Week 65 — The Return – The Weekly List

This week the Justice Department released three million more of the Epstein files, with three million still withheld. The timing of the highly redacted release, which included limited damning material on Trump, seemed like a shiny coin to distract from the rest. Yes, it was that bad!

Trump continued to discredit past elections, this week escalating by using the FBI to seize Fulton County ballots. The seizure presaged Trump calling for nationalizing U.S. elections, a shocking and extraordinary statement that his White House then tried to walk back, before Trump doubled down on his demand, despite its going against the Constitution.

The reality is, Trump now understands his loss in public standing. Polling shows a continued deterioration in support, even among Republicans. Immigration, once the top issue for Trump, now haunts him. The economy is souring, with his tariffs producing the exact opposite of the golden era he promised: a loss in U.S. manufacturing, a growing trade deficit, and a slowing job market. No better example of his loss in standing than an earthquake of a special election in a Texas red district that Trump had won by 17 points in 2024, which flipped blue by 14 points this week.

Beyond these major themes, this week’s list is packed with stories that in normal times would dominate the news cycle for days or weeks: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard burying a whistleblower complaint by a U.S. intelligence officer; the Trump and Witkoff families striking a huge deal with UAE royals that enriched them by hundreds of millions; Trump shuttering the Kennedy Center for two years; Attorney General Pam Bondi arresting journalists; and so on, and so on. Please read this list in its entirety to appreciate all that is happening, all that is being normalized, and all that is being lost.

Pew Research found Trump’s approval reached a new low with the pollster at 37% approve, 61% disapprove. Just 73% of Republicans approve. Republicans’ confidence declined in Trump to act ethically (42%), respect democratic values (52%) and his mental fitness (66%).
On Wednesday, singer Bruce Springsteen released an iconic song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” dedicated to the people of Minnesota, that included lyrics, “Just don’t believe your eyes / It’s our blood and bones / And these whistles and phones / Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.”
Bloomberg reported ICE is planning to spend hundreds of millions on mega warehouses around the country, that will be used as detention centers. ICE planned to use 23 warehouses for detaining thousands of immigrants arrested by federal agents in Minneapolis and beyond.
The move raised alarms and pushback over proximity to homes and schools, and political pressures led to some deals collapsing, including proposed facilities in Ashland, Virginia and Oklahoma City. Activists compared the proposed warehouses to concentration camps.
On Wednesday, FBI agents executed a search warrant at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, seizing physical ballots from the 2020 general election, in a significant escalation of Trump’s lies that the election was stolen from him.
The prosecutor listed on the warrant was interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Thomas Albus. The regime’s continued efforts to investigate elections and seek voter rolls alarmed voting experts, Democrats, and some Republicans.
Reuters reported that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard visited the site of the search, something that one former official called unprecedented. Democrats in the House and Senate called on her to testify before their committees on why she was there.
Experts say because the regime broke the chain of custody in gathering evidence, and is beyond the statute of limitations, it was highly unlikely there could be a case about the 2020 election, but that Trump and his regime could use altered evidence to undermine the 2026 election.
In the hours after the seizure, Trump posted a series of discredited conspiracy theories about the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections. Trump added on Truth Social, “This is only the beginning,” saying, “Prosecutions are coming.”
Among the 2020 conspiracies shared by Trump were, “China reportedly coordinated the whole operation. The CIA oversaw it, the FBI covered it up, all to install Biden as a puppet.” Another claimed Italian military satellites hacked voting machines to flip votes from Trump to Biden.
Trump also reposted a conspiracy about the 2016 election that “Barack Hussein Obama” falsified intelligence, and “conspired with foreign powers, not one, not two, not three, but four times to overthrow the United States government in 2016.”
On Friday, the Trump regime removed Paul Brown, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office, after he questioned the regime’s renewed interest in investigating Fulton County, and expressed concerns about unsubstantiated allegations.
NYT reported that the day after the seizure, Gabbard met behind closed doors with some of the FBI agents from the bureau’s field office in Atlanta, which was conducting the election inquiry. It was unclear what her role was there, as DNI does not include such a role.
While meeting with agents, Gabbard used her cellphone to call Trump. On speakerphone, Trump asked the agents questions, and praised and thanked them for their work. One official compared the call to a pep rally by Trump.
