RETALIATE 3

ESTB 4 25

MERRI OK

see cruel // fascism

NOTE EMPATHY // IMMIGRATION ~[GREIVANCE// RETALIATION CRUEL STRICT FR ] EXECUTE

see XO

see fear 4 //

SEE LAWFARE TRUMP DOJ 3BONDI ET AL ED FUCKING MARTIN EG LAW FIRMS, PRESS SUPPRESS, DON LEMON FALSE CLAIM; ACAD SUPPRESS UNIV

SEE FAIL 5

SEE TARIFF BRIBES CDA RR AD, SWISS BRIBE

// STATE EXCEPTION? EMERGENCY? START WITH MARGINAL

SEE GOP FRAUD BS JDV

SPRINGSTEEN BONO BEYONCE

SEE TREASON TRAITOR LOYALTY corp scorecard 8 25

SEE PRESS SUPPRESS LEGACY MEDIA CNN NBC ~ OBAMA TRAITOR BS mark kelly slotkin

SEE EPSTEIN: DEMAND JUSTICE VS DEEP STATE PEDOS

SEE BLUE STATES CITIES

SEE WATTERS FOX HYPE VIOLENT RHET ELIM BUT SELF DEFENSE // RETALIATIONHE ENJOY CRUEL PAIN

---

aha doh retaliation is variation of rubber reverse projection: they did X to us, thus we do it to them tarrio jan 6 5 yr anniv

jan 6 5 yr anniv BS

7:56

need to do something or nicely we tell

7:59

you step down.

Tarrio:

8:01

I don't want any violence to happen to

8:04

those people that perpetrated these

8:06

crimes against humanity, against

8:08

Americans.

8:10

But I want them to pay.

8:12

That's right.

8:13

They made an example out of us.

8:15

That's right.

8:16

And we need to make an example out of

8:18

them. ...

---

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an 10 26

New York Times Justice Department and F.B.I. reporter Devlin Barrett says it takes more than a vengeance-driven president to prosecute his personal grievances against people he thinks have crossed him. It also takes enablers with law degrees who are willing to soak those degrees to pursue Trump’s agenda.

Barrett is ready to name-check the worst of them.

“At least eight current U.S. attorneys have played prominent roles in pushing Mr. Trump’s grievances, often citing thin evidence that has subsequently led many of their cases to collapse,’ reports Barrett. “Three of those are running their offices without Senate confirmation.”

Minnesota AG Daniel Rosen is first up on Barrett’s hit list, being a man who has “aggressively pursued cases” against people in Minneapolis who protested the administration’s immigration policies and helped oversee investigations into Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat whom Trump has vowed to deport.

Rosen, said Barrett, is a commercial litigator who had never been a prosecutor, but who jumped to Trump’s marching orders when the president outright told him to “prosecute Ilhan Omar,” according to people familiar with the exchange. Federal agents, as part of an investigation overseen by Rosen’s office, conducted a recent search at Omar’s home in Washington.

John A. Sarcone III is grievance agent No. 2, according to Barrett, for leading “efforts to investigate New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, on the theory that she violated the civil rights of Mr. Trump.”

A federal judge blocked Sarcone in January from overseeing the investigation since he isn’t lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney, but Barrett says that hasn’t stopped him from sending federal prosecutors to try to wring evidence against James from her hairdresser.

Down in North Carolina, meanwhile, Dan Bishop — again, who has never been a prosecutor — has been tasked to pursue election integrity cases across the country as part of Trump’s hunt for “evidence of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election.” Barrett says he’s seized hundreds of boxes of ballots in Georgia to buttress Trump’s debunked claim of election fraud there.

In Los Angelas, Barrett says Bill Essayli “has pushed to charge cases against anti-Trump protesters, many of which fell apart in court.”

When Trump said “they are trying to steal that election” in California primary, Barrett said Essayli dutifully followed Trump’s orders and began a search, despite never being confirmed for his role. And according to people familiar with the matter, Essayli insisted on charging a man who had provided face shields to anti-ICE protesters, despite objections from some members of his staff, said Barrett. Essayli’s charges got thrown from court.

And then there’s Jason A. Reding Quiñones in Miami, who has overseen “a centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s retribution campaign,” according to Barrett, a “grand conspiracy” by officials in the Biden and Obama administrations to pursue Trump. While Trump’s crusade has brought few indictments, Barrett said the crusade itself has “end[ed] the prosecutorial careers of many of the lawyers assigned to it.”

“The first two U.S. attorneys were forced out, having displeased senior Trump administration officials by concluding criminal charges were not warranted,” said Barrett.

District of Columbia AG Jeanine Pirro has pursued her own indictments of the president’s critics and “others invoking his ire, even when some of her prosecutors say the evidence does not support charges,” said Barrett.

Her list of failures are racking up, he added, including the indictment of David Hearn, a former Olympic athlete, for felony destruction of the Reflecting Pool.

“In dropping the case, Ms. Pirro’s office claimed that Department of Interior officials withheld key details that would have changed prosecutors’ view of the evidence,” said Barrett. “However, she and her investigators knew even before they went into the grand jury that there was at least one significant evidentiary flaw in their case and barreled ahead anyway, according to court filings by Mr. Hearn’s lawyers.”

And a federal judge also trampled her efforts to subpoena former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell, saying Ms. Pirro’s office had offered “no evidence whatsoever” that he had “committed any crime other than displeasing the president.”

North Carolina’s W. Ellis Boyle is another Trump agent who brought criminal charges against former F.B.I. director James Comey — for posting a photo of seashells.

“Of all the retribution-tinged indictments and investigations that have marked the second Trump term, none has more alarmed or angered longtime Justice Department officials than the one over the seashells photo,” said Barrett. “Senior Trump administration officials tried and failed in mid-2025 to find a prosecutor willing to charge Mr. Comey with threatening the president” with beach photos.

Finally, there’s Chicago AG Andrew Boutros, who Barrett says has managed to flub two dozen of more than 30 criminal cases filed against people for crimes like assaulting a federal agent or resisting a federal agent during the operation.

“I thought it was a crock,” one grand juror told prosecutors. “And I still think it is.”

And even when Boutros nabbed an indictment, a federal judge found the office had mishandled the case and dismissed the charges.

Boutros has yet to be confirmed as AG by the Senate.

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an 10 26

New York Times Justice Department and F.B.I. reporter Devlin Barrett says it takes more than a vengeance-driven president to prosecute his personal grievances against people he thinks have crossed him. It also takes enablers with law degrees who are willing to soak those degrees to pursue Trump’s agenda.

Barrett is ready to name-check the worst of them.

“At least eight current U.S. attorneys have played prominent roles in pushing Mr. Trump’s grievances, often citing thin evidence that has subsequently led many of their cases to collapse,’ reports Barrett. “Three of those are running their offices without Senate confirmation.”

Minnesota AG Daniel Rosen is first up on Barrett’s hit list, being a man who has “aggressively pursued cases” against people in Minneapolis who protested the administration’s immigration policies and helped oversee investigations into Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat whom Trump has vowed to deport.

Rosen, said Barrett, is a commercial litigator who had never been a prosecutor, but who jumped to Trump’s marching orders when the president outright told him to “prosecute Ilhan Omar,” according to people familiar with the exchange. Federal agents, as part of an investigation overseen by Rosen’s office, conducted a recent search at Omar’s home in Washington.

John A. Sarcone III is grievance agent No. 2, according to Barrett, for leading “efforts to investigate New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, on the theory that she violated the civil rights of Mr. Trump.”

A federal judge blocked Sarcone in January from overseeing the investigation since he isn’t lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney, but Barrett says that hasn’t stopped him from sending federal prosecutors to try to wring evidence against James from her hairdresser.

Down in North Carolina, meanwhile, Dan Bishop — again, who has never been a prosecutor — has been tasked to pursue election integrity cases across the country as part of Trump’s hunt for “evidence of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election.” Barrett says he’s seized hundreds of boxes of ballots in Georgia to buttress Trump’s debunked claim of election fraud there.

In Los Angelas, Barrett says Bill Essayli “has pushed to charge cases against anti-Trump protesters, many of which fell apart in court.”

When Trump said “they are trying to steal that election” in California primary, Barrett said Essayli dutifully followed Trump’s orders and began a search, despite never being confirmed for his role. And according to people familiar with the matter, Essayli insisted on charging a man who had provided face shields to anti-ICE protesters, despite objections from some members of his staff, said Barrett. Essayli’s charges got thrown from court.

And then there’s Jason A. Reding Quiñones in Miami, who has overseen “a centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s retribution campaign,” according to Barrett, a “grand conspiracy” by officials in the Biden and Obama administrations to pursue Trump. While Trump’s crusade has brought few indictments, Barrett said the crusade itself has “end[ed] the prosecutorial careers of many of the lawyers assigned to it.”

“The first two U.S. attorneys were forced out, having displeased senior Trump administration officials by concluding criminal charges were not warranted,” said Barrett.

District of Columbia AG Jeanine Pirro has pursued her own indictments of the president’s critics and “others invoking his ire, even when some of her prosecutors say the evidence does not support charges,” said Barrett.

Her list of failures are racking up, he added, including the indictment of David Hearn, a former Olympic athlete, for felony destruction of the Reflecting Pool.

“In dropping the case, Ms. Pirro’s office claimed that Department of Interior officials withheld key details that would have changed prosecutors’ view of the evidence,” said Barrett. “However, she and her investigators knew even before they went into the grand jury that there was at least one significant evidentiary flaw in their case and barreled ahead anyway, according to court filings by Mr. Hearn’s lawyers.”

And a federal judge also trampled her efforts to subpoena former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell, saying Ms. Pirro’s office had offered “no evidence whatsoever” that he had “committed any crime other than displeasing the president.”

North Carolina’s W. Ellis Boyle is another Trump agent who brought criminal charges against former F.B.I. director James Comey — for posting a photo of seashells.

“Of all the retribution-tinged indictments and investigations that have marked the second Trump term, none has more alarmed or angered longtime Justice Department officials than the one over the seashells photo,” said Barrett. “Senior Trump administration officials tried and failed in mid-2025 to find a prosecutor willing to charge Mr. Comey with threatening the president” with beach photos.

Finally, there’s Chicago AG Andrew Boutros, who Barrett says has managed to flub two dozen of more than 30 criminal cases filed against people for crimes like assaulting a federal agent or resisting a federal agent during the operation.

“I thought it was a crock,” one grand juror told prosecutors. “And I still think it is.”

And even when Boutros nabbed an indictment, a federal judge found the office had mishandled the case and dismissed the charges.

Boutros has yet to be confirmed as AG by the Senate.

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an 10 26

Jeanine Pirro threw FBI director under the bus in new case he demanded

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1/3 DOJ LAWYERS QUIT

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COMEY INDICTED 3X 10 26 26

cassidy h fail

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AVOID GRAND JURY?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AN 10 26

Trump's desperation for revenge and attention backfiring with new tantrum

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rww

• Mike Rothchild @ Talking Points Memo: How Trump’s ‘Grand Conspiracy’ Investigation Failed to Become the New QAnon

Nobody loves a conspiracy more than President Trump. He and his inner circle especially seem to have fallen in love with what has literally been dubbed “The Grand Conspiracy.” It’s a hopelessly complex, entirely unevidenced theory claiming that a high-ranking group of political figures have been plotting in the shadows for years to stop Donald Trump from making America great again through investigations, indictments and impeachments. It has all the hallmarks of the type of grandiose schemes that Trump supporters especially fall for: countless players, sprawling plots, intricate secrets, and a total lack of evidence that it actually took place.

ref $?

In Rough Edges, Mike Rothschild writes about fringe groups, conspiracy theories and how the Internet broke our brains. This column is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

People love a grand conspiracy. The bigger the scheme is, the more people get drawn into it. And the more details and players that are involved, the more believable it seemingly becomes. After all, who would go to the trouble of making up something so complicated? It must be true.

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AN 1 026

Trump DOJ caught using false claims in explosive court revelation

President Trump's Justice Department has admitted that a false allegation, involving former CNN anchor Don Lemon and another journalist, appeared in the federal court filings relating to its investigation of the anti-ICE protest.

The revelation comes as newly uncovered records show that federal investigators obtained warrants authorizing the use of sophisticated surveillance technology to track down Lemon's 21-year-old producer Jerome Richardson, even though Richardson was prepared to turn himself in.

According to Wired, the investigation followed a protest at a church in Minnesota that disrupted a service and drew national attention after Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort documented the incident.

Per the report, the federal authorities were looking to build a criminal case against people who were involved in the protest, including journalists who maintained they were there as journalists covering the event rather than as participants.

The contested allegation came in the affidavits in support of applications to track Richardson. The investigators claimed that the video showed Lemon, Fort, Richardson and others “chanting with agitators.”

But the prosecutors later admitted that Lemon and Fort had not been chanting.

As per Fort's lawyers, the government admitted that the false allegation appeared in at least 15 warrant affidavits.

The admission doesn't establish that the investigators knowingly submitted false information. It does, however, add another wrinkle to an investigation which has already been fraught with judicial pushback and disputes over the nature of the federal surveillance.

The warrants also show just how far the investigators were prepared to go in order to track down Richardson.

Federal judges in Minnesota and Pennsylvania have approved the use of cell site simulators, devices which mimic a cell tower to identify and locate a phone.

The tech can also harvest identifying information from devices of people in the vicinity who are not the subject of the investigation.

Investigators got the second warrant just two days before Richardson voluntarily turned himself in at a federal courthouse in Philadelphia.

Richardson had publicly stated that he expected to go into federal custody. He was released on bond that afternoon upon his surrender.

The records don't establish that the agents actually deployed the surveillance devices.

The investigation had already met with resistance from the courts.

A magistrate judge initially denied five of the eight arrest warrant applications. The government's request to have that decision overturned by the appeals court was also rejected, and the government has since withdrawn its request.

In the filing, the court's chief judge states that two of the people the government was targeting were journalists rather than protesters and finds no evidence of any criminal conduct on their part.

Prosecutors then secured a grand jury indictment.

The newly released records don't answer the question of why the investigators were seeking such intrusive surveillance or how the false allegation kept reappearing in the documents they submitted to federal judges.

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AN 10 26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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// RUBIO ~ ICC

President Donald Trump responds to his latest Nobel Peace Prize snub by amplifying an attack that accuses the Norwegian Nobel Committee of disgracing itself by selecting South African human rights lawyer Navi Pillay.

Shortly after Pillay was announced as the 2026 winner for her contributions to international law, Trump reposted a message from his former attorney David Schoen, who had represented him during his second impeachment trial.

"Today the Nobel Committee shamed itself beyond repair and demeaned the once great Nobel Peace Prize by giving it to the UN's Navi Pillay," Schoen wrote.

Schoen called Pillay "an unabashed hater of America and Israel" and accused her of celebrating terrorists and rewarding Hamas, without providing evidence for those allegations.

He also attacked a United Nations commission Pillay chaired, which concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel has rejected that finding.

"She has no credibility in any normal sphere and has never done a thing to foster peace," Schoen wrote. "Just the opposite."

The attorney then claimed that Trump should have been awarded the prize, giving as reasons his Abraham Accords, his efforts to secure the release of the hostages, and his attempts to end Russia's war in Ukraine.

"President Trump gave us the Abraham Accords, which the world said would be impossible and is now expanding them!" Schoen wrote.

"He brought home the hostages when all seemed hopeless!" he added.

Schoen concluded that Trump's achievements were "the kinds of things the Nobel Peace Prize was intended to recognize and reward[!]"

The attack followed Trump's repeated pleading for his own nomination, arguing that his diplomatic record made him uniquely worthy.

Less than two days before the announcement, Trump said to reporters at the White House that no one in the history of the prize had deserved it more, adding his false claim that he had settled eight wars.

Pillay, who is 85 years old, had earlier held the position of United Nations high commissioner for human rights and that of a judge at both the International Criminal Court and the tribunal which investigated the Rwandan genocide.

The Nobel Committee lauded her many years of work in the promotion of international justice, especially her efforts to secure accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Pillay also seemed to make a joke about Trump's attempt to obtain the honor while celebrating her win with her colleagues in Germany.

"If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump," she joked.

The award will officially be presented in Oslo on December 10th.

AN 10 26

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DIGENOVA QUIT 9 26 FIRED BY TODD?

AN 9 26

On Thursday, September 10, attorney and veteran GOP operative Joseph diGenova abruptly resigned from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he had been focused on a conspiracy investigation targeting President Donald Trump's foes. And according to Salon's Heather Digby Parton, the fact that he left DOJ without getting a single indictment is a major blow for the Trump administration and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.

"The definition of a mafia made man is one who has Italian blood and is formally initiated into the 'family,' having sworn an oath of omerta and promising to put the crime family above all else," Parton explains in Salon. "Traitors take their lives in their own hands, and they often do not live to tell the tale, which means that it's rare for anyone to go against the family, especially in public. That's why it was so surprising to see longtime Republican operative Joe diGenova resign from his job as a top Trump consigliere — or, more formally, 'special counselor to the attorney general' — on Thursday. If there was ever a GOP-made man, it is him."

Parton emphasizes that "expectations in the MAGAsphere were high" when diGenova was appointed to DOJ.

"DiGenova was appointed in April to oversee the Justice Department's big inquisition in Florida after the career prosecutor who had been running it resigned over concerns that they did not have a prosecutable case against former CIA chief John Brennan," Parton notes. "DiGenova, who had not prosecuted a case since his stint in the Reagan Justice Department, was a trusted GOP loyalist. He was involved in many of Rudy Giuliani's crusades during Donald Trump's first term, including the Big Lie court cases that went nowhere."

Parton continues, "This made him widely seen as the kind of partisan stalwart the administration needed to kickstart the investigation … DiGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, have been fixtures in the Republican scandal-mongering business for decades, having first made their bones during the Clinton years."

But after his resignation, Parton observes, diGenova told the New York Post, "If you want indictments where there's no evidence, you have an ethical problem."

"What's clear from this episode is that Attorney General Todd Blanche — and, by extension, Trump — will take nothing less than indictments against his perceived enemies," the Salon journalist writes. "And if they don't materialize, he is ready to sacrifice even the mostly loyal MAGA foot soldiers. When I wrote about diGenova's appointment in April, I asked the question, 'Can the TV hit man do what none of the other Trump lawyers before him have been able to do: put the president's enemies behind bars?' Now, we know the answer is no, and it's not for lack of trying. It's for lack of evidence. Even a made man can't get that job done."

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AN 9 26

The Justice Department is taking another crack at indicting former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

According to Bloomberg Law, the move will be an appeal of a prior decision that District Attorney Lindsey Halligan was not lawfully appointed to serve as DA because she wasn't confirmed by Congress. The Justice Department is seeking to restore the criminal cases against James and Comey.

According to the DOJ, even if Halligan’s appointment wasn't legal, it shouldn't erase the indictments. However, Comey and James argue that the cases were invalid from the start because an unlawfully appointed prosecutor brought them before grand juries.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on the matter again and decide whether a remedy is needed and what it would look like.

A panel of judges in the Eastern District unanimously approved her predecessor, Erik Siebert, to take over the office in the interim. He'd initially resigned ahead of Halligan indicring Comey and James.

"Lawyers arguing on behalf of the Justice Department, Comey, and James won’t know who they’re appearing before until the morning of argument," the report said. "The Fourth Circuit is one of the only federal appellate courts that doesn’t announce the three-judge panel in advance."

It explained it's a "crapshoot" as to who they could appear before. While it was once a conservative court, eight of the past 15 new judges were appointed by Democrats.

Lawyers should prepare for “questions about the plain language, the origins of the statute, the problem the statute was trying to solve, and the ramifications of ruling one way or another,” explained former Virginia Solicitor General Michelle Kallen.

“If I were prepping for oral argument, I’d be prepared to answer more questions about the exact circumstances that led Congress to give a role to the courts in connection with the appointment of US attorneys,” Kallen said.

Last November, the Eastern District of Virginia was in complete disarray after Halligan was told her appointment to the post was not lawful.

After the ruling in the Comey and James cases last year, two magistrate judges and a district court judge in Alexandria, Virginia, went so far as to rebuke prosecutors in open court about Halligan’s name on all recent criminal cases, explaining that it should not be there. The documents included a new criminal case filing, guilty plea papers and several indictments.

Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick told prosecutors it was “not acceptable” for charging papers to be filed under Halligan’s name, and both he and Judge Michael Nachmanoff said that, after the ruling, Halligan’s name should not appear on any cases.

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an 8 26

While President Donald Trump claims he’s been waging a war against fraud, one of his former officials asserts that the White House-led anti-fraud task force is really a “ruse to prosecute political foes.” This is according to Miles Taylor, who served as Homeland Security Deputy Chief of Staff during Trump’s first term and at the time penned an anonymous article exposing the dysfunctional inner workings of the administration.

As Taylor wrote on Thursday, according to reports from the New York Times and other outlets, the Trump administration has been leveling claims of fraud against targets ranging from immigrant-owned ice cream trucks to Democratic governors. “The goal was not to take down serious criminals,” argues Taylor. “It was storytelling. Trump says his enemies are grifters. Accordingly, he’s reorienting the federal government to prove — whether they’re governors or immigrants — that his political and societal opponents are rotten right down to the food trucks from which they sell.”

YES I AM CROOKED BUT SO ARE THEY THEM ENEMY

Taylor says there is a clear giveaway to the president’s intentions, writing, “As DOJ is building these types of cases, it’s simultaneously abandoning major white-collar prosecutions. Corporate investigations (which can uncover billions in theft and billions in restitution for victims) have fallen to their lowest level in decades. In fact, the Times found that the volume of such cases is literally thousands below the Biden administration and far below Trump’s own first term. Meanwhile, the president has been pardoning wealthy executives and dropping cases left and right against friendly corporations. So no, the Trump administration is not hunting fraud. It’s hunting down its enemies with anything it can find. ‘Fraud’ just happens to be the easiest label to apply.”

Trump’s actions in Minnesota, says Taylor, offer a clear example. As he writes, “Late last year, welfare fraud was used as the thinly veiled pretext for the Trump administration to launch a massive immigration crackdown (and political shakedown) in a state led by Democrat Tim Walz, who challenged Trump for the White House in 2024. Thousands of ICE and CBP agents flooded into Minnesota to address a problem that — if the reasons were genuine — should have required not more than a few dozen accountants. It certainly didn’t need gun-toting agents. While Trump was forced into retreat, his team first tried to coerce state leaders to forfeit their voter rolls, which critics pointed out had precisely nothing to do with the original fraud claims. Of course it didn’t; from the start, the whole exercise was about political leverage.”

“To understand what Trump’s task force is actually meant for,” says Taylor, “just look at how it’s being managed. The DOJ’s new fraud division doesn’t report to some expert in criminal investigations. It reports directly to Vice President JD Vance, an arrangement without precedent, especially since it effectively circumvents the Attorney General himself…In June, he personally made the criminal referral against Walz. Asked where the ‘war on fraud’ goes next, Vance answered: California. (Surely it’s just a coincidence that they’re going after the blue state led by the man Trump most fears will try to succeed him.)”

