Judge Rips Trump’s Case on Kilmar Abrego Garcia as “Impossibility”

A judge in Tennessee eviscerated the government’s case for keeping Kilmar Abrego Garcia detained ahead of his trial for criminal charges alleging that he transported undocumented immigrants around the country.

Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville said Sunday that “the government failed to prove” that Abrego Garcia had endangered any minor victim, a claim not included in the official charges but that was used to justify his ongoing detention.

In a 51-page ruling, Holmes explained that not only had the government’s evidence included “double hearsay” but that some of it also defied logic.

Holmes wrote that Special Agent Peter Joseph of ICE Homeland Security Investigations had presented “hearsay statements of cooperating witnesses” to establish that Abrego Garcia had endangered minors, including one cooperator who was “a two-time, previously-deported felon, and acknowledged ringleader of a human smuggling operation” who’d cut a deal for early release from the government. Testimony from a second cooperator was similarly unreliable because “his requested release from jail and delay of another deportation depends on providing information the government finds useful.”

The government had not been able to prove that Abrego Garcia transported immigrant minors, but both male cooperators had claimed that he had endangered his own children.

“Both male cooperators stated that, other than three or four trips total without his children, Abrego typically took his children with him during the alleged smuggling trips from Maryland to Houston and back, some 2,900 miles round-trip, as often as three or four times per week,” Holmes wrote.

“The sheer number of hours that would be required to maintain this schedule, which would consistently be more than 120 hours per week of driving time, approach physical impossibility. For that additional reason, the Court finds that the statements of the first and second male cooperators are not reliable to establish that this case ‘involves a minor victim.’

“There is no dispute the offenses of which Abrego is charged are not crimes against children and the involvement of a minor child is not an element of the charged offenses,” Holmes wrote, disputing the government’s claim that Abrego Garcia’s alleged criminal activity technically “involves minor victims.”

Holmes scheduled another hearing for Wednesday to discuss the conditions of Abrego Garcia’s release, but the government is expected to detain him upon release. The government has already filed a motion to appeal Holmes’s decision and asked her to stay her order, arguing without evidence that Abrego Garcia could be deported in the future.

Donald Trump is kicking Representative Thomas Massie out of the MAGA tent for daring to object to war with Iran.

“GET THIS ‘BUM’ OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday, re-sharing a lengthy screed he had posted about Massie the day before.

Trump had written that “Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is not MAGA, even though he likes to say he is.” “Actually, MAGA doesn’t want him, doesn’t know him, and doesn’t respect him. He is a negative force who almost always Votes ‘NO,’ no matter how good something may be,” the far-right leader posted on Truth Social Sunday.

The sudden rift followed accusations by Massie that war with Iran was “not constitutional.” Massie also chastised House Speaker Mike Johnson for practically handing over Congress’s sole authority to declare war to the White House, questioning online why the leading Republican lawmaker did not “call us back from vacation to vote on military action if there was a serious threat to our country.”

Massie offered Trump a full-throated endorsement in the 2024 race on the basis that he would prevent “needless wars abroad.”

“He’s a simple minded ‘grandstander’ who thinks it’s good politics for Iran to have the highest level Nuclear weapon, while at the same time yelling ‘DEATH TO AMERICA’ at every chance they get,” Trump continued in his brutal laceration of Massie on Sunday. “We had a spectacular military success yesterday, taking the ‘bomb’ right out of their hands (and they would use it if they could!) but, as usual, and despite all of the praise and accolades received, this ‘lightweight’ Congressman is against what was so brilliantly achieved last night in Iran.”

But Trump’s framing defies the reality of Iran’s nuclear program. For months, American intelligence officials have asserted that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” In a June report, the Congressional Research Service underscored that “Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons.”

Instead, Iran has argued that it is seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. The only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East is presumed to be Israel, which will not confirm or deny possessing what the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons estimates are approximately 90 nuclear weapons.

