Bondi Refuses to Answer One Easy Question on Trump Deploying Troops

During a Senate Judiciary hearing on Tuesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi chose to verbally attack Senator Dick Durbin rather than answer his basic question regarding the legal justification for sending the military into U.S. cities.

“Were you consulted by the White House before they deployed National Guard troops to cities in the United States?” Durbin asked.

“I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the White House,” Bondi responded.

“You won’t even say whether you talked to the White House about this?”

“I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the White House with you,” Bondi repeated.

“I noticed that,” Durbin replied. “What’s the secret? Why do you wanna keep this secret so the American people don’t know the rationale behind the deployment of National Guard troops in my state? The word is, and I think it’s been confirmed by the White House, they are going to transfer Texas National Guard units to the state of Illinois. What’s the rationale for that?”

This set Bondi off.

“Yeah, chairman, as you shut down the government, you voted to shut down the government, and you’re sitting here. Our law enforcement officers aren’t being paid, they’re out there working to protect you. I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,” Bondi said, staring down Durbin. “And currently, the National Guard are on the way to Chicago. If you’re not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will.”

Durbin was unphased.

“I’ve been on this committee for more than 20 years. That’s the kind of testimony you expect from this administration,” he said. “A simple question as to whether or not they had a legal rationale for deploying National Guard troops becomes grounds for a personal attack. I think it’s a legitimate question, it’s my responsibility. She refuses to answer as to whether she had any conversation with the White House about deploying national troops to my state. That’s an indication, I’m afraid, [of] where we are politically in this place.”

The fact that the attorney general can not give a basic justification for the president’s decision to flood American streets with the military suggests either her own incompetence or complicity, likely both.

“We’re here to make America safe,” Bondi later said to Durbin. “Whether or not you want us to.”

In an awkward end to his Fox News appearance on Monday night, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller was shown a video of him being ridiculed by Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday held an hour-long livestream on Instagram, during which she at one point noted the political effectiveness of mocking Republican villains like Miller, the architect behind Donald Trump’s barbaric mass deportation campaign.

“Laugh at them,” she urged her viewers. “Stephen Miller is a clown. I’ve never seen that guy in real life, but he looks like he’s like four [foot] 10, and he looks like he is angry about the fact that he’s four-10, and he looks like he is so mad that he is four-10 that he’s taking that anger out at any other population possible.”

Mockery, AOC said, is “one of the most powerful cultural things that you can do” to “dismantle” a movement like MAGA that is “predicated on the puffery of insecure masculinity.”

The following evening, Fox News host Laura Ingraham decided to show the clip to the subject of the congresswoman’s derision in a remote interview.

Setting up Miller for a chance to respond, Ingraham made fun of Ocasio-Cortez for wearing a sweatshirt during the livestream: “I wish I had a hoodie on. I mean, are we trying to play sorority sister as elected official?”

Stephen Miller laughed along, before offering what he must have thought was a witty riposte: “Well, we knew that her brain didn’t work. Now we know their eyes don’t work. So—” he trailed off, awkwardly chuckling. “The, I mean she is just, she is a mess, right? What a train wreck. What a train wreck. It’s great, it’s great—”

Cutting in, Ingraham homed in again on Ocasio-Cortez’s sweatshirt. “You should just wear a hoodie from now on and respond to her in a hoodie,” she joked. The host then tried to end the segment, thanking Miller, but was interrupted by her guest, whom she prompted to “go ahead” and “wrap it up.”

“I think the important point,” Miller added, “is that every time she’s on TV, Republican approval ratings go up. Democratic approval ratings go down. That lady is a walking nightmare.”

The Fox host assured her viewers—and perhaps Miller himself—that, in person, he appears to be “about five-foot-10, 11.” Five foot, 10 inches, the White House deputy chief of staff confirmed for the record.

Ocasio-Cortez was delighted that Miller had seen the clip. “I cannot believe they aired this and made him listen to it live,” she wrote on X with a crying-laughing emoji. “I am crying.”

Pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell is apparently back on the table, per the president.

The Supreme Court tossed out the convicted sex trafficker’s appeal request Monday, unanimously declining to hear Maxwell’s attempt to reverse her 20-year prison sentence for aiding Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump, however, is still willing to hear her out.

During an Oval Office presser Monday afternoon, Trump outright pretended not to know who Maxwell was, claiming he hadn’t heard her name in a long time while simultaneously insinuating his administration would consider clemency for her.

“Her only chance for getting out of prison is a pardon from you. Is that something—” started CNN’s Kaitlan Collins before Trump interrupted to ask who was being discussed. “Ghislaine Maxwell,” Collins clarified.

“You know, I haven’t heard the name in so long,” Trump said. “I can say this: that I’d have to take a look at it. I’d have to take a look.”

“Did they reject that?” he asked, referring to the Supreme Court decision.

“She wanted to appeal her conviction,and they said they were not going to hear her,” Collins said.

“I see, well, I’ll take a look at it. I will speak to the DOJ. I wouldn’t consider it or not consider it, I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said.