Taylor notes other examples, such as charges of mortgage fraud leveled against New York Attorney General Letitia James — who had previously won a nine-figure civil fraud case against Trump — Senator Adam Schiff (D-NY), and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. According to Taylor, “‘Fraud’ has become the administration’s codeword for ‘revenge.’ The term is a respectable-sounding wrapper for criminalizing the political opposition. And now that Trump’s team has systematized the plan with a task force — making the issue a top priority for all U.S. attorneys in the country — we will see more and more cases brought, like the recent cases against left-leaning nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center.”

The reality, asserts Taylor, is that Trump’s White House is rampant with fraud, the scale of which will be exposed by a future Democratic administration. While Trump and his allies will attempt to conceal their crimes, “They can’t shred it all on the way out the door, because they’ve trapped themselves. If they want their prosecutions to survive, there must be evidence, discovery, and a chain of custody. The records must exist somewhere, or the cases go away. I suspect that when investigators finally follow that paper trail, it will lead exactly where the Letitia James and Adam Schiff cases already point — back to the White House — and to proof of the deliberate weaponization of the American government against its own citizens. That’s when the real fraud trials will begin.”

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RWW 8 26

• Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand @ CNN: Former employee at Southern Poverty Law Center arrested on fraud charges

The charges are part of the Justice Department’s case against the SPLC over the alleged payments, which prosecutors say were done through shell companies.

REF

A former employee of the Southern Poverty Law Center has been arrested in California on charges that she oversaw secret payments to informants inside of White supremacist groups, one of whom she was allegedly living with and had a romantic relationship with at the time.

The woman, Heidi Beirich, previously ran the SPLC’s project tracking hate groups in the US. The Justice Department has alleged that the program, which is no longer running, defrauded donors who did not realize they were helping to pay individuals inside the same groups that the SPLC aimed to root out.

Beirich allegedly “oversaw payments of donors’ money” to people inside of these hate groups, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday. She also allegedly shared a bank account with one of those sources, which included funds from the SPLC’s payments.

“I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies’ names and make payments to individuals for reasons that were not accurate as described,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference Wednesday. “This is exactly what we said would happen in a case like this, which is that our investigators and the US attorneys and the agents working the case will can keep on working it even after the initial indictment.”

Beirich has been charged as part of a superseding indictment with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to conceal money laundering.

A lawyer for Beirich denied wrongdoing on her part.

The SPLC has fought the case, arguing that the government is mischaracterizing a long-standing informant program designed to gather intelligence on hate groups, and accused the Justice Department of charging them for political reasons. Attorneys for the SPLC have also said that law enforcement officials have used information gathered by the organization’s informants in the past.

Related article

Tourists walk past the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, on February 27, 2026.

Rahmat Gul/AP

SPLC charged with defrauding donors over paid extremism informant program

4 min read

The charges are part of the Justice Department’s case against the SPLC over the alleged payments, which prosecutors say were done through shell companies. In earlier court documents, the department gave details on nine unnamed informants it says received payments through the program, which began in the 1980s.

Despite her role in overseeing the payments — some of which were directed to an Imperial Wizard in the KKK — Beirich allegedly had a romantic relationship with one source who infiltrated a White Supremacy group and stole documents for the SPLC, according to the indictment.

That person, prosecutors say, was paid over $1 million by the SPLC since 2007 – $140,000 of which was put into a bank account that Beirich and the person shared. Beirich allegedly used that money to pay for their personal living expenses.

The documents that person allegedly stole were used as part of an article that the SPLC later published. Beirich then allegedly paid a second informant $6,000 to take the fall for the stolen documents.

“Dr. Beirich is innocent, and this case is without merit,” her attorney, Michael J. Proctor said in a statement. “We believe the charges against her and the SPLC are politically motivated, and Dr. Beirich has been targeted in this case because of the important work she has done to combat hate groups and extremists.”

Proctor said Beirich left the SPLC over six years ago.

“Dr. Beirich won’t be silenced or intimidated by the government’s false and politicized allegations now,” Proctor continued. “She welcomes the opportunity to present the truth in court.”

The SPLC told CNN the indictment has not changed their commitment to the cause.

“Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do. The actions taken by the DOJ will not shake our resolve,” the group said in a statement. “We remain steadfast in our fight for justice and in our commitment to ensuring the promise of the Civil Rights movement becomes a reality for all. We are confident in our position and look forward to presenting the evidence and making our case in court.”

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mma

John Solomon has been calling for retribution against Trump's enemies; now the White House is poised to hire him

Written by Sophie Lawton

Research contributions from Reed McMaster, Jack Winstanley & Media Intel Staff

:{Published 06/04/26

The White House has reportedly started vetting right-wing journalist John Solomon for a “special government employee” position working on government “transparency.” Solomon, Media Matters' Misinformer of the Year, has a history of appearing on right-wing media to spread disputed claims about supposed government weaponization, and he has heavily supported President Donald Trump's Department of Justice's “grand conspiracy” campaign, calling for “accountability” for those he claims have wronged Trump.

In various appearances on right-wing media, Solomon has claimed the Trump administration is planning on starting a declassification project which he named “Hypersonic Clarity,” saying on April 16, “We're going to get a level of transparency and a release of declassification of documents unparalleled in American history.”

According to Solomon, the released documents will “help this prosecutorial team in Miami” working on the Trump administration's "grand conspiracy" case, which The New York Times calls part of Trump's “wide-ranging retribution campaign."

Speaking to MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson, Solomon claimed, “I do think there will be some accountability,” but he added, “There will never be enough for what we went through the last 12 years."

:{Video

Citation

From the April 16, 2026, edition of The Benny Show, posted to YouTube

On the same day, Solomon appeared on Steve Bannon's War Room to claim again that Trump will start his so-called “Operation Hypersonic Clarity” to “get everything declassified quickly” in order to seek indictments for former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey in the Miami grand conspiracy case.

Solomon also mentioned that he thinks there will be “a request to expunge President Trump's impeachment from the congressional record” because of the supposed conspiracy against him, which Solomon has also pushed for on his Just the News website.

Last November, Solomon complained that the Department of Justice was not doing enough to “reprioritize weaponization” investigations, telling Bannon, “I'm really worried that Donald Trump doesn't have the team that can bring accountability at the Justice Department."

The New York Times reported that in his possible new White House role, Solomon would likely be working on declassifying documents related to Russiagate and the 2020 election, both subjects which the Trump DOJ is attempting to encompass in the grand conspiracy case. Solomon has spoken about each of these topics in interviews throughout the last year, alleging government corruption, weaponization, and criminal conspiracy by the Biden and Obama administrations.

After the announcement of the grand conspiracy case in July 2025, Solomon appeared on Fox News' Hannity to claim Trump was “investigated falsely for things like Russia collusion, Ukraine interference, his own documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago,” adding, “This is a criminal conspiracy." Per Media Matters' internal database, Solomon has appeared on Hannityat least 275 times since August 2017.

:{Video

Citation

From the July 14, 2025 edition of Fox News' Hannity

In a May 19 interview on Rumble podcast The Stephen Gardner Show, Solomon claimed, “We do know the FBI had grave suspicions that China was trying to rig the election, probably with help from people on the ground, to help Joe Biden specifically.” Then, citing documents that had been declassified at his request, Solomon suggested China manipulated the 2020 election using states' voter registration databases.

Speaking to Bannon on March 9, Solomon predicted the Trump DOJ would pursue investigations into Maricopa County, Arizona; Fulton County, Georgia; and other “blue states or blue areas of states” due to their “long history of irregularities and misconduct and quite frankly just incompetent election counting,” particularly in the 2020 and 2024 elections.

Beyond asserting disputed claims about Russiagate and election security, Solomon has also called for “accountability” against Democrats he claims wrongly prosecuted Trump and his allies:

• During an appearance on Fox News'Hannityin December, Solomon claimed released emails “show” the Biden administration pressured the FBI into conducting the raid on Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago, calling it “a potential Fourth Amendment violation of President Trump's civil liberties” that could result in “criminal charges.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [12/16/25]

• In an interview with Bannon on May 7, Solomon claimed that “the accountability machine is starting to deliver results” by indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center and James Comey, and possibly John Brennan and New York Attorney General Letitia James.Solomon said, “The people that abused and weaponized the system are finally facing some form of accountability,” adding, “This isn't retribution. It isn't going after people just because they oppose Donald Trump. It's going after people because there's significant evidence of criminality and it's gone unpunished for a long time.” Real America's Voice, *War Room*, [5/7/26]

• Following Trump's State of the Union address in February, Solomon told Bannon that “Donald Trump will have his army out in bundles in November” if the Justice Department delivers “accountability for the double jeopardy abuses of American civil liberties” as part of “a conspiracy to get Donald Trump.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [2/25/26]

• Discussing the Trump DOJ's grand conspiracy case, Solomon told Bannon, “If we don't punish the behavior that we now know exists out there in its most egregious form, the temptation to do this the next time Democrats are in power is going to be enormous. You are going to handicap the future of this country and destine it to be a banana republic because the Democrats got away with it this time.” Bannon earlier warned Solomon, “If we don't stick the landing on this — and what I mean landing, I mean some indictments, right? And some perp walks, you're going to lose 5-10% of the hardest core of the MAGA base.” Real America's Voice, *War Room*, [8/4/25]

:{Video

Citation

From the August 4, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

• Speaking with Bannon about the FBI's “Arctic Frost” investigation into the fake electors scheme to support Trump in the 2020 election, Solomon claimed, “I think some of the people who were part of Arctic Frost are going to get both congressional and grand jury subpoenas. People will be hauled before the court and forced to answer them."Solomon later added, “I think people could end up going to prison for this.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [10/30/25; CNN, 11/17/25]

• Following Comey's indictment by the Trump DOJ in September 2025, Solomon claimed, “I think other government officials are in danger of being indicted in the coming weeks,” adding, “This is the beginning of a large accountability round-up in government.”Fox News, *Hannity*, [9/25/25]

• Speaking about the grand conspiracy case last July, Solomon claimed, “Maybe for the first time there's a serious effort to investigate this and to bring accountability all the way back from ‘16 all the way through ‘24.” Solomon also said the investigation will mean anyone Trump's DOJ claims was involved in the “continuous criminal conspiracy” will be treated “like a drug cartel or an organized crime organization like the mafia.” Real America's Voice, *War Room*, [7/23/25]

• In a November 2025War Roomappearance, Solomon said, “I expect from my reporting there will be 150 subpoenas dropped between now and the end of the year” from the grand conspiracy case. Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [11/7/25]

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an 6 26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Democrats appear ready for a fight.

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

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RWW 5 26

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

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AN 5 26

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

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AN 5 26

The Texas Supreme Court rejected Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to remove Houston Rep. Gene Wu from office Friday, saying that the Legislature was able to secure House Democrats’ attendance and restore a quorum last summer without involvement from the court.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock — a Republican and former Abbott aide — cited legal precedent in which the courts “have uniformly recognized that it is not their role to resolve disputes between the other two branches that those branches can resolve for themselves.”

“The courts’ institutional ‘reluctance … to involve themselves in contests of factional political power,’ a reluctance we reiterate and reinforce today, is a check on the judicial power ‘of ancient standing,’ not an optional preference we are at liberty to discard,” Blacklock wrote.

Friday’s ruling from the all-Republican Supreme Court is a setback for Abbott, who vowed to expel any members who refused to return to Texas to pass the GOP’s new congressional map. The unusual mid-decade redistricting arose under pressure from President Donald Trump, who sought to shore up the GOP’s narrow majority in the U.S. House by having Texas lawmakers draw new districts designed to give Republicans five additional seats in Texas.

More than 50 Democrats, including Wu — the House Democratic leader — left the state in August to shut down the Legislature and stall passage of the GOP’s map.

Democrats condemned the unusual mid-decade redraw as a partisan power grab that will reduce the power of Black and Hispanic voters. The Legislature adopted the map shortly after Democrats returned, and the U.S. Supreme Court approved its usage for the midterm elections, overruling a lower court’s finding that the map was racially gerrymandered.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday left open the possibility of getting involved in any future quorum breaks, or when lawmakers purposely deny the Legislature the headcount needed to take up business.

“Whatever wrong may have been committed by the absent House members, the Texas Constitution’s internal political remedies, none of which involve the judicial branch, were sufficient to the task of restoring the House’s ability to do business,” Blacklock wrote. “Should those remedies unexpectedly prove inadequate in a future case, we might have occasion to consider whether any judicial remedy could ever be available in circumstances such as these.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice James Sullivan indicated a greater appetite for addressing future quorum breaks and potentially finding that lawmakers had vacated their offices.

“Were it to happen yet again, I believe the next set of quorumbreakers had better be ready to pay us a visit,” he wrote. “Our original jurisdiction to issue writs of quo warranto will empower us to inquire whether they’ve abandoned their legislative offices and, if we so find, to throw them out.”

Quorum breaking has a long history in Texas politics. The state’s founding fathers intentionally set the bar for quorum high, requiring two-thirds of both chambers to show up, compared to a simple majority in most states. Most recently, Democrats fled in 2003 and 2021 to delay redistricting and voting restrictions, respectively.

No Texas lawmaker has ever been removed from office solely for breaking quorum. Never in U.S. history has a governor gotten the courts to remove a member of a legislature for breaking quorum.

Wu on Friday declared victory after challenging Abbott to “come and take it” in August.

“Today, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court said: No. The Constitution does not let a governor erase voters’ choices when their choices are inconvenient to him,” Wu said in a statement. “Abbott was wrong, weak and after all his bluster he couldn’t come and take a damn thing.”

In the emergency petition he filed with the state Supreme Court in August, Abbott argued that Wu had abandoned his office by decamping to Illinois and declaring “this corrupt special session is over” — a signal that Wu and the absentee Democrats planned to stay on the lam long enough to run out the last two weeks of the overtime session, Abbott said.

“What is at stake here? Nothing less than the future of Texas,” Abbott wrote. “If a small fraction of recalcitrant lawmakers choose to run out the clock today, they can do so for any, and every, Regular or Special Session, potentially bankrupting the State in an attempt to get their way.”

In his response, Wu said he had not abandoned his office, and in fact was representing his constituents more fully by refusing to allow the House to pass legislation they opposed.

Wu “has not died and has not been expelled from the House by the constitutionally prescribed means: a 2/3 vote of the House,” his lawyers said in a response. “His presence in another state is not a voluntary resignation — as his opposition to this petition makes evident. Respondent is entitled to serve through the entire term to which he was elected.”

:{This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.

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AN 5 26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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RWW

05/13/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

• Michelle Boorstein, Laura Meckler and Natalie Allison @ The Washington Post: White House to host 9-hour prayer festival focused on Christian roots of U.S.

Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson will speak at the event, which centers on the idea that the founders wanted the U.S. to be explicitly Christian.

• Andrew Duehren and Alan Feuer @ The New York Times: Justice Dept. Officials Consider Settling Trump Suit Against I.R.S.

One of the settlement terms under review is for the I.R.S. to drop any audits of the president, his family members and businesses.

• Phil Williams @ Hate Comes To Main Street: Far-Right Grudge Match: 'Unite the Right' Organizer Sues Proud Boys Founder

Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes had suggested that Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler may have been on the payroll of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

• Anthony DeBarros and Annie Linskey @ The Wall Street Journal: The Late-Night Truth Social Storms That Offer a Window Into the President’s Mind

A WSJ analysis of thousands of posts found that the president uses the social-media platform to spread conspiracy theories and attack his adversaries.

• Jose Pagliery @ NOTUS: FBI Created ‘Payback Squad’ to Handle Political Cases, Sources Say

Investigators are eyeing cases similar to the recent criminal prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, one current government official told NOTUS.

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AN 4 26

DOJ indictments are converging with MAGA media narratives

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 04/30/26

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

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

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

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

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

James Comey

Citation

Fox News

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. David Morens

Citation

Fox News

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

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

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

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

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

The Southern Poverty Law Center

Citation

Fox News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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In recent months, there has been a noticeable uptick in MAGA defections, with President Donald Trump facing criticisms for his actions regarding Iran, the economy, the Epstein files, and the Pope not only from casual supporters, but from many of his highest-profile backers. Some have even suggested that his behavior has become so deranged that he should be removed from office via the 25^th Amendment. Trump responded by lashing out against Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones, claiming they are “NUT JOBS,” “TROUBLEMAKERS,” and “stupid people” with “Low IQs” who “think it is wonderful for Iran… to have a Nuclear Weapon.”

Then on Friday, amidst a flurry of Truth Social posts about the war with Iran, Joe Biden, and his hatred for the media, Trump took another stab at Carlson, Kelly, Owens, and Jones, disparaging their intelligence and mental health, and musing that he should make a “list” of MAGA supporters who are “good, bad, and somewhere in the middle.”

These attacks on longtime MAGA loyalists, says far-right journalist Scott Morefield, are a mistake that will cost the GOP big time in upcoming elections.

“What Trump doesn't seem to understand,” posted Morefield over a screenshot of the president’s latest screed, “is that he has lost a significant chunk, not necessarily of the MAGA base (though that is shrinking), but of the independent minded voters who swung the election in his favor in 2024.”

Morefield goes on to note that those voters — among whom he counts himself — “aren't in a cult of personality” but voted for Trump because they believed in the policies he promised. And those voters, “being independent minded and…not in a cult of personality, also tend to listen to some combination of media figures like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, Alex Jones, Joe Rogan, Tim Dillon, Theo Von, and other podcasters who have solidly turned against Trump” for breaking his promises.

“He could have never won in '24 without us,” reminds Morefield, noting that just a shift of a couple of percentage points would have resulted in a loss for Trump. “And Republicans will never win in '26 or '28 unless this voter segment and our issues… are addressed in a major way by Trump and especially the next GOP nominee.”

Morefield is far from the only conservative to express concerns about Trump’s actions and how they will impact Republican electoral chances.

As three-time Trump voter Thomas Paine noted, Trump is taking credit for opening “the same strait that was open before this whole conflict started… now we’re celebrating that it’s open again like we won some huge victory.” Paine says he supported Trump because he was “expecting America First — lower costs for working families, focus on our own borders and economy, not another Middle East mess that drives up gas prices and drains our resources.” But now “the coalition is cracking. The anti-war independents, libertarians, and working-class voters who showed up big are walking away.”

For Paine, this poses a pressing question: “Is it too late for the Republicans to win the midterms?”

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an 3 26

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

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

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an 3 26

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson is being targeted by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), CNN reported Friday.

Loudermilk is known for being the lawmaker who gave tours to Jan. 6 attackers casing the U.S. Capitol ahead of the attack. After years of allegations against him, he was appointed chair of the Republican Party's investigation into the Jan. 6 committee.

Hutchinson was the aide who said that U.S. Secret Service agents faced off against President Donald Trump, lunging at the steering wheelof the security vehicle, trying to get them to take him to the Capitol to march with his MAGA supporters. Normally, the president rides in a limousine, but on that day, he delivered a speech from the White House Ellipse and rode in an SUV.

Hutchinson also witnessed former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows burning documents in his office fireplace. At one point, he was burning so many documents that Meadows' wife noticed a smell in his clothing and said it was costing them a hefty dry cleaning bill.

Loudermilk is demanding that the Justice Department bring charges against Hutchinson for lying to Congress about these incidents. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) signed off on the demand.

It will be a catch-22 for Loudermilk, however, because a trial claiming Hutchinson lied under oath would mean that Hutchinson would have access to information and witnesses who would be forced to answer questions under oath. She could call the Secret Service agents, Meadows and even Trump himself. Thus far, there has never been a trial for Trump on Jan. 6, only an investigation by the Justice Department. While there were charges ultimately filed, they were dropped after Trump won the 2024 election.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been concerned about Loudermilk's efforts, it was reported last year. He fears that subpoenaing Hutchinson could bring to light "embarrassing information" as well as sexually explicit text messages she allegedly received when she was working in the White House during Trump's first presidency.

For years, Republicans have alleged that Hutchinson lied about her account and in her book about what she experienced on Jan. 6 and beyond. Johnson has been the one worried about the can of worms it might open.

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On Saturday, President Donald Trump authorized massive military action against Iran. On Sunday, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, put FBI counterintelligence teams on high alert for threats to the homeland, after a Texas gunman killed two Americans and wounded 14 others in an attack the Bureau is investigating as a possible act of terrorism.

Not part of any FBI investigation will be at least a dozen staffers, including agents, who reportedly were fired last week for their roles in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump’s possibly unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return dozens of classified documents and other items from the White House, which he kept at Mar-a-Lago.

“The ouster of at least a dozen staffers from a counterintelligence unit, known as CI-12, which operates out of the Washington Field Office, was ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, according to four former officials familiar with the dismissals,” The New York Sun reported on Monday in an exclusive. “The dismissals came just days before the start of Operation Epic Fury and, separately, a deadly mass shooting at a bar in Austin, Texas, by a man reportedly wearing a sweatshirt that said, ‘Property of Allah,’ beneath which was a T-shirt that was ’emblazoned with a design similar to the Iranian flag,’ CBS News reported Monday.”

The Sun reported that the CI-12 unit “focuses on media leaks, global espionage, and international threats against America emanating from countries such as Cuba and Iran, former FBI officials tell the Sun.”

“More broadly, CI squads are the lead domestic teams for investigating insider threats and foreign intelligence activity on American soil.”

The FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, which took place on August 8, 2022, came months before Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. President Trump called the raid a “travesty of justice.”

During Trump’s first term as president, CI-12 in 2020 “assisted in monitoring potential retaliatory actions by Iranian-backed actors on American soil following a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport that killed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps major general Qasem Soleimani.” Trump ordered that operation, according to former FBI officials.

Recently, Director Patel expressed outrage after learning that the FBI, under Smith’s direction, had “secretly obtained his phone records, along with those of Trump aide and current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, as part of Mr. Smith’s investigations into Mar-a-Lago as well as into January 6.”

In a statement to Reuters, Patel said: “It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records — along with those of now-White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight.”

Hours later, the FBI dismissed the dozen staffers and agents.

The Sun noted that those “fired were also believed to have been involved in efforts to obtain phone records of Mr. Patel and Ms. Wiles, according to reports.”

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an 2 26

According to New Republic sources, President Donald Trump's allies in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) were determined to move ahead with a federal prosecution of six Democrats even though they couldn't specify exactly what laws were violated. And the allegations from reporter Greg Sargent's sources are so damning, a legal blogger argues, that DOJ attorneys who pursued the case should be disbarred.

In a late 2025 video, six Democrats — who included Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) — told members of the U.S. Armed Forces that they should disobey any orders from Trump if they are blatantly illegal. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were furious, with Trump attacking the Democrats as "traitors" and saying they deserved to be "arrested and put on trial."

But a federal grand jury, on February 10, decided against an indictment. And Sargent reported that according to attorney Preet Bharara — who was representing Slotkin — Trump's DOJ allies, including prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, were unable to tell him what specific statutes were violated. Regardless, the prosecutors were determined to move ahead with an indictment.

