Pam Bondi’s Justice Department Make Deal to Save Her Brother’s Client

For the second time in just a few weeks, the Justice Department has done Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother, Brad, a solid.

On Wednesday, the DOJ dropped felony wire fraud charges against a client of Brad Bondi named Sid Chakraverty, a property developer who was accused of defrauding programs meant to support women- and minority-owned businesses.

According to the motion to dismiss, filed by a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, the move was in keeping with the administration’s stance that programs “that use race- and sex-based presumptions”—as did the one Chakraverty was said to have scammed—are unconstitutional. It was an abrupt reversal from a motion the Trump appointee had signed 24 days earlier, Bloomberg reports, “defending the merits of the prosecution.”

Brad Bondi celebrated the outcome on LinkedIn, writing, “I am proud of our excellent work in winning this victory.”

This was his second victory within a month’s time thanks to his sister’s Justice Department. In July, federal prosecutors scrapped Covid-19 relief fraud charges against a Florida politician he was representing.

In both cases, the Justice Department issued identical statements to the media: “This decision was made through proper channels, and the Attorney General had no role in it.”

Back in March, yet another of Brad Bondi’s clients—former electric vehicle CEO and Trump campaign megadonor Trevor Milton—saw fraud charges against him disappear, this time due to a pardon from the president.

President Trump has terminated former Vice President Kamala Harris’s Secret Service Protection—just before she embarks on her book tour.

“You are hereby authorized to discontinue any security-related procedures previously authorized by Executive Memorandum, beyond those required by law, for the following individual, effective September 1, 2025: Former Vice President Kamala D. Harris,” the memorandum reads.

Former President Joe Biden had extended Harris’s Security Service protection from six to 18 months as he was leaving office—and Trump’s memo axes that directive.

Harris had heightened security concerns as the first Black woman ever nominated to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. Trump’s move also comes as she prepares to set off on her 107 Days book tour, which will have her back in the public eye for the first time since the election. Harris will lose the 24/7 in-person and online threat prevention her detail provided, and they’ll leave her Los Angeles home too.

“The Vice President is grateful to the United States Secret Service for their professionalism, dedication, and unwavering commitment to safety,” a Harris adviser told NBC.

When Trump’s first term ended, Biden politely extended Secret Service for all of Trump’s adult children to 18 months as well. Instead of matching the basic kindness that Biden offered, Trump terminated protection for Hunter and Ashley Biden. He also revoked Secret Service protections for Dr. Anthony Fauci, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, and now Harris.

These moves are purely spiteful, especially since Biden gave Trump’s own family equal treatment while Trump decided that anyone he doesn’t like should have their protection ended.

“This is another act of revenge following a long list of political retaliation in the form of firings, the revoking of security clearances and more,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told CNN. This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the Governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe in Los Angeles.”

On Thursday evening, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis—who recently resigned from a high-level role at the Centers for Disease Control—revealed a jarring fact about Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. According to Daskalakis, Kennedy has never been briefed by any of the center’s scientists on major diseases.

Daskalakis was one of numerous top CDC officials to leave their post this week after Kennedy fired the agency’s director for refusing to “rubberstamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts,” per the ousted director’s lawyers. Stepping down as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory, Daskalakis cited the CDC’s transformation under RFK Jr. into a “tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.”

During a Thursday CNN appearance, Daskalakis advised senators to ask Kennedy at his appearance before the Senate Finance Committee next week: “Has he been ever briefed by a CDC expert on anything—on, specifically, measles, Covid-19, flu?” Asked whether RFK has indeed ever received such a briefing, Daskalakis replied, “The answer is no. So no one from my center has ever briefed him on any of those topics.”

“He’s getting information from somewhere, but that information is not coming from CDC experts,” Daskalakis continued. “CDC is the preeminent public health organization, I’m going to say, in the world. And he’s not taking us up on several offers to brief him on these very important topics.” Asked why, he raised the possibility that Kennedy “has alternate experts that he may trust more than the experts at CDC that the rest of the world regards as the best scientists in the areas.”

The startling revelation comes as Kennedy’s dangerous incompetence as health secretary faces increasing scrutiny. On Thursday, the American Public Health Association issued a statement condemning Kennedy’s move to fire the CDC director, as well as his dangerous anti-vaccine sentiments and actions, and his other “misguided efforts to overhaul the public health system based on myths and pseudoscience.”

Remember that expensive, wasteful military parade that President Trump forced on everyone in June? Now our dear leader wants a redo—by sea.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Navy is planning a larger parade for this fall after the president told aides he was “disappointed” by the marching and paltry attendance. The second parade is reportedly to celebrate the Navy’s 250th anniversary, much like the summer parade was focused on the anniversary of the U.S. Army.

“Through the America 250 celebrations and beyond, President Trump is rightfully restoring patriotism across the administration and giving our brave men and women in uniform the honor they deserve,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said when questioned by The Daily Beast. “Only the anti-American activists at the Daily Beast could possibly take issue with celebrating our U.S. Navy’s 250th Anniversary – sad!”

The Army’s summer spectacle cost U.S. taxpayers $30 million, and was largely a flop.

It’s unclear what else will be different about this parade aside from the personnel. If Trump was upset by the lack of turnout at his earlier parade, especially after comparing it to the March on Washington, it’s unclear how the Navy would change that. And while MAGA loyalists were delighted by this summer’s show of power, the majority of the public was conflicted. Another parade will likely sow the same sentiments.

A Republican official in North Carolina was charged with felony child abuse after he allegedly attempted to drug his two granddaughters with cocaine and MDMA.

The chairman of the Surry County Board of Elections, James Edwin Yokeley Jr., told police earlier this month that he had discovered “two hard objects” in ice cream he had bought from a local Dairy Queen—but video evidence collected during the investigation suggested otherwise.

Yokeley was reportedly caught on tape placing the pills in the girls’ ice cream himself, the Wilmington Police Department said in a press release Wednesday. Neither child ingested the drug-laced pills.

The local Republican chair was arrested and is currently held on a $100,000 bail. Along with the child abuse charges, Yokeley faces two counts of contaminating food or drink with a controlled substance, and felony possession of schedule 1 narcotics.

Yokeley only recently came into power in the artsy beach town: The 66-year-old was appointed in June by State Auditor Dave Boliek, though the state official no longer appears to be one of his supporters. In an interview with WRAL News, Boliek called the matter “very disturbing.”

Yokeley was selected in part because of his previous experience on the board. He had previously run for a seat on the Surry County Board of Education in 2022, winning 26.69 percent of the vote in the Republican primary. Boliek emphasized that “nothing” had appeared in the election officials’ background check “that would suggest this at all.”

Yokeley resigned via letter Thursday afternoon, though he insisted that he had been “falsely accused.”

“Based on the truth and facts, I remain prayerfully confident that I will be exonerated of all accusations levied against me,” Yokeley wrote.

In a statement to the News & Observer, Boliek said that the resignation would allow the board to “move forward with the process of appointing a replacement.”