pelespirit

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Republican lawmakers have warned President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi that withholding any documents relating to the Jeffrey Epstein case “would add fuel to the fire.”

The warning comes as Trump caved to pressure and signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act Wednesday evening, while Bondi fumbled her way through questions on how the Justice Department would proceed now that it has 30 days to release the files.

Bondi has changed her stance on the matter a number of times this year, prompting fierce criticism from the MAGA base and beyond.

There are concerns from both sides of the aisle that she could cite the ongoing investigation into Epstein’s ties to Democratic associates, ordered by Trump last week, as a reason to withhold the files.

“You can adjust for whatever investigations are going on but if you do a blanket hold, I think that they’re going to have a lot of people angry,” GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina told The Hill.

The House Ethics Committee announced Wednesday that it will conduct a wide-ranging investigation into Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., including whether he violated campaign finance laws, misused congressional resources and engaged in sexual misconduct or dating violence.

Mills, now serving his second term, was ordered last month by a Florida judge to have no contact with his ex-girlfriend and to not go within 500 feet of her residence or where she works. Mills also is prohibited from referring to her on social media. The order is in effect through the end of the year, and any violation can result in a fine or imprisonment. The judge in the case said he had concluded that the woman was either a victim of dating violence or in danger of becoming one.

The Ethics Committee made clear that it would be looking at numerous allegations involving Mills. The panel will also examine whether he failed to properly disclose required information on statements required to be filed with the House, violated campaign finance laws regarding his two congressional campaigns, and whether he improperly solicited or received gifts in connection with privately sponsored official travel.

The House of Representatives voted unanimously Wednesday to repeal language in a government funding bill that would have awarded eight senators $500,000 each.

Lawmakers from both parties objected to the provision, which was tucked into legislation to resume government funding. That measure was signed into law last week, which brought an end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The measure could have resulted in eight senators receiving the payments after their personal data was obtained during the federal investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The bill states: “Any senator whose Senate data, or the Senate data of whose Senate office, has been acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed or disclosed in violation of this section may bring a civil action against the United States if the violation was committed by an officer, employee or agent of the United States or of any federal department or agency.”

A New Jersey woman who was found bound with zip ties in the woods and marked with a derogatory phrase referencing President Donald Trump is now accused of staging the attack.

Natalie Greene, 26, is charged with conspiracy to convey false statements and hoaxes and making false statements to federal law enforcement.

According to court documents, Greene and a co-conspirator called 911 late July 23 and claimed that three men had attacked them on a trail at the Egg Harbor Township Nature Reserve. The co-conspirator told dispatchers the men referenced Greene by name and mentioned her job in politics. According to reports, Greene previously worked for a Republican congressman.

Senior White House officials have discussed internally their preference for Paramount Skydance to acquire Warner Bros Discovery in recent weeks, and one official has discussed potential programming changes at CNN with Larry Ellison, the largest shareholder of Paramount.

The discussions, according to people familiar with the matter, come as Paramount portrays itself as the best bid for Warner Bros Discovery, after the company announced last month it was open to offers, because it would have an easier time getting through regulatory review.

Ellison often speaks to connections at the White House but, in at least one of the calls, engaged in a dialogue about possibly axing some of the CNN hosts whom Donald Trump is said to loathe, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, the people said.

The conversation also touched on floating names to replace Burnett and the possibility of running CBS assets like its flagship 60 minutes program on CNN air – proposals that have animated the White House, the people said.

The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious, The Associated Press has found.

The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn may then flag local law enforcement.

Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over — often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar.

A federal grand jury in Maryland is investigating whether Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte and Justice Department official Ed Martin improperly appointed unauthorized people to help in mortgage fraud investigations of President Donald Trump’s critics.

The probe, according to two people familiar and a document reviewed by MS NOW, is focused on whether the mortgage fraud investigations of Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and possibly New York Attorney General Letitia James have been tainted by the investigative methods allegedly used by Pulte and Martin.

“The first time I caught up to them, I could tell that they already knew who I was,” he told me when we first spoke on the phone in late October. “They had seen me before, so they thought they were just going to speed away. I was like, ‘Ha ha, bitches, I got a new scooter!’”

These acts of peaceful disobedience look like the dozens, if not hundreds, of rapid response networks and neighborhood watch groups cropping up to bear witness to raids. It is the Chicago teachers blowing whistles outside schools when immigration agents are in the vicinity or someone is in the process of being detained. It is the Los Angeles “soccer mom” who drives after ICE cars and documents sightings on TikTok, raising more than $122,000 in donations. And it is Grambo on his scooter.

“I told everybody: ‘I’m retired, I sit home all day,’” he said. “‘If we get any reports of ICE in the neighborhood, somebody text me, and I’ll run over on my scooter and go yell at them.’” Grambo soon started being notified about immigration enforcement activity, sometimes three or four times in a day. At first, when he went out on patrol in Highlandtown, a Latino-heavy neighborhood just east of Patterson Park that has seen a spike in immigration enforcement, residents seemed wary. But with time, he said, people came to recognize him as an ally.

“We’re not going out and getting rapists and murderers,” he said of agents’ raids. “We’re hunting people that support my community. I just want people to be treated like human beings.”

Colorado and several other states have reached a $7 million settlement with one of America’s largest landlords over a lawsuit that accused the company and its peers of using software to illegally coordinate rent prices.

“When corporate landlords share private data and use algorithms to coordinate and jack up rent prices, renters pay the price,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement Tuesday announcing the agreement. “This settlement sends a clear message: We will not tolerate practices that enable collusion, harm competition and make housing less affordable for Coloradans.”

The proposed settlement with Greystar was filed Tuesday morning and still needs final approval from the federal judge overseeing the case, which was initially filed last year. Under the deal’s terms, Colorado would receive more than $1 million “to support antitrust enforcement, consumer protection work, and related investigations,” Weiser’s office said. Greystar would also be prohibited from using any revenue management software that incorporates “nonpublic, competitively sensitive data from other landlords to generate pricing recommendations.”

The Trump Administration on Tuesday announced a new plan to relocate multiple programs housed under the Department of Education to four other agencies within the federal government, the latest and most significant steps yet to achieve the president and Republicans’ longstanding goal of dismantling the agency altogether.

During a press call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, a senior Department of Education official said the Department had signed partnership agreements with four other government agencies: Labor, Health and Human Services, Interior and State. While many of the programs being moved from the Education Department will remain technically under the Department’s oversight, they will be officially managed and administered by other agencies through interagency agreements, or IAAs.

“We look forward to having these as proof points for success and what education can look like without the Department of Education” the official said.