Responding to Sargent's reporting in a February 18 post on X, legal blogger Scary Lawyer Guy argued that such "misconduct' should result in the federal prosecutors losing their right to practice law.

Scary Lawyer Guy tweeted, "Textbook prosecutorial misconduct that should result in disbarment. Walking into a GJ and attempting to obtain an indictment against sitting members of Congress WITH NO IDENTIFIED CRIMINAL STATUTE BEING VIOLATED should also be a 'gate' level scandal but no one in the press cares."

Scary Lawyer Guy isn't the only one who is criticizing the Trump DOJ's conduct.

Kristy Parker, counsel for the group Protect Democracy and a former DOJ prosecutor told Sargent, "That is irregular. Typically, when someone is the target of a criminal investigation, it's unusual to dissemble with the target's lawyer about what the charges might be that close to an indictment. It's not how federal prosecutors are supposed to conduct themselves."

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President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security is employing a "secretive legal weapon" to target and surveil Americans, according to a new report.

The Washington Post on Tuesday relaying the story of a retiree who found himself on the receiving end of it after speaking out against the deportation case against an Afghan asylum seeker.

"He had decided that the America he believed in would not make it if people like him didn’t speak up, so on a cool, rainy morning in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Jon, 67 and recently retired, marched up to his study and began to type," the Post's report detailed. "He had just read about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s case against an Afghan it was trying to deport. The immigrant, identified in The Washington Post’s Oct. 30 investigation as H, had begged federal officials to reconsider, telling them the Taliban would kill him if he was returned to Afghanistan."

The retiree told the Post that he found the story "unconscionable," and after a quick Google search, he was able to find the email address of Joseph Dernbach, the lead prosecutor in H's case, named in the original story.

“Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,” he wrote in an email. “Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.”

A little over five hours later, he received an email alert from Google notifying him that it had "received legal process from a Law Enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account," listing the process as a subpoena and the authority as DHS. Not long after that alert, "men with badges" were at his door.

This was an example of an administrative subpoena – a tool that the federal government under Trump is increasingly leaning on — as they do not require authorizations from a judge or grand jury. "Tech experts and former agency staff" told the Post that thousands of these subpoenas are issued each year, potentially tens of thousands. They are "not subject to independent review, they can take just minutes to write up and, former staff say, officials throughout the agency, even in mid-level roles, have been given the authority to approve them."

"Though the U.S. government had been accused under previous administrations of overstepping laws and guidelines that restrict the subpoenas’ use, privacy and civil rights groups say that, under President Donald Trump, Homeland Security has weaponized the tool to strangle free speech," the report explained. "For many Americans, the anonymous ICE officer, masked and armed, represents Homeland Security’s most intimidating instrument, but the agency often targets people in a far more secretive way."

“There’s no oversight ahead of time, and there’s no ramifications for having abused it after the fact,” Jennifer Granick, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the outlet. “As we are increasingly in a world where unmasking critics is important to the administration, this type of legal process is ripe for that kind of abuse.”

In a post to X, Drew Harwell, a technology reporter for the Post, decried these subpoenas as "a Kafkaesque form of domestic surveillance, intimidating Americans for lawful speech."

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1 15 26 PIRRO LTR INTERVIEW SLOTKIN // MARK KELLY

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AHA INTERESTING TO CLOTHE IN STATE MONOP OF VIOLENCE; THEY OF COURSE HAVE BROUGHT THIS ON THEMSELVES THUS JUSTICE

ducks hang 6 traitors? ALL HAVE 24/7 PROTECTION // mtg

RETWEET gw WD HANG

'They should be held accountable': Leavitt defends Trump's endorsement of hanging top Dems

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AN 1 26

Trump officials leak his plans to 'retaliate' against states if his agents are arrested

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YELLED PEDO PROTECTOR, FLIPPED OFF UAW

AN 1 26

Fundraisers for worker suspended for heckling Trump top $800K

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an 1 26

Two Colorado lawmakers say President Donald Trump is harming his own voters after appearing to veto an important clean water bill to slight a personal enemy.

“Sadly, this veto is part of a broader campaign of attacks against our state,” wrote Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) in a Thursday op-ed for MS NOW.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) previously accused Trump of blocking a non-controversial water project affecting her district after she challengedTrump to force the release of files pertaining to Trump’s old friend and convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in November.

“Trump decided to veto … a bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Why? Because nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in Southeast Colorado, many of whom enthusiastically voted for him in all three elections,” Boebert said.

Hickenlooper and Bennet said the water bill is only the latest act of vindictiveness from a vengeful president however.

“Over the past month, Trump has denied Colorado critical disaster relief after wildfires and flooding. His administration abruptly announced the dismantling of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, without any plan to continue its life-saving scientific work. His administration canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in transportation and child care grants for our state,” they said. “When a president puts political vendettas ahead of clean water for schools, hospitals and ranchers, he isn’t ‘shaking up’ Washington. He is undermining the people he swore to serve. And it’s working people and rural communities that pay the price.”

The bill, they said has “no measurable increase in federal spending,” and it passed both the Senate and the House with the support of every member of Congress.

“In a Washington defined by division, Republicans and Democrats alike agreed that this was the right thing to do — everyone except the president,” they said.

“Projects like the Arkansas Valley Conduit are “too important to fall victim to Trump’s strategic chaos,” they said. “It’s southeast Colorado today, but if we allow basic infrastructure projects to be used as a political weapon, it could be your community tomorrow.”

Read Bennet's and Hickenlooper's full MS NOW op-ed at this link.

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omg 1 26 an

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) is being "demoted" as punishment for appearing in a viral video telling military members they don't have to follow unlawful orders.

A collection of former military service and intelligence members filmed a video last year. The action has no bearing on Kelly's position in the U.S. Senate, but the Pentagon intends to put a note on Kelly's permanent record.

"Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad, but from right here at home," the lawmakers told service members. "Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal order. ... You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution."

Kelly served 25 years in the Navy and as a NASA astronaut, and achieved the rank of Captain.

According to a statement by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Kelly made "seditious statements," though the federal government doesn't intends to attempt any prosecutions for sedition. Hegseth initially said that he would court martial Kelly. However, a court martial would mean Hegseth would be forced into a military trial for Kelly, who maintains he has not broken any laws or rules with the video.

"This Censure is a necessary process step, and will be placed in Captain Kelly’s official and permanent military personnel file," Hegseth said in the statement.

"This is not a demotion of Sen. Mark Kelly (yet). But it's an effort to open the door to one. Those who sit on a grade determination board are typically service members at least one grade senior to the person under review. They are supposed to be impartial in nature," said military affairs reporterDan Lamothe from the Washington Post.

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an 12 25

Politico reports a group of Trump-aligned super PACs are working to oust Indiana Republicans who have opposed flagrant mid-decade redistricting giving Republicans a boost in preserving their House majority.

Andrew Kolvet, spokesperson for Turning Point, told POLITICO that the group would partner with other aligned PACs to dedicate an “eight-figure spend” to “primary people that are standing in the way of the president’s agenda.”

“We look at Indiana as a test case and a cautionary tale, potentially one or the other, it’s their choice,” said Kolvet. “This is a super high priority, and we’re going to be working with the local, grassroots to make sure their voices heard and their priorities are not steamrolled by an out-of-touch elected class.”

Politico reports Indiana state House Republicans released a draft congressional map earlier this week that would flip the state's congressional map from a Republican advantage of 7-to-2 to 9-to-0. But the effort has faced resistance from some of the state’s Republicans, including Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, who remains opposed to the plan.

Other opposition comes from state senator Michael Bohacek (R), who announced he would not be supporting Trump's mid-decade redistricting plan after he called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) a slur. The Republican lawmaker said on his official Facebook page that as a parent of a child with Down Syndrome, he couldn't endorse Trump's plan due to his use of the word.

Despite Republicans having a 40-10 supermajority in the chamber, it has repeatedly rejected Trump’s calls — including by recent vote to adjourn. Around the same time that was happening in mid-November.

Some Indiana Republicans are already getting threats of violence from MAGA elements angered that they are opposing the power grab, with nearly a dozen state lawmakers reporting that they have been the victims of SWAT or doxing attempts.

Read the Politico report at this link.

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IFrame Content

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Critics blasted the Pentagon’s move.

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

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

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

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

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AN 11 25

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has referred former Jack Smith prosecutor Thomas Windom to Attorney General Pam Bondifor criminal investigation, reports MSNOW.

The House Judiciary Committee has formally accused Windom, a former senior assistant special counsel to Smith, of obstructing a congressional investigation by declining to answer questions, and has referred him to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 1505.

Jordan has been actively scrutinizing Smith and his team's handling of the prosecutions against President Donald Trump, demanding testimony and documents, and referring a former aide for criminal prosecution for allegedly obstructing a congressional investigation.

"I think it's very serious in what it signals about this administration's willingness to go after people associated with Jack Smith's investigation," says MSNOW senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin.

"Tom Windom, who's the subject of today's referral, was really the public face of thefederal election interference case brought against President Trump in D.C. He was the lead prosecutor that you saw in court every day, and they're accusing him of obstructing a congressional investigation by claiming privilege and otherwise not being responsive to their questions," Rubin continues.

"The idea that he could be prosecuted for that when he is really trying to protect himself and the prerogatives of the special counsel's office is really flabbgergasting to me," she adds.

MSNOW legal analyst Catherine Christian agrees, saying, "I agree. It's part of the retribution agenda."

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// RETALIATE BC JDV? BUT ALSO // THUGSWARM

AN 11 25

Two months after the assassination of MAGA podcaster Charlie Kirk, over 600 people have been targeted by the government with firings, suspensions, investigations and other actions, Reuters reports.

Educators, they note, are the main target, noting that "more than 350 education workers were fired, suspended or investigated in the days following the assassination, including 50 academics and senior university administrators, three high school principals, two cheerleading coaches and a theology instructor."

Reuters reports that "Republican officials publicly threatened to deprive universities and schools of taxpayer funds unless specific critics of Kirk were fired."

One of those people, Lauren Vaughn, a kindergarten assistant in South Carolina, was fired from her job after posting a Kirk quote defending the Second Amendment on social media followed by the now ubiquitous liberal rallying cry for gun control, "thoughts and prayers."

According to a Reuters review of court records, public statements, local media reports and interviews with two dozen people who were fired or otherwise disciplined, Vaughn "was one of more than 600 Americans fired, suspended, placed under investigation or disciplined by employers for comments about Kirk’s September 10 assassination."

At least 15 people were punished for "allegedly invoking 'karma' or 'divine justice,'" they note, "and at least nine others were disciplined for variations on 'good riddance.'"

"Other offending posts appeared to exult in the killing or express hope that other Republican figures would be next," they add.

But others like Vaughn were disciplined for simplycriticizing Kirk's politics, they note.

"This account is the most comprehensive to date of the backlash against Kirk’s critics, tracing how senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, local Republican lawmakers and allied influencers mobilized to enforce the Trump movement’s views," Reuters explains.

"The story maps the pro-Trump machinery of retaliation now reshaping American political life, detailing its scale and tactics, ranging from shaming on social media to public pressure on employers and threats to defund institutions," they add.

While Reuters notes that "Americans sometimes lose their jobs after speaking out in heated political moments," the post-Kirk situation was different "because of its reach and its public backing from Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other top government officials."

"It represents a striking about-face for Republicans, who for years castigated the left for what they called 'cancel culture' – the ostracism or punishment of those whose views were deemed unacceptable," they add.

Vaughn is challenging her dismissal in a federal lawsuit filed September 18, seeking reinstatement, they write, but the school district maintains that her post “appeared to endorse Mr. Kirk’s murder or indicate that it was ‘worth’ him losing his life to protect Americans’ constitutional rights.”

Like Vaughn, Julie Strebe, a sheriff’s deputy in Salem, Missouri, lost her job after posting comments on Facebook about the shooting, including, “Empathy is not owed to oppressors.'

"She said her bosses were besieged with calls for her dismissal and that, at one point, a hand-drawn sign appeared across from her home reading, 'Julie Strebe Supports the Assassination of Charles Kirk,'" and has since had to install five surveillance cameras at her house to protect herself.

Reuters notes that "many Republican officials have embraced the punitive campaign," proposing "extraordinary measures," from lifetime social media bans to revoking visas over those they deem to have reveled in Kirk's death.

"Some academics compared the backlash to the 'Red Scare,' the anti-Communist purge that peaked in the 1950s, when officials, labor leaders and Hollywood figures were accused of Communist ties," Reuters notes.

Landon Storrs, a University of Iowa history professor, agrees, saying, "there are very disturbing parallels."

Even Trump loyalist Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) says it has gone too far, warning on his podcast that letting government decide “what speech we like and what we don’t” sets a dangerous precedent. Silencing voices like Jimmy Kimmel's might feel good, he said, but “when it’s used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.” BC DEMS GUBMINT EVIL SO THEY WILL USE PWR WE GIVE THEM FOR EVIL, AND WE ARE ALREADY PERSUCUTED VICTIMS OF BIG TECH WOKISM

Far right social media influencers like the X account Libs of TikTokstarted the revenge campaign almost immediately following Kirk's death, Reuters says.

"In the week after the shooting, Libs of TikTok shared the names and profiles of at least 134 people accused of celebrating violence or mocking Kirk’s memory, frequently tagging Trump administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. At times, the influencer posted disciplinary actions taken against specific government employees," they write.

The people Reuters has identified may not be accurate, they say, noting that "the tally of more than 600 people punished for criticizing Kirk is likely an undercount. Many companies and government organizations haven’t publicly disclosed terminations or suspensions."

The fallout has led to many peoples' silence, they report, saying, "The retaliation has silenced many voices. Scores of people who posted anti-Kirk comments have since scrubbed or locked their accounts, Reuters found. Others said in interviews that they are pushing back."

One of those, Kimberly Hunt, an HR worker in Arizona who was fired for her Kirk comments, is doing just that.

Hunt says she has raised more than $88,000 from a GoFundMe campaign titled, “Doxxed, Fired, but Not Silenced," saying she wants to use the money to further her education, become a content creator, and keep calling out people like Kirk.

“It’s definitely just emboldened me,” she says.

Not so for Florida Atlantic University associate professor Karen Leader, who was placed on administrative leave for her comments after a former staffer of Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) shared screenshots of her posts and tagged her employer.

“Whether my career is over or not, I don’t know,” Leader says. “But my life has changed.”

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an 11 25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Politico reporter Josh Gerstein writes that former Pam Bondi Chief of Staff and Stephen Miller ally Chad Mizelle wants Congress to declare war on judges who make decisions against President Donald Trump’s policies.

Mizelle, who announced his departure as Department of Justice chief of staff in September, urged congressional Republicans to step up campaigns to impeach federal judges who've blocked Trump policies.

“What’s going to force the Supreme Court to do something is fundamentally political pressure. It’s going to be when Congress starts impeaching judges and saying … ‘You are now encroaching into our territory,’” Mizelle said during at the Federalist Society’s annual lawyers’ meeting in Washington.

“This is a problem of leftist politics,” said Mizelle, arguing that earlier Republican administrations did not face as many decisions blocking their policies. George Bush, he said, had six injunctions against him, while Obama had 12. Trump endured 64 injunctions in his first administration compared to Biden’s 14 — and with 40 issued in the first six months of Trump’s second administration.

“Since 1963 over three quarters of injunctions were issued against Trump,” argued Mizelle, arguing that the Supreme Court has given Trump a “92 percent win rate” for petitions it filed with the Supreme Court, compared to Biden’s win rate of only 50 percent.

But Gerstein reports Mizelle “turned heads” at the conference by calling for Congress to step up efforts to impeach judges who have blocked Trump policies, and his “impeachment battle cry” followed a “cryptic story” he shared that appeared to involve an implicit threat his father once issued to put down a stray cat in the family’s yard.

“What do I think [Trump] should do? He should stand up, and he’s already done this, and say, ‘Judges, I know how to deal with stray cats,’” said Mizelle, who described his father's threat to put down the cat as indicative of having a "father from Mississippi."

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an ah 10 25

During former President Joe Biden's four years in the White House, "Real Time" host Bill Maher and "The View's" Sunny Hostin had some major disagreements on "wokeness" and "cancel culture."

Maher, who is a scathing critic of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement but also has an intense disdain for "political correctness," attacked "wokeness" and "cancel culture" as detrimental to the left and a departure from traditional liberalism. But Hostin objected to Maher using the word "woke," which originated in the African-American community, in a negative way and argued that "cancel culture" was really "consequence culture."

Following the fatal shooting of Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk, many MAGA Republicans argued that retaliation against people who criticized Kirk wasn't "cancel culture," but rather, "consequence culture" — the same term liberal Hostin had used during the Biden years.

Quite a few Trump critics, both Democrats and right-wing Never Trump conservatives, are accusing Republicans of hypocritically promoting the type of "cancel culture" they accused liberals and progressives of. But The New Republic's Liza Featherstone, in an article published on October 24, stresses that the Trump Administration's assault on free speech is much worse than the "cancel culture" that came from the left in the past.

"The New York Times reported that in seeking to punish offensive speech, Republicans were 'trying to rebrand a practice they once maligned,'" Featherstone explains. "Former President Barack Obama made a similar comparison after Jimmy Kimmel was suspended amid the Trump Administration's threats to retaliate against media outlets. 'After years of complaining about cancel culture,' Obama wrote on X, 'the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level.'"

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Featherstone continues, "Obama is right that the Trump Administration's attacks are 'new and dangerous,' but where he’s wrong — perhaps in a clumsy attempt to be evenhanded — is that they don't even belong in the same conversation as 'cancel culture.' This is organized state repression, veering crassly and thuggishly into a reign of terror."

Featherstone describes "cancel culture" of the past as "the prosecutorial and puritanical style of liberalism that became popular on the internet during the second half of the Obama Administration and intensified during Trump's first term."

"It was a bad vibe," Featherstone recalls. "Discursive mistakes — insensitive jokes, ill-conceived tweets — could attract a mob of internet denunciation. The term could be overused, at times seeming to imply that people were out of line in criticizing celebrities and other powerful people for abusive behavior. But at its worst, cancel culture undermined solidarities, encouraged the bullying of some vulnerable people, and drove others to the right. Even worse, some of its targets lost their livelihoods."

Featherstone continues, "As misguided as 'cancel culture' was, though, that’s not what Trump and his minions are up to today…. 'Cancel culture' never involved the machinery of the federal government, yet Trump's defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is banning journalists from the Pentagon who won't agree to government-imposed restrictions on their reporting, and has deemed these new rules — rejected by every legitimate news outlet — necessary to regulate a 'very disruptive' press. Speaking of the Pentagon, Hegseth is also presiding over McCarthyite investigations within the agency to root out employees who aren't fans of Charlie Kirk. Then there is the misuse of law enforcement powers to punish anti-Trump public figures."

Featherstone emphasizes that while "it's not outlandish to suggest that aspects of left 'cancel culture' contributed to what we're seeing today," Trump's war on the First Amendment is considerably more dangerous.

"Conservatives are now using the liberal term 'consequence culture' to argue that irresponsible speech should have dire consequences for offenders' lives," Featherstone warns. "But to equate Trump’s current repression with 'cancel culture' is to trivialize it. While cancel culture was intolerant and unpleasant, Trump's policies are making complaints about it seem quaint."

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RWW

10/24/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

• David Peisner @ Rolling Stone: A Company Is Building Communities for Right-Wing Christians. Some Neighbors Aren’t Happy

“Are you fed up with crime, corruption, and wokeness in your big, blue city?” says RidgeRunner CEO Josh Abbotoy. “Move here”

• Liliana Segura @ The Intercept: The Absurd Prosecution of a Man Who Posted a Charlie Kirk Meme

Larry Bushart Jr. posted trolling memes on a Facebook thread about a vigil for Kirk. He’s been in a Tennessee jail ever since.

• Liza Featherstone @ The New Republic: Trump’s Crusade Against Critics Is So Much Worse Than “Cancel Culture”

The liberal cancel culture of yesteryear is indeed regrettable. But let’s not succumb to bothsidesism.

• Kate Riga @ Talking Points Memo: Trump Isn’t Waiting for the Insurrection Act To Turn the Military on American Citizens

President Trump teases his backup plan to use the military against Americans in blue cities on a near weekly basis.

• Catherine Bouris @ The Daily Beast: Steve Bannon Reveals ‘There’s a Plan’ for Third Trump Term

Bannon divulged that there are “many different alternatives” for securing a third term for Trump.

• Dan McClellan: Is biblical slavery more compassionate?

