Attention to the Unseen

  The Washington Post reports: Attorneys for the former Olympian who had been accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are asking a judge to ensure federal prosecutors don’t have a chance to reopen the case against him. In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for David Hearn pushed back against the Justice Department’s move to dismiss the charge against their client “without prejudice,” which would allow the department to prosecute him later. Lawyers Norm Eisen, Mary Dohrmann and Steve…

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  Camila Lourdes Galarza reports: Alexandra Bravo, the prosecutor assigned to investigate U.S. strikes on three Ecuadorian boats and the 36 survivors’ subsequent accounts of torture and kidnapping, was shot dead in the coastal city of Manta last month. According to police, on June 14 a hitman aboard a black motorcycle opened fire on Bravo as she and her sister were leaving a café at about 11 a.m. Bravo’s sister, who jumped to protect her, was also killed in the…

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Reuters reports: U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly campaigned for his second term as a champion of free expression, vowing in his January 2025 inaugural address to stop what he described as years of “government censorship.” Since then, a wave of court rulings has concluded his administration has done the opposite. Reuters identified 75 federal-judge rulings finding Trump’s government infringed on ​First-Amendment rights including freedoms of speech, religion, and the press. The unprecedented pushback on constitutional grounds has included repeated findings…

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The New York Times reports: A pair of documents issued by the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, that narrow or dissolve aspects of a deal to resolve President Trump’s lawsuit against the I.R.S. have met the demands of two Republican holdouts. Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas refused to support Mr. Blanche’s nomination unless he committed in writing to dropping a $1.8 billion fund funneling taxpayer money to the president’s allies and putting stricter limits…

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NPR reports: Early one morning this June, Treasure Thoreson was drinking coffee on her couch in Minneapolis when she heard a knock at the front door. “I go and I see a woman standing there in office clothes, but with a Homeland Security vest over the top. And I see six more agents standing in my front yard,” Thoreson told NPR. “She said, ‘We have a warrant for your arrest, for conspiracy.’” Thoreson, a special education teacher, was still in…

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The New York Times reports: Jeanine Pirro faced the cameras on July 2 with characteristic self-assurance to announce the indictment of the 67-year-old ex-Olympian David Hearn for trashing “sacred” government property, President Trump’s highly prized but shoddily renovated Reflecting Pool. “This is not only a priority for the president, but for myself,” said Ms. Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, disclosing felony vandalism charges against Mr. Hearn for touching the lining of the pool in front of…

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Ankush Khardori writes: “Todd Blanche is a STAR,” President Trump declared defiantly on social media on Thursday as he sought to clear resistance from two Senate Republicans to his nominee for attorney general. Instead of quickly acceding to the senators’ modest requests — for written guarantees confirming the elimination of a slush fund for Jan. 6 rioters and the limiting of a tax immunity deal for Mr. Trump — the president raised withdrawing Mr. Blanche’s nomination until next year, after…

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Politico reports: The appeals court dam is breaking against ICE’s unprecedented mass detention policy. Two federal appeals courts on Thursday shot down the Trump administration’s bid to subject millions of immigrants — most of whom have lived in the U.S. for years without criminal records — to mandatory detention without bond. In a pair of 2-1 decisions, the California-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Illinois-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Trump administration had defied logic…

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The Associated Press reports: A planned vote to move forward with Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general appeared in doubt Wednesday as a key Republican senator demanded more assurances from the Justice Department about the settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. GOP Sen. John Cornyn, a crucial swing vote, told reporters he was not willing to support Blanche’s nomination until the Justice Department adequately addressed in writing his concerns about the settlement that afforded Trump…

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Moira Donegan writes: It’s not exactly strange that elements of the Magaverse have embraced Andrew Tate. What’s strange is that the Democrats do not seem interested in holding the Trump movement to account for it. Andrew Tate, the misogynist influencer who is accused by numerous women around the world and now British prosecutors of rape and strangulation, as well as assault, sex trafficking, possession of child abuse images and extreme pornography, and various other forms of gender violence and exploitation,…

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Democracy Docket reports: The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court order that blocks the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from executing the president’s March executive order attacking mail voting. The decision means President Donald Trump’s sweeping assault on mail voting won’t be carried out in 23 states and the District of Columbia. The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 against the Trump administration’s motion, with one – Judge Joshua D. Dunlap, a Trump…

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Will Sommer writes: Prominent manosphere influencers and accused sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested by U.S. marshals in Miami last weekend, as they were set to host—what else?—a bare-knuckle boxing match. Video of their arrest, which quickly went viral, showed Andrew Tate dressed in clamdigger pants and an unusual purple shirt unbuttoned down almost to his navel. But maybe the most surprising thing is that it happened on American soil at all. That’s because, despite years of accusations…

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