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Category: Law/Crime

ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires

ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires

The Washington Post reports: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are planning to spend $100 million over a one-year period to recruit gun-rights supporters and military enthusiasts through online influencers and a geo-targeted advertising campaign, part of what the agency called a “wartime recruitment” strategy it said was critical to hiring thousands of new deportation officers nationwide, according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post. The spending would help President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation agenda dominate media networks and…

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As Trump raised tariffs, fines for money laundering fell by 61%

As Trump raised tariffs, fines for money laundering fell by 61%

PYMNTS reports: American regulators collected 61% less in money laundering/sanction breach fines in 2025. That’s according to a report Wednesday (Dec. 31) by the Financial Times (FT), which ties this decline to a more lenient approach to financial regulation under the Trump administration. Total fines levied against companies for what the FT calls “dirty money” offenses came to a little less than $1.7 billion as of Dec. 19, the report said, citing data from compliance software provider Fenergo. Last year,…

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Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club sent spa employees on house calls to Epstein for years

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club sent spa employees on house calls to Epstein for years

The Wall Street Journal reports: Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just a frequent visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The club was also sending spa employees—usually young women—to Epstein’s nearby mansion for massages, manicures and other spa services, according to former Mar-a-Lago and Epstein employees. The house calls went on for years, even as spa employees warned each other about Epstein, who was known among staff for being sexually suggestive and exposing himself during the…

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Trump team knew about Tom Homan bribery probe before inauguration

Trump team knew about Tom Homan bribery probe before inauguration

MS Now reports: In early January, several days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, a Justice Department lawyer passed an envelope across a wide desk to a top Trump transition official. Enclosed was a bombshell, typed up in a one-page summary, according to two people briefed on the meeting. As he read the contents of the envelope, the official, Emil Bove, closed his eyes and grimaced, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive case. It revealed that Tom…

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Much of what ICE is doing is not remotely constitutional

Much of what ICE is doing is not remotely constitutional

Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge, writes: Untold numbers of ICE agents have appeared on America’s streets in recent months, and many of them have committed acts of aggression with seeming impunity. ICE agents have detained suspected illegal immigrants without cause—including U.S. citizens and lawful residents. They have, in effect, kidnapped people, breaking into cars to make arrests. They have used tear gas and pepper spray on nonviolent protesters. They have refused to identify themselves, wearing masks, using unmarked cars,…

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Trump triggered death threats against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s family. And then he blamed her

Trump triggered death threats against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s family. And then he blamed her

Robert Draper writes: I have covered Greene, who is 51, extensively over the past five years, and it was evident during this recent visit that on one level nothing had changed. Just outside the front door of her office stood the familiar placard blaring, “There are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE.” One sign on the door warned visitors that “NO FOREIGN LOBBYING” was allowed; another featured the image of Charlie Kirk. Hanging on the wall inside the waiting area were…

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Marco Rubio is using real censorship to fight fake censorship

Marco Rubio is using real censorship to fight fake censorship

Mike Masnick writes: The U.S. government just banned five people from entering the country because it doesn’t like their speech. This ban, according to the State Department, is necessary to protect free speech. If that sounds insane to you, congratulations on your reading comprehension. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s State Department announced the “Announcement of Actions to Combat the Global Censorship-Industrial Complex,” which will take “decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American…

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Lobbyists close to Trump say their going rate to advocate for a pardon is $1 million

Lobbyists close to Trump say their going rate to advocate for a pardon is $1 million

The Wall Street Journal reports: President Trump had just awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom for Charlie Kirk in October when his son ushered friends toward the Oval Office. As a string ensemble played in the background, Donald Trump Jr. walked up with lobbyist Ches McDowell to chat with the president. Trump Jr. at one point pulled McDowell forward to shake the president’s hand, according to a livestream broadcast. After they went inside, McDowell took the president aside to…

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‘We ain’t seen nothing yet’ — Trump’s mass deportations expected to ‘scale up dramatically’ in 2026

‘We ain’t seen nothing yet’ — Trump’s mass deportations expected to ‘scale up dramatically’ in 2026

Wired reports: When Donald Trump won a second term as US president a year ago, members of violent militias and far-right extremist groups who had spent years boosting the lie that the 2020 election was rigged were ready to assist the president with delivering on one of his main campaign promises: mass deportations. “I’m willing to help,” Richard Mack, a former sheriff who founded the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, told WIRED at the time, claiming he was…

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How Trump upended the rules-based global order

How Trump upended the rules-based global order

Patrick Wintour writes: ‘The old world is dying,” Antonio Gramsci once wrote. “And the new world struggles to be born.” In such interregnums, the Italian Marxist philosopher suggested, “every act, even the smallest, may acquire decisive weight”. In 2025, western leaders appeared convinced they – and we – were living through one such transitional period, as the world of international relations established after the second world war crashed to a halt. During such eras, Gramsci more famously wrote, “morbid phenomena…

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Trump officials move to screen visa applicants’ social media posts for ‘anti-American’ speech

Trump officials move to screen visa applicants’ social media posts for ‘anti-American’ speech

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is widening efforts to screen visa applicants for online speech considered dangerous and “anti-American” as the government moves to restrict legal migration and remove people from places the president has called “garbage.” The State Department earlier this month expanded new regulations requiring foreign students and people on academic and cultural exchange programs to disclose five years of their social media histories and make all of their posts public. All applicants for H-1B employment…

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Trump’s immigration nightmare is going to get much, much worse

Trump’s immigration nightmare is going to get much, much worse

Radley Balko writes: With astonishing speed, the administration has toppled the most cherished pillars of a free society. Masked secret police now tear-gas entire city streets, jump out from unmarked vehicles to abduct and detain suspected undocumented people, and demand that foreign-looking people (mostly Latino) produce papers on demand. These deportation forces have been told by the president and his advisers to cast a wide net, that immigrants are “animals,” that the activists defending them are “domestic terrorists,” and that…

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Trump’s claims to Venezuelan oil are part of broader ‘resource imperialism’, experts say

Trump’s claims to Venezuelan oil are part of broader ‘resource imperialism’, experts say

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump’s recent claims that the US should keep Venezuelan oil from seized tankers are part of a broader belief in rightwing “resource imperialism”, experts say. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has escalated pressure on Venezuela, invoking drug-trafficking claims. This month, the US intercepted two tankers carrying Venezuelan oil and began pursuing a third, while intensifying its campaign against the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Critics have compared the offensive to the Iraq war, citing a familiar…

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Judges who ruled against Trump say that subsequent threats have changed their lives

Judges who ruled against Trump say that subsequent threats have changed their lives

NBC reports: In his almost 45 years as a federal judge, John Coughenour has seen it all, including high-profile criminal trials that put his own safety at risk. But this year, the 84-year-old senior district judge did something he hadn’t considered for a long time: He retrieved a gun he had stored at the federal courthouse in Seattle years ago and brought it back to his home in case he needed it to defend himself. Coughenour is one of dozens…

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