of his other political foes.

Pulte has circumvented the agency's Office of Inspector General in pursuing those three cases, Reuters previously reported.

Allen had reported to work on Monday, according to the sources.

He also served as chief counsel of the FHFA's inspector general's office. It was not immediately clear whether he was continuing in that latter role, three of the people said.

Allen could not be reached for comment.

He became FHFA's acting inspector general in April 2025, according to an archived page of the agency's website.

On Monday, the website for the FHFA's Office of Inspector General listed the position as "currently vacant". It was unclear when the website was updated.

The most recent snapshot available via the Internet Archive was from late September and listed Allen as acting inspector general.

In response to news of Allen's removal, Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said, "Director Pulte has some answering to do."

Before joining FHFA's inspector general's office, Allen was a 40-year veteran at the Justice Department, where he held various roles from a federal prosecutor to senior legal positions with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

James, a Democrat who last year secured a $450 million fraud judgment against Trump, last month pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of allegedly lying on mortgage documents after Pulte suggested the Justice Department investigate her.

Pulte's leadership at FHFA and over the government-sponsored entities it oversees has been tumultuous. Just last week, he said he had fired dozens of staff at Fannie Mae.

(This story has been corrected to clarify standard agency policy on letters to Congress in paragraph 7)

Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Chris Prentice and Marisa Taylor; Editing by Scott Malone, Nia Williams and Daniel Wallis

MMA

Fox Business lets Trump enforcer Bill Pulte spin his debunked “mortgage fraud” accusations against Lisa Cook

09/26/25

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ref 2 reuters

WASHINGTON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The Trump appointee accusing the president’s political foes of mortgage fraud skipped over his agency’s inspector general when making criminal referrals, according to seven people familiar with the matter, bypassing rules meant to ensure that federal officials don’t abuse their power for partisan purposes.

Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, earlier this year made criminal referrals against targets including Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor whom President Donald Trump has tried to dismiss, for alleged crimes related to their mortgages. Breaking with standard procedures, Pulte circumvented that agency’s internal watchdog, typically the office that would make such referrals, by asking the Justice Department to investigate Cook and two other prominent officials.

“The referrals did not come from the OIG,” one of these people said, using shorthand for the office of the inspector general. “It took people there by surprise.”

Cook has denied Pulte’s accusations.

Pulte didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

Spokespersons for the Justice Department and the FHFA inspector general’s office declined to comment. The White House press office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Pulte’s accusations are at the center of ongoing efforts by the Trump administration to seek criminal charges against perceived foes of the president’s politics and policies. The campaign last month led to a criminal indictment against a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In Cook’s case, the Trump-Pulte effort has been criticized by legal experts as a move to oust a senior policymaker from the Federal Reserve – an independent institution critical to the U.S. economy that the president has increasingly sought to bend to his will.

Trump has argued the investigations are focused on “justice,” not political targets. “It's about justice, really,” he told reporters, following the indictment of the former FBI director. “It’s not revenge.”

By appealing directly to the Justice Department and publicly airing accusations that had not fully been investigated, Pulte broke with decades of precedent and ethics regulations, the people familiar with the matter said. Five of these people, and independent legal experts consulted by Reuters, said Pulte’s moves defied so-called “impartiality” regulations, among other rules meant to prevent political witch hunts.

“You can’t single out people for prosecution for political reasons,” said Richard Painter, a former associate counsel to President George W. Bush and that administration’s top ethics attorney. “It’s a clear violation of federal law.”

Pulte’s actions, legal experts told Reuters, violate various ethics norms and regulations. In addition to “impartiality” rules designed to ensure government officials remain unbiased in decisionmaking, the experts said it could flout the agency’s own procedures, protections under the Privacy Act, and the constitutional right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.

Because ethics rules can be subject to interpretation and to an administration’s willingness to enforce them, however, it’s unclear whether Pulte’s actions will undermine his accusations of mortgage fraud or affect his authority as agency director. Trump himself has praised Pulte, lauding him in one social media post, writing: “DON’T LET THE RADICAL LEFT WEAKLINGS STOP YOU!”

The president’s push to target political opponents with criminal prosecution has intensified. In late September, a grand jury indicted James Comey, the former FBI director and longtime object of Trump criticism, in an alleged perjury case. The indictment arrived shortly after Trump in a social media post called on the attorney general to prosecute him.

Comey has denied any wrongdoing.

The investigation of Cook comes as Trump seeks a more pliant Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank. Although the Fed has long operated free of political meddling, Pulte has joined Trump and other administration officials in criticizing its governors and calling for them to cut interest rates more aggressively. The Supreme Court last week declined to allow Trump’s dismissal of Cook, suspending the matter, opens new tab until it can hear full arguments in the White House’s bid to remove her.

Almost immediately after his March confirmation at the FHFA, Pulte became an outspoken voice of the administration. The FHFA is a low-profile agency created after the 2008 financial crisis to oversee elements of the mortgage-lending sector.

Within months of his arrival, its new chief was aggressively attacking Cook. In August, citing alleged irregularities in her mortgage paperwork, Pulte publicized his request that the Justice Department investigate the Fed governor, targeting her on social media and accusing her of “blatant mortgage fraud.”

To ensure the independence of probes such as those initiated by Pulte, legal experts said, the politically appointed head of a federal agency would typically ask an inspector general to investigate alleged wrongdoing. At many federal agencies, the office of inspector general exists to independently investigate fraud, waste and abuse.

Any evidence obtained during a probe would then be referred to criminal investigators by the inspector general, not the agency head. In no circumstances, these experts added, would the officials involved be expected to publicize an investigation, disregarding any presumption of innocence and potentially tainting the possibility of a fair trial.

“One indication that the criminal mortgage referrals were political in nature is that the referrals were released publicly,” said Andrew Tessman, a former federal prosecutor in Washington and West Virginia who investigated mortgage fraud cases. “That would never happen that way before.”

Shortly after taking the helm of the FHFA, Pulte set up a new channel to receive anonymous tips about mortgage fraud. The agency would welcome tips from “anyone and everyone,” he wrote in April on X, the social media site. The new tip line puzzled some staff, six of the people familiar with the matter told Reuters, because the agency already had such an outlet, overseen by the inspector general’s office.

Reuters couldn’t determine whether Pulte, by establishing a new channel outside the department that historically probed mortgage fraud claims, planned from the start to avoid the inspector general. The earlier tip line, like the office of the inspector general itself, had been established by design to remain free from interference even by agency staff, three people familiar with its workings said.

In addition to his campaign against Cook, Pulte made similar criminal referrals against New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff. Trump called on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute James, Schiff and Comey in a Sept 20 Truth Social post, opens new tab.

James and Schiff have denied wrongdoing.

None of the referrals has led the Justice Department to announce any criminal indictment. The federal prosecutor overseeing the James investigation resigned in September after Trump publicly said he’d lost confidence in him.

Since Pulte made the referrals, according to documents reviewed by Reuters, officials from the FHFA and other federal agencies have collaborated with the Justice Department in the ensuing probes. The officials have included representatives from the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the inspectors general’s office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the documents show.

Spokespersons for the FBI and IRS didn’t respond to requests for comment. An automated email from the HUD inspector general’s office said the office is closed because of the ongoing government shutdown.

Last month, Reuters reported that the mortgage paperwork associated with one of Cook’s residences showed that she had declared an Atlanta residence, opens new tab to her lender as a “vacation home.” The declaration appears to counter other documentation cited by Pulte suggesting that Cook, in an alleged bid to secure better lending terms, had declared the home her primary residence.

Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch. Editing by Paulo Prada.

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11 25

5500 QUIT FIRED THO NOT ALL ATTY

Lawyers 'astonished' at mass exodus from Trump DOJ as recruiting 'plummets'

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DOJ prosecutors 'on pins and needles' hoping to avoid cases involving Trump's enemies - Alternet.org

DOJ prosecutors 'on pins and needles' hoping to avoid cases involving Trump's enemies

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an 11 25

Far-right influencers are looking to Miami as a venue to pursue "long-promised charges of a 'grand conspiracy'" against President Donald Trump’s perceived adversaries, according to a New York Times report.

The influencers have even found a federal prosecutor there— Jason A. Reding Quiñones, Trump-appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who was sworn into office in August 2025 and is currently a central figure in a high-profile investigation into a 2017 intelligence community assessment regarding Russian election interference.

As for their alleged 'grand conspiracy,' the Times explains that its theory is "still unsupported by the evidence."

"A cabal of Democrats and 'deep-state' operatives, possibly led by former President Barack Obama, has worked to destroy Mr. Trump in a yearslong plot spanning the inquiry into his 2016 campaign to the charges he faced after leaving office," the Times explains.

