White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday she does not think President Trump supports federal agencies contracting with Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) company. “I don’t think so, no,” Leavitt said. Asked if Trump would then want the government to cancel a recently announced contract with Musk’s AI venture, Leavitt said she would talk…
Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claims to have uncovered “overwhelming evidence” that former President Barack Obama and others in his administration manipulated intelligence to “lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.” But the foundation for her case is misleading. Gabbard’s claim relies heavily on an alleged contradiction between a Jan. 6, 2017, intelligence assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an “influence campaign” in an attempt to help elect Donald Trump and earlier intelligence assessments that concluded Russia did not successfully use cyberattacks on election infrastructure in the 2016 election. But those two assessments are not in contradiction. “No one ever claimed Russia altered votes, but everyone claims that Russia tried to interfere on Trump’s behalf,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a video message posted on X on July 21. That interference was “well documented” and “well vetted” not only by the Intelligence Community but also by a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee and as part of then special counsel Robert S. Mueller’s report, he said. Nonetheless, on Fox News on July 20, Gabbard said she was “referring all of the documents that we have uncovered to the Department of Justice and the FBI for a criminal referral,” adding, “In my view, we have the evidence to be able to move forward and bring about justice, yes, to prosecute and indict those responsible.” Trump has picked up on Gabbard’s statements, posting to Truth Social a fake video showing Obama being handcuffed by FBI agents as well as a message that said there is now “Irrefutable EVIDENCE” that Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden perpetrated “THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY!” In a press conference on July 22, Trump claimed Gabbard had “caught President Obama absolutely cold. … And there should be very severe consequences for that.” “After what they did to me and whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people,” Trump said. “Obama’s been caught directly. … Look, he’s guilty. … This was treason, this was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election.” Obama’s office responded on July 22 with a statement on Gabbard’s memo and release of unsealed documents, saying, “Nothing in the document issued undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.” “These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” Obama’s office said. Gabbard’s Case Gabbard, who was a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who ran for the party’s nomination in 2020 and left the party in 2022, announced on July 18 what she said was “new evidence” of an Obama administration “conspiracy to subvert President Trump’s 2016 victory and presidency.” In her press release, Gabbard wrote, “In the months leading up to the November 2016 election, the Intelligence Community (IC) consistently assessed that Russia is ‘probably not trying … to influence the election by using cyber means.’” As her unsealed documents show, Gabbard was citing a Sept. 9, 2016, email from an intelligence official who wrote, “Russia probably is not … trying to influence the election by using cyber means to manipulate computer-enabled election infrastructure.” (Emphasis is ours.) Gabbard misleadingly claimed the assessments changed after a White House meeting of Obama’s top National Security Council principals on Dec. 9, 2016. She said the IC was tasked with creating a new assessment at Obama’s request that led to the Jan. 6, 2017, release of a declassified Intelligence Community report that concluded “President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election.” In addition to a sophisticated social media campaign in support of Trump’s candidacy, the report said Russian intelligence services gained access to the Democratic National Committee computer network and released hacked material to WikiLeaks and other outlets “to help President-elect Trump’s election chances.” Gabbard claimed that assessment “directly contradicted the IC assessments that were made throughout the previous six months.” Gabbard created a timeline that purports to detail how the Intelligence Community’s assessment changed over time, and she linked to 114 pages of newly unsealed intelligence documents and communications to lay out her case. But Gabbard conflated assessments that Russia was not successful in hacking voting infrastructure to alter the election results with intelligence documenting Russia’s efforts to influence the election by swaying the American electorate’s opinions. For example, Gabbard cited: An Aug. 31, 2016, email from a Department of Homeland Security official to then DNI James Clapper about an analysis of local voting infrastructure that found “there is no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means.” A Sept. 9, 2016, memo from an official in Clapper’s office arguing that a presidential briefing should note that Russia “probably is not trying … to influence the election by using cyber means” to “manipulate … election infrastructure.” A Sept. 12, 2016, Intelligence