FBI Raids Offices Of Ohio Voter Registration Group That Fought GOP Redistricting Efforts

Legal Issues

from the more-vindictive-prosecutions-in-the-works dept

Just once I’d like to see this administration engage in the slightest bit of subtlety. Just once. It would be a refreshing change from literally everything it has done during this current iteration.

Sure, it’s easier to prove actions are vindictive if they’re transparently vindictive. On the other hand, too many courts and judges (which would be any number greater than “zero”) still pretend the Trump administration is acting in good faith, even when the administration makes it blatantly clear that it isn’t.

There’s another election on the horizon. And Trump/MAGA aren’t entirely sure they’ll be able to maintain their majorities, so we’re seeing a bunch of mid-term redistricting, executive orders on mail-in ballots, and pretty much anything else the Trump administration thinks might (1) skew the results in its favor or (2) allow it to engage in second round of election denialism, but with the threat of government/non-government violence behind it.

That’s why voter records were seized in Georgia. It’s belated revenge against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who refused to “find” the 12,000 pro-Trump votes needed to swing the 2020 election in Trump’s favor.

And that’s why the FBI has just raided the offices of an Ohio group that’s instrumental in getting residents registered to vote.

Federal law enforcement officials on Thursday raided the offices of an Ohio organizing group that ran one of the state’s biggest 2024 voter registration efforts, seizing computers and other materials from the group’s Cleveland office, according to people familiar with the law enforcement action.

[…]

The warrants executed Thursday appeared to focus on the group’s 2024 voter registration efforts, according to the people familiar with the action. Prentiss Haney, a former executive director of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative who sits on the group’s board, said that around 25 FBI agents arrived at the office to seize the devices.

The DOJ has refused to comment on the raid, other than saying the usual stuff about the warrant being signed by a judge… as if that were evidence in and of itself of the raid’s lawfulness. It certainly says nothing about the perception it creates, which would be just more vindictive activity from people who should fucking know better.

Not only did the FBI raid the group’s offices, but dozens of federal officers from the FBI and HSI (Homeland Security Investigation) wandered around the state (without warrants or subpoenas) to hassle members of the organization at their homes, presumably in hopes of scoring a few warrantless searches/arrests.

Supposedly, this has something to do with registering people who aren’t allowed to vote (read: immigrants). And this did happen nearly a decade ago.

In 2017, a canvasser working for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative pleaded guilty to state charges of fraudulently registering more than three dozen people to vote. 

But that has all been adjudicated and we’ve had two presidential elections since then. No further allegations have been raised about the OOC or credible accusations made about recent registration fraud.

While the DOJ may try to pretend a case it has already closed justifies another bite of this apple, the real reason for this current raid is more than likely something that isn’t actually illegal. It’s just something Trump and his administration officials don’t like:

The group registered more than 100,000 Ohioans to vote in the 2024 elections and was active in organizing against Republicans’ 2025 redistricting efforts in the state.

Now, you may recall that Donald Trump won the 2024 election. Given that, it seems incredibly stupid to claim there’s a bunch of voter fraud going on that needs to be dealt with. Even if true (which it certainly isn’t), it didn’t prevent Trump from being elected. One could even make the argument that any election fraud may have helped Trump retake the White House after being forced to take a four-year break from ruining the country.

Useful idiot/MAGA acolyte Secretary of State Frank LaRose claims he has referred “1,200 criminal cases” alleging voting fraud to the DOJ. And, once again, one has to wonder why someone might do this in a state where Trump secured 55% of the popular vote in the last election… unless all of these MAGA idiots think the GOP won’t be nearly as successful in upcoming elections. But this is the same Frank LaRose who thinks 60% of the vote should be the minimum needed to pass voter initiatives (especially ones in support of abortion rights), but has no problem with Trump’s 55% score in the last election.

Once again, this is a purely vindictive move from an administration pretty much solely defined by its vengeful activities. Even if this goes nowhere, it will have served its purpose: reminding people opposed to Trump that Trump holds the power and he’s more than willing to abuse it.

Filed Under: doj, fbi, gop, ohio, trump administration, vindictive prosecution, voter suppression

Trump DOJ Friday News Dumps Its Approval Of The Job-Killing Paramount, Warner Bros Merger

Failures

from the less-competition-is-more-competition dept

The Trump “Department of Justice’s” “antitrust division” dumped its unsurprising approval of the terrible Paramount Warner Brothers merger late on Friday in the hopes people wouldn’t notice it.

As we’ve noted the $111 billion megadeal is a historically harmful mess. Backed by billions in Saudi and Chinese cash (raising all sorts of foreign media influence concerns), the giant deal will saddle the company with so much debt that mass layoffs, consumer price hikes, and quality erosion from corner cutting are guaranteed. This happens with every major media merger, but especially when Warner Bros is involved.

And that’s before you get to the problems with Larry Ellison and his Bari Weiss brigades trying to destroy what’s left of already soggy U.S. corporate journalism and replace it with right wing, oligarch-friendly agitprop.

Regardless, you’ll be comforted to know that the Trump Justice Department looked at the deal closely and found that not only does it not hurt competition, it’s going to improve competition:

“The evidence reviewed and carefully analyzed by the Division indicates that, post-merger, competition in SVOD is not likely to be harmed. To the contrary, the combined firm is likely to increase competition by offering consumers a more robust competitive alternative to the larger SVOD offerings.”

That is, again, not how any of this works.

The massive debt created by these deals always results in mass layoffs, higher consumer prices, and lower quality product due to corner cutting. It’s not debatable. Arguing against this is like trying to have a fist fight with a running river. You just have to look back at, well, every single major media consolidation effort in the last fifty years. Which the DOJ didn’t because, well, they didn’t care.

You’ll still have major competitors to Paramount like Netflix, Comcast/NBC, Apple, and Disney, but in a country obsessed with consolidation that no longer has functional regulators, there’s really nothing stopping any limit of predatory behaviors — and additional consolidation — moving forward. There’s ongoing pretense that our consumer and labor protections still function. They don’t.

