Scott Bessent Links Bailout of Argentina to Trump’s Election Interference, Even as Argentina Poaches US Soybean Markets

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The poster child for libertarianism needs some welfare. As voters in Argentina sour on Javier Milei, the government has had to invest to keep the peso pegged to the dollar.

Last month, with his sister embroiled in a corruption scandal, Mr Milei badly lost a legislative election in the province of Buenos Aires. He then suffered a series of stinging legislative losses. Markets panicked, worried that the defeat signalled the end of popular support for Mr Milei’s economic-reform project, and the potential return of spendthrift Peronists. A sharp peso sell-off began.

Since April, when the IMF launched yet another programme in Argentina, the peso has been floating within an exchange-rate band, the limits of which the Argentine government has vowed to defend. By mid-September the peso’s official rate was testing the upper limit of that band, even briefly piercing it on September 17th to reach 1475 to the dollar. Over the following two days the Argentine central bank spent some $1bn of its scarce foreign-currency reserves to defend the currency.

The bank does not have sufficient foreign reserves to keep up this level of spending for long. Drafting in the dollar-bazooka of the US Treasury should give Argentina the firepower to stabilise the peso, if needed.

And so Milei asked and Scott Bessent agreed to bail out the so-called libertarian.

NerdReich captured the significance Javier Milei’s financial woes best:

The political ideology known as libertarianism died yesterday in Argentina at the age of thirteen.

While it had been around for quite a bit longer, its basic concepts never progressed beyond the early stages of adolescent brain development. Libertarianism—which asserted that society would be better off with minimal government, laws, and taxes—succumbed after chainsaw-wielding Argentine President Javier Milei asked the United States for a massive economic bailout due to his catastrophic leadership.

Milei, a werewolf-clown hybrid in a suit who once hired a spirit medium to communicate with his dead dog, swept into office promising a libertarian-inflected miracle in Argentina. In an early preview of Elon Musk’s DOGE, he slashed government and social spending. Earlier this year, an essay published on the website of the libertarian Cato Institute mocked his critics as doomsayers who “warned that the profane self-described libertarian—who looks more like a still-touring ’80s rockabilly singer than the classically trained economist he actually is—would inflict on Argentina’s already-beleaguered economy ‘deep recession,’ ‘devastation,’ ‘economic collapse,’ and all sorts of other economic horribles.”

But the critics were correct. Instead of miracles, the self-described “anarcho capitalist” has delivered shocking disaster: collapsing institutions, chronic inflation, and the awkward realization that screeching about free markets doesn’t put bread on the shelves.

When Bessent first offered to bailout Milei, Elizabeth Warren asked the obvious question: Has Bessent decided “Argentina” — that is Milei — is a systematically important US ally because Milei, who faces a legislative election next month, is buddies with Trump?

I am writing to request information on President Trump’s plans to bail out Argentina’s financial markets and foreign investors using America’s resources. At a time when Americans are struggling to afford groceries, rent, credit card bills, and other debt payments – and with the Administration gutting funds that make health care affordable for tens of millions of people here at home – it is deeply troubling that the President intends to use significant emergency funds to inflate the value of a foreign government’s currency and bolster its financial markets. President Trump’s close personal relationship with President Milei, and the timing of this bailout ahead of a critical October 26 midterm election in Argentina, raise serious concerns that the purpose of this bailout is personal and political – and comes at the expense of the American people.

Argentina’s financial markets are currently experiencing significant turmoil. Foreign investors appear to have lost confidence in the country’s outlook due to ongoing corruption scandals and waning public support for Milei’s regime.

[snip]

I understand why President Milei, careening from crisis to crisis and unable to effectively manage the Argentinian economy, wants the American people to finance a bailout. I do not understand why it is in the interest of the United States to provide one, nor how one would be designed to ensure the best outcomes for the Argentinian people, instead of hedge fund investors.

Bessent and the White House responded with contemptuous tweets, one attacking Massachusetts. None of them denied Warren’s premise, though: Even as Republicans are taking healthcare away from Americans, Trump is spending money on a buddy overseas.

Indeed, Bessent’s long tweet laying out how he was going to bailout Argentina confirmed the tie (incorporating the Trump tweet endorsing Milei); he even promised investments in Argentina if Milei’s party wins the election.

Yesterday, @POTUS and I spoke extensively with President @JMilei and his senior team in New York. As President Trump has stated, we stand ready to do what is needed to support Argentina and the Argentine people.

Under President Milei, Argentina has taken important strides toward stabilization. He has achieved impressive fiscal consolidation and a broad liberalization of prices and restrictive regulations, laying the foundation for Argentina’s historic return to prosperity.
The @USTreasury stands ready to purchase Argentina’s USD bonds and will do so as conditions warrant. We are also prepared to deliver significant stand-by credit via the Exchange Stabilization Fund, and we have been in active discussions with President Milei’s team to do so.

The Treasury is currently in negotiations with Argentine officials for a $20 billion swap line with the Central Bank. We are working in close coordination with the Argentine government to prevent excessive volatility.

In addition, the United States stands ready to purchase secondary or primary government debt and we are working with the Argentine government to end the tax holiday for commodity producers converting foreign exchange.

Argentina has the tools to defeat speculators, including those who seek to destabilize Argentina’s markets for political objectives. I have also been in touch with numerous US companies who intend to make substantial foreign direct investments in Argentina multiple sectors in the event of a positive election outcome.

The Trump Administration is resolute in our support for allies of the United States, and President Trump has given President Milei a rare endorsement of a foreign official, showing his confidence in his government’s economic plans and the geopolitical strategic importance of the relationship between the United States and Argentina. Immediately after the election, we will start working with the Argentine government on its principal repayments.

I will be watching developments closely, and the Treasury remains fully prepared to do what is necessary. [my emphasis]

This is not a systematic risk in Latin America. Brazil, which Trump has been targeting, is doing just fine. Rather, the risk is that the failing policies of a populist will risk the larger populist project.

Even as Bessent was risking US money on Trump’s basket case buddy, China was buying up Argentine soybeans, which were made more competitive when the state eliminated an export tax.

Chinese buyers booked at least 10 cargoes of Argentine soybeans after Buenos Aires scrapped grain export taxes, three traders said on Tuesday, dealing another setback to U.S. farmers already shut out of their top market and hit by low prices.

Argentina’s temporary tax move boosts the competitiveness of its soybeans, prompting traders to secure cargoes for fourth-quarter inventories in China, a period usually dominated by U.S. shipments but now clouded by Washington’s trade war with Beijing.

The Panamax-sized shipments of 65,000 metric tons each are scheduled for November, with CNF (cost and freight) prices quoted at a premium of $2.15-$2.30 per bushel to the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) November soybean contract , two traders with direct knowledge of the matter said.
One of the traders said Chinese buyers had booked 15 cargoes.

The deals are a fresh blow for U.S. farmers, who are missing out on billions of dollars of soybean sales to China halfway through their prime marketing season as unresolved trade talks freeze exports and rival South American suppliers led by Brazil step in to fill the gap, traders and analysts have said.

“Every time China turns to South America instead of the U.S., soybean farmers and our farm families here at home lose out,” said Caleb Ragland, a farmer from Magnolia, Kentucky, and president of the American Soybean Association.

