Bondi 2
estb 11 24
merri ok
see doj 3 fuckery kash bongino ed martin 3 lie atty disbar ethics lie resign eric adams quid pro quo
SEE RENEE GOOD PRETTI MINNE MASS DEPORT MARTIAL LAW PENDING HARMEET FAIL
SEE ACTIV SUPPRESS PPL LOSE 1ST AMEND LAWFARE RETALIATION FORCE
amazon lobby rev dr
SEE FAIL 5 in court
SEE LAWFARE TRUMP RETALIATION
SEE FASCISM MIL HOUSING 3 26
SEE PRESS SUPPRESSION
SEE VOTER SUPPRESS
SEE EPSTEIN FLAIL MLK FILES, HILLARY EMAIL
see resign protest = fail fedsoc EG CIV RTS HARMEET DHILLON
SEE TESTIMONY OPPOS RES BONDI BIGTIME 1025 KICKASS HOFFMAN
SEE DEI WOKE CORPS
bak capt 11 24
bondi1124
Perhaps she will return to lobbying, where she earned over $100,000 a month lobbying for Qatar. (Conflict of interest, anyone?) geo gp
===
nyc eric adams
the busted for corruption always find jesus?
suck up to trump bondi drops corruption charges?! prayer brkfast? me = jesus persecuted?!
2 25
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BAYER GLYPHOSATE
Bayer’s Investment in Trump Pays Off
Trump’s return to the White House created new opportunities for Bayer’s Roundup immunity campaign. Though the company had spent relatively little on political campaigns and federal elections in the past, it contributed $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets.
Bayer also spent $9.2 million in 2025 to hire scores of lobbyists from more than a dozen firms to push its agenda in Congress and multiple executive branch departments, according to a report by the public health research and news site U.S. Right to Know and data from OpenSecrets. Many of those lobbyists have close ties to members of the Trump administration, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and recently fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, giving Bayer an inside track at the White House, Department of Justice, EPA, and Department of Agriculture, among other offices and agencies.
Anderson, Bayer’s CEO, had multiple meetings with top administration officials—including Wiles—prior to Trump’s executive order, as both Politico and *The Guardian* reported.
AN 5 26
In 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for a federal investigation of a conservative who served in his first administration: former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Chief of Staff Miles Taylor. Taylor discusses Trump's actions against him in an article for the UK-based i Paper, emphasizing that the president's executive order became a blueprint for his efforts to use the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) against political foes.
Trump accused Taylor of "treason" — a claim that many legal experts and constitutional scholars attacked as ludicrous. Taylor was still serving in the first Trump Administration when, on September 5, 2018, the New York Times published his anonymous op-ed, "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration." Trump was furious when Taylor later came out as the op-ed's author.
"A year ago," Taylor explains in the i Paper, "Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to investigate me for 'treason.' It was the first time in 250 years of American history that a president had signed such an order to open a specific inquiry into a specific critic. The crime? I quit his first administration and exposed the misconduct I witnessed. And I haven't shut up about it since. He came back into office determined to make an example. But it didn’t stop there."
Taylor continues, "As I later found out, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi used Trump's order against me as the flimsy justification to strip away longstanding protections for reporters."
Taylor argues that the "treason" probe of him has broad implications for U.S. democracy and free speech in general.
"Of course, the Trump Administration has made it sound like this is about stopping leaks of classified information," Taylor writes. "Unfortunately for Trump, criticism of a president is not 'classified,' no matter how badly he wants it to be. Trump's logic is obvious. He doesn't want dissent amplified, and certainly not the most damaging kind — from insiders who have seen his impulsiveness and corruption up close."
The former DHS official continues, "So, they're using mob-like tactics to scare news outlets and the sources who they rely on to expose what's really happening around the president…. Last year, the president's aides told Rolling Stone he was coming after me to 'send a message.' He certainly has, though it's gone far beyond me. He's out to make an example of people everywhere who say what he doesn't want them to say. If the U.S. president wants to conflate free speech with 'treason,' then we should proudly wear the label of traitors."
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In the first days after Pam Bondi was appointed attorney general last year, the Department of Justice began shutting down pending criminal cases at a record pace.
The cases included an investigation into a Virginia nursing home with a recent record of patient abuse; probes of fraud involving several New Jersey labor unions, including one opened after a top official of a national union was accused of embezzlement; and an investigation into a cryptocurrency company suspected of cheating investors.
In total, the DOJ quietly closed more than 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of President Donald Trump’s administration, abandoning hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime, drugs and other offenses as it shifted resources to pursue immigration cases, according to an analysis by ProPublica.
The bulk of these cases, which were closed without prosecution and known as declinations, had been referred to the DOJ by law enforcement agencies under prior administrations that believed a federal crime may have been committed. The DOJ routinely declines to prosecute cases for any number of reasons, including insufficient evidence or because a case is not a priority for enforcement.
But the number of declinations under Bondi marks a striking departure not only from the Biden administration but also the first Trump term, according to the ProPublica analysis, which examined two decades of DOJ data, including the first six months of Trump’s second term. ProPublica determined the increase is not the result of inheriting a larger caseload or more referrals from law enforcement.
In February 2025 alone, which included the first weeks of Bondi’s tenure, nearly 11,000 cases were declined, the most in a month since at least 2004. The previous high was just over 6,500 cases in September 2019, during Trump’s first administration.
Some of the cases shut down were the result of yearslong investigations by federal agencies such as the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. For complex cases, the DOJ can take years before deciding whether to bring charges.
The shift comes as the DOJ has undergone an extraordinary overhaul under the Trump administration, with entire units shuttered, directives to abandon pursuit of certain crimes and thousands of lawyers quitting or, in some cases, being forced out of the agency.
In doing so, the DOJ is retreating from its mission to impartially uphold the rule of law, keep the country safe and protect civil rights, according to interviews with a dozen prosecutors and an open letter from nearly 300 DOJ employees who have left the department under Trump. The Trump DOJ, the employees wrote, is “taking a sledgehammer” to long-standing work to “protect communities and the rule of law.”
The change in priorities was outlined in a series of memos sent to attorneys early last year. Trump’s DOJ has said it is “turning a new page on white-collar and corporate enforcement” and emphasizing the pursuit of drug cartels, illegal immigrants and institutions that promote “divisive DEI policies.” Trump, in an address last March at the department, said the changes were necessary after a “surrender to violent criminals” during the past administration and would result in a restoration of “fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.”
The department prosecuted 32,000 new immigration cases in the first six months of the administration, which was nearly triple the number under the Biden administration and a 15% increase from the first Trump term. It has pursued fewer prosecutions of nearly every other type of crime — from drug offenses to corruption — than new administrations in their first six months dating back to 2009.
The DOJ has also closed hundreds of cases involving alleged crimes that the administration has publicly emphasized as enforcement priorities. Even as the Trump administration unleashed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency operatives to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, the DOJ declined over 900 cases of federal program or procurement fraud. About three times as many cases of major fraud against the U.S. were declined under Trump compared with the average of similar time periods under prior administrations. And while the Trump administration has promised to “make America safe again,” its DOJ has declined more than 1,000 terrorism cases, also more than prior administrations.
Federal prosecutor Joseph Gerbasi had spent years in the department’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section helping build cases against major suppliers of fentanyl ingredients in India and China. After Bondi came in, he was left bewildered when his team was ordered to abandon its work.
“All of the building blocks of what would become successful prosecutions were pulled out,” said Gerbasi, who retired as the section’s acting deputy chief for policy in March 2025 after 28 years with the department.
The move had an “overwhelming deflating effect on morale,” he said.
Barbara McQuade, who worked as a federal prosecutor in Michigan for two decades until 2017 during Republican and Democratic administrations, said it was not unusual for new administrations to come to office with a few “pet priorities” — such as a focus on violent crime or drug trafficking. But she said those changes usually involved modest adjustments in policy and that most of the decisions on what crimes to focus on were typically made at the local level by the district U.S. attorney in coordination with the FBI or other agencies.
“We would revise those about every five years, not having anything to do with any administration, just because it made sense,” she said.
[DREADED REFORM? DOGE AI FUCKERY?
A DOJ spokesperson, in an emailed response to questions about the spike in declinations, said that in “an effort to clean, remediate, and validate data in U.S. Attorneys’ case management system,” the department reviewed all pending criminal matters opened prior to the 2023 fiscal year, which included updating the status of closed cases. “This Department of Justice remains committed to investigating and prosecuting all types of crime to keep the American people safe, and the number of declinations is a direct result of our efforts to run the agency in a more efficient manner.”
The agency did not respond to questions about the types of cases declined.
The spike of declined cases began in February 2025 when the department ordered prosecutors to review every open case launched prior to October 2022 and determine whether to close it. Such a review would typically take months, according to one attorney tasked with reviewing cases. A memo, which was described to ProPublica reporters, ordered the review to be completed within 10 days.
Former DOJ prosecutors told ProPublica that they typically reviewed caseloads every six months with supervisors and that closing out languishing cases wouldn’t ordinarily be cause for concern. They said the February directive, however, was unusual. None could recall a similar order.
The directive came as higher-ups in the department had begun making frequent demands for data about specific types of cases and charging decisions, such as the outcome of fentanyl cases, according to former prosecutor Michael Gordon. Gordon, who helped prosecute Jan. 6 cases before moving to white-collar crime prosecutions, said the “fire drills” from officials in Washington became so regular that he grew used to the forlorn look on his supervisor’s face when he showed up at Gordon’s door, apologetically delivering yet another frantic request.
“It was either ‘give us stats we can use to make ourselves look good’ or ‘give us the stats to show how bad things are in this area,’” Gordon said. “It was never productive fact-finding.”
Though Gordon didn’t see the memo, he remembered getting the request to review all cases that had been open for more than two years and report back on their status, entering into a master spreadsheet basic information about any that he wanted to keep pursuing.
“The office was pushing us to close everything by a certain date so that when they had to report up to D.C. they had a low number of open cases,” he said. “You really had to go to bat to keep open a case that was more than two years old.”
Gordon said he was fired by the DOJ last June. He has filed a lawsuit alleging his termination was politically motivated. The department did not respond to questions about Gordon’s comments or his lawsuit. The government filed a motion to dismiss the case late last year, arguing that the federal court did not have jurisdiction over the matter. The court has not yet ruled on that motion, and the case is still pending.
Investigations into individuals or corporations declined for prosecution are generally not reported to courts and usually only disclosed in summary form by the DOJ in annual reports. To conduct its analysis, ProPublica obtained declination data from the DOJ and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a center that obtains data through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Here are some of the areas most impacted by the spike in declinations.
Drugs
As president, Trump has spoken frequently about the “scourge” of drugs coming into the country. At the same time, the Justice Department has declined to prosecute nearly 5,000 cases of federal drug law violations, including trafficking and money laundering. The number of declinations were 45% higher than the average of the prior three new administrations.
Gerbasi, the counternarcotics prosecutor, declined to comment on specific cases that might have been declined in his office. But, he said, once Bondi was appointed, the priority in the office became building cases against Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan group that the Trump administration has labeled a foreign terrorist organization.
“Tren de Aragua was not anywhere close to the scale or impact of the cartels we were focused on,” Gerbasi said. “But we were told to generate those cases.”
He said his office had to scramble to fly people to investigate local gangs in small towns that were reportedly affiliated with Tren de Aragua. “They never would have merited a full-scale federal investigation,” he said.
“It told me that decisions were going to be based on political appearances and not based on the merits of where investigative resources should be placed.”
The DOJ declined to comment on Gerbasi’s remarks.
National Security
Under Bondi, the DOJ declined more than 1,300 cases involving terrorism and national security, nearly twice what was typical at the start of the most recent new administrations. While domestic terrorism was the hardest-hit program, just over 300 cases involving charges of providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations were also dropped.
The DOJ program handling matters relating to national internal security — which considers cases of alleged spy activity and the security of classified information — saw over 200 declinations, which is four times as many as typical in the first six months of a new administration. Some of the cases related to serving as an unregistered foreign agent, a charge Bondi ordered prosecutors to stop pursuing unless they involved “conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.”
Jimmy Gurulé, a former federal prosecutor and George W. Bush appointee to the U.S. Treasury Department who investigated the financing of terrorism, said the decline in terrorism cases was troubling.
“The Trump DOJ has been used as a political weapon,” he said. “It’s a question of prioritizing resources. Are they going to be used for national security threats or to prosecute his political enemies and critics?” The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment on Gurulé’s remarks.
Labor
The DOJ shut down over 60 union corruption and labor racketeering cases, 2.5 times the number in Trump’s first term. Nearly half of the cases turned down for those offenses were out of the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office, which in the past has aggressively pursued alleged union corruption. All were noted as declined for insufficient evidence.
Most of those cases had been opened by Grady O’Malley, an assistant U.S. attorney who oversaw several prosecutions of union corruption while working in the New Jersey office over four decades. He retired in 2023 and was disturbed to learn from former colleagues that the office was shutting down the open union probes.
A Trump supporter, O’Malley said that while he doesn’t blame the president, he worries the decision to drop so many cases could embolden unions that he and his colleagues spent years working to hold accountable. “No one is assigned to do labor union cases, and the unions have every reason to believe no one is looking.”
The New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office said it had no comment on the declination of labor cases.
White-Collar Crime
The Trump administration has pledged to root out “rampant” fraud in federal benefit programs like food stamps and welfare. The controversial surging of federal agents to Minnesota in January began as a stated crackdown on noncitizens allegedly ripping off nutrition and child care programs.
The DOJ, however, shut down more than 900 cases of federal program or procurement fraud in the first six months of the administration, including one targeting a mortgage lender accused by several state regulators of defrauding the Federal Housing Administration. The case was dropped due to “prioritization of federal resources and interests.” The U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Alabama, which declined the case, did not reply to a request for comment. The number of fraud cases closed was about double that in the same time period of the Biden and first Trump administrations.
The agency also closed over 100 health care fraud cases as a result of “prioritization of resources and interests” even though the Trump administration has said it is making this area of enforcement a priority.
Among other cases the DOJ determined weren’t a priority: the probe into the Virginia nursing home accused of abuse, as well as investigations in Tennessee into fraud at a national hospital chain and one of the largest Medicaid managed care companies.
The Western District of Virginia U.S. attorney’s office, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the nursing home case. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee said the office does not comment on investigations that do not result in public charges.
The DOJ’s Antitrust Division, which focuses on preventing big businesses from creating harmful monopolies, also declined an unusually high number of cases in Trump’s second term. More than 40 cases were dropped within the first six months of Bondi’s tenure. That’s more than double the number declined in the same time period by the prior three new administrations.
Despite the declinations, the department said it charged slightly more people with fraud in 2025 compared with the final year of the Biden administration, and those cases alleged larger financial losses.
Promises Kept
The DOJ under Bondi has also rapidly pursued many of the priorities laid out in Trump’s early executive orders and her own “first day” directives to staff.
Trump in February 2025 issued an executive order pausing new investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits citizens and companies from bribing foreign entities to advance their business interests. The order asked the attorney general to review and “take appropriate action” on any existing probes to “preserve Presidential foreign policy prerogatives.”
In the first six months, Bondi’s DOJ shut down 25 such cases, which is more than the combined number dropped by the prior three new administrations over the same time period. One of the cases declined for prosecution involved a major car manufacturer, which had reported possible anti-bribery violations to federal investigators involving a foreign subsidiary. The DOJ declined the case for prosecution last June, citing the “prioritization of federal resources and interests.”
On her first day, Bondi ordered a review of criminal prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE Act, which prohibits people from illegally blocking access to abortion clinics and places of worship. The department dropped as many cases under the act in its first six months as the past three new administrations combined, over the same time frame. Bondi’s order focused on “non-violent protest activity,” although at least one of the closed cases was being investigated as a violent crime. The DOJ has since charged protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and journalists in Minneapolis under the FACE Act. The defendants in the case have pleaded not guilty.
The agency closed three times the number of cases alleging environmental crimes as the Biden administration did and one-and-a-half times as many as compared with Trump’s first term. The declinations came as the DOJ reassigned and cut prosecutors working on environmental cases. One-fifth of all of the dropped environmental protection cases were shut down for “prioritization of federal resources and interests.”
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The Department of Justice has awarded Michael Flynn, the retired three-star Army general who served as Trump's National Security Advisor for less than a month, a $1.25 million settlement—a decision that legal experts are comparing to outright theft of taxpayer funds.
Flynn's settlement, announced this week, compensates him for what the Trump administration is characterizing as wrongful prosecution. The irony is stark: Flynn pleaded guilty under oath in 2017 to intentionally making false statements to the FBI. He admitted to the crime in court with a lawyer present, with a judge confirming his understanding of what he was confessing to. Trump later pardoned him in 2020.
Now, with a new Trump administration in place, the Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has agreed to hand over more than a million dollars in public money to a man who has already admitted guilt.
"I really do not understand how you justify this as anything but theft," said Andrew Weissmann, a former DOJ prosecutor who spent 20 years at the Department of Justice and served as general counsel at the FBI,during an appearance on "The Illegal News" podcast this week. "To make this a legitimate settlement, there would have to be a good faith belief that he has a meritorious argument and that there might be some downside in litigating this."
Weissmann's critique goes to the heart of how government settlements are supposed to work. When the DOJ settles a case, there must be a reasonable belief that the other side might actually win if the case went to trial—a genuine legal dispute, in other words. But in Flynn's case, Weissmann argues, there is no such ambiguity.
"I don't see the downside of having taken it to court," Weissmann said. "The issues here seem so completely one-sided that I really do not understand how you justify this as anything but theft."
The case against Flynn was straightforward. As National Security Advisor, Flynn had engaged in back-channel communications with Russian officials during the transition period. When FBI agents questioned him about these contacts, he lied. Vice President Mike Pence later went public saying he had repeated Flynn's denials on air, only to discover they were false—a betrayal that led directly to Flynn's firing after just 24 days in the job.
Flynn initially tried to withdraw his guilty plea, leading to years of litigation, but ultimately the legal process confirmed the guilty plea stood. There was no meritorious legal argument waiting to be discovered. There was no ambiguity about whether Flynn had committed the crime he admitted to committing.
Yet Bondi and Blanche signed off on the settlement anyway.
Weissmann raised additional concerns about the precedent this sets. "This is something that Michael Flynn admitted under oath he did, which was lied to the FBI. Now he then moved to withdraw his guilty plea. There was lots and lots of litigation back and forth, and that ultimately ended up with Donald Trump pardoning him," Weissmann explained.
The settlement also raises questions about potential conflicts of interest. Blanche was Trump's personal criminal defense attorney during his hush money trial and conviction. Now, as Deputy Attorney General, he's using government resources to benefit his former client.
"The next administration can look into this as an ethics issue," Weissmann said. "Remember, they represented Donald Trump individually. And they have to be looking out for the interests of the public, not for the interests of Donald Trump."
Perhaps most troubling to Weissmann is what this settlement signals about future Trump administration conduct. "This is the harbinger of more to come," he said, "because we know that Donald Trump wants to do this. And for all we know, this has been happening with other people doing this without bringing a lawsuit—just having a private agreement with the Department of Justice where they give out money and we just don't know."
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Sen. Whitehouse on the Trump / Russia / Epstein Triangle | The Frank Figliuzzi Show
trump submissive only to putin; bondi turned off corrupt/crypto cyber alarms/agy
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ALSO NOEM PLANE?
AN 3 26
The Wall Street Journal— hardly an outpost of left-wing propaganda — reported yesterday on the results of an investigation conducted by the Journal’sHannah Critchfield and her team.
I’m summarizing it below because it deserves your attention.
Critchfield and her team found that 279 people have been accused online by the Trump administration of assaulting federal ICE and Border Patrol agents, and more than half of these people — 64 percent — are American citizens.
Of the 181 American citizens that the Trump administration has accused of attacking federal ICE and Border Patrol officers, close to half have never been charged, and none have been convicted at trial. But the public charges alone have caused them significant harm.
The investigation
The Journal’s team analyzed more than 200 videos associated with allegations of assault against ICE and Border Patrol agents, using both police body camera footage and bystander recordings from social media. Many of the videos cast doubt on the federal government’s claims that agents were assaulted.
The Journal also reviewed more than 100,000 posts on X, posts made in the last year by accounts linked to government agencies and senior government officials.
Each time the government identified a person on a post, theJournal tracked that case through the legal system to see what charges were brought, under what statute, whether the charges were later modified, and what happened to the person in the case.
One of the cases they investigated was that of Sydney Lori Reid, a 44-year-old veterinary assistant in D.C. and a U.S. citizen.
In July, Reid went to a jail to witness an immigration enforcement action. Federal officers had gone there to arrest two migrant men, and Reid said she felt a duty to document it.
As Reid began videotaping, an agent grabbed her and pinned her to a wall. Reid was then surrounded by several federal law enforcement officials. One of them was an FBI agent wearing a face covering and an FBI vest. Two others were ICE officers, dressed in plain clothes, plaid shirts, and khaki pants.
Reid was handcuffed and told she was being arrested for interfering with their operation. Videos reviewed by Critchfield and her team cast doubt on the agents’ claims.
Reid was then placed in a government vehicle and transferred to federal custody. Like many American citizens who wind up in the crosshairs of DHS, she was accused of assault.
The government alleges she assaulted an FBI agent on the basis of scrapes on the agent’s hands, but the scrapes occurred in the process of putting handcuffs on Reid.
The government later charged Reid with felony assault of a federal official, a charge punishable with up to 20 years in prison — a serious federal charge that’s being applied far more broadly now than at any time in recent history.
When Reid was being arrested, she dropped her phone, but the phone was still recording. An agent picked up the phone and put it into the same vehicle that she was riding in on her way to detention.
One officer says: “We’re at the D.C. jail. We’re at the D.C. jail. We have an agitator in custody for ...”
Reid was handcuffed in the backseat. You can hear agents going back and forth about exactly how Reid had assaulted them. First, it was a raised knee, then an elbow.
Another officer: “Yeah, it appeared that there was an elbow that was ... When she was resisting, but she definitely interfered. So we have interfering and I’m going to get ...”
One of the ICE agents called her a stupid female as he was talking to a colleague: “Hey brother, are you good? I have to return to 1D and process this stupid female now that I f------ don’t want to process her.”
Reid was held by federal authorities for roughly two days. She wasn’t allowed to make a phone call during that time.
In the aftermath of her arrest, prosecutors tried to indict her, but that needed to be done through a grand jury, and the grand jury declined to indict her. They tried again before another grand jury, which also declined to indict her. Then they went back to a third grand jury, which declined to indict her.
This is almost unheard of. It showed both the resistance from the public to charge her based on the evidence and the government’s determination to bring charges in this case.
Prosecutors ultimately charged Reid with misdemeanor assault of an officer, a lesser offense that doesn’t require going through a grand jury. Reid was acquitted of that misdemeanor charge at trial.
The Trump Administration’s Strategy
Critchfield and her Journal team found that the push to charge more people for assaulting federal officers — as happened to Reid — is an administration-wide strategy.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and her Department of Justice have pledged to prosecute these cases aggressively. From the very beginning of Bondi’s tenure, starting on her first day in office, she issued a flurry of memos, including one that encouraged prosecutors to aggressively investigate any instances of violence against law enforcement or obstruction of law enforcement.
Gregory Bovino, then the head of Border Patrol, directed his agents to arrest anyone who touched them. “Arrest as many people that touch you as you want to. Those are the general orders all the way to the top, everybody f------ gets it if they touch you. You hear what I’m saying?”
In addition to an increasing number of prosecutions, the Department of Homeland Security has been using social media to exaggerate these alleged attacks, often with a warning to the public: “Don’t be like this person. If you behave in this way, we will come for you.” And they have posted people’s pictures and their full names, seeking to make an example out of these people even before they’re convicted of a crime.
This happened to Reid. A week after she was arrested, her mug shot and name went up on the official ICE account on X, along with the fact that she’s based in Washington, D.C., and a post that said, “Assault an officer or agent get arrested. It’s not rocket science.”
ICE also publicly alleged that Reid assaulted federal agents on behalf of two alleged international gang members.
The Purpose of This Strategy
The Journal’s investigation makes clear that the purpose of this strategy has been to intimidate and silence Americans who might otherwise protest what ICE and Border Patrol are doing.
ICE publicly describes many of these protesters as rioters, agitators, thugs, and terrorists.
Here’s Vice President JD Vance speaking of Renee Good’s death:
“I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against our law enforcement officers.”
And here’s then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on the death of Alex Pretti:
“This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism, that’s the facts.”
Renee Good was in her car when she was killed. Critchfield and her team found that federal government officials have accused 32 U.S. citizens of intentionally using their vehicles as weapons. DHS considers a vehicle to be a deadly weapon, justifying the use of force. Of those 32 drivers, only one pleaded guilty to an assault charge. Three had their cases dismissed; the rest were never charged.
TheJournal investigation found that in most cases where citizens were accused by the government, the outcome was similar to Reid’s.
181 citizens were accused by the government on X of attacking federal officers, but close to half of them were never even charged at all. When people werecharged, more often than not, the cases fell apart. Either they were acquitted or found not guilty at trial.
Fifteen people mentioned in government posts pleaded guilty before going to trial. Ten of whom pleaded guilty for lesser offenses than what the government initially charged them with.
Videos have often played major roles in contradicting the government’s case. Critchfield and her team viewed videos that repeatedly cast doubt on the government’s allegations. Protesters were often called violent rioters or professional agitators and accused of making physical contact in some way with agents, but video footage often showed immigration agents being the first to lay their hands on demonstrators.
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AN SALON 3 26
On March 10, the New York Times' Glenn Thrush reported that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was moving from an apartment in Washington, D.C. to housing on a military base in response to threats from drug cartels and others. And she isn't the only Donald Trump appointee who moved to a military base despite not working directly for the Pentagon; others have ranged from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. Historically, those homes were reserved for senior military officers.
Salon's Chauncey DeVega examines this trend in an article published on March 24, warning that it is exactly the type of thing one finds in authoritarian regimes.
"Cabinet members have traditionally lived in the wealthy enclaves of Washington, D.C., or Northern Virginia," DeVega explains. "But instead of choosing homes in Georgetown, Kalorama, McLean or Great Falls, some officials in Donald Trump's Cabinet and among his White House staff — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem — are living in secure military housing, citing safety concerns. In doing so, they are embracing the literal architecture of authoritarianism."
DeVega continues, "The security concerns are very real. According to a recent study, violent online rhetoric against prominent public officials in the U.S. increased dramatically between 2021 and 2025. But for most, if not all of American history, senior government officials accepted the personal risk as part of the job. The symbolism of living among their fellow Americans mattered. It is a damning indictment of the Trump Administration that its policies are so unpopular and have caused so much pain and anger among the American people that senior officials are hiding from them."
Steven Levitsky, author of the 2018 book "How Democracies Die" and a professor of government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts outside Boston, is among the scholars who finds this trend disturbing.
Levitsky told the New York Times, "It is something you never see in a democracy. Government officials live on military bases or other sorts of fortified zones in authoritarian regimes."
According to DeVega, the fact that Bondi, Rubio, Miller and other Trump appointees are living on military bases demonstrates that "American democracy is continuing to collapse."
"America's norms and institutions long ago surrendered to Trump's MAGA movement, and granting his closest Cabinet officials and staffers military housing is just the latest example of how the president is consolidating power and building a cult of personality," DeVega warns. "He is also in the process of redesigning the nation's capital in his own image by bulldozing historic sites, slapping his name on a presidential memorial, erecting new monuments for his own glory and hanging banners bearing his face on government buildings. This comes in addition to his administration's assault on freedom of speech, thought and the press; civil society; voting rights; and civil and human rights — all in the name of patriotism and destroying the enemy within."
The Salon journalist adds, "The walled city his most trusted agents live behind is itself a metaphor for Trump's wider authoritarian project."
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SEE DISBAR ABA DISCIPLINARY ETHICS ED FUCKING MARTIN 3 26
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Outgoing "weaponization" chief Ed Martin was supposed to have left the Justice Department sometime in February after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche "made moves to significantly limit Martin’s ability to wield power," CNN reported at the time. Now, Martin is facing an ethics investigation.
"On his way out the door from the U.S. attorney's office, [Martin] announced to his entire staff that he was under investigation by the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel without elaborating on the details, CBS News reported Tuesday. According to the report, Martin is facing ethics charges after he sent a letter to the Georgetown University Law Center alleging that a whistleblower reported them for teaching "diversity, equity, and inclusion."
Martin's Feb. 17, 2025, letter made the allegations, but before he heard a response, he said he would impose sanctions on Georgetown by telling his staff not to hire any students from the school.
Now-former dean, William Treanor, responded in a letter challenging Martin's Catholic faith, saying it was "an attack on the University's mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution."
A filing revealed Tuesday shows Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton "Phil" Fox III of the D.C. Bar alleged on Friday that while working for the federal government, Martin violated the First and Fifth Amendments with his letter. "Mr. Martin knew or should have known" that.
"Acting in his official capacity and speaking on behalf of the government, he used coercion to punish or suppress a disfavored viewpoint, the teaching and promotion of DEI," the court filing says. "He demanded that Georgetown Law relinquish its free speech and religious rights in order to obtain a benefit, employment opportunities for its students."
The filing goes on to say that Martin replied to the exchange, "stating that he would not be responding to Disciplinary Counsel’s inquiry, complained about Disciplinary Counsel’s 'uneven behavior' and requested a 'face-to-face meeting with all of you to discuss this matter and find a way forward.' He copied the White House Counsel 'for informational purposes because of the importance of getting this issue addressed.'"
Technology lawyer Kendra Albert mocked on BlueSky that Martin's comments in count two had "I want to speak to your manager" energy.
Lawfare's senior editor, Roger Parloff, called the comments from Martin, "very Ed Martin-y." He noted that after the D.C. Bar Association began its inquiry, "Martin [wrote] Chief Judge of D.C. Court of Appeals three times." He was warned not to on two occasions and did so anyway.
The first letter was sent to the judge ex parte, meaning it did not inform the opposing counsel.
Slate legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern suggested this is one of many reasons Attorney General Pam Bondi is going after state Bar Associations for filing ethics complaints.
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Donald Trump appears to have made a major mistake with his purge of top lawyers from the Department of Justice, as many of these "all-star" professionals are now joining the institutions fighting back against his presidency, in a turn of events one former attorney dubbed "idiocy."
On Tuesday, CBS News' top justice correspondent Scott MacFarlane shared a video to X and BlueSky detailing this trend, likening it to a sports team trading its best players to rival teams.
"It's hard enough to get by without your best players on the field, but you certainly don't want to play against them, and have huge adversaries when you play your opponents," MacFarlane explained.
The Trump administration, he argued, "has been getting rid of some of its all-stars" in the DOJ, and it is starting to become a huge "problem" as they join the efforts to "challenge the administration," essentially "joining the rival team." That is on top of the severe drain of professional experience and "institutional memory" that these hiring purges have cost the government across every department.
As MacFarlane laid out in the video, Trump's purge of these top lawyers was driven primarily by political motivations and a desire for personal retribution. Many of the attorneys who got the ax when Trump returned to the White House were the ones who had worked to convict Jan. 6 rioters, whom he gave a mass pardon early on in his term. He also cut many individuals who took part in the federal investigation of him during his time away from Washington, D.C.
"Some have been fired, some have been pushed out, some have said, 'You know what? I've had about enough of this politicized Department of Justice, I'm out of here,'" MacFarlane said. "I'm moving on to greener pastures."
MacFarlane gave the example of Mike Romano, a "storied, prolific" former DOJ lawyer known for his "incredible record" prosecuting Jan. 6 defendants. Since leaving the federal government in 2025, he has joined a firm handling "labor cases, among other things." He also recently testified before the Senate last week in a hearing where he "reinforced the truth about Jan. 6, that it was a righteous prosecution and an important prosecution, pushing back on the administration's false claims and lies."
He also highlighted the Washington Litigation Group, a nonprofit staffed with many individuals who previously worked with Jack Smithon the criminal cases against Trump. This group is now taking part in the fight against such things as Trump's effort to add his name to the Kennedy Center and the closure of a "key civil rights division" within the DOJ.
"These nonprofits and firms are capitalizing on the Department of Justice's idiocy," one anonymous former prosecutor told MacFarlane.
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- ### Nick Fuentes: “The number one political enemy in America is women. … They have to be imprisoned.”
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President Donald Trump's administration has once again changed the reason Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbardwas on site for the FBI's raid at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Georgia last month. The story has now changed five times, and three times in the past 24 hours.
CBS News reported Thursday that Gabbard's spokesperson clarified the message after Trump told the National Prayer Breakfast that Attorney General Pam Bondi tasked Gabbard with going to Georgia. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also argued Trump put election security under the DNI's purview.
"As the president said, he asked for Director Gabbard to be there," Gabbard spokesperson Alexa Henning wrote on X. "Attorney General Bondi also asked for her to be there. Two things can be true at the same time."
As of publication, the president has not said he ordered it.
Trump told "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Llamas about his conspiracy theory that he had not losts the 2020 election. Llamas asked Trump point-blank, “Why is Tulsi Gabbard there?”
“I don’t know,” Trump answered. “But a lot of the cheating comes from, it’s international cheating.”
Gabbard was the one who claimed Trump ordered.
In a letter to Democratic lawmakers Monday, Gabbard said her presence "was requested by the president."
Less than 24 hours after Trump's interview, the story changed again.
While he was speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump gushed over Gabbard for attending the raid.
“She took a lot of heat two days ago because she went in at Pam’s insistence,” the president said, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“They say, ‘why is she doing it’… because Pam wanted her to do it. And you know why? Because she’s smart," Trump added.
The story has changed radically in the past week. The first to comment on Gabbard was Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who told reporters that Gabbard just happened to be in Atlanta when the raid unfolded.
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With President Donald Trump suffering from weak approval ratings in countless recent polls and Democrats having performed well in a series of late 2025 and early 2026 elections, Democratic strategists are feeling cautiously optimistic about their prospects in this year's midterms. A Texas State Senate special election on Saturday, January 31 in the Ft. Word suburbs was especially encouraging for them: Democrat Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss by 14 percent in a district that Trump won by 18 percent in 2024.
But progressive legal scholar Elie Mystal, in an article published by The Nation on February 5, warns that Trump and his allies will do everything possible to rig the midterms against Democrats. And the attorney fears that Trump opponents aren't doing enough to fight back.