The “funny” part is the Trump DOJ even acknowledges that the history of Warner Brothers has been pockmarked by all manner of terrible competition-eroding consolidation. They just pinky swear that this time will somehow be different. Based on… nothing:

“Warner Bros. has been a repeated acquisition target in the media and entertainment industry. It is thus familiar to the Division from prior investigations and enforcement actions, including AOL/TimeWarner (2001), AT&T/TimeWarner (2018), and WarnerBros./Discovery (2022). The legacy of these transactions illustrates the challenges that arise when the commercial rationale for a deal lacks clear alignment with competitive incentives of the acquiring firm or the competitive evolution of the marketplace. In technology-driven industries, the disruptors of the recent past may quickly become the entrenched monopolists of the present day. It is with this historical experience and present enforcement sensitivity to the contestability of dynamic markets that the Division conducted a thorough investigation of the proposed transaction to assess whether the proposed transaction presented any harm to competition. The extensive investigatory record reviewed by the Division suggests that the impact of the transaction will be to increase competition across the media and entertainment ecosystem, with benefits for American consumers and workers.”

Fun fact: Paramount’s top lawyer is Makan Delrahim, Trump’s “DOJ enforcer” from the first administration. Delrahim personally worked to make sure Sprint could merge with T-Mobile during the first term. They promised that deal would result in untold synergies and new competition. Instead, 8,000+ people lost their jobs and U.S. wireless carriers immediately stopped competing on price. It’s been memory holed.

As far as the inevitable layoffs that always result from these deals (recall that AT&T’s merger with Warner Brothers and DirecTV resulted in 50,000 lost jobs), the DOJ simply declares that won’t be happening this time. Why? Because Larry and David Ellison said they’ll keep pumping out brick-and-mortar movies at the same or greater pace (they won’t):

“While taking seriously the potential impact of the proposed transaction on the creative community and domestic labor groups, the substantial evidence does not suggest a likelihood of reduction in output. That is because the demand for creative workers and labor is correlated with the Parties’ incentives to maintain or expand output. Thus, the expressed labor concerns do not raise actionable antitrust concerns.”

In three years, after the resulting company has fired 10,000+ employees, consumers have been price gouged to reduce debt, and the resulting flailing mess is acquired for half (or less) of the price, all the folks involved with this will have moved on to hyping other terrible ventures. Nobody will own any of this or engage in a single moment of meaningful reflection. That’s how this always works.

And the corporate press (and pundits like Matt Stoller) will still try to tell you that Republicans are to be taken seriously on antitrust reform.

Granted DOJ approval of a terrible merger isn’t the final word. State AGs have hinted repeatedly at a looming collaborative antitrust lawsuit that, at a minimum, is likely to drag any integration out considerably. If that lines up with a potential AI bubble pop and economic reverberations, that massive debt load from gobbling up CBS/Paramount and Warner Bros will be an even larger albatross.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, david ellison, doj, journalism, larry ellison, makan delrahim, media, media consolidation, mergers, streaming
Companies: paramount, warner bros.

Trump-Appointed Judge Refers DOJ Lawyers For Discipline Over Their Anti-Trans Lawfare

Legal Issues

from the bad-faith-everywhere dept

There’s hardly anyone left in the Justice Department that has any deeper desire than just giving Trump what he wants. The few lawyers Trump didn’t purge resigned soon after it became clear the DOJ would be little more than personification of Trump’s vengeful whims.

Lawyers with decades of experience were replaced with Trump loyalists, former Trump lawyers, and prosecutors so devoid of real-world experience they may as well still be interns. Not that this has slowed the administration’s attempts to strip the US of anything that actually makes it great. The efforts continue, but the DOJ’s flag is flying at half-staff (at best), to mix a metaphor.

Meanwhile, even Trump-appointed judges are getting tired of the Trump DOJ’s bullshit. It has sustained thousands of losses in immigration cases, seen most of its high-profile vindictive prosecutions dead-ended by grand juries and judges, and engaged in mostly-futile deck-chair rearranging/goal-post relocations that haven’t delivered it the streak of wins it clearly feels it’s owed.

In this case, the DOJ did a little of everything. Deck chairs were rearranged to sub in rookie lawyers, goal posts shifted between Texas and Rhode Island (despite the central subpoena targeting Rhode Island medical entities), and DOJ lawyers spent most of their time refusing to engage honestly with the targets of the subpoena (Rhode Island Hospital), much less the federal courts handling the cases.

While the Texas court was ultimately more amenable to the DOJ’s demand for sensitive medical information about Rhode Island minors (in furtherance of the administration’s war on trans people), the proper venue — overseen by Trump appointee Judge Mary McElroy — expressed her frustration and anger in a recent order blocking the subpoena and suggesting sanctions might be just over the horizon.

DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case. It has misrepresented and withheld information to both this Court and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (the “Texas court”). It did so in an obvious effort to shield it’s recent investigative tactics—previously rejected by every other court to review them—from this Court’s review, in favor of a distant forum that DOJ deems friendly to its political positions. Its representatives have, under oath, misrepresented salient facts. It has misled the parties with whom it was negotiating in Rhode Island, who have now been placed in an untenable and unprecedented procedural position. And when its attorneys came to this Court to explain their conduct, the senior attorney—who was present at many of the events that took place in this case—sat silently by as his counterpart, a junior attorney who has been practicing law for approximately six months and had no relevant information, was forced to answer questions about DOJ’s blatant disregard for the proper course of negotiations.

The government has long relied on the “presumption of regularity” in cases handled by federal courts. That presumption assumes the government is acting in good faith, even when it’s on the wrong side of the law. In less than two years, the Trump administration has destroyed this presumption — something the DOJ has had in its back pocket for most of the last two centuries.

Everything said above (just a small part of McElroy’s extremely scathing May 14 ruling) factors into this much shorter docket item. (h/t Josh Gerstein)

TEXT ORDER. Because of the representations made to this Court by the respondents’ attorneys, as well as the findings of the Court in its order of May 14, 2026, this matter is referred for further proceedings under R.I. Dist. Ct. Local Rule 210(b). So Ordered by District Judge Mary S. McElroy on 6/5/2026. (Potter, Carrie)

Sorry, I know that’s all super-dry and doesn’t contain anything pithy enough for bold text, etc., but here’s what that means: some DOJ lawyers — including ones hand-picked by Trump to do his evil bidding — are potentially headed for discipline.

