update - blind detainee dropped off randomly by ICE freezes to death trying to find his way home
- Thread starter mandrill
- Start date
'String of embarrassing defeats' for Trump DOJ as courts expose officers’ lies
The Department of Justice has “suffered a string of embarrassing defeats” in court as federal government cases against people accused of “physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties … have recently been dismissed or ended in not guilty verdicts,” the Guardian reports.
After President Donald Trump surged federal agents in Minnesota, a number of cases in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region revealed a gulf between federal agent’s claims and the actual facts on the ground, often backed by video of the events.
Frederick Goetz, a lawyer for a man charged with felony assault for allegedly attacking an officer, and whose charges were later dismissed by prosecutors, told the Guardian he sees “a pattern” among similar cases in the region.
“There are unreasonable uses of force by ICE agents and border patrol,” Goetz explained. “You immediately have stories perpetuated to justify that force: ‘The officer was being attacked. This was an ambush.’ All of that spin is to cast the victims as violent perpetrators. Then the story falls apart once you get the facts.”
In Goetz's client's case, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Todd Lyons last week acknowledged “sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements.” Lyons insisted federal authorities are investigating the officers.
As the Guardian reports, several other cases in Minnesota have “fallen apart” under the facts.
“Earlier this year, Minnesota federal prosecutors dropped assault charges against a man, who was accused of ramming his car into agents during an immigration operation,” the Guardian reports. “The DOJ presented no witnesses to establish probable cause.”
And on Tuesday, Judge Donovan Frank “dismissed with prejudice federal assault charges filed against a Minneapolis man accused of ‘tackling’ an ICE agent,” calling the “allegations ‘vague and contradictory.’”
The DOJ’s inability to secure convictions in these cases come as “the number of assistant U.S. attorneys in Minnesota has fallen from more than 40 prosecutors before Trump retook office to fewer than two dozen,” the AP reports.
Minnesota, according to the AP, “has been hit especially hard” by a slew of resignations across the United States. Because of this, “a growing number of defendants are beginning to escape accountability, as the remaining prosecutors are forced to dismiss some cases, kill others before charges are filed and seek plea agreements and delays.”
“Public safety has not been served by these rash of cases,” Goetz told the Guardian.
In one such case, 12-time convicted felon Cory Allen McKay, “with a three-decade record of violent crime that includes strangling a pregnant woman and firing a shotgun under a person’s chin … walked free after the prosecutor on his case retired,” the AP reports.
According to the report, McKay’s lawyer, Jean Brand, said the move was “completely surprising” to her. She didn’t learn that Trump appointee Daniel Rosen abruptly dropped the case until after her client’s release.
Last year, former assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Hollenhorst successfully argued that McKay “was too dangerous to be released before trial,” the AP reports.
McKay’s lawyer called Hollenhorst’s retired “a huge loss’ for the Justice Department, despite the win for her client.
The Department of Justice has “suffered a string of embarrassing defeats” in court as federal government cases against people accused of “physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties … have recently been dismissed or ended in not guilty verdicts,” the Guardian reports.
After President Donald Trump surged federal agents in Minnesota, a number of cases in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region revealed a gulf between federal agent’s claims and the actual facts on the ground, often backed by video of the events.
Frederick Goetz, a lawyer for a man charged with felony assault for allegedly attacking an officer, and whose charges were later dismissed by prosecutors, told the Guardian he sees “a pattern” among similar cases in the region.
“There are unreasonable uses of force by ICE agents and border patrol,” Goetz explained. “You immediately have stories perpetuated to justify that force: ‘The officer was being attacked. This was an ambush.’ All of that spin is to cast the victims as violent perpetrators. Then the story falls apart once you get the facts.”
In Goetz's client's case, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Todd Lyons last week acknowledged “sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements.” Lyons insisted federal authorities are investigating the officers.
As the Guardian reports, several other cases in Minnesota have “fallen apart” under the facts.
“Earlier this year, Minnesota federal prosecutors dropped assault charges against a man, who was accused of ramming his car into agents during an immigration operation,” the Guardian reports. “The DOJ presented no witnesses to establish probable cause.”
And on Tuesday, Judge Donovan Frank “dismissed with prejudice federal assault charges filed against a Minneapolis man accused of ‘tackling’ an ICE agent,” calling the “allegations ‘vague and contradictory.’”
The DOJ’s inability to secure convictions in these cases come as “the number of assistant U.S. attorneys in Minnesota has fallen from more than 40 prosecutors before Trump retook office to fewer than two dozen,” the AP reports.
Minnesota, according to the AP, “has been hit especially hard” by a slew of resignations across the United States. Because of this, “a growing number of defendants are beginning to escape accountability, as the remaining prosecutors are forced to dismiss some cases, kill others before charges are filed and seek plea agreements and delays.”
“Public safety has not been served by these rash of cases,” Goetz told the Guardian.
In one such case, 12-time convicted felon Cory Allen McKay, “with a three-decade record of violent crime that includes strangling a pregnant woman and firing a shotgun under a person’s chin … walked free after the prosecutor on his case retired,” the AP reports.
According to the report, McKay’s lawyer, Jean Brand, said the move was “completely surprising” to her. She didn’t learn that Trump appointee Daniel Rosen abruptly dropped the case until after her client’s release.
Last year, former assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Hollenhorst successfully argued that McKay “was too dangerous to be released before trial,” the AP reports.
McKay’s lawyer called Hollenhorst’s retired “a huge loss’ for the Justice Department, despite the win for her client.
St. Paul Blocks ICE, Bernie Goes After Billionaires, and Trump’s DEI Ban Just Collapsed
Big wins for the people Trump is begging you not to share
www.dworkinsubstack.com
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
US president Donald Trump continues to be the subject of speculation around his health and wellbeing online, after having two MRI scans in the space of a year in 2025, being diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency and – in this case – appearing to fall asleep on multiple occasions.
The 79-year-old convicted felon has, however, addressed the rumours before, speaking during the January 29 cabinet meeting to say that the last meeting – where he appeared to close his eyes – “got pretty boring”.
He said: “It was a little bit at the boring side, but I didn’t sleep, I just closed them because I wanted to get the hell out of there.
“Some of them got me in a blink … They took me at the close segment of my cycle.”
We’ve rounded up all the instances where Trump appeared to doze off below, for reference…
April 26, 2025: Pope Francis’ funeral
One of the earliest and most high-profile instances where Trump was accused of falling asleep was at the funeral of Pope Francis. He also faced criticism for going against the Vatican’s dress code and wearing a blue suit and appearing to be on his phone during the event.
May 13, 2025: Visiting Saudi Arabia
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
While on a tour of the Middle East, touting a new agreement signed with Saudi Arabia in a press conference, Trump appeared to fall asleep, and was subsequently branded “Sleepy Don” in a reference to his criticism of predecessor Joe Biden.
July 15, 2025: The Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit
Ironically, despite its name, people pointed out that Trump appeared to fall asleep during the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit…
October 8, 2025: Antifa roundtable
Trump has long been vocal in his opposition to the movement known as Antifa, but during a roundtable on this very subject in October, the Republican seemingly struggled to stay awake.
November 6, 2025: Obesity drugs press conference
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
At the same event where a White House guest fainted, Trump was seen leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed.
December 2, 2025: A cabinet meeting
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
As Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed Trump is “the only leader in the world who can help end” the war in Ukraine, the president was seen leaning to one side with his eyes closed, nodding but without opening his eyes when Rubio addressed him as “Mr President” while speaking.
December 4, 2025: The Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo agreements
Just days after appearing to fall asleep at a meeting of his own cabinet, Trump’s head was seen drooping and he seemed to be struggling to stay awake during a press conference marking the signing of new agreements by leaders from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
December 18, 2025: Reclassifying marijuana
During an Oval Office event marking Trump signing an executive order to give marijuana a lower drugs classification, the president appeared to drift off while sat at the Resolute Desk.
January 4, 2026: US action in Venezuela
The subject matter was pretty important: US strikes on Venezuela and the ‘capturing’ of its president Nicolás Maduro. However, when it was the turn of top military official Dan “Raizin” Caine to speak, the 79-year-old Republican was seen in the background appearing to be struggling to stay awake, closing his eyes on several occasions.
January 14, 2026: Signing the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
With Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins standing behind him, Trump appeared to nod off in his Oval Office chair during a White House event focused on the return of whole and two per cent milk to school lunches.
