Tag Archives: Pam Bondi

Rolling Stone: Trump’s Occupation of D.C. Is Hurting Local Businesses Too

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As fewer customers visit restaurants and bars, the president considers escalation by arming members of the National Guard in the capital city

Donald Trump‘s deployment of National Guard troops to the nation’s capital and forcing a federal law enforcement takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department is not only terrorizing residents and workers, it’s also harming local businesses. Washington, D.C., restaurants are experiencing significant drops in reservations, and bars are seeing fewer customers.

Online reservations for D.C. restaurants plunged more than 25 percent in the days immediately after Trump announced the takeover of D.C. police for the first time in the country’s history, according to OpenTable data, WUSA 9’s Jordan Fischer reported.

Trump announced the authoritarian occupation on Monday, and OpenTable reservations decreased by 16 percent compared to the same day last year. By Tuesday, reservations were down 27 percent. By Wednesday, that number rose to 31 percent.

This is not part of a national trend. Nationally, restaurants saw 12 percent gains in OpenTable reservations.

D.C. bar owners are noticing a similar disturbing decline in business, The Advocate reported. Crush Dance Bar, a LGBTQ+ inclusive business, saw a 75 percent drop in business this past Thursday. On Friday, business was just half of what they usually see.

“Washingtonians leaving the city to avoid the chaos on top of a reduction of tourism is crippling small businesses,” Crush’s co-owner, Mark Rutstein, told The Advocate.

Dave Perruzza, who owns gay D.C. sports bars Pitchers and A League of Her Own, said he lost an estimated $7,000 in just one night and noticed fewer people came from out of town.

“Thursdays are all local, but Fridays and Saturdays we get people from out of town, and we just had none of them. It was awful,” he told The Advocate.

People may be avoiding D.C. streets due to a rise in law enforcement presence, including immigration checkpoints, which have been met with protesters screams of “Go home, fascists.” One officer at a checkpoint said they were looking at drivers’ “driving eligibility” and “status.”

According to Attorney General Pam Bondi, federal and local law enforcement have arrested 300 people during the crackdown on D.C. Law enforcement has also targeted numerous homeless encampments since the federal takeover, destroying the belongings of countless unhoused people. Trump has said he wants to ship unhoused people to locations “FAR” outside the district.

Sadly, it looks like conditions in the capital will only get worse, and the possibility of military violence against civilians will increase.

More troops — approximately 700, nearly doubling the current number of troops in D.C. to around 1500 — are on the way from Ohio, West Virginia, and South Carolina. The Wall Street Journal first reported Saturday that National Guard members were preparing to carry weapons, and a National Guard spokesperson told CBS News that deployed Guard members “may be armed consistent with their mission and training.”

Despite Trump’s insistence that the occupation is in response to crime and his claim that D.C. is facing “the worst violent crime ever,” the statistics show that violent crime in the capital is down 26 percent compared to last year. Last year, violent offenses reached their lowest levels in three decades.

“We are not experiencing spikes in crime,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said last Sunday on MSNBC. “In fact, we’re watching our crime numbers go down.”

Blue cities and states are hurting in other ways, thanks to Trump’s immigration policies, CNN reported. The number of private sector workers in California decreased by 750,000 from May to July, with Hispanic and Asian Americans making up the majority of losses. In New York City as well, fewer Hispanic men are participating in the labor force.

The occupation may not end with D.C. The capital and Los Angeles are testing grounds for the administration to prepare to militarize law enforcement in other Democratically-led cities. As Rolling Stone reported, the administration is already drawing up plans to do so.

Trump’s Occupation of D.C. Is Hurting Local Businesses Too
As fewer customers visit restaurants and bars, the president considers escalation by arming members of the National Guard in the capital city.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-occupation-dc-local-businesses-1235410277

Politico: DC sues over Trump administration’s attempted takeover of city police

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Washington officials are suing the Trump administration over what they call a “baseless power grab” after the Department of Justice ordered a new “emergency” head of District police.

“By illegally declaring a takeover of MPD, the Administration is abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law,” Schwalb wrote in an X post Friday. “This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court, warns that the attempted takeover could “wreak operational havoc” on the Metropolitan Police Department because of the confusion about who has operational control. The city’s lawyers say the push by President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo#3”] Bondi violates the law in multiple ways — exceeding the president’s legal power to intervene in city affairs and rescinding policies adopted by local government.

They’re asking a federal judge to immediately rescind Bondi’s attempted takeover and effort to rewrite Washington police policies, declaring them to be unlawful. It’s unclear how quickly a judge will act, but the emergency nature of the filing could lead to proceedings as soon as Friday.

The suit is the biggest pushback from city officials since Trump invoked a provision of the Home Rule Act — the 1970s law that allows for limited self-governance by Washington’s government — that allows the president to direct the Metropolitan Police Department’s services to address “special conditions of an emergency nature.”

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee known for her take-no-prisoners approach from the bench. Reyes, most notably, blocked Trump’s transgender military ban before her injunction was paused by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Amid the litigation, the Justice Department filed a complaint against Reyes for her pointed comments to government attorneys — though she at times also praised their advocacy and made similarly pointed comments to lawyers for the transgender service members.

