Congressional Democrats are expected to release their own, alternative continuing resolution today, which will include language to fight back against the Trump White House’s lawlessimpoundments and pocket rescission.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday morning said Democrats want to make sure that “the process that we go through is real” — that the funding agreement they come to will be honored by the White House.
A splendid bit of reporting this morning from the ABC News team.
The main news is that Ed Martin and Bill Pulte have been pressuring federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) on the mortgage fraud claims that Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, drummed up.
As I read the story, prosecutors so far have resisted not just because they don’t have enough evidence against James but because they have considerable exculpatory evidence.
Pulte’s manufactured case against James comes down to one document in the mortgage file:
However, investigators have so far determined that the document — a limited power of attorney form used by James’ niece to sign documents on her behalf when James closed on the home — was never considered by the loan officers who approved the mortgage, sources said.
Lawyers drafted the document itself for a third-party closing company based on a template that was never corrected, sources said, and every other document in James’ loan file for the mortgage accurately stated that she would not reside at the home.
It’s not for lack of trying by prosecutors, ABC News reports. They have interviewed or brought before a grand jury 15 witnesses, among them James’ niece, insurers, loan officers, underwriters, and realtors:
A loan underwriter interviewed by investigators said that, in the process of approving the loan, she never looked at or considered the power of attorney document that incorrectly listed the home as James’ primary residence, according to sources.
As a result of all of these “bad” facts, prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, despite pressure on DOJ from Trump himself, declined to seek an indictment of James. That led Pulte to encourage Trump to fire U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, ABC reports.
But Wait … There’s More!
The other bit of great reporting by ABC News is its account of Martin’s attempt to beef up his little fiefdom within the Justice Department, which he has dubbed the “Special Attorney Fraud Unit.”
Martin wears so many different hats at DOJ that I’ve lost count. But for the purposes of this particular bogosity I think it most matters that he’s head of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group and a special attorney to Attorney General Pam Bondi. ABC’s report actually refines his title in a way I hadn’t seen before: Special Attorney for Mortgage Fraud. Perfect.
ABC reports that Martin has requested two to three experienced prosecutors from Virginia and New York to help in his investigation. Recall that he’s also pursuing James for a bogus mortgage fraud claim in New York.
But the best part is Martin’s recruiting email obtained by ABC. It’s titled “Help Wanted” and is chock full of over the top language like:
seeking “fighters for justice and goodness and the American way”
“The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those that mark a gentleman.”
“In a special way, the SAFU is called to hold bad actors accountable. After all, as New York, Attorney General Leticia [sic] James said, ‘Because no matter how big, rich, or powerful you think you are, no one is above the law.'”
The ABC story leaves me with one unanswered question: Why hasn’t Martin just brought the case against James himself? My understanding is that as a special attorney Martin has all the powers of a U.S. attorney. He’s just not tethered to a particular geographic district like U.S. attorneys are. So what’s keeping him from fully Ed Martining?
Here’s a guess: Bringing a case to trial takes work, even for an experienced prosecutor, and Martin has never been a prosecutor. It’s probably a lot more fun to be a roving menace in every district in the country that it is to buckle down and learn a case and ultimately risk losing. If Martin’s goal, as he’s publicly said before, is to name and shame, then he can continue to do that without ever bringing cases to trial.
Federal Workers Blow Whistle in Guatemalan Kids Case
A group of federal workers came forward as whistleblowers and accused a Trump Department of Homeland Security official of making false or misleading statements in a court-filed declaration about the status of some of the Guatemalan kids who were targeted for middle-of-the-night deportations over the Labor Day weekend.
Attorneys who succeeded in temporarily stopping the deportation immediately notified the federal judge in the case of the new whistleblower allegations as he considers whether to extend the ban on removing the children.
The Danger of Firing Your Chief Statistician
In her most extensive public comments to date, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Erika McEntarfer who was fired by President Trump said she was blindsided by the move and warned of the consequences of politicizing statistics that other countries have experienced: “The resulting loss of trust in economic statistics led these countries to worsening economic crises, higher inflation and higher borrowing costs. If we follow a similar path, all Americans will suffer the consequences.”