“Without a trade deal that removes retaliatory tariffs, farmers like me are left watching key opportunities slip away.”

American soybean farmers have been devastated this year, as China leverages soybean sales in response to Trump’s trade war. To make things worse, a recent NYT story talking about how dire things have gotten for North Dakota farmers revealed that Bessent has still not divested from the rental farm property he owns in the state.

For the first time in the history of their 76-year-old operation, their biggest customer — China — had stopped buying soybeans. Their 2,300-acre soybean farm is projected to lose $400,000 in 2025. Soybeans that would normally be harvested and exported to Asia are now set to pile up in large steel bins.

Since President Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods in February, Beijing has retaliated by halting all purchases of American soybeans.

That decision has had devastating repercussions for farmers in North Dakota, which exported more than 70 percent of its soybeans to China before Trump unveiled the new tariffs this year. Unless China agrees to restart its purchases as part of a trade deal, farmers that depend on the Chinese market will be facing steep losses that could fuel farm bankruptcies and farm foreclosures around the United States.

[snip]

The Treasury Secretary owns thousands of acres of North Dakota farmland, worth up to $25 million. The properties grow soybeans and corn in a state that exports most of its agricultural products to China. The investments have earned Mr. Bessent as much as $1 million in rental income annually, according to his financial disclosure filings.

But the fortunes of Mr. Bessent, a multimillionaire former hedge fund manager, are not nearly as exposed to China’s whims as are those of the family farmers struggling to figure out how to sell their soybeans and keep their finances from falling apart.

To farmers in North Dakota, the forces of high interest rates, high input costs and falling prices are reminiscent of the 1980s farm crisis, which hobbled U.S. agriculture for nearly a decade and hollowed out much of rural America.

“The stress level is much higher now than it was then,” Jordan Gackle, 44, said in an interview. “If we keep this going for very long, then we are going to see the kind of foreclosures that were happening.”

Bessent is literally risk taxpayer money to keep the guy poaching the Chinese markets of American farmers in office. And if farmers start to go under, he’ll just continue to consolidate his holdings in the Midwest.

This is a big fucking deal. Even as Trump prepares to shut down government, even as American consumers face skyrocketing healthcare premium costs, Bessent is instead busy propping up a right winger likewise stripping benefits from his constituents.

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Sinclair Makes Itself Visible

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Congratulations to Jimmy Kimmel, whose show a right wing cabal turned into a resistance icon.

For some time, I’ve been noting that Donald Trump has chosen his political martyrs poorly. Every person he takes out in his authoritarian abuse could serve as one more person who will inspire others to fight back.

Now’s a good time to subscribe to Kimmel’s YouTube channel, to strengthen his ability to bypass gatekeepers the next time this happens.

In his monologue, Kimmel did not pull punches. He called out Trump’s efforts to target his show because he is thin-skinned, then mocked both Trump’s escalator failure at the UN and his screed against Tylenol. He noted he was not on the air in Seattle, DC, Nashville, New Orleans, Portland, Salt Lake, and St. Louis, where Sinclair or Nexstar refused to show it, then returned to efforts to coerce ABC affiliates not to air his show. He explicitly called out Brendan Carr, highlighting his flipflop on free speech since 2022. He joked that the US had become more authoritarian than Germany.

He choked up when he addressed his comments about Charlie Kirk’s death.

By refusing to air the show (and with Kimmel’s allusions to them, though he did not name them), Sinclair and Nexstar made themselves visible in a way they were not to most consumers.

This article describes some of the tension between the local outlets and the networks.

Local TV outlets receive retransmission payments from cable and satellite operators, and the networks take a cut of those retrans dollars. (That money sent to the networks is called “reverse compensation,” because once upon a time, the networks used to pay its affiliates to carry its lineups. Now, it’s the reverse and stations pay the networks.)

But affiliates have grown concerned that networks are demanding too much of that retrans money. Right now, most stations pay fixed fees to networks for the right to carry their fare (including sports), but as the payments local stations receive from pay-TV distributors declines, they’re looking for a more variable payment model with the networks.

At the FCC, Carr has been quick to highlight the growing tension between national network operations attached to media giants and the interests of local station owners.

Did the Nexstar/Sinclair gambit work? Perhaps, at least in winning over Carr, who thanked Nexstar on social media “for doing the right thing,” seemingly putting the company in the FCC’s good graces. It was already likely this administration would lift or raise the ownership cap; now that Nexstar and Sinclair have found favor with Carr and Trump, it’s probably a done deal.

But this week’s events also now put Nexstar and Sinclair right in the middle of a national conversation about free speech and the First Amendment — and many more people who hadn’t heard of those companies before now see them as opponents in the free speech debate. That could lead to more push back from the public, guilds, unions and other entities that might aggressively fight against the idea of abolishing the station cap.

Carr has already weighed in on the side of local stations.

If you live in one of the areas where those right wing corporations are abusing their access, you can push back in two ways. First, figure out who advertised on the alternative programming last night and/or the station’s top advertisers. Then call those advertisers and tell them that you are unhappy they had a role in silencing Kimmel. After that, call the station and tell them you’re going to hold the programming decision against them and their advertisers.

ABC caved because of consumer (and also labor) pressure, and now that Sinclair and Nexstar have made themselves visible to consumers, they can be pressured in the same way.

Meanwhile, in the President’s renewed threat against ABC and Kimmel, Trump:

  • Confirmed that he was involved the aborted attempt to fire Kimmel
  • Whined about ratings again, like a bitter old canceled Reality TV host
  • Threatened to sue

The two outbursts together — Carr’s politicization of this and Trump’s confirmation he was personally involved — will make it easier to claim that both are jawboning ABC about Kimmel, a violation of the First Amendment even this Supreme Court recently confirmed.

Now is not a time to declare victory. Now is the time to use the notoriety that the censoring screeds have acquired to push back on their efforts to extort control over free speech.

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Donald Trump Wants a $5 Billion Premium for Confessing His Weaponization Claims Are Bullshit

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Yesterday, Karoline Leavitt excused Trump’s demands for prosecutions of his adversaries by claiming poor Donald Trump was targeted by … Joe Biden:

The President is fulfilling his promise to restore a Department of Justice that demands accountability. And it is not weaponizing the Department of Justice to demand accountability for those who weaponized the Department of Justice. And nobody knows what that looks like more than President Trump. We are not going to tolerate gaslighting from anyone in the media or from anyone on the other side, who is trying to say that it’s the President who is weaponizing the DOJ. It was Joe Biden and his Attorney General who weaponized the DOJ. Joe Biden used this sacred American institution to go after his political opponent in the middle of an election year. And you look at people like Adam Schiff and like James Comey and like Leticia James who the President is rightfully frustrated. He wants accountability for these corrupt fraudsters who abused their power who abused their oath of office, to target the former President and then candidate for the highest office in the land. And I think the President is reaffirmed in those frustrations and his hope for accountability by the millions and millions of people who reelected him to this office with a mandate to demand accountability. And the President has not been shy about this, Gabe. In fact when he traveled to the Department of Justice earlier this year — all of you were there to cover it — he said, quote, I demand a full and complete accountability for wrongs and abuses that have occurred, the American people gave a mandate to investigate and root the corruption out of our system and that’s what the President wants to see done.