Rule 210(b) gives the court permission to refer government lawyers for discipline. The more interesting part of the rules directly precedes this, where it says the end result could be government lawyers being disbarred.

The evidence against the DOJ lawyers was covered comprehensively by Judge McElroy in her earlier ruling. To sum up: the DOJ lied. More formally, it “misrepresented” and “withheld information.” Those are both forms of lying, with the severity shifting depending on the context. And when the DOJ knew it had been caught doing it, the most senior prosecutor dumped the case into the lap of the most junior prosecutor in the jurisdiction and forced them to personally absorb the righteous anger of the judge, as well as handle all the uncomfortable questions DOJ officials decided they simply weren’t going to answer.

And, of course, having been called out and threatened with meaningful consequences, the Trump DOJ has decided to pretend it has always been forthright and honest.

“The Civil Division has thoroughly reviewed the District Court’s allegations and concluded that they are without merit. Our attorneys did not misrepresent facts, withhold relevant information, or otherwise mislead the Court. The Department stands behind its attorneys without reservation and has appealed the District Court’s erroneous order.”

I assume that any day now the DOJ will move past its (literally unbelievable) defense of efforts to directly (and personally) attacking Trump’s own appointee as an “activist judge” or (as it often does) claim this is somehow the fault of Joe Biden, who not only didn’t appoint this judge but wasn’t in office when the judge pointed out the DOJ (under this administration) no longer has a reliable reputation.

Sure, this isn’t nearly as satisfying as a coup or the immediate jailing of lying DOJ lawyers. But it is a step further than many judges are willing to go, no matter how often the DOJ lies, cheats, and flat out refuses to play by the rules.

Filed Under: bigotry, doj, intimidation, lgbtq, mary mcelroy, rhode island, texas, trump administration

Trump DOJ Proudly Rewrites History By Deleting January 6 Insurrection Press Releases

Failures

from the ministry-of-truth-back-on-its-bullshit dept

History is written by the winners, they say. But it can also be written by losers.

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. In response, he told everyone the election had been rigged, if not actually stolen. He said some of this to his faithful MAGA followers the morning the election results were to be certified. The rest is, as they say, history. His supporters stormed the Capitol building for the sole purpose of preventing the election from being certified. They broke into the building, assaulted police and federal officers, forced the Senate into hiding, and walked off with whatever souvenirs they could.

Many of these insurrectionists were ultimately arrested, charged, and convicted for their crimes. When Trump was elected president for a second time, one of the first things he did was issue pardons to the people who broke the law on his behalf back in 2021.

As awful and self-serving as that move was, it wasn’t the end of it. Playing both sides of a lawsuit, Trump managed to secure a revenge fund via a “settlement” by the IRS over the leaking of his tax files years earlier. Trump claims it’s an “anti-weaponization” fund meant to soothe the nerves of supposedly politically persecuted members of his MAGA flock with cash rewards for criminal acts.

Of course, he didn’t say exactly that, but everyone knows how this $1.776 billion slush fund is going to be used. The court handling the lawsuit seeking to dismantle the fund knows it as well. Whether or not it can find a way to shut it down remains to be seen. There’s not a whole lot of precedent on transparent self-dealing by a sitting president, mainly because most presidents (and their cabinets) are generally a little more careful to obscure their true motives.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is continuing to erase history it doesn’t like. This project started far from the White House, forcing national parks to take down anything that presented America as anything less than perfect. This effort, however, takes place on the administration’s home field. Rather than simply allow history to exist, the DOJ is proactively deleting evidence of the agency’s past actions.

A review by NBC News found that the vast majority of press releases pertaining to Jan. 6 defendants have been removed from the DOJ website as of Friday evening.

The move to wipe hundreds of press releases from the official government site is the latest attempt by the Trump administration to reframe the Jan. 6 siege and to paint the rioters who participated in it as victims.

It’s not like the DOJ or administration gave anyone a head’s up that this purge would be happening. It took regular people noticing it for the government to respond. And respond it did, as only this administration can: by gleefully admitting it was engaging in the sort of memory-holing we used to condemn foreign autocracies for doing.

Washington Post journalist Meryl Kornfield pointed out the “quiet” disappearance of January 6 indictment press releases from the DOJ’s website. The DOJ’s “Rapid Reponse” X account jumped in immediately to gloat about its destruction of the public record:

Nothing “quiet” about it.

We are proud to reverse the DOJ’s weaponization under the Biden administration. We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.

There it is: yet another middle finger to Americans from an administration that claims no one loves America as much as it does. Sure, press releases may contain statements from government prosecutors that contain as much opinion as facts, the rest of the releases generally just state the facts as dryly as possible so there’s little room for interpretation.

The question is where the DOJ goes from here. Is it willing to start destroying court records and/or placing these under seal where they’re inaccessible to the general public? Will it deliver a fresh set of non-facts to replace all of the history it’s erasing?

While this makes it more difficult to trust the DOJ to maintain its own records, it doesn’t change the fact that most things on the internet are forever, whether you want them to be or not. What’s been deleted has already been archived. Even if this government is willing to block sites like the Internet Archive from preserving history as it happens, it can’t keep dozens of other people from preventing this administration from simply wishing all of its wrongdoings into the internet cornfield.

Lawfare is just one site that’s making sure the permanent record remains permanent since this administration is objectively opposed to letting its history speak for itself. The results of its ongoing efforts to prevent Trump, et al. from simply pretending this never happened can be accessed here.

What’s detailed in the deleted documents isn’t evidence of “partisan propaganda” or “DOJ weaponization.” What happened actually fucking happened. The DOJ is supposed to handle federal crimes and it did exactly that. The truth is that Trump supporters committed several crimes in an effort to undermine — if not actually destroy — the democratic process. This was one of the darkest moments in American history. It should never be minimized, much less discarded just because it makes the people in power (and the people who support them) look as awful as they actually are.

These are the acts of a dictator and his enablers. It’s the antithesis of the independence that’s going to be celebrated by the same people who are busy destroying everything this country is supposed to stand for. It’s not something to be tolerated. And it should never be forgiven.

Filed Under: doj, donald trump, election denialism, erasing history, evil, insurrection, january 6, trump administration

Prosecutor Nopes Out Of The DOJ After Being Handed The James Comey ‘8647’ Case

Failures

from the running-out-of-lawyers dept

The DOJ has gone past bleeding talent. Now, it’s just bleeding whatever.

