Ghislaine Maxwell Keeps Getting Special Treatment

Ghislaine Maxwell—currently serving hard time for helping deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein abuse minors—has been taking secret meetings and receiving special treatment at her new Camp Bryan prison in Texas, only further stoking fears that she is working with the Trump administration to receive a pardon. 

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that in August, Maxwell, who is serving time for sex trafficking and conspiracy until at least 2037, had the prison locked down while she met with unnamed visitors in the prison chapel. A fellow inmate reported that Maxwell returned from the meeting smiling, and said that it had gone “really well.” 

Additionally, Maxwell has been treated like more of a celebrity than a convicted sex trafficker and child abuser since she’s been transferred from her more serious facility in Florida to the grassy, minimum-security Camp Bryan. Her fellow inmates include Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes and Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah. Shah and Holmes are in Camp Bryan for fraud. And while other inmates have taken to harassing Maxwell for being a “chomo” or sex predator, the prison warden essentially rolled out the red carpet for her visitors. 

One inmate told the Journal that the prison notified them that “someone important was coming to do a walk-through” and did a deep clean of the entire facility before Maxwell arrived. The warden even called a “town meeting” warning other inmates not to harm Maxwell. Since then she has been allowed to eat alone in her dormitory, has a security escort for when she wants to work out, and is allowed to shower well after other inmates are supposed to be in their bunks.  

This is all yet another strange wrinkle in a fairly obvious effort from the Trump administration and the GOP to tie up loose ends and absolve the president (who was quite close with Epstein and appears multiple times in his “files”) while simultaneously attempting to satiate their base’s deep desire for the truth about the Epstein files. 

Just last week President Trump indicated that a pardon for Maxwell was still on the table. 

“Her only chance for getting out of prison is a pardon from you. Is that something—”  CNN’s Kaitlan Collins said 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.”

President Trump—a man regarded by some as the most corrupt president in U.S. history and a flagrant abuser of the presidential pardon power—on Monday called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be pardoned for corruption charges.

During a speech before Israel’s Knesset, Trump strayed from his prepared remarks to lobby Israeli President Isaac Herzog for such a pardon.

“I have an idea. Mr. President,” Trump said. “Why don’t you give him a pardon? Give him a pardon. By the way, that was not in the speech, as you probably know, but I happen to like this gentleman right over here [Netanyahu], and it just seems to make so much sense.”

He went on to call the Israeli prime minister “one of the greatest wartime presidents,” asking, “Cigars and champagne, who the hell cares about that?”

Netanyahu has been on trial since 2020 for three cases involving bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. In one, he allegedly granted regulatory favors, to the tune of $500 million, to a telecommunications billionaire in exchange for positive news coverage.

In another, he is accused of accepting nearly $300,000 in gifts—including cigars and champagne, as Trump mentioned while underplaying the allegations—from billionaires including film producer Arnon Milchan, in exchange for actions advancing Milchan’s business interests.

The third case involves the prime minister allegedly negotiating a deal with the owner of an Israeli newspaper, under which Netanyahu would receive positive coverage and enact legislation to weaken a competitor publication.

As Trump has during his own legal battles, Netanyahu dismisses the accusations as a political “witch hunt” and “attempted coup” by his liberal enemies in the judicial system and media.

Trump in June called the charges against Netanyahu “politically motivated”—and the trial a “ridiculous Witch Hunt,” “Horror Show,” and “TRAVESTY OF ‘JUSTICE’”—on Truth Social. “Bibi Netanyahu’s trial should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero,” he wrote.

Netanyahu also faces active arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, to which the Trump administration responded with sanctions on ICC personnel.

The White House’s government shutdown blame game isn’t turning out to be a very effective cross-topic strategy.

Speaking with CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Vice President JD Vance couldn’t muster an answer as to why more than a thousand staffers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been mistakenly laid off just days prior without lazily pointing the finger at congressional Democrats.

“Some of them were involved with the federal measles response. Some of them were involved with the response on Ebola,” said host Margaret Brennan. “How does a mistake like this happen? Did the White House even talk to the CDC?”

“So, you ask, how does this mistake happen? It happened because Chuck Schumer shut down the government, and we’re trying to make sure that essential services still function in the face of that shutdown,” Vance said in a sprawling answer that both blamed Democrats for the critical bipartisan failure and suggested that the layoff error was little more than water under the bridge.

“But that was a White House decision to lay off these individuals,” Brennan pressed.