February 12, 2026: Repealing climate change regulations
Standing behind Lee Zeldin of the Environmental Protection Agency during a press conference on removing climate regulations, Trump appeared to struggle to keep his eyes open yet again.
February 19, 2026: The Board of Peace meeting
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
In the latest case of Trump being accused of falling asleep, the president appeared to close his eyes during the first meeting of his newly established Board of Peace, with the press office of California governor Gavin Newsom among those poking fun at the Republican.
US president Donald Trump continues to be the subject of speculation around his health and wellbeing online, after having two MRI scans in the space of a year in 2025, being diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency and – in this case – appearing to fall asleep on multiple occasions.
The 79-year-old convicted felon has, however, addressed the rumours before, speaking during the January 29 cabinet meeting to say that the last meeting – where he appeared to close his eyes – “got pretty boring”.
He said: “It was a little bit at the boring side, but I didn’t sleep, I just closed them because I wanted to get the hell out of there.
“Some of them got me in a blink … They took me at the close segment of my cycle.”
We’ve rounded up all the instances where Trump appeared to doze off below, for reference…
April 26, 2025: Pope Francis’ funeral
One of the earliest and most high-profile instances where Trump was accused of falling asleep was at the funeral of Pope Francis. He also faced criticism for going against the Vatican’s dress code and wearing a blue suit and appearing to be on his phone during the event.
May 13, 2025: Visiting Saudi Arabia
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
While on a tour of the Middle East, touting a new agreement signed with Saudi Arabia in a press conference, Trump appeared to fall asleep, and was subsequently branded “Sleepy Don” in a reference to his criticism of predecessor Joe Biden.
July 15, 2025: The Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit
Ironically, despite its name, people pointed out that Trump appeared to fall asleep during the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit…
October 8, 2025: Antifa roundtable
Trump has long been vocal in his opposition to the movement known as Antifa, but during a roundtable on this very subject in October, the Republican seemingly struggled to stay awake.
November 6, 2025: Obesity drugs press conference
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
At the same event where a White House guest fainted, Trump was seen leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed.
December 2, 2025: A cabinet meeting
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
As Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed Trump is “the only leader in the world who can help end” the war in Ukraine, the president was seen leaning to one side with his eyes closed, nodding but without opening his eyes when Rubio addressed him as “Mr President” while speaking.
December 4, 2025: The Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo agreements
Just days after appearing to fall asleep at a meeting of his own cabinet, Trump’s head was seen drooping and he seemed to be struggling to stay awake during a press conference marking the signing of new agreements by leaders from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
December 18, 2025: Reclassifying marijuana
During an Oval Office event marking Trump signing an executive order to give marijuana a lower drugs classification, the president appeared to drift off while sat at the Resolute Desk.
January 4, 2026: US action in Venezuela
The subject matter was pretty important: US strikes on Venezuela and the ‘capturing’ of its president Nicolás Maduro. However, when it was the turn of top military official Dan “Raizin” Caine to speak, the 79-year-old Republican was seen in the background appearing to be struggling to stay awake, closing his eyes on several occasions.
January 14, 2026: Signing the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
With Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins standing behind him, Trump appeared to nod off in his Oval Office chair during a White House event focused on the return of whole and two per cent milk to school lunches.
February 12, 2026: Repealing climate change regulations
Standing behind Lee Zeldin of the Environmental Protection Agency during a press conference on removing climate regulations, Trump appeared to struggle to keep his eyes open yet again.
February 19, 2026: The Board of Peace meeting
12 times Trump has seemingly 'fallen asleep' in his second term
In the latest case of Trump being accused of falling asleep, the president appeared to close his eyes during the first meeting of his newly established Board of Peace, with the press office of California governor Gavin Newsom among those poking fun at the Republican.
France will summon US Ambassador Charles Kushner over US comments on activist’s death
PARIS (AP) — France will summon U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner to protest comments by the Trump administration over the beating death of a far-right activist, the foreign affairs minister said.
Jean-Noel Barrot was reacting to a statement by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, which posted on X that “reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all.”
Deranque, a far-right activist, died of brain injuries last week from a beating in the French city of Lyon. He was attacked during a fight on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker, Rima Hassan, was a keynote speaker.
His killing highlighted a climate of deep political tensions ahead of next year’s presidential vote. French President Emmanuel Macron called for calm on Saturday as some 3,000 people joined a march in Lyon organized by far-right groups to pay tribute to Deranque.
“We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot said. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”
The State Department said in its post that “violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We will continue to monitor the situation and expect to see the perpetrators of violence brought to justice.”
People hold a banner reading 'Goodbye mate' as they take part in a march in Lyon, France, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, to pay tribute to Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old nationalist activist who died from a beating after a clash between far-left and far-right supporters. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)© The Associated Press
Seven people have been handed preliminary charges. The Lyon public prosecutor’s office requested that each of them be charged with intentional homicide, aggravated violence and criminal conspiracy. Six of the accused were charged on all three counts. The seventh was charged with complicity in intentional homicide, aggravated violence and criminal conspiracy.
Barrot said he has other topics to discuss with Kushner, including U.S. decisions to impose sanctions on Thierry Breton, a former EU commissioner responsible for supervising social media rules, and Nicolas Guillou, a French judge at the International Criminal Court.
Barrot said both are targeted by “unjustified and unjustifiable” sanctions.
The Foreign Affairs Ministry did not say when the meeting will take place.
Kushner had already been summoned in August last year over his letter to Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism. France’s foreign officials met with a representative of the U.S. ambassador since the diplomat did not show up.
The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — France will summon U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner to protest comments by the Trump administration over the beating death of a far-right activist, the foreign affairs minister said.
Jean-Noel Barrot was reacting to a statement by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, which posted on X that “reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all.”
Deranque, a far-right activist, died of brain injuries last week from a beating in the French city of Lyon. He was attacked during a fight on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker, Rima Hassan, was a keynote speaker.
His killing highlighted a climate of deep political tensions ahead of next year’s presidential vote. French President Emmanuel Macron called for calm on Saturday as some 3,000 people joined a march in Lyon organized by far-right groups to pay tribute to Deranque.
“We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot said. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”
The State Department said in its post that “violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We will continue to monitor the situation and expect to see the perpetrators of violence brought to justice.”
People hold a banner reading 'Goodbye mate' as they take part in a march in Lyon, France, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, to pay tribute to Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old nationalist activist who died from a beating after a clash between far-left and far-right supporters. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)© The Associated Press
Seven people have been handed preliminary charges. The Lyon public prosecutor’s office requested that each of them be charged with intentional homicide, aggravated violence and criminal conspiracy. Six of the accused were charged on all three counts. The seventh was charged with complicity in intentional homicide, aggravated violence and criminal conspiracy.
Barrot said he has other topics to discuss with Kushner, including U.S. decisions to impose sanctions on Thierry Breton, a former EU commissioner responsible for supervising social media rules, and Nicolas Guillou, a French judge at the International Criminal Court.
Barrot said both are targeted by “unjustified and unjustifiable” sanctions.
The Foreign Affairs Ministry did not say when the meeting will take place.
Kushner had already been summoned in August last year over his letter to Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism. France’s foreign officials met with a representative of the U.S. ambassador since the diplomat did not show up.
The Associated Press
Trump administration sues New Jersey over restrictions on immigration arrests
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The Trump administration is suing New Jersey over a state order that prohibits federal immigration agents from making arrests in nonpublic areas of state property, such as correctional facilities and courthouses.
The Justice Department lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Trenton, challenges Gov. Mikie Sherrill ’s Feb. 11 executive order, which also bars the use of state property as a staging or processing area for immigration enforcement.
Sherrill, a Democrat who took office Jan. 20, “insists on harboring criminal offenders from federal law enforcement,” the lawsuit said, accusing her of attempting to obstruct federal law enforcement and thwart President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Sherrill’s executive order “poses an intolerable obstacle” to immigration enforcement and “directly regulates and discriminates” against the federal government, said the lawsuit, which misspelled her name as “Sherill.”
Asked about the lawsuit Tuesday, Sherrill said: “What I think the federal government needs to be focused on right now, instead of attacking states like New Jersey working to keep people safe, is actually training their ICE agents."
The state’s acting attorney general, Jennifer Davenport, said the Trump administration was “wasting its resources on a pointless legal challenge.” New Jersey will fight the lawsuit and “continue to ensure the safety of our state’s immigrant communities,” she said.
The lawsuit is the latest in the Trump administration’s fight against state and local level restrictions on immigration enforcement.