Community assessment on cyberthreats to the election that concluded, “We judge that foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber attacks on the diverse set of information technologies and infrastructures used to support the November 2016 US presidential election.” A post-election series of talking points prepared for Clapper to deliver in a Dec. 7 presidential briefing report, including that “[f]oreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the US Presidential election outcome” and that “[w]e have no evidence of cyber manipulation of election infrastructure intended to alter results.” Gabbard claimed the assessment changed after a Dec. 9, 2016, meeting of National Security Council principals, including Clapper, John Brennan, and Susan Rice, the then CIA director, and national security adviser, respectively. The Gabbard memo accompanying her press release cited a subsequent email from Clapper’s assistant to his top aides directing them to “produce an assessment per
by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, Alianza Rebelde Investiga and Cazadores de Fake News ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. On March 15, President Donald Trump’s administration sent more than 230 Venezuelan immigrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Without providing evidence, Trump has called the men “some of the most violent savages on the face of the Earth.” Last week, the men were released as suddenly as they’d been taken away. Now, the truth of all their stories — one by one — will begin to be told. Starting here. We’ve compiled a first-of-its-kind, case-by-case accounting of 238 Venezuelan men who were held in El Salvador. ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and a team of Venezuelan journalists from Alianza Rebelde Investiga (Rebel Alliance Investigates) and Cazadores de Fake News (Fake News Hunters) spent the past four months reporting on the men’s lives and their backgrounds. We obtained government data that included whether they had been convicted of crimes in the U.S. or had pending charges. We found most were listed solely as having immigration violations. We also conducted interviews with relatives of more than 100 of the men; reviewed thousands of pages of court records from the U.S. and South America; and analyzed federal immigration court data. Some of our findings: We obtained internal data showing that the Trump administration knew that at least 197 of the men had not been convicted of crimes in the U.S. — and that only six had been convicted of violent offenses. We identified fewer than a dozen additional convictions, both for crimes committed in the U.S. and abroad, that were not reflected in the government data. Nearly half of the men, or 118, were whisked out of the country while in the middle of their immigration cases, which should have protected them from deportation. Some were only days away from a final hearing. At least 166 of the men have tattoos. Interviews with families, immigration documents and court records show the government relied heavily on tattoos to tie the men to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua — even though law enforcement experts told us that tattoos are not an indicator of gang membership. The men who were imprisoned range in age from 18 to 46. The impact of their monthslong incarceration extended beyond them. Their wives struggled to pay the rent. Relatives went without medical treatment. Their children wondered if they would see them again. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson did not respond to questions about the men in the database but said Trump “is committed to keeping his promises to the American people and removing dangerous criminal and terrorist illegals who pose a threat to the American public.” She referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond. Read the men’s stories in our database. Reporting by: Perla Trevizo, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune; Melisa Sánchez, ProPublica; Mica Rosenberg, ProPublica; Gabriel Sandoval, ProPublica; Jeff Ernsthausen, ProPublica; Ronna Risquez, Alianza Rebelde; Adrián González, Cazadores de Fake News; Adriana Núñez Moros, independent journalist; Carlos Centeno, independent journalist; Maryam Jameel, ProPublica; Gerardo del Valle, ProPublica; Cengiz Yar, ProPublica; Gabriel Pasquini, independent journalist; Kate Morrisey, independent journalist; Coral Murphy Marcos, independent journalist; Lomi Kriel, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune; Nicole Foy, ProPublica; Rafael Carranza, Arizona Luminaria; Lisa Seville, ProPublica Design and development by: Ruth Talbot, ProPublica Additional design and development by: Zisiga Mukulu, ProPublica Additional data reporting by: Agnel Philip, ProPublica
Volunteer-led efforts to support immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are similar to those happening around the United States. For many of the people stepping up, it’s a way to help fellow community members have some control over their lives.
Republican efforts to redraw districts could backfire, and Democrats are well positioned to net the three House seats they need to take power in the 2026 midterm elections, says Rep. Suzan DelBene at a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast with reporters.
How the Courts Blocked ICE’s Racial Profiling—Plus, How Organizers Succeed The post How the Courts Blocked ICE’s Racial Profiling—Plus, How Organizers Succeed appeared first on The Nation.
