Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

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Dr. Bernice King to lead voting rights rally in Selma

Just over 60 years after her father led the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Rev. Dr. Bernice King announced she will return to Montgomery to lead thousands in a rally to defend voting rights.

The All Roads Lead to the South rally was announced earlier this week, after Republican-led legislatures in Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia moved forward with plans to redraw their congressional maps and eliminate majority-Black districts. Southern states’ rapid push to dilute the power of Black voters comes in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision to roll back key protections for non-white citizens in the Voting Rights Act — legislation that was one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s most seminal achievements.

“All Roads Lead To The South is a trumpet moment,” said Rev. Dr. Bernice King. “Like in Nehemiah, when the trumpet sounded, the people left their separate places on the wall and came together to defend what was sacred. The ruling is that sound. And this trumpet call is not for a moment; it is for a movement.”

Organizers say the rally is the beginning of a series of actions that will take place over the course of the summer and into the 2026 midterm elections. In addition to rallies and marches, they are planning voter registration drives, economic boycotts, and other tactics reminiscent of the Civil Rights Movement. Grassroots groups No Kings and Indivisible have come out in support of All Roads and plan to mobilize their massive volunteer bases to support its efforts.

For anyone interested in attending, free rides are available from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Akilah Hughes, host of COURIER’s web series, How is this Better? will be covering the rally, with updates throughout the day on TikTok and Instagram.

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Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

During a field hearing on Tuesday in Palm Beach, Florida, Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee detailed 30 years of prosecutorial failures that allowed Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation to flourish into a multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the committee’s ranking member, argued that systemic failures beginning in Palm Beach continued through both Trump administrations and remained largely unaddressed under the Biden administration. Aside from the conviction of Epstein associate Ghislane Maxwell, no additional alleged co-conspirators were prosecuted by Biden’s Department of Justice, while Trump’s DOJ has repeatedly claimed that there is not enough evidence to charge anyone else with a crime.

“I want to understand why Merrick Garland and the former Justice Department under the Biden administration did little to nothing to bring justice for the survivors or have additional prosecutions,” said Garcia. “Merrick Garland, for me, is at the top of that list of folks that we need to speak to and ask questions of.”

Tuesday’s hearing outlined how law enforcement and government prosecutors repeatedly bent over backwards to accommodate Epstein after his first arrest in 2006. Women who survived years of abuse described how the justice system not only failed them, but was often used against them. After Epstein pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw approved unsupervised work release privileges that enabled him to continue his trafficking operation undeterred. Epstein would regularly tell his victims that if they went to the police, it was them, not him, who would be treated as the criminals.

“Jeffrey had already threatened my friend, and he had told me that I would be charged with prostitution if I ever interacted with law enforcement,” said Dani Bensky, a dance choreographer who had been abused by Epstein when she was a minor. “He made it clear that he held the cards.”

@couriernewsroomCOURIER correspondent Camaron Stevenson was on the ground in Palm Beach, covering how Jeffrey Epstein's control over the U.S. Government enabled his human trafficking.

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Special treatment continued to follow Epstein wherever he went. He was granted at least $300 million in tax breaks by the US Virgin Islands, exempted from registering as a sex offender in New Mexico, and obtained discreet medical care in New York for girls and women he abused. Meanwhile, multiple banks turned a blind eye as Epstein made over $1 billion worth of suspicious transactions — activity that financial institutions are required to report to federal authorities as potential red flags for money laundering and human trafficking.

The privileges granted to Epstein appear to have extended to his clients and co-conspirators as well. Witness accounts allege sexual abuse by billionaires such as Leon Black and Donald Trump, money laundering by longtime Epstein associates Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, and questionable financial entanglements with high-level officials, including US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Even officials not associated with Epstein have appeared eager to maintain the status quo at the expense of justice. Former US Attorneys General Bill Barr, Merrick Garland, and Pam Bondi oversaw an investigation that members of the Oversight Committee believe produced countless leads, yet documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act indicate that none were pursued. Others, including current and former US Treasury Secretaries Scott Bessent and Janet Yellen, have stonewalled financial investigations in both the House and the Senate, prioritizing the interests of implicated financial institutions above all else.

Rep. Yassamin Ansari, a member of the committee who attended the hearing, said her goal is to put an end to the sweetheart deals and gentlemen’s agreements embedded in the system that make justice unobtainable.

“So much could have been prevented if institutions and government had done its job,” Ansari told COURIER. “Moving forward, we have a real opportunity here to right the wrongs of the past, to make sure that future generations and children and young girls who are watching this today feel that they can trust their government, feel that if they are abused or they are raped, or if they are assaulted and they report that abuse, that there will be accountability and that there will be justice.”

The committee plans to continue holding depositions and interviews, but without buy-in from Republicans, who currently control the House, it’s unclear whether any actions taken will carry real weight. Garcia and Ansari are hopeful that this dynamic could shift in January, however, if Democrats are able to secure a majority in Congress.

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It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

US Rep. Virginia Foxx, North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District

Since taking office in 2005, Rep. Foxx has:

• Seen her net worth decrease from around $5.8 million to $5.3 million

• Sponsored 261 bills, 10 of which have been signed into law

• Expressed belief that sexual assault victims should be forced to birth the child of their abuser

• Voted against sending federal aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina

• Spend more than a decade trying to end birthright citizenship

• Described universal healthcare as a bigger threat than terrorism

• Rejected the idea that violence based on sexual orientation is a hate crime

Fun Facts

When she’s not telling reporters to shut up, Rep. Foxx is bullying ten-year-olds and taking pot shots at teachers, apparently. Earlier this year, an elementary school student from her district sent the octogenarian congresswoman a letter about electric vehicles as part of an assignment. In response, Foxx told the student that he should “turn away from this dangerous path,” and accused his teacher of indoctrinating him with propaganda.

@couriernewsroomRep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) is under scrutiny for her response to a 10-year-old student.

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COURIER’s newly-launched Epstein investigation project

For too long, the Epstein Class has dealt in wealth, power, and politics to avoid accountability and deny victims & survivors their due justice. The public deserves the truth, but the Trump Administration is failing its legal obligation to deliver it.

That’s why we’re expanding our coverage to follow the money and investigate the power players in and outside the government. With a new database by Thorian AI, we have unprecedented access and ability to navigate more than 1.2M files and we’re sharing access—and what we’re finding—with you.

Subscribe to The Cover-Up and get one concise, easy-to-read email a week that cuts through the noise with the headlines you need and the breakdowns you want.

By staying plugged in and leveraging our reporting to make your own calls-to-action louder, together, we can turn information into justice.

Subscribe to The Cover-Up

Support our journalism at COURIER

Democracy dies behind a paywall, which is why our journalism is — and always will be — free.

But to keep our commitment to the free access to information, we need support from those who have the means, believe in our mission, and support our unique model.

Donate

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the committee’s ranking member, argued that systemic failures beginning in Palm Beach continued through both Trump administrations and remained largely unaddressed under the Biden administration. Aside from the conviction of Epstein associate Ghislane Maxwell, no additional alleged co-conspirators were prosecuted by Biden’s Department of Justice, while Trump’s DOJ has repeatedly claimed that there is not enough evidence to charge anyone else with a crime.

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“I want to understand why Merrick Garland and the former Justice Department under the Biden administration did little to nothing to bring justice for the survivors or have additional prosecutions,” said Garcia. “Merrick Garland, for me, is at the top of that list of folks that we need to speak to and ask questions of.”

Tuesday’s hearing outlined how law enforcement and government prosecutors repeatedly bent over backwards to accommodate Epstein after his first arrest in 2006. Women who survived years of abuse described how the justice system not only failed them, but was often used against them. After Epstein pleaded guilty to solicitation of a minor, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw approved unsupervised work release privileges that enabled him to continue his trafficking operation undeterred. Epstein would regularly tell his victims that if they went to the police, it was them, not him, who would be treated as the criminals.

“Jeffrey had already threatened my friend, and he had told me that I would be charged with prostitution if I ever interacted with law enforcement,” said Dani Bensky, a dance choreographer who had been abused by Epstein when she was a minor. “He made it clear that he held the cards.”

@couriernewsroomCOURIER correspondent Camaron Stevenson was on the ground in Palm Beach, covering how Jeffrey Epstein's control over the U.S. Government enabled his human trafficking.

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Special treatment continued to follow Epstein wherever he went. He was granted at least $300 million in tax breaks by the US Virgin Islands, exempted from registering as a sex offender in New Mexico, and obtained discreet medical care in New York for girls and women he abused. Meanwhile, multiple banks turned a blind eye as Epstein made over $1 billion worth of suspicious transactions — activity that financial institutions are required to report to federal authorities as potential red flags for money laundering and human trafficking.

The privileges granted to Epstein appear to have extended to his clients and co-conspirators as well. Witness accounts allege sexual abuse by billionaires such as Leon Black and Donald Trump, money laundering by longtime Epstein associates Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, and questionable financial entanglements with high-level officials, including US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Even officials not associated with Epstein have appeared eager to maintain the status quo at the expense of justice. Former US Attorneys General Bill Barr, Merrick Garland, and Pam Bondi oversaw an investigation that members of the Oversight Committee believe produced countless leads, yet documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act indicate that none were pursued. Others, including current and former US Treasury Secretaries Scott Bessent and Janet Yellen, have stonewalled financial investigations in both the House and the Senate, prioritizing the interests of implicated financial institutions above all else.

Rep. Yassamin Ansari, a member of the committee who attended the hearing, said her goal is to put an end to the sweetheart deals and gentlemen’s agreements embedded in the system that make justice unobtainable.

“So much could have been prevented if institutions and government had done its job,” Ansari told COURIER. “Moving forward, we have a real opportunity here to right the wrongs of the past, to make sure that future generations and children and young girls who are watching this today feel that they can trust their government, feel that if they are abused or they are raped, or if they are assaulted and they report that abuse, that there will be accountability and that there will be justice.”

The committee plans to continue holding depositions and interviews, but without buy-in from Republicans, who currently control the House, it’s unclear whether any actions taken will carry real weight. Garcia and Ansari are hopeful that this dynamic could shift in January, however, if Democrats are able to secure a majority in Congress.

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

Subscribe now

Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

A flustered Commerce Secretary claimed during a closed-door congressional hearing Wednesday that Trump administration officials pressured him to walk back previous claims that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was “the greatest blackmailer ever” who possessed video footage of his clients abusing girls and women.

Wall Street billionaire and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick spoke with the House Oversight Committee for several hours as part of the committee’s investigation into the government’s lackluster handling of the Epstein case. A key point of contention during the transcribed interview centered on comments Lutnick made in an October 2025 interview with the New York Post, in which he talked about Epstein at length.

“That’s what his MO was, you know: ‘get a massage, get a massage.’ And what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video,” Lutnick said of Epstein. “This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. He blackmailed people. That’s how he had money.”

When pressed by US Reps. (D-CA) and James Walkinshaw (D-VA), Lutnick reportedly became unsettled and repeatedly changed his responses. While the transcript of the interview has not yet been released publicly, Khanna recounted the exchange during a press briefing.

“I think he’s covering up for the administration,” Khanna began. “Secretary Lutnick said on the podcast that there was blackmail going on. Then he says to my inquiry, ‘well, no, no, no, I was just speculating.’”

“What was your basis for speculating?” Khanna asked.

“I didn’t have any basis,” Lutnick replied. “I take it back.”

“Why did you take it back?”

“I talked to administration officials.”

“Who did you talk to?” Walkinshaw interjected.

“No, no, no, I just learned about this in public,” Lutnick responded. I didn’t talk to the administration officials.”

Democratic lawmakers say the exchange points to a broader effort by the Trump administration to minimize the scale of Epstein’s billion-dollar criminal enterprise since Trump retook the presidency. The White House attempting to silence a cabinet member in order to impede a congressional investigation would mark a significant escalation, though not a wholly unprecedented one.

In 2017, Trump instructed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a real estate deal in Russia. Cohen went on to serve three years in prison after being found guilty of making false statements to Congress, tax evasion, and campaign finance violations.

“This is why this is such a cover-up. I mean, he refused to say there was any blackmailing, even though he thought that happened in the past,” said Khanna. “Someone obviously got to him from the administration. In fact, he said he talked to people in the administration and that’s why he’s changed his tune. And the question is not just why he’s lying. The question is why he’s covering up, why he’s no longer willing to share what he knows about Epstein’s abhorrent behavior.”

@couriernewsroomHouse Democrat Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) gives insight into yesterday's closed-door testimony given by Trump admin official Howard Lutnick.

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Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) later held an impromptu press briefing to refute accusations of a cover-up, instead listing off a number of unrelated issues using a deflective rhetorical technique known as whataboutism.

“I feel compelled to have to come out and clean up and correct some of the statements that the Democrats made. I couldn’t believe as I was getting updates of what they were saying, and I hope that when you get the transcripts, you fact check them on what they say,” said Comer. “The only cover-up that I’ve seen on the Oversight Committee is the cover-up of the Democrats trying to cover up our investigations of the Metro Police Department, lying about crime statistics, and the cover-up of the Minnesota fraud.”

Committee members also questioned Lutnick about his past relationship with Epstein, including business dealings, their time as next-door-neighbors in Manhattan, and Lutnick’s 2012 visit to the private island Epstein used to traffic and abuse girls and women. Lutnick had previously denied associating with Epstein after 2005, but changed his story once a portion of the Epstein Files were released in late 2025.

Wednesday’s inquiry marks the beginning of a series of high-profile hearings scheduled by the Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into Epstein. A hearing featuring several of Epstein’s victims and expert witnesses is scheduled for May 12 in Palm Beach, while former US Attorney General Pam Bondi is expected to speak with congressional investigators on May 29. Like Lutnick, Bondi will not be testifying under oath, but committee staff have emphasized that it is still a crime to lie to Congress, regardless of whether or not the subject has been sworn in.

“If we find that there were any misstatements by Lutnick, it’s a felony to lie to Congress, and you’ll be held accountable,” said Comer.

Attempts to Sanewash

• Lutnick’s testimony about Epstein draws praise from GOP chair and derision from Democrats

• Dueling descriptions from lawmakers on whether Lutnick was forthcoming or evasive about Epstein ties

• Commerce Secretary Lutnick appears before a House panel to answer for his changing story on Epstein

Far-Right Spin

• The Neighbor Next Door: Howard Lutnick Details Limited Contact With Jeffrey Epstein

• US commerce secretary says he was surprised by invitation to Epstein’s Island

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick found Epstein island lunch invite ‘unsettling’ – but went anyway

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Is Project BLUEMAP on the horizon?

Now that unfettered gerrymandering is effectively the law of the land, control over who draws the maps has become more important than ever.

In most states, the legislature is in charge of drawing congressional and state legislative district boundaries. And thanks in large part to a Republican initiative launched in 2010 called Project REDMAP, a majority of state legislatures have been under Republican control for the past 16 years. That dominance has allowed them to draw increasingly favorable maps that make it harder and harder for Democrats to win seats, even in states where there are more Democratic voters than Republicans.

But according to Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Heather Williams, the same factors that helped Project REDMAP succeed in 2010 could be its undoing in 2026.

“Republicans had this advantage at a time when Barack Obama was president and his numbers had been falling, that healthcare and affordability and the economy were core issues. And interestingly, there was sort of a groundswell right of activism around Tea Party activities,” said Williams. “2026 shows us elements the same, although in reverse: We’ve got a president that is deeply underwater, a party that is in power federally that is deeply unliked… And just last week, it was noted that for the first time since before 2010, Democrats are now favored on the economy over Republicans.”

Williams and the DLCC have spent years trying to flip state legislatures, but it’s been a pretty uphill battle — until last year, when those factors she outlined became a driving force for voters, leading to Democrats winning upset victories in special election after special election.

Even in races where Republicans win, margins have narrowed significantly compared to previous cycles. It’s a clear sign from voters that they are increasingly dissatisfied and don’t think the party in power is listening to their needs. As a result, Democrats have successfully defended their control of the Michigan state senate, and are chipping away at Republican supermajorities in states like Arkansas and Florida.

“Democrats have an opportunity to either break the Republican supermajorities or prevent Democrats from falling into them,” explained Williams. “This matters because it puts Democrats into a negotiating room. And that is really important when we think about the path forward on public policy and that ability to really be a part of the conversation.”

The shift comes at a pivotal time for Democrats, as the US Supreme Court last week granted states the ability to redraw congressional maps without regard for racial representation. Republican-controlled legislatures in Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi have already begun the process of eliminating predominantly Black districts in order to create room for more white representation in Congress. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis already signed into law new maps that create four new white-majority districts by breaking apart voting blocs made up largely of non-white residents.

In each of those states except Mississippi — where the state senate is led by a Republican majority — both chambers of the legislature are controlled by Republican supermajorities. That dynamic almost always means Democrats are left out of negotiations over proposed legislation, and bills that do pass tend to trend farther to the extreme right.

Democrats broke the Republican supermajority in the Mississippi state senate in 2025 and maintained control of the Michigan state senate after a special election held last Tuesday.

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It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

US Rep. Mike Rogers, Alabama’s 3rd Congressional District

Since taking office in 2003, Rep. Rogers has:

• Sponsored 109 bills, two of which have been signed into law

• Knowingly accepted over $30,000 in campaign contributions from a PAC tied to a money laundering scheme

• Threatened to beat up a voter who asked about ethically questionable contributions to his wife’s county judge campaign

• Tried to start a fight with former Rep. Matt Gaetz on the House floor over a committee assignment

• Almost been appointed to be Trump’s Defense Secretary, but had to stay in the House so Republicans wouldn’t lose their majority

• Blamed ISIS for the 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando and voted against designating attacks against LGBTQ+ people as a hate crime

Fun Facts

Rep. Rogers was an ardent supporter of former President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq — so much so that he hired one of the conflict’s most prolific (alleged) war criminals. Chris Brinson joined Rogers’ congressional staff in 2003 and later served as his chief of staff for about a decade. He came fresh from military service as a US Army Reserve Captain during the Iraq War, where he participated in the ongoing human rights violations at Abu Ghraib prison.

The scandal gained international attention after 60 Minutes published a report with photos showing American soldiers dragging naked prisoners on leashes and shocking them with electric wires. Prisoners were also forced to masturbate in front of female soldiers.

Brinson was formally reprimanded by the US Army for his involvement in the abuses — physical and psychological torture, rape, and murder — that occurred under his watch. From there, he went straight to Rogers’ office, where he was welcomed with open arms.

“Chris’ influence on my office is immeasurable; my staff in Alabama and DC revere him, and without his help, I would not have successfully run for two chairmanships,” Rogers said of Brinson. “I have some of the longest-serving staff on Capitol Hill and that’s in part to what Chris has done for our team.”

Rogers’ personal net worth has fluctuated considerably during his time in Congress. Financial disclosures placed him right around the $1 million mark when he first took office, but mounting liabilities over the years left him among the poorest members of Congress by 2018, with an estimated $600,000 in debt. He seems to have bounced back, somewhat; his latest disclosure from 2023 shows he’s around $250,000 in the black.

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COURIER’s newly-launched Epstein investigation project

For too long, the Epstein Class has dealt in wealth, power, and politics to avoid accountability and deny victims & survivors their due justice. The public deserves the truth, but the Trump Administration is failing its legal obligation to deliver it.

That’s why we’re expanding our coverage to follow the money and investigate the power players in and outside the government. With a new database by Thorian AI, we have unprecedented access and ability to navigate more than 1.2M files and we’re sharing access—and what we’re finding—with you.

Subscribe to The Cover-Up and get one concise, easy-to-read email a week that cuts through the noise with the headlines you need and the breakdowns you want.

By staying plugged in and leveraging our reporting to make your own calls-to-action louder, together, we can turn information into justice.

Subscribe to The Cover-Up

Advertise in this newsletter

Do you or your company want to support COURIER’s mission and showcase your products or services to an aligned audience of 190,000+ subscribers at the same time? Contact advertising@couriernewsroom.com for more information.

Support our journalism at COURIER

Democracy dies behind a paywall, which is why our journalism is — and always will be — free.

But to keep our commitment to the free access to information, we need support from those who have the means, believe in our mission, and support our unique model.

