DOJ in Uproar Over Official Response to Alex Pretti

Federal prosecutors in Minnesota are floating the possibility of a mass resignation in protest of the Justice Department’s response to the recent ICE killings of two U.S. citizens.

Prosecutors expressed their frustration to U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, Donald Trump’s appointee to lead the Minneapolis office, irate over the Justice Department’s retroactive smear campaign to justify the deaths of ICU nurse Alex Pretti and award-winning poet Renee Nicole Good. In an act of defiance, federal prosecutors in the state have reportedly told Rosen that they might resign en masse, leaving the office to crumble under the weight of the unattended workload, officials told The Washington Post Thursday.

It’s not an empty threat: At least one prosecutor in the office’s criminal division has already resigned, reported the Post.

But ICE’s time pillaging Minnesota is almost up.

Border czar Tom Homan, who recently took the reins of ICE and its sister agency, Customs and Border Protection, told reporters Thursday that he is working on a “drawdown” plan to scale back the number of agents occupying the North Star State.

He noted, however, that he is “not surrendering the president’s mission in immigration enforcement.”

But the way that federal agencies have gone about enacting that agenda has been nothing short of illegal. The chief federal district judge in the state declared in a legal memo Wednesday that ICE had violated 96 court orders since Operation Metro Surge began last month.

“ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence,” Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz wrote.

In just a few short weeks, Operation Metro Surge has conducted militarized raids across Minnesota, terrorizing residents while carrying out what state officials have described as “unconstitutional stops and arrests, all under the guise of lawful immigration enforcement.”

The White House just gave a wild explanation for why Tulsi Gabbard was spotted lurking around a federal raid at the Fulton County, Georgia, election office on Wednesday.

Having been completely sidelined from the typical responsibilities of the director of national intelligence, Gabbard has spent months leading an investigation into President Donald Trump’s baseless claims about the results of the 2020 presidential election, White House officials told The Wall Street Journal Thursday.

Gabbard has reportedly regularly briefed Trump and his chief of staff Susie Wiles, as well as other well-known election deniers Cleta Mitchell, a far-right activist with the ear of the president, and Kurt Olsen, a former lawyer for the Trump campaign who helped mount the “Stop the Steal” lawsuits.

Gabbard is expected to produce a report on her findings—but we wouldn’t advise election denialists to get their hopes up. Gabbard’s other so-called investigations haven’t gone too well. Last year, her attempt to prove that former President Barack Obama had committed treason fell hilariously flat.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Gabbard was tapped to look into the president’s favorite conspiracy theory, because she’s known to spread far-fetched conspiracy theories herself—specifically ones pushed by Moscow.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is leaping into action to protect American citizens by banning … something that is already illegal.

Speaking at a press briefing at the Capitol Thursday, Jeffries announced that, as a condition of supporting legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security as it continues its deadly immigration enforcement crackdown in Minneapolis, Democrats will demand a ban on deporting American citizens.

“In what country are we living in if it’s controversial to prohibit [the deportation] of American citizens?” Jeffries said. “That shouldn’t even be a discussion.”

It shouldn’t be up for discussion because it is already illegal. Deporting American citizens is not permitted under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which outlines the rules for deporting noncitizens. It also violates a 1958 Supreme Court ruling that found stripping a person of their American citizenship violated the Eighth Amendment protection against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

But the Trump administration is still doing it anyway, sweeping up American citizens as part of its dragnet immigration enforcement efforts.

Senate Democrats also pitched immigration reforms, such as requiring federal agents to wear body cameras, banning the use of face masks, and enforcing a new code of conduct. But they’re missing the point.

It seems that Jeffries, along with his Senate colleagues, haven’t quite grasped the fact that the cruelties of Donald Trump’s lawless immigration crackdown are not subject to reform because they are already lawless. Instead, Democrats will continue to find ways to soothe their conscience while filling the coffers of federal agencies that allowed American citizens to be killed in the streets.

Even ICE’s enormous 2026 budget has its limits.

