Thursday, November 20, 2025

"When your company supports Trump, we don’t support you"

 


Donald Trump is wildly grasping for power that doesn’t belong to him -- and greedy corporations seem more than happy to give it up. They’re donating millions to curry Trump's favor, standing aside as his regime attacks workers and shoppers, and meekly caving to even the weakest, most dubious threats.

Our cowardly corporate leaders need a reminder that real power belongs to the people. And next week, during the biggest shopping weekend of the year, we’re sending them a message.

From Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, we’re asking you not to shop from three major corporations enabling Trump’s fascist agenda.

Our Targets

Home Depot logo

HOME DEPOT enables ICE terrorism by allowing Trump’s jackboots to violently detain and kidnap workers on its properties.

Target logo

TARGET caved to MAGA backlash by pulling Pride merch off the shelves, and canceled DEI programs that support Black workers and businesses.

Amazon logo

AMAZON provides technology to power ICE deportations while Jeff Bezos spends a fortune kissing up to Trump -- funding both his MAGA agenda and vanity projects like his ballroom.

These aren’t the only companies complicit in Trump's attacks on democracy -- far from it! -- but economic pressure is most effective when it’s concentrated and easy to join in on. We’re focusing our fire on three ubiquitous brands that are among the biggest corporations trying to profit by enabling Trump.

By withholding our support during one of the most important weekends of their year, we’ll make it clear that there’s a price to pay for enabling authoritarianism.

How to take action:

To send a strong message, we need not just you, but your family, friends, and community, to commit to supporting mutual aid or small businesses instead of Home Depot, Target, and Amazon next weekend.

Here are three steps to take right now:

Learn more: Make a plan to join the economic blackout from November 27 – December 1. Understand what we’re asking, why we’re doing this, and how to spend your dollars where they’ll do good.

Let us know you’re with us: Pledge to pause shopping at Home Depot, Target, and Amazon. Don’t give any money to the companies undermining democracy. Support local businesses or mutual aid efforts instead.

Spread the word: Use our graphics and customizable social posts to get others involved. Try to triple your impact by getting three other people to join the blackout.

This holiday season let’s make our dollars count. Join us to tell Home Depot, Target, Amazon, and the whole corporate world: When you support Trump, we don’t support you.

In solidarity,
Indivisible Team

"Seditious Behavior Punishable by Death"

 


President Donald Trump on Thursday called for the arrest of Democratic lawmakers who urged service members and intelligence officials to disobey illegal orders that might be issued by the administration, calling it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

He was referring to half a dozen members of Congress who previously served in the military or intelligence community who posted a video on X earlier this week urging the military and intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders.”

“Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET,” Trump wrote, going on to add in a subsequent Truth Social post: “LOCK THEM UP???”

He added “punishable by DEATH!” in yet another post later Thursday morning, after reposting another user’s post that read: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”

CNN has reached out to the White House and to the lawmakers who appeared in the video. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team released a sharply worded statement against what they described as death threats from Trump against the lawmakers.

“We have been in contact with the House Sergeant at Arms and the United States Capitol Police to ensure the safety of these Members and their families. Donald Trump must immediately delete these unhinged social media posts and recant his violent rhetoric before he gets someone killed,” they said in part.

In the video, the lawmakers said, “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law, or our Constitution,” adding, “Know that we have your back. … Don’t give up the ship.” The lawmakers don’t specify which orders service members have received, or might receive, that could be illegal.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday that the Justice Department will be taking a “very close look” at those lawmakers’ actions, calling it a “disgusting and inappropriate display of supposed leadership from the Democrat Party.”

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Wednesday, November 19, 2025

"Quiet, Piggy!"

 


Trump said to Lucey on Friday, pointing his finger at her, after she asked him why he would not release material on disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein "if there's nothing incriminating in the files."

CNN journalist Jake Tapper called Trump's "piggy" comment "disgusting and completely unacceptable."

On Tuesday, Trump singled out ABC News's Mary Bruce after she asked a series of questions in the Oval Office as the US president hosted the de facto Saudi ruler in a high-profile event. Bruce first asked questions about whether dealings by Trump's family business with the Saudis were a conflict of interest.

She then quizzed Prince Mohammed over the 2018 murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying "US intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist, 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you?"

