Slingshot News: ‘I Thought You Said Sabbath’: When Trump Put His Cognitive Decline On Full Display During Remarks At Economic Summit In Miami
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Rolling Stone: Trump Threatens Criminal Charges Against Top Democratic Donor
The president says Hungarian billionaire George Soros “should be charged”
President Donald Trump is continuing to transform the Justice Department into a tool for vengeance against his political enemies, including billionaire philanthropist and Democratic donor George Soros.
“George Soros, and his wonderful Radical Left son, should be charged with RICO because of their support of Violent Protests, and much more, all throughout the United States of America,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social, referencing conspiracy theories claiming that Soros and his philanthropic group, the Open Society Foundation, pay money to and supply violent protesters.
“We’re not going to allow these lunatics to rip apart America any more, never giving it so much as a chance to ‘BREATHE,’ and be FREE. Soros, and his group of psychopaths, have caused great damage to our Country! That includes his Crazy, West Coast friends. Be careful, we’re watching you!” Trump added.
Soros has long been a boogeyman for right wingers, who have — for decades at this point — made the Jewish investor the centerpiece of antisemitic conspiracy theories, as well as other conspiracies claiming his financial support of pro-Democracy organizations is actually part of an effort to destroy “western civilization.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, The Open Society Foundation wrote that “these accusations are outrageous and false. The Open Society Foundations do not support or fund violent protests. Our mission is to advance human rights, justice, and democratic principles at home and around the world.”
“We stand for fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, including the rights to free speech and peaceful protest that are hallmarks of any vibrant democracy,” the organization added.
In the early months of Trump’s second administration, and especially in recent weeks, the Justice Department and other federal agencies have been weaponized to go after people Trump perceives as enemies, and critics of his political project.
Last week, the FBI raided the home of former national security adviser John Bolton, who has been a public critic of the president since his departure from Trump’s first administration. Last month, the Department of Justice announced that it would launch a “strike force” to investigate former President Barack Obama, and placed New York Attorney General Letitia James — who successfully prosecuted Trump and his company — under investigation. The Justice Department is also probing Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who led the first impeachment of Trump during his first term. The investigations into both James and Schiff center around potential mortgage fraud.
During a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump denied he is weaponizing the government by, as a reporter put it to him, “digging into the mortgage records of officials you don’t like.” Trump responded by saying that the reporter should be the one doing the digging before quickly moving onto a different question.
During the same Cabinet meeting, Trump for the second straight day mused to reporters about the American people wanting a dictator. “I’m not a dictator, I just know how to stop crime,” Trump claimed.
But while Trump may claim he’s not an authoritarian, the way he’s transformed agencies intended to serve the public into his personal attack dogs has all the hallmarks of fascism.
Trump Threatens Criminal Charges Against Top Democratic Donor
President Donald Trump said billionaire Democratic donor George Soros should face RICO charges.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-threatens-charges-george-soros-1235416539
Newsweek: Donald Trump Nobel Peace Prize comment raises eyebrows
Acomment suggesting President Donald Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize has raised eyebrows.
Social media users have reacted to Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, suggesting that the president has been overlooked for the prestigious award.
Why It Matters
Since 2018, Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which recognizes an individual or organization that has managed to “advance fellowship between nations,” multiple times but has not won.
Only four U.S. presidents have won the award, which is among the world’s most prominent international honors. President Barack Obama received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, eight months into his presidency—a move Donald Trump Jr. described as “affirmative action.”
In the past few months, Trump and his allies have argued in support of the president’s worthiness as a candidate, citing foreign policy interventions his administration has been involved in.
What To Know
Speaking at a Cabinet meeting, Witkoff said: “There’s only one thing I wish for—that the Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since this Nobel award was ever talked about. Your success is game-changing out in the world today, and I hope everybody wakes up and realizes that.”
Several campaign groups and figures responded negatively to Witkoff’s comments.
The X account Republicans Against Trump wrote, “Nobel Peace Prize for what exactly?”
Call to Activism, a progressive political account, called the applause that followed Witkoff’s comments “North Korea-style” and “terrifying.”
User Alok Bhatt told 91,000 followers, “It is astonishing to see the great American empire crumble before our eyes—brick by brick, piece by piece.”
User Ron Smith, a self-described “proud Democrat,” wrote, “Hard to believe this is not a North Korean cabinet.”