"To ignore the threat posed by Trump, to pretend like everything is going to be OK, to assume that upstanding members of the courts will rise to prevent the theft of the election is to stick your head in the sand," Mystal emphasizes. "Trump and the Republicans have no intention of letting the upcoming midterms — in which Republicans are predicted to lose control of the House — proceed fairly. They're attacking the election through legislative, law-enforcement, and political means."
Mystal describes a variety of MAGA tactics.
"Republicans in the House have already passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act)," the legal expert notes. "The bill radically reshapes the voter registration process by essentially repealing the Motor Voter Act. Instead of allowing people to register with a driver's license, the SAVE Act requires them to show additional identification, like a passport or a birth certificate, in order to register…. The SAVE Act isn't even the most dangerous thing Republicans in Congress have cooked up. That dubious honor belongs to the Make Elections Great Again Act (MEGA Act), so named because these people are obviously in a cult."
Mystal continues, "The MEGA Act includes all of the same requirements to register to vote as the SAVE Act, but also, requires these new forms of identification to be shown by voters when they try to cast their ballots…. All of this would be bad enough, but Republicans aren't just hoping for legislation that will allow them to suppress the vote in 2026, they're also putting in place the legal ability to steal the votes that get through these gauntlets. Last week, the FBI raided the Fulton County elections operations center, which covers Atlanta, looking for 2020 ballots…. If the FBI can seize old, 2020 ballots in the name of fishing for 'election fraud,' it's not hard to imagine them seizing ballots and voting machines trying to stop 'fraud' in 2026. Attorney General Pam Bondi has also appointed, essentially, a 'special counsel,' Thomas Albus, and given him the authority to seize ballots."
Mystal points out that Steve Bannon, host of the "War Room" vodcast and former White House chief strategist in the first Trump Administration, is flat-out calling for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to "surround the polls come November."
"Who knows what kind of ICE presence we'’ll see on Election Day?," Mystal warns. "Who knows how much violence they'll use to keep people from voting? But you'd be a rank fool to think the answers to those questions are 'nothing' and 'none.'"
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President Donald Trump's administration seems very confused as to why Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was in Georgia for the FBI's raid on the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center late last month. The story has now changed four times, and twice in the past 24 hours.
The first to comment on Gabbard was Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who claimed that Gabbard just happened to be in Atlanta when the raid happened. Gabbard then said that Trump asked her personally to go to Atlanta for the raid.
In a letter she sent to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Gabbard wrote, "My presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counter-intelligence, foreign and other malign influence and cybersecurity."
By Wednesday, Trump appeared to forget about it.
In a conversation with "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Llamas, Trump spoke about his conspiracy theory that he lost the 2020 election. Llamas asked Trump point-blank, “Why is Tulsi Gabbard there?”
“I don’t know,” Trump answered. “But a lot of the cheating comes from, it’s international cheating.”
Less than 24 hours later, Trump's story changed again.
While he was speaking to the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump gushed over Gabbard for attending the raid.
“She took a lot of heat two days ago because she went in at Pam’s insistence,” the president said, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“They say, ‘why is she doing it’… because Pam wanted her to do it. And you know why? Because she’s smart," Trump added, relayed The Guardian.
Georgia lawmakers are concerned about Trump's spreading of conspiracy theories and the purpose of the Fulton County raid. Georgia’s Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Bondi on Thursday morning, asking for specifics.
“We are deeply concerned that President Trump’s consistent spreading of misinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories about the 2020 election fundamentally undermines the electoral process, endangers election workers, and erodes public trust in our democracy,” the lawmakers wrote. “This unprecedented seizure only heightens those concerns.”
If "the Trump administration is investigating a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus," it would legally require "an immediate congressional briefing," said Sen. Raphael Warnock and Reps. Lucy McBath and Nikema Williams all Democrats from Georgia.
The search warrant that demanded "copies" of the necessary documents didn't come from a local judge. According to the lawmakers, “unusually, the warrant was filed by the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Missouri and follows the reported firing of the Atlanta FBI special agent in charge Paul Brown after expressing concern about this search."
The Associated Press reported that Brown was ousted the week before the raid. He was overseeing the Atlanta office. MS NOW confirmed in the days that followed that the Brown was pushed out because he refused to cooperate.
The group requested a briefing from the Department of Justice “concerning this activity and its related investigation by February 13, 2026."
The statute of limitations on the case has long expired. So, the only way the administration would be able to do anything about it is if there was some kind of ongoing conspiracy, said Georgia lawyer Michael J. Moore when speaking to CNN.
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It was reported earlier this week that Ed Martin, President Donald Trump's leader on his "anti-weaponization" effort, was sidelined and is expected to leave the Justice Department altogether.
According to CNN, the reason for Martin's departure is he leaked secret grand jury information to the public, which is illegal. An investigation by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that began last year found Martin leaked information about the Trump administration's efforts to indict Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calf.) and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The Trump DOJ has been unable to indict Schiff and the charges against James were dismissed after a judge found that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was not in the post legally. A new grand jury then refused to indict James.
The CNN source that was briefed on the matter said Martin tried to deny he leaked secret information, but he evidently used emails to coordinate it.
"The review of Martin’s handling of materials burst into public view in December after a witness who received a subpoena showed up at the courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, seeking to testify," the report said.
The woman said she was asked about two people who have been working on investigations with Martin and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte. The DOJ wanted to know whether the people were impersonating federal agents.
Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X, “There is no investigation into Bill Pulte," but never mentioned Martin.
Martin hasn't been charged with a crime yet and CNN said that the DOJ hasn't determined "whether any law was broken."
Leaking federal grand jury information is a criminal offense, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. It violates Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e). The Justice Department's own website outlines the rules in detail.
Blanche denied there were any "misconduct investigations into Ed Martin." He said, "Ed is doing a great job as Pardon Attorney.”
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Attorney General Pam Bondi set off a furor when she appeared to link the aggressive immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota to the state’s refusal to share its voter rolls with the Trump administration. The FBI searched a Fulton County, Georgia, election office, apparently as part of a criminal investigation into the 2020 election. Congressional Republicans dropped big new legislation to overhaul election administration.
Against that backdrop, secretaries of state from around the country gathered in a hotel ballroom in Washington, D.C., many expressing growing unease about the implications of the Trump administration’s actions and rhetoric around the 2026 elections they’re responsible for administering in November.
Multiple Trump administration officials were scheduled to address the secretaries’ conference at various points, but the plans kept shifting. Earlier this week, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Secretaries of State said Bondi — whose Justice Department has so far sued 23 states and Washington, D.C., for access to their voter rolls — and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would potentially be added to the schedule. Later, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was added to the list of expected officials, less than 48 hours after she appeared at the FBI search in Fulton County.
It wasn’t clear what they were planning to say, and some Democratic secretaries said they planned to skip the remarks.
But after a crowd of secretaries of state, their staff, consultants, vendors, and media members filled the ballroom Friday afternoon, with four chairs set up on the dais, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican, announced that the chairs would stay empty.
“Unfortunately, it appears that we will no longer be having a 3 o’clock session,” Watson said, to rueful chuckles.
It wasn’t the only shift.
An early agenda had called for a Thursday panel with two White House officials, as well as Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, and Heather Honey, the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity for the Department of Homeland Security. Ultimately, only one official, Jared Borg of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, spoke. Borg opened by outlining the administration’s efforts to overhaul a federal database used by many states to verify voter citizenship, as well as ongoing consultations with secretaries of state on that and related initiatives.
Election officials from both political parties had pointed questions.
Referring to comments from Justice Department officials about states’ maintenance of voter rolls, Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican and the state’s chief election officer, said it is “problematic to publicly claim that secretaries of state are not doing our jobs and that the federal government has to do it for us.” Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas, a Democrat, asked why the administration wasn’t answering their questions about its election initiatives.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, asked pointedly how the Trump administration squared his executive order on elections with the fact that the Constitution gives authority over elections to the states and Congress. Borg said the question would be better directed to Bondi or Noem the next day.
But as it turned out, Bellows didn’t get the chance, and she wasn’t happy about it. After Watson announced the session wouldn’t happen, a small group of Democratic secretaries of state spoke to the press. “Noem, Bondi, and Gabbard are cowards for not showing up today and answering the questions from election officials from across the country about this administration’s abuses of power,” Bellows said, while secretaries of state from Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Vermont looked on.
Their frustrations with the Trump administration were clear. But the Democratic secretaries ended on a more upbeat note: emphasizing that NASS is still a bipartisan organization, and that their Republican colleagues are just as committed to administering a fair 2026 election as they are.
“Following the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law,” Thomas said, “is not a partisan issue.”
*Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie atclevine@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.
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- Greg Sargent @ The New Republic: Trump’s Agents Arrested Don Lemon. Then the Story Got Even Darker.
Trump has been raging about the former CNN journalist. Attorney General Pam Bondi just had him arrested, a move one legal expert slammed as “highly irregular.”
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President Donald Trump was recently dealt another unfavorable ruling by a federal judge, who struck down his attempt to obtain sensitive information about voters.
On Monday, Politico legal correspondent Josh Gerstein reported that U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai – an appointee of former President Joe Biden — dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration's Department of Justice (DOJ) to obtain Oregon's database of registered voters. Kasubhai also reportedly asked the Trump administration about Attorney General Pam Bondi's letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) asking for Minnesota's voter database.
Gerstein reported that neither the Trump DOJ nor Oregon said that Bondi's letter to Walz impacted the Oregon case "at this stage," though Kasubhai's line of questioning suggests that the letter may potentially come up as an issue should the administration decide to appeal.
In order to overturn Judge Kasubhai's ruling, the Trump administration will have to petition the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (whose jurisdictions includes the District of Oregon). However, the Ninth Circuit is widely regarded as one of the most liberal judicial circuits since the late 1990s. Should the Ninth Circuit decline to overturn Judge Kasubhai's decision, the Trump DOJ will have to hope for relief from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
The administration's loss in the District of Oregon comes on the heels of another separate loss in the Central District of California in a similar suit. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter granted a motion filed by California Secretary of State Shirley Weber to dismiss the administration's lawsuit for California's voter rolls.
"The foundation upon which American democracy has been built is the right to vote. Brave Americans have given their lives for more than two hundred years to protect this right," Carter wrote. "Now it seems the Executive Branch of the United States government wants to abridge the right of many Americans to cast their ballots."
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A key Trump official is facing the possibility of being held in contempt, according to Politico's Kyle Cheney, after a leading judge in Minnesota lashed the administration for failure to comply with court orders in a new filing from Monday.
According to filing documents shared to social media by Cheney, Judge Patrick J. Schlitz, the chief federal judge for the District of Minnesota, ordered Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE under Donald Trump, to appear in court on Friday to answer for his agency's evident court order violations.
"Judge Schlitz, the chief federal judge in Minnesota, has ordered the head of ICE, Todd Lyons, to [appear] in court Friday and threatened him with contempt for the agency’s repeated violation of court orders," Cheney wrote in a post shared to X and BlueSky Tuesday morning.
In the documents, Schlitz explained that the court had previously ordered ICE to hold a bond hearing for a petitioner named "Juan T.R.," an individual detained by the agency, within one week of the order's issuance. If that hearing had not been provided in the time given by the court, T.R. was to be released from custody. As the filing explained, after the allotted time elapsed, T.R. had not been given a hearing and remained in detention.
This, Schlitz wrote, was part of a growing trend of ICE flouting court orders in Minnesota, resulting in detained individuals, many of whom have no criminal history, being taken to holding facilities in Texas.
"This is one of dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed toc omply in recent weeks," Schlitz's filing reads. "The practical consequence of respondents' failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens (many of whom have lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong). The detention of an alien is extended, or an alien who should remain in Minnesota is flown to Texas, or an alien who has been flown to Texas is released there and told to figure out a way to get home."
The filing continued: "This Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result. Respondents have continually assured the Court that they recognize their obligation to comply with Court orders, and that they have taken steps to ensure that those orders will be honored going forward. Unfortunately, though, the violations continue. The Court's patience is at an end."
Schlitz therefore ordered Lyons to personally appear in court to explain why he should not face contempt charges for his agency's actions. The judge acknowledged that this was an "extraordinary step" to take, but argued that it was warranted in the face of ICE's "likewise extraordinary" defiance of court orders.
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Roughly two and one-half weeks after the fatal January 7 shooting of motorist Renee Nicole Good by a U.S. Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) agent, yet another Minneapolis resident was fatally shot during a protest in the city: 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti, who worked in an internal care unit in a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House adviser Stephen Miller are claiming that Pretti was shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents in self-defense, noting that he was carrying a concealed weapon. But critics of President Donald Trump's ICE raids in Minneapolis are countering Pretti never pointed the gun at Border Patrol agents and that he was shot after being forced onto the ground and disarmed.
In an article published on Monday, January 26 — two days after Pretti's death — Salon's Amanda Marcotte offers a blistering critique of the response that far-right white evangelicals have had to the unrest in Minneapolis.
"The Christian Right will never turn down an opportunity to make false accusations of religious persecution," Marcotte argues. "These days, they're especially eager to play the victim. Doing so allows them to distract from the ugly reality that they, in voting for Donald Trump, have helped to unleash in Minnesota: A woman killed in front of her wife, children ripped from their parents, a baby nearly killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents firing tear gas at a family driving home from a basketball game. On Saturday, there was another unjustifiable shooting. Video appears to show 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive-care unit nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, helping a woman to her feet when Border Patrol agents swarm and pepper-spray him — and then shoot him in the head."
Marcotte adds, "All this, though, apparently pales in comparison to a more serious form of oppression: right-wing Christians being told it's immoral to support a brutal, racist assault on their neighbors."
The Salon journalist is referring to a Sunday, January 18 protest in which activists disrupted a service at the evangelical Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota because one of the pastors, David Easterwood, is an ICE field director in the area. MAGA Republicans, from Noem to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, described that disruption as an attack on religious freedom — an argument Marcotte considers disingenuous.
Tim Whitaker, a former Christian nationalist, told Salon, "Cities Church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was founded in 1845 over the right to own slaves. This church should be disrupted. As far as I'm concerned, Jesus would've been right with those protesters…. (Cities Church) is home to a pastor that works for a federal agency kidnapping brown-skinned immigrants and killing unarmed citizens."
Marcotte notes that one of the protesters arrested during the January 18 protest at Cities Church is herself an ordained Christian minister.
"Unfortunately, the right's histrionic language about 'religious freedom' has cowed many centrists and even liberals into thinking the protesters who interrupted a single church service are in the wrong," Marcotte writes. "Instead, they should be applauded as following the tradition of Jesus himself confronting the moneychangers in the temple."
Religious freedom means the right to worship as you see fit. By the same token, it also allows everyone else the right to question what churches are teaching — especially when they impact people and communities outside the church doors."
Marcotte adds, "In an era when Christian churches are condoning outright evil actions such as ICE’s deadly rampage through Minnesota, it’s more important than ever to not allow this dishonest definition of 'religious freedom' browbeat the rest of us into silence over spiritual oppression."
Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.
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U.S. District Court Judge Katherine M. Menendez probed the Justice Department on Monday over whether a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) should be issued against the federal government after the recent slaying of a second Minneapolis citizen.
Speaking to federal lawyer Brantley Mayers, Judge Menendez questioned the purpose of the surge of federal agents and whether it was to get the state and cities to change their policies, wrote legal reporter Chris Geidner of the "Law Dork" newsletter.
Geidner recounted that Mayers attempted to say that the federal goal was to enforce federal law, but Judge Menendez pointed to statements from top Trump officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi.
In a recent letter to Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), Bondi said she would ensure that all federal agents were withdrawn if he turned over all voting records in the state.
"How am I supposed to interpret [Bondi's letter]" other than that if the state/cities change these policies, 'then this will end?'" the judge asked, according to Geidner.
Meyers said that even if the policies change and the surge is relaxed, it still isn't a Tenth Amendment issue, because the "stated" reason for the surge is valid enforcement of federal law.
Menendez asked if Meyers said, "We are here until and unless you change your policies," would that be a 10th Amendment anti-commandeering problem?
Meyers answered: "No."
She then asked about Trump's comments, "Minnesota, your day of retribution is here."
"That doesn't negate the fact that legitimate law enforcement is going on," said Meyers.
Menendez asked if there was "no limit" to the number of agents Trump's administration could send. Meyers didn't answer the question, responding only that it isn't a Tenth Amendment issue.
"Is the executive trying to achieve a goal through force that it can't achieve through the courts?" the judge asked, referencing the Bondi letter again.
“It concerns me that Attorney General Bondi’s letter cites three things that are the subject of pending litigation before this court,” the judge said, according to Adam Klasfeld, who writes the "All Rise" Substack.
She then referred to a statement from Tom Homan, Trump's executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
Homan said, "If you want less officers on the street, then let us in the jails."
So, Menendez questioned if Meyers was using the idea of "law enforcement" as a catch-all.
"Your position is that it doesn’t matter how clear that the quid pro quo" is, Klasfeld quoted the judge saying.
"I have all of these quotes in the record. You're telling me that I'm reading them wrong," the judge said. "What do I have in the record to show that the surge is to make up for the harms caused by the policies?"
Meyers maintained that the surge has nothing to do with a coercion campaign to change the state's policies.
Geidner added, "Mayers is trying mightily to argue that any challenges to actions in Minnesota can be brought in separate litigation and are not proper under a Tenth Amendment claim."
Legal analyst Klasfeld agreed with the assessment.
"This was an uphill battle for the state of Minnesota — but Pam Bondi's letter may have turned it into a viable one, if not today, down the line," he wrote on BlueSky.
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A new court filing by disqualified former interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan is now accusing a judge appointed by President Donald Trump of committing a "gross abuse of power."
On Tuesday, All Rise News editor-in-chief Adam Klasfeld tweeted that Halligan — backed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General BLANCHE? Pam Bondi — attacked U.S. District Judge David J. Novak (who Trump appointed to the Eastern District of Virginia in 2019) as "flat wrong" for suggesting that Halligan should no longer call herself a U.S. attorney due to her prior disqualification. Klasfeld called the filing an "extraordinary, pugilistic brief."
The DOJ's briefing submitted Tuesday is Halligan's official response to an order Novak handed down last week giving the disqualified prosecutor seven days to explain why she continues to wrongly use the title of U.S. attorney given that senior U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie (an appointee of former President Bill Clinton) in November disqualified her in a binding ruling.
In the 11-page filing, Halligan, Bondi and Blanche used former DOJ special counsel Jack Smith as an example of why Judge Currie's order was not binding. They noted that when Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Smith's 37-count felony indictment of the then-former president, she also deemed him to be improperly appointed under the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution as he was never confirmed by the U.S. Senate, yet Smith continued to use his special counsel title in subsequent briefings. This is despite multiple DOJ special counsels appointed under both Democratic and Republican presidents never having been confirmed by the full Senate and still having their findings respected and found credible.
Klasfeld observed that Halligan and DOJ leadership accused Novak of making a "rudimentary error," and of using his powers as a judge as a "cudgel" against the executive branch. They also referred to his order demanding Halligan explain her continued use of the U.S. attorney title as an "inquisition."
"To put it mildly, this isn't the type of language one typically sees by a party addressing a judge," Klasfeld tweeted. "Halligan, Blanche and Bondi downplay the ruling disqualifying Halligan as a 'disagreement' with the government, which they say isn't binding on any other case."
Trump initially named Halligan as acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia after former U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert was forced to resign after declining to bring charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who are two of Trump's most high-profile political opponents. Halligan indicted both Comey and James shortly after replacing Siebert, though both indictments were dismissed after Judge Currie disqualified her.
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Six prosecutors with the Justice Department have resigned after being told they must investigate the partner of Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross.
According to the New York Times, career prosecutor Joseph H. Thompson, who was previously serving as the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota through 2025, resigned on Tuesday along with five others. He was the second-in-command after another Trump pick was nominated to the post.
Thompson "objected" to the approach of going after Good's partner. He also wanted nothing to do with "the Justice Department’s refusal to include state officials in investigating whether the shooting itself was lawful," the Times reported, citing people familiar with Thompson's decision.
The other officials who resigned included Harry Jacobs, Melinda Williams and Thomas Calhoun-Lopez.
Jacobs was Thompson’s deputy, overseeing a fraud investigation into Minnesota daycare centers that Trump's administration has taken credit for busting. Jacobs began the probe in 2022.
Calhoun-Lopez served as the chief of the violent and major crimes unit.
Good was shot and killed during an encounter with Ross as she tried to move her car. The Trump administration claimed first that she ran over the agent. That statement has evolved into complaints that she allegedly rammed him with her car.
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AN 1 26
A prominent Democrat is demanding to know how many January 6 “insurrectionists” have been hired by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as critics warn that federal agents under President Donald Trump are increasingly engaging in violent enforcement actions.
“We know that several participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have been rewarded with high-ranking positions in the Department of Justice (DOJ),” U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
“However, it remains unclear how many more have been invited to join the ranks of this Administration, including among the masked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents and officers that have dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, shot, and killed citizens and non-citizens alike in communities across the country,” he added.
According to Raskin, Jared Wise, a former Supervisory Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), “stormed his way into the Capitol Building” on January 6, 2021.
“As he did so, he taunted and threaten police officers defending the building and the ones inside, screaming: ‘You guys are disgusting. I’m former—I’m former law enforcement. You’re disgusting.”
Raskin included additional language attributed to Wise, then wrote that he “has never expressed remorse or contrition for his criminal actions.”
Wise was pardoned by President Donald Trump, along with nearly 1,600 others, “including hundreds of cop beaters.”
“Today, Mr. Wise serves as senior adviser in the office of the Deputy Attorney General, alongside another January 6th participant, Ed Martin, the U.S. Pardon Attorney and head of the DOJ Weaponization Working Group,” Raskin wrote.
Congressman Raskin also blasted the recruitment and vetting processes being used by the Trump administration.
“For its part, DHS seems to be courting pardoned January 6th insurrectionists. It uses white nationalist ‘dog whistles’ in its recruitment campaign for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that appear aimed at stirring members of extremist militias, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters, which participated in the insurrection,” he stated. “The recruitment campaign began with a $50,000 sign-on bonus, removal of the college degree requirement, and a relaxed vetting process.”
“Who is hiding behind these masks?” Raskin demanded to know. “How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and were convicted of their offenses? The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this Administration.”
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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
Donald Trump's Department of Justice is getting in on the push to force diversity programs out of American businesses with a "novel" interpretation of an 1863 fraud law, but an analysis from MS NOW found that this new "bullying" tactic amounts to "a complete waste of resources."
According to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal, the DOJ is now attempting to use the 1863 False Claims Act to go after companies that receive government money through federal contracts to make sure they do not have "diversity, equity and inclusion" programs in place. The report specifically singled out Verizon and Google's parent company, Alphabet, as some of the initial targets.
Trump issued an executive order in March calling for the end of all DEI initiatives in the federal government. His administration has also been aggressive in targeting such programs at private businesses with any means available to it, and major companies like Amazon, Target and Paramount opted to roll them back in response.
Examining the new legal tactic at the heart of this push, MS NOW's Hayes Brown explained that the False Claims Act was first introduced to take on defense contractors attempting to bilk the Union government for more money during the Civil War. Recently, it's mostly been used to go after healthcare companies suspected of overcharging the federal government.
This new intended use of the law by the Trump administration, holding companies liable and potentially leveling fines against them for having DEI programs in place while taking government money, would be a "novel" interpretation, Brown wrote, and one that "hasn’t been tested in court and could easily fall flat." Still, he argued, "the mere fact that DOJ is pursuing this route is chilling in and of itself."
Brown also noted that, by utilizing this novel approach to the False Claims Act, the Trump administration is shifting responsibility for its anti-DEI crusadeonto the DOJ from the department's civil rights division to its fraud division, which has been ordered to "aggressively" pursue the matter. Aside from being "clear politicization of the legal system," Brown also argued that it represents "a major waste of resources" for the DOJ, which has recently "been struggling with its workload" under Attorney General Pam Bondi's remaking of the department.
"Even if the cases go nowhere, or don’t result in charges, businesses with less money than Google may step up efforts to roll back their diversity programs," Brown concluded. "MAGA pours a lot of resources into achieving its goals, but it prefers that its targets for bullying comply in advance."
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sykes 12 25
https://charliesykes.substack.com/p/pam-bondi-is-coming-for-domestic
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AN 12 25
About 200 former attorneys and staff from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice are warning of the “near destruction of DOJ’s once-revered crown jewel,” and what they call Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “demand” for “loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
“For decades, the non-partisan work of the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has protected all Americans—especially the most vulnerable—from unfair treatment and unequal opportunities,” they write in a letter dated Tuesday. They added that “after witnessing this Administration destroy much of our work, we made the heartbreaking decision to leave—along with hundreds of colleagues, including about 75 percent of attorneys.”
Bloomberg Law reported on Tuesday that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will now focus only on “intentional discrimination,” and not “policies that may appear neutral but disproportionately affect racial minorities and other protected classes.”
In their letter, the former attorneys and staff specifically state that they left the Civil Rights Division “because this Administration turned the Division’s core mission upside down, largely abandoning its duty to protect civil rights,” and that it “achieved this goal by discarding much of the Division’s most impactful work.”
The group blasted Attorney General Bondi, who, they said, “issued a series of memos that subverted the Division’s mission in favor of President Trump’s political agenda.”
“One stood out: it insinuated that DOJ attorneys were Trump’s personal lawyers, an assertion that struck at the heart of the agency’s independence. Bondi’s demand to us was obvious: loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
In another scathing section, they charged that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon “focused her efforts on ‘driving [the Civil Rights Division] in the opposite direction’ of its longstanding purpose.”
They allege she issued mission statements “that included fighting diversity initiatives instead of race-based discrimination, investigating baseless allegations of voter fraud rather than protecting the right to vote, and dropping any mention of the Fair Housing Act, a landmark 1968 law that protects Americans from landlords’ racial discrimination and sexual harassment.”
And they charge that the administration “demanded that we find facts to fit the Administration’s predetermined outcomes.”
“Having no use for the expertise of career staff, the Administration launched a coordinated effort to drive us out,” they wrote. “The campaign to purge staff culminated in Dhillon encouraging everyone to resign after a period of paid leave while threatening layoffs if enough staff did not accept.”
Christine Stoneman, one of the letter’s signatories, told Bloomberg Law, “It is a sad commentary that in this anniversary of the Civil Rights Division, the Trump administration has chosen to eliminate a regulation that, for nearly 60 years has helped root out illegal race and national origin discrimination by recipients of federal funds.”
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PALIN ENDORSE
LENDER PROCESSNG SERVICES FOTRVLSOURE PEPR RUBBER ROBO SIGN? RAGA
ask trump got money // trump u
rudy and dt did fundriaser at maralago
4
Bondie termed out of her office in 2019 and immediately became a lobbyist at Ballard Partners. Her job was basically
18:01
to work on behalf of well-moneyed clients who wanted to be connected with people in the Trump orbit. clients like
18:06
the government of Qatar, Amazon, and a private prison corporation called GEO Group. Nightmare blunt rotation. She
18:14
wasn't tapped to be a member of the first Trump administration, but she did land a position on the team defending Trump from his first impeachment, which
...
3:21
man armed with a semi-automatic weapon and a handgun opened fire on patrons of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando before
13:27
being shot dead by police. 49 people were killed and 58 others were wounded in one of the deadliest mass shootings
13:34
in American history. And in the aftermath, Pam Bondi tried to make herself out like a kind and
13:39
compassionate supporter of gay people, which led to Bondi flop sweating her way through this very awkward interview with
13:45
Anderson Cooper, who rightfully wanted to know how she could suddenly claim to love the gays when she'd spent so much
13:52
of her time using the power of her office to oppress them. I talked to a lot of gay and lesbian people here yesterday who are not fans of yours and
13:59
who said that they thought you were being a hypocrite that you for years have fought uh you basically gone after
14:06
gay people said that in court that gay people simply by fighting for marriage equality were trying to do harm to the
14:13
people of Florida. Do you really think you're a champion of the gay community? I I let me tell you, I when I was sworn
14:19
in as attorney general, I put my hand on a Bible and was sworn to uphold the constitution of the state of Florida.
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That's not a law. That was voted into our state constitution by the voters of
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Florida. That's what I was defending. Had nothing to do I've never said I don't like gay people. Well, that's
14:38
But you did say, but do you worry about using language accusing gay people of trying to do harm to the people of
14:44
Florida when doesn't that send a message to some people who might have bad ideas in mind?
14:49
Listen, I don't believe gay people could do harm to the state of Florida. But you argued that in court. My lawyer argued a case defending what
14:57
the Supreme Court allowed the voters to put in our state. But you were arguing
15:02
that gay marriage if if if there was gay marriage, if there was samesex marriage, that would do harm to the people of
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Florida. I was defending the constitution of what's over 69% of the voters within the
...
lost his right to own a gun due to a domestic violence conviction. Oyer later testified before Congress that she
37:01
refused to do so and was fired shortly thereafter. And didn't you say that we
37:07
were going to bring up her brother, Brad Bondi, again? All right, of course. So Brad Bondie is a defense attorney in DC. Since his
37:13
sister has been attorney general, the DOJ has been mysteriously dropping charges against clients he's representing. Whoa. Yeah. In March,
37:21
Trump pardoned a Mormon grifter named Trevor Milton, who had been sentenced to four years in prison over his fraudulent
37:27
electric truck company called Nicola. Nicola raised eyepopping amounts of money from investors, only come to find
37:34
out the truck didn't work. In order to demonstrate that it worked, Milton rolled it down a hill. Stop.
37:41
Stop. Okay, here's another one that that Brad Bondie was representing. Ju just before
37:47
leaving office, the Biden Justice Department opened an investigation into a Republican lawyer named Karolina
37:52
Amisty, which sounds like a fake name that I would give on the fly. Amisty faced charges that she had
37:58
defrauded the COVID relief program and was looking at up to 20 years in prison. She whined that she was being targeted
38:04
for her politics. But suddenly in August, her lawyer again, the AG's brother, learned that the DOJ was no
38:10
longer going to seek charges against her. What a kowinky dink. So, they've got kind of a Lannister-like symbiosis
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going, except instead of [ __ ] each other, they're doubleteaming the concept of justice. She also seems, how do I put
...
In our 28th episode of This F*cking Guy, Erin and Alyssa dive deep into the past of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. From stealing orphaned children’s dog, to becoming Trump’s lapdog, to her shady involvement with the Epstein files, to role-playing as Trump’s personal lawyer, this may be our most theatrical sycophant yet! Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R...CHAPTERS - Intr
- Early lif
- Stealing dog from orphaned hurricane Katrina childre
- Time as Attorney General of Florid
- Relationship with Trum
- Ad brea
- Becoming Trump’s Attorney Genera
- Involvement with Epstein File
- Senate Judiciary hearings, more dirty work as U.S. A
- Outro/Matrix ratings Political commentator and comedy writer Erin Ryan and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco are joined by a bicoastal squad of funny, opinionated women to talk through everything from reproductive rights to romcoms. They break down the political news of the week, plus the topics, trends, and cultural stories that affect women’s lives. New episodes drop every Thursday. Get in touch: hysteria@crooked.com.
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AN 11 25
During Donald Trump's first presidency, he bitterly clashed with a long list of traditional conservatives who pushed back against his proposals — from a secretary of state (Rex Tillerson) to a White House chief of staff (John Kelly) to a national security adviser (John Bolton) to two U.S. attorneys general (Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr). Even one of Trump's White House press secretaries (Stephanie Grisham) ended up giving Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris an enthusiastic endorsement at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
But Trump's second presidency is much different. This time, he has made a point of surrounding himself with unquestioning MAGA loyalists who are anxious to please him.
In an opinion column published on October 18, the New York Times' Frank Bruni stresses that desperation to please Trump is one of the things that makes his current group of allies so dangerous.
Bruni specifically points to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance.
"There’s no team of rivals around Trump, no constructive dissent, no battle of ideas from which the best one emerges," Bruni warns. "There’s just flattery and more flattery. Tribute upon tribute. Hyperbole atop hyperbole. Of course, telling bosses how effective, charismatic and visionary they are is a tried-and-true route to advancement…. But the sort of fanboy fan dances that Vance and Patel routinely perform? That's extreme. As was Attorney General Pam Bondi's pathetic effort, during a Senate hearing in which she was fielding questions, to make Democrats on the panel answer for their supposed crimes against Trump. How, she wondered, could they be so mean to him? How, I wondered, does she keep a straight face?"
Bondi, Patel and Hegseth, according to Bruni, are dangerous not only because of their extreme rhetoric, but because they are willing to back it up with actions.
"If that lip service were merely the ceremonial price that Trump's aides paid to be able to attend to the rest of their jobs in a serious manner," Bruni argues, "it would be little more than embarrassing. But it's part of a broader servility, a more profound humiliation. Their deeds must match their diction. So Bondi has either encouraged or indulged nuisance investigations and malicious prosecutions of Trump's enemies, including (former FBI Director) James Comey and (New York State Attorney General) Letitia James. Patel expanded polygraph tests at the FBI — to prevent pejorative portrayals of the administration from leaking out."
Bruni continues, "Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth channeled Trump's contempt for independent journalists and emulated Trump's attacks on the media by laying down new rules that essentially forced self-respecting reporters to hand in their Pentagon press credentials. The president was pleased: He wondered aloud about doing something similar at the White House. Maybe Patel and Hegseth were always this paranoid and petulant, but Bondi seems to have grown crueler and coarser in direct relation to her time with Trump. And Vance's cartoonish sycophancy is the convenient inverse of his past statements that Trump was 'America's Hitler' and an 'idiot.'"
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AN 10 25
During Donald Trump's first presidency, he bitterly clashed with a long list of traditional conservatives who pushed back against his proposals — from a secretary of state (Rex Tillerson) to a White House chief of staff (John Kelly) to a national security adviser (John Bolton) to two U.S. attorneys general (Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr). Even one of Trump's White House press secretaries (Stephanie Grisham) ended up giving Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris an enthusiastic endorsement at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
But Trump's second presidency is much different. This time, he has made a point of surrounding himself with unquestioning MAGA loyalists who are anxious to please him.
In an opinion column published on October 18, the New York Times' Frank Bruni stresses that desperation to please Trump is one of the things that makes his current group of allies so dangerous.