Landowners in Oklahoma City are backing out of a deal with the federal agency, nixing plans to develop a new ICE facility in the area after agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt announced the terminated contract on social media Thursday morning after meeting with the property owners at 2800 S. Council in the southwest portion of the city.

“The owners are not residents of Oklahoma and this is the only property they own in Oklahoma City,” Holt wrote. “The owners of the property at 2800 S. Council confirmed to me this morning that they are no longer engaged with the Department of Homeland Security about a potential acquisition or lease of this property.

“I commend the owners for their decision and thank them on behalf of the people of Oklahoma City,” Holt added. “As Mayor, I ask that every single property owner in Oklahoma City exhibit the same concern for our community in the days ahead.”

The property at 2800 S. Council road is a 26.8-acre warehouse. Its owners are listed as OKC Logistic Park LLC, a leasing company based out of Kansas, according to the Oklahoma County Assessor database.

The Homeland Security Department issued a letter to the city last month indicating that the agency intended to “purchase, occupy, and rehabilitate” the spacious depot with the intention of housing up to 1,500 people. The agency also noted the potential addition of “tentage and a guard shack,” fencing, and “holding and processing spaces” to the property.

In response, the city government recognized that it had little recourse to prevent DHS from creating a facility in the city due to the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. But city leadership wrote that “decisions about land use are best made locally,” and implored DHS to listen to feedback from residents who might be affected by the center’s creation.

The mayor’s office also petitioned members of Congress, asking them to express support for the city as it attempted to negotiate with Homeland Security.

The property owners’ stark reversal comes in the immediate wake of a packed Oklahoma City Council meeting that took place Wednesday, in which droves of local residents filled city hall in order to oppose the facility’s construction, reported KFOR, an NBC News affiliate in Oklahoma.

Republicans have proposed an “election reform” bill that would actually impose severe restrictions on voting across the country. 

The “Make Elections Great Again Act” would require photo identification, require mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day, require voters to opt-in to voting by mail, ban ranked-choice voting for federal elections, among many other restrictions. 

States like Oregon have had universal mail-in ballots for years, and many states allow mail-in ballots to be counted up to a certain date if they are postmarked by Election Day. Ranked-choice voting is used for some statewide elections in Maine and Alaska, and local elections around the country.  

Representative Bryan Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee, introduced the bill, claiming it will “improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.” 

What he left out in his statement was perhaps one of the bill’s most troubling features. If passed into law, each state would also have to create a single digital voter database to serve as “the official voter registration list for the conduct of all elections for Federal office in the State.”

States would also have to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship for anyone registered to vote in federal elections and re-check those voters’ eligibility “as are necessary on an ongoing basis, but in no case less frequently than once every 30 days.”

Under the bill, the U.S. attorney general would be able to sue states to force them to comply with the new restrictions, and private citizens would gain the power to sue election officials who register a voter without proof of citizenship. 

The bill faces a tall order to get through the House and Senate before the midterm elections, and if it does end up signed by President Trump, would more than likely face a flurry of lawsuits from states across the country. It’s very much designed to placate Republican conspiracy theories about voter fraud and Trump’s contention that all the elections he loses are fraudulent. 

On Wednesday, the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia. The county’s election commissioner says it was an act of political retribution from President Donald Trump.

Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts claimed Thursday his office was raided because he “stood up to Donald Trump’s big lie.”

“Fulton County has been targeted for years ... because I refused to bend to pressure,” Pitts said, referring to years of Trump-perpetuated claims that Democrats stole the 2020 general election. “Every audit, every recount, every court ruling has confirmed what we, the people of Fulton County, already knew.… Our elections were fair and accurate, and every legal vote was counted. These ongoing efforts are about intimidation and distraction, not facts.”

The Justice Department already sued the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections last month on grounds that the office didn’t comply with a subpoena demanding “used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

The FBI reportedly took 700 boxes of ballots and records from the 2020 election during its Wednesday raid. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was also present, raising eyebrows and eliciting conspiracy theories from all ends of the political spectrum.