Last year, the Justice Department sued Minnesota and Colorado, as well as cities including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver over so-called sanctuary laws, which are aimed at prohibiting police from cooperating with immigration agents.
Last May, the Trump administration sued four New Jersey cities — Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken — over such policies. That case is pending.
The Associated Press
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The Trump administration is suing New Jersey over a state order that prohibits federal immigration agents from making arrests in nonpublic areas of state property, such as correctional facilities and courthouses.
The Justice Department lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Trenton, challenges Gov. Mikie Sherrill ’s Feb. 11 executive order, which also bars the use of state property as a staging or processing area for immigration enforcement.
Sherrill, a Democrat who took office Jan. 20, “insists on harboring criminal offenders from federal law enforcement,” the lawsuit said, accusing her of attempting to obstruct federal law enforcement and thwart President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Sherrill’s executive order “poses an intolerable obstacle” to immigration enforcement and “directly regulates and discriminates” against the federal government, said the lawsuit, which misspelled her name as “Sherill.”
Asked about the lawsuit Tuesday, Sherrill said: “What I think the federal government needs to be focused on right now, instead of attacking states like New Jersey working to keep people safe, is actually training their ICE agents."
The state’s acting attorney general, Jennifer Davenport, said the Trump administration was “wasting its resources on a pointless legal challenge.” New Jersey will fight the lawsuit and “continue to ensure the safety of our state’s immigrant communities,” she said.
The lawsuit is the latest in the Trump administration’s fight against state and local level restrictions on immigration enforcement.
Last year, the Justice Department sued Minnesota and Colorado, as well as cities including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver over so-called sanctuary laws, which are aimed at prohibiting police from cooperating with immigration agents.
Last May, the Trump administration sued four New Jersey cities — Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken — over such policies. That case is pending.
The Associated Press
Newly released Epstein files show disgraced billionaire may have facilitated drug trafficking
Newly-released documents suggest pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein may have also been involved in drug trafficking.
The trove of files released by the Department of Justice show that the US Drug Enforcement Agency once opened an investigation into Epstein and 14 other unidentified individuals' money transfers, which authorities believed could be linked to trafficking illegal narcotics.
'DEA reporting indicates the above individuals are involved in illegitimate wire transfers, which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the US Virgin Islands and New York City,' the heavily-redacted memo from 2015 says.
It shows that authorities in New York opened the investigation into nearly $50 million in suspicious wire transfers Epstein and 14 other targets made starting on December 17, 2010 - two years after he reached a non-prosecution agreement with the federal government and nine years before he was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges.
Sources involved in that case told CBS News prosecutors were unaware of this earlier DEA investigation.
It remains unclear what prompted the DEA to launch the five-year long probe and what may have come of the investigation, as the 2015 document notes that the matter is 'judicial pending' and was active at the time it was written.
Much of the details about the investigation are redacted in the file.
But the nearly 70-page memo, which is marked as 'sensitive but unclassified,' appears to have stemmed from a request made by the DEA to the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Fusion Center in Virginia seeking information from other agencies about Epstein and the other targets as part of an active case.
Jeffrey Epstein was once the subject of a Drug Enforcement Agency investigation, newly-released documents show
The DEA wrote that he and 14 other unidentified individuals 'are involved in illegitimate wire transfers, which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the US Virgin Islands and New York City.' DEA agents are pictured
The heavily-redacted memo shows that authorities in New York opened the investigation into nearly $50 million in suspicious wire transfers Epstein and 14 other targets made starting on December 17, 2010
It was marked as 'sensitive but unclassified'
The task force was created by former President Ronald Reagan to combat a surge in cocaine trafficking and the Fusion Center was opened in 2009 to more easily allow for intelligence sharing between federal law enforcement agencies.
For the DEA to open the case there means there would have to be a drug connection, a law enforcement source told CBS News, adding that the request to the Fusion Center indicated it was part of a 'significant' investigation rather than a routine information inquiry.
The fact that it was listed as 'judicial pending' also may indicate investigators were awaiting court approval for search warrants or other legal action, another law enforcement source said, while a third suggested it meant someone associated with the case had been arrested.
The alleged co-conspirators in the case were all redacted, except for a Polish model who received approximately $2 million in transfers.
She has since claimed to have been one of Epstein's victims.
Still, Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, who has been pursuing the Epstein investigation as the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said following the financier's expenses is the key to learning more about his crimes.
'It appears Epstein was involved in criminal activity that went way beyond pedophilia and sex trafficking, which makes it even more outrageous that Pam Bondi is sitting on several million unreleased files,' he said.
The DEA memo even lays out how Epstein was the subject of three different Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations.
The document also details how Epstein was the subject of three Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency investigations
The first was opened in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2006 and was closed in 2008, followed by another investigation opened in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2009 that was listed as 'pending' as of January 27, 2010.
ICE even investigated Epstein in Paris in June 2013 in what it called Operation Angel, which was closed months later.
The nature of these investigations also remain unclear, though the documents make note that Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 on charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors to engage in prostitution.
He was then convicted of procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution in Florida, the memo notes.
It further lists how Epstein was investigated by Customs and Border Patrol on multiple occasions, as well as the US Attorney General's Office in St. Thomas in 2014, Harvard University campus police in 2013 and the Virgin Islands Police Department in 2013.
The memo also lists businesses associated with Epstein that had come under scrutiny in the past, including SLK Designs LLC and Hyperion Air.
Hyperion Air had been used by the financier as a holding company for his plane, while SLK Designs was run by two women who were included in his non-prosecution agreement and were named as potential co-conspirators.
Records obtained by CBS News show both companies were formed and controlled by Epstein's lawyer Darren Indyke, who has insisted he was not involved in any wrongdoing.
His attorney Daniel Weiner previously told CBS News that his client 'did not socialize with Mr Epstein and... rejected as categorically false any suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women or that they were aware of Mr Epstein's actions while they provided legal and accounting services to Mr Epstein.'
He added that no judge or court ever found Epstein's attorneys committed any wrongdoing.
Epstein corresponded with associates about the contents of his storage units multiple times
New documents make mention of computers, hard drives and photos stores and transferred between units
The document comes as a bombshell report detailed how Epstein hid hard drives and photos from authorities in multiple storage lockers across the country.
The pedophile rented at least six units, the majority of which were in Florida, paying thousands between 2003 and 2019, according to an investigation by The Telegraph.
The outlet obtained files and credit card statements detailing Epstein's various secret hiding places for computers, CDs, pictures and files.
His lockers could point to answers after authorities long suspected that Epstein received insider information about raids of his properties.
Former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told NBC that during a 2005 search, the sex offender's place 'had been cleaned up.'
Epstein allegedly recruited detectives to move documents, photographs and computers to one of his multiple storage lockers.
Uncovered credit card statements suggested that he paid a private detective agency $38,500 from January to May 2010 alone.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the DEA and Weiner for comment.
Read more
Newly-released documents suggest pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein may have also been involved in drug trafficking.
The trove of files released by the Department of Justice show that the US Drug Enforcement Agency once opened an investigation into Epstein and 14 other unidentified individuals' money transfers, which authorities believed could be linked to trafficking illegal narcotics.
'DEA reporting indicates the above individuals are involved in illegitimate wire transfers, which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the US Virgin Islands and New York City,' the heavily-redacted memo from 2015 says.
It shows that authorities in New York opened the investigation into nearly $50 million in suspicious wire transfers Epstein and 14 other targets made starting on December 17, 2010 - two years after he reached a non-prosecution agreement with the federal government and nine years before he was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges.
Sources involved in that case told CBS News prosecutors were unaware of this earlier DEA investigation.
It remains unclear what prompted the DEA to launch the five-year long probe and what may have come of the investigation, as the 2015 document notes that the matter is 'judicial pending' and was active at the time it was written.
Much of the details about the investigation are redacted in the file.
But the nearly 70-page memo, which is marked as 'sensitive but unclassified,' appears to have stemmed from a request made by the DEA to the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Fusion Center in Virginia seeking information from other agencies about Epstein and the other targets as part of an active case.
Jeffrey Epstein was once the subject of a Drug Enforcement Agency investigation, newly-released documents show
The DEA wrote that he and 14 other unidentified individuals 'are involved in illegitimate wire transfers, which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the US Virgin Islands and New York City.' DEA agents are pictured
The heavily-redacted memo shows that authorities in New York opened the investigation into nearly $50 million in suspicious wire transfers Epstein and 14 other targets made starting on December 17, 2010
It was marked as 'sensitive but unclassified'
The task force was created by former President Ronald Reagan to combat a surge in cocaine trafficking and the Fusion Center was opened in 2009 to more easily allow for intelligence sharing between federal law enforcement agencies.