Last week, however, Reding Quiñones issued over two dozen subpoenas, including to officials who took part in the inquiry into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, the Times writes.

Among the recipients include familiar Trump foils: James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; Peter Strzok, a former F.B.I. counterintelligence agent who helped run the Russia investigation; and Lisa Page, a former lawyer at the bureau.

The Florida investigation currently focuses on a "January 2017 intelligence community assessment about Russian interference in the 2016 election, particularly the role played by John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, in drafting the document," the Times says.

The Brennan investigation started "after criminal referrals to the Justice Department by top Trump intelligence officials," the Times writes, and was assigned to David Metcalf, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, "who was given special authority to scrutinize and possibly prosecute Mr. Brennan, according to four people with knowledge of his actions who requested anonymity to discuss an open matter."

Metcalf held senior Justice Department positions during the first Trump administration.

The Brennan case, however, was transfered from Metcalf to Reding Quiñones, "as part of a decision to greatly expand the scope of the Brennan investigation into other, unspecified activities, according to two people with knowledge of the situation," the Times explains.

The Florida subpoenas, the Times explains, "seek documents or communications related to the intelligence community assessment from July 1, 2016, through Feb. 28, 2017, according to people familiar with them. It commands the recipients to provide them to prosecutors in Miami by Nov. 20."

Despite the dubious nature of these investigations, the Times says, they do have one thing on its side.

"Reding Quiñones, a military veteran, has pursued his mandate to hunt down Mr. Trump’s foes with a gung-ho attitude that has endeared him to the president and the small but influential cadre of loyalists pushing hardest for prosecutions," notes the Times.

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RWW

Ryan J. Reilly @ NBC News: Jury acquits D.C. 'sandwich guy' charged with chucking a sub at a federal agent

Sean Dunn faced a single misdemeanor after federal grand jurors refused to indict him on the felony charge sought by prosecutors.

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MMA

Right-wing media celebrate Trump’s revenge tour

Written by Isabella Corrao & Helena Hind

Research contributions from Jane Lee

Published 10/24/25

Right-wing media are rejoicing over President Donald Trump’s execution of his promised revenge tour. In the first nine months of his second administration, the president has targeted political opponents and Democrat-led cities, states, and institutions. From indictments against Trump's former FBI director and national security advisor, to threats to revoke federal funding, to the deployment of the National Guard in cities, right-wing media figures have defended, justified, and commended Trump’s actions through it all.

Donald Trump has targeted political opponents and Democrat-led cities, states, and institutions

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AN 10 25

President Donald Trump has been able to have the Republican-controlled Senate confirm the vast bulk of his nominees — with the lone exception of his appointees for U.S. attorney offices.

Now, Politico is reporting that the president is leaning on his party to bulldoze the last remaining obstacle preventing his handpicked prosecutors from being fully confirmed. Trump told a gathering of Senate Republicans Tuesday that the long-standing "blue slip" procedure — in which senators from a nominee's home state have to submit "blue slips" agreeing to their nomination before it can move forward — was a "problem" that should be scrapped.

"You know, I have 10 U.S. attorneys who are phenomenal," Trump said. "And the problem is, they’re not going to ever be confirmed, I guess. I put them in, they’ll be there for three or four months, whatever it is, and then they have to leave."

The "blue slip" process is done for nominees for U.S. District court judgeships as well as U.S. attorney nominees in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the committee, has so far refused Trump's demands, and promised to continue it indefinitely after the Senate gained a Republican majority after last November's election. The "blue slip" process has affected some of Trump's more controversial nominees, like Alina Habba for the U.S. Attorney's post in the District of New Jersey, with Sens. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) each declining to return a blue slip.

"Anytime you have a Democrat senator, not even two, just one, they’ll say, because of the time we’re in, ‘we’re not approving that person,'" Trump said during the Tuesday lunch with senators.

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“Because of blue slip, I have to tell the person after three months, I’m sorry you’ll have to leave and I’ll put someone else in,” he continued. “This is not constitutional. And I really, I hope you can look at that blue slip thing.”

Tuesday is just the latest example of Trump zeroing in on the "blue slip" tradition. In July, he called out Grassley on his Truth Social platform and slammed the "blue slip" procedure as a "hoax" and a "scam." He complained that despite being in the minority, Democrats had exploited the procedure to impose an "ironclad stoppage" on his nominees coming before the Judiciary Committee.

Click here to read Politico's full report.

===

// sue wsj for biday card

an 10 25

Trump reportedly appears to be demanding the U.S. Department of Justice pay him $230 million in compensation after multiple investigations during his presidential campaign.

"The situation has no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims," The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter, reported.

Noting that President Trump has installed his former personal lawyers at the top of the DOJ, the Times called it "the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts."

Trump, according to the Times, in 2023, submitted a claim that "seeks damages for a number of purported violations of his rights, including the F.B.I. and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter."

READ MORE: Not a ‘Gut-Wrenching’ Problem: Ron Johnson Shrugs Off Millions Losing Subsidies

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Another complaint, filed the following year, "accuses the F.B.I. of violating Mr. Trump’s privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida, in 2022 for classified documents."

Bennett L. Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University, told the Times it was "a travesty."

“The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it,” Gershmann said. "And then to have people in the Justice Department decide whether his claim should be successful or not, and these are the people who serve him deciding whether he wins or loses. It’s bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe.”

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Jeffries Torches Trump’s ‘Out of Control’ Press Secretary

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AN 10 25

Top Trump official pressured DOJ to 'pursue president’s foes' — even as career prosecutors refused

Ailia Zehra

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MMA

Blaming the left for Trump's weaponization of law enforcement means pretending his first term didn't happen

10/14/25

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AN 10 25

A senior prosecutor in Virginia is reportedly preparing to decline a high-stakes directive to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), raising serious questions about political interference at the Justice Department.

MSNBC reported Monday that Elizabeth Yusi, who leads major criminal prosecutions in the Norfolk office of the Eastern District of Virginia, has privately informed colleagues she finds no probable cause to charge James with mortgage fraud.

According to the report, she intends to formalize this view and present her reasoning to the newly installed acting U.S. Attorney for that district, Lindsey Halligan.

Halligan, a former White House aide and private attorney, replaced Erik Siebertafter President Donald Trump publicly called for his removal, an effort sparked by Siebert’s reluctance to bring charges against James and former FBI Director James Comey.

Within the Eastern District, prosecutors anticipate potential reprisals against Yusi for resisting political pressure to pursue the James case. According to the report, her colleagues fear she could be dismissed for insubordination.

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Trump has publicly demanded that the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against James, even though long-serving prosecutors have concluded there is insufficient evidence to show that she lied or intended to lie in her mortgage application for her niece’s home, per the report.

In a post on his Truth Social platform Saturday, Trump called James “SCUM” and demanded she be removed as New York’s attorney general, citing what he characterized as her “WITCH HUNT against President Donald J. Trump, and others.”

Randall Eliason, former chief public corruption prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C., told MSNBC: “This supervisor clearly is doing the right and ethical thing by refusing to bend her legal conclusions to fit the president’s desire for political retribution.“

Eliason added that career prosecutors are being "forced to choose between honoring their oaths and risking their livelihood" and "forced out by the president’s politicization of the Justice Department.’”

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September 26, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): It's Comey's turn. And remember, you know, the Dems love due process, so let's due process the hell out of this guy. He may get away with it, but he's got to go through the process. I love the media saying that, you know, Trump has set a precedent. Have they forgotten Julie Honey, Bannon, Stone, Navarro, Papadopoulos, the Trump supporters, what, a thousand of them? They invented lawfare. So, they can call it revenge. It's not revenge if you have it coming and if it's justice.

Here is the issue. Here is the thing you've got to remember about mutually assured destruction. It doesn't work when you go first and we're still standing. That's what just happened. When you come for us, you've kind of got to finish the job. Because now we're in power, and it's payback, revenge, I don't care what you call it. I don't care what the media calls it.

...

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): They're just mad Trump is doing to them what they did to them. So, I don't care what you call it. I'm with Greg, revenge, retribution, accountability, who cares? It's happening. And I'm enjoying it because these people need to be punished. If someone declares war on you, what are you going to just turn the other cheek? You're right. It is an eye for an eye, and I hope we win.

They're asking like, "Oh, well, this is like the revenge tour?" Well, what would the revenge be for, Jessica? What would the revenge be for? No one really answers that question all right? It's because they arrested him, they arrested his campaign manager, his campaign advisor, his lawyers, his national security advisor. They arrested his trade advisor and put him in shackles. They arrested his CFO. They arrested his valet. And not only that, they spied on him, staged a coup, impeached him twice, tried to bankrupt his company, leaked his tax returns, and then couldn't protect him from a sniper. So, what are you supposed to do? They didn't think this was going to happen?