“Fulton County is now, has been and always will be committed to upholding the law,” Pitts said. “One of the strangest things about this case is that these records were the subject of active litigation and, quite frankly, were likely to be unsealed and turned over in a matter of weeks.… All he had to do was ask the judge to do so, but albeit in a much more orderly manner. We in Fulton County have nothing ... nothing ... nothing to hide.

“And finally, and most importantly, this is by no means over. This is by no means over.”

The Department of Justice lawyer behind the FBI raid on a Georgia county’s election operations center used to work under a state attorney general who sought to overturn the 2020 election results. 

The sealed search warrant that authorized a federal raid Wednesday at the Fulton County election office was proffered by Thomas Albus, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, and signed by Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas.

Albus previously worked at the Missouri attorney general’s office as the first assistant to then–Attorney General Eric Schmitt while Schmitt actively worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Schmitt was elected to the Senate in 2022.  

In December 2020, when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit attempting to convince the Supreme Court to toss the election results from three Biden-won states, Schmitt’s office filed an amicus brief supporting his effort and drummed up support from 17 other Republican attorneys general. 

Years later, the second-in-command from that same office has allowed the federal government to play out President Donald Trump’s ultimate revenge fantasy on Georgia, where he has baselessly claimed the election was stolen from him. 

At a press conference Thursday, local officials said that they had not received a full copy of the search warrant, and were still not aware of where the seized records had been taken or why. Seven hundred boxes of election-related records were seized in the raid, according to Sherri Allen, chair of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections. 

America is tiring of its ICE-friendly politicians.

Wyoming Representative Harriet Hageman faced hostile blowback from a crowd at Casper College Tuesday evening, who so furiously demanded answers from the MAGA lawmaker regarding ICE agents killing Alex Pretti and Renee Good that they effectively jeered her out of the assembly hall.

“I’m a student here at CC, and I was here at the last town hall back in August. You mentioned Laken Riley,” a male student said, referring to the 22-year-old who was murdered in 2024 by a Venezuelan immigrant. “However, you did not mention today either of the people who were killed in Minnesota recently. Why is that?”

The question elicited uproar from the crowd, footage published by WyoFile showed. One older man shouted, “shot 10 times in the back,” referring to the number of times agents shot Pretti.

“When I was speaking in August I was describing the Laken Riley Act that we had passed earlier in the year,” Hageman responded before the student cut her off.

“That’s not the question. Why haven’t you mentioned either of the people killed in Minnesota?” he pressed.

“Let me answer the question. I spoke about Laken Riley because it was one of the bills that we passed. I haven’t talked about what’s happening in Minnesota today,” Hageman continued.

But that set off the crowd again.

“Yeah, why is that?” the student demanded. “Why haven’t you said that you condemn the violence or given condolences to the families of the victims?”

Several people in the crowd then shouted out other ICE-related issues that they wanted Hageman to address, such as how the agency appears to be the administration’s “secret police.”

“Woah, OK,” Hageman said, before the student insisted again that she explain her silence regarding the ongoing state-sponsored violence in Minnesota.

“So I think what has happened in Minnesota is a terrible tragedy for the woman and the man who were killed,” Hageman said.

Casper resident Allyse Taylor followed up on the pressure, asking why Hageman had not spoken up about the Fourth Amendment violations by ICE and Customs and Border Protection officers breaking into homes without warrants.

“I’m not sure that I trust your facts,” Hageman spat back, causing the crowd to boo at her.

“It is all over the internet. What do you have to say about that constitutional violation?” Taylor asked.

“I think that I have to look at the investigation,” Hageman responded. “If there were violations of someone’s constitutional rights, there is redress.”

“Then why is there no redress?” Taylor said. “Why are you not calling for transparency with what these people are doing? ICE, DHS, Border Patrol—they are violating people’s constitutional rights, they are killing American citizens in the streets, and you are doing nothing. You are not saying a single solitary thing to support constituents or support the American people.”

