Kash Patel Ousts FBI Official Who Fought Off Previous Loyalty Purges

Nothing is more important in Donald Trump’s second administration than subservience and loyalty.

FBI Director Kash Patel ordered the ousting of two agents at the bureau Thursday, including Brian Driscoll, who served as the acting director for the agency at the beginning of Trump’s second term.

Driscoll, an 18-year agent, was accidentally appointed acting director of the FBI. But he made a new name for himself in February when he adamantly resisted the president’s early efforts to excise bureau employees.

“Last night I was informed that tomorrow will be my last day in the FBI,” Driscoll wrote in a note to his colleagues, obtained by MSNBC. “I understand that you may have a lot of questions regarding why, for which I currently have no answers. No cause has been articulated at this time.

“Please know that it has been the honor of my life to serve alongside each of you,” Driscoll continued. “Thank you for allowing me to stand on your shoulders throughout it all. Our collective sacrifices for those we serve is, and will always be, worth it. I regret nothing. You are my heroes, and I remain in your debt.”

The Trump administration intended to install Robert Kissane as Christopher Wray’s replacement in January. But a clerical error instead placed Driscoll at the top of the agency, with Kissane acting as his number two—an oversight that wasn’t corrected until the Senate confirmed Patel at the end of February.

The issue came to a head just two weeks after Trump’s inauguration. When the White House demanded the names of the bureau staff who were involved in the January 6 probe, Driscoll refused, sparking accusations from Justice Department official Emil Bove that there was “insubordination” among the FBI’s leadership.

Driscoll’s full-throated defense of his colleagues was well received by the department, turning him into an unexpected champion defending the agency from the Trump administration’s encroachment. Current and former FBI agents circulated memes referring to the 45-year-old as “Saint Driz.”

New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani excoriated Andrew Cuomo’s recent call with President Donald Trump as a “betrayal” to the entire city.

“It is at this very site that we understand the cost of this news, that former Governor Cuomo has been conspiring with President Trump about the fate of this city, about the future of this city, about the facts of this race,” Mamdani said at a Thursday press conference. “It is knowledge that is a betrayal of everything we stand for as New Yorkers. It is knowledge that disappoints us, and yet it does not surprise us. Because it builds on a history that we have seen with this former governor, a history of trying to hide that which he knows is offensive to the values of this city from the people of this city. We see that with this call itself.”

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Cuomo “spoke about the race directly” with the president in recent weeks. Though it’s not clear who initiated the call, or what the two spoke about, Mamdani pointed out that it taking place is enough to condemn Cuomo.

“We know that this former governor has very little regard, whether it be for the Democratic Party, the democratic process, or for Democrats themselves,” Mamdani said. “Because he would rather look past having been beaten by close to 13 points, by a campaign that amassed more votes than any Democratic primary winner in New York City history, to the extent that he would actually have a conversation with the very president who is stealing food from the hungry, who is throwing New Yorkers and Americans from coast to coast off of their health care, and doing so all in service of yet another significant wealth transfer between those who do not have enough in their pocket to those who have more than they know what to do with.”

The Times detailed that Trump and Cuomo’s phone call came as Trump reportedly considers intervening in New York’s mayoral race to help reinforce the anti-Mamdani Wall Street base that has scrambled to get behind either Cuomo or Mayor Eric Adams. Trump has already attacked Mamdani, making unsubstantiated claims about his citizenship and calling him a “communist lunatic.”

It’s clear that Cuomo, who was unable to overcome his sexual harassment and corruption scandals in the primary, is turning back to his true home with the wealthy elites of New York. Trump and Cuomo go way back, as Cuomo’s father, Mario, served as lawyer to the president’s father in the 1980s.

“We know that Andrew Cuomo will sell working people out for his interests, for the interests of the billionaires that supported him, for the interests of Donald Trump. Because all of those interests are lining up as one and the same,” Mamdani continued. “It is time for us to say enough. It is time for us to make clear that what this city deserves is a mayor who when he sees Donald Trump attacking the people of this city, will stand up and fight back against that vision, [and] will not get on the phone with the architect of that vision to speak about a race that we already know should be a referendum on how to make the most expensive city in the United States of America affordable. Not a question of how we can install yet another ambassador for Washington, D.C., in City Hall.”

Unlike Sydney Sweeney, MAGA Representative Mike Collins of Georgia needed AI to generate his great jeans.