Trump cut in angrily, saying: "ABC fake news. One of the worst in the business."

'No more questions' 

Trump then said he has "nothing to do" with the Trump organization, which is currently run by his two eldest sons and which announced a deal with a Saudi developer for a resort in the Maldives on Monday.

Trump also backed Prince Mohammed's denial of involvement in the Khashoggi murder, despite US intelligence suggesting he approved the operation. 

"You don't have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that," Trump snapped.

Trump boiled over again when Bruce later asked about the flashpoint issue of Epstein. Congress voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to order the release of files about the financier, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

"It's not the question that I mind. It's your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter," Trump shot back at Bruce. Trump said he had "nothing to do" with Epstein and repeated his claim that the scandal is a "hoax." And "your crappy company is one of the perpetrators," he told her.

Trump urged the head of the US broadcast regulator -- who has previously threatened ABC over its content -- to "look at" taking away its license. He then pointed at Bruce: "No more questions from you."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

                                                            


It’s particularly galling that the president’s response to a legitimate question about the matter is “Quiet Piggy.” It tells you all you need to know about this president’s attitude toward women. Of course, that hasn’t been in doubt since we saw him on tape saying, “Grab them by the p*ssy.” He’s called a stream of women who stood up to him, like Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Kamala Harris, “nasty women.” In 2014, Trump called New York Times columnist Gail Collins “frumpy and very dumb, We could be here all night listing the misogyny, but the sad truth is, MAGA doesn’t care. The men like it and the women, inexplicably, are willing to tolerate it.

I keep coming back to the Joseph McCarthy moment where the red-baiting senator was finally asked, “Have you no decency,” and his cult of personality burst. “Quiet, Piggy.” We shouldn’t forget that the president of the United States uttered those words in this moment. At a time when women were fighting for justice, the man who cut himself out of the investigation into wrongdoing had that to say about a woman who was simply trying to do her job.

Portland has reclaimed the frog as a symbol of its resistance to Trump’s efforts to militarize the city. Perhaps women should claim the glamorous, sassy Muppet Miss Piggy, a known diva with a fierce karate chop, as their own symbol. Call a woman a piggy, and see how that goes for you, Mr. President. Enough demeaning of women. Signing the Epstein Files bill when it hits his desk, which Trump has promised to do, won’t be enough. The files have to be released, no excuses. It’s time to emulate the great Miss Piggy, who has never stayed quiet in the face of those who don’t respect her.

We’re in this together,

-Joyce Vance



The Comey Prosecution: What Happens When the U.S. Government Loses Its Credibility

 


It’s been a day of ping-pong in court in the Comey case, with pleadings and rulings volleying back and forth all day long concerning whether the government is required to turn over transcripts from grand jury proceedings. Grand jury transcripts are sealed to protect the integrity of investigations, and it’s extremely rare for a judge to make them available to a defendant. But that’s exactly what’s happening in the prosecution of the former FBI director. That’s because there are credible allegations of misconduct before the grand jury.

Misconduct is a word that can cover a lot of ground. We’ve been discussing some of it, like vindictive or selective prosecutions, which violate constitutional guarantees of due process. Prosecutors possess enormous power over people’s lives, and that power is too great to allow abuse of it to go unaddressed. People’s lives hang in the balance—if prosecutors can abuse their powers, innocent people can go to prison. Now, amplify the idea of abuse of power with a president who is directing the Justice Department to punish his enemies and reward his friends, and you have a sense of just how serious this moment is.

So, the issues involved here are incredibly important for the future of our democracy, but it becomes something of a muddle when the news reports you see are about dueling pleadings. A critically significant situation starts to feel picayune. We can’t afford to let that happen, so tonight, we’ll spend our time together dissecting what’s happening and its meaning. Last week I wrote to you that “there are strict rules governing prosecutors’ interactions with grand jurors and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that someone with no prosecutorial experience could have transgressed them.” That turns out to have been on point.

The verdict is in on the maiden grand jury performance of Lindsey Halligan, the insurance lawyer Trump picked to replace an experienced prosecutor who refused to indict the Comey case because there wasn’t evidence to support it. The Judge found plenty to find fault with.