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MMA

Right-wing media celebrate Trump’s revenge tour

Written by Isabella Corrao & Helena Hind

Research contributions from Jane Lee

Published 10/24/25

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

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

• • After Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue legal action against former FBI director James Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and New York Attorney General Letitia James — all of whom were involved in investigations against him — the DOJ charged Comey and James.“We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote in a September 20 Truth Social post, “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!" Days later, Comey was indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia and charged with making false statements and obstruction of justice. James was subsequently indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia and criminally indicted with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. Both cases are being prosecuted by Lindsey Halligan, a “close legal adviser” of Trump with no prosecutorial experience who was recently installed in the Eastern District of Virginia. NBC News, [10/10/25; BBC, 9/26/25, 10/9/25; CNN, 9/22/25]

• • The administration has revoked federal funding from universities, states that did not vote for Trump in 2024, and “more than 200 projects primarily located in Democratic-led cities, congressional districts and states.” In May, the administration froze $2 billion in federal contracts and grants to Harvard University after its president rejected some of Trump’s demands. Most recently, the administration has halted over $28 billion in federal funding “reserved for more than 200 projects primarily located in Democratic-led cities, congressional districts and states,” according to a New York Times analysis, which noted that “the budgetary moves coincide with the president’s public pledges to use the [government] shutdown to slash spending favored by Democrats.” On October 1, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought posted, “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda is being cancelled. … The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA.” Reuters, [5/30/25; New York Times, 10/14/25; Politico, 10/1/25; Twitter/X, 10/1/25]

• • As part of a crackdown on anti-ICE demonstrations, Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles and has since attempted to deploy troops to other Democrat-led cities.Similar attempts to deploy the National Guard in Chicago and Portland have been halted by federal judges. Additionally, Trump has discussed invoking the Insurrection Act to make it easier to deploy troops domestically. BBC, [9/2/25; Talking Points Memo, 10/23/25; NPR, 10/11/25; Los Angeles Times, 10/16/25; Media Matters, 10/9/25]

• ## Right-wing media justified and commended prosecutions of Trump’s political enemies

• • Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty encouraged retaliatory prosecutions: “It's time for Republicans to start doing exactly what Democrats did to them.”He added, “People don't like the word revenge. Why not? It's time for that if it's warranted.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [4/10/25]

• • Finnerty claimed there is “no ambiguity” that Trump is taking revenge on his political enemies and that “it’s time for payback.”Finnerty later added, “I don't think that payback should be a bad word.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [8/25/25; 8/25/25]

• • Right-wing media host Steve Bannon praised Trump’s post calling on Bondi to prosecute his enemies: “It has to happen now, now, now.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [9/22/25]

• • Reacting to James Comey’s indictment, Article III Project President and Fox News guest Mike Davis: “These lawfare Democrats better lawyer up, because justice is definitely coming. I have publicly called for this for over three years since the Mar-a-Lago raid.”He continued, “We had an election and the American people are going to get accountability.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/25/25]

• • Watters complained that “the media is calling Comey’s indictment revenge … like it’s a bad thing.” He added, “You better believe there’s going to be payback.”Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [9/26/25]

• • The Fiveco-hosts celebrated “payback,” “revenge, retribution” on Trump’s political enemies, including Comey.Fox News, *The Five*, [9/26/25]

• • Schmitt said on the Comey indictment, “Did anybody think that Donald Trump, a shrewd New York developer, a killer, was so angelic that he wouldn't even get even after being attacked so relentlessly?” He added, “They tried to imprison and bankrupt him as he ran for president. They started this. They destroyed the system. And this is what they get.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [9/26/25]

• • Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson celebrated that “Adam Schiff, Letitia James, James Clapper, John Brennan, and James Comey … are finally under scrutiny. The hunters have become the hunted.” Johnson also implied that Comey’s indictment didn’t go far enough: “True retribution would be James Comey dragged out of his house at 3AM in his underwear the way they did to my good friend Roger Stone. This is not retribution, but it sure is justice closing in.” Twitter/X, [9/29/25]

• • Schmitt reacted to Letitia James’ indictment: “They're calling this retribution. And sure, why not? Let's call it retribution.”Newsmax,*Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [10/10/25]

• • Fox host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery said she was “happy” to see Comey indicted.She added, “I hope they go after Clapper and I hope they go after all the other people who were working in concert with one another to throw this guy out of office.” Fox News, *The Five*, [10/8/25]

• • Gutfeld said Donald Trump is “painting the town red” and “you can call it revenge.”He continued, “They came after us. That was lawfare. They thought they had it. It was going to be great. But it’s wrong. It didn't and now you have to pay the price. Don't get mad at us, don’t get mad at us. This is justice.” Fox News,*The Five*, [10/10/25]

• ## Right-wing media defended Trump’s threats to revoke federal funding from universities, cities, and states that do not comply with the administration

• • Fox News host Sean Hannity: “Columbia, they are desperately trying to get back the $400 million in federal funds that Donald Trump froze at the start of the negotiations. In fact, Columbia received 1.3 billion taxpayer dollars in government grants and contracts last year. Harvard got nearly 700 million of your tax dollars. … Why are they getting one taxpayer penny at all?”He added, “Can we now end the practice of funding these Ivy League institutions that are woke and full of DEI and abusively biased and politically radically left?” Fox News,*Hannity*, [7/24/25]

• • The Fiveco-host Harold Ford Jr. said Trump should “yank federal funding” from cities and states that don't end cash bail.Fox News, *The Five*, [8/12/25]

• • OnThe Ingraham Angle, American Majority founder and guest Ned Ryun encouraged the Trump administration to say, “We’re not going to give federal funding to places like Harvard or Princeton or Yale … if you’re going to continue to try and do this to our next generation.”He added, “I think in many ways we're kind of funding our own demise.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [10/3/25]

• • Right-wing media host Ben Shapiro said it is “perfectly legitimate” for Trump to cut federal funding for New York City if Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wins. He continued, “Taxpayer money at the federal level very frequently comes with strings attached.” The Daily Wire, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/16/25]

• ## Right-wing media figures defended deployment of the National Guard and have discussed Trump invoking the Insurrection Act

• • Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany said, “President Trump is absolutely within his right to say, I’m protecting federal property. That's what he did in Portland in 2020; it’s what he’s doing in Chicago now.”McEnany explained, “Congress also has the power to stop an insurrection and call up the militia. They delegated part of that power to the president of the United States via the Insurrection Act. So I think the White House is going to say, we’re dealing with rebellion here in Portland.” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*, [9/29/25]

• • Former Acting ICE Director Jonathan Fahey declared, “Donald Trump is exactly right to bring in the National Guard to Oregon.”Fahey continued, “I would suggest he should do this because it's time for this nonsense to stop, and it's time to enforce the law, and people obstructing ICE and hurting the agents should get locked up, and that should be the end of it.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [9/29/25]

• • Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino said Trump would be “on pretty solid ground” to invoke the Insurrection Act “if it’s to protect the ICE facilities” from protesters.Gasparino added, “I would love to see federal troops in downtown Manhattan — I don’t care.” Fox News, *Fox News Sunday*, [9/28/25]

• • Jesse Watters said that the “National Guard is on the way to do the job Portland police won't do” and claimed that “Portland has been under siege by antifa for four months.”Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/1/25]

• • Fox News contributor Paul Mauro claimed Trump is on “very, very safe ground” to use the Insurrection Act.Mauro claimed that the Insurrection Act is “a carve-out to Posse Comitatus. You can use it to protect facilities and you can use it when federal law is being obstructed — that's the operative phrase right there. ICE is trying to enforce federal law. If they’re being obstructed, you can do this. What it means is he’s on very, very safe ground.” Fox News, *The Five*, [10/1/25]

• • The Fiveco-host Harold Ford Jr.: “I've wished that we were able to send not only the National Guard, but ATF, and FBI, and other agencies in addition to ICE to help police departments combat crime.”Fox News, *The Five*, [10/2/25]

• • Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said Trump “should invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy military assets to protect life and limb and property.”In response to a post about protests in Chicago, Fitton wrote, “This is an insurrection, and @GovPritzker is implicated.” Twitter/X, [10/4/25]

• • Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe said Trump “should look at using the Insurrection Act more liberally in cities like Chicago or in cities like Portland, Oregon.”Boothe also remarked, “Portland is a hellhole. … Homeless everywhere, it’s disgusting.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [10/5/25]

• • Right-leaning podcast host Patrick Bet-David, responding to JB Pritzker: “Your people are begging for leadership and you’re not providing it. If you were able to do the job, the President wouldn’t need to step in.”Twitter/X, [10/5/25; Media Matters, 3/14/25]

• • On Steve Bannon’sWar Roompodcast, Jack Posobiec said that “the president has Title X authority to deploy and federalize the National Guard of the states” to “suppress an insurrection or rebellion against the authority of the United States government.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [10/6/25]

• • McEnany attempted to justify the deployment of the National Guard in Portland by declaring there is “a pretty clear rebellion against" the government. McEnany cited supposed acts of violence committed against ICE agents, and she additionally argued that Trump is on “strong legal footing” because “you can federalize the Guard if there's a rebellion.” Fox News, *The Five*, [10/6/25]

• • Fox & Friendsco-host Ainsley Earhardt described footage of anti-ICE protests: “This is someone's front yard. This is what a neighborhood looks like. Do you want your neighborhood to look like that? Wouldn't you love National Guard to come in and clean up your streets if you lived like this?” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [10/6/25]

• • Benny Johnson, after going on a ride-along with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Portland, stated on Newsmax, “I hope they invoke the Insurrection Act. I hope that's something that happens here, because these people are clearly insurrecting.”Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [10/7/25]

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MMA

Jesse Watters: “The Democrat reaction to January 6 was worse than January 6”

Watters: “What they need to do is either appoint a special counsel or have some sort of Senate select committee”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 10/07/25 6:39 PM EDT

Video

Citation

From the October 7, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): The Democrat reaction to January 6 was worse than January 6. We only know this from a whistleblower. Wray buried this inside some secret vault somewhere. A whistleblower had to come bring this to our attention. Imagine what else we're about to find out.

So, they cracked into these phones. That means you know where the senator was, exactly, who was calling him, who he called, how long the phone conversation was, and that's an incredibly abusive overreach. And what they were probably trying to do is cast this wide net to create some grand criminal conspiracy and indict the entire Republican Party. And they used the guy that prosecuted war crimes in the Hague to do it.

This guy should be in prison. And what they need to do is either appoint a special counsel or have some sort of Senate select committee to go up, do hearings, put Wray, put Garland, put Smith under oath, and if they lie, you throw them in prison.

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MMA

Calls for retaliatory prosecutions are the next phase in the right’s rewriting of January 6

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/08/25

The MAGA right’s cynical effort to rewrite the history of January 6 reached a new but seemingly inevitable low this week, as right-wing media figures, the GOP, and the Trump administration teamed up to demand retribution against those who attempted to impose consequences on the perpetrators of the event.

In late 2020, President Donald Trump and his allies in the Republican Party and right-wing media attempted to overturn the results of the election that he had lost, using false claims of widespread voter fraud. That campaign’s final phase relied on Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the electoral count based on a nonsensical legal theory. When it became clear Pence would not cooperate, a mob of Trumpists — summoned to Washington, D.C., by the president who told them “we will never concede” — assaulted scores of law enforcement officers as they stormed the U.S. Capitol, sending Pence and the assembled Congress into hiding and delaying the counting of electoral votes.

This January 6 insurrection faced widespread public condemnation in its immediate aftermath. But right-wing propagandists, led by then-Fox star Tucker Carlson, went to work dismantling what turned out to be a fragile consensus. In the insidious counternarrative they created, January 6 was either righteous or something of a nothingburger, and the true scandal was the subsequent efforts to punish its perpetrators. Four years later, that version of events is the dominant one on the right, with special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over his role treated as part of a Democratic plot. And as a result, efforts to achieve accountability for the crimes of January 6 have become partisan almost by definition.

Fox News star host Jesse Watters said the day after the storming of the U.S. Capitol that “people that think it wasn't that big of a deal” were wrong. “You can't smash windows, spray police with chemical agents, assault police officers, loot, and vandalize.”

But this week, Watters declared that “the Democrat reaction to January 6 was worse than January 6.” Watters pointed to the new revelation served up by Trump law enforcement appointees that Smith had received the phone records of several Republican senators from the period around January 6 as part of his criminal investigation of the events and baselessly concluded that “what they were probably trying to do is cast this wide net to create some grand criminal conspiracy and indict the entire Republican Party.”

Watters then demanded retribution against Smith and other federal law enforcement figures involved in the January 6 investigations. “This guy should be in prison,” he said. “And what they need to do is either appoint a special counsel or have some sort of Senate select committee to go up, do hearings, put Wray, put Garland, put Smith under oath, and if they lie, you throw them in prison.”

Video

Citation

From the October 7, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

Legal reporters and experts have noted that seeking phone records of Republican officials who might have been in communication with Trump around the time of January 6 was an obvious step for the investigators, who ultimately indicted the president over what they alleged were attempts to use “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.” But that conclusion presumes that investigators should have been investigating at all, and the current position of the Trumpist right is exactly as Watters pitched it: After Trump’s return to the presidency, he pardoned January 6 perpetrators and purged law enforcement who helped prosecute them.

On Tuesday night, Fox hosts and the Republican guests they hosted pushed falsehoods about Smith’s probe in order to justify retaliatory investigations into his effort. The sequence of events is roughly analogous to the crusade by Trump, congressional Republicans, and propaganda outlets like Fox to secure investigations into special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. That resulted in years of content for Fox’s stars — but the resulting four-year probe failed to garner prison time for a single person.

Here we go again.

Jack Smith did not “spy” on Republican senators in a scandal “worse than Watergate”

Fox stars Watters, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham all used the same false characterization on Tuesday as they sought to stir up outrage about Smith’s January 6 probe.

Watters claimed that the “big story” was “that Joe Biden's FBI was spying on top Republican senators”; Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the senators whose records were included, subsequently told the host that the FBI “got wiretaps essentially” against them. Ingraham claimed the senators “were all spied on” in “an attempt at partisan surveillance.” According to Hannity, Smith had been “using the federal government to spy on several U.S. senators.”

Hannity and Ingraham also ran with with Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) absurd characterization of the report as “WORSE THAN WATERGATE”: Ingraham termed it “arguably worse than Watergate,” while Hannity claimed more definitively that the report was “worse than anything alleged against Richard Nixon during Watergate.”

These claims are baseless and absurd.

The Watergate scandal featured operatives associated with Nixon’s reelection campaign attempting to break into the offices of the Democratic National Committee on the orders of a White House official, most likely in an effort to place equipment to actively surveil the president’s partisan opposition for explicitly political purposes. This is obviously very different from legitimate investigative steps taken as part of a duly promulgated criminal investigation.

And the FBI document at the root of the claim does not say anything about active or real-time surveillance — it references only a “preliminary toll analysis on limited toll records associated with” nine members of Congress.

The records were reportedly obtained from major telephone providers responding to a subpoena Smith obtained. And according to Grassley, the record the FBI reviewed “shows when and to whom a call is made, as well as the duration and general location data of the call” but “does not include the content of the call.”

Fox uses false premises to call for criminal investigations

All three shows featured calls for further investigations into Smith’s probe.

“It's time Pam Bondi appoint a special counsel to investigate Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, and Chris Wray,” Watters declared. “At the very least, we should have a Senate special select committee hold hearings and have these goons testify under oath, and if they lie to Congress, off to prison. As they said, no one is above the law.”

Hawley, in his interview with Watters, likewise called for “a special prosecutor who's going to go at this hard,” adding, “We need hearings in public. Put these people under oath. Start with Jack Smith. Let's hear from Merrick Garland. Let's hear from Christopher Wray -- and anybody who broke the law needs to be prosecuted.”

“I think the time has come for criminal prosecutions,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) told Ingraham. “I think indictments should be coming here. We can't tolerate this and the Democrats try to act like President Trump's weaponizing. It's not what's happening.”

And on Hannity’s show, FBI Director Kash Patel declared that such probes were ongoing.

“We're just warming up,” he said. “But we are running our investigations to the ground. We are finding every single person involved. We will not leave a single room locked.”

“This is what Donald Trump was put in place to do,” he concluded. “And I'm honored to be his FBI director to lead this charge. And the men and women at the FBI, we're all in on this mission.”

That doesn’t include, of course, the FBI agents fired or reassigned because they worked January 6 cases. Because for this administration and the propagandists who support it, those who tried to get accountability for January 6 are the saga’s true villains.

//

They did it and will do it again – if no one stops them

07/22/22 11:12 AM EDT

2. ### How Fox News and the right-wing media made Jan. 6 revisionism great again

01/03/24 8:57 AM EST

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

10/07/2

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AN 10 25

Extortion — plain and simple': Trump admin ripped for $18B NYC funds freeze

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NOTE SELF DEFENSE THEY DID IT 1ST TO US

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

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

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

...

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

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

//

MMA

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

09/26/25 5:02 PM EDT

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

09/26/25 2:40 PM EDT

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

09/26/25

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CONTEXT

AH AN 9 25

Liberal Georgia-based journalist Zaid Jilani, who was raised Muslim, has a long history of criticizing the Religious Right. Jilani, back in the 1990s and 2000s, often argued that while there's nothing wrong with faith and religion, "theocracy" has no place in a constitutional democratic republic like the United States.

But in an op-ed published by the New York Times on September 26, Jilani lays out some reasons why he finds 2025's MAGA Christian nationalists much more troubling than the fundamentalist evangelicals he criticized in the past.

"As the George W. Bush years rolled on," Jilani recalls, "I joined my fellow liberal activists in watching documentaries like 'Jesus Camp,' which warned of an impending Christian theocracy. I argued vigorously for separation of church and state, and I waited on pins and needles for the end of a movement I viewed as stifling freedom of religion and freedom of expression. But I'm starting to miss the Christian conservatives I grew up with. Unlike the Christian Right of my childhood, today's variations — some of which see President Trump as a religious figure — seem incapable of being compassionate toward outgroups like mine."

Jilani recalls that after al-Qaeda's 9/11 terrorist attacks, then-President George W. Bush was careful to make a distinction between jihadist and non-jihadist Muslims. Bush described Islam as a "great religion," making it clear that he didn't blame all Muslims for 9/11.

"I think back to the days right after September 11, when Mr. Bush — the politician most closely associated with the 21st-Century Christian Right — visited a mosque in Washington, D.C., to emphasize that Muslims were just as American as anyone else," Jilani explains. "It's easy to laugh this off, given what happened afterward — he set off a bungling war on terrorism that included an unnecessary war in Iraq that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Yet Mr. Bush set the tone for the millions of devout Christians who voted for him."

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MAGA's "Christian nationalism," Jilani laments, "can be distinguished more by cruelty than kindness."

"These new Christian conservatives are represented by people like Matt Walsh, a popular right-wing Catholic commentator," the Georgia-based journalist warns. "Conservatives spent years working across the aisle on criminal justice reform. Mr. Walsh has floated the return of whipping and amputations as punishments and said that by resisting Mr. Trump's militarization of law enforcement in Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson had committed treason and should be 'given the requisite punishment for a capital offense'…. There is no issue where the current crop of Christian Right politicians departs more from the old than immigration."

Zilani, who is Pakistani-American, adds, "Christians like Mr. Bush condemned nativism. These new activists embrace it."

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Trump teases threat to defund NYC after governor’s endorsement for mayor

9 25 an

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cancel cult scalps?

hegseth hunta at DoD

an 9 25

As Republicans continue to threaten those posting negative opinions on conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk, including the Deputy Secretary of State andFlorida's Education Commissioner, social media activists have joined the campaign to hunt them down and, in some cases, get them fired from their jobs.

According to Salon, "Activists like [Libs of TikTok's] Chaya Raichik are trying to get liberals fired over insensitive remarks in the wake of Kirk's death."

Far-right activist Raichik, Salon says, has been the most active in the crusade against the critique, targeting everyone from a lecturer at Cal State University Monterrey Bay who posted on X, "“I cannot muster much sympathy, truly," to a U.S. Coast Guard employee, who captured a meme on Facebook with "“I don’t give a s--- about Charlie Kirk.”

While the lecturer, whose post asked, “What about all the kids, the many broken families from the over 258 school shootings 2020- present?” didn't seem to face any consequences beyond deleting his post, the Coast Guard said they are investigating the employee who posted the meme.

The Libs of TikTokker also targeted a former Twitter employee for posting "“As a long time fan this is incredibly disappointing," in reference to the moment of silence held for Kirk during a Yankee game.

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Raichick's efforts have led to several firings including a Middle Tennessee State University assistant dean, for posting what the university described as a "callous comment that said, "Looks like ol’ Charlie spoke his fate into existence. Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy."

The far-right social media influencer is no stranger to doxxing, the act of publicly revealing a person's private or identifying information online without their consent.

"Raichik herself complained that she had been the victim of doxxing after the Washington Postrevealed her identity in 2022," Salon explains. "She had been operating her account anonymously up to that point."

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// CONTEXT REICHSTAG BIG BALLS DC

9 25 an

After it was confirmed that far-right activist Charlie Kirk died after being shot during a Wednesday event on a college campus, and while the shooter remains at large as of Wednesday evening, MAGA activists are still blaming the political left for Kirk's death on social media — and vowing revenge.

Initial responses to the news of Kirk's death, including from President Donald Trump, were encouraging conservatives to pray for the conservative commentator and his family. However, several MAGA influencers and other public figures influential on the far right insisted that Kirk's death should be seen as a mass mobilization event.

"Left-wing violence is out of control, and it’s not random," former Arizona Republican U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters tweeted. "Either we destroy the NGO/donor patronage network that enables and foments it, or it will destroy us."

READ MORE:'Put two and two together': Conservative argues CNN told hosts to be soft on Trump-Epstein

:{:{MAGA influencer Sam Hyde called on his hundreds of thousands of X followers to watch the video of Kirk being struck by a bullet, writing "It could have been any one of us exercising the first amendment" while adding: "You all need to know what our enemies want." Conservative social media personality FischerKing tweeted: "If this isn't a wake-up call then we're never going to wake up."}:

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reposted a separate tweet from FischerKing, who said the "left-wing mainstream media" had created a "climate of hysteria against right-wing figures that could radicalize any number of unstable people to engage in political violence." Musk commented: "Exactly."}:

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"We're in a war," conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said in a video. "The left has been saying put a bullseye on Trump, put a bullseye on his supporters, they've been calling for violence ... they're going to attack."

"The Rubicon has been crossed. Not by Trump or MAGA, but by the far left," wrote far-right activist Mike Cernovich, who spawned the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory. "Randy Paul can shove his book reports up his a--. F--- everyone who played footsie with these dark demonic forces. We will not be scolded any longer."

"The attack on Charlie Kirk and free speech is evil, pure and simple. The hate, violence and evil being peddled by radical extremists has no place in this country! Schools and social media have become breeding grounds for liberal hate," the Utah Republican Party's official X account posted. "Enough!"

READ MORE:House hearing derailed after Dem calls GOP rep 'lapdog to the president' in shouting match

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AN 8 25

Former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori tells Politico that President Donald Trump is definitely abusing the Department of Justice to punish his perceived enemies. But he’s not doing it with talent.

“If you want to successfully prosecute your political opponents — on charges that are real or contrived — you should have a competent lawyer in charge,” said Khardori.

Bill Pulte, Trump’s ‘fiercely partisan’ appointee over the Federal Housing Finance Agency made possible Trump’s criminal mortgage fraud investigations into New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a successful civil fraud case against the Trump Organization. Khardori said Pulte’s fingerprints are also likely on Trump’s attack on critic Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) as well as his push to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

READ MORE: 'Very disrespectful!' Trump delivers late-night screed in response to 'bone spurs' hit

“But it is one thing for a federal official like Pulte to run around making accusations on social media, and another thing entirely for prosecutors to develop a credible and legally sound fraud case that will persuade a jury at a trial,” said Khardori, pointing to “a distinct Keystone Cops vibe” given off by Pulte as well as Ed Martin, who is overseeing both the DOJ investigations into mortgage fraud and the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group.

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Martin “has never actually prosecuted a case in his life,” said Khardori, and he recently made himself infamous over a “bizarre and frankly buffoonish” performance staking out James’ home in Brooklyn in the middle of the day as part of a New York Post photo op.

“That caper alone — political, unprofessional and self-discrediting — could doom any effort by Martin to convict James of anything before a jury, assuming he gets that far,” Khardori said.

A Washington, D.C. grand jury has already dumped the Justice Department’s attempt to prosecute a man for throwing a sandwich at a federal agent — handing U.S. attorney and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro an VID embarrassing failure,.

READ MORE: Trump drops 'atomic bomb' on DOJ: analysis

Trump’s prosecution of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over “Bridgegate is also unlikely to keep Christie up at night,” said Khardori since it happened a decade ago and has been previously prosecuted. Trump himself called the prosecution an “Obama DOJ Scam” at the time.

“These are not the makings of a compelling federal criminal case,” said Khardori.

Of course, even “a bad prosecutor can make his targets’ lives miserable,” warned Khardori, who added that this appears to be part of Trump’s effort.

“The people to worry most about are the ones whose names we do not know — the people and the government officials who may unfairly end up in the Trump administration’s crosshairs and have their lives upended for no good reason,” Khardori said.

READ MORE: 'Let me just stop you there': Wallace cuts off guest who calls for 'nuance' on Trump move

Read the full Politico report at this link.