Taylor continued: “As a constitutional lawyer, you should be incensed. Why are you not?”

Hageman then proceeded to gather her papers and folders, wave, and walk away from the lectern as her constituents called her “chickenshit.”

Eight Republican senators joined every Democrat on Thursday to block a government spending bill, as a dispute continues over funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

The bill fell short of the 60-vote margin needed to clear debate, 45–55, setting up the possibility of a government shutdown on Saturday. The legislation included $64.4 billion for DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Senate Democrats are reportedly negotiating with the Trump administration on restrictions to ICE and aggressive deportations.

“This is a moment of truth,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said just before the vote. “Congress must act to rein in ICE and end the violence.”

Democrats are trying to have the DHS funding removed from the bill while they negotiate with the GOP and White House. They’re seeking to ban federal immigration officers from wearing masks, to mandate body cameras and visible identification, to end random immigration sweeps, to require judicial warrants for stops and searches, and to require federal agents to follow the same use-of-force standards as local law enforcement.

“No more secret police,” Schumer said. “The Republican majority must step up to the plate. Republicans in Congress cannot allow this violent status quo to continue. They must work with Democrats on legislation—real legislation.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune reportedly joined the “no” votes for procedural purposes so that if there’s a deal, the bill can be introduced quickly.

Here are the Republicans who voted “no”:

1. Ted Budd (North Carolina)
2. Ron Johnson (Wisconsin)
3. Mike Lee (Utah)
4. Ashley Moody (Florida)
5. Rand Paul (Kentucky)
6. Rick Scott (Florida)
7. Tommy Tuberville (Alabama)
8. John Thune (Oklahoma)

The Melania documentary’s monumental flop has some industry professionals wondering why Amazon accepted the project in the first place.

The e-commerce giant’s film studio shelled out a whopping $40 million to make the motion picture, which was produced by Melania Trump herself and directed by accused Hollywood abuser and profoundly canceled filmmaker Brett Ratner.

Some $35 million was set aside to promote Melania, nearly double the initial budget, squeezing advertisements into television screens across the country and paying top dollar for highly coveted commercial slots in the NFL playoff games.

Altogether, Melania is the most expensive documentary film ever produced, with a rollout more akin to that of a mid-grade blockbuster than a nonfiction portrait.

Before the first lady’s film was signed—with much gusto by the likes of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy—some of the most expensive documentary productions included Planet Earth, a groundbreaking portrait of the globe’s various ecosystems that cost the BBC roughly $25 million, and The World at War, a sweeping 26-part documentary series that covered hundreds of interviews and cost $17.6 million.

But even those examples are far and away from the typical price tag on a documentary. Super Size Me, which grossed over $20.6 million at the worldwide box office, cost just $65,000 to produce.

That’s caused some in Hollywood to question why Melania was made in the first place.

“This has to be the most expensive documentary ever made that didn’t involve music licensing,” Ted Hope, the former co-head of movies at Amazon Studios, told The New York Times. “How can it not be equated with currying favor or an outright bribe? How can that not be the case?”

And yet the film has hardly attracted any eyes whatsoever. The documentary has been advertised as a fly-on-the-wall depiction of Melania’s life in the days preceding her husband’s second presidential inauguration—a topic that, judging by ticket sales, interests no one.

So far, Melania has struggled to fill seats, so much so that the realization sparked a social media trend this week in which users post their local AMC or Regal Cinema’s seat availability for the film’s premiere. Across the country, theaters are empty.

The situation has become so dire that conservative groups have gotten involved, buying out entire blocks of seats or even whole screenings in a flagrant effort to save face for the president.

“This isn’t organic demand,” one GOP insider told gossip columnist Rob Shuter’s Naughty but Nice substack. “It’s about optics. Empty theaters look terrible.”

Craigslist ads have popped up, with at least one offering to pay people as much as $50 to attend screenings of the film, though it’s not clear if the listings are legitimate or a joke.

“If the GOP didn’t buy the seats, no one would,” another source told Shuter.