“You heard the president talking about that. That—that wasn’t Chuck Schumer’s decision. I understand your broader point on the negotiations, but the layoffs came from the president and the White House.”

“But my point is, Margaret, that we have to do layoffs because we have to preserve necessary resources to do the most critical things that the government does,” Vance said.

“All these conversations about whether it’s a temporary layoff or a permanent layoff, we are dealing with a terrible, chaotic situation because Chuck Schumer and a few far-left Democrats decided to shut down the government.”

Roughly 10 percent of the CDC received layoff notices Friday amid a wave of some 4,100 government firings under the cover of the government shutdown. Once the news became public on Saturday, a federal health official indicated that some of the CDC’s pink slip recipients had been mistakenly let go, including members of the agency’s infectious disease outbreak team as well as its science and health data analysis team.

Approximately 700 employees were reinstated that day, according to their union, the American Federation of Government Employees.

So far, the government has been shut down for more than 12 days. The federal closure is the result of a boiling disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, leftover from the spring, about how to fund Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget.

Republicans want to pass a “clean” continuing resolution, which would provide the executive branch with unfettered funds to advance the president’s agenda as outlined in his July legislation. That would include ruinous cuts to Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid, a position that Democrats have demonstrated for months is a nonstarter.

Steve Bannon claimed that President Donald Trump’s team will launch tactics to keep him on the ballot in 2028 after the midterm elections.

During an interview Saturday on NewsNation’s BATYA!, host Batya Ungar-Sargon asked the MAGA movement architect if he believed the Twenty-Second Amendment was a “barrier” for the president.

“I think that there are many different alternatives that at the appropriate time after the midterms in ‘26, we will roll out,” Bannon said. “But I think there are many different alternatives to make sure that President Trump is on the ballot, and if he’s on the ballot, he’ll win.”

It’s not clear that Trump, who hocks “Trump 2028” hats, sees himself as constrained by the Twenty-Second Amendment, either—not to mention the U.S. Constitution. In March, he told NBC’s Kristen Welker that he was “not joking” about considering a third term, claiming that there were “methods” by which he could remain in the White House.

Still, the Twenty-Second Amendment is clear as ever: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, 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 once.” It’s just a matter of whether the Supreme Court will enforce it—and based on recent remarks from Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas, it’s not clear that it will.

It seems the quiet part about reelecting a man who once refused to concede the results of a presidential election has become quite deafening now. And ironically, Republicans have recently moved to criminalize “No Kings” protests across the country.

The Trump administration is flailing to protect its border czar, Tom Homan.

Undercover federal agents handed Homan $50,000 via a paper Cava takeout bag in a 2024 sting operation, according to FBI surveillance tapes referenced in federal reports. But the public corruption investigation into Homan had no clear resolution—instead, it ended abruptly when Donald Trump took office and Homan was appointed to government office. By the time the dust settled, it appeared that Homan had never actually returned the taxpayer funds.

Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi deflected direct questions by two senators during a Judiciary Committee hearing about the missing “buy money,” grousing about the apparent “gotcha.”

But Vice President JD Vance didn’t have a better approach, either. Speaking with ABC News Sunday, Vance zigged and zagged on the topic until the network cut him off for refusing to answer the question.

“Tom Homan did not take a bribe,” Vance told the network. “It’s a ridiculous smear. And the reason you guys are going after Tom Homan so aggressively is because he’s doing the job of enforcing the law. I think it’s really preposterous.”

Vance went on to complain about the severity of public backlash that Homan has faced while trying to “enforce the country’s immigration laws,” but failed to actually answer host George Stephanopoulos as to whether Homan had accepted the cash or given it back.

“But, wait, you said he didn’t take a bribe,” pressed Stephanopoulos. “But I’m not sure you answered the question. Are you saying that he did not accept the $50,000?”

Vance regurgitated the same answer, to which Stephanopoulos asked again if Homan had accepted or rejected the $50,000. But by that point, Vance had decided the best course of action was to play dumb.

“George, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did he accept $50,000 for what?” Vance said.

“He was recorded on an audiotape in September of 2024, an FBI surveillance tape, accepting $50,000 in cash. Did he keep that money?” Stephanopoulos said.

“Accepting $50,000 for doing what, George?” Vance tossed back. “I am not even sure I understand the question. Is it illegal to take a payment for doing services? The FBI has not prosecuted him. I have never seen any evidence that he’s engaged in criminal wrongdoing. Nobody has accused Tom of violating a crime, even the far-left media like yourself.