“Why would she be a candidate for clemency, sir?” pressed Collins.

“I don’t know, I mean I’d have to speak to the DOJ,” Trump said.

“But she was convicted of child sex trafficking,” Collins said.

“Yeah, I mean, I’d have to take a look at it,” Trump said. “I didn’t know she was even asking for it, frankly.”

But that last detail would mean the president has an incredibly short memory. Trump not only acknowledged in July that Maxwell was seeking a pardon but emphasized at the time that he was technically “allowed” to give her one.

Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 for playing an active role in Epstein’s crimes, identifying and grooming vulnerable young women while normalizing their abuse at the hands of her millionaire boyfriend. Maxwell’s attorneys have pressed the White House for a pardon for several months now.

Trump was photographed with Maxwell several times over his long friendship with Epstein: They partied together, attended fashion shows together, and went “out on the town” together, according to a 1997 postcard.

“I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach,” Trump told reporters in 2020, when the charges against Maxwell were first announced. “I just wish her well, frankly.”

In an attempt to quell MAGA’s ravenous demand for progress on the Epstein files, the Justice Department chose to conduct an interview with Maxwell in July regarding details of Epstein’s potential associates. At the time, questions abounded about why the DOJ would give Maxwell a second chance, and why her answers would differ from her first go around with law enforcement.

It was also unclear why the Trump administration would want to procure another list of Epstein’s associates, particularly when they already had (but refused to release) files pertaining to his investigation.

Regardless, the information exchange resulted in a very convenient transfer for Maxwell—one of the worst sex criminals of the century—shipping her from a Florida prison to a low-security prison camp in Texas that lawmakers have described as “not suitable for a sex offender.”

President Donald Trump called Portland a war zone last week, and now state Republicans are trying to deliver one—by sharing fake photos of a fake riot.

The official social media accounts of the Oregon Republican Party shared an image Sunday showing a crowd of protesters looking at a plume of red smoke from a flare, with a line of riot gear–clad police officers standing in the midst of the cloud, The Guardian reported Tuesday.

“President Trump on Sunday deployed 300 California National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon after a judge ruled that the Oregon National Guard could not be deployed to keep federal facilities and personnel in Portland safe,” the accounts captioned the photograph on X, Facebook, and Instagram.

But the images posted by Republicans didn’t show Portland at all, according to The Guardian.

The image of shield-carrying police officers was from Getty Images, showing “South American riot police” in 2008. Their shields clearly read “Policia,” which is Spanish or Portuguese. Other images taken by the same photographer around the same time indicate that these police were in Ecuador.

Similarly, the protesters aren’t from a war-torn Portland, either. That photograph can be found on the free image website Pexels and shows “anonymous people standing on street among smoke during protests at night” in August 2017.

When a Guardian reporter pointed this out on X, the Oregon GOP account replied: “We’re not reporters, just bad memers”—a shocking abdication of accountability for spreading blatant disinformation. The original posts, and the account’s reply have since been removed.

If the situation in Portland were really so dire, why would Republicans have to manufacture images of a city “under siege from attack by Antifa,” as the president claims? It seems that if the city were as “war-ravaged” as Trump says, then Republicans could just go outside and snap a photo.

Public officials have pushed back on the president’s wild characterization of Portland as a hotbed of violent clashes. Actual reporting of the protests outside of Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility details generally small daily protests, with a larger demonstration occurring over the weekend, which law enforcement fired at using tear gas and rubber bullets.

A draft White House memo, reported by Axios Tuesday, lays out a plan to stiff federal workers on furlough during the ongoing government shutdown.

The memo reinterprets the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, or GEFTA, a federal law signed into law by Donald Trump in 2019, amid the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

GEFTA is typically interpreted as guaranteeing furloughed government workers automatic back pay.

But Axios’s Marc Caputo reports that the memo, from the Office of Management and Budget, “argues that GEFTA has been misconstrued or, in the words of one source, is ‘deficient,’” in light of an amendment made nine days after it was signed into law.

The amended law includes language providing that furloughed employees will be paid “subject to the enactment of appropriations Acts ending the [shutdown].”

As interpreted by the White House, this means back pay is not automatic but requires explicit approval by Congress. As Semafor reporter Dave Weigel put it, the White House believes you can simply “not appropriate” the backpay “or appropriate it and impound it.”

“Does this law cover all these furloughed employees automatically? The conventional wisdom is: Yes, it does,” a senior White House official told Axios. “Our view is: No, it doesn’t.”

Legal experts told Axios that interpretation is misguided. “The law here is quite clear,” said Sam Berger, senior fellow at the Center for Policy and Budget Priorities. “The caveat is, if you follow the law.”

Notably, the OMB memo contradicts shutdown guidance issued by Office of Personnel Management last month.

The guidance, which was updated on September 28, says that employees who are furloughed will get paid. “After the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods,” the document states. “Retroactive pay will be provided on the earliest date possible after the lapse ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates.”

The plan comes as the OMB under Russell Vought seizes on the shutdown to try to cull the federal workforce and fulfill Trump’s threat to punish Democrats by “cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like.”