But American intel is apparently disposable to the Republican president. Instead—just as his campaign had promised prior to the election—loyalty remains his chief internal interest. In his Truth Social post, Trump attempted to tear Massie down as “weak, ineffective,” and “disrespectful to our great military, and all that they stand for.”

“Massie should drop his fake act and start putting America First, but he doesn’t know how to get there—he doesn’t have a clue!” the president continued, calling on Massie to advance the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that would gut Medicaid, make the wealthy wealthier and the poor poorer, increase the deficit by nearly $2 trillion over the next four years, and raise it much more in the years after that, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate. Massie was one of two Republican lawmakers to vote against it last month.

“MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague!” Trump added, threatening to unseat Massie in the midterms. “I’ll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard.”

By the end of the day, Trump and his extraordinarily well-funded political machine had formed a super PAC aimed at kicking Massie out of national politics for good.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday condemned Israel and U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.

Iran sent Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Moscow on Monday to lobby Putin for more support against Israel’s act of war. 

“The absolutely unprovoked aggression against Iran has no basis and no justification,” Putin said to Araghchi during the meeting. “We have long-standing, good, reliable relations with Iran. 

Russia and Iran are old allies. And while Putin has offered mediation and rhetorical reassurance, he has stopped short of fully joining the war or offering more concrete assistance, likely due to fear of further alienating President Trump and the U.S. in the midst of his own war on Ukraine.

On Sunday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a top Putin ally, noted in a series of X posts that “a number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.” This news, if true, could have cataclysmic implications. 

Iran is reportedly still weighing retaliation options against Israel and the United States. And how much actual support Russia can and will provide remains to be seen.  

Donald Trump’s major edge, per his administration, is that he’s not “dumb” like our other presidents.

Speaking with NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Vice President turned war salesman JD Vance attempted to sway Americans on the America’s sudden involvement in attacking Iran by asking for more blind faith in its most powerful convicted fraudster.

“I simply empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East,” Vance said. “I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives.”

The war, Vance continued, “is not going to be some long, drawn-out thing.”

“We’ve got in, we’ve done the job of setting their nuclear program back,” he said. “We’re going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years, and that is what the president has set out to do. Simple principle: Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

For the record: The majority of Americans do not want to be at war with Iran. Just last year, that lot would have likely included the vice president.

Vance is possibly the most unlikely person to pitch the war effort. In 2023, the Ohio lawmaker spoke effusively about Trump’s aversion to global conflict during his first presidential term, and endorsed Trump in the 2024 race under the pretense that the MAGA leader wasn’t “starting any wars.”

Vance’s own sales pitch comes with a heaping dose of delusion: “We’re not at war,” he told NBC. “We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”

Iran has argued that it is seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. The only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East is presumed to be Israel, which will not confirm or deny possessing what the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons estimates are approximately 90 nuclear weapons.

War with Iran goes against the recent advice of America’s intelligence officials. Speaking with lawmakers in March, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard left no room for doubt: “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon,” she said. In a June report, the Congressional Research Service underscored that “Tehran has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons at some point, but has halted its nuclear weapons program and has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons.”

But Trump flagrantly disregarded his own appointee’s intel ahead of the attack.

“I don’t care what she said,” he told reporters on Tuesday on Air Force One. “I think they were very close to having one.”

Meanwhile, Trump has tapped Thomas Fugate, a 22-year-old fan with no national security experience, to run America’s counterterrorism hub, along with an $18 million grant program to combat extremism, ProPublica reported.

It seems that Donald Trump is interested in more than simply upending Iran’s nuclear capabilities: Now he’s signaling he wants a new government, setting the stage for a drawn out conflict in the Middle East. 

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Sunday.  

Trump’s post represents a departure from his administration’s rhetoric about his decision to drag the United States into the conflict between Israel and Iran with massive strikes on three nuclear facilities over the weekend. 