Trump’s claims of grievance are really interesting given that he just confessed none of this is justified.

The confession comes in Trump’s recently dismissed lawsuit against the NYT (he has said he’ll refile it within the 28 deadline that Judge Steven Merryday set).

Trump sued about one book and three articles:

  • Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig’s book, Lucky Loser, about how Trump doesn’t have the talent his corrupt father had. (The book just came out in paperback in the US, which surely explains the timing of the lawsuit.)
  • This story, based on the book, describing how much work the Apprentice had to do to make Trump look like a successful businessman.
  • This story repeating John Kelly’s warnings that Trump would rule as a dictator.
  • This article from Peter Baker summarizing Trump’s lifetime of corruption.

As I noted last year when Trump first threatened to file this lawsuit, “The [Baker] story was remarkable e[s]pecially by Baker’s terms — he has a history of pulling his punches with Presidents.” One premise of the story is that, “Trump makes a point of not admitting misdeeds or mistakes.” It catalogued many of them:

  • His multiple business failures
  • His affairs with Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels
  • His adverse civil judgement in the E Jean Carroll case
  • How little he paid in taxes
  • How much money his Dad gave him
  • The number of “contractors, bankers, business partners, customers and competitors” he stiffed
  • Trump Organization’s tax fraud
  • That “Mr. Mueller concluded that the Russians did interfere on Mr. Trump’s behalf”
  • The 10 instances Mueller laid out where trump may have committed obstruction
  • The ways in which he monetized the presidency
  • The way in which Trump extorted Zelenskyy “to deliver dirt on Mr. Biden, a political rival”
  • His abuse of pardons, including ” figures who he might have had reason to fear would turn against him by talking with prosecutors”
  • “His concerted effort to overturn the 2020 election that he lost so that he could hold onto power despite the will of the voters”
  • That Trump refused to give back the classified documents he took when he left

A whole section of the story focuses on the way in which Trump weaponized government against his adversaries.

Time and again, he publicly pressed his attorneys general — first Jeff Sessions and then William P. Barr — to prosecute Democrats or government officials who angered him. At various times, he called for the prosecution of Mr. Biden, Ms. Clinton and former President Barack Obama and lashed out when advisers resisted.

He grew particularly obsessed with prosecuting certain people, like former Secretary of State John Kerry.

[snip]

Angered that Mr. Bolton had criticized him, Mr. Trump pressured the Justice Department to block his former aide from publishing his book.

[snip]

Mr. Trump tried to put so many people who irritated him in the cross hairs of the legal system that it is hard to maintain a thorough list. He wanted prosecutors to investigate Mr. Comey as well as Andrew G. McCabe, his acting successor, and other F.B.I. officials who participated in the Russia investigation, including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

[snip]

He also sought to use his power to help specific companies he favored and penalize those that angered him. He told aides to instruct the Justice Department to block the merger of Time Warner with AT&T, which would include the CNN network, one of the biggest thorns in his side.

But none of that is in the lawsuit. The only three things in the story that Trump claims are defamation in the lawsuit are:

  • A reference to Trump borrowing a Military Academy friend’s jacket, laden with medals, to wear in his yearbook photo
  • Mary Trump’s claim that Trump cheated on his SATs
  • A description that Trump was investigated for mafia ties and serving as a money laundering vehicle

That’s it!!!

Effectively, in a 80-page rant, Trump offered no hint that any of the rest of those things, including Baker’s description of how Trump himself weaponized DOJ and government against his adversaries, were untrue.

This is a point NYT attorney David McCraw made last year when telling Trump to get stuffed.

Tellingly, your letter does not dispute – nor could it – the remainder of the article and its lengthy recitation of the legal problems, financial failures, and misdeeds of Mr. Trump.

Between last year’s threatened lawsuit and when Trump filed just over a week ago, Trump upped his ante. Last year, he claimed these stories had done $10 billion in damage to his fragile reputation. Last week, he demanded $15 billion. (Last year, he claimed his personal brand was worth just $15 billion, whereas last week, he claimed it was worth $100 billion, which raises real questions about how much damage these stories could have done!!)

So in effect, Trump is demanding a $5 billion premium to confess that he’s actually the one who weaponized government against his adversaries.

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Time to Win the Shutdown

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On Friday, there were two votes to pass a Continuing Resolution.

A vote to pass the House-passed clean funding (which added security for members of Congress) failed 44-47. John Fetterman voted with Republicans, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul voted with Dems, and eight Republicans — including some rabid Trump loyalists — did not vote. A vote to pass a Democratic alternative, which restored funding for healthcare cut in the Big Ugly bill, added measures to prohibit illegal rescissions, and added more funding than the House bill for security also failed, 45-47, on a strictly party line vote, with the same eight Republicans not voting.

As a result, in nine days, there’s a good chance that the government will shut down, the thing many lefty voices say they wanted because, they claimed, it will be a good way to fight Trump’s fascism.

It’s time everyone on the left starts working to win a shutdown.

To be sure, there are still multiple routes via which a shutdown might not happen. It’s definitely possible Schumer will disappoint us and cave. It’s possible that enough Democrats will join Fetterman in supporting the GOP clean resolution, against Schumer’s whipping, to allow Republicans to fund government. There’s some talk of using concessions on health spending in a follow-up to convince Schumer to cave.

Betting markets are putting a 71% chance on a shutdown.

Even if you distrust Schumer, messaging now about the import of a shutdown to rein in Trump’s authoritarianism can only serve to buck up Democrats, making a shutdown more likely, making the likelihood a shutdown will make a difference more likely.

Thus far, many lefty voices who’ve been insisting a shutdown will fight fascism are doing little to prepare the groundwork for one. Indeed, there was some griping that Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer made a show of asking Trump for a meeting to avoid the shutdown.

Top congressional Democrats are asking President Trump for a meeting before an impending government shutdown.

“We write to demand a meeting in connection with your decision to shut down the federal government,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, wrote in a Saturday morning letter.

The pair say that GOP leaders have “repeatedly and publicly refused to engage in bipartisan negotiations to keep the government open.”

This was a fairly obvious ploy, an attempt to blame Trump for the shutdown, possibly even to provoke Trump into saying something really inflammatory that would make it easier to do so. Even Thune has made clear he can’t move on anything until Trump agrees.

Republican sources familiar with the Senate’s internal dynamics say that Thune doesn’t want to begin negotiating with Schumer until he’s clear what Trump is willing to accept, and Trump himself has yet to give the GOP leader clear guidance about what he would sign into law.

Thune says the White House needs to weigh in before any deal is reached and explained that while his staff has been in contact with White House staff, he has yet to speak directly to Trump on the matter.

[snip]

Thune may be trying to avoid a repeat of what happened in late July and early August, when he tried to negotiate a deal with Schumer to speed up the confirmation of more than 140 stalled executive branch nominees that Democrats had slow-walked through the Senate.

After days of negotiations, Trump blew up the emerging deal when it was presented to him, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

One Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment on Thune’s relationship with Trump said the GOP leader wants to be careful of not getting too far in front of the president in any negotiation with Schumer.

The lawmaker said the impasse between Thune and Schumer over the looming expiration of the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies is “solvable” but not without Trump giving GOP leaders on Capitol Hill the green light.

Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ job and audience is different from yours. Their audience includes caucus members, the DC press, even Republicans. Thus the posturing. Their audience also includes the rest of the country, who will lose services under the shutdown and decide who to blame, who’ll figure that out largely based on what friends and family tell them, but will be influenced by what they see on TV and hear on their favorite podcast.

With the exception of holding the caucus in line, making sure your Democratic Senator doesn’t cave, your audience is just the latter group and, especially if you’re from anyplace outside of New York Metro area, there are multiple ways you can influence that latter group more effectively than Jeffries and Schumer can.

Yet the same people who’ve claimed a shutdown would be an effective tool continue to focus on Schumer and Jeffries, even as the Democratic leaders attempt do things to make it easier to blame Republicans for the shutdown. Even as the right has already started accusing Dems of only trying to fund undocumented people (repeating their excuse for cutting healthcare), lefty pundits remain focused on Democrats.

Much of the griping about Jeffries and Schumer focuses on their choice to ask for healthcare funding, and not something focusing on ICE. Some of the shutdown coverage makes the political logic of that ask clear. It’s something Dems in both houses could agree on; they wouldn’t have on ICE. The ObamaCare subsidies are something even some Republicans would like to fund. The Big Ugly bill that cut healthcare is something that individual Republicans, as distinct from Trump, bear personal responsibility for, and so can be politically pressured for. Healthcare will affect — already is affecting, in areas where rural hospitals are shutting down — people who otherwise pay no attention to politics.

Disagree with that all you want. It doesn’t stop you from using Democrats’ alternative CR to message about Republican responsibility for the shutdown, to tie that to Trump’s authoritarianism. As noted, Schumer and Jeffries also included efforts to reverse Trump’s usurpation of the power of the purse. That part of the bill is being conveniently ignored by sloppy both-sides political journalists, who want this to be as partisan and frivolous as they can bother. But that part of the bill can be used to tie Trump to specifics — like taking steps that will lead to millions of deaths and shutting down rural broadcast stations. It can also be used to hold right wing members of Congress responsible for abdicating their job under the Constitution.

If you were sure the shutdown was necessary to break Trump’s momentum, now is the time to work relentlessly, to speak relentlessly, on tying funding government to all the things that threaten democracy and threaten the health, safety, and livelihood of your neighbors. Now is the time to explain how the right wing capitulation to Trump has started destroying the lives of all Americans not on the take.

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Trump Can’t Even Weaponize DOJ Competently

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It is, no doubt, terrible that EDVA US Attorney Erik Siebert was forced out yesterday because he refused to charge Tish James with fraud when there’s little evidence she engaged in mortgage fraud.

But there are aspects of the firing that make it epically incompetent and, like the quid pro quo with Eric Adams and the effort to send hundreds of men to a concentration camp beforehand, may backfire going forward.

ABC, which was the first to report on the firing, confirms that Seibert received notice that Trump wanted to fire him on Thursday, which presumably is how both ABC and NBC reported he was expected to be fired in advance of that happening.

Siebert was notified of the president’s intention to fire him Thursday, sources said, and Trump said Friday afternoon in the Oval Office that he wanted Siebert “out” of his position.

That meant that the reason for the firing — the refuse to indict James — was public before it happened.

And even though Trump has reversed engineered a different reason for the firing — it’s not that he’s firing Siebert because Siebert won’t prosecute Tish James, it’s that he was backed by both Virginia’s Democratic Senators, which was true and apparent when Trump nominated Siebert — in the same breath he insisted that Seibert had not quit, but instead Trump had fired him.

Today I withdrew the Nomination of Erik Siebert as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, when I was informed that he received the UNUSUALLY STRONG support of the two absolutely terrible, sleazebag Democrat Senators, from the Great State of Virginia. He didn’t quit, I fired him! Next time let him go in as a Democrat, not a Republican.

Particularly given ABC’s report that Siebert would like to stay on at EDVA as an AUSA, this text, demanding credit for firing Siebert, changes Siebert’s legal options going forward, and the impact of the firing on cases Siebert wouldn’t charge.

Both NYT and WaPo report that Todd Blanche (and Pam Bondi, NYT adds) tried to save Siebert’s job.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general who runs the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department, had privately defended Mr. Siebert against officials, including William J. Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who had urged that he be fired and replaced with a prosecutor who would push the cases forward, according to a senior law enforcement official.

​Mr. Pulte’s power far outstrips his role as the head of an obscure housing agency. He has gained Mr. Trump’s favor by pushing mortgage fraud allegations against perceived adversaries of the White House, including Ms. James; a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook; and Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California.

Mr. Pulte has made use of his influence and access to a president who prefers advisers who are willing to push boundaries. He had told Mr. Trump directly that he believed Mr. Siebert could be doing more, according to several officials with knowledge of the matter.

But Mr. Blanche, like Mr. Siebert, questioned the legal viability of bringing charges against Ms. James, according to current and former department officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about internal discussions.

WaPo added the unsurprising bit that Ed Martin, who works for Bondi and Blanche, also weighed in to get Siebert fired.

They added that Ed Martin, the Justice Department official who is overseeing criminal investigations based on Pulte’s allegations, also pushed for Siebert to be removed.

Todd Blanche is Trump’s fixer, neck deep in an effort to make Trump’s sex-trafficking problems go away. He has not shied, at all, from enacting Trump’s campaign of revenge. And yet somehow it got reported that Blanche, “questioned the legal viability of bringing charges against Ms. James.”

The firing creates all sorts of headaches for Blanche. All of DOJ knows that Eagle Ed, along with Bill Pulte (who is not a lawyer and whose primary career skill has been benefitting from nepotism) got Siebert removed over Blanche’s objections. But it’s also public that even Blanche agrees there’s no case against James. Who is in charge of DOJ if Eagle Ed, never a prosecutor and prone to embarrassing gaffes when he tries to play lawyer more generally, can override Blanche’s personnel and prosecutorial decisions?

And it’s not just the James prosecution that will be difficult to charge in EDVA, though I can imagine judges there will be very skeptical of this investigation going forward. NYT also reports that Dan Richman, whose testimony prosecutors obtained in an effort to charge Jim Comey for statements he made four years and 355 days ago (meaning the statute of limitation expires in coming weeks), didn’t tell them what they wanted him to.

Mr. Richman’s statements to prosecutors were not helpful in their efforts to build a case against Mr. Comey, according to two people familiar with the matter.

It’s not clear that firing Siebert will achieve the ostensible objective — to install someone who will charge James and Comey, in spite of the evidence. If that were to happen, it might well blow up in epic fashion.

And whatever happens, this badly undermines Blanche’s hold on DOJ (even as various MAGAts have it in for Bondi and/or Kash).

Plus, some Republicans in Congress were already uncomfortable (anonymously) with Pulte’s tantrums.

“I think he’s a nut,” one House Republican said of Pulte. (Like others in this story, the lawmaker was granted anonymity to speak candidly about sensitive dynamics within the Trump administration.)

“The guy’s just a little too big for his britches,” said a second GOP lawmaker, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees housing policy and the FHFA. “I’ve got great respect for Bessent for taking him on.”

Partly that’s concern for the Fed, but it cannot have escaped their notice how easy it is to claim people engaged in mortgage fraud, not to mention the way such concerns could influence Ken Paxton’s challenge to John Cornyn in the Texas Senate primary.

