Trump Team’s New Docs on Abrego Garcia Show How Little They Have

The Department of Justice re-released the same old evidence to support its straw-man argument for deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was removed to El Salvador last month despite having received a protective order against his removal there. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Wednesday night that the DOJ was releasing an “additional” batch of documents about Abrego Garcia, who the government has alleged was an active member of MS-13. But pretty much all the information contained within the documents was already public knowledge—and not damning in the slightest.  

The documents included a gang field interview work sheet, which described Abrego Garcia’s 2019 arrest for loitering outside of a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland. Officers said they had determined Abrego Garcia’s gang affiliation based on what he was wearing, including a hoodie officers said indicated “Hispanic gang culture” and a Chicago Bulls hat, which they said indicated that he was a “member in good standing” with MS-13. The worksheet alleged Abrego Garcia was a member of the “Western” clique, which is based in New York—a place he never even lived.

The worksheet also referred to a “past proven and reliable” source who had identified Abrego Garcia as a member of MS-13. However, The New Republic has confirmed that Ivan Mendez, the Maryland police officer who formally attested to Abrego Garcia’s supposed gang affiliation, was subsequently suspended for giving confidential information about a case to a sex worker. He then was indicted, pleaded guilty, and received probation. 

Earlier this month, Judge Stephanie Thacker of the U.S. Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit had already dismissed using the gang affiliation worksheet as evidence. “An unsupported—and then abandoned—assertion that Abrego Garcia was a member of a gang does not tip the scales in favor of removal in violation of the Administration’s own withholding order,” she wrote in an order.

“If the Government wanted to prove to the district court that Abrego Garcia was a ‘prominent’ member of MS-13, it has had ample opportunity to do so but has not—nor has it even bothered to try,” she wrote. 

Another document provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a “Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien,” falsely claimed that Abrego Garcia had been arrested “in connection to a murder investigation.” But Abrego Garcia’s gang worksheet clearly stated he had been arrested for loitering. 

The documents do not support White House press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s wild assertion that Abrego Garcia was “engaged in human trafficking.” The documents also disprove Vice President JD Vance’s claim that Abrego Garcia was a “convicted” member of MS-13, as they plainly stated he had no criminal record. They do not, as Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, claimed in a post on X, say he was found with drugs and “rolls of cash.” In fact, he was simply wearing a hoodie with a pattern of rolls of cash.

Despite having only thin evidence of Abrego Garcia’s gang affiliation, Bondi appeared on Fox News Wednesday night, where she called him a “terrorist” and alleged that he was “one of the top MS-13 members.” She demanded that journalists apologize to Donald Trump for referring to Abrego Garcia as a “Maryland man.”

The Trump administration is desperate to make the debate over Abrego Garcia’s return about his alleged gang affiliation—but that’s not the central issue of his deportation. Rather, Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported, after receiving a protective order from a U.S. judge, and denied due process in his removal to El Salvador. He was not afforded the opportunity to challenge his designation as a “foreign terrorist” or the location of his deportation. Then the Trump administration refused a direct order from a federal judge, which was then upheld by the Supreme Court, to “facilitate” his return, escalating one man’s removal to a full-on constitutional crisis. 

If the U.S. government can deny Abrego Garcia’s right to due process, they can deny it for anyone—and they are already making plans to broaden the scope of their removals to foreign prisons. U.S. citizens, “homegrowns” as the president has called them, will be next. 

Elon Musk could own yet another stake in the Department of Defense as Donald Trump moves to make his golden shield missile defense a reality.

The billionaire’s company, SpaceX, is a top contender to be awarded part of Trump’s “Golden Dome” defense project, a fantastical air defense system the president claims would protect the U.S. from intercontinental missile strikes. Known officially as the “Iron Dome for America,” the proposed project is modeled after Israel’s Iron Dome defense and would likely cost trillions.

SpaceX has partnered with new-right oligarch Peter Thiel’s defense start-up, Palantir, and Anduril, a drone company that’s raised more than $1.5 billion to build AI-powered weapons. The three companies are front-runners in a bid to build out the project together, Reuters reported Thursday.

Crucially, SpaceX’s role in the Golden Dome would be subscription-based, a way to avoid some Defense Department regulations and implement the system faster, Reuters reported. But it would mean that the government would pay to access SpaceX’s technology instead of owning it in full. That, in turn, could prevent the government from holding any control over the tech’s development or subscription cost.

