The Ledes

Saturday, August 9, 2025

New York Times: “James A. Lovell Jr., the commander of the three-man Apollo 13 spacecraft that survived a near catastrophic explosion as it approached the moon in April 1970, before safely returning to Earth in an extraordinary rescue operation, died on Thursday in Lake Forest, Ill. He was 97.” 

New York Times: C.I.A. “A gunman who believed the coronavirus vaccine was to blame for his ailments opened fire on Friday outside of the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, killing a police officer and striking the exteriors of several buildings on the C.D.C. campus, law enforcement officials said. The gunman was found fatally shot, but no civilians were hit by gunfire, officials said.” 

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INAUGURATION 2029

Marie: I don't know why this video came up on my YouTube recommendations, but it did. I watched it on a large-ish teevee, and I found it fascinating. ~~~

 

Hubris. One would think that a married man smart enough to start up and operate his own tech company was also smart enough to know that you don't take your girlfriend to a public concert where the equipment includes a jumbotron -- unless you want to get caught on the big camera with your arms around said girlfriend. Ah, but for Andy Bryon, CEO of A company called Astronomer, and also maybe his wife, Wednesday was a night that will live in infamy. New York Times link. ~~~

Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:

~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.

CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~

     ~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play. 

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts. 

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

 

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Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns

I have a Bluesky account now. The URL is https://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.

Saturday
Jul192025

The Conversation -- July 19, 2025

Alan Feuer & Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times: “In the swirl of money and sun-tanned women that was their Palm Beach-and-Manhattan set, Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein spent nearly 15 years mingling side-by-side as public friends. There were lavish dinners with boldface names at Mr. Epstein’s mansion on the Upper East Side and raucous parties with cheerleaders and models at Mr. Trump’s private club and residence at Mar-a-Lago. In between, there were trips back and forth from Florida to New York on one of Mr. Epstein’s private jets. But behind the tabloid glamour, questions have lingered about what Mr. Trump’s long association with Mr. Epstein says about his judgment and character, especially as his allies have stoked sinister claims about Mr. Epstein’s connections to Democrats.... One of the young women [-- Virginia Giuffre --] who later said Mr. Epstein groomed and abused her was recruited into his world while working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago.... Another woman has said that Mr. Trump groped her when Mr. Epstein brought her to Trump Tower in Manhattan to meet him.... Stacey Williams, a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, has said she was groped by Mr. Trump when she was introduced to him by Mr. Epstein, whom she was dating at the time.” The link is a gift link.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: “Trump’s supporters thought he would shed light on shady elites protecting their own money and power. Now MAGA is reckoning with the fact that Trump is the shady elite, shielding information about Jeffrey Epstein.... On Thursday, Trump posted that he had asked Bondi to produce “any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.” But judges usually keep such testimony secret. It was hilarious to see Trump hiding behind the judiciary he’s tried to sideline.... Twisting conspiracy theories into a Gordian knot of hate, Trump is claiming some Epstein files were 'made up' by Barack Obama, James Comey, “Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration” and “Crooked Hillary.' It’s tough to blame the deep state when you are the deep state.”

The Plot Thickens. Sara Fischer of Axios: "Skydance CEO David Ellison and his lawyer met with Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr and an FCC lawyer on Tuesday, a new regulatory filing shows.... The meeting came two days before CBS abruptly announced that it is canceling 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' after the next season in May 2026, citing 'financial' reasons.'... '... we discussed Skydance's commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS's editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers,'" Ellison's lawyer Matthew Brill wrote. ~~~

     ~~~ Joe My God's headline: "FCC Chair likely demanded Colbert's cancellation." MB: My God, I think Joe is right. Thanks to RAS for the link. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Benjamin Weiser & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: “The Justice Department asked a federal judge on Friday to unseal grand jury testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.... The request was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, where Mr. Epstein was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges six years ago when he was found dead by hanging in his jail cell about a month after he was arrested.... The government also sought the unsealing of grand jury testimony from the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite who in a 2021 trial was convicted of helping Mr. Epstein facilitate his sex-trafficking scheme and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She has appealed her conviction.... [Pam Bondi & Todd Blanche filed the motion.] In their motion, Ms. Bondi and Mr. Blanche said the Justice Department would work with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, which prosecuted Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, to make 'appropriate redactions' of information related to victims and 'other personal identifying information' before releasing the transcripts.”  (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The motion is here, via the courts. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It's hard to exaggerate what a sham this is. As the Times reporters write, "Judges rarely agree to grant public access to such materials." AND "The unsealing effort could take months, and the materials being sought are most likely only a small part of the evidence collected in the investigation." You know who has custody of all that other evidence? Pamela Jo Bondi. (See, for instance, Dan Mangan's report, next.) If Blondie wanted to release some revelatory Epstein documents, she could immediately make public some of the thousands and thousands of documents that are under her control. PLUS. As Kyle Cheney of Politico remarks, the motion's caveat that DOJ would make "appropriate redactions" of "other personal identifying information" implies that Bondi would redact any references to say, Donald Trump. 

Dan Mangan of CNBC: “FBI agents assigned earlier this year to review investigative files in the criminal case against notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were instructed to 'flag' any documents that mentioned ... Donald Trump, Sen. Richard Durbin said Friday. Durbin’s claim came as the Illinois Democrat sent the Justice Department and FBI letters asking them to explain what his office calledapparent discrepancies regarding the handling of the Epstein files and findings from a July 7 Department of Justice (DOJ) memorandum and instructions reportedly received by FBI personnel.'... 'According to information my office received, the FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD) … on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline,' Durbin wrote to [FBI Director Kash] Patel. 'This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests,' the letter said. 'My office was told that these personnel were instructed to “flag” any records in which President Trump was mentioned.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marcy Wheeler has some details. And she's happy to know there are a thousand witnesses to this hoohah.

It isn't only the DOJ that is sitting on Epstein files. The Treasury Department also is holding onto records of thousands of Epstein's bank transactions representing the movement of nearly two billion dollars. Sen. Ron Wyden wants to follow the money: ~~~

     ~~~ Ashleigh Fields of the Hill: “Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Thursday slammed the Trump administration for not making deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s financial records available to Congress and the public. 'Big news from my investigators on Epstein’s sex trafficking operation: the Trump administration has an Epstein file detailing 4,725 wire transfers and almost $1.1 billion flowing through just one of his banks. Hundreds of millions more through others,' Wyden alleged in a post on the social platform X. 'Epstein had to pay for all his sex trafficking somehow. Further evidence shows he used Russian banks to process hundreds of millions in payments. Again, this is info in the possession of the Trump administration, but they’re refusing to investigate,' he added in a later post.” MB: Wyden made the same claims on the floor of the Senate Thursday. ~~~

     ~~~ Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times (July 17): “Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, has been digging into Mr. Epstein’s financial network for the past three years.... In particular, filings by four big banks flagged more than $1.5 billion in transactions — including thousands of wire transfers for the purchase and sale of artwork for rich friends, fees paid to Mr. Epstein by wealthy individuals, and payments to numerous women, the senator’s office found. The filings came after Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.... The bank records reviewed by Mr. Wyden’s staff — called suspicious activity reports or SARs — are meant to be an early warning system for law enforcement about signs of illegal activity. As dictated by federal law, the reports are so confidential that banks can’t even acknowledge filing them.... To some degree, Mr. Wyden is hamstrung by those rules, which is why he wants the Trump administration to make the reports available to Congress.... The confidential bank reports filed with a Treasury Department agency ... provide the most comprehensive look at the enormous financing machine behind Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation....”

Winston Cho of the Hollywood Reporter: Donald “Trump has sued the Wall Street Journal owner News Corp. for defamation over a report detailing a 2003 letter from him to Jeffrey Epstein in which he wrote that they share a 'wonderful secret.' With the lawsuit, filed on Friday in Florida federal court, the Journal becomes the latest media outlet targeted by Trump for adversarial reporting, joining ABC News and CBS News. It sets the stage for another legal battle in which media’s incentives to stay out of Trump’s crosshairs by settling will be questioned, this time featuring Journal parent News Corp., owned by close Trump ally Rupert Murdoch.... The lawsuit names Murdoch alongside Journal reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo, who wrote the story. It brings claims for libel, assault and slander. Notably, it was filed in the Southern District of Florida, where a jury might be more receptive to defamation claims than one in New York, where News Corp., which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, is based.” (Also linked yesterday.) MB: I am looking forward to the discovery phase. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's the New York Times story. The AP's report is here. Oh, Trump is suring for $10 billion. Trump's court filing is here, via the Guardian. News of another Trump lawsuit linked below. ~~~