Bruni specifically points to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance.
"There’s no team of rivals around Trump, no constructive dissent, no battle of ideas from which the best one emerges," Bruni warns. "There’s just flattery and more flattery. Tribute upon tribute. Hyperbole atop hyperbole. Of course, telling bosses how effective, charismatic and visionary they are is a tried-and-true route to advancement…. But the sort of fanboy fan dances that Vance and Patel routinely perform? That's extreme. As was Attorney General Pam Bondi's pathetic effort, during a Senate hearing in which she was fielding questions, to make Democrats on the panel answer for their supposed crimes against Trump. How, she wondered, could they be so mean to him? How, I wondered, does she keep a straight face?"
Bondi, Patel and Hegseth, according to Bruni, are dangerous not only because of their extreme rhetoric, but because they are willing to back it up with actions.
"If that lip service were merely the ceremonial price that Trump's aides paid to be able to attend to the rest of their jobs in a serious manner," Bruni argues, "it would be little more than embarrassing. But it's part of a broader servility, a more profound humiliation. Their deeds must match their diction. So Bondi has either encouraged or indulged nuisance investigations and malicious prosecutions of Trump's enemies, including (former FBI Director) James Comey and (New York State Attorney General) Letitia James. Patel expanded polygraph tests at the FBI — to prevent pejorative portrayals of the administration from leaking out."
Bruni continues, "Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth channeled Trump's contempt for independent journalists and emulated Trump's attacks on the media by laying down new rules that essentially forced self-respecting reporters to hand in their Pentagon press credentials. The president was pleased: He wondered aloud about doing something similar at the White House. Maybe Patel and Hegseth were always this paranoid and petulant, but Bondi seems to have grown crueler and coarser in direct relation to her time with Trump. And Vance's cartoonish sycophancy is the convenient inverse of his past statements that Trump was 'America's Hitler' and an 'idiot.'"
*Frank Bruni's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).
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AN 10 25
Top Trump official pressured DOJ to 'pursue president’s foes' — even as career prosecutors refused
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Opinion
Photographer Captures Pam Bondi’s Notes—and They’re a Doozy
Edith Olmsted
Wed, October 8, 2025
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi needed a cheat sheet of attacks to dodge Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s tough questions.
While sitting before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, Bondi repeatedly refused to answer questions from the Rhode Island Democrat about what happened to the $50,000 cash bribe border czar Tom Homan received from undercover FBI agents in 2024.
Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst captured an image of the inside of a folder of notes Bondi referred to during questioning by Whitehouse. But her notes had nothing to do with her work as leader of the Department of Justice, or even the embattled border czar. Rather, Bondi had collected screenshots of social media posts, prewritten comebacks, and handwritten notes she hoped could give her a good “gotcha” moment.
The top of the folder showed a July X post from Whitehouse in which he’d called for an investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. “No government official should be above the law,” he wrote.
Also included in the folder was a bulleted list of comebacks. Apparently, Bondi needed to prepare the remark “You are a total hypocrite” in advance.
Screenshot of a tweet
She employed another one of her prewritten attacks when asked about Homan’s tax returns. “Senator, I would be more concerned if I were you when you talk about corruption and money, when you pushed for legislation that subsidized your wife’s company!” Bondi sneered.
“The questions here are actually pretty specific,” Whitehouse replied, undeterred. “So, having you respond with completely irrelevant far-right internet talking points is really not very helpful here.”
Below her catalog of clapbacks, Bondi had written a handwritten note “On Epstein” positing whether Whitehouse had ever accepted money from Reid Hoffman, who once invited Epstein to dinner. She used the tidbit to deflect from a question about whether the FBI had seized photos of President Donald Trump with half-naked young women from the safe at Epstein’s estate, as reported by author Michael Wolff.
“Do you know if the FBI found those photographs in their search of Jeffrey Epstein’s safe or premises or otherwise? Have you seen any such thing?” Whitehouse asked.
“You know, Senator Whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious remarks, once again trying to slander President Trump left and right, when you’re the one who was taking money from one of Epstein’s closest confidants, Reid Hoffman,” Bondi replied.
Again, Whitehouse continued unbothered. “The question is, did the FBI find those photographs that have been discussed publicly by a witness who claimed Jeffrey Epstein showed them to him. You don’t know anything about that?” he asked, and Bondi fell silent, having exhausted her scant notes.
It’s disturbing, but not surprising, that Bondi didn’t make actual preparations to answer tough questions from senators. It appears that the attorney general felt no obligation to be accountable to the American people about alleged efforts to cover up for Trump or his underlings, believing them all to be above the law.
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AN 10 25 WSJ GOT DM TO BONDI 2 BEEFY FBI AGENT TO PERP WALK COMEY , WENT PUBLIC SO HE SENT 2ND ONE PRAISING HER?
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AN 10 25
During Wednesday’s White House roundtable on “Antifa,” Trump Cabinet secretaries compared it to international drug cartels and vowed to dismantle it “brick by brick,” while the President described Antifa as “treasonous, probably.”
Antifa, which the President has labeled a “domestic terrorist organization,” is widely seen as a movement of people opposed to fascism and racism. It is not believed to be a formal organization. BBC News describes it as “a loosely organized, leftist movement that opposes far-right, racist and fascist groups,” and which “lacks a distinct leader, membership list or structure. In 2020, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that Antifa was better defined as an ideology than as a formal organization.”
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem told roundtable attendees, “One of the individuals we arrested recently in Portland was the girlfriend of one of the founders of Antifa.”
Secretary Noem said they are “hoping that as we go after her, interview her and prosecute her, we will get more and more information about the network and how we can root them out, and eliminate them from the existence of American society.”
READ MORE: ‘Full-Blown Authoritarianism’: Governor Fires Back After Trump Says He Belongs ‘in Jail’
She also said that “this network of Antifa is just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TdA, as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them.”
“They are just as dangerous. They have an agenda to destroy us, just like the other terrorists we’ve dealt with for many, many years. And today is the day that we have a president that won’t tolerate it, and will stand up and fight for the American people.”
Similarly, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that “fighting crime is more than just getting the bad guy off the streets. It’s breaking down the organization, brick by brick. Just like we did with cartels. We are going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa, destroy the entire organization from top to bottom. We’re going to take them apart.”
“Their hatred for President Trump, and for law and order agendas, fuels their violence,” Bondi said. “We saw what’s happening in Portland and Chicago, and you saw what happened in Dallas. No longer. It is not activism, it’s anarchy. We can’t, and we will not, let masked terrorists burn our buildings, attack our law enforcement, and intimidate our communities.”
She declared that the Trump administration is “deploying the full might of the federal law enforcement to crack down on Antifa and other domestic terrorist organizations.”
READ MORE: ‘The Ground Has Shifted’: Experts Warn After Trump’s ‘Gnat’ Speech to U.S. Navy
President Trump said, “we’re going after Antifa criminals and all who fund and support their campaigns are in serious trouble, and we have a lot of records already, a lot of surprises, a lot of bad surprises — people that you would never think.”
He also asked the group to identify the “funders” of Antifa: “These are people that do not have good intention for the country, and that’s treasonous, probably.”
Critics blasted the event.
“After the US bombed multiple boats in the middle of the ocean, murdering people on grounds that they were allegedly ‘carrying drugs,’ the US Attorney General says ‘Just like we did with cartels, we’re going to take the same approach…with Antifa,'” wrote Zeteo News’ Prem Thakker.
Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council observed, “Cartels have actual leadership structures, central funding, command and control, and more. ‘Antifa’ is mostly a philosophy. That the Attorney General doesn’t know the difference is quite the thing to admit!”
Bill Kristol, the director of Defending Democracy Together, wrote: “Which is more alarming? That the Homeland Security secretary might actually believe that ‘Antifa’ is as dangerous as Hezbollah or Hamas? Or that she’s willing to engage in this level of lying and demagoguery? Neither is good!”
Olga Lautman, a Russian intelligence expert and senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, pointed to Bondi’s remark about cartels and asked: “Are they planning on sending missiles to American cities to carry out extrajudicial killings.”
SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah issued this warning: “Please understand that This is Trump regime explaining how they will use the government to prosecute Democrats. Page 1 of the fascist playbook is imprison political opponents so that the fascist has one party rule.”
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an 10 25
Trump AG’s 'abuses of power' are creating a crisis 'worse than Watergate': ex-DOJ official
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CoMBATIVE OVERSIGHT WHITEHOUSE
ask about epstein b/c you took reid hoffman money 2x? 10 25
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9 25
AG Pam Bondi Says "We Can Prosecute You" for Refusing to Print Posters for Charlie Kirk Vigil
But there doesn't seem to be any federal law actually authorizing such prosecutions (or civil lawsuits).
Eugene Volokh | 9.16.2025
The Hill (Ashleigh Fields) reports:
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday said the Justice Department was investigating an incident involving a Michigan Office Depot employee who refused to print flyers advertising a vigil for conservative activist Charlie Kirk…. Office Depot said last week they removed the employee responsible for denying the order placed by the Kalamazoo County Republican Party.
Here's the Bondi quote, from Hannity on Fox, starting about 4:42:
Businesses cannot discriminate. If you wanna go in and print posters with Charlie's pictures on them for a vigil, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that. But I have Harmeet Dhillon right now in our Civil Rights unit looking at that immediately, that Office Depot had done that. We're looking at that.
But no federal law, to my knowledge, purports to ban stores from discriminating based on the political expression of the material they're asked to print.
Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans discrimination by certain places of public accommodation—such as restaurants, hotels, theaters, and places of public amusement—based on race, religion, and national origin. But it doesn't ban discrimination based on political views, and it doesn't apply to retailers, so it wouldn't apply here. It also bans discrimination based on disability, but that's not applicable here either. Businesses candiscriminate, just not on bases that the law forbids; and here, federal law doesn't appear to forbid this sort of discrimination.
Now some jurisdictions do ban political discrimination in places of public accommodation (see this article). If such a ban were applied to a print shop that deliberately refused to process an order based on its political content, then it might violate the First Amendment (see the concurrence in *Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Comm'n v. Hands On Originals* (Ky. 2019), a case in which Cato Institute and I filed an amicus brief making the First Amendment argument).
That First Amendment claim would be strengthened, of course, by 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023), which recognized a First Amendment right not to create a website for same-sex weddings. It's conceivable that a court might limit the First Amendment defenses to small businesses where the owner would have to do the work personally; cf. Rumsfeld v. FAIR(2006), which upheld certain requirements that universities host certain speech, and distribute related speech, though perhaps the reasoning of 303 Creativewould apply even to a large business such as Office Depot.
But none of that even arises here, because those jurisdictions are certain cities and counties, some territories, D.C., and perhaps a few states. None of those laws applies to the Office Depot involved in this incident; and even if there was such a law in Michigan or in the town of Portage (where the store was apparently located), it wouldn't be enforced by the U.S. Justice Department. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but it's hard to see a credible legal basis for AG Bondi's statements.
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Jeanine Pirro mocked with January 6 photos after charging man for throwing sandwich at cop
an 8 25
In Washington, DC — where protesters are speaking out against President Donald Trump's federalizing of local law enforcement —
a man is being charged with felony assault for throwing a Subway sandwich at a police officer.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi highlighted the arrest in a late Thursday morning, August 14 post on X, formerly Twitter.
"If you touch any law enforcement officer," Bondi tweeted, "we will come after you. I just learned that this defendant worked at the Department of Justice — NO LONGER. Not only is he FIRED, he has been charged with a felony. This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months as we work to refocus DOJ. You will NOT work in this administration while disrespecting our government and law enforcement."
READ MORE:'That's how this ends': George Conway reveals 'the only way' to stop Trump's 'gangsterism'
Bondi's post is drawing some scathing responses from X users, some of whom are attacking her as a hypocrite in light of the fact that Trump granted federal pardons to the January 6, 2021 rioters — including those who violently attacked police officers that day.
Reporter Sam Youngman tweeted, "When you know DOJ reporters are too chickens—— to call you on your obvious hypocrisy.'"
Attorney Tracey Gallagher posted, "You mean like the DOJ employing Jared Wise, a Jan. 6 defendant who called cops 'Nazis' and urged the crowd to 'kill em' as they stormed the Capitol? By the way Bondi hitting someone with a sandwich under state or federal law is not a felony.(18 U.S.C. § 111) you are missing an element here."
Gallagher, in a separate tweet, wrote, "You're missing the element of a deadly weapon OR GBI you have neither."
READ MORE:'Disgusting': MAGA erupts at Democratic governor over 'classless' remark about Trump 'bro'
Self-described "constitutional conservative" Kelly McCarty humorously posted, "Sandwich crime arrests should always be the top priority for the DOJ."
Attorney James Hess commented, "But you won't go after people on the Epstein list?"
X user Pat Greentree wrote, "But if you work for a foreign spy agency and traffic children to US leaders for blackmail purposes they will protect you. THIS is the deep state, not a guy throwing a sandwich."
READ MORE:'Severe pushback': House Republicans fear constituent revolt over divisive new proposal
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Atlantic writer Quinta Jurecic reports Trump’s plan to use the DOJ for revenge against protesters and Democratic politicians is not going as well as he’d like.
“The Justice Department has been slow to move forward with the investigations Trump demanded, hemmed in by the constraints of the legal system,” writes Jurecic. “… American criminal law appears to be a less flexible tool in the hands of an authoritarian than Trump hoped — at least for now.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi may be ready to carry out Trump’s “personal-retribution project” with investigations of the Obama administration and former prosecutor Jack Smith, says Jurecic, but a prosecutor still requires a jury to issue an indictment, and to do that the prosecutor has to make a convincing case. This is usually easy, but Jurecic says the “administration keeps tripping up.”
READ MORE: 'That's how this ends': George Conway reveals 'the only way' to stop Trump's 'gangsterism'
Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli filed more than 35 felony prosecutions against June protestors against ICE raids in Los Angeles, but they only managed to persuade grand juries to indict some of them. Later, his office dismissed eight of his own indictments and downgraded others to misdemeanors after “falling short at the grand jury stage” according to the LA Times.
By comparison, Jurecic reports only six refusals by grand juries to indict suspects across the nation in 2016 — out of roughly 180,000 cases.
Meanwhile, over on the east coast, prosecutors moved to dismiss U.S. Attorney Alina Habba’s trespassing charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka after he attempted to visit an ICE detention facility. The judge in that case slammed Habba’s office so hard for trying to press the charges that Baraka could be heard saying: “Jesus, he tore these people a new a——.”
READ MORE: 'Severe pushback': House Republicans fear constituent revolt over divisive new proposal
And Jurecic reports Bondi appears to be “struggling” to pursue Trump’s demand to prosecute people involved in perpetrating what Trump calls the “Russia hoax.”
“The biggest challenge there is that there was no hoax,” said Jurecic, “as both Special Counsel Robert Mueller and a bipartisan Senate intelligence report concluded, Russia really did try to help Trump win the 2016 election.”
Jurecic said it looks like Bondi“was caught unawares” by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s release of documents related to the “hoax” from 2016, and “displeased about the political pressure from the right to launch an investigation in response.”
“All Bondi appears to have done is ask prosecutors to possibly present grand jurors with evidence, with no clear deadline,” said Jurecic, despite “exciting” Fox News headlines.
READ MORE: 'Don’t see that happening': Crockett calls Republicans' bluff on controversial Trump move
And regarding the investigation of Smith, Jurecic says the “harshest penalty that the Office of Special Counsel could demand would be Smith’s dismissal from government service, but he has already resigned.”
“A jury is in essence a democratic institution, requiring citizens to exercise their judgment in a model of shared deliberation that is at odds with Trump’s autocratic tendencies,” said Jurecic. “… So far, that system has held up against Trump’s encroachment. But the rapid erosion of democratic life in the United States over the past six months is a reminder of how quickly things can change.”
Read the full Atlantic report at this link.
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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.'"
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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an 7 25
Salon's Amanda Marcotte has often stressed that many MAGA try to curry favor with President Donald Trump not only by aggressively promoting his policies, but also, by altering their appearances and trying to look a certain way. "Mar-a-Lago face," according to Marcotte, includes heavy, caked-on makeup, a lot of bronzer, a fake tan, full lips, and in some cases, plastic surgery. MAGA women often express their devotion to Trump with both their physical appearances and their combative defenses of his policies.
More analysis of the role far-right women are playing in Trump's second presidency is coming from journalist Virginia Heffernan, who co-hosts the podcast "What Rough Beast" with colleague Stephen Metcalf.
In an article published by The New Republic on August 4, Heffernan zeros in on four MAGA women in particular and their roles in pushing Trump's policies: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
READ MORE:One state has always been a magnet for big-time sleazeballs — as the Epstein saga proves
"Good news for the Women's Marchers of 2017: The future did turn out to be female," Heffernan argues. "Less good news: The females now in power are far-right and bloodthirsty. Having appointed more women to Cabinet-level positions than any other Republican president, Donald Trump now has a quartet of harpies fronting the (Trump) Administration's most vicious bloodsports. Like middle-aged Manson girls, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, Linda McMahon, and Kristi Noem take orders from a supremely nasty felon. But they have vile streaks all their own. The vileness blends their private and public actions in a filthy smoothie."
Heffernan stresses that Bondi, Gabbard, McMahon and Noem repeatedly show the extremes they're willing to embrace in service of Trump.
"On the main stage," the journalist/podcaster observes, "Attorney General Pam Bondi has proven a singularly dutiful and hollow-eyed Trump soldier. For Manson Family obsessives, she’s probably closest to Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme…. Gabbard, the newly minted gun fetishist who now speaks in Q drops, is concocting sham treason charges against Obama…. McMahon has been willfully destroying American education, imperiling the country’s future in plain sight."
Heffernan continues, "And DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who believes habeas corpus means Trump can do whatever the hell he wants to immigrants, continues to vamp as the national avatar of constitutionally dubious raids, renditions, and detentions — in a $50,000 Rolex. As for their knack for striking Instagram poses — in concentration camps, on horseback and beaches, thumbs-upping with Trump, sometimes brandishing big guns — these women have been training their whole lives for MAGA shock theater. Bondi cut her teeth in blonded-and-bronzed Fox appearances; Gabbard on social media and in a flamboyant cult in which adherents evidently ate the leader's toenails; McMahon as a heel in what Roland Barthes called pro-wrestling's 'spectacle of suffering'; and Kristi Noem in a teen beauty pageant."
READ MORE: 'It was all lies': Outrage as Trump walks back major pro-family campaign promise
Like Marcotte, Heffernan points out that MAGA women are careful to look a certain way.
The original Manson girls wore prairie dresses, shifts, and bare faces. Bondi, Gabbard, and Noem go for the trademark Trump-girl glam. But their cheugy hair and smeary MAGA makeup would just be a reprise of the (Hope)Hicks/(Kimberly) Guilfoyle lewk from Season 1, if their images weren't now explicitly pressed into the service of so much disturbing political iconography…. Gabbard's Instagram shows her thirstily clad in ammo — carrying the kind of assault rifle she used to oppose — at the Tactical Games, where 'fitness meets firearms'…. MAGA makeup aside…. all of these women are wolfish."
Heffernan adds, "When did Republican women, aged 44 to 76, become so savage? So proudly deviant?"
READ MORE: Don't 'have any other choice': Outrage grows in the Midwest as political crisis spirals
*Virginia Heffernan's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.
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Read our_full blog post_on our website.
An attempt to defund the District of Columbia’s consumer protection lawsuit against Big Oil is part of a wider attack on climate accountability lawsuits
As Big Oil and its allies lobby to shield the fossil fuel industry from a growing number of climate deception lawsuits, Congress is now taking aim at a case filed by the nation’s capital.
Recently proposed legislation would prohibit the District of Columbia from using any funds to enforce its consumer protection laws “against oil and gas companies for environmental claims” — a clear attack on D.C.’s ongoing lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell.
“The fossil fuel industry and its allies are trying to kill any and all lawsuits that would hold Big Oil companies accountable for their climate lies and the damage they’ve caused — and this assault on D.C.’s ability to enforce its own consumer protection laws is part of their playbook,” said CCI President Richard Wiles.
Read our full blog post on our website:
July 24, 2025
As Big Oil and its allies lobby to shield the fossil fuel industry from a growing number of climate deception lawsuits, Congress is now taking aim at a case filed by the nation’s capital.
Under a newly released appropriations bill, Congress would prohibit the District of Columbia from using any funds to enforce its consumer protection laws “against oil and gas companies for environmental claims.” The legislation clearly targets D.C.’s ongoing lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell, which argues the companies violated D.C.’s consumer protection law by engaging in misleading acts and practices around the marketing, promotion, and sale of fossil fuel products. In April, a D.C. court rejected the Big Oil companies’ motions to dismiss the case, bringing it one step closer to trial.
“The fossil fuel industry and its allies are trying to kill any and all lawsuits that would hold Big Oil companies accountable for their climate lies and the damage they’ve caused — and this assault on D.C.’s ability to enforce its own consumer protection laws is part of their playbook,” said CCI President Richard Wiles.
The attack on D.C.’s case comes after 16 Republican attorneys general asked U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to help erect a “liability shield” for fossil fuel companies against climate lawsuits. Among its tactics, the attorneys general recommended that the federal government restrict funding for state and local governments that seek to make fossil fuel companies pay for climate damages.
:{:{CCI and nearly 200 other groups have urged Congress to support climate accountability and oppose immunity for Big Oil. Now a growing number of public officials are joining those calls. U.S. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents D.C. in Congress, vowed to fight the attack on D.C.’s lawsuit. The National Association of Counties, representing thousands of county officials across the U.S., is urgingCongress to reject any legislation that “would limit or preempt counties’ access to courts or give companies immunity from lawsuits over damages and costs.” }:
And Oregon’s congressional representatives called for President Trump to rescind an order that targeted state climate actions. “Governments, residents, businesses, and others must have access to legal and legislative remedies in order to hold fossil fuel companies accountable, seek justice, and make polluters pay for the damage they have caused,” they wrote.}:
“No industry should be above the law, especially one as powerful and harmful as Big Oil,” said CCI’s Wiles. “Members of Congress must reject this underhanded attempt to help Big Oil escape accountability and protect access to the courts for every community.”
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AN 7 25
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Monday that the Justice Department has released a declassified appendix from the 2018 Inspector General’s report, shedding new light on the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
This step follows a long-standing appeal from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who has consistently advocated for more openness about the investigation.
Grassley released the document on Monday after receiving it from Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.
READ MORE:Carville says this 'forceful' 4-word phrase should be Dems' 'core message' going into 2026
The newly released appendix shows the FBI retrieved thumb drives, described as containing hacked State Department data, including messages from former President Barack Obama — but did not fully analyze their contents, per theWashington Examiner.
The Clinton email controversy dates back to 2009–2013, when Clinton conducted official business via a private, home-based email system. The FBI concluded she had been “extremely careless” but did not find evidence of criminal intent, opting not to press charges.
Bondi’s Monday announcement also intersects with ongoing controversy over the handling of documents related to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Conservatives had pressed for the release of Epstein’s “client list,” but a DOJ-FBI memo later said that no such list existed and emphasized that most materials remain sealed to protect victims.
Responding to calls for further disclosure, the Justice Department filed a request Friday to unseal grand jury transcripts in the Epstein case — following directives from President Donald Trump and public pressure.
READ MORE:'He is failing': Top GOP pollster explains why 'the next 6 months' could seal Trump’s political fate
However, legal experts have warnedthat the request is unlikely to reveal much new information, pointing out that grand jury presentations in the Southern District of New York usually include only enough detail to support an indictment, not exhaustive evidence.
Meanwhile, Bondi's Monday decision was criticized as a "distraction" on social media.
Podcaster Brian Allen wrote on the social platform X: "Trump’s DOJ just reopened the Clinton email investigation — releasing documents from the failed 2016 probe under James Comey. Pam Bondi’s DOJ says this is about 'transparency.' But we all know what this really is: political theater to distract from the Epstein fallout and criminal referrals now hitting Trump’s own administration. They’re flailing. And they’re running out of cards to play."
Another X user wrote: "NEW: Here we go again… it’s 2025 and they’re still yelling 'BUT HER EMAILS!' Pam Bondi is releasing more Clinton email drama, because when Trump world feels the Epstein heat, they always reach for Hillary. It’s not about justice or anything serious, other than about a distraction for MAGA base. The smoke machine is on full blast."
"The desperation is so obvious," wrote another account.
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AN 7 25
The Trump Justice Department recently threw its weight behind Washington’s Catholic bishops, filing a legal motion to invalidate SB 5375, siding with clergy arguing the law unconstitutionally targets religious practice.
U.S. District Chief Judge David G. Estudillo issued a preliminary injunction Friday, preventing Washington state from enforcing SB 5375’s mandatory reporting rule “as to the Sacrament of Confession” in the dioceses of Seattle, Yakima, and Spokane — just days before the law’s July 27 effective date.
Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ), led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, officially intervened in the lawsuit Etienne v. Ferguson, backing the Archdiocese of Seattle, Yakima, and Spokane. In its filing, the DOJ labeled Washington’s new child-abuse reporting statute — Senate Bill 5375, which requires clergy to report all suspected child abuse, even if disclosed during confession — as “anti‑Catholic” and likely in violation of First Amendment protections.
READ MORE:'Like an open fire hose': Trump ripped as cracks show in MAGA media
Estudillo emphasized that the law, unlike similar statutes in around 25 other states, included no exceptions for confession, and held that the plaintiffs had demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on First Amendment grounds.
The judge's ruling comes amid the controversy related to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and allegations of a coverup.
A Rolling Stone article by journalist Alex Ashley published Sunday highlighted the administration's efforts to defend organized religion.
Under the new state law — SB 5375—all clergy, regardless of faith, are required to report suspected child abuse to authorities within 48 hours, even if the information is obtained during confession. They are not required to testify in court, hand over notes, or breach attorney‑client privilege. The obligation is narrow but significant, the author noted.
The article noted that that lone obligation effectively closes a confessional loophole that remains open in most states. While all 50 states (and D.C., Guam) list clergy as mandatory reporters, 33 states exempt what’s disclosed in confession, making SB 5375 a bold exception.
READ MORE:Why Republicans worship Trump as their sick and twisted role model
The law places Washington in the minority — alongside only six other states (New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, West Virginia) — that have eliminated confessional exemptions entirely. Yet enforcement remains problematic: 36 states have religious‑freedom protections (RFRAs or constitutional), making prosecution for confession‑based reporting virtually impossible. Washington has no state RFRA but does apply strict scrutiny to religious‑freedom cases.
The Catholic Church argues the confessional seal isn’t just private counseling — it’s a sacrament essential to faith.
Ashley argued that this marks one of the most forceful federal efforts to defend organized religion against a state law in recent memory — DOJ isn’t asking for a narrow carve‑out, but pushing to overturn the law entirely and remind courts of the centrality of religious liberty.
According to the author, the "Trump-era DOJ and the Catholic Church have found common cause in attacking Washington state, even if they don’t agree on where the line should be drawn, forming a rare alliance against one of the first laws in decades to strip away clergy’s confessional shield in child abuse cases."
He added: "It has turned into a national flashpoint, a constitutional test case watched across the country, poised to redefine the boundary between church and state."
"Together, the two lawsuits, along with the DOJ’s involvement, have made Washington’s law a high-stakes legal test. Whether its promise of ending clergy secrecy in abuse reporting holds, or collapses under constitutional challenge, now rests with the courts," the piece said.
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AN 7 25
A newly uncovered web of more than 400 AI‑powered X accounts has begun rapidly contradicting itself in response to the controversy surrounding convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the alleged cover‑up, despite its long‑standing promotion of MAGA figures, NBC News reported Sunday
Researchers from social analytics firm Alethea and Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub uncovered the automated “positive reply” network, which was originally designed to shower praise on members of President Donald Trump's administration like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
But in recent days, some of the bots have posted contradictory views about Attorney General Pam Bondi and others amid conservative backlash over withheld Epstein documents, according to the report.
READ MORE:'Like an open fire hose': Trump ripped as cracks show in MAGA media
Until earlier this month, the network consistently echoed MAGA talking points — denouncing Democrats in 2024, celebrating Trump’s return to power afterward. In rare cases, they even expressed admiration for liberal figures like Rachel Maddow.
However, when Bondi announced she would not release additional Epstein materials, the bots abruptly fractured: some defended her, telling users she “ought not be judged harshly,” while others demanded her resignation — or that of figures like FBI Director Kash Patel and Dan Bongino — within the same minute, per the report.
When Bondi announced she wouldn’t release further Epstein-related documents, one of the automated accounts immediately chimed in, asserting she “comes out clean as the [Department of Justice] DOJ confirms no Epstein client list found, while reaffirming his death by suicide.” But the tone flipped fast. According to the report, the same bot has since been advising X users to launch a full-scale uprising against Trump’s team.
On Friday, it urged followers: “Retweet if you believe that Trump & his cronies are lying to the public and treating us like we’re stupid. We won’t be fooled by their games.”
READ MORE:Why Republicans worship Trump as their sick and twisted role model
Although the precise inputs driving these accounts remain unknown, their behavior suggests they’ve been modeled after genuine MAGA social media profiles, C. Shawn Eib, Alethea’s head of investigations, told NBC.
“This split reaction mimics the organic reaction among supporters of Trump’s second administration,” Eib said.
He continued: “It’s possible that the behavior of these automated accounts is influenced by content posted from prominent influencers, and this shift is reflective of the general change in tenor among many of Trump’s supporters.”
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an 7 25 robt r
Anyone wanting to understand the brouhaha over Pam Bondi’s refusal to turnover (or even acknowledge) the Epstein files need look no further than what the Supreme Court just did.
In McMahon v. New York the Supremes gave Trump a simple way to revoke federal spending authorized by Congress: just fire everyone responsible for implementing that spending.
The high court is allowing Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon to fire over half the people who work for the Department of Education until there’s a full hearing on the constitutionality of their action. But by then it will be too late to save much of the department.
Note that the Supreme Court made this astounding decision on its so-called “shadow docket” where it doesn’t even have to explain itself (the only record we have is Justice Sotomayor’s dissent).
No matter that Congress created the Department of Education; apparently, Trump can effectively end it. No matter that Congress in the 1974 Impoundment Control Act prohibits a president from unilaterally refusing to spend money that has been authorized by Congress; apparently, Trump can disregard the Act.
Trump now has unbridled power to repeal federal laws by the simple expedient of firing federal employees who implement them.
Why? How? On what basis? Who’s behind this? We don’t know. We may never know.
Which gets us to the brouhaha over Jeffrey Epstein.
For years, Trump has talked darkly of a “deep state” — a secret cabal intent on destroying America by harming the nation’s children.
Such as, perhaps, six justices who let him shut down the Education Department without even setting out their reasons?
Recall “Pizzagate,” the QAnon conspiracy theory that in 2016 allegedly linked Democrats to a ring of child sex-traffickers. It’s still around but has morphed into a less partisan conspiracy theory involving an alleged worldwide elite of child sex-traffickers.
Jeffrey Epstein and his death fit perfectly. Many right-wing media personalities have posited that the billionaire convict was murdered in prison as part of a cover-up of a sprawling sex-trafficking conspiracy.
Senior Trump administration officials built up great fanfare around the release of the supposed Epstein “client list.”
Even JD Vance accused the government of hiding the list. “If you’re a journalist and you’re not asking questions about this case,” Vance said, “you should be ashamed of yourself.”
But that was back in 2021, before Vance became part of the, um, conspiracy.
In February of this year, Attorney General Pam Bondi acknowledged the existence of Epstein’s client list. She said the client list is “sitting on my desk right now.”
Now the Trump-Vance administration says Epstein’s client list doesn’t exist.
The Epstein case illustrates Trump’s “deep state” no less than does an unsigned “shadow docket” Supreme Court decision allowing Trump to wipe out the Department of Education.
The phrase “Epstein didn’t kill himself” — a rebuttal to the official explanation of Epstein’s death — has taken on a cultural meaning way beyond the facts of the case. It means an unaccountable elite doing evil things in secret.
Trump built his political base on that premise. Once in office, he said time and again, he would expose that unaccountable, secret, evil elite.
No wonder 70 percent of voters believe “law enforcement is withholding information about powerful people connected to Epstein,” including 61 percent of Trump voters. And 58 percent of voters said Trump “maybe was or definitely was” involved in a cover-up.
Conspiracy theories thrive when elites act in secret. I have no idea whether Epstein killed himself or was murdered. But Wired Magazine’s metadata — showing that the FBI’s “raw” surveillance video from the night Epstein killed himself is seemingly missing 2 minutes and 53 seconds — got my attention.
As did the Supreme’s bonkers secret decision in McMahon.
And I’m no conspiracy theorist.
After hyping the promised release, a joint FBI and Department of Justice report last week said they had found no evidence of a list — or that Epstein, who died by suicide in his prison cell in 2019, had been murdered — prompting outcry from within MAGA circles.
As Bondi faces heightened scrutiny for her repeated attempts to dodge questions about the Epstein files, Loomer also teased that “there are people in the White House who agree with me that Pam [Bondi] spent too much time on Fox News and her statements were inconsistent and undermined what messaging is today about the Epstein files.”
Other prominent MAGA-aligned supporters of the president have also warned that Trump could see significant damage to his standing among his base if he does not change course.
Sixty-three percent of voters in a Quinnipiac University national poll released Wednesday said that they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the files. Republicans were also nearly split. Just 40 percent said they support how he’s handled the files, with 36 percent disapproving and another 20 percent not offering an opinion.
Mike Flynn — who briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser in his first term — wrote in a lengthy X post on Wednesday that Trump needed to “gather your team and figure out a way to move past this.”
“The roll out of this was terrible, no way around that,” Flynn wrote. “Americans want America to be successful, therefore, WE NEED YOU TO BE SUCCESSFUL.”
Elon Musk — with whom Trump had a blowup fight last month in which Musk accused Trump of being named in the Epstein files — criticized his former boss for trying to paint the whole situation as a hoax.
“He should just release the files and point out which part is the hoax,” Musk wrote on X Wednesday.
The MAGA meltdown over Epstein “could be his Afghanistan going into the fall,” Mark Mitchell, head of polling and operations at Rasmussen Reports, told Steve Bannon Tuesday on his “War Room” podcast.
