Federal Judge Imposes Entry Ban on Worst January 6 Offenders

The Oath Keepers involved in the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection are facing new restrictions from a federal judge, just days after they had their prison sentences commuted by Donald Trump.

On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Stewart Rhodes and seven other members of the far-right militia can’t enter Washington, D.C., or the U.S. Capitol without the court’s permission.

Rhodes was originally sentenced to 18 years in prison, one of the toughest sentences handed down as a result of January 6, and given the heavy charge of seditious conspiracy. Unlike other January 6 rioters, Rhodes was not pardoned but had his sentence commuted, along with other defendants convicted of seditious conspiracy.

“My only regret is they should have brought rifles,” Rhodes said in a January 10, 2021, recording played at his trial in 2022. “We should have brought rifles. We could have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang fucking Pelosi from the lamppost.”

On Wednesday, following his release from prison, Rhodes was spotted in the Capitol complex, sitting down in a Dunkin’ Donuts and casually speaking to reporters. The far-right militant also met with several Republican members of Congress, drawing the ire of Democrats.

“It’s just incredibly sad that this is someone who House Republicans feel should be welcomed in this building, someone who doesn’t support the rule of law, someone who actively worked against the peaceful transfer of power in our country,” Democratic Representative Pete Aguilar told Politico.

Now, at least, Rhodes and several of his far-right compatriots will be restricted from the site of their crimes four years ago. Many of their supporters, however, will be under no such restrictions, and Trump has effectively told them that they don’t have to worry about legal trouble.

The family of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hopes to see the declassified government files on his assassination before they are made public.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing administration officials to make a plan to release thousands of classified government documents on the assassinations of King, as well as former President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy.

“More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Federal Government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events,” the order stated. “Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay.”

The King family responded in a statement from the X account of Bernice King, Martin Luther King’s youngest daughter.

“Today, our family has learned that President Trump has ordered the declassification of the remaining records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and our father, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” the statement read. “For us, the assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release.”

The assassinations of King and both Kennedys have been the subjects of speculation and conspiracy theories since they occurred. Many suspect the declassified information may implicate government agencies like the CIA or FBI in some way—as that may be why they’ve been classified for so long in the first place. There could also be personal information from the FBI’s aggressive surveillance of King in the 1960s.

Trump has ordered the director of national intelligence and attorney general to have a process to release the JFK records in 15 days, and the MLK and RFK files up to 30 days after that.

Senators are expected to cast their final vote on defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth by late Friday—but the man who appointed him doesn’t appear to be too tapped into the details of the massive Republican undertaking.

Speaking with Newsmax at Joint Base Andrews early Friday, Donald Trump insisted that Hegseth—one of his more controversial appointees—was a “good man.” But his tone, helicopters whirring in the background, more closely resembled that of a reality TV host playing both sides than an executive expressing total confidence that his appointee would ascend to the top of the Pentagon.

“I hope he makes it,” Trump repeated to the far-right network.

“I was very surprised that Collins and Murkowski would do that,” Trump continued, referring to Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who broke ranks with Republicans by opposing Hegseth’s nomination in a procedural 51–49 vote Thursday afternoon.

“And of course Mitch is always a ‘no’ vote, I guess. Is Mitch a ‘no’ vote? How about Mitch?” Trump added. McConnell voted on Thursday to advance Hegseth’s nomination, though he could still oppose Hegseth’s appointment in the final vote.

But even if McConnell ultimately swings against Trump’s pick, Democrats would still need one more Republican detractor to keep Hegseth out of the highest echelons of the nation’s military complex. Trump, it seems, is just creating suspense around the vote, which is still expected to pass.

Hegseth, a 44-year-old former infantry officer, has been under fire since Trump tapped him to lead the Pentagon. The heat has primarily stemmed from a shocking 2017 police report that revealed the Army veteran was accused of raping an attendee at a Republican women’s conference in Monterey, California. Hegseth has also admitted to several other scandals, including five affairs that he had during his first marriage.

Hegseth’s FBI background check ahead of his Senate hearing barely touched on the scandals, failing to interview Hegseth’s ex-wives or the woman who accused him.

Since then, his former sister-in-law has also accused him of “erratic and aggressive behavior” and abuse, claiming that the TV star grabbed his second wife and made her fear for her safety, to the point that the two sisters shared a code word to communicate when she felt she was in danger.

The MAGA base is in an uproar over JD Vance giving his first interview as vice president to Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation on CBS.

“Scoop: Vice President @JDVance will sit for his first interview since being sworn in with @margbrennan to air on @FaceTheNation Sunday exclusive,” CBS’s Olivia Rinaldi announced on X Thursday evening.

Brennan and Vance famously clashed at the vice presidential debate in October over whether Brennan was allowed to fact-check Vance’s comments during the debate (she was). Those farthest to the right still seem to be pretty upset by that.

“I’ll never understand why Leftist media that tried to destroy @JDVance and @realDonaldTrump are rewarded with exclusive interviews as opposed to those who were supportive and ethical,” MAGA extremist Laura Loomer wrote on X.