Donate

Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

Subscribe now

Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

Momentum to hold the government accountable for the apparent mishandling of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein has accelerated dramatically in recent days. Amidst White House denials, high-profile depositions, and new independent federal investigations, a clearer picture is finally emerging of the deceased sex trafficker’s financial ties to his living co-conspirators.

On Wednesday, House Democrats filed contempt charges against former US Attorney General Pam Bondi — a pointed escalation that appears to have forced her hand. After defying a House Oversight Committee subpoena earlier this month, arguing that her testimony was no longer needed since she had been fired by President Trump, Bondi has agreed to appear for a deposition on May 29 to explain her role in the release of the Epstein Files.

“We think [Bondi’s] been involved in a massive cover up and we need to hold her accountable,” Ranking Member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) told COURIER. “We can get justice for the survivors. We can take on Trump’s corruption. We can take on his family. And I think that’s what we’ve continuously shown. We can’t allow them to continue to break the rules and break the law, and we’ve got to hold them accountable.”

Meanwhile, COURIER has identified new discrepancies between sworn testimony of those previously deposed and documentation found in the Epstein Files — including, for the first time, evidence that Epstein’s close associate and longtime personal lawyer, Darren Indyke, failed to disclose a $3 million gift of prime Florida real estate.

For decades, Indyke handled the business side of Epstein’s empire, while his boss built a vast network of wealthy, powerful clients for his multi-billion dollar sex trafficking operation. At the time of Epstein’s death, his estate was worth nearly $600 million. Today, Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn, are now the co-executors of the estate, and have much to gain from protecting it from criminal prosecution.

An ongoing investigation by COURIER, including the creation of a comprehensive public database of the Epstein Files by Thorian AI, previously uncovered financial dealings that directly contradict what Indyke told congressional investigators during his March deposition. The records point to suspected money laundering and indicate that Indyke worked to prevent Epstein’s victims from speaking with law enforcement, shaking them down for money as a manipulation tactic.

A new analysis reveals yet another omission by Indyke: when asked about his compensation, he recounted $16 million in salary and $7 million in loans. But what he failed to disclose was the $3 million mansion Epstein purchased for him in 2015. According to a Suspicious Activity Report accidentally published by the DOJ, Epstein’s company, Financial Trust Real Estate Inc., wired funds through TD Bank to cover the closing costs of Indyke’s home, which he owned for nearly a decade. The report was briefly made public before it was removed, fully redacted, then republished.

“[Indyke’s] account was credited by a suspicious $3,000,000 wire transfer from the FirstBank Puerto Rico account of F T Real Estate Inc,” the SAR states. “The memo references closing costs for 6030 Le Lac Road (the current residential address on file at TD Bank for Darren K. Indyke).”

According to the report, the transaction immediately set off internal red flags at TD Bank — but they refrained from reporting it to the authorities until after Epstein’s death in 2019. The bank’s failure to adhere to basic anti-money laundering regulations, paired with Indyke’s apparent deceptions while under oath, pose a unique challenge to a Congress that has recently found its teeth. As with the contempt charges against Bondi, the Oversight Committee has the tools to compel more forthright testimony from Indyke and hold accountable a financial industry that turned a blind eye to Epstein’s blatant crimes.

“As a minority party, we have 18 subpoenas in the Oversight committee as it pertains to the Epstein investigation. We’ve been highly effective at forcing Republicans to take this seriously, and have been able to work with them to make sure that anyone who is relevant to this investigation is brought forward,” said US Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), who sits on the committee. “We still have a long list of folks that we believe should come forward, and we’ll continue to work through those.”

Indyke has so far managed to avoid any serious consequences as a result of his involvement with Epstein, and continues to deny any personal wrongdoing. In order to shield themselves from lawsuits, Indyke and Kahn established an Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program, where victims could receive a quick payout in exchange for promising to never sue any of Epstein’s former employees. In February 2026, the pair settled a class-action lawsuit, but the $35 million was paid out from Epstein’s estate, not from Indyke or Kahn personally. The pair’s authority over Epstein’s wealth has functioned as a financial shield from civil liability, leaving criminal charges as victims’ only hope for a path to justice.

Bondi’s upcoming deposition and the discovery of Indyke’s gifted mansion come as startling new revelations continue to be uncovered by members of Congress, news outlets, and citizen journalists since the partial publication of the DOJ’s investigation into Epstein. The forced transparency — a result of the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act in December 2025 — has placed renewed scrutiny on the sworn testimony of others who have been deposed, including Indyke and Kahn.

“Darren Indyke has a lot to answer for. We think there’s a lot more that he should have shared in his deposition, and we have a lot of questions still for him and the Epstein Estate,” said Garcia. “We’re going to go all-in on this investigation and we’re going to ensure that we get all the information, all the bank records, all the financial statements, talk to a bunch of people that we want to speak with, and ask additional questions.”

The apparent cover-up by the Trump administration and Epstein’s associates, coupled with a growing acknowledgement that the DOJ investigation into his sprawling, multi-billion dollar trafficking enterprise was woefully inadequate, has intensified pressure on those in power to take action. In early April, First Lady Melania Trump issued an unprompted defense of her association with Epstein, and earlier this week, both the DOJ’s independent accountability office and the US Government Accountability Office launched investigations into the administration’s compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The announcement of Bondi’s rescheduled deposition brings an end to weeks of stonewalling by US House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who had used subversive bureaucratic maneuvers to stall his committee’s investigation into the government’s handling of Epstein’s criminal network. Comer removed all hearings from the calendar in March, which in turn, canceled scheduled meetings with several individuals who had been invited to testify.

“I hope it’s very clear — not only to the Trump administration, but also to the American people — that we take this very seriously, and that this is an investigation that is just getting started. Ultimately the goal here is not just to get the Epstein files, but to ensure that anybody who committed a crime or who helped enable a crime is held accountable,” said Ansari. “We aren’t afraid of using any lever that we have, whether it be now that we’re in the minority, or when we’re in the majority and have full subpoena power to move this investigation forward and get justice for the victims.”

Want to join the investigation? Search through the Epstein Files here and send us a tip to let us know what you’ve found. A few helpful keywords for those interested in looking for financial crimes include: SAR, FinCEN, BSA, BSAR, BCTR, and FBAR.

SUBMIT A TIP

Share information securely with COURIER’s reporters. All submissions can be confidential and are encrypted.

Prefer email? Contact us at tips@epsteincoverup.us

Indivisble endorses economic blackout on May 1. Here’s how to participate

Activists are calling for a nationwide economic blackout this Friday, as a way to use the power of the pocketbook to protest the Trump administration.

Participants are asked to refrain from going to work, attending school, or making purchases of any kind. In an interview with COURIER, Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin explains what a movement like this hopes to achieve, and why his organization is throwing its weight behind it.

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It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

Utah US Sen. Mike Lee

Since taking office in 2011, Sen. Lee has:

• Seen his net worth increase from $199,000 to $391,000

• Sponsored 2,077 bills

• Authored six bills that have been signed into law — half of which were to rename federal buildings

• Successfully pushed Trump to leave the Paris Climate Agreement after receiving over $250,000 in campaign contributions from the oil, gas, and coal industries

• Worked closely with Trump’s team in their attempt to overturn the 2020 election results

• Compared Trump to the Book of Mormon figure Captain Moroni, known for committing political violence in the name of Christian nationalism

Fun Facts

Sen. Lee has most recently been in the news for attempting to sell off millions of acres of public land and for his response to the assassination of Melissa and Mark Hortman. He called the suspected shooter—who appears to be a far-right, Trump-supporting Christian nationalist—a liberal, mentally ill “Marxist.” He backed down and deleted his posts after being confronted by Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith. His response to the shooting prompted condemnation from his hometown newspaper and calls for his resignation.

It’s unlikely that a political nepo baby like Lee will leave office before he chooses to do so. His father was Ronald Reagan’s Solicitor General and a founding dean of the law school at BYU where Sen. Lee would later receive his law degree. The Senator was also fortunate enough to be elected student body president at the same time his father was university president.

Unlike his brother, a former Utah Supreme Court justice, Sen. Lee went the federal route, nabbing a clerkship with Samuel Alito when he was serving as an appeals court judge. Alito then brought Lee along as a clerk during his first year as a US Supreme Court justice. The pair are, ideologically, almost identically aligned. Like Lee, Alito has publicly supported Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and even flew an upside-down US flag outside his home in support of the insurrectionists after Jan. 6.

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Join COURIER and 3.14 Action on June 11 for Facts vs. Fiction: The Fight for Science in American Democracy.
Misinformation isn’t just noise. It’s shaping policy decisions that impact healthcare costs, public health, and everyone’s lives. This live conversation will examine what’s at stake when facts are ignored and what changes when experts lead with evidence. From lowering costs to protecting access to care, we will break down how science-driven leadership delivers real results and why scientific integrity is essential to democracy.

Hear directly from:

• Dr. Vin Gupta, Physician + Medical Analyst

• Representative Emily Gregory, Member of Congress

• Dr. Paul A. Offit, Director, Vaccine Education Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

• Shaughnessy Naughton, 314 Action President

Stay tuned for more speaker announcements, and don’t miss this conversation. RSVP today!

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Participants are asked to refrain from going to work, attending school, or making purchases of any kind. In an interview with COURIER, Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin explains what a movement like this hopes to achieve, and why his organization is throwing its weight behind it.

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The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Camaron Stevenson: This is Ezra Levin with Indivisible. You’ve probably heard of his organization. It’s had steady growth over the past eight years.

Ezra Levin: We’re going on 10 years, if you can believe it.

CS: Wow. That’s unbelievable. I’m from Phoenix, Arizona, and I remember when the Indivisible groups started popping up in some of the suburbs. Then the Phoenix one started growing, and now they are doing some really impressive work out there.

EL: The Arizona Indivisibles are really on fire. They’ve done a whole bunch of work in the past several years. I’ve been out there several times. I was out there before GGO ran for Senate, but we had GGO and Mondaire Jones trying to push Kyrsten Sinema to get on board with democracy reform before she stabbed us in the back.

I’ve also been out to Prescott, Arizona several times, which is a great area. It’s theoretically a very Republican area, but there is a very strong Indivisible group out there doing the Lord’s work. So yeah, I love our Arizona Indivisibles.

CS: I don’t know if this is your experience, but I feel like the places that are considered Republican strongholds or MAGA country sometimes have the most dedicated and ardent Indivisible groups. I imagine this is simply because they face the toll of the administration’s agenda more bluntly than some other areas.

EL: I think that’s right. Look, I’m from a rural and red area of Texas, and where I grew up, the word “Democrat” was a bad word. The local Democratic party was a joke; nobody volunteered for the Hays County Democratic Party, and there wasn’t a lot of organizing going on.

I do think after Trump was first elected, people were looking for community. People were looking to see if there were other folks who thought like them. It turns out even in these Republican plus-20 districts—even in places Donald Trump carried by double digits—there are a lot of people out there who don’t want that agenda and are willing to organize.

I think there’s power in that. That’s how you build power in a Democratic Republic; you have to do it locally. That’s how our power is distributed geographically across the country. It’s why you have state reps, city council members, and US senators. If you want to wield political power in this country, you can either be super rich and famous, or you can organize. Those are the options.

CS: I know I speak for myself when I say I feel we are in much better hands when it is groups of grassroots organizers, rather than a few of the world’s wealthiest, controlling our laws.

EL: That’s a big statement, but I’m going to go along with you on that one. I think I agree.

CS: Bringing out some hot takes! I do want to talk about something getting a lot of buzz lately, mainly because it’s the next big protest day coming up. I initially characterized it as a strike, but when I looked at Indivisible’s page regarding the Mayday action, I saw it isn’t technically a labor strike—it’s an economic blackout of sorts. Could you explain the distinction and let people know what the plan is?

EL: A strike is a technical term used in the labor community that comes with other requirements attached to it. The inspiration for this Friday’s Mayday action comes from the heroes who organized in the Twin Cities against ICE and a secret police force that was bringing the boot down on that community.

What they called for was a day of truth and freedom. In late January, thousands upon thousands of faith leaders, nurses, teachers, and everyday community members came out and said, “Look, we’re not going to go to school, work, or shop. We’re going to flex our economic power to bring the attention of the entire country to what this regime is doing to us.”

Only two days after that action, the regime ultimately had to back off because the PR hit they were taking was so intense. The public was turning against the Trump regime, ICE, CBP, and the broader deportation agenda because people saw Renee Goode’s murder, Alex Pretti’s murder, and the regime’s slander against normal Americans. In Alex Freddy’s case, he was a VA nurse simply showing up to exercise his First Amendment rights in defense of his community, and a secret police force murdered him in the streets.

In response, we saw this incredible on-the-ground organizing that was something more than just a Saturday protest. The way I view Mayday is as a structure test for our movement. Heading into the midterms, we know what Donald Trump is planning to do. He fears free and fair elections and plans to sabotage them to hold on to power. That’s what all authoritarians do.

The question for us is, what are we going to do when that happens? We think the folks in Minnesota showed us a way forward: flexing not just our people power in numbers, but also our economic strength.

That’s what we’re going to see on Friday. We’re going to see people across the country—in blue, red, and purple states, in rural, suburban, and urban areas—figuring out ways to flex that economic strength as a community. In some places, you’ll see schools close down. You’ll see workers off the job. You’ll see people out of stores. In other places, you’ll see community events and large protests. This is about figuring out where we are strong, where we are weak, and where we need to grow, so that come November, we’re not just crushing them electorally, but protecting the results with strategic organizing.

CS: I want to talk about the buildup to this moment. The major penultimate moment is the midterm elections, but I feel like people have come a really long way since January 2025. When the Trump administration came in, they acted as if they had an irrefutable mandate and that any opposition was futile. I personally saw a wave of hopelessness.

Now, a year and change later, there have been multiple cabinet resignations and historic protests. People who had never attended a protest before are showing up and creating Indivisible groups. What’s it like seeing that from your bird’s-eye view?

EL: It’s the best of times and the worst of times. You could say that about the Twin Cities, where you have the most horrific acts of cruelty exercised on Americans alongside the most beautiful, inspiring acts of neighborliness and courage on the ground. That’s what I’ve seen across the country since Trump won re-election.

The broader political system didn’t respond the way the grassroots organizers responded. People organizing Indivisible groups didn’t wait several months to realize this guy was a threat; it was immediate. We started seeing a surge of engagement on the ground right away.

It’s going to be important to tell the story of what happened in 2025 and 2026. The story is one where an authoritarian won power, controlled the White House, Senate, and House, and attempted to concentrate power in his hands. In response, elites in media, universities, business, and the national Democratic Party essentially said, “He’s in power now, I guess we’ll just go along with it.”

The other part of the story was normal, everyday Americans saying, “No, I’m going to organize. I’m going to exercise my constitutional rights, connect with my community, and figure out how we protect ourselves.” That is what transformed Trump from an inevitable, unstoppable force into an unpopular, lame-duck president with a fracturing coalition.

It doesn’t mean we’re completely safe. When authoritarians are cornered, they lash out, which we are seeing now with the Iran war, Venezuela, and threats to Cuba or Greenland. But he is undeniably weakened. The direct connection between everyday people standing up for their rights and the country’s political trajectory is undeniable.

CS: I completely agree. The mentality of people across the country is drastically different than it was in January 2025. The best example I have is from Phoenix. In early 2025, a Northwest Valley Indivisible group formed. Initially, it was just a handful of people protesting outside local Tesla dealerships.

They kept getting bigger, eventually protesting outside Republican Representative Abe Hamadeh’s office, and evolved into a well-oiled machine of unpaid volunteers who know how to make noise effectively. Recently, they successfully organized against an industrial warehouse that ICE was going to use in Surprise, Arizona. They packed the city council, held daily protests, and now the use of that facility is on hold. These are people who felt hopeless in 2024, weren’t politically active, saw a need, and activated.

EL: I am so moved by that. The level of horror driven by this regime is intended to drive people into hiding. What we’re seeing in places like Surprise is folks coming together to demonstrate courage. There is reason to be scared, there is danger, and yet they are standing up in defense of their neighbors and communities anyway.

It’s enough to make you believe in democracy. If big corporations, big donors, and politicos keep making all the decisions, we’ll just get more of the same. The encouraging thing right now is that the organizing force on the ground is charting a different direction for the country once Donald Trump leaves the White House.

If we’re doing our job, we are empowering people to become the powerhouses you’re describing in Surprise. It’s not me leading this movement. Fundamentally, it comes down to normal people deciding to play a role in their democracy. We can provide training and tools, but local people are smart about where their leverage is. The opportunities in Surprise are different than those in San Francisco or Austin.

A one-size-fits-all program leaves so much brilliance and creativity on the table. Nobody is going to ride in to save the day for you. You actually develop political power by organizing and demanding it. The good news is that in America in 2026, this is still a constitutional republic, and you still have First Amendment rights to organize. That might not be true forever, but it is true right now.

CS: Building on that, organizing in a way that matches your community is crucial. A lot of localities have developed a reflexive opposition muscle where they know who to reach out to when they hear a call for a protest or, in the case of this Friday, a nationwide economic blackout.

This might be a new tactic for some, but I think it’s especially important in a time when billionaires and the richest people in our society essentially own politicians. An economic blackout can do the most damage because, at the end of the day, all these guys really care about is their bottom line.

EL: Economic pressure tactics have been bright spots during a very dark time. When Jimmy Kimmel was threatened by the regime, millions of people canceled their Disney subscriptions, and he was back on the air in hours. When Spotify ran ICE recruitment ads, tons of people canceled, and they removed the ads. When an airline made a business model out of deporting Americans, they faced massive protests and stopped doing it.

This is a nonviolent, effective organizing tool we can use to apply direct pressure to the system so it has to listen. It’s not our only tool, but if we aren’t using our economic power when someone tries to sabotage our elections, we aren’t running the full campaign we need to. Millions of people showing up on a Saturday won’t save democracy on its own. We have to marry the breadth of our protests with the depth of economic pressure tactics.

Mayday is an opportunity to test our strength. Where are we strong? Where do we need to build up more? Which tactics work on the ground? I encourage everybody to participate in some way. Take off from work or school, skip shopping, or attend a protest. Most importantly: don’t be alone on Mayday. Be part of a community committed to protecting democracy and non-violent tactics.

CS: My plan for Friday is to go through all my subscriptions and cancel the ones that don’t align with my vision for our country. However, that doesn’t feel like a communal experience. When you’re staying home, not working, and not buying anything, it can feel isolating compared to the inspiration of a massive protest. Is there anything people can do to feel connected and recognize they are part of a bigger movement?

EL: I don’t want to put down your individual efforts—everybody doing something is good. But you’re hitting on something really important. Experts in authoritarianism will tell you that authoritarians want you to feel isolated and alone. Organized, nonviolent people power is their biggest threat, which is why they saber-rattle at people exercising their First Amendment rights so much.

The most effective opposition tactic is refusing to be alone. Find a community. Find your local Indivisible group; there is likely one near 95% of the people watching this. If Indivisible isn’t your home, join the Working Families Party, 5051, a local immigrant rights group, or a mutual aid circle.

If you happen to be in an organizing desert with no organizations near you, start your own. Every single one of the 2,700 local Indivisible groups was started by someone who just raised their hand and decided to step up. People want to be part of something real right now, and you aren’t going to find that by doomscrolling. You’re going to find it by actually connecting with a community.

CS: You mentioned earlier that this is a good opportunity to test the strength of different communities’ economic blackout tactics. Is there a way you will be measuring the success of participation in Mayday?

EL: I want to see an unexpected number of actions in an unexpected number of places. I want to see different types of actions—some will be successful, and some will not. What they do in North Carolina is going to be different than San Francisco or Surprise, Arizona. We will learn from these activities and glean best practices for the entire country come November.

We’ll see entire school systems close, large numbers of workers staying off the job, and boycotts of specific stores or industries. It’s on us as national organizers to evaluate what went well and what didn’t so we can scale up over the next six months. This is a tactical escalation. It’s one thing to show up on a Saturday; it’s a bigger lift to take a sick day, keep your kids out of school, or refuse to shop. But it’s the kind of lift we need. We’re asking people to take responsibility for their democracy into their own hands.

CS: I really like that approach because it allows people to be creative. If you just give someone a box to check, they only think about showing up where they are told.