Fired CDC Chief to Testify Today
Fired CDC director Susan Monarez is set to testify today to the Senate HELP Committee on her termination by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Quote of the Day
Strong language in a news story from the NYT, which has not always risen to Trump’s authoritarian threat: “President Trump has begun a major escalation in his long-running efforts to stifle political opposition in the United States, using the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk to make the baseless argument that Democratic organizations and protesters are part of a violent conspiracy against conservative values and the American way of life.”
Understatement of the Day
“When I hear not just our current president, but his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘vermin,’ enemies who need to be ‘targeted,’ that speaks to a broader problem that we have right now, and something that we’re going to have to grapple with — all of us.”–former President Barack Obama
More Fallout From the Kirk Assassination
Among the new developments as the Trump GOP seizes on the assassination of Charlie Kirk to consolidate more power:
The Trump DOJ disappeared a National Institute of Justice study that concluded white supremacist and far-right violence “continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the United States.
In an apparent swipe at Attorney General Pam Bondi, Justice Sonia Sotomayor rebuked calls to criminalize hate speech.
The House GOP launched a targeted campaign against anyone smearing Kirk, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Among their efforts was this wild letter from Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA):
Clay Higgins sent a letter to Bluesky and other social media sites threatening investigations if they don't censor speech critical of Charlie Kirk.They don't even know who Jay is because they addressed her as "gentleman."clayhiggins.house.gov/wp-content/u…
In an almost off-handed way, President Trump extemporaneously revealed that the the United States had attacked a third alleged drug-smuggling boat off Venezuela, although he had not previously trumpeted the attack as he had the other two.
It’s a minor point in this moment — as the leaders of the federal government brag that they’re preparing to investigate “the left” and journalists — but Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today got FBI Director Kash Patel to confirm a key detail about the extent to which the traditional firewall between the Department of Justice and the White House has collapsed.
Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Utah, was charged with seven counts on Tuesday afternoon for allegedly shooting right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University last Wednesday.
Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray held a press conference, during which he read aloud from the charging documents. Those documents are available here, and include an alleged text exchange in which Robinson confessed to his roommate that he had killed Kirk, and discussed his attempts to retrieve his weapon later that day.
Robinson had his first court appearance virtually from the jail Tuesday evening, during which the judge said he’ll be assigned a lawyer. He is being held without bail.
We’ve now heard the first official word about the murder of Charlie Kirk as part of the official charges brought against him today. I want to reiterate a point I made yesterday. Despite the concerted effort to portray Tyler Robinson as a proponent of “left-wing ideology,” as Kash Patel put it, that’s really not clear at all from the evidence contained in the charging documents. What we have in there are mostly statements from Robinson’s mother to the police that he “had started to lean more to the left” over the last year and become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.”
I want to point you to a report from Ken Klippenstein, who got access to parts of the much-discussed Discord channel that Robinson and fellow gamers spent time on. Klippenstein’s report sheds more light on Robinson and his milieu than basically anything that’s appeared in the mainstream press over the last week. I really recommend you read it. There’s no bombshell. Just a general impression of the guy. But still very revealing.
An appeals court ruled late Monday that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook could not be fired by President Donald Trump while his administration’s legal claims against Cook continue to play out in court.
In a late night ruling, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block a lower court order that reinstated Trump-target Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve Board. The decision, less than 48 hours before an important meeting of the Fed, sets up a likely race to the Supreme Court by the Trump administration.
In a 2-1 decision, Biden appointees Bradley Garcia and J. Michelle Childs ruled that Cook was likely to prevail on the underlying appeal. They were especially focused on the lack of due process given to Cook. Trump appointee Gregory Katsas dissented.
The decision came the same day Senate Republicans confirmed Trump White House official Stephen Miran to the Federal Reserve Board. Miran is not giving up his White House post to serve on the ostensibly independent Fed. Senators were racing to confirm him ahead of the same Wednesday meeting of the Fed that Trump is trying to block Cook from attending.
Meanwhile, Reuters turned up yet more information that confirms Trump’s mortgage fraud claims against Cook are a bogus pretext for bringing the Federal Reserve to heel. After reviewing records at Reuters request, the property tax authority in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said that Cook hasn’t broken rules for tax breaks on a home there that she declared her primary residence.
For Your Radar …
Longtime federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey who was fired by the Trump administration without cause or explanation, has filed a well-crafted wrongful termination lawsuit alleging she was retaliated against because of her father and/or the perception of her own political beliefs.