The president has long warned that nuclear warfare is humanity’s most existential threat. During his first term, Trump called nuclear weapons “the biggest problem in the world,” and his warnings about “World War III” have only escalated since then. As he threatens to withdraw U.S. military defense from a number of allies, prompting dozens of countries to seriously consider embracing nuclear defense, Trump has simultaneously proposed to protect the U.S. with a literal air shield that experts say is “technically impossible.”

“We will replenish our military and build an Iron Dome missile defense system to ensure that no enemy can strike our homeland,” Trump promised at the Republican Party convention in August.

“Israel has an Iron Dome. They have a missile defense system,” he said. “Why should other countries have this, and we don’t?”

The proposal isn’t far off from Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which was designed to defend the U.S. from Soviet missiles but was never implemented. It’s known derisively as “Star Wars.”

In January, Trump issued an executive order requiring the Pentagon to come up with an initial blueprint for the Golden Shield by mid-April. The details of the plan are still murky, but SpaceX’s pitch to Pentagon officials involves building up to 1,000 satellites that would circle the globe to sense ominous missiles, sources told Reuters. If the missiles were determined a threat, they would be shot down by a separate fleet of 200 missiles. It’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

If Musk’s blueprint is approved, it would add billions more to his amassed $38 billion in government contracts across nine federal agencies, all while he continues to slash federal funding and Social Security through the Department of Government Efficiency.

Donald Trump is threatening to take away Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students after the institution refused to agree to his demands.

The White House is demanding that the university change its hiring, admissions, and education practices, ostensibly to oppose antisemitism, and has already pulled $2.2 billion in federal funding. Now Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has asked for records on the “illegal and violent” activities of its foreign student visa holders, saying that Harvard will lose the “privilege of enrolling foreign students” if it doesn’t comply.

Harvard President Alan Garber said Monday in response to administration demands that the “university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” Trump denigrated the university in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, saying that “Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges.”

“Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds,” Trump posted.

The loss of international students would be a big blow to America’s oldest university. This year, 27 percent of its enrollment came from foreign students. Trump has already threatened to pull Harvard’s tax-exempt status, an unprecedented move that could cost the university millions. But Harvard’s decision not to give in to Trump comes after other institutions, such as Columbia University, gave in to administration demands and were still penalized.

The president, backed by much of the conservative movement, is trying to destroy academic freedom and take control of America’s institutions of higher education. If Harvard continues its opposition, this battle could become a war in the courts, with other universities also taking legal action. The question is who will stand up to Trump, and who will capitulate.

Donald Trump isn’t too happy after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the president’s tariff policy would cause more inflation and slow growth.

In a post on Truth Social Thursday morning, Trump furiously blamed Powell for not lowering interest rates. The European Central Bank had announced just a few hours earlier that it would make yet another round of cuts to offset Trump’s tariffs, which have roiled the markets and deteriorated the outlook for growth.

“The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, ‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete ‘mess!’” Trump wrote.  

“Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS. Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now,” Trump added. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

In fact, egg prices have once again risen, ahead of Easter weekend, after falling in mid-March. Trump’s claim that the U.S. is getting “rich on tariffs” also deserves some scrutiny. While the president has claimed that the U.S. is raking in up to $2 billion a day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed this week that the number was more like $250 million.

At an event hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago Wednesday, Powell had warned that “the level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”

Trump had already been pushing for the Fed to cut interest rates ahead of announcing his sweeping “reciprocal tariff” policy earlier this month. 

Despite Trump’s latest call for his “termination,” Powell has already been clear that the president does not have the power to remove him. His term as Federal Reserve chair ends in May 2026. 

Donald Trump’s nominee to run the IRS, Representative Billy Long, just had a six-figure debt paid off by campaign donors, all of whom happen to have tax issues with the IRS.

Long reported in campaign finance disclosures that he loaned $130,000 to his unsuccessful 2022 campaign for the U.S. Senate, with the dormant campaign committee raising $36,000 in the past two years. This meant that Long would have been personally on the hook for more than $100,000.

Shortly after Trump announced Long as his pick to head the IRS, the committee was suddenly flush, taking in $137,000 in under three weeks in January, and Long used that to reimburse himself. Two-thirds of those donations were for $2,900, the maximum amount allowed by law, and one-third of them came from donors in the tax consultant industry or people with tax-related legal issues.

