“The Justice Department’s leadership asked career prosecutors in Florida to volunteer over the ‘next several days’ to help redact the Epstein files, in the latest Trump administration push toward releasing the hundreds of thousands of photos, internal memos and other evidence around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,” CNN reports.
Inside the New Fast Track to a Presidential Pardon
Wall Street Journal: “In the first year of his first term, Trump granted a single pardon and commuted one sentence. He waited until his final day in office to issue around 140 additional acts of clemency. This term, he pardoned more than 1,500 people on his first day alone, and has since granted clemency to a further 87 people and companies.”
“The new approach—driven in part by Trump’s own experience as a criminal defendant, people close to him say—has spawned a pardon-shopping industry where lobbyists say their going rate is $1 million. Pardon-seekers have offered some lobbyists close to the president success fees of as much as $6 million if they can close the deal, according to people familiar with the offers.”
Hunter Biden Says He’s $15 Million in Debt
Hunter Biden estimated in a new interview that he is in debt to the tune of up to $15 million, and admitted that “I have no idea” how to pay that amount back, the New York Post reports.
Said Biden: “Nobody’s riding to the rescue for Hunter Biden. My dad, you know, entered the presidency as the poorest man to ever take the office. And he left the presidency as the, you know, not poorest, I mean, he’s fine, but he has no, we have no generational wealth.
Epstein’s Brother Says Jeffrey Was Ready to ‘Name Names’
Mark Epstein, brother of child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, alleged to the FBI in 2023 that his brother was murdered because he was ready to “name names” and even claimed President Trump was behind the death, Mediaite reports.
Athletes Crowd Republican Tickets in 2026
Politico: “Athletes and coaches are playing in some of the highest-profile races of the 2026 cycle, with control over Congress up for grabs in a year expected to favor Democrats.”
“In Georgia, former University of Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley is hoping to capitalize on his athletic experience — and his father’s football fame in Athens — to break through in a competitive Republican primary and unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. Former NFL kicker Jay Feely is running for Congress in Arizona. And former MLB star Mark Teixeira is a front-runner for Rep. Chip Roy’s open House seat in Texas.”
Bari Weiss Plans Overhaul of CBS News
“CBS News’ new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is planning to create a masthead for the broadcaster as part of a broader overhaul of standards and procedures,“ Axios reports.
“The masthead is meant to drive a more streamlined hierarchy and set of processes across show and news gathering teams that are intended to prevent disparate editorial procedures and standards.”
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House Republicans Aren’t Having Any Fun
Elaine Godfrey and Russell Berman: “Johnson’s own members, in the past month, have accused him of stretching if not wholly disregarding the truth, and his assertion last Wednesday that he has a firm grip on power was correct only in the most technical sense. On the day he uttered it, a group of Johnson’s most electorally vulnerable soldiers abandoned him to help Democrats force a vote on extending health-care subsidies, and a longtime lawmaker became the 25th House Republican—with many more expected to follow—to announce that he would not seek reelection next year.”
Said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY): “This place is disgraceful.”
“In the preceding weeks, a member of the speaker’s leadership team—Representative Elise Stefanik of New York—publicly denounced Johnson as ineffective (shortly before she announced that she was, for now, quitting politics altogether), and another high-profile (albeit perpetually aggrieved) Republican, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, pined, in the pages of The New York Times, for the sturdy hand of Nancy Pelosi.”
U.S. Moves Troops and Aircraft Into Caribbean
“The U.S. moved large numbers of special-operations aircraft, troops and equipment into the Caribbean area this week, giving Washington additional options for possible military action in Venezuela,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“President Trump has ramped up pressure on Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in recent days, ordering a blockade of oil tankers going in and out of the country. Trump has declared that the airspace around Venezuela should be considered closed and has refused to rule out airstrikes on the country.”
Inside ICE’s Media Machine
Washington Post: ““ICE’s public affairs arm has rapidly transformed into an influencer-style media machine, churning out flashy videos of tactical operations and immigration raids.”
“The internal communications reviewed by The Post show how the ICE team has coordinated with the White House, working to satisfy Trump aides’ demands to ‘flood the airwaves’”
“They also show federal officials mocking immigrants in crass terms and discussing video edits that might help legitimize the administration’s aggressive stance. The team also knowingly used copyright-protected music without permission from the rights holders.”