To understand what happened today, we need to know how we got here. The government wanted to use evidence from another proceeding in this case, but some of that evidence was protected by the attorney-client privilege. The government asked the Judge to permit them to use a “filter team” to evaluate the evidence to decide what the prosecutors in this case could use without violating the privilege. There are two judges involved: District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, who is hearing the case, and Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, who is hearing some of the discovery disputes. 

In the course of the proceedings before Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick, problems came to light involving Halligan’s presentation to the grand jury and Comey’s lawyers filed a motion asking for disclosure of the grand jury minutes, in part because “the agent who served as a witness in the proceedings may have been exposed to Mr. Comey’s privileged communications with his attorneys and thus may have conveyed that information to the grand jury.” (If you want to know more about the filter team dispute after you’ve read tonight’s post, the dense procedural history of the case is laid out here).

As the questions about the proceedings before the grand jury became more complicated, the government suggested that Judge Fitzpatrick could review the grand jury materials privately to assist him in making a decision about whether they needed to be disclosed to the defense. He reviewed them, along with the parties’ briefs and oral arguments. Monday morning, he issued his decision.

I like a judge who clarifies both the issue and the decision they’ve reached (called “the holding”) in the first paragraph of an order, instead of making you work for it or wait until the concluding sentences to figure out where this had been headed all along. This Judge does not disappoint. The bottom line is in the first paragraph of Judge Fitzpatrick’s order.

The issue, the Judge explains, is: “whether there are … grounds to justify the disclosure of grand jury materials to the defense.” He concludes that “the record in this case requires the full disclosure of grand jury materials.” He goes on to clarify that while “this is an extraordinary remedy,” Comey’s “factually based challenges … to the government’s conduct and the prospect that government misconduct may have tainted the grand jury proceedings” mean the government is required to turn over grand jury materials to the defense “under these unique circumstances” in order to “fully protect the rights” of the defendant.

The burden a defendant in a criminal case has to meet for a judge to make an order like this one is very high, because protecting grand jury secrecy is essential to protecting the integrity of the process. The Judge notes that a defendant has to show that “‘particularized and factually based grounds exist to support the proposition that irregularities in the grand jury proceedings may create a basis for dismissal of the indictment,’” and that the “‘burden [cannot] be satisfied with conclusory or speculative allegations of misconduct.’” That suggests that Comey’s lawyers came forward with information of compelling significance.

The order traces the history of the “other investigation”—the one prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia apparently wanted to use in the Comey case, and which led to the filter team proceedings. It was called Arctic Haze and took place back in 2019 and 2020. It involved Comey’s friend Daniel Richman, whom Comey hired as one of his lawyers after Trump fired him, and allegations that government property in the form of classified information was stolen and then provided to journalists by Richman. 

It turns out that the Judge found evidence that the government violated the attorney-client privilege when it executed search warrants in that case, and that the government violated a fundamental requirement of the Fourth Amendment, that agents executing a search warrant only seize materials that the warrant authorizes them to take away. That case did not result in any indictments, and the search warrants were never tested in court.

Fast forward to 2025, when the government decided to “rummage through” the Arctic Haze evidence to see if it could help with the Comey prosecution. The Judge writes, “Inexplicably, the government elected not to seek a new warrant for the 2025 search, even though the 2025 investigation was focused on a different person, was exploring a fundamentally different legal theory, and was predicated on an entirely different set of criminal offenses.” It should have been routine for the government to do that, but as the Judge notes, that would have taken time, and the government only had 18 days left before the statute of limitations lapsed when it took up the old file.

It was during that new review of the evidence that an agent realized there were potential attorney-client privilege problems with what he was seeing and what the team was using. He advised an FBI lawyer and the agent who ultimately went before the grand jury to testify when the indictment was obtained about that problem. 

But the agent who testified, instead of removing himself from the case because his knowledge was tainted by the exposure to potential attorney-client communications, went in and testified. The Judge calculates that the government, “for reasons that remain unclear,” waited for 31 days from the date it began reviewing the old materials and 18 days after the FBI lawyer was advised there was a problem, to ask the court for permission to review the evidence using a filter team. That left the court with the “prospect that privileged materials were used to shape the government’s presentation and therefore improperly inform the grand jurors’ deliberations.”