Comey was prosecuting major cases in the Southern District of New York when she was abruptly terminated in July. Among the defendants she named in the lawsuit: the Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the Executive Office of the President.
Comey’s case will be an important one to watch as the lawless Trump DOJ purge of career prosecutors and investigators is challenged in court.
When Every Political Foe of Trump Is a Terrorist
The labeling of all the political foes of President Trump as terrorists and falsely ascribing bad acts to them is a searing threat to democratic life whose historical analogues are universally sobering:
Stephen Miller: “We are gonna channel all the anger we have over the organized campaign to led to this assassination to uproot & dismantle these terrorist networks … we are going to use every resource we have at the DOJ, Homeland Security & throughout this govt to dismantle & destroy these networks"
Conservatives’ efforts to blame some vague “they” for these attacks are not a slip of the tongue: It crafts a narrative of victimhood aimed at enacting retributive repression or violence against their political opponents. This is made explicit in calls to indict billionaire liberal donor George Soros, investigate and dismantle liberal nonprofits and target media companies, none of which appear to have had any involvement, as a response to Kirk’s murder.
Trump Lawlessly Attacks Another Boat on High Seas
Three people were killed in a second U.S. attack on a boat in international waters off Venezuela that was allegedly smuggling drugs. No evidence was produced to bolster this claim. Trump touted the attack in raw terms on social media.
Former State Department attorney Brian Finucane has a new piece out prompted by the first attack earlier this month on why this is a dangerous departure from the Global War on Terror.
Trump Files Nuisance Suit Against NYT for $15 BILLION
In an absurd defamation lawsuit filed in federal court in Tampa, Florida, President Trump is claiming billions of dollars in damages from the NYT coverage of him, citing numerous stories. The 85-page complaint reads like a survey of a wounded man’s fragile ego.
Chutkan Says She Has No Jurisdiction in Ghana Case
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington, D.C., overnight refused to intervene in the case of the Trump administration using Ghana as middle man to re-deport migrants to their home countries because U.S. law prohibits them being sent there directly. Chutkan deplored the administration’s conduct but ultimately concluded she did not have jurisdiction to intervene in the case.
Trump’s Great Whitewashing of American History
The Scourged Back. The scarred back of an African-American slave named Gordon who escaped from Mississippi and reached a Union Army camp in Louisiana in 1863. The photograph is attributed to two photographers, McPherson and Oliver, who were in the camp at the time. It became one of the best known photographs of the Civil War and a powerful weapon for abolitionists. Gordon served in the Union army African American regiment and reached the rank of sergeant. (Photo by: Ken Welsh/Design Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
A print of the “The Scourged Back” is among the many signs, exhibits, and educational tools reportedly being removed from national parks by the Trump administration as part of a sweeping revisionism of American history that blots out the often excruciating experiences of people of color.
Another Shining Moment for the Roberts Court
At the Supreme Court, it’s open season on trans rights, TPM’s Kate Riga reports.
Robert Redford, 1936-2025
Robert Redford during 2002 Sundance Film Festival – Filmmakers’ Brunch at Sundance Rehearsal Hall in Sundance, Utah, United States. (Photo by George Pimentel/WireImage)
The movie icon and independent film cultivator died early this morning at his home in Utah.
This is kind of a secondary issue. But it’s important to focus on for a number of reasons. In the past, generally speaking, you could use formal communications and background briefings from federal law enforcement, within important parameters, as a guide to the state of an investigation. It’s a given that they would be sure to make you think that whoever they thought was guilty was definitely guilty. They could also be relied on to speak in the institutional interest of their department or agency. But for a general understanding of what an investigation had uncovered, you could learn a lot from it, so long as these critical points of skepticism were borne in mind. Federal law enforcement, certainly off the record, could also often provide some constraint or filter on what the administration was saying. My point isn’t to romanticize the old system. But it was, from a journalistic perspective, often a key source of information.
In the current environment I think it’s fair to say there’s really no reason to believe anything we’re hearing from federal law enforcement, either formally or on background to reporters.
In remarks to the media on Sunday, President Trump made it clear he will continue to use the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk as grounds to investigate those he sees as his political foes. In fact, he suggested, that work is already underway.