For the DEA to open the case there means there would have to be a drug connection, a law enforcement source told CBS News, adding that the request to the Fusion Center indicated it was part of a 'significant' investigation rather than a routine information inquiry.
The fact that it was listed as 'judicial pending' also may indicate investigators were awaiting court approval for search warrants or other legal action, another law enforcement source said, while a third suggested it meant someone associated with the case had been arrested.
The alleged co-conspirators in the case were all redacted, except for a Polish model who received approximately $2 million in transfers.
She has since claimed to have been one of Epstein's victims.
Still, Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, who has been pursuing the Epstein investigation as the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said following the financier's expenses is the key to learning more about his crimes.
'It appears Epstein was involved in criminal activity that went way beyond pedophilia and sex trafficking, which makes it even more outrageous that Pam Bondi is sitting on several million unreleased files,' he said.
The DEA memo even lays out how Epstein was the subject of three different Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations.
The document also details how Epstein was the subject of three Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency investigations
The first was opened in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2006 and was closed in 2008, followed by another investigation opened in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2009 that was listed as 'pending' as of January 27, 2010.
ICE even investigated Epstein in Paris in June 2013 in what it called Operation Angel, which was closed months later.
The nature of these investigations also remain unclear, though the documents make note that Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 on charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors to engage in prostitution.
He was then convicted of procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution in Florida, the memo notes.
It further lists how Epstein was investigated by Customs and Border Patrol on multiple occasions, as well as the US Attorney General's Office in St. Thomas in 2014, Harvard University campus police in 2013 and the Virgin Islands Police Department in 2013.
The memo also lists businesses associated with Epstein that had come under scrutiny in the past, including SLK Designs LLC and Hyperion Air.
Hyperion Air had been used by the financier as a holding company for his plane, while SLK Designs was run by two women who were included in his non-prosecution agreement and were named as potential co-conspirators.
Records obtained by CBS News show both companies were formed and controlled by Epstein's lawyer Darren Indyke, who has insisted he was not involved in any wrongdoing.
His attorney Daniel Weiner previously told CBS News that his client 'did not socialize with Mr Epstein and... rejected as categorically false any suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women or that they were aware of Mr Epstein's actions while they provided legal and accounting services to Mr Epstein.'
He added that no judge or court ever found Epstein's attorneys committed any wrongdoing.
Epstein corresponded with associates about the contents of his storage units multiple times
New documents make mention of computers, hard drives and photos stores and transferred between units
The document comes as a bombshell report detailed how Epstein hid hard drives and photos from authorities in multiple storage lockers across the country.
The pedophile rented at least six units, the majority of which were in Florida, paying thousands between 2003 and 2019, according to an investigation by The Telegraph.
The outlet obtained files and credit card statements detailing Epstein's various secret hiding places for computers, CDs, pictures and files.
His lockers could point to answers after authorities long suspected that Epstein received insider information about raids of his properties.
Former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told NBC that during a 2005 search, the sex offender's place 'had been cleaned up.'
Epstein allegedly recruited detectives to move documents, photographs and computers to one of his multiple storage lockers.
Uncovered credit card statements suggested that he paid a private detective agency $38,500 from January to May 2010 alone.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the DEA and Weiner for comment.
Read more
France moves to bar US Ambassador Charles Kushner from direct government access
PARIS (AP) — France's top diplomat Monday requested that U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner no longer be allowed direct access to members of the French government after he skipped a meeting to discuss comments by the Trump administration over the beating death of a far-right activist.
French authorities had summoned Kushner, the father of U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, to the Quai d'Orsay, which houses the Foreign Affairs Ministry, on Monday evening but he did not show up, according to diplomatic sources.
Jean-Noel Barrot, the foreign affairs minister, moved to restrict Kushner's access “in light of this apparent misunderstanding of the basic expectations of the mission of an ambassador, who has the honor of representing his country.”
The ministry, however, left the door open for reconciliation.
“It remains, of course, possible for Ambassador Charles Kushner to carry out his duties and present himself at the Quai d’Orsay, so that we may hold the diplomatic discussions needed to smooth over the irritants that can inevitably arise in a friendship spanning 250 years,” it said.
Kushner had been summoned following a statement by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, which posted on X that “reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all.” The U.S. Embassy had posted that statement on social media.
Deranque, a far-right activist, died of brain injuries this month from a beating in the French city of Lyon. He was attacked during a fight on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker was a keynote speaker.
His killing highlighted a climate of deep political tension ahead of next year’s presidential vote.
Related video: US ambassador to France barred from government access after failing to show up for summons (Euronews (English))
View on Watch
“We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot said over the weekend. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”
The State Department said in its post that “violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We will continue to monitor the situation and expect to see the perpetrators of violence brought to justice.”
Kushner was summoned in August over his letter to French President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism. France’s foreign officials met with a representative of the U.S. ambassador since the diplomat did not show up.
The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — France's top diplomat Monday requested that U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner no longer be allowed direct access to members of the French government after he skipped a meeting to discuss comments by the Trump administration over the beating death of a far-right activist.
French authorities had summoned Kushner, the father of U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, to the Quai d'Orsay, which houses the Foreign Affairs Ministry, on Monday evening but he did not show up, according to diplomatic sources.
Jean-Noel Barrot, the foreign affairs minister, moved to restrict Kushner's access “in light of this apparent misunderstanding of the basic expectations of the mission of an ambassador, who has the honor of representing his country.”
The ministry, however, left the door open for reconciliation.
“It remains, of course, possible for Ambassador Charles Kushner to carry out his duties and present himself at the Quai d’Orsay, so that we may hold the diplomatic discussions needed to smooth over the irritants that can inevitably arise in a friendship spanning 250 years,” it said.
Kushner had been summoned following a statement by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, which posted on X that “reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all.” The U.S. Embassy had posted that statement on social media.
Deranque, a far-right activist, died of brain injuries this month from a beating in the French city of Lyon. He was attacked during a fight on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker was a keynote speaker.
His killing highlighted a climate of deep political tension ahead of next year’s presidential vote.
Related video: US ambassador to France barred from government access after failing to show up for summons (Euronews (English))View on Watch
“We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot said over the weekend. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”
The State Department said in its post that “violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We will continue to monitor the situation and expect to see the perpetrators of violence brought to justice.”
Kushner was summoned in August over his letter to French President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism. France’s foreign officials met with a representative of the U.S. ambassador since the diplomat did not show up.
The Associated Press
Americans increasingly 'sickened by the odor' of Trump: Bush admin official
Conservative columnist William Kristol is not expecting to be won over by President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech tonight.
“Let’s be honest: Tonight will be depressing,” said Kristol in the Bulwark. “When the sergeant at arms proclaims in a stentorian voice to the House chamber, ‘Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States,’ we will be reminded, vividly and unavoidably, that Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Which is depressing.”
But Kristol reports a silver lining stretching along that “undeniably dark cloud.”
When Trump spoke to a joint session of Congress almost a year ago, his support was 49 percent approval, 48 percent disapproval six weeks into his term, according to the New York Times.
“Today, … Trump has lost about one sixth of his approval in the last year,” said Kristol. “A new poll from CNN is even more dramatic, showing Trump at 36 percent approval today, down from 48 percent in that same poll a year ago. That suggests one in four of his original supporters deserting him. … So Trump has lost considerable ground.”
Kristol said he wished even more of the public had changed its mind, but “there’s lots of evidence they’re en route to decisively saying ‘Enough’ at the polls this November. The new G. Elliott Morris poll has the Democrats up ten points on the congressional generic ballot. And it’s more likely that public opinion will continue to move in the direction it’s been going than that it will reverse course.”
The public might still reverse course if Trump changed course, but he’s not likely to do that, said Kristol. He’s not going to end his unpopular mass-deportation agenda. Nor is he going to apologize to the people of Minnesota for putting them under siege, or to the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were shot and killed by Trump’s Homeland Security forces.
Likewise, the Weekly Standard founder is confident Trump won’t speak directly to the Epstein survivors in the House gallery, or secure some measure of justice for them. He won’t admit that his Justice Department failed to comply with the law he signed three months ago and do a full release of all the Epstein documents. Kristol said Trump also will not back away “from his obsession with tariffs, which have not produced economic gains and show no prospect of doing so.”