In a declaration accompanying the city’s bid for an immediate restraining order, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said the administration’s gambit is “endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers.”

“In my nearly three decades in law enforcement, I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive.”

The suit underscores that no president in history has invoked the authority to manage the city’s police department. And the city’s lawyers say the president’s power to do so requires cooperation between city officials and the federal government, not a hostile takeover.

Bondi on Thursday issued an order that directed Drug Enforcement Administration head Terry Cole to assume “all the powers and duties” of the city’s police chief as the new “Emergency Police Commissioner,” “effective immediately.”

[“Bimbo#3”] Bondi’s order also purported to rescind or suspend several Washington police orders — including one issued by Smith earlier on Thursday that allowed for limited cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and Schwalb — both Democrats elected by Washington residents — insisted late Thursday that [“Bimbo#3”] Bondi could not legally disrupt the typical chain of command for MPD officers by requiring them to report to Cole.

“Therefore, members of MPD must continue to follow your orders and not the orders of any official not appointed by the Mayor,” Schwalb wrote in a letter Thursday to Smith that was circulated by Bowser. “Regardless of the [“Bimbo#3”] Bondi order, no official other than you may exercise all the powers and duties of the Chief of Police.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Democrats’ attempts to “stifle” [“Bimbo#3”] Bondi’s orders are “par for the course” for the party.

“The Trump Administration has the lawful authority to assert control over the D.C. Police, which is necessary due to the emergency that has arisen in our Nation’s Capital as a result of failed leadership,” Jackson said in a statement.

A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment.

Trump on Monday issued an executive order invoking the Home Rule Act, insisting that the District was overrun by violence. He also deployed the National Guard to the city.

But before [“Bimbo#3”] Bondi’s order Thursday looking to replace the MPD chief, city officials have largely limited their criticism of the Trump administration, noting that Washington was in a fairly unique situation that gave the federal government broad powers and authorities.

“The feds have an outsize role in D.C., we all know that,” Bowser told POLITICO Wednesday morning. “Right now, having a surge of officers enhances our MPD forces on a temporary basis. We’re going to stay focused on hiring more MPD or, when this temporary surge is over, figuring out more permanent partnerships to tap into when we need a surge of officers.”

But Trump’s Monday press conference went far beyond what his executive order said, with the president saying his administration would “take our capital back.”

“Giving us additional resources is a good thing, but that’s also quite different than federalizing our police force,” D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson said Wednesday in an interview. “Donald Trump is not going to tell our police how to police.”

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have introduced dueling legislation over Trump’s moves. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) announced a resolution Friday to grant Trump “the authority to maintain federal control of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in Washington, D.C. for as long as necessary to restore law and order.”

Democratic lawmakers also introduced a joint resolution Friday to terminate the administration’s control of D.C. police by voiding Trump’s proclamation of a crime emergency in Washington. But without control of either chamber of Congress, the effort among Democrats is almost certainly futile.

“Trump has made clear that his efforts in D.C., where 700,000 taxpaying American citizens lack the protections of statehood, are part of a broader plan to militarize and federalize the streets of cities around America whose citizens voted against him,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) in his statement.

DC sues over Trump administration’s attempted takeover of city police
Attorney General Pam Bondi last night said she was naming the DEA head as the emergency police commissioner.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/15/dc-police-trump-lawsuit-00511086

Tampa Free Press: Turf War In The Capital: D.C. Attorney General Declares Federal Order On Immigration Unlawful

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A.G. Rejects Federal Takeover of Police, Declares City “Not Legally Obligated” to Follow Order

The nation’s capital is the scene of a high-stakes legal and political showdown after D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb fired a shot across the bow of the federal government, declaring the city is “not legally obligated” to comply with an executive order aimed at dismantling its sanctuary policies.

The clash began Thursday when Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi issued an executive order that sought to end the city’s protections for undocumented immigrants and place the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under federal control. The order even named Drug Enforcement Administrator chief Terrence C. Cole as the new head of the MPD.

But in a swift and sharp rebuke, Schwalb penned a letter to MPD Chief Pamela Smith, urging her to ignore [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s directive. “It is my opinion that the [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi order is unlawful, and that you are not legally obligated to follow it,” Schwalb wrote in a letter shared by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on social media.

Schwalb’s letter reinforced the local chain of command, reminding Chief Smith that she was “duly appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the Council” and that MPD members must follow her orders—not those from a federally appointed official.

The dramatic back-and-forth unfolds as the Trump administration continues its federal takeover of the city, citing rampant crime as the justification for deploying federal law enforcement and National Guard troops.

Earlier on Thursday, Chief Smith had already signaled a shift, issuing a memo that increased cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That memo, praised by Department of Homeland Security officials as an “important first step,” still maintained some restrictions, prohibiting officers from arresting individuals solely on immigration warrants.

But [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s subsequent order went much further, rescinding not only those restrictions but also putting the federal government in charge of the city’s police force—a move that local leaders say oversteps federal authority and infringes on D.C.’s limited autonomy.

