DHS Is Stepping Up Its Intimidation Campaign Against a Federal Judge

The Trump administration is targeting another federal judge who has ruled against the government, even telling its lawyers to withhold information.

The New York Times, citing an internal email, reports that a lawyer for ICE told Kevin M. Bolan, a Justice Department lawyer preparing to appear before U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose in April, not to disclose an arrest warrant for murder in the Dominican Republic for Bryan Rafael Gomez, an immigrant she planned to release from federal custody.

“Please do not confirm or deny the existence” of the warrant, ICE lawyer Adam E. Mattei wrote to Bolan. “There has yet to be any use authorization for this information.”

After DuBose ordered Gomez’s release, though, the Department of Homeland Security attacked her in a news release as an “activist Biden Judge” for releasing a “violent criminal illegal alien.” DuBose didn’t take kindly to this, issuing an order earlier this month questioning why she was not told about “facts relevant” to the case and saying that the omission “threatens public safety and erodes trust in the rule of law.”

Bolan then apologized in a court filing, saying that ICE had told him to withhold the information for what he thought was a legitimate law enforcement reason. He added that his DOJ colleagues had asked the DHS to take their news release down to no avail. DuBose still referred Bolan for possible discipline, citing a “lack of candor.”

The general counsel for DHS, James Percival, then attacked DuBose in a column for the conservative website The Federalist Tuesday, calling DuBose an “activist” and saying she lacked “any plausible basis to review Mr. Gomez’s custody status.”

The whole thing is part of a pattern, led by President Trump, of government officials denigrating judges who go against the administration’s mass deportation agenda. DuBose, appointed by President Biden, is the first Black and LGBTQ judge to serve on Rhode Island’s federal bench, making her a big target for MAGA. On top of that, the government knowingly withheld information from her, further destroying whatever credibility this administration has left.

The Trump administration’s immigration operation is experiencing another major shakeup.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks suddenly resigned from his position Thursday following accusations of sexual impropriety. Banks oversaw Donald Trump’s second-term immigration crackdown. The longtime law enforcement professional told Fox News that his resignation was effective immediately.

“It’s just time, man,” Banks told Fox News congressional correspondent Bill Melugin. “I feel like I got this shit back on course, from the least secure, disastrous, chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen. Time to pass the reins.”

“It’s time to enjoy the family and life,” Banks added.

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott thanked Banks for his service “during one of the most challenging periods for border security.”

But Banks’s sudden departure comes at a curious time, as reports circulate about his penchant for sex workers. Border Patrol employees told the Washington Examiner last month that Banks was “known among colleagues for taking regular trips abroad to engage in sex with prostitutes.”

Banks even “bragged” about his deviant habits with colleagues while in his previous role in Border Patrol, and allegedly paid for sex with prostitutes while travelling across Colombia and Thailand over the course of a decade. CBP reportedly investigated his behavior twice, including last year, but the probe was squashed by former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Despite Trump having made immigration a key priority for his second term, federal immigration agencies have seen a tremendous leadership shakeup since he returned to office, rattling every component of the country’s immigration system.

So far, the restructuring has ousted Noem and former Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who was sidelined by the administration after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis early this year.

And more resignations are on the way: acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons is expected to step down from his position in the coming weeks. He will be replaced by David Venturella, a private prison executive.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s glamorous road trip across the U.S. was paid for by corporate titans.

The former Fox News host claimed that over the course of seven months, he filmed an upcoming reality television show with his wife and their nine children, called The Great American Roadtrip. His wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, referred to their time on the road as “really wholesome, good family stuff.” 

But Duffy—a multimillionaire with a taxpayer-funded salary—did not pay for the extravagant trip himself. Instead, the money came from a supposedly independent nonprofit, a 501(c)4 called Great American Road Trip Inc. GART was launched by Duffy and the Transportation Department in partnership with Freedom250, which an agency memo dated March 6 described as a “multi-platform storytelling initiative.”

GART was established around August 2025 by Tori Barnes, reported Forbes Thursday. Barnes, according to her LinkedIn profile, spent nearly two decades working as a lobbyist for General Motors before moving to the U.S. Travel Association.

Behind the nonprofit’s funding is a medley of industry giants, including aircraft manufacturer Boeing, carmaker Toyota, and gas giant Shell, all proudly displayed on the nonprofit’s website. Other funders were Google, the cruise company Royal Caribbean Group, United Airlines, Chase Travel, and the U.S. Travel Association, among other companies that rely on the regulatory systems of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Politico reported Tuesday that sponsorships ranged in price from $100,000 to $1 million.