What People Are Saying
Mark Shanahan, who teaches American politics at the University of Surrey in the U.K., told Newsweek: “The Trump Cabinet is an exercise in obsequious forelock tugging where each member aims to outdo the rest in fawning flattery at the feet of the president. For all his talk, Donald Trump has done little to end the cruelly attritional war in Ukraine following Putin’s invasion, while he continues to support Netanyahu’s total war in Gaza.
“Nobel seeks to support fraternity between nations. With his America First policies, 47 is the antithesis of this.”
President Donald Trump complained about the prize on Truth Social in June: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a July news briefing: “It is well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Representative Claudia Tenney, a Republican from New York, wrote on X in June: “I’ve officially nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize twice! He has done more for world peace than any modern leader.”
What Happens Next
The deadline to nominate candidates for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize passed on January 31. Nobel Prize laureates are scheduled to be announced on October 10, with an award ceremony following on December 10 in Oslo, Norway.
Donald Trump Nobel Peace Prize comment raises eyebrows
Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, said Trump was “the single finest candidate” for the illustrious prize.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-nobel-peace-prize-steve-witkoff-2119969
NBC News: Former Trump lawyer Alina [“Bimbo #4”] Habba’s appointment as U.S. attorney for New Jersey was ‘unlawful,’ judge rules
The federal judge found that Habba “unlawfully held the role” of the state’s top prosecutor for more than a month.
A federal judge on Thursday found that acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba’s appointment was “unlawful” and her actions since July as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey may be declared void.
“The Executive branch has perpetuated Alina Habba’s appointment to act as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey through a novel series of legal and personnel moves,” U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann wrote in a 77-page ruling.
“Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not,” Brann added.
Because the former Trump lawyer is “not currently qualified to exercise the functions and duties of the office in an acting capacity, she must be disqualified from participating in any ongoing cases,” the judge wrote.
Brann said his order is on hold pending appellate proceedings, meaning it will not take immediate effect to allow the Trump administration time to appeal the decision.
In his ruling, Brann cited numerous issues with how Habba was appointed. She was initially named interim U.S. attorney by President Donald Trump on March 24, replacing another person who’d been named interim U.S. attorney three weeks earlier.
Habba was sworn in on March 28, but interim appointments are capped at 120 days. Trump nominated her to be the permanent U.S. attorney on June 30, but the “Senate did not act,” Brann noted.
On July 22, the judges of the District Court of New Jersey invoked their statutory power to appoint a new U.S. attorney — Habba’s deputy.
“Trump Administration officials were not pleased with that appointment,” Brann noted, and “conceived a multi-step maneuver” to keep Habba on the job.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Habba’s successor and appointed Habba as “Special Attorney to the Attorney General” and then named her to the opened deputy spot, which allowed her to become acting U.S. Attorney.
Brann found the moves were improper, and a way to sidestep the Senate’s role in the process. He also found that Habba hadn’t legally been appointed deputy, and that her appointment as interim U.S. attorney expired earlier than the government maintains it did.
The challenge to Habba’s appointment came from two criminal defendants, and the judge found she was disqualified from having any involvement with their cases.
Abbe Lowell and Gerald Krovatin, the attorneys for one of the men, said in a statement that Habba’s “appointment ignored the rules that give legitimacy to the U.S. Attorney’s office. We appreciate the thoroughness of the court’s opinion, and its decision underscores that this Administration cannot circumvent the congressionally mandated process for confirming U.S. Attorney appointments.”
The Justice Department and New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Brann, a Republican who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, is chief judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and was specially designated to hear the case.
The ruling comes on a day when Habba scored a huge legal victory dating back to her time representing Trump — an appeals court dismissed the New York attorney general’s $500 million fraud judgment against the president.
Habba, who’d been one of the attorneys on the case, posted about the ruling on X earlier in the day, calling the fraud action against him “politically motivated” and “legally baseless.”
“President Trump won — and justice won with him,” she wrote.
Rolling Stone: Trump Absurdly Blames Obama for ‘Giving’ Ukrainian Land to Russia
Trump met with Ukraine’s president and European leaders on Monday, but his mind is fixed on Vladimir Putin
President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Monday in a follow up to last week’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. While the back-to-back, high-stakes meetings between the warring leaders and their regional partners are aimed at finally bringing in an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine, Trump can’t seem to stop undermining the delicate negotiations by publicly parroting Kremlin talking points.
In a Tuesday morning interview with Fox News, Trump falsely claimed that Putin and Russia had “gotten” Crimea “from Obama,” describing Russia’s annexation of the territory as a “real estate deal.” Crimea, a peninsula in the north of the Black Sea, was invaded and occupied by Russia in 2014.