I’m thinking of an economic protest at Home Depot this past winter where people bought 55-cent ice scrapers and immediately got back in line to return them. It clogged up the return lines and let the company know they didn’t want ICE agents at their stores. It was incredibly creative, slowed down Home Depot, and was something I never would have thought of on my own. Giving people the opportunity to be creative shows what we’re made of.

EL: That’s exactly where the strength of the current pro-democracy movement lies. Even the phrase “No Kings” didn’t come from Indivisible cooking up poll-tested messaging in a room. It organically spread from protests earlier last year.

The best ideas come from people on the ground. Think of the Portland protesters who showed up in frog and unicorn costumes. It was a hilarious response to accusations that we were violent protesters. Making fun of the situation was a brilliant way to defang the regime. That caught on like wildfire. When the National Guard was called out against us in Texas and Virginia, it made no sense. Seeing fully armed guards facing off against kids dancing in funny costumes couldn’t have happened if this was just some corporate campaign. It grew organically out of the movement itself.

CS: I couldn’t imagine that getting pitched in a boardroom, but it worked. Authoritarians hate being turned into a joke. They are narcissists with fragile egos, and sending military guards to arrest an inflatable frog reveals the joke that they are.

EL: Oh my god, yes. There was an arrest at No Kings 2 in Alabama where a woman dressed up as a giant dictator, complete with the visual pun you can imagine. She was accused of destroying the peace, though she was later exonerated.

It’s important to understand there is no rule book written for this. Anyone at the national level who says this is exactly how you have to protest isn’t connected to reality. I encourage people to get creative on the ground, work with their local communities to capture attention, and then let everyone know about it. Take pictures, get press coverage, write op-eds, and elevate these tactics so other communities can replicate them.

CS: Thank you so much. I know we have to wrap up. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me, Ezra. Movements like this only need about 3.5% of the population participating to make a massive impact. We’ve already seen millions of people at recent protests, so I expect Mayday is going to be quite a force to be reckoned with.

EL: I believe so. I think we’re going to see a lot, learn a lot, and keep building from there.

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

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Over 60 holding sites ICE has attempted to obscure from public view

Public opposition to the Trump administration’s plan to use industrial warehouses as immigrant detention camps has halted at least a dozen proposals — and now, signs suggest that his enforcement agents are feeling the pressure at hidden detention sites across the country.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been repeatedly violating detention laws at nearly 200 facilities across the country, according to an investigation by the Colorado Times Recorder. People are forced into strip mall shops, office buildings, and various administrative government complexes that lack adequate showers, toilets, bedding, food, and other basic necessities.

COURIER reviewed ICE operations and identified 64 holding sites the agency has attempted to obscure from public view. Unlike traditional offices, these locations are unmarked buildings not listed in ICE’s online directories, and can only be found using specific search terms. Even then, the listed information is often incorrect — the Portland, Maine, office, for example, is described as the Boston Field Office. Many of these sites are clustered around areas of heavy ICE activity, such as behind Home Depots or outside airports used for deportation flights.

All 64 sites can be found here.

Unlike authorized detention sites, like prisons, ICE offices and other spaces rented by DHS are only permitted for temporary holds — meaning someone should only be there long enough to be processed and booked into the system — until they are transferred somewhere with the infrastructure to provide humane living conditions. In practice, however, agents have increasingly been holding toddlers, seniors, and hundreds of others in these offices well beyond the 72-hour limit.

The violation isn’t new, by any means. Autumn Gonzalez, a volunteer attorney with the grassroots group NorCal Resist, says she’s been alerting immigrants of ICE’s tactics for over a decade. While there are no official detention centers in Northern California, there are three known sites where people are held for days on end: the ICE field office in San Francisco, an unmarked office building in Redding, and the federal courthouse in Sacramento.

“Our role there is that we can quickly get an attorney down there to assist the person who’s detained. As long as we have this on-the ground presence and we see what’s going on, which otherwise these detentions would be happening and these people would not have that access to an attorney before they’re moved to another location,” said Gonzalez. “I know they [ICE] don’t like us being there, and they harass our volunteers and try to scare them away. So, hopefully we’re having some kind of impact, making them think twice about whether or not to detain someone.”

Similar to the fierce local backlash against warehouse detention proposals, community protests outside ICE’s unmarked field detention sites have begun to wear on ICE agents’ morale. Once it was discovered that an office space in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was being used to hold immigrants — some as young as two years old — protests formed outside the building every month, according to TV9 reporter Jackson Valenti.

Eventually, the crowds grew large enough that agents felt uncomfortable, so they erected a fence to separate themselves from the protestors.

“We are taking proactive steps to enhance security at the Cedar Rapids ICE facility,” a spokesperson told TV9. “Simply put, if everyone respected the law and our property, measures like this wouldn’t be necessary.”

Undeterred, protestors have continued demonstrating, and the fence has been turned into a memorial for individuals who have been killed in ICE custody.

More than 200 coordinated protests are planned for a national day of action on April 25, where millions are expected to march in opposition to the Trump administration’s mass detention agenda. In addition to public demonstrations, initiatives like ’ GTFO ICE are developing rapid response networks to train community members on ways to effectively prevent ICE from setting up shop in their neighborhoods.

“We have really good data now to show that, the earlier communities find out about these efforts to convert warehouses into ICE prisons, the likelier they are to stop them,” said , founder of Defiance. “Hands down, the most effective tactic has been crowd canceling these facilities, shining a light on it.”

So far, 13 warehouse sales have been canceled due to public pressure, and elected officials in Arizona, Georgia, and other states are utilizing bureaucratic maneuvers to prohibit ICE from operating detention camps in their municipalities.

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Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

The two men stonewalling Congress’ investigations into Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal network

Ongoing congressional investigations into Jeffrey Epstein’s multi-billion dollar sex trafficking enterprise have ground to a halt. Republicans who control the inquiries have shifted their focus to unreliable witness testimony instead of the millions of documents being withheld by the Trump administration.

As chair of the House Oversight Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, respectively, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) wield immense power over how their committees operate. They control when hearings are held, what can be brought up for a vote, and how many resources are allocated to investigations. Both men are now using this authority to limit their committees’ investigations into Epstein as much as possible, despite broad public interest and bipartisan support among committee members.

After spending the past year failing to find an effective way to politicize Oversight’s investigation to benefit his party and hurt Democrats, Comer has now attempted to move it out of the public eye. House Democrats revealed this week that Comer had replaced formal committee hearings with roundtable discussions — a bureaucratic maneuver that prevents the committee from issuing subpoenas and doesn’t require witnesses to testify under oath.

“They’re trying to shut down investigations,” ranking member Robert Garcia (D-CA) told COURIER. “Democrats, over the course of the last few months, have put in place seven motions that we’ve passed through our committee — that have included 18 subpoenas for documents, for testimony, for important witnesses to come and talk about the Epstein investigation, and other important matters in front of our committee and our government. But now, Oversight Republicans are scared. They don’t want to face us in committee, and they don’t want to allow us to have motions. ”

The move comes after a series of humiliations Comer has suffered as committee chair. In February, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tore into Republicans during her deposition for compelling her to testify despite having never interacted with Epstein nor any investigation involving him. The following month, close Epstein associate Darren Indyke repeatedly lied under oath without consequence, and last week, former US Attorney General Pam Bondi outright ignored the committee’s subpoena and failed to appear for her scheduled deposition.

Democrats and Republicans on the committee had threatened to hold Bondi in contempt, but they can no longer do so after Comer removed that as an option. Instead, he soft launched a proposal to release Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell from prison in exchange for her cooperation in their investigation — although Comer immediately distanced himself from the idea after bringing it up.

“A lot of people do [want her pardoned],” Comer told POLITICO. “My committee’s split on that.”

However, the government’s own findings show that Maxwell has proven to be an unreliable witness who has shown a willingness to offer whatever narrative will secure her a more favorable outcome. Of potentially greater value to the committee are the roughly 3 million documents from the Epstein Files being withheld by the DOJ, in direct violation of a subpoena issued by Oversight in August 2025.

In the Senate, Crapo has taken a more stoic approach to stalling the investigation. The Finance Committee’s inquiry began in 2021, under then-chair Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). Wyden made gradual progress over the years, eventually gaining temporary access from a resistant Biden administration to Epstein’s financial records at the US Treasury.

That all changed in 2025, when the White House shifted from resistant to combative. Under President Donald Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent responded to Wyden’s request for additional records with threats. And Crapo, since taking over as chair in January 2025, has refused to support the investigation, leaving it without adequate resources or subpoena power. He has entirely abdicated responsibility, leaving it up to the House to do the heavy lifting.

“Jeffrey Epstein was a notorious sex trafficker who committed appalling crimes,” Crapo told the Idaho Statesman last October. “The House Oversight Committee is now leading an ‘investigation of the investigators’ and is the appropriate committee to uncover why Epstein was not properly investigated and prosecuted earlier.”

But Wyden, Crapo’s fellow committee member, has said he uncovered what he believes to be troves of evidence at the US Treasury linking Epstein’s financial crimes to accomplices, including more than $1 billion in transactions involving sanctioned banks and Eastern European countries where he is known to have trafficked girls and women. An ongoing investigation by COURIER has also revealed millions of dollars in suspicious transactions that banks were aware of, but allowed to continue because they profited from Epstein’s business.

In one document withheld by the Treasury but mistakenly published by the DOJ, PayPal identified 50 suspicious transactions from Epstein totaling nearly $150,000. The report noted that the “recipients of these payments were found to be predominantly women models, mainly located in Russia.” PayPal monitored the activity for two years — well aware they were red flags for money laundering and human trafficking — but didn’t report it until after Epstein’s second arrest.

Attempts to Sanewash

• ‘Other Than Epstein, She’s the Worst Person in This Investigation’: Comer Breaks With GOP Over Maxwell Pardon Deal

• House Democrat pushes DOJ on possible pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell

• US House Oversight members divided on Ghislaine Maxwell pardon, chairman says

Far-Right Spin

• Comer Responds Accordingly to ‘Clickbait’ Coverage of Alleged Divide Among GOP on Possible Maxwell Pardon

• Several in Epstein Committee Speak Out in Favor of Pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell

• Comer says he is not in favor of pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, committee split

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COURIER’s newly-launched Epstein investigation project

For too long, the Epstein Class has dealt in wealth, power, and politics to avoid accountability and deny victims & survivors their due justice. The public deserves the truth, but the Trump Administration is failing its legal obligation to deliver it.

That’s why we’re expanding our coverage to follow the money and investigate the power players in and outside the government. With a new database by Thorian AI, we have unprecedented access and ability to navigate more than 1.2M files and we’re sharing access—and what we’re finding—with you.

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

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Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

The architect behind the Trump administration’s immigrant warehouse detention camps made a number of promises to lawmakers about his agency’s lack of transparency and excessive spending during a congressional hearing Thursday morning.

A few hours later, he quit.

Acting US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced yesterday evening that Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons had tendered his resignation and would leave his post on May 31.

“Director Lyons has been a great leader of ICE,” Mullin said in a statement. “He jumpstarted an agency that had not been allowed to do its job for four years. Thanks to his leadership, American communities are safer.”

Lyons’ abrupt departure marks the end of a tenure rife with controversy, largely over his efforts to dehumanize immigrants and treat detainees like cargo. In April 2025, he announced a goal of carrying out deportations with the speed and efficiency of Amazon Prime, then began the process of mirroring Amazon’s business model by purchasing uninhabitable warehouses, forcing people to stay there for extended periods of time, and denying basic rights like food and access to restrooms.

ICE originally planned to purchase 23 warehouses to hold an estimated 70,000 people, but opposition from communities, elected officials, and warehouse owners stymied their efforts. Under Lyons’ direction, the agency spent more than $1 billion on less than a dozen warehouses — many of which will remain inoperable due to local zoning regulations and poorly-conceived purchase agreements.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) — whose district includes three ICE warehouses in Socorro, as well as Camp East Montana, a detention center built on a military base — questioned Lyons during a US House Appropriations Committee hearing on DHS’s budget. After witnessing grueling conditions at Camp East Montana during an oversight visit in February, Escobar told Lyons his lack of basic infrastructure planning would bring about the same conditions in the warehouses.

“The city of Socorro, their city council, has passed a moratorium on any DHS facilities. They do not have the water infrastructure, the wastewater infrastructure, the emergency services infrastructure,” said Escobar. “They don’t have enough for their own community, but now to have facilities — potentially have facilities — for [8,500] human beings and staff? They are very alarmed. There were hundreds of members of their community who attended the city council meeting to oppose these new facilities. Local leaders are uniformly opposed to any new facilities.”

ICE warehouses have faced fierce opposition from every municipality where they’ve been proposed, regardless of the region’s political leanings. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) collected 10,000 signatures opposing a proposed ICE warehouse in Chester, a Democratic-leaning town of just 12,000 residents. Meanwhile, residents of Social Circle, Georgia, a Republican stronghold, successfully thwarted Lyons’ plans for a mega-warehouse in their town. It remains unclear how DHS will use the warehouse, which they had already purchased for $128 million.

Even congressional Republicans, who are largely supportive of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant initiatives, appear to have soured on Lyons’ approach. During the hearing, Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) expressed concern that Lyons was spending too much money on permanent infrastructure for what he believes to be a temporary problem.

“I want to know is, what the mix is between facilities — and permanent structures that we’re building — and what I think is the scalable program that you all have, which is accessing local jails and state prisons for these folks to house them, instead of building big, permanent structures,” said Rutherford. “Because we’re not always going to have this problem. Eventually we will deport the majority of the illegals and we’ll get back to normal needs.”

Lyons is the third member of the administration to lose their job this year following a tense congressional hearing. Trump fired former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem after her testimony during a US Judiciary Committee hearing on March 5. Former US Attorney General Pam Bondi was let go on April 2, partly due to her responses during a February Judiciary hearing, as well as her botched attempt to shield Trump from scrutiny related to his personal association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Attempts to Sanewash

• ICE director stepping down

• Todd Lyons to step down as ICE director in May after leading enforcement expansion

• ICE director Todd Lyons to leave agency after record deportations, controversy over actions

Far-Right Spin

• Todd Lyons Resigns From the Position of Acting Director of ICE. He Was Responsible for Trump’s Mass Deportation Plan

• ICE Director Lyons Resigns Hours After Announcing Largest Chinese Illegal Alien Gift Card Fraud in History

• Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons resigns after 20 years with agency — will stay on for transition

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COURIER’s newly-launched Epstein investigation project

For too long, the Epstein Class has dealt in wealth, power, and politics to avoid accountability and deny victims & survivors their due justice. The public deserves the truth, but the Trump Administration is failing its legal obligation to deliver it.

That’s why we’re expanding our coverage to follow the money and investigate the power players in and outside the government. With a new database by Thorian AI, we have unprecedented access and ability to navigate more than 1.2M files and we’re sharing access—and what we’re finding—with you.

Subscribe to The Cover-Up and get one concise, easy-to-read email a week that cuts through the noise with the headlines you need and the breakdowns you want.

By staying plugged in and leveraging our reporting to make your own calls-to-action louder, together, we can turn information into justice.

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Epstein’s victims claim his lawyer acted as loan shark, kept them away from law enforcement

The total amount paid by financial institutions, royals, and close associates of Jeffrey Epstein to keep their involvement in his international sex trafficking empire out of civil court has now surpassed $1 billion. At the same time, the Trump administration continues to insist there is no evidence to warrant any criminal investigation.

This week, Bank of America began the process of paying $72.5 million to roughly 75 women abused by Epstein, as part of a March 2026 settlement. Like other institutions, it admitted no wrongdoing. The settlement follows similar agreements by competitors JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, both accused of ignoring Epstein’s blatantly illegal activity because it benefited them financially.

“Rather than merely providing routine banking services to Epstein, Bank of America went far beyond what a non-complicit bank would have done and instead assisted Epstein in setting up the necessary financial structure to operate his sex-trafficking venture,” the lawsuit alleged. “Instead of behaving as an ordinary provider of routine banking services, Bank of America instead assisted Epstein in covering up his past crimes and committing new ones.”

Suspicious Activity Reports filed by banks accused of enabling Epstein’s money laundering and human trafficking are riddled with the names of his alleged accomplices — Darren Indyke, Richard Kahn, Harry Beller, and Lesley Groff, among others. To date, the investigation into Epstein’s multi-billion dollar enterprise has resulted in just two arrests and one conviction.

“So the big misconception is that the Department of Justice or me has ever said ‘case closed,’” acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC News. “What we have said is that from the information that we have within the Epstein files, we do not have a case against anybody.”

While the DOJ does have an Epstein-related investigation underway, Blanche’s characterization of his department’s inquiry appears to be intentionally misleading. In reality, the DOJ closed its full investigation into Epstein’s sex trafficking operation in July 2025, and opened a narrower one five months later focused on finding ties between Epstein and Trump’s political opponents.

Omitted from the Trump administration’s current investigation are many of the individuals and institutions tied to Epstein’s operation who have collectively paid more than $1 billion to insist they were unaware of his well-documented and highly publicized illicit activity. In each lawsuit, as soon as trial dates were set, defendants moved quickly to instead settle for a hefty sum.

Litigation against major banks snowballed over time, after the $150 million fine given to Deutsche Bank in 2020 set the precedent for a successful case. Since then, victims have pursued cases one by one, securing settlements from Deutsche Bank in 2023, JPMorgan in 2024, and Bank of America in 2026. A separate lawsuit filed in October 2025 against Bank of New York Mellon, another longtime financial institution of Epstein’s, is ongoing.

Here are some key settlements tied to Epstein’s sex trafficking operation:

British Royal Family: $16 Million

Giuffre v. Prince Andrew: Virginia Giuffre, groomed by Epstein as a minor at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2000, received an estimated $16 million in 2022 from disgraced former prince, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and his family. Giuffre filed her lawsuit in 2019, after New York passed a law allowing victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue in civil court over criminal acts even after the statute of limitations had expired.

Deutsche Bank: $251 Million

New York State Department of Financial Services v. Deutsche Bank: Settled in July 2020 for $150 million over failure to comply with anti-money laundering practices. The bank insisted that the settlement agreement “does not come close to adequately alleging that Deutsche Bank ... was part of Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking ring.”

Karimi v. Deutsche Bank: Settled in September 2022 for $26.5 million with US shareholders over accusations of lax oversight while doing business with high-risk, ultra-rich clients, including Epstein and various Russian oligarchs.

Doe 1 v. Deutsche Bank: Settled in May 2023 for $75 million to avoid a class-action lawsuit over allegations that the bank “knowingly benefited and received things of value for assisting, supporting, facilitating, and otherwise providing the most critical tool for the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking organization to successfully rape, sexually assault, and coercively sex traffic.”

JPMorgan: $365 Million

Doe 1 v. JP Morgan: Settled in June 2023 for $290 million, the same day a federal judge granted class-action status after ruling there could be more than 100 potential plaintiffs.

USVI v. JPMorgan: Settled in September 2023 for $75 million under highly unusual circumstances. After the $190 million suit was filed by then-US Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George, JPMorgan threatened to prove in court that the USVI government was equally complicit. George was immediately fired by Gov. Albert Bryan Jr., and her replacement quickly agreed to a significantly smaller settlement.

Despite the agreement, however, the judge refused to dismiss a number of claims: “that defendants obstructed enforcement of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act; that defendants negligently failed to exercise reasonable care to prevent physical harm; and the claim that defendants negligently failed to exercise reasonable care as a banking institution providing non-routine banking.”

Leon Black: $62.5 Million

US Virgin Islands v. Black: Settled in January 2023 for $62.5 million. Black admitted no wrongdoing, but admitted that the $158 million he paid to Epstein’s company, Southern Trust, was used by Epstein to “partially fund his operations in the Virgin Islands.”

Doe v. Black: An ongoing lawsuit filed in 2023 by a victim who claims Epstein trafficked her to Black when she was 16 years old. Doe says that she was sexually abused by Black, as well as by Epstein employees Ghislane Maxwell, Sarah Kellen, and two women identified only as Elizabeth and Nadia.

Bank of America: $72.5 Million

Doe v. Bank of America: Settled in March 2026 for $72.5 million, just days before Leon Black was scheduled to appear for a deposition.