It’s one thing to do a bit of MAGA swagger before a captive audience and walk out with a criminal indictment that contains no evidence of criminal activity. It’s quite another thing to present that case to a court, where you’ll have to answer questions from judges and opposing counsel.

Matthew Petracca wasn’t really the sort of person someone would expect to be elevated to the position of Assistant US Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Sure, he had some past experience with the state’s Department of Justice, but he definitely wasn’t a seasoned prosecutor by any stretch of the imagination. He was, however, a registered Republican and that may have been the only thing that mattered.

But Donald Trump really wanted to see former FBI director James Comey punished for daring to choose loyalty to the public over loyalty to Trump during Trump’s first presidency. The first attempt to lock him up fell apart for several reasons, but most notably because another one of Trump’s handpicked prosecutors — his former insurance lawyer, Lindsey Halligan — managed to set fire to pretty much everything she touched before deciding to exit to the DOJ.

This case is even stupider than the first vindictive prosecution attempt — one that attempts to convert obviously protected speech into a true threat against the sitting president. Ellis Boyle — the US Attorney for the EDNC — definitely wants this to happen. Boyle has made it clear he doesn’t actually work for the Department of Justice. He works for the Department of Whatever The Fuck Trump Wants.

Boyle wears Trump’s hallmark red ties, mimics the double thumbs up in photos, and ends his emails with, “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” echoing the president’s social media sign-offs. He peppers press releases with the same sort of charged language, like catching “thugs” and “bad hombres,” that Trump uses on Truth Social.

Trump pushed Boyle. Boyle pushed his office. And Petracca got stuck with this case. But only temporarily. Unlike his two bosses, Petracca was expected to present this case to a court. Faced with that reality, Petracca chose to exit as gracefully as he could under the circumstances.

Friday’s court filing requests that Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Petracca, who was listed as the government’s lead lawyer on the Comey case, be removed from the docket. Federal prosecutor Timothy Severo was swapped in.

Petracca has also been taken off at least three other cases since last week, according to court filings, which do not specify why he is stepping aside. 

This doesn’t look like a move made by the DOJ to replace a prosecutor it felt couldn’t handle these cases. Instead, according to this reporting by NBC News, it looks like Petracca is leaning towards getting out of the DOJ business altogether.

Petracca had contemplated leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to two people familiar with the matter, but instead remained a DOJ employee after taking a week off. Petracca had not responded to a previous request for comment on his status at the Justice Department, and did not respond to an additional request for comment on Friday. 

Leaving would be the smart thing to do. Any junior prosecutor stuck with this loser of a case should leave as well. If Ellis Boyle wants to be Trump’s mini-me, the least he can do is show up in court and defend his office’s transparently vindictive actions in person. Anything other than dismissing the charges with prejudice is just going to further destroy the DOJ’s reputation. And it really doesn’t have any reputation to spare at this point… and Trump’s still going to be running/ruining it for another couple of years.

Petracca’s best course of action would have been to quit as soon as he was handed this case. He didn’t and now his name will forever be associated with this vindictive, unconstitutional indictment. But if he wants to salvage what’s left of his integrity, he’ll need to leave this iteration of the DOJ entirely and put as much space between him and it as possible.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, doj, donald trump, ellis boyle, free speech, james comey, matthew petracca, trump administration, vindictive prosecution

Court Temporarily Freezes Trump’s $1.776 Billion ‘Anti-Weaponization’ Slush Fund To Figure Out WTF Is Going On

Legal Issues

from the weaponize-this dept

It’s been less than two weeks since the Justice Department created the obviously illegal and unconstitutional $1.776 billion slush fund to pay off MAGA loyalists and January 6th insurrectionists. There are a variety of lawsuits looking to put a stop to it, and we just wrote about dozens of former federal judges asking the original judge in Trump’s bizarre “have my IRS give me $10 billion” case to reopen the case to stop the corrupt fund.

But in one of those cases, a judge has told the Justice Department to halt all activity related to the fund until there’s been more briefing.

The case was filed by a semi-random collection of people and organizations, including a former AUSA who headed up the prosecution of January 6th insurrectionists (and who Trump fired) named Andrew Floyd, but also a California professor who was arrested for protesting ICE nonsense, the city of New Haven in Connecticut, the National Abortion Federation, and Common Cause. Each has credible reasons to try to stop this slush fund from coming into existence.

The complaint details the MAGA obsession with the mostly false claims that Democrats weaponized the government against MAGA:

The creation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund follows directly from President Trump and his allies’ longstanding and frequent accusations that Democrats used the government and the legal system as political weapons.

For example, in June 2023, after DOJ charged then-former President Trump with mishandling classified documents, Trump posted a video on social media exclaiming, “This is warfare for the law . . . . Our country is going to hell, and they come after Donald Trump, weaponizing the Justice Department, weaponizing the FBI.”

Republican lawmakers quickly adopted the same language. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis posted that “the weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” and then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy pledged on Twitter that House Republicans would “hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”

Even before his election to a second term, members of President Trump’s campaign spent months developing a scheme to compensate those of Trump’s political allies who were purportedly the victims of “weaponization.”

It further notes that while MAGA keeps whining about weaponization, it appears to be doing far more weaponization of the government than anything Democrats have ever even been accused of doing. And, they point out that the Trump administration (while weaponizing the government) only seems to point to faux claims of weaponization by Democrats, refusing to even suggest their own side has ever done anything wrong and abused the levers of power:

Notably, none of the administration’s efforts to combat “weaponization” include any mention or review of abuses of government authority by Republican officials.

But Trump himself has used “the levers of government power” in unprecedented ways “to target individuals, groups, and entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, and/or ideological reasons.” See Ex. A ¶ II.C.

During his first term, Trump broke historical norms by being the first president to reject the post-Watergate firewall that separated the White House’s political decisions from independent DOJ criminal investigations.

In his second term, Trump has been arrogating and using power in increasingly unprecedented and abusive ways to carry out his personal political agenda.