//

MMA

  1. //### Fox News' Will Cain calls for Des Moines superintendent to be deported

09/26/25 5:02 PM EDT

  1. ### The Comey indictment is so weak even some in right-wing media aren’t buying it

09/26/25 2:40 PM EDT

  1. ### Fox News panel expresses extreme skepticism on Comey charges: “I don't think this case even gets to trial”

09/26/25

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mma

09/22/25

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ALREADY DEBUNKED; SHE PAID 3.5% ABOVE MKT RATE?

AN 9 25

Under the direction of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating New York State Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud.

But Trump's critics argue that the probe is a baseless fishing expedition motivated by a desire for revenge against a political foe.

According to ABC News reporters Peter Charalambous, Katherine Faulders and Alexander Mallin, Trump's allies continue pushing for an indictment of James — but the investigation is turning up nothing substantial.

READ MORE: 'I'm the one asking the questions': CNN host cuts off Ted Cruz after he shouts over her

"After a five-month investigation and interviews with more than a dozen witnesses," the reporters explain in an article published on September 17, "federal prosecutors have so far uncovered no clear evidence that James knowingly made false statements to a financial institution to secure favorable terms on a mortgage for her Virginia home, according to multiple sources briefed on the investigation. Trump himself has pressured the Department of Justice leadership to investigate James more aggressively, and two officials — Ed Martin, the head of the DOJ's Weaponization Working Group, and Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — have pushed the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to seek an indictment of James."

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The reporters add, "When federal prosecutors recently declined to indict James, Pulte encouraged Trump to fire Eric Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and replace him with a prosecutor who would be willing to bring charges against James, sources said. "

READ MORE:'Undisputed idiot king': Former NBC journalist calls Eric Trump 'the epitome of stupidity'

*Read the full ABC News article at this link.

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AN 9 25 CLAIM NO SUPPORT

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was Vice President JD Vance’s guest on Monday’s edition of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” just days after the right-wing political commentator was assassinated. The suspected gunman’s motives and political beliefs remain unclear, but the vice president pinned the blame for Kirk’s murder on “left-wing extremism.”

“While our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies,” Vance declared, “it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far-left.”

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The vice president did not define “lunatics,” but statistics from the Cato Institute show that the vast majority of political violence comes from the far-right.

Guest-hosting for the late organizer and activist, Vice President Vance viewers, “I wanted to zoom out and talk with Stephen [Miller] a little bit, and talk about all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far-left from becoming even more and more mainstream.”

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READ MORE: Homeschooling, Religion and Politics Trump Science in Parents’ Vaccine Resistance

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The vice president—who placed blame at least in part on the left for Kirk’s death—said, “we have to talk about this incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism that has grown up over the last few years, and I believe is part of the reason why Charlie was killed by an assassin’s bullet.”

“We’re gonna talk about how to dismantle that,” he continued, “and how to bring real unity, real unity that can only come when we tell the truth and everybody knows that they can speak their mind about the issues of the day without being cut down by a murderer’s gun.”

Miller, who is considered by many—including some highly respected conservatives—a skilled propagandist, on Friday spoke out against what he called left-wing violent extremism.

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“I’ve not shared with anybody, but the last message that Charlie Kirk gave to me before he joined his Creator in heaven was, he said that we have to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence.”

“That was the last message that he sent me before that assassin stole him from all of us.”

READ MORE: Trump Teases Threat to Defund NYC After Governor’s Endorsement for Mayor

“And we are gonna do that,” Miller vowed. “Under President Trump’s leadership, I don’t care how—it could be a RICO charge, a conspiracy charge, conspiracy against the United States, insurrection—but we are going to do what it takes to dismantle the organizations and the entities that are fomenting riots, that are doxing, that are trying to inspire terrorism, and that are committing acts of wanton violence.”

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“It has to stop,” he declared, “and my message is to all of the domestic terrorists in this country spreading this evil hate? You want us to live in fear? We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile. Because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.”

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AN 9 25
FBI was hunting for documents about Trump in raid on John Bolton's house: report
Ailia Zehra
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an 7 25

u.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered a federal grand jury investigation of the Obama administration's handling of Russian interference in the United States' 2016 presidential election.

CNN reports, "The move follows a referral from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who declassified documents in July that she alleges undermine the Obama administration’s conclusion that Russia tried to help [Donald] Trump defeat Hillary Clinton."

Attorney Harry Litman, in response, described Bondi's probe as badly flawed in an article published by The New Republic on August.

READ MORE: Donald Trump just debunked his own lie — and it should get him sued

Litman wrote, "The supposed purpose of their scheme: to promote a 'false narrative' that Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, engaged in an operation to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election with the intent of helping Trump win. Problem #1: there’s nothing whatsoever false about this narrative. The Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), prepared by career professionals and our intelligence agencies, indeed concluded: 'Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.'"

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Bondi's probe of Obama officials is also drawing a lot of reactions on X, formerly Twitter.

Sen. John Cornyn, who called for a special counsel to investigate the Obama Administration's Russiagate probe, spoke to CNN's Manu Raju and said of Bondi, "I trust her judgement."

But CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor, argued, "Here we are, nine years later. The statute of limitations on most federal crimes is going to be five years. So I'm skeptical. But look, this is going to happen largely behind closed doors, and we’ll see where it goes."

READ MORE: Trump official reminds the world that the US now has a 'national position' on a single word

Former Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, a Never Trump conservative, tweeted, "CNN: Attorney General Bondi orders prosecutors to start grand jury probe into Obama officials over Russia investigation. The unprecedented abuse of the Justice Dept — to stroke one man’s ego — gets taken to a new level."

Attorney Fernando Oliver tweeted, "Pam Bondi orders grand jury probe of Obama administration review of 2016 election — a b—— probe to please Trump."

Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance posted, "Law firms, universities, media companies, and now banks. If people don’t understand what’s happening to our country, it’s because they don't want to."

HuffPost's Yashar Ali tweeted, "A grand jury would be able to issue subpoenas as part of a criminal investigation into renewed allegations that Democratic officials tried to smear Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign by falsely alleging his campaign was colluding with the Russian government. It could also consider an indictment should the Justice Department decide to pursue a criminal case."

READ MORE: 'Desperation': Nicolle Wallace says Trump’s been poked at 'his greatest political weakness'

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7 25 raw

former Jan. 6 attacker was on trial for two felony counts and four misdemeanors when he was pardoned by President Donald Trump upon entering office. Now, that man, Jared L. Wise, is being named an adviser or counselor to Justice Department official Ed Martin.

Wise, who pleaded not guilty to his charges around Jan. 6, will be advising the so-called "weaponization working group," a program under Trump's Justice Department to target prosecutors and investigators who worked on Jan. 6 cases.

Speaking about the matter on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" on Wednesday, former Republican National Committee spokesman Tim Miller called the new hiring part of the "dark hearts" of the MAGA movement.

ALSO READ:'I read summaries': GOP rep admits he's only skimmed bill he's voting on

Stand-in host Alicia Menendez called it "lionization" of the Jan. 6 attackers. "The placing, not just in the public domain, but in an actual position of power, a person who has undermined American democracy."

Miller noted that the "Back the blue element is very selective" when it comes to the conservative support of law enforcement.

"This is an appointed position, but, you know, across the country people that were there on January 6th or participating at various levels, you know, ran in Republican primaries for offices that were supported," he pointed out. A friend, he said, ran a campaign where the Jan. 6 participation "was a plus for them with the electorate, according to all their polling."

"So, I mean, this is kind of the dark heart of what we're seeing in the MAGA movement. So, it's not particularly surprising that some of these folks will have positions in the Trump administration," said Miller.

He also said that Wise isn't the only one, there are others in the Trump administration who are "horribly unqualified, who have been advanced horribly" due to their "extreme views."

Tim Heaphy, former lead investigator for the House Select Committee that investigated Jan. 6, called the matter "discouraging," but said that they'll never find the "weaponization" they seek because it wasn't there.

Instead, he explained, Wise was "charged and prosecuted for conduct, not his beliefs about the election."

Wise worked on the FBI's terrorism task force when he went to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

See the clip below or at the link here.

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AN 7 25

The New York Times Editorial Board says President Donald Trump has derailed countless investigations on his road to turning the F.B.I. into an “enforcement agency for MAGA’s priorities.”

“Over the past five months, many F.B.I. agents, including top managers and national security experts, have been fired, pressured to leave or transferred to lesser roles. Hundreds have resigned on their own, unwilling to follow the demands of the Trump administration,” the Times writes. “Their absence has left a vacuum in divisions that are supposed to protect the public,” obliterating “decades of experience in national security and criminal matters.”