Epstein Estate: $335 Million

US Virgin Islands v. Epstein Estate: Settled in December 2022 for $105 million in cash, plus half of the profit from the $60 million sale of Epstein’s island. USVI Attorney General Denise George charged Epstein and his two close associates, Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, under the territory’s RICO statutes. The suit alleged that the “Epstein Enterprise” fraudulently abused USVI tax laws to hide wrongdoing and subsidize its criminal operations.

George’s investigation also led to the creation of the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program, created by the Estate as a way to circumvent civil suits and expedite payments to victims. However, as a condition of accepting money from the fund, victims had to agree not to pursue legal action against Indyke, Kahn, or any of Epstein’s former employees. The compensation fund closed in August 2021 and paid out $121 million to 150 victims.

The Estate also says it paid an estimated $49 million to settle disputes prior to the fund’s creation, though there is no court documentation available to confirm that the payments were handled through legal avenues.

Bensky, Doe 3 v. Kahn, Indyke: Settled in February 2026 for $35 million. The class-action lawsuit alleged that Kahn and Indyke facilitated the financial operations of Epstein’s criminal enterprise, structuring his assets in a way that concealed decades of money laundering and sex trafficking.

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

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Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

Four of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims have come forward with allegations that Darren Indyke, the convicted sex offender’s personal lawyer, either shook them down for money or prevented them from speaking with law enforcement. These accusations directly contradict Indyke’s sworn testimony before the Oversight Committee last month.

This revelation of a second potential instance of perjury comes as the Trump administration announced it would not honor a subpoena issued by US House Oversight Committee to former US Attorney General Pam Bondi regarding her role in the cover-up of Epstein’s criminal network. How Congress handles Indyke and others’ apparent disrespect of subpoenas and sworn depositions could play a role in whether or not Bondi will respect hers.

“Leaving office doesn’t mean you get to dodge accountability,” US Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). “Pam Bondi was subpoenaed by name, not by title, and because the DOJ stonewalled Congress and refused to follow the law, she needs to appear before the Oversight Committee and answer for it. She promised she would comply. April 14 is her chance to prove it. Chairman Comer must make one thing clear: show up or face contempt.”

Indyke told the Oversight Committee, in no uncertain terms, that he had no involvement in — or knowledge of — the billion-dollar sex trafficking operation, despite his role in handling the business side of the criminal enterprise. He also denied ever steering victims away from law enforcement, but evidence in the Epstein Files portrays him as the first line of defense between victims and the police.

Despite this, no one on the Oversight Committee has threatened contempt, as they have for Bondi.

“Did you at any time ever tell any woman making allegations about Epstein not to communicate with law enforcement?” investigators asked Indyke.

“I would never have told them not to communicate with law enforcement,” Indyke replied, in one of his most blunt and straightforward responses during the nearly seven-hour deposition.

But Epstein’s victims told federal investigators a different story. In 2005 and 2006, some women who had been sexually abused were called into Indyke’s office, where he told them never to talk to law enforcement and to only speak with him regarding legal matters. In other instances, victims reported that when contacted by law enforcement, Epstein directed them to Indyke to have him act as intermediary.

The most direct accusation against Indyke came in 2005, from an international student named Lynn*. She had been lured into Epstein’s network with the promise of her own apartment in Manhattan and a modeling job with Victoria’s Secret. Instead, she traveled back and forth with Epstein between his New York and Florida residences, working as a household assistant under Ghislane Maxwell.

While working to become a model, Epstein introduced her to a number of his associates in the industry, including Italian agency owner Paolo Zampolli. Through him, she met Melania Krauss, who was also introduced to Donald Trump by Epstein, Lynn told investigators. Melania would go on to marry Trump, and Zampolli was appointed to lofty roles in both Trump administrations. Melania has since denied being introduced to Epstein by Trump, or even knowing Epstein at all, despite numerous photos of her with Epstein and Maxwell that disprove the First Lady’s claims.

“I think that if they have learned any lessons, it’s that Trump — and anybody else connected, however closely or loosely, to the Epstein Ring, they can’t make this go away,” said US Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), ranking member of the Oversight Committee. “They’ve wished it away. They hoped it away. They try to ignore it away. And it has endured. The American people are now collectively in one voice demanding this accountability.”

Shortly before Epstein’s 2006 arrest, Lynn noticed law enforcement collecting evidence. Epstein told her the investigation was into her family, who he had obtained visas for.

“Lynn knew that Epstein was lying about how her parents got their visas,” investigators wrote in the 2019 report. “Lynn did not recall how she had learned about the actual reason for the initial investigation. Epstein’s counsel Darren Indyke called her into his office and told her not to talk to law enforcement.”

These detailed accounts sharply contrast with Indyke’s portrayal of his decades-long career as a mid-level lackey filing routine paperwork and running administrative errands. In reality, he appears to have served as a mafia-esque enforcer, threatening abused women with legal warnings and executing Epstein’s threats with cold bureaucracy.

As part of his manipulation tactics, Epstein bound his victims to him through a number of legal avenues: he co-signed leases and paid rent, fast tracked immigration paperwork through illicit means, secured them employment with his friends and alleged clients — such as at Les Wexner’s Victoria’s Secret — and bestowed lavish gifts that came with contractual strings attached.

As the signatory on all of his legal dealings, Indyke was at the helm of every unscrupulous tool in Epstein’s repertoire. And when pressure needed to be applied, a combination of Epstein’s emotional temper tantrums and Indyke’s emotionless legal threats kept victims under his thumb. In one instance, after a victim attempted to cut ties, Epstein screamed at her and called her ungrateful. Shortly after, Indyke contacted her, claiming she owed Epstein $10,000 for an apartment he had co-signed on.

Indyke’s apparent omissions under oath come at a time when Congress’ authority to subpoena witnesses and hold them in contempt for perjury is being tested. Last month, the US Supreme Court issued an unsigned order allowing Trump ally and Epstein confidant Steve Bannon to have his 2022 contempt conviction thrown out.

Now, later this month, Bondi is expected to ignore a congressional subpoena. Such an act by the country’s former top law enforcement officer would ordinarily trigger contempt of Congress charges. But without consequences for Indyke and with Bannon’s conviction overturned, violating a congressional subpoena appears to carry no long-term consequences.

“This is why we need a DOJ that is not acting as Donald Trump’s cover,” said Lee. “Our first, immediate interest is to make sure that she still is accountable to the subpoena, and comes before our committee to answer questions about her handling of the Epstein Files.”

Bondi’s deposition is scheduled for April 14, and members of the Oversight Committee warn she will face contempt charges if she fails to appear.

*As all victim’s names are redacted, a pseudonym has been used to avoid confusion.

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COURIER’s newly-launched Epstein investigation project

For too long, the Epstein Class has dealt in wealth, power, and politics to avoid accountability and deny victims & survivors their due justice. The public deserves the truth, but the Trump Administration is failing its legal obligation to deliver it.

That’s why we’re expanding our coverage to follow the money and investigate the power players in and outside the government. With a new database by Thorian AI, we have unprecedented access and ability to navigate more than 1.2M files and we’re sharing access—and what we’re finding—with you.

Subscribe to The Cover-Up and get one concise, easy-to-read email a week that cuts through the noise with the headlines you need and the breakdowns you want.

By staying plugged in and leveraging our reporting to make your own calls-to-action louder, together, we can turn information into justice.

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COURIER’S Publisher and CEO, Tara McGowan, spoke with National Correspondent on Tuesday to discuss his latest breaking news reporting on the Epstein beat, as well as our plans to continue investigating one of the biggest cover-ups in recent political memory.

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

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Highly sensitive financial documents left mistakenly unredacted by the US Department of Justice appear to directly contradict what Jeffrey Epstein’s personal attorney told congressional investigators last month.

Darren Indyke, Epstein’s attorney and one of his closest business associates, told the US House Oversight Committee in March that he did not withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars from Epstein’s Deutsche Bank business accounts in a way to avoid reporting regulations designed to alert authorities of potential money laundering or human trafficking.

However, new information found in Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) submitted by Deutsche Bank to the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network reveals that Indyke repeatedly inquired about avoiding Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs), and explicitly told bank employees he would stagger his withdrawals to bypass them.

From 2003 until 2019, thousands of cash withdrawals totaling millions of dollars from Epstein’s accounts prompted bank employees to file numerous SARs on Epstein and the employees who ran his multi-billion dollar empire: Indyke, Richard Kahn, and Harry Beller. These reports, combined with internal Deutsche Bank correspondence, expose Indyke’s clumsy attempts to evade reporting regulations by spacing his massive cash withdrawals out over the course of several days —a tactic he categorically denied during his deposition with the US House Oversight Committee.

“My primary role was to provide corporate, transactional and general legal services to Mr. Epstein and his companies,” Indyke stated. “As part of its standard policy, the bank itself imposed a $7,500 limit on daily cash withdrawals. I was not attempting to structure such withdrawals to avoid federal reporting requirements. Quite the contrary. I simply sought to comply with the bank’s internal requirements and limits with the bank’s full knowledge.”

Indyke’s misdirection before the Oversight Committee was delivered shortly before President Donald Trump fired US Attorney General Pam Bondi, partially over her failed attempt to cover up Trump’s involvement with Epstein. Bondi is scheduled for a deposition on April 14, and how the committee responds to Indyke’s testimony could influence how seriously Bondi and others who are similarly subpoenaed to testify take Congress’ investigation into Epstein.

“In a functioning system, there should absolutely be consequences for that. For instance, perjury is illegal, right? There’s a reason why one is under oath. There should be legal accountability for when someone does it. In fact, Pam Bondi has also committed perjury,” said Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), ranking member of the Oversight Committee. “Indyke is that deeply connected, and said that he knows nothing? It’s absurd. When we talk to survivors and their lawyers, they all put us in that direction. These are the people they said, ‘the banks, Indyke, go talk to those people.’”

Indyke worked for Epstein for over 30 years, taking him on as a client in 1986. By the 1990s, Epstein was Indyke’s sole client, and relied on him to establish countless LLCs, facilitate real estate deals, develop a personal tax haven on the US Virgin Islands, and withdraw large sums of cash on his behalf.

Though there is little evidence to suggest the two had a close personal relationship, Indyke repeatedly described Epstein as a generous, caring individual. He told congressional investigators Epstein offered to pay for Indyke and his wife’s fertility treatments, and admitted to having received millions in compensation over the years. Epstein also left Indyke $50 million in his will.

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During this time, Epstein was convicted for soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida, and has been accused by over a thousand women of sexual abuse and human trafficking. While Epstein built a network of wealthy, powerful clients for his multi-billion dollar sex trafficking operation, Indyke handled the business side. At the time of his death Epstein’s estate was worth nearly $600 million. Indyke and Kahn are now the co-executors of Epstein’s estate, and have much to gain from protecting it from criminal prosecution.

Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), a member of the Oversight Committee who questioned Indyke during his deposition, believes Indyke was disingenuous throughout, repeatedly attempting to distance himself from his former boss.

“If he was testifying under penalty of perjury, and caught lying, that’s extremely serious,” said Ansari. “I did not feel that he was being honest. And it is mostly based on the fact that I felt his demeanor and his responses were an attempt to significantly downplay his relationship with Epstein, despite the facts. We know they had a decades-long professional relationship, and Jeffrey Epstein paid him tens of million dollars.”

The discovery of the unredacted documents comes as part of The Cover-Up, COURIER’s ongoing investigation into Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation and the federal government’s efforts to shield his clients and co-conspirators from accountability. While the SAR reports currently available in the Department of Justice’s Epstein Library are fully redacted, the original Jan. 30, 2026 publication of the documents left its contents visible to the public. The originals were found using COURIER’s new public database of the Epstein Files — created by tech startup Thorian AI — that has stored every version of every document the DOJ has released on Epstein, despite the Trump administration’s attempts to keep them from public view.

Indyke’s suspicious cash withdrawals, as reported to federal investigators, involved three bank employees: bank teller Nicole Perskawiec, branch manager Firdaus Madiar, and regional compliance and anti-financial crime officer Ying-A Wang. Perskawiec and Madiar were at the bank when Indyke made his withdrawals, and provided eyewitness testimony of Indyke’s alleged attempts to illegally structure his transactions.

While the initial incident flagged by Perskawiec took place in July 2016, Wang’s investigation revealed that Indyke had attempted to circumvent reporting requirements at that same branch as far back as 2014 and continued long after being confronted by compliance officers.

“In connection with the activities detailed in the previous SARs filed,” one of six now-redacted reports on the incident reads, “Indyke made inquiry with branch personnel on more than one occasion regarding the regulatory reporting requirements associated with his intended check withdrawal activities. When advised that a CTR would be required, Indyke altered his transaction pattern, presumably to avoid CTR filing requirements. The current activity appears to be a continuation of Indyke structuring of his cash withdrawal activities in order to avoid the CTR requirement.”

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The filings describe a clear pattern over the course of several years: Indyke would cash a $7,500 check from Epstein’s account, followed by another $4,000 from his own, repeatedly asking tellers if his withdrawals would require reporting. If told yes, Indyke would claim that he planned to come back the next day to “avoid all the paperwork and going over his cash limit.”

Internal discussions between bank employees provide a glimpse at both how common — and how unusual — Indyke’s cash grabs were. At the local branch, staff knew Indyke’s requests for large, specific amounts of cash to be a standard occurrence. Their regional colleagues, however, were flabbergasted that his demands were met so casually and without being properly reported.

“There was no email from the client or regional manager saying they’d like 11.5k out of the two accounts on that specific date in advance?” Wang asked in August 2017, when the incident escalated to Deutsche Bank’s compliance department.

“No, sir,” Madiar replied. “Darren or the RM never sends an email. He just walks into the branch.”

“Don’t you guys need to prepare funds in advance for large withdrawals?” said Wang.

“No, we always have enough cash ready to service all our client [sic],” Madiar explained. “Whether, we have an advance email or if they are just walking in. Some banker’s will send out a courtesy email in advance, but for our regular client the just walk in” [sic].

Eventually, the case escalated to Deutsche Bank’s anti-money laundering division, where wealth management agent Cheri Quigley was more direct in her assessment: “This client tends to cash checks frequently and we need the activity to stop.”

While internal bank emails regarding Indyke’s suspicious transactions have been previously reported on, the official SAR documents filed with the US Treasury substantiate allegations previously only alluded to in a 2024 class-action lawsuit Epstein’s victims filed against Indyke and Kahn. They also illustrate a failure by the Trump administration to investigate Epstein’s finances, despite reports of money laundering occurring while he was under investigation for human trafficking.

Further review of confidential SAR reports reveals attempts by Epstein, Indyke, Beller, and Kahn to withdraw large amounts of cash undetected dating back to at least 2003. In one instance, Epstein wired $1.95 million to his JPMorgan Chase account, then attempted to withdraw some of it undetected by writing himself at least 30 checks for $9,800.

This behavior is a textbook example of structured transactions – an illegal method of money laundering designed to bypass CTR reporting requirements. In fact, the Epstein Files contain a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network manual detailing practices strikingly similar to those of Epstein and Indyke. And yet, Congresswoman Lee pointed out, institutions in both the public and private sector allowed such behavior to continue for decades.

“To get to this point, where we have this many survivors, where we have this many high-powered, connected people, this many governments, this many institutions — to have that much failure means that accountability is not going to be a one-off thing,” said Lee.

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“Accountability for this is the whole point of the whole release of the Epstein Files. Accountability didn’t stop with Epstein, or Maxwell,” she added. “Accountability has to be: Who are all the people who knew something and didn’t say anything? Who are all the people who turned away when these young girls, these kids, were being ushered in and out of this old man’s house? Where were all the institutions that had failsafes that failed, like the banks?”

Similar instances of suspicious banking activity involving eyewitness accounts from bank tellers have resulted in perjury charges and criminal convictions when properly investigated.

While Ansari believes holding Indyke accountable for potentially committing perjury during his March deposition would be difficult with Republicans controlling Congress and the executive branch, it would signal to anyone else under investigation that those connected to Epstein will no longer be immune from consequences.

“He’s upheld the cover-up for decades, even after Jeffrey Epstein was jailed. But there is also the reality that the DOJ has never interviewed him. So I don’t know if that type of pressure from the federal government were to be exercised, if he would recognize the gravity of the situation,” Ansari said. “When we have a Democratic president, and a new Department of Justice that has committed to finally prosecute people who are involved or enabling these crimes, then maybe Indyke and many others would take this more seriously.”

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Support our journalism at COURIER

Democracy dies behind a paywall, which is why our journalism is — and always will be — free.

But to keep our commitment to the free access to information, we need support from those who have the means, believe in our mission, and support our unique model.

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

[ PLEDGE ]

Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

President Donald Trump fired US Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday, leaving in her place a man with two primary accomplishments: representing Trump during his criminal trials and spearheading the apparent cover-up of the Epstein Files.

According to NBC News, one of Trump’s primary frustrations with Bondi was her failure to properly bury her department’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Bondi eventually transferred charge of the Epstein Files to her deputy, Todd Blanche. With her departure, Blanche now runs the DOJ until Trump nominates a permanent replacement.

Bondi’s removal comes weeks before she was scheduled to be deposed by the US House Oversight Committee as part of their investigation into the government’s handling of its case against Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplices, clients, and enablers. US Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), who sits on the committee and has led the charge to hold Bondi accountable, said she fully expects the former attorney general to show up, regardless of her employment status.

“It needs to still happen, because she still needs to answer to her role in this cover-up,” said Lee. “And it’s important that we not let them off the hook for that right now, because that’s what they’re trying to do. Our investigation is still very underway, and it’s all very serious. With the crime of a potential cover-up and obstruction of justice, she can’t be allowed to just sail off to the next job or the private sector.”

The rise and fall of Bondi’s tenure at the DOJ is directly tied to her handling of the Epstein Files release, and consistent pressure from Lee has kept her apparent cover-up at the forefront. In July 2025, Lee successfully passed a motion in the Oversight Committee to force the DOJ to release the full, unredacted Epstein Files to the committee.

After six months of noncompliance, Lee moved to hold Bondi in contempt. She then convinced the Republican-led committee in March to subpoena Bondi, which many believe led directly to her firing — presumably so she could avoid testifying under oath now that she’s a private citizen.

But Lee and others on the committee say the subpoena still stands, and Blanche, the interim attorney general, is now responsible for delivering the full, unredacted Epstein Files to the Oversight Committee.

“We’re prepared to continue this investigation with whoever is running the Department of Justice,” said Lee. “The Department of Justice is supposed to be led by an impartial, nonpartisan attorney general. This is not supposed to be the president’s personal attorney.”

But the man now leading the DOJ was exactly that — and by all accounts, still considers himself to be Trump’s personal attorney. Blanche first started working for Trump in 2023, when he started his own law firm with the sole purpose of representing Trump in his criminal trials.

After Trump won reelection, Blanche was placed in the DOJ as Bondi’s deputy, where he’s been utilized primarily as the president’s “fixer.” Assignments have ranged from running the Library of Congress to negotiating a sweetheart deal for Epstein accomplice Ghislane Maxwell — and now, as the department head, to stonewall any investigation into Epstein’s sex trafficking network.

“The Epstein files has been a saga that’s lasted for the entire for the past year,” Blanche said in a Fox News interview. “I think that, to the extent that the Epstein files was a part of the past year of this Justice Department, it should not be a part of anything going forward.”

Blanche has declared the Epstein saga over since January, when the DOJ released half of the 6 million documents from its investigation into Epstein. Members of Congress, however, believe it to be far from over, and the turnover at the DOJ seems to have reignited interest in uncovering what Blanche and Bondi have kept hidden.