A newly uncovered memo from the Department of Homeland Security reportedly reveals that President Donald Trump is diverting manpower from securing U.S. borders and ports to help him achieve his goals of mass deportation. HuffPost reported on Tuesday that the memo shows that roughly 2,000 officers and agents have been diverted to provide more manpower for deportation operations. By doing so, the administration makes it easier for traffickers to smuggle illicit materials, such as fentanyl, through ports of entry. Gil Kerlikowske, who headed up U.S. Customs and Border Protection under former President Barack Obama, told the outlet, “The ports of entry―that’s where the fentanyl comes in.” He added, “If you’ve taken 800 agents off of the ports of entry, that can cause a significant problem.” Data from 2018 to 2024 showed that most of those apprehended for smuggling fentanyl into the U.S. did so through lawful ports of entry. About 4 in 5 apprehended smugglers through the U.S.-Mexico border were U.S. citizens as well. This stands in contrast to Republican leaders who have blamed this problem on migrants. A Trump supporter holds a “Secure our Border” at a rally in Aurora, Colorado. Wonder how this memo would make them feel … Trump repeatedly campaigned on the promise that he would crack down on fentanyl trafficking, but drug overdose deaths have been steadily falling since late 2023, when Joe Biden was president. Another problem with diverting resources from port operations is that those officers are generally not trained to handle immigration enforcement. Agencies like ICE have generated a torrent of headlines involving abuse and manhandling of both migrants and citizens, including children—and many of those incidents involve officials whose primary job is enforcement. The Trump administration has set up a system ripe for abuse. It has used deportation procedures to send migrants to facilities like El Salvador’s brutal CECOT prison. Detainees at those facilities have revealed scenes they compared to a “horror movie,” including repeated beatings and denial of basic medical treatment. The memo reportedly reveals another dysfunctional link in the immigration system being put in place under the Trump administration, one which could easily lead to more crime and increased danger for Americans and their families.
President Donald Trump announced late on Tuesday that he and Japan reached a trade agreement, which will slap a 15% tariff on Japanese imports in exchange for Japan investing $550 billion in the U.S. The so-called deal is another shit sandwich for Americans, especially U.S. car manufacturers. That’s because Japanese cars imported into the U.S. will face a 15% tariff rate—lower than the 25% tariff American car companies currently face for imported auto parts. And that 15% rate is less than the shocking 25% tariff Trump had threatened against Japan if a deal wasn’t struck. That’s why Japanese car stocks rose on Wednesday, with Toyota up about 13%. “Toyota is up +8% on the news of a 15% tariff. Why? It’s simple,” Spencer Hakimian, founder of the hedge fund Tolou Capital Management, wrote in a post on X. “Ford, GM, Tesla, and all the other American manufacturers are going to be paying 50% more for their steel, 50% more for their copper, 25% more for their Canadian production, 25% more for their Mexican production, and 55% on their Chinese production. Toyota only has to pay 15% more and they’re done with all the shenanigans. Ford has to pay much more than that. A lot more in fact. The General Motors logo is seen on the company’s headquarters in Detroit, in April 2024. “We’ve given a Japanese car company an advantage over American car companies. All in hope of bringing auto jobs back to America,” he added. The American Automotive Policy Council—which represents General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis—said on Wednesday that the Japanese trade agreement is a “bad deal for U.S. industry and U.S. auto workers.” American automakers have already said Trump’s tariffs have dealt a massive blow to their companies. General Motors reported Tuesday that it lost $1 billion from April to June ,attributing the losses to Trump’s tariffs. And Stellantis, which manufactures American brands like Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge, said it lost a whopping $2.7 billion in the first half of 2025 because of Trump’s trade levies. But Trump’s trade policy is not hurting just automakers. Goldman Sachs on Tuesday said that U.S. economic growth will slow in 2025 because of Trump’s tariffs. The bank’s chief economist, Jan Hatzius, wrote in a memo to clients that the tariffs “will eat into real income, at a time when consumer spending trends already look shaky.” Hatzius added that consumer spending appears to have slowed in the first half of the year, which he said “rarely happens outside of recession.” Indeed, prices are on the rise for American consumers for everything from beef and chocolate to household products sold on retail giant Amazon. Meanwhile, the Aug. 1 deadline Trump put on other countries to make trade deals is rapidly approaching. And if deals aren’t reached, tariffs will soar to 30% for imports from major American trading partners, including Mexico and the European Union. And if the deals are as crappy as the one just announced with Japan, Americans are in for a world of hurt.
GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is no longer facing reelection, is standing strong in his conviction that the Trump administration should release the long-promised Epstein files. “Release the damn files,” he told Axios’ Stef Kight on Wednesday. “One of two things is true … the promise to release the files during the campaign was either overplayed and we got a nothing burger—if the files get released—or it’s something really disturbing, and that’s actually even a more compelling reason to release it.” President Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein, who was charged with sex trafficking in 2019. Tillis also called the administration’s excuses “nonsense,” noting that sensitive materials are routinely released with redactions. “That’s sort of a fake—or a bad—reason for trying to stop something that you don’t want to happen,” he said, adding a warning to fellow Republicans who are seeking reelection not to underestimate the staying power of this scandal. “If anybody thinks that this is going to go away because the House left a day earlier or something, that’s going to be like those zombies in ‘The Walking Dead,’” Tillis said. “Every time you think you’ve killed it, another one’s just going to come running out of the closet after you. This is going to be an issue all the way through next year’s election.” YouTube Video Democrats have justifiably seized on Trump and other GOP lawmakers’ disturbing refusal to release the Epstein files, and Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow has successfully incorporated it into her campaign for fellow Democratic Sen. Gary Peters’ seat. Tillis has been willing to take—mostly toothless—shots at the Trump administration on his way out the door. But at this point, any meaningful criticism of President Donald Trump from the right has some worth.
Tina Peters simply will not go away. The onetime clerk for Mesa County, Colorado, is currently incarcerated while appealing her 2024 conviction for helming a massive election security breach. Peters remains a steadfast warrior for Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, but she can’t keep pursuing her mission while sitting in a Colorado jail. The problem for Peters is that her conviction was in state court, so while she remains a true believer in the Big Lie, Trump can’t wave a wand and pardon her. But she’s not going to stop trying. Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen led to an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. On Tuesday, Peters asked a federal magistrate to let her out of jail on bond while she pursues her state appeal. Peters had already requested that the Colorado Court of Appeals release her on bond, and after they ruled against her, she filed a federal habeas petition. Peters is desperate to wedge this case into federal court somehow so that Trump can make it go away. Now, you might be agog at the notion that a federal magistrate can just roll into a state court case and functionally overrule the Colorado Court of Appeals, and guess what? The federal magistrate was equally perplexed, because federal magistrates have no authority to intervene in a state case. Indeed, Chief Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak said, “I don’t think petitioner has cited a single case in the history of the United States where a federal court granted an appeal bond in a state case.” Varholak was just as baffled about how things would work logistically if he were to grant the bond. “What if petitioner violates the bond?” the magistrate said. “Does the state revoke bond? Do I revoke bond?” Hey, it was worth a shot. Trump is already in Peters’ corner. In May, he directed the Department of Justice to secure her release. On Truth Social, Trump called Peters an “innocent Political Prisoner” and said that she was being “horribly and unjustly punished in the form of Cruel and Unusual Punishment.” Also, she is a hostage who is being imprisoned by Democrats for “political reasons.” Like Peters, her attorney, Peter Ticktin, is absolutely full-on MAGA. He wrote a fawning book about Trump, detailing their time together in high school at a military academy. He’s also one of Trump’s endless series of personal attorneys, having represented him in his suit against Hillary Clinton and James Comey. Ticktin is also a pal of Ed Martin, the Department of Justice’s very shady pardon attorney, and personally delivered 11 applications to Martin. Related | Why Trump can’t quit Ed Martin Ticktin’s argument to the federal magistrate was essentially that Peters shouldn’t be in jail with actual criminals, because she is not one. Instead, she’s being imprisoned for her speech. “In this particular case, we have a person in prison because of a fear that she’s a danger to society because of what she might say,” he claimed. Buddy, she’s in prison because she was convicted by a jury of her peers for giving a Big Lie conspiracy theorist rando complete access to election machines and allowing him to copy the hard drives, which later popped up on election conspiracy sites. This is a crime, period. But wait! What about her mattress? Yes, part of Ticktin’s plea to the federal magistrate was that Peters is sleeping on a hard, thin mattress. During her sentencing hearing, Peters bemoaned the fact that she would not be able to get her special magnetic mattress if she were sent to prison. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is laser-focused on screwing with elections in Colorado in retaliation for the state’s prosecution of Peters. She is a martyr for the election denial cause, so how dare the state imprison her! Peters is Trump writ small—a person who believes that she is on a mission and is therefore entitled to do whatever she wants to prove the 2020 election was stolen, and refuses to admit there are consequences for her actions. No wonder she’s trying to get this to the federal courts so Trump can do her a solid. Her failure to do so should be a slam dunk because it’s unprecedented to have the federal government intervene in a state criminal court case. But this administration doesn’t believe in federalism, so it will keep trying to find a way to free Peters—rules and laws be damned.