The Department of Justice and the MPD have remained silent on the matter, leaving the city in a state of legal limbo. The outcome of this unprecedented dispute could have far-reaching implications, setting a precedent for the balance of power between the federal government and local jurisdictions across the nation.

Turf War In The Capital: D.C. Attorney General Declares Federal Order On Immigration Unlawful

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/turf-war-in-the-capital-d-c-attorney-general-declares-federal-order-on-immigration-unlawful/ar-AA1KB4B4

Fox News: Protesters confront officers patrolling DC streets after Trump policing takeover

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The federal takeover of policing in Washington D.C. sparked protests near Union Station Thursday night,with demonstrators calling police and National Guard officers “Nazis.”

“You guys safe over here? You guys safe? Are you guys being murdered?” one protester was heard sarcastically asking officers. Others said they are “betraying” the country and “terrorizing the community.”

“You will never know a moment of peace,” one man said, accusing the officers of being “Nazis.”

“Sad incel car. Sad incel car, look at that,” a woman shouted as a Tesla Cybertruck is stopped.

“Y’all are the reason why our country is going downhill,” a protester shouted at officers during a traffic stop.

President Donald Trump announced the move on Monday, and the National Guard and a variety of federal agencies, including ICE and the FBI, have been patrolling and conducting operations throughout the city. Some arrests have already been made, including dozens of illegal immigrants.

Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #2”] Bondi initially ordered that Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole be in charge of the Metropolitan Police Department as an “emergency police commissioner,” although that directive was later changed to ensure Cole worked with Mayor Muriel Bowser. [“Bimbo #2”] Bondi also ordering more compliance between local police and federal immigration authorities.

Democrats have criticized the takeover as an overreach, with members of Congress asking for a resolution to terminate the “crime emergency” that was declared by the Trump administration.

“President Trump’s incursions against D.C. are among the most egregious attacks on D.C. home rule in decades. D.C. residents are Americans, worthy of the same autonomy granted to residents of the states,” Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents D.C. as a delegate, said in a statement.

“Our local police force, paid for by D.C. residents, should not be subject to federalization, an action that wouldn’t be possible for any other police department in the country. No emergency exists in D.C. that the president did not create himself, and he is not using the D.C. Police for federal purposes, as required by law,” she added.

Meanwhile, the White House blasted the resolution, as the Trump administration said the intention is to lower crime in the capital city.

“But instead of supporting what should be a bipartisan measure to Make DC Safe Again, Democrats are burying their heads in the sand, denying there is a problem, and carrying the torch for dangerous criminals that terrorize DC communities,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital.

“D.C. residents know the reality on the ground – crime was out of control and President Trump’s actions are making the city safer. The left’s refusal to support widely popular issues with the American public – like stopping violent crime – are why their approval ratings are at historic lows and will continue to tank,” she added. 

The city is suing over the action, arguing that it hinders the ability of the district to self-govern.

“We are suing to block the federal government takeover of D.C. police. By illegally declaring a takeover of MPD, the Administration is abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law. This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it,” D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb posted to X on Friday. 

“The federal government’s power over DC is not absolute, and it should not be exercised as such. Section 740 of the Home Rule Act permits the President to request MPD’s services. But it can only be done temporarily, for special emergencies, and solely for federal purposes,” he added.

Protesters confront officers patrolling DC streets after Trump policing takeover

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/protesters-confront-officers-patrolling-dc-streets-after-trump-policing-takeover/ar-AA1KDzdC

The Hill: [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi ramps up pressure on 32 ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’: Who’s on the list?

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Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi said Thursday she was ramping up pressure on 32 “sanctuary jurisdictions,” urging them to comply with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

“I just sent Sanctuary City letters to 32 mayors around the country and multiple governors saying, you better be abiding by our federal policies and with our federal law enforcement, because if you aren’t, we’re going to come after you,” she told a Fox News reporter. 

“And they have, I think, a week to respond to me, so let’s see who responds and how they respond. It starts at the top, and our leaders have to support our law enforcement,” she added. 

The measure comes after an Aug. 5 release from the Justice Department highlighting various states, cities and counties deemed noncompliant with regulations that impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.

“For too long, so-called sanctuary jurisdiction policies have undermined this necessary cooperation and obstructed federal immigration enforcement, giving aliens cover to perpetrate crimes in our communities and evade the immigration consequences that federal law requires,” [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi wrote in the letter to officials across the country. 

“Any sanctuary jurisdiction that continues to put illegal aliens ahead of American citizens can either come to the table or see us in court,” [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi wrote in a post announcing the move. 

She cited a late April executive order from President Trump as legal grounds for the push. 

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for the 32 jurisdictions that received letters from [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi. 

The below jurisdictions received a letter from the Department of Justice on Aug. 5:

States:

  • California
  • Colorado
  • Connecticut
  • Delaware
  • Illinois
  • Minnesota
  • Nevada
  • New York
  • Oregon
  • Rhode Island
  • Vermont
  • Washington

Counties:

  • Baltimore County, Md.
  • Cook County, Ill.
  • San Diego County, Calif.
  • San Francisco County, Calif.