None of that mitigates the dangers of this kind of weaponization. They just make it more likely that efforts to weaponize DOJ will create larger and larger problems for Blanche and possibly even for Trump.

Update: Reuters reports that a woman once investigated, but not charged, for involvement in January 6 has been appointed Acting US Attorney.

A former federal prosecutor who once claimed former President Joe Biden’s administration targeted her for being conservative told colleagues in an email on Saturday that she has been named to replace a top prosecutor who resigned on Friday after President Donald Trump had said he wanted him out.
In an internal email seen by Reuters, Mary “Maggie” Cleary told attorneys she has been “unexpectedly” tapped to be acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. She did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters seeking comment.

Update: Trump has sent (two times, I think) a post berating Pam Bondi for not prosecuting his enemies, and then announced he’ll nominate Lindsey Halligan, the insurance lawyer who served as local counsel in ihs Florida case.

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Fridays with Nicole Sandler

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Listen on spotify (transcripts available)

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The “Boo Boos” and Bovino Bullshit DHS Uses to Criminalize Scrutiny

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I had been meaning to return to the parts of DOJ’s omnibus response to LaMonica McIver’s motions to dismiss her indictment anyway.

And then the following things happened:

Brayan Ramos-Brito

After Brayan Ramos-Brito was arrested for being assaulted by a Border Patrol officer, after he was held in pretrial detention for a week based on several claims that DOJ later admitted were lies (including that he said he was going to grab guns and shoot the agents, when he actually said he was going to fuck up the border patrol agents), after the initial felony assault charge was dismissed and then charged as a misdemeanor (first on something inaccurately called an indictment, and only later as an Information), and after getting several adverse rulings on motions in limine, Ramos-Brito was acquitted on Wednesday.

According to LAT, a juror said Ramos-Brito was acquitted because the government presented no video evidence showing the assault. Which means senior Border Patrol official, Gregory Bovino, destroyed his credibility for naught.

U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino — the brash agent who led a phalanx of military personnel into MacArthur Park this summer — was called as a witness Wednesday in a federal misdemeanor assault case against Brayan Ramos-Brito, who was accused of striking a federal agent.

Bovino, who flew in to testify from Chicago, the latest city targeted for an immigration enforcement surge, said he witnessed the alleged assault committed by Ramos-Brito in Paramount on June 7.

Bovino was questioned by the defense about previous comments he made referring to undocumented immigrants as “scum.”

[snip]

On a cross-examination, federal public defender Cuauhtemoc Ortega questioned Bovino about being the subject of a misconduct investigation a few years ago and receiving a reprimand for referring to undocumented immigrants as “scum, filth and trash.”

Bovino said he was referring to “a specific criminal illegal alien” — a Honduran national who he said had raped a child and reentered the United States and had been caught at or near the Baton Rouge Border Patrol station.

“I said that about a specific individual, not about undocumented peoples, that’s not correct,” he said.

Ortega pushed back, reading from the reprimand, which Bovino signed, stating that he was describing “illegal aliens.”

“They did not say one illegal alien,” Ortega said. “They said you describing illegal aliens, and or criminals, as scum, trash and filth is misconduct. Isn’t that correct?”

“The report states that,” Bovino said.

Not only did Bovino lead the staged invasion of MacArthur Park (which featured in Charles Breyer’s opinion ruling that DOD had violated the Posse Comitatus Act), but he’s the one who tried to menace Gavin Newsom during his announced plan to redistrict California. And he was caught lying to a jury.

Among the things Ramos-Brito was not permitted to do was conduct attorney-led voir dire to find out if anyone had seen Acting US Attorney Bill Essayli’s false propaganda about the arrests, posted on Xitter the day of the incident and still posted today, even after the dismissals and acquittal — yet more lies DHS and DOJ have told about the assaults that DHS officers have caused.

Sydney Reid

Meanwhile, in DC, DOJ asked to prevent Sydney Reid, who was accused of assaulting FBI agent Eugenia Bates while she was filming the ICE arrest of two people at the DC jail, from introducing the following evidence at trial:

  • That Bates called her “boo boos,” “boo boos”
  • That Bates twice complained that she had to turn this thing into an assault charge:
    • “I’m going to the attorneys [sic] office for a bystander that I tussled. Dinko arrested her for ‘assault’ ughhh”;
    • “Do you want the arrest EC separate from the ‘assault’ or am I good to put it in together in one 302”
  • That she called Reid a “lib tard”

The government appears to have no complaint if Reid introduces Bates comment that she said of her “boo boos:” “I sacrificed life and limb for the mission. I think it’s worth a trump coin,” which Reid included in her response.

Still, DOJ badly wants to prevent Reid from presenting evidence that not even Bates believed this was an assault.

Brad Lander

Yesterday, the government arrested Brad Lander, again, along with dozens of others, once again for protesting the treatment of ICE targets inside Federal Plaza.

At least 11 elected officials were arrested Thursday while protesting conditions at an immigration holding facility in Manhattan where a federal judge this week extended a court order requiring the government to shape up its treatment of detainees.

The officials, including Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, State Senator Julia Salazar and Assemblywoman Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, were among dozens of people detained during protests at 26 Federal Plaza. The government building, home to immigration court, the FBI’s New York field office and other federal offices, has become a hotbed of arrests and detention amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Several officials were arrested inside the building while attempting to inspect holding rooms on the 10th floor that are the subject of ongoing litigation alleging squalid conditions and overcrowding, according to a coalition of politicians, advocates and faith leaders involved in the protest.

The arrests came in the wake of an order from Judge Lewis Kaplan requiring that DHS treat those being held at 26 Federal Plaza humanely.

The Court’s preliminary injunction will not prevent defendants from pursuing the policies they have set. It merely will require that they conform to the demands of the Constitution in doing so. It is up to defendants to choose whether they wish to expend resources to conform 26 Fed to those requirements, or to alter the rate at which they are funneling arrestees into 26 Fed and other facilities, or to select or obtain facilities where detainees can be held in a humane and constitutional manner.

Here, plaintiff has demonstrated clear and imminent irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction and a likelihood of success on the merits of his First and Fifth Amendment claims arising from the substandard conditions and barriers to attorney-client communication at 26 Fed. Because the injunction would halt ongoing constitutional injuries while merely requiring adherence to standards defendants have already adopted for their immigration detention facilities across the country, the balance of the equities and the public interest decisively favor plaintiff.

This time, Lander wasn’t assaulted as he was arrested, and the government released those protesting with summonses.

But DHS continues to try to criminalize opposition to its abuses.

LaMonica McIver

Which is why two aspects of the LaMonica McIver response are notable.

One of McIver’s motions was to get DHS to take down a series of egregiously false claims that DHS and its propagandist, Tricia McLaughlin, had made about the incident at Delaney Hall. The government’s response to this was similar to that offered in the Kilmar Abrego case — that DOJ did not control DHS.

As an initial matter, it should be noted that the U.S. Attorney’s Office does not exercise authority over DHS even at a local level. Nevertheless, this Office has communicated with DHS to request that DHS remove the postings to which Defendant objects. To the extent that DHS does so, McIver’s motion will be moot.

But while DHS had not removed the offending propaganda before the court filing, they now have done so.