A former senior DOJ official who served under both parties said it was “extremely dangerous to our democracy and a shocking abandonment of years of sound policy” for a president to be involved in a criminal investigation, especially one “to redress his personal grievances.”
WSJ reported a highly classified whistleblower complaint about Gabbard, which was filed in May with the intelligence community’s inspector general, has not been turned over to Congress. It includes a separate allegation about “an office within a different federal agency.”
IGs typically have two weeks to assess a complaint, then one week to turn it over to Congress if it determines it is credible. Last year Gabbard fired the acting counsel of the IG and appointed a senior adviser to the role, reporting directly to her.
On Saturday, Democrats won a special election, 57–43, for a Texas state senate seat, in a district that Trump won by 17 points in 2024, despite Trump, the governor, and lieutenant governor endorsing the GOP candidate. The seat had been in Republican hands since 1978.
On Sunday, asked about the loss, which the Texas Lt. governor called “a wake up call,” Trump told reporters, “I’m not involved in that. That’s a local Texas race.” Trump posted on Truth Social three times, including that the candidate running “has my complete and total endorsement.”
On Monday, Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. announced the county would sue the Trump regime, challenging “the legality of the warrant and the seizure of sensitive election records,” and to “force the government to return the ballots taken.”
On Monday, Trump told Dan Bongino, the recently departed deputy FBI director, on his podcast that he wants to “nationalize” voting, saying, “We should take over the voting, the voting, in at least 15 places,” adding, “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
Trump lied that there are “states that are so crooked” and “states that I won that show I didn’t win,” baselessly claiming undocumented immigrants were allowed to vote illegally in 2020. Trump added that there would be “some interesting things [to] come out” of Georgia.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump still supports states’ constitutional authority to administer elections, claiming he meant the SAVE Act, “with the idea of requiring citizens of this country to present an ID before casting a ballot.”
Later Tuesday, Trump doubled down at a signing ceremony with Republicans, saying, “If a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it,” lying that “If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take it over.”
When a reporter reminded Trump that the Constitution dictates states administer elections, he said, “they can administer the election, but they have to do it honestly,” lying that blue cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta had held “rigged, crooked elections.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters, “The president is expressing his frustration about the problems that we have in some of these blue states,” lying that “election integrity is not always guaranteed.” But said, “No, no, no” to a federal takeover.
On Wednesday, the chief judge in Minnesota, appointed by George W. Bush, said ICE had violated 96 orders in January, and that number was “almost certainly substantially understated,” adding it was more than “some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered federal agents to temporarily stop detaining and deporting refugees in Minnesota who were lawfully admitted into the U.S., saying refugees have “a right to work, a right to live peacefully.”
On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she was “on the ground” in Minneapolis and had made arrests. Bondi posted images on X of 16 protestors who were arrested, claiming they “have been resisting and impeding our federal law enforcement agents.”
On Wednesday, a federal judge said she was “deeply disturbed” that Bondi had posted images on social media, citing these were images of people who are presumed innocent that should not be shared, and adding, “This conduct is not something that the court condones.”
On Thursday, ICE denied Maher Tarabishi’s request to attend the funeral for his disabled son, for whom he was the sole caregiver, and who died while Tarabishi was in ICE custody. His family said the denial “would only deepen the wounds left by the pain of these past few months.”
On Thursday, in testimony before the Minnesota State Senate, a lawyer for the Oglala Sioux Tribe said several unhoused tribal members were detained, after ICE mistook them for immigrants. Democrats said ICE was targeting Black and brown people, regardless of immigration status.
A physician said emergency room and clinic visits were down substantially for fear of being detained. An independent journalist testified that she was able to get hired by ICE, despite having failed to complete basic paperwork and forgoing a drug test.
On Thursday, ICE detained a second and fifth grader from Valley View Elementary School in Columbia Heights, the same school where 5 year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was detained, after their mother was taken into federal custody.
Later Thursday, when asked about a drawdown of federal agents in Minneapolis as suggested by Tom Homan, Trump said, “We keep our country safe. We’ll do whatever we can to keep our country safe,” and when asked if he would be pulling out agents, said, “No, not at all.”