One former Justice Department official told NBC News the decimation of the senior ranks has left it “completely unprepared to respond to a crisis, including the fallout from the current conflict in the Middle East.” Meanwhile, Trump’s department politicization has left it less able to “combat terrorism, foreign espionage, biosecurity threats, organized crime, online scams, white-collar crime, drug trafficking and more” the board claims.

READ MORE: 'Hapless president' deserves 'no courtesy': Trump ripped in scathing NYT op-ed

Trump’s “first priority” with the F.B.I. is loyalty, the Times says, and this explains why the F.B.I. “looked the other way” instead of investigating when senior officials recently disclosed sensitive information in a Signal group chat. Trump installed political hacks Kash Patel and Dan Bongino as director and second-in-command, and they’ve assigned agents to pursue “long-running MAGA grievances,” including conspiracies that China “helped manipulate the results of the 2020 election.”

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“Mr. Trump spent years baselessly accusing the F.B.I. and the Justice Department of being weaponized against him; now he is turning federal law enforcement into the very thing he claimed it was: a political enforcer,” the Times warns.

Along with conspiracy theories, the board says the administration is pulling agents away from areas that present true risks to the country and making them search for undocumented immigrants “who have no criminal record.”

Because of what it does, the Times says the F.B.I. has “a particular need to demonstrate that it deserves the nation’s confidence. And that agents “need to know that their managers and civilian leaders have their backs and don’t consider them to be jackals.”

READ MORE:'It's all fake': Trump aide says the quiet part out loud about this 'theatrical' policy

“The public — on which the bureau relies for tips and cooperation — has to trust that agents operate without political bias,” the Times adds. “By abusing that trust, Mr. Trump, Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino have put the reputation and effectiveness of the F.B.I. at risk. In doing so, they are risking the safety of the American public.”

Read the full New York Times report at this link.

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Wisconsin governor says he's not afraid after Trump official ...}:

_AP News_

https://apnews.com › article › wisconsin-evers-arrest-ho...](https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-evers-arrest-homan-trump-ice-fd0078ee94a84e184198f8b9fed67343)

May 2, 2025 — Tony Evers said Friday that every American should be concerned about “chilling” suggestions from President Donald Trump's top border adviser ...

Guidance Evers' administrationScott BauerDeSantis signs law creating...

[### Evers pushes back after Trump's border czar suggests ...

WPR

https://www.wpr.org › news › evers-trump-border-czar-s...](https://www.wpr.org/news/evers-trump-border-czar-state-arrested-impeding-ice)

May 2, 2025 — Tony Evers is pushing back after Trump's border czar suggested state officials like Evers could face felony charges* if they're found to have ...

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SEE YT CICC A GESTURE TO HIT CAN BE assault; any touch not consented?!

AN 5 25

House Democratic Leadership has strongly condemned interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba's decision to charge Rep. LaMonica Mclver (D-N.J.), calling it "an attack on the American people."

The Justice Department announced on Monday that it has filed charges against McIver, accusing her of assaulting law enforcement officers earlier this month at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Newark.

In a statement released Monday, House Democrats said the party "will respond vigorously in the days to come at a time, place and manner of our choosing."

READ MORE:'Not one peep from Trump': Tornado-ravaged city’s mayor pleads for federal assistance

"The criminal charge against Congresswoman LaMonica McIver is extreme, morally bankrupt and lacks any basis in law or fact," said the statement, shared by House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on the social platform X.

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"Members of Congress have a constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight of the executive branch wherever and whenever it is needed. We are lawfully permitted to show up at any federal facility unannounced to conduct an inspection on behalf of the American people," the Democratic lawmakers said.

"By visiting the detention center in Newark, Rep. McIver and two other Members of Congress were upholding their oath of office. They didn’t assault anyone, but were themselves aggressively mistreated by illegally masked individuals," the statement added.

"There is no credible evidence that Rep. McIver engaged in any criminal activity, and she would not have been permitted to tour the facility had she done anything wrong," the Democratic leadership said.

READ MORE:This Trump-made disaster will be more deadly than any hurricane

The statement further said that the proceeding launched "by the so-called U.S. Attorney in New Jersey is a blatant attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate Congress and interfere with our ability to serve as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch."

House Democrats vowed not to "be intimidated by the Trump administration."

Several Democratic lawmakers posted separate statements condemning Habba's move.

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M) said in an X post: "Rep. LaMonica McIver walked into Delaney Hall to protect human rights and it is her lawful duty to conduct oversight. Now, the Trump Administration is throwing bogus charges at her for doing her job."

READ MORE:'Truly chilling': House Dem rips MAGA prosecutor after she indicts sitting congresswoman

"They want to silence everyone. If they came for a sitting member of Congress, who will they come for next? I stand with @RepLaMonica—and for the Constitution. It is our sacred obligation as Americans to protect each other from tyranny," she added.

Rep Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) wrote: "A RED LINE has been crossed. Trump is prosecuting his political enemies in Congress. This is just the beginning. We must take whatever we’ve done before to show dissent and go ONE RUNG HIGHER. And save your bulls--- documents on this, Alina. You’ll need them when you testify."

Political commentators and attorneys also spoke out against the development.

Immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnicksaid in a post: "Donald Trump’s personal lawyer is acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, despite no relevant background. She just charged a Democratic congresswoman with assaulting a cop in an incident which occurred after DHS chose to arrest Newark’s mayor for trespassing."

READ MORE: White House scrambles to clean up Trump’s Walmart 'rage tweeting' amid upcoming 'standoff'

Meanwhile, supporters of Make American Great Again (MAGA) movement welcomed Habba's action.

MAGA conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer wrote on X: "Democrat Congresswoman @RepLaMonica has been charged for assaulting an ICE agent in New Jersey! Thank you, @AlinaHabba. You may want to keep an eye on homeboy Hakeem who said you will 'find out' if his Sista faced 'trumped up charges'. Sounds like a threat."

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mma

DOJ’s “weaponization” plan B is to provide frothy content for right-wing conspiracy theorists

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 05/14/25

The Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group” is the fruit of a yearslong right-wing effort to portray federal law enforcement against Donald Trump and his allies as criminal in nature. But if that task force fails to bring charges against Trump’s purported enemies, its head, the right-wing activist Ed Martin, is promising to publicly “name” and “shame” those individuals — a clear violation of longstanding DOJ policy which would provide chum for MAGA media while turning its targets into hate objects.

“There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people. And if they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them,” said Martin, who recently stepped down as acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia when it became clear he could not secure Senate confirmation. “And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed. And that’s a fact. That’s the way things work. And so that’s, that’s how I believe the job operates.”

Martin may not actually realize this — he’s a political hack who represented January 6 defendants rather than an experienced prosecutor — but that is not how the job is supposed to operate. Indeed, as NBC News’ Ryan J. Reilly notes: “During Trump's first tenure, the justification given for Trump's firing of former FBI Director James Comey was that Comey had given a press conference in which he released ‘derogatory information’ about then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.”

Martin’s proposal to “name” and “shame” rather than prosecute Trump’s foes seems on the one hand like a significant retreat — a sign that he doesn’t think that the purported crimes he and his colleagues happily detailed in their books, podcasts, and Fox shows can pass muster with a federal judge.

As Trump sought to brand the federal law enforcement officials who investigated him and successfully prosecuted several of his top advisers as the real criminals, a right-wing media ecosystem emerged to support his claims and try to flesh them out. Many of the key players in that ecosystem have since been appointed to the top ranks of the FBI and DOJ, no doubt at least in part because of their willingness to suggest that a reckoning was coming.

For example:

  • Martin hosted a podcast and radio show in which he “amplified Trump’s claims … that prosecutors may have violated federal criminal conspiracy laws” and led discussions which “revolved around Trump’s desire for ‘retribution’ against current or former department prosecutors,” The Washington Post reported.
  • Fox host Jeanine Pirro, Martin’s replacement as interim U.S. attorney for D.C., called for a “cleansing” of the FBI and the Justice Department, which she said were full “of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in handcuffs.”
  • Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, is a former Fox host and podcaster who called for an investigation into “special tyrant” Jack Smith and described special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe as “an obvious frame job and set-up” by the corrupt deep state.
  • FBI Director Kash Patel said in a 2023 interview that a second Trump term would target “the conspirators, not just in government but in the media” who had “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” The appendix of his 2023 book “names more than 50 current or former US officials that he claims are ‘members of the Executive Branch deep state,’ which he describes as a ‘dangerous threat to democracy,’” CNN reported.
  • Pam Bondi, now the attorney general, said in an April 2023 Fox appearance following Trump’s fourth indictment: “The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated.”