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// SELF DEFENSE?

mma

Right-wing media celebrate Trump’s campaign of retribution against political opponents

Right-wing pundit following the FBI raid on John Bolton’s house: “Retribution? You bet it is. And it should be.”

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Torri Lonergan

Published 08/27/25

Following the FBI’s raid on former Trump national security adviser John Bolton’s home, right-wing media acknowledged criticisms that President Donald Trump is using the federal government to exact “retribution” and “revenge” against his political opponents. Now right-wing media are celebrating the lawfare they clamored for in the lead up to the 2024 election. They have called Bolton’s raid “payback time,” saying “it should be” retribution, and calling for Trump to “put them up for treason.”

• ## Trump’s FBI raided Bolton’s house following right-wing media calls for retribution

• • The FBI raided John Bolton’s home in Maryland as part of an investigation into whether Bolton illegally shared or possessed classified information.According to the New York Times, “Six cars were parked in Mr. Bolton’s driveway, at least one of them a dark-colored S.U.V. At one point three agents wearing F.B.I. jackets were seen carrying in empty document boxes, presumably to collect evidence.” The raid comes after Trump was previously investigated for his handling of classified documents, which was dropped after he won the 2024 election. The New York Times, [8/22/25; ABC, 11/26/24]

• • Once a national security adviser in the first Trump administration, Bolton has become a public critic of the president.Bolton wrote a memoir that detailed his experiences in the Trump White House and claimed, “I don't think he's fit for office. I don't think he has the competence to carry out the job.” Trump revoked Bolton’s security clearance shortly after his second term began in January. In the lead up to Trump’s second term, it was reported that Donald Trump Jr.’s goal was “to keep the John Boltons of the world outside a second Trump administration.” ABC News, [8/22/25; Axios, 4/24/24]

• • Right-wing media amped up calls for revenge and retribution in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election. In October, Trump ally Mike Davis claimed, “Retribution is a key component of justice.” In 2023, Fox host Jesse Watters claimed, “You better believe it’s open season” when Republicans regain the White House. Others called for a “reign of terror,” and for “Democrats to get a healthy dose of their own medicine.” After the election, War Room host and Trump ally Steve Bannon said, “We want retribution and we're going to get retribution.” Media Matters, [10/15/24, 6/17/24, 12/12/23, 12/16/24]

• ## Right-wing media cheer on Bolton raid: “It’s time for payback”

• • Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt reacted to the Bolton raid by claiming, “It clearly is payback time.”Schmitt continued, “People need to be punished for what they have done, because they started it. They started this. He didn't start it. They started it.” Newsmax,*Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [8/22/25]

• • Schmitt later reiterated, “It seems very obvious … this is revenge. … It is retaliation,” while a chyron read, “Trump flips the script on left’s lawfare.” Trump senior counselor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro responded, “People will say retribution. Yeah, maybe. And they deserve it. But it's more about, for me, accountability.” Newsmax,*Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [8/22/25]

• • Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty claimed there is “no ambiguity” that Trump is taking revenge on his political enemies and that “it’s time for payback.” Finnerty: “The Associated Press writing that ‘Donald Trump ran on a promise to use the powers of the government for revenge against those he believe wronged him, and now he appears to be fulfilling that campaign promise.’ Exactly. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what is happening right now. There's no ambiguity about that.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [8/25/25]

• • Finnerty later added, “I don't think that payback should be a bad word.” He continued, “Payback, retribution, call it whatever you want. An eye for an eye. Sometimes two wrongs can make a right, especially if it benefits the country and benefits our political system in the future. And I sort of think that's the direction that the White House and the Department of Justice are going here. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [8/25/25]

• • Right-wing streamer Zack Hoyt, known as Asmongold, claimed, “If you start a game and you say these are my rules and you start working that way, you shouldn't be surprised if somebody goes and does that to you,” adding, “Trump should go to try to put these people in jail.”Hoyt continued, “Put them up for treason. Do whatever the worst thing is you can do, do it. Because that's what they would have done to you. And if you don't do it to them, they will do it to you given a long enough timeline. They tried to ruin his life. Exactly. Yeah. Treason, big no no. Yeah. Always do it. Always do it. Never like, this is the way I always look at things. If somebody would do something to you, do it to them first. Immediately. Don't let them even have the chance.” YouTube, Asmongold TV, [8/23/25]

• • Fox host Greg Gutfeld said, “Some people say it's retribution. I say, who cares?” Gutfeld continued, “When you think about the constant lawfare, the gerrymandering, the Dems never expect it to happen to them. They're like home invaders who didn't expect a well-armed occupant when they showed up, and Trump is well-armed.” His co-host Jesse Watters added, “And how many people did they get, Greg? They got Stone, they got Navarro, they got Bannon. They got all the Trump family, Manafort, Carter Page. The list is long, so I believe this is probably going to be the first in many raids.” Fox News,*The Five*, [8/22/25]

• • Fox News ran a chyron that read “Bolton's learning the hard way” as host Laura Ingraham said, “After cheering on lawfare against President Trump, John Bolton is learning the hard way, perhaps, that no one is indeed above the law.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [8/22/25]

• • The First’s Jesse Kelly reacted to the Bolton raid, saying, “Retribution? You bet it is. And it should be.”Kelly added, “When you are in a war for power, and we very much are in a war for power, you had better hit back and let the enemy know that it can come right back to him.” The First, *I’m Right with Jesse Kelly*, [8/25/25]

• • Right-wing conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza claimed, “Revenge or retribution is a very important principle. It’s called Tit for Tat.” He added, “In game theory, it’s the only way to achieve a stable equilibrium. It’s also the entire basis for our legal system of punishment. There is no “principle” that says, let the bad guys get away with it.” Twitter/X, [8/24/25]

• • Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter commented, “I support retribution against our political enemies.”Schlichter also wrote, “Just a reminder that retribution is a key component of a civilized society; wrongdoing must be punished.” Twitter/X, [8/23/25, 8/22/25]

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// self defense?

August 26, 2025, edition of SiriusXM's The Megyn Kelly Show

MEGYN KELLY (HOST): If she [Lisa Cook] committed a felony and we normally wouldn't prosecute it, but the reason we're really prosecuting it is because we're done not -- we're done with the excess exercise of discretion that would have been in their favor, then that's fine by me.

I mean, we didn't prosecute Hillary Clinton. We did not go after her. We did not lock her up. We tried to take the high road. They didn't accept the olive branch. They tried to ruin Trump personally, Trump professionally, Trump's presidency, and many around him.

They're the ones who locked up Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress, Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress. We didn't try to lock up Merrick Garland when he committed it. It's time. I'm fucking done taking the high road. They have to suffer.

They have to have real skin in the game before they will accept reality, which is -- this move by them, repeated, repeated move by them is ruining our foundational basis. So until they know that on a visceral level, like the kind you get when you're looking between bars, they're not going to behave differently. So that's, I mean, in a nutshell, where I am on it.

mma

//

1. ### Media Matters weekly newsletter, August 15

08/15/25 10:44 AM EDT

2. ### Megyn Kelly: “The South Side of Chicago needs martial law for God's sake”

08/12/25 12:19 PM EDT

3. ### Rahm Emanuel rejects trans identities in appearance with Megyn Kelly: “Can a man become a woman? No.”

07/22/25

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gmail 8 25

earlier today, Donald Trump ordered his Gestapo to raid the house of neo-con war-monger John Bolton, who has openly criticized Trump’s authoritarian embrace of Putin and overall ignorant recklessness. Instead of releasing the full Epstein files, Trump’s Department of Justice gave us interview transcripts with Ghislaine Maxwell that - shockingly - absolve Trump of any alleged wrongdoing. For her part, Maxwell, who groomed and raped girls with Jeffrey Epstein, was given a new, cushy home in a minimum security camp in Texas

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SEE VOTER SUPPRESS

AN 7 25 -->

REF PPL WORLD

NEW YORK—The Trump administration and its radical right foot-soldiers in the federal government and in the states are undertaking a comprehensive scheme to undermine future state and federal elections, in effect rigging the rolls to keep themselves in power no matter what the voters decide.

So far, other than the report itself, by the Brennan Center for Law and Justice at New York University, there’s been little—or little-noticed—response.

The comprehensive scheme is detailed in a combination of a Trump executive order on March 25 and the notorious SAVE Act, a GOP voter repression law that would disenfranchise at least 21 million people, most of them women—the voters most likely to oppose the Trump-right-wing-corporate agenda.

Detailed and footnoted protests were aired by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to the GOP-run House Administration Committee and by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights—whose members include the AFL-CIO—to the GOP-run Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

And states have gone to court to try to block Trump, the Brennan Center adds.

“A president has no right to rewrite the country’s election rules or regulate federal elections on his own,” the center’s report says.

“As a federal court recently put it, ‘The Constitution vests none of these powers in the president.’ In issuing the order, the president claimed extraordinary unilateral authority to regulate federal elections and usurp the powers of Congress, the states, and the (U.S.) Elections Administration Commission, an independent, bipartisan federal agency.”

Protecting U.S. elections, at all levels, from partisan manipulation, is now and has been for more than a century, important to workers, union, and non-union.

One, as AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler often points out, is that the GOP Trump regime views organized labor as a key roadblock to its partisan and repressive agenda. And the best way to crush labor is to crush workers’ right to vote.

And, second, and just as important, restricting who can vote, and who cannot, centralizes power in the hands not just of Trump but of the corporate interests that back him and who turn a blind eye—or worse–to repression both at the workplace and at the ballot box.

After all, paraphrasing the late UAW President Walter Reuther, what is won at the bargaining table can be taken away by the stroke of a pen.

The elements in the right wing’s coordinated attempt to entrench itself in power go far beyond what Trump tried in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Trump lost it to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and knew it. But he tried to overturn the results in lawsuits and other intimidation in selected swing states—and went 0-for-62 in court cases.

When that failed, he turned to aiding and abetting the Jan. 6, 2021, Trumpite invasion, insurrection, and attempted coup d’etat at the U.S. Capitol.

But now the Trump right-wing playbook to undermine and rig coming elections is much more extensive and much more under the radar, the Brennan Center reports. It includes:

• Attempting to rewrite election rules to burden voters and usurp control of election systems.

• Targeting or threatening to target election officials and others who keep elections free and fair.

• Federal officials, at the Justice Department, had an important role in countering disinformation and combating racial discrimination. This federal protection for fair elections may no longer exist.

• Supporting people who undermine election administration by putting them on state and local elections boards.

• Retreating from the federal role of protecting voters and the election process by defunding agencies Congress established to safeguard the vote and ensuring the Federal Elections Commission, already hobbled by a years-long deadlock, remains toothless.

• Giving a “go” signal to future violence to overturn elections, by Trump’s pardons of the January 6 insurrectionists.

Leaves out one key tactic

The Brennan report leaves out one tactic of Trump, the MAGAites and the right-wing: Stacking state and local elections boards. An attempt occurred in Nevada, a swing state in 2020 and 2024. And after the four-member, evenly split Wayne County, Mich. (Detroit) elections board voted 3-1 to certify Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s margin there in 2020, Michigan MAGAites forced the Republican commissioner who voted for certification out of office.

“Why do we conclude this represents a concerted strategy? Among other things, President Trump tried to do this before,” the Brennan Center points out. “He was the first president to try to overturn the results of a presidential election and used federal power to do so.

“Institutions and key officials blocked him. These internal checks, however, are now gone, and many public officials will likely carry out the president’s will.

“This campaign to undermine elections runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution. Only Congress and the states can set election rules. The executive branch, especially the Department of Justice (DOJ), is charged with enforcing federal laws. But neither the president nor the DOJ has the authority to set rules governing elections or to supervise” state elections procedures.

Yet Trump is trying just that. And, as CREW and the Brennan Center point out, the misnamed SAVE Act, a key goal of the House’s ruling right-wing Republicans, would aid and abet that campaign. Other specifics include:

• Attempting to impose a “Show Your Papers” requirement on voters.

Trump, in a March 25 executive order, and the GOP congressional majority, in the SAVE Act, say doing so would prevent “voter fraud,” which even Trump’s last Attorney General in his first term, Bill Barr, called non-existent. But “show your papers” mandates, using a citizenship document to even register to vote, “would undermine voting and disrupt election administration in multiple respects.”

Estimates are that the mandate, the SAVE Act, or both, would disenfranchise at least 21 million voters nationwide. Most of them would be women, whose names on their initial voter registrations are different from the name they now use.

• Force the states to re-certify all their voting machines, buy new ones, or both. That would cost billions of dollars. It’s also one step removed from Trump’s demand for hand counts of all elections. The certification would be done by federally approved firms and methods, and only one has been OKd by the federal Elections Administration Commission, on July 7, 2025.

There are also bans on unauthorized access to voting machines and equipment. The result of violating them is to toss the machines—and the votes they count—out. Tina Peters, former county clerk in rural “red” Mesa County, Colo., is now serving a 9-year term in prison for allowing Trumpite election deniers access to her county’s machines after the 2020 balloting. She was convicted last year.

• Retaliation against opponents of the right-wing’s voter rigging. The targets include state and local elections officials, non-partisan groups such as the League of Women Voters, civic groups that mobilize voters “and other individuals and entities that protect elections and the rule of law,” the Brennan Center reports.

That kind of retaliation could target both unions and their get-out-the-vote drives and groups such as the Poor People’s Campaign, which registers and mobilizes poor and low-wealth people—the very voters least likely to participate, but also the most likely to oppose the Trumpite, right-wing and corporate hegemony.

Reports likely targets

The Brennan Center reports likely targets for “law enforcement” type retaliation would include individual voters, election officials, “perceived political adversaries, and journalists.” The last two groups of targets have been GOP targets before: On Richard Nixon’s enemies list. Labor leaders—AFSCME President Jerry Wurf and UAW President Leonard Woodcock—were on it, too.

Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel “stated ‘We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections–we’re going to come after you,’” the Brennan Center adds.

The Brennan Center reports three active task forces leading that retaliation: The Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group, the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office Election Integrity Task Force, and the Washington, D.C., Attorney’s Office Special Unit.

• Letting DOGE—Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency–access sensitive private and personal voter registration files, just as it did with other agencies, including the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board. And the threat isn’t only from DOGE’s misuse of the files. The Brennan Center adds that when DOGE grabbed the NLRB’s files, its security was so lax that foreign hackers immediately invaded them.

“The administration could abuse voter file access to claim fraud and erode public trust in elections,” the Brennan Center warns. “It could also pressure state officials to target groups of voters and carry out unwarranted voter purges. Any disclosure of sensitive personal information puts individuals and groups at risk of being intimidated or doxed. And mishandling voter file data could expose U.S. elections to political and foreign interference.”

• Intimidating election officials. After what happened in 2020 to the two African-American women in Georgia at the hands of Trump consigliere Rudy Giuliani—one a ballot counter, the other her mother—local elections officials are scared and defecting in droves.

“Criminal investigations and prosecutions would impose a severe personal and financial toll on election officials or nonprofit employees for simply doing their jobs to help keep elections free and fair. But beyond that, the harms that stem from targeting the officials and civil society groups that make our elections work are manifold,” the Brennan Center report says.

“Even if the administration never charges any officials, the threat alone of criminal investigation or prosecution will likely exacerbate the exodus of election officials. In 2024 33% of local election officials knew at least one colleague who resigned at least in part due to fear for their safety, of increased threats, or of intimidation; 21% stated they were unlikely to continue serving in their role for the 2026 midterms. In 2025, 59% of officials reported fear of political interference in their ability to do their jobs. And 46% were very or somewhat concerned about potential politically motivated investigations of themselves and their families.”

One solution: Sue for damages. The Brennan Center reports “federal and state law prohibit anyone, including federal officials, from intimidating voters and those, like election officials or civic engagement organizations, who assist or encourage them to vote. And though voters rarely do so, they are able to sue DOJ officials under anti-intimidation law in federal court.”

“The Constitution establishes a system of checks and balances to ensure free and fair elections. The power to regulate elections lies in the hands of states and Congress. Courts and advocates complement this system to uphold the Constitution and federal law,” the Brennan Center declares.

“U.S. election infrastructure leaves no room for the president to insert himself. Yet that is exactly what he purports to do.”

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an 8 25

New Republic reporter Timothy Noah said seven out of the ten top donors to the presidential race last year gave to Trump — and now their favored president is turning on them

“… The White House keep[ing] scorecards measuring the loyalty of 553 corporations to President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful reconciliation bill demonstrates that the relationship between private wealth and this presidential administration isn’t as happy as you might think,” said Noah.

Trump is certainly making corporations happy by “chucking health care for the poor so it can cut taxes for the rich,” said Noah, and he’s also “dismantling regulatory agencies created to check corporate power.” Trump lowering taxes and deregulation “are what oligarchs desire more than anything else,” Noah adds, which is why “people like Elon Musk, Timothy Mellon, and Miriam Adelson supported Trump in 2024.”

READ MORE: 'Complete 180' and 'hot mic moment': Brutal CNN supercut reveals how Trump got played by Putin

However, “Trump’s pathological attachment to high tariffs, his never-ending threats to destabilize the Federal Reserve, and, increasingly, his demands that corporations bend the knee are all more than these plutocrats likely bargained for,” Noah said.

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Even as Trump dismantles regulatory agencies legitimately created by Congress, he is introducing a new, “more chaotic regulatory regime dictated by his own whims,” said Noah. “Trump appears intent on ripping up business regulations" and “replacing them with himself.”

Consider the president allowing chip-maker Nvidia to sell AI chips to China. Trump had previously blocked those sales on national security grounds, but Noah said Trump changed his mind and allowed sales, providing Nvidia turned over 15 percent of the resultant revenues to the United States Treasury.

The Constitution does not grant a president the right to demand Invidia surrender a portion of its revenues from Chinese sales to the U.S. Treasury, said Noah, “Nor does the Constitution encourage a president to tell Goldman Sachs to fire its chief economistor Intel to fire its chief executive."

READ MORE: buckle up: Former Trump attorney Alina Habba may be in office for awhile

And then there’s the issue of Trump approving the merger of Nippon and U.S. Steel — provided the federal government retain a “golden share” that allows it to veto certain future actions affecting workers. Language in that agreement refers unnecessarily to Trump by name,which strikes Noah as “unsettlingly authoritarian.”

And now comes the news that Trump has loyalty “scorecards” on corporations that rank their support as “strong, moderate, or low” based on whether and how they supported passage of the Big Beautiful Bill through “social media posts, press releases, video testimonials, ads, [or] attendance at White House events.” The most obedient companies, said Noah, appear to be AT&T, Airlines for America, Cisco, Delta, DoorDash, the Steel Manufacturers Association, Uber and United.

“[I]f history is any guide, businesses don’t fight fascist corporatism; they just grope their way toward accommodating it,” writes Noah. “That’s certainly what we’re seeing thus far. Even when Trump bullies American oligarchs, they can’t see their way to judging him anything other than their guy.”

Read the full New Republic report at this link.

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JACK SMITH? 8 25 MUELLER AND DEMS BARR LINDSAY GRAHAM AJ

an 8 25

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.

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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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an 8 25

"Ken Paxton asks judge to jail Beto O’Rourke for fundraising Texas Dems' walkout" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

*Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

*Editor's note: This story contains profanity.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday asked a Tarrant County judgeto jail former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, in another escalation in Republicans’ broader effort to put an end to Texas Democrats’ walkout over a new congressional map.

Paxton sued O’Rourke and his political group, Powered by People, last week, arguing that the group was deceptively fundraising for and illegally supporting Texas Democrats’ walkout. Tarrant County District Judge Megan Fahey quickly granted Paxton’s request to temporarily block O’Rourke and Powered by People from fundraising for Democrats or spending money to cover their expenses.

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On Tuesday, Paxton claimed that O’Rourke had violated that temporary injunction at a Fort Worth rally Saturday, when he told the crowd, “There are no refs in this game, f—— the rules.”

According to a video of the event, O’Rourke appeared to say that phrase after urging the crowd to support retaliatory redistricting in other blue states — not in relation to the injunction.

Paxton’s motion also cited social media posts by O’Rourke after the injunction came down, in which the Democrat said he was “still raising and rallying to stop the steal of 5 congressional seats in Texas,” and included a donation link.

The attorney general said O’Rourke “repeatedly solicited donations” at the Fort Worth rally by urging the crowd to text “FIGHT” to a number that would automatically respond with a link to a donation platform.

Paxton’s motion asks the judge to imprison O’Rourke for the duration of the lawsuit, and to fine the Democrat $500 for each violation of the injunction.

Paxton’s lawsuit against O’Rourke and his group is part of an aggressive effort by Republican state leaders to break the impasse caused by Democrats’ exodus. Gov. Greg Abbott and Paxton have asked the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court to expel House Democrats, and Paxton, along with House Speaker Dustin Burrows, are turning to GOP-friendly Illinois courts to try to extradite the lawmakers taking refuge there.

Democrats left the state en masse last week, leaving the House without the minimum number of members to conduct business, to stall adoption of a new congressional map designed to give the GOP five additional seats in the U.S. House in next year’s midterm election.

Powered by People has been a top funder covering the costs of Democrats’ decampment, the expenses for which are mounting quickly. Democrats are on the hook for lodging, meals, travel and the $500-per-day fines accrued each day of the session they miss. They will also be responsible for thousands of dollars spent trying to compel their attendance, Burrows said Tuesday. He previously said they would not be able to receive their paycheck except in person, and that their office budgets would be slashed until they return.

O’Rourke filed his own lawsuit against Paxton Friday in El Paso district court, alleging that the attorney general was engaging in a “fishing expedition, constitutional rights be damned,” and asking the judge to block Paxton’s investigation into the organization’s practices.

“Paxton is trying to shut down Powered by People, one of the largest voter registration organizations in the country, because our volunteers fight for voting rights and free elections, the kind of work that threatens the hold that Paxton, [President Donald] Trump and Abbott have on power in Texas,” O’Rourke said in a statement responding to Friday’s injunction.

A spokesperson for O’Rourke did not immediately return a request for comment.

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There are nearly 25 million naturalized citizens in the United States, accounting for 7% of the total population. Each and every one of them should be laser-focused on the Trump administration’s plans to denaturalize and deport as many of them as possible.

*This story originally appeared at Truthdig.

Denaturalization is the process by which the federal government revokes the citizenship of persons born outside of the country who became citizens by meeting the standards set by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which include swearing an oath of allegiance to the United States, and demonstrating “good moral character.”

Although denaturalization rates have declined over the past several decades, there is ample historical precedent for the revival President Donald Trump is planning. Between 1906 and 1967 — when the Supreme Court stepped in to tighten the legal requirements — more than 22,000 Americans were denaturalized. Many were left-wing activists who were singled out during the two Red Scares of the 20^th century. A common method to denaturalize them was to accuse them of fraud in taking their oaths of allegiance. In 1919, in perhaps the most famous case of all, the government deported Emma Goldman to Russia under the Anarchist Exclusion Act after revoking her naturalized citizenship. In the 1950s, the government tried but failed to denaturalize labor leader Harry Bridges.