The reality-TV series was launched in partnership with Fox News, and is set to be released on YouTube in the lead-up to America’s 250th birthday. Not all 50 states will get airtime. Duffy’s multimonth trip hit just eight states: Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Montana, Massachusetts, as well as Washington, D.C.

In a promotional interview on Fox News last week, Duffy confessed that the trek was his idea.

“I wanted to lean in to America’s 250th birthday,” Duffy said, reminding the panel that he and  Campos-Duffy met on a road trip for MTV’s Real World spinoff, Road Rules: All Stars in 1998. 

“And so over the course of seven months we just kind of found these moments where I might be able to do some work, take the kids with me, do a road trip—and our motto is to love America is to see America,” Duffy continued, “and there’s so much to see in this beautiful country.”

Campos-Duffy later clarified that the straight-to-streaming family vacation emerged out of a prompt from Donald Trump, who urged his Cabinet to find ways to celebrate America ahead of the 250th anniversary.

The adventure has since received enormous backlash, which Duffy has attributed to the “the radical, miserable left.”

In an extensive statement shared with The New Republic, DOT spokesperson Nathaniel Sizemore affirmed that “no taxpayer dollars were spent on Secretary Duffy’s family,” and that “the Secretary and his family do not receive any salary or production royalties” from the show.

“Further, celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary is part of Secretary Duffy’s official duties, and The Great American Road Trip is one aspect in support of those responsibilities,” Sizemore wrote.

Sizemore’s note also specified that Duffy’s trip occurred over 24 days between September and May, a span of nine months—not seven, as the secretary himself claimed.

The four-page note also included pre-written verbiage about whether the nonprofit’s donors presented a “conflict of interest.”

“There is a formal agreement between USDOT and the non-profit that expressly states the non-profit will not receive ‘any favorable consideration for any future federal financial assistance,’ action, contract, or other financial award,” Sizemore wrote, adding that Duffy’s participation in the project was “approved by USDOT ethics attorneys.”

This story has been updated.

President Trump’s attempt to sue The Wall Street Journal for defamation has hit a snag.

U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles ruled Wednesday that Trump can’t seek discovery based on actual malice from the publication in his lawsuit, calling it “improper” and saying the court couldn’t allow Trump to use the legal process “to help him properly plead his claims.”

“Thus, allowing President Trump to conduct discovery on actual malice, where his initial attempt at pleading a defamation claim fell short, is exactly the type of ‘expensive yet groundless litigation’ the Eleventh Circuit has cautioned against,” Gayles wrote in his ruling.

Trump sued the Journal in July 2025, claiming that the newspaper’s reporting that Trump submitted a letter and explicit drawing to a birthday album for Jeffrey Epstein was defamatory, denying the report’s accuracy. In April, Gayles dismissed the lawsuit, saying that Trump didn’t make a plausible allegation that the newspaper acted with “actual malice,” but allowed Trump the ability to file an amended complaint, which he did.

But now, Trump can’t use the discovery process to gather evidence that the Journal defamed him, although Gayles did leave the door open for him to file another amended complaint. It doesn’t seem likely that he’d succeed a third time, as the House Oversight Committee included the birthday book, complete with the drawing from Trump, in a September release of Epstein materials from his estate in September.

Earlier this week, Trump’s Justice Department subpoenaed the Journal’s reporters over leaks from the Department of Defense related to the Iran war, which its publisher, Dow Jones, said “represent an attack on constitutionally protected news gathering.” The president’s continued attacks on the Journal, as well as any other news outlet that criticizes him, not only violate the freedom of the press but are meritless.

The MAGA movement is splitting at the seams.

Two of the faction’s biggest names—ex-Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and podcaster Benny Johnson—traded blows online Wednesday, airing one another’s rumored dirty laundry after Johnson attacked Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie.

Johnson had torn into Massie, a longtime critic of the president, over recent allegations that the Kentucky Republican paid hush-money to a former girlfriend, Cynthia West. West claimed that Massie offered to pay her up to $5,000 to drop a wrongful termination complaint against one of his allies, Representative Victoria Spartz. Massie is up for reelection in November, with his local primary scheduled to take place next week. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Johnson dove into the accusation, deriding Massie as a “pig” who has been “squealing” about Donald Trump. Johnson also compared Massie’s fresh scandal to that of Eric Swalwell, whose campaign for California governor imploded last month after he was accused of sexual misconduct and rape by multiple women.

The unforgiving coverage—and inappropriate comparison—did not sit right with Greene. Responding to a clip of Johnson’s show, Greene said: “This is a clinic on how to call out the lies of social media influencers that get paid to spew propaganda.”

Greene added that Johnson had not given her the “courtesy” of asking “if any of these lies were true,” and that she had previously thought of Johnson as a friend.