Martin wouldn’t be the first federal prosecutor to discover that right-wing claims of crimes committed by Trump’s foes collapse under scrutiny. Trump’s media allies — Pirro in particular — said Hillary Clinton’s role role as secretary of state in the sale of a uranium company featured massive criminality and demanded an investigation. The Trump appointee who conducted that investigation apparently found there was nothing to it, closing the probe without charges.

But what Martin appears to be planning now is unsettling. His “name” and “shame” strategy amounts to a public declaration from the federal government that the targets of an otherwise unsuccessful investigation are nonetheless Bad People.

It is easy to predict the path that strategy might take based on what we’ve seen from this administration thus far. MAGA influencers could be called in to DOJ headquarters to receive exclusive access to reports that smear the president’s supposed foes. Pirro might give what amounts to a demagogic Fox monologue from behind a Justice Department lectern. Top federal law enforcement officials would fan out across right-wing outlets to smear the target of the failed probe. Trump himself would likely chime in from his social media accounts and in White House appearances. Perhaps a new executive order would be crafted seeking to damage the employer of an individual the government was unable to successfully charge with a crime. And the president’s media allies at Fox and elsewhere would devote themselves to regurgitating all of it to their audiences.

We’ve seen what can happen to those who come under sustained fire from Trump and his MAGA media allies — they become subject to harassment campaigns and death threats. Now those attacks will come with the imprimatur of the Justice Department.

//

  1. ### The Trumpist media is demanding politicized justice

06/14/23 1:24 PM EDT

  1. ### After Trump’s indictment, the “lock her up” brigade feigns horror over “political prosecution”

06/09/23 12:26 PM EDT

  1. ### Jeanine Pirro’s Fox producer thought she was “nuts.” Trump just named her DC’s top prosecutor.

05/08/25

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:{KASH INVIS AFTER GOT GIG?

decorate office but never there, lives in las vegas? BONGINO keeps twting IOU bc got no crimes and base demands scalps 4 25}:

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OMFG

On Friday, April 25, far-right FBI Director Kash Patel announced that Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan has been arrested on federal obstruction charges for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant "evade arrest."

On X, formerly Twitter, Patel posted, "We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest…. Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public."

A law enforcement official told ABC News that Dugan was arrested at the courthouse.

READ MORE:'Afraid' Trump 'will lose': Lawyers blast firms capitulating to Trump in scathing letter

According to MSNBC, Patel's tweet on Dugan was removed from X.

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During an MSNBC appearance, attorney Temidayo Aganga-Williams told host José Díaz-Balart that the arrest of a judge was "unusual" but added, "I think it's going to be a pattern going forward…. I think it's only going to pick up."

Dugan's arrest is receiving plenty of reactions on X, formerly Twitter.

Some MAGA Republicans are applauding the arrest.

READ MORE:How to prepare for the uprising

John Fabbricatore, a former field officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), tweeted, "Judge Hannah Dugan arrested by FBI for allegedly helping illegal alien 'evade arrest' by ICE. 'Lawfare' by these judges has to stop. This is a good start!"

Far-right MAGA radio host Benny Johnson posted, "Another rogue judge down. FAFO."

But others see Dugan's arrest as MAGA ramping up its authoritarian disdain for the rule of law.

Journalist Kristian Ramos tweeted, "I see we are now at 'arresting judges' on our path to autocracy.

"On Democracy" host Fred Wellman noted, "Marshalls appear to be confirming she was arrested and other news outlets are picking it up now."

X user Iron Goodman wrote, "This is a chilling escalation of federal overreach and raises serious questions about the scope of executive power versus judicial independence."

Another X user, Laura Okazaki, posted, "We must not look away while the feds take us another step into authoritarianism."

X user Hannah Martinez tweeted, "This is a deeply unsettling development with huge implications for the rule of law and potential abuses of power. The optics are disastrous."

READ MORE: 'Obama 2028' trends after official Trump store starts selling $50 'Trump 2028' hat

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note // lawfare

beast 4 25

A top Trump administration official said those demanding due process for a wrongly deported Maryland dad might themselves be accused of “aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists.”

Appearing onRob Schmitt Tonight on Newsmax, Donald Trump’s senior director for counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, suggested critics of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s incarceration in a Salvadoran megaprison might even be committing a federal crime.

He said: “It’s not left and right, It’s not even Republican or Democrat. There’s one line that divides us: Do you love America or do you hate America? It’s really quite that simple.”

Bondi Says Deported Dad’s Family Better Off Without HimPLEADING FOR HIS RETURN

Janna Brancolini

Gorka, born in the U.K. to Hungarian parents, suggested in the Tuesday interview that Democrats who argue that Abrego Garcia should be returned to the U.S.—per the Supreme Court’s orders—don’t “love America.”

The former Newsmax host added that those who dissent against the Trump administration’s actions are “on the side of the cartel members, on the side of the illegal aliens on the side of the terrorists.”

He went even further, saying: “And you have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them? Because aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute.”

Bolton Slams Trump’s Latest Cabinet Pick as a ‘Con Man’NO CONFIDENCE

Will Neal

Gorka failed to mention that Abrego Garcia’s alleged links to the MS-13 gang—used to justify his deportation—have been disputed and are based upon an allegation made in a field interview report from 2019, and a confidential informant supposedly telling police he was a member of the organization.

Gorka said critics of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation and apparent incarceration in an infamous supermax prison are “aiding and abetting” terrorism.Newsmax.

The cop who penned the field report was suspended in wild circumstances soon after he interviewed Abrego Garcia, yet his allegation is among the scant evidence the government has produced to support its MS-13 claim.

The informant reportedly claimed the father was part of the “Westerns” clique of MS-13. This is despite the fact that group operated out of Long Island and Abrego Garcia had never lived anywhere other than Maryland while in the U.S.

Additionally, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers were unable to interview the cop who supposedly spoke to the informant because of his suspension.

The government has also tried to justify the deportation of Salvadorian migrants based on their tattoos, using a point-scoring system to determine whether their ink relates to gang affiliation.

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When he was arrested in 2019, ICE officers also reportedly pointed towards his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie as potential gang involvement indicators.[dollar over ears?]

The El Salvador native had fled his home country in 2011 at age 16 after gang members threatened to kill him. He was arrested while undocumented, found hanging around outside a hardware store looking for day labor work.

He was handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement without being charged with any crimes.

At his deportation hearing in 2019, ICE stated that he was a danger to the community because he had been detained “in connection with a murder investigation,” and local police had “verified” he was a gang member.

The Trump administration has ignored judges’ orders to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was deported to El Salvador on March 15, to the United States.Abrego Garcia Family/Handout via Reuters

Abrego Garcia applied for asylum and was granted a “withholding of removal” order, a legal form of protection that says the government won’t deport someone to their home country if the person is “more likely than not” to face persecution there.

Since he was picked up by ICE again in March this year, the Department of Justice has not presented any evidence in court showing gang affiliations.

Government lawyers have even “abandon[ed]” their earlier position that Abrego Garcia was “a danger to the community,” a federal appeals court found.

But despite, this, top government officials continue to brand him as a danger and a “terrorist.”

His attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told NBC News that these claims “endanger his life.”

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A60 Minutes investigation discovered that at least three-quarters of the 250 men shipped to the infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) had no criminal records at all. The facility is notorious for human rights abuses.

The Trump administration has admitted it deported Abrego Garcia after an “administrative error,” but still refuses to bring him home.

In fact, it has doubled down. In a Wednesday X post, the Department of Homeland Security again branded him an “MS-13 gang member,” and revealed a protective order his wife took out against him in 2021.

Sharing the documents, DHS officials echoed comments from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who said on Tuesday that he was “not the father of the year.”

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“Kilmar Abrego Garcia had a history of violence and was not the upstanding ‘Maryland Man’ the media has portrayed him as,” the post said.

“According to court filings, Garcia’s wife sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt, among other harm. This MS-13 gang member is not a sympathetic figure.”

Abrego Garcia’s wife—Jennifer Vasquez Sura—addressed the restraining order in a statement to Newsweek.

“After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a civil protective order in case things escalated,” she said. “Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process.”

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AN 4 25

Legal journalist Chris Geidner reports U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan agreed to temporarily block a Trump administration directive, while describing the directive as against the ideals of the nation’s founding fathers.

"Frankly, I think the framers of our Constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power," AliKhan said, according to Geidner. "While I wish other firms were not capitulating ... I admire Susman [and others challenging Trump's acts]."