“Congratulations AG Blanche,” US Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) posted online. “Now you have 30 days to release the rest of the files before becoming criminally liable for failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”

Attempts to Sanewash

• What to know about Todd Blanche, Trump’s pick for acting attorney general

• Todd Blanche: What’s next for the acting attorney general

• What new acting AG Todd Blanche has said about Epstein files

Far-Right Spin

• Pam Bondi’s Tenure As Trump’s Overpromising AG Comes To Abrupt End

• Pam Bondi Fired: A Look at Her Work for Freedom, Families and Children

• Acting AG Todd Blanche defends Bondi, rejects reports that handling of Epstein files led to her ouster: ‘Simply not true’

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It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

US Sen. Mike Crapo, Idaho

Since taking office in 1999, Sen. Crapo has:

• Seen his net worth increase from $1.4 million to $3.8 million

• Sponsored 618 bills

• Authored 11 bills that have been signed into law

• Had his license suspended for a year in 2013 for drunk driving

• Initially stated that January 6 rioters should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” only to later support their pardons and call them “political prisoners”

• Avoided holding a public town hall since 2022, but regularly hosts private, Republican-only forum

Fun Facts

Sen. Crapo has established himself in Congress as a leader in fiscal policy and was made chair of the powerful Finance Committee in 2025. His use of campaign funds, however, paints a much more fiscally irresponsible picture.

While Crapo raises an impressive amount of money for a Republican senator in a red state, his stewardship of his supporters’ contributions is lackluster at best. His campaign almost never files its finance reports accurately or on time, resulting in some serious accounting mishaps. In 2008, for example, Crapo was completely oblivious to the fact that a staffer had taken out a $250,000 loan that was never paid back.

The political action committees (PACs) bankrolling Crapo aren’t much better. An ethics complaint was lodged against him regarding his Freedom Fund PAC’s use of campaign funds. At the time, his wife had received approximately $200,000 in campaign funds. She would receive smaller amounts before an election — presumably to avoid raising any suspicion — followed by lump sums shortly after the results were in.

Despite this record, Crapo has been awarded one of the most coveted chairmanships in the Senate and has already used it to aid Trump in his quest to cripple the US economy. In February 2025, he killed Democratic Sen. Chris Coons’ STABLE Trade Policy Act, which would have required Congress to sign off on any tariffs.

Wednesday’s Supreme Court case may not just be about birthright citizenship — it could grant the President of the United States the power to denaturalize citizens he deems disloyal.

Buried in legal filings, Trump’s team has laid the groundwork to give the president final say over who obtains — and retains — US citizenship. Their argument is that the Fourteenth Amendment “conveys that persons must be completely subject to the political jurisdiction” of the United States, i.e., that they have a “direct and immediate allegiance” to this country.”

Essentially, the argument is that those who are in families deemed disloyal to the United States shouldn’t be recognized as citizens, and that the president is the one who determines who is loyal and who has proper allegiance.

The case they’re making before the Justices today is that “the President has determined that the United States has experienced “an unprecedented flood of illegal immigration” in which “[m]illions of illegal aliens”—many of whom “present significant threats to national security and public safety”—have entered the country in violation of federal law,” and that no one who meets that bar set by the president is eligible for citizenship.

@couriernewsroomNobody is safe.

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But immigrants are far from the only group President Trump describes that way: similar language has been used to describe members of Congress, protestors, community activists, political opponents, and anyone who is a member of the Democratic Party.

The direct impact of the US Supreme Court siding with Trump would end birthright citizenship for the children of non-citizens, but the precedent it would set would give the President of the United States the power to determine someone’s citizenship status.

Attorneys working on the case worry that if Trump successfully begins to chip away at citizenship rights, he won’t stop with the 14th Amendment, and citizenship revocation won’t be limited to the children of immigrants, — it could be weaponized against any US citizen.

“It could certainly be interpreted that way and that’s why this is so dangerous,” said one attorney, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity. “You could make the case that they’re not loyal, then what does loyalty mean, you know? And who decides who is subject to this jurisdiction, if you’re opening it up to tinker with the Constitution?”

Trump has made it very clear that he wants the power to de-naturalize US citizens, and has even begun staffing immigration offices with people whose assignment is to find 100 to 200 people to de-naturalize every month.

And if the Supreme Court rules that allegiance to the country — and, by extension, the right to citizenship — is subject to presidential determination, it’s going to make their job a whole lot easier.

For a deep dive, check out this week’s edition of Grave Injustice: The Roberts Court Entertains Donald Trump’s Claim That He Can Unilaterally Strip Americans’ Citizenship

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

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Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

Billions of dollars in suspicious transactions flowed through sex trafficking kingpin Jeffrey Epstein’s financial accounts at the height of his influence. Yet federal law enforcement never searched his business officers, seized his records, or even questioned his accountant.

An ongoing investigation by COURIER into the individuals connected to Epstein’s criminal ring who have not faced charges uncovered internal FBI correspondence confirming that agents never searched Epstein’s businesses suspected of money laundering.

“It’s never been reported whether his business office in St Thomas, in the American Yacht Club was searched. We have talked to a merchant in the marina/office complex,” New York Times reporter Matthew Goldstein wrote in an October 2019 email. “Can you confirm the search for us on Aug. 12 or if that date is error, that the office was search [sic] by your agents.”

Minutes after receiving the email, agents confirmed internally that no such search had taken place. But it took more than a month — and pressure from Goldstein — for the FBI to respond that they couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation.

Goldstein also asked about garbage bags of shredded paper allegedly found outside Epstein’s Southern Trust offices weeks before Epstein’s arrest, but it never ended up being reported on. COURIER reached out to Goldstein, who confirmed the correspondence, and said he lacked enough credible sourcing to report it at the time.

Whether the FBI searched the offices after the November 2019 exchange remains unclear. COURIER reached out to the FBI agent assigned to the case at the time, who did not respond to a request for comment.

However, depositions released Thursday by the US House Oversight Committee suggest that any search of Epstein’s offices — by the FBI or the six other federal agencies that were investigating him — would have been extremely unlikely.

The depositions, taken in mid-March and released Tuesday, include testimony from Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, the longtime attorney and accountant Epstein named as executors of his estate. The depositions were part of a congressional investigation into the US Justice Department’s now-closed case into Epstein’s international sex trafficking operation.

Both Kahn and Indyke admitted for the first time that no federal agent or law enforcement officer had ever questioned either of them in relation to Epstein’s crimes.

“I’ve never been questioned by any government authority,” Khan said bluntly, when asked by Billy Grant, the Oversight committee’s deputy chief counsel.

“The answer is no. I don’t believe I have,” Indyke responded similarly. “Personally, no. I know that over the last several months, the estate has provided information to the Justice Department.”

The combined 13 hours of testimony from Kahn and Indyke paint a detailed picture of the duo’s intimate involvement with every aspect of Epstein’s financial affairs. Indyke created numerous LLCs and business holdings, withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, and handled paperwork for his many investments; Khan worked directly with banks, even impersonating Epstein at times, and facilitated fraudulent marriages involving some of his victims.

An interrogation of Kahn and Indyke would be standard procedure in any financial crimes investigation, had such an investigation taken place. Epstein’s financial documents are replete with both men’s signatures, and suspicious activity reports and “know-your-customer” checks — both required when a client is suspected of money laundering or human trafficking — filed by banks listed the three men as equals within Epstein’s financial empire.

Thousands of suspicious transactions worth billions of dollars are tied directly to Kahn and Indyke through Epstein. They include businesses like Southern Trust, Butterfly Trust, and other entities authorities believe helped facilitate money laundering, human trafficking, and other fraudulent activity, but appear to have never been seriously investigated. And while some of the banks used by Epstein have paid hundreds of millions in civil settlements, there has still never been any substantive criminal investigation to determine wrongdoing.

US Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), a ranking member of the Oversight Committee, said the apparently intentional omission of financial scrutiny reflects a broader institutional failure by the Trump administration and private sector alike to sacrifice justice at the hands of profit.

“This is reaffirming all of the distrust that Americans have. It has felt like, from the beginning, from all of the various investigations that have actually taken place around Epstein, if you look at every step of the way, there has been collusion, has been what looks like conspiracy, there’s been hidden information,” said Lee. “We’re talking about banks. We’re talking about businesses. All of these in some way have failed, and allowed Epstein to have been able to do what he was able to do with as many people who had who knew it. It proves a deep distrust of why Americans do not believe that we have an equal justice system in this country.”

On March 17, Lee introduced articles of impeachment against US Attorney Pam Bondi, citing her role in the apparent coverup of Epstein’s criminal ring of financial fraud and sexual abuse. Bondi has repeatedly been defended by Trump — who is himself implicated in the Epstein Files — and has thus far avoided any serious scrutiny.

Lee believes that meaningful accountability for Epstein’s accomplices and co-conspirators will not be possible until Bondi is removed from her post.

While that may appear impossible with a Republican-controlled Congress — House Oversight Chair US Rep. James Comer (R-KY) held a “sham” deposition for Bondi recently, where she was neither under oath nor required to provide information — Lee views public pressure as a realistic path toward impeachment, and by extension, removing one of the main barriers to justice for Epstein’s victims and consequences for his enablers.

“We saw, even without articles of impeachment, Kristi Noem does not exist anymore. We need public pressure right now on this administration, from Americans of all stripes, who do not believe that she should continue to stay in this role. We’ve seen how that pressure worked to get the same files that we do have,” said Lee. “That’s why they are nervous, because they’re recognizing that they can’t run away from this one anymore. Between the outside pressure, between these articles that we will be pushing on the inside, and then the subpoena that [Bondi] says she may or may not answer… Those will all be pressure points that we will put on her to do the right thing, for Trump to do the right thing, or for Congress to have the opportunity to take action.”

Attempts to Sanewash

• Epstein’s former attorney testifies to House committee, says he didn’t know about the abuse

• High-profile figures, insiders set to testify in Epstein probe

• Jeffrey Epstein left behind a $630 million estate. The people running it say they haven’t been paid.

Far-Right Spin

• Epstein’s lawyer ‘not aware’ of any relationship Trump had with late convicted sex offender, Comer says

• House GOP slams Dems for blowing off Bondi interview

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It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

US Rep. Jeff Van Drew, New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District

Since taking office in 2019, Rep. Van Drew has:

• Refrained from trading stocks, while still maintaining a net worth somewhere between $2.4 million and $5 million

• Sponsored 168 bills

• Authored two bills that have been signed into law, both to rename post offices

• Switched political parties after internal polling showed it would give him a better chance of winning

• Voted to expand the draft to include women

• Voted in 2022 to pass a law protecting same-sex marriage federally only to vote against it five months later

• Believes drone sightings in New Jersey are linked to an Iranian “mothership” in international waters launching minivan-sized drones at the US

Fun Facts

Rep. Van Drew held elected office as a Democrat for 28 years before switching parties — along with almost all of his core principles and morals — in 2019. The break began during Trump’s first impeachment when Van Drew was one of two Democrats to vote against it. He later introduced legislation to have all impeachments expunged from Trump’s criminal record.

Shortly after, he met with Trump, offered his “undying support,” and went all-in. He contested the 2020 election results and defended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene when she was reprimanded for her history of “anti-Semitism and xenophobia.”

On policy, Van Drew’s positions have also shifted. He founded the Offshore Wind Caucus to further US investment in renewable wind energy, but later changed his tune due to Trump’s erratic rage at wind farms. He quit the caucus in 2024 and personally drafted Trump’s executive order to freeze offshore wind energy projects.

His support of the LGBTQ community is tenuous at best, as illustrated by his involvement in the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus: joined in 2019, left in 2020, joined again in 2021, then left again in 2022.

Van Drew claimed to support abortion rights protected under Roe v. Wade — until it was overturned in 2022. He has since described himself as pro-life.

No Kings Pre-gaming

By Melissa Ryan, author of COURIER’s CTRL-alt-Right-Delete

Tomorrow is No Kings Day. I’m really looking forward to attending with my family, and I hope you have a plan too. I wanted to mention that, in addition to the big events, there are plenty of smaller local options (which I, as the parent of small children, seek out), and that the website makes it possible to search for ADA-compliant and virtual events. No matter what you’re looking for, there are ways to make your voice heard and stand in solidarity against the Regime.

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Do you or your company want to support COURIER’s mission and showcase your products or services to an aligned audience of 190,000+ subscribers at the same time? Contact advertising@couriernewsroom.com for more information.

Support our journalism at COURIER

Democracy dies behind a paywall, which is why our journalism is — and always will be — free.

But to keep our commitment to the free access to information, we need support from those who have the means, believe in our mission, and support our unique model.

Donate

Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

Editor’s Note: I will be taking some time off for the next couple of weeks, but will be back at it on March 23. While I’m out, I’ll be sending you some longform, investigative reporting that has had some recent updates based on current events.

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What Happened

Senate Republicans have once again ignored requests by US Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to widen his investigation into the finances behind Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation to include American oligarch Peter Thiel, as well as known Epstein co-conspirators Nadia Marcinko and Jean-Luc Brunel.

The Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act (PETRA) would require the US Treasury to comply with the US Senate Finance Committee’s investigation into the money trail left by Epstein that connects the disgraced, deceased sex criminal to his clients and financial backers. Similar inquiries by the city of New York, the US Virgin Islands, and Epstein’s victims have led to expensive, hasty lawsuit settlement payouts from billionaires and financial institutions in order to prevent potentially incriminating evidence against them from going public.

Wyden introduced the PETRA Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act in September 2025. The bill passed in the Senate but stalled in the House. Wyden introduced the measure again in early March, but this time was blocked by his Republican colleagues in the Senate.

“This administration came in with a whole lot of bluster about releasing the Epstein files, so I wanted to give them a chance to make good on their word,” said Wyden. “And there is an important, new reason to pass this bill. There is a lot of Epstein-related news breaking nearly every day. I’d wager a lot of banks where Epstein and his network did business are following that news, and they’re taking a second look at his transactions. It’s entirely possible there are new bank filings coming in today, and they’re flagging a new set of suspicious transactions that deserve investigation.”

The Senate Finance Committee’s investigation, which began in 2022, now includes Thiel and his venture capital company Valar Ventures, which took a $40 million investment from Epstein. In total, the investigation now encompasses over 70 co-conspirators and entities “that transacted with Jeffrey Epstein.” The committee’s investigators obtained access to a small number of suspicious transaction reports from the US Treasury under the Biden administration in 2024, but Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revoked access soon after Trump was inaugurated.

“The basic question here is whether a bunch of rich pedophiles and Epstein accomplices are going to face any consequences for their crimes, and Scott Bessent is doing his best to make sure they won’t,” Wyden said in a statement. “From the beginning, my view has been that following the money is the key to identifying Epstein’s clients as well as the henchmen and banks that enabled his sex trafficking network. It’s past time for Bessent to quit running interference for pedophiles and give us the Epstein files he’s sitting on.”

Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire who believes democracy is a failed experiment, has become inexorably tied to the Trump administration through his surveillance company, Palantir, which has been awarded billions in government contracts this year. This includes $10 billion from the US Army to integrate AI into its processes and $30 million from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to allow the government to track and intimidate immigrants.

The company also seeks to consolidate citizen data across government agencies, a potential violation of the right to privacy guaranteed in the currently eroding Fourth Amendment.

Thiel first landed on Wyden’s radar in June, when it was discovered that Epstein invested in Valar Ventures as part of an attempt to gain Thiel’s favor. An investigation by New York Times reporter Matthew Goldstein confirmed that Thiel is still paying Epstein’s estate dividends from that investment, to the tune of nearly $170 million.

So far, the Treasury has been unwilling to cooperate with Wyden, instead laying blame on former President Joe Biden, who granted the Finance Committee access to certain documents in 2024. Bessent has even gone as far as to lob thinly veiled threats at Wyden if he continues his inquiry.

During an event held by the Young Americans Foundation in August 2025

, Bessent simultaneously claimed that the Treasury had no power to investigate financial crimes and threatened to investigate Wyden’s finances, claiming without evidence that the senator engaged in insider trading.

“Any law enforcement person who wants to come and see them, we hold them. Our job — we are not detectives. We collect them. It’s just like the — when we make payments, the Treasury, the Commerce Department, tells us to make a payment. We are a paymaster,” Bessent stammered. “Sen. Wyden’s rich. Sen. Wyden, somehow his stock trading account — Sen. Wyden trades better than Paul Pelosi. He was up 125% and then 75%. So, I would — I’m not going to disclose anything because I’ve never looked, but I would guess there’s some stories on Sen. Wyden.”

Republicans on the Committee have been similarly unwilling to aid Wyden in his investigation, blocking requests to issue subpoenas for the documents from the Treasury. Wyden’s PETRA bill is the latest escalation in his attempts to obtain the sensitive financial information needed to uncover any financial ties between Epstein and those who profited from his sex trafficking empire.

The legislation will be introduced as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual budget authorization currently working its way through Congress. Tying the legislation to a bill guaranteed a vote will force every senator to go on the record in their support of — or opposition to — accountability for Epstein’s co-conspirators and justice for his victims.

If passed, PETRA would require the US Treasury to comply with the investigation and give the Committee:

• Within 30 days, physical copies of all suspicious activity reports (SARs) submitted on Epstein and his co-conspirators within 30 days

• Within 30 days, a report of all financial institutions that submitted SARs about transactions related to Epstein and any of his financial holdings

• Within 60 days, details on any investigations conducted by the US Treasury of potential Bank Secrecy Act violations into any accounts tied to Epstein

Bessent has repeatedly attacked Wyden for conducting the investigation and denied any ability for the Treasury to investigate financial crimes. The legislation would force his hand, however, and reveal if Trump had the Treasury conduct a purge of his name from anything related to Epstein, as he instructed the US Department of Justice to do in March.

“My head just about exploded when I heard Bessent say it wasn’t his department’s job to investigate these Epstein bank records,” Wyden said. “It’s simply impossible that somebody with his background in finance is unaware of [Financial Crimes Enforcement Network] or any of the other investigative offices within the Treasury.”

The pressure mounting against Bessent — coupled with a shameless desire to stay in Trump’s good graces —appears to be taking a noticeable toll. Last Wednesday, Bessent freaked out during a social event when he saw an administration colleague he believed was talking negatively about Bessent to Trump. The 62-year-old George Soros protégé and close Thiel associate told 36-year-old Bill Pulte he wanted to take Pulte to the parking lot so Bessent could “fucking beat your ass.” The violent outburst mirrors an April fight between Bessent and Elon Musk over Trump’s pick to run the IRS.

In addition to Wyden’s investigation, the US House Committee on Oversight last month requested that Bessent hand over all relevant suspicious activity reports relating to Epstein as part of its own investigation no later than Sept. 15. The request was made without a subpoena, but Committee members are unusually optimistic that Bessent will comply with their investigation.

The Treasury declined to comment for this story.

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It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

Since taking office in 2015, Rep. Norman has:

• Seen his net worth increase from $53M to $57M

• Taken out over $300,000 in PPP loans that he never paid back

• Sponsored 175 bills

• Authored one bill that has been signed into law, to rename a post office

• Privately pressured Trump to invoke martial law—or as he called it, “marshall law” — to prevent Biden from being sworn in as president in 2021

• Admitted that he’s “not concerned” about US citizens detained by ICE agents

• Sued Nancy Pelosi over House rules that required Members to wear a mask on the Floor and refused to wear a mask while he had COVID-19

• Tried to reinstate disgraced white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer Rep. Steve King

Fun Facts

While Rep. Norman campaigned on preventing economic hardship, he returned to his multimillionaire roots when his term began in 2025. Two months after being sworn in, he cosponsored a bill to create a new $250 bill with Donald Trump’s face on it.

During the 2018 confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh for US Supreme Court Justice, which revealed a troubling history of alleged sexual assault, Norman dismissed the allegations. He tried to make a joke out of them, including facetiously claiming that fellow Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been sexually assaulted by Abraham Lincoln.

A few months before Norman “accused” the sixteenth US President of sexual assault, he met with a group of parents who were concerned about gun safety. Norman responded by pulling a gun on them. Those involved tried to press charges, but the first prosecutor recused himself due to his personal friendship with Norman. The request made its way to the Republican state attorney general, who dismissed the charges.

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Do you or your company want to support COURIER’s mission and showcase your products or services to an aligned audience of 190,000+ subscribers at the same time? Contact advertising@couriernewsroom.com for more information.

Support our journalism at COURIER

Democracy dies behind a paywall, which is why our journalism is — and always will be — free.

But to keep our commitment to the free access to information, we need support from those who have the means, believe in our mission, and support our unique model.

Donate

Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

Editor’s Note: I will be taking some time off for the next couple of weeks, but will be back at it on March 23. While I’m out, I’ll be sending you some longform, investigative reporting that has had some recent updates based on current events.

Subscribe now

Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

An ongoing congressional investigation into the assets of millionaire financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein revealed last summer that the IRS has known for years about a major funding source of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation but did nothing about it.