There’s more, though, in the form of improper statements the prosecutor—Trump’s handpicked loyalist Lindsey Halligan—made to the grand jury. These are the kind of errors that, in a normal Justice Department, would lead to a review by the Office of Professional Responsibility and sanctions against the prosecutor who behaved in this manner if it was determined that she violated the law, Department rules, and a defendant’s rights, as the Judge suggests she may well have. There are two problematic areas, slightly obscured by redactions. But we can read the tea leaves:

Halligan may have misled the grand jury about the strength of the evidence against Director Comey by making serious errors when she advised them about his Fifth Amendment rights. She may have left grand jurors with the impression Comey had to prove his innocence, rather than the actual burden of proof in a criminal case, which requires the government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Judge called what happened here “a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding” and granted Comey’s request for access to all of the grand jury proceedings. He ordered the government to turn over those materials by 3 p.m. on Monday. Predictably, the government pushed back.

The government asked District Judge Nachmanoff for an emergency stay. They wanted at least a week. The Judge gave them until 5 p.m. Wednesday to file their objections to the magistrate judge’s order. The defense has until Friday to respond. Judge Nachmanoff indicated he would decide the matter based on those pleadings, in other words, without any oral argument.

Whether Comey will ultimately get access to the grand jury materials is now up to Judge Nachmanoff. The larger issue that looms is whether this situation (independent of the motions for selective and vindictive prosecution we have previously discussed, along with one regarding the propriety of Halligan’s appointment as U.S. Attorney) will provide a basis for dismissal of the indictment. 

Judge Fitzpatrick suggested that it might: “The Supreme Court has recognized that a district court may use its supervisory power ‘to dismiss an indictment because of misconduct before the grand jury’ … The Supreme Court has also recognized that this supervisory power of federal district courts should be used ‘to implement a remedy for violation[s] of recognized rights, to preserve judicial integrity by ensuring that a conviction rests on appropriate considerations validly before the jury, and finally, as a remedy designed to deter illegal conduct.’” He concluded, “Accordingly, when prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury prejudices a defendant and threatens the defendant’s right to fundamental fairness in the criminal process, a district court may exercise its supervisory authority to dismiss the indictment.”

This is about Jim Comey and whether the case against him will be dismissed or whether he will go to trial. But it’s also a tragic example of what has happened to the Justice Department, which is exposed as a political tool for the president to wield against his enemies when he wants to. Across the country, prosecutors and agents are working hard every day to protect the American people. They are capably pursuing bank robberies, drug trafficking, cybercrime, and many other cases. 

What is happening here dishonors their commitment and is a disservice to the American people. Being aware is necessary to demand better, and to understand that this ping pong game of a case is among the essential reasons we cannot give up. If Donald Trump can abuse the criminal justice system like this, democracy is not safe, and we are not safe.

We’re in this together,

Joyce Vance

 

 

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

"As of November 5th, it estimated that U.S.A.I.D.’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children"

 


“We are now witnessing what the historian Richard Rhodes termed “public man-made death,” which, he observed, has been perhaps the most overlooked cause of mortality in the last century. Brooke Nichols, the Boston University epidemiologist and mathematical modeler, has maintained a respected tracker of current impact. The model is conservative, assuming, for example, that the State Department will fully sustain the programs that remain. 

As of November 5th, it estimated that U.S.A.I.D.’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.

The toll is appalling and will continue to grow. But these losses will be harder to see than those of war. For one, they unfold slowly. When H.I.V. or tuberculosis goes untested, unprevented, or inadequately treated, months or years can pass before a person dies. The same is true for deaths from vaccine-preventable illnesses. 

Another difficulty is that the deaths are scattered. Suppose the sudden withdrawal of aid raises a country’s under-five death rate from three per cent to four per cent. That would be a one-third increase in deaths, but hard to appreciate simply by looking around.

The Administration, for its part, has denied causing widespread harm, even as it has made the scale of the damage harder to measure—halting data monitoring and dismissing the inspectors general who might have documented it. 

This is common in cases of public man-made death. During Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward, from 1958 to 1961, the Chinese government released no accurate mortality data. Observers abroad understood that a hunger crisis was under way when China began importing grain, but the scale of the catastrophe was not known until the mid-nineteen-eighties, when the first reliable census allowed historians to calculate that between twenty-three and thirty million people had died.”