“Why is Vance rewarding a corrupt Democrat partisan who tried to rig a debate with his first interview as VP?” said Sean Davis, founder of the fraudulent conservative website The Federalist.

“Why would @JDVance even do this interview, let alone as his first? Don’t resuscitate your dying enemy,” right-wing radio host Rich Baris wrote.

“VP Vance rewards a left-wing media outlet by giving them his first interview,” wrote Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist’s editor in chief.

This distrust of “legacy media” like CBS goes further back than the vice presidential debate—it’s a core tenet of Trump’s ideology. But some supporters are feeling bullish about Vance appearing on CBS.

“It’s NOT a reward. He’s going to systematically dismantle every Leftest narrative they throw at him and he’s going to take the fight to them and their small audience,” said one X user.

“They’re the fool. Vance is a master at answering questions. He’ll make a fool out of her,” said another.

Vance’s interview with Brennan will air on Sunday.

Donald Trump’s promised mass deportations have already begun, and in Newark, New Jersey, a U.S. military veteran was detained after Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided a seafood store Thursday.

The city’s mayor, Ras Baraka, said that ICE agents conducted the raid without a search warrant and both undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens were detained. About 10 or 12 ICE agents entered the store after receiving complaints and were looking for documentation, the owner of Ocean Food Depot, Luis Janota, told PIX11 News.

“I was confused; they took three people who did not have any documentation on them,” Janota said. “I asked [the agents] what documentation they were looking for, and they said it was a license or a passport. I thought, ‘Who walks around with a passport?’

“One of the guys was a military veteran, and the way he looked to me was because he was Hispanic. He is Puerto Rican and the manager of our warehouse. It looked to me like they were specifically going after certain kinds of people—not every kind, because they did not ask me for documentation for my American workers, Portuguese workers, or white workers,” Janota added.

Baraka issued a statement Thursday blasting the raid.

“This egregious act is in plain violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees ‘the right of the people be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,’” the statement read. “Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorized.”

As with all other law enforcement agencies, the courts have ruled that ICE is subject to the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. A valid search warrant signed by a judge is required for agents to enter private property, which includes employee-only areas in businesses. It’s not clear if ICE entered into those areas at Ocean Food Depot.

If this is what ICE’s raids to round up undocumented immigrants are going to be like, there will be more examples of U.S. citizens caught up and detained mistakenly. Plus, if no search warrant is obtained, many of the people ICE detains will have grounds to challenge the agency. In any case, the president’s demand for mass deportations will be causing more chaos and confusion to come.

With Donald Trump limited to just four years as president, his MAGA acolytes are cooking up ways to keep him in office for at least one more term in the White House.

Representative Andy Ogles formally pitched the idea in the House on Thursday, filing a joint resolution to amend the Constitution’s Twenty-Second Amendment so that the executive branch leader could serve “for up to but no more than three terms.”

“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,” the text of the joint resolution reads.

The term-limiting amendment was ratified in 1951, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt served a whopping four terms. Previously, the two-term limit had been an unofficial precedent set by George Washington. But the language of Ogles’s switch would, conveniently, pretty much only aid Trump, while simultaneously excluding another popular former U.S. leader from competing to retake the White House: President Barack Obama.

Trump “has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal,” the Tennessee Republican said in a statement. “He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him.”

Staying in power longer than legally allowed is a pipe dream that Trump has already mused about several times. In a private meeting with the House Republican conference in November, the 78-year-old openly joked about running for a third term, telling the crowd that they could “figure something else out.”

“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say he’s so good we got to figure something else out,” Trump said at the time, while laughing.

Ogles’s idea has an almost zero percent chance of becoming reality. As outlined in Article 5 of the Constitution, any such change requires at least two-thirds of the Senate and the House to agree on the modification, with that change then requiring ratification by a minimum of three-quarters of states in the nation.

A second approach to repealing the term-limiting amendment could be via a Constitutional Convention, though two-thirds of states would need to support the motion to have one at all, and any proposed changes to an amendment would still require ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Donald Trump’s staff is seriously pissed at Elon Musk after he called out the president’s newly announced artificial intelligence initiative for being broke.

On Tuesday, Trump announced Stargate, a public-private joint AI venture between the federal government, OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle. Trump claimed that the “monumental” undertaking could invest as much as $500 billion into tech over the next four years. OpenAI announced on X that it would deploy $100 billion “immediately.” Musk wasn’t quite as convinced.

“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on X in response to OpenAI’s announcement. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

Musk’s surprising move to undercut Trump’s announcement chafed allies of the president, according to Politico.

One Republican close to the White House told Politico that Trump’s staff was “furious” over Musk’s comments on Stargate. A White House official said that Musk has “very much” gotten ahead of himself.

One Trump ally went even further. “It’s clear he has abused the proximity to the president,” the Trump ally told Politico. “The problem is the president doesn’t have any leverage over him and Elon gives zero fucks.”

Trump has long appeared to have lost the reins over Musk. Last month, Trump was left trailing after Musk’s lead on his vehement opposition to a massive government spending bill put forward by Mike Johnson.

Like in that case, Musk disrupts things because he has his own ideas to pitch, and wants to use his own public forum to make them manifest in the melee: Musk noted that Microsoft’s Satya Nadella “definitely does have the money.”