“The war started over NATO and Crimea and they wanted Crimea back,” Trump said. “That was given — not a shot fired —- by President Obama in perhaps the worst real estate deal I’ve ever seen.”
“Crimea is the apple of Ukraine, it is so beautiful. And Obama gave it away. … He demanded they let it go, Russia took it like candy from a baby. It was really Obama’s, that was pure and simple Obama’s fault, what a terrible thing,” Trump added.
In the same interview, Trump declared that it was “insulting” that Ukraine — which has now been invaded by Russia twice in little more than a decade — had sought to join NATO. “They asked for it and shouldn’t have asked for it. It was insulting,” Trump said. “They could have asked for other things — the other thing they wanted to get Crimea back.”
Trump later insinuated that it was actually Ukraine that had instigated the current war against Russia, telling Fox and Friends that “you don’t take on a nation that is 10 times your size and military experts.” It was, of course, Russia that invaded Ukraine in February 2022, kicking off the war that has now raged for over three years.
Trump rolled out the literal red carpet to receive Putin in Alaska on Friday, even granting the Russian authoritarian a ride in the presidential limousine — an unprecedented honor rarely granted to foreign dignitaries, much less internationally wanted war criminals.
Judging by Trump’s statements following the summit, Putin spent much of their private discussions stroking the president’s ego. On Friday, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Putin had reassured him that it was actually widespread mail-in voter fraud that had cost him the 2020 election.
“Vladimir Putin said something — one of the most interesting things — he said, ‘your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting,’” Trump recounted. “He said … ‘it’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.” Days later, Trump announced that he would seek to eliminate mail-in voting at a national level, despite lacking the constitutional authority to make any such change to state voting laws.
According to a Monday report from Axios, Trump was so eager to talk to Putin again that he interrupted his meeting with European leaders to speak to the Russian president. According to subsequent reporting from The New York Times, the call lasted around 40 minutes.
Trump apparently left his European counterparts to talk among themselves for the better part of an hour, telling Fox News that it “would be disrespectful to president Putin,” to make the call in their presence.
“It was 1:00 in the morning in Russia,” Trump said. “But he picked it up very happily.”
Daily Beast: Gabbard’s Revenge Purge Immediately Runs Into a Major Problem
The Director of National Intelligence stripped more officials of their security clearances after Trump targeted his rivals.
Tulsi Gabbard may have broken the law by publicly identifying dozens of current and former officials while revoking their security clearances, according to a national security lawyer.
Gabbard revealed that 37 people have been targeted in the clearance purge ordered by President Trump, accusing them without evidence of “politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified intelligence without authorization, and/or committing intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards.”
Gabbard made the announcement—which comes after Trump stripped the security clearance of his political opponents—by posting a memo from her office on X. The list of 37 individuals targeted includes intelligence officials who concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, as well as those accused by far-right activist Laura Loomer of lacking loyalty to Trump, according to Axios.
Mark Zaid, an attorney who represents intelligence officers and who is suing the Trump administration to have his own stripped security clearance restored, suggested Gabbard may have landed herself in legal trouble by making the memo public.
“Can you say ‘Privacy Act violation’? I certainly can,” Zaid wrote in a post on X. “Further proof of weaponization and politicization. The vast majority of these individuals are not household names & are dedicated public servants who have worked across multiple presidential administrations.”
Zaid—who previously represented a whistleblower who accused Trump of attempting to extort Ukraine for dirt on former President Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election—told Axios that a person’s security clearance “is maintained in a protected Privacy Act System of records.”
He added the government “cannot simply release that information without written consent from the individual or the existence of a Routine Use, which I do not believe exists for this purpose.”
Those who lost clearances reportedly include officials who signed a letter supporting Trump’s first impeachment trial, when he was accused of threatening to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings ahead of the 2020 election.
Others were targeted online by Loomer, an extremist and conspiracy theorist who has taken credit for multiple people being removed from the Trump administration, citing reasons such as their prior service in the Obama or Biden administrations.
“Thank you, Tulsi! MORE SCALPS,” Loomer posted while sharing Gabbard’s memo.
In response to Zaid’s remarks, White House Spokesman Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast: “President Trump promised to end the weaponization of government against American citizens which is why Director Gabbard rightfully directed the revocation of 37 security clearances from current and former intelligence officials who abused their positions of public trust.”
The Trump administration has stripped numerous national security officials and political opponents of their clearances as part of the president’s campaign of retribution.