     ~~~ Mike Masnick of TechDirt: “This is the exact type of behavior that Trump’s supporters spent years ... [decrying] when they falsely accused the Biden administration of doing far less.... The underlying claim in the [Missouri v. Biden (later, Murthy v. Missouri)] case from the states, and a few social media users who had their accounts restricted in some form or another, was that there was a huge First Amendment violation by the Biden administration because it had spoken to social media companies asking them about their policies regarding fighting disinformation on things around Covid. The case was built on out-of-context communications and outright lies, but Trump-appointed Judge Terry Doughty ruled that the Biden administration asking social media companies to explain their editorial policies was 'arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.'... The Supreme Court dismissed the case for lack of standing.... By the legal standard Trump’s own lawyers established, any government request to suppress media coverage violates the First Amendment.... [Trump] didn’t just ask [the WSJ] not to publish the thing, he told them he would sue them if they published and has now said he’s going to sue Murdoch’s 'ass off.'... And yes, part of the problem is that the media keeps capitulating every time Trump does this.”

~~~ "An Enigma Wrapped in a Wonderful Secret." Andrew Egger of the Bulwark: "The idea that Murdoch and the Journal would publish a story like this — knowing Trump’s penchant for retributive lawsuits — without being on rock-solid legal footing is laughable; a small army of lawyers no doubt inspected every word of the report.... In the coming days, it will be fascinating to see how Epstein true believers handle these questions. Which will be stronger? Their years-long conviction that there’s more to the Epstein story and determination to see it brought to light? Or their Pavlovian response to radicalize against any story the president dubs “FAKE NEWS”? Call it an enigma." (Also linked yesterday.) 

Giselle Ewing of Politico:  “... Donald Trump continued to rage over the Jeffrey Epstein case Friday.... 'If there was a “smoking gun” on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the “files” for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday morning, echoing his previous attempts to pin blame for the lack of information in the case on Democrats.... Trump continued to attack the [Wall Street Journal] Friday, writing in a separate Truth Social post: 'I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his “pile of garbage” newspaper,' adding that it 'will be an interesting experience!!!'” MB: It will indeed be an interesting experience. Think of how many damaging stories the WSJ will get out of all the discovery the court will certainly allow. Yes, indeedy, everybody will finally get a look at some pertinent Epstein files (or “files,” as Trump calls them). (Also linked yesterday.) 

RAS has an idea: "... if JD wanted to see [Trump's 2003 note to Epstein,] he could just ask Bondi for the original or at least a photograph of the birthday book." MB: Of course Trump could do something similar; he could ask Bondi to certify that there was no such album of letters and/or no such letter from him in the DOJ's Epstein files. As far as I know, Bondi hasn't commented on the note. I suspect there's a very good reason for that. 

     ~~~ Tyler Pager of the New York Times finds some more pictures Donald Trump "wrote." (Also linked yesterday.) 

Lee Moran of the Huffington Post: “Pranksters this week trolled ... Donald Trump by placing Jeffrey Epstein-themed postcards in the gift shop at Trump Tower in New York City. The cards were surreptitiously inserted onto a souvenir carousel and featured an old photo of Trump with the late convicted sex offender Epstein, when the pair were close friends, said comedy duo Davram Stiefler and Jason Selvig, known as The Good Liars, who were behind the stunt.”

Heather Cox Richardson summarizes some of the developments in her daily "letter." At the top of it she mentions something I've heard several times on the teevee: "Now we know why ... Donald J. Trump earlier this week began saying nonsensically that Democrats he dislikes wrote the Epstein files. Apparently, Trump was trying to get out in front of the story Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo broke last night in the Wall Street Journal...." The teevee pundits have noted that the WSJ reporters called Trump for comment on Tuesday, the same day he started blaming Obama, Clinton, Comey, Brennan & unnamed Biden officials for making up the "Epstein hoax." IOW, as soon as he realized he was in trouble, he went to his tried-and-true "Democrats-did-it/hoax" fallback excuse. 


Brianna Tucker of the Washington Post: “A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit brought by ... Donald Trump that attempted to sue Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward for publishing interviews during his first administration in an October 2022 audiobook called 'The Trump Tapes.' According to the court filing [by U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe for the Southern District of New York], Trump did not demonstrate that he and Woodward intended to be co-authors or that Trump had any copyright interest in his on-the-record responses during the interviews with Woodward.... The suit also named Woodward’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, and its former parent company, Paramount Global, as defendants. The judge, however, gave Trump the chance to amend and refile his complaint by Aug. 18, though he said it appears 'unlikely' that Trump could 'adequately plead a plausible copyright interest.'” The Hill's story is here.

Doktor Zoom of Wonkette is very skeptical of Donald Trump's claim that Coca Cola has agreed to follow his advice to change the sweetener for its signature U.S. product from corn syrup to "REAL Cane Sugar": “In yet another seeming effort to change the subject from his close friendship with the late child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump yesterday announced what sounded like a really big trade deal if it was real, which of course it wasn’t. On his fake Twitter substitute (archive link), Truth Social — which many people consider as far from The Real Thing as Tab was from Coca-Cola (making 'X' more like 'New Coke,' but full of Nazis) — Trump ...[announced Coke's capitulation].... Big surprise: Coca-Cola hasn’t confirmed any change in its recipe. But the company, which is very aware of Trump’s fondness for Diet Coke, has also been careful not to explicitly deny it either.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

The Klepto King. Brian Slodysko & Will Weissert of the AP: “If one theme has emerged in ... Donald Trump’s second term, it’s this: He’s leveraged the power of his office for personal gain unlike anyone before in history. From crypto coins to bibles, overseas development deals to an upcoming line of cellphones, Trump family businesses have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars since his election, an unprecedented flood of often shadowy money from billionaires, foreign governments and cryptocurrency tycoons with interests before the federal government. 'He  ... is supposed to be working in the public’s interest,” said James Thurber, an emeritus professor at American University.... 'Instead, he is helping his own personal interest to grow his wealth. It’s totally not normal.' The sums amassed by the Trump Organization, the collection of companies controlled by the president’s children, are far greater than those collected by the family during the president’s first term, when patronage of his hotels, resorts and golf courses was de rigueur to curry favor with the famously transactional commander-in-chief.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Mattathias Schwartz of the New York Times: “An executive order by ... [Donald] Trump seeking to punish people who work with the International Criminal Court is most likely a violation of the First Amendment, a federal judge found on Friday. Judge Nancy Torresen of the Federal District Court in Maine shielded two U.S. human rights activists from any penalties for violating the directive, saying that by threatening to punish anyone who provides 'funds, goods or services' to I.C.C. officials under sanctions, the order restricts a swath of speech-based activity that goes beyond its stated aims. The ruling marked a striking, if tentative and limited, blow to Mr. Trump’s efforts to penalize and isolate the world’s highest criminal court. It has drawn his ire by issuing arrest warrants for high-ranking Israeli officials and conducting preliminary investigations into U.S. personnel at secret C.I.A. sites overseas years ago. The court, in turn, has said Mr. Trump is trying to harm its 'independent and impartial judicial work.'”

2016 Presidential Election. Russophile Tulsi Gabbard Is Still Crazy. Julian Barnes & David Sanger of the New York Times: “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Friday issued the latest in a series of reports from the Trump administration attempting to undermine the eight-year-old assessment that Russia favored the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said the information she was releasing showed a 'treasonous conspiracy in 2016' by top Obama administration officials to harm Mr. Trump. Democrats denounced the effort as politically motivated, error-ridden and in contradiction with previous reviews of the assessment. Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called Ms. Gabbard’s accusation of treason 'baseless.'... Multiple reviews, including a Republican-led Senate report, backed the findings of American spy agencies in late 2016 that Russia was trying to influence the election by damaging Ms. Clinton’s campaign and bolstering Mr. Trump. Among the Republican senators on the Intelligence Committee that produced the various reports on Russian influence operations was Marco Rubio of Florida, now the secretary of state.” ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Jacob Wendler & Amy MacKinnon of Politico: “Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called for several Obama administration officials to face criminal prosecution for participating in a 'treasonous conspiracy' surrounding the 2016 election on Friday afternoon, the latest example of the Trump administration targeting critics of the president. In a newly declassified report, Gabbard on Friday alleged the officials 'manipulated and withheld' key intelligence from the public related to the possibility of Russian interference in the election. In a Friday afternoon statement, Gabbard said she would provide all related documents to the Justice Department 'to deliver the accountability that President [Donald] Trump, his family, and the American people deserve.'... The ODNI’s memo names former DNI James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, among others allegedly involved in the White House’s review of possible Russian meddling in the election.”

Minho Kim of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to restore funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a federally funded newsroom that provides independent reporting in countries with limited press freedom, such as Russia, Iran and Afghanistan. The judge, Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, berated the Trump administration in his ruling, calling its legal arguments 'nonsensical' and its decision to withhold funds 'unprecedented.' The news organization, also known as RFE/RL, is a private nonprofit that has independence over its editorial decisions and hiring practices but receives nearly all of its funding from Congress. Since March, the administration has refused to enter into a new funding contract with RFE/RL after the previous agreement expired, effectively denying funding to the news group. Before denying the funds..., [Donald] Trump signed a budget bill in March that provided funding to the news group until Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Judge Lamberth found that the Trump administration lacked legal authority to refuse funding that Congress approved without providing a clear basis for such a drastic measure.”

Julie Turkewitz & Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “Ten Americans and U.S. permanent residents who had been seized by the Venezuelan authorities and held as bargaining chips were freed Friday in exchange for the release of more than 250 Venezuelan migrants whom the Trump administration sent to a prison in El Salvador. The release of the Americans and permanent residents was described by the State Department, while the release of the Venezuelans was announced by the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, on X. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the 10 U.S. citizens and permanent residents had been arrested and jailed in Venezuela 'without proper due process' and called for the 'restoration of democracy in Venezuela.' The capture and imprisonment of the Americans had been part of the Venezuelan government’s efforts to gain an upper hand in negotiations with the Trump administration, while the detention of the Venezuelans in El Salvador played a high-profile role in ... [Donald] Trump’s promise to deport millions of immigrants.” MB: No telling what will happen to the Venezuelans now that they've been sent back to Venezuela, a country from which they fled, many because they believed they were in danger in their home country. (Also linked yesterday.) The AP's report is here.

Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: “Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday evening that the United States has revoked the visa of a Brazilian judge overseeing the prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro, echoing ... Donald Trump’s allegations that his hard-right political ally was the victim of a 'political witch hunt.' The announcement came hours after the judge, Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, accused Bolsonaro of conspiring with his son to incite U.S. hostilities against Brazil, ordering the conservative politician to wear an ankle bracelet and barring him from contacts with foreign governments.... Friday’s back-and-forth marked an extraordinary escalation in a rapidly widening political rift between the Western Hemisphere’s two most populous nations, rupturing both economic and political ties between the longtime allies in a stunningly short amount of time.”

Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration’s dramatic reorganization of the State Department, including this month’s firing of more than 1,300 workers, was engineered primarily by a handful of political appointees lacking extensive diplomatic experience and chosen for their 'fidelity' to the president and willingness to 'break stuff' on his behalf, according to people with knowledge of the process.... Critics say it was done arbitrarily, in furtherance of Trump’s polarizing brand of conservatism and will damage the United States’ standing in the world by shedding invaluable expertise across the department. Central to the effort was Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old former agent of Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service who earlier this year oversaw its rapid, messy dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — one of the administration’s first and most drastic acts to impose ... Donald Trump’s 'America’s First' agenda on the government’s foreign policy institutions.... Already, Trump officials have had to backtrack on dozens of job eliminations, acknowledging to those employees that the layoff notices they received were sent in error.”

Zach Montague of the New York Times: “A senior State Department official testified Friday that his office, which the Trump administration has tasked with vetting foreign students’ social media posts and revoking student visas, has operated this year without a working definition of 'antisemitism' and routinely considers criticism of Israel as part of its work. The testimony, at the end of a two-week trial focused on the Trump administration’s efforts to deport students such as Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk and others, helped build the case by the academic groups behind the lawsuit, who have argued that the government systematically targeted students based on their remarks about Israel. During a heated back-and-forth in Federal District Court in Boston, John Armstrong, the senior bureau official in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, said that the State Department regularly took into account speech or actions that it saw as hostile toward Israel. Pushed for examples of things he might consider in weighing whether to deny or revoke a student’s visa, Mr. Armstrong testified that calls for limiting military aid to Israel or 'denouncing Zionism' could all factor in his agency’s decisions.”

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will replace the first woman to lead the U.S. Naval Academy, defense officials said, with the Trump administration nominating a Marine Corps general to oversee the institution for the first time in its nearly 180-year history. Vice Adm. Yvette Davids has led the Naval Academy since January 2024, and is about 18 months into serving in a job that typically rotates about every three to four years. Hegseth said Friday in a statement that President Donald Trump has selected Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte, who oversees personnel issues for his service.... The unexpected decision comes as Trump, with Hegseth in the lead, has purged the military of numerous top military leaders — including a disproportionate number of women — whom they have accused of focusing too heavily on diversity.”

Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “The Trump administration is trying to recruit recently retired immigration officers to fix a labor crunch, offering hefty signing bonuses and other financial incentives to staff its nationwide deportation campaign.... [Donald] Trump has outlined a plan to expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement by 10,000 officers and detail many of them to large, urban areas to accelerate efforts to remove migrants living illegally in the United States.”

Sarah Mervosh of the New York Times: “The Trump administration said Friday that it would release $1.3 billion in frozen federal funding for after-school programs across the country, after facing growing bipartisan pressure. The Trump administration, which wants to slash spending and reduce the federal government’s role in education, had abruptly withheld the money, along with billions in other education dollars. It said it was conducting a review and had found instances of federal dollars being 'grossly misused to subsidize a radical left-wing agenda.'”

Lisa Friedman & Maxine Joselow of the New York Times: “The Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday that it would eliminate its scientific research arm and begin firing hundreds of chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, after denying for months that it intended to do so. The move underscores how the Trump administration is forging ahead with efforts to slash the federal work force and dismantle federal agencies after the Supreme Court allowed these plans to proceed while legal challenges unfold. Government scientists have been particular targets of the administration’s large-scale layoffs.... The E.P.A.’s science office provides the independent research that underpins nearly all of the agency’s policies and regulations.... The science office 'is the heart and brain of the E.P.A.,' said Justin Chen, president of [the American Federation of Government Employees Council] 238.” MB: Well, that may be, but Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A.'s administrator, has neither heart nor brains. So definitely not attributes Zeldin wants around the place.

This Is Terrible. Selena Simmons-Duffin of NPR: "Health insurance premiums are going way up next year for people who buy their insurance on Healthcare.gov or the state-based marketplaces, according to an analysis out Friday. The average person who buys Affordable Care Act insurance will be paying 75% more for their premium, according to the analysis from KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.... 'Pretty much every insurance company is talking about the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits in the ACA markets[, according to researcher Cynthia Cox of KFF]. Those markets are where people go to buy Obamacare plans, which serve people who can't get health insurance through their jobs and who don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare.... People who are generally healthy might well decide that the higher premium is not worth it. They'll go without health insurance and risk it. The Congressional Budget Office estimates letting the subsidies expire would increase the number of uninsured by 4.2 million people. If healthy people opt out, the insurance pool is left with those who cost insurance companies more.... Congress could extend the enhanced subsidies, but that would mean ... [Donald] Trump and Republican lawmakers supporting the Affordable Care Act, which is unlikely." (Also linked yesterday.) 

David Graham of the Atlantic: “CBS’s current ownership seems determined to demolish [its] legacy [of excellent broadcast journalism. Thursday] evening, the network announced plans to end The Late Show With Stephen Colbert when the host’s contract ends next May.... Colbert ... has consistently led competitors in his time slot. CBS said this was 'purely a financial decision,' made as traditional linear television fades. Perhaps this is true, but the network that once made [Walter] Cronkite the most trusted man in America no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. CBS’s owners have made a series of decisions capitulating to ... Donald Trump, and the surprise choice to allow Colbert — a consistent, prominent Trump critic — to walk seems like part of that pattern.” Thank you to laura h. for this gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) 

New York Times television critic James Poniewozik wonders whether CBS's claim that it is cancelling Stephen Colbert's show for “purely financial” reasons is truthful or an exercise in truthiness. “What we do know is that the president, who has long cried for political comics’ heads — won’t someone rid him of these turbulent hosts? — has gotten another item on his wish list. 'I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired,' [Trump] wrote on his platform Truth Social.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Amalia Huot-Marchand of the Hill: “The Writers Guild of America East and West called on New York Attorney General Letitia James to launch an investigation Friday into why CBS canceled 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,' accusing the network’s parent company of offering a 'bribe' to the Trump administration. The guild, whose members include writers for the Colbert program, asked whether the cancellation was meant to help Paramount, the owner of CBS, with ... [Donald] Trump.”

Justin Baragona of the Independent: “CBS staffers aren’t buying the network’s claims that the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s top-rated, late-night show was purely a 'financial decision,' but rather a continuation of the 'Trump shakedown' that began with parent company Paramount’s settlement of the 60 Minutes lawsuit, according to multiple sources.”

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Comments Off
Friday
Jul182025

The Conversation -- July 18, 2025