For example, DOJ has sought indictments against Trump’s political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and six Democratic members of Congress. 23 It has also launched investigations into Trump’s critics like California Senator Adam Schiff, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and former Special Counsel Jack Smith. 24 Trump revoked the security clearances of 50 people he accused of aiding former President Biden’s presidential campaign, including former top intelligence officials. Exec. Order No. 14152, Holding Former Government Officials Accountable for Election Interference and Improper Disclosure of Sensitive Governmental Information, 90 Fed. Reg. 8343 (Jan. 20, 2025).

The complaint shows how this is nothing more than a slush fund for often law-breaking Trump allies:

Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy over the January 6 insurrection, said he planned to apply to the Fund. He said that he assumed he could get between $2 and $5 million.

Jenny Cudd, another January 6 defendant, told reporters that “all J6ers will apply for restitution,” noting that news of the Anti-Weaponization Fund was widely circulating among January 6 defendants on social media and “group chats.”

Caroline Engelbrecht, a prominent election denier and founder of True the Vote, a group that amplified conspiracies that the 2020 election was stolen, stated: “I would put myself and True the Vote … squarely in that camp who have been targeted, and we have the receipts to show just how deep that targeting ran. And hopefully, we will see some level of compensation.”

Several attorneys aligned with Trump’s allies have confirmed that they, too, have already received many requests about submitting claims to the Fund.

For example, Steve Crampton, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, which defends and advocates on behalf of abortion opponents prosecuted under the FACE Act, said his group is “actively exploring available avenues to seek compensation for clients who were unfairly targeted by politically motivated government overreach.”

The judge declined to formally grant a temporary restraining order, but functionally accomplished the same thing by ordering that the DOJ cannot do anything regarding the fund until after there’s been more briefing on the details here.

Because full briefing of the issue will enhance the ability of the Court to make a sound decision. plaintiffs’ Expedited Motion, [Dkt. No. 30], is DENIED and defendants’ request for additional time is GRANTED; however, to ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed from the AntiWeaponization Fund (hereinafter, “Fund”) while plaintiffs’ Motion is pending, it is hereby ORDERED that defendants be and are ENJOINED from taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the Fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the Fund; and the disbursing of any funds from the Fund;

The judge set an aggressive briefing schedule: the government must file its opposition by next Friday, plaintiffs reply by the following Wednesday, with a hearing shortly after.

This is a temporary hold, not a permanent win. The government gets to file its opposition, there will be briefing, there will be a hearing. The fund could still come into existence. But for now, at least one federal judge decided that maybe — maybe — the DOJ shouldn’t be disbursing $1.776 billion to Proud Boys leaders and election deniers before anyone’s had a chance to argue why that’s an extraordinarily bad idea.

Filed Under: andrew floyd, doj, donald trump, insurrection, irs, new haven, todd blanche, weaponization fund
Companies: common cause, national abortion federation

Violent Crime In The US Is At Record Lows, But The DOJ Is Eliminating The Funding That Helped Reduce Crime

Failures

from the it's-almost-as-if-they-want-more-crime dept

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The United States is experiencing one of the steepest declines in violent crime in modern history, including a murder rate at its lowest point in more than a century.

Homicides across 35 major American cities fell 21% in 2025, amounting to 922 fewer people killed. Robberies dropped 23%. Gun assaults declined 22%. Carjackings plummeted 43%.

Yet the Trump administration has yanked hundreds of millions of dollars from the programs that helped make those numbers possible.

As a scholar focused on how policy decisions and structural conditions shape crime in marginalized communities, I see a pattern forming that could put these historic gains at serious risk.

‘Wasteful grants’

In April 2025, the Department of Justice terminated 365 previously awarded grants. About US$500 million in promised funds evaporated, affecting more than 550 organizations across 48 states.

The cuts stretched across the public safety landscape: community violence intervention, victim services, law enforcement training, juvenile justice, offender reentry and criminal justice research.

Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi described the cancellations as eliminating “wasteful grants.” The White House argued that the grant programs had been “funding DEI and cultural Marxism” rather than helping to keep Americans safe.

The DOJ’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal reduces the pool of funds for public safety and justice programs by an additional $850 million – about a 15% decrease from the prior year.

Bipartisan programs

On the ground, the effects of the cancellations were immediate.

Initiatives implementing a federal law to support ex-inmates with temporary housing, job training and healthcare lost $40 million in funding, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York Unversity.

Many of the terminated programs had deep bipartisan roots.

Project Safe Neighborhoods, a crime-reduction initiative launched in 2001 under President George W. Bush, lost its training funds, the Council on Criminal Justice found. Also axed was an anti-terrorism program that had trained more than 430,000 state and local law enforcement officers and other partners since 1996.

More modest programs were targeted as well.

In rural Oregon, a DOJ grant had allowed the Union County district attorney to hire an investigator who, after a few years of probing a 43-year-old cold case involving the killing of a 21-year-old woman, finally developed some leads. When the money was cut, the investigation stopped.

Funding cliffs

The funding cuts couldn’t have come at a worse time. States and local jurisdictions were already facing looming cuts, as billions of dollars provided by President Joe Biden’s COVID recovery plan run out on Dec. 31, 2026.

Many local governments had used that money to build violence prevention programs from the ground up: employing community-based mediators, launching youth employment initiatives and expanding behavioral health teams.

And now? A double funding cliff with the sudden cancellation of DOJ grants, paired with the expiration of COVID recovery money.

In Chicago, this cliff has already forced a 43% cut to the city’s domestic violence prevention budget for 2026 – even as its share of domestic-related homicides rose 13% over the previous year.

Larger and more targeted

Criminology research helps explain the particular risks of abrupt disinvestment. Emory sociology professor Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory identifies a direct relationship between increased strain – economic pressure, blocked opportunities, the withdrawal of institutional support – and higher risks of criminal behavior.

Historical precedent reinforces the concern. In 2013, federal across-the-board spending cuts eliminated services for more than 955,000 crime victims in a single year. The capacity of the FBI and related agencies was slashed by the equivalent of more than 1,000 agents.

Between 2014 and 2016, the violent crime rate climbed 7%.

The 2025 cuts are substantially larger and more targeted, and have devastated some groups.

Equal Justice USA, a national organization working to end the death penalty and reduce violence through community-based interventions, shut down in August 2025 after losing more than $3 million in DOJ grants.

