ICE official behind warehouse detention camps quits after tense congressional hearing
ALSO INSIDE: Banks, Epstein cohorts pay $1B to sweep sex trafficking empire under the rug
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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 inhabitable 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
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
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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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