The US Senate Finance Committee, led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), sent a letter to the IRS last July, demanding a report on any audit the agency has done of Epstein’s tax filings “to better understand the full scope of the financing of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.”

The response is expected to be light, however, as the tax agency has so far failed to inspect Epstein’s finances, despite a number of red flags — both official and unofficial.

“Epstein lacked any professional training or certifications in accounting or tax law, yet was chosen by very wealthy people to execute very complex tax-related financial transactions. Despite this glaring lack of qualifications that might lead anyone to double-check Epstein’s work, it appears that the IRS failed over the course of many years to audit major tax transactions involving Epstein,” Wyden wrote. “Highly complicated tax arrangements between Epstein and one of his billionaire funders have never been audited by the IRS.”

Spokespeople for the IRS and US Treasury did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

The billionaire funder in question is former Wall Street executive Leon Black, who admitted as part of a $65 million settlement with the US Virgin Islands that “Epstein used the money Black paid him to partially fund his operations in the Virgin Islands.” Those operations are alleged to include an extensive, international sex trafficking ring that forced underage women to have sex with Epstein’s wealthy clients.

Over 200 victims have come forward to testify against Epstein, including former Mar-a-Lago employee Virginia Giuffrie. President Donald Trump admitted in late July that he was aware Epstein used Mar-a-Lago to target and groom teens for years before he barred him from the property. Now, as president, Trump has proven to be a roadblock to transparency and accountability, closing the criminal investigation into Epstein and blocking Congress from accessing Treasury documents.

“There has been a concerted effort by the Trump administration to play down these important records that we have worked with for more than three years,” Wyden said. “We saw what was going on in Florida, we saw what was going on in New York. We saw wire transfers that were moving money and young underage girls into sex trafficking all over the world.”

Black told the committee in 2023 that the IRS had not audited his financial ties to Epstein for suspicious activity, even after the billionaire admitted his checks helped keep Epstein’s island up and running; Black had also vastly overpaid Epstein for his high school-level accounting savvy.

Reports from the four banks Epstein had accounts with should also have triggered an audit. In the short time Wyden’s team was allowed Treasury access to review these reports, they found suspicious activity reports filed on nearly 5,000 of Epstein’s transactions. Two of the institutions, JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, even settled Epstein-related lawsuits for hundreds of millions of dollars over their failure to act responsibly, although both admitted no wrongdoing. Even still, government regulatory bodies declined to investigate.

“At a time when so many Americans think that the political system is rigged, this is about whether there’s going to be accountability for the people who were involved and who enabled it,” Wyden said. “The question is, is the government going to look out for victims — people who have no power — or are they going to keep on protecting the rich and powerful who are part of Epstein’s network, even when those people have committed horrendous crimes?”

Without the support of Republicans on the committee, Wyden lacks the authority to subpoena the suspicious activity reports. Should the IRS comply with his request, it has until September 1 to deliver a report on any audit conducted into Epstein’s financial dealings.

Attempts to Sanewash

• Leon Black, billionaire financier, to be dep

• osed in Epstein victims’ suit against Bank of America

• Apollo, Leon Black Face Legal Trouble Over Undisclosed Jeffrey Epstein Business

• Wyden presses DEA for answers on secret Epstein investigation

Far-Right Spin

• Leon Black allegedly colluded with Epstein, Paul Weiss head, to ‘silence and destroy’ accusers: suit

• ‘I was not aware’ of Epstein’s abuse, claims accountant in testimony to US Congress

• Epstein’s Accountant Speaks Out: FIFTH Witness Confirms Trump Had ZERO Financial Dealings

Share

It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again… and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

Oklahoma US Sen. Markwayne Mullin

Since being elected to Congress in 2103, Sen. Mullin has:

• Seen his net worth increase from $4 million to $65 million

• Sponsored 162 bills, four of which have been signed into law

• Lied to voters about collecting his salary for being a member of Congress

• Violated the code of ethics by promoting his plumbing company as a member of Congress

• Received $600,000 for promoting his plumbing company while in Congress

Fun Facts

Despite being incredibly wealthy, Mullin seems to never miss an opportunity to pocket a few extra bucks. In addition to paying himself $600,000 for violating ethics rules and using his syndicated home improvement radio show while in Congress to promote his businesses, Mullin has been accused of using his position to profit from insider trading.

He’s also benefited from millions in taxpayer dollars, a fact he has repeatedly denied. Mullin told voters that he doesn’t take his congressional salary—which he does—and, while he’s railed against student loan forgiveness, has taken a much more sympathetic approach towards his own forgiven loans. Mullin’s company received nearly $1.5 million, which would cover almost three years of his salary, in PPP loans he never paid back.

Trump nominated Mullin to be the next Department of Homeland Security Secretary, despite Mullin’s apparent lack of experience in nearly every aspect of government DHS touches. Instead, he was chosen primarily for his loyalty to the president and his background as a mixed-martial arts fighter.

“A MAGA Warrior, and former undefeated professional MMA fighter, Markwayne truly gets along well with people, and knows the Wisdom and Courage required to Advance our America First Agenda,” Trump wrote on his personal social media platform, Truth Social. “Markwayne will make a spectacular Secretary of Homeland Security. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

Editor’s Note: I will be taking some time off for the next couple of weeks, but will be back at it on March 23. While I’m out, I’ll be sending you some longform, investigative reporting that has had some recent updates based on current events.

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What Happened

The Trump administration appears to be considering the use of eminent domain to seize warehouses from owners who refused to sell over concerns they would be turned into immigration detention camps.

Eminent domain is a power of the federal government that allows it to force the sale of private property so it can be used to provide a public benefit. Historically, eminent domain has been used to purchase land needed to build highways, develop public parks, and construct utility infrastructure.

Sources familiar with the proposed deals in New Jersey and Utah say the federal government has hinted at property seizure after the owners refused to sell. In the case of the warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, the message to property investment company Dalfen Industrial was clear: sell the warehouse to the US Department of Homeland Security, or they will take it by force.

“Dalfen Industrial and its majority partner sold the property to the federal government in lieu of the potential of eminent domain,” the company said in a statement. “The company has no involvement in the future use of the facility.”

Plans to convert industrial warehouses into prison camps for Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been severely hampered by the public in a number of locations selected by the DHS. Local governments — frustrated by lack of communication from the Trump administration — passed legislative barriers. Property owners — blindsided by what the warehouses were to be used for — ended talks to sell. In every instance, they were spurred into action by fierce community response; regular protests were held outside warehouses, and public meetings have been filled with residents demanding their elected leaders do something.

In Roxbury, locals thought they had beaten back the federal government, which admitted on February 18 that it had failed to seal the deal with Dalfen after lying about making the purchase earlier that month.

Two days later, DHS bought the warehouse.

“Let us be clear: Roxbury Township will not passively accept this outcome. The Township Council and our legal team have been preparing to pursue all available legal remedies,” said Roxbury Township officials. “this property is not an appropriate location for a facility of this nature in a suburban community and is an unapproved use.”

The proposed ICE warehouse in Salt Lake City appears to be headed down a similar path. Word of ICE’s plans to convert a warehouse just south of the Great Salt Lake into a 7,500-capacity detention camp sparked protests outside the facility and opposition from local and state leaders. After a month of constant pressure, local developer The Ritchie Group said they had no plans to sell the property to the federal government.

Then, the same week the Roxbury warehouse was sold by way of coercion, rumors began to circulate around the Utah state capitol that similar methods were in the works for the Salt Lake City warehouse. During a press briefing on Feb. 19 with state legislators, lobbyist and former Utah Speaker of the House Greg Curtis asked if the state knew of any plans by the Trump administration to use the power of eminent domain to force a sale of The Ritchie Group’s warehouse.

The Ritchie Group did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

State Senate President Stuart Adams and Minority Leader Sen. Luz Escamilla denied any knowledge of the alleged plans, according to those who attended the briefing. But there is little evidence to suggest they would be alerted at all, as that has not been the case in any of the other ICE warehouse purchase, as the lack of transparency in procural process has left local leaders completely in the dark until the deal is done.

Of the 23 warehouses DHS planned to purchase, local opposition has killed eight of the deals. Ten warehouses have been purchased, and the status of the five remaining is shrouded in secrecy the Trump administration has become known for.

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Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

Anti-academic honored by Trump’s Education Department

Proud anti-academic and late “College is a Scam” author Charlie Kirk has been selected by the Trump administration as one of the country’s heroes of education, and a five-story banner with his face on now hangs outside the entrance to the Department of Education.

The decision to hoist Kirk up as a symbol of knowledge illustrates how Education Secretary Linda McMahon views the purpose of schools: not to grow knowledge and intellectual development, but as places of indoctrination that churn out uneducated workers to feed into the US’ hyper-capitalistic system.

Kirk, a community college dropout whose rise to fame was built largely by far-right financier Dennis Prager, spent the vast majority of time on campus hosting mock debates with students. After spending hours eliciting controversial responses from undergrads, Kirk would edit the encounters into a curated montage that portrayed him the victor in every exchange.

@couriernewsroomCharlie Kirk spent his career dunking on higher education and spreading misinformation — but now his face is featured on the side of Trump’s Department of Education.

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He later helped Prager build Prager University, a conservative advocacy nonprofit that creates unaccredited, unreviewed classroom materials with the goal of advancing right-wing ideas. PragerU goes to great lengths to weave disinformation into every piece of content, creating a confusing web of information that rewrites history and adds an ideological bent to what would normally be apolitical information.

Some of the more blatant examples are that of its video about Christopher Columbus, where it correctly dispels the myth that early explorers believed the Earth was flat, but but goes on to justify the genocide of Indigenous Americans. Or, in its video on Booker T. Washington, the animated version of Washington doesn’t shy away from the horrors of slavery—but it does lie about America’s role in upholding it.

With the help of Kirk’s Turning Point USA, PragerU is now an approved school resource in at least a dozen states, and it’s because it was championed by Kirk. If implemented nationwide, it would create a generation of millions of students who aren’t just getting an inadequate education, they’ll be taught falsehoods about US history and dissuaded from the pursuit of knowledge for any other purpose than what makes them valuable to an employer.

Meanwhile, the Education Department is accelerating the student loan crisis by removing debt forgiveness options and privatizing loans — which, ironically, was one of Kirk’s original issue with higher education.

But now he’s the face of it.

Attempts to Sanewash

• What new Department of Education banner labels Charlie Kirk raises eyebrows

• Education Department features banners recognizing Charlie Kirk and historic educators

• Ed. Dept. Hangs Banner of Charlie Kirk Alongside MLK Jr., Ben Franklin

Far-Right Spin

• The Education Department got it right with Charlie Kirk

• Charlie Kirk Tribute Hangs from Department of Education

• Leftist Gets Schooled About Why There’s a Charlie Kirk Banner at the Department of Education

It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again… and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

Oklahoma US Sen. Markwayne Mullin

Since being elected to Congress in 2103, Sen. Mullin has:

• Seen his net worth increase from $4 million to $65 million

• Sponsored 162 bills, four of which have been signed into law

• Lied to voters about collecting his salary for being a member of Congress

• Violated the code of ethics by promoting his plumbing company as a member of Congress

• Received $600,000 for promoting his plumbing company while in Congress

Fun Facts

Despite being incredibly wealthy, Mullin seems to never miss an opportunity to pocket a few extra bucks. In addition to paying himself $600,000 for violating ethics rules and using his syndicated home improvement radio show while in Congress to promote his businesses, Mullin has been accused of using his position to profit from insider trading.

He’s also benefited from millions in taxpayer dollars, a fact he has repeatedly denied. Mullin told voters that he doesn’t take his congressional salary—which he does—and, while he’s railed against student loan forgiveness, has taken a much more sympathetic approach towards his own forgiven loans. Mullin’s company received nearly $1.5 million, which would cover almost three years of his salary, in PPP loans he never paid back.

Trump nominated Mullin to be the next Department of Homeland Security Secretary, despite Mullin’s apparent lack of experience in nearly every aspect of government DHS touches. Instead, he was chosen primarily for his loyalty to the president and his background as a mixed-martial arts fighter.

“A MAGA Warrior, and former undefeated professional MMA fighter, Markwayne truly gets along well with people, and knows the Wisdom and Courage required to Advance our America First Agenda,” Trump wrote on his personal social media platform, Truth Social. “Markwayne will make a spectacular Secretary of Homeland Security. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

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The growing unpopularity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement seeped into Congress this week, as the department head sat before two congressional committees, where she failed to provide adequate answers regarding her agency’s slow emergency response and the unchecked violence of her agency’s enforcement officers.

US Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) questioned DHS Secretary Kristi Noem during Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, and spoke with COURIER shortly after it concluded. The following is an auto-generated transcript of that interview that has been edited for clarity.

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Camaron Stevenson

I’d like to to open it up to Rep. Goldman to ask about some of the line of questioning that he went through with [Noem] in the short time that he had. Can tell us some things that stuck out to you about how she was responding or the the non-answers that she was offering.

Rep. Dan Goldman

Yeah, well there were a lot of non-answers all day long. That was her tactic — to both filibuster, and avoid, and basically trying not to make news. The opposite of Pam Bondi, I think, that we had a couple weeks ago.

I was really the only Democrat that honed in on some of the election security issues. There is so much material to work with with her that that my colleagues very capably hit on a lot of other things, but I really wanted to hone on that because I am really scared to be quite honest that Donald Trump with his enablers like Christine Noem, and Steven Miller, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard, are going to mess with the November election and that you we’ve seen sort of an escalating degree of talk about different ways of it.

Steve Bannon saying that there have to be immigration on ICE agents at polling places which is flatout illegal. yesterday in the Senate Judiciary hearing a couple of the senators asked her about it and about that idea and she said right now we have no plans to do it. And one of the things that I said I started off by quoting her comment at the press conference a couple weeks ago where she said that “we’re being proactive to make sure that the right people vote and elect the right people,” something to that effect. And she was saying she’s taking proactive measures.

And I said, “okay, well, what are the proactive measures?” And she goes through, oh well, this is what our authorities are and this is what we do, yada yada, filibustering. But then I moved on to the the fact of that I knew she was going to pivot. Let’s put it this way. I knew she was going to pivot when I started asking her about ICE agents at polling places to what she said to Sen. Padilla yesterday in a snarky way about oh well do you want illegal you you only care if you want illegal immigrants to vote.

So I knew she was going there and and I intentionally went there so that I could attack this bogus notion of voter fraud and this concept that the Republicans are using both in terms of election security but also as it relates to the SAVE Act, that there’s a massive problem of undocumented immigrants voting in our elections and that we need to take extreme measures in order to stop that. And I called out the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, that has done a lot of work on voter fraud and trying to beef it up and essentially boiled it down to that there been 10 documented cases of undocumented immigrants voting in American elections out of two billion votes in the last like 40 years.

At the it got to the point where she said, “Well, do you think those 10 people should have voted?” And I was like, “Yeah, that’s the point. Those 10 people would have made a difference.”

My goal in a lot of these hearings to sort of give a little bit of background is not only to tackle some of the outrageous conduct that’s going on, but also to be looking ahead and anticipating where I see the administration going. because a lot of times if you if we are able to elaborate on their plan, when their plan happened, people realize that their excuses and their explanations are total bogus and that it helps to undermine the justification they’re going to use for trying to mess with the election.

CS

That’s something I wanted to ask about because, like you said Sen. Padilla yesterday had asked her a similar question and she accused — she basically accused Democrats of projecting of having a guilty conscience. They’re asking because they’re afraid it will impede with their attempt to to interfere with the election results, which there’s no basis in fact. There’s no basis in reality for that claim, But it was it was breadcrumb she was leaving so that she could use that later.

But you were able to to catch on to that and and follow up and kind of get answers on what she was actually doing, to call it out. What do you think that says about the administration that their intent in going into these hearings isn’t to give straight answers? I think the only time I heard straight answers was when Republicans were asking very pointed questions, a lot of softballs. But other than that, she clearly wasn’t looking to give you direct answers. She was looking to provide breadcrumbs and provide justification for future actions.

DG

Their strategy is essentially that they know that they have to do the bare minimum of testimony and testifying in front of Congress. And they want to make it as uneventful and painless as possible. They have no actual interest in defending meaningfully and substantively defending their actions. They refuse to make any concessions or apologies. The fact that Christine Gnome still refuses to say that Renee Good and Alex Prey are not domestic terrorists is an absolute abomination.

And it tells you everything you need to know is that they’re unwilling to even acknowledge when they are in the wrong and it then just eliminates all credibility for everything that they’re doing. the the thing I think they learned from Pam Bandi’s hearing is that the more that you engage, the worse it goes for you. And so she was very much just trying to get through it, have nothing then and be done with it and then move on and continue with her lawlessness and her unconstitutional immigration drag net that’s just terrorizing communities all around the country that is targeting people who many people who are actually trying to lawfully immigrate here. It is the opposite of the worst of the worst. All that stuff that she just doesn’t want to talk about any of it. She just wants to do it and get through it.

Part of the reason I think for her and for Bondi to some extent is they’re not actively and really running the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice. Steven Miller is really driving everything. And in Homeland Security, Corey Luwendowski is handling a lot of the day-to-day. And in the Department of Justice, Todd Blanch is doing it, the deputy attorney general. And so these these secretaries in this these two particular cases are really just kind of the public face of the department. and in some respects, one of the things I called her out on is she has no idea what authority she has or does. doesn’t have to do many of the things that she’s talking about.

CS

People were asking about Cory Luwendowski. He’s a former lobbyist, he was a campaign manager for a little bit. No real experience at Homeland Security. But he is hired by the federal government and by all accounts it seems like he is running the show, like you said, similar to Stephen Miller.

Now for those two, they prefer to operate in the shadows. They don’t want the transparency of having to answer questions before Congress. They, you know, they send their figureheads so that they can continue doing what they do. Is there any opportunity to get them to testify before Congress? You have Steven Miller at a hearing, or Cory Luwendowski or Todd Blanche, or is it relegated to just the secretaries?

DG

Well, part of the problem that we have being in the minority is that we cannot compel any witnesses in the minority to come in for a hearing. That has to be done by the majority, which is the Republicans. And they have no interest in doing that as we’ve seen throughout this Congress where they’re just laying over, rolling over for Donald Trump and whatever he wants to do.

If we do take back the majority in November, which I’m very optimistic that we will, we will be able to haul them in. and if they won’t come in, then we will subpoena them. then we will go through that whole process. But we get to control the hearings when we’re in the majority. and I guarantee you that, you know, if I am leading those investigations in a way that I hope to be, I will certainly be hauling all of those folks in.

CS

A lot of what they’re doing is you’ve seen it firsthand in your district. I reported a little bit last year on 26 Federal Plaza, the ICE field office that’s being used as the detention center and just the horrific conditions that people were forced to endure while they were held there. Could you talk a little bit about just what you’ve seen firsthand and what you’ve been able to do to look out for those people who are being abducted and held?

DG

A lot of what they’re doing is you’ve seen it firsthand in your district. I reported a little bit last year on 26 Federal Plaza, the ICE field office that’s being used as the detention center and just the horrific conditions that people were forced to endure while they were held there. Could you talk a little bit about just what you’ve seen firsthand and what you’ve been able to do to look out for those people who are being abducted and held?

You’re exactly right, Camaron, that the conditions at that 26 Federal Plaza processing center, which they turned into a detention center, were horrific.

We saw video of it, we had a number of different witnesses come talk to us about what the conditions were. No showers in there for up to three weeks, not even space to lie down on a little thin mat with a thin tinfoil blanket, one toilet for everyone to use out in the open — just horrific, horrific conditions.

So a couple of different things happened. One, I tried to do oversight and go in there as I’m allowed to do by statute. They did not let me do that without advance notice of seven days. Obviously, when you have advanced notice of seven days, they can prepare and the surprise nature of it is is really important. So, I went back and looked at the statute and came up with a legal theory for why we could file a lawsuit as individual members of Congress, not as Congress as a whole, which is the only way that the minority can file lawsuits.

We won that lawsuit. And we’ve won it a couple times now. So I’ve been able to go unannounced and conduct oversight in that detention facility, almost 10 times now. I go at least once a week, sometimes more. And they have cleaned things up.

