Attention to the Unseen

Judd Legum writes: President Trump allegedly sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl who was trafficked to him by Jeffrey Epstein, according to documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) last Thursday. The White House insists the allegations are “completely baseless“ and “backed by zero credible evidence.” For three decades, the victim only told her mother and one close friend about the alleged assault by Trump. The DOJ became aware of the allegation when that friend called a tipline that had…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: Protesters, observers and passersby taken into custody by federal agents were declared terrorists and attackers in hundreds of social-media posts by U.S. officials and departments since the start of the immigration sweeps in cities. This includes Minneapolis, where two citizens were excoriated by officials after they were killed by federal agents in January. The Wall Street Journal found that the Department of Homeland Security, created in 2002 to protect Americans, has turned its force against…

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CBS News reports: Video of the March 2025 fatal shooting of American citizen Ruben Ray Martinez obtained by CBS News appears to contradict claims by federal officials that Martinez was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent because he “accelerated” and “intentionally ran over” another agent with his car. The killing of Martinez, who was 23 at the time, in South Padre Island, Texas, on March 15, 2025, was reported by local news outlets at the time. But it…

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The New York Times reports: Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said on Thursday evening that he would press for a perjury investigation into Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary whom President Trump fired hours earlier. Mr. Blumenthal said that he would call for the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to investigate whether Ms. Noem had lied under oath during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, when she said that Corey Lewandowski, one of her top advisers, did not approve contracts…

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KGW8 reports: Oregon’s U.S. Senator Ron Wyden posted a scathing statement on social media minutes after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was fired from her position: “Turns out lawlessness is not a winning strategy. See you at Nuremberg 2.0” Noem was fired from her position on Thursday as criticism mounted over the administration’s handling of its immigration policies and disaster response. Trump said Noem will be out of the Department of Homeland Security’s top role at the end of March….

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The New York Times reports: When the Supreme Court issued an emergency order this week that protected the congressional district of a New York Republican, it intervened in a voting rights dispute, pre-empting the state’s highest court before it had a chance to act. Since President Trump returned to the White House, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has shown a willingness to short-circuit lower-court proceedings with a slew of emergency rulings in federal cases. But this was a rare instance…

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By Joshua Kaplan and Justin Elliott This story was originally published by ProPublica Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem misled Congress on Tuesday about the powers of her controversial top aide Corey Lewandowski, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and four current and former DHS officials. Lewandowski has an unusual role at DHS, where he is not a paid government employee but is nonetheless acting as a top official, helping Noem run the sprawling agency. For months, members of Congress have…

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Bloomberg reports: The Justice Department is seeking to empower Attorney General Pam Bondi to suspend state bar ethics investigations into current and former DOJ lawyers—a step outside attorneys quickly criticized as an illegal intervention into state-run processes. The proposed regulation, posted in the Federal Register Wednesday, would aim to halt state-level ethics proceedings against DOJ lawyers while the department conducts its own review, which would diminish local bar associations’ power. It comes as Bondi, members of her leadership team, and…

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Politico reports: Federal judges in one of the Trumpiest states in the country have suddenly become a firewall against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. District court judges in West Virginia describe rampant lawlessness by masked ICE agents, defiance of court orders and a wanton infliction of fear and intimidation by the federal government after the Trump administration deployed a targeted immigration enforcement operation in the state last month. “Operation Country Roads,” a partnership with federal and local law enforcement…

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Miami Herald reports: Jeffrey Epstein didn’t beat the justice system by accident. For decades, the New York financier curated a network of influential people — politicians, business titans, media figures and academics — whom he leveraged to build his fortune and restore his reputation after he had been accused of preying on underage girls in South Florida in 2008. While much of the spotlight has been on the elite heavyweights who hitched themselves to Epstein’s orbit even after he was…

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By Doug Bock Clark This story was originally published by ProPublica Several high-ranking federal election officials attended a summit last week at which prominent figures who worked to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election pressed the president to declare a national emergency to take over this year’s midterms. According to videos, photos and social media posts reviewed by ProPublica, the meeting’s participants included Kurt Olsen, a White House lawyer charged with reinvestigating the 2020 election, and Heather Honey,…

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