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Donald Trump publicly called Ken Paxton ugly and badly dressed while endorsing him. Billionaire Leon Black is suing Congress to avoid testifying about his $180 million relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s DOJ blocked civil rights charges against an ICE agent who shot a man through a closed door and then lied about it. And the widow of an Air Force major killed in Trump’s war with Iran says the military is denying her family combat death benefits because Congress never officially declared war.
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The Phantom of the Opera started wearing a mask for less.
Speaking at a White House Rose Garden dinner on Wednesday, Trump pledged to campaign for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state’s tight Senate race. But the 80-year-old president used most of the endorsement to tell a room full of donors what he really thinks of the man he wants them to elect.
“So, Ken Paxton, you might not like the way he dresses. And I say this—it’s so insulting to him, but I might as well say it—you might not like the way he looks,” Trump said. “You might not love his look. You might not love his television interviews, but he was the best attorney general in the country, perhaps, he was one of the best in the entire country. And that speaks a lot louder than the suit he’s wearing that doesn’t look so great.”
According to the most recent FEC filings, Paxton has raised about $9.3 million, while his Democratic opponent James Talarico has pulled in $31.6 million. Trump has a $400 million MAGA Inc. war chest he could direct toward the race, but so far he has chosen instead to spend it on ads that feature himself.
Paxton might want to take some of that $9.3 million and hire a stylist.
A congressional subpoena is only as powerful as the person receiving it is poor.
Billionaire investor Leon Black is suing the House Oversight Committee to block it from obtaining his non-disclosure agreements and testimony as part of its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Black refused to show up for a scheduled deposition on Thursday, as his lawyers filed a lawsuit arguing that the congressional subpoenas are invalid.
Black was Epstein’s primary client, and he kept paying him even after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes in Florida. At least four women have accused Black of sexual abuse in connection with Epstein.
One woman accused him of violently raping her at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2002, leaving her bleeding. Another lawsuit accused him of raping an autistic 16-year-old girl at the same location. Documents in the Epstein files indicate federal prosecutors looked into these allegations, and two separate accusers described eerily similar patterns of abuse.
Black sat for a voluntary interview in June and told the committee he wasn’t aware of Epstein’s trafficking and abuse. The committee wanted to see his NDAs and ask follow-up questions, which Black responded to with a lawsuit.
People would kill for the kind of legal representation Christian Castro is getting, and that is basically what he did.
The Department of Justice has overruled its own federal prosecutor in Minnesota to protect ICE agent Christian Castro, who shot a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg during this January’s Operation Metro Surge. Castro would have been charged with deprivation of rights under color of law.
Castro had been chasing another man after a traffic stop when he and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis ran into a home and shut the door behind them. Castro fired through the closed door despite knowing that several people were inside, including two children, and ended up striking Sosa-Celis.
The charges the Minnesota prosecutor had planned to file were the civil rights charges used against the officers who killed George Floyd that would have carried serious jail time. Instead, the DOJ told him to limit the case to a false statements charge, which carries far less severe consequences.
In a remarkably candid email to the victims’ lawyers that ProPublica obtained, assistant U.S. attorney Matthew Evans wrote that the decision was being directed from Washington, and that he had objected in the strongest possible terms.
Castro is also facing state felony charges in Minnesota, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott refused to extradite him, and he was released from jail last week.
If only there were 535 people whose entire job was to decide whether the country is at war.
Air Force Major John “Alex” Klinner, 33, was killed on March 12 when his KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq while supporting Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. military campaign against Iran that began in late February. He left behind his wife Libby and three children, including 7-month-old twins.
This past Saturday, Libby Klinner posted on Instagram that the Air Force told her that she isn’t eligible for certain combat-related death benefits because Congress never officially declared war on Iran. These include hostile fire pay and combat zone tax exclusions that were absent from her husband’s final paycheck.
The Air Force said that it is reviewing her case and that officials spoke with Klinner on Monday. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick did not help matters when he told CNBC on Wednesday that there have not been American deaths in the Iran conflict. At least six service members were killed in the crash that took Klinner’s life alone.
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Judge Blocks Trump’s Latest Attempt to End Birthright Citizenship. A federal judge has blocked Trump’s second attempt to end birthright citizenship, which he signed in August after the Supreme Court struck down his first attempt in June. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that the new order is “almost certainly unconstitutional,” which should not have come as a surprise given that the Supreme Court said the same thing three months ago. Trump tried to narrow the scope this time by targeting birth tourism and children of foreign government employees, but Boardman ruled that it still violates the 14th Amendment.
Sanders and Casar Introduce Legislation to Ban Artificial Superintelligence. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar introduced legislation Thursday to ban the development of any AI system smarter than a human being. Anyone who tries it could face up to 20 years in prison, and companies that violate the ban could face what the bill calls the “corporate death penalty.” The legislation would also pause all advanced AI development until a new cabinet-level federal agency writes safety rules and establishes a process for reviewing AI models before they can be released.
** Judge Tosses Trump’s Lawsuit Against California Over Trans Athletes.** A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit the Justice Department filed against California over the state’s policy allowing transgender students to compete in sports on teams that correspond to their gender identity. Last year the Department of Justice sued and threatened to withhold $44.3 billion in federal education funding if California didn’t comply. The federal government never told California that Title IX required what the administration was demanding, Judge Cynthia Valenzuela said, meaning the government was trying to hold $44 billion hostage over a rule it never bothered to write down.
Tennessee Plans to Fully Fund Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Statewide. Tennessee legislative leaders announced a plan to fully fund the book and mailing costs of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in all 95 counties starting in 2027. The program offers free books to children from birth through five years old. The program has been offered statewide in Tennessee since 2004, but has relied on a mix of state and local funding to date, with local partners footing half the cost. The new proposal would fund everything through the state budget. The announcement comes after Parton’s death, and a vote by Republican legislators earlier this year to cut funding for the program nationally.