Kristol said “it’s worth noting that [Trump’s] public rejection has happened without war and without a recession, two common proximate causes of a decline in presidential popularity. So, it appears to be the old argument of the people turning against a “tyrant [who is] unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
But unfit rulers often hold on to power, warned Kristol, and Trump — with his enablers and resources — will “not go gently into their well-deserved night.”
“Tonight Trump will, as Steve Bannon memorably put it, ‘flood the zone with s——,’” assured Kristol. “The good news is that the American people seem increasingly sickened by the odor. But we have a long struggle ahead to get rid of it.”
Conservative columnist William Kristol is not expecting to be won over by President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech tonight.
“Let’s be honest: Tonight will be depressing,” said Kristol in the Bulwark. “When the sergeant at arms proclaims in a stentorian voice to the House chamber, ‘Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States,’ we will be reminded, vividly and unavoidably, that Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Which is depressing.”
But Kristol reports a silver lining stretching along that “undeniably dark cloud.”
When Trump spoke to a joint session of Congress almost a year ago, his support was 49 percent approval, 48 percent disapproval six weeks into his term, according to the New York Times.
“Today, … Trump has lost about one sixth of his approval in the last year,” said Kristol. “A new poll from CNN is even more dramatic, showing Trump at 36 percent approval today, down from 48 percent in that same poll a year ago. That suggests one in four of his original supporters deserting him. … So Trump has lost considerable ground.”
Kristol said he wished even more of the public had changed its mind, but “there’s lots of evidence they’re en route to decisively saying ‘Enough’ at the polls this November. The new G. Elliott Morris poll has the Democrats up ten points on the congressional generic ballot. And it’s more likely that public opinion will continue to move in the direction it’s been going than that it will reverse course.”
The public might still reverse course if Trump changed course, but he’s not likely to do that, said Kristol. He’s not going to end his unpopular mass-deportation agenda. Nor is he going to apologize to the people of Minnesota for putting them under siege, or to the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were shot and killed by Trump’s Homeland Security forces.
Likewise, the Weekly Standard founder is confident Trump won’t speak directly to the Epstein survivors in the House gallery, or secure some measure of justice for them. He won’t admit that his Justice Department failed to comply with the law he signed three months ago and do a full release of all the Epstein documents. Kristol said Trump also will not back away “from his obsession with tariffs, which have not produced economic gains and show no prospect of doing so.”
Kristol said “it’s worth noting that [Trump’s] public rejection has happened without war and without a recession, two common proximate causes of a decline in presidential popularity. So, it appears to be the old argument of the people turning against a “tyrant [who is] unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
But unfit rulers often hold on to power, warned Kristol, and Trump — with his enablers and resources — will “not go gently into their well-deserved night.”
“Tonight Trump will, as Steve Bannon memorably put it, ‘flood the zone with s——,’” assured Kristol. “The good news is that the American people seem increasingly sickened by the odor. But we have a long struggle ahead to get rid of it.”
First major company breaks ranks and sues US demanding 'full refund' of Trump emergency tariffs
Global shipping giant FedEx has gone to court demanding its money back after President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs were ruled illegal.
The company filed its lawsuit on Monday in the Court of International Trade, seeking a full refund of the duties it paid under Trump’s tariff plan.
Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the tariffs, ruling that Trump did not have the authority to impose sweeping global duties under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, known as IEEPA.
In its filing, FedEx was blunt.
‘Plaintiffs seek for themselves a full refund from Defendants of all IEEPA duties Plaintiffs have paid to the United States,’ the company said in the lawsuit.
FedEx argues it was forced to pay tariffs that the nation’s highest court has now declared unlawful - and it wants every dollar returned.
The 11-page complaint does not spell out how much FedEx has paid in IEEPA tariffs since they were first imposed.
The case appears to be the first lawsuit by a major US corporation filed after the Supreme Court’s decision specifically asking for a refund.
President Donald Trump vowed to raise global tariffs to 15 percent , just days after the Supreme Court on Friday struck down his earlier ‘reciprocal’ tariff plan
The president has made it clear he's going to war with Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who he said was 'unpatriotic' and is a 'disloyal' member of the Court for voting against his policy
FedEx is particularly exposed because it moves goods across borders every day.
Tariffs act like a tax on imports, meaning companies either absorb the extra cost or pass it on to customers. For a global transportation firm, those duties can quickly add up.
The lawsuit could set the stage for a broader wave of refund claims from other large importers who also paid tariffs under the IEEPA authority.
The fight also comes as tariff uncertainty continues to rattle markets.
Even after the Supreme Court ruling, Trump has signaled he may pursue new duties under other trade laws, keeping businesses and investors guessing about what comes next.
Read more
Global shipping giant FedEx has gone to court demanding its money back after President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs were ruled illegal.
The company filed its lawsuit on Monday in the Court of International Trade, seeking a full refund of the duties it paid under Trump’s tariff plan.
Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the tariffs, ruling that Trump did not have the authority to impose sweeping global duties under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, known as IEEPA.
In its filing, FedEx was blunt.
‘Plaintiffs seek for themselves a full refund from Defendants of all IEEPA duties Plaintiffs have paid to the United States,’ the company said in the lawsuit.
FedEx argues it was forced to pay tariffs that the nation’s highest court has now declared unlawful - and it wants every dollar returned.
The 11-page complaint does not spell out how much FedEx has paid in IEEPA tariffs since they were first imposed.
The case appears to be the first lawsuit by a major US corporation filed after the Supreme Court’s decision specifically asking for a refund.
President Donald Trump vowed to raise global tariffs to 15 percent , just days after the Supreme Court on Friday struck down his earlier ‘reciprocal’ tariff plan
The president has made it clear he's going to war with Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who he said was 'unpatriotic' and is a 'disloyal' member of the Court for voting against his policy
FedEx is particularly exposed because it moves goods across borders every day.
Tariffs act like a tax on imports, meaning companies either absorb the extra cost or pass it on to customers. For a global transportation firm, those duties can quickly add up.
The lawsuit could set the stage for a broader wave of refund claims from other large importers who also paid tariffs under the IEEPA authority.
The fight also comes as tariff uncertainty continues to rattle markets.
Even after the Supreme Court ruling, Trump has signaled he may pursue new duties under other trade laws, keeping businesses and investors guessing about what comes next.
Read more
Judge rips ICE ‘sloppiness’ after claiming 4-year-old busted for weed
A federal judge reprimanded Donald Trump’s administration for claiming that an immigrant seeking his release from custody was convicted for marijuana possession in 2009 — when he was 4 years old.
To support arguments for the man’s ongoing detention and removal from the country, government lawyers attached a document from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they "indicated" was related to his criminal history.
They submitted the document in court filings “despite the differences in birthdate, birthplace, parents’ names, and immigration status,” West Virginia District Judge Irene Berger noted in her order to release him on Tuesday.
“This sloppiness further validates the Court’s concerns about the procedures utilized by the Respondents depriving people present in the United States of their liberty,” she wrote.
The viral rebuke, first reported by Politico, is the latest in a string of losses for Department of Justice lawyers and Homeland Security officials who are failing to keep up with court orders after thousands of arrests under Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
Judges within the last week have held at least two government attorneys in civil contempt for failing to follow orders in immigration cases, according to documents reviewed by The Independent.
Last week, Minnesota District Judge Laura M. Provinzino held a federal prosecutor in civil contempt for “flagrant disobedience of court orders” in the case of a noncitizen swept up in Trump’s surge of immigration officers in the state.
Provinzino ordered Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Isihara to pay $500 a day until the government returned a man’s identification documents after his release. The contempt was purged after his documents were returned.
This week, Trump appointee Judge Eric C. Tostrud of Minnesota found the administration in civil contempt for transferring an ICE detainee to Texas in violation of his order and then releasing him without his belongings.
The judge ordered the administration to refund him $568 for the cost of a plane ticket home.
The administration’s attempts to arrest and deport tens of thousands of people from the country — without giving them much of a chance to fight their cases before they’re indefinitely jailed in immigration detention centers — have triggered an avalanche of lawsuits that are overwhelming courts and prosecutors.
Dozens of new habeas corpus petitions — the lawsuits immigrants have filed to challenge the constitutionality of their arrest and detention — are hitting court dockets every week. Government attorneys are overwhelmed or quitting in droves under pressure to fight them at an unsustainable pace.