Harriet Hageman to Run for Senate
Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) is jumping into her state’s Senate race to replace departing Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Fox News reports.
Playbook: “Hageman, an attorney, has been a staunch MAGA figure in Washington since she successfully primaried then-Rep. Liz Cheney in 2022. She’ll be an early favorite in the race, and she quickly picked up support from Club for Growth PAC. But Wyoming Republicans’ musical chairs could yet have many rounds to go, as the state will have open races for Senate, governor and now House next year.l
Ben Sasse Says He Has Terminal Pancreatic Cancer
“Ben Sasse, a Republican former senator from Nebraska and a former president of the University of Florida, announced on Tuesday that he had received a diagnosis of terminal Stage 4 pancreatic cancer,” the New York Times reports.
Said Sasse: “Since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase. Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.”
Medicaid Paid Millions for Dead People
“Medicaid programs made more than $200 million in improper payments to health care providers between 2021 and 2022 for people who had already died,” the AP reports.
JD Vance Picks a Side
Noah Rothman: “Vance has made a choice here, and it’s a clarifying one. His allies are telling us straight that this is all about JD Vance — his political ambitions, his position as Donald Trump’s most likely successor, and, by extension, their own prospects when Trump is gone. Those voices claim that if you object to the rehabilitation of outright antisemitism on behalf of actual Nazis — not some tortured Democratic metaphor for fascism but the actual NSDAP circa 1920 to 1945 — you’re the paranoiac here.”
“Vance will pretend as though he is disinterestedly arbitrating a political dispute on the right, but he’s not. He has intervened in it on behalf of his allies and their revisionist historical project. If Vance’s contention is that the figures like Shapiro, who aren’t nobly attempting to talk sense to the talker class, are maliciously bifurcating the conservative movement and sowing division, the vice president’s implicit outlook is that interventions like Shapiro’s are the problem. That is an effort to shackle the interveners and arrest the rehabilitative process. Whatever else that is, it is not a neutral disposition.”
The Heritage Foundation Blows Up
From a Wall Street Journal editorial:
“Heritage once supported free trade; now it is protectionist. It once supported a robust American foreign policy; Heritage purged its defense hawks two years ago. Heritage was a supporter of the originalist judicial revolution and the rule of law; now it defends Mr. Trump’s expansion of executive power whether or not it has a constitutional basis…”
“Heritage abandoned its principles, it is losing its people, and soon there might not be much left to donate to.”
Why the DNC Really Killed the Autopsy Report
Charlie Cook: “Before Ken Martin decided to give the Epstein-file treatment to the autopsy report, those briefed on the study had described it as the product of over 300 interviews with Democrats in all 50 states. Martin’s lame explanation was to say, ‘Here’s our North Star: Does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.’”
“A more convincing explanation was that he intended to protect the egos and reputations of those who had made decisions that contributed to the party’s loss last year. Deep-sixing the report will hardly ingratiate the party’s donors, many of whom were already skeptical of Martin and opposed his election to chair the party from the beginning.”
Trump’s Vanity Fleet
Tom Nichols: “Imagine the CEO of a car company telling his engineers and designers that he wants them to make a new line of automobiles. He knows nothing about cars and has no interest in how they’re produced, but he knows one thing for certain: The line will be named after himself. Everyone claps—because of course they do—but no one really knows what comes next, except that the line needs to look sexy and sporty.”
“That’s pretty much what the president did today when he announced that a new class of ship named after one Donald J. Trump would be added to the ‘Golden Fleet,’ his name for a renewed U.S. Navy.”
JD Vance Fails a Simple Moral Test
Franklin Foer: “On Sunday, J. D. Vance was presented with the simplest moral test: denounce commentators who traffic in medieval blood libels, who deny the Holocaust, and who endlessly harp on evil Jewish cabals.”
“The test was forced on the vice president. By the time he addressed the Turning Point USA conference this past weekend, it had turned into a referendum on latter-day Father Coughlins who have acquired substantial and growing audiences on the right. Among them is Candace Owens, whose YouTube channel has 5.7 million followers. She argues that there is a powerful, secret sect within Judaism practicing pedophilia. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson, who has 16.8 million followers on X, has shared his microphone with an unabashed fan of Adolf Hitler and with historians who minimize the Nazi dictator’s evil.”
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