On Friday, at 1:26 a.m., Trump attacked Alex Pretti on Truth Social, calling him an “Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist,” saying his “stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer.”
On Friday, tens of thousands protested around the country and left school and work as part of a ‘national shutdown’ to protest ICE, in cities including Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, OR and Los Angeles, and smaller cities like Boise, Tucson, and Gainesville.
Protestors filled ten blocks in Minneapolis. Bruce Springsteen made a surprise visit to a benefit concert to sing “Streets of Minneapolis,” along with several other local singers, all calling for ICE to leave. On Springsteen’s guitar were the words, “Arrest the President.”
On Friday, NYT reported that ICE is using facial recognition, social media monitoring, and other tech tools to identify undocumented immigrants, and to build a database of protestors. Programs by Clearview AI, Mobile Fortify, and Palantir are being utilized.
On Friday, Bondi posted on X that journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, along with at least two others, had been arrested “in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota,” after separate judges dismissed similar cases in Week 64.
Lemon, Fort, and seven other people were charged with a conspiracy to deprive the congregants of the church of their rights and to interfere with religious freedom in a house of worship. Similar charges had been rejected last week by judges.
MSNOW reported career DOJ prosecutors in both Minnesota and Los Angeles refused to be involved in charging Lemon and others. The indictment was signed by Bondi. Lemon was in Los Angeles for the Grammy’s at the time he was arrested.
Shortly after the arrest, the White House social media account posted on X, “When life gives you lemons,” with a chains emoji, along with a photo of Lemon inside the church, with the words superimposed, “Don Lemon Arrested.”
Later Friday, the judge released Lemon without bond. The Trump regime had asked for a $100,000 bond and to restrict his travel to Minneapolis. The judge granted neither.
The podcast Hard Fork reported the Trump regime has deployed a whole team on social media within DHS in an effort to shape the narrative in Minneapolis and beyond of ICE and immigration, using video and images, some of which have been altered using A.I.
WAPO reported that DHS is targeting U.S. citizens using administrative subpoenas to stifle dissent. One citizen sent a complaint to DHS about how federal agents were operating, and received a subpoena for his Google email account that he used to send the email hours later.
On Friday, Deputy AG Todd Blanche said the DOJ had opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, a significant reversal after a week of public outcry. Blanche downplayed the move, saying, “I would describe it as a standard investigation by the FBI.”
NYT reported that Greg Bovino mocked a prosecutor’s Jewish faith on a call with Minnesota federal prosecutors. The remarks posed a legal dilemma for government lawyers based on the Giglio case that calls for law enforcement officers’ biases to be disclosed to the defense.
AP reported ICE claimed in court documents that a Mexican immigrant, who was taken to a Minneapolis hospital with bones in his face and his skull broken, had “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.” Members of the medical staff said that claim could not be possible.
WAPO reported that more than 34,000 Minnesotans had signed up to be trained by activist groups as ICE observers. Activist groups said there were influxes of thousands of new observers after the killings of Renee Good and Pretti.
On Saturday, a federal judge denied Minnesota’s request for the Trump regime to immediately scale back its operation. The judge said while the regime had engaged in racial profiling, excessive force, and other disruptions, that was not what she was being asked to rule on.
On Saturday, a federal judge ordered the release of 5 year-old Liam Ramos, ruling, “the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”
The judge castigated the regime, saying, “Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.”
On Saturday, a federal appeals court dismissed a highly unusual misconduct complaint brought by Trump’s DOJ against Chief Judge James Boasberg, claiming anti-Trump bias, after the DOJ failed to turn over any evidence to back their claim.
On Monday, a federal judge blocked the Trump regime from ending Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Haitians, citing the plaintiffs’ claim that “Noem preordained her termination decision” based on “hostility to nonwhite immigrants. This seems substantially likely.”
On Tuesday, in testimony before Congress, Renee Good’s brother Luke Ganger said, “This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents, these encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours, forever.”
Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times in Chicago, and for whom charges were later dismissed, said she overheard agents discussing whether a jail would accept her with her wounds bleeding. She said she wanted the regime to admit she is not a “domestic terrorist.”
