Attention to the Unseen

MS NOW reports: A federal grand jury in Maryland is investigating whether Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte and Justice Department official Ed Martin illegally shared sensitive grand jury information with unauthorized people, according to two people familiar with the probe. The investigation, according to two people familiar and documents reviewed by MS NOW, is focused on whether the mortgage fraud investigations of Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and possibly of New York Attorney General Letitia James have been tainted…

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Matthew Cooke and Richard L. Hasen write: California Republicans, now joined by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice, have sued California in federal court to stop implementation of Proposition 50, a voter-passed ballot measure that creates a Democratic gerrymander of the state’s congressional districts, adding up to five more Democratic seats. The lawsuit argues that the Legislature had an unconstitutional race-focused intent on the state’s Latino voters when it passed the maps. In fact, whatever the Legislature intended should be…

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The New York Times reports: The world’s richest man. One of the world’s most famous soccer players. The president of soccer’s governing body. Dozens of executives from the finance, tech and energy sectors. These are some of the guests who attended President Trump’s black-tie dinner for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia at the White House Tuesday evening. The red carpet welcome for Prince Mohammed is an extraordinary moment in diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. It is his…

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By Robert Faturechi and Avi Asher-Schapiro This story was originally published by ProPublica Online influencer Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist who has millions of young male followers, was facing allegations of sex trafficking women in three countries when he and his brother left their home in Romania to visit the United States. “The Tates will be free, Trump is the president. The good old days are back,” Tate posted on X before the trip in February — one of many…

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Ian Millhiser writes: In a decision that could potentially reshape the 2026 midterm elections and cement the Democratic Party’s future control of the US House, a federal court just struck down the gerrymandered Texas maps that President Donald Trump pressured that state to enact. If the decision holds, it could cost Republicans as many as five House seats. And that’s not all. The most remarkable thing about the three-judge panel’s decision in League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) v….

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NPR reports: At a Justice Department conference in February, then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told the department’s top drug prosecutors that the Trump administration wasn’t interested in interdicting suspected drug vessels at sea anymore. Instead, he said, the U.S. should “just sink the boats,” according to three people present for the speech. At the time of Bove’s comments, President Trump had only been back in office for a month. The White House had made clear that combatting drug cartels…

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The New York Times reports: President Trump’s second term has brought a period of turmoil and controversy unlike any in the history of the Justice Department. Trump and his appointees have blasted through the walls designed to protect the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency from political influence; they have directed the course of criminal investigations, openly flouted ethics rules and caused a breakdown of institutional culture. To date, more than 200 career attorneys have been fired, and thousands more…

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The New York Times reports: The Department of Homeland Security has diverted thousands of federal agents from their normal duties to focus on arresting undocumented immigrants, undermining a wide range of law enforcement operations in response to mounting pressure from President Trump, a New York Times investigation has found. Homeland security agents investigating sexual crimes against children, for instance, have been redeployed to the immigrant crackdown for weeks at a time, hampering their pursuit of child predators. A national security…

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