Attention to the Unseen

Democracy Docket reports: A federal judge in Oregon issued a sweeping rebuke of the Justice Department’s nationwide push to seize state voter rolls, ruling that the department can no longer be presumed to be acting in good faith and warning that its conduct threatens voters and states’ rights. And the judge cited a recent letter sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi linking the voter roll crusade to the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota as one reason…

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Chicago Sun-Times reports: Federal prosecutors say the public release of text messages sent by the Border Patrol agent who shot Chicago’s Marimar Martinez last fall could only serve one purpose: to “sully” his reputation. But the Trump administration has shown “zero concern about the sullying of Ms. Martinez’s reputation,” a federal judge pointed out Friday. That’s partly why U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis said Martinez will be allowed to share the text messages with the public — as long as…

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The Guardian reports: It was the one scandal that Donald Trump seemed unable to shake. No matter his best efforts to convince his supporter base that there was nothing to see here, the demands for the administration to release every document it had on the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein only grew. Yet even after the most shocking revelations in the latest drop about Trump’s inner circle – involving everyone from Elon Musk to the Maga honcho Steve Bannon to…

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By Andy Mannix, Melissa Sanchez and Nicole Foy This story was originally published by ProPublica Minutes after a federal agent shot and killed a Mexican immigrant in a Chicago suburb last September, a group of police officers stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out the answer to a question of protocol: Who would investigate the shooting? “Wouldn’t it be state’s, at a minimum?” one Franklin Park officer asked, according to body camera footage. Chief Mike Witz shook his head….

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The Guardian reports: Dozens of messages contained in the latest tranche of Epstein files lay bare the attempts by Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon to tap Jeffrey Epstein for support and funding to bolster European far-right parties. The messages mostly date to 2018 and 2019, when Bannon, after being sacked by Trump, regularly visited Europe in his quest to forge a movement in the European parliament uniting ultra-rightwing and Eurosceptic forces from several countries including Italy, Germany, France,…

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The Guardian reports: Labour MPs have warned that Keir Starmer’s days as prime minister are numbered after a day of fury over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. The government was on the brink of a defeat in the Commons until a mid-debate amendment brokered by Meg Hillier and Angela Rayner to force the release of documents about Mandelson’s appointment and the depth of his relationship with the convicted child sex offender….

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Politico reports: The Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota has exposed a severe rift between the Justice Department and ICE, detonated the already crumbling trust between the administration and the courts and led to the dozens of detentions the courts have said are illegal. A dramatic breakdown by a Justice Department attorney in a Minneapolis courtroom Tuesday laid bare the crisis roiling the Trump administration as it continues to mass arrest immigrants without the corresponding resources to detain them…

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ABC News reports: A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants. In an 83-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes granted a stay maintaining the legal status of Haitian nationals “pending judicial review.” In her ruling, she accused Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of “preordaining” her termination decision, saying she “did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants.” “There is an old adage among lawyers,” Judge…

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CBS News reports: An intelligence community watchdog has handed over a highly classified whistleblower complaint that includes an allegation of wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to top congressional leaders, following months of delay tied to classification disputes, a government shutdown, and leadership turnover at Gabbard’s office, CBS News has learned. In a Feb. 2 letter to the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees, intelligence community Inspector General Christopher Fox said he received final approval on…

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International Business Times UK reports: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is facing an unusual wave of internal backlash after employees began publicly accusing the agency of failing to pay salaries and activate health insurance weeks after recruitment. Despite a historic recruitment drive that added 12,000 agents in recently, the agency’s administrative backbone appears to be buckling, with employees desperate enough to turn to the Reddit to detail their struggles. In raw, unfiltered Reddit posts now spreading beyond law-enforcement circles, ICE…

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