Law firm Susman Godfrey launched a suit against the administration after Trump retaliated against it for its role in litigating for plaintiff Dominion Voting Systems in a defamation case against Fox News. That case, challenging false claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election from Trump, ultimately ended in victory. Fox News settled for nearly $1 billion.

READ MORE: 'Rein in this dictator': Red state constituents confront GOP senator at tense town hall

The White House accuses several firms of "weaponizing" the legal system, claiming they have a connection to Trump’s legal and political adversaries, and they work on voting rights and other cases Trump personally opposes. The administration also seeks to punish firms over employment policies that encourage diversity.

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Since taking office, Trump has been issuing executive orders and memos punishing major law firms by suspending security clearances, canceling government contracts, and barring employees from federal buildings, among other retaliatory tactics.

Nine firms, including Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps and Simpson Thacher have already cut deals with the White House to avoid threats to their right to conduct business. Many have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in free legal work to Trump’s personal political and legal causes.

Judge AliKhan became the 4th judge to grant a temporary restraining order against the president’s retaliatory executive orders, finding the EO against Susman “retaliatory and discriminates based on viewpoint,” which is a First Amendment violation.

READ MORE:Legal expert details 'nightmare' that lies ahead if Trump uses 'military against Americans'

"Nothing in the order shows a compelling interest," Geidner reported the judge saying. She also found the order likely violates the Fifth Amendment right to due process.

See Geidner’s post at this link.

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AN 4 25

The Trump lawyer who is now New Jersey’s acting U.S. attorney ratcheted up the buffoonery this week with her claim that she will investigate our governor and attorney general.

Alina Habba appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Thursday to say she’s opening an investigation into Gov. Phil Murphy and Attorney General Matt Platkin over the Immigrant Trust Directive, a state order that bars state and local police officers from becoming de facto immigration agents.

“We are to take all criminal, violent criminals and criminals, out of this country and completely enforce federal law, and anybody who does get in that way, in the way of what we are doing, which is not political, it is simply against crime, will be charged in the state of New Jersey for obstruction, for concealment, and I will come after them hard. Those investigations will start immediately,” Habba told Hannity.

A normal prosecutor would probably keep this under wraps so her targets wouldn’t know from minute one that they’re being investigated. But for all we know, there is no actual investigation. Habba, clearly reveling in the attention this high-profile appointment has granted her, wanted to say something that would make headlines, so she did. I wouldn’t be surprised if her on-air threat is as far as this alleged investigation goes.

That Habba is targeting Murphy and Platkin for the Immigrant Trust Directive is not a surprise. Anti-immigration hard-liners like Habba have twisted efforts like the directive to claim that it does something it does not. It does not bar police from working with immigrant agents to arrest suspected criminals. What it does is prevent local cops from seeing a brown person on the street and asking for their papers. But the facts about the directive are not important for Habba; what’s important is she can use it to promise retribution for her — and President Trump’s — political foes.

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Multiple judges have rejected legal challenges to the Immigrant Trust Directive, including one judge appointed by President Trump himself.

Murphy was asked about Habba’s claim on a podcast recorded Friday. His response was fairly muted considering Habba basically threatened to arrest him, but at least he defended his administration’s efforts to protect the countless immigrants living in New Jersey who have done nothing wrong.

“We go after criminals hard, period, full stop, regardless of their immigration status. What we don’t do is we don’t go after somebody for jaywalking or where there’s no probable cause of a crime. And we’re very clear about that,” Murphy said.

Platkin, speaking at an unrelated press conference in Newark, was a bit more knives-out when asked about Habba.

“I hope she starts doing her job,” Platkin said.

Seems unlikely. The U.S. attorney gig is a plum appointment, but it’s probably a bit of a slog overseeing nearly 200 attorneys and handling some complicated cases. That’s probably why we didn’t see a lot of Habba’s predecessors, Craig Carpenito and Philip Sellinger, yet Habba is out here cosplaying as a cop for the New York Post and targeting Democrats on Fox News. That sounds a lot more fun than doing work.

Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, told me Habba’s threat against Murphy and Platkin is in line with the Trump administration’s focus on TV ratings and viral social media posts rather than governing. It’s also part of a broader attempt by the administration to make sure their opponents know they could end up in jail or, if possible, deported.

“They’ll go after political opponents, whether those are individuals, whether those are student protestors, whether those are institutions like law firms and universities, or whether those are state governments,” Torres said

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MMA PIX BIDEN HIDDEN AGENDA

Newsmax host: “People don't like the word revenge. Why not? It's time for that if it's warranted.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 04/11/25

Video

From the April 10, 2025, edition of Newsmax's Finnerty

ROB FINNERTY (HOST): He meant every word of that. For years, we would ask, why would anyone let 15 million criminals into the country illegally? They're here illegally. That makes them criminals. Why would any leader want to do that? Why would anyone want to fundamentally change the racial and ethnic makeup of the greatest country on Earth, America? And now the answer is crystal clear — this was their plan all along. Democrats know that the only way their broken party can win elections in the future is to import voters. So that's exactly what they did. While telling the public that the border was closed — the border was closed, and they said that over and over again for four years. And the other option is simple — Joe Biden has got dementia. He was never in control or in charge. And as a result of that, bad actors were likely running the White House. The answer now is probably a combination of the two.

But America needs answers, and Republicans have to investigate and possibly prosecute whoever perpetrated the greatest single crime in American history, and that's what this is. Fifteen million illegal aliens in this country in a four-year period. These people should not be here. And it's time for Republicans to start doing exactly what Democrats did to them. People don't like the word revenge. Why not? It's time for that if it's warranted. When Donald Trump left office after his first term, Democrats prosecuted everyone. Steve Bannon went to jail, Peter Navarro went to jail, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos. Anyone who did anything related to Donald Trump got indicted because Democrats play dirty and they are much better at it than Republicans.

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an 3 25

One of the most famous lines of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign was "I am your retribution." That line wasn't aimed at swing voters — some of whom were drawn to Trump's economic messaging and were frustrated over inflation — but at hardcore MAGA base voters who had voted for him in 2016 and 2020.

Hardcore MAGA Republicans applauded Trump's message of revenge against political enemies — a theme he continued to embrace after returning to the White House on January 20.

In an article published on March 21, Axios' Zachary Basu details the ways in which Trump — now two months into his second presidency — is trying to get back at those he considers political enemies.

READ MORE: Trump official urging Fox viewers to buy Tesla stock decried as 'abuse of power'

"In the final days of the 2024 campaign," Basu explains, "Axios identified a list of perceived adversaries who fit what Trump ominously described as 'the enemies from within.' As president, he has taken steps to retaliate against virtually all of them…. Trump has revoked security clearances from former President (Joe) Biden, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco."

Basu continues, "The FBI is investigating the Biden Administration's handling of an EPA grant program, after a senior (Department of Justice) official resigned rather than pursue a criminal inquiry that she believed was baseless.… On Monday, (March 17), Trump announced he was terminating Secret Service protection for Biden's son and daughter, Hunter and Ashley, 'effective immediately.'"

The Axios reporter notes that some of Trump's targets are Republicans who served in his first administration. For example, Trump removed U.S. Secret Service protection for former National Security Director John Bolton and ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who is also a former CIA director) despite threats against them from Iran.

"Trump despises his former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, (Gen. Mark Milley), who called the president 'fascist to the core' in 2023," Basu observes. "Trump yanked both his security clearance and personal security detail…. Trump claimed, this week, that Biden's preemptive pardons of (former Rep. Liz) Cheney and other members of the January 6 Committee are 'void' because of Biden's alleged use of an autopen."

READ MORE:'Red flag': Alarm as judges face threats of violence after ruling against Trump

Trump, Basu adds, also "stripped security clearances from New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in retaliation for their investigations into his business practices" and "fired and demoted federal prosecutors and FBI officials involved in the investigation of the January 6 riot, while pardoning thousands of his supporters who were convicted for breaking into the Capitol."

"Trump's plans to accelerate his grudge tour were laid bare in an extraordinary speech last week at the Justice Department, in which he falsely referred to himself as 'the chief law enforcement officer in the country," Basu writes. "That's actually his attorney general, Pam Bondi. Addressing an agency that has long prided itself on its independence, Trump attacked his political enemies as "scum" and called for them to be jailed."

READ MORE:'Clear and present danger': Experts alarmed at 'insanity' of Musk getting secret war plans

*Read the full Axios article at this link.

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NO LNX

‘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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an 2 25

Trump is known for being highly litigious, often filing civil lawsuits that his critics regard as frivolous. Trump typically targets political or media figures in the United States, but Politico's Kyle Cheney reports that Trump's media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, is suing a Brazilian judge "who is involved in the potential prosecution of" former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

The far-right Bolsonaro, who was voted out of office, is among Trump's top non-U.S. allies and is — like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Russian President Vladimir Putin — popular in the MAGA movement.