Only Democrats attended the hearing. Rep. Dan Garcia read some of the texts between federal agents after Martinez’s shooting, including one bragging, “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”
On Tuesday, a federal judge in Minnesota demanded to know from the DOJ why ICE was not complying with court orders, expressing frustration that people with no criminal records were being wrongfully detained even after judges ordered their immediate release.
Julie Le, an ICE attorney there on behalf of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said, “I wish you would just hold me in contempt of court so I can get 24 hours of sleep. The system sucks, this job sucks,” adding, “We have no guidance or direction on what we need to do.”
On Tuesday, a federal judge barred ICE from aggressive tactics, saying, “Our nation is now at a crossroads,” and in a democracy, “free speech, courageous newsgathering, and nonviolent protest” are permitted and celebrated, while “In an authoritarian regime, that is not the case.”
On Wednesday, border “czar” Tom Homan announced the Trump regime would withdraw 700 federal immigration agents from Minneapolis, adding Trump’s operation would continue, and not just for criminals: “If you’re in the country illegally, you are not off the table.”
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Venezuela. Rubio shared that the Trump regime is controlling Venezuela’s oil money, holding the funds in an account in Qatar, and giving the country a monthly budget.
Republican John Curtis, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, said at the hearing that State refused to participate in last year’s planned hearing on Venezuela, refused to brief Curtis on the boat strikes in the Caribbean, and is not cooperating on future hearings.
GOP Sen. Rand Paul said, “If we said that a foreign country invaded our capital, bombed all our air defense — which would be an extensive bombing campaign, and it was — removed our president, and then blockaded the country, we would think it was an act of war.”
On Thursday, Canada signed a deal with South Korea, another sign of the country moving away from reliance on the U.S. under Trump, in response to his tariffs and bullying.
On Thursday, FT reported the Trump regime had held covert meetings with fringe separatists in oil-rich Alberta. The group conducted a feasibility study with the regime, for a $500 billion credit facility in the event of a successful referendum on independence.
On Thursday, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said government employees would stop using U.S.-made applications like Zoom, and replace them instead with French-made, further evidence of a fraying relationship and desire to lesser dependence on the U.S.
On Saturday, hundreds of Danish veterans, many who served alongside U.S. troops, marched in a silent protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen in response to Trump’s threats to take over Greenland and he and his regime’s belittling of their combat contributions.
A new poll found just 17% of Danes viewed the U.S. as an ally, with 60% viewing the U.S. as an adversary.
On Sunday, three U.S. Olympic winter sport national governing bodies changed the name of their Milan hospitality space from The Ice House to The Winter House, over concerns about ICE protests in Italy during the Olympics.
On Monday, a group of U.S. citizens, immigration nonprofits, and legal organizations sued Rubio and the State Department over its ban on approval of visas for people from 75 countries, saying the ban “eviscerate decades of settled immigration law” and separates families.
A PBS White House correspondent noted that in the Palm Room, which connects the West Wing to the Executive Residence, a large photo of Trump walking alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin is hung above him with one of his grandchildren.
The U.S. trade deficit nearly doubled in November from October, as the deficit with the European Union swelled. Overall, the deficit in November 2025 was 4% higher than November 2024, despite Trump’s tariffs.
WSJ reported despite Trump’s promise to usher in a golden age of U.S. manufacturing, manufacturers shed jobs in each of the eight months since his “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced.
On Monday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the January jobs report due out on Friday would be delayed due to a temporary government shutdown, after Democrats in the Senate demanded that DHS funding be split out from a funding bill to address ICE behavior.
On Wednesday, ADP reported private companies added just 22,000 jobs in January, down from a revised 37,000 in December, and less than half of the 45,000 consensus forecast.
Bloomberg reported weeks after Trump promised “the most aggressive housing reform plans in American history,” all his ideas have been shot down by the GOP-led Congress, the financial industry, or Trump himself. At his speech in Iowa, he failed to mention any ideas.
On Thursday, Trump held an unusually hasty cabinet meeting, during which he notably did not call on DHS sec. Kristi Noem to speak, and for the first time did not take any questions from reporters.
On Thursday, Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization sued the IRS and U.S. Treasury for $10 billion, over disclosure of his tax returns to the press during the first regime, putting U.S. taxpayers at risk of a massive payout.