Local programs like Baltimore’s LifeBridge Health’s Center for Hope lost $1.2 million to provide therapy for gun violence survivors.

“What shocked me the most … was what feels like the utter cruelty of it,” said Adam Rosenberg, who runs the center, referring to the cancellation of the funds.

As of April 2026, the DOJ has not paid out $200 million in approved grants to assist victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.

This comes after the department last year allowed more than 100 grants for human trafficking survivors to expire, affecting more than 5,000 victims, despite Congress allocating $88 million for these services.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania warn that cuts to violence prevention programs are likely to lead to increases in gun crime.

What happens next

The initiatives now losing funding are the ones that helped drive crime down in many American cities.

Community members trained in conflict mediation help extinguish tensions before they turn lethal. Youth programs provide alternatives to street economies. Forensic labs process the evidence that solves cases. Reentry programs keep people from cycling back through the system. With each serving a distinct function, together they form the infrastructure of public safety.

As funding for crime prevention from two main sources runs out, whether progress continues depends on what happens next.

Andrea Hagan is Instructor of Criminology & Justice at Loyola University New Orleans

Filed Under: crime, crime prevention, doj, donald trump, grants, pam bondi, violent crime

Lying, Cheating Administration Has Its Ass Handed To It By Judge Overseeing BS Charges Against ICE Protesters

Legal Issues

from the holy-fuck dept

There are many (negative) things this Trump administration is known for. It’s a long list and I would encourage everyone to add as many negative things to that list.

His DOJ is specifically known for vengeful prosecutions of those who dare to oppose the guy who thinks he’s a king. The nation’s top law enforcement entity has been stripped of talent and experience by repeated purges. It has since been (partially) stocked with people more known for their loyalty to Trump than their legal acumen.

All of this is on the public record. And perhaps nothing is more damning than the combined efforts of two federal judges who are handling the administration’s bullshit prosecution of a half-dozen protesters.

Everything about this is a work of art — one inadvertently commissioned by Trump’s DOJ and its remaining collection of lying lawyers. Here’s a useful summary, via CBS News:

U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said during a Thursday afternoon hearing that the decision to dismiss charges was due to improper handling of the grand jury proceedings by the lead prosecutor in the case. A rare federal trial for misdemeanor charges that had been scheduled to begin next week was canceled, after prosecutors agreed to dismiss the charges with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled.

Boutros announced the decision to dismiss the remaining charges in court following a closed-door meeting over redacted grand jury transcripts. He told U.S. District Judge April Perry he was unaware until recently of the alleged misconduct, including a prosecutor meeting with a grand juror outside proceedings and other jurors who disagreed with the case being dismissed and prevented from participating. Boutros did not dispute the allegations, saying the conduct was upsetting and the reason the case was being dismissed.

If you’re not intimately familiar with the US legal process (and let’s hope for your sake that you aren’t), this is some wild shit. Some seriously unlawful shit went down as Trump prosecutors tried to convince grand jurors to give them an indictment they hadn’t actually earned.

The transcript [PDF] of the hearing in front of US federal judge April Perry has been released. It’s pretty much just 60 pages of the government being taken behind the proverbial woodshed. It is fucking harsh. And for good reason. It shows the government engaged in a lot of shady, possibly-illegal stuff in hopes of securing at least a federal misdemeanor charge against the four suspects who hadn’t already been excused for a lack of evidence.

It starts here, with this, as the judge weighs whether further sealing of the grand jury deliberations is warranted:

Although I am not going to prejudge the issue without a hearing, I will say that I was incredibly shocked by the redactions that were made. I have read hundreds, if not thousands, of grand jury transcripts involving prosecutors who are the most junior of prosecutors to several U.S. Attorneys who appeared before the grand jury. I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts.

Just in case the context doesn’t make it clear, this is not the court congratulating the DOJ for being the best at law-type stuff it has ever seen. It’s the other thing: a court excoriating the DOJ for doing shady shit the likes of which it has never seen.

The list begins:

First, improper prosecutorial vouching to the grand jurors, with the AUSA putting her personal credibility and trustworthiness on the line in support of the charges.

This may not sound like a big deal. It actually is. Here’s a former federal prosecutor (who some of you might be familiar with) explaining why “vouching” is considered off limits by serious prosecutors who actually consider themselves to be in the business of justice.

To quote the embed verbatim:

“Vouching” is when a prosecutor asks a grand jury or jury to just trust them rather than rely on evidence: “I am a federal prosecutor, I have had this job for twenty years, and you can rely on me when I say there is additional strong evidence that shows they are guilty,” that sort of thing.

So, this is the government being this guy, except that federal charges are involved:

Moving on:

Second, improper prosecutorial communications of a substantive nature with the grand jurors outside of the grand jury room.

Do what now? I mean, what the actual fuck? Grand juries are swathed in secrecy, and we kind of are cool with this because… well, SHIT LIKE THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN.

Moving on… again:

And, third, the prosecutor excusing grand jurors who disagreed with the government’s case from the deliberations process.

So, that’s how this works now? Has it always been this way? Can the government further stack the grand jury deck simply by booting anyone who doesn’t seem inclined to buy what the government is selling? Maybe this is just the way the government always does these things, but this is the first time I’ve seen a court not only mention it, but directly go after a federal prosecutor for trying to cover up the government’s grand jury min/maxing.

Oh, and there’s so much more if you’re that sort of sadist. Ken White’s Bluesky thread hits a lot of the highlights. Multiple news agencies make the most of some cherry-picked lowlights.

But even without those audiovisual aids, you can see for yourself how this administration operates when it’s trying to punish people for disagreeing with it. Since it knows that law doesn’t support the charges, it will lie, cheat, and steal to get the grand jury “votes” it needs to silence dissent. The courts are already aware of this. But it’s on the public to convert this outrage to votes to prevent the further enshitification of what’s left of this Republic.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, broadview six, chicago, dhs, doj, free speech, ice

Federal Judge Lays Into DOJ For Lying And Cheating In Support Of Trump’s Anti-Trans Agenda

Legal Issues

from the evil-thugs dept

Puerile, vindictive, and hateful is no way to run a government. That’s how Trump is running his, however. And that means his DOJ cannot possibly hope to stay on the good side of judges, not when it’s actively engaged in appeasing an autocratic megalomaniac and his enablers.