The case is Rumble Inc. and Trump Media & Technology Group v. Alexandre De Moraes, filed in Florida. Justice De Moreas is part of the Brazilian government, and Trump is drawing plenty of mockery on Bluesky for suing a Brazilian official in a U.S. court.

READ MORE:Mike Johnson's big budget bill likely dead on arrival as 'key holdouts' threaten to sink it

Bluesky user Jorge C. Santos posted, "How can you sue a foreign judge in US courts? US Courts can’t compel him to do anything? What's their standing? What is this?"

Attorney Justine Andronici argued, "This seems odd. Wondering what they are worried might come out? Never thought I'd be rooting for other countries justice systems to save us."

Similarly, Bluesky user Russ Novack wrote, "Ok, so where's the federal question here? And why is this being brought in Tampa? (I know the answer to that one) How can a US court enjoin a foreign court from acting? How is an EO binding on the judicial system of a foreign country?"

Video editor Deirdre Bell posted, "Now Trump is conducting foreign policy through his personal businesses? This is off the charts bonkers. He's supporting his coup buddy & pressuring a foreign judge. Can he sue a judge? The principle of judicial immunity is the foundation of judicial independence. Right? Are we in bizarro world???"

READ MORE:How Ron DeSantis is gaslighting Black Floridians

Writer Linda James commented, "Trump thinks his EO's extend to foreign judges? And that his business has the ability to enforce it through a lawsuit? Which U.S. prosecutor will take that on?

Self-described "reformed Republican" Gail Lane wrote, "Seriously, I know lots of words but they are all beginning to either be overused or lack the necessary importance to express my disgust.

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an 2 25

concerns are growing after President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, announced he has requested that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate whether U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) violated federal law by hosting a webinar informing undocumented immigrants of their civil rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Calling Homan’s remarks “extremely disturbing,” civil rights attorney and longtime public defender Scott Hechinger wrote: “There is nothing more unconstitutional than threatening to punish someone for sharing information about the Constitution.”

And in a video, he added that what Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is doing is “nothing more than sharing rights, knowledge of rights, knowledge of the Constitution with her immigrant constituents.”

“There is nothing more constitutional than sharing education about the Constitution,” he said. And he declared that the “bottom line is that this is a tactic of fear. This is a tactic of terror.”

READ MORE: Federal Judge ‘Skeptical’ of DOGE: Report

“They’re not only coming for our immigrant neighbors, they’re coming for all of us, and they’re coming for all of us for simply sharing what the Constitution says, because knowledge they know is power, and they want to maintain full and unadulterated power over all of us.”

“What they’re doing by even suggesting that AOC’s conduct or any of our conduct related to sharing rights is illegal in some way, is illegal. It’s unconstitutional. It’s suppression of speech, it’s suppression of truth, and it’s not okay.”

Homan told Fox News on Monday, “I’ve asked DOJ, where where’s that line of impedment?” he said repeatedly, appearing to mean “impediment.”

“Now if someone stands in your way, prevents you from arresting somebody, put your hands on him, that’s impedment.”

“So I’ve simply Department of Justice, give us that line,” he said, claiming he finds it “disturbing” that “any member of Congress wants to educate people how they evade law enforcement.”

“What she in fact is doing is telling people, ‘don’t open your door,’ ‘hide in your home’, ‘don’t talk to ICE,'” Homan said. “We’re talking about people who are in the country illegally, committed a crime, they’re a public safety threat, they’ve been convicted of serious crime, and they’ve been ordered removed by federal judge. So it’s like AOC and others don’t want ICE to enforce the laws that they enacted.”

But ICE is not only arresting undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of serious crime, they are also, according to reports, arresting Americans.

“American citizens, including citizens of Native tribal nations, have been pulled intothe vastimmigrationoperations ordered by President Donald Trumpin accordance with his campaign vow to conduct mass deportations since Day 1,” NBC News reported late last month. “Those who are getting caught in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raids are being targeted because of their race or skin color, according to witnesses.”

Homan’s repeated presence on Fox News may also indicate that his public relations efforts are taking precedence, since ICE has not been able to find enough undocumented immigrants to arrest to meet their alleged quotas.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is struggling to arrest higher numbers of immigrants and falling far short of the administration’s goals,” The Washington Post reported over the weekend. “ICE arrests have sagged so far this month, according to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security, declining from about 800 per day in late January after Trump took office to fewer than 600 during the first 13 days of February. The administration has stopped publishing daily numbers, and Trump officials said they will release the data on a monthly basis to conserve resources.”

READ MORE: ‘Stupid Beyond Belief’: Musk and Trump Blasted as DOGE Fires ‘Hundreds’ of FAA Employees

Last week, Homan made essentially the same remarks, also on Fox News. He added, “I’m working with the Department of Justice and finding out. Where is that line that they cross? So maybe AOC is going to be in trouble now.”

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez quickly mocked him.

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In a statement to Fox News AOC also said, “I am glad Mr. Homan is checking with the Department of Justice to familiarize himself with the limits of his agency’s authority in entering the homes of everyday Americans without a warrant. And I am proud to offer civil education to everyday Americans to ensure ICE’s compliance with the law, given the numerous reports of agents providing incorrect paperwork in their attempts to enter and search private homes.”

“Since Mr. Homan seems to be vaguely familiar with U.S. immigration law, we also remind him that according to Congressional statute, becoming undocumented in the United States is a civil offense and not a criminal one. I look forward to continuing our work in ensuring the safety of everyday New Yorkers while keeping families together.”[twts]

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an 2 25

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday dared Trump immigration czar Tom Homan to pursue an investigation against her after he attacked the New York Democrat in two television appearances and said he has asked the Justice Department to "look into" whether she violated the law by holding a webinar informing constituents of their rights.

"This is why you fight these cowards. The moment you stand up to them, they crumble," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on social media after Homan, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), called her "the dumbest congresswoman ever elected to Congress" in an interview on the far-right network Newsmax.

The resort to a personal attack, said the New York Democrat, shows that "Homan has nothing."

"The Fourth Amendment is clear and I am well within my duties to educate people of their rights," she added. "He can threaten me with jail and call names all he wants. He's got nothing else."

Less than an hour later, Ocasio-Cortez wrote "go ahead" in response to a separate interview in which Homan told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he has asked the deputy attorney general to examine whether the New York congresswoman's webinar amounted to teaching people "how to evade ICE arrest."

"Let the people see you for what you are," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in response.

Homan, whom President Donald Trump has tasked with spearheading the new administration's mass deportation efforts, has repeatedly attacked Ocasio-Cortez in recent days as the White House zeroes in on New York City with the help of disgraced Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, the beneficiary of an out-in-the-open quid pro quo arrangement that is now at the center of a legal and political controversy.

On her congressional website, Ocasio-Cortez—who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens—has a page devoted to informing her constituents of their legal rights when faced with ICE agents.

"ICE does not have the right to enter your home without a valid warrant signed by a judge," reads a flyer produced by Ocasio-Cortez's office, a message that was echoed during last week's webinar.

Days after the webinar, Homan said in a Fox News appearance that he "sent an email" to the deputy attorney general asking whether Ocasio-Cortez is illegally "impeding our law enforcement efforts."

"Maybe he can learn to read," the New York Democrat wrote in response. "The Constitution would be a good place to start."

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4 of trump personal liars in DOJ? blanche they mostly lost in ct?

emil bove fail

an 2 25

7 usag resign fedsoc scalia clerk; HE THREATENED THEM?!

'Brazen criminality': Allegations of 'quid pro quo' fly after border czar’s admission

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guess it’s Hyde

an 2 25

CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig criticized one of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s first acts in office — ordering a review of criminal cases brought against President Donald Trump. Mediaite reported Wednesday that Honig said the move was not a good sign for the independence of the Justice Department.

Bondi, formerly the Florida state attorney general, created a “weaponization working group” that will look at the Biden DOJ’s investigations into Trump. These investigations looked at Trump's role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the charge that he took classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago when he left office.

The role of the Attorney General is to be independent and impartial. When Bondi was sworn in Wednesday, Trump said, “I know I’m supposed to say she’s gonna be totally impartial with respect to Democrats, and I think she will be as impartial as a person can be. I’m not sure if there’s a possibility of totally, but she’s gonna be as total as you can get.”

READ MORE:New alarm raised over Trump AG pick Pam Bondi

“The thing that jumped out to me today,” Honig said, “is essentially Pam Bondi’s first act in office is to order an investigation of January 6th and the classified documents prosecution of Donald Trump.”