Asked about the lawsuit by a female journalist from ABC News, Trump lashed out, calling her a “very loud” person working for a “fake news” outlet, and saying, “Let somebody else have a chance.”
Trump told reporters on Saturday on the lawsuit, “I have to work out some kind of a settlement. I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” claiming, “We could make it a substantial amount, nobody would care, because it’s gonna go to… charities.”
On Friday, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he planned to build a 100,000 seat stadium in front of the White House for the UFC fight to be held on his 80th birthday. Trump also said he would host an IndyCar race on the streets of D.C. this August.
Amazon spent $35 million to promote the documentary ‘Melania,’ 10 times the amount it spent on other high profile documentaries, and paid $40 million for the rights, $26 million more than the next closest bidder, raising concerns about Amazon and Jeff Bezos’s motives.
On Sunday, WSJ reported that four days before Trump’s inauguration, UAE royals quietly agreed to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million. Of the first $250 million payment, $187 million went to Trump family entities, and $31 million to Witkoff family interests.
The investment from Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal, came as the UAE pushed the U.S. for access to tightly guarded artificial intelligence chips. A U.S.-UAE chip deal was announced in May. The deal was viewed as a coup for the UAE.
Weeks prior, MGX, a Tahnoon-led investment firm, used WLF stablecoins to complete a $2 billion investment in Binance. The deal marked the first time in U.S. history that a foreign government official took a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president’s company.
NYT reported a group of crypto investors sought to win favor with Trump by building a 15 foot tall statue of him covered in gold, dubbed “Don Colossus,” and installing it at Trump’s golf course in Florida. They used the memecoin $PATRIOT to raise funds, which plummeted in value.
The backers of the project had not paid the sculptor in full for his work on the statue. Last month he traveled to install a 7,000-pound pedestal at Trump’s Doral golf complex. Trump said in December, “It LOOKS FANTASTIC,” but it was still unclear if the statue would be installed.
On Friday, the Trump regime released three million of the six million pages of Epstein files. Deputy AG Blanche claimed the regime “didn’t protect” Trump, and the remaining three million could not be released due to child sexual abuse material and to protect victims’ rights.
Attorneys for hundreds of Epstein victims said names and identifying information of numerous victims were unredacted in this latest disclosure, many of which had not been public prior. Democrats and some Republicans demanded the release of the remaining files.
There were also technical inconsistencies with the release. In at least two cases of content related to Trump, files were published then pulled back, then published again, including a spreadsheet summary of complaints made to the FBI that referenced Epstein and Trump.
The files contained more than 4,500 documents that mentioned Trump, including an FBI summary from last summer of more than a dozen tips from members of the public involving sexual abuse by Trump and Epstein. The DOJ claimed there were “fake or falsely submitted” items.
Included in the files were emails with Elon Musk spanning more than a decade, including Musk saying he “will try to make it” to Epstein’s island. Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick, who claimed to have cut ties years prior, visited the island in 2012 after Epstein’s sex offender conviction.
Kevin Warsh, whom Trump nominated earlier in the day to be chair of the Federal Reserve, was in the Epstein files. Warsh’s father-in-law is Ronald Lauder, a longtime donor and confidant of Trump’s, who was awarded the right to mine a major state-owned lithium deposit by Ukraine.
On Saturday, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump threatened a lawsuit against the Epstein estate for “political harm,” and claimed that Epstein “was conspiring” with journalist Michael Wolff, adding he might sue Wolff as well.
On Sunday, attorneys for Epstein survivors detailed in a letter to a federal judge that the DOJ’s release may be “the single most egregious violation of victim privacy in one day in United States history.” The judge scheduled a hearing for Wednesday.
Survivors asked the judge to consider shuttering the government website that houses the files, citing the failure to properly redact the names of nearly 100 individual survivors, which had turned their lives “upside down,” while the DOJ redacted names of powerful abusers.
On Monday, Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee’s Epstein inquiry. Clinton would be the first former president to testify before Congress, other than Gerald Ford on the bicentennial celebration. Trump refused and threatened to sue.
On Tuesday, when CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins asked Trump about the Epstein files, he said, “You are so bad. You are the worst reporter. No wonder CNN has no ratings,” and “She’s a young woman. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. They should be ashamed of you.”
