Interior Dept. Officials Shred Documents to Avoid Written Records

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro isn’t the only one fed up with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

Staffers at the Department of the Interior are frustrated with Burgum’s culture of secrecy, toxic leadership team, and utter disregard for career officials, Politico reported Friday.

Interior officials have been spotted routinely shredding documents and using disappearing Signal messages in order to prevent their communications from being preserved, three staffers told Politico. Destroying official communications is a violation of the Federal Records Act.

“They’re terrified of written records,” one former official told Politico.

Early on, Burgum had even inquired about trying to add a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, on the department’s sixth floor, even though there was already one just three floors down.

Since Burgum came in, the Interior Department has shrunk by nearly 14 percent. Among the thousands of employees who have fled are top-ranking officials, including William Doffermyre, the Interior’s Senate-confirmed solicitor; Adam Sluess, senior counselor; Wynn Radford, chief of staff; Matt Schafle, congressional affairs director; and Leslie Beyer, who departed just months after being confirmed as assistant secretary for land minerals management.

Three former Interior officials attributed their decision to leave—at least partly—to JoDee Hanson, Burgum’s chief of staff. Hanson’s behavior has caused her subordinates to cry, multiple former officials told Politico.

“The way that she managed the politicals in that building contributed to me leaving,” one ex-official told Politico.

Tony Irish, a 20-plus-year veteran of the Interior Department, told Politico that it was “abundantly clear” that Burgum did not value the opinions of career staffers.

“Burgum appears to combine arrogance with an utter lack of curiosity or humility to seek out the advice of people who have dedicated their professional careers to [Interior’s] objectives,” Irish said. “I think it shows his disdain for the rank and file.”

With all the blatant mismanagement, is it any surprise that Burgum’s efforts to mount a case against alleged vandals at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool imploded so spectacularly?

Senator Bill Cassidy has decided to vote to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general, despite butting heads with the Trump administration in recent weeks.

Cassidy had voiced concerns over President Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund, and was discussing the vote with his Republican colleague Senator Lisa Murkowski up until Friday morning. Murkowski and Maine Senator Susan Collins had decided to vote “no,” but Cassidy gave in to Trump even though he lost his Senate primary after the president endorsed Cassidy’s opponent.

“Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this. But the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump, and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor Friday while reading haltingly from prepared remarks. “This puts at risk the progress made in fighting violent crime, human and drug trafficking, and fraud.

“All considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche. I will be criticized for this vote. What’s new?”

In addition to the slush fund, Blanche has come under fire for his handling of the Epstein files rollout, including shoddily redacting the available files, refusing to release more files, and dismissal of the victims. Several of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims had repeatedly sought to speak with Cassidy prior to his vote, but neither he nor his staff followed up, making his mention of stopping human trafficking ring hollow.

Last week, Cassidy also helped vote down an amendment that would have killed Trump’s IRS immunity deal. Even on his way out of the Senate, Cassidy seems unwilling to break with Trump or MAGA, and this vote ranks with his confirmation vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in its spinelessness.

This story has been updated.

The federal government provided false information in its attempt to prosecute independent journalist Georgia Fort, her lawyers say.

The Guardian reports that in court filings, Fort’s attorneys argue that federal prosecutors are trying to build a case against her over her coverage of a protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, in January. Fort’s team is asking for the case to be dismissed.

The administration has charged nearly 40 people, including Fort and former CNN anchor Don Lemon, over the protest, which centered on the fact that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent serves as a pastor for the congregation.

In at least 15 search warrant applications, Homeland Security Investigations said that Fort was chanting with protesters when they entered the church, a claim that the Department of Justice later admitted was false. Prosecutors tried to argue that the mistake wasn’t consequential because it wasn’t mentioned in Fort’s indictment.

Fort’s lawyers want more information about what prosecutors told the federal grand jury before it decided to indict the journalist, because they could have mentioned other false details.

“It is clear to me that in this case the government in many respects, candidly, has gone off the rails,” Matthew Ebert, one of Fort’s lawyers, said at a July 24 court hearing. “If the government is confused and can’t keep its story straight about the evidence in a 39-defendant case and incorrectly and repeatedly lumps my client, a journalist, together incorrectly with the conduct of others who were engaged in a protest, if they can’t keep it straight, all the more reason I’m concerned about what they said to the grand jury.”

After that hearing, Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko ordered federal prosecutors to turn over all grand jury proceedings related to Fort, as well as another journalist, Michael Beute.

Fort’s lawyers also have objections to federal investigators trying to access Fort’s reporting. A judge has rejected two attempts by investigators to get her work, noting that they seemed to have forgotten the Privacy Protection Act, which protects journalists from being forced to turn over their work to authorities.

The government has tried to gain access to Fort’s social media accounts too, including the names and contact information of her subscribers. When a judge put a stop to that, the government tried to use customs summonses. Those attempts are controversial in that the government won’t admit in writing what information it has obtained or whether it is continuing to use those summonses, suggesting that prosecutors are either trying to hide something, or they know that the government’s activities might not be legal.

Even Fox News struggled to put a positive spin on a dismal July jobs report, as the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs that month.

“Again, a disappointing jobs report,” Fox Business’s Lauren Simonetti said on Mornings With Maria on Friday. “Dow Futures way up, doubling where they were before.”

“Twenty-three thousand jobs lost in the month of July,” Maria Bartiromo continued before turning to investor Louis Navellier. “Louis, you wanted a weak report and you got it. Was this too weak?”

Many of the jobs lost were in local government and leisure and hospitality—real jobs that real people, who are already dealing with slowed wages and rising inflation, work. Instead of focusing on their material reality, Navellier framed the weak jobs report as good because massive corporations like Palantir were still benefiting.

“When Palantir announced their earnings, they basically had record earnings by decreasing their sales force,” he said. “So there’s this AI productivity boom underway.… This is great news, that’s why the market’s up … so this is great news. Obviously a lot of people disappeared from the workforce.”

The rest of the segment continued to ignore the real-world implications of 23,000 lost jobs in the month of July, especially paired with high gas prices and tariff-based inflation. And while the unemployment rate fell 0.1 percent, that is due to people leaving the workforce entirely, not getting new jobs.

President Trump, ever sensitive to negative jobs reports, has yet to comment.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski announced Friday that she would not support acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to permanently take on the role.

Murkowski laid out her concerns that, as head of the Department of Justice, Blanche would fail to check the Trump administration’s “worst impulses.”

“The politicization—even weaponization—of the Department did not start with this administration but has accelerated during it,” she wrote in a statement. “I take issue with the handling of the release of the Epstein files; the sweeping immunity protections granted to the President, his family, and their businesses; the statements that have been made to anti-abortion groups; and the repeated targeting of individuals ranging from former administration staff to sitting U.S. Senators.”

Then Murkowski called Blanche’s bluff about Donald Trump’s so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” The Alaska Republican claimed that the money was clearly headed for January 6 rioters, and was “only off the table because this nomination is pending and the Senate has leverage.”

“Once we vote, that will end, and there is no telling what the future holds,” she wrote.

Murkowski joins Maine Senator Susan Collins in opposing Blanche’s nomination. Now, all eyes are on Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whose vote could sink Blanche’s confirmation. Cassidy has voiced his concerns about lawfare at the Department of Justice, and been an outspoken critic of Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund. Blanche met with Murkowski and Cassidy on Capitol Hill Wednesday, but it was clearly not enough to convince at least Murkowski.

If Cassidy refuses to support Blanche before the August recess, Blanche would still continue to serve as acting attorney general. But the failure would represent a major blow to Trump’s grip on Republicans.