Judges have argued that it’s a crisis of the administration’s own making.
Officials “have chosen to avail themselves of these exact circumstances of which they now complain,” wrote California District Judge Sunshine Sykes, whose order this month commanded the government to let detainees challenge their detentions.
In New Jersey, government lawyers recently admitted to violating roughly 50 orders stemming from more than 500 cases.
“What do you want me to do? The system sucks. This job sucks,” one government lawyer told a judge in Minnesota last month.
Julie Le, a lawyer for ICE who was drafted to help with the caseload in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota, was removed from that detail days after her outburst in court.
The same month, Minnesota’s chief federal judge ripped into the administration after he found ICE violated nearly 100 court orders stemming from the recent surge of officers into the state, or “more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
“ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this court,” wrote Judge Patrick J. Schiltz. “But, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated.”
Officials at the Justice Department and DHS have labeled judges “activists” and “rogue” members of the judiciary in public statements criticizing the decisions but have rarely appealed them.
A federal judge reprimanded Donald Trump’s administration for claiming that an immigrant seeking his release from custody was convicted for marijuana possession in 2009 — when he was 4 years old.
To support arguments for the man’s ongoing detention and removal from the country, government lawyers attached a document from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they "indicated" was related to his criminal history.
They submitted the document in court filings “despite the differences in birthdate, birthplace, parents’ names, and immigration status,” West Virginia District Judge Irene Berger noted in her order to release him on Tuesday.
“This sloppiness further validates the Court’s concerns about the procedures utilized by the Respondents depriving people present in the United States of their liberty,” she wrote.
The viral rebuke, first reported by Politico, is the latest in a string of losses for Department of Justice lawyers and Homeland Security officials who are failing to keep up with court orders after thousands of arrests under Trump’s mass deportation efforts.
Judges within the last week have held at least two government attorneys in civil contempt for failing to follow orders in immigration cases, according to documents reviewed by The Independent.
Last week, Minnesota District Judge Laura M. Provinzino held a federal prosecutor in civil contempt for “flagrant disobedience of court orders” in the case of a noncitizen swept up in Trump’s surge of immigration officers in the state.
Provinzino ordered Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Isihara to pay $500 a day until the government returned a man’s identification documents after his release. The contempt was purged after his documents were returned.
This week, Trump appointee Judge Eric C. Tostrud of Minnesota found the administration in civil contempt for transferring an ICE detainee to Texas in violation of his order and then releasing him without his belongings.
The judge ordered the administration to refund him $568 for the cost of a plane ticket home.
The administration’s attempts to arrest and deport tens of thousands of people from the country — without giving them much of a chance to fight their cases before they’re indefinitely jailed in immigration detention centers — have triggered an avalanche of lawsuits that are overwhelming courts and prosecutors.
Dozens of new habeas corpus petitions — the lawsuits immigrants have filed to challenge the constitutionality of their arrest and detention — are hitting court dockets every week. Government attorneys are overwhelmed or quitting in droves under pressure to fight them at an unsustainable pace.
Judges have argued that it’s a crisis of the administration’s own making.
Officials “have chosen to avail themselves of these exact circumstances of which they now complain,” wrote California District Judge Sunshine Sykes, whose order this month commanded the government to let detainees challenge their detentions.
In New Jersey, government lawyers recently admitted to violating roughly 50 orders stemming from more than 500 cases.
“What do you want me to do? The system sucks. This job sucks,” one government lawyer told a judge in Minnesota last month.
Julie Le, a lawyer for ICE who was drafted to help with the caseload in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota, was removed from that detail days after her outburst in court.
The same month, Minnesota’s chief federal judge ripped into the administration after he found ICE violated nearly 100 court orders stemming from the recent surge of officers into the state, or “more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
“ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this court,” wrote Judge Patrick J. Schiltz. “But, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated.”
Officials at the Justice Department and DHS have labeled judges “activists” and “rogue” members of the judiciary in public statements criticizing the decisions but have rarely appealed them.
Judge tears apart Trump admin for misleading him in new ruling
The Trump administration was dealt another blow in court this week, according to NBC News, with a judge blocking the Justice Department from further action in the "outrageous" case of a journalist's seized phone, and further accusing the administration of misleading him about the law to get the original warrant.
Last month, Washington Post reporter Hanna Natanson's phone was seized by the FBI, thanks to a search warrant approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge William B. Porter. The government claimed that her phone was taken as part of an investigation into the alleged retention of classified materials by a Navy employee who had been in contact with her. The Post decried the move as an unnecessarily aggressive move against a journalist.
"The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials," the paper said in a statement last month.
Ruling on Tuesday, Porter rescinded the Trump administration's authority to further examine data pulled from the phone, and said that a judicial review of the data would be conducted to see what was taken. The judge expressed "genuine hope" that the phone had only been examined for the reasons given by the government, and not "to gather evidence of a crime in a single case, not to collect information about confidential sources from a reporter who has published articles critical of the administration."
Furthermore, Porter tore into the government's lawyers for allegedly misleading him about the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which, according to NBC News, "is a federal law that prohibits the government from searching for or seizing any work product possessed by journalists." While accepting responsibility on his own part for not knowing about the law when issuing the original search warrant, he nevertheless ripped the government for not bringing it up to him at any point, arguing that officials "from the highest levels of the DOJ" had opportunities to do so.
“None of them did,” Porter wrote in his ruling. “In its day-to-day workings, this Court affords government attorneys a presumption of regularity, including by assuming that federal prosecutors have satisfied their obligation to disclose controlling and relevant authority. The government’s conduct has disturbed that baseline posture of deference.”
During a hearing last week on the matter, Porter asked attorneys for the DOJ, "Did you not know, or did you not tell me?" He called the failure to bring it up "convenient," and added that he found it "hard to believe this law did not apply" to Natanson's case.
In a statement following this new ruling, the Post celebrated Porter's decision as a win for the First Amendment.
"We applaud the court’s recognition of core First Amendment protections and its rejection of the government’s expansionist arguments for searching Hannah Natanson’s devices and work materials in their entirety and placing itself in charge of determining their relevance," the statement read.
The Trump administration was dealt another blow in court this week, according to NBC News, with a judge blocking the Justice Department from further action in the "outrageous" case of a journalist's seized phone, and further accusing the administration of misleading him about the law to get the original warrant.
Last month, Washington Post reporter Hanna Natanson's phone was seized by the FBI, thanks to a search warrant approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge William B. Porter. The government claimed that her phone was taken as part of an investigation into the alleged retention of classified materials by a Navy employee who had been in contact with her. The Post decried the move as an unnecessarily aggressive move against a journalist.
"The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials," the paper said in a statement last month.
Ruling on Tuesday, Porter rescinded the Trump administration's authority to further examine data pulled from the phone, and said that a judicial review of the data would be conducted to see what was taken. The judge expressed "genuine hope" that the phone had only been examined for the reasons given by the government, and not "to gather evidence of a crime in a single case, not to collect information about confidential sources from a reporter who has published articles critical of the administration."
Furthermore, Porter tore into the government's lawyers for allegedly misleading him about the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, which, according to NBC News, "is a federal law that prohibits the government from searching for or seizing any work product possessed by journalists." While accepting responsibility on his own part for not knowing about the law when issuing the original search warrant, he nevertheless ripped the government for not bringing it up to him at any point, arguing that officials "from the highest levels of the DOJ" had opportunities to do so.
“None of them did,” Porter wrote in his ruling. “In its day-to-day workings, this Court affords government attorneys a presumption of regularity, including by assuming that federal prosecutors have satisfied their obligation to disclose controlling and relevant authority. The government’s conduct has disturbed that baseline posture of deference.”
During a hearing last week on the matter, Porter asked attorneys for the DOJ, "Did you not know, or did you not tell me?" He called the failure to bring it up "convenient," and added that he found it "hard to believe this law did not apply" to Natanson's case.
In a statement following this new ruling, the Post celebrated Porter's decision as a win for the First Amendment.
"We applaud the court’s recognition of core First Amendment protections and its rejection of the government’s expansionist arguments for searching Hannah Natanson’s devices and work materials in their entirety and placing itself in charge of determining their relevance," the statement read.
FBI 'fires' at least 10 agents linked to Mar-a-Lago documents
Smith is responsible for launching dual investigations into Trump, leading to the first federal criminal indictments of a former president in US history. The classified documents case against the president alleged that he transported confidential materials to his Mar-a-Lago club after leaving office at the end of his first term and attempted to obstruct the Justice Department's efforts to retrieve them. The charges were dismissed by a Florida federal judge in mid-2024, who said Smith was appointed unlawfully. A second case against Trump - known as Arctic Frost - alleged that he unlawfully sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Smith later dropped the charges following Trump's victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race.