Benjamin Weiser & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: “The Justice Department asked a federal judge on Friday to unseal grand jury testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.... The request was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, where Mr. Epstein was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges six years ago when he was found dead by hanging in his jail cell about a month after he was arrested.... The government also sought the unsealing of grand jury testimony from the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite who in a 2021 trial was convicted of helping Mr. Epstein facilitate his sex-trafficking scheme and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She has appealed her conviction.” Pam Bondi & Todd Blanche filed the motion. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: It's hard to exaggerate what a sham this is. As the Times reporters write, "Judges rarely agree to grant public access to such materials." AND "The unsealing effort could take months, and the materials being sought are most likely only a small part of the evidence collected in the investigation." You know who has custody of all that other evidence? Pamela Jo Bondi. (See, for instance, Dan Mangan's report below.) If Blondie wanted to release some revelatory Epstein documents, she could immediately make public some of the thousands and thousands of documents that are under her control.

Winston Cho of the Hollywood Reporter: Donald “Trump has sued the Wall Street Journal owner News Corp. for defamation over a report detailing a 2003 letter from him to Jeffrey Epstein in which he wrote that they share a 'wonderful secret.' With the lawsuit, filed on Friday in Florida federal court, the Journal becomes the latest media outlet targeted by Trump for adversarial reporting, joining ABC News and CBS News. It sets the stage for another legal battle in which media’s incentives to stay out of Trump’s crosshairs by settling will be questioned, this time featuring Journal parent News Corp., owned by close Trump ally Rupert Murdoch.... The lawsuit names Murdoch alongside Journal reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo, who wrote the story. It brings claims for libel, assault and slander. Notably, it was filed in the Southern District of Florida, where a jury might be more receptive to defamation claims than one in New York, where News Corp., which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, is based.”

Dan Mangan of CNBC: “FBI agents assigned earlier this year to review investigative files in the criminal case against notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were instructed to 'flag' any documents that mentioned ... Donald Trump, Sen. Richard Durbin said Friday. Durbin’s claim came as the Illinois Democrat sent the Justice Department and FBI letters asking them to explain what his office calledapparent discrepancies regarding the handling of the Epstein files and findings from a July 7 Department of Justice (DOJ) memorandum and instructions reportedly received by FBI personnel.'... 'According to information my office received, the FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD) … on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline,' Durbin wrote to [FBI Director Kash] Patel. 'This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests,' the letter said. 'My office was told that these personnel were instructed to “flag” any records in which President Trump was mentioned.'”

Julie Turkewitz & Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “Ten Americans and U.S. permanent residents who had been seized by the Venezuelan authorities and held as bargaining chips were freed Friday in exchange for the release of more than 250 Venezuelan migrants whom the Trump administration sent to a prison in El Salvador. The release of the Americans and permanent residents was described by the State Department, while the release of the Venezuelans was announced by the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, on X. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the 10 U.S. citizens and permanent residents had been arrested and jailed in Venezuela 'without proper due process' and called for the 'restoration of democracy in Venezuela.' The capture and imprisonment of the Americans had been part of the Venezuelan government’s efforts to gain an upper hand in negotiations with the Trump administration, while the detention of the Venezuelans in El Salvador played a high-profile role in ... [Donald] Trump’s promise to deport millions of immigrants.” MB: No telling what will happen to the Venezuelans now that they've been sent back to Venezuela, a country from which they fled, many because they believed they were in danger in their home country.

New York Times television critic James Poniewozik wonders whether CBS's claim that it is cancelling Stephen Colbert's show for “purely financial” reasons is truthful or an exercise in truthiness. “What we do know is that the president, who has long cried for political comics’ heads — won’t someone rid him of these turbulent hosts? — has gotten another item on his wish list. 'I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired,' [Trump] wrote on his platform Truth Social.”

This Is Terrible. Selena Simmons-Duffin of NPR: "Health insurance premiums are going way up next year for people who buy their insurance on Healthcare.gov or the state-based marketplaces, according to an analysis out Friday. The average person who buys Affordable Care Act insurance will be paying 75% more for their premium, according to the analysis from KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.... 'Pretty much every insurance company is talking about the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits in the ACA markets[, according to researcher Cynthia Cox of KFF]. Those markets are where people go to buy Obamacare plans, which serve people who can't get health insurance through their jobs and who don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare.... People who are generally healthy might well decide that the higher premium is not worth it. They'll go without health insurance and risk it. The Congressional Budget Office estimates letting the subsidies expire would increase the number of uninsured by 4.2 million people. If healthy people opt out, the insurance pool is left with those who cost insurance companies more.... Congress could extend the enhanced subsidies, but that would mean ... [Donald] Trump and Republican lawmakers supporting the Affordable Care Act, which is unlikely."

Giselle Ewing of Politico:  “... Donald Trump continued to rage over the Jeffrey Epstein case Friday.... 'If there was a “smoking gun” on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the “files” for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday morning, echoing his previous attempts to pin blame for the lack of information in the case on Democrats.... Trump continued to attack the [Wall Street Journal] Friday, writing in a separate Truth Social post: 'I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his “pile of garbage” newspaper,' adding that it 'will be an interesting experience!!!'” MB: It will indeed be an interesting experience. Think of how many damaging stories the WSJ will get out of all the discovery the court will certainly allow. Yes, indeedy, everybody will finally get a look at some pertinent Epstein files (or “files,” as Trump calls them). 

RAS has an idea: "... if JD wanted to see [Trump's 2003 note to Epstein,] he could just ask Bondi for the original or at least a photograph of the birthday book." MB: Of course Trump could do something similar; he could ask Bondi to certify that there was no such album of letters and/or no such letter from him in the DOJ's Epstein files. As far as I know, Bondi hasn't commented on the note. I suspect there's a very good reason for that. 

     ~~~ Tyler Pager of the New York Times finds some more pictures Donald Trump "wrote."

"An Enigma Wrapped in a Wonderful Secret." Andrew Egger of the Bulwark: "The idea that Murdoch and the Journal would publish a story like this — knowing Trump’s penchant for retributive lawsuits — without being on rock-solid legal footing is laughable; a small army of lawyers no doubt inspected every word of the report.... In the coming days, it will be fascinating to see how Epstein true believers handle these questions. Which will be stronger? Their years-long conviction that there’s more to the Epstein story and determination to see it brought to light? Or their Pavlovian response to radicalize against any story the president dubs “FAKE NEWS”? Call it an enigma."

Doktor Zoom of Wonkette is very skeptical of Donald Trump's claim that Coca Cola has agreed to follow his advice to change the sweetener for its signature U.S. product from corn syrup to "REAL Cane Sugar": “In yet another seeming effort to change the subject from his close friendship with the late child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump yesterday announced what sounded like a really big trade deal if it was real, which of course it wasn’t. On his fake Twitter substitute (archive link), Truth Social — which many people consider as far from The Real Thing as Tab was from Coca-Cola (making 'X' more like 'New Coke,' but full of Nazis) — Trump ...[announced Coke's capitulation].... Big surprise: Coca-Cola hasn’t confirmed any change in its recipe. But the company, which is very aware of Trump’s fondness for Diet Coke, has also been careful not to explicitly deny it either.”

The Klepto King. Brian Slodysko & Will Weissert of the AP: “If one theme has emerged in ... Donald Trump’s second term, it’s this: He’s leveraged the power of his office for personal gain unlike anyone before in history. From crypto coins to bibles, overseas development deals to an upcoming line of cellphones, Trump family businesses have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars since his election, an unprecedented flood of often shadowy money from billionaires, foreign governments and cryptocurrency tycoons with interests before the federal government. 'He  ... is supposed to be working in the public’s interest,” said James Thurber, an emeritus professor at American University.... 'Instead, he is helping his own personal interest to grow his wealth. It’s totally not normal.' The sums amassed by the Trump Organization, the collection of companies controlled by the president’s children, are far greater than those collected by the family during the president’s first term, when patronage of his hotels, resorts and golf courses was de rigueur to curry favor with the famously transactional commander-in-chief.”

David Graham of the Atlantic: “CBS’s current ownership seems determined to demolish [its] legacy [of excellent broadcast journalism. Thursday] evening, the network announced plans to end The Late Show With Stephen Colbert when the host’s contract ends next May.... Colbert ... has consistently led competitors in his time slot. CBS said this was 'purely a financial decision,' made as traditional linear television fades. Perhaps this is true, but the network that once made [Walter] Cronkite the most trusted man in America no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. CBS’s owners have made a series of decisions capitulating to ... Donald Trump, and the surprise choice to allow Colbert — a consistent, prominent Trump critic — to walk seems like part of that pattern.” Thank you to laura h. for this gift link.

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Adam Cancryn of CNN: “A collection of letters gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003 included a note bearing [link fixed] Donald Trump’s name and an outline of a naked woman, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Thursday. The drawing, depicting a woman’s breasts and a 'Donald' signature in the place of pubic hair, surrounded several lines of typewritten text, according to the newspaper, which reviewed the letter. It concluded with the line: 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.' Trump in an interview with the Journal on Tuesday denied that he wrote the letter or drew the picture and threatened to sue the newspaper if it published the story.” At 8:30 pm ET Thursday, this was a developing story. MB: Gosh, this letter amplifying the sordid connection between the POTUS* & the Pedophile must be one of the documents in the huge file that Pam Bondi refuses to release. It's but a single page of a massive cover-up. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.

Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.

     ~~~ Update. Hugo Lowell & Edward Helmore of the Guardian: “Donald Trump said on Thursday he had directed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking case as he sought to tamp down controversy over a story that he allegedly contributed a sketch of a naked woman to Epstein’s 50th birthday album. The president said on Truth Social he had authorized the justice department to seek the public release of the materials, which are under seal, citing 'the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein'.... The president said in the post that he had personally told Rupert Murdoch and the Journal’s editor-in-chief Emma Tucker that the letter was fake and that he would sue if a story about the letter was published. 'Mr Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but obviously did not have the power to do so,' Trump wrote. 'Instead they are going with a false, malicious, defamatory story anyway. President Trump will be suing the Wall Street Journal, News Corp and Mr Murdoch shortly.'

“The Journal reported that [Ghislaine] Maxwell collected letters from Trump and dozens of Epstein’s other associates ... for the 2003 birthday album, three years before Epstein was ever investigated for sexual misconduct. The Journal also reported that the leather-bound album was among the documents examined by officials with the justice department who investigated Epstein and Maxwell at that time....” More on the grand jury transcripts from Glenn Thrush of the NYT, linked below. MB: Notice how Trump tries to distance himself from the story by at least twice in the post referring to himself in the third person. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: laura h., who turns out to be a fine conspiracy theorist in her own right, wrote yesterday, "The note from t**** in the Epstein card^^^ is tacky but hardly scandalous. It feels to me like a leak to give the base something to talk about ... or am I wrong about that?" I don't think so. And the "document" is consistent with what is already on the public record regarding Trump's behavior toward women. But see the caveats I note below. OR maybe Obama wrote the note. And Comey drew the picture.

Charlie Nash of Mediaite: “Several drawings made by President Donald Trump in the 1990s and early 2000s resurfaced on Thursday after the president claimed to have 'never wrote a picture in my life.' The president made the claim after a Wall Street Journal report alleged that Trump had written a birthday letter to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, which included a drawing of a naked woman, complete with pubic hair formed out of Trump’s signature. 'This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story,' said Trump in response to the report. 'I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women.'... These sketches from the early to mid-2000s were reportedly drawn with Sharpie markers. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s alleged 2003 letter to Epstein 'contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.'”

Forgive my language but this story is complete and utter bullshit. The WSJ should be ashamed for publishing it. Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump? -- JayDee for the defense, writing on X (via the Guardian) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I find I must agree with JayDee. The note does not "sound like Donald Trump." Or at least not like the Donald Trump of 2025. For one thing, it's an attempt to be clever while not committing anything to paper that would conclusively incriminate the writer in any sort of unlawful behavior. Trump himself is not that clever, or at least he is not that clever today. For another, the language of the note is far more sophisticated than the language he uses today. So either Trump didn't write the note -- at least in its finished form -- or it's more strong evidence of his signtificant cognitive decline. Contrast 2003's "Enigmas never age" with 2025's "I never wrote a picture in my life." Nobody says, "wrote a picture" -- unless momentarily they can't think of the word "drew." So without seeing the note, my guess is that Trump had help writing it, that he may have drawn the picture, and that he signed the figure, not so much grabbing it by the pussy (2005) but staking his claim to the pussy. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Marie: The company I keep. Looks as if MechaHitler/Grok agrees with me. ~~~

     ~~~ Robert Davis of the Raw Story: "'Yeah, the letter sounds bogus,' posted ... Elon Musk. Even Musk's AI bot Grok was asked to comment about the WSJ report. 'No, the writing style doesn't match Trump's typical direct, boastful prose filled with superlatives like "great" or "tremendous,"' Grok replied to a post on X. 'This letter's cryptic, scripted dialogue and poetic phrasing feel atypical, and the hand-drawn element contradicts his denial of ever drawing such images. Likely a fake.'" MB: Looks like nobody told Grok about Trump's near-contemporaneous doodles or that Trump is a notorious liar.

Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: Donald “Trump announced Thursday night that he was authorizing Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the public release of grand jury testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, and Ms. Bondi said she would make that request in federal court on Friday. Mr. Trump, under intense pressure from his right-wing base after a Justice Department review found no evidence to support conspiracy theories about the sex trafficking case, ordered Ms. Bondi to 'produce any and all Grand Jury Testimony, subject to Court approval,' in a social media post.... Ms. Bondi, a Trump loyalist accused by far-right influencers of abetting a cover-up, responded immediately with a post on social media that undercut the memo the department and F.B.I. drafted this month declaring Mr. Epstein’s 2019 jailhouse death a suicide and the case closed. 'President Trump — we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts,' she wrote, quickly reversing course at his command.

“But it was not clear that she would succeed, because the secrecy of grand jury transcripts is highly protected.... Even if the transcripts are made public, which might involve months of legal wrangling, the evidence represents a fraction of material collected in the investigation. Over the past several months, dozens of F.B.I. agents and prosecutors with the Justice Department’s national security division were diverted from other assignments to review thousands of documents and a vast trove of video evidence, including footage from video cameras in the prison.” A CBS News story is here.

Washington Post: “White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the Trump administration’s handling of the case of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying 'some of the most trusted voices in the Republican Party movement' reviewed files before the Justice Department decided not to release them publicly. Leavitt also said that ... Donald Trump does not support appointing a special prosecutor in the case, and she chided the press for covering the controversy 'like it’s the biggest story that the American people care about.'” This is an excerpt from a liveblog item. MB: If there was ever the slightest pretense that Trump's DOJ was acting as an independent law enforcement agency -- as has been the tradition for half a century -- it's officially over now. Leavitt just said that political figures “in the Republican party movement,” whatever that is, inserted themselves into the DOJ's deliberative process, combed through secret DOJ files, then advised the DOJ to formalize a cover-up.

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times runs a timeline/overview of what is publicly known about the relationship between Donald Trump & Jeffrey Epstein. Here's one tidbit: “Not long after [Trump and Epstein had a 'falling-out' over rival bids for a Palm Beach mansion], the police in Palm Beach fielded a tip that young women had been observed going in and out of Mr. Epstein’s home.” MB: Any one of hundreds of people could have called in that tip, but maybe the timing of Trump's fight with Epstein & the tip to the cops isn't a coincidence. Like maybe John Barron or one of his close friends was the snitch.

On July 8, Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post ran down a list of statements by Donald Trump and Trump administration officials about releasing the Epstein files.

Michael Gold of the New York Times: “House Republicans, under pressure from Democrats and their own angry constituents, agreed on Thursday night to lay the groundwork for a potential vote calling on the Justice Department to release material from its investigation of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, breaking with ... [Donald] Trump’s demand that supporters accept his administration’s handling of the case and move on. The measure, a nonbinding resolution, has not been scheduled for a vote. It is unclear whether Republicans will ever bring it up.... But Republicans on the powerful House Rules Committee voted to advance [the resolution] after Democrats threatened to force additional votes on the Epstein disclosures.... The dispute was holding up final passage of legislation to claw back $9 billion in congressionally approved spending.... The measure calls on the Justice Department to make available within 30 days 'documents, records and communications' surrounding the investigation into Mr. Epstein, his death, and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.” ~~~

     ~~~ Stephen Groves of the AP: “House Republicans were grasping late Thursday to formulate a response to the Trump administration’s handling of records in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, ultimately putting forward a resolution that carries no legal weight but nodded to the growing demand for greater transparency. The House resolution, which could potentially be voted on next week, will do practically nothing to force the Justice Department to release more records in the case. Still, it showed how backlash from the Republican base is putting pressure on the Trump administration and roiling GOP lawmakers.”

More Wonderful Secrets. Daniel Hampton of the Raw Story: "Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, flagged for MSNBC viewers late Thursday ... Trump’s closing statement in the letter [to Epstein published by the Wall Street Journal] ... '... where he said something to the effect of, "May every day offer another wonderful secret."... And I think he’s going to get his wish on that, because I think every day another wonderful secret about the relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein is going to be leaking out, because so many people knew about it.'... Raskin declared that it's 'obvious' the public needs 'total disclosure of the complete file, redacting only the names and the identities of the minor victims of the sex abuse — victims of Jeffrey Epstein and of the sex ring."

Charlie Warzel of the Atlantic: “In a second term that’s been defined by chaos, unpopular policies, and the dismantling of the federal government, Trump has managed to bounce back from one scandal after another.  Except, perhaps, from this one.... At the center [of the sprawling conspiracy story] is a genuine secret, the main thing that keeps the story from fading away: the specter of Epstein’s so-called client list, a document that supposedly contains the names of powerful people whom Epstein provided girls to. This list is the basis for the most sordid and compelling parts of the conspiracy theory: that Epstein not only facilitated the trafficking of these girls to elites, but that he then entrapped and extorted those elites. The Trump administration had teased the release of this list as though it were a blockbuster movie, even though its very existence remains an open question.... The longer the list stays in the dark, the more power it accrues.” Thank you to laura h. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) 

If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought. Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of commitment to seek justice for victims. Of dedication to truth above all else. -- Maurene Comey, memo to colleagues, Thursday, July 17 ~~~