The lawyers currently staffing the DOJ cannot be excused for their actions. They have been called out time and time again for eroding the trust the DOJ has earned over the years by engaging in vindictive prosecutions, arguing in favor of blatant rights violations, and otherwise pursuing the corrupted version of lawfare that is the hallmark of this administration.

There are only two options at this point, considering the thousands of adverse rulings Trump’s DOJ has racked up. Either the remaining prosecutors are no more honorable or ethical than the man in the White House, or they’re so bereft of morals and ethics that it means nothing to sacrifice what’s left of these traits on the altar of MAGA.

Here’s more from the DOJ that’s nothing more than a blunt force object of oppression, completely beholden to this American version of fascism. To understand what has lead to a federal judge ripping into the DOJ (something that’s now as common as the administration pretending it’s fine to be openly racist again), you have to backtrack a little. Chris Geidner, a.k.a. Law Dork, has the background:

The Trump administration is apparently shifting tactics to advance its stated policy to “reduce or eliminate gender-related care to minors“ by using the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas to try and get invasive information from medical providers about transgender minor patients obtaining gender-affirming medical care.

The apparent shift came after more than a half-dozen federal judges across the nation have blocked the effort to obtain patient information through administrative subpoenas; following a hearing in multistate litigation against the Trump administration’s anti-trans policies; and in the midst of a sprawling dispute over the Justice Department’s effort to enforce one of the administrative subpoenas — issued last year against Rhode Island Hospital — in the same district in Texas.

Why is the DOJ using a Texas court to enforce a subpoena issued to a Rhode Island hospital? The answer is obvious. This is forum shopping by the administration, hoping to find courts more disposed to harming trans people than those found on the East Coast. If nothing else, the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court tends to be receptive of the DOJ’s advances now that Trump’s in charge, which means the rare adverse ruling might be immediately reversed or stayed once it’s appealed.

That didn’t work here, however. The case got sent to the proper jurisdiction. And, upon arrival, it has found an extremely unreceptive audience in the form of Judge Mary McElroy, who ended up with the case currently being deliberately and deceptively handled by the DOJ.

Judge McElroy wastes no time attacking the DOJ for its behavior and actions in furtherance of Trump’s hateful anti-trans agenda. These are the opening two paragraphs of her ruling [PDF], copy-pasted here verbatim:

The United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) possesses immense prosecutorial authority and discretion. As citizens, we trust that federal prosecutors, when wielding this awesome power against a state, a company, or certainly against vulnerable children, will play fair and be honest with its counterparts and the judiciary.

DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case. It has misrepresented and withheld information to both this Court and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (the “Texas court”). It did so in an obvious effort to shield it’s recent investigative tactics—previously rejected by every other court to review them—from this Court’s review, in favor of a distant forum that DOJ deems friendly to its political positions. Its representatives have, under oath, misrepresented salient facts. It has misled the parties with whom it was negotiating in Rhode Island, who have now been placed in an untenable and unprecedented procedural position. And when its attorneys came to this Court to explain their
conduct, the senior attorney—who was present at many of the events that took place in this case—sat silently by as his counterpart, a junior attorney who has been practicing law for approximately six months and had no relevant information, was forced to answer questions about DOJ’s blatant disregard for the proper course of negotiations.

The bold sentences are stinging. But even the last sentence is damning. It says the DOJ attorney with the most experience refused to defend the government’s positions in what appears to be an act of abject cowardice. Instead, the senior attorney sent a junior attorney with less than six months experience to face the justifiable wrath of the court.

Underneath everything here is the ugly truth of the case: the DOJ is demanding hospitals turn over the names, social security numbers, addresses, clinical histories, and family information of any minors seeking gender-affirming care. The government should not have this information because it’s clear it intends to harm both the minors and their care providers for reasons it can’t actually justify under existing law.

That’s why it went forum shopping in Texas. And that’s why it deliberately withheld information from those challenging the subpoena and, indeed, the court itself.

The DOJ won’t play fair because if it does, it can’t hope to win. That much is clear, and is stated clearly by Judge McElroy. Here’s just one of several footnotes detailing the DOJ’s dishonesty.

It is well established that counsel are responsible for working in a cooperative, rather than an adversarial manner, and to confer in good faith when negotiating the parameters of a subpoena. The parties had done so up until DOJ’s about face on April 30, when it repaired to the Texas court and presented RIH with a fait-accompli motion to enforce (after it had submitted it), followed a few hours later by an order granting that motion. The Child Advocate learned of the subpoena and motion that targeted its children’s private information by a DOJ press release the next day.

Here’s more on that, from the body of the order:

This representation that the communication with RIH had ceased as of February 4, 2026, was clearly misleading, if not utterly false. At the hearing on this Motion, DOJ’s attorney attempted to justify the glaring omission by saying that the February 4, 2026 email was the last “such” communication. This is patently untrue because, just the day before filing the declaration containing this representation the attorneys for RIH had sent an email in response to DOJ’s request for a conference to discuss the terms provided in the February 4th email. This reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed to a federal court is appalling.

Leading the charge in lying to the court was none other than Lisa Hsiao, who currently serves as the head of the DOJ’s “Enforcement and Affirmative Litigation” office.

Ms. Hsiao also represented that requests regarding “patient-level clinical practices and drug safety” (Requests 11–15) were necessary because “without this information, DOJ cannot fully determine the scope of the violations, identify patterns of misbranding or fraudulent billing, or assess whether the conduct was undertaken with intent to defraud or mislead, as required for felony liability under 21 U.S.C. § 333(a)(2).” But Ms. Hsiao neglected to inform the Texas court that DOJ had agreed to anonymized data in several other jurisdictions. Her assertion that DOJ needed this information was therefore, at best, deceptive, if not intentionally and knowingly false.

There’s a footnote attached to this paragraph that shows this a pattern and practice of Ms. Hsiao when it comes to trying to destroy the lives of transgender minors.

This is not the first time Ms. Hsiao and her subordinates have, in their crusade to obtain transgender children’s medical records, acted in ways that appear to deviate from the norms of professional conduct expected of attorneys representing the United States.