The president and his administration have since targeted federal employees who worked on the two cases, with the Justice Department firing a group of prosecutors who worked on Smith's team in January of last year. An official previously told CBS that the acting attorney general made the decision because 'he did not believe these officials could be trusted to faithfully implement the president's agenda because of their significant role in prosecuting the president.'. But Wednesday's firings come after a new report revealed that the FBI subpoenaed phone records of conversations between FBI Director Kash Patel and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, according to Reuters. Patel told the outlet that the calls took place in 2022 and 2023, while both he and Wiles were private citizens during the Biden administration, as the federal probe into Trump was unfolding. The probe into the phone records was placed under Smith’s direction in November 2022.
Patel claimed that the FBI's secret subpoena of his records was a prime example of overreach by unelected government officials under Biden - a theme frequently repeated by Trump himself. He called the previous leadership 'outrageous and deeply alarming', accusing them of 'using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight'. Although Reuters could not verify many of Patel's claims, he said the records were buried in a way that made them difficult for him and other FBI leaders to find after he took over the bureau last year. A source told CBS News that Wiles' records were reviewed during the documents investigation, though it could not be confirmed whether Patel’s records were reviewed. His records were not subpoenaed in the 2020 election case. However, both Wiles and Patel were known to have been questioned by investigators in the Mar-a-Lago documents probe, according to Reuters.
Controversy deepened late last year when the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee disclosed that the FBI had seized phone records from multiple Republican lawmakers during the Arctic Frost investigation. The records contained only call metadata - showing who the lawmakers contacted around the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot - but not the call contents. Last year, Smith testified that the call records of lawmakers helped investigators verify the timeline of events surrounding the insurrection, adding that prosecutors 'followed all legal requirements in obtaining those records'. GOP leaders - including Trump - criticized his investigative methods, demanding that Smith, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, former FBI Director Christopher Wray and others be 'prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior'.
Congressional Democrats have repeatedly defended Smith, saying he acted properly in pursuing evidence to fully investigate allegations against Trump and his circle. On Monday, a federal judge permanently blocked the Justice Department from releasing Smith’s report on the documents investigation. Smith informed Congress that court orders prohibit him from discussing any details not already made public in filings. The Daily Mail has contacted the White House and the FBI for comment.
Smith is responsible for launching dual investigations into Trump, leading to the first federal criminal indictments of a former president in US history. The classified documents case against the president alleged that he transported confidential materials to his Mar-a-Lago club after leaving office at the end of his first term and attempted to obstruct the Justice Department's efforts to retrieve them. The charges were dismissed by a Florida federal judge in mid-2024, who said Smith was appointed unlawfully. A second case against Trump - known as Arctic Frost - alleged that he unlawfully sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Smith later dropped the charges following Trump's victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race.
The president and his administration have since targeted federal employees who worked on the two cases, with the Justice Department firing a group of prosecutors who worked on Smith's team in January of last year. An official previously told CBS that the acting attorney general made the decision because 'he did not believe these officials could be trusted to faithfully implement the president's agenda because of their significant role in prosecuting the president.'. But Wednesday's firings come after a new report revealed that the FBI subpoenaed phone records of conversations between FBI Director Kash Patel and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, according to Reuters. Patel told the outlet that the calls took place in 2022 and 2023, while both he and Wiles were private citizens during the Biden administration, as the federal probe into Trump was unfolding. The probe into the phone records was placed under Smith’s direction in November 2022.
Patel claimed that the FBI's secret subpoena of his records was a prime example of overreach by unelected government officials under Biden - a theme frequently repeated by Trump himself. He called the previous leadership 'outrageous and deeply alarming', accusing them of 'using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight'. Although Reuters could not verify many of Patel's claims, he said the records were buried in a way that made them difficult for him and other FBI leaders to find after he took over the bureau last year. A source told CBS News that Wiles' records were reviewed during the documents investigation, though it could not be confirmed whether Patel’s records were reviewed. His records were not subpoenaed in the 2020 election case. However, both Wiles and Patel were known to have been questioned by investigators in the Mar-a-Lago documents probe, according to Reuters.
Controversy deepened late last year when the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee disclosed that the FBI had seized phone records from multiple Republican lawmakers during the Arctic Frost investigation. The records contained only call metadata - showing who the lawmakers contacted around the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot - but not the call contents. Last year, Smith testified that the call records of lawmakers helped investigators verify the timeline of events surrounding the insurrection, adding that prosecutors 'followed all legal requirements in obtaining those records'. GOP leaders - including Trump - criticized his investigative methods, demanding that Smith, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, former FBI Director Christopher Wray and others be 'prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior'.
Congressional Democrats have repeatedly defended Smith, saying he acted properly in pursuing evidence to fully investigate allegations against Trump and his circle. On Monday, a federal judge permanently blocked the Justice Department from releasing Smith’s report on the documents investigation. Smith informed Congress that court orders prohibit him from discussing any details not already made public in filings. The Daily Mail has contacted the White House and the FBI for comment.
Maduro's lawyer says US is blocking Venezuela government from paying deposed leader's drug defense
The Trump administration is blocking Venezuela's government from paying for the cost of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro's defense against drug trafficking charges in New York, a move that potentially interferes with his constitutional right to counsel, his lawyer says.
Attorney Barry Pollack told a Manhattan federal judge in an email last week that the U.S. Treasury Department had blocked the authorization of legal fees that the government of Venezuela is required to pay for Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores under its law and custom. The email was entered into the public court record on Wednesday.
Maduro and his wife have been jailed in New York without bail since they were seized from their Venezuelan home Jan. 3 in a stealth nighttime raid by U.S. military forces. They have both pleaded not guilty.
The stunning capture following a monthslong military buildup in the Caribbean has paved the way for the Trump administration to assert enormous influence over Maduro's replacement, his vice president and now acting President Delcy Rodriguez. Under pressure from the U.S., Rodriguez has moved swiftly to open up Venezuela's oil industry to American investment, free political prisoners and reestablish direct communications with Washington — something unseen since the first Trump administration shuttered the U.S. embassy in Caracas in 2019.
In the email, Pollack said that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers sanctions against Venezuela, had granted permission on Jan. 9 approving the payment of legal fees by the Venezuelan government.
Less than three hours later, though, the Trump administration snatched back the authorization “without explanation,” though it left in place a license granting permission for Maduro's wife's lawyers to be paid, Pollack said.
The dispute over Maduro’s legal fees is intimately linked to U.S. foreign policy. The first Trump administration cut ties with Maduro in 2019, recognizing the then opposition head of the National Assembly as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. The Biden administration hewed closely to the same policy.
However, allowing Rodriguez’s government to pay for the cost of Maduro’s defense could complicate prosecutors' efforts in court to counter the deposed leader’s argument that his capture was illegal and that as the foreign head of a state he is immune from prosecution under U.S. and international law.
A 25-page indictment against Maduro accused him and others of working with drug cartels and members of the military to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. Both he and his wife face life in prison if convicted.
As part of the purported conspiracy, Maduro and his wife allegedly ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money, according to the indictment. It said that included the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas.
Messages seeking comment from the Treasury Department, White House and the Justice Department were not immediately returned.
Pollack said he asked the Office of Foreign Assets Control on Feb. 11 to reinstate the original license and clear the way for Venezuela to meet its obligation to pay Maduro's defense costs.
The lawyer added that Maduro “cannot otherwise afford counsel" and will request help from the judge to pay for his defense.
Pollack said the United States was “interfering with Mr. Maduro's ability to retain counsel and, therefore, his right under the Sixth Amendment to counsel of his choice.”
___
Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Fatima Hussein in Washington and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.
Joshua Goodman, The Associated Press
The Trump administration is blocking Venezuela's government from paying for the cost of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro's defense against drug trafficking charges in New York, a move that potentially interferes with his constitutional right to counsel, his lawyer says.
Attorney Barry Pollack told a Manhattan federal judge in an email last week that the U.S. Treasury Department had blocked the authorization of legal fees that the government of Venezuela is required to pay for Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores under its law and custom. The email was entered into the public court record on Wednesday.