Collins shared a cringey AI-generated video on X Wednesday, as a nod to the controversial American Eagle denim campaign that is being fiercely defended by the right, including by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

The video made by Brenden Dilley, a far-right podcaster and seemingly self-proclaimed lead of Trump’s “meme team,” showed Collins’s head pasted on a male model’s denim-clad body. The figure brushes his hand through his hair, glowering at the camera before he turns, strutting away as Charlie Boy’s 2009 song “I Look Good” plays in the background.

The onscreen caption reads, “Mike Collins Has Great Jeans,” but the Georgia Republican added his own message in his repost.

“The Georgia cotton industry supports over 53,000 jobs, has a $3 BN economic impact, and makes some of the finest jeans around. I will always fight for our farmers, growers and producers, and Georgia’s rural culture and economy,” he wrote.

Users on X accused Collins of copying former Senator David Perdue, who donned a faded denim jacket in an attempt to appeal to everyday Georgians in his 2014 campaign ad “The Outsider.” The Washington Post even credited the ad with winning Perdue his seat. In 2020, Perdue wore his campaign-winning jacket again—but was defeated by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.

Notably, Collins didn’t actually summon up any folksy charm—a computer did it for him.

Collins recently launched his campaign to “take back control” of one of Georgia’s Senate seats from Ossoff with a video that misspelled the name of his own state.

NPR has obtained police bodycam footage of Trump Justice Department official Jared Wise calling on January 6 rioters to kill police officers.

“You guys are disgusting, man. You guys are disgusting,” Wise can be seen and heard saying on the footage. “I’m former law enforcement, you’re disgusting. You are the Nazi, you are the Gestapo, you can’t see it, cuz you’re chasing your pension.”

“Yeah! Fuck them, yeah! Kill ’em, yeah!” he later cheers as rioters push their way forward.

Wise’s incendiary statements, which he admitted to under oath in January, first made headlines in July after he was appointed senior counselor to Ed Martin, who was working to help January 6 rioters fight against “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions.”

Wise defended his speech as a heat of the moment action influenced by what he saw as “police brutality” on the part of the Capitol officers.

“Those are terrible things to say. Of course. I shouldn’t say those things,” he said in court. “I think I was careless and used, like, terrible words when I was angry.”

Wise worked for the FBI from 2004 to 2017 before moving on to the far-right propaganda machine Project Veritas, where he infiltrated teachers’ unions across the Midwest. Wise was charged with two felonies and four misdemeanor counts in 2023, including trespassing and disrupting the orderly conduct of government, for his actions on January 6. All of his charges (and the charges of hundreds of other rioters) were dropped by Trump.

Wise’s pardoning and senior appointment show that Trump truly sees no wrong in what happened on January 6, and he won’t even pretend to. Rather than display any level of accountability, he rewards and uplifts those, like Wise, who called for violence against police and against the country in his name.

President Donald Trump announced his plan to conduct a new U.S. census that excludes undocumented immigrants on Thursday.

“I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

“People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he continued.

The census is counted every 10 years and is the gold standard for population tallying. It’s used to determine how many House seats each state has and allocate federal funding. The census counts everyone living in the U.S., including “foreign-born” residents like naturalized citizens, people with green cards, undocumented immigrants, refugees, and students here on visas. 

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration lawyer with the American Immigration Council, called Trump’s proposal  “wildly unconstitutional.”

“The Constitution makes clear that all people must be counted. Not all citizens. People,” he wrote. 

Trump has attempted to alter the census before: In his first term, he tried to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census and was blocked by the Supreme Court. 

The president’s hope to conduct the census sooner also aligns with his gerrymandering scheme, as redistricting is only meant to take place once every decade, after the census is completed. 

Detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz” are being kept in a “human-sized kennel,” according to a former corrections officer at Donald Trump’s wetland-themed concentration camp.

In an exclusive interview with NBC6, Lindsey, who was identified by only her first name, said that people being held at the hastily constructed immigrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades were being treated like animals. 

“It’s inhumane the way that they’re keeping their residents,” she told NBC6. 

Lindsey described each tent at the facility as having eight large cages, housing 35 to 38 inmates, so around 300 per tent. “They have no sunlight. There’s no clock in there. They don’t even know what time of the day it is. They have no access to showers. They shower every other day or every four days,” she said. 