~~~ Erica Orden & Kyle Cheney of Politico: “One day after being fired by the Justice Department, Maurene Comey told her former colleagues that 'fear is the tool of a tyrant,' appearing to take aim at the upper ranks of DOJ and perhaps the president....” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Marcy Wheeler: "Maurene Comey was one of the few people who convinced [Epstein & Maxwell's victims that] she would take on very powerful people in search of justice for them. And Pam Bondi fired her, on Donald Trump’s personal authority." Worth reading also for the details from former U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman's book. (Also linked yesterday.) 


David McCabe of the New York Times: “A federal court ruled on Thursday that ... [Donald] Trump’s firing of a Democratic commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission was illegal and that she was a 'rightful member' of the agency. In March, Mr. Trump dismissed Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, an F.T.C. commissioner, and her colleague Alvaro Bedoya from their positions as he asserted control over agencies that regulate companies and workplaces. The move challenged longstanding legal precedent that members of the F.T.C. can be fired only for a narrow set of reasons. Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in her ruling on Thursday that because 'those protections remain constitutional, as they have for almost a century, Ms. Slaughter’s purported removal was unlawful and without legal effect.' Mr. Bedoya also challenged his removal. But he resigned from the commission in June, saying he could not afford to have no income while his position at the agency was debated in court. As a result, Judge AliKhan dismissed his claims.... A White House spokesman said the administration would appeal the decision.”