Those affected include Trump’s 2024 election rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris. New York Attorney General Letitia James—who prosecuted Trump for filing fraudulent financial filings for years—was also targeted, as was former president Joe Biden and his entire family.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Gabbard’s Revenge Purge Immediately Runs Into a Major Problem
The Director of National Intelligence stripped more officials of their security clearances after Trump targeted his rivals.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tulsi-gabbards-revenge-purge-immediately-runs-into-a-major-problem
Law & Crime: Judge shreds Trump admin for ‘nonsensical’ bid to terminate 28-year policy that protects immigrant children in federal custody
A federal judge in California has shot down an attempt by the Trump administration to scrub away the government’s 28-year-old Flores Settlement Agreement, which calls for court-mandated oversight on the treatment of immigrant children in federal custody.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee issued a 20-page order on Friday, keeping the 1997 agreement in place as Justice Department lawyers “fail to identify any new facts or law” that warrant its termination “at this time,” according to the Barack Obama appointee.
The administration had previously tried terminating the Flores agreement in 2019 at the end of Donald Trump‘s first term, but was unsuccessful then, too. Gee reportedly called a hearing last week on the matter “deja vu” as the government tried propping up similar arguments.
“The court remains unconvinced,” Gee wrote in Friday’s order. “There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law.”
Under the Flores Settlement Agreement, immigrant children must be held at “state-licensed” facilities — treated properly and humanely — before being released into the custody of family members or guardians “as expeditiously as possible,” per Gee’s order. The settlement is named after Jenny Lisette Flores, a 15-year-old detainee who sparked a class-action lawsuit to be filed in 1985.
The Trump administration recently argued that the Flores agreement was no longer needed because Congress had approved legislation to help deal with the issues the settlement addressed. It also claimed that government agencies had implemented practices and standards to ensure youths were being treated properly.
“The legal basis for the agreement has withered away,” DOJ lawyers argued in a May 22 motion for relief. “Congress enacted legislation protecting UACs [unaccompanied alien children], and the agencies promulgated detailed standards and regulations implementing that legislation and the terms of the FSA,” the lawyers said, blasting the agreement as an “intrusive regime” that has “ossified” federal immigration policy.
“The legal and policy landscape has also changed beyond recognition,” they added.
Gee noted Friday how she had heard this all before.
“These improvements are direct evidence that the FSA is serving its intended purpose, but to suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical,” the judge blasted.
“Incredulously, defendants posit that DHS need not promulgate regulations containing an expeditious release provision because ‘this Court has interpreted [expeditious release] to apply to accompanied children,'” Gee explained. “But ‘the FSA was intended to provide for prompt release of unaccompanied children.’ This is plainly incorrect and ignores the rulings of at least three separate courts.”
Gee concluded her order by saying it was ultimately the Trump administration that “continues to bind itself to the FSA by failing to fulfill its side of the parties’ bargain.”
Lawyers for immigrant children named in the class action complaint that spurred all this have said Trump’s second term has seen similar violations of the Flores agreement that have been alleged in the past.
“In CBP facilities across the country, including in cases documented by class counsel in New York, Maine, Illinois, Ohio, Arizona, Texas, and California, plaintiffs report being held for days and sometimes weeks in restrictive, traumatic conditions,” the lawyers said in a June 17 motion to enforce the FSA. One parent, whose allegations were included in the motion, described how they and their child were held at a facility where “the rooms have hard walls, like cement, and there is a window facing the hall but you cannot go out or see the sun,” per the motion.
“We are never allowed to go out,” the parent said. “The children keep telling us, ‘This is not America.’ They feel imprisoned and confused. They are seeing the sun for the first time in this interview room. They both ran to the window and stared out, and my son asked, ‘Is that America?'”
The plaintiffs’ lawyers accused the Trump administration of wanting to be released from the settlement “not because they have complied with and will continue to observe its fundamental principles, but because they want the flexibility to treat children however they wish,” according to the June motion.
DOJ officials did not respond to Law&Crime’s requests for comment Sunday.
Judge rips Trump admin for ‘nonsensical’ bid to shred care standards for migrant children
The Trump administration has failed to scrub away the government’s 28-year-old Flores Settlement Agreement, which calls for court-mandated oversight on the treatment of immigrant children.