It’s not clear that any amount of dissent will see Musk removed from Trump’s orbit. He’s reportedly been working in the White House all week, overseeing his vision of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

This isn’t the first time Musk has irritated people in Trump’s orbit. In November Trump insiders complained that the billionaire technocrat was acting like a “co-president,” “taking lots of credit for the president’s victory,” and giving his “opinion on and about everything.”

Less than a week into the new Donald Trump administration, Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” is already losing employees. 

The top lawyer in the pseudo-department, Bill McGinley, is leaving to work in the private sector, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. His departure follows Vivek Ramaswamy being pushed out of DOGE earlier this week for disagreeing with Musk over the department’s purpose. 

“I am in discussions regarding a number of private sector opportunities and will have something to announce in the next couple of weeks,” McGinley said Thursday. “I support President Trump, Vice President Vance, and the great teams in the White House and across the administration 100 percent.”  

McGinley, who served as Cabinet secretary in Trump’s first term, was initially Trump’s pick for White House counsel. But Trump later changed his mind and named McGinley as DOGE’s chief counsel in December, saying that the lawyer would assist in cutting regulations and reducing government spending. 

So far, DOGE is the target of three lawsuits alleging that its creation breaks federal law due to its operating like a federal agency yet not following public transparency laws that agencies are required to follow. Meanwhile, Musk already has a White House email address and has been working in the West Wing this week, the Journal reports, with DOGE based out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

With Ramaswamy’s and McGinley’s sudden departures, it seems that Musk’s vision for DOGE is clashing with others in Trump’s orbit as the group begins its work of slashing whatever Musk deems as waste in the federal government. With a deeply entrenched federal bureaucracy with allies in Congress, DOGE fights over prospective cuts are on the horizon, and more departures may soon follow.

Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were the only two Republicans who voted against Donald Trump’s choice to head the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, in a procedural vote Thursday, citing concerns with his ability to lead the U.S. military.

In a long post on X after the vote, Collins took note of the many pressures facing the military, including active conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, as well as threats in the Pacific. Hegseth “does not have the management experience and background that he will need in order to tackle these difficulties,” Collins’s statement said. 

Collins also said that she was concerned about Hegseth’s past statements questioning women serving in the military, saying that after she and Hegseth had a “candid conversation in December about his past statements and apparently evolving views,” she is “not convinced that his position on women serving in combat roles has changed.”

Like Collins, Murkowski also announced her decision to oppose Hegseth in an X post. The Alaska senator said she was concerned about Hegseth’s inexperience, as well as his previous statements against women serving in the military. Murkowski also cited the allegations against Hegseth of sexual assault and excessive drinking in her decision, as well as his repeated marital infidelity.

“These behaviors starkly contrast the values and discipline expected of servicemembers. Men and women in uniform are held accountable for such actions, and they deserve leaders who uphold these same standards,” Murkowski’s statement read.  

In recent days, more allegations against Hegseth have surfaced as his former sister-in-law said in a sworn affidavit that he made his second wife fear for her safety with his “volatile and threatening conduct” and that he doesn’t think women deserve the right to vote.

Murkowski’s and Collins’s votes against Hegseth Thursday led to his nomination only advancing by a 51–49 vote, with every Democrat voting against the former Fox News personality. A final vote on Hegseth’s nomination is expected later this week, and if he loses just one more Republican vote, his confirmation would need Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaker. Either way, it would be the narrowest confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet nominees so far.

Donald Trump has revoked the security detail for Mike Pompeo, despite the fact that the former secretary of state is reportedly facing threats for actions he took under the president’s direction.

Pompeo and former aide Brian Hook both lost their security details Tuesday, The New York Times reported, despite warnings from the Biden administration that both men had received threats from Iran.

Pompeo and Hook had been involved in America’s aggressive stance toward Iran during the first Trump administration, and Pompeo was reportedly a driving force behind convincing Trump to have Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, killed.

This change, which the Times reported Thursday, came one day after Trump decided to revoke the security detail of John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser. Bolton has been an outspoken critic of the president.

When Bolton’s security detail was removed, it seemed like a petty jab at someone on Trump’s list of political enemies (it’s really Kash Patel’s list), which could potentially have dangerous consequences. Bolton has also received death threats from Iran and was the target of a murder plot by a member of the Revolutionary Guards Corps in 2022.

Pompeo has done a few small things that could have incurred Trump’s wrath. During his first administration, Pompeo once undermined Trump’s claim that Iran wasn’t funding terrorist groups while Trump was president. In 2023, Pompeo warned that the GOP should shift away from “celebrity leaders” with “fragile egos.” He also was honest about the administration’s financial failures, saying that “the Trump administration spent $6 trillion more than it took in, adding to the deficit,” a truth Trump would rather ignore as he begins his second term.

Trump previously said that Pompeo would not have a place in his forthcoming administration, and said he doesn’t want anyone who worked under Pompeo to join his administration either.

Biden administration officials had stressed to members of the Trump administration the need for security details for all three men, someone with knowledge of the matter told the Times.