Nina Agrawal of the New York Times: “The White House said on Thursday that ... [Donald] Trump had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition that occurs when veins have trouble moving blood back to the heart. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced the diagnosis while addressing swelling in Mr. Trump’s legs and bruising on his hand in recent weeks. Dr. Sean P. Barbabella, the physician to the president, said in a memo that Mr. Trump had noticed mild swelling in his lower legs and underwent a comprehensive evaluation which revealed the condition. He added that the condition was “benign” and common in people over 70. (Trump is 79.) The risk of chronic venous insufficiency, which is estimated to affect 10 to 35 percent of U.S. adults, increases with age. The condition, which occurs most often in the legs, can cause swelling, as the president experienced.” This is part of a liveblog. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. MB: Well, so much for my suggestion, offered below. But Trump is falling apart. (Also linked yesterday.) An AP story is here.

Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: “... Donald Trump’s budget chief suggested Thursday that he doesn’t need Congress or the Constitution to force through massive cuts to federal spending, hinting that more such cuts are coming soon as Trump demonstrates he’s 'not cowing to a legislative branch’s understanding of its own authorities and powers.' Russ Vought, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, also called for more partisanship on Capitol Hill on spending matters and said he’d only work with House and Senate Democratic appropriators 'if they conduct themselves with decorum.' Vought made his remarks during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters.... The OMB director said Trump has a number of tools he can use to impose more spending cuts, like rescissions packages and so-called 'pocket rescissions,' a potentially illegal tactic where a president proposes a funding cut so late in the fiscal year that the funding expires before Congress has had 45 days of session to consider it.” See related stories on Congress's approval of Trump's $9BB rescission package, linked below.

Tony Romm of the New York Times: “The Trump administration is pushing to conduct an on-site inspection of the Federal Reserve as ... [Donald] Trump and his top aides continue to pressure Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, to lower interest rates or resign. Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, told reporters on Thursday that administration officials wanted to visit the Fed to observe the renovations at its Washington headquarters. The administration has asserted that Mr. Powell has mismanaged the project, resulting in a cost overrun, and it has demanded that he provide answers about the project to the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Powell responded to those accusations on Thursday afternoon, sending a letter to Mr. Vought that said the Fed had obtained proper approval for its renovation. The Fed chair cited the need for 'significant structural repairs' to two buildings that were constructed in the 1930s and sought to rebut accusations that the redesign included extravagant additions.... For all the attention on the Fed and its renovation, Mr. Trump has made clear that he is primarily scrutinizing Mr. Powell because of the Fed’s approach to interest rates.”

Dani Anguiano of the Guardian: “A delegation of US officials toured Alcatraz on Thursday as part of Donald Trump’s pledge to reopen the shuttered federal prison and tourist attraction in the San Francisco Bay, amid an outcry from California leaders who have called the plan 'lunacy'. Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, who visited the island prison with the attorney general, Pam Bondi, said the federal government was beginning 'the work to renovate and reopen the site to house the most dangerous criminals and illegals'.” MB: They really enjoy using offensive language, don't they? ~~~

     ~~~ Marc Caputo of Axios: Donald "Trump's audacious plan to convert Alcatraz back to a maximum- security prison could come with a hefty price tag: $2 billion, administration sources tell Axios.... The U.S. government closed the prison after deeming it too expensive to operate. The structures deteriorated quickly in the bay's saltwater environment, and food and water had to be brought to the prison, while waste had to be shipped out."

Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: “The chief of the Justice Department’s civil rights unit has asked a federal judge to sentence a Louisville police officer convicted in the 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor to one day in prison, a stunning reversal of the unit’s longstanding efforts to address racial disparities in policing. Last year, a federal jury in Kentucky convicted Brett Hankison, the officer, of one count of violating Ms. Taylor’s civil rights by using excessive force in discharging several shots through Ms. Taylor’s window during a drug raid that went awry. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, and a judge will consider the government’s request at a sentencing scheduled for next week. On Wednesday, Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, asked the judge in the case, Rebecca Grady Jennings, to sentence Mr. Hankison to one day in prison — essentially the brief time he had served when he was charged — and three years of supervised release.... Such requests are typically filed by career prosecutors who worked on the case. Wednesday’s filing was signed by Ms. Dhillon, a political appointee who is a veteran Republican Party activist with close ties to ... [Donald] Trump, and one of her deputies.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Thanks to RAS for the link, who notes -- correctly, IMO -- that Trump DOJ civil rights division is signaling that it's okay to kill minorities. The NBC News report is here.

Border Patrol Moves Its Racial Profiling 600 Miles North. Jesus Jiménez of the New York Times: “Border Patrol agents conducted an immigration raid on Thursday at a Home Depot parking lot in Sacramento County, in a sign that federal officials are heading deeper into California after focusing on the Los Angeles region in recent weeks. Gregory K. Bovino, the head of Border Patrol’s El Centro region, said in a produced video that federal agents had begun operations in the Sacramento area, and that at least eight people had been arrested for being in the country without authorization. Sacramento is a nearly 600-mile drive northwest of El Centro, Calif., and the border with Mexico. The raid came nearly a week after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop indiscriminate immigration arrests in the Los Angeles region. The ruling in the Central District of California did not apply to Sacramento.... [DHS indicated one of the men picked up faced multiple criminal charges.] The department did not indicate a criminal history for most of the other immigrants who were detained on Thursday.... The edited video, which was overlaid with the song 'Power' by Kanye West, appeared to show people running away from masked federal agents in tactical gear in a Home Depot parking lot.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The Border Patrol thinks rounding up and deporting workers is entertaining. They think we'll enjoy the spectacle. 

Lauren Gurley of the Washington Post: “They are nurses, mechanics, sanitation workers and executives. They’ve fallen in love, bought houses and raised children. They’ve opened restaurants and construction companies, paid taxes and contributed to Social Security, living and working legally in the United States since 1999. Now more than 50,000 Hondurans and Nicaraguans stand to abruptly lose their legal status as the Trump administration seeks to end their protections, in place since the Clinton era, under the temporary protected status program, or TPS. Amid a broader campaign to crack down on immigration, the Department of Homeland Security said that because 'conditions have improved' in Honduras and Nicaragua, it is ending the program for natives of those countries in early September. The decision, announced in early July, has been met with outrage from immigrant communities across the country, prompting a lawsuit by the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group, and seven impacted individuals.”

Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: “Congress approved a White House request to claw back $9 billion for foreign aid and public broadcasting, after Republicans bowed to ... [Donald] Trump in an unusual surrender of congressional spending power. The House’s 216-to-213 vote early Friday morning sent the package to Mr. Trump for his signature. Two Republicans, Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Michael R. Turner of Ohio, opposed the measure. The Senate approved the package in a predawn 51-to-48 vote the day before, overcoming the objections of two Republicans, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who argued that their party was ceding Congress’s constitutional control over federal funding. The bulk of the funds targeted — about $8 billion — was for foreign assistance programs. The remaining $1.1 billion was for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances NPR and PBS.” The NBC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Elena Shao & Benjamin Mullin of the New York Times: “The cuts are a time bomb for the public media system. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has disbursed funding for stations through September. After that, more than 100 combined TV and radio stations that serve millions of Americans in rural pockets of the country will be at risk of going dark, according to an analysis from Public Media Company, an advisory firm. But the troubles could run deeper than that, said Tim Isgitt, the organization’s chief executive. The sudden and dramatic reduction in funding will result in a pool of fewer stations to buy programming and solicit donations, potentially creating a 'doom loop' with dire consequences for the rest of the system.” The article includes maps showing the areas across the U.S. at risk of losing public radio and television. ~~~

Perry Stein of the Washington Post: “The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday morning to advance ... Donald Trump’s controversial judicial nominee Emil Bove amid objections from Democratic senators, who walked out of the hearing in protest before the vote.... Bove faced whistleblower allegations ahead of the vote that he suggested to subordinates at a Justice Department meeting they may need to defy a court order that could have hampered the president’s aggressive deportation efforts.... Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and is considered an advocate for whistleblowers, has so far refused Democratic requests to hold a hearing with the whistleblower.... [Bove] has also been at the center of the [Justice D]epartment’s most controversial actions during the Trump administration, including a push to drop federal corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.... Ahead of the vote, more than 900 former Justice Department attorneys signed a letter to the senators expressing alarm over Bove’s nomination. The attorneys accused Bove of ignoring constitutional principals and longtime Justice Department norms as he fired employees and pursued legal strategies in the name of the president’s politics....” ~~~