Cities:

  • Albuquerque, N.M.
  • Berkeley, Calif.
  • Boston
  • Chicago
  • Denver
  • District of Columbia
  • East Lansing, Mich.
  • Hoboken, N.J.
  • Jersey City, N.J.
  • Los Angeles
  • New Orleans
  • New York City
  • Newark, N.J.
  • Paterson, N.J.
  • Philadelphia
  • Portland, Ore.
  • Rochester, N.Y.
  • Seattle
  • San Francisco City

Pam Bimbo #3 Bondi is one of the stupidest women on Earth. Despite already losing a couple such cases on well-established Tenth Amendment grounds, she is now threatening to replicate her failures in 12 states, 4 counties, and 19 cities. When God passed out brains, Pam Bimbo #3 Bondi must have been hanging out near the manure spreader.

The bottom line is that the federal government can’t compel state and local governments to do its bidding. If the state and local governments don’t wish to comply or assist, the federal government must do its own dirty work.

Bondi ramps up pressure on 32 ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’: Who’s on the list?

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5454204-bondi-immigration-enforcement-urge

The State: Child with stage 4 cancer deported by ICE despite being US citizen, lawsuit says

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A 4-year-old boy’s ongoing care for stage 4 kidney cancer was interrupted when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers illegally deported him, his sister and mother “without even a semblance of due process,” attorneys for the family say.

Though they are U.S. citizens and were born Louisiana, the boy and his 7-year-old sister were deported to Honduras along with their 25-year-old mother, who is a Honduran citizen, on April 25, according to a federal lawsuit filed in the Middle District of Louisiana on July 31. The filing uses pseudonyms for the family, referring to the brother and sister as Romeo and Ruby and their mother as Rosario.

Before their deportations, Romeo, now 5, was receiving “life-saving” treatment at a New Orleans children’s hospital for his “rare and aggressive form” of cancer, following his diagnosis at age 2, a complaint says.

“As a direct consequence of ICE’s unlawful conduct, Romeo was deprived of much-needed continuity in his treatment, and he has faced substantial health risks due to his inability to access emergency specialized care and the routine critical oncological care that was available to him in the United States,” his family’s attorneys wrote in the complaint.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Romeo and his family, as well as a second family also wrongly deported by ICE under similar circumstances on April 25, according to the National Immigration Project, Gibson Dunn, Most & Associates, and Ware Immigration, groups representing the case.

The second family includes Julia, 30, a mother from Honduras. She has two daughters, Jade, 2, a U.S. citizen born in Baton Rouge, and Janelle, 11, also a Honduran citizen. Those names are also pseudonyms.

The same week of both families’ deportations, Rosario and Julia separately went to what they thought were supposed to be “regularly scheduled check-ins” with an ICE contractor.

However, officers with ICE apprehended both women and their children “in hotel rooms” in secret, the National Immigration Project said in a July 31 news release.

ICE “denied them the opportunity to speak to family and make decisions about or arrangements for their minor children, denied them access to counsel, and deported them within less than a day in one case and just over 2 days in the other,” the advocacy organization said.

According to the lawsuit, ICE did not let Rosario or Julia decide whether they wanted their children to come with them to Honduras or to make arrangements for them to stay in the U.S. with other loved ones.

“Given Romeo’s cancer and specialized medical needs, Rosario wanted both of her U.S. citizen children to remain in the United States,” the complaint says.

DHS, however, maintains both women wanted their children with them.

In response to McClatchy News’ request for comment for DHS and ICE on Aug. 11, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that “the media and Democrat politicians are force-feeding the public false information that U.S. citizen children are being deported. This is false and irresponsible.”

“Rather than separate their families, ICE asked the mothers if they wanted to be removed with their children or if they wanted ICE to place the children with someone safe the parent designates,” McLaughlin added. “The parents in this instance made the determination to take their children with them back to Honduras.”

The lawsuit has been brought against Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE and ICE Director Todd Lyons, as well as New Orleans ICE Field Office Director Brian Acuna, the office’s Assistant Field Office Director Scott Ladwig and the office’s former director, Mellissa Harper.

Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre declined to comment.

‘Detained and deported U.S. citizens’

After being deported in April, Rosario said in a statement shared in National Immigration Project’s news release that life in Hondorus has been “incredibly hard.”

“I don’t have the resources to care for my children the way they need,” Rosario said.

The morning of April 25, ICE officers are accused of waking Rosario, Romeo and Ruby and forcing them into a van.

They drove them to an airport in the Alexandria area and had them flown to Honduras, the lawsuit says.

With her son still in need of specialized treatment for his cancer, which had spread to his lungs, she has to send Romeo “back and forth” from Honduras to the U.S. for care, without her, according to the complaint.

“Even though she has very limited financial resources, Rosario has already had to pay for flights and travel companions to enable her children to return to the United States for Romeo’s necessary medical appointments,” the complaint says.