Detainees have previously alleged identical horrific conditions, claiming that they had no access to water and had not been allowed to bathe.  

Lindsey said that rain had been a problem, sending water pouring into the tents. Last month, there were reports of extensive flooding at the facility. 

She also reported that there had been similar problems with the employee housing, which was a shared trailer. “We had to use the porta-johns. We didn’t have hot water half the time. Our bathrooms were backed up,” Lindsey said.

Human Rights Watch reported nearly 72 percent of people detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement had no criminal history. Lindsey similarly told NBC6 that “not everybody there is a criminal.”

Lindsey said she’d worked at the facility for about a week before contracting Covid-19, after which she was fired, having been accused of “altering medical paperwork” submitted to Gardaworld, the private security company responsible for staffing “Alligator Alcatraz.” She said she was “pissed off” about being fired. 

“But more so than ever, like, they’re doing wrong,” she added.

Judges overseeing lawsuits against the facility are still attempting to determine who has actual authority over it, as the federal government has failed to produce an official agreement between Florida’s Division of Emergency Management and the Department of Homeland Security. 

The FBI has agreed to help hunt down Texas Democratic lawmakers, according to Republican Senator John Cornyn, who made the request.

“I am proud to announce that Director Kash Patel has approved my request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating runaway Texas House Democrats,” Cornyn said in a statement Thursday. “I thank President Trump and Director Patel for supporting and swiftly acting on my call for the federal government to hold these supposed lawmakers accountable.”

The Texan Democrats fled their state in an attempt to prevent Republicans from drawing new districts to help their own party gain more seats in the House. Many Democrats are currently sheltering in New York and Illinois, and they’ve advertised their whereabouts.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker doesn’t believe that the FBI has any grounds to arrest the state lawmakers—they’re not doing anything illegal under federal law—but figures the federal law enforcement agents may attempt to intimidate the representatives.

“The FBI agents might show up just to, I don’t know, again, to put a show on,” he said Wednesday.

There have been no criminal warrants filed against the Texan Democrats, though the speaker of the Texas House has issued civil warrants in an attempt to force the lawmakers to return. Cornyn requested assistance from the FBI in a letter on Tuesday, asking for federal assistance in the enforcement of a state issue rather than alleging a federal crime had been committed.

“Governor Abbott and Texas state law enforcement officers are doing what they can within the confines of the law, but federal help may be necessary,” Cornyn wrote.

So far, it’s not clear whether the FBI has taken action in the case. But it could spark a conflict between the Trump administration and Illinois electeds, as the redistricting war grows into a larger battle between Democratic state leaders and the Republican administration.

At least one Republican doesn’t believe in a free market, and he’s in the White House.

Donald Trump took to Truth Social Thursday to demand the immediate resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem,” Trump wrote. “Thank you for your attention to this problem!”

The post was most likely influenced by Senator Tom Cotton’s appearance on Fox Business, which aired minutes before Trump hit send.

Tan, a Malayan-born American business executive, has investments in hundreds of Chinese tech firms, including eight that are connected to the Chinese military, reported Reuters. One source told the newswire in April that Tan had divested from those positions, though the extent of his divestment was not made known.

Tan was appointed to run the chip manufacturer in March.

Cotton wrote a letter Wednesday to Intel board chair Frank Yeary, raising concerns about Tan’s various ties to China and some $8 billion that Intel received from the U.S. federal government by way of the CHIPS and Science Act.

“Intel is required to be a responsible steward of American taxpayer dollars and to comply with applicable security regulations,” the Arkansas senator wrote. “Mr. Tan’s associations raise questions about Intel’s ability to fulfill these obligations.”

Intel’s stock fell by 4 percent in after-hours trading after Trump made his post.

But having a U.S. president intervene in the business decisions of an independent company would set a “very unfortunate precedent,” according to analysts.

“You don’t want American presidents dictating who runs companies, but certainly his opinion has merit and weight,” Phil Blancato, CEO of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management, told Reuters.

Alan Dershowitz was once again denied pierogies at a farmers market.

After being turned away by the vendors of the Good Pierogi stand at the West Tisbury Farmer’s Market in Martha’s Vineyard last week, Donald Trump’s former lawyer once again left the market empty-handed Wednesday.