There are never more than 10 people in there, and they’re usually not there for very long. The condition, I mean, it’s still the same conditions, but it’s not overcrowded. They have food. They’re adhering to basic needs and necessities that you would want. And that is really the point of oversight.

The first time I came, I actually came an hour early and they had four cleaning people there, not expecting me until an hour later. We gave them a little notice in that case because we didn’t want any problems. I’ve then gone back a number of times unannounced, completely unannounced. But they had four cleaning people, and that’s really why oversight is important. When they don’t know when we’re coming and they know that we’re going to expose whatever the conditions are, they clean things up.

That’s a small part of it. I’ve introduced a bunch of legislation to remove the masks from ICE to prevent them from arresting people who are showing up for court appearances, lawful pathways to immigrate here. I introduced a bill a couple months ago shortly after those two awful murders in Minneapolis that would get rid of qualified immunity for ICE and CBP officers. So even though the FBI will not hold them accountable, individuals can hold them accountable in civil court.

I know, just from my experience of working with law enforcement agents, that that will have a big impact. But the thing that we’re focused on the most right now is this triage center that we’re running out of our district office, which is across the street from 26 Federal Plaza, where we’re working with clergy, other faith-based groups, advocacy groups, and lawyers to essentially create a wraparound triage center where the the court watchers and advocates will bring families of people who’ve been arrested to our office.

We will check them in and get them processed so that we can deal directly with ice on their behalf. We make sure that they’re settled with food and water and everything that they would need. We’ve got toys and games for the kids when they come over and then they’re interviewed by lawyers who are working out of there and they’re filing habeas petitions on the day of which is really necessary, because if you wait longer than that they often will move them out of the state and if they move them out of the state, then you can’t file a habeas petition. And at this point, that’s the only way they’re going to get bail.

But through this process over the last few months, we’ve been able to release 18 people because of the rapid reaction. We’ve brought medicine to a number of people. We’ve been able to get personal belongings and really just be advocates on their behalf with ICE. And because it’s a congressional office, they’re more receptive to our outreach. So, in responding to what’s going on, that’s I think a significant part of what we’re doing. But certainly, we are looking for every possible way of stopping this and these hearings with Kristi Noem, etc. are very important as part of that.

CS

I mean, setting up that triage center, that’s that’s very impressive. Opening up your office, getting the right people there —the lawyers, and just being able to file those documents —especially since a lot of the people who are being targeted no longer trust going to court, because as you mentioned, there are ICE agents waiting at the courthouse to arrest people who are trying to go through the process the proper way.

Do you feel like this triage center has helped regain some of the trust that’s been lost in the federal government?

DG

I hope so. I think so.

That’s part of the reason why we are working so closely with outside advocates because, you’re exactly right, to many people, it doesn’t matter whether you’re an immigrant or an American, you don’t necessarily understand the difference between a federal government official who works for ICE and a federal government official who works for Congress. It’s just the federal government, right?

So when you are living in a world where you’re understandably — and justifiably — really terrified of the federal government, it’s hard to think, “oh, let’s go to this federal government office voluntarily and and do that.”

So part of why this has been successful is because of the close relationships that we’ve built with many of the outside advocacy groups, immigration advocacy groups, but also a lot of faith-based groups who of of course have the trust of the community and more and more they are trusting them and now they’re learning, okay we can trust the congressman staff and and the congressman to help us, but that has been a process that was difficult at the beginning and is I think better understood right now.

CS

That’s one of the things I was wondering — if it was me, and I knew ICE agents were waiting in a government office,I I wouldn’t ask which office. I just wouldn’t go. But I’m sure seeing people coming through, making it in, making it out, has built some trust in that community.

Do you know if any other members of Congress have implemented something similar? Because your district isn’t the only one this is happening in.

DG

We have been talking to a number of other colleagues, and our staff have been talking, and we certainly are working on spreading the idea and the best practices.

It is very helpful, obviously, that our district office is across the street from where they have to be, and where they’re picked up, and where they’re processed. So New York City is a little bit different than a lot of other places. But I have spoken to a number of my colleagues about it and we are trying to spread the word.

The other thing that I found to be actually quite effective is when I go just to observe court, I’ll go and — II went a couple days ago and there were a dozen ICE officers outside fully masked, a number of them not even showing ID still. One guy had sunglasses on.

When I go there I always make a point of going up and talking to them and asking them where their ID is and why they’re wearing a mask and whether they have body cameras or not, that kind of thing. And generally, the court watchers have said that when I’m there, or other members of Congress are there, they generally do not arrest anyone. And so, in that way, we are somewhat of a deterrent as well.

We’ve had a bit of a rotation with some of my New York colleagues. I go, as I said, once-twice a week, and others have been going periodically as well, just to just to make sure they know we’re watching.

CS

So, even just having a presence there is often enough to dissuade them from snatching people?

DG

Yeah.

CS
That’s it’s a seemingly small effort that sounds like it has a lot of chance for success.

DG

Yeah. This is, Camaron, to me the civil rights issue of our era. It is just unconscionable what they’re doing. You don’t have to be an immigrant to feel it. You don’t have to be a naturalized citizen, or from an immigrant family, or whatever.

I mean, my grandmother immigrated here from Russia, went through Ellis Island. Everybody has a story like that, because that’s what this country is about. If there’s ever any way that I can do something to stop this terror, because it really is — it is a terror operation — I’m doing it.

I went with one family at 6:30 in the morning to accompany them to their check-in because they were very nervous, they weren’t going to go to their check-in. And once you don’t show up, then you’re here illegally. Your legal claim is dropped and you’re in the shadows. So, it’s a real catch-22 that everybody has: Do I go there and risk being arrested and whisked away, or do I not and then go underground in the shadows.

It’s a terrible, terrible catch-22 that nobody should be put in. But certainly, if your viewers can think of anything else that that I can do, I’m all for it. We’re working around the clock on this.

CS

My last question is is on just that: what what can be done, next steps? Because ICE’s illegal actions didn’t start when Trump retook the White House.

ICE was acting the same way during his first term. After after George Floyd was killed, ICE agents were sent out, they were abducting people, throwing them in unmarked vehicles, beating people, all of these things were happening and people were calling to abolish ICE.

Politicians were saying, “We’re going to abolish ICE.” And then nothing happened. And and what we’re seeing now is essentially an extension of that.

What momentum is there for there to actually be meaningful change in either abolishing ICE, prosecuting ICE agents, or generally holding this administration accountable, should Democrats retake Congress or a Democratic president come in in 2028?

DG

Actually, I’m probably a fairly good example of the evolution. I did not support the calls previously to abolish ICE, even though I was horrified at some of their activity and their conduct. At the time, I thought it was more of the “few bad apples” variety, not an institutional structural thing.

Now, I was one of the first to say that ICE needs to be abolished, because it is irredeemable at this point. They have hired so many people who are unqualified, who are unvetted, they are untrained. They have instilled this militarized approach to civil immigration enforcement. They are breaking the law on a daily basis, attacking pro peaceful protesters. The culture is rotten, and in my view, it just cannot be fixed.

Certainly, we need some immigration enforcement of some variety. But I’m on the Homeland Security Committee, and there are a number of different agencies that do bits and pieces of immigration law processing or enforcement. I think we need to rethink the entire structure of our immigration law as well as immigration enforcement, and how we structure the agencies within the Department of Homeland Security.

Which is something I know we will start working on. It will be very unlikely for anything to change until 2029 when we take back the presidency. We also will have then the prosecutors in the Department of Justice, who will do their jobs unlike the ones now. But I assure you, there will be real transparency and accountability coming up in January of 2027, when we take back the House. And that’s going to be a huge part of this, because we also need to understand how deep the rot is so that we can reform it properly.

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

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Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

According to Members of Congress, The US Department of Justice appears to be monitoring their searches within the uncensored versions of the Epstein Files made available to them for review, and then subsequently actively redacting those same documents, often removing mentions of President Trump.

Redactions have been added as recently as this week, according to US Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-OR). Dexter visited DOJ offices on Tuesday with a list of files the House Judiciary Committee had asked her to review. Other committee members had previously accessed the files in their original form, but when Dexter attempted to view them, she found 255 pages of black rectangles.

“Literally, files other Members have seen, that I was supposed to follow-up on, are now gone. Multiple files that have been documented are gone,” said Dexter. “It may be that they’re seeing what we’re finding, and then that brings things to light — we have no idea. All this is is conjecture, but when [the administration’s] making up stories about what’s happening, what is real is that transparency is not the rule of the land.”

Redacted versions of the files Dexter attempted to review — EFTA00006109, EFTA00006209, and EFTA00006309 — have been available to the public since December 2025, and unredacted versions were provided to Congress on February 9. But the feigned transparency was short-lived. Within a few short weeks, the DOJ has severely limited Congress’ access to the files, is apparently monitoring who views what, and now, according to several Members, is swapping out clean documents with redacted ones.

“They give you a discrete login number, which is how they’re tracking us — and that’s a serious problem, to have the executive branch spying on the legislative branch. Then once you get in there, you have to go through a couple different steps to get to the unredacted files,” said US Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT). “But even the versions that we’re seeing, there are still a lot of things that are redacted and we can’t get good, clear answers as to why that is.”

The Trump administration’s apparent attempt to conceal what Congress can see mirrors similar attempts to block the public from accessing the Epstein Files, despite what is mandated by law. A recent investigation by NPR found that the DOJ has been not only removing, but completely withholding, documents from the public database that involve Trump. Most recently, at least 50 pages of interviews conducted by federal agents with a witness who claimed she was sexually assaulted by Trump when she was a minor have been left out of both the public and congressional databases.

Dexter believes the repeated retractions reveal a pattern: someone finds information that seems worthy of investigation, it gets reported on, the story starts to gain traction, then the files are quietly removed. And in almost every instance, it’s had to do with women who claim to have been sexually assaulted by Trump or are proof of his close relationship with Epstein.

“There’s nothing transparent about what’s going on right now,” said Dexter. “It’s continuing to block, and tackle, and shade, and protect men of privilege and men of wealth in this country. And it’s got to stop.”

The ongoing redactions and restricted access to the Epstein Files appear to conflict with both the spirit and the letter of the law, as the Epstein Files Transparency Act permits redactions only to protect national security or victims’ privacy, and requires “a summary of redactions made, including legal basis” be given to Congress.

The DOJ failed to provide a list of redactions to Congress by the January 3 deadline. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was previously Trump’s personal criminal attorney, has thus far failed to fulfill his promise to allow Congress “to view personally any portions of the production in unredacted form.” Instead, the DOJ has focused on surveilling members of Congress, logging what they’ve viewed, and allegedly redacting documents already under congressional review.

Public outcry has worked in demanding transparency, to a certain extent. On Friday, photos of US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick with Epstein on his island – images that had been deleted from the public database – were re-uploaded, after a report of their disappearance by CBS News sparked outrage. And on Tuesday, US Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) announced plans to file articles of impeachment against Attorney General Pam Bondi for her refusal to comply with a congressional investigation into Epstein.

“We live in a country where we have one reality for everyday people, and another for the rich and the well-connected and the well-protected. We have to change that,” said Lee. “That’s why earlier today I announced that I’ll be introducing articles of impeachment against Pam Bondi.”

Lee is circulating a public petition of support for Bondi’s impeachment, in coordination with the non-profit Free Speech for People.

Attempts to Sanewash

• More than 100 redaction errors in the Epstein files

• Epstein Files Update: DOJ Responds to Tracking Searches by Lawmakers

• DOJ Took Down Some Unredacted Epstein Files Before Congress Could Review, Massie Claims

Far-Right Spin

• Crooked Hillary Clinton Lashes Out At Trump As She Testifies Under Subpoena

• Bill Clinton Releases Shocking Opening Statement Ahead of Epstein Deposition, Rages Against Oversight Committee For Targeting Hillary

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Don’t miss MAHA & the Midterms: How Trump and RFK Jr.’s Agenda Costs Americans, a live conversation from COURIER and 3.14 Action. This timely event will break down how political choices are reshaping healthcare access ahead of the midterms and show what’s at stake for families across the country.

Hear directly from leading experts, including author and creator Hank Green, psychologist and author Dr. Mary Trump, Registered Nurse U.S. Representative Lauren Underwood, 314 Action President Shaughnessy Naughton, and physician and medical analyst Dr. Vin Gupta.

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Trump’s housing EO could create a generation of forever renters

In January, Trump signed an executive order titled, “Stopping Wall Street from competing with Main Street homebuyers”, a decree he claims will stop investors from buying up single-family homes and give families a better shot at homeownership.

But a quick look under the hood shows that this order actually lays the groundwork to do the opposite, bolstering home values for existing owners while incentivizing rental development, charting the US further along its current course of creating generations of forever-renters.

The biggest indicators as to what policy changes like this actually want to change are often found in where they put the carrot, and where they put the stick. And the carrot here isn’t for homeownership at all, it’s for “build-to-rent” properties. While the order outlines new limits put on federal agencies’ ability to facilitate property sales to large investors – language that initially sounds promising – it ends with a significant exception that undercuts the whole thing: none of these restrictions apply to properties being built or sold as rentals.

“When you think about private equity, when you think about why they’re buying the homes in the first place, and then you couple that with how many homes they’re buying, it becomes really clear that they’re about the bottom line. They’re not here to make sure that they’re maintaining affordable housing in an underserved community like in the majority Black neighborhood,” said US Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA). “That’s not what they’re about. That’s not what their incentive is. They’re here because they’re buying cheap property.”

That’s the whole reason large investors have been buying properties for years! And it’s no secret — private equity firms mass-purchasing enough properties in an area so they can control rental prices throughout an entire city is a well-documented epidemic.

In fact, on the same day Trump announced his executive order, Reps. Lee and Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced the more appropriately-named Stop Wall Street Landlords Act, which would close the loopholes that give private equity and other large investors the same purchasing incentives as regular people.

“They’re able to use federal programs to purchase these single family houses. And it’s something that, at the core, was supposed to help families, was supposed to help working people to be able to afford houses,” said Lee. “What corporate equity is doing is, they’re using those exact same incentives that were supposed to help the little guy — and they’re obviously the exact opposite of the little guy — they’re using these same incentives that were supposed to advantage these young folks, these families.”

In addition to closing these loopholes, the bill would impose an excise tax on large investors who sell property and direct that revenue to the Housing Trust Fund, a program that supports homeownership and helps renters to avoid eviction. It also clearly defines what constitutes a “large investor,” so someone buying a second home or smaller investors aren’t treated the same as private equity firms.

By contrast, that’s where the executive order’s vagueness could lead to severe consequences. For example: smaller, local investors — such as people who flip homes by buying a place, fixing it up, then selling it for a nice little profit — could have the order weaponized against them since it doesn’t specify what a “large investor” is, and it makes it harder to sell a home unless it is to be used as a rental.

It also incentivizes builders and developers to focus on rental properties, since those projects would not face the same restrictions. More rental properties mean less supply of ownable homes, which will make the homeowner’s property value go up. Trump said as much when his administration was preparing the executive order.

“I don’t want those values to come down. We have millions of people that own houses and, for the first time in their life, they’re wealthy because the house is worth $500,000 or $600,000 or more — or less — but more money than it’s ever been worth before,” Trump said. “I don’t want to do anything to knock that down.”

Still, regardless of its intentions, Trump’s executive order doesn’t have the authority to actually do much of anything. For that to happen, the laws need to change. And for that, he needs Congress.

“The president has been a government by fiat; It’s executive order after executive order. But the reality is, real change and real solutions have to come through some thoughtful policy,” said Lee. “We want to take the opportunity to say that, ‘hey, now that you are focusing on this right now, you don’t have to look farther. We have legislation that’s ready to go. We have legislation that could move.’”

It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

US Rep. Scott Perry, Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District

Since taking office in 2013, Rep. Perry has:

• Seen his net net worth increase from $987K to $1.5M

• Sponsored 310 bills, one of which has been signed into law (the Save DHS Act of 2017)

• Attempted to replace Pennsylvania’s electoral votes in 2020 with Republican fake electors

Fun Facts

Rep. Perry is a huge fan of conspiracy theories—from QAnon-inspired accusations that Italians are manipulating US elections with satellites to the white nationalist fear that white Christians are strategically being replaced by non-Christian people of color as a way to manipulate and control culture and governments. Perry’s apparent obsession with election conspiracy theories led him to both defy a Congressional subpoena and request a preemptive presidential pardon in the event his deep dive landed him in hot water.

His penchant for claims without proof has landed him some unexpected bedfellows: in 2017, Perry wound up on the side of ISIS, for example, when he supported their false claim that the jihadist organization was responsible for the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.

Despite being a third-generation American—Perry’s grandparents were Colombian immigrants—he’s taken a “pull the ladder up” approach to US citizenship. He’s beenvocal in his support of the illegal actions against immigrants that Trump has undertaken during his current term and was exclusionary in who he considered a citizen throughout Trump’s first term. After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Perrydismissed its significance, as he didn’t think U.S. citizens were dying because he thought Puerto Rico was a different country.

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

Catch me at this year’s State of the Swamp, held at the National Press Club on February 24th. As part of the rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union, I’ll speak on the dangers his attacks against the Fourth Estate poses on the future of democracy.

Joining me onstage will be Robert DeNiro, Jim Acosta, Mehdi Hasan, US Sen. Ron Wyden. And a host of other current and former elected officials, celebrities, and community leaders.

Use discount code COURIER15 for 15% off tickets

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Local opposition kills seven warehouse deals

Overwhelming backlash over Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to convert industrial warehouses into massive detention camps has killed plans for at least seven locations so far, even as the Trump administration expedited its plans to open internment camps on military bases.

ICE originally set its sights on 23 warehouses across the US for potential use as detention sites, with the goal of more than doubling its current detainment capacity of 70,000. Those plans were almost immediately thwarted, however, as opposition from community members, elected officials, and even warehouse owners effectively barred ICE from seven of those locations.

DHS moved forward with its plans anyway, and secured warehouses in nine other locations — in almost every instance, against the wishes of the local communities. In some of these cities, such as Surprise, Arizona, and Socorro, Texas, local leaders are now exploring ways to prevent ICE from using the purchased warehouses as detention centers, citing various permitting regulations and public nuisance laws.

“Socorro held a city council meeting to discuss their next steps and their options. They were not informed, by the way, that this is what DHS would be doing. They learned about this through the media, and I alerted the mayor about what was going on,” said US Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX). “Cities that have ordinance-making authority, they have more power than a lot of folks understand. And I think in moments like this, they need to utilize all of their power.”

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Below is a brief update on the Trump administration’s use of warehouses since the initial Feb. 3 reporting:

Two more locations stalled by local efforts

Merrillville, Indiana

Democratic US Rep. Frank Mrvan wrote DHS a letter in opposition, the town council voted unanimously against the facility, and the warehouse owners stated they had no plans to sell to any federal agency.

Byhalia, Mississippi

Due to community backlash, and opposition from US Sen. Roger Wicker, ICE has abandoned plans to develop a detention camp in Mississippi.

Three sites pending, purchased, or already in use

Hall and Walton Counties, Georgia

Despite fierce community opposition, ICE purchased a facility in Social Circle in early February. If it follows through with its initial proposal to hold 8,500 people there, the detained population would exceed that of the small town itself.

Hall County officials also confirmed that DHS’ purchase of a smaller warehouse just north of Social Circle would be finalized by the end of February.

Chester, New York

Despite vocal opposition from residents, ICE appears to be moving full steam ahead with its plans to set up camp in Chester — and, in fact, has already secured access to a warehouse owned by billionaire Carl Icahn. Icahn’s relationship with Trump goes way back, as first reported by The Oracle’s Felix Hoffman, and appears to have charted the course Elon Musk later trekked.

Icahn was a mega donor during Trump’s 2016 campaign who funneled at least $150 million to him through a Super PAC. He was later considered for US Treasury Secretary, but ultimately settled on being a special advisor, where he gained a reputation for ransacking the federal government to increase his personal wealth.

A map of all 23 proposed warehouse detention camps is available here and will be updated weekly on Fridays.