“That is an outrageous thing to do on your first day. If you’re trying to restore DOJ’s equilibrium and establish, ‘this as a nonpolitical place,’ that is an overtly political quest.”

“And by the way, let me spoil the secret and tell you how it’s gonna come out. Someday, six, eight, 10 months from now, we’re gonna get a report and they’re gonna say, ‘Those prosecutions of Donald Trump were wildly corrupt and political and improper.’ It won’t come out any other way," Honig said.

He added, “They should leave well alone. And I do not think it’s good for morale or for the independence of DOJ for Pam Bondi to come in on day one and order that.”

READ MORE: 'I just familiarized you': Senator exposes Pam Bondi in tense exchange

This was just one of 14 directives from Bondi aimed at repealing Biden’s Justice Department policies.

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02/03/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Now it appears that [Ed] Martin is positioning himself to “investigate the investigators,” as Trump and his minions have promised, perhaps looking for words in charging documents that he can twist into a false narrative of prosecutorial malfeasance on the part of the government lawyers who charged the insurrectionists.

Engineers between 19 and 24, most linked to Musk’s companies, are playing a key role as he seizes control of federal infrastructure.

The ADL has condemned appointing Darren Beattie, who invoked the antisemitic trope that George Soros orchestrated efforts to oust President Trump

At his confirmation hearing, Kash Patel — President Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI — was grilled over his association with Holocaust denier and Nazi sympathizer Stew Peters. On a Friday livestream, Peters denied being a white supremacist, shortly before introducing former Klan leader David Duke as a “living legend.”

We might need to update that famous saying by German Lutheran theologian Martin Niemöller. First they came for the Episcopalians … then they came for the Catholics … then they came for the Lutherans.

This week, the Idaho House of Representatives passed a “joint memorial” (i.e. resolution) of the Legislature calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision that in 2015 established a constitutional right to marry for same-sex couples and insisting that “the issue of marriage and enforcement of all laws pertaining to marriage” be returned to the states. The state Senate is expected to take up the memorial shortly.

"Isn't she Jewish?" an unapologetic state Rep. Nico Rios asked when reached by phone. "Why is it wrong that I state a fact?"

AN 1 25

As Gov. Bill Lee’s immigration enforcement plan moves swiftly through the Tennessee Legislature, one component of the bill — aimed at arresting local officials who support sanctuary policies for immigrants — drew scrutiny Tuesday.

Included in the governor’s wide-ranging proposal to coordinate with the Trump Administration on mass immigrant detentions and deportations is a provision that creates a Class E felony for public officials who vote to adopt or enact sanctuary policies. Sanctuary policies can shield undocumented immigrants and limit cooperation with enforcement action

The felony charge, punishable by up to six years in prison and a $3,000 fine, would apply to any public official who votes in favor of a sanctuary law, policy or on non-binding resolutions.

Sen. Todd Gardenhire, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, blasted the provision Tuesday as a “dangerous precedent.”

“We are a Republic, and a Republic is one that we elect people to vote the way they feel like is best for the district, the city, county or the state,” he said.

“If we set the precedent of penalizing any elected official for voting their conscience, whether it’s good or bad, then we set a dangerous precedent for the future,” he said.

Under Trump, immigration arrests at school could be a step too far for some Tennessee conservatives

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Democrats characterized the provision as a “slippery slope” that could be invoked in future legislation to criminalize votes on any controversial issue.

“It is alarming we are sitting here talking about felonizing elected officials taking votes on behalf of their constituency,” Sen. Heidi Campbell, a Nashville Democrat, said. “Boy, this is a slippery slope and be careful what you wish for if you vote for this.”

Gardenhire was in the minority among Republicans who dominate the Senate Judiciary Committee. They quickly shot down Gardenhire’s efforts to amend the bill to remove criminal penalties before voting to advance it in the legislature.

Sanctuary policies are already prohibited by a 2019 Tennessee law that sought to prevent local governments from adopting sanctuary city status —as some other Democrat-led cities across the country have done.

The 2019 Tennessee law gives citizens the right to file civil suits challenging any jurisdiction’s adoption of sanctuary policies and the state the power to withhold funding over violations.

“When the state banned sanctuary cities, its remedies were to deny cities grants and to seek a court order,” said Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.

“Here the state is trying to control the actions of duly-elected officials through the police power,” he said. “That’s a dramatic escalation.”

One national government accountability expert said he knew of no other state law that threatened to prosecute public officials for how they cast a vote.

I don’t know of any other laws, state or federal, that penalize elected officials on the basis of how they vote. This seems to defeat the whole purpose of democratic-republican (representative) government.

– John Vile, Middle Tennessee State University

“It’s an unprecedented power grab and criminalization of political discourse,” said Dan Vicuña, director of redistricting and representation for Common Cause, a Washington, D.C. advocacy group.

“It puts at risk the basic right to local representative and democratic government,” he said.

And local legal experts, among them the legislature’s own attorney, said the provision may be “constitutionally suspect.”

“Generally speaking Tennessee courts have found legislative bodies have legislative immunity for acts that serve part of their legislative function and that legislative immunity extends to local legislative bodies,” Elizabeth Insogna, a Legislative attorney, told the committee.

‘Be prepared’ Nashville leaders caution immigrant communities about looming crackdowns

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“It’s possible that a criminal provision that is enforced against a member of a legislative body may be constitutionally suspect,” she said. “It would be up for a court to determine.”

John Vile, professor of political science and Dean of the University Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University said “legislators should heed Article 1” of the Tennessee Constitution, which establishes a “Declaration of Rights” for citizens and their elected representatives.

“I don’t know of any other laws, state or federal, that penalize elected officials on the basis of how they vote,” he said. “This seems to defeat the whole purpose of democratic-republican (representative) government.

Republicans however noted the criminal penalties are aimed at elected officials attempting to pass legislation already outlawed in Tennessee.

“I think everybody would agree that’s something that elected officials should be prohibited from doing, or should not do,” said Sen. Kerry Roberts, a Springfield Republican. “The fact there’s a consequence for it, I personally don’t have a problem with that, because they ought not to be doing it in the first place. It’s illegal.”

Only two current laws provide criminal penalties for lawmakers acting in their official capacities, according to Stephen Crump, executive director of the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference. One longstanding law allows criminal charges to be brought against county commissioners who fail to adequately fund local jails. Other lawmakers may be charged if their vote violates official misconduct statutes.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.

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AN 125

In late 2022, Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, which, he claimed, defamed him by refusing to retract prizes it gave the New York Times and the Washington Post for their Russiagate reporting.

Trump, in the lawsuit, alleged that the Times and the Post defamed him in their articles and that the Pulitzer Prize Board, by awarding them, defamed him as well. Many Trump critics attacked the lawsuit as frivolous, pointing out that the Pulitzer Prize Board itself didn't write the articles he claimed were defamatory.

Now, according to CNN and Mediaite, the Pulitzer Prize Board is fighting the lawsuit by "using Trump's own legal arguments against him."

READ MORE: 'Stakes really couldn't be higher' as 'tumultuous moment' heads for the Supreme Court

CNN's Hadas Gold reports, "In their motion filed on Monday, (January 27), the Pulitzer Board pointed out that Trump previously sought stays in other civil lawsuits where he was the defendant, saying the suits should be halted while he is in office because of questions of whether the U.S. Constitution bars state courts from exercising jurisdiction over…. a sitting president."

Gold notes that "for years," Trump "demanded the Pulitzer Board rescind the 2018 prize, arguing that he had been exonerated by special counsel Robert Mueller's 2019 report."

"Following Trump’s demands," Gold explains, "the Pulitzer Board commissioned two independent reviews of the awards, issuing a statement in 2022 that read in part: 'No passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.' It was that statement that prompted Trump to file his defamation suit against the (Pulitzer Prize) Board, choosing to file it in Florida because one member of the Board is a Florida resident."

Mediaite's David Gilmour points out that the Pulitzer Prize Board is "flipping President Donald Trump's own legal arguments on their head in an attempt to pause his defamation lawsuit against them."

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"The Pulitzer Board's argument essentially repurposes Trump's own defense tactics to shield themselves from litigation while his case is active," Gilmour observes. "While federal criminal charges against Trump are on hold due to Justice Department policy against prosecuting sitting presidents, several civil suits are moving forward. These include the $500 million fraud judgment secured by New York Attorney General Letitia James and judgments won by E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse and defamation."

Gilmour adds, "Whether the legal move will halt Trump’s Pulitzer lawsuit remains to be seen."

READ MORE:[Economist slams Trump’s latest tax cut demand as 'major strategic error'

*Read CNN's full article at this link and Mediaite's reporting here.