“I’m here in an effort to try to restore community and to ask you to sell me pierogi in the interest of keeping the island together so we don’t have to have two pierogi stands: one for anti-Zionists and one for people who will sell to anybody,” Dershowitz said, according to a video from the MV Times.

Last week, Dershowitz claimed that the vendors had refused to sell to him because of his staunch support for Israel’s catastrophic military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 60,000 people and caused widespread famine. He’d threatened to sue the supposedly bigoted owners for refusing sale.

But despite Dershowitz’s complaints, the Good Pierogi stand boasted the largest line at the farmer’s market Wednesday. When Dershowitz finally reached the front of the line, he attempted to hand vendors a copy of his book The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies: and How to Refute Them With Truth, which the vendors refused.

“I am very surprised that you’re here because of the things that you’ve been saying about us and the business online,” replied Krem Miskevich, the chef who co-runs Good Pierogi. “I really do not appreciate what you’ve been sharing in the last week.”

Dershowitz interrupted, “It’s true.”

“Is it true? You have proof that I am an antisemite?” the vendor shot back.

Dershowitz accused the vendor of being part of a group that protested the island’s Jewish Cultural Festival earlier this year. A group of about 10 demonstrators from Ceasefire MV appeared at the July event to protest speakers and funders who supported Israel’s military onslaught against the Palestinians.

Dershowtz tried to argue with the vendors. “This is not a cross-examination, it’s a conversation,” said one of the people behind the stall, eliciting cheers from the crowd that had formed around them. Dershowitz called the cheering crowd bigots.

“Hey, don’t call us bigots! Don’t call us bigots! My grandparents died in the Holocaust! Don’t you call me an antisemite!” snapped a marketgoer.

“Time to go! Time to go,” the crowd chanted.

“There are other people who want pierogies!” shouted one person, and another cried, “Go home, Alan!” He eventually sauntered off sans small dumplings.

In a statement Wednesday, Miskevich said that the reason they’d originally refused Dershowitz had nothing to do with Zionism at all. “When he came to our booth, I experienced a surge of emotion,” the post about the initial reaction with Dershowitz reads. “In this case, what was in the forefront of my mind was in fact that this was the high-profile attorney who represented several sexual predators and abusers, including Jeffrey Epstein.”

Dershowitz, who has been shunned from the island community for years, helped negotiate a “non-prosecution agreement” for the alleged sex trafficker with ties to Trump. Two women have alleged that they were directed to have sex with Dershowitz while he was in Epstein’s orbit, which he has denied.

Epstein has been at the forefront of a lot of people’s minds after the Justice Department clawed back the release of the convicted sex offender’s so-called “client list,” claiming that—contrary to prior statements—such a thing didn’t exist.

Vice President JD Vance made the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, or USACE, raise the water level in a river to make it easier for his family to go kayaking in Ohio.

The Guardian reported that Vance requested that the engineers change the output of the Little Miami River at Caesar Creek Lake, a task that is usually reserved only for public events and emergency first responder training. But to do it at the personal request of the vice president and his family—while not illegal—is a blatant exploitation of the privileges that Vance’s office gives him. The Guardian noted that Vance’s request wasn’t just to aid the Secret Service but to create “ideal kayaking conditions” for Vance and his family.

USACE data confirms a significant increase and then decrease in the river’s water levels corresponding with Vance’s arrival and departure from his family river excursion earlier this month.

It’s especially twisted for Vance to burn up public labor and resources for his family’s own leisure while his administration makes massive cuts to the National Park Service, which made his little river day possible in the first place.

“Those cuts are directly impacting middle-class families’ vacations,” former Bush administration ethics lawyer Richard Painter told The Guardian. “Whether they are doing it for the Secret Service or for him I think is splitting hairs. What he ought to be doing is choosing another place.”

The NPS has had more than a quarter of its workforce slashed since President Trump took office.

“When I was President Obama’s ethics czar in the White House I got a lot of unusual requests, but I never got one to increase the outflow of a waterway as part of a government official going kayaking,” former White House special counsel Norm Eisen said. “I never would have permitted this kind of a thing because whether it technically violates the rules or not, it creates the appearance that the vice-president of the United States is getting special treatment that’s not available to the average person who wants to utilise that body of water for recreational purposes.… While there may well be security-related explanations or justifications that come into the analysis, my reaction is: I don’t care. We shouldn’t be utilising government resources in this way. I never would have allowed it.”

Vance’s office has yet to comment.