“People are trying to say this isn’t a big deal,” Mitchell said. “People are trying to say nobody wants this Epstein information out. It’s an absolute misdirection. This is horrifying. And if it isn’t corrected, it threatens derailing Trump’s agenda, getting rid of his political capital.”
“This is not about a guy who died in 2019, this is about a representation of two-tier justice and about unaccountable government,” Mitchell told Bannon.
On Wednesday, conservative political commentator John Solomon told Bannon that he had interviewed the president, and that Trump supported the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate elements of the Epstein case as part of a broader look into a supposed deep state conspiracy to punish the Republican Party.
“I think he’s frustrated by all the social media chatter by people who don’t really know what’s in the Epstein files,” Solomon said. “He was very pointed about that, let’s stay focused on the things that matter to the American people. ‘I want the answers to Epstein like everyone’, he said, so let the prosecutor do that.”
The Epstein fiasco also prompted Speaker Mike Johnson to split with Trump on Tuesday, calling for the Department of Justice to release all the information it has on the sex offender in the name of “transparency.”
“It’s a very delicate subject, but you should put everything out there, let the people decide it,” Johnson told conservative commentator Benny Johnson, adding that Bondi should explain her previous claims of having the elusive Epstein “client list.”
Just a day prior, the Louisiana Republican had defended Bondi, choosing to defer to the Trump administration instead of criticizing the attorney general.
But Trump appears to remain unmoved despite growing rebellion within his MAGA cohort.
In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump repeated his claims that the whole ordeal was a “hoax” peddled by Democrats and once again defended Bondi’s handling of the case.
“She’s done very good. She says ‘I gave you all the credible information,’ and if she finds any more credible information, she’ll give that too. What more can she do than that?” Trump said, adding that he had “lost a lot of faith in certain people” over their outcry on the administration’s approach to the issue.
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RWW
07/14/2025
by
- Colby Hall @ Mediaite: Trump Gets Ratioed by His Own Truth Social Followers Over Epstein Post
President Donald Trump tried to shut down growing chatter about the Jeffrey Epstein files, but it didn’t just fall flat—it exploded in his face.
- Media Matters: Charlie Kirk: “I'm done talking about Epstein for the time being. I'm gonna trust my friends in the administration.”
Kirk's remarks come after Trump reportedly called him over attacks on Attorney General Pam Bondi.
- Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: In apparent desperation, AG Pam Bondi drops a closely watched criminal case
The attorney general intervened in a case important to the far-right fringe just as she was looking to improve her standing with the far-right fringe.
REF
Attorney General Pam Bondi appears to be a little short on friends right now. The Florida Republican has faced fierce criticisms from the left, for example, for being a hyperpartisan Trump sycophant, focused more on purging her own department and peddling White House talking points on Fox News than doing meaningful work on behalf of the nation.
Meanwhile, Bondi has faced comparable criticisms from the right for being incompetent and untrustworthy, over-promising and under-delivering, especially on conspiracy theories important to the right. Even Donald Trump conceded over the weekend that MAGA World is “going after” the attorney general.
It’s against this backdrop that the struggling AG made a striking announcement over the weekend. The Associated Press reported:
The federal government on Saturday dismissed charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of throwing away Covid-19 vaccines, giving children saline shots instead of the vaccine and selling faked vaccination cards. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on the social media platform X that charges against Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, of Midvale, Utah, were dismissed at her direction.
For those who aren’t mired in far-right fever swamps, Moore’s name is probably unfamiliar. But in some right-wing circles, he and the case against him have become a subject of intense interest lately.
The criminal case against Moore was relatively straightforward. The Utah-based plastic surgeon, according to evidence compiled by federal prosecutors, allegedly destroyed over $28 million worth of government-provided Covid vaccines, issued fraudulent vaccination record cards — in some instances, in exchange for cash — and administered saline shots to children instead of the Covid vaccine.
As the AP report added, he and his co-defendants faced up to 35 years in prison after being charged with conspiracy to defraud the government; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey and dispose of government property; and aiding and abetting in those efforts. Jury selection in Moore’s trial began last week.
It was around this time when Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia embraced Moore’s case as a rallying cry, asking the Justice Department to abandon the case.
Five days later, Bondi did exactly that, insisting that the Utah doctor did not “deserve” the prison sentence he was facing. The attorney general specifically credited Greene, one of the most right-wing members of Congress in recent memory, for bringing the case to her attention and for having been a “warrior for Dr. Moore.”
To be sure, it’s possible that Bondi would’ve intervened in the case even if many MAGA activists weren’t calling for her ouster, but it’s quite a coincidence that the attorney general scrambled to intervene in a case important to the far-right fringe just as she was looking to improve her standing with the far-right fringe.
As for the larger context, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer effectively declared that those who commit professional fraud, on purpose, can expect to get away with overt criminal misconduct if (a) conservatives approve of the motivation behind the fraud; (b) the attorney general is feeling politically desperate; or (c) some combination of the two.
- David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: At Faith-Based Event Trump Courts Religious CEOs, Uses Expletive, Calls Dems ‘Evil’
During a White House Faith Office event focused on renewing America “spiritually and financially,” President Donald Trump lashed out at “evil” Democrats and used an expletive while venting about his indictments and impeachments.
- Isaac Arnsdorf @ The Washington Post: How the Trump shooting supercharged beliefs in a divine right of MAGA
Donald Trump and many of his followers have described the rally as a mass spiritual awakening, promoting the belief that Trump enacts God’s will.
- Melissa Goldin @ The Associated Press: Trump says he wants to deport ‘the worst of the worst.’ Government data tells another story
President Donald Trump has pledged to deport “the worst of the worst.” He frequently speaks at public appearances about the countless “dangerous criminals” — among them murderers, rapists and child predators — from around the world he says entered the U.S. illegally under the Biden administration. He promises to expel millions of migrants in the largest deportation program in American history to protect law-abiding citizens from the violent threats he says they pose. But government data around ongoing detentions tells a different story.
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DN 7 25
former FBI agent who allegedly encouraged rioters to murder police officers during the January 6 Capitol insurrection has been given a job at the Justice Department. According to a 2023 indictment, the former agent, Jared Wise, repeatedly shouted “Kill ’em!” at rioters as they battled a police line of officers protecting the Capitol. Wise was on trial in January when President Trump issued sweeping pardons and commutations for over 1,500 January 6 rioters on his first day back in office. The New York Times reports Wise is now serving as counselor to Ed Martin, the director of the so-called Weaponization Working Group, which Trump established to seek retribution against his enemies. This comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi last week fired three more federal prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases.
Topics:
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MMA 7 25
President Donald Trump appointed conspiracy-obsessed MAGA media favorites to the highest levels of federal law enforcement, and now those figures are coming under fire from the right-wing fever swamp for failing to confirm their bullshit.
Axios reported on Sunday night that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation had concluded that there was no evidence convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “blackmailed powerful figures, kept a ‘client list’ or was murdered.” Those findings repudiated claims that had for years permeated the MAGA influencer ecosystem and been promoted by the stars of Fox News and the broader right-wing media.
The Trump-appointed leaders of both the FBI and DOJ had previously stoked the same conspiracy theories their agencies rejected. “As social media influencers and activists, Kash Patel (now the FBI's director) and Dan Bongino (now deputy director) were among those in MAGA world who questioned the official version of how Epstein died,” Axios noted. Moreover, Attorney General Pam Bondi had claimed in a February interview on Fox News that the purported “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
While the Epstein saga is a bit of a sideshow in the grand scheme of things, what it highlights about the underlying dynamics of the MAGA movement is deeply unsettling. It demonstrates that the Trump administration is in hock to some of the most deranged conspiracy theorists imaginable, treating them as among its closest allies and devoting substantial resources to their care and feeding.
The White House brought 15 MAGA influencers in to meet with Bondi in February, sending them home with glossy binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” When those binders did not satisfy the MAGA faithful, the attorney general reportedly tasked “hundreds of FBI employees” with reviewing Epstein investigation documents for release. In May, Patel and Bongino were sent to Fox to make the case, with the fervor of the converted, that Epstein had actually killed himself. And now the FBI and DOJ have produced a memo detailing their findings and released footage taken from outside Epstein’s cell in the hours surrounding his suicide.
The final result left Trump’s most zealous online allies with two options: They could finally acknowledge that they had been peddling nonsense for years — or they could insinuate that the Trump administration itself is part of the cover-up.
MAGA’s Epstein conspiracy theorists lash out at Bondi — and even Trump
In the hours after Axios’ story broke, several prominent MAGA influencers took the latter path, hammering the administration for failing to confirm their Epstein hypotheses.
“This new DOJ memo admits there are countless victims of Epstein on video but no client list or evidence of other rapists they can charge. Oh it claims Epstein wasn’t using videos as blackmail,” Robby Starbuck sneered on X. “NO ONE believes this for very good reason.”
Starbuck put the blame squarely on the attorney general.
“Bondi just made it all worse with this memo,” he wrote. “What a terrible, terrible idea it was to write this memo. It’s also incredibly insulting to our intelligence.”
Noting her prior claim on Fox that she was in possession of Epstein’s “client list,” he commented, “Was she lying then or is she lying now?”
Laura Loomer also blamed Bondi.
“Blondi lied,” she posted on X, using the nickname she typically utilizes for the attorney general. “She was always lying.”
Others were less specific about who was responsible for the cover-up.
“We were all told more was coming,” Jack Posobiec lamented. “That answers were out there and would be provided. Incredible how utterly mismanaged this Epstein mess has been. And it didn’t have to be.”
Tim Pool suggested that the administration was protecting “the adult child rapists who were blackmailed” and floated the possibility that they were protecting “shareholder value” from “the economic fallout if say, hypothetically, Bill Gates was revealed to have been flying around with Epstein and then we got videos of him abusing underage girls.”
And Mike Cernovich suggested that the buck stopped with the president.
“No one is believing the Epstein coverup, @realDonaldTrump,” he wrote. “This will be part of your legacy. There’s still time to change it!”
The right-wing media ecosystem is built to manufacture and distribute conspiracy theories to an audience trained to believe them. Under the incentive structure this ecosystem creates, it makes sense that the Trump campaign relied on conspiracy theorists to bolster its position, that Patel and Bongino boosted their standing within that ecosystem by echoing such claims, and that Bondi kept claiming an Epstein reckoning was imminent.
But eventually, the Trump administration trapped itself. Bondi, Patel, and Bongino were unable to produce the information that the MAGA faithful demanded, and they seem unable to convince them the information does not exist. It is the nature of conspiracy theorists to insist that anything which appears to rebut their claims actually confirms it. And now they’re turning on their erstwhile allies.
The truth about Epstein and Trump
One ironic aspect of the Epstein saga is that while MAGA influencers were apparently certain that the Trump administration was going to implicate a wave of prominent individuals in Epstein’s sex crimes and, perhaps, his death, there are few figures as prominent with ties as close to Epstein as Trump himself.
Consider:
- Trump was quoted in a 2002 profile describing Epstein as a longtime friend and “terrific guy” about whom “it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
- Trump was among the politicians and celebrities who hitched rides on Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s.
- In 2019, shortly before Epstein’s arrest on sex charges, longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon prepped Epstein for a potential interview.
- Trump chose for labor secretary in his first term Alex Acosta, who as a U.S. attorney oversaw a sweetheart plea deal for Epstein that a judge later ruled illegal.
- Alan Dershowitz, the Trump supporter who served on the president’s second Senate impeachment trial team, was one of the defense lawyers who helped Epstein secure that plea deal.
- After longtime Epstein associate Ghislane Maxwell was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2020, Trump told reporters: “I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is.”
- Trump waffled about whether he would “declassify the Epstein files” during a Fox interview — but the network edited out that portion of his answer.
- Trump appointed as attorney general Bondi, who was “Florida's attorney general 2011-2109 -- a period of time when Jeffrey Epstein's plane records became public, victims' lawsuits were filed and a lot of new evidence against Epstein surfaced –” but she did not take action.
None of this is actually proof that Epstein was killed to cover up the fact that he had possessed evidence that he had sex-trafficked underage girls for Trump. He killed himself, and the idea of a “client list” was, as the reporter who exposed Epstein put it, “a figment of the internet's imagination -- and a means to just slander people.”
But if, say, a similar set of facts linked former President Joe Biden and his associates to Epstein, you can bet that MAGA’s conspiracy corps would treat them as clear evidence. And so it will be interesting to see, as they scrounge for an explanation for the Bondi/Patel/Bongino about-face, if any of them eventually land there.
Why the right’s conspiracy theory engine matters
The Epstein saga is ultimately a minor drama. It is embarrassing for the right that so many of its leading lights pushed the conspiracy theories for so long, and it’s unnerving that some of those conspiracy theorists now occupy the highest levels of government, but on its own terms, the stakes for the public are relatively low.
But this treatment of the Epstein saga is not an anomaly — the right responds in this same fashion to every news event. Its ecosystem is constantly pumping out new conspiracy theories intended to prove the perfidity of the left, its audience is trapped in a bubble in which it is constantly bombarded by such claims, and the consequences can be real and dire.
Following MAGA media’s fervid promotion in September 2024 of the racist, baseless lie that Haitians were stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, local institutions received bomb threats and residents kept their children home from school out of fear for their safety.
Officials at all levels of government seeking to respond to a devastating hurricane in North Carolina the next month were forced to spend precious time debunking that ecosystem’s deranged lies because those were the sources some victims counted on for their information.
When the Epstein conspiracy theories are firmly in the rearview, everyone involved in propagating them will retain their influence over a Trump administration that is more concerned with placating them than in acting in the public interest. And that is truly dangerous.
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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.”
“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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an 6 25
During Barack Obama's presidency, then-Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Illinois) was known for being a Tea Party firebrand. But the Never Trump conservative recently made a bombshell announcement: He joined the Democratic Party.
This doesn't mean that Walsh is becoming liberal or progressive, but rather, reflects his view that Donald Trump's second presidency represents an existential threat to U.S. democracy — and that liberals, progressives, conservatives and libertarians will have to work together, policy differences and all, in order to save the country from sliding into authoritarianism.
During a
now-Democrat Walsh called out Trump for promoting the conspiracy theory that former President Joe Biden signed a bunch of pardons via autopen because he was mentally incompetent. Trump also shared a social media post claiming that the real Biden was assassinated in 2020 and that the person who spent four years in the White House was a clone.
Walsh told the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart and Politico's Eugene Daniels — who now host "The Weekend" — "It's too easy to laugh at this, but I mean, it's serious. He's lying again. He's lying. And Jonathan, Eugene, he's spreading a conspiracy theory. That's what's so sad about this…. He's lying to and deceiving his base on purpose."
Walsh also lamented Trump's influence on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and was vehemently critical of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The former Tea Party Republican turned Democrat told Capehart and Daniels, "He's basically ended the ability of the Justice Department to pursue public corruption, to go after corporations, to go after white-collar crime. He does 1000 outrageous things a day, but what he's doing to the rule of law and the Justice Department, America is not paying close enough attention to…. This is a president who thinks he's above the law."
Walsh continued, "I mean, we can scream that from the mountaintop every day, and we should.… Pam Bondi is not the attorney general of the United States,? We put that to bed months ago. Pam Bondi is Donald Trump's personal lawyer. Period. And anybody in that Justice Department who doesn't want to represent Donald Trump instead of the Constitution and the law, they're gone. They've already left."
READ MORE:Right-winger explains to Bill Maher that 'moron' Trump 'just doesn't understand' how trade works
*Watch the full video below or at this link.
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an 6 25
Several senior officials in President Donald Trump's administration are now finding themselves in the crosshairs of Trump's MAGA base, who are upset with their inability to follow through on promises to get to the bottom of unproven conspiracy theories.
According to a Sunday report in the New York Times, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino have all experienced MAGA's wrath on multiple occasions since they were confirmed to their positions. Bondi was lambasted for giving far-right, pro-Trump activists binders full of material that was teased as new revelations about the late convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein, only to disappoint them once it was found that there was no new information contained in those binders.
Similarly, Bongino acknowledged that Epstein did indeed take his own life in a prison cell while awaiting trial in 2019 (though a DOJ Office of the Inspector General report issued in 2023 found that there were numerous failures by staff to prevent his death by suicide). This deflated conspiracy theorists who had argued — as Trump himself has insinuated — that Epstein was murdered by someone connected to his client base of rich and powerful people.
READ MORE:Republican rep. warns the GOP is following Trump 'off a cliff' — and he won't go with them
As for Patel, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accused him of "gaslighting" the American public for failing to deliver promised results about the Epstein case during a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. Jones asserted that the FBI director was "committing political suicide" by maintaining that Epstein alone was responsible for his own death.
The Times reported that the MAGA faithful have been more vocal in their condemnations of Bondi, Bongino and Patel in response to their handling of the Epstein case. Trump supporter Suzzanne Monk – who has repeatedly bemoaned the treatment of participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol — said that Trump's base is divided between "Camp Be Patient" and "Camp Demand Results," and that she is firmly on the side of the latter.
Patel and Bongino have since announced new investigations into three high-profile cases: The discovery of cocaine at the White House in 2023, the leaking of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade and the discovery of pipe bombs left outside of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee buildings on January 6. But former Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson criticized those new investigations as a distraction.
"Dan Bongino & Kash Patel know they destroyed their credibility by claiming that ‘Jeffrey Epstein killed himself’ so now they’re trying to offer up three investigations you don’t care about to misdirect you from the Epstein files you do care about," Robinson wrote. "Sad!"
READ MORE:'Don't have a violin small enough': Critics mock DOGE staff worried about losing jobs
Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).
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an 6 25
Over 70 legal experts and a trio of organizations have sent the Florida Bar an ethics complaint calling for an investigation and "appropriate sanctions" against U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, accusing her of engaging in "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice."
The 23-page complaint, filed Thursday, is signed by Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, Lawyers for the Rule of Law, and individual attorneys, law professors, and former judges. It was first reported by the Miami Herald.
"We file this complaint recognizing that Ms. Bondi currently serves as the attorney general of the United States, the highest-ranking lawyer in the United States government," the coalition wrote. "Indeed, we bring Ms. Bondi's misconduct to your attention precisely because Ms. Bondi holds this exalted position, with the attendant responsibilities for subordinate lawyers under her authority who carry out her directives, and because the complaint highlights for the entire legal profession the importance of ethical rules to our independent, self-regulating profession."
"Ms. Bondi, personally and through her senior management, has sought to compel Department of Justice lawyers to violate their ethical obligations under the guise of 'zealous advocacy.'"
After former Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration to lead the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) last November, then-President-elect Donald Trump swiftly announced Bondi as his new pick. Senate Republicans and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) confirmed her in February, despite various concerns, including her lobbyist work for corporate giants.
On Bondi's first day, she moved to dissolve teams that probed foreign lobbying and threats posed by corporate misconduct, revive enforcement of the federal death penalty, investigate DOJ officials who prosecuted Trump, defund sanctuary cities, and end diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and programs. She also issued a memorandum highlighted in the new complaint.
"The gravamen of this complaint is that Ms. Bondi, personally and through her senior management, has sought to compel Department of Justice lawyers to violate their ethical obligations under the guise of 'zealous advocacy' as announced in her memorandum to all Department employees, issued on her first day in office, threatening employees with discipline and possible termination for falling short," the filing states.
The complaint details "three glaring examples of department lawyers being terminated or forced to resign as a result of demands that they act unethically issued by Ms. Bondi or a member of her senior management, including Emil Bove, initially the acting deputy attorney general (the No. 2 position in the department) and now the principal associate deputy attorney general (the No. 3 position); Todd Blanche, the current deputy attorney general; and Edward Martin, then interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and now chief of the Justice Department's 'Weaponization Working Group' and the department's pardon attorney."
"Through her 'zealous advocacy' memorandum and its application in these three cases, Ms. Bondi has sent a message to all Justice Department lawyers that they must disregard the applicable rules of professional conduct, fundamental ethical principles, and long-standing norms of the Department in order to zealously pursue the president's political objectives—and, if they fail to do so, they will be disciplined or fired," the filing adds. "However, as Ms. Bondi and her senior staff are fond of saying, no one is above the law, and this includes Ms. Bondi."
The Florida Bar confirmed receipt of the complaint to the Miami Herald but did not comment further. The coalition noted that "we file this complaint notwithstanding the Florida Bar's recent reply to two previous ethics complaints filed against Ms. Bondi that it 'does not investigate or prosecute sitting officers appointed under the U.S. Constitution while they are in office.'"
"The purported rationale for declining to investigate or prosecute is that such action 'could encroach on the authority of the federal government concerning these officials and the exercise of their duties,'" the coalition continued. "The Florida Bar's dismissal is unsupported by history or precedent."
Chad Mizelle, DOJ chief of staff, suggested in a statement to the Miami Herald that the new call for a probe of Bondi will be unsuccessful, like the previous submissions.
"The Florida Bar has twice rejected performative attempts by these out-of-state lawyers to weaponize the bar complaint process against AG Bondi," said Mizelle. "This third vexatious attempt will fail to do anything other than prove that the signatories have less intelligence—and independent thoughts—than sheep."
Meanwhile, Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said in a statement that "since her first day on the job, Pam Bondi has made clear that she plans to use the Department of Justice for political pursuits, and she has done just that."
"Especially as the nation’s highest ranking legal officer," Eisen added, "she must be held to account for her actions that threaten the rule of law and the administration of justice."
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FOOD SAFETY}:
AN 5 25
The administration of President Donald Trump told the public nothing of a hazardous E. coli outbreak that killed one person and sickened nearly 100 more — including one Indiana boy who became severely ill.
The bacteria, commonly found in feces, damaged 9-year-old Colton George’s kidneys and put him on dialysis. It was also “a genetic matchto the strain that killed one person and sickened nearly 90 people in 15 states last fall,” reports the Washington Post. “Federal health agencies investigated the cases and linked them to a farm that grew romaine lettuce.”
However, the paper reports most people have never heard of this outbreak, which experts say is runs counter to federal health practices.
READ MORE:A veteran tells Trump 'to go straight to hell'
“There were no public communications related to this outbreak,” says a heavily redacted February internal Food and Drug Administration memo that witholds the name of farm that served as the source of the outbreak. The federal government refused to name the business “because there was no product remaining in commerce” at the time of the report.
“Victims have a right to know who made them sick. This is my kid. He’s my life," said George's father, Chris George.
The Washington Post reports Trump officials have still never issued public communications after the investigation or identified the grower. The public might not know of the outbreak today had George’s parents not filed a lawsuit against the lettuce grower in April in federal court for the Southern District of Indiana.
In addition to failing to publicize a major outbreak and scaling back safety alert specialists and rules, the Trump administration’s has also withdrawn a proposed Biden-era regulation to reduce the presence of salmonella in raw poultry. That regulation, estimates the Food Safety and Inspection Service, could have prevented up to almost $30 million worth of illness in roughly 3,000 victims from chicken and turkey products
READ MORE: Struggles to 'even finish a sentence': Behind the obvious signs of Trump’s growing dementia
In addition, the Washington Post reports the administration is “disbanding a Justice Department unit that pursues civil and criminal actions against companies that sell contaminated food and is reassigning its attorneys.”
Staffing cuts at the FDA and CDC will mean further delays in publicizing deadly outbreaks, said former FDA worker Susan Mayne, an adjunct professor at Yale School of Public Health.
“Consumers are being notified with delays about important food safety notifications,” she said, referring to a recent outbreak in cucumbers. “People can die if there are pathogens like listeria, which can have a 30 percent fatality rate.”
Read the full Washington Post report here.
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UPI
DOJ permits sale of triggers that allow rifles to fire like machine guns
Allen Cone
:{:{Sun, May 18, 2025}:
The U.S. Justice Department said it will allow the sale of devices, including by Rare Breed Firarms that enable standard guns to operate like machine guns. Photo courtesy Rare Breed Firearms/Instagram
May 18 (UPI) -- The federal government will allow the sale of devices that enable standard rifles to operate like machine guns, a move that angered gun control groups.
The Justice Department said Friday it reached a settlement with Rare Breed Triggers. This is in accordance with President Donald Trump's Feb. 17 executive order Protecting Second Amendment Rights and the attorney general's Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force announced on April 8.
Steven King, owner of Metro Shooting Supplies in Bridgeton, Mo., shows off the popular Smith and Wesson AR-15, 556 caliber rifle. File photo by Bill Greenblatt
"This Department of Justice believes that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. "And we are glad to end a needless cycle of litigation with a settlement that will enhance public safety."
There are two ways to speed the firing of bullets. Bump stocks use the recoil of the weapon to repeatedly bump the trigger, while trigger devices are aftermarket items that directly engage the trigger.
During the first Trump administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives banned bump stocks, which mimic rapid trigger pulls to fire rapidly in a way similar to a machine gun. In 2017, the gunman in a mass shooting killed 58 people in Las Vegas while firing from his hotel room window using bump stocks.
In 2022, ATF included specific trigger devices under the National Firearms Act of 1934. The ATF determined that the devices allow a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle to fire as fast as a military M-16 in automatic mode.
In 2023, the Justice Department, as part of the Biden administration, brought a lawsuit in New York against Rare Breed Triggers.
The National Association of Gun Rights filed a separate lawsuit in Texas challenging the ban and a judge there ruled the ban was unlawful.
In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote in Cargill v. Garland, ruled ATF exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a rule classifying a bump stock as a "machine gun."
The Court's majority found that bump stocks do not meet the definition of a machine gun because they didn't allow for automatic fire with the single pull of a trigger.
The next month, the Northern District of Texas applied the case to a device called a "forced-reset trigger" and concluded that they also cannot be classified as a "machine gun."
DOJ is avoiding additional legal action against Rare Breed Triggers in appeals and related cases concerning the similar issue, Bondi said.
Sneaky New Move By Shameless Republicans Puts Millions Of American Lives In Danger
HuffPost
The settlement with Rare Breed Triggers includes agreed-upon conditions that significantly advance public safety with respect to FRTs, including that Rare Breed will not develop or design them for use in any pistol and will enforce its patents to prevent infringement that could threaten public safety.
Rare Breed also agreed promote the safe and responsible use of its products.
"The cuffs are off. As of May 16, 2025, we're free! Expect the website to be updated on Monday, May 19," the company posted on its website.
The decision was condemned by Vanessa Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Giffords, the national gun violence prevention group led by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in 2011 while meeting with constituents in her hometown of Tucson, Ariz.
"The Trump administration has just effectively legalized machine guns. Lives will be lost because of his actions," Gonzalez said. "This is an incredibly dangerous move that will enable shooters to inflict horrific damage. The only people who benefit from these being on the market are the people who will make money from selling them, everyone else will suffer the consequences."
The national gun control advocacy group Brady United said in a press release that "highly dangerous weapons of war can now be purchased anonymously" and without a background check.
"The Trump Administration's secret settlement with the gun lobby to permit the sale of Forced Reset Triggers will turn already deadly firearms into weapons of mass destruction," Kris Brown, president of Brady United, said in the release.
"Machine guns are weapons of war that have absolutely no place in our communities. This dangerous backroom deal is not only an astonishing abuse of power, but undermines decades of sensible government gun safety policy and puts whole communities at immediate serious risk," he said.
Brady previous was called the National Council to Control Handguns and founded in 1974 by Dr. Mark Borinsky, whose son was shot and killed in 1974.
In 1981, White House Press Secretary Jim "the Bear" Brady suffered a bullet to the head, and the organization now bears his name.
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axios
President Trump on Friday granted clemency to startup founders convicted of investor fraud and three crypto exchange co-founders who had plead guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws.
Why it matters:There's never been a better time to be a white-collar crook.
1.Trevor Milton, co-founder and CEO of bankrupt electric truckmaker Nikola Motors, received a pardon.
- His most egregious act may have been sharing a video that purported to show a fully functional prototype, whereas the truck actually was rolling down a small hill. And then there was the lying about billions of dollars in orders.
- Milton was sentenced to four years in prison for both securities and wire fraud, and ordered to pay nearly $700 million in restitution. He had been free on appeal, during which time he donated bigly to Trump-related groups. Oh, and his lawyer was the brother of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
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no lnx
At least one Trump attack dog just killed their career
:{:{Sabrina Haake, Raw StoryMay 18, 2025 |}:
The Attorney General of the United States is considered the nation's top lawyer. As head of the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi leads the nation's largest law office. No federal precedent, and nothing in her oath of office, exempts her from the code of ethics, federal pleading rules, or the rule of law all attorneys swear to uphold.
Lawyers who work for the government have a duty to seek justice, whether facts lead to acquittal or conviction. For that reason, they are expected to avoid public statements displaying partiality because such statements undermine public trust in the legal system. The American Bar Association directs in Rule 3.6 that:
“A lawyer who is participating… in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial (outside the court) statement that … will be disseminated (publicly) and have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing (a case.)”
In other words, try your case in court, not on TV. Only supported facts of evidence are allowed in a court room; demagoguery, and assertions of opinion unsupported by admissible evidence, are not allowed. That is why judges have frequently admonished Trump attorneys that statements to the press are not evidence.
Despite the clarity of the ABA rule, Bondi has consistently argued pending cases in the media, particularly Fox News, where she falsely asserts that it is up to Trump to decide what the law requires. Every first-year law student is taught that the judicial branch, not the executive, decides what the law is.
Intentionally misconstrued orders
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court directed the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador without constitutionally required process. Under Bondi’s direction, DOJ lawyers argued that they don’t understand plain English, spinning the term “facilitate” to mean “removing any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here.”
The word “domestic” does not appear anywhere in SCOTUS’ order to the government “to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”
Rather than respect the plain language of the order, Bondi’s strategy is to play games to either render the ruling null due to delay or worse, to challenge the court’s authority. As an example of the latter, the Justice Department filed an emergency motion to stay the Abrego Garcia order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, aggressively challenging federal courts’ authority even after the Supreme Court ruled, pleading that, “The federal courts do not have the authority to press-gang the President or his agents into taking any particular act of diplomacy.”
The appellate court was appropriately triggered. Without waiting for plaintiffs’ response, the Fourth Circuit court of appeals issued a sharp rebuke, written by a Reagan appointee, describing the US strategy as “shocking:”
“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.
This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
Abuse of pleading rules
Federal pleading rules require attorneys to certify that what they assert is warranted by existing law or a reasonable argument for modifying the law, and that their factual contentions have evidentiary support. Rule 11 states that a court may impose sanctions on any attorney responsible for violating the pleading rule, including supervising attorneys.
As far as I can discern from public record, none of the facts in the El Salvador deportations have been pled with evidentiary support; Donald Trump’s opinion that someone is a violent gang member is not evidence. This means Bondi has either allowed — or directed — attorneys under her supervision to file unsupported pleadings. That a conservative judge called the latest motion “shocking” also sets it outside the rule.
Not only is Bondi authorizing her attorneys to file unsupported pleadings, she has punished staff for making accurate statements to the court. In April, she directed the dismissal of Erez Reuveni, a career lawyer, for acknowledging to the court that Abrego Garcia had been deported to El Salvador in error. Shortly thereafter, a 10-year veteran of the same unit resigned, saying he could not “with clean conscience” defend the department’s actions under Bondi, claiming they ran counter to the law, the Constitution and “basic principles of fairness and humanity.”
Trump’s personal law firm
Bondi’s latest transgression has not yet made it to court, but it likely will. Last week, Bondi declared that, under the Foreign Emoluments Clause, Trump can legally accept a “flying palace 747 jumbo jet” as a gift from Qatar, a country that has directly funded Hamas terrorism.
Qatar's financial and political ties to Hamas have long been known. In a memorandum, Bondi concluded that the gift was “legally permissible,” apparently reasoning that because the gift is not officially conditioned on any official act, it does not constitute bribery.
No such limiting language appears in the Constitution — Bondi just put it there. Her analysis also concluded that the gift complies with the law because the plane is not being given to an individual, but rather to the United States Air Force and, eventually, to the presidential library foundation, where Trump will then make personal use of it. Pity the DOJ lawyer flunky Bondi will force to sign that bad faith legal jujitsu when it gets before a judge.
The facts are that when Trump leaves office, the 747 would be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library. This is plainly a $400 million gift from a foreign government to Trump himself, perhaps meant as a “tip” following Trump’s private $5.5 billion golf course deal with Dar Global and Qatari Diar, a company created from Qatar's sovereign wealth fund in 2005. It's painfully obvious to anyone outside the Fox News bubble that Trump, who has not divested from his private ventures, is using the Oval Office to enrich himself, aided by unethical counsel.
Follow the dirty money
Former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig observed that Bondi’s actions have radically transformed and politicized the DOJ, transmuting it “into Trump’s personal law firm,” which is “a rejection of the founding principle of the rule of law.”
Although four years feels interminable, Trump is not a permanent fixture, and he will be out of office while Bondi still needs her law license. Bondi seems not to care, suggesting she has no intention of practicing law after Trump’s departure. Perhaps she will return to lobbying, where she earned over $100,000 a month lobbying for Qatar. (Conflict of interest, anyone?)
As I see it, Bondi has already met the threshold of bad faith for disbarment. An attorney who trashes the rule of law must know that eventually she will be barred from practicing it.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25 year litigator specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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msnbc legal guy? says nothing she does resembles lawyering; signed off on Q jet?
an 5 25
President Donald Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff for policy Stephen Miller is reportedly unofficially running the Department of Justice (DoJ), despite having no law degree.
The New York Times reported Monday that Attorney General Pam Bondi "is still finding her footing, as evidenced by her setback with the Epstein files."
According to the report, Bondi sees her role as that of a surrogate. She considers herself "a faithful executor and high-volume messenger, compelled to cede ground to empowered players in the West Wing, and in her own building, who exercise significant authority that rivals her own."
READ MORE:Trump's new greed deal the ultimate act of destruction the prophets have predicted
Bondi reportedly advocated for a limit to clemency for Jan. 6 rioters to those not accused of acting violently. Ignoring her suggestion, Trump extended pardons to even violent offenders.
According to the current and former Trump aides the Times interviewed, it was clear from the start that Miller would exercise control inside the department. The report cited 20 current and former officials, who were not named.
Elizabeth Oyer, the DoJ's former top pardon lawyer who was fired for her refusal to give gun ownership rights to the actor Mel Gibson, told the Times: “The decisions are being made at the White House, and then they’re being pushed down to the Department of Justice, which is very, very atypical."
“It feels like she is just performing a part,” Oyer added. She is like an actor, in a way.”