Romeo, whose health has worsened, has been temporarily staying in the U.S. for cancer treatment, according to the filing.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that ICE wrongly arrested, detained and deported Rosario, Romeo and Ruby, as well as Julia, Jade and Janelle, in violation of their constitutional rights.

“This whole situation has been incredibly stressful,” Julia, who is married to a U.S. citizen, the father of her daughters, said in a statement shared by the National Immigration Project.

“Returning to Honduras has meant leaving my husband behind, and that’s been very hard,” she added.

In a statement to McClatchy News, National Immigration Project attorney Stephanie Alvarez-Jones said “ICE put these families through a series of incredibly traumatizing experiences, taking actions that are completely shocking from a human perspective and illegal even by ICE’s own standards.”

“ICE denied these families the fundamental opportunity to make meaningful choices about the care and custody of their children, and detained and deported U.S. citizens in flagrant violation of its own policy and the law,” Alvarez-Jones added.

The families are seeking an unspecified amount in damages and demand a jury trial.

Child with stage 4 cancer deported by ICE despite being US citizen, lawsuit says

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/child-with-stage-4-cancer-deported-by-ice-despite-being-us-citizen-lawsuit-says/ar-AA1Knodq

Alternet: Trump’s worst crimes and destructions haven’t even happened yet | Opinion

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The worst crimes of Donald Trump and dangers to America from the unstable, monomaniacal, lying outlaw in the White House have yet to come. He is not satisfied with tearing apart our country’s social safety net for tens of millions of Americans (e.g., Medicaid and food program cuts); wrecking our scientific/medical systems, including warning people about pandemics. He is, by wrecking FEMA et al, failing to address the impact of mega-storms, wildfires, and droughts; and allowing cybersecurity threats to increase while giving harm-producing big corporations immunities from the law, more subsidies, and more tax escapes. Recall how he always adds to his attacks on powerless people that “This is just the beginning.”

He just took the next step in his march to madness and mayhem by announcing more concentration camps holding immigrants, arrested without due process, for deportation to foreign countries that want U.S. taxpayer cash for each deportee.

Recent immigrants are crucial to millions of small and large businesses. Consider who harvests our crops, cares for our children and the elderly, cleans up after us, and works the food processing plants and construction sites. Already, businesses are reducing or closing their enterprises – a political peril for Dangerous Donald.

If all immigrants to the U.S. from the last ten years, documented and undocumented, went on strike, our country would almost shut down. Yet Trump, who hired 500 undocumented workers for just one of his construction sites in New York, and had similar laborers at his New Jersey golf course, promises deportations of millions more.

Always bear in mind the self-defined characteristics of corporatist Trump’s feverish, hateful, outlaw mind: (1) He has declared he “can do whatever he wants as President,” proving his serial violations of law and illegal dictates every day; (2) He always doubles down when indicted, convicted, caught, or exposed, falsely accusing his accusers of the exact transgressions they are reliably charging him with; (3) He brags about lashing out at criticism with foul defamatory invectives; (4) He never admits his disastrous mistake; (5) He boasts that he knows more than leading experts in a dozen major areas of knowledge (see, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All”); and (6) He asserts that every action, policy, or program he launches is a spectacular success – the facts to the contrary are dismissed.He is gravely delusional, replaces realities with fantasies, breaks promises that are made to defer any reckoning or accountability, and, like an imaginary King, finds no problem with saying “I rule America and the world.”

His ego defines his reactions, which is why every foreign leader is advised to flatter him. Nobody flatters better than the cunning genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu, who at his last regal White House dinner, held up his nomination of convicted felon, woman abuser, Trump for the Nobel Prize. Netanyahu’s preening comes from a politician whose regime has dossiers on Trump regarding his past personal and business behavior. This helps explain why Trump is letting the Israeli government do whatever it wants in its Gaza Holocaust, the West Bank, and beyond with our tax dollars, family-killing weaponry, and political/diplomatic cover.

The approaching greater dangers from Trump will come when he pushes his lawless, dictatorial envelope so far, so furiously, so outrageously, that it turns his GOP valets in Congress and the GOP-dominated U.S. Supreme Court against him. Add plunging polls, a stagflation economy, and impeachment, and removal from office would become a political necessity for the GOP in 2026 and beyond. In 1974, the far lesser Watergate transgressions by President Richard Nixon resulted in Republican Senators’ demanding Tricky Dick’s resignation from office.

Further provocations are not far-fetched. Firing Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, sinking the dollar, and angering the fearful, but very powerful bankers are all on the horizon. Will the sex-trafficking charges involving Jeffrey Epstein and vile abuses of young girls finally be too much for his evangelical base, as well as for many MAGA voters? This issue is already starting to fissure his MAGA base and the GOP iron curtain in Congress. Subpoenas have just been issued to the Justice Department by the GOP Chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky – a close friend of Senator Mitch McConnell.

There is always SERENDIPITY. Trump, the mercurial egomaniac, offers old and new transgressions to stoke the calls for his impeachment. Does anyone believe that Trump would not start a military conflict, subjecting U.S. soldiers to harm, to distract attention from heavy media coverage of unravelling corruption investigations? Draft-dodging Donald has Pete Hegseth, his knee-jerk Secretary of Defense, waiting to do his lethal bidding, despite possible opposition from career military.