Nevertheless, DOJ cited some of those very same propaganda posts, which McIver also cited in her selective prosecution filing, in arguing that threats against DHS have gone up astronomically. (I’ve color coded the three references so you can see how they correspond.)

Since then, and as reflected in the multiple press releases and articles referenced by McIver, assaults and threats against DHS officers have increased exponentially.12 According to DHS, ICE officials faced an 830 percent increase in assaults between January 21 and July 14, 2025, compared with the same period in 2024.13 Seemingly recognizing the dangers that DHS officers have been uniquely facing, McIver “introduce[ed], as her first bill in Congress, the DHS Better Ballistic Body Armor Act, which would increase the availability of protective body armor designed to fit the bodies of female agents.” ECF 20-1, at 8. DHS also introduced a new policy for the protection of law enforcement officers requiring notice for a visit to its facilities, noting that the policy was “made in response to ‘a surge in assaults, disruptions and obstructions to enforcement, including by politicians themselves.’”14 In response to the DHS policy, on July 30, 2025, 12 Members of Congress filed a civil Complaint against ICE objecting to the new policy and seeking injunctive relieve.15 McIver, who was at Delaney Hall to conduct oversight, is neither a named plaintiff nor mentioned in the Complaint.

12 See, e.g., ECF 20-1, at 13 n.23 (article quoting DHS official that ICE law enforcement officers faced a 413 percent increase in assaults against them at the time), n.25 (DHS press release claiming “[a]ttacks and smears against ICE have resulted in officers facing a 413% increase in assaults”), n.26 (DHS press release discussing alleged disclosure of an ICE agent’s information by Democratic Congressman Salud Carbajal, and a subsequent alleged assault on that agent during an enforcement action); see also n.23 (article discussing incident involving Senator Alex Padilla where U.S. Secret Service purportedly “thought he was an attacker’” during a DHS press conference).

13 Id. at 13 n.27 (Press Release, Department of Homeland Security, DHS Announces ICE Law Enforcement are Now Facing an 830 Percent Increase in Assaults (July 15, 2025) (emphasis omitted), available at https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/15/dhs-announcesice-law-enforcement-are-now-facing-830-percent-increase-assaults).

14 Michael Gold, ICE Imposes New Rules on Congressional Visits, N.Y. Times (June 19, 2025), www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/us/politics/ice-congress.html; ECF 20-1, at 14 n.28; see also Homeland Security (@DHSgov), X (July 11, 2025, at 6:28 PM) (posting on X that “sufficient notice to facilitate a visit . . . is essential to keep staff and detainees safe”), https://x.com/dhsgov/status/1943799482342109463?s=46&t=-VXhB76r-zYF5BuEUXYkQ.

15 Complaint, Neguse v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 25-CV-02463, ECF. No 1 at 64 (D.D.C. July 30, 2025).

McIver cited these links not for the truth, but to demonstrate that as part of an effort to evade oversight, DHS was lying its ass off.

The events at Delaney Hall marked the first of three times ICE forcefully detained officials investigating its activities in the course of a month.23 And DHS has since pursued a press strategy to undermine congressional oversight authority over its facilities. Even before the end of the May 9 visit, DHS issued a press release falsely describing Congresswoman McIver and the other Members as having “stormed the [Delaney Hall] gate and broke[n] into the detention facility,” calling the visit “a bizarre political stunt.”24 A week later, DHS issued a news release to “[d]ebunk” the notion that the visit to Delaney Hall “was ‘oversight’”—“it is actually trespassing and put ICE officers and detainees at risk.”25 DHS renewed this rhetoric in July, issuing a third press release related to Congresswoman McIver, this time suggesting that her actions were “just another case of Democratic lawmakers labeling political stunts as oversight while they endanger the safety of ICE personnel.”26 DHS doubled down on that framing the next day, stating in yet another new post that “Democratic members of Congress,” including “Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ),” have “been caught red-handed doxing and even physically assaulting ICE officials.”27

23 Compl. ¶¶ 31-32, 43 Baraka v. Habba, 25-cv-06846 (June 4, 2025), ECF No. 1; Michael Williams et. al, US Senator Forcefully Removed From DHS Event in LA, Triggering Democratic Outcry on Capitol Hill, CNN (June 12, 2025), https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/12/politics/alexpadilla-removed-noem-press-conference; Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Brad Lander Is Arrested by ICE Agents at Immigration Courthouse, N.Y. Times (June 17, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/nyregion/brad-lander-immigration-ice.html.

24 Press Release, DHS, Members of Congress Break into Delaney Hall Detention Center (May 9, 2025), https://perma.cc/G6MH-2KXF.

25 Press Release, DHS, DHS Debunks Fake News Narratives About Law Enforcement During Police Week (May 16, 2025), https://perma.cc/9XKE-3K3U.

26 Press Release, DHS, ICE Employee Attacked by Rioters After Congressman Doxes Him to Mob at California Marijuana Facility (July 14, 2025), https://perma.cc/3GNL-PWE6.

27 Press Release, DHS, DHS Announces ICE Law Enforcement are Now Facing an 830 Percent Increase in Assaults (July 15, 2025), https://perma.cc/7YZP-PGWS.

The only one of four withdrawn press releases that DOJ did not cite here is the one falsely claiming that members of Congress arrived to Delaney Hall on a bus. They’ve also subsequently posted another bullshit post (which repeats a false claim McLaughlin made about the ICE assault of Christian Enrique Carias Torres, whose case has also been dismissed), to make sure their slander of Congressman Carbajal remains accessible.

DOJ’s use of these false (and now withdrawn) press releases creates the illusion that the new policy, unlawfully requiring a week’s notice before members of Congress conduct oversight at a detention facility, was set up in response to the assault alleged against McIver.

To claim there is “clear evidence” of discriminatory intent supporting her selective enforcement claim, McIver points to three areas: 1) press statements issued by DHS that are sharply critical of her conduct on the day she arrived at Delaney Hall to conduct an unscheduled inspection tour; 2) the implementation of a new DHS policy after the charges were against her were filed that applies to all Members of Congress requiring them to give seven days prior notice of an oversight inspection tour of certain immigration facilities; and 3) the detention/interaction by law enforcement with three Democratic politicians including Defendant within the space of approximately one month. See ECF 20-1, at 13-15, 22-23.

[snip]

Relatedly, Defendant points to the DHS policy enacted after the events at Delaney Hall on May 9, 2025, requiring Members of Congress to give at least seven days’ notice in advance of conducting an oversight inspection tour of an immigration detention facility. Defendant believes this is somehow evidence of discriminatory intent in conducting an “enforcement action” against her even though the policy was enacted after McIver had been charged. The logic of this claim is elusive, especially when the policy, at least in part, furthers the legitimate purpose of avoiding situations like that which occurred on May 9, 2025, by ensuring that appropriate security measures may be taken in advance of such an oversight visit.

All of this, of course, is an attempt to narrow the issue to what happened after Todd Blanche ordered Ricky Patel to arrest Newark Mayor Ras Baraka even after Baraka left Delaney Hall, rather than include details of the decision — from the guy now in charge of this prosecution team — to criminalize someone who had followed the orders of a cop.