Johnson hit back at Greene, apparently unmoved by the appeal to their former alliance.

“I know everyone has become very fragile and overly-emotional lately so let me explain this calmly and slowly: I cover trending news topics on my show,” Johnson wrote. “I’m entitled to my opinions on these matters. I serve my audience. That’s my job. And unlike you, I won’t run away from my job when things get tough.”

Greene went back to settle the score.

“You are a LYING scumbag @bennyjohnson and just to be clear we are definitely not friends,” she wrote. “All you cover and elevate are trending LIES. And get paid to do it. Literally the most repulsive level of MAGA.”

The former Georgia lawmaker then suggested that she had heard various rumors about Johnson’s misconduct, including “allegations about young men at conservative conferences,” allegations that he was “paid by Russia and Israel,” and allegations that Johnson “rips off people’s content and articles” and pretends that they’re his own.

“More drama and crash outs. Got it,” replied Johnson, referring to the aforementioned charges as “evidence free slander.”

A federal judge sharply rebuked the Justice Department Wednesday, calling out a subpoena to a Rhode Island children’s hospital for having “under oath, misrepresented salient facts.”

Judge Mary McElroy of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island said that Rhode ‌Island Hospital didn’t have to comply with the government’s subpoena for the medical records of minors treated for gender dysphoria with drugs such as puberty blockers, among other documents. Previously, a judge in Texas had ordered the subpoena at the government’s request.

“DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case. It has misrepresented and withheld information to both this Court and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas,” McElroy said in her ruling, and accused the government of forum shopping, or choosing a friendly district court to get a favorable ruling.

“It did so in an obvious effort to shield its recent investigative tactics—previously rejected by every other court to review them—from this Court’s review, in favor of a distant forum that DOJ deems friendly to its political positions,” McElroy’s ruling said.

The Trump administration is targeting transgender and gender-affirming care around the country, and has tried to subpoena other medical providers to get the same information, with mixed results. As a result, the DOJ has moved some of its legal efforts to Texas. In this case, another judge intervened to shoot it down, but what will happen next time?

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner crashed and burned Thursday when trying to defend the Trump’s administration’s massive budget cuts to his department.

Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Turner repeatedly rehashed his issues with former President Joe Biden’s administration, which he claimed accomplished less with a larger budget—rather than provide any evidence of his own work. Lawmakers were fed up.

“What is your record? You’ve had this job for well over a year! I just want to know did you get the number down? Do we have 700,000 homeless still, or is it one million, or one million point five?” New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand asked.

Gillibrand demanded the results of the federal government’s Point-in-Time Count, a yearly report on how many people in the United States are experiencing homelessness. The report is typically released every December. As of mid-May, the Point-in-Time Count for 2025 has not been released.

“I just don’t want to hear what you don’t like about the Biden administration! You’re in charge, you have a vision, let’s see it, let’s see the results!” Gillibrand said.

“I thank God that I’m in charge so we can do stuff different, because the plays that were ran before I got here, they failed,” the former professional football player said. Turner added: “You said I have been here a little bit over a year, but you all had, during the Biden administration, four years—”

“Stop talking about Biden!” Gillibrand interrupted. “Talk about your record!”

Turner proceeded to blame the delayed report on things that had nothing to do with Biden at all, including the 43-day government shutdown that “helps us to not be able to work,” and the “constant litigation” his department was facing.

Gillibrand pressed him to explain how the litigation slowed down his department’s work. Turner replied: “Irregardless of all of that, during the Biden administration, record funding—”

“Oh my God! If you talk about—it’s like, it’s like two children saying I didn’t do it, my brother did it!” Gillibrand said, clearly frustrated.

Washington Senator Patty Murray also pointed out that complaining about Biden had become Turner’s “go-to answer” for every single question. She pressed Turner to explain how he planned to help more people experiencing homelessness by gutting $10 billion from the department’s budget.

Turner replied: “Here’s what I’ll say, in the previous years before we got here, housing affordability was not at an all time high.”

Donald Trump is planning to celebrate America’s 250th birthday with hundreds of additional pardons.

Some people in the White House have expressed concerns that Trump’s heavy use of his pardon authority could bode poorly for Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, and that another batch could be even worse, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The president is expected to announce the 250 pending pardons on either June 14—his birthday—or the Fourth of July.

“A White House official said there are always conversations about how to best carry out the president’s priorities, but no decisions had been made,” the Journal reported. “Trump is the ultimate decision maker on any clemency-related actions, the official added.”

Many of the pardons Trump has issued since returning to office have gone to his friends and allies. One went to Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to a money-laundering scheme that made him billions in cryptocurrency. Zhao worked to boost the Trump sons–backed World Liberty Financial crypto group, which many suspect played a role in his receiving a pardon.