“So I’m actually not sure what the precise question is. Did he accept $50,000? Honestly, George, I don’t know the answer to that question,” Vance continued. “What I do know is that he didn’t violate a crime.”

After Stephanopoulos asked a third time, Vance began to ramble and rave about how the inquiry into Homan’s alleged impropriety was little more than a “left-wing rabbit hole,” claiming that ABC had misallocated its resources by investigating a public corruption story rather than airing more 24/7 coverage of the government shutdown.

ABC then pulled the plug on Vance, cutting off his blatant hedging—and he did not take it well.

Taking to X shortly after the failed interview, Vance further distorted the reality of the investigation by claiming that ABC wasn’t interested in “peace in the Middle East” or U.S.-China trade relations.

“George S doesn’t care about that. He’s here to focus on the real story: a fake scandal involving Tom Homan,” Vance wrote in a post that received more than 68,000 likes.

How $50,000 in cash got lost in translation is a bit of an anomaly for federal investigations. The Justice Department outlines strict regulations on exactly how federal agents can parcel out “buy money” during sting operations. Those funds are government property, and the DOJ requires clear accounting of how much was withdrawn and how much was returned to government accounts.

Several experts that spoke with The New York Times noted that $50,000 was a significant sum in the scope of public corruption investigations, and would suggest that agents had amassed “considerable evidence” that Homan was preparing to provide for-cash “kickbacks” once he entered public office.

Vice President JD Vance appeared desperate to claim “fake news” Sunday about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s wild announcement that a Qatari Emiri air force facility would be built in Idaho.

Last week, Hegeth announced that the United States would build a facility in America’s heartland to “host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots,” summoning a tidal wave of disapproval from both sides of the aisle over the first foreign airbase to be built on U.S. soil.

But in an interview on Fox News’s Sunday Mornings Futures With Maria Bartiromo, Vance tried to backtrack the secretary’s claim, saying the whole thing was the sad product of “misreporting.”

“What is the function of this Qatar facility? People are wondering is this an airbase? What is Qatar gonna be developing in Idaho?” Bartiromo asked.

“Yeah, I saw some reporting about this, Maria. I actually talked to the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth this morning. This is largely a fake story,” Vance said.

“We continue to have, with countries that we work with, we have relationships where sometimes their pilots work on our bases, sometimes that we train together, sometimes we work together in other ways. The reporting that somehow there’s going to be a Qatari base on United States soil, that’s just not true,” he said.

“We are continuing to work with a number of our Arab friends to ensure that we are able to enforce this peace, but we’re not gonna let a foreign country have an actual base on American soil, so there was a bit of misreporting on that, as there often is, as you know, Maria.”

But there was nothing to misreport. Hegseth clearly said Friday that the Pentagon was “signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri air force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho.”

Within days, either the White House seems to have shifted the goalposts on this deal, or Vance is simply lying to calm the angry mob. Or maybe no one knows what the hell is going on. Either way, the Trump administration is being less than transparent about its deal with Qatar, a country whose gifts the White House has readily accepted.

Try as he might, Vivek Ramaswamy will never be fully accepted by MAGA world.

The Ohio gubernatorial candidate and former DOGE co-chief came face-to-face with the racism rampant among American conservative youth culture Tuesday when he headlined a Turning Point USA event in Montana.

Speaking at Montana State University, Ramaswamy fielded disturbing questions about how he believed he could adequately participate in electoral politics when his religion and ethnic identity don’t align with stereotypical white American ideals.

“Jesus Christ is God, and there is no other God,” said a male student. “How can you represent the constituents of Ohio who are 64 percent Christian if you are not a part of that faith?”

“If you are an Indian, a Hindu, coming from a different culture, different religion than those who founded this country, those who grew this country, built this country, made this country the beautiful thing that it is today,” he continued. “What are you conserving? You are bringing change. I’ll be 100 percent honest with you—Christianity is the one truth.”

A female student asked Ramaswamy why he chose to “masquerade as a Christian.”

Before he became an alternative fixture in Trumpworld, Ramaswamy was a biotech investor, an entrepreneur, and a 2024 Republican presidential candidate. But none of those notches on his belt could atone for the color of his skin or his religion with some members of the Turning Point USA crowd, which was apparently more fixated on Christian nationalism than honoring the First Amendment’s allowances for freedom of religion.

