Trump Is Literally Frying a Rare Copy of the Emancipation Proclamation

Bedrock civil rights milestones are at risk of withering away under the Trump administration—including in the physical sense. Hot conditions in a new National Park Service exhibit under the Lincoln Memorial are imperiling rare 1860s copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment, Emma Uber of City Cast DC reported Wednesday.

Uber cites unnamed NPS staff members who are concerned that “screens designed to shield the records from harsh light have been defective and temperatures inside the display case have repeatedly reached more than 80 degrees.”

For reference, the National Archives advises families to store their archives below 75 degrees, and it keeps its own display featuring the Constitution and Emancipation Proclamation at 67. A preservation specialist told Uber that historic documents should not be stored in environments exceeding 75 degrees, “and even then … that level of heat is only safe if humidity and light are carefully controlled.”

The documents at the Lincoln Memorial Undercroft carry Abraham Lincoln’s original signature, and—a detail perhaps more likely to move the Trump administration’s top brass—they’re worth millions of dollars.

An NPS spokesperson assured Uber in somewhat vague terms that the documents are “cared for.” But while on the scene at the undercroft, the reporter spied unsubtle evidence of the heat problem: a fan conspicuously directed toward the display case. “The Park Service did not respond to questions about why the fan was there,” Uber reports.

President Donald Trump’s protracted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool saga may not be ending anytime soon. Records first reported Wednesday by The Independent offer a clue as to how long the public’s view of the monument may remain obstructed by fencing that currently surrounds the pool’s perimeter.

Trump’s renovations to the Reflecting Pool, including installing an “American flag blue” lining, have been dogged by algal blooms and peeling paint, requiring repeated drainings and refillings. Further, at least according to the president, progress has been stymied by left-wing vandals.

Meanwhile, the project’s price tag has rocketed from an initial estimate of $1.8 million to more than $16 million, and its deadline has been pushed from July 4 to who knows when.

Purportedly to fend off those alleged saboteurs, fencing now surrounds the pool. Workers have also added opaque mesh screens to the barrier. Chain-link fencing was first installed on June 23—more than three weeks ago as of Wednesday—by the Department of the Interior.

Records show that the federal government awarded an in-progress $37,000 contract to a construction company, National Construction Rentals, for “REFLECTING POOL TEMPORARY FENCE” that started last week. According to the contract summary, the contract is not set to end until January 8, 2027.

The revelation raises questions: Is the renovation going to take that long? Is the possibly illusory specter of left-wing defacement really expected to persist for almost half a year longer? If the administration’s past handling of the Reflecting Pool renovation is any indication, we’re not likely to get clear or sensible answers anytime soon.

The Trump administration is being sued over its sanctions on the International Criminal Court.

Two American nonprofits, Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide, or TAAG, sued White House officials in federal court Wednesday. The lawsuit is a response to President Trump’s February 2025 executive order, which placed sanctions on ICC judges, prosecutors, and Palestinian human rights groups seeking to investigate alleged U.S. and Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

The lawsuit alleges that the sanctions violate the Constitution’s First Amendment right to free speech and “unconstitutionally restrict Americans from seeking justice on Palestine at the ICC,” including by “limiting what Americans can say to an international tribunal or to foreign advocates, as well as by limiting their ability to associate with the sanctioned parties.”

As a result of Trump’s order, DAWN and TAAG said that they have avoided filing submissions to the ICC and working with those hit by the sanctions, like Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestine, out of fear of facing criminal charges themselves.

“The Trump administration is using the blunt instrument of economic sanctions not only to punish human rights defenders, but to police the political expression ​of millions of Americans,” said Omar Shakir, executive director of DAWN, in a statement.

Trump’s 2025 executive order followed a similar attempt to target the ICC in his first term. That attempt was blocked by a judge in 2020 and formally rescinded under President Biden in 2021. This lawsuit comes two days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration would seek to dismantle the court, possibly through tools such as travel bans, visa revocations, increased sanctions against the ICC and its affiliates, and diplomatic pressure on countries to withdraw from the ICC.