On Friday, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis posted on X that he will continue to “oppose the confirmation of any Federal Reserve nominee,” including for chair, over the DOJ’s inquiry into Chair Jerome Powell, until it is “fully and transparently resolved.”
On Monday, Trump told reporters that the criminal investigation into Powell should continue, and that U.S. Attorney for Washington Jeanine Pirro should “take it to the end.” The statement was another example of Trump instructing the DOJ, and ignoring traditional walls.
On Wednesday, Kevin Couch, a senior vice president overseeing artistic programming at the Kennedy Center, resigned. He declined to provide a reason. Couch was appointed on Jan. 16 by Trump loyalist Richard Grenell.
On Sunday, Trump posted on Truth Social that he planned to close the Kennedy Center for two years, starting on July Fourth, saying it was for “Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding.” The center went through a major renovation in 2019, costing $250 million.
Trump’s announcement came amid a series of cancellations, boycotts, and declining attendance, including a 50% decline for the National Symphony Orchestra. Trump did not say how he would fund costs, nor did he notify Congress or have any public discussion on his plans.
On Sunday, Trump threatened to sue Grammy’s host Trevor Noah over a joke about Trump and Epstein that evening, calling it a “false and defamatory statement,” and saying, “I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope.”
At the Grammy’s, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny, who won album of the year, said in his speech, “Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say: ICE out,” adding, “We’re not savages. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens, we are humans and we are Americans.”
On Monday, the DOJ demoted Ed Martin, and stripped him of his role chairing a Weaponization Working Group that had targeted Trump’s perceived enemies, including the likes of Jack Smith, New York AG Letitia James, James Comey, and Sen. Adam Schiff.
Martin was reportedly demoted after a protracted feud with Blanche. Martin was reassigned to work as Trump’s pardon attorney, but no longer had an office at DOJ headquarters.
On Monday, NYT reported that Trump had dropped his demand for a $200 million payment from Harvard University in hopes of resolving the regime’s conflict with the school. Harvard had rejected the idea, and regime officials said Trump no longer expected such a payment.
Six hours after the Times published their story, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was now suing Harvard for $1 billion “in damages,” adding, “This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings.”
Reuters reported that 8,599 licensed attorneys left the federal government between Trump’s inauguration and November, for a net decline of 6,524 after accounting for new hires, the largest loss in decades of tracking. The second biggest net decrease was 389 in 2022.
On Saturday, Chad Mizelle, a former DHS acting general counsel and former DOJ chief of staff under Trump, posted on X, “If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, DM me,” adding, “We need good prosecutors.”
The post drew broad criticism, with a Fox News contributor and former U.S. attorney saying, the “DOJ should only exist if it’s nonpartisan,” adding, “Too dangerous to liberty otherwise. If AG Garland’s office had posted this, MAGA & GOP would be calling for impeachment.”
On Tuesday, a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush pressed the DOJ for any precedent for the Pentagon attempting to punish Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, saying, “You’re asking me to do something the Supreme Court or the DC Circuit has never done.”
On Monday, a federal judge blocked the Interior Department’s order to halt work on an offshore wind project off the coast of New York state, the fifth such ruling to go against the Trump regime.
On Tuesday, New York and New Jersey sued the Trump regime for illegally withholding $16 billion of federal funding for the Gateway Tunnel project that was already committed. The Gateway Development Commission separately sued the Trump regime over the weekend.
On Tuesday, Citadel’s Ken Griffin said CEOs find Trump’s interference “distasteful,” and the regime had “definitely made missteps” that have enriched “the families of those in the administration,” adding, “That calls into question, is the public interest being served?”
On Wednesday, WAPO, under ownership of Jeff Bezos, announced another series of sweeping layoffs, cutting 400 staffers in three years. Former editor editor Marty Baron called it “among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”
The Washington Post Guild said in a statement, “These layoffs are not inevitable. A newsroom cannot be hollowed out without consequences of its credibility, its reach and its future.” Bezos, who was worth $260 billion, bought the Post for $250 million.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, left, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, enter a command vehicle as the FBI takes Fulton County 2020 Election ballots, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga., near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)