     ~~~ Sara Boboltz of the Huffington Post: “The Democrats’ move ... sparked questions over whether the nominee technically advanced out of the committee. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) continued shouting at the committee chair, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), while all of his Democratic colleagues left the room in protest of the lack of debate over Bove’s fitness. Booker also later left. He had wanted to hear from the whistleblower before the senators voted on whether to advance Bove’s nomination, but Grassley refused to hold a vote on whether the whistleblower should be allowed to speak.... 'You are obligated to address a point of order according to the rules of this committee,' [Booker] said. 'You’re violating your own rules.' Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) accused Grassley of overseeing a 'kangaroo court' as she left. Grassley allowed the remaining senators to vote on advancing Bove and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, who is nominated to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.” ~~~

~~~ Boxwine Pirro Advances. Keith Alexander of the Washington Post: “Jeanine Pirro came one step closer to becoming the District of Columbia’s full-time U.S. attorney Thursday after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send her nomination to the Senate floor for a final vote. The committee previously blocked ... Donald Trump’s first choice for the role, Ed Martin, a right-wing podcaster and “Stop the Steal” organizer with no experience as a prosecutor and a history of controversial statements. But Pirro sailed through without any public discussion, her name mentioned only once alongside 10 other federal prosecutors and judges preceding a vote. The vote was split along party lines, but Republican control of the committee gives them enough votes to send the president’s nominees forward.”

How to Handle the Inquisition. Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: “Facing a far-reaching probe into the inner workings of Joe Biden’s White House, a growing number of his top aides are weighing invoking the Fifth Amendment, underscoring how fraught their legal predicament has become amid an onslaught of subpoenas, criminal allegations and threats from ... Donald Trump and his allies. Anthony Bernal, chief of staff to Jill Biden when she was first lady, on Wednesday became the latest top official to invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination, repeatedly telling the House Oversight Committee that he 'respectfully' declined to answer members’ questions in an attempt to shield himself from being thrust further into legal jeopardy.... 'Some have claimed the Fifth Amendment, even though I don’t think they actually think that they have committed any crimes[,' said law professor Jonathan Shaub of the University of Kentucky. ']But given the language that has been used and the insinuations, I can understand why their counsel would say, “Just don’t say anything, because we don’t know what they’re willing to do and what they’re willing to prosecute.”’”

John Koblin of the New York Times: “In a decision that shocked the entertainment industry and comedy world, CBS said on Thursday that it was canceling the most-watched show in late night, 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,' and ending a franchise that has existed for more than three decades. Mr. Colbert’s run — and 'The Late Show' itself — will end in May after his contract expires.... CBS executives said in a statement that the cancellation ...'... is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.'... Paramount is in the midst of closing a multibillion-dollar merger with the movie studio Skydance, a deal that requires approval from the Trump administration. Paramount recently agreed to pay ... [Donald] Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over an interview on '60 Minutes,' a move Mr. Colbert criticized on his show as 'a big fat bribe.' The merger still requires the approval of the Federal Communications Commission.... Mr. Colbert, who has hosted show for a decade, has been a passionate critic of Mr. Trump.”  

     ~~~ laura h. wrote yesterday that the cancellation “feels like another t**** revenge move.” As Koblin writes, both Senators Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who appeared on Colbert's show last night, and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are suspicious, too. Both said the public has a right to know if CBS cancelled the Colbert show for political reasons. ~~~

     ~~~ Hannah Zeigler & Alexandra Petri of the New York Times: “The first people to hear that CBS was canceling 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' reacted to the news loudly, and viscerally, with a chorus of 'No!' that turned into a sustained round of boos. They were sitting in the audience in the Ed Sullivan Theater in Midtown Manhattan when an emotional Mr. Colbert announced the decision at the conclusion of the taping of his Thursday night show.... Online, fans and public figures reacted with a mix of puzzlement and indignation.... 'CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery,' Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote on social media. 'America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.'” ~~~


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Comments Off
Thursday
Jul172025

The Conversation -- July 17, 2025

Adam Cancryn of CNN: “A collection of letters gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003 included a note bearing Donald Trump’s name and an outline of a naked woman, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Thursday. The drawing, depicting a woman’s breasts and a 'Donald' signature in the place of pubic hair, surrounded several lines of typewritten text, according to the newspaper, which reviewed the letter. It concluded with the line: 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.' Trump in an interview with the Journal on Tuesday denied that he wrote the letter or drew the picture and threatened to sue the newspaper if it published the story.” At 8:30 pm ET, this is a developing story. MB: Gosh, this letter amplifying the sordid connection between the POTUS* & the Pedophile must be one of the documents in the huge file that Pam Bondi refuses to release. It's but a single page of a massive cover-up. ~~~

~~~ Charlie Warzel of the Atlantic: “In a second term that’s been defined by chaos, unpopular policies, and the dismantling of the federal government, Trump has managed to bounce back from one scandal after another.  Except, perhaps, from this one.... At the center [of the sprawling conspiracy story] is a genuine secret, the main thing that keeps the story from fading away: the specter of Epstein’s so-called client list, a document that supposedly contains the names of powerful people whom Epstein provided girls to. This list is the basis for the most sordid and compelling parts of the conspiracy theory: that Epstein not only facilitated the trafficking of these girls to elites, but that he then entrapped and extorted those elites. The Trump administration had teased the release of this list as though it were a blockbuster movie, even though its very existence remains an open question.... The longer the list stays in the dark, the more power it accrues.” Thank you to laura h. for the link.

Nina Agrawal of the New York Times: “The White House said on Thursday that ... [Donald] Trump had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a condition that occurs when veins have trouble moving blood back to the heart. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced the diagnosis while addressing swelling in Mr. Trump’s legs and bruising on his hand in recent weeks. Dr. Sean P. Barbabella, the physician to the president, said in a memo that Mr. Trump had noticed mild swelling in his lower legs and underwent a comprehensive evaluation which revealed the condition. He added that the condition was “benign” and common in people over 70. (Trump is 79.) The risk of chronic venous insufficiency, which is estimated to affect 10 to 35 percent of U.S. adults, increases with age. The condition, which occurs most often in the legs, can cause swelling, as the president experienced.” This is part of a liveblog. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. MB: Well, so much for my suggestion, offered below. But Trump is falling apart.

If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought. Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of commitment to seek justice for victims. Of dedication to truth above all else. -- Maurene Comey, memo to colleagues, Thursday, July 17 ~~~

~~~ Erica Orden & Kyle Cheney of Politico: “One day after being fired by the Justice Department, Maurene Comey told her former colleagues that 'fear is the tool of a tyrant,' appearing to take aim at the upper ranks of DOJ and perhaps the president....” ~~~

~~~ Marcy Wheeler: "Maurene Comey was one of the few people who convinced [Epstein & Maxwell's victims that] she would take on very powerful people in search of justice for them. And Pam Bondi fired her, on Donald Trump’s personal authority." Worth reading also for the details from former U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman's book.

NBC News: "A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley says that [Emil] Bove’s nomination [for appeals court judge] had been reported out of committee to the full Senate, even though Democrats on the committee walked out in protest of the lack of debate and the refusal to hold a vote on whether to hold a hearing with a whistleblower before they voted. But a spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin is saying that whether Bove was reported out is an open question and may be up to the Senate parliamentarian because Democrats claim Republicans broke several committee rules in the process of forcing the vote." This is part of a liveblog.

Do check out Patrick's comment in today's thread on Rep. Jim Comer's complaint about a Biden White House official pleading the Fifth before Comer's "investigative" committee. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Andrew Ackerman  of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump signaled to Republican lawmakers on Tuesday that he may soon seek to fire Jerome H. Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve, according to people familiar with the discussion. But on Wednesday Trump denied he was planning to fire the central banker. Trump asked House lawmakers gathered at the White House on Tuesday about how they felt about firing Powell and they expressed approval for the firing, Trump confirmed to reporters on Wednesday. Trump then indicated to the lawmakers that he would likely fire Powell soon, said the people, who were familiar with the discussions but spoke on the condition of anonymity. When asked again Wednesday whether he planned to fire Powell, Trump said that media reports that he’s planning to fire Powell are 'not true.'” A CNBC story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Maggie Haberman & Colby Smith of the New York Times: Donald “Trump showed off a draft of a letter firing the chair of Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, during a meeting with roughly a dozen House Republicans on Tuesday night, polling them as to whether he should do it and indicating that he likely would....” ~~~

     ~~~ Colby Smith & Tony Romm of the New York Times: “... firing a Fed chair is a legally knotty endeavor and one that has not been tested in modern U.S. history. That’s because, under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the chair can be ousted only for 'cause,' which is typically interpreted to mean malfeasance or gross misconduct.... The president and his allies have seized on [Powell's management of the renovation of the Fed's headquarters in Washington, D.C.], which kicked off in 2021, as a potential avenue to fire Mr. Powell over allegations of mismanagement.... Legal experts have quickly assessed that the case the president may be building to remove Mr. Powell for cause is flimsy and likely to face serious obstacles if Mr. Trump follows through with his threats.... Mr. Powell has in the past indicated his intention to serve out his term as chair, which ends in May, suggesting that he would not go willingly.... The case would most likely wind up at the Supreme Court.” MB: And, as we know, the Supremes might better be called “the Supines,” when it comes to ruling on the powers of the king. And do note that replacing Powell with a fpTrump toady is part of Trump's overall project to completely destroy the U.S. economy. ~~~

~~~ Cognitive Impairment. Elderly Man Has No Idea Who Appointed Powell. Megan Lebowitz of NBC News: "'I was surprised he was appointed,' Trump said. 'I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him.' However, Trump himself initially nominated Powell to lead the Fed in 2017. Biden renominated Powell in 2021." ~~~

     ~~~ Steve Benen of MSNBC: “This incident came one day after ... [Donald Trump] told a detailed story about a conversation he had with his uncle about having taught Ted Kaczynski — better known as 'Unabomber' — while John Trump was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That conversation couldn’t have happened — in part because John Trump died more than a decade before Kaczynski was caught and identified, and in part because Kaczynski was never a student at MIT.” Benen cites some other incidents in which Trump appeared to be lost. ~~~

     ~~~ Making up the Unabomber story may have tired Trump out, as he dozed off later during the, uh, energy conference. ~~~

~~~ Trump is falling apart physically, too. ~~~

     ~~~ Madeline Sherratt of the Independent: Donald “Trump's mysterious hand bruise has reappeared, but this time, it appeared to be caked in even more makeup. A zoomed-in shot [taken Tuesday] of Trump’s hand appeared to be flaking with a layer of makeup – a shade that did not match his skin, plastered over the top. One area of his hand buried beneath the concealer looked like an incision or scar of some kind. The mark on his right hand was first noticed months earlier, in February, during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.” Trump has blamed hand-shaking as the cause of an underlying bruise. An internal medicine doctor speculated that the cause was weakened blood vessels, osteoarthritis, or both.  

     ~~~ Marie: OR, IMO, Trump may be covering up a skin lesion caused by surgical removal of a cancerous growth. Trump spends a lot of time in the sun, and he does not wear a glove on that hand (his right) when he is golfing (at least in photos I've seen). I speak from personal experience that the hands are quite susceptible to skin cancer.

Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Wednesday attacked fellow Republicans who have been raising questions about his administration’s handling of the case of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a social media post, Trump ... [wrote that] Democrats’ 'new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this “bullshit,” hook, line, and sinker.... They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: To me, Trump's most curious attempt at a defense was when he wrote over the weekend, "Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration. ... They created the Epstein Files...." (Trump has since reiterated this theory of the case, at least in part.) So I can't help see the image of Obama, Clinton, Comey and John Brennan sitting around a big round table while each dutifully writes down different imaginary stories about Jeffrey Epstein. As each author finishes a page, he she stuffs it in a file folder (or File folder). Mind you, these File folders are stamped "Top Secret" and are never to be released. That is, the fantastic "reports" are intended for an audience of no one, which is to say they have no political utility whatsoever. But still. It is the heroic Trump who was always going to expose these completely fabricated Obama-Clinton-Comey-Brennan-Biden-Losers-and-Criminals works of fiction. This is a dodgy proposition, inasmuch as Trump's long association with Epstein -- combined with the Democrats' corrupt intent -- means Trump himself is bound to figure into many of these tall tales. Moreover, it seems a bit unlikely Obama, et al., would devote their prose to fingering the "real" villains" the international Jewish pedophile ring of which they are a part. I am sure that somewhere in the Mind of Donald, there is a twisted logic to this theory of the case; I just have not been able to discern it.