In an op-ed column for The Wall Street Journal, Rubio called the court “a standing world tribunal with near-unlimited reach, empowered to override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states—and to prosecute and arrest our citizens … backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S.”

Late last month, three ICC judges sued the Trump administration over sanctions imposed against them, which left them unable to access any assets in the U.S. or engage in any transactions with American entities, including through the “provision of funds, goods or services.” Wednesday’s lawsuit seeks to protect Americans who are trying to seek justice for Palestine from the same fate.

The White House has found a novel way to ensure Donald Trump’s nominees ascend to power.

Federal judges in the Western District of Washington swore in former King County Superior Court Judge Roger Rogoff as U.S. attorney Wednesday morning. Within 54 minutes, Trump fired him.

The district’s 17 federal judges have been trying to find a replacement for Seattle’s First Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd, after Trump failed to formally nominate him. Floyd was appointed in October, though his name was never officially advanced to the Senate for consideration.

Federal law grants a district’s judges the power to appoint a U.S. attorney if the president and the acting attorney general fail to do so within 120 days, subsequently stonewalling the procedural Senate hearings.

Instead, Floyd became an interim U.S. attorney and, later, the first assistant, in an attempt to “sidestep the nomination process,” according to The Seattle Times.

Rogoff was elevated to the bench by Democrats and had been appointed to one of his previous roles by ​former Washington Governor Jay Inslee, also a Democrat. The veteran prosecutor told the newspaper that he was waiting in the lobby of the U.S. District Courthouse downtown to meet with Floyd when he received an email notifying him he’d been fired.

“We are working on legal action right now,” Rogoff said. The legal team representing the former federal prosecutor is expected to sue the administration and the Department of Justice, according to the Times.

The White House has taken a heavy interest in the regional position. One month after returning to office, Trump inexplicably fired Tessa Gormon, another court-appointed prosecutor. Gormon, too, represented the Western District of Washington and was ultimately replaced by Floyd.

Donald Kinsella, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, also faced the ire of the White House earlier this year for daring to do his job unclouded by the interests of the administration. Kinsella was appointed in February by a panel of federal judges, but much like Rogoff, was fired within hours.

The New York State Bar Association condemned Kinsella’s abrupt ousting, describing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s interference at the time as an “insult to separation of powers and the administration of justice.”

“While it is hardly surprising given the president’s regular abandonment of even the veneer of independence for the DOJ, it is no less appalling,” the organization wrote in a statement.

Blanche is currently in the midst of his own confirmation hearings to officially take on the role of attorney general. Hundreds of former federal prosecutors—including some of his own ex-colleagues—have urged the Senate to deny him the opportunity.

This story has been updated.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is demanding “testosterone deficiency” testing for U.S. soldiers to ensure they’re masculine enough to be a part of his anti-woke military.

Hegseth unveiled the new screening, which will be mandatory for service members over the age of 30, in a video announcement Wednesday.

“Today, I’m authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency for our service members—ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best. Because it’s well-established science that as we age, testosterone levels often, naturally, drop,” Hegseth said. On X, he captioned the video, “The High-T Department of War.”

“Warfighters aged 30 and older are gonna be tested annually as part of their periodic health assessments.... Those under 30 can voluntarily choose to get the test as well,” Hegseth continued. “If treatment is recommended, it’s entirely your choice to receive testosterone replacement therapy.”

It’s unclear what will happen to soldiers over 30 who have “low testosterone” and don’t want to engage in the military’s gender-affirming services.

This is about as Hegsethian as it gets. It’s no surprise that the man who proclaimed, “I’m straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles” just one week before his confirmation now thinks that having higher testosterone levels is a real, urgent priority for soldiers in the midst of a war.

“This is the absolute dumbest thing imaginable for the Secretary of Defense to be focused on. We are literally at war and this idiot is in his office doing two camera make up videos on testosterone. What a complete clown show,” wrote Army vet, podcast host, and Democratic congressional candidate Fred Wellman. “I’m so sorry for our poor service members who have to deal with this ridiculous man.”