Read more: https://www.newyorker.com/.../the-shutdown-of-usaid-has...



Monday, November 17, 2025

Epstein, Epstein, Epstein...

 


Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Rather than rehash the horrifying and disgusting details we’ve read in the news so far or debate the political consequences that may or may not come for our national sexual abuser in chief, I want to zero in on what the hell is actually happening legislatively. So for this week's newsletter I’m going to try to break it down:

What is the legislation that would release the Epstein files? This legislation is called the “Epstein Files Transparency Act” (H.R. 4405). In short, it directs the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release files they have relating to Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, related investigations, immunity deals struck, internal DOJ communications, and other information. It’s a long, specific list, but the bill itself is pretty straightforward and just about 3 pages long (you can read it here).

I don’t know how else to say this, so I’ll just say it: This bill is not just a political game. There are actual, real-life victims directly, personally impacted by this legislation and the cover-up that preceded it. The press often treats the bill as a political inconvenience for Trump and his coalition. And that same press often ignores Trump’s conviction for sexual assault just two years ago in the same articles that treat the trafficking and rape of young girls as a mere political football.

Shouldn’t we be worried that some Democrats are implicated? It’s so weird to me that people ask this question as some sort of gotcha. I don’t care what political party a person belongs to -- anyone who trafficked and/or sexually assaulted children should face removal from office, public excommunication, prosecution, and serious prison time. That’s easy for me to write because I’m not in a cult. That’s one key difference between us and Trump’s MAGA fanatics. Back to the legislative process.

Is this thing actually going to pass the House? Yes, this bill will pass -- likely with unanimous backing from Democrats and even a sizable number of Republicans. Squeaker of the House Mike Johnson tried burying it by shutting down the House for 6 weeks and refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva, but it’s not going away. The votes are there. That’s why, after spending weeks campaigning against it, Trump himself saw he was going to lose the House fight and posted Sunday night encouraging House Republicans to vote for the bill.

Does this mean it will pass the Senate? We don’t know. Senate Majority Leader John Thune could decline to schedule a vote or draft his own weaker bill. For an Epstein bill to pass the Senate, 13 Republican senators will have to join every Democrat. Under normal circumstances, that’d be nearly inconceivable for legislation opposed by Trump. But pressure is already building from many Epstein survivors and even from some conservative senators.

My guess is that if it comes to the floor and we keep the heat on, the votes are there for Senate passage, but that’s just a guess.

If it passes the Senate, do we get the files then? Again, we don’t know for sure.

Trump could still veto the legislation, and if he does, it would take 2/3 of the House (~290 votes) and Senate (~67 votes) to override that veto. So one thing to pay close attention to is whether the bill achieves veto-proof support in the House this week. If it does, Trump might not be able to pull off a veto strategy.

Trump could also sign the bill but then simply refuse to release the files anyway -- or withhold and redact so much information that we’re still left with more questions than answers. The bill is very specific about what needs to be released and when, but we know better than to assume this regime will follow the law.

In any case, the more House members vote for the bill and loudly call for transparency this week, the weaker Trump’s position becomes, and the more likely it is that the full truth comes to light.

So what does that mean for all of us? As you can see, there are a lot of things we just don’t know because this is a live fight -- one in which constituent pressure could truly sway the outcome. Every House and Senate Dem is going to support the legislation; the question is how much the Republicans fracture over it. If you’ve got a Republican representative, now’s a good time to give them an earful about this.

Our opponents are disgusting, cruel, and craven. They have real power to do real harm, but they are not inevitable or unstoppable. They are not the majority. We are. And we will defeat them with acts of solidarity small and large in defense of justice and truth. That’s how we win.

In solidarity,
Ezra Levin
Co-Executive Director, Indivisible


Your weekly to-dos

If you have a Republican representative, send them an email to demand full release of the Epstein Files. The House is readying a vote to obtain the FULL Epstein Files this Tuesday, and although it looks likely to pass, the threat of a Trump veto is real. To notch a veto-proof majority and max out our chance of uncovering the truth, we need mass defections by Republicans -- and that starts by turning the heat up.