Kelly Rissman of the Independent reprises Trump's recent attempts to defend himself, change the subject, etc. She also goes over some of the MAGA blowback.

Oh, Here's an A-mazing, Er, Coincidence. Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: “Maurene Comey, a Manhattan federal prosecutor who worked on the criminal cases against Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, was fired on Wednesday.... The reason for Ms. Comey’s firing was not initially clear. Her dismissal immediately raised questions, given her involvement in cases that have roiled the White House in recent days, as well the fact that her father is the former F.B.I. director James Comey, who was fired by ... [Donald] Trump during his first term.... Ms. Comey was informed of her firing in a letter that cited Article II of the Constitution, which describes the powers of the president....” Politico's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Trump claims that Jim Comey is one of the fabricators of the Epstein case, yet his daughter won the only significant conviction of an Epstein collaborator. Ghislaine Maxwell received a 20-year prison sentence for her part is Epstein's sex-trafficking ops. So were Comey père et fille collaborating? Working at cross-purposes? How this all fits together in the New Trump Conspiracy Theory is beyond me, but maybe somebody will come up with an implausible rationale as befits the occasion.

David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times: After running down the known knowns, Wallace-Wells writes, “... what is missing in the Epstein story isn’t exactly more information — it’s more meaning.... The ... lineage [of the Epstein saga] probably starts with the birther conspiracy, which of course helped jump-start Donald Trump’s later-life political ascent too. It also includes the extended sex-ring universes of Pizzagate and QAnon, into which the Epstein story fits both as a kind of successor narrative and one with enough basis in lurid reality to invite all kinds of more fantastical speculation — about a powerful pedophile cabal, about a vast blackmail-and-influence operation, about foreign intelligence services secretly operating the levers of U.S. imperial power.... Above all the Epstein legend now serves as a new capacious monomyth for an increasingly paranoid and distrustful country.... The Epstein story expresses a flexible, fit-for-all-purposes outrage at the perversity of the wealthy and the impunity of elites....” MB: I've made this a gift link, because -- along with a couple of posts by Steve M., which I linked a few days ago -- Wallace-Wells helps explain the genesis & the raison d'etre of the Epstein conspiracy theory. (Still, it's hard not to empathize with Ken W. who wrote late yesterday that he remains somewhat mystified by “MAGA's penchant for accepting patent absurdity.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The one thing we know for certain about all this is that, just as Elon Musk claimed, "Trump is in the Epstein files." I think it was Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald who (a) equated the elusive Epstein "client list" with the phone directory Maxwell created for Epstein, and (b) wrote that the directory contained ten phone numbers for Trump. In addition, there are numerous public records of Trump's ten-year relationship with Epstein. Most important, if there were any chance Trump were not "in the Epstein files," you can bet he would be ordering their release rather than making up stories about how Comey & Obama were making up stories. Do you think Trump is providing cover for Prince Andrew? Or Bill Clinton, ha ha ha? Trump impersonator Alec Baldwin? God, no. Or even Melania? Of course not. As always, it's Me Me Me. He's covering his own fat butt. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Drew Magary of the San Francisco Chronicle cheerfully lays out the direct evidence of Trump's participation in Epstein's sex ring.

The Perils of Pamela. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: “Even after [Pam] Bondi gained Trump's backing..., [her] long-term victory, and perhaps her survival, is anything but assured. Her decision this month to issue a memo affirming that [Jeffrey] Epstein’s jailhouse death in 2019 was a suicide precipitated an intense, unexpected right-wing backlash against Mr. Trump with no precedent, no obvious off-ramp and no mercy shown to an attorney general seen by some Trump die-hards as a symbol of a second term littered with broken promises.... The Epstein saga has exposed the hazards of Ms. Bondi’s focus on courting her mercurial political patron, an inside-game strategy rooted in the assumption, now an open question, that Mr. Trump will maintain the total backing of his political base.... Ms. Bondi’s true original sin — one from which she might never fully recover — was overhyping the 'Epstein files' shortly after taking over in February....”

Giving New Meaning to “The Banality of Evil.” Peter Baker of the New York Times: “Last week, [Donald Trump] denounced a reporter as a 'very evil person' for asking a question he did not like. This week, he declared that Democrats are 'an evil group of people.' 'Evil' is a word getting a lot of airtime in the second Trump term. It is not enough anymore to dislike a journalistic inquiry or disagree with an opposing philosophy. Anyone viewed as critical of the president or insufficiently deferential is wicked. The Trump administration’s efforts to achieve its policy goals are not just an exercise in governance but a holy mission against forces of darkness. The characterization seeds the ground to justify all sorts of actions that would normally be considered extreme or out of bounds.... Mr. Trump has demonstrated willingness to use power against those he considers evil. On a single day two weeks ago, he threatened to arrest two political rivals and deport an estranged ally who had angered him.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Because the totality of the evidence against him is overwhelming, I do think it's fair to denounce Donald Trump as "evil," but I seldom do so. In general, the term "evil" should be used in a religious context, IMO, and it's probably more authentic when coming from an "expert" like a bishop or rabbi. The term has no place in normal political discourse. When Trump uses "evil" to put down a reporter asking a valid question, he is showing the peculiar limitations of his vocabulary, which are well-enough known already. 

Marie: There is a funny-sounding clause that pops up in some English translations (including the King James Version) of the Christian Bible: "He opened his mouth to speak." Some Biblical scholars contend that the clause connotes the great importance of what the speaker is about to say, and/or that it implies the person speaks for God. Well, our little Speaker has opened his mouth to speak and he said God annointed Donald Trump: ~~~

     ~~~ Robyn Pennacchia of Wonkette: “Speaking to the press yesterday, Speaker [Mike] Johnson talked about his (and Trump’s) belief that Trump was more or less appointed President by God. 'Democrats spent years persecuting him on all fronts. Social media platforms removed his ability to communicate with his supporters, armed FBI agents raided his home, Democrat judges and prosecutors bent the law to arrest him, and multiple assassins tried to kill him,'  Johnson said, adding, 'God miraculously saved the president's life -- I think it's undeniable -- and he did it for an obvious purpose. His presidency and his life are the fruits of divine providence. He points that out all the time and he's right to do so.' So he’s basically Jesus, now.... The context of this near-Biblical story of 'divine providence' was a defense of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill — which, much like 'divine right' allowed those kings of old to ignore checks on their power from parliament, more or less allows Trump and other government officials to ignore checks on their power from the judiciary branch.”

Frances Vinall of the Washington Post: “California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused the Trump administration of illegal conduct after it pulled about $4 billion in federal funds from a high-speed rail project to link Los Angeles and San Francisco — the latest public clash between the president and the outspoken Democratic governor, who described the years-long project as soon entering its final stages. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced the funding termination Wednesday, calling the project a 'boondoggle' and stating 'federal dollars are not a blank check.' In a statement, Newsom defended the project and said 'California is putting all options on the table' to fight the move.... Donald Trump, who previously sought to cut federal funding for the high-speed rail project during his first term, said on social media Wednesday that his canceling of the federal funds had 'freed' taxpayers from funding 'California’s disastrously overpriced, “HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE.’” ...Less than a quarter of the project’s total funding appropriations come from the federal government, while the rest comes from the state.”

Coca Cola: “It's the Real Thing.” Maybe. Will Weissert of the AP: “... Donald Trump said Wednesday that Coca-Cola has agreed to use real cane sugar in its flagship soft drink in the U.S. at his suggestion — though the company didn’t confirm such a move. Any switch from high-fructose corn syrup in Coke sold in the United States would put Coca-Cola more in line with its practice in other countries, including Mexico and Australia. But it wouldn’t affect Trump’s drink of choice, Diet Coke, which uses aspartame as a calorie-free beverage.”

Shawn Hubler of the New York Times: “When the California National Guard rolled into Los Angeles to respond to devastating wildfires in January, Southern Californians largely hailed the troops as heroes.... Seven months later, much of that good will is gone. Protesters jeer the troops as they guard federal office buildings. Commuters curse the behemoth convoys clogging freeways.... Interviews with nearly two dozen people — including soldiers and officers as well as officials and civilians who have worked closely with the troops — show that many members of the Guard are questioning the mission.... Several said they had raised objections themselves or knew someone who objected, either because they did not want to be involved in immigration crackdowns or felt the Trump administration had put them on the streets for what they described as a 'fake mission.'”

Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: “A coalition of legal groups representing immigrants filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday, arguing that the federal government’s campaign to arrest people at immigration courthouses so that they can be swiftly deported is unlawful and violates due process protections. The lawsuit, filed by Democracy Forward and three other legal organizations on behalf of 12 immigrants, aims to stop the arrests at immigration courts, a contentious tactic that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency began using in May to increase deportations nationwide. From New York to California, ICE agents have arrested immigrants appearing for routine proceedings at immigration courts, prompting criticism from Democrats and activists that ICE is unfairly targeting people who are following the rules by showing up to court.”

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Lawyers for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the immigrant who was wrongfully expelled to El Salvador in March, poked holes on Wednesday in some of the evidence supporting the charges that were used to bring him back to face trial in the United States.... Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers are concerned enough that the Trump administration might drop the charges and move at once to re-deport him that they have asked the judge overseeing his original wrongful deportation case to issue a new order protecting him from being hastily removed from the country again.... What happened in court on Wednesday, though, was focused on the narrower question of the government’s evidence against Mr. Abrego Garcia.”

John Eligon & Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “The tiny African kingdom of Eswatini announced on Wednesday that it would repatriate the five migrants who had been deported there by the United States, a day after American officials said the migrants’ home countries had refused to accept them. The migrants came from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba, and had been serving time in American prisons for serious offenses, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Their removal was the first so-called third-country deportation from the United States to take place since the Supreme Court ruled this month that the Trump administration could move forward with the practice.”

Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: “Two weeks after it opened, a temporary migrant detention center in the Everglades is facing expensive logistical challenges: portable toilets routinely back up, sewage needs to be collected and trucked out, and swarms of mosquitoes attack detainees and staff alike. Without permanent structures, electricity or running water, drinking and bathing water has to be brought in several times a day but is still in short supply, and rainwater leaks into the tents that protect detainees’ chain-link cells, according to interviews with three former guards and phone interviews with detainees. Their accounts offer details of conditions inside the $450 million detention center, which has become a symbol for the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies and been dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz' by Republicans. Five other states are considering using the site as a model, said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem....”