READ MORE: 'Embarrassment:' Trump admin asks judge to hide it's tactics for mass layoffs
"If there is a script, it has come in the form of prescriptive executive orders and memos from the White House. The agenda has largely been set by Mr. Trump, his adviser Stephen Miller and other officials — hashing out details with two former criminal defense lawyers for Mr. Trump who run day-to-day operations in the department, along with the attorney general," the Times report said.
It further noted that Bondi has "flattered Trump lavishly, if not always factually." [vid]
When Trump
a day after he crossed the 100-day mark of his time in office last month, members of the cabinet took turns to praise the president.
Although everyone offered glowing reviews, Bondi stood out by telling Trump that he was genuinely the best president of all time.
"President, your first 100 days has far exceeded that of any other presidency in this country. Ever. Ever. Never seen anything like it. Thank you," she said during the Cabinet meeting.
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05/12/25
May 12, 2025, edition ofThe Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble
CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): This is a very easy one for my friend, Kash Patel and Pam Bondi. Very easy. They went after American patriots for peacefully walking into the United States Capitol building, nonviolently, while being invited, while doors were opened, and they stayed within the lanes, the little rope lines. These are members of Congress that stormed into a federal ICE facility despite warnings. They should absolutely be charged for this, without a doubt. No one is above the law, is what we've always been saying. No one is above the law.
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KIRK: And that's exactly what should happen. You see, the Democrats have a big problem with Immigration Customs and Enforcement. But if you assault ICE, you get consequences. If you storm an ICE facility, there will be consequences. Rob Menendez complained that they had put their hands on a member of Congress. Oh, I must have missed the memo that he was an untouchable. He thinks they should be invulnerable, that he is royalty. And by the way, his dad is literally a traitor. Bob Menendez sold our country out to Egypt for gold bars while on the Senate foreign intelligence committee, selling out American secrets for cash. And did — he also had multiple instances of near misses with the law. This guy was a disgusting person.
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KIRK: Throw the book at them. Kash and Pam, you got all the details you need — charge these members of Congress. The facts are there. They stormed the facility. They assaulted our ICE officers. They think they are above the law. They tried to put President Trump in jail for 700 years for something he did not do. They are begging you to indict them and do it. Don't make a big show of it. Indite them. Charge them. The only way that we end the lawfare chapter in this country is reciprocity. They came after us, they assaulted ICE officers, and we will go after them.
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AN 525
Whistleblowers and leakers, many constitutional scholars argue, play an important role in safeguarding democracy. When conservative Miles Taylor was serving as chief of staff to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2018, he wrote an anonymous op-ed for The New York Times that was famously headlined "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."
Now, President Donald Trump is calling for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Taylor for potentially "treasonous" conduct. And his defenders are arguing that the ex-DHS official turned Never Trumper did the U.S. a huge favor by anonymously drawing attention to his national security concerns.
Trump and Bondi are also taking aim at journalists and media organizations that use whistleblowers and leakers in their reporting.
READ MORE: 'Blatantly illegal': Two officials push back against new Trump plan
In an article published by Salon on May 12, journalist/historian James Thornton Harris explains why he finds this so disturbing.
Bondi, Harris warns, is making a forceful, if underreported, "effort to suppress reporting by seeking to collect the phone records of reporters and trying to force their testimony in court, all in pursuit of government 'leakers.'"
:{:{"Attorney General Pam Bondi announced (a) new policy which replaces a Biden Administration rule restricting federal agencies from intimidating reporters in this manner,}:
" Harris explains. "In 2021, Biden's Department of Justice revealed that in 2017, the Trump Administration had secretly obtained the phone records of reporters from both the New York Times and Washington Post. It also tried unsuccessfully to obtain the reporters' e-mails. The (DOJ) said no legal action was taken against the reporters."}:
Harris adds, "Trump appears eager to pick up where he left off in his first term. Reporters Without Borders described Trump's current campaign as an attack on 'the credibility, independence, and sustainability of the news media.' Despite this disturbing all-out war on the press, which goes directly against First Amendment protections of freedom of speech, most Americans do not seem to care…. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that just 36 percent of Americans reported hearing 'a lot' about the Trump Administration's relationship with the news media."
READ MORE:This is the last thing MAGA wants you to do
Harris notes that according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Trump's attack on freedom of the press is "happening rapidly, and, apparently, many Americans don't know, haven’t heard, or are choosing to look away."
"Free speech advocates are particularly concerned about Bondi's new policy," the journalist/historian warns. "Her directive states the new measures are needed to protect 'classified, privileged and other sensitive information.' By including the vague term 'sensitive information,' the new policy potentially covers a wide range of government information; it goes far beyond the federal criminal code, which focuses on protecting classified information…. Democratic President, John F. Kennedy, a former journalist, spoke out for press freedom and warned that 'without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive.'"
READ MORE:'Deeply offensive': MSNBC host rips 'gold-plated' Trump for trivializing 'financial hardship'
*James Thornton Harris' full article for Salon is available at this link.
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05/07/25
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AN 5 25
U.S. President Donald Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi “to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation,” including legal filings for improper purposes and statements that are not based on evidence.
Bondi should start with the White House attorneys who drafted Trump’s executive orders targeting Big Law firms—and her Justice Department lawyers trying to defend them.
Did Real Lawyers Write These Orders?
Cloaked in empty rhetoric about “conduct detrimental to critical American interests,” retribution is at the core of Trump’s edicts.
For example, the only detailed rationale for Trump’s Jenner & Block order was the firm’s association with Andrew Weissmann, who returned to the firm in 2020 after completing his work for Special Counsel Robert Mueller on the Trump-Russia investigation. Other than the Weissmann diatribe, Trump’s order merely recited vague and unsupported assertions about alleged “partisan ‘lawfare,’” “abuse of its pro bono practice,” and “racial discrimination.”
But on that basis, Trump directed all federal agencies to: 1) limit the entire firm’sengagement with federal employees; 2) limit the entire firm’s access to federal buildings; 3) suspend the entire firm’s security clearances; 4) terminate the firm’s government contracts; and 5) require all government contractors to disclose any business that they do with Jenner—with an eye toward terminating those contracts as well.
Zealous advocacy on behalf of any client—even the president of the United States—has limits.
Four law firms have challenged Trump’s similar orders. In stark language, four separate federal courts have granted immediate relief:
- “Disturbing”
- “It sends little chills down my spine.”
- “It threatens to significantly undermine our entire legal system and the ability of all people to access justice.”
- “There is no doubt this retaliatory action chills speech and legal advocacy, or that it qualifies as a constitutional harm.”
- “The framers of our Constitution would see this as a shocking abuse of power.”
In three recent hearings, Deputy Associate Attorney General Richard Lawson—Bondi’s longtime Florida colleague and Trump loyalist—struggled to answer judges’ basic questions about the orders targeting Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, and Jenner & Block:
- Do law firms have to make deals with Trump to avoid executive orders?
- “I can’t speak to that.”
- Are the deals in writing?
- “I have not been privy to this.”
- Has Trump achieved $1 billion in deals yet?
- “I do not know.”
When Lawson argued that Trump could target Jenner because it “discriminates against its employees based on race,” U.S. District Court Judge John Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush, snapped back, “Give me a break.”
In fairness to Lawson, Trump and his White House attorneys who wrote the orders hadn’t given him much to work with.
Jenner: A Case Study
Take a closer look at Jenner’s claims, followed by selected highlights of the government’s 37-page response:
The First Amendment:
- Prohibits retaliatory actions for protected speech and viewpoint discrimination;
- Bars government interference with a client’s right to associate; and
- Prevents the government from imposing unconstitutional conditions on access to government services and benefits.
The government says that Trump was just exercising his free speech rights. It asserts that Jenner’s lawsuit “carries with it a dangerous risk of muzzling the Executive.” The government also argues that Jenner’s speech is not protected insofar as it “consists of employment practices involving racial discrimination [favoring women and minorities].”*
The Fifth and Sixth Amendmentsguarantee a litigant the unfettered right to the effective assistance of counsel of his or her choice.
The government says that: 1) clients (not law firms) have to assert such claims; 2) any impact of barring Jenner from federal buildings or its clients from federal contracts is speculative; and 3) Trump’s order does not violate those rights in any event.*
Due Processis required before the government can deprive a person of liberty or property interests. It requires notice of the claims, clarity about their meaning, and the opportunity to be heard before the deprivation occurs. None of that occurred. The resulting harm, including damage to the firm’s reputation, was immediate and ongoing.
The government says that: 1) the order is sufficiently clear; 2) it has not yet harmed the firm; and 3) the firm will receive any required notice before the order actually injures it.*
Equal Protectionrequires the government to treat similarly-situated entities similarly or, at a minimum, have a rational basis for failing to do so.
The government insists that Jenner is not being singled out for unfair treatment.*
The Constitution’s Separation of Powersprohibits Trump from acting as accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. But he wore all of those hats in his executive order.
The government says that Trump’s order is an appropriate exercise of presidential power.*
Attention All Trump Lawyers: It’s Time for a Gut Check
Zealous advocacy on behalf of any client—even the president of the United States—has limits. Upon admission to the bar, every attorney swears an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and to uphold the rule of law. A code of professional ethics requires any legal argument to be “warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument” for changing it. Attorneys must ensure that their statements about facts are “reasonably based” on evidentiary support.
Trump’s retaliatory orders seek to intimidate lawyers and law firms into submission and thereby undermine the legal system. His own conduct refutes his lawyers’ contrary arguments. As other firms have capitulated, pledged “political neutrality,” and collectively committed to provide almost $1 billion in free legal services to Trump-designated causes, his executive orders’ stated concerns about those firms’ “conduct detrimental to critical American interests” miraculously disappeared.
Trump even boasted, “And I agree they’ve done nothing wrong. But what the hell—they give me a lot of money, considering.”
In one of the many amicus briefs supporting Jenner’s challenge, more than 800 law firms—including Deputy Associate Attorney General Lawson’s former firm, Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips—urged that Trump’s executive order “should be permanently enjoined as a violation of core First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment guarantees, as well as bedrock separation-of-powers principles.”
“But something even more fundamental is at stake… [Trump’s] Orders pose a grave threat to our system of constitutional governance and to the rule of law itself.”
I don’t know what Trump’s lawyers see when they look into a mirror. But I know this: History will not be kind to them.
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BASICALLY GO AROUND TABLE BROWN NOSING; BONDI WENT FROM 20M KIA TO 258! actually 70k last year
AN 525
NO LNX
Trump’s clown car cabinet is driving off a cliff
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reacts as she walks towards the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Sabrina Haake, Raw Story May 03, 2025
UPS, the United Parcel Service, just announced that it is laying off 20,000 employees and closing 73 of its buildings by the end of June. It attributes the downturn to reduced shipping volume from its largest customer, Amazon, due to Trump’s tariffs.
When a division of Amazon considered telling consumers the truth, by posting the costs tariffs added to the price of each imported product, the mere possibility set the White House on attack mode. Trump immediately called Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, who reassured him Amazon would never do such a thing, while Karoline Leavitt accused Bezos of a “political and hostile” act just for thinking about it.
When a presidential team of incompetent egoists calls truth-telling a “hostile act,” we’re in trouble.
Ruinous economic indicators prompt ruinous deflection
Trump’s first quarter report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis reflects a sharp contraction in the economy, showing an annual decrease in the GDP of 0.3 percent. Compared to Biden’s last quarter, when “real GDP increased 2.4 percent,” the data suggest that perhaps Trump isn’t the economic genius he claims to be.
These are not partisan data; that the Bureau falls under the US Department of Commerce suggests Trump may soon hobble its reporting capacity. For now, the data show economic contraction, reflecting a colossal reversal from Biden’s expansion. Wall Street sums up Trump’s first 100 days in office as the “worst for the stock market in half a century.”
On brand, when faced with these data, Trump lied, deflected, and blamed his predecessor, posting,“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th. This… has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that (Biden) left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”
Trump continues to manufacture Biden’s “bad numbers”
Trump can’t stop parroting his own campaign lies about Biden’s economy. During the 2024 presidential campaign, when he wasn’t manufacturing a border invasion to enrage people, Trump repeatedly attacked Biden’s economy. It worked. While remaining mum on how his own COVID-19 mismanagement worsened the economy, he convinced 49% of voters that they were impoverished, despite economic indicators to the contrary.
After commerce reports came out this week, Trump doubled down. During an embarrassing televised cabinet meeting orchestrated to praise himself, Trump confirmed that he sought to undo everything Biden did to improve the economy, stating, “We came in and I was very against everything that Biden was doing in terms of the economy. … We took over his mess in so many different ways.”
Trump and his cabinet may drink their own economic Kool-Aid, but Wall Street is abstaining. Multiple indicators confirmed that Biden delivered the strongest post-COVID economic recovery in the world, including: growth and job creation that exceeded G7 and other advanced economies' growth in 2024; inflation control despite global inflationary pressures; avoidance of the post-COVID recession predicted by many; wage gains; strong market performance with record S&P 500 highs; and stellarinfrastructure investment that Trump, in a toddler-esque pique of jealousy, is scrambling to unravel.
During Biden’s term, the U.S. added 16 million jobs, low earners were experiencing wage growth, inflation levels approached the Federal Reserve’s target, and unemployment hit a 54-year low. By these metrics, Biden performed economic jujitsu, delivering an economy that The Economist called “the envy of the world.”
Teaching Trump media how to lie better
After Trump officially blamed Biden this week for economic contractions caused by his own ill-conceived tariffs, he went further, instructing right-wing media how to spin bad economic news of the future. During his televised “Praise Dear Leader” cabinet meeting, Trump told his preferred outlets (Fox, Newsmax, OAN) that they should also blame any economic downturns in the second quarter on Biden.
Trump showed similar intransigence during an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man Trump is keeping in an El Salvador prison despite a Supreme Court order to facilitate his return. Trump insisted during the interview that an obviously photoshopped picture showed Garcia with “MS13” tattooed on his knuckles. When Moran told Trump that the image was clearly photoshopped, Trump acted like a tyrant. He first suggested Moran owed him something – it was thanks to Trump that Moran got the interview at all. Frustrated by Moran’s continuing refusal to lie, Trump told him, “you’re not being very nice,” before pivoting to attacking media as a whole, saying this “is why people no longer believe the news … It’s such a disservice…”
Discussing the Supreme Court order to facilitate Garcia’s return, Moran stated the obvious — that Trump could simply pick up the phone, call El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, and get him back. Trump confirmed that he is, indeed, flouting the Supreme Court’s authority, stating, “I could…. And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that.”
In one interview, Trump vacillated between being the all powerful Oz, and the cheap salesman behind the curtain. When Moran reminded him that the high court ordered him to return Garcia, Trump deflected, incredibly: “I'm not the one making this decision. We have lawyers who don't want to do this.”
Trump’s clown car cabinet is driving off a cliff
After the Supreme Court slapped the administration and ordered Garcia’s return with a 9-0 decision, White House adviser Stephen Miller simply lied about it. Miller claimed on Fox News that the administration had “won” the case, “clearly,” prompting a conservative columnist to retort, “Nope, you lost. Unanimously.” Fox viewers, of course, won’t hear that rejoinder as Fox anchors continue to throw falsehoods at the wall to see what sticks.
As Team Trump continues governing the country like a made-for-Fox-TV reality show, real-life consequences are piling up. China just canceled orders for American pork, soybeans, and lumber, putting US farmers in “full-blown crisis” mode.
Maybe, like dolls for Christmas, farmers can make do with selling one or two hogs instead of 30. As Trump put it during a town hall Wednesday night, he plans to defeat public skepticism over his tariffs through deception. “I just think that I’ll be able to convince people how good this is.”
NOW READ: Trump's rampage is out of control — but there's one way to stop it
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are or have been published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News, State Affairs, and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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AN 4 25
The most important constraints on the Trump regime during its heinous first hundred days have been (1) federal courts, (2) stock and bond markets, (3) China and its response to Trump’s tariff madness, (4) some state and local governments (in ways I’ll get to in a moment), and (5) we the people (as I’ll also describe).
Trump has temporarily backed down from the tariffs that shook stock and bond markets. He has also backed away from a trade war with China.
Increasingly, though, the Trump regime has ignored federal court orders (see: Abrego Garcia), but has not yet overtly thumbed its nose at the Supreme Court.
What about state and local governments? What about we the people?
Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order targeting local jurisdictions that are not cooperating with its aggressive crackdown on immigration.
The order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to publish a list of “sanctuary cities” — places that limit or refuse to cooperate with federal efforts to arrest undocumented immigrants — and pursue “all necessary legal remedies and enforcement measures” against them.
The Trump regime has already sued the city of Rochester, N.Y., accusing its officials of illegally impeding immigration enforcement.
It could sue individuals who obstruct immigration agents. The Justice Department is already prosecuting a Milwaukee judge on charges of obstructing immigration agents.
You may find yourself in the midst of this, particularly if you do as I suggested Sunday — help ensure that undocumented residents of your community know their rights (getting them red cards in their own languages), and seek to prevent local law enforcement from cooperating with ICE — especially with regard to access to schools, hospitals, courts, and other necessary facilities.
Are you willing to be arrested for obstructing the regime’s pursuit of undocumented immigrants?
This is not just a humanitarian issue. All the residents of our communities — regardless of legal status — need to feel safe when seeking medical attention, when reporting a crime, and when getting their children to and from school and meeting with teachers and counselors.
If they do not feel safe and do not seek these services, our communities can suffer the consequences. Diseases can spread. Crimes can go unreported. Children may not get the education they need.
Besides, legally and constitutionally we live in a system in which cities, counties, and states possess their own powers and authorities. We do not live in a dictatorship in which a ruler can dictate how people live in their localities, and whether they can have access to doctors, hospitals, police, or judges — at least not yet.
Which is why some courts are protecting sanctuary cities.
Last Thursday, a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump regime from enforcing part of a previous executive order directing federal agencies to withhold funds from cities and counties that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
Judge William H. Orrick of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California found that freezing federal funds for jurisdictions that don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement threatens local governance — causing budget uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the cities and counties and the communities they serve.
When it comes to Trump’s latest executive order, Judge Orrick and other federal judges are likely to rule similarly.
This means that in coming months three of the bulwarks against Trump’s tyranny that I mentioned at the start — the federal courts, state and local governments, and many of us as individual citizens — are likely to be attacked by the Trump regime for much the same reason: for protecting vulnerable people in our communities.
Be warned and be ready.
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AN 4 25
In a Monday morning, April 28 post on his Truth Social platform, President Donald Trump — angry over his low approval ratings in recent polls — called for the New York Times, ABC News, the Washington Post and others to be "investigated for election fraud."
The post came three days after ABC News' Katherine Faulders reported that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), under U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, had "rescinded a policy implemented during the Biden Administration that restricted prosecutors from seizing reporters' records in criminal investigations, according to an internal memo obtained by ABC News."
In an article published by Salon on April 29, Austin Sarat — a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts — warns that the Trump Administration and the Trump-era DOJ are quite serious about using the legal system against reporters.
READ MORE:America is first in the global race to the bottom — thanks to Trump
"(The Trump Administration's) latest effort to bring the press to heel came on April 25, when news leaked of the Justice Department's intention to aggressively pursue journalists who receive leaked information from confidential government sources," Sarat explains. "When it is implemented, the policy will give the administration another tool to make the lives of reporters miserable and provide the basis for jailing those who resist."
Sarat continues, "While no journalists are presently in jail in this country for doing their jobs, prosecuting and punishing them is a regular part of the arsenal of repressive regimes around the world. And the atmosphere for the American press is by no means friendly. April alone saw a dramatic escalation of threats."
Sarat stresses that when it comes to reporters, Bondi is a radical departure from former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland —who spoke of the "crucial role that a free and independent press plays in our democracy."
During Joe Biden's presidency, Garland said, "Because freedom of the press requires that members of the news media have the freedom to investigate and report the news, the new regulations are intended to provide enhanced protection to members of the news media from certain law enforcement tools and actions that might unreasonably impair newsgathering."
READ MORE:Nastiness 'doesn't travel well': Trump ripped after shock election results in Canada
Sarat comments, "How times have changed. Bondi's new memo chastises the news media for publishing leaked material 'that undermine(s) President Trump's policies, victimize(s) government agencies, and cause(s) harm to the American people.' Calling such activity Illegal and immoral, the attorney general said she would be personally responsible for approving 'efforts to question or arrest members of the news media.' There you have it. Journalists are put on notice that if they publish leaked material that 'undermine(s) President Trump's policies,' they may be arrested."
READ MORE:Hitler's first 100 days — and Trump's
*Austin Sarat's full article for Salon is available at this link.
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mma 4 25
President Donald Trump is ramping up his assault on the press, opening new avenues for federal retribution against outlets which displease him as his administration prepares to mark 100 days in office.
Trump has long railed against journalists as the “enemy of the people,” used the power of the state as a cudgel against the industry in his first term, and promised more of the same in his second.
His return to office brought what Columbia Journalism Review’s Jon Allsop described as a “sharp, often contemptuous rupture” between the federal government and the press, with the White House seeking over the last few months to dominate reporters, place new restrictions on critical outlets, and lift up right-wing propagandists in their place.
The president’s threats against news outlets have been so extreme for so many years that by contrast, such moves struck some observers as “small beer” or “trivial nonsense.”
But Trump’s talk is cheap until it isn’t — at any time, on a whim, he or the assortment of ideologues and shills he’s appointed can set the gears of government grinding against his foes. And this weekend brought a sharp escalation and worrying signs for the future.
Justice Department ends restrictions protecting journalists}:
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday laid the groundwork for the imprisonment of journalists who produce reporting that damages the president’s interests.
In an internal Justice Department memo, Bondi rescinded Biden-era protections which restricted prosecutors “from seeking records and compelling testimony from members of the news media,” stating this was necessary “in order to identify and punish the source of improper leaks” by individuals whose conduct she described as “treasonous.”
Notably, her memo targets not just the leaking of classified information but also “disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”
Trump regularly rails against reporting based on anonymous sources. Bondi’s move raises the prospect of the Trump administration responding to such reports by forcing reporters to choose between revealing their sources and going to jail.
Bondi, a Trump loyalist who previously parlayed frequent Fox appearances defending Trump into a post on his first impeachment legal defense team, will apparently be making the call over when the Justice Department uses that legal tool.
Other top prosecutors and investigators who might weigh in include her deputy, Emil Bove, who previously represented Trump in state and federal prosecutions; Ed Martin, the lawyer for January 6 defendant who now serves as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia; FBI Director Kash Patel, who has called for the federal targeting of journalists; and his extremely online deputy, the former Fox host Dan Bongino.
How far will they go? Trump wants them to go very far indeed.
- ### Trump calls for investigations of media pollsters
Trump responded on Monday to new surveys which show his approval ratings plunging in light of his catastrophic tariff rollout by calling for investigations into the pollsters and the media outlets which conduct them.
Trump claimed in an early morning post on Truth Social that results from New York Times/Siena and ABC/Washington Post polls were due to the surveys “looking for a negative result.”
“These people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the FoxNews Pollster while you’re at it,” he wrote. “They are Negative Criminals who apologize to their subscribers and readers after I WIN ELECTIONS BIG, much bigger than their polls showed I would win, loose a lot of credibility, and then go on cheating and lying for the next cycle, only worse.”
Trump regularly accuses his media foes of breaking the law, and in a March speech at the Justice Department headquarters he instructed its employees to “watch for” their “totally illegal” behavior.
The president is currently suing Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer over the results of one of her presidential campaign surveys.
Trump has personally dictated Justice Department investigations into two former officials from his first administration who became critics, as well as into ActBlue, the hub for Democratic campaign fundraising — and he could launch a similar legal assault on any news outlet which displeases him at any time.
- ### A cry of desperation from CBS News
60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley Sunday’s broadcast with a blunt explanation for the resignation last week of Bill Owens, a journalist with decades of experience at CBS News and the show’s longtime executive producer.
“Our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger,” he said. “The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”
Trump and his administration had targeted CBS News for retribution following a 60 Minutesinterview of Kamala Harris, the editing of which the president alleged had been unfair to him.
Trump launched a lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from the network, which First Amendment attorneys described as “ridiculous junk” and “a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.” Brendan Carr, his handpicked chair of the Federal Communications Commission, is conducting an investigation into the editing that former FCC commissioners have denounced.
Rather than stand firmly behind the company’s journalists, Paramount Chair Shari Redstone is reportedly seeking a settlement with Trump and an agreement with Carr that will allow the company’s merger to go through.
- ### Trump gloats about media owners bowing to his will
Trump thinks he’s winning his battle against the press, as The Atlantic reported in a recent interview with the president:
“Tell the people at The Atlantic, if they’d write good stories and truthful stories, the magazine would be hot,” he said. Perhaps the magazine can risk forgoing hotness, he suggested, because it is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, which buffers it, he implied, from commercial imperatives. But that doesn’t guarantee anything, he warned. “You know at some point, they give up,” he said, referring to media owners generally and—we suspected—[Washington Post owner Jeff] Bezos specifically. “At some point they say, No más, no más.” He laughed quietly.
Trump understands that many of the news outlets whose work he decries are owned by multinational corporations or wealthy magnates whose business interests make them vulnerable to federal retaliation.
After only a few months in office, he’s seen the pressure he’s exerted on CBS News push it to the breaking point, while the resolve of major newspaper owners is seemingly crumbling. And he has years more time in office to try to break them to his will.
//
02/04/25 9:00 AM EST
10/29/24 9:09 AM EDT
11/30/23
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BRO dc BAR COUP
ABC LOCAL WASHINGTON (7News) — Brad Bondi, a lawyer and brother of President Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi, is one of two candidates hoping to lead the D.C. Bar Association, the oversight group for roughly 120,000 lawyers licensed to practice in the nation's capital.
Brad Bondi, who co-chairs the investigations and white-collar defense practice at Paul Hastings, LLP, is facing off against Diane Seltzer, who runs her own firm and has received a myriad of endorsements from prior D.C. Bar presidents, for the seat.
The president of the D.C. Bar serves for roughly three years and is declared an Immediate-Past President upon the third year. The role requires presidents to appoint committee members and set the association's budget, among many other duties.
The Bar's president is not responsible for any disciplinary actions against licensed lawyers. However, that role is handled by the D.C. Bar's Office of Disciplinary Counsel and a board operated by the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Brad Bondi's plan to run comes as the Trump administration seeks to go after or punish lawyers who sue over its policies, though his presence in the realm of D.C. law was already well established.
He taught classes at George Washington and Georgetown in 2008 and 2009, respectively, and has focused on securities and investigations for financial institutions, including banks, broker-dealers, investment advisers, mutual and hedge funds.
Here's his full overview provided by Paul Hastings, LLP:...
OFF bs
Overview
Brad Bondi is co-chair of the Investigations and White Collar Defense practice at Paul Hastings and a nationally recognized litigation partner. He focuses on securities and financial investigations (SEC and DOJ) and securities and complex litigation. He also advises boards of directors and audit committees concerning significant governance matters. He is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. and New York offices.
Mr. Bondi has been described by the media as a “high-powered litigator,” a reputation earned through his decades of experience leading some of the most complex and high-stakes matters in the country. Law360 recognized Brad as a national MVP in white collar in 2022, 2021, and 2019, Benchmark Litigation lists him as “national practice area star” in both securities and white collar, and The National Law Journal named him a Washington D.C. Trailblazer in 2020 to recognize his significant contributions to the field of securities law. The National Association of Corporate Directors has twice honored him for his work in the board room. Securities Docket describes Brad as “the first choice among Boards of Directors and Audit Committees of the Fortune 500 when their company is faced with SEC or DOJ problems.” The American Lawyer quotes a source saying, “Brad walks into a room, and he has credibility” referencing his “brand and reputation.” LawDragon writes: “Brad Bondi has earned the reputation of being the lawyer to see in Washington, D.C., if you face the most challenging legal problems… Admired for his strategic vision, fierce competitiveness and dedication to his clients, Bondi has obtained significant victories against the most daunting odds.”
Mr. Bondi has two decades of experience representing and counseling companies, financial institutions, boards of directors, audit committees, and senior executives in a broad range of investigations and complex business litigation, with an emphasis on securities and financial regulations and corporate governance matters. He previously held senior positions in government, including at the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr. Bondi leads the representation of significant legal matters including major litigation in trial and appellate courts and in arbitrations (securities litigation, derivative litigation, and complex business litigation), SEC, FINRA, and PCAOB enforcement matters, criminal inquiries (including FCPA, DOJ, and USAO matters), and various investigations (including independent investigations overseen by audit committees and special committees).
Mr. Bondi regularly serves as a senior advisor to boards of directors, audit committees, special committees, independent directors, and senior executives during corporate crises, significant transactions, and governance challenges. He has guided boards and board committees through the most extraordinary corporate events, including independent investigations, defense of derivative lawsuits against directors and officers, class actions, accounting irregularities and Restatements, auditor disputes, hostile takeover attempts and activist shareholders, mergers and acquisitions disputes, cyber intrusions and data breaches, and investigations of alleged misconduct by executives.
Mr. Bondi advises clients in connection with regulatory enforcement actions, private lawsuits, and governmental and congressional investigations arising from suspected violations of securities laws, accounting irregularities, auditor disputes, internal controls, market manipulation, revenue recognition issues, tax-related matters, insider trading, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and other commercial bribery law compliance, matters involving LIBOR and other reference rates, compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank Acts, potential antitrust concerns, and cybersecurity. He also oversees complex civil and criminal litigation, such as securities litigation, corporate control litigation, commercial litigation, contractual disputes, arbitrations, and criminal proceedings. Mr. Bondi has litigated significant legal disputes in various state and federal courts, including serving as counsel of record for successful briefs before the Supreme Court of the United States: for an investment bank in Credit Suisse First Boston Ltd. v. Billing (interpreting securities laws as implicitly precluding the application of antitrust laws in the IPO process) and for an amicus curiae in Yates v. United States (construing Sarbanes-Oxley’s criminal provision for document destruction, 18 U.S.C. § 1519). He also served as counsel of record for an amicus curiae brief before the Supreme Court of the United States in Salman v. United States (concerning the personal benefit element of insider trading law) and Liu v. SEC (concerning the SEC’s authority to seek disgorgement), and he has advised on other cases before the Court.
Mr. Bondi regularly advises financial institutions, including banking institutions, broker-dealers, investment advisers, mutual funds, and hedge funds, and their respective boards on issues relating to compliance with securities laws, criminal laws, SEC and FINRA rules, and governance requirements.
Mr. Bondi defends clients in enforcement actions, prosecutions, and investigations initiated by federal and state agencies and departments, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Justice (DOJ), United States Attorneys and grand juries, State Attorneys General, Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC), Office of the Controller of the Currency (OCC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Federal Reserve, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). On occasion, he has served as an expert witness regarding issues relating to securities law and insider trading law.
Mr. Bondi formerly served as a member of the executive staff of the SEC as Counsel to two Commissioners for enforcement actions and regulatory rulemaking. In this capacity, he advised on enforcement matters and regularly liaised with SEC Enforcement staff in the home and regional offices on numerous enforcement actions. He also served on the steering committee for the SEC’s “Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2010-2015” and on working groups related to enforcement initiatives. While at the SEC, Mr. Bondi was detailed to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, where he served as deputy general counsel and led one of the three investigative teams examining the causes of the financial crisis. In that role, he interfaced with various other regulators and law enforcement agencies. Mr. Bondi also briefly served on detail as a Special Assistant United States Attorney, handling criminal prosecutions in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Eastern District of Virginia, and as a state criminal prosecutor in an externship while in law school. Following law school, Mr. Bondi served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edward E. Carnes, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Mr. Bondi is nationally recognized in multiple areas of the law: securities enforcement defense, board counseling and representation, criminal law, financial and securities regulation, and litigation. Mr. Bondi is recognized for Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations in Washington, D.C. and Nationwide Securities: Regulation: Enforcement by Chambers USA, where clients note he is “a highly experienced, smart and energetic lawyer,” “a great strategist,” “a masterful tactician,” “terrific writer,” and “a gifted and dynamic lawyer who knows how to best position his client before regulators and counterparties.” He is recommended for Corporate Investigations and White-Collar Criminal Defense and Securities Litigation: Defense by The Legal 500 US, where clients describe him as “tenacious, knowledgeable and highly effective,” the “best lawyer I have ever encountered,” and “a sharp business adviser” with “in-depth knowledge of the SEC and how to deal with it.” In the field of securities enforcement defense, Mr. Bondi has been named to Securities Docket’s current “Enforcement 40,” the list of the top 40 “best and brightest” securities enforcement attorneys in the country (regardless of age). He is one of only 22 lawyers in the country to receive this distinction twice. Securities Docketdescribes Mr. Bondi as “the first choice among Boards of Directors and Audit Committees of the Fortune 500 when their company is faced with SEC or DOJ problems.”
Mr. Bondi is a frequent speaker at business and legal conferences, and he has authored articles and book chapters on securities law, criminal law, corporate governance, and the attorney-client privilege and work-product protection. Articles that he authored have been published by the law journals of Harvard Law School, New York University School of Law, Northwestern University School of Law, the University of Virginia School of Law, and Fordham Law School. He has authored two book chapters on white-collar criminal defense strategy for Inside the Minds (Aspatore Books, 2007), and he formerly served as an associate editor of the Business Crimes Bulletin. He also has co-authored, among other pieces, a definitive piece on insider trading law, “The Law of Insider Trading: Legal Theories, Common Defenses, and Best Practices for Ensuring Compliance,” and, with SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, wrote an extensive account of the SEC Enforcement program, “Evaluating the Mission: A Critical Review of the History and Evolution of the SEC Enforcement Program.” He routinely writes on issues pertaining to directors for the National Association of Corporate Directors.
In addition to his practice, Mr. Bondi teaches advanced securities law classes as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center and George Mason University School of Law, and he is a Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. He served two terms as an elected member of the steering committee of the Corporation, Finance and Securities Law Community section of the D.C. Bar. Mr. Bondi has provided expert testimony to Congress on securities law enforcement and has aided Congress in drafting legislation. He serves as a senior fellow at the Center for Financial Stability, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and independent think tank focusing on financial markets for the benefit of investors, officials, and the public. He is involved in international regulatory issues as a member of the Pallanza Group, an annual gathering of U.S. and European leaders hosted by the Istituto Bruno Leoni of Milan, Italy. In 2012, Mr. Bondi served as a delegate to the 34th Annual American Council on Germany Young Leaders Conference in Germany. He also is a member of the board of advisers of the Economic Crime and Cybersecurity Institute, which supports education and research in economic crime and information security and functions as a resource for corporate, government, and law enforcement entities, and he is a member of the Exchequer Club of Washington.