“Making political contributions to aid Billy Long seems like a surefire way to ingratiate yourself with the man poised to lead the IRS, especially when we’re talking about contributions to help repay campaign debt that is just loans to the candidate himself and contributions to his leadership PAC,” Michael Beckel, senior research director of the campaign finance reform organization Issue One, told Lever News.

“People often criticize campaign contributions for being legalized bribery, but in this case, we’re truly talking about money being given to Long to repay himself,” Beckel added.

Some of the contributors to Long’s campaign worked at firms accused of a fraudulent tax scheme in which they hawked fake tax credits, according to Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee. After leaving Congress in 2023, Long worked at one of the companies, Lifetime Advisors, and had dealings with some of the others, such as White River Energy.

“Given IRS Commissioner nominee Billy Long’s direct financial ties to White River and other entities implicated in this scheme, we are concerned that if confirmed, Long could undermine enforcement actions related to this fraudulent scheme,” Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Catherine Cortez Masto wrote in an April 14 letter to acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause.

Long’s confirmation is still awaiting a Senate vote, but unless Republicans in the chamber grow spines, he’ll probably sail through. Trump choosing him in the first place shows how corruption is now openly tolerated in the Republican Party, inspired by the activities of the top man himself.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is involved in Trump’s plan to have people buy their way to American citizenship.

As the Trump administration continues to blatantly ignore court orders and deport thousands of immigrants without justification, Musk’s crew of twentysomething goons is building out a special type of $5 million visa designed to give “high-level people” a “route to citizenship.”

Dubbed “gold cards” by Trump, the visas were first announced in February. Each card sells for $5 million and would replace the E.B.-5 visa program. DOGE is now working with the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to build out the project’s website and application process, The New York Times reported Wednesday. His team consists of Marko Elez (the 25-year-old with a history of racist X posts), 19-year-old Edward Coristine, who publicly goes by “Big Balls,” and the billionaire co-founder of Airbnb.

Elez and Coristine have been meeting with staff at different agencies in charge of the immigration vetting process to determine how to build out their system.

While much of MAGA has pushed to eradicate immigration of any kind, Musk has at times defended immigration—if those coming to the U.S. are college-educated, wealthy, and will comply with his mission to run the country like a private start-up.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has touted the “gold card” program and claimed the government has already made $5 billion off the scheme, even though it doesn’t exist yet.

“Yesterday I sold a thousand,” Lutnick said in a podcast interview last month.

“The idea is, if I was not American, and I lived in any other country, I would buy six—one for me, one for my wife, one for my four kids—because God forbid something happens, I want to be able to go to America, and I want to have the right to go to the airport to go to America,” Lutnick added, foreshadowing a not-so-distant reality where only the ultrawealthy can relocate to Trump’s America.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has revealed how much money has been generated from Donald Trump’s tariffs—and it’s not nearly as much as the president has claimed, NBC News reported Wednesday.

“Since April 5, CBP has collected over $500 million under the new reciprocal tariffs, contributing to more than $21 billion in total tariff revenue from 15 presidential trade actions implemented since Jan 20, 2025,” CBP said in a statement to CNBC Monday.

But that directly contradicts Trump’s claim that his tariffs are raking in a whopping $2 billion every day.

The real number is closer to $250 million per day, according to the CBP. The Treasury Department reported Monday that the day’s deposits listed under “Customs and Certain Excise Taxes” totaled $305 million.

Earlier this month, Trump announced sweeping a “reciprocal tariff” policy, imposing a blanket 10 percent tariff on products from nearly every country in the world. After the stock market tanked, Trump announced a three-month pause on imposing the tariffs, with an exception for China, on which he has levied a 145 percent tariff on everything but certain tech products.

In return, China has imposed its own 125 percent tariff on all U.S. goods, which is already hurting American farmers, who exported $1.6 billion worth of beef to China last year.

Trump has also imposed a 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, as well as a 25 percent tariff on imported cars and autoparts.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned Wednesday that Trump’s sweeping tariff policy would likely raise inflation, despite the president’s many promises to lower prices upon entering office.

El Salvador won’t let Senator Chris Van Hollen have any contact with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who is being unlawfully detained in a megaprison in the country.

Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador Wednesday in search of answers about Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts. The father of three was deported last month due to an “administrative error” by the Trump administration, which continues to claim Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, despite there being no evidence to prove it.

The Democratic senator from Maryland asked Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa if he could arrange a meeting with Abrego Garcia, he told reporters Wednesday.