If you have a Democratic senator, demand that they call for Chuck Schumer to step down as minority leader. Last week’s total surrender shows, once again, that Chuck Schumer is not the right leader for this moment. Senate Dems need bold new leadership to effectively fight the Trump regime, and that starts by convincing Schumer to step aside.

Cancel your Spotify Premium subscription until Spotify stops running ICE ads. Spotify is running ads recruiting more ICE agents to infringe our rights and terrorize our communities, so we’re calling on users to stop paying for or using the app until Spotify stops streaming fascism. Don’t use Spotify? Support the campaign by spreading the word on social media.

Sign up to call voters and get out the vote for Aftyn Behn -- a former Indivisible running to flip a red congressional seat! Our next chance to stomp the regime at the ballot box is in Tennessee, where Aftyn Behn can flip a district Trump won by double-digits if we turn enough voters out. You can call voters from anywhere. All you need is a phone and computer, and we offer live training before the shift!


Upcoming events for you

These nationwide events, calls, and training sessions are coming up soon. For even more Indivisible happenings, check our national calendar and get in touch with Indivisible groups near you!


This week, we’ll be keeping our eyes out for developments in a number of different areas by Joyce Vance

National Guard Cases

SCOTUS has no scheduled arguments this week, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be activity there. With the Chicago National Guard case already before the Court, on Friday, the administration appealed the Oregon decision that permanently enjoined the president from deploying National Guard troops to Portland. And on Monday, all parties in the Chicago case will file their final briefs.

The Supreme Court has not yet scheduled the Chicago case itself for oral argument. The emergency appeal, an effort by the administration to end the lower court stay that prevents Trump from deploying troops while the litigation is underway, could be decided this week, after the briefs are in.

The underpinning of the White House’s argument in both Chicago and Portland is that the troops were being sent to “protect federal assets and personnel,” pursuant to Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which allows the president to federalize troops under certain designated circumstances. The White House argues that the courts may not review the president’s decision to deploy. Reporting last week suggested that only 2.6% of 614 people arrested during “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago had criminal histories, per DOJ records. If statistics like that are reflected in the record when the Court considers the case, it would undercut Trump’s argument that federal property had to be protected from attack by dangerous criminals.

The Epstein Files

In a dramatic Sunday night reversal, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Republicans in Congress “should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.”


Of course, if that were true, he wouldn’t have been fighting the release for months. Which leads us to wonder, what changed? Was Trump’s dramatic Twitter breakup with Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom he alternately dubbed Marjorie Treason Green and Marjorie Taylor Brown, all for nothing?

Perhaps Trump is just caving into the inevitable. It seems likely that a big tranche of Republicans is set to vote for the release measure, whether he wants them to or not. Or perhaps it’s the knowledge that with DOJ having opened a new investigation, albeit only into Democrats, there is reason to withhold at least some portion of the documents. It was only two days ago that Trump called on the Justice Department to investigate the connection between prominent Democrats named in Epstein’s text messages and the convicted sex offender, as well as the role of financial institutions. DOJ routinely delays release of evidence involved in a criminal investigation until it is complete. Trump could have the best of both worlds—supporting release while knowing his lawyers would object.

We’ll have to watch to see how it all plays out this week.

Pardons

On the opposite end of the spectrum from the revenge prosecutions, like those against Jim Comey and Letitia James that the DOJ has launched, the rewards Trump is handing out—pardons for those he favors. That’s what happened last week in the case of Dan Wilson, who received a second pardon from Trump. Wilson, a militia member who participated in the January 6 insurrection, had been previously pardoned for that offense. But he also stood convicted of illegal firearm possession in Kentucky. Trump, the man who is so outraged by what he claims is crime driven by “illegal aliens,” used his pardon power to erase the gun charge for Wilson, too.

The message couldn’t be more clear. Trump is reminding the MAGA-faithful about the value of loyalty to the cult leader. He doesn’t care about people who put our communities at risk of violence, the rationale he’s trotted out in Portland and Chicago. It’s a disgraceful exercise of the power the Founders entrusted to presidents so that they could do justice. There could be more this week.

Book Tour Note

If you’re in Birmingham, Alabama, I’ll be signing books at the Barnes and Noble at The Summit from 6:00 PM -8:00 PM. I’d love to get to see you!

We’re in this together,

-Joyce Vance