Vice President JD Vance insisted on NBC News’s Meet the Press Sunday that a regime change was not the objective of the U.S. military operation. “We’re not at war with Iran,” Vance said. “We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”

But ever since shrugging off his own government’s intelligence telling him that Iran did not have nuclear capabilities, Trump has been in lockstep with another state entirely: Israel, which has insisted on the threat of Iran’s nascent nuclear capabilities, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has openly pushed for a new regime. 

Last week, Netanyahu said that assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was “not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict.”

Axios reported that Trump has been more reluctant to target Khamenei. A senior administration official described his thinking to Axios as: “It’s the Ayatollah you know versus the Ayatollah you don’t know.”

But Trump certainly hasn’t strayed away from threatening him. 

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump wrote in another post on Truth Social last week. “He is an easy target, but is safe there—We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

It seems that Trump may be unsure of the results of his strike, which he claimed was a success, though Vance would not confirm with 100 percent certainty that all of Iran’s nuclear sites had been destroyed. It seems that the Trump administration could be setting the stage for more military action in Iran—which has vowed to respond to the U.S. strike. 

Donald Trump doubled down Friday on his claim that Tulsi Gabbard is wrong about Iran’s supposed nuclear capabilities.

After disembarking Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, the president played dumb when confronted with a major discrepancy between his claims about Iran and what U.S. intelligence had to say.

“So you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon,” one reporter said. “Your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point.”

“Well, then my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?” Trump asked.

“Your director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard,” the reporter replied.

“She’s wrong,” Trump said.

Earlier this year, Gabbard testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that according to the Annual Threat Assessment, Iran was years away from acquiring nuclear weapons of their own.

When asked about this discrepancy earlier this week, Trump replied, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having it.”

In an effort to back Israel’s sweeping military operation in Iran, Trump has continually ignored intel provided by his own government. And Gabbard has made desperate attempts to rewrite her previous statements to get in line with the president’s newfound beliefs about Iran.

Trump has continued to play dumb (or maybe just be dumb) when asked any question about Iran. He repeatedly claimed that he would give Iran two weeks to weigh U.S. involvement—a timestamp he often uses to push things off until people forget about them—and said that he “might” support a ceasefire.

Mahmoud Khalil is finally being released from ICE custody, more than three months after he was detained for his involvement in Columbia University’s pro-Palestine protests.  

In a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz found that Khalil did not present a flight risk or a danger to his community and that the government should release him on bail, according to Lawfare’s managing editor, Tyler McBrien. 

Farbiarz asserted that there were extraordinary circumstances surrounding Khalil’s detainment, including a chilling effect on his First Amendment rights. The judge also noted that Khalil’s invocation of a due process punishment claim, meaning that the government was attempting to use immigration law as a punitive measure, was substantial enough to warrant his release. 

The judge has asked the government to determine conditions for Khalil’s release, which has been set to take place later Friday.

Dr. Noor Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, released a statement in response to the judge’s order. “After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” she said, referring to the couple’s infant son. 

“We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family, and the community that has supported us since the day he was unjustly taken for speaking out for Palestinian freedom.”

Last week, Farbiarz ruled that the government could not deport the green card holder on the grounds that he was a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests or would create a “hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States” if released. But Farbiarz then sided with the government, which argued that it could continue to detain Khalil because he had supposedly lied on his green card application. 

The U.S. government alleged that Khalil purposefully failed to divulge his work as an unpaid intern for the United Nationals Relief and Work Agency and “withheld his membership of certain organizations” when applying for a visa, which was grounds for his removal. The U.S. government also claimed Khalil had failed to disclose his work with the Syria office in the British Embassy in Beirut, as well as his involvement with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a pro-Palestinian activism group at his school. 

Khalil entered the United States on a student visa in 2022 and applied for permanent residency in 2024. He is married to an American citizen.

Across the country, federal judges have ordered the release of multiple students and faculty detained as part of Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. Khalil has remained in ICE custody since March, forcing him to miss the birth of his child. 

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump, ever the sore loser, wants a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election, which he lost by more than seven million popular votes.

“Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD! The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday morning. “A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America!”

“What this Crooked man, and his CORRUPT CRONIES, have done to our Country in 4 years, is grossly indescribable! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump’s call for a special prosecutor follows years of him pushing lies about fraud in the 2020 election and even rallying his supporters to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to try to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s win. Trump’s team filed more than 60 lawsuits in the aftermath of the election over various claims alleging a stolen election. The judges, many of whom were appointed by Trump or other Republican presidents, did not find any evidence of widespread fraud.

The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm at the time declared the election was “the most secure in American history.” Trump was also twice indicted over his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.

Still, that isn’t stopping Trump from reviving the lies. In 2023, Trump vowed to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the U.S.A., Joe Biden, the entire Biden crime family and all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders and the country itself.”

Now it seems he’s finally making good on that revenge threat.

In a desperate attempt to exonerate himself of drug use allegations, Elon Musk actually just doxxed himself.

Last month, there were multiple reports detailing Musk’s rampant drug use throughout Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, which were published ahead of his brisk “departure” from the White House and eventual social media feud with the president himself.

On Wednesday, the still-fuming tech billionaire posted the results of a hair analysis to X, which showed that he had tested negative for a wide range of drugs.

“The WSJ & New York Times fake ‘journalists’ lied through their teeth about me. Now let’s see their drug test results,” he wrote. “They will fail.”

Setting aside the outlandish demand that two newspapers’ worth of journalists submit themselves to drug testing, it seems that Musk must’ve been in such a hurry to prove his innocence that he forgot to edit the last four digits of his Social Security number out of the image.

When combined with other personal information, the last four digits of a SSN can make it far easier for Musk to be targeted by hacking and fraud.

Musk seems to still be taking his ouster from the Trump administration extremely hard. On Thursday, the billionaire CEO lashed out yet again, calling the White House presidential personnel director Sergio Gor a “snake.”

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan slammed a decision Friday that empowers the courts to ignore federal agencies by undermining agencies’ authority to interpret their own statutes.

In a 6–3 decision along ideological lines in McLaughlin v. McKesson, the Supreme Court held that the Hobbs Act did not require federal courts to abide by the Federal Communications Commission’s interpretation of a law restricting telemarketing—and that it should be left to the courts to decide the law’s meaning.

In a scathing dissent, Kagan argued that the court’s conclusion to rely on a “default rule” that allows lower courts to decide whether a statutory interpretation was correct in enforcement proceedings was “wrong.”

“The text of the Hobbs Act makes clear that litigants who have declined to seek preenforcement judicial review may not contest the statutory validity of agency action in later district-court enforcement proceedings,” she wrote. “And this Court’s prior decisions have said just that.

“Today’s majority evades the Hobbs Act’s most natural meaning by relying on a novel ‘default rule,’ which demands that Congress use a certain form of words—really, that Congress create statutory redundancy—to preclude parties from bringing down-the-road challenges to agency action.

“That rule has no foundation in our law; it emerges fully formed today from the majority’s head. And it prevents the Hobbs Act from functioning as Congress wanted—by allowing regulated parties to end-run the Act’s pre-enforcement judicial review scheme, and thereby undermine the stability and efficacy of administrative programs,” she wrote.

The FCC had split federal courts after it issued an order excluding “online fax service” from the definition of “telephone facsimile machine” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. In the majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh found that “the Hobbs Act does not bind district courts in civil enforcement proceedings to an agency’s interpretation of a statute.”

“District courts must independently determine the law’s meaning under ordinary principles of statutory interpretation while affording appropriate respect to the agency’s interpretation,” he said.

Friday’s ruling could unleash a spate of additional lawsuits against the FCC, as litigants will attempt to test whether they have to comply with any FCC regulation under the TCPA.

Last year, the court ruled to overturn the Chevron deference, a 40-year-old doctrine that required judges to defer to a federal agency when determining the meaning of any ambiguous laws that agency should try to enforce. The decision was criticized as judicial overreach.