To the contrary, the jury will hear such details only if McIver introduces them over the Government’s Rule 401/403/jury nullification objections. But even if those objections are overruled, the speech or debate analysis focuses on what the Government has alleged (and, thus, how the Government will prove it), not on how the defendant hopes to defend herself. Here, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that McIver violated 18 U.S.C. § 111(a)(1), the Government will prove that on May 9, 2025, she used her forearms to forcibly strike a federal Agent who was attempting to arrest someone outside the gate to Delaney Hall, and she used her hands to forcibly grab and pull at that agent’s jacket. ECF No. 1 at 5, ¶¶ 13,14 and 16. Nothing about that touches on oversight activities.

This goes to the heart of separation of powers issues, which is why McIver’s attempt to rely on Trump v. US has real merit. Todd Blanche ordered agents from a different agency to arrest someone — Newark’s Mayor — trying to conduct oversight, even after he had left the premises. After discovering that arrest was based off false claims, they’re now trying to criminalize the physical conflict — including what McIver said in real time was an assault of her — that resulted. And in this filing, they rely on that effort to criminalize conducting oversight to excuse their unlawful attempt to evade oversight with the week notice requirement.

Over and over, DHS has been caught lying about assaults on its officers, presenting assaults of arrestees as instead assaults on their officers.

And in McIver’s case, they’re trying to double down on withdrawn propaganda to claim the problem that Todd Blanche caused can be pinned on Congressional oversight.

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Speech

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For some time, I’ve been noting that Donald Trump has chosen his political martyrs poorly. Every person he takes out in his authoritarian abuse could serve as one more person who will inspire others to fight back.

I wasn’t specifically thinking of Jimmy Kimmel, whose show ABC suspended after Brendan Carr complained about the things Kimmel said about Charlie Kirk’s killer.

But sure, Kimmel’s suspension removes a familiar voice from the living rooms of a certain aging demographic, but more importantly, points to the system of power behind the suspension: not just the cancel campaign to silence discussion of Charlie Kirk’s real statements, but Brendan Carr’s egregious politicization of the FCC, and in response, the abject cowardice from multinationals like ABC, Sinclair, and Nexstar. While Carr absolutely made inappropriate comments as a regulator (see Mike Masnick for a predictably excellent post on why his comments were illegal), the specific means by which Carr silenced Kimmel was the learned helplessness of massive corporations putting speech considerations behind their hopes of regulatory approval for expansion.

The Kimmel suspension comes as Larry Ellison’s family moves to take control of vast swaths of public speech in the US. David Ellison bought Paramount Skydance and promptly set about replacing news with Bari Weiss’ propaganda, and now Larry looks set to acquire TikTok and probably Warner Brothers.

Then, if all goes according to plan, Mr. Trump could soon hand an 80 percent stake in TikTok, the powerful social media platform, to the existing shareholders, among them KKR and General Atlantic, plus a new consortium that includes Mr. Ellison’s Oracle and a16z, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm whose co-founder Marc Andreessen is close with the administration.

There’s more: The Ellisons are also, reportedly, preparing a bid — of perhaps $80 billion, according to some estimates — for Warner Bros. Discovery, the media conglomerate that controls such jewels as HBO Max, the Warner Bros. movie studio and CNN.

Jimmy Kimmel’s plight is a good way to make the consolidation and control of the media by oligarchs and Trump flunkies visible and meaningful to people who otherwise wouldn’t care. So depending on what happens (he has not yet been fired and so might capitulate to demands Sinclair is making of him, and it’s not clear how long he’d remain under contract if he tried to quit), this could be a really useful teaching opportunity for people who hear Kimmel but not more political actors.

But I wasn’t thinking about Kimmel. I have used the phrase with people like Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University activist and Green Card holder threatened with deportation based on his advocacy for Palestinians. Last week, a Louisiana immigration court approved the Administration’s attempt to retcon their retconned basis to deport Khalil (a claim he made a misrepresentation on his change of status petition, as opposed to his speech itself), putting his bid to stay in the country on fast track before an immigration appeals court. In a letter sent yesterday to the court that ruled his deportation unconstitutional retaliation for Khalil’s speech, his attorneys described how absent outside action he may soon be deported to Algeria or Syria.

On September 12, the IJ issued three separate orders denying Petitioner’s (1) motion for an extension of time, (2) motion to change venue, and (3) application for a waiver, without conducting an evidentiary hearing. (Copies of each order are attached as Exhibits A, B, and C.)

[snip]

Respondents’ continued pursuit of Petitioner’s removal on the Post-Hoc Charge and these latest, highly unusual developments—including Respondents’ decisions to move forward with the waiver process on a compressed schedule despite seeking and obtaining a partial stay of that courtordered requirement and to deny an ordinarily granted waiver without the normal hearing—is part and parcel of Respondents broader effort to retaliate against Petitioner for his constitutionally protected expression in support of Palestinian rights. It represents a substantial threat to Petitioner’s liberty, family integrity and if ultimately removed, his physical safety.

Petitioner now has thirty days from September 12 to notice an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). In light of the above, and given statements targeting Petitioner by name for retaliation and deportation made by the President and several senior U.S. government officials, undersigned counsel have ample reason to expect that the BIA process—and an affirmance of the IJ’s determination—will be swift. Upon affirmance by the BIA, Petitioner will lose his lawful permanent resident status, including his right to reside and work in the United States, and have a final order of removal against him. Compared to other courts of appeals, including those in the Third and Second Circuits, the Fifth Circuit almost never grants stays of removal to noncitizens pursuing petitions for review of BIA decisions. 4 As a result, the only meaningful impediment to Petitioner’s physical removal from the United States would be this Court’s important order prohibiting removal during the pendency of his federal habeas case. See ECF 81 (ordering pursuant to the All Writs Act that, “Petitioner shall not be removed from the United States, unless and until this Court issues a contrary order … to preserve the Court’s jurisdiction, so that the Petition can be reviewed and ruled on”). And nothing would preserve his lawful permanent resident status.

Back when Khalil was the center of focus, I really did believe that his charisma and poise might keep a focus on Marco Rubio’s egregious actions to deport people based on speech. That hasn’t happened. I learned of these latest developments from press releases from his lawyers and saw someone compare the First Amendment attack on Khalil with that on Kimmel. But any focus on Khalil’s plight has been replaced by 100 other abuses. Trump’s minions are still working overtime to silence Khalil, just like Kimmel; they’re just using different means — means that are (and have been ruled to be) a more direct assault on the First Amendment.

And that brings me back to the concerns I raised here.

There’s a lot that’s terrible. But even a lot of the good things that are happening escape notice, largely from the two forces that buried Khalil’s fate: surging mobs of attention, corporate control on news, and the resultant increased difficulty in finding good news anymore. Corporate news and most existing social media is already broken and dying. One reason it was easy for ABC to suspend Kimmel is he’s no longer the fixture he used to be.

Ben Collins (who bought the Onion and has been fighting to take over Alex Jones’ empire) responded to yesterday’s news by describing this as a market opportunity.

Collins is right: because mass media is largely dead, there is an opportunity to build up new media that is both more trusted because it is not subject to Carr’s threats and on that basis popular, a media that can compete with whatever slop the Ellisons are putting out.