Renewed opposition at two already-purchased warehouses

Surprise, Arizona

Residents were taken by — well, surprise — at ICE’s plan to use an industrial warehouse down the street from a high school as a detention camp. According to the Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez, more than 1,000 people attended a recent city council meeting in protest, where council members admitted they had not been consulted prior to the purchase.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced plans to file a public nuisance lawsuit aimed at blocking the facility’s operation. Public nuisance laws are a unique and effective tool allowing state officials to impose checks on activities deemed harmful to public health or safety. Mayes has previously utilized them to stop out-of-state and foreign farms from siphoning away millions of gallons of the state’s groundwater reserves.

“As Arizona’s top law enforcement officer, I have authority to compel the abatement of activities considered a public nuisance due to being ‘injurious to health, indecent, offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property that interferes with the enjoyment of life,’” Mayes wrote in a letter to Noem. “I note with approval your statement on the DHS website, that ‘through technical support, training, and oversight, DHS limits liability by ensuring continuous compliance with federal, state, and local laws.’”

Socorro, Texas

After DHS purchased warehouses and over 60 acres of land in Socorro for $123 million, the city council voted to use whatever authority they have to impede the use of the site as a detention facility. While the state gives broad authority to the federal government, Socorro officials say they plan to wield safety, permitting, and zoning laws as weapons to stall ICE at every turn.

Plans to expand military detention sites

The Trump administration appears to now be moving forward with a detention plan that circumvents the combination of public input and local regulations that have hampered its warehouse scheme. As first reported by Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manríquez, the Department of Defense put out an eight-year, $55 billion contract to build permanent detention infrastructure on newly-designated militarized zones.

While the contract is broadly framed as providing logistical support for the US Navy, the contractor is required to provide beds, tents, catering, and detention guards at the request of DHS. It also specifies that its intention is to protect the government’s territorial integrity, and prohibits the housing of “any non-ICE population at the facility.” It would also allow ICE to bypass any bidding processes, public input, and local regulations that have slowed the administration’s mass incarceration plans thus far.

The arrangement echoes past uses of military bases for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, when the government abducted civilians based on their ethnicity and detained them for an undetermined amount of time. The conditions, however, more closely mirror Nazi concentration camps, as those currently held in ICE custody are stripped of their rights, beaten, sexually assaulted, and either left to die or are outright killed by prison guards.

“People are not goods to be stored,” said Escobar. “I was afraid this was going to happen. When the ICE director said he wanted ICE deportations to be like Amazon Prime. That we have a government — that the United States of America is talking about human beings this way — processing and holding, detaining and deporting — it should offend everyone’s sense of humanity.”

While the $55 billion contract is new, attempts to militarize incarceration is something Trump has been trying to do since he regained the presidency. Bases in Indiana and New Jersey were approved last year as potential DHS detention sites, though neither site is being used to hold people as of yet. The only known base to currently act as a detention center is Fort Bliss in Texas, where physical abuse and sexual assault runs rampant.

The Trump administration made a similar plan to erect a military prison camp at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California. But where it succeeded in Texas, it failed in California. The Travis facility was stopped in its tracks last year by community opposition, spearheaded by US Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.).

“They wanted to build a major detention facility on the base that is already overcrowded — and I said, ‘hell no! You’re not going to do that. We’re not going to allow you to further degrade the ability of the military to do its national security job,’” said Garamendi. “We did stop them there, and that fight hopefully is over.”

True to form, the Trump administration had attempted to develop Travis into a detention center without alerting the public. That all fell apart when Garamendi got wind of the proposal and immediately alerted both the public and the press. The revelation set off weeks of protests and demands from local residents that ultimately forced the administration to abandon its plans.

Garamendi has since taken efforts to deter ICE even further, and in February, introduced legislation to freeze funding for the agency altogether. The measure would provide a long-term solution to a problem that could result in another partial shutdown of the government, as Republicans in Congress not only refuse to cut funding for ICE, but wish to increase its budget.

“It should be obvious to all Americans that ICE is a major problem, and there are many different ways we can deal with it. One way is to ice. ICE. Don’t let it grow any longer,” Garamendi said. “The secretary [Noem], together with the ICE management, is surging thousands of paramilitary troops into our cities and creating enormous chaos and death, and just totally ignoring the constitutional requirements of notice, of people’s right to a lawyer, breaking into houses without a judicial warrant. The fact of the matter is that ICE is out of control.”

While the bill doesn’t address the Trump administration’s use of the military budget for its anti-immigration efforts, it would render those endeavors moot, as ICE would be prohibited from increasing its capacity to hire agents and abduct civilians.

Join COURIER and 3.14 Action on March 12 for MAHA & the Midterms: How Trump and RFK Jr.’s Agenda Costs Americans.

This live conversation will examine how political choices are reshaping healthcare access ahead of the midterms. We’ll break down how Trump, RFK Jr., and the broader MAHA agenda are impacting public health, who benefits, and what’s at stake for families across the country.

Featured Speakers include Dr. Mary Trump, Hank Green, and US Rep. Lauren Underwood.

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Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

Consequences for people named in the Epstein Files have finally boomeranged back from Europe, and are headed straight for the Trump administration.

Shortly after the Department of Justice’s investigative materials related to Jeffrey Epstein became public, officials in the highest levels of government in the UK, France, Norway, Slovakia, and Sweden have faced criminal inquiries and resignations. Yet in the United States, where the investigation actually took place, there has been comparatively little fallout, despite the sitting president being one of its main characters.

Part of the reason could be the way the files were released — a small batch came out a few months ago, followed weeks later by an additional 3 million difficult-to-access documents. It’s akin to the administration’s “flood the zone” strategy, where they attempt to overwhelm the public with information about a ton of different things so that there’s no collective will to get anything done.

At first, it looked like that strategy might work. The government closed its investigation after concluding that Epstein’s multi-billion-dollar, international sex trafficking operation with thousands of victims only involved two people. Meanwhile, independent researchers and regular people kept finding so much evidence to the contrary that there have been about 20 different short-lived public flare-ups, but nothing with the longevity needed to trigger actual consequences.

And then someone found this — a legal document establishing a paper trail from Epstein to Howard Lutnick, a member of Trump’s Cabinet. This is different from the thousands of seemingly incriminating email threads and anonymous accusations in the Epstein Files because instead of needing to piece together assumptions, this document provides a concrete financial connection between Lutnick and Epstein.

That, coupled with the message threads between the two, where they made plans to go to Epstein’s island, get drinks, and in general spent years in close company, creates a credible narrative that these two were involved in a number of ventures together. A narrative that could be proven in court, if the government chose to investigate.

As a result, a growing number of members of Congress — Democrats and Republicans — are calling on Lutnick to resign as Trump’s Commerce Secretary and to face investigation for his ties to Epstein. It may not seem like much, but unlike in the UK and Norway, where politicians resign out of humiliation, conservative US politicians have been trained since the Reagan era to never apologize, never admit fault, and never express shame.

In such a political environment, accountability rarely emerges voluntarily. It must be sustained and, in many cases, forced. As long as calls for Lutnick’s resignation and investigation don’t die down — from both elected officials and the public — meaningful consequences are still possible.

And once a smaller Cabinet member is held accountable, it opens the door for those in a higher position of power to be held to the same standard, including US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is engaging in an apparent cover-up of what’s in the Epstein Files, or even the president himself.

I’m looking for more paper trail documents — if you find any, please send them to me at camaron@couriernewsroom.com.

The search terms I’m using include the names of the banks that have settled out of court with the victims and are believed to have ignored illegal transaction activity: Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, and JPMorgan.

There are regulatory checks financial institutions perform when there is suspected money laundering, fraud, or illegal activity: Suspicious Activity Reports (SARS) and Know Your Customer (KYC). Searching either acronym will bring up financial records that could connect Epstein to any accomplices, clients, or co-conspirators.

Attempts to Sanewash

• Lutnick reverses claims on Epstein involvement

• Lutnick acknowledges traveling to Epstein’s island

• White House stands behind Commerce Secretary amid Epstein disclosures

Far-Right Spin

• Trump Defends Howard Lutnick’s Visit to Epstein Island - “I Wasn’t Aware of it... I Was Never There”

• Leavitt brushes off Lutnick–Epstein heat with list of administration wins media ignored before ending briefing

• US commerce chief Howard Lutnick admits Epstein Island lunch but denies closer ties

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It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

US Rep. Ken Calvert, California’s 41st Congressional District

Since taking office in 1993, Rep. Calvert has:

• Seen his net worth increase from $3 million to nearly $23 million

• Sponsored 280 bills, 12 of which have been signed into law

• Received more money from the defense industry during the 2022 midterms than almost any other congressional candidate

• Staffed his congressional office with dozens of former lobbyists, including representatives for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and the National Potato Council

• Received a $265,000 campaign boost from Elon Musk during the 2024 election

• Used his position to allegedly score very beneficial land deals for himself and his realtor friends

• Promised to only serve six terms… this is now his 16th

Fun Facts

Throughout his three decades in Congress, Rep. Calvert has made it a priority to bring his real estate expertise to Washington, particularly when it scores him a nice payoff.

He’s shown an acute ability to use earmarks — guarantees in the federal budget that certain amounts of money can only be used for specific projects — to make previously worthless land spike in value. Maps of earmarked transportation projects he’s signed off on are often lined with properties tied to himself. In 2007, such deals were found to violate state laws, and in 2009, he became the subject of an FBI investigation.As recently as 2024, Calvert sparked outcry after securing millions in federal funds to improve the areas around 10 rental properties he owns in Riverside.

But it hasn’t all been business: during his first term, Calvert was caught in what he described as “an extremely embarrassing situation” with someone police described as a “known prostitute.” The incident happened during Calvert’s prime mid-life crisis years, shortly after his wife left him, and resulted in neither criminal nor political consequences.

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Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.

While I never plan to keep any information behind a paywall, I am considering setting up paid subscriptions so you can support my reporting directly. If that’s something you’re interested in and able to do, let me know by making a pledge to sign up for a paid subscription in the future, so I can see if that’s a viable financial option.

Pledge Your Support

Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.

It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.

What Happened

Plans are underway to double the detention capacity of the Trump administration’s federal police force by converting massive, industrial warehouses unsuitable for people to live in into detention centers.

COURIER has independently verified the location of 23 mass detention campsites that have been surveyed by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Of those locations, leases for five have been secured, while opposition from local communities has killed or stalled deals at five others.

In an apparent attempt to avoid public outcry and scrutiny, ICE has sought to secure these leases in private, ignoring potential health and safety violations and catching local elected officials off guard. In an effort to provide transparency into this process, we have published a searchable map showing each proposed site, its current status, and the level of public response.

All 23 locations can be found here.

The facilities fall into four categories: signed leases, stalled by community efforts, opposed by community, and preliminary stages.

Signed Leases: Arizona, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas

Leases have been signed or otherwise confirmed by local officials in Surprise, Arizona; Williamsport, Maryland; Tremont, Pennsylvania; Hamburg, Pennsylvania; and Clint, Texas.

In Arizona, residents and city officials were caught completely off guard by the government’s $70 million purchase of a warehouse ICE plans to fill with 1,500 people. Reporting by the Washington Post listed Glendale, Arizona, as its location, but a review by COURIER found that DHS has listed the city incorrectly in its own internal documents.

“If they are going to house people there, it is a death camp. I don’t say that lightly,” said Arizona Sen. Analise Ortiz. “This is abhorrent and chilling because ICE is already violating the US Constitution, which means none of us are safe, including US citizens.”

DHS spent another $102 million to purchase a warehouse in Maryland, despite near-constant protests from surrounding communities.

“In blatant disregard for the will of this community, Trump’s ICE has spent over $100 million for a massive warehouse prison to hold up to 1,500 detainees,” US Sen. Chris Van Hollen said while at a protest. “This Administration is spitting in the face of communities from Minneapolis to Maryland and wasting our tax dollars. We won’t stop fighting back.”

Stalled by Community Efforts: Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia

In five states, proposed warehouse purchases have been halted by successful community opposition in distinctly different ways.

After a monthslong murderous occupation of their state by ICE, Minnesotan’s reaction to news of a potential detention camp was visceral. Protests erupted in the city of Shakopee almost immediately after DHS’s intentions became public. City, state, and federal officials all came out in unequivocal opposition. The warehouse owner announced it rejected DHS’ offer shortly after word got out.

“It’s not often these days that we get good news this fast, but that’s the power of community here in Shakopee,” Minnesota Rep. Brad Tabke told Bring Me The News. “I’m so incredibly proud of all our neighbors who took up the call in such a short amount of time to let it be known that ICE in Shakopee is not OK.”

Proactive sleuthing by Jackson County Legislative Chair Manny Abarca brought national attention to ICE’s plans to create a warehouse prison camp for over 7,000 people in Kansas City, Missouri. Despite not being alerted to the plans by ICE, Abarca got word that they would be touring the publicly-owned facility in mid-January.

So he went.

“I parked one car length away in the second row of parking spots facing the building, and just watched from my truck. I didn’t get out, just parked,” said Abarca. “Immediately, two cars came from the front, two cars came from the back, and boxed me in. These are unmarked vehicles, these are not ICE vehicles. These are, what looked like, personal vehicles, because they had personal tags. And to me, that was intimidating, right? That was an intimidation tactic. Then two ICE agents in tactical gear got out.”

The agents falsely claimed Abarca was trespassing and told him to leave — even though he couldn’t because they had boxed him in. After a short back-and-forth, Abarca called local news affiliates and told them about the situation. Reporters rushed to the scene, followed by anti-ICE protestors, and the incident garnered national attention.

“Had they not been there, Lord knows what would have happened to me,” Abarca said. “This is a performance, sadly, when you come to think about ICE and their reaction to me. Do they want to drag me out of the car and beat me up on the floor? No, not in front of the cameras.”

Abarca used this momentum and the support from his constituents to pass a five-year, countywide moratorium on the opening of any non-municipal detention center.

In Salt Lake City, a combination of public pressure and bureaucratic maneuvering was enough to kill a deal between DHS and The Ritchie Group, a local development firm that owns the warehouse ICE wanted.

SLC residents picketed outside the site and Mayor Erin Mendenhall told The Ritchie Group their facility did not meet city code for ICE’s desired purposes. Less than a week after protests began, the real estate group put out a public statement telling DHS there would be no deal.

“The Ritchie Group is proud to be a family-owned Utah business that has been building our communities since 1973,” they said. “The Ritchie Group and its investors have no plans to sell or lease the property in question to the federal government.”

A similar outcome unfolded in Virginia. After days of protests, hours of statements in opposition at local council meetings, and a unanimous resolution against the detention center by the Hanover County Board of Supervisors, the warehouse owners said the deal between them and DHS was dead.

Opposed by Community: Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Texas

Opposition to erecting concentration camp-styled warehouse detention centers has been universal. US Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) collected 10,000 signatures in Chester, a town of just 12,000 residents, in opposition to a proposed ICE warehouse, and US Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) launched an inquiry into DHS and ICE over their failure to consult the town of Social Circle before advancing a similar plan.

“A proposed ICE detention facility is not right for Social Circle, and the City of Social Circle does not support it,” Ossoff and Social Circle Mayor David Keener said in a joint statement. “We are urging the Administration to abandon this plan, which risks overwhelming the City’s resources and more than tripling its population.”

Like most sites selected by ICE, Social Circle lacks the infrastructure needed to provide suitable living conditions for the amount of people the Trump administration wishes to fill the warehouses with. An inability to provide adequate water, electricity, sewage, and other basic necessities would create inhumane living conditions for hundreds of thousands of people.

Such conditions are well-documented. An Amnesty International investigation into prototype detention camps in Florida found that the Trump-endorsed facilities kept detainees shackled in overcrowded cages, underfed, forced to use open-air toilets that routinely flooded while being regularly denied medical care. Other ICE-run detention camps are rampant with sexual assault, sexual extortion by ICE agents, negligent deaths, and at least one reported homocide.

These inhumane conditions have also brought local opposition to proposed warehouses in Hutchins, Texas; Orlando, Florida; Parsippany, New Jersey; Merrillville, Indiana; and Merrimack, New Hampshire.

Preliminary Stages: Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas

Five sites identified internally by ICE remain in early stages, with little public disclosure and no formal notification to local leaders.

A number of officials have voiced opposition, but stopped short of taking any preventative action. Some, like the county supervisors in Hanover, said they were ultimately hamstrung by the federal government, who they believe have the ultimate authority should they wish to proceed. Others, like Abarca, reject this mentality, and believe alternative measures must be taken to ensure the will of the people is the final authority.

‘At some point, we won’t be able to stop them from buying that building and attempting to open it. However, if I decide to divert the river on the south side of that property and create a moat, they might have to build a bridge,” said Abarca. “There are ways that local governments can react — if we’re willing to do it.”

Attempts to Sanewash

• ICE drafts warehouse network to detain 80,000 immigrants

• Could an ICE processing site be coming to Jupiter, Florida?

• Neighbors concerned about ICE potentially buying East Side warehouse

Far-Right Spin

• Trump Admin Eyes Mega Warehouses for Deportations

• ICE Aims to Speed Up Deportations by Renovating Warehouses to Hold 80,000 Illegals at a Time

• Maryland Democrats Rush Emergency Bill To Kneecap ICE Hours After Feds Announce New Detention Facility

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It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.

US Rep. Brian Babin, Texas’ 36th Congressional District

Since taking office in 2015, Rep. Babin has:

• Seen his net worth increase from $2.5 million to over $3.7 million, with a short-lived spike to $6.2 million in 2021

• Sponsored 101 bills

• Authored one bill that has been signed into law, to rename a post office

• Proudly documented his misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia

• Begged Trump to pardon convicted war criminals

• Attempted to end birthright citizenship

• Been investigated by his peers for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results

• Championed the failed SCOTUS Care Act, which would require US Supreme Court justices to obtain health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace

• Attempted to stop refugee programs during the 2015 European migrant crisis, which was partially caused by US-funded proxy wars in the Middle East

Fun Facts

Babin began his professional journey by enlisting in the US Air Force in 1975. He left after only four years, saying he felt “demoralized” by his commander-in-chief, President Jimmy Carter, and went on to work on Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign.

He took the lessons of success he claimed to have learned from Reagan back home to Texas, where he was elected mayor of Woodville. His success was undercut by his bigotry, however, during his failed 1998 congressional campaign. Openly anti-LGBTQ Babin hired an openly gay man, Jon-Marc McDonald, to be his campaign manager. He quit without warning a few months before the general election.

“Babin abhors homosexuality. I am a homosexual,” McDonald said in his resignation statement. “Therefore, I can no longer work for someone who thinks that my sexuality is a disease, a sin and unnatural.”

McDonald, who went on to become a successful New York playwright, later claimed Babin told staff that “homosexuals should be shot.” Babin, meanwhile, was given a series of consolation-prize positions in state government by former Governors George W. Bush and Rick Perry, until he saw an opportunity to snag a safe Republican seat in the US House in 2015.

ICE wants to warehouse people in Michigan

Excerpt of a story by Kyle Kaminski, The ‘Gander / COURIER

At what point does immigration enforcement stop being about the law and when does it turn into something else altogether?

Because recent reporting from The Washington Post reveals that the Trump administration is now planning to detain immigrants inside industrial warehouses—facilities designed for boxes, pallets, and freight, not people. And one of the places on that list is here in Michigan.

@gandernewsroomIndustrial warehouses weren’t built for people. But new reporting shows ICE plans to detain immigrants inside them—including at a proposed processing site in Highland Park, Michigan. Local officials say they were blindsided.

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According to local leaders, no one asked them about this. Highland Park Mayor Glenda McDonald told the Detroit News earlier this week that city officials haven’t heard a word from ICE or the Department of Homeland Security. They still don’t know which warehouse is being considered for the processing center. They don’t even know what the timeline would be. They found out the same way everyone else did—by reading the news.

So what’s really going on? Well, this isn’t just about immigration enforcement.

It’s about what we’re willing to accept in our own backyard. Warehousing human beings in buildings designed for freight strips people of dignity. Doing it quietly, without warning, strips communities of their voice. And when virtually none of the people in ICE custody have violent criminal convictions, this stops being about public safety and starts being about political power.

Highland Park didn’t volunteer for this. Its leaders weren’t consulted. Its residents weren’t asked. But it ended up on the list anyway. And if that can happen here, it can happen anywhere.

Read Kyle’s full story here.

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