If Trump were to be impeached and removed from office, would he try to stay in office? Here is where a real constitutional explosion can occur. He would have to be escorted from the White House by U.S. Marshals who are under the direction of toady Attorney General Pam Bondi. The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution grants “the sole Power” to try impeachments in the Senate and nowhere else. Thus, the courts would provide no remedy to a lawless president wanting to stay in power.

Then what? The country falls into extreme turmoil. The Defense Department, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security are in the Trump Dump. Tyrant Trump can declare a major national emergency, invoke the Insurrection Act, and hurl these armed forces and police state muscle against a defenseless Congress and populace. (Recall the January 6, 2021, assault on Congress.) The abyss would have been breached.

With our society in a catastrophic convulsion, the economy collapsing, what would be the next steps? Like the Pentagon that anticipates worst-case domestic scenarios on possible violent “blowbacks” against U.S. military actions abroad, Americans should start thinking about the unthinkable. Such foreshadowings may make us far more determined NOW to thwart, stop, and repeal the fascist dictatorship which Der Führer Donald Trump is rooting ever more deeply every day. Little restraint on lawless Trump from the Congress and the Supreme Court, and only feeble, cowardly responses by the flailing Democratic Party (and the Bar Associations for that matter) thus far, make for the specter of violent anarchy and terror.

Trump has fatalistic traits. Armageddon shapes his ultimate worldview. Ponder that for a dictator with his finger on more than the nuclear trigger.

Again, Aristotle got it right over 2300 years ago, “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”

Trump’s worst crimes and destructions haven’t even happened yet | Opinion

https://www.alternet.org/trump-s-worst-crimes-and-destructions-haven-t-even-happened-yet

The Atlantic: The President’s Police State

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Trump is delivering the authoritarian government his party once warned about.

For years, prominent voices on the right argued that Democrats were enacting a police state. They labeled everything—a report on homegrown extremism, IRS investigations into nonprofits—a sign of impending authoritarianism. Measures taken by state governments to combat the spread of COVID? Tyranny. An FBI search of Mar-a-Lago? The weaponization of law enforcement.

Now that a president is actually sending federal troops and officers out into the streets of the nation’s cities, however, the right is in lockstep behind him. This morning, Donald Trump announced that he was declaring a crime emergency, temporarily seizing control of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department and deploying the D.C. National Guard to the nation’s capital.

“This is liberation day in D.C.,” Trump said. Nothing says liberation like deploying hundreds of uniformed soldiers against the wishes of the local elected government. District residents have made clear that they would prefer greater autonomy, including congressional representation, and they have three times voted overwhelmingly against Trump. His response is not just to flex power but to treat the District of Columbia as the president’s personal fiefdom.

Trump’s move is based on out-of-date statistics. It places two officials without municipal policing experience in positions of power over federalization and the MPD, and seems unlikely to significantly affect crime rates. What the White House hopes it might achieve, Politicoreports, is “a quick, visually friendly PR win.” Trump needs that after more than a month of trying and failing to change the subject from his onetime friend Jeffrey Epstein.

But what this PR stunt could also do is create precedent for Trump to send armed forces out into American streets whenever he declares a spurious state of emergency. Some of Trump’s supporters don’t seem to mind that fact: “Trump has the opportunity to do a Bukele-style crackdown on DC crime,” Christopher Rufo, the influential conservative personality, posted on X, referring to Nayib Bukele, the Trump ally who is president of El Salvador. “Question is whether he has the will, and whether the public the stomach. Big test: Can he reduce crime faster than the Left advances a counternarrative about ‘authoritarianism’? If yes, he wins. Speed matters.”

Rufo seems to view everything in terms of a political battle to be won via narratives; the term authoritarianism appears to mean nothing to him, and maybe it never meant anything to others on the right who assailed Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Democratic governors. It does have a real meaning, though, and Bukele is its poster boy. Despite the constitution having banned it, he ran for a second term in office; his party then changed the constitution to allow “indefinite” reelection. Lawmakers in his party also brazenly removed supreme-court justices, and his government has forced journalists into exile and locked up tens of thousands of people without due process. This is apparently the America that Chris Rufo wants.

To justify the crackdown, Trump has cited an alleged carjacking attempt that police records say injured the former DOGE employee Edward “Big Balls” Coristine. But MPD has already arrested two Maryland 15-year-olds for unarmed carjacking. That’s good news. Carjacking is a serious crime and should be punished. But Trump has used the incident to claim that violent crime is skyrocketing in Washington. This is, put simply, nonsense. During a press conference today, Trump cited murder statistics from 2023, and said that carjackings had “more than tripled” over the past five years. He didn’t use more recent numbers because they show that these crimes are down significantly in Washington. Murder dropped 32 percent from 2023 to 2024, robberies 39 percent, and armed carjackings 53 percent. This is in line with a broad national reduction in crime. MPD’s preliminary data indicate that violent crime is down another 26 percent so far this year compared with the same timeframe in 2024, though as the crime-statistics analyst Jeff Asher writes, this drop is probably overstated.