But until we get there and likely even after, we need to find ways to bridge the gaps in the media environment right now. We need to do so to ensure that stories — of people like Khalil, of the families being destroyed by Stephen Miller’s attacks, the impact of RFK Jr’s assault on public health, the disastrous effects of Trump’s financial policies — keep getting told. We need to convey what Democrats are actually doing, such that criticism is based on reality, rather than outright fabrications. The biggest challenge, Democrats need to be engaged in a media environment shared to the extent it is possible to hold Republicans, from Trump on down, accountable among those who normally support them.

Trump and Carr’s assault on the media — accompanied by their oligarch friends’ attempt to buy it all up — is an attempt to disrupt all that accountability. For now, at least, it’s actually possible to bypass those dying media outlets. But it takes work. And awareness.

And whatever else the Jimmy Kimmel suspension does, it provides that moment of awareness. It provides a wake-up call that we need to lay the foundation to bypass the oligarch-owned media.

Updated: Corrected Collins’ name. Curse his Bluesky handle!

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Chuck Grassley Complains that DOJ Investigated Why TPUSA Sent 80 Busses to a Riot

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During the Kash Patel hearing yesterday, Chuck Grassley threw a bunch of new documents out to create a distraction: New informant reports targeting Hunter Biden, several documents he already declassified, and what has been taken to be a single document about the Jack Smith investigation.

He did so, presumably, to point to this entry noting that Jack Smith collected information affecting Turning Point USA — Charlie Kirk’s organization.

I think the item, a subpoena, may not be what it appears. It appears the subpoena itself was served on Event Strategies, the entity which produced January 6, not TPUSA itself. I’m fairly certain that the investigation into the 80 busses TPUSA paid for was investigated earlier, in the first year of the investigation, along with a bunch of other entities that sent busses.

What’s more interesting is it appears that these are two separate documents (indeed, Grassley’s press release refers to “documents”). The most obvious sign of that is that the first page, described as a summary, is dated 1/23/2023. Whereas the other five pages — which appear to match the title of the document, Arctic Frost Bank Record Subpoenas — show subpoena returns with dates long after the date of the summary, going through a subpoena pertaining to Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman to Fidelity completed on July 6, 2023. [Note: The release of this document exposes the banks of dozens of Trump associates, a fairly alarming privacy violation.]

The five pages of subpoenas focus on several topics, largely the following:

  • J6 $
  • Wire fraud
  • Misappropriation
  • Payments to lawyers
  • Bogus investigations
  • Obstruction
  • Credit reports

Most of this traces several prongs of investigation that were publicly reported at the time — largely picking up efforts of the January 6 Committee — showing that Trump raised money in the guise of election integrity, but then paid it to people like Brad Parscale or Dan Scavino.

Based on dates, this appears to be a key focus of Jack Smith once he was appointed. This was one prong of the investigation I had hoped would be — but was not — in Jack Smith’s final report.

But it’s barely reflected in the summary dated January 23, 2023.* There’s one line of effort, “Financial Fraud: Allegations of false/misleading representation to raise money post-election.” There’s one possible crime, 18 USC 15343, that might be the applicable crime (or, given that it accompanies 18 USC 371, the charge ultimately focused on the fake electors). But there’s no sign of any campaign finance crimes.

And it’s not entirely clear that the summary is complete. After all, there’s one crime — 18 USC 241, Conspiracy against Rights — ultimately charged against Trump that doesn’t appear at all.

And whether there are more pages to this summary or not, it’s a dated summary. The investigation continued at least six months after that summary, and (given that details from Mike Roman’s phone only appeared in later filings), probably more.

Chuck Grassley and Kash Patel seem to have released a distraction, one targeted to exploit the Charlie Kirk murder, rather than the most informative document it could have.

* A word about timing. DOJ convened a dedicated grand jury on January 31, 2022. The summary is an FBI document, which starts from April 2022, reflecting the delay described in this famous WaPo story. I suspect that the summary reflects only things that happened after April 2022, because known investigative steps — such as those targeting Sidney Powell in September 2021 — don’t appear in it.

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Todd Blanche’s Sex Predator PR Service

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The Brits have finally found some people to arrest in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal: at least four people who projected images of Epstein and Donald Trump onto Windsor Castle.

Kaitlan Collins used that event as a pretext to grill Todd Blanche about his so-called proffer with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

Todd Blanche’s responses were an incredible insult to survivors.

He first tried to change the subject — parroting Trump’s, “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” from months ago.

When Collins dug in, repeating her question, Blanche then effectively said — more than seven weeks after the interview — that he has never tested the credibility of Maxwell’s answers (which would be hard to do given the firing of Maurene Comey).

Todd Blanche confessed that he had moved Ghislaine Maxwell to comfier digs without first vetting the answers that Maxwell gave him.

Perhaps realizing how stupid that confession was, Blanche then said something even more astonishing. He claimed the entire point of the “proffer” was, “to give her an opportunity to speak, which nobody had done before.”

It’s rank bullshit that no one has given her an opportunity to speak. She had the right to testify in her own defense at trial, a right she declined. The day before Blanche did this “proffer,” the Oversight Committee subpoenaed her, in response to which she delayed testimony.

But even if it were true that poor Ghislaine Maxwell has never had a chance to tell her side of the story, has never had a chance to make claims her attorneys didn’t make in cross-examination during her trial, why in god’s name is the Deputy Attorney General of the United States wasting two days of his time, with neither adequate preparation to hold her accountable nor a prosecutor familiar with the case, giving a convicted sex trafficker a special opportunity to tell her story?

Effectively, Todd Blanche described that his DOJ is running a special service for select sex traffickers who have damning information on Blanche’s client, Donald Trump, where they get the privilege of telling their story in a venue largely free of repercussions. There’s no conceivable purpose for such a “proffer” besides to keep her silent.

KC: We’re here at Windsor Castle and tonight images of him with Jeffrey Epstein were actually projected on the castle behind me. People were arrested as a result of that. But this comes after you sat face to face with Ghislaine Maxwell for nine hours. Do you believe her?

TB: I mean, listen, I think that people are gonna do what they’re gonna do, they’re gonna say what they’re gonna say. And there’s a lot of important work that we’re doing every day. And so the fact that that is still what we’re focused on today in the wake of everything that’s happening and the week of the work of what President Trump’s doing over the next several days is incredibly unfortunate. But we’re gonna keep on doing our job and keep on doing what we need to do.

KC: But when you met with her did you find her to be credible?

TB: It’s an impossible question to answer. I met with her for two days. To determine whether a witness is credible takes weeks and weeks and weeks. I asked her questions that I believed all of us wanted answered. And she answered them. She answered them, I didn’t — the point of the interview was not for me to pressure test every single answer she gave. Of course not. The point of the interview was to give her an opportunity to speak, which nobody had done before. And so she had been — she had been in prison for many many years. And she had offered to speak on many many occasions. And she was never given that opportunity. And so what I did is I gave her that opportunity to speak, it was recorded, my questions were there, and whether her answers were credible or truthful, there’s a lot of information out there about Mr. Epstein, about her, and whether what she said is completely wrong, or completely right, or a little of both, is for — that’s the reason why we released the transcript, that’s why we were transparent about the questions I asked, and the answers shes [sic] gaves [sic] is because it’s really up to the American people to determine whether they believe that her answers were credible. Or whether they found her not credible.

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