Wherever there is cash to be had and people to exploit, you will find fraudsters. And the fraudsters just might just wear badges. ~~~ 

~~~ Rick Rojas of the New York Times: “A federal grand jury has indicted current and former police chiefs in three [Louisiana] communities, another local law enforcement official and a Louisiana businessman whom prosecutors described as the architect of [a scheme to exploit undocumented immigrants]. Prosecutors said that the chiefs would produce false reports documenting armed robberies. Listed as victims were undocumented immigrants, who the prosecutors said had paid a middle man. They were trying to take advantage of the federal U-visa program, which was created in 2000 and is available to undocumented immigrants who are victims of certain violent crimes.... The scheme began in 2015, prosecutors said....”

Conspiracy Theory Dictates NIH Policy. Hannah Natanson, et al., of the Washington Post: “In May..., Donald Trump signed an executive order ... vowing a crackdown on 'dangerous gain-of-function research' on viruses and pathogens that he alleged was occurring in the United States with inadequate oversight.... Soon after, researchers at the National Institutes of Health spent weeks assessing experiments for risk and preparing a report for the White House on what studies to halt.... But after the director of the NIH’s infectious-disease institute signed off on the findings, the politically appointed No. 2 in command at the NIH, Matthew Memoli, overrode career staff.... The administration’s moves are part of a full embrace of the lab leak theory for the origin of the coronavirus.”

Secret Memo Issued to Control Solar & Wind Projects. Josh Siegel & Zack Colman of Politico: “Solar and wind energy projects must now get Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s personal sign-off to receive permits across the hundreds of millions of federal acres under his department’s control, according to an internal memo obtained by Politico. The Interior directive puts wind and solar projects under heightened scrutiny, potentially slowing approvals and construction across vast swaths of some of the most sun- and wind-rich portions of the country. The memo was sent to Interior staff on Wednesday.... 'Let’s be clear: leaking internal documents to the media is cowardly, dishonest, and a blatant violation of professional standards,' Interior said in a response to a request for comment on the memo.”

Tim Balk of the New York Times: “More than 900 former Justice Department lawyers have signed a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing 'deep concern' about the nomination of Emil Bove III, a senior Justice Department official, to serve as a federal appeals judge. In the letter, dated Wednesday, the former department lawyers suggested that Mr. Bove had disgraced the department during his half-year tenure there, and that his confirmation would be 'intolerable.'” The ABC News story is here. MB: This is remarkable. I didn't know there were as many as 900 living former DOJ lawyers. ~~~

~~~ Jeffrey Toobin in a New York Times op-ed: “In his first term, [Donald Trump] served the conservative movement; this time, the movement must serve him. The president has staffed the top leadership of the Justice Department with individuals whose chief qualification appears to be that they represented Mr. Trump as private lawyers.... Just as Mr. Trump has put his onetime advocates at the pinnacle of American law enforcement, the nomination of [Emil] Bove [to a federal appeals court] signals the president’s desire to embed his loyalists in the judicial branch.... The president is grooming Mr. Bove for bigger things — possibly a seat on the Supreme Court.” This link appears to be a gift link; the piece is well-worth reading.

Theodoric Meyer & Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post: “The Senate narrowly approved ... Donald Trump’s request to claw back $9 billion in foreign aid and federal funding for public broadcasting early Thursday morning, handing the administration a victory in its ongoing power struggle with Congress over federal spending. The vote was 51-48. Two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — voted with Democrats against the bill. One Democrat, Sen. Tina Smith (Minnesota), was admitted to George Washington University Hospital on Wednesday after feeling unwell and did not vote. The bill now returns to the House, which must pass it by Friday under the law that Republicans are using to undo spending that Congress previously approved. The rescissions — as such cuts are called — would be the first passed at a president’s request in decades.” Politico's story is here.

Marie: A few days back I linked to a couple of stories about Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) getting evicted from his D.C. pad for failure to pay his rent. But I did not tell you the half of it. Not hardly! So here's a far better summary: ~~~

     ~~~ Marcie Jones of Wonkette (July 15): "Is there anything more Trump-era Republican than fake-rich living beyond one’s means? And cheating on your wife, allegedly beating your mistress and lying about your finances and qualifications? Meet Florida Rep. Cory Mills, who is one messy pile of curb furniture! He’s getting evicted from the soon-to-be-divorced-dad pad he was sharing with his sidepiece because he owes his landlord more than $85,000 in unpaid rent, on a penthouse that’s nearly $21,000 a month!... How befitting for an arms-maker with shady finances. (You know, in case you were curious how he got approved for $21K per month on his $174,000 congressional salary.)" Do read on. 

The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naïve, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave. -- Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissent in McMahon v. New York ~~~

~~~ The Silence of the Supremes. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “In clearing the way for ... [Donald] Trump’s efforts to transform American government, the Supreme Court has issued a series of orders that often lacked a fundamental characteristic of most judicial work: an explanation of the court’s rationale. On Monday, for instance, in letting Mr. Trump dismantle the Education Department, the majority’s unsigned order was a single four-sentence paragraph entirely devoted to the procedural mechanics of pausing a lower court’s ruling. What the order did not include was any explanation of why the court had ruled as it did. It was an exercise of power, not reason. The silence was even more striking in the face of a 19-page dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The court has allowed the administration to fire tens of thousands of government workers, discharge transgender troops, end protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants from war-torn countries and fundamentally shift power from Congress to the president — often with scant or no explanation of how it arrived at those results. In the last 10 weeks alone, the court has granted emergency relief to the Trump administration without explanation seven times....” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Liptak is right when he describes these fake "emergency docket" decisions as exercises in power, not reason. The implicit message, IMO, is a big endorsement of the letters F-U: "We don't need no stinkin' reason."

Farrah Tomazin of the Daily Beast, republished by MSN: “Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts praised Donald Trump at a secret judges meeting held to assuage concerns that the MAGA president could spark a constitutional crisis. Roberts made the comments during high-level talks on March 11 at the Judicial Conference of the United State[s], a 27-member national policymaking body for the federal courts, according to a memorandum obtained by The Federalist, a conservative online publication. Federal Judge James Boasberg — who blocked Trump’s efforts to deport Venezuelan nationals using the Alien Enemies Act — told Roberts that he and his D.C colleagues were concerned 'that the administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis.'... 'Chief Justice Roberts expressed hope that would not happen and in turn no constitutional crisis would materialize,' the memo noted.... The memo added that Roberts had also noted that 'his interactions with the President have been civil and respectful, such as the President thanking him at the state of the union address for administering the oath.'” MB: I wouldn't characterize those remarks as reaching the level of “praise.”

Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: “Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh on Wednesday paused a federal appeals court ruling that bars individuals in some states from filing lawsuits claiming discrimination based on the landmark Voting Rights Act. The administrative stay will allow the Supreme Court more time to consider whether to take up an appeal by Native American tribes in North Dakota who claim the ruling endangers a powerful tool to ensure equitable voting laws. It’s unclear when the high court might issue a decision to hear the case.... A federal judge ruled for the tribes, but a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit overturned that decision. The panel did not rule on the substance of the tribes’ arguments but instead found that individuals had no right to bring challenges under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bars racially discriminatory voting laws. The panel found only the Justice Department can bring such lawsuits.”

Santul Nerkar & Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: Donald “Trump’s embattled interim U.S. attorney in Albany, N.Y., is back leading the office under an unusual new title, just days after a panel of judges refused to appoint him to lead the office permanently. According to a letter from the Justice Department’s human resources division, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, John A. Sarcone III has been named 'special attorney to the attorney general.' The appointment, the letter says, gives him the powers of a U.S. attorney, and is 'indefinite.' The move means that Mr. Sarcone is the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, according to a spokesman for the office, as well as its first assistant, occupying two positions at once.... For now, the appointment appears to allow Mr. Sarcone, who has scrapped publicly with journalists and the police, to effectively ignore Monday’s decision by the panel of judges to spurn him.... Sarcone’s appointment as a special attorney appears to be a workaround, one that could potentially allow Mr. Trump to keep his pick in place without approval from Congress or the judiciary.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: One might call it a "workaround," but the appointment has a sort of "I'm my own grandpa" feel to it, inasmuch as Sarcone seems to be his own assistant.

Paul Krugman on the Grok fail: “As far as I can tell, large language models — which we are, misleadingly, calling artificial intelligence — are still, essentially, a souped-up version of autocorrect.... Is AI fundamentally a communist technology?... Apparently the claim is widespread among right-wing tech bros....  In modern Republican rhetoric, anything to the left of MAGA ideology is communist extremism. And here’s the thing: The answers you get from AI generally don’t adhere to the right-wing party line.... Why?... It all goes back to Stephen Colbert’s dictum, almost 20 years ago, that 'reality has a well-known liberal bias.'... Since Republicans have staked out positions on ... issues [like climate change and economics] that run completely counter to informed views, they consider the answers AI gives on such issues left-wing. Hence the Musk/MechaHitler disaster. Musk tried to nudge Grok into being less 'politically correct,' but what Musk considers political correctness is often what the rest of us consider just a reasonable description of reality. The only way to move Grok right was, in effect, to get it to buy into conspiracy theories, many of them, as always, involving a hefty dose of antisemitism.”

Ashleigh Fields of the Hill: “Former first lady Jill Biden’s chief of staff refused to answer questions during closed–door testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday morning. Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said Anthony Bernal pleaded the Fifth when GOP lawmakers asked him whether former President Biden ever instructed him to lie about his health or 'if any unelected official or family members executed the duties of the president.' 'It’s no surprise that Anthony Bernal is pleading the Fifth Amendment to shield himself from criminal liability,' Comer said in a statement, following months of criticism for the former president’s staffers.... 'The Committee has sought testimony from Mr. Bernal for nearly two years, without any actual evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Bernal,' Bernal counsel Johnathan Su said in a statement.... 'Most recently, the Committee seeks Mr. Bernal’s testimony based on a purported controversy regarding use of the autopen.... President Biden has already confirmed that he personally made all decisions concerning his grants of clemency.'... [Su said that] any suggestion that using the right is evidence of wrongdoing 'would be highly irresponsible and flatly wrong, particularly from those elected to represent the people and uphold the Constitution.'”

~~~~~~~~~~

Europe & a New World Order. Mark Landler & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: “... when Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany visits London on Thursday, it will add another layer to the portrait of Europe uniting against foreign threats. Britain and Germany are expected to sign an Anglo-German treaty on defense, energy, economic cooperation, and migration, officials from both countries said this week. The defense accord will build on an agreement signed last October, under which the two agreed to cooperate on mutual defense, with joint military exercises and the development of sophisticated weapons. Mr. Merz, a center-right leader who came to power in May, has quickly emerged as a linchpin in Europe’s effort to build a more independent role in its security since the return of ... [Donald] Trump to the White House.... [The treary] is likely to include a pledge by both countries to regard a threat against one as a threat against the other. Such a commitment to mutual defense would echo language adopted by Britain and France, which pledged last week to more closely coordinate their nuclear arsenals in responding to threats against European allies.”

News Lede

New York Times: “Connie Francis, who dominated the pop charts in the late 1950s and early ’60s with sobbing ballads like 'Who’s Sorry Now' and 'Don’t Break the Heart That Loves You,' as well as up-tempo soft-rock tunes like 'Stupid Cupid,' 'Lipstick on Your Collar,' and 'Vacation,' died on Wednesday. She was 87.” 

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