The order notes that the DOJ’s forum shopping in Texas (despite seeking records from an entity located in Rhode Island on behalf of an investigation instigated in Washington D.C.) worked…. right up until it didn’t. The district court granted the government’s request to enforce the subpoena following an ex parte submission by the DOJ that cut RIH out of the loop. And the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court refused to stay this enforcement order pending appeal with a one-sentence denial.

In the end, the DOJ loses. The Rhode Island court quashes the administrative subpoena (i.e., self-issued) because it seeks information that is protected by state law and the US Constitution itself. It does not have the jurisdiction to block the Texas court’s enforcement order, but that ultimately doesn’t matter because the subpoena is no longer usable.

In signing off on the decision, the judge again points out this iteration of the DOJ is an embarrassment to every iteration that came before it.

[T]he discrepancy between the honorable conduct expected of federal prosecutors and DOJ’s tactics in this case is unsettling. The Court cannot help but share the sentiment that “[t]he presumption of regularity that has previously been extended to [DOJ] that it could be taken at its word—with little doubt about its intentions and stated purposes—no longer holds.” United States v. Oregon, No. 6:25-CV-01666-MTK, 2026 WL 318402, at *11 (D. Or. Feb. 5, 2026). It is regrettable that this is now the case.

Without a doubt, Trump’s DOJ will continue to shit all over the presumption of regulatory, overseen by equally evil people who will oversee those too spineless or devoid of morality to refuse to do Donald’s dirty work. But even if the DOJ manages to avoid being laughed out of court every time it engages in a case, it will never be able to erase the blighted legacy it’s leaving behind.

Filed Under: bigotry, doj, evil, intimidation, lgbtq, rhode island, texas, trump administration

DOJ Possibly Facing Contempt Charges After Admitting DHS Press Release Was False

Failures

from the lawless-government dept

Let’s hope the word “possibly” can be stricken from this headline in the near future. And while contempt charges don’t mean much to an administration that is openly contemptuous of anything that hints at checks or balances, it would, at the very least, encourage other judges to stop treating the Trump DOJ like it’s worthy of anything less than contempt.

If nothing else, federal judge Melissa DuBose has at least forced the government to publicly admit it’s been lying to her.

A federal judge said Monday that the Trump administration had put her security at risk by posting a “patently false” allegation that she knowingly released an ICE detainee with an international warrant for murder.

Justice Department attorney Kevin Bolan profusely apologized to Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose for the press release posted last week by the Department of Homeland Security, which Bolan acknowledged “simply was not true.”

Let’s go live (because — for whatever reason — the press release is still “live”) to the DHS website posting, which leads off with this headline because it’s operated by unserious people who have chosen to serve an autocratic megalomaniac rather than the nation itself:

Activist Biden Judge Releases Violent Criminal Illegal Alien Wanted for Murder

A judge ordering the release of an arrestee on bail is rarely reason for a public statement by a federal agency. Normally, they’ve got better stuff to do that engage in personal attacks on judges who have done nothing more than interpreted the law and ruled accordingly.

Every alleged crime is noted in bold type in the press release, which also includes this statement from the DHS (emphasis in the original):

“Bryan Rafael Gomez is a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic with an international warrant for homicide,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. “An activist judge appointed by Joe Biden released this wanted murderer back into American communities. This is yet another example of an activist judge trying to thwart President Trump’s mandate from the American people to remove criminal illegal aliens from our communities. Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, DHS will continue to fight for the removal of criminal illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country.”

Even if you choose to ignore the headline and the politically motivated attacks on the judge, you’re still left with something that isn’t normally the way the federal government does business. After all, judges are part of a co-equal branch, and there’s little to be gained by pretending normal court stuff is “activism.”

There’s even less to be gained when it’s discovered that the government’s lawyers didn’t bother to apprise the judge of this homicide warrant the DHS is now using to attack the judiciary. And what’s left of the DOJ appears to have realized this belatedly. There’s a lot of contrition in this short filing that Assistant US Attorney Charles Calenda (who oversees the affected jurisdiction) hopes will defuse the judge’s righteous anger.

Signed by Assistant US Attorney Kevin Bolan, the response to Judge DuBose’s order to show cause blames ICE for misleading the judge, even though it was Bolan who ultimately did the misleading:

Before the response was filed, I had been informed by ICE about the Petitioner’s pending arrest warrant issued on January 24, 2023, from a court in the Dominican Republic and that I could not disclose that information. I was not aware that ICE had previously disclosed that same information on April 16, 2026. In failing to disclose the information regarding Petitioner’s criminal history, I relied on ICE’s representation that I was not permitted to disclose that information and understood that a legitimate law enforcement reason prevented disclosure. Judge DuBose, therefore, lacked that information about the Petitioner’s criminal background when she granted the petition.

I sincerely apologize to Judge DuBose, personally, and to the entire Court for the consequences of this lack of disclosure.

Sure, contrition is welcomed. But it’s not quite as welcome when (1) ICE had already disclosed this fact, (2) the DHS continues to post an unwarranted attack on this “activist judge,” and (3) nobody in the government appears willing to act honestly until a court forces them to do it.

The DOJ may have some plausible deniability, but that relies on everyone assuming this administration is so disjointed some fingers may not even know what other fingers are doing, which is something that needs to be addressed before we get to larger questions vis-à-vis right hands and left hands knowing what each other are up to.

And while the DOJ may have some legitimate complaints about being both understaffed and overwhelmed by immigration cases, the problem lies with Donald Trump and his cabinet full of bigoted middle managers. The administration is still hoping to eject nearly a half-million more people by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the DOJ continues to bleed talent thanks to loyalty purges and prosecutors walking off the job because they can’t stomach what they’re being commanded to do.

The solution is contempt charges. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a start. Judge DuBose says she’s looking at both the DOJ and DHS. If any entity should bear the brunt of this, it’s the DHS, which continues to post misleading invective targeting this judge, as well as being instrumental in the burial of information the judge should have had access to while making a release determination.

And while I understand that contempt charges just mean taxpayers will continue to bail out an administration unworthy of its tax dollars, it will at least contribute to the steady drip of adverse rulings. When enough of those pile up, it becomes a flood this administration won’t be able to contain.

Filed Under: contempt, dhs, doj, kevin bolan, mass deportation, rhode island, rule of law, trump administration