Mr. Bondi is active in charitable and civic organizations. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Atlantic Council, the University of Florida Foundation and the Piedmont Environmental Council. He previously served as a “Big Brother” with Big Brothers Big Sisters and on the board of directors of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. In 2019, Mr. Bondi endowed “The Bondi Family Land Conservation and Battlefield Preservation Fund” to promote the conservation of historic land. In 2021, he endowed the “Bradley J. Bondi Diversity & Inclusion Scholarship Fund” at the University of Florida Levin College of Law for law students who demonstrate a commitment to advancing the causes of diversity and inclusion. In 2024, he established the “Traci Grieshaber Zeller ’99 Memorial Award” at the University of Virginia School of Law in memory of his friend and colleague....
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bondi says abrego garcia engaged in hu traffic terror?
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RWW
04/23/2025
by
- Khaya Himmelman @ Talking Points Memo: Trump’s DOJ Is Taking Cues From MAGA Influencers And Conspiracy Theorists
President Trump’s nominee for D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, and Donald Trump’s Department of Justice more broadly, are taking cues from right-wing influencers — allowing some of the loudest media figures on the right to influence significant decisions, including who gets fired from the DOJ and who and what gets investigated.
- Media Matters: Cigar company founder Michael Knowles asks Trump for a tariff exemption
Knowles: “Anyone listening right now in the admin, a great little carve out would be for all of the patriotic Americans who have been oppressed for too long, who work in the premium cigar industry, and for all of the premium cigar smokers.”
- Alex Griffing @ Mediaite: MAGA Influencer Tells Steve Bannon Trump ‘Will Have No Choice’ But to Suspend Habeas Corpus
Former Trump White House advisor turned podcaster, Steve Bannon, spoke to another MAGA influencer on Tuesday, who argued that President Donald Trump will eventually have to suspend habeas corpus in order to facilitate mass deportations.
- Judd Legum @ Popular Information: U.S. citizen wrongly detained by Border Patrol says government account is false
Jose Hermosillo was held in a detention facility for undocumented immigrants for 10 days.
- Amanda Lewellyn @ Vox: How Trump is rewriting American history
Yale professor David W. Blight explains why Trump is far from the first to try to rewrite the record.
- Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Bondi launches dubious ‘Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias’ in U.S. government
Trump administration officials could be focused on “anti-religion bias” within the government, but they’re instead focused only on “anti-Christian bias.”
ref
no lnx
Bondi launches dubious ‘Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias’ in U.S. government
Trump administration officials could be focused on “anti-religion bias” within the government, but they’re instead focused only on “anti-Christian bias.”
:{:{April 23, 2025,}:
By Steve Benen
The first hint of things to come came two weeks ago, when State Department encouraged employees to report — even anonymously — allegations of anti-Christian bias within the agency. The Department of Veterans Affairs took a nearly identical step soon after.
Evidently, these weren’t just random memos. The Washington Post reported:
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday convened the first meeting of a task force President Donald Trump has charged with searching for and eradicating what he’s described as “anti-Christian bias” within federal agencies and regulatory practices. Joined by other Cabinet officials, Bondi kicked off the session by attacking the administration of former president Joe Biden, who she said had “abused and targeted Christians.”
So, a few things.
First, the idea that Biden — a devout and lifelong church-going Roman Catholic — “abused and targeted Christians” is absurd and beneath the office of the attorney general. Indeed, congressional Republicans spent much of the former president’s term raising similar allegations, but an inspector general’s report found no evidence to support the claims.
If Bondi has new evidence to support her partisan attacks, she’s kept it to herself.
Second, it’s hard not to notice the faith-specific drive of this new administrative task force. The attorney general and her colleagues aren’t focused on “anti-religion bias” within the government; they’re focused only on “anti-Christian bias” within the government.
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The Post’s report noted, “[E]ven before the group’s inaugural meeting, critics have assailed its mission as a bald attempt by government to elevate one faith over others and to rewrite recent history under the guise of protecting religious freedoms.” Given the circumstances, it’s not hard to conclude that these critics have a point.
But I was also struck by just how many Cabinet secretaries and prominent federal officials have joined this endeavor. While the increasingly hyper-partisan attorney general is serving as the task force’s chair, she’s serving alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez DeRemer, and FBI Director Kash Patel.
Also on hand for the inaugural meeting of this group was Small Business Administration chief Kelly Loeffler, Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkende, White House Domestic Policy Council Vince Haley, and a variety of leading officials from the Justice Department, FEMA, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Office of Management and Budget.
Given the inconvenient fact that the task force is focused on a problem that doesn’t appear to exist, that was quite a turnout.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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an 4 25
Conservative political writer Myra Adams spotlighted the Trump administration's top women officials in an article published in The Hill Friday, referring to them as "mean MAGA girls" for mirroring what she called former President Donald Trump's "bullying leadership style."
The list included Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and rightwing influencer Laura Loomer.
"After nearly 100 days, Trump’s loyal Mean Girls are just warming up their 'don’t mess with us,' in-your-face bravado, so effective and pleasing to their man," Adams, who served on the creative team of two Republican presidential campaigns in 2004 and 2008, wrote in her article.
ALSO READ:'I will not be bullied': Whistleblower accuses DOJ of sending 'armed deputies' to her home
"These fine-looking ladies are always camera-ready for their frequent Fox News and social media appearances."
She said that these officials are "bullying into submission two of the three co-equal branches of government, resulting in the most powerful executive branch since President Franklin D. Roosevelt."
The author saidBondi turned the Department of Justice into Trump's "weapon of mass retribution."
"Bondi is rebranding DOJ as the president’s law firm, fighting for his all-encompassing MAGA agenda. Even Trump’s former private criminal defense attorneys are Bondi’s top deputies!," she added.
Adams said Bondi "mirrors Trump’s 'fight fight fight' persona, denigrating judges and persecuting the president’s 'enemies.'
ALSO READ:'What is she taking about?' Ex-RNC chair rips press sec’s defense of Trump’s
"That long-growing list includes former officials, the media, and institutions, organizations and businesses that don’t toe the line," Adams noted.
RegardingLeavitt, who is the youngest White House press secretary at 27, Adams said she displays a "prideful Mean Girl confidence well beyond her years."
"Leavitt disseminates whatever the White House 'Department of Propaganda' has prepared, likely from the all-powerful Stephen Miller," she added.
Adams noted that Leavitt heavily favors Trump-friendly new media.
ALSO READ:'Neofascist revolutionary project': How MAGA is ramping up its propaganda 'machine
"These foot soldiers in designer heels might be called the 'MAGA Mean Girls,'" Adams wrote.
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no lnx an raw
'Retribution or bust’: Trump's 'Secretary of Retribution' demands mass arrests
Ivan Raiklin takes the stage to speak at a New Hampshire Election Security Seminar presented by the New Hampshire Voter Integrity Group in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S., November 19, 2021.
Jordan Green April 16, 2025
Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who calls himself the “secretary of retribution,” has circulated a so-called “Deep State target list” of President Donald Trump’s political enemies for more than a year now.
Although his promise of spectacular “live-streamed” arrests of hundreds of political figures up to and including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on fancifully concocted charges of treason and other purported violations of law has yet to materialize, Raiklin was able to enlist new allies after Trump vacated the convictions of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants.
Enrique Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes, respectively the former leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, joined Raiklin on an X space on Sunday night to call for retaliatory arrests against those they hold responsible for the Jan. 6 prosecutions.
ALSO READ: Trump, dementia and the duty to warn
The two men were both convicted of seditious conspiracy, with Tarrio serving a 22-year sentence and Rhodes serving an 18-year sentence. Alone among the leadership cadre of the two groups, Tarrio received a full pardon, while Rhodes’s sentence was commuted.
“These are people who have already committed treason,” Raiklin said during the call on Sunday night to discuss retribution against the vast array of government officials who played a role in holding the Jan. 6 insurrectionists accountable. “I’ve seen the evidence. Those that went to January 6th and protested the illegal election knew and saw that these criminals were there.”
Tarrio joined Raiklin in urging Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to start making arrests.
“At what point do we say, ‘Enough'?” Tarrio asked. “At what point does the retaliation, the investigations, the arrests come for these people that wanted to put us in a concrete coffin?”
The FBI declined to comment on this story, and the Department of Justice did not respond to questions submitted through a web form.
But the wide-ranging discussion among Raiklin and his guests on the 99-minute X space revealed deep-seated frustration with Trump administration officials. While Trump promised “retribution” during the campaign, those seeking vindication for their roles in the effort to overturn the 2020 election have found their cause pushed aside during the second administration’s shockwave of new policies, including a global trade war, dismantling the federal government, purging DEI from the military and other institutions, menacing Greenland and the Panama Canal, threatening funding to universities, and disappearing lawful residents.
“I’ve already given up hope on Pam Bondi,” Tarrio said. He added that the recent decision by Patel to promote Steve J. Jensen, former chief of the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Operations Section, to the position of assistant director of the Washington Field Office “does not restore confidence for the American people.”
Tarrio and other pardoned Jan. 6 defendants are unhappy about Jensen’s promotion largely because of the congressional testimony of a former FBI supervisory intelligence analyst who told House Republicans that Jensen once described three individuals targeted for Jan. 6 investigations as “godd--- terrorists.”
Raiklin and Tarrio could not be reached for comment for this story.
The 98-minute discussion on Sunday often veered from the retaliatory arrests that Raiklin emphasized as the focal point.
Listeners complained that they could only hear every other word of Rhodes’ remarks, and the former Oath Keepers leader lamented that his X account had been suspended after he made a post calling for the release of another member held in custody on separate gun charges.
Compared with Raiklin and Tarrio’s remarks, Rhodes’ criticism of the Department of Justice and FBI was relatively mild.
“The more you wait, the more they’re going to destroy evidence,” Rhodes said. “So, you gotta go fast.”
Raiklin expressed the view that the Jan. 6 defendants’ best hope of retaliatory arrests lies with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Edward R. Martin Jr., a former “Stop the Steal” campaigner.
Martin’s actions have given those who want to see Trump’s political opponents prosecuted some cause for hope.
In February, Martin sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asking him to clarify comments he made at a March 2024 rally warning that Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh “will pay the price” and “won’t know what hit you if you go through with these awful decisions.” In a subsequent letter, Martin told Schumer: “Your cooperation is more important than ever to complete this inquiry before any action is taken. I remind you: no one is above the law.”
In a letter to another Democratic lawmaker in February, Martin requested that Rep. Robert Garcia (R-CA) clarify his comments on CNN that “the American public wants… us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight” against billionaire Elon Musk.
Martin’s probes prompted 10 lawyers, including four former Jan. 6 prosecutors, to file a letter on Monday requesting that District of Columbia Court of Appeals investigate Martin for potential violations of the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct.
“Announcing investigations against his political opponents” and other alleged misconduct, the attorneys argued, “are not worthy of the Department of Justice, undermine the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection of law, and violate Mr. Martin’s professional obligations.”
The attorneys also raised questions about Martin’s representation of Jan. 6 defendant William Pope before Martin was appointed to serve as U.S. attorney. The attorneys cited a court filing by Pope claiming that Martin suggested he request the government’s file in his case. The filing, according to the attorneys, raised questions about whether Martin “potentially gave legal advice to a defendant his office was prosecuting at the time.”
As a prosecutor, Martin has intervened directly on Rhodes’ behalf. In January, Martin successfully filed court papers seeking to overturn a federal judge’s order barring Rhodes and other convicted members of the Oath Keepers from visiting Washington, D.C. without permission. Last month, Martin spoke at a Florida political fundraiser that was attended by four of Rhodes’ Oath Keeper co-defendants, Mother Jones reported.
Asked whether Martin is considering investigating those responsible for the Jan. 6 prosecutions and potentially bringing federal charges, spokesperson Daniel Ball told Raw Story the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is “unable to confirm or deny the existence of investigations.”
Tarrio and other guests on Raiklin’s X space provided few details on who they believe should be arrested and what crimes they might have potentially committed. Raiklin, meanwhile, outlined a highly technical and legally specious case for targeting Thomas DiBiase, the general counsel for the U.S. Capitol Police, whom he described as “the key individual that weaponized against J6-ers.”
“If we get to him, he can essentially squeal on everyone else, to include the number-one high-value target, Nancy Pig-losi [sic],” Raiklin said.
The U.S. Capitol Police did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story.
On Monday, Raiklin made an X post directed at Bondi, suggesting he wants Trump’s attorney general to rack up an arrest count equivalent to the FBI’s sprawling investigation of the Jan. 6 attack.
“Retribution or bust,” he wrote. “The ball is in your hands. Shot clock ends May 31. 6 weeks remain to conduct ~1500 live-streamed swatting raids of all members of the [Deep State target list].”
But compared to a viral video that garnered 10.3 million views last May when Raiklin’s plan for “livestreamed swatting raids” against his “Deep State target list” first gained notoriety, the recent post issuing an ultimatum to Bondi has garnered paltry results: 9,100 views, 134 re-posts and 21 comments as of late Monday.
The comments from MAGA users suggest Raiklin’s influence is waning.
“What happens on June 1st?” one wrote.
“You are not going to do a god d--- thing! Blah blah blah,” another wrote.
===
:mar 20 npr}:
the Department of Justice announced charges Thursday against three people it says are allegedly responsible for violent incidents targeting Elon Musk's Tesla cars, showrooms and charging stations across the country.}:
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Technology
A Tesla protester targeted by Elon Musk speaks out: 'I have to protect myself'
The Justice Department says three people — in Charleston, S.C., Loveland, Colo., and Salem, Ore. — are facing criminal charges that carry a minimum penalty of five years and up to 20 years in prison for a range of violent acts. They include using Molotov cocktails to set fire to Tesla cars and charging stations and possessing other "incendiary devices" and a suppressed AR-15 rifle, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Thursday.
"The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended," Bondi said. "Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars."
President Trump and White House senior adviser, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk deliver remarks next to a Tesla Model S on the South Lawn of the White House on March 11 in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The strong statement came less than two days after Bondi promised that such attacks on Tesla also would be considered "nothing short of domestic terrorism." A representative for the DOJ didn't immediately respond to NPR's additional questions on what the agency plans to do next on this issue.
Trump, for his part, has criticized the attacks and efforts to boycott Musk's companies and, last week, said he would purchase a Tesla vehicle to support his advisor.
In Las Vegas, police said Tuesday that five Teslas were damaged in an attack on a sales and service center. Police believe the suspect also shot a gun at the cars and spray-painted the word "RESIST" on the entrance. No one was injured, which was also the case in the Colorado, Oregon and South Carolina incidents.
While no one has been injured or killed by these attacks, three professors and researchers of domestic terrorism and extremism tell NPR that they consider these cases to be acts of domestic terrorism.
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How cuts and $1 payment limits are making federal jobs harder
"It's absolutely domestic terrorism. I know that may discomfort many people. But vandalism is a crime that if it's committed with a political motive, can certainly be defined as terrorism," says Bruce Hoffman, senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book, God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America.
These days, the concept of domestic terrorism has become increasingly complex, Hoffman says. While there are official definitions of domestic terrorism, there is no federal law on the matter. Here's a breakdown of what constitutes domestic terrorism, how the U.S. has approached this issue in the past, and why it's important despite the lack of a specific law.
Why are Tesla and Musk the target of vandalism?
Public anger toward Musk, a White House advisor, Tesla and SpaceX CEO and one of the world's richest men, is growing as he leads efforts to slash government spending with his Department of Government Efficiency team. So far, this Trump administration entity has orchestrated the mass firings of thousands of government workers across multiple agencies in the past month.
In response, a grassroots protest has emerged in the form of the #TeslaTakedown movement. It is calling on Tesla drivers to sell their cars, dump company stock and join picket lines at Tesla showrooms.
People protesting Musk's actions in the Trump administration hold signs outside a Tesla showroom in Seattle on Feb. 13
Manuel Valdes/AP
But in some cases — including one of the people included in Bondi's announcement Thursday — the protests have taken a more violent turn. Two people have been arrested and are now facing state and federal charges tied to two separate attacks on a Tesla dealership in Loveland, Colo., which involved throwing Molotov cocktails at the cars and, in one instance, spray-painting expletive-ridden messages on the showroom's windows. No one was killed or injured during either incident.
Who is facing charges?
Lucy Grace Nelson, Daniel Brendan Kurt Clarke-Pounder and Adam Matthew Lansky are facing charges tied to their alleged vandalism of Tesla cars and dealerships in Colorado, South Carolina and Oregon, respectively.
Nelson is facing two charges of possession of an unregistered firearm and the malicious (attempted) destruction of property. She could face up to 30 years in prison.
Court documents allege that Nelson traveled to a Tesla dealership in Loveland, Colo., on multiple nights in January and February, allegedly lighting Molotov cocktails and throwing them in the dealership's parking lot and spraying graffiti on the building's windows and walls.
Nelson's attorney, Mary V. Butterton, declined to comment on her client's case.
Lansky is facing one charge of unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm. But an affidavit alleges he is also responsible for throwing Molotov cocktails and shooting a gun at Tesla vehicles and dealership facilities in Salem, Ore., on at least two separate occasions in January and February. Lansky's attorney, Mark Patrick Ahlemeyer, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Court documents allege that witnesses say they saw Clarke-Pounder on March 7 using red spray paint to write obscenities against Trump and "Long Live Ukraine" on a Tesla charging station parking spot in North Charleston, S.C. Clarke-Pounder then allegedly started lighting bottles on fire and throwing them at the Tesla charging stations, according to court documents. He's facing one charge of arson affecting interstate commerce.
Patrick Chisum, Clarke-Pounder's attorney, told NPR that Clarke-Pounder is feeling overwhelmed.
"He's being accused of something that's very, very serious. And I think that the realization of how serious it's being taken, especially with Attorney General Bondi's statements, is kind of becoming self-evident. Both he and his family are very, very concerned and very scared," Chisum said.
He added that his client "is a troubled young man who's been suffering from multiple mental health issues."
What falls under 'domestic terrorism'
The U.S. doesn't have a stand-alone federal domestic terrorism law. But at least 32 states and Washington, D.C., have their own state-level domestic terrorism laws. The FBI defines domestic terrorism as, "Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature."
People might look at vandalism at a Tesla dealership and question whether it's terrorism, says Hoffman.
But going back to the 1990s, the FBI, as the lead agency responsible for investigating terrorism in the United States, has investigated acts of vandalism and arson like those committed by eco-terrorism groups and treated them as domestic terrorism, he says.
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DOGE staff entered the U.S. Institute of Peace with D.C. police help
One of the more famous cases of eco-terrorism was committed by the group known as The Family. The FBI says the group has been linked to more than 40 criminal acts between 1995 and 2001, including arson and vandalism, causing more than $45 million in damages. The group's most notorious act was the 1998 arson attack on a ski resort in Vail, Colo. — which caused around $26 million in damages.
"To me, regardless of one's opinions of Tesla cars, and its owner, this isn't new," Hoffman says.
A key element in determining what is domestic terrorism is the intent of the perpetrator. That can include a desire to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence government policy, or affect government conduct, says Faiza Patel, senior director of the Brennan Center For Justice's Liberty and National Security Program.
And the intent of the Tesla vandals falls under this umbrella, she says.
"The whole point ... is that [the vandals] are trying to influence government conduct. Everybody knows that Elon Musk is not only a federal employee, but is at the center of a lot of controversies about what the government is doing right now," Patel says.
The act would also have to fall under one of the laws listed in the federal code as a domestic terrorism offense. These include attacks that use certain types of weapons — for example, weapons of mass destruction — or include acts such as hostage-taking or involve special federal interest, such as attacks on federal officials.
Other protesters have spray-painted swastikas and smashed windows of Tesla showrooms. But Patel says it's unlikely authorities will consider those cases of petty vandalism — or of someone keying a Tesla — to be domestic terrorism.
Investigators look over the scene at a Tesla Collision Center after a person set several vehicles on fire on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Why the U.S. doesn't have a federal domestic terrorism law
Extremism experts have long warned that domestic terrorism, mainly coming from far-right and white supremacy groups, posed a far greater threat than foreign terrorism. Still, despite sporadic efforts to do so, no federal domestic terrorism law has been created due to a lack of consensus.
Because of this, people involved in acts determined to be domestic terrorism are still just charged with offenses such as arson, murder, kidnapping and assault.
Experts warn that recent school shootings show growth in new radicalization pattern
The perpetrators of the most famous incident of U.S. domestic terrorism, the Oklahoma City Bombing that killed 168 people, were never actually charged with domestic terrorism. Rather, Timothy McVeigh and his co-conspirator Terry L. Nichols were found guilty of several counts of murder and the use of a weapon of mass destruction or conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Although there is no federal domestic terrorism law, prosecutors can point to a perpetrator's motive to classify a crime as terrorism during a trial and sentencing, which can affect a convicted person's punishment, says Laura Dugan, a professor of human security and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. If a crime is determined to be an act of terrorism, a perpetrator could receive additional years on their sentence.
Even after the Oklahoma City bombing, there was never enough agreement in Congress to support a domestic terrorism law, Hoffman says. It was always considered a highly politicized issue, he says.
"When you walked into a room going back to the 1990s and you talked about domestic terrorism there was a half of the room that immediately thought far-left radicals. And there was another half of the room that immediately thought white supremacists or seditious-minded conspiracy [believers]," Hoffman says.
Hoffman believes it's "a huge problem" that the U.S. has no domestic terrorism statute. But Patel, whose Brennan Center has long opposed such a law, says this would only be weaponized by the federal government and would make it too easy for "an administration to label unpopular groups or political enemies as a domestic terrorist outfit."
"I don't see how it benefits anybody," she says. "Given how polarized our current political environment is, it seems to me a particularly bad idea."
Four years after the Capitol riot, its meaning and legacy are still debated
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March 25, 2025,
By Frank Figliuzzi, MSNBC Columnist
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s apoplectic reactions to acts of vandalism and arson at Tesla dealerships and showrooms included her labeling these actionsas domestic terrorism. If she’s referring to the serious criminal acts allegedly committed by the three individuals already federally charged in connection with attacks on Tesla locations, Bondi happens to be right. Those actions appear to meet the federal definition of domestic terrorism and the perpetrators should be prosecuted for the damage they’ve done.
But I’m more concerned that Bondi, while correctly labeling certain criminal acts, is edging closer to violating some rights along the way.
Bondi is a Trump loyalist, and Musk’s wealth and influence make him arguably Trump’s most consequential ally.
:{:{What has my attention is that the singularly focused rhetoric and public displays by Bondi appear motivated by political protection of Tesla’s founder, Elon Musk, and could easily lead to abuse and misuse of federal law enforcement powers impacting tens of thousands of innocent Americans who simply exercise their free speech rights near Tesla locations every weekend.}:
Bondi better brush up soon on her understanding of the constitutionally protected rights of free speech and assembly, because some activist groups have declared Saturday a Tesla Day of Action with protests planned at 277 Tesla locations in the U.S., and 500 across the world.Bondi seems fixated on what’s happening at Tesla locations as reflected in her language. In a DOJ press release about the three people charged with crimes, she said, “The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended, let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.”}:
First, three arrests, and even 80 reports of vandalism, do not constitute a “wave of domestic terrorism.” That’s because each one of those reports needs to be independently investigated as to motive, if we are to label them as domestic terrorism. Second, our attorney general seems to have forgotten the part of our justice system that involves prosecutors, the courts and defense lawyers. Bondi seems ready to jump straight to “… put you behind bars.”
Don't be fooled by the 'SAVE Act.' It threatens our democracy.
Derrick Johnson
Trump and Bukele must think Americans are either ignorant or incredibly gullible
Ray Brescia
Musk spent $288 million to get Donald Trump elected. He’s threatened to fund primary GOP challengers against elected Republicans who dare to cross Trump. And, he’s thrown his money into the Wisconsin supreme court race to try and ensure a conservative victory there. Bondi is a Trump loyalist, and Musk’s wealth and influence make him arguably Trump’s most consequential ally.
What does all this mean for the well-intended citizens who show up at their nearby Tesla showroom to peacefully express their objections to an unelected, non-Senate confirmed, multibillionaire acting like he’s co-president and carelessly dismantling government institutions like he’s an inebriated Jenga player?
Guardrails may fail under the intense pressure to save Musk’s electric car company from crashing further down in stock value and sales.
:{:{Investigating domestic terrorism is the responsibility of the FBI, which falls under Bondi’s Justice Department, and is led by Kash Patel, another Trump loyalist. During my FBI career, I worked on and supervised domestic terrorism investigations. Once the FBI opens such a case, particularly when it involves the threat of terrorism playing out at a public protest, the bureau can open its tool kit.}:
Physical surveillance, including photographing people, cars and license plates, device location analysis, inserting undercover agents or informants, even using geo-fencing technology to identify cellphone numbers present, can be used to varying degrees to target and isolate those suspected of domestic terrorism.That’s where the thin line between targeting a terrorist and infringing on the rights of peaceful protesters can get even more thin. There are strict protocols in place to serve as guardrails on how the FBI conducts itself at public gatherings. Yet, with Trump loyalists at the top of the DOJ, and in the top two positions at the FBI, those guardrails may fail under the intense pressure to save Musk’s electric car company from crashing further down in stock value and sales.}:
Musk caught breaking vow to recuse in bonkers White House event as Tesla stock crashes
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, during a Tesla protest call last week, stated that Musk needed to be “taken down.” That didn’t sound like a threat of violence to me. Yet, Bondi responded during an appearance on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News: “She is an elected public official, so she needs to tread very carefully because nothing will happen to Elon Musk, and we’re going to fight to protect all of the Tesla owners throughout this country.”That’s interesting coming from Bondi, who helped Trump in his attempts to fight the outcome of the 2020 election, and refused to answer questions during her Senate confirmation hearing about potential pardons for the more than 1,000 defendants and convicts who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at our Capitol. Those people tried to overturn the presidential election — and Trump did pardon them. It seems to me that Bondi is more interested in protecting a car salesman than a democracy.
Frank Figliuzzi is an MSNBC columnist and Senior National Security and Intelligence Analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He was the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government. He is the author of "The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence."
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ggl 4 25
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Pam Bondi Teases 'Huge Arrest' Over Tesla Attacks
Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com › pam-bondi-tesla-protest-a...
7 days ago — The attorney general said anti-Elon Musk Tesla protesters would get 20-year jail sentences and that another arrest was on the way.
Trump, AG Bondi call Tesla protests 'domestic terrorism'
NewsNation
https://www.newsnationnow.com › crime › trump-ag-b...
Mar 23, 2025 — “The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism,” Bondi said in a statement. President Donald Trump, when ...
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Rep. Crockett responds to AG Bondi’s criticism of Tesla protests
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Rep. Crockett responds to AG Bondi's criticism of Tesla protests
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Tesla Protests And Vandalism Surge
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https://www.forbes.com › Business
6 days ago — Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a cabinet meeting Thursday four individuals have been charged in connection with instances of Tesla vandalism ...
Bondi, citing 'domestic terrorism,' announces charges for ...
Politico
https://www.politico.com › news › 2025/03/20 › tesla-p...
Mar 20, 2025 — Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the Department of Justice is charging three people for allegedly destroying Tesla cars or properties.
Missing: boycott | Show results with: boycott
Pam Bondi brutally mocked after threatening to jail Tesla ...
Reddit · r/RealTesla
530+ comments · 1 month ago
Pam Bondi really out here acting like she's the final boss of free speech suppression. Imagine being so fragile that Tesla protesters send ...
Pam Bondi is more interested in protecting Elon Musk than ...
MSNBC News
https://www.msnbc.com › opinion › msnbc-opinion › p...
Mar 25, 2025 — Attorney General Pam Bondi's reactions to acts of vandalism and arson at Tesla dealerships and showrooms included labeling these actions as ...
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Protests against Elon Musk's role in Trump administration ...
PBS
https://www.pbs.org › newshour › politics › protests-ag...
Mar 30, 2025 — Some people have gone beyond protest, setting Tesla vehicles on fire or committing other acts of vandalism that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ...
Over 200 'Tesla Takedown' protests take place throughout ...
CNN
https://www.cnn.com › 2025/03/29 › business › tesla-ta...
Mar 29, 2025 — Over 200 'Tesla Takedown' protests take place throughout US on 'Global Day of Action' against Elon Musk's role with DOGE.
Tesla attacks mark troubling twist in political violence as ...
Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com › california › story › bondi-cal...
Mar 22, 2025 — Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi labeled the attacks on Tesla dealerships this week as “nothing short of domestic terrorism.”.
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duck 4 25 no lnx
News for bondi tesla terrorism
Bondi Says 'Tesla Terrorist' Looking At 40 Years In Jail For Hurling Firebombs | Carscoops
carscoops.com
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Bondi labels Tesla vandalism 'domestic terrorism'
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Bondi, citing 'domestic terrorism,' announces charges for Tesla attacks
yahoo.com
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Pam Bondi Calls Tesla Vandalism 'Domestic Terrorism,' Promising Consequences
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NPR
https://www.npr.org › 2025 › 03 › 20 › nx-s1-5333315 › tesla-attacks-ag-bondi-domestic-terrorism-trump-musk
Are Tesla attacks considered domestic terrorism? : NPR
Mar 20, 2025Attorney General Pamela Bondi says the accused are part of a "wave of domestic terrorism." Experts say this is a common stance of the federal government and can be used to seek stiffer penalties.
New York Post
https://nypost.com › 2025 › 03 › 20 › us-news › pam-bondi-announces-charges-against-3-in-tesla-attacks
Pam Bondi charges 3 in 'domestic terrorism' attacks on Teslas
Mar 20, 2025Three people accused of destroying Tesla cars and charging stations are facing up to 20 years in prison for "domestic terrorism," US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Thursday.
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U.S. Department of Justice
https://www.justice.gov › opa › pr › attorney-general-pamela-bondi-announces-severe-charges-against-violent-tesla-arsonists
Office of Public Affairs | Attorney General Pamela Bondi Announces ...
Mar 20, 2025"Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars." One defendant, also armed with a suppressed AR-15 rifle, was arrested after throwing approximately eight Molotov cocktails at a Tesla dealership located in Salem, Oregon.
U.S. Department of Justice
https://www.justice.gov › opa › pr › attorney-general-bondi-statement-violent-attacks-against-tesla-property
Attorney General Bondi Statement on Violent Attacks Against Tesla Property
Mar 18, 2025Attorney General Pamela Bondi released the following statement this evening regarding a spate of recent attacks on Tesla property: "The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism. The Department of Justice has already charged several perpetrators with that in mind, including in cases that involve charges ...
POLITICO
https://www.politico.com › news › 2025 › 03 › 20 › tesla-protest-firebomb-charges-00003544
Bondi, citing 'domestic terrorism,' announces charges for Tesla attacks ...
Mar 20, 2025Bondi, citing 'domestic terrorism,' announces charges for Tesla attacks Tesla CEO Elon Musk has faced a backlash for DOGE's moves to cut down the size of the federal government.
USA Today
https://www.usatoday.com › story › news › politics › 2025 › 03 › 19 › tesla-attacks-domestic-terrorism-pam-bondi-trump › 82540722007
Tesla attacks, vandalism are 'domestic terrorism,' says AG Pam Bondi
Mar 19, 2025U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi echoed President Donald Trump by saying those who vandalize and violently attack Teslas are committing "domestic terrorism." Bondi, the former Florida Attorney ...
The Hill
https://thehill.com › homenews › administration › 5205598-tesla-protests-vandalism-charges
Pam Bondi charges 3 for allegedly attacking Tesla properties - The Hill
Mar 20, 2025"The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended," Bondi said in a Thursday statement.. "Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla ...
Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com › tesla-attacks-vandalism-violence-domestic-terrorism-doj-elon-musk-2025-3?op=1
Attacks on Tesla Stores Are 'Domestic Terrorism,' DoJ Says - Business ...
Mar 19, 2025The DOJ charged suspects involved in Tesla attacks, calling them "domestic terrorism." Tesla facilities faced new arson and shootings this week, including in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Elon Musk said ...
The Hill
https://thehill.com › policy › transportation › 5202981-bondi-labels-tesla-vandalism-domestic-terrorism
Pam Bondi labels Tesla vandalism 'domestic terrorism' - The Hill
Mar 19, 2025Attorney General Pam Bondi labeled the recent vandalism targeting Tesla dealerships and cars as "domestic terrorism" and added the Department of Justice (DOJ) has already charged "several ...
HuffPost
https://www.huffpost.com › entry › tesla-vandalism-domestic-terrorism_n_67daffade4b097824b2418a0
Pam Bondi Lashes Out At Tesla Vandalism, Calls It 'Domestic Terrorism ...
Mar 19, 2025Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to ward off would-be Tesla vandals on Tuesday by labeling the recent violence against the cars and dealerships "domestic terrorism." There's been an undeniable increase in attacks on the electric car company and its infrastructure ever since CEO Elon
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kris krebs miles taylor new targets
MMA
April 9, 2025, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports
GREG KELLY (HOST): He may have divulged classified information. It's — you can't have that. It's very hard to govern when you may be surrounded by people who could turn around and write a book or a column that does tremendous damage, especially when it's false.
All right, on to the other guy. CISA, he headed CISA, this strange organization. And right after the 2020 election, which, let's face it, was controversial and a disputed election — like days later, they say, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too. Well, it wasn't up to CISA, all right, to put something like that out. And this guy Krebs, who said that, deeply suspect and he should be investigated. I felt at the time I thought he was way out of line. You can't say this kind of stuff when you're a bureaucrat.
...
KELLY: He had a whole other host of responsibilities. He needed to stay the hell out of it. And that gave so many people the excuse. Trump's own administration says that the election was totally solid. There were legitimate disputes about the fairness of the election. And for that guy, a government employee, to use that federal agency to meddle where he shouldn't have been meddling, well, President Trump signed an executive order, and they're going to take a good, strong look at that guy.
...
KELLY: Well, the only downside is this probably helps these guys. They're going to be surrounded by law firms from the left and speaking engagements. Guys like Miles Taylor and Krebs, they'll be hailed as heroes because President Trump has targeted them.