Trump’s descriptions of Washington as a lawless hellscape bear little resemblance to what most residents experience. Not only is D.C. not “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World,” as Trump claims, but his prescription seems unlikely to help. He said he is appointing Attorney General Pam Bondi and Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, to help lead the federalization effort and MPD, but neither has any experience with municipal policing. They have not said what they will do differently. If the administration deploys its forces to high-profile areas such as the National Mall, they won’t have much impact on violent crime, because that’s not where it happens; if they go to less central areas with higher crime rates, they won’t get the PR boost they seek, because tourists and news cameras aren’t there.

Throughout his two presidencies, Trump has treated the military as a prop for making statements about which issues he cares about—and which he doesn’t. He deployed the D.C. National Guard during protests after the murder of George Floyd in summer 2020. Earlier this summer, he federalized the California National Guard and sent Marines to Los Angeles to assist with immigration enforcement, but they were sent home when it became clear that they had nothing to do there. Yet according to testimony before the January 6 panel, Trump did not deploy the D.C. National Guard when an armed mob was sacking the U.S. Capitol in 2021 to try to help Trump hold on to power.

Good policing is important because citizens deserve the right to live in safety. Recent drops in crime in Washington are good news because the district’s residents should be able to feel safe. But Trump’s militarization of the city, his seizure of local police, and his lies about crime in Washington do the opposite: They are a way to make people feel unsafe, and either quiet residents’ dissent or make them support new presidential power grabs. Many of Trump’s defenders are angry when he’s called an authoritarian, but not when he acts as one.

The President’s Police State
Trump is delivering the authoritarian government his party once warned about.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/08/trump-national-guard-dc/683839

CNN: Attorney General [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi orders prosecutors to start grand jury probe into Obama officials over Russia investigation

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Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi directed federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation into accusations that members of the Obama administration manufactured intelligence about Russia’s 2016 election interference, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

A grand jury would be able to issue subpoenas as part of a criminal investigation into renewed allegations that Democratic officials tried to smear Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign by falsely alleging his campaign was colluding with the Russian government. It could also consider an indictment should the Justice Department decide to pursue a criminal case.

The move follows a referral from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who declassified documents in July that she alleges undermine the Obama administration’s conclusion that Russia tried to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

Gabbard requested that the Justice Department investigate former President Barack Obama and top officials in his administration for an alleged conspiracy.

Soon after Gabbard’s referral, [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi announced that the DOJ was creating a “strike force” to assess the evidence released by Gabbard and “investigate potential next legal steps which might stem from DNI Gabbard’s disclosures.”

The Justice Department declined to comment.

CNN has reported that the allegations from Gabbard misrepresent what the intelligence community concluded over Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election.

While Gabbard insisted the Russian goal in 2016 was to sow distrust in American democracy and not to help Trump, the unsealed documents don’t undercut or alter the US government’s core findings in 2017 that Russia launched a campaign of influence and hacking and sought to help Clinton lose.

Fox News first reported [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s grand jury request.

Department of Justice under King Donald and Bimbo #3 Bondi = Ministry of Personal Retaliation

Attorney General Bondi orders prosecutors to start grand jury probe into Obama officials over Russia investigation | CNN Politics
Attorney General Pam Bondi directed federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation into accusations that members of the Obama administration manufactured intelligence about Russia’s 2016 election interference, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/04/politics/justice-department-russia-grand-jury

Law & Crime: ‘It violates my order’: Federal judge calls out DOJ for making ‘completely novel’ pro-Alina [“Bimbo #4”] Habba argument he specifically didn’t want to hear yet

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Though he refused to dismiss a drug-trafficking indictment, a federal judge said he wants to hear more about whether U.S. Attorney General Pam [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi unlawfully reappointed acting U.S. Attorney Alina [“Bimbo #4”] Habba to her role, opening the door to scrutiny of the Trump administration’s method of apparently sidestepping a court and the U.S. Senate’s blocking of certain nominations.

Chief U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Matthew Brann, sitting by designation in the criminal cases of Julien Giraud Jr. and Julien Giraud III after the New Jersey district court declined to appoint [“Bimbo #4”] Habba itself upon the expiration of her 120-day acting limit, decided Friday that the Girauds were “not entitled to dismissal.” At the same time, the defendants made a persuasive enough case for “additional argument regarding the legality of Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s appointment” and the authority of the assistant U.S. attorneys under her command or supervision.

“I begin with dismissal of the indictment, which I conclude is not available, and then turn to injunctions against Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba and anyone acting under her authority, which I conclude would be appropriate if the Girauds prevail on the merits,” the judge wrote.

Regarding dismissal, Brann determined that the Girauds could not credibly argue their indictment, obtained through the Senate-confirmed then-U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger, is “somehow retroactively taint[ed]” by Habba’s appointment, whether or not that was lawful.

But the Girauds can still make their best pitch for blocking Habba, and her assistants, from prosecuting them going forward.