The Atlantic: The President’s Police State
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
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
Newsweek: Justice Department Issues Birthright Citizenship Update
The U.S. Department of Justice has released an update confirming that it plans to ask the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump‘s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
The announcement was disclosed in a joint status report filed Wednesday, August 6, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
Why It Matters
The Justice Department’s plan to seek a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship—entitled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”—marks a critical juncture in the national debate over immigration and constitutional rights.
Signed on January 20, 2025, it directs the federal government to deny citizenship documents to children born in the U.S. to undocumented or temporary immigrant parents.
At stake is the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which has long been understood to guarantee citizenship to nearly all individuals born on U.S. soil. A ruling in favor of the order could reshape federal authority over citizenship, impact millions of U.S.-born children, and redefine the limits of executive power—making this one of the most consequential legal battles in recent memory.
What To Know
On February 6, 2025, the district court in Seattle issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of President Trump’s executive order.
The case under review, State of Washington v. Trump, was just one of several ongoing legal challenges in which lower courts have largely rejected the administration’s legal theory. District courts in Maryland (February 5), New Hampshire (February 10), and Massachusetts (February 13), have each upheld that the order conflicted with constitutional protections and halted its enforcement in their respective jurisdictions.
One of those judges, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who sits on the federal bench in Boston, granted a nationwide preliminary injunction, affirming that the constitutional guarantee of citizenship applies broadly, and finding the policy to be, “unconstitutional and contrary to a federal statute.”
The government appealed the ruling and sought partial stays from the district court, the Ninth Circuit, and the Supreme Court. After the Supreme Court denied a partial stay, the Ninth Circuit requested further briefing and, on July 23, upheld the injunction.
The new update came in a joint status report filed August 6, 2025, in which the DOJ stated that Solicitor General D. John Sauer intends to file a petition “expeditiously” for certiorari—a legal term that refers to the process by which a higher court (most commonly the U.S. Supreme Court), agrees to review a lower court’s decision—in order to place the case before the Court during its next term, which begins in October.
This means the Justice Department has now formally indicated it will seek a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of President Trump’s executive order; though it has not yet chosen which specific case—or combination of ongoing cases—it will use as the basis for its appeal.
The parties plan to update the court further once those appellate steps are finalized.
Fourteenth Amendment At Stake
Since the adoption of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution on July 9, 1868, the citizenship of persons born in the United States has been controlled by its Citizenship Clause, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Courts have consistently upheld this principle for more than a century, most notably in the 1898 Supreme Court case United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
However, the Trump administration argues that the amendment should not apply to children of parents who lack permanent legal status, a position that has been repeatedly rejected by lower courts.
What People Are Saying
President Trump, during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, December 8, 2024, said: “Do you know if somebody sets a foot—just a foot, one foot, you don’t need two—on our land, ‘Congratulations you are now a citizen of the United States of America,’ … Yes, we’re going to end that, because it’s ridiculous.” Adding: “…we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people, but we have to end it. … We’re the only country that has it, you know.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters in June 2025: “Birthright citizenship will be decided in October, in the next session by the Supreme Court.”
DOJ attorneys wrote in the filing: “In light of the Ninth Circuit’s decision, Defendants represent that the Solicitor General plans to seek certiorari expeditiously to enable the Supreme Court to settle the lawfulness of the Citizenship Order next Term.”
Jessica Levinson, constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School, said: “You can’t ‘executive order’ your way out of the Constitution. If you want to end birthright citizenship, you need to amend the Constitution, not issue an executive order.”
What Happens Next
The Justice Department must decide which case or combination of cases it will use to challenge lower court rulings and bring the birthright citizenship issue before the Supreme Court. Once it makes that decision, the DOJ will file a petition for certiorari.
The Court is not required to accept every petition, but because this involves a major constitutional question, it is likely to grant review. If that happens, the Court could hear arguments in 2026 and issue a ruling by June of that year.
For now, the Justice Department and attorneys representing plaintiff states—including Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon—have agreed to submit another update once the appellate process is clarified or if further proceedings in the district court are required. Until then, the order remains unenforceable, lower court rulings blocking Trump’s executive order remain in effect, and current birthright citizenship protections continue to apply.
What part of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment is so hard to understand? Only a Totally Retarded Dumb-Assed Idiot (TRDAI) could miss the meaning of it:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Unfortunately there seems to be no shortage of TRDAIs in the Trump regime. 🙁
Justice Department Issues Birthright Citizenship Update
Fight over Trump’s order to deny birthright citizenship heads toward Supreme Court, with 14th Amendment protections at stake
https://www.newsweek.com/justice-department-issues-birthright-citizenship-update-2110176