On June 11, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote a memorandum that lists denaturalization as one of the Department of Justice’s top legal objectives to further Trump’s political goals. The memo was directed to the DOJ’s Civil Division, the department’s largest litigating component, which represents the United States and its executive agencies, members of Congress, cabinet officers and other federal employees in thousands of legal matters each year. It instructed the division’s attorneys to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence,” focusing on 10 broad categories of enforcement actions:

1. Cases against individuals who pose a potential danger to national security, including those with a nexus to terrorism, espionage, or the unlawful export from the United States of sensitive goods, technology, or information raising national security concerns;*

3. Cases against individuals who engaged in torture, war crimes, or other human rights violations;
4. Cases against individuals who further or furthered the unlawful enterprise of criminal gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and drug cartels;
5. Cases against individuals who committed felonies that were not disclosed during the naturalization process;
6. Cases against individuals who committed human trafficking, sex offenses, or violent crimes;

8. Cases against individuals who engaged in various forms of financial fraud against the United States (including Paycheck Protection Program [“PPP”] loan fraud and Medicaid/Medicare fraud);

10. Cases against individuals who engaged in fraud against private individuals, funds, or corporations;

12. Cases against individuals who acquired naturalization through government corruption, fraud, or material misrepresentations, not otherwise addressed by another priority category;

14. Cases referred by a United States Attorney’s Office or in connection with pending criminal charges, if those charges do not fit within one of the other priorities; and

16. Any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue.

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The first nine categories are generally consistent with the government’s existing powers, reflecting Trump’s penchant for exploiting the loopholes and weak links in current law whenever feasible. The 10th category, however, is a wildcard that could expand those powers exponentially and lead to a Red Scare encore.

And as dark and dangerous as that possibility sounds, it may be perfectly legal.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to establish a “uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Pursuant to this authority, Congress passed the first naturalization act in 1790, and ratified additional acts well into the late 19^th century. But it was not until the passage of the Naturalization Act of 1906 that Congress federalized naturalization procedures.

The act incorporated earlier race-based legislation that limited naturalization to white people and those with African origins. It also created the Bureau of Immigration Services, the precursor of the present-day U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, which promulgated uniform application forms, and began the process of moving naturalization jurisdiction to the federal courts. (Prior to 1906, immigrants were able to apply for citizenship before any court of record, including state and municipal courts. In 1990, Congress shifted jurisdiction from the federal courts to the executive branch, where it remains to this day, although naturalization ceremonies are still conducted by federal district court judges.)

The Naturalization Act of 1906 was also the first federal law that provided for denaturalization, centered on individuals who had obtained citizenship by fraud, were racially ineligible and lacked “good moral character.” The act was amended on several occasions, most notably in 1952 by the McCarthy-era McCarran-Walter Act, which added provisions for denaturalization based on activities deemed subversive or connected to communist or communist-front organizations.

Today’s denaturalization procedures are set forth in two sections of Title 8 of the U.S. Code. Section 1451 authorizes the Department of Justice to institute civil proceedings, alleging that citizenship was “illegally procured” or obtained “by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” The section also mandates denaturalization for individuals who refuse to testify before a congressional committee concerning their alleged subversive activities in cases where they have been convicted of contempt for such refusals.

Section 1425 of Title 8 authorizes criminal prosecutions, making it a felony punishable by 25 years in prison to knowingly procure, “contrary to law, the naturalization of any person.” A conviction results in automatic denaturalization.

Once denaturalized under either section, a person returns to their immigration status before becoming a citizen, rendering them vulnerable to deportation.

It’s easy to see why Trump and his advisers have opted to emphasize civil denaturalization proceedings over criminal prosecutions. In civil cases, there is no right to a jury trial or court appointed counsel, and there is no statute of limitations. The standard of proof is also lower. According to the Supreme Court’s precedent decisions, to prevail, the government must present “clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence” that the targeted individual obtained citizenship illegally or willfully misrepresented a material fact during the naturalization process. That is a rigorous test, but one far lower than the “beyond a reasonable” doubt standard for criminal prosecutions.

The first Trump administration attempted to make denaturalization a priority, launching an initiative dubbed “Second Look,” which built upon a similar Obama administration program called “Operation Janus” to identify alleged terrorists and fraudsters who had naturalized. In the end, however, Trump 1.0 filed a mere 102 denaturalization cases, amounting to an annual rate higher than the 16 cases per year filed under Obama, and eclipsing the total of 24 cases filed under Biden, but still miniscule. This time around, Trump 2.0 is pledging to bring the resources of the entire DOJ civil division behind the effort, reviving the specter of mass denaturalization.

The Shumate memo had largely flown under the media’s radar until Trump started talking in early July about deporting former best bro Elon Musk and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and stripping comedian and longtime celebrity nemesis Rosie O’Donnell of her citizenship.

O’Donnell, who is seeking dual citizenship in Ireland, appears safe from Trump’s clutches as she was born in Commack, New York, and enjoys birthright citizenship under the 14^th Amendment. Even Trump’s January executive order attacking birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants would leave her unscathed.

Musk and Mamdani are another story, as both are naturalized citizens. Musk, born in South Africa, naturalized in 2002. Mamdani, born in Uganda to Indian parents, naturalized in 1998. Musk allegedly worked illegally in the U.S. in violation of his student visa after leaving Stanford University in 1995. Mamdani has been accused of posting comments on X quoting rap lyrics suggesting support for Hamas.

Even if Trump’s threats against O’Donnell, Musk and Mamdani are basically performative, thousands of less affluent naturalized citizens will likely be caught up in the coming denaturalization dragnet. Millions more who are not targeted will be intimidated from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and full political engagement. The net result will be a society less diverse and less free for the vast majority, exactly what Donald Trump and his cohorts want.

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// context?

NOTE LEGACY MEDIA CNN NBC ~ OBAMA TRAITOR BS

As Trump struggles to deflect from reporting on his Epstein ties, MAGA media set their sights on the press

It’s getting really bad out there

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 07/23/25 MMA

Six months into Donald Trump’s second presidency, an unhinged MAGA media is infested with calls for the arrest of former President Barack Obama — and one prominent right-wing commentator is even floating legal consequences for journalists who debunk their twisted rationale.

On July 18, amid a Trump administration effort to stave off a MAGA revolt over its handling of disclosures related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released documents she claimed proved the existence of “a treasonous conspiracy” by the Obama administration following the 2016 election against Trump, claiming she had asked the Justice Department to investigate further. The president piled on in remarks to the press on July 22, claiming that “we caught Barack Hussein Obama” and accusing him of “treason.”

This argument is based on either malice or stupidity. Gabbard is conflating the findings of a December 2016 document showing that the intelligence community did not assess that the Russian government had hacked election systems and changed vote totals to benefit Trump with those of a January 2017 assessment that the Russian government had sought to influence the campaign to benefit Trump by, among other things, hacking Democratic email servers and releasing the contents.

Based on that faulty premise, Gabbard accused Obama and his advisers of subverting the intelligence community for political aims. But the December 2016 assessment is consistent with what the Obama administration was saying publicly at the time, while the findings of the January 2017 assessment were reiterated in Trump administration reports by the Justice Department as well as a Senate committee helmed at the time by current Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Indeed, that committee reviewed the January 2017 intelligence community analysis and concluded it was an “impressive accomplishment” that “reflects proper analytic tradecraft” and “provides a proper representation of the intelligence” and that the analysts who produced it faced “no politically motivated pressure.”

Members of the right-wing media ecosystem, with few exceptions, do not care about these facts, and they are using incredibly demagogic language to rile up their audiences as they call for political retribution.

Benny Johnson is floating a “military tribunal” for Obama; Mike Davis says the former president should “lawyer up”; Charlie Kirk wants “perp walks”; Liz Wheeler is demanding that the charges be not “perjury” but “treason”; Jesse Watters is asking a U.S. senator whether Obama should “go to prison.” They have apparently learned nothing from overpromising on Epstein only for the Trump administration to under-deliver when the facts couldn’t match the MAGA narrative.

Indeed, according to Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist and a Fox contributor, even typing the preceding paragraphs casting doubt on the validity of Gabbard’s argument should expose me to legal exposure. In a July 22 thread, she described Gabbard’s “revelations” as “the biggest scandal in our history” and condemned media outlets for “ignoring” and “downplaying” it.

“Every time the Washington Post, CNN, the New York Times, Margaret Brennan, The Atlantic, etc., lie and say this story is not a big deal, they are perpetuating their seditious conspiracy,” she added. “Creative minds should think about what legal exposure they have for their role in this.”

Hemingway went on to describe those outlets and journalists as “co-conspirators” in the alleged plot. She did not identify the legal consequences she believes they should face. Nor is it clear what this legal argument would mean for conservatives like her Fox colleague Andrew McCarthy or Eli Lake, who criticized Gabbard’s conclusions, or the right-wing outlets which published their assessments, Rich Lowry’s National Review and Bari Weiss’ The Free Press.

It should go without saying that the idea of “creative minds” dreaming up ways to punish journalists for producing reporting which contradicts the views of the president, his administration, and its propagandists is an affront to the First Amendment and basic principles of free speech and a free press.

Unfortunately, right-wing dreams of frog-marching journalists may not be far-fetched

We warned in December, after Trump campaigned on threats to jail reporters and pull the licenses of critical news outlets and won, that a coalition of elite right-wing figures were “using wealth, lawfare, and government power to silence the press and carry out their political agenda unimpeded.” And the last six months have demonstrated the president’s determination to use his power to bend the press to his will.

Trump has sought to put financial pressure on news outlets in order to chill speech critical of him. He filed lawsuits that experts found frivolous over reporting he disliked from ABC News and CBS News, then successfully leveraged the threat or use of corrupt regulatory actions to secure eight-figure settlements. He is currently pursuing similar lawsuits against the Pulitzer Prize Board, The Des Moines Register, and the corporate parents of The Wall Street Journal. The president has threatened additional lawsuits against The New York Times and CNN and called for the firings of their reporters.

Corporate owners of media outlets appear to be buckling to this pressure. “Executives at major media outlets are reportedly instructing their newsrooms to temper their coverage of President Trump and his administration amid growing fears of political retribution,” Axios reported in May. Indeed, Trump has gloated to reporters about the effectiveness of his strategy.

Beyond personal lawsuits, Trump has floated federal criminal investigations into news outlets over their reporting. That is no idle threat given his pattern of launching Justice Department probes into his political enemies via executive order and given the reality that the top ranks of federal law enforcement are stocked with people who are comfortable functioning as an extension of his personal desires.

Indeed, federal law enforcement officials appear more than willing to participate in Trump’s assault on the free press. His attorney general terminated rules which restricted prosecutors from seeking records and testimony from journalists as part of leak investigations. Several noncitizens have faced detention by the Department of Homeland Security over their public writing. And a former lawyer for January 6 defendants is running a DOJ “Weaponization Working Group” whose purpose appears to be weaponizing the government against Trump’s foes.

Trump’s diverse right-wing coalition and the fractured media ecosystem he unified during his campaign may be breaking apart over his handling of the Epstein case. But he seems to recognize that one thing that brings them together is their shared hatred of Democrats like Obama and the free press, and he’s been acting accordingly. And that means that just an eighth of the way through his second presidency, we’re already in very dangerous territory.

//

Trump’s latest attempt to defuse the Epstein revolt: Point supporters at common enemies

07/21/25 2:38 PM EDT

2. ### Misinformer of the Year: Anti-media intimidation

12/23/24 9:59 AM EST

3. ### Freedom of the press is about more than access

05/28/25

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AN 7? 25

'Banning people for speech': US State Dept. revokes English punk duo’s visa after Glastonbury chant

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AN 7 25

President Donald Trump has openly declared war on Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has been a consistent thorn in his side throughout his second term. Now, the billionaires funding Trump's primary campaign against Massie are being unmasked.

In a Thursday report for Politico, journalist Jessica Piper identified the three Republican megadonors behind the effort to oust Massie out of his northern Kentucky congressional district. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer (known for taking Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on a luxury fishing trip) has so far contributed $1 million to the MAGA KY Political Action Committee (PAC), making him the leading funder of the anti-Massie effort.

In addition to Singer, hedge fund manager John Paulson has ponied up $250,000 to MAGA KY. And a super PAC tied to Miriam Adelson — the widow of Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson — has so far donated $750,000 to the effort. Singer, Paulson and Adelson have net worths of $6.2 billion, $3.8 billion and $33.5 billion, respectively.

READ MORE:'You're paying that!' Michael Steele says Trump 'taking money out of Americans' pockets'

The $2 million from Singer, Paulson and Adelson has so far more than paid for the $1.2 million that MAGA KY has spent so far on the 2026 race in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District, which Massie has represented since 2012. But the Kentucky Republican has a sizable war chest of his own, with Politico reporting that he ended June with $1.7 million in his campaign account.

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Trump singled out Massie after the six-term lawmaker joined all Democrats in voting against his "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" this summer. While Democrats opposed the legislation over its $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and more than $100 billion in cuts to food stamps, Massie railed against the bill for its gargantuan deficit spending — most of which went toward extending Trump's tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.

Even though Trump has significant financial resources at his disposal to deploy against Massie, the Kentuckian is not likely to be an easy opponent for the president. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called himself a "big supporter" of Massie, and said he would be campaigning with him across the Bluegrass State in 10 different cities across Massie's district. And anti-Massie Republicans have yet to coalesce around a single challenger. According to Ballotpedia, the only Republican who has formally declared her candidacy in the district is Nicole Lee Ethington, who is a registered nurse with no prior experience in elected office.

"They are wasting millions of dollars against me, and they are gonna lose the [House] majority because of that," Massie told NBC earlier this month.

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an 7 25 ah

During his first presidency, Donald Trump angrily clashed with some of his own appointees to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — including two U.S. attorneys general: Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr. And he ended up hating Christopher A. Wray, the conservative Republican he chose to replace James Comey as FBI director.

The fact that Wray enjoyed strong bipartisan support and remained as FBI director under former President Joe Biden intensified Trump's disdain for him. And when he nominated far-right conspiracy theorist Kash Patel for that position, Trump sent out a loud message that he wanted ultra-MAGA loyalists running the FBI.

In an article published on July 29, attorney/legal expert Quinta Jurecic warns that six months into Trump's second presidency, the FBI is in total disarray.

READ MORE:Donald Trump is the most dangerous criminal in US history

Jurecic points to the resignation of former FBI special agent Michael Feinberg as a prime example of the agency's dysfunction: Feinberg, according to Jurecic, was under pressure merely for being friends with a former agent who was critical of Trump. Feinberg, like Wray, resigned before Trump had a chance to fire him.

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"The FBI has long seen itself as an organization built on expertise," Jurecic explains. "Its founder, J. Edgar Hoover, was an early and devoted advocate of professionalizing the government bureaucracy, to the point of mandating that agents wear a dark suit and striped tie. Now, however, the bureau is in the early stages of something like a radical deprofessionalization. The most important quality for an FBI official to have now appears to be not competence but loyalty. The exiling of Feinberg and others like him is an effort to engineer and accelerate this transformation."

Jurecic continues, "Feinberg’s boss, Special Agent in Charge Dominique Evans, didn't allege any misconduct on his part, Feinberg told me. Rather, as Feinberg set out in his resignation letter…. Evans explained that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino had found out that Feinberg had maintained a friendship with the former counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, a longtime target of Trump's ire."

Feinberg, Jurecic notes, is lamenting the "decay" of the FBI.

READ MORE:'All power to Trump': 'Worst modern chief justice' John Roberts bashed in scathing editorial

"An FBI without constraint or apolitical oversight is exactly what Trump wants, and what Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel seem to be working toward," the attorney warns. "Trump launched his 2024 campaign by declaring to his supporters, 'I am your retribution,' and in their previous lives as MAGA influencers, both Patel and Bongino voiced support for locking up the president's opponents. Citing 'Justice Department sources,' Fox News recently reported that the FBI has opened a criminal investigation into former intelligence chiefs who led the government's assessment of Russian election interference in 2016."

Jurecic continues, "In the first Trump Administration, such a blatant use of the FBI for political ends would have been an unthinkable breach of law-enforcement independence. But the FBI's new leadership has been pushing out many of those who might object. So many people have been driven away, in fact, that after his departure, Feinberg found himself adopted by what he calls an 'exile community' of former Justice Department and FBI officials working to help one another adjust to post-government life."

During his interview with Jurecic, the conservative Feinberg — who was active in the Federalist Society in the past — was highly critical of Trump's politicization of the FBI as well as the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with the FBI's help, is handling deportations. And thinks that wearing masks is a bad idea for ICE agents.

Feinberg told Jurecic, "I was absolutely furious. We live in a democracy. We are an organization that serves the public. We do not hide from our actions."

READ MORE:Trump and MAGA headed for inevitable death spiral

*Quinta Jurecic's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

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AN 7 25

Atlantic writer Shane Harris reports President Donald Trump has removed dog owner James Clapper, 84, from the graduation ceremony for his bomb-sniffing dog, "Susan."

Clapper, who had sponsored Susan through a nonprofit organization that helps place service dogs, was thrilled when Susan completed a CIA training program designed to save lives. But Clapper, who was the former director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration, could not attend the ceremony.

“The day before the event, in late May, he received an email from the nonprofit dog-training group: Clapper’s name had been scratched from the guest list, per an executive order from the president of the United States,” writes Harris.

READ MORE: This jaw-dropping truth about the Supreme Court will make you furious

Harris said Trump accuses Clapper and other members of the “deep state” of concocting the “Russian hoax” story against him. Plus, Clapper has bemoaned Trump’s lack of class on cable-news appearances over the past five years.

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“After Trump returned to the White House, payback for Clapper was swift and personal,” said Harris. “Via executive order, Trump stripped his security clearance along with those of more than four dozen other former intelligence officials.”

The CIA declined to respond to questions, but Harris said CIA officials interpreted Trump’s executive order to mean Clapper should be barred from setting foot on agency property. The agency conveyed that message to the nonprofit, which had invited Clapper to attend the ceremony, according to a nonprofit representative.

“The upshot is that an octogenarian Air Force retiree who spent half a century in his nation’s service was not allowed to attend a party for a dog he essentially donated to the government and named after his dead wife,” said Harris. “… This was not a classified event. Attendees didn’t need a security clearance. There are photos from the ceremony on Facebook, showing happy people proudly posing with happy service dogs. One presumes that graduates were showered with scritches, kisses, and lots of treats, and not given the nuclear codes.”

READ MORE:'People are going to be shocked': Backlash predicted for GOP as disaster looms

This is a story, said Harris, that might seem trivial, but “it illustrates how powerfully this administration seeks retribution.”

Read the full Atlantic report at this link.

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threat to arrest aGAIN : “ALL OPTIONS ON TABLE”

7 25 trump hegs deploy nat gd usmc in LA

7.8/25 APC horse battle rattle griffin pk? kids summer camp

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no lnx

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass Laments ICE Raid in Park Known for Fentanyl Abuse

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Los Angeles, CA - July 01:Mayor Karen Bass responds to the Trump administration's lawsuitSarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty

Paul Bois8 Jul 202570

2:20

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass lamented the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in a park notorious for fentanyl and drug abuse.

As Breitbart News reported, protesters clashed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as well as the military in Los Angeles on Monday.

The protesters were seen confronting Border Patrol agents patrolling the park on horseback while being accompanied by military personnel — a likely protection against potential acts of violence on federal agents. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass condemned the presence of federal agents and military personnel in the park.

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“It is outrageous and un-American that we have federal armed vehicles in our parks when nothing is going on in the parks,” she lamented in a press conference. “It’s outrageous and un-American that the federal government seized our state’s national guard.”

In a post on X, Bass also claimed children had been at play in the park when agents came to the scene.

“I met some of the children who had to leave the park today because of a military-style operation designed to strike fear in the heart of our city today. We will not be afraid and we will not be divided. We will stand TOGETHER,” she said.

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Despite the mayor’s claims about MacArthur Park being an innocent haven that had no need for federal intervention, local reports have routinely characterized the famous park as being a den of drugs, homeless encampments, and crime. Recently, the situation became so untenable that beloved historic businesses threatened to flee if the city continued to avoid the problem.

People on social media were quick to correct the mayor characterizing the park as an innocent place for children to enjoy.

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Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and can be viewed for FREE on YouTube, Tubi, or Fawesome TV. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow him on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.

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AN 7 25

Back in 1992 — eight years before he first ran for president and 24 years before he finally won a presidential race — Donald Trump discussed his obsession with "revenge" during an. Trump made it clear that he would gladly take revenge against business associates who were disloyal to him, telling Rose, "I would have wiped the floor with the guys that weren't loyal, which I will now do…. I love getting even with people."

MSNBC's Katy Tur dug up that old 1992 interview during a, stressing that those comments from a younger Trump made 33 years ago perfectly capture the vengeful mentality he brings to his second administration. And Tur got no argument from her two guests: The New Yorker's Susan B. Glasser and The Atlantic's Tom Nichols, a Never Trump conservative.

Nichols told Tur and Glasser, "Look, the president's an emotionally disordered person. That's been clear for a long time. It was clear in his first term…. When he says things like, you know, 'I live for revenge,' you know he's telling you the truth. Take him seriously…. In his first term, he had the so-called adults in the room. This time, he's brought with him people who also are kind of oddball, disordered folks…. who don't have any interest in the actual mission of the institutions they are leading."

READ MORE: Trump's goal isn’t to restore American greatness — it's much more sinister

Nichols lamented that Trump's appointees — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — "don't see themselves as leading institutions" that "perform missions for the people of the United States."

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"They see themselves as part of a team of lib-owning trolls who are going to infuriate the president's enemies, and they, too, are going to get their ounce of revenge for the people who thought, who said they were unqualified or who snickered at them," Nichols told Tur and Glasser. "I mean, (FBI Director) Kash Patel is basically trying to figure out who's laughing at him at the water coolers at the FBI….. These are really petty, small people who don't seem to have any interest in doing the job that the Senate, for whatever reason, confirmed them to do….. That attitude flows from the top."

Nichols argued that Trump's obsession with loyalty recalls the Soviet Union.

"This isn't McCarthyism," Nichols told Tur and Glasser. "This is like KGB kind of level stuff. This is the-death-of-Stalin stuff where, you know, you have expected one of these people to run down the hallway saying, 'I have documents on all of you.' Because it's all about personal loyalty. And it does raise the question, well, while all this is going on, who's catching spies, who's chasing kidnappers?"

READ MORE:'It's a flat out lie': Former wrestlers say Jim Jordan knew about abuse in new HBO documentary

Glasser warned that the U.S. is suffering chaos "across many different federal agencies."

"Trump and his advisers have advanced a maximalist view of executive power," Glasser told Tur and Nichols.

READ MORE:'It didn’t end on friendly terms': FBI leader 'seriously thinking about resigning' after White House spat

*Watch the full video below or at this link.

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07/16/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

• Peter Baker @ The New York Times: For Trump, Domestic Adversaries Are Not Just Wrong, They Are ‘Evil’

The president’s vilification of political opponents and journalists seeds the ground for threats of prosecution, imprisonment and deportation unlike any modern president has made.