This is totally legitimate, a totally legitimate function of the president. He suspects wrongdoing, and he can direct the Department of Justice to look into it. You know, Joe Biden tried to say he didn't when he did. And that was a big part of the deceit, right? He pretended he had nothing to do with it when he was directing it. That's what we believe. Me, actually.
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// 4 25 cut pgm cops ~ AA blm
Earlier this month, the Vera Institute of Justice, a national criminal justice reform nonprofit, was notified that all five of its federal grants had been abruptly canceled by the Department of Justice. The lost funding, totaling approximately $5 million, had supported ongoing programs to improve prison conditions and mental health crisis response, as well as training law enforcement to better serve deaf survivors of domestic violence—all of which, the nonprofit says, have bolstered public safety across the country.
“It is just an opening salvo,” Insha Rahman, Vera’s vice president for advocacy and partnerships, told me. “Vera might be the first organization to lose its federal funding, but I am certain we will not be the last in the criminal justice field.”
Since taking office in February, Attorney General Pam Bondi has made sweeping moves to align the Department of Justice with President Donald Trump’s policy priorities. The day she was sworn in, Bondi directed the department’s Civil Rights Division to investigate what she described as “illegal DEI and DEIA discrimination and preferences.” Under her leadership, the department has dropped criminal cases against the president’s allies and removed top career officials from their posts. On,[vid] Bondi promised to “root out” DOJ and FBI employees who “despise” Trump.
Coupled with the Department of Government Efficiency‘s cost-cutting rampage, it may have been inevitable that officials would take a closer look at the DOJ’s largest grantmaking entity, the Office of Justice Programs. That office distributes more than $4 billion in funding for law enforcement training, violence prevention, victim services, and criminal justice research. Some of the grants are awarded to city and county governments, while others go to local and national nonprofits. Before leaving office earlier this year, two Biden-era officials said the office had expanded access to grants for communities most affected by violence, writing that “those partnerships significantly contributed to the recent downward trajectory of violence in a majority of our cities and communities throughout our country.”
The Vera Institute, established in 1961, is among the oldest, largest, and most prominent criminal justice nonprofits in the country. In the 2023 fiscal year, its total revenue was $263 million, according to its public tax filings. The organization’s president, Nick Turner, said the affected programs would continue operating while it formally appeals the funding termination.
Given the Trump administration’s unprecedented cuts to federal spending, Rahman said she wasn’t surprised when the Vera Institute received the termination letter April 4. In it, the DOJ wrote that the Vera Institute’s work “no longer effectuate[s] the program goals or agency priorities.” What was unusual, Rahman said, was that Vera was alone in having its funding cut.
“It leads us to believe that the only reason our funding was cut is that we have been singularly vocal in our opposition to this administration’s actions.”
“It leads us to believe that the only reason our funding was cut is that we have been singularly vocal in our opposition to this administration’s actions,” Rahman said. The Vera Institute has condemned the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda and detention of pro-Palestine student protesters.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Other criminal justice reform and direct service organizations are far more reliant on federal funding and so far have been able to continue operating. But Rahman said what happened to the Vera Institute will make it far more difficult for those groups to speak out, given widespread fear that it will draw unwanted attention from the Trump administration.
“So we think it’s important to stand up and call this out publicly,” Rahman said. “We are doing so because we have to look back at this moment in history and know that we have done the right and principled thing.”
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Attorney General Pam Bondi just made a significant escalation in the feud between President Donald Trump's administration and the federal judiciary — and she's hoping to enlist the Supreme Court to the White House's side.
On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that Bondi made it clear she didn't appreciate having to abide by a lower court order in a memorandum sent to various heads of federal agencies. The memo was written as part of an order from U.S. District Judge John D. Bates (an appointee of former President George W. Bush) instructing Bondi and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought to tell agencies they were prohibited from implementing parts of an executive order Trump handed down targeting the law firm Jenner & Block.
In Trump's initial executive order, he prohibited the firm's attorneys from entering government buildings (a virtual impossibility for lawyers who practice in Washington D.C.), stripped attorneys of security clearances and imposed various other sanctions. The Janner & Block executive order is part of a pattern of other related orders explicitly targeting law firms that worked for Trump's political opponents.
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The attorney general didn't mince words for the "unelected" judge who authored the decision, which she said "invaded the policy-making and free speech prerogatives of the executive branch." She also notably expressed hope that the Supreme Court would step in and explicitly allow the administration to sidestep lower courts.
"Local district judges lack this authority, and the Supreme Court should swiftly constrain these judges’ blatant overstepping of the judicial power," Bondi wrote.
While some law firms cut deals with the administration in order to roll back his orders, other firms — like Janner & Block — sued to prevent the orders from going into effect. Janner & Block was one of three firms that found success in their litigation against the White House. WilmerHale and Perkins Coie were also targeted and successfully fought back in the courts.
Bondi's memo comes as the Trump administration has repeatedly attempted to ignore orders from federal judges striking down Trump's policies and enlist the High Court in its fight. When U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the return of an immigrant the administration admitted was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, the administration appealed to the Supreme Court. The 6-3 conservative supermajority halted the deadline imposed by Boasberg to bring the man back to the United States, and allowed the administration to continue deporting immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
NOW READ:Donald Trump's new policies are 'stupid' — according to stupidity researchers
Click here to read the Post's report in full (subscription required).
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thehill
Trump administration Friday demanded a federal judge step aside from overseeing Perkins Coie’s challenge to President Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm.
The new filing claims U.S. District Judge Beryl Howellhas repeatedly demonstrated “partiality” against and “animus” toward Trump, taking aim at both her decisions in the lawsuit and previous major cases she oversaw.
“Reasonable observers may view this Court as incapable of fairly adjudicating these claims against the Commander-In-Chief,” Deputy Associate Attorney General Richard Lawson wrote in the motion.
It marks the second time the Justice Department has called for a judge’s removal from a pending lawsuit against the administration, which comes as Trump himself steps up his chastising of judges who rule against him. Earlier this week, the administration called for the removal of the judge overseeing a high-profile deportation flight case.
Howell was randomly assigned to oversee Perkins Coie’s lawsuit challenging Trump’s executive order restricting firm attorneys’ security clearances and access to federal facilities. Trump has long clashed with the firm over its work advising Hillary Clintonduring her 2016 presidential campaign and connections to the discredited Steele dossier that contained unflattering allegations about Trump and his connections to Russia.
The case remains in early stages, but the judge has already temporarily blocked part of Trump’s order.
Nominated to the federal bench by then-President Obamain 2010, Howell longhasdrawn Republicans’ ire.
She previously served as chief judge of Washington’s federal district court and oversaw several sealed disputes concerning the criminal investigations into Trump. Howell’s decisions included invoking the “crime-fraud” exception to provide special counsel Jack Smith with documents from one of Trump’s attorneys and holding X, then known as Twitter, in contempt for not handing over Trump’s private messages.
“This Court’s pattern of hostility toward President Trump is not limited to his supporters. It also utilized the judicial power against President Trump himself,” Lawson wrote.
The Justice Department’s new motion also takes aim at a gala speech Howell gave in 2023 while accepting an award, when the judge did not name Trump but indicated she agreed that the country was “at a crossroads teetering on the brink of authoritarianism.”
“We are having a very surprising and downright troubling moment in this country when the very importance of facts is dismissed or ignored,” Howell said.
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said judge boasberg had no right to ask for info
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an 3 25
although the vast majority of anti-Elon Musk demonstrations in the United States and other countries have been peaceful, some critics of the Tesla/SpaceX/X.com leader and Donald Trump ally are resorting to destroying Teslas or committing acts of vandalism. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is describing these incidents as acts of "domestic terrorism," but some civil libertarians fear that her approach could create problems for Musk opponents who are protesting in a nonviolent way.
In a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) press release published on Thursday, March 20, Bondi declared, "Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars."
The U.S. attorney general and Trump loyalist discussed federal charges against three people accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at Tesla vehicles
READ MORE: Republicans have no moral authority to decide what 'domestic terrorism' is
Wired's Caroline Haskins, in an article published on March 22, reports, "Civil liberties experts claim treating alleged attacks against Tesla cars and infrastructure as terrorist activity could give federal and local law enforcement broad authority to surveil people protesting Elon Musk’s role in the government. The terrorism designation could also allow Musk and other Tesla executives to access information authorities uncover in their investigations."
Haskins notes that Bondi's statement "comes ahead of hundreds of grassroots 'Tesla Takedown' events protesting Musk and his influence in Washington that are scheduled to take place at Tesla facilities across the U.S. this weekend. The demonstrations have multiplied since they began in mid-February, with some attracting hundreds of people each."
President Trump put Musk in charge of an advisory group called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is helping the Trump Administration with mass layoffs of federal government workers. And many Musk critics are arguing that Musk has way too much power for someone who was never elected to office.
"Most of the protests have been peaceful, and the organizers of some of them have said that they don't endorse property damage," Haskins explains. "But they are happening amid a string of alleged arson and vandalism cases targeting Tesla dealerships and charging stations, including one in Las Vegas Tuesday morning, (March 18), as well as others in Colorado and Boston. By labeling these and other incidents involving Tesla domestic terrorism, the FBI can file broader search warrants than in other types of cases."
READ MORE:'Clear and present danger': Experts alarmed at 'insanity' of Musk getting secret war plans
Haskins continues, "Under the Patriot Act, law enforcement gets 'special authorities' while investigating terrorism, including 'single-jurisdiction search warrants' from magistrate judges that apply anywhere in the U.S. instead of a single geographic area, according to a 2023 report from the Government Accountability Office. With a court order, law enforcement can additionally get 'confidential education records' from any school or agency in the course of a terrorism investigation, the report notes."
Michael German, a former FBI special agent who is now with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School, fears that instead of focusing on extremists who are actually committing acts of violence, a DOJ/FBI probe could end up targeting anyone peacefully expressing "anger or animosity towards Tesla or Elon Musk."
German told Wired, "We've seen a lot of abuse of FBI investigative authorities, particularly around domestic advocacy groups."
READ MORE:'Are you prepared for violence?' Angry voters confront Dems over being 'too nice' to GOP*
*Read the full Wired article at this link.
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AN 3 25
President Donald Trump and some of his close allies, including billionaire Tesla/SpaceX/X.com leader Elon Musk, are calling for the impeachment of federal judges who are blocking his executive orders. And one of their main targets is U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who temporarily blocked the Trump Administration's deportations of Venezuelan nationals for alleged associations with the violent Tren de Aragua gang.
Critics of the deportations are arguing that the nationals were being deported to El Salvador without due process, and that some of them may have been wrongly accused of associating with Tren de Aragua.
One of those critics is attorney Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward.
READ MORE:Sabotaging Social Security: Behind the leaked memo to cut agency staff and critical services
, Perryman laid out some civil liberties concerns that the deportations are raising. Perryman came on after former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance, who told MSNBC's Ana Cabrera that Trump and his allies are exercising "minimal compliance with" Boasberg's order.
Perryman brought up the due process concerns,
, "The government continues to believe that it's above the law and to operate in secrecy in this case. So we are continuing…. to obtain information. But what we haven't seen, of course, is anything — and this is, I think, what every American in this country should be concerned about — the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is an attempt to summarily remove people from this country without any process at all. And so, we have been submitting information from concerned family members who believe that people may have been removed from this country who are not actually members of. gangs or had no basis for being removed, but have been removed from the country without any process at all."
The
, "That is the real problem here. And then, the doubly concerning problem, and something that should concern every American, is the way in which the government has been operating in this case, suggesting at times that there is a question as to whether it has to follow a district court order from a federal judge. And so, we believe this is a highly concerning situation."
Perryman argued that the Trump Administration is not operating "in good faith."
READ MORE:'Clear and present danger': Experts alarmed at 'insanity' of Musk getting secret war plans
, "We will be holding the government accountable to the law as is required in this case…. There is a lot of highly politicized rhetoric coming out of the White House. But this is a president that has invoked an act that has only been invoked three times in the nation's history."
READ MORE:'Red flag': Alarm as judges face threats of violence after ruling against Trump
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an 3 25
Since March 8, Mahmoud Khalil — a 30-year-old Columbia University student — has been held in a federal detention center in Louisiana for, Trump Administration officials allege, expressing sympathy to the terrorist group Hamas during protests on the campus.
Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, is a legal resident of the United States and is not accused of any acts of violence. And his wife is a U.S. citizen. But Khalil is at risk for deportation, and critics of the Trump Administration and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi are arguing that his detention is an example of thought policing — not an action based on legitimate national security concerns.
Two of those critics are attorneys Thomas Anthony Durkin and Bernard Harcourt (a law professor at Columbia University in New York City).
READ MORE:Sabotaging Social Security: Behind the leaked memo to cut agency staff and critical services
In an op-ed published by The Guardian on March 21, Durkin and Harcourt argue that the movement to deport students for saying controversial things recalls the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy's (R-Wisconsin) witch hunt of the 1950s.
"The legal risks are real," Durkin and Harcourt warn. "They are perilous, and they are alarming. Where a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO) — such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or related organizations such as the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network — is concerned, the line separating political advocacy from material support to terrorism can be razor thin, and any doubt tends to be resolved against those engaged in the political advocacy. FTOs are foreign organizations that the Bureau of Counterterrorism in the U.S. State Department designates as terrorist entities under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act."
The legal scholars add, "Once such a designation is made, it becomes unlawful for a U.S. person to knowingly provide that group with 'material support or resources.'"
According to Durkin and Harcourt, the "questionable legal strategy" being used against Khalil and other student protesters raises major civil liberties concerns.
READ MORE:'Clear and present danger': Experts alarmed at 'insanity' of Musk getting secret war plans
"Legal jeopardy for political advocacy has long existed in this country despite its storied embrace of the First Amendment," the attorneys explain. "But the Justice Department's new taskforce and threatened anti-terrorist prosecutions reach deeper into policing political dissent than anything seen since the McCarthy era. The consequences could be far more draconian than the usual campus risk of a misdemeanor civil-disobedience arrest or student discipline. The threat to the values of free speech and open debate on college campuses could hardly be more consequential."
READ MORE:Trump official urging Fox viewers to buy Tesla stock decried as 'abuse of power'
*Thomas Anthony Durkin and Bernard Harcourt's full op-ed for The Guardian is available at this link.
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trump in WH ad said collusion sp boycott
am 3 25
The ongoing protests at Tesla dealerships — the electric vehicle company led by South African centibillionaire Elon Musk — appear to be getting under the skin of President Donald Trump's administration.
The website TeslaTakedown.com has become a hub for people seeking out ways to protest Musk's sweeping budget cuts and mass firings of federal workers as part of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Recently, Attorney General Pam Bondi went on Fox News to threaten people who protested at Tesla dealerships with criminal prosecution. While she referenced acts of vandalism, Bondi also appeared to say the DOJ was closely watching anyone in the proximity of a Tesla dealership.
"If you're gonna touch a Tesla, go to a dealership, do anything, you better watch out, because we're coming after you," Bondi said. "And if you're funding this, we're coming after you. We're gonna know who you are."
READ MORE:(Opinion) The more Trump reveals himself, the stronger the voter backlash against him grows
Bondi's threat was met with mockery on social media. On Bluesky, journalist Adrian Bonenberger wrote: "Hello DOGE? I would like to report more waste in government." University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald sarcastically remarked that Bondi's threat was "a great advertisement for Tesla. Makes me want to go out and buy one." And Cornell University historian Larry Glickman wryly commented that the attorney general's warning was an example of the "wonderful free enterprise system at work, where the consumer is sovereign and the state stays out of the way."
"Next week: the SEC investigates finance media who downgrade Tesla stock," wrote University of Chicago assistant political science professor E.J. Fagan.
Intelligence and policy professional Eric Robinson observed that driving a Tesla under Trump's second term has become "a mark of failure."
"The most powerful weapon against Elon Musk is making Tesla ownership relentlessly, powerfully, eternally uncool," Robinson wrote.
READ MORE:'Staff hates him': 'Furious' GOP operatives 'revolt' against Musk — 'but they're petrified'
Some of Bondi's critics were outraged at the DOJ's heavy-handed approach to Constitutionally protected free speech and called out the administration's hypocrisy compared to the pardons of January 6 defendants. Comic Elizabeth Alice Croydon Some contrasted the Tesla protests with the January 6 insurrection, with comic Elizabeth Alice Croydon remarking that "trashing the Capitol and killing cops is cool but hold a sign at a Tesla dealership and you’re done." Progressive YouTuber Keith Edwards tweeted: "If the Capitol were a Tesla dealership, this administration would care that it was attacked,"
Writer Craig Calcaterra slammed the "blatant unconstitutionality of this fascist s---."
"Can you imagine how this plays to regular people?" Calcaterra continued. "Does the administration believe that there's a big silent majority of Americans who think that protecting Elon's Musk's s----y car company should be a top national priority?"
"Come and get me, Pam," wrote author Brian Alexander. "Because I'm going."
READ MORE:'Never seen people so mad': Democrats call for Schumer to resign
Watch the video of Bondi below, or byclicking 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
Attorney General Pam Bondi allegesan FBI field office is withholding thousands of documents related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, The Independent reports. Bondi released documents on the case Thursday, but they did not contain any major revelations — and right-wing Donald Trump supporters allege the “evil deep state” is responsible for purportedly concealing information.
The documents that were released included flight logs, which had been made available previously in court cases, and his book of contacts, which has been in circulation for years. Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges. He was previously convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
“I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request and was repeatedly assured by the FBI that we had received the full set of documents," Bondi wrote in a letter to FBI director Kash Patel. "Late yesterday, I learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files…There will be no withholdings or limitations to my or your access."
“If there are gaps, we will find them,” Patel said in a statement Thursday. “If records have been hidden, we will uncover them.”
“I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today” Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, posted on X. “A NY Post story just revealed that the documents will simply be Epstein's phonebook. THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment. GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR!”
“We’re talking recordings, evidence, etc," conservative commentator Liz Wheeler posted on X. "The juicy stuff. Names. These swamp creatures at SDNY deceived Bondi, Kash, and YOU. Be outraged that the binder is boring. You should be. Because the evil deep state LIED TO YOUR FACE."
“Be very, very angry that deep state agents in the swamp at the [Southern District of New York] are at this very moment defying President Trump & AG Bondi & you who voted him into office, lying, and hiding the truth about Jeffrey Epstein because they don’t want their own corruption & weaponization of govt exposed,” she added.
Conservative commentator Glenn Beck called the files a joke. “Who is subverting POTUS?" he posted on X. "The#Epsteinfiles are a total joke. I know Kash, Pam B and The President. This is not the file. WH tells me that they believe the usual suspects FBI/SDNY has the actual#EpsteinClientList and are refusing to turn it over. THIS IS AN INTERNAL CIVIL WAR if true."
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7 AG QUIT ON ERIC ADAMS FEDSOC CLERK FOR ALITO?
//
AN 2 25
On Tuesday morning, February 18, the Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was rocked by yet another resignation.
According to Reuters' Sarah N. Lynch, Denise Cheung — the top senior prosecutor in DOJ's Washington office — told her colleague Ed Martin, in her resignation letter, that she is leaving DOJ because of a request from Trump Administration officials she considers improper. The Trump allies, Lynch reports, asked Cheung "to launch a criminal probe" and "ordered her to investigate a government contract awarded during Joe Biden's administration and pursue a freeze of the recipient's assets."
In her resignation letter, Cheung wrote, "I have been proud to serve at the U.S. Department of Justice and this office for over 24 years. During my tenure, which has spanned over many different administrations, I have always been guided by the oath I took.... to support and defend the Constitution."
READ MORE:'Brutal': Ex-federal prosecutor reveals why Trump DOJ’s 'illegal order' was 'so corrupt'
Cheung's resignation is inspiring a lot of reactions on X, formerly Twitter.
Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig tweeted, "Yet another resignation in protest after DOJ leadership orders veteran fed prosecutor this weekend to freeze enviro grants made by Biden administration. @TheJusticeDept can freeze funds when there is evidence the assets are linked to a crime. Veteran Denise Cheung felt such a step was improper/unethical now and resigned, sources tell the Post."
CBS News' Scott MacFarlane posted, "The wave of resignations among longtime Justice Dept attorneys continues Denise Cheung is leaving her post as a top criminal prosecutor in Washington DC, amid tumult in the agency."
Former federal prosecutor Daniel R. Alonso wrote, "Having served as a criminal chief in a Republican administration that did not abuse its authority with respect to our office (EDNY), I can say D.C. Criminal chief Denise Cheung was exactly right to resign. You DO NOT open investigations without predication."
READ MORE:George Conway: Trump’s 'pathological narcissism' is fueling 'full-scale' DOJ 'revolt'
In a separate tweet, Alonso commented, "It's a conundrum to be sure, but lawyers have ethical obligations. It's true different lawyers interpret them differently, but how can we ask her to stay when her conscience dictates otherwise? A more pressing issue is that the Senate should reject Martin's nomination - he belongs nowhere near federal prosecutorial decision-making."
The Hill's Niall Stanage wrote, "Developing story — NYT reports this happened because the person in question would not carry out a 'directive' from the Trump team."
CNN's Jim Sciutto tweeted, "The sudden departure of Justice Department veteran Denise Cheung comes a day after President Donald Trump announced his nominee to lead the prosecutor's office, Ed Martin, who has supported unwinding all January 6 criminal cases that the office brought."
X user Millard Fillmore remarked, "She is resigning because they ordered her to break the law via a trumped investigation."
READ MORE: 'It’s unusual': Trump’s DOJ does an about-face on voting rights cases
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:{:{. This is TPM’s Morning Memo}:
DOJ Run Amok
The Justice Department under new Attorney General Pam Bondi continues its steep decline, setting new precedents almost daily for supplication to the White House, corrupt and unethical conduct, and dubious representations to judges.
Yesterday was its own special, to use the legal term of art, shitshow.
The acting deputy attorney general appeared all alone in federal court in Manhattan to try to seal the deal on his corrupt scheme to dismiss criminal charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. The deputy attorney general runs the Justice Department on a day to day basis; yet here was Emil Bove by himself at the counsel table, with apparently no other DOJ lawyer willing to sit with him. Behind him providing visible support was Todd Blanche, the nominee for deputy attorney general who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. Both men until last month were personal attorneys to Donald Trump.
After the hearing (no ruling yet on the motion to dismiss from U.S. District Judge Dale Ho), Bove sent a tone-deaf, Trumpian message to DOJ employees trying to turn his solo appearance in court from a personal humiliation into a model of diehard MAGA-tude. In a snarky conclusion that is astonishing coming from a DAG, Bove said that anyone who wasn’t onboard the Trump train could resign and pointed them to the letters penned by their colleagues who resigned over Bove’s order to dismiss the Adams case:
As that unprecedented scene was playing out in NYC, President Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. attorney in DC was further showering himself in disgrace. Ed Martin, who is the acting USA for the moment, sent another one of his wildly inappropriate emails to colleagues that was apparently promptly leaked again.
Martin for the third time that we know of made grand and obsequious gestures toward Elon Musk’s DOGE: “We will protect DOGE,” he declared:
Most alarming was Martin’s willingness to launch pseudo-investigations of prominent Democrats and to castigate them in politicized terms while touting his own bonafides in going after them. Among the Democrats targeted by Martin: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA).
“Operation Whirlwind” is what Martin is calling his effort to prosecute anyone who targets public officials, but it appears to be more of an effort to stifle First Amendment expression and intimidate opposition leaders than to protect officials from the wave of actual threats that Trump himself has stirred up in recent years.
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an 2 25
Pam Bondi quietly disbands DOJ task force targeting Russian oligarchs
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02/06/2025 rww
by
- Katherine Long @ The Wall Street Journal: DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts
A staffer for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whose access to U.S. Treasury payment systems was approved by a federal judge on Thursday has links to a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics.
- Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Why Pam Bondi’s first day as attorney general was such a mess
The attorney general had all kinds of first-day moves, but the creation of the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group” was the most ridiculous.
- Matt Gertz and Ben Van Bloem @ Media Matters: The idiotic meltdown over Politico Pro subscriptions is a perfect case study for the right's broken information ecosystem
The right-wing disinformation machine on Wednesday transformed the banal reality that the federal government purchases subscriptions for news outlets into what President Donald Trump described as potentially “THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY.”
- Hannah Gais @ The Baffler: Unhuman Resources
The many grievances of Jack Posobiec.
- Aneela Mirchandani @ The Daily Dot: A constitutional sheriff led a campaign to take over a whole county—and won
A small Idaho county is the blueprint for the future of America’s burgeoning constitutional sheriff movement.
- Charlie Nash @ Mediaite: Pardoned Ex-Proud Boys Leader Announces He Will Run for Office: ‘Two Weeks Ago I Was in Prison … Last Night I Was in Mar-a-Lago’
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio revealed on Wednesday that he would run for office after going from prison to Mar-a-Lago in the space of just two weeks.
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rww
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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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got gig fetterman collins 180? schizo reasonable on all but trump dear leader
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dirt dig phil mymail 1 25
the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Pam Bondi’s nomination to be Attorney General was filled with talk of weaponization of the Justice Department. Republicans put that label on everything they dislike about the DOJ’s behavior during the Biden Administration, while Democrats used it to warn about what will happen if Donald Trump carries through with his vow to get the Department to exact revenge on his perceived enemies.
Nothing was said about the ways in which the DOJ has been substantially disarmed over the past eight years and will probably be further weakened in the next four. That is with regard to the prosecution of corporations, which are increasingly being treated with leniency rather than the iron fist commonly proposed for other types of offenders.
Bondi spoke repeatedly during the hearing about her intention to crack down on drug dealers, terrorists, human traffickers, and immigration violators. There were some oblique references to business malfeasance. She responded positively to comments on the False Claim Act offered by Sen. Grassley, who reminded us of his leading role in the 1986 updating of the Civil War-era law to enhance the role of whistleblowers. It was unclear, however, whether Bondi was signaling her interest in cases against major federal contractors or just ones targeting smaller fish such as individual healthcare providers.
Bondi also agreed with comments by Sen. Klobuchar about the importance of antitrust. Here it was unclear whether this indicated support for aggressive action against corporate concentration of all kinds or just cases against the Big Tech companies the Right likes to vilify. Bondi was evasive when asked about upholding legislation requiring Big Pharma to negotiate with the federal government on prescription drug prices.
While she sparred on several issues with Adam Schiff, the new Senator from California, she seemed to agree with him on the importance of preventing price-gouging in the wake of the disastrous fires in Los Angeles. Schiff, however, had referred to abusive practices by oil companies, while Bondi seemed to focus on gouging by local businesses.
The ambiguities in Bondi’s comments can also be found in her record as Attorney General of Florida from 2011 to 2018. On the one hand, Bondi’s tenure was tainted by accusations that she backed away from investigating misconduct by the for-profit Trump University because of a $25,000 contribution to a political action committee supporting her re-election campaign by a Trump family foundation.
Bondi initiated relatively few cases against large corporations, yet she was heavily involved in multistate rightwing legal initiatives to undermine the Affordable Care Act, to undo a ban on some semi-automatic weapons enacted by Connecticut in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, and to block a plan by the EPA and six states to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay by restricting pollution runoff by factory farms.
On the other hand, Bondi participated in numerous more enlightened multistate attorneys general lawsuits. These included major cases against BP for the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, against big banks for mortgage abuses during 2000s, against Wells Fargo related to the bogus accounts scandal, and against General Motors for selling vehicles with defective ignition switches.
There seem to be two sides to Pam Bondi. She was a rightwing partisan during and after her time as Florida AG and she may have allowed those beliefs to stand in the way of prosecuting allies such as Donald Trump. Yet she also was reasonably serious about carrying out the responsibilities of an AG to serve as a consumer champion and was willing to confront at least some powerful corporate interests.
If, as seems likely, Bondi is confirmed, she will serve in an administration headed by a man who has little regard for norms such as the independence of the DOJ and will probably be inclined to discourage investigations of companies which support him and encourage prosecutions of those he dislikes.
Which Pam Bondi will occupy the AG’s office: the partisan loyalist who carries out Trump’s illegitimate wishes or the upright law enforcement officer?
web version: https://dirtdiggersdigest.org/archives/7708
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rww
01/14/2025
by
President-elect Donald Trump has named several of his personal lawyers to take top jobs in the Justice Department, with Pam Bondi in the lead as his nominee for U.S. Attorney General. Bondi’s nomination is bad news for the rule of law, and a sign of the ways that Trump seems eager to corrupt the Justice Department.
“Pam Bondi has made clear that her undeviating allegiance to the President-elect supersedes her respect for democratic institutions,” said Janai Nelson, president of the Legal Defense Fund in a statement calling the nomination “alarming” and opposing confirmation.
Indeed, Bondi’s record suggests that she’ll do whatever Trump wants—including taking revenge on Justice Department lawyers who have taken part in investigations of Trump. Appearing as a pro-Trump pundit on Fox News, she declared, “The prosecutors will be prosecuted—the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated…the house needs to be cleaned out.”
Bondi has claimed to be committed to the rule of law and opposed to corruption, but none of that seems to apply when it comes to Donald Trump.
When Bondi was serving as Florida’s Attorney General—she got elected with backing from Sarah Palin—her office was investigating complaints that Trump University defrauded students. While that was happening, a political group supporting Bondi’s campaign took an illegal political contribution from his foundation and her office decided not to file suit.
Bondi has been an enthusiastic Trump loyalist for years, both as a campaign surrogate and lawyer, before, during, and after his first term. While speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention, she responded to shouts of “lock her up”—referring to Hillary Clinton—by saying “Lock her up, I love that!”
Bondi represented Trump during his first impeachment trial.
After Trump lost the 2020 election, Bondi promoted false claims that he had won. She reportedly talked Rudy Giuliani into heading to Pennsylvania, where she joined him in making false claims about voter fraud. “We won Pennsylvania,” she declared at an airport press conference. “We do have evidence of cheating,” she told Fox News, making unsubstantiated claims about “fake” ballots. “We are still on the ground in Pennsylvania. I am here and we are not going anywhere until they declare that we won Pennsylvania.”
While Bondi played a limited public role in the effort, the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection found that she was kept in the loop on Trump’s schemes to overturn the election. “In late December 2020, Trump forwarded Bondi and other advisers and Justice Department officials an update from Doug Mastriano, a Republican state senator pushing the strategy to allow the Pennsylvania legislature to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump,” the Washington Post reported.
Bondi’s promotion of Trump’s lies was harmful—and not only because they helped fuel the rage among his supporters who attacked the Capitol in a bid to keep him in power. “Pennsylvania officials from both parties say there were consequences to her actions, arguing that Bondi spread misinformation that helped wreak long-lasting damage to the electoral system,” according to the Washington Post. “One city official received antisemitic threats immediately after Bondi accused him of trying to intimidate Republican observers of the ballot count.”
Bondi reportedly worked behind the scenes to prevent Trump from being held accountable for his actions related to the failed insurrection. When former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson was preparing to appear before the Jan 6 committee, Bondi contacted her “in an apparent effort to make sure she remained loyal to the former president” and periodically sent her texts about jobs in the MAGA movement, according to Hutchinson.
And when Trump faced criminal charges last year, she echoed his attacks on the judge, joining Republican politicians who traveled to New York in a show of support, and appearing on right-wing media, where she asserted, “this is just one big press conference, trying to smear Donald Trump, trying to hurt Donald Trump.” A jury convicted Trump of 34 felony charges in the case. Following his recent sentencing, Trump will take office as a felon convicted of crimes related to election interference.
Bondi’s own record is awful. As Florida Attorney General, she opposed legal equality for same-sex couples, tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and to weaken separation of church and state. She fired attorneys investigating companies that fraudulently took people’s homes away from them during the foreclosure crisis—after taking thousands in campaign contributions from the loan processing industry.
After finishing her term as Florida’s Attorney General, Bondi joined the America First Policy Institute, a MAGA movement think tank founded by former Trump aides and funded in part by Tim Dunn, a far-right billionaire with Christian nationalist ambitions. Dunn is notorious for funding smear campaigns against Texas Republicans who don’t fall in line with his demands. Dunn poured millions of dollars into the effort to elect Trump to a second term, and supports other right-wing causes, like the Convention of States’ efforts to rewrite the U.S. Constitution.
AFPI claims “biblical foundations” for its right-wing policy agenda, and its leaders have described their efforts as part of a “spiritual war.” AFPI supported and participated in New Apostolic Reformation dominionist Lance Wallnau’s “Courage Tour,” which combined religious revivalism with pro-Trump voter registration and turnout organizing. In 2022, Bondi co-authored a Daily Caller op-ed with Paula White, who promoted Christian nationalism from her position in the first Trump White House and who has repeatedly denounced Trump’s political opponents as demonic.
AFPI founder Brooke Rollins—who Trump has named to be Secretary of Agriculture—has bragged about the group’s “revolutionary” plans to seize control of the “administrative state.” AFPI has reportedly prepared 300 executive orders for Trump. The group’s agenda for the incoming administration is in some ways even more radical than the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. It would allow Trump to fire and replace every federal employee – creating a massive and corrupt political patronage system.
As an officer at the America First Policy Institute, Bondi tried to undermine special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of Trump by arguing that his appointment was unconstitutional.
At AFPI Bondi also oversaw what the Brennan Center has called “a number of troubling voting rights and election lawsuits,” leading the pro-democracy organization to conclude, “Her record on voting and elections raises questions about her ability to be the attorney general the American public deserves.” In a case in which AFPI sought to empower local election officials to delay or block certification of elections, AFPI’s arguments were “meritless and radical,” according to the Brennan Center. In another case filed shortly before, even notorious pro-Trump Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rejected AFPI’s “emergency” request to block a Biden executive order on voter registration that had been in place for several years. Kacsmaryk wrote that AFPI’s request provided “no direct evidence” to support its claims. The Brennan Center noted that the lawsuit “served to amplify baseless conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting.”
A short Right Wing Watch video commentary on the Bondi nomination appears below. People For the American Way is urging senators to reject this nomination. You can add your name at www.peoplefor.org/RejectBondi.
===
1 25 common dr
When President-elect Donald Trump in mid-November decided to tap former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to succeed former Congressman Matt Gaetz as his pick for U.S. attorney general, details about Bondi's career, including her time as a corporate lobbyist, began to surface.
On Wednesday, two watchdog groups released reports that delve into Bondi's time as a lobbyist and say that their findings raise concerns about Bondi's fitness to serve as head of the Department of Justice.