“I’m an ethical monotheist, that’s the way I would describe my faith,” Ramaswamy said in another jarring exchange with a student. “Do you think it’s inappropriate for someone who’s a Hindu to be a U.S. president?”

“No I think it’s—” another male student started, before stopping himself. “But isn’t Charlie Kirk’s organization founded on Christian values as well? And isn’t America based on what Protestantism is and based on how those values are? Wouldn’t that contradict what your beliefs are?”

The tour stop had been scheduled before Turning Point’s founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September. Kirk launched Turning Point to spread conservative ideology among America’s youth.

There are some 900 official college chapters and around 1,200 high school chapters of Turning Point USA across the nation, but the conservative advocacy nonprofit received more than 54,000 inquiries for new campus chapters in the 48 hours after Kirk’s assassination, TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet announced last month.

Stephen Miller may have just accidentally confirmed that he, not President Donald Trump, is the one calling the shots in regard to deportation raids and National Guard deployments.

“Illinois governor says we’re provoking actions that are unlawful,” Miller said on CNN on Monday. “Why would the mere presence—just think about this for a second. If I put federal law enforcement and National Guard into a nice sleepy Southern town, is anyone gonna riot?”

Miller’s use of the first person is alarming here, suggesting that he—an unelected deputy chief of staff—has either the complete authority or an outsize influence on the administration’s most authoritarian decisions.

“Miller says quiet part out loud,” one user wrote on X. “He determines where to put ICE, CBP & other federal agencies, but he is also doing the same for various National Guards. An unelected staffer making these decisions, where is the president? Both Miller and Vought are running this admin.”

Additionally, Miller misrepresents small Southern towns and the actions of the National Guard. If hundreds of armed military members descended on some remote Southern locale and started violently rounding up neighbors, employees, and friends, I’d be willing to bet that it wouldn’t go so peacefully.

Miller made the remarks in the same interview where he claimed Trump has “plenary authority,” after being asked whether the administration would abide by court rulings blocking his deployment of troops to American cities.

GOP congressional leaders on Friday smeared an upcoming anti-Trump protest in Washington, D.C., in the most hysterical, demonizing terms.

After House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise referred to the peaceful “No Kings” protest planned for October 18 as a “Hate America rally,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer went one step further, calling it a “terrorist” event.

At a press conference, Emmer accused Democrats of causing the government shutdown in order to “score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold … a ‘Hate America’ rally in D.C. next week.”

Earlier, Johnson had also baselessly attributed the shutdown to the event. Calling the prospective protesters “pro-Hamas” and “antifa,” he told Fox News that Democrats will not “reopen the government until after that rally, ’cuz they can’t face their rabid base.”

“No Kings” events have taken place in towns and cities across the country since President Donald Trump was elected. On June 14, when Trump held a massive military parade in the streets of Washington, D.C., millions of people—of varying political stripes—peacefully protested against his antidemocratic second-term agenda.

The upcoming event will take place nationwide. According to Ezra Levin, who co-leads Indivisible, one of the organizing groups, it is set to be “the largest peaceful protest in modern American history.” And as emphasized on an organizing page, “A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action.”

That hasn’t stopped Republican fearmongering.

Emmer’s remarks echo the ongoing, authoritarian efforts by the Trump administration, spearheaded by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, to crack down on the Democratic Party and political left based on ludicrous accusations of ties to “terrorism.”

President Donald Trump’s administration announced Friday that the government initiated sweeping layoffs of furloughed federal employees—but they might have some trouble actually delivering termination notices amid the government shutdown.

White House budget director Russell Vought announced that the reductions in force were finally underway, after he’d warned federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs as means to force Democrats to approve a stopgap funding measure.

But federal employees sent home on furlough are typically barred from accessing their email accounts, except for in limited cases, CNN reported Friday. The Antideficiency Act—the same law that places some constraints on whether Trump can actually fire federal workers during a shutdown—bars federal employees from doing any work during the shutdown.

One employee at the Department of Agriculture suggested this could delay workers receiving termination notices. “So I guess we won’t find out we’re laid off until after the shutdown ends?” the person told CNN.

Trump administration officials said that employees would also be notified by mail, and that furloughed employees were permitted to use government-issued equipment to check for updates on the reductions in force. So, rather than waiting indefinitely with an axe over their heads, they may know in just a few days, as USPS has not been affected by the shutdown.

Responding to the announcement that layoffs were underway, the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 820,000 government workers, wrote on X, “The lawsuit has been filed.”