• Josh Kovensky @ Talking Points Memo: Fire, Brimstone, and Hegseth: Idaho Christian Nationalists Establish a DC Beachhead

They're bringing an aggressive, very MAGA brand of Christian government to the nation's capital.

• Jonathan Larsen: White House Bible Study Teaches that Jews Killed Jesus

The preacher who leads Bible studies for cabinet secretaries at the White House — and in both chambers of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) — said in one of his lessons this month that “Israel … executed the Messiah.”

• Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Evangelicals lose their minds after Chip and Joanna Gaines cast gay couple on reality show

"Back to the Frontier" has sparked right-wing outrage for treating two gay dads as... normal people.

• Ailia Zehra @ AlterNet: Fox hosts pilloried for 'super racist' segment 'calling themselves Nazis'

Fox News commentators Greg Gutfeld and [Lisa] Kennedy [Montgomery] have sparked outrage on social media after the two casually embraced the term "Nazi" during an on-air exchange Tuesday — prompting criticism for normalizing extremist language.

• Media Matters: Charlie Kirk complains of “young women that are infected with the Jezebel spirit that had no interest in getting married or having children, that wanted to be the boss of the relationship”

"It was not full of young women that are infected with the Jezebel spirit that had no interest in getting married or having children, that wanted to be the boss of the relationship. Young men seek to have some sort of relationship that is scriptural in nature. More people were Christian. Our nation is now more secular."

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For Trump, Domestic Adversaries Are Not Just Wrong, They Are ‘Evil’

The president’s vilification of political opponents and journalists seeds the ground for threats of prosecution, imprisonment and deportation unlike any modern president has made.

By Peter Baker

Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent, is covering his sixth presidency. He reported from the Aspen Security Forum.

July 16, 2025

Updated

When the Pentagon decided not to send anyone to this week’s Aspen Security Forum, an annual bipartisan gathering of national security professionals in the Colorado mountains, President Trump’s appointees explained that they would not participate in discussions with people who subscribe to the “evil of globalism.”

After all the evils that the U.S. military has fought, this may be the first time in its history that it has put globalization on its enemies list. But it is simply following the example of Mr. Trump. Last week, he denounced a reporter as a “very evil person” for asking a question he did not like. This week, he declared that Democrats are “an evil group of people.”

“Evil” is a word getting a lot of airtime in the second Trump term. It is not enough anymore to dislike a journalistic inquiry or disagree with an opposing philosophy. Anyone viewed as critical of the president or insufficiently deferential is wicked. The Trump administration’s efforts to achieve its policy goals are not just an exercise in governance but a holy mission against forces of darkness.

The characterization seeds the ground to justify all sorts of actions that would normally be considered extreme or out of bounds. If Mr. Trump’s adversaries are not just rivals but villains, then he can rationalize going further than any president has in modern times. Last month, he told a cabinet secretary to consider throwing her Biden administration predecessor in prison because of his immigration policy. Last weekend, Mr. Trump said he might strip Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship for the crime of criticizing him.

Demonization, of course, has been at the core of Mr. Trump’s politics since he took the national stage in 2015 to announce his first successful presidential campaign and disparaged many immigrants crossing the border without permission as “rapists” and vowed to block all Muslims from entering the country. His rallies during that campaign rang with “lock her up” chants aimed at his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

But in returning to power, Mr. Trump has been more focused on rooting out the “enemy from within,” as he put it during last year’s campaign. He has devoted enormous energy in his second term to prosecuting perceived enemies, purging career officials deemed disloyal and destroying what he calls “the deep state” that he believes thwarted his policies last time and then persecuted him through criminal prosecutions after he left office.

During the first six months of his first term in 2017, according to a search of the Factbase compendium of his speeches, Mr. Trump regularly used the word “evil” to describe terrorists, Nazis and bigots, much as other presidents might have, as well as immigrants. He used it in a domestic political context only once, when complaining about news coverage. In the nearly six months of his second term, he has used it 11 times to describe Democrats or journalists.

Mr. Trump has said that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was “an evil guy who wasn’t very smart” and ran a “very evil regime” surrounded by advisers and prosecutors who were also “so bad and so evil, so corrupt.”

“I knew that running was very dangerous, because I knew how evil these people were,” Mr. Trump said of Democrats on May 12, during an interview on Air Force One with Sean Hannity of Fox News. “I knew how they cheat, they steal, they lie. They’re a horrible group of people.”

Speaking with visiting foreign ministers in the Oval Office on June 27, he said: “We had a president that was incompetent. We had bad people circulating around this desk, this beautiful Resolute Desk. They had, I guess, evil intentions. They would — you couldn’t be that stupid. I mean, they had evil intentions.”

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President George W. Bush announcing the start of the war in Iraq in March 2003. He famously used the word “evildoers” to describe terrorists who had carried out the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, not domestic opponents or journalists.Credit...Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

This is a level of presidential discourse unusual in modern times. President George H.W. Bush once apologized for describing his challengers as “bozos” because it was seen as beneath the dignity of the office. His son, President George W. Bush, famously used the word “evildoers,” but he was describing terrorists who had hijacked airplanes and slaughtered Americans, not political opponents or reporters.

The Trump era has changed the standards, and his critics at times have followed his lead. Robert De Niro has called Mr. Trump an “evil” person. During the presidential campaign last year, Jill Biden used the word in criticizing Mr. Trump for disparaging military veterans, which he has denied. “His own chief of staff said he called P.O.W.s and those who died in war ‘losers’ and ‘suckers,’” Dr. Biden told an audience in Georgia. “He’s evil.” Discussing Mr. Trump’s nomination of his own former lawyer to be a federal judge, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said last week that “the motives are evil ones.”

Mr. Trump’s allies complain that he has been unfairly targeted by partisan prosecutors, vilified as a fascist, a Nazi and a dictator, and compared to some of history’s most horrific villains like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini.

Yet lately, it is Mr. Trump’s own base that is seeing evil in the president’s circle as some of his allies erupt over the administration’s failure to release files that they assume would prove a broader conspiracy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

“Evil forces are trying to take full control of the Trump administration and we must FIGHT to STOP them!!” Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist, wrote on social media.

But a president’s words are different than anyone else’s. They carry power and set the tone for national debate. More than any recent predecessor, Mr. Trump has encouraged the notion that his presidency is a battle of good versus evil, embracing images of himself as a king, a pope and Superman.

Those who question him, then, must be on the other side of that binary equation. When the president visited Texas last week to show concern over deadly floods there, a local CBS News reporter noted that families were upset that warnings had not gone out sooner, which might have saved loved ones who died.

“What do you say to those families?” she asked.

“I don’t know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that,” Mr. Trump replied.

At a White House Faith Office luncheon on Monday, he again excoriated Mr. Biden’s team. “We’re against an evil group of people, and they’re very smart, very smart,” he said. “He’s not, but they are. They took over the Oval Office. They actually took over the Oval Office.”

Mr. Trump has demonstrated willingness to use power against those he considers evil. On a single day two weeks ago, he threatened to arrest two political rivals and deport an estranged ally who had angered him.

Asked about the possibility that Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York mayor, might try to stop immigration arrests, Mr. Trump said, “Well, then, we’ll have to arrest him.”

Asked whether Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary under Mr. Biden, should be imprisoned because so many immigrants crossed the border, Mr. Trump told his own homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to “take a look at it,” implying that a policy disagreement merited criminal prosecution. Similarly, asked if he would deport the billionaire Elon Musk, who has broken with him, Mr. Trump said, “We’ll have to take a look.”

Mr. Musk was not the only one Mr. Trump threatened to throw out of the country in recent days, the kind of threat presidents do not typically make out of political spite. Last weekend, he lashed out at Ms. O’Donnell, the actress and longtime Trump critic who had moved to Ireland just before he resumed office. He did not call her “evil,” but he did call her a “Threat to Humanity” on social media and added, ”Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”

Image

Rosie O’Donnell standing at a door way. She’s wearing a beige sweater with a dark green top and black rimmed glasses.

:{:{Last weekend, Mr. Trump said he might strip the actress Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship for the crime of criticizing him.Credit...Ellius Grace for The New York Times}:

Such inflammatory threats would have been considered shocking in another era but passed with little notice because they have become business as usual under Mr. Trump. In the case of Ms. O’Donnell in particular, some strategists in Washington assumed it was an attempt to distract from the Epstein meltdown that is damaging Mr. Trump with his base and refocus ire on external enemies.

The Pentagon decision on Monday to pull a dozen officials from the Aspen Security Forum demonstrated how far the vilification of political discourse has trickled down from the Oval Office. Once a year, the forum brings together current and former government officials from both parties for relentlessly earnest, wonky and civil on-the-record discussions of issues like supply chains, artificial intelligence, energy security, China and the Middle East.

The leafy campus where the forum is held is usually teeming with secretaries of state and defense, national security advisers, C.I.A. directors, senators, foreign leaders, ambassadors and journalists. Among the scheduled participants this year are Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state under the second Mr. Bush, and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to Mr. Biden. They do not all agree with one another, which is the point.

In Mr. Trump’s first term, his advisers attended the forum at times to make the case for their administration’s policies and to talk with others to hear their ideas, including Mike Pompeo, then the C.I.A. director, and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence. But the Pentagon pullout this week reflected an unwillingness in the second term to engage in dialogue with anyone other than Trump loyalists.

“The Department of Defense has no interest in legitimizing an organization that has invited former officials who have been the architects of chaos abroad and failure at home,” the Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told Just the News, a Trump-friendly site.

“They are antithetical to the ‘America First’ values of this administration,” she added. “Senior representatives of the Department of Defense will no longer be participating in an event that promotes the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States.”

Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He is covering his sixth presidency and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework.

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nbc?

:{:{July 9, 2025}:

By Ken Dilanian, Ryan J. Reilly and Dan De Luce

The Trump administration has put two repeated targets of President Donald Trump under criminal investigation, although details of what exactly they are being investigated for or how far the Justice Department intends on taking the probes are unclear.

The two targets are former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired in his first term, according to a statement that a Justice Department spokesperson provided to reporters.

The statement followed a Fox News article on Tuesday evening reporting on the existence of the investigations. After referring to Comey and Brennan, the spokesperson said the Justice Department does "not comment on ongoing investigations.”

A lawyer for Comey had no comment. Brennan, who is a paid contributor to NBC News and MSNBC, said he has not been contacted by the Justice Department or the CIA about the reported investigation. The FBI declined to comment.

The Fox News article was published as both FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi are facing significant blowback from conservative media and influencers over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and material related to it. This week, the Justice Department and the FBI put out a memo restating what prior investigations had already found: that Epstein, a convicted sex offender and financier, killed himself in his jail cell in 2019 and that there was no incriminating evidence against uncharged third parties.

Patel, before joining the government, engaged with conspiracy theories about Epstein, while a statement from Bondi that an Epstein "client list" was sitting on her desk fueled more speculation on the right. Bondi later said she was speaking about documents related to Epstein, not an actual list.

U.S. newsVirginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin says his family was rescued in Texas floods

As for Brennan, a source briefed on the matter said CIA Director John Ratcliffe had made a criminal referral of Brennan to the Justice Department. Exactly what prompted the Comey investigation is unclear.

Ratcliffe last week released an internal CIA review that criticized Brennan’s handling of a 2017 intelligence assessment concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Any conduct that took place during that campaign or even in most of Trump’s first term is now outside the typical five-year statute of limitations for federal crimes. The Fox News article mentions testimony that Brennan gave to the House Judiciary Committee in May 2023 about the so-called Steele Dossier that was an issue during the 2016 campaign. It cites no specific conduct from Comey during the past five years.

A special counsel appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr spent years investigating how the 2017 intelligence assessment was put together, requiring many CIA officials to hire lawyers. That special counsel, John Durham, also used a grand jury to scrutinize the actions of Brennan, Comey and many who worked for them over how the FBI and CIA handled investigations into Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election. But Durham did not charge the two former leaders or accuse them of wrongdoing. His sole charge against a public official came against a low-level FBI lawyer who had lied on a warrant application.

The Trump administration has been taking action against people involved in investigations of the president and his supporters. The Justice Department has a "Weaponization Working Group" that is examining those investigations, and many who worked on them and were still in the department have been fired. And on his first day in office, Trump pardoned his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

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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.

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an 7 25

'Retaliation is real': Why senators who stood up to Trump caved to his 'needlessly cruel agenda'

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Roughly 140 Environmental Protection Agency employees have been placed on administrative leave after signing a letter warning of political interference in the agency’s work—prompting critics to accuse the Trump administration of ignoring their First Amendment rights.

Calling the letter “a remarkable rebuke of the agency’s political leadership,” The New York Times reported on Monday that more than 270 EPA employees had signed the public letter “denouncing what they described as the Trump administration’s efforts to politicize, dismantle and sideline the main federal agency tasked with protecting the environment and public health.”

On Thursday, the Times reported that 144 workers had been suspended, other news outlets put the number at 139.

In that public letter, signatories said they are joining in “solidarity with employees across the federal government in opposing this administration’s policies,” and that they “stand together in dissent against the current administration’s focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise.”

READ MORE: ‘Stop Talking’: Johnson Suggests Jeffries Is Lying in Marathon Budget Speech

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They detailed their five primary concerns, including, “Undermining public trust,” “Ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters,” “Reversing EPA’s progress in America’s most vulnerable communities,” “Dismantling the Office of Research and Development,” and “Promoting a culture of fear, forcing staff to choose between their livelihood and well-being.”

On Thursday, the 140 or so employees who allegedly had signed the letter with their official titles received emails saying they had been placed on leave for two weeks “pending an administrative investigation,” The New York Times reported.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” Brigit Hirsch, an EPA spokesperson, said in a statement, according to Bloomberg Law News.

“The letter, addressed to EPA head Lee Zeldin, alleged the agency has used its communication platforms to ‘promote misinformation and overtly partisan rhetoric,'” Bloomberg added. “One example the signatories cited was a March statement laying out the administration’s deregulatory agenda, in which Zeldin referred to ‘the climate change religion.'”

READ MORE: Democratic Strategist Warns Trump Could Try to Impose Martial Law Before 2026 Midterms

Nicole Cantello, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 704, called the move “blatant retaliation,” The Hill reported.

“We don’t swear an oath to the Trump administration, we swear an oath to the Constitution and so we don’t feel like we violated that oath or that we did anything wrong by signing this letter,” she said.

Cantello, on social media, wrote that EPA workers “have the right to freedom of speech, just like every other American.”

Addressing EPA Administrator Zeldin directly, she said: “See you in court.”

Some denounced the administration’s move.

Attorney Mark Zaid, who handles national security and whistleblower cases, wrote: “Apparently retaliation has already begun. This is what defines this Administration.”He also offered to “provide pro bono consultation to examine current situation.”

The New York Times’ Trip Gabriel asked, “What First Amendment?”

READ MORE: Trump Appeared Unaware His Budget Bill Cuts $1T From Medicaid: Report

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Jesse Watters calls CNN “treasonous” for reporting on the Pentagon’s Iran bombing damage assessment}:

:{:{06/26/25}:

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

JESSE WATTERS: You know, everyone's feeling this huge swelling of patriotism and then CNN comes along and sullies it. Now, CNN says, "We didn't do anything wrong," but CNN spent 48 hours with guests at the top of every single hour saying, "The mission failed," saying, "The bombs didn't work," says, "The Iranians still have a nuclear program." What kind of effect does that have? You're basically taking classified information and using it to undermine the commander-in-chief and cast doubt on the effectiveness of the American military capabilities, and putting the commander-in-chief at a disadvantage when he's trying to maintain a ceasefire. It's treasonous. That's the t-word, Jessica.

And Kash and Bongino are going to be looking at these congressmen now, because I have a suspect list. I feel like I know who this person was, and you could easily find them, there's a limited amount of people that had access to this intelligence. You go and see who got access to it and then you narrow it down and then you get a warrant for their phone. So they better lawyer up, because someone's going to go to prison for a very long time.

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Donald Trump instructed his followers to turn against Republican Rep. Thomas Massie for refusing to join the MAGA cult.

"Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is not MAGA, even though he likes to say he is. Actually, MAGA doesn't want him, doesn't know him, and doesn't respect him," Trump fumed yesterday after the Kentucky congressman criticized the president for bombing Iran without consulting Congress first.

"This is not Constitutional," the GOP lawmaker had posted on X.

But Massie's old-fashioned adherence to the nation's bygone laws did not sit well with Dear Leader, who, like an expert coder, went straight to Truth Social to program his followers. "He is a negative force who almost always Votes 'NO,' no matter how good something may be," the cult leader fed to the fertile MAGA-Mind in a long-winded post.

"He's a simple minded 'grandstander' …this 'lightweight' Congressman is against what was so brilliantly achieved last night in Iran… Massie is weak, ineffective, and votes 'NO' on virtually everything put before him… He is disrespectful to our great military, and all that they stand for…"

In the same brainwashing session, Trump then threatened to primary Massie. "MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague!" he ordered. "The good news is that we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary, and I'll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard. MAGA is not about lazy, grandstanding, nonproductive politicians, of which Thomas Massie is definitely one."

To make sure his followers received their instructions loud and clear, Trump then grabbed his iPad this morning to refactor his message: "GET THIS "BUM" OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!" And this is how Trump obliterates the last few remaining, old-school (or libertarian-leaning) Republicans who refuse to drink the powdered stuff.

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1. ### Jesse Watters brushes aside talk of a Trump enemies list: “Who’s Trump arrested other than bad hombres and the linebacker in Congress?”

05/29/25

2. ### Jesse Watters: “Teachers are too stupid and too lazy to buckle down and really go the extra mile for these kids”

05/29/25

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List: Who Trump Has Targeted for Retribution

:{:{By Michael S. Schmidt, Matthew Cullen and Lazaro Gamio}:

April 7, 2025}:

Since returning to office, President Trump’s campaign to exact revenge against his foes has turned out to be far more expansive, creative, efficient — and less reliant on the justice system — than anticipated. Here's a breakdown of what he's done.

Read: In Trump’s Second Term, Retribution Comes in Many Forms

Biden administration members and other Democrats

Mr. Trump revoked the security clearances of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., as well as a number of members of his administration and other prominent Democrats.

Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Kamala

Harris

Antony

Blinken

Jake

Sullivan

Lisa

Monaco

Hillary

Clinton

Norman

Eisen

Mr. Trump revoked Secret Service protection for Mr. Biden’s son Hunter and his daughter Ashley.

Hunter

Biden

Ashley

Biden

Members of the first Trump administration

Mr. Trump revoked security protection for several former members of his first administration, despite warnings from the Biden administration that some faced ongoing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Mr. Trump’s behalf.

In addition to revoking his security clearance, the Pentagon removed Gen. Mark A. Milley’s security detail, ordered an inspector general inquiry into his record and took down his portrait from the hallways of the Pentagon.

Mr. Trump terminated the security protection for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top government official charged with the response to the pandemic.

John

Bolton

Mike

Pompeo

Brian

Hook

Mark

Esper

Gen. Mark A. Milley

Anthony

Fauci

People involved in criminal or impeachment cases against Mr. Trump

Mr. Trump revoked the security clearances of a number of officials, former officials and lawyers involved in impeachment cases against him.

Letitia

James

Alvin

Bragg

Fiona

Hill

Alexander

Vindman

Liz

Cheney

Adam

Kinzinger

Mark

Zaid

Andrew

Weissmann

Department of Justice, F.B.I. and other government officials

Special counsel team

The Trump administration fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked for the special counsel Jack Smith on two criminal investigations into Mr. Trump.

Senior F.B.I. officials

Several senior employees at the bureau were told to resign.

Senior Justice Department officials

The Trump administration forced out veteran career lawyers who managed pardon work, bankruptcy litigation and other legal issues in the latest wave of forced departures.

The Trump administration also began an investigation into federal prosecutors and agents who investigated cases against pro-Trump rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Trump has also said he intends to strip the security clearances of prosecutors who investigated him and lawyers who played a role in his two impeachments.

The Department of Justice’s pardon attorney was dismissed a day after she refused to recommend that the actor Mel Gibson, a prominent supporter of Mr. Trump, should have his gun rights restored.

Southern District of New York

A top Department of Justice official appointed by Mr. Trump said the department would investigate prosecutors who refused to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York.

Crossfire Hurricane

The president said he would also declassify documents from the F.B.I.’s investigation into ties between Mr. Trump and Russia, known as Crossfire Hurricane, which began in 2016.

Inspectors general

Mr. Trump fired at least 12 inspectors general, purging the government of several independent watchdogs whom Congress had charged with rooting out abuse and illegality within federal agencies.

Immigration court and watchdogs

The acting head of the U.S. immigration court system and three other top officials were fired. The Trump administration also shut down three watchdog agencies, gutting the offices responsible for conducting oversight of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown.

51 former intelligence officials

Mr. Trump revoked the security clearances of 51 people who signed a letter suggesting that the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop could be Russian disinformation.

Law firms

Mr. Trump targeted a number of law firms with executive orders that would strip their lawyers of security clearances, a move that would cripple the firms’ business. Some of the targeted firms employ lawyers who have worked on investigations into Mr. Trump or on causes that his supporters object to. Many of the firms have reached agreements with the Trump administration to avert the order, and top partners have closed ranks in support of the agreements.

Covington

& Burling

Perkins

Coie

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Jenner

& Block

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

Willkie Farr & Gallagher

Milbank

WilmerHale

Other firms and lawyers

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sent letters to 20 law firms requesting information about their diversity, equity and inclusion-related employment practices. The letters suggested that the firms may have discriminated against white candidates and violated civil rights laws.

Mr. Trump issued an order directing the Justice and Homeland Security Departments to “seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the United States.”

Universities

The Trump administration has targeted multiple universities by reducing or pausing federal funding. The government’s rationales for its actions range from accusations of endemic antisemitism on campuses to the participation of a transgender woman on a swim team.

Columbia

University

University of Pennsylvania

Harvard

University

Princeton

University

Brown

University

News organizations

Associated Press

The White House blocked A.P. reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the wire service is using the name Gulf of Mexico, rather than Mr. Trump’s preferred term, Gulf of America.

PBS

Mr. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair ordered investigations into sponsorships at PBS.

NPR

Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. chair ordered investigations into sponsorships at NPR.

CBS News

Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. chair opened an inquiry into CBS News focused on a “news distortion” complaint.

KCBS

Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. chair announced an investigation into the San Francisco radio station KCBS for its coverage of Mr. Trump’s immigration enforcement actions.

NBC News

Mr. Trump’s F.C.C. chair ordered an investigation into the diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Comcast, the parent company of NBC News.

Meta

The parent company of Facebook agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit Mr. Trump filed over the suspension of his accounts after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Before the election, Mr. Trump had threatened to imprison the company’s co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg.

Public and cultural institutions

Presidio Trust

Mr. Trump ordered the government to “eliminate to the maximum extent” the functions of the Presidio Trust, which oversees a San Francisco park and was one of Representative Nancy Pelosi’s proudest accomplishments.