The first report was published by the group Public Citizen and looks at federal lobbying disclosures and Foreign Agents Registration Act reports filed by Bondi and Ballard Partners, the lobbying outlet where Bondi worked as a registered federal lobbyist for the past five years. Ballard Partners also employed Susie Wiles, Trump's pick for White House chief of staff.
The other report, from the group Accountable.US, also looks at Bondi's time at Ballard Partners and reports that at least five of Bondi's major lobbying clients have "faced DOJ fines, investigations, or related scrutiny that could pose serious conflicts if she is confirmed as AG." The Public Citizen report also details DOJ scrutiny on some of these companies.
Jon Golinger, the author of the Public Citizen report, wrote in a statement Wednesday that "the U.S. attorney general should be the American people's lawyer—not a lobbyist for big corporations and foreign governments."
"As they evaluate this nomination, we urge senators to carefully scrutinize Bondi's lobbying record and ask what she will do when the interests of her lobbying clients again clash with the Department of Justice she now wants to lead," he added.
According to Public Citizen's report, Bondi was registered to lobby the federal government on behalf of 30 different clients—a list that included the government of Qatar, large corporations, and government contractors—between 2019 and 2024.
The report details that her corporate clients have included the car service Uber; the large private prison company the Geo Group; the waste management company Republic Services; the e-commerce giant Amazon.com; and others, according to the report.
The watchdog found that lobbying reports filed in 2020 reveal that Bondi's firm was paid $120,000 that year by Uber to lobby federal offices on "issues related to sharing economy, surface transportation measures, foreign regulation of data management, regulatory relief, and legislative measures for Covid-19." Offices lobbied included the White House, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, the Department of Transportation, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of the Treasury, and the Small Business Administration.
Public Citizen reported that Bondi also retained two clients through 2024: the Florida Sheriffs Association and the Florida Sheriffs Risk Management Fund.
Both reports also detail that many of these companies have come under scrutiny from the agency that Bondi is tapped to lead.
Accountable.US highlights, for example, that in 2023 the DOJ imposed a $25 million civil penalty on Amazon to resolve allegations that its Alexa service illegally retained recordings of children's voices. Another former client, General Motors—who Bondi had as a client in 2020 and 2021—reached a settlement with the DOJ in 2023 to resolve the DOJ's determination that the company imposed a "discriminatory barrier" against lawful permanent residents in its hiring processes.
"Pam Bondi's career lobbying for corporate clients that had run-ins with the DOJ now poses potential conflicts of interest and serious questions whether she will put her personal interests ahead of the American people," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk in a statement Wednesday. "People are tired of this same, old insider game."
11 24 elie m an
Earlier this week, former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi said during an MSNBC interview that Donald Trump's attorney general nominee, Pam Bondi, is an even more "disturbing" choice than ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz, who bowed out of the running for AG last week amid sex trafficking allegations.
The new MAGA AG pick promised over the weekend that the Department of Justice will prosecute the prosecutors who indicted Trump.
However, in a column published by The Nation on Tuesday, justice correspondent Elie Mystal argues that despite Bondi having a "provably worse record than Gaetz on issues within the Department of Justice’s remit," he'd take the former Florida attorney general over "many" other contenders.
READ MORE:Biden must use 'preemptive pardons' to protect these 6 people Trump singled out: columnist
"That’s because of the one thing she’s not: a Leonard Leo disciple," Mystal emphasized. "I’ll take a Trump stooge over a Leo stooge any day."
Leo, who helps lead the right-wing Federalist Society, is "a key architect of the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court that rolled back the federal right to an abortion," according to NPR.
Mystal writes:
Lawyers devoted to Trump are like bank robbers. They waltz in, guns blazing, and take all the cash they can carry in their bags and pockets. They’re loud and brash and might shoot anyone who gets in their way, but they are fundamentally small-minded. They don’t really think past the next score.*
Lawyers devoted to Leo are like bankers: They set up a system where they always win. They change the rules, and then force everybody else to play by them. They think creatively. Their goal is not a quick, smash-and-grab score but to build their own wealth over the long term. Once their ideas become entrenched, it’s incredibly difficult to undo what they’ve done.*
The ex-Florida AG "is not a long-term Leo-like thinker; she’s a petty Trump supporter—and the other Leo-aligned people know it," the justice correspondent adds.
"But Trump didn’t go with any of the guys who earned their stripes from Leo," Mystal continues. "He didn’t go with any of the Heritage Foundation legal stars, or the ones working with Stephen Miller at his 'America First' group of legal terrorizers. Instead, he went with Bondi, who got her JD from Stetson University, clerked for nobody, and prior to assuming public office was mainly known (maybe just to me) as the lady who prosecuted former Mets star pitcher Dwight Gooden for violating his probation."
READ MORE:['Serious damage': How Trump’s 'bumbling' leadership style can be 'exploited' by 'miscreants'
*Mystal's full column is available at this link.
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an 1 25
the progressive advocacy group Public Citizen on Tuesday launched a new project aimed at tracking the incoming Trump administration's approach to corporate crime, an effort the watchdog said is particularly urgent given that many of the companies currently under federal investigation have connections to the president-elect.
Public Citizen found that of 192 individual corporations currently facing federal probes or cases, a third "have known ties with the Trump administration."
"They or their executives have either contributed to his inauguration, or Trump has nominated their former employees, investors, and lobbyists," the group noted.
Public Citizen said its new Corporate Enforcement Tracker will serve as "a resource for watchdogging ongoing federal investigations and cases against alleged corporate wrongdoing that are at risk of being dropped, weakened, or otherwise modified by the incoming Trump administration."
Corporate prosecutions plummeted to a 25-year low during Trump's first term, and Public Citizen's Rick Claypool—who is heading the new project—predicted that "it's likely Trump's second term will see a similar or worse dropoff in enforcement.
"Corporate crime enforcement fell during Trump's first term," Claypool noted, "even as his administration pursued 'tough' policies against immigrants, protestors, and low-level offenders."
"The five corporations with the most federal investigations or cases against them are Tesla (7), Amazon (6), Pfizer (5), Wells Fargo (4), and SpaceX (4)."
Four of the companies listed on Public Citizen's tracker—Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and X—are helmed by billionaire Elon Musk, who donated heavily to Trump's presidential campaign and is set to co-lead a new advisory commission tasked with identifying spending and regulations to eliminate.
Tesla is facing investigations by the Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and other agencies—probes that could be shut down by the incoming administration, which is set to be packed with lobbyists and billionaires.
Reutersreported last week that "Musk's potential to have extraordinary clout with the new administration raises questions about the fate of federal investigations and regulatory actions affecting his business empire, of which at least 20 are ongoing, according to three sources familiar with SpaceX and Tesla operations and the companies' interaction with the U.S. government, as well as five current and former officials who have direct knowledge of individual probes into Musk's companies."
"The inquiries include examinations of the alleged securities violations; questions over the safety of Tesla's Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems; potential animal-welfare violations in Neuralink's brain-chip experiments; and alleged pollution, hiring-discrimination, and licensing problems at SpaceX," the outlet noted.
Public Citizen also highlighted 16 companies that have donated to Trump's inaugural fund as they face federal investigations or enforcement actions: Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Coinbase, Ford, Goldman Sachs, Kraken, Meta, OpenAI, Pfizer, Ripple, Robinhood, Stanley Black & Decker, Toyota, and Uber.
"The five corporations with the most federal investigations or cases against them are Tesla (7), Amazon (6), Pfizer (5), Wells Fargo (4), and SpaceX (4)," the group said in a statement.
Concerns about the fate of investigations into major U.S. companies were amplified by Trump's choice to lead the Justice Department. Public Citizen noted Tuesday that Amazon and Republic Services, two lobbying clients previously represented by Trump attorney general pick Pam Bondi, are among the corporations currently facing federal cases or investigations.
In a separate report published Wednesday, Public Citizen said that Bondi's record as a lobbyist raises "serious questions about potential conflicts of interest" and provides "sufficient grounds for senators to deny her confirmation."
"We depend on the DOJ to vigorously enforce our laws, hold corporate wrongdoers accountable, and protect the rule of law," said Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert. "Pam Bondi is simply inappropriate for this post."
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// nola attack by vet citizen
mma
01/06/25
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===
AN 12 24
After Matt Gaetz’s spectacular implosion as Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, the president-elect has named another Floridian many see as a less controversial choice: Pam Bondi. Once the attorney general for Florida, she’s made a name for herself as a Trump loyalist. Her support for his claims of voter fraud and election interference, most notably for this audience, have been consistent and foreshadow what the Justice Department’s approach to elections could be if she’s confirmed.
*This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
You might, for example, remember her for her efforts to advance Trump’s allegations of fraud after the 2020 election. She was present at Rudy Giuliani’s infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference, and insisted in interviews that Trump would have won Pennsylvania but for all the “cheating” in Philadelphia. To that end, she and others went to the state to falsely declare victory while filing pointless lawsuits.
Bondi has been a Trump devotee since before it was cool. She endorsed him in the 2016 primary over fellow Floridian Marco Rubio, and then joined the Trump administration’s transition team. When Trump fired his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, in 2018, her name was floated for the position before Trump ultimately selected William Barr.
In 2020, she was part of the team who defended Trump when he was first impeached over charges of abuse of power related to Ukraine. She made the rounds on television, defending his actions.
Since 2021, Bondi has been the chair of America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) Center for Litigation and co-chair of its Center for Law and Justice. While in that role, the center advocated for the overturn of a Biden executive order that expanded voter registration access and waged multiple voting-related battles in state courts across the country.
This history paints a vivid picture of how Bondi would run the Department of Justice, if she is approved by the Senate: exactly how Trump wants her to.
“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans – Not anymore,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial when he announced her appointment. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”
She and Trump appear to share an interest in seeking vengeance against prosecutors who attempted to criminally pursue the former and future president.
“The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones,” Bondi
last year after Trump was indicted in Georgia on charges of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “The investigators will be investigated.”
That aligns with Trump’s promise in September to aggressively go after “corrupt election officials” and others if Trump believed they cheated in the 2024 election.
Bondi has not spoken publicly about some other possible Trump DOJ priorities floated by conservatives, such as culling the attorneys in the voting rights division or refocusing that division’s priorities towards investigating voter fraud rather than preventing voter suppression. She’s also said very little about the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
So far, it appears Republican lawmakers see Bondi as confirmable and there has been no major pushback to her nomination. But, Trump’s nomination processes have historically been chaotic and full of surprises — and this year is no exception. So who knows what will happen in the next few months. We’ll keep you posted.
Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at[jhuseman@votebeat.org
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.
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November 25, 2024, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle
LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): I'm telling you if the Democrats somehow manage to take the House in 2026, and they could, it is highly probable that they will do everything in their power, stay with me here, to impeach Donald Trump again. You think I'm kidding? Well, we'll see.
And if Democrats win in 2028, I mean, they are just going to resume the case that we're talking about tonight. And they will probably try to go after Vance as well and anyone else connected to Trump. This is why the DOJ has to be cleaned out.
I think Pam Bondi can do it. The Democrats and their never-Trump poodles have done enormous damage to these institutions. And they will do it all again. They do not care. There should be, however, consequences where appropriate, so that this never happens again.
===
:{:{no notes 9/16?!:}:
:{:{merri ok:}:
see ballard revolve door
robo sign foreclosures
SEE RETALIATION ENEMIES LIST
:{:{damn no prediction on resurface!:}:
:{:{impeach def big lie lock hillary up:}:
:{:{see justice for all slush fund? trump U bribe:}:
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rww 11 24
11/26/2024
Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump’s second pick for U.S. Attorney General, has ties to New Apostolic Reformation dominionists who worked hard to put Trump back in office and believe his election will bring about a spiritual “great awakening” that will help like-minded right-wing Christians take control of the “seven mountains” of influence in America—government, business, education, media, arts and entertainment, religion, and family.
After Bondi left office as Florida’s Attorney General, she joined the America First Policy Institute, a think tank created by former staffers that, like the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, has been laying the groundwork for a “revolutionary” plan to “seize control” and dismantle the “administrative state” -- federal agencies charged with protecting American workers, consumers, and communities from corporate wrongdoing.
This year, AFPI partnered with dominionist Lance Wallnau’s Courage Tour, which mixed religious revival with Christian nationalist politics and pro-Trump political organizing. Wallnau celebrated the announcement of Bondi’s nomination as a “great pick,” noting, “She’s part of the America First Policy Institute, a great group I had the privilege of working with in the last year.”
Reflecting the MAGA movement’s increasingly aggressive Christian nationalist orientation, AFPI claims scriptural foundations for every aspect of its right-wing policy agenda, which it has called “10 Pillars for Restoring a Nation Under God.”
In 2022, Bondi co-authored a Daily Caller op-ed with Trump spiritual warrior Paula White, who denounces Trump’s political opponents as demonic. The two wrote about the case of public high school football coach Joe Kennedy, who was fired after refusing to stop leading players in prayer at the 50-yard line after games. The Supreme Court’s MAGA justices ultimately used the case to further weaken church-state separation.
As Florida Attorney General, Bondi tried to weaken church-state separation in the state. She advocated for a proposed constitutional amendment that would strip language in the state constitution that declares, “No revenue of the state … shall ever be taken from the public treasury … in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution." Voters rejected her proposed amendment.
Unless Trump successfully bullies the Senate into abandoning its constitutional role of confirming his nominees, Bondi will likely face questions about her role as Trump’s personal attorney as well as her decision not to formally investigate Trump University’s fraudulent operations after asking for and receiving a $25,000 donation to her PAC, which was sent illegally from a Trump foundation.
===
MMA
November 25, 2024, edition of Fox News' *The Ingraham Angle
LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): I'm telling you if the Democrats somehow manage to take the House in 2026, and they could, it is highly probable that they will do everything in their power, stay with me here, to impeach Donald Trump again. You think I'm kidding? Well, we'll see.
And if Democrats win in 2028, I mean, they are just going to resume the case that we're talking about tonight. And they will probably try to go after Vance as well and anyone else connected to Trump. This is why the DOJ has to be cleaned out.
I think Pam Bondi can do it. The Democrats and their never-Trump poodles have done enormous damage to these institutions. And they will do it all again. They do not care. There should be, however, consequences where appropriate, so that this never happens again.
---
3 of Trump's top cabinet-level picks recently worked as ...:
:{:{
:}:
:{:{Business Insider:}:
:{:{https://www.businessinsider.com › Politics](https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-lobbyists-ties-wiles-bondi-duffy-ballard-2024-11):}:
:{:{5 days ago — Incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, attorney general nominee Pam Bondi, and Transportation secretary nominee Sean Duffy have all ...:}:
- :{:{several of Donald Trump's top picks have recently been lobbyists.:}:
- :{:{Susan Wiles, Trump's incoming chief of staff, maintained ties to a lobbying firm until this month.:}:
- :{:{Sean Duffy, Trump's pick for Transportation secretary, has lobbied for a group of major airlines.:}:
:{:{President-elect Donald Trump is set to rely on a trio of former lobbyists to help implement his agenda to shake up Washington.:}:
:{:{Incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, attorney general nominee Pam Bondi, and Transportation secretary nominee Sean Duffy have all been registered lobbyists. According to disclosure filings, Bondi and Wiles did lobbying work as recently as this year, with Duffy working as a lobbyist into 2023.:}:
:{:{Their combined clients range from blue chip companies — including Amazon, GM, and Uber — to insurance giants like MetLife and Fidelity National Financial. Wiles and Bondi were also separately registered to lobby for foreign interests, which included one of Nigeria's largest political parties and the Qatarian embassy.:}:
:{:{Wiles and Bondi have both once worked for Ballard Partners, once a regional firm in Florida that exploded in popularity due to its ties to Trump world. Earlier this summer, the firm opened an office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.}::
:{:{"Part of why you hired Ballard Partners over the last few years is knowing that if Trump is president, the people you are working with stand at having a pretty good chance at having influence in a Trump administration," Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a public interest group, told Business Insider.:}:
:{:{Brian Ballard, a major Republican fundraiser and founder of the firm, did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.:}:
:{:{Wiles continued to have K-Street ties as she helped run Trump's campaign.:}:
:{:{Wiles, according to The New York Times, did not cut ties to her most recent firm until Trump announced his intention to have her lead his second White House.}::
:{:{Her past work included an effort to get the Trump administration to approve a cooper and gold mine in a sensitive area of Alaska. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, widely viewed as a key vote in the narrowly divided US Senate, and other top state officials have long opposed the Pebble Partnership. The EPA, under Obama, Trump, and Biden's administrations, have repeatedly opposed efforts to mine in the bay, home to one of the world's largest salmon fisheries.:}:
:{:{Duffy, who if confirmed would oversee the Federal Aviation Administration, lobbied in 2020 for an airline group that includes American, Delta, and United among its members.:}:
:{:{Starting not long after he left Congress in 2019, Duffy lobbied for Polaris, a US auto manufacturer known its off-road and recreational vehicles. Former lawmakers are only restricted from lobbying Congress for a year, though they can immediately lobby the rest of the federal government. According to his disclosures, Duffy's work at times included advising the company on how to navigate EV incentives and tariffs.:}:
:{:{ProPublica previously reported that Duffy lobbied White House trade adviser Peter Navarro as Polaris sought to win exemptions to tariffs on the parts it was importing. ProPublica found that Polaris' efforts, including use of Duffy, ultimately led the company to get most of what it wanted.:}:
:{:{Bondi's work for Amazon was related to trade and tariff policy, according to disclosures. She also lobbied for General Motors, Uber, Fidelity National, Carnival North America, and even Major League Baseball.}::
:{:{Trump didn't start the revolving door, but the swamp could get larger.:}:
:{:{Wiles, Bondi, and Duffy's respective work all fits within the larger revolving door narrative that dominates Washington, even as Trump portrays himself as ready to shake up the status quo.}::
:{:{Ron Klain, President Biden's first chief of staff and longtime adviser, was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae in the early 2000s. Steve Ricchetti, another longtime Biden fixture, spent so much time lobbying that top Obama administration officials tried to prevent then-Vice President Biden from hiring him after the 2008 election. His brother Jeff Ricchetti, who remains a registered lobbyist, saw his business boom after Biden won the 2020 election.:}:
:{:{President Barack Obama initially received high praise for his limits on hiring lobbyists who had recently lobbied the federal agency they sought to join, though he granted some limited waivers including to a former top lobbyist to Raytheon. Ultimately, Obama was unable to stop the revolving door, as Politico reported in 2015.:}:
:{:{Hauser said what stands out about the Trump team so far is their unorthodox approach to the transition, including refusing to sign formal agreements with the current administration which would include ethics guidelines.:}:
:{:{While Trump, like Obama and Biden, issued an ethics-related executive order after taking office in 2017, Hauser isn't convinced it will happen again.:}:
:{:{"Given the aversion of his transition to the ethics process of the transition, I think it's an open question whether or not he is going to make his appointees sign additional ethics pledges in office this time," Hauser said.:}:
:{:{---:}:
:{:{---:}:
:{:{ab 11 24:}:
:{:{Aside from her willingness to help President-elect Donald Trump prosecute his political opponents, Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi is also known for accommodating any potential lawbreakers who write big checks.:}:
:{:{In a Wednesday essay, Bloomberg columnist Mary Ellen Klas called attention to Bondi's record as Florida's attorney general, in which she showed a pattern of pulling back on prosecuting campaign donors and prioritizing fundraising over her official duties. Klas also argued that Bondi's "blind allegiance" to President-elect Donald Trump raises "serious credibility issues" that should give senators pause during her confirmation process next year.:}:
:{:{"Simply put: Bondi has never demonstrated a commitment to protecting average people, and that’s where the danger lies," Klas wrote.:}:
:{:{READ MORE:'Prosecutors will be prosecuted': Pam Bondi vowed DOJ 'deep state' will be 'cleaned out':}:
:{:{One example of Bondi's ability to be swayed by campaign cash was in her office's abrupt decision to stop investigating Trump's fraudulent "get rich quick" seminars that he dubbed "Trump University." While the New York Attorney General's Office was investigating claims of fraud in 2013, Bondi hinted that she may join their investigation.:}:
:{:{But as watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington explained, that changed after the Trump Foundation made an illegal $25,000 contribution to a PAC backing Bondi's reelection campaign (non-profit organizations are prohibited from making political donations) that she personally solicited. Trump was eventually forced to shut down both his seminar course and his foundation after New York forced him to pay fraud victims $25 million, but he never had to be investigated in Florida. Bondi kept the $25,000, and Trump later threw a private fundraiser for her at Mar-a-Lago.:}:
:{:{As Klas described, Trump was "not the only donor to benefit from Bondi’s influence during her eight years as AG." The Bloomberg columnist noted that Bondi "helped developers facing allegations of timeshare fraud, ended her office’s practice of representing consumers when utility companies sought rate increases and shielded banks and lenders during the mortgage foreclosure crisis.":}:
:{:{"In one particularly egregious example, Bondi ended an investigation into a company that helped banks and lending firms by concocting false evidence to kick families out of their homes without due process.}: Two investigators in the previous attorney general’s office had uncovered the wrongdoing and built a case against it but, after Bondi took office in 2011, that all changed," she wrote. :{"Instead of going after the fraudsters central to Florida’s foreclosure fraud scandal, Bondi’s office went after the investigators. They had stellar job reviews, but were forced to resign.}:According to journalist David Dayen, executive editor of American Prospect, Bondi received substantial campaign contributions from the firm under investigation.":
:{:{READ MORE:Biden must use 'preemptive pardons' to protect these 6 people Trump singled out: columnist:}:
:{:{Click here to read Klas' column in full (subscription required).:}:
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:{:{an 11 24:}:
:{:{Pam Bondi, who is President-elect Donald Trump's new nominee for attorney general, will have an easier time than former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in the confirmation process. But Democrats believe she's still in for a tough fight based on several key issues.:}:
:{:{The New Republic's Greg Sargent wrote that Bondi's upcoming confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee early next year will be full of opportunities for Democrats aiming to do maximum damage. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) predicts Trump's pick to lead the Department of Justice will likely be cornered on some of the president-elect's more controversial promises for the Department of Justice and forced into a tough position. And he said Bondi should be forced to acknowledge that she'll be carrying out a deeply unpopular retribution campaign on behalf of Trump, pointing out she would be his "weaponizer-in-chief of the legal system.":}:
:{:{Michael Sozan, who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, reminded Sargent's readers that Trump's prior attorneys general were driven out of their positions by choosing to prioritize the law over their boss. He predicted that Bondi's tenure could be similarly short-lived if Trump views her as insufficiently loyal.:}:
:{:{READ MORE:'Prosecutors will be prosecuted': Pam Bondi vowed DOJ 'deep state' will be 'cleaned out':}:
:{:{“Trump turned against all his prior attorneys general when they retained a shred of respect for the rule of law,” Sozan said. “He’s expecting Bondi to be an arsonist. It won’t end well for her. It will be even worse for the American people.”:}:
:{:{First, Democrats may seek to drive a wedge between Bondi and Trump by pointing out the president-elect's stated plans to pardon scores of January 6 insurrectionists. These pardons could include rioters who assaulted police officers and carried weapons into the U.S. Capitol building. One unnamed House Democrat said Bondi should be directly asked her thoughts on blanket pardons that could include some of the more violent participants in the Capitol siege.:}:
:{:{“What happens if Trump pardons the Proud Boys leaders who were convicted for seditious conspiracy and instigating the violence?” said January 6 report author Tom Joscelyn when commenting on potential questions for Bondi. “What about the dozens of defendants convicted of assaulting cops?”:}:
:{:{Additionally, Sargent observed that Bondi could be asked about Trump's stated plans to deploy the DOJ against his political enemies. She may also face questioning about his proposal to deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil to round up and detain undocumented immigrants (which one Republican senator has already publicly condemned). Senate Democrats could also press her on Trump potentially court-martialing military officials involved in the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. And Bondi could be asked her opinion on Trump's calls to revoke the broadcast licenses of media outlets that criticize him.:}:
:{:{READ MORE:'Insane': Experts condemn Trump plan to make DOJ 'manufacture evidence' that he won in 2020:}:
:{:{"Ask whether she thinks the First Amendment and due process are any impediment to what Trump has called for," Raskin said.:}:
:{:{As the former Florida attorney general, Bondi has experience as the top law enforcement official of a populous state, unlike Matt Gaetz, whose scant professional legal experience included a stint at a small Florida law firm. After New York announced it was investigating Trump University for defrauding students, Bondi was set to launch her own investigation before the Trump Foundation made a $25,000 donation to a super PAC backing her candidacy (which is illegal for any non-profit organization).:}:
:{:{Gaetz's nomination to lead the DOJ lasted just eight days before he withdrew his name from consideration. His withdrawal notably came after CNN asked him to comment on a new allegation that he reportedly had sex with a 17 year-old high school student at a party while the homeowner watched.:}:
:{:{Click here to read Sargent's full article in the New Republic (subscription required).:}:
:{:{READ MORE:Nearly all J6 defendants Trump wants to pardon assaulted police officers: security experts:}:
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:{:{NO LNX JOE CONASON:}:
:{:{alternet}:
:{:{How Trump corrupted Pam Bondi:}:
:{:{Pam Bondi speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 20, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo:}:
:{:{Joe ConasonNovember 23, 2024:}:
:{:{Newspaper profiles of Pamela Bondi -- subbed in as President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. attorney general following the scandalous implosion of Matt Gaetz -- often describe her with a phrase like "longtime loyalist.":}:
:{:{The former Florida attorney general's unwavering fealty dates back to September 2013, when a political committee supporting her reelection campaign received a $25,000 check from the Trump Foundation. And the story behind that check foreshadows four more years of exceptionally corrupt administration, when the first felon returns to the White House. It is a tale that revolves around two of the most notorious scams pursued by the president-elect during his career as a "successful businessman," namely the Trump Foundation and Trump University.:}:
:{:{Rather than an institution of higher learning, Trump U was a for-profit real-estate seminar that promised easy wealth to the suckers who paid huge sums to learn the Donald's investment secrets and received no instruction of any value whatsoever in return. Over the years before Bondi got that Trump check, thousands of defrauded consumers had complained to her office, demanding action.:}:
:{:{And just three weeks earlier, then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman finally had announced the filing of a massive fraud case on behalf of New Yorkers ripped off by Trump University. According to Tristan Snell, the assistant attorney general handling the case, they hoped Florida would join New York's lawsuit "because it opened up the possibility that, if needed, we could pursue additional witnesses and documents" in the Sunshine State, where subpoenas would require Bondi's assistance.}::
:{:{Evidently that possibility also occurred to someone in the Trump Organization. Four days after the dramatic New York filing, Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff sent an email to the Bondi campaign finance director, seeking details of how to make a donation. Made out to "And Justice For All," the ironically named Bondi PAC, that donation arrived by mail on Sept. 13, 2013, along with a note signed by Trump that misspelled the candidate's name as "Biondi" and declared, "Dear Pam, You are the greatest!":}:
:{:{The check was drawn on the Trump Foundation -- a tax-exempt nonprofit organization prohibited from giving money to political campaigns or partisan committees. That was merely one of many examples of Trump's abuse of his foundation's tax-exempt status.}::
:{:{You may have surmised by this point that the Florida attorney general blew off her New York colleagues in seeking justice for the Trump U victims. Snell recalls that after sending the case documents to Tallahassee, "we never heard from the Florida AG's office again.":}:
:{:{None of that hindered the legal team led by Snell -- one of very few officials ever to hold Trump accountable -- from winning a $25 million settlement from the Trump Organization after the 2016 election. The proceeds reimbursed Trump's victims for roughly 80% of what they had lost. Two years after he coughed up that punishing payment, the New York attorney general's office came after the Trump Foundation again, charging that its charitable activities were nonexistent and that its expenditures benefited Trump himself.:}:
:{:{In the humiliating conclusion of that lawsuit, his lawyers agreed their client would shut down the foundation and pay the remaining millions in its accounts to bona fide charities.:}:
:{:{So egregious were the depredations of Trump U that Republicans felt obliged to condemn its swindling. The National Review ran a scathing investigative report headlined "Yes, Trump University Was a Massive Scam." Sen. Marco Rubio, then a Trump rival, denounced Trump U as a "con job," and warned that "we cannot allow a con artist to become the Republican nominee for president of the United States." (The Florida senator's more recent sycophancy has now earned Rubio the opportunity to become secretary of state.):}:
:{:{Every Republican senator who votes to confirm Bondi as the nation's attorney general knows the saga of Trump University. As Snell sardonically asks, "Did Trump just happen to want to make a donation to Bondi a mere four days after the New York AG's case was filed? Really?":}:
:{:{He goes on to demand that journalists and senators interrogate Bondi about this scandal -- and explore its implications for her integrity, her subservience to the president, and her ability to carry out the attorney general's duties.:}:
:{:{"We need to make sure this full story gets told -- and any profile of Bondi or analysis of her nomination that does not include this story is itself another example of corrupt complicity." Nobody, in the mainstream media or the United States Senate, should be able to claim they did not know.:}:
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:{:{11 24:}:
:{:{Less than 24 hours after former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) withdrew his name from consideration for Attorney General, President-Elect Donald Trump announced Gaetz's replacement for the nomination.:}:
:{:{"I am proud to announce former Attorney General of the Great State of Florida, Pam Bondi, as our next Attorney General of the United States," Trump wrote via Truth Social.:}:
:{:{A slew of legal experts and journalists quickly reacted to the news, many criticizing the president-elect's choice.:}:
:{:{READ MORE:Trump picks his ex-impeachment defense lawyer to replace Gaetz as AG nominee:}:
:{:{Rochester Institute of Technology law professor David Cay Johnston commented: "Pam Bondi, Trump's new AG pick, is so corrupt. She took an illegal $25,000 campaign donation from the Trump Foundation. Bondi kept the money (!!!), given when -- as Florida AG -- she shut down her office's investigation of the utterly fraudulent Trump University."}::
:{:{Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell added: "Hi America. If you want to understand why Donald Trump likes Pam Bondi, know this: Complaints were filed about Trump U. in with attorneys general in two states. - NY's AG pursued and got a $25 million settlement - Trump gave Bondi $25k, and she did nothing.":}:
:{:{Journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote: "Trump's new pick for AG, Pam Bondi, was a registered lobbyist for the government of Qatar":}:
:{:{Human Rights Campaign national press secretary Brandon Wolf replied: Two days after my best friends and 47 others were murdered at Pulse Nightclub, Pam Bondi tried to paint herself as a friend to the community. She hoped we’d forget that, just TWO years earlier, she said our freedom to marry would cause 'significant public harm.' We didn’t.":}:
:{Democratic strategist Ameshia Cross replied: :{"The same Pam Bodi who let Jeffrey Epstein slide"}::
:{:{READ MORE:Trump rejects effort to install Project 2025 author over 'controversial' stance on key issue:}:
:{:{Long Island County, New York's Suffolk Young Democrats Chair Skyler Johnson commented: "Trump makes sure to point out that she was the first female Attorney General of Florida. I’m sorry - I thought acknowledging such things was an unforgivable sin, and proof someone was selected because of DEI? Are the rules different now?":}:
:{:{:}:
:{:{an 11 24:}:
:{:{Trump’s latest pick to become Attorney General, former Florida AG Pam Bondi, is a MAGA supporter who vowed last year that if Trump were to return to the White House, the “deep state” would be eliminated from the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the “prosecutors will be prosecuted.”:}:
:{:{Trump’s nomination of Bondi comes after his first pick, former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was forced to withdraw. Senators on both sides of the aisle made clear Gaetz’s chances for confirmation were slim given investigations into allegations of possible sex with a minor, possible payments for sex, and possible sex-trafficking. He has also been under investigation for possible illicit drug use and questions about possible campaign finance improprieties.:}:
:{:{In 2023, Bondi told Fox News host Sean Hannity that “when Republicans take back the White House and we will be back you know what’s gonna happen, the Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones.”:}:
:{:{READ MORE: Top Trump Advisor Threatens Republicans to Support Nominees or Face a Primary: Report:}:
:{:{“The investigators will be investigated because the deep state last term for President Trump, they were hiding in the shadows,” she claimed. “But now they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated and the house needs to be cleaned out because now we know who most of them are. There’s a record of it and we can clean house next term, and that’s what has to happen.”:}:
:{:{On CNN’s “Out Front,” Erin Burnett Thursday evening reported that Bondi has made “it clear she is on the exact same page as Trump when it comes to his claim that the Justice Department has been politicized.”:}:
:{:{And she noted that “Bondi has been a very successful fighter for Trump in the 2020 election. She was on the front lines pushing Trump’s election lies. She said, ‘we’ve won Pennsylvania and we want every vote to be counted in a fair way.’ Of course, he did not win Pennsylvania.”:}:
:{:{“During Trump’s criminal trial in New York. She was one of his top defenders,” Burnett added.:}:
:{:{Rolling Stone on Friday also notes that Bondi has “supported retaliation against Trump’s political rivals in the past. In 2016, — during Trump’s campaign — she called for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security clearance to be revoked, and egged on supporters who chanted ‘lock her up’ at the Republican National Convention.”}::
:{:{“’Lock her up, I love that,’ she told the crowd.”:}:
:{:{READ MORE: Byron Donalds ‘Not Surprised’ at Snub from Trump’s Nearly-All White Administration:}:
:{:{ABC News reports that “Bondi registered as a foreign agent for the government of Qatar as part of her lobbying work.”:}:
:{:{Donald Trump was prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack Smith in two separate cases. One for his alleged actions surrounding the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the insurrection, and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost. The second was for Trump’s alleged removal, retention, and refusal to return classified and top secret classified documents, including some of the nation’s nuclear and defense secrets.:}:
:{:{In a state criminal trial, Trump was convicted for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal his illegal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election,” according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.:}:
:{:{Trump also has been facing prosecution in Georgia for his alleged efforts in that state to overturn the 2020 election. That case is ongoing, according to WMAL.:}:
:{:{Trump’s classified documents case, largely prosecuted under the Espionage Act, was dismissed by a federal judge appointed by Trump in 2020 who was confirmed just before he left office.:}:
:{:{The Special Counsel is now winding down his work after Trump won the presidential election earlier this month, given sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted, and Trump’s Attorney General would in all likelihood drop the case.:}:
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