“The Girauds argue in the alternative that Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba should be enjoined from prosecuting their case, and that any AUSAs acting under her supervision be similarly barred. As discussed in the previous section, the Court generally agrees that this remedy would be the appropriate response to the constitutional and statutory violations the Girauds claim,” the judge wrote. “This relief raises two questions: (1) can the Court bar Ms. [“Bimbo #4”] Habba from participating in the Girauds’ prosecution, and (2) does a bar on Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s participation extend to AUSAs?”

“As to the first question, I conclude that the answer is yes,” Brann added.

The answer to the second question, about [“Bimbo #4”] Habba’s AUSAs, was more nuanced. Brann indicated he would not go so far as to block the whole office from prosecuting, but that he could when these prosecutors “do so under Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s authority” — again, if her reappointment was illegal.

“To be clear, the Court is not suggesting that it might impose the ‘officewide disqualification’ the Government fears,” the judge said. “Instead, the Court agrees that a valid remedy for the violations the Girauds’ assert, if I find that they occurred, may be to bar AUSAs from engaging in prosecutions when they do so under Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s authority.”

The line prosecutors or a higher-up DOJ official could still legally come to court under AG [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s authority, with [“Bimbo #4”] Habba in effect recusing herself and not putting her name and title on any filings, Brann said.

“The Court sees no reason why AUSAs acting directly under the delegated authority of Ms. [“Bimbo #3″] Bondi, or possibly another Department of Justice official with sufficient authority to extend Ms. Bondi’s powers to AUSAs in New Jersey, would need to be disqualified,” he explained. “Moreover, so long as it is clear that they are acting under Ms. [“Bimbo #3”] Bondi’s—and not Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba’s—authority (essentially a temporary recusal until this matter is resolved), there would appear to be no issue with all of District of New Jersey’s AUSAs moving prosecutions forward now.”

Along the way, even as the judge blasted as “misplaced” the Girauds’ challenge of Habba’s authority for relying on U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s Appointments Clause-based dismissal of special counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago prosecution of Trump, Brann also had some stern words for the DOJ.

The judge noted that he had ordered both the defendants and the DOJ to submit briefs under the assumption that [“Bimbo #4”] Habba was unlawfully appointed, yet the DOJ included an argument that said [“Bimbo #4”] Habba was lawfully appointed one way or another.

Recall that in order to keep [“Bimbo #4”] Habba as acting U.S. attorney Trump pulled her nomination. [“Bimbo #4”] Habba resigned before her acting 120-day stint technically expired and before her first assistant Desiree Leigh Grace’s appointment by court as U.S. attorney became effective.

[“Bimbo #3”] Bondi promptly fired Grace and then reinstalled Habba, citing the Federal Vacancies Reform Act when naming Habba first assistant in the U.S. attorney’s office. At the same time, just in case anyone questioned that legal authority, Habba was named a “Special Attorney to the United States Attorney General” under a federal statute governing the commission of special attorneys, giving her the power to act as a U.S. attorney through another means.

Brann said the DOJ violated his order by citing the latter authority in support of [“Bimbo #4”] Habba, putting the proverbial “cart before the horse.”

“The Government’s argument to the contrary puts the cart before the horse. It argues that no remedy is available to the Girauds by simply rejecting the premise—which I ordered them to assume—that Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba has been illegally appointed, instead contending that she is legally exercising the powers of the United States Attorney through a delegation of the Attorney General’s power to conduct and supervise ‘all litigation to which the United States . . . is a party’ as a ‘Special Attorney’ or in her role as the First Assistant United States Attorney,” he wrote.

“But that is explicitly a merits argument: the Girauds are only entitled to no remedy if the Court finds that Ms. [“Bimbo #4”] Habba’s appointment as a Special Attorney is valid or that Ms. [“Bimbo #3″] Bondi can delegate a First Assistant a level of authority commensurate with the United States Attorney’s,” Brann continued. “Because it violates my Order, I do not consider the argument at this stage.”

The judge added that the DOJ’s maneuvering has “extreme implications that it openly embraces,” making a full briefing and oral argument on the “completely novel question” appropriate.

“[B]y using the Special Attorney designation and delegation, Ms. [“Bimbo #4″] Habba may exercise all of the powers of the United States Attorney without being subject to any of the statutory limitations on that office,” Brann wrote, summarizing the DOJ’s argument. “Whether the Attorney General may statutorily or constitutionally delegate all of the powers of a specific office created by separate statute and constrained by its own statutory limitations in order to evade those limitations is a completely novel question, and one that inherently implicates the Appointments Clause and thus the merits of the Girauds’ motion. I defer resolving it until it has been fully briefed.”

Federal judge dings DOJ for making pro-Alina Habba argument he specifically didn’t want to hear
Though he refused to dismiss an indictment, a judge said he wants to hear more about whether Pam Bondi unlawfully reappointed acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba.
‘It violates my order’: Federal judge calls out DOJ for making ‘completely novel’ pro-Alina Habba argument he specifically didn’t want to hear yet