The Smithsonian Institution

Mr. Trump issued an executive order claiming that the Smithsonian Institution had “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” The order stipulated, among other things, that future appropriations to the Smithsonian “prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values.”

The Kennedy Center

The center has been in flux since Mr. Trump purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden appointees and had himself elected chairman.

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older deep dive into lawfare just sec

Chronology of a Dozen Times Trump Pushed to Prosecute His Perceived Enemies

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AN 5 25

During President Donald Trump’s first three months in office, his administration has targeted dozens of former officials who criticized him or opposed his agenda.

In April 2025, Trump directed the Department of Justice to investigate two men who served in his first administration, Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, because they spoke out against his policies and corrected his false claims about the 2020 election that he lost.

Further, Trump revoked the security clearances for advisers and retired generals who publicly criticized him during the 2024 election campaign.

On their face, such moves appear to be a coordinated campaign of personal retribution. But as political science scholars who study the origins of elected strongmen, we believe Trump’s use of the Justice Department to attack former officials who stood up to him isn’t just about revenge. It also deters current officials from defying Trump.

More than revenge

Like all presidents, Trump needs allies who will faithfully implement his policy agenda. For most presidents, this means surrounding themselves with longtime friends.

For example, Don Evans, George W. Bush’s commerce secretary and close confidant, worked with Bush for decades before becoming a fixture in his White House.

But to carry out a power grab, incumbent leaders also need allies who will stay silent or, better yet, endorse their attempts to consolidate control.

In El Salvador, for example, President Nayib Bukele’s legislative allies gave him free rein in 2023 to run for president a second time despite constitutional provisions banning reelection.

Recall that Trump only left office in January 2021 because key Republican officials defied his attempts to overturn an election he lost.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, facing violent threats from a Trump-fueled mob, refused Trump’s request to overturn the election he lost. And Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger refused Trump’s entreaties to stuff the ballot boxes in Georgia with another 11,000 votes for Trump.Images

Notably, both men first won political office on their own, without an endorsement from Trump. This means they were less reliant on Trump for access to political power. Therefore, they were more likely to prioritize their loyalty to the Constitution over their loyalty to Trump.

Attacks enforce loyalty

In authoritarian contexts, loyalty is not an intrinsic quality. Authoritarian leaders do not necessarily select those with whom they have long work experience that leads to mutual trust.

For instance, during Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961, the head of intelligence, Johnny Abbes, was plucked from obscurity in Mexico and in 1958 began to lead the dictator’s repression machine.

Instead, the challenge for authoritarian leaders is finding people to do their bidding. And the best people for this job are those who never would have earned their position in politics without the leader’s influence.

Unqualified appointees who can’t ascend to political power based on their merits have little choice but to stick with the leader. These people appear loyal, but only because their careers are tied to the leader staying in power.

A litany of failed politicians

This logic, where people with few career prospects outside of the leader express the most loyalty, explains why Trump has appointed a number of political candidates who have lost elections.

The head of the Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler, though briefly appointed as a U.S. senator from Georgia, lost her first Senate election to Raphael Warnock in 2021.

Doug Collins, Trump’s secretary of Veterans Affairs, lost to Loeffler in a Georgia Senate primary during the same election cycle.

Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, lost a 2016 primary contest for a congressional seat in a heavily Republican district in Florida.

And don’t forget Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s nominee to head a politically crucial federal judicial office. Her political career derailed 20 years ago when she came under federal investigation for “scheming to catch a cheating spouse in the act.” She lost an attorney general race in New York in 2006 to Andrew Cuomo.

Trump also picked two politicians who had failed presidential runs as Democrats – Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – to act as director of national intelligence and secretary of Health and Human Services.

For appointees who can’t win elections, the only shot at power is steadfast alignment with the leader. This dynamic, in turn, provides a strong incentive for these officials to remain loyal, even when the leader breaks the law or orders them to do the same.

When leaders place loyalists in charge of federal law enforcement, attempts to conjure votes for the president out of thin air or to seize ballot boxes in opposition districts are more likely to succeed.

The Trump administration’s attacks on former Republican officials who criticized him, such as Taylor and Krebs, reinforces this dynamic. It sends a signal of future punishment to current Justice Department officials should they speak out against Trump or refuse to carry out illegal orders.

Attacks also target opposition power

Of course, the Trump administration’s political attacks haven’t stopped with officials in his previous administration who have fallen out of favor.

They have expanded to include independent institutions such as universities, not-for-profit media and law firms.

As research on authoritarian regimes shows, the goal of attacking independent institutions this way is to sap their capacity to resist the incumbent government’s attempts to cheat in future elections.

After Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, had rewritten his country’s Constitution and reined in the courts, he changed the electoral rules to ensure he won reelection in 2022. Along the way, Orban forced an entire university into exile after failing to subdue it.

In these ways, incumbents’ acts of retribution toward people and organizations that oppose their agenda reinforce loyalty among their allies. They also undermine and weaken their opponents and ultimately facilitate incumbents’ efforts to consolidate power.

Joe Wright, Professor of Political Science, Penn State and Erica Frantz, Associate Professor of Political Science, Michigan State University

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

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mma

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

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 05/14/25

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

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

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

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

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

For example:

• Martin hosted a podcast and radio show in which he “amplified Trump’s claims … that prosecutors may have violated federal criminal conspiracy laws” and led discussions which “revolved around Trump’s desire for ‘retribution’ against current or former department prosecutors,” The Washington Post reported.

• Fox host Jeanine Pirro, Martin’s replacement as interim U.S. attorney for D.C., called for a “cleansing” of the FBI and the Justice Department, which she said were full “of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in handcuffs.”

• Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, is a former Fox host and podcaster who called for an investigation into “special tyrant” Jack Smith and described special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe as “an obvious frame job and set-up” by the corrupt deep state.

• FBI Director Kash Patel said in a 2023 interview that a second Trump term would target “the conspirators, not just in government but in the media” who had “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” The appendix of his 2023 book “names more than 50 current or former US officials that he claims are ‘members of the Executive Branch deep state,’ which he describes as a ‘dangerous threat to democracy,’” CNN reported.

• Pam Bondi, now the attorney general, said in an April 2023 Fox appearance following Trump’s fourth indictment: “The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated.”

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

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

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

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

//

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

06/14/23 1:24 PM EDT

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

06/09/23 12:26 PM EDT

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

05/08/25

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it’s baaaack 525 an

House Republicans on Monday quietly revived a proposal that would grant the Trump administration broad authority to crush nonprofits it views as part of the political opposition, from environmental justice organizations to news outlets.

Fight for the Future and other advocacy groups called attention to the measure, which was buried in the final pages of the House Ways and Means Committee's draft reconciliation bill, starting on page 380.

A markup hearing for the legislation is scheduled to take place on Tuesday at 2:30 pm ET.

The proposal would empower the U.S. Treasury Department to revoke the tax-exempt status of nonprofits deemed material supporters of terrorism, with only a hollow simulacrum of due process for the accused organizations. It is already illegal for nonprofits to provide material support for terrorism.

"The House is about to hand the Trump administration the ability to strip nonprofits of their 501(c)3 status without any reason or recourse. This is a five-alarm fire for nonprofits nationwide," said Lia Holland, campaigns and communications director at Fight for the Future. "If the text of last autumn's H.R. 9495 is passed in the budget, any organization with goals that do not line up with MAGA can be destroyed with a wink from Trump to the Treasury."

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The measure passed the Republican-controlled House late last year with the support of more than a dozen Democrats, but it never received a vote in the Senate.

"This terribly thought-out legislation means that under the current administration, every environmental, racial justice, LGBTQ+, gender justice, immigration justice, and—particularly—any anti-genocide organization throughout the country may be on the chopping block," said Holland. "If Democrats capitulate to the wanton destruction of crucial civil society institutions, they had better expect civil society to burn them to the ground for that betrayal."

The GOP's renewed push for what opponents have called the "nonprofit killer bill" comes as the Trump administration wages war on nonprofit organizations, threatening to strip them of their tax-exempt status as part of a sweeping attack on the president's political opponents.

"In the months since inauguration, Trump and his Cabinet have found other means of cracking down on political speech—particularly speech in favor of Palestinians—by deporting student activists andrevokinghundreds of student visas. He has already threatened to attempt to revoke the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, part of his larger quest to discipline and punish colleges," journalist Noah Hurowitz wrote for The Intercept late Monday.

"But the nonprofit clause of the tax bill would give the president wider power to go after organizations that stand in his way," Hurowitz added.

Robert McCaw, government affairs director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Monday that "this provision is the latest in a growing wave of legislative attacks on constitutional rights."

"CAIR is urging every member of the Ways and Means Committee to VOTE NO on the inclusion of this provision and to support an expected amendment to strike the language," the group said in a statement. "Three Democratic members of the committee—Reps. Brad Schneider (Ill.), Tom Suozzi (N.Y.), and Jimmy Panetta (Calif.)—previously voted in favor of the Nonprofit Killer Bill on the House floor last year. They must reverse course and vote to oppose it in committee."

NOW READ:This single Trump Order scares me the most

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• David Badash @ The New Civil Rights Movement: Trump’s Latest Target: The Watchdog That Keeps Suing Him

From the outset of his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump signaled that a central focus of his presidency would be targeting and exacting retribution against his critics.

ref

From the outset of his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump signaled that a central focus of his presidency would be targeting and exacting retribution against his critics.

“In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice,’” Trump told attendees at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

In keeping his retribution vow, Trump in just three months—often with the use of the power of his executive orders—has targeted for retribution numerous top law firms, revoked the security clearances of dozens of top national security experts, former government officials, and former political opponents. He has targeted top universities, threaten to defund millions of dollars or more in critical research grants, and declared top news outlets CNN and MSNBC “corrupt” and “illegal.”

Just days after the 2024 election, NPR reported that during the campaign, “Trump made more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies, including political opponents and private citizens.”

READ MORE: ‘Things Like This Take Place’: Trump Shrugs Off Mass Shooting Despite Once Being a Target

On Thursday, Trump threatened to go after one of his top legal critics: CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit legal and ethics watchdog that has been working for years to hold him (and others) to account, often by suing.

Asked by a reporter what group he would like to see have their tax exempt status removed, Trump replied, “Well, we’ll be making some statements, but it’s a big deal.”

“They’re so rich and so strong, and then they go so bad, they’ve earned so much by being a member of this country, you know, a member of this group, this beautiful group of people in this country, and then they go and they abuse their power like that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon. “I think it’s, you know, I think it’s very sad.”

“I have a group named CREW,” he continued. “CREW. You ever hear of it? I think it’s CREW, and they have a guy that heads CREW. It’s supposed to be a charitable organization. The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that.”

“We’re looking at a lot of things, but if you take a look at CREW, what they’ve done, and I think it was a very big abuse, but we’re going to be finding out pretty soon.”

During Trump’s first and second terms, CREW sued Trump or his administration for alleged emoluments clause violations, alleged Presidential Records Act noncompliance, and challenged some of his executive orders. It also represented voters in a lawsuit attempting to use the 14th Amendment to remove him from the ballot, claiming his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection was constitutionally disqualifying.

READ MORE: ‘Full Time Babysitter’: Treasury Secretary Urges Caution After Trump Fed Chair Threat

In January, CREW was part of a lawsuit suing to “block Trump’s illegal plan to fire government workers,” and in February, CREW sued the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “to compel transparency.”

CREW, in a statement to NCRM, vowed to continue its work.

“For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” CREW Vice President of Communications Jordan Libowitz said. “Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy. We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”

Legal experts are blasting Trump’s threat.

“It is literally a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison for the President, VP, or any senior White House employee, to ‘request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the IRS to conduct … an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer,'” wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

“The Trump administration has gone after law firms, they’ve gone after universities, and they’re now going after civil society, including groups like @CREWcrew. They want to silence any opposition to their extreme agenda,” added the National Women’s Law Center.

“President Trump is now threatening to weaponize the IRS against nonprofit organizations like @CREWcrew,” wrote Public Citizen. “He is attacking our most basic right: to say what we believe without fear of government prosecution. We proudly stand in solidarity with our friends at CREW.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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//retaliATION?

AN 4 265

White House columnist Brian Karem wrote in an article published in Salon Thursday that not even former President Donald Trump's closest supporters think he is doing a satisfactory job as president.

"Many believe that Trump is one of his biggest fans, and while Trump fancies himself 'cool,' not even his closest supporters say that of him. The best I’ve heard regarding Trump is he says what he thinks," he wrote.

The author quoted a former member of Congress from the Republican Party, whose name he did not disclose, as saying that Trump was as dangerous as “a monster."

ALSO READ:['Groceries are already outrageous': What Trump voters in South Dakota think of his economic policy

"I was literally sick to my stomach when he said ‘we’ may put homegrown Americans in El Salvadoran jails. Because that statement on top of his refusal to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia has me truly scared of what he and his toadies will do," the lawmaker reportedly said.

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The article further said, "Does it matter if he is a crazy person in the White House trying to convince you he is not, or is a sane person trying to convince you he is crazy? What matters are the results. Look around. Donald Trump has thumbed his nose at the judiciary, owns Congress, rules by Executive Order, employs DOGE and Elon Musk as hatchet men to destroy the government while ignoring due process and openly, bald-faced lying about what he is doing. Bill Maher said he wouldn’t back off from future criticism of the president, but to those in Trump’s inner circle, it doesn’t matter."

Some other Republicans have expressed similar remarks. Earlier this week, veteran GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) delivered candid responsesto leaders of nonprofit groups in her state, expressing concern over the cuts to federal agencies, programs, and the federal workforce.

“We are all afraid,” she said.

ALSO READ:'They will not cower': Robert Reich cites 3 institutions defying Trump’s 'threats and demands'

“It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right. But that’s what you’ve asked me to do. And so, I’m going to use my voice to the best of my ability," the Alaska lawmaker said.

ALSO READ:'Bullied into submission': Trump’s 'naked economic incompetence' is now GOP’s greatest liability

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SORTA REF AN 4 25

As some of President Donald Trump's more outspoken critics see it, way too many people are going out of their way to placate him — from law firms to universities to tech CEOs to non-MAGA Republicans. Those people are often accused of going along to get along in the hope that Trump won't target them for retribution.

But liberal economist Robert Reich, in an April 17 opinion column for The Guardian, cites three recent examples of people standing up to Trump: the U.S. Supreme Court, Harvard University and the government of Mainland China.

The High Court upheld a lower court ruling ordering the Trump Administration to "facilitate" the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (a Maryland man deported to a prison in El Salvador) to the United States. Harvard University is speaking out against Trump despite his threats to cut off their funding or remove their tax-exempt status. And the Chinese government is pushing back against Trump's steep new tariffs.

READ MORE:['Bullied into submission': Trump’s 'naked economic incompetence' is now GOP’s greatest liability

"It was bound to happen," Reich writes. "Encouraged by the ease with which many big U.S. institutions caved in to their demands, the Trump regime — that is, the small cadre of bottom-feeding fanatics around Donald Trump: JD Vance, Elon Musk, Russell Vought, Stephen Miller and RFK Jr., along with the child king himself — have overreached. They’ve dared China, Harvard and the Supreme Court to blink. But guess what? They’ve met their matches. None of them has blinked, and they won't."

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Reich adds, "China not only refused to back down when the Trump regime threatened it with huge tariffs, but also, retaliated with huge tariffs of its own, plus a freeze on the export of rare-earth elements that the U.S.' high-tech and defense industries depend on. Harvard also pointedly defied the regime, issuing a clear rebuke to its attempt to interfere with academic freedom."

Reich predicts that "these three institutions will not back down" or "cower to Trump."

"I suspect the testosterone-poisoned lackeys around King Trump are urging him to hit back even harder, escalating their confrontations with China, Harvard and the Supreme Court," Reich argues. "They view these showdowns as ultimate tests of the regime's strength…. If they defeat China, they have brought the world's other economic powerhouse to its knees! If they defeat Harvard University, they have been victorious over the world's intellectual powerhouse! If they defeat the Supreme Court, they have conquered the entire U.S. government!"

READ MORE:'That's enough to kill something, right?' House Dems target vulnerable Republicans

Reich continues, "Win these battles, and no one will ever again doubt the power and resolve of the Trump regime!... They cannot and will not cower. If Trump escalates his wars against them, they’ll become even stronger in the eyes of their supporters and constituents, and much of the world. The American people will see that Trump is actually a blowhard with no real power at all. So if he's smart, Trump will try to de-escalate these three conflicts."

READ MORE:'You're lying': MSNBC’s Brzezinski debunks right-wing 'Trump TV’s' bogus claims

*Robert Reich's full column for The Guardian is available at this link.

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an 4 25

Many of President Donald Trump's critics are applauding Harvard University for standing up to him, but Harvard is doing so at a cost. Trump is threatening to pull funding from Harvard and taken away their tax-exempt status.

Political differences are often cited as a key reason for Trump's disdain for Harvard, which he considers a bastion of left-wing thought. But the Daily Beast's Michael Daly, in an article published on April 17, cites another reason: an intense feud with the family of Penny Pritzker, the most senior member of Harvard's board of governors.

"Pritzker is also widely viewed as the dominant member of the ultra-wealthy Pritzker family that was Donald Trump’s partner in his first big real estate deal in Manhattan back in 1975," Daly explains. "She has not made a comment about Harvard’s decision to stand up to the Trump Administration, and the university did not reply when the Daily Beast asked about her role. But she must know from her family's experience decades ago what it can ultimately mean to make a deal with Trump."

READ MORE:['Bullied into submission': Trump’s 'naked economic incompetence' is now GOP’s greatest liability

Now 78, Trump was only 29 when the Pritzkers, according to Daly, "entered into a partnership with him."

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"After an initial financial success," Daly notes, "the partnership devolved into a prolonged, acrimonious dispute between Trump and Hyatt [Hotels], which was then headed by Jay Pritzker, Penny's uncle ... Trump complained that Hyatt had actually asked him to pay his due share in upgrading the hotel at a time when his dependence on junk bonds and outsized sense of his own brilliance in other projects had left him at the brink of ruin."

Daly adds, "He narrowly escaped and revealed a taste for revenge that has become familiar to many of us in recent days."

Trump filed a lawsuit against the Pritzkers in 1993, claiming they were running "a racketeering enterprise."

Daly quotes Trump as saying of the Pritzker family, "They attacked me when I was down. Now, I'm doing great again, and it’s my turn. I always said, the first time I got back on my feet, the Pritzkers would be the first people I'd go after."

READ MORE:['What's he waiting for?' Official struggles between his own supporters and a demanding Trump

*Read the full Daily Beast article at this link (subscription required).

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AN 4 25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See Geidner’s post at this link.

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caved 4 25 why on list? bossert clark?!

Susman Godfrey, the firm that won a $787 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News for spreading lies about Dominion Voting Systems, is now suing the administration over President Donald Trump’s executive order “penalizing firms that employed his enemies or engaged in work he opposes,” the Daily Beast reports.

“No administration should be allowed to punish lawyers for simply doing their jobs, protecting Americans and their constitutional right to the legal process,” the firm wrote in a statement about the suit.

As the Beast reports, “On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order barring Susman Godfrey from federal contracts held by the firm’s clients, removed its employees’ security clearances, and banned them from accessing federal buildings.”

READ MORE: Gretchen Whitmer just did all of us a huge favor

According to the suit, Trump has made “no secret of its unconstitutional retaliatory and discriminatory intent to punish Susman Godfrey for its work defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.”

“But this goes far beyond law firms and lawyers,” Susman Godfrey said in a statement, “Today it is our firm under attack, but tomorrow it could be any of us. As officers of the court, we are duty-bound to take on this fight against the illegal executive order.”

According to the Beast, “Four firms—including the two largest firms in the country, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins—cut deals on Friday to avoid falling victim to one of Trump’s executive orders. They agreed to provide a total of at least $500 million in pro bono work for the current administration.”

“Susman Godfrey joined the handful of firms—including Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale—that have taken action against the president, calling the president’s spree of executive orders ‘so obviously unconstitutional,’” the Beast reports.

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an 4 25

It’s been another grueling week.

Several of you have asked me how to live in a nation whose leader has embraced cruelty as public policy. How do we inhabit Trump’s America without becoming complicit in this cruelty?

Molly watched Trump sign the executive order initiating criminal investigations of Miles Taylor (who wrote an anonymous 2018 New York Times op-ed describing internal resistance to Trump in his first term) and Christopher Krebs (who played a major role in undercutting Trump’s false claims about 2020 election fraud).

Molly asks: Is this America?

No, Molly, it is not — at least not the America we have known and loved.

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Others of you are thunderstruck by Trump’s cruelty toward refugees who fled violence and have been living in the United States legally but are now being forced to return to their home countries and face more violence.

And the Trump regime’s cruelty toward people here on temporary visas who are deported arbitrarily, without a hearing — some sent to a gruesome prison in El Salvador even after the regime has admitted error in sending them.

And children in poor countries who are in desperate need of vaccines but are now doing without them because Trump has ended USAID.

The cruelty toward vulnerable people in Gaza, in Ukraine, and in Yemen who are being bombed, wounded, or killed because the Trump regime is doing nothing to stop these bloodbaths or is contributing to them.

Cruelty toward tens of thousands of public servants who are suddenly and without warning fired — some just months away from retirement and a pension.

Revoking security protection for Biden’s son and daughter. And for General Mark Milley and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Revoking security protection for other former members of his first administration despite warnings of ongoing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Trump’s behalf.

Firing more than a dozen prosecutors who worked for the special counsel Jack Smith on criminal investigations of Trump.

Revoking security clearances of 51 people who merely signed a letter suggesting that the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop could be Russian disinformation.

Targeting law firms that employ or have employed lawyers who worked on investigations into Trump or on causes Trump objects to.

Targeting universities that have allowed international students freedom of speech.

And on it goes, day after day — the Trump regime’s abject cruelty, viciousness, heartlessness, brutality.

How does a moral person live with this? How do we not become complicit?

The answer, I think, is to do whatever we can to protect those who are vulnerable to this cruelty.

We speak out against Trump’s use of criminal investigations to punish public servants who helped expose his venality.

We make our communities into sanctuaries that limit local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

We urge our universities to protect free speech and expression of everyone, at whatever the cost.

To the extent we can, we fund groups that are helping poor families around the world get the medical assistance they need.

We call our senators and members of Congress to tell them to retrieve their constitutional authority over government spending.

We tell them to stop the brutality in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, and everywhere else America is either encouraging it or failing to discourage it.

We tell them to stop Trump’s criminal investigations of opponents.

We protest. We organize. We mobilize. We do what we can to put good people into office and keep them there, and we help regain control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

In other words, we become organized activists againstTrump’s organized cruelty.

We try to make this country an America we can love again.

Years from now, when our children and grandchildren ask what we did during Trump’s reign of terror, we can tell them that we worked tirelessly to curb his cruelty — and we did it with our compassion.

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/ SELF DEFENSE, GRT

MMA PIX BIDEN HIDDEN AGENDA

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

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 04/11/25

Video

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

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

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

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