Maduro and his wife have been jailed in New York without bail since they were seized from their Venezuelan home Jan. 3 in a stealth nighttime raid by U.S. military forces. They have both pleaded not guilty.
The stunning capture following a monthslong military buildup in the Caribbean has paved the way for the Trump administration to assert enormous influence over Maduro's replacement, his vice president and now acting President Delcy Rodriguez. Under pressure from the U.S., Rodriguez has moved swiftly to open up Venezuela's oil industry to American investment, free political prisoners and reestablish direct communications with Washington — something unseen since the first Trump administration shuttered the U.S. embassy in Caracas in 2019.
In the email, Pollack said that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers sanctions against Venezuela, had granted permission on Jan. 9 approving the payment of legal fees by the Venezuelan government.
Less than three hours later, though, the Trump administration snatched back the authorization “without explanation,” though it left in place a license granting permission for Maduro's wife's lawyers to be paid, Pollack said.
The dispute over Maduro’s legal fees is intimately linked to U.S. foreign policy. The first Trump administration cut ties with Maduro in 2019, recognizing the then opposition head of the National Assembly as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. The Biden administration hewed closely to the same policy.
However, allowing Rodriguez’s government to pay for the cost of Maduro’s defense could complicate prosecutors' efforts in court to counter the deposed leader’s argument that his capture was illegal and that as the foreign head of a state he is immune from prosecution under U.S. and international law.
A 25-page indictment against Maduro accused him and others of working with drug cartels and members of the military to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. Both he and his wife face life in prison if convicted.
As part of the purported conspiracy, Maduro and his wife allegedly ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money, according to the indictment. It said that included the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas.
Messages seeking comment from the Treasury Department, White House and the Justice Department were not immediately returned.
Pollack said he asked the Office of Foreign Assets Control on Feb. 11 to reinstate the original license and clear the way for Venezuela to meet its obligation to pay Maduro's defense costs.
The lawyer added that Maduro “cannot otherwise afford counsel" and will request help from the judge to pay for his defense.
Pollack said the United States was “interfering with Mr. Maduro's ability to retain counsel and, therefore, his right under the Sixth Amendment to counsel of his choice.”
___
Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Fatima Hussein in Washington and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.
Joshua Goodman, The Associated Press
DeSantis dealt major blow on paying for 'Alligator Alcatraz'
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got a blow on Wednesday, as Justice Department attorneys torpedoed a key way his state was hoping to pay for an infamous immigrant detention project known as "Alligator Alcatraz."
According to the Florida Phoenix, federal attorneys have declared that a $608 million federal reimbursement planned to go from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the state cannot be used to pay for construction or renovation of the facility — only for routine operating expenses. This ruling "breaks from past assertions from both President Donald Trump and the DeSantis administration that the $608 million grant would largely foot the bill for Florida’s state-run detention centers," the report noted.
In fact, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier acknowledged, the reimbursement may not even happen in the first place.
The filings came in response to a court battle, as Friends of the Everglades, Earthjustice, and the local Miccosukee Tribe, which lives near the facility, try to force courts to subject the facility to federal regulations. As part of avoiding this, federal and state officials must restrict how federal funds flow to it.
“Any potential future federal funding is reimbursement-based, calculated per detainee, and available only for operational costs — not construction or facility modification,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson in a filing. “As it likely will be structured, there will be no potential federal funding of the facility’s design, siting, maintenance, or construction, and no federal approval authority over whether the facility is built at all.”
"Alligator Alcatraz," essentially a walled-in collection of tents constructed in the Florida Everglades, is a state facility that Trump and DeSantis boasted would house the "worst of the worst" immigrants who pose a threat to public safety.
However, reporting has indicated the facility, where conditions have been described as horrific, is housing any number of non-criminal detainees, including immigrants who were simply pulled over in traffic stops.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got a blow on Wednesday, as Justice Department attorneys torpedoed a key way his state was hoping to pay for an infamous immigrant detention project known as "Alligator Alcatraz."
According to the Florida Phoenix, federal attorneys have declared that a $608 million federal reimbursement planned to go from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the state cannot be used to pay for construction or renovation of the facility — only for routine operating expenses. This ruling "breaks from past assertions from both President Donald Trump and the DeSantis administration that the $608 million grant would largely foot the bill for Florida’s state-run detention centers," the report noted.
In fact, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier acknowledged, the reimbursement may not even happen in the first place.
The filings came in response to a court battle, as Friends of the Everglades, Earthjustice, and the local Miccosukee Tribe, which lives near the facility, try to force courts to subject the facility to federal regulations. As part of avoiding this, federal and state officials must restrict how federal funds flow to it.
“Any potential future federal funding is reimbursement-based, calculated per detainee, and available only for operational costs — not construction or facility modification,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson in a filing. “As it likely will be structured, there will be no potential federal funding of the facility’s design, siting, maintenance, or construction, and no federal approval authority over whether the facility is built at all.”
"Alligator Alcatraz," essentially a walled-in collection of tents constructed in the Florida Everglades, is a state facility that Trump and DeSantis boasted would house the "worst of the worst" immigrants who pose a threat to public safety.
However, reporting has indicated the facility, where conditions have been described as horrific, is housing any number of non-criminal detainees, including immigrants who were simply pulled over in traffic stops.
DHS insists abandoned blind refugee had no disabilities after he was found dead in snow
The Department of Homeland Security insisted that a blind refugee from Burma who was found dead after being abandoned by agents had no disabilities.
According to Investigate Post, agents dropped off Nurul Amin Shah Alam at a doughnut shop last week, 5 miles away from his home. Buffalo police later found the man dead in the snow.
City Hall spokesperson Ian Ott said homicide detectives were investigating the death.
On Thursday, two days after the body was found, DHS released a statement claiming the "Buffalo Police Department alerted Border Patrol about a non-citizen in their custody."
"Our agents confirmed that Mr. Shah Alam entered the United States as a refugee on December 24, 2024, and was not amenable to removal," the statement said. "Border Patrol agents offered him a courtesy ride, which he chose to accept to a coffee shop, determined to be a warm, safe location near his last known address, rather than be released directly from the Border Patrol station."
"He showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance," the agency added.
Related video: Police probing death of a nearly blind Myanmar refugee dropped off at a doughnut shop in Buffalo (The Canadian Press)
View on Watch
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof followed up with a series of questions that had not been answered by the time of publication.
"1. How did your agents determine that Mr. Shah Alam wanted to be dropped off at the coffee shop, since he did not speak English? 2. Since Mr. Shah Alam presumably had no phone or money, how did the agents expect him to get home through 5 miles of snow? 3. What did they expect him to do when the coffee shop closed? 4. How did they determine that a blind man needing a cane had no "mobility issues or disabilities"? 5. In the circumstances, why not notify the police or his family rather than dump him 5 miles from home? 6. Have you verified your information any better than when you declared that Alex Pretti and Renee Good were domestic terrorists?" Kristof wrote on X.
The Department of Homeland Security insisted that a blind refugee from Burma who was found dead after being abandoned by agents had no disabilities.
According to Investigate Post, agents dropped off Nurul Amin Shah Alam at a doughnut shop last week, 5 miles away from his home. Buffalo police later found the man dead in the snow.
City Hall spokesperson Ian Ott said homicide detectives were investigating the death.
On Thursday, two days after the body was found, DHS released a statement claiming the "Buffalo Police Department alerted Border Patrol about a non-citizen in their custody."
"Our agents confirmed that Mr. Shah Alam entered the United States as a refugee on December 24, 2024, and was not amenable to removal," the statement said. "Border Patrol agents offered him a courtesy ride, which he chose to accept to a coffee shop, determined to be a warm, safe location near his last known address, rather than be released directly from the Border Patrol station."
"He showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance," the agency added.
Related video: Police probing death of a nearly blind Myanmar refugee dropped off at a doughnut shop in Buffalo (The Canadian Press)View on Watch
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof followed up with a series of questions that had not been answered by the time of publication.
"1. How did your agents determine that Mr. Shah Alam wanted to be dropped off at the coffee shop, since he did not speak English? 2. Since Mr. Shah Alam presumably had no phone or money, how did the agents expect him to get home through 5 miles of snow? 3. What did they expect him to do when the coffee shop closed? 4. How did they determine that a blind man needing a cane had no "mobility issues or disabilities"? 5. In the circumstances, why not notify the police or his family rather than dump him 5 miles from home? 6. Have you verified your information any better than when you declared that Alex Pretti and Renee Good were domestic terrorists?" Kristof wrote on X.