Trump also pardoned Trevor Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding investors in his electric truck company. Milton owed his victims millions of dollars in restitution, but it appears he’s now off the hook thanks to the presidential pardon.

Congressional Democrats are investigating whether the pardons to the president’s friends also resulted in a payout for Trump. Lawmakers are looking into whether pardon recipients paid lobbyists, social media influencers, and lawyers, among others, to sway Trump in their favor.

Trump has big, expensive plans for the county’s semiquincentennial. They include a $2 million project to clean the Washington Monument and repaint the Reflecting Pool, an expansive statue garden that will feature 250 life-size statues of American icons, and athletic competitions for high schoolers called “Patriot Games.”

Elsewhere in Washington, Trump is building a $15 million “Triumphal Arc,” and is constructing a 90,000-square-foot ballroom at the White House that is likely going to cost taxpayers $1 billion (against his initial promises that it wouldn’t cost more than $200 million and that it would be entirely funded by private donations).

Meanwhile, the cost of oil and gas is through the roof due to the ongoing war with Iran, which is costing the U.S. roughly $1 billion per day, according to initial estimates by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The average cost of gas nationwide is $4.53 per gallon, with large swaths of the country pushing $5 a gallon, according to the AAA’s price tracker. That’s about 50 percent higher than prices were before the war started. In some areas of California, such as Mono County, fuel costs are above $7 per gallon.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping brought up the issue of Taiwan Thursday during President Trump’s visit to China, warning that the “Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations.”

“’Taiwan independence’ and cross-Strait peace are as irreconcilable as fire and water,” Xi said. “Safeguarding peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is the biggest common denominator between China and the U.S.”

The move doesn’t bode well for the U.S.-China summit, which Trump had said could be “the best summit ever.” The meeting between the two countries’ leaders is supposed to improve trade ties, with several U.S. executives making the trip with Trump.

“Handled well, relations between the two countries can maintain overall stability,” Xi said. “If handled poorly, the two countries will collide or even clash, putting the entire U.S.-China relationship in an extremely dangerous situation.”

Trump didn’t address questions from the press about Taiwan, only saying “Great. Great place. Incredible. China’s beautiful,” after his morning conversation with Xi. The White House’s readout of the meeting didn’t even mention Taiwan.

“President Trump had a good meeting with President Xi of China,” a White House official said. “The two sides discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation between our two countries, including expanding market access for American businesses into China and increasing Chinese investment into our industries. Leaders from many of the United States’ largest companies joined a portion of the meeting.”

This suggests that the Trump administration is taking the issue seriously. In December, the U.S. reached an $11 billion arms deal with Taiwan, which was condemned by China, which has never ruled out invading the island. The majority of Taiwan’s people want things to stay the way they are: neither declaring independence from China nor submitting to Chinese authority. If Xi decides to push reunification, what would Trump do?

Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted child sex trafficker, is enjoying a range of special privileges at the low-security prison where she was transferred after she played defense for Donald Trump.

Noella Turnage, a former employee of the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, shared Maxwell’s private emails detailing the extent of her special treatment with CNN’s Erin Burnett Wednesday.

“The food is legions better, the place is clean, the staff is responsive and polite,” Maxwell wrote in an email to her brother, adding: “I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderlands [sic] looking glass. I am much happier here and more importantly safe.”

Turnage was fired for leaking Maxwell’s private emails.

“I never actually laid eyes on Maxwell,” Turnage said, clarifying that she knew about Maxwell’s treatment solely from her private emails. “The things that were being done for her were not common for any of the other inmates, not even the other high-profile inmates.”

Maxwell received more than just better room and board, Turnage said. “The lengths they went to to provide a private visit for Maxwell actually caused visitation to be shut down for the rest of the inmates that weekend,” she said. “They were not able to see their families that Saturday, to make way for Maxwell to see her visitors.”

Maxwell also benefited from having her mail personally handled by the warden. “Which may not sound like a big deal to some people, but the other inmates in that prison, Erin, they have a hard time getting out their regular mail, much less anything needed for court filings and things such as that, so for them to go out of the way to make sure Maxwell had that opportunity is pretty disgusting,” Turnage said.

An inmate at the prison who spoke to CNN said that Maxwell also enjoys “bottled water and clamshell meals delivered to her room.”

Maxwell was mysteriously transferred to the minimum-security prison just days after she provided testimony to then–Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche about her former conspirator Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with Trump. During her hourslong questioning, Maxwell claimed that Trump never witnessed Epstein’s sexual misconduct—a surprising claim considering their well-documented close friendship.

Lawmakers have described Maxwell’s new digs as “not suitable for a sex offender.”