“He said he was not able to make that happen,” Van Hollen said, adding that Ulloa gave him the same response when he asked if he could come back next week instead.

“So I asked if I could get on the phone, either video phone or phone, and talk to Mr. Abrego Garcia to see how he’s doing,” Van Hollen continued. Ulloa won’t let that happen either. Nor will he allow Abrego Garcia to speak with his family, for whom Van Hollen promised he would get answers.

The Trump administration is currently paying El Salvador $6 million to detain more than 200 immigrants in CECOT, a megaprison where people all but disappear once they’re locked up. The notorious institution is the centerpiece of President Nayib Bukele’s violent crackdown on crime, and can hold up to 40,000 inmates. CECOT inmates are shut out from the outside world—they’re not allowed visitors or phone calls with loved ones, nor are there any programs to help them integrate back into society upon release—a cruel but convenient place for Trump to send people he doesn’t want tracked down.

Last week, the Supreme Court ordered the White House to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, but Trump still hasn’t done anything to make that happen. And it seems like El Salvador won’t either, a scary indication of just how much the government is cozying up to Trump amid his mass deportation plans.

In a meeting with Trump on Monday, Bukele said he will not return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., nor will he release him in El Salvador, despite the Supreme Court’s orders. Van Hollen is the first Democrat to step up and demand Abrego Garcia’s release on Bukele’s home turf.

“The goal of this mission is to let the Trump administration, to let the government of El Salvador know that we are going to keep fighting to bring Abrego Garcia home,” he said, finally showing some long-awaited courage from the Democratic Party.

After Jerome Powell issued a warning about the economic consequences of tariffs Wednesday, the stock market fell, seeming to confirm his words.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down nearly 900 points, the S&P 500 fell over 150 points, and Nasdaq was down over 620 points as of this writing after the Federal Reserve chair’s remarks to the Economic Club of Chicago.

“The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth,” Powell said.

Trump’s tariffs have caused wild stock swings in the past few weeks as he seems to change his mind repeatedly on which countries are getting hit with which rates. The resulting uncertainty threatens to put the U.S. economy on a path of increased unemployment, rising inflation, and weak growth, which Powell warned is an unprecedented situation.

“These are very fundamental policy changes,” Powell said. “There isn’t a modern experience for how to think about this.”

Right now, in addition to a baseline 10 percent tariff on most U.S. imports, Trump has placed 25 percent tariffs on aluminum and steel as well as on Mexican and Canadian goods not covered by existing trade agreements. In addition, there is a 25 percent tariff on automobiles and a massive 145 percent tariff on all Chinese goods.

All of that threatens an economy that experts considered “historically strong” before Trump’s inauguration at the start of this year. Powell’s warnings Wednesday reflect how Trump changed that outlook in just three months, threatening a recession down the line. Sometime before that point, the president will demand interest rate cuts from Powell and the Fed, and how the chair will handle that remains to be seen.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned Wednesday that Donald Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariff policy would likely raise inflation, despite the president’s many promises to lower prices upon entering office.

“The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth,” Powell said during an event hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago.

Powell’s words stand in marked contrast to Trump’s. During a press conference with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele Monday, Trump claimed that he had “already solved inflation,” after the inflation rate had reached 2.4 percent in March, a six-month low.

“You know, if you look at the numbers, the numbers are incredible, actually. The stock market’s up,” Trump said. But that was only after he sent the stock market sinking with his announcement of blanket 10 percent tariffs on products from nearly every country in the world.

And that was in addition to the 25 percent tariffs he’d already announced on products from Canada and Mexico, as well as 25 percent tariffs on imported cars and autoparts. Not to mention his mounting trade war with China, which involved a 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods—with a temporary exception for electronics—that saddled the U.S. with a reciprocal 125 percent tariff on American exports to China.

When Trump announced a 90-day pause on his sweeping reciprocal tariffs, the stock market immediately shot back up, making millions for the president’s buddies at the expense of weakening the U.S. dollar and the U.S. Treasury market.

Powell warned that Trump’s economic policies were pushing the U.S. into uncharted territory. “There isn’t a modern experience for how to think about this,” Powell said Wednesday.

He added that the Federal Reserve might find itself “in the challenging scenario in which our dual-mandate goals are in tension,” referring to the central bank’s dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices.

Powell said that if both prices and unemployment increased to a certain point, then the Fed “would consider how far the economy is from each goal, and the potentially different time horizons over which those respective gaps would be anticipated to close.”