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Between his stolen valor accusations, an ethics probe into his business dealings, an alleged secret Islamic conversion, and domestic abuse allegations, Florida GOP Rep. Cory Mills was already drowning in a sea of scandal before revelations emerged that he now faces eviction from his luxury Washington, D.C., apartment after allegedly failing to pay $85,000 in rent.

Jill Savage, BlazeTV host of “Blaze News: The Mandate,” along with Blaze News senior politics editor Christopher Bedford and Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson dive into this latest controversy.

Mills’ monthly rent for his D.C. penthouse comes out to about “$21,000 a month,” while his Florida rental property costs approximately “$12,000” monthly.

“So we’re estimating here about $400,000 a year in rent,” says Jill.

To sustain such a cost, he would “have to be rather independently wealthy,” says Bedford.

According to financial disclosures, Mills has accumulated substantial wealth from co-founding defense contracting firms like Pacem Solutions International and Pacem Defense.

Jill points out, however, that Mills has publicly claimed at different times to have “divested” from his Pacem companies and also to have placed them into a “blind trust.” But when questioned about the specifics during a phone call with Blaze Media’s Return editor Peter Gietl, Mills dodged the question, claiming he couldn’t remember the details because it happened four years ago.

“You can’t tell me if you’re divested or in a blind trust for the business that you’re a part of that pays you all this money so you can afford a penthouse for $21,000?” she asks.

“Maybe that’s why he just forgot to pay his rent, you know? He just doesn’t remember the important things,” Peterson jokes, “but that doesn’t seem very likely. It seems more likely that something very fishy is going on here.”

Mills has claimed that his failure to pay rent is not due to financial inability but rather because “the online payment system is broken.”

“They don’t evict you from a penthouse over a technical glitch on their website,” scoffs Bedford. “I’ve never lived in a penthouse, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of service you’re paying for at that sort of incredible level.”

To hear more of the panel’s conversation about Cory Mills’ various scandals, watch the episode above.

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California generally and the Claremont Institute in particular have produced some of the most profound and revolutionary conservative thinkers of the last half-century.

And for a great many of them, it’s because they understood what’s at stake if we abandon our American identity.

This country is not a contradiction. It’s a nation of countless, extraordinary people across many generations, a land of profound ingenuity and tradition and beauty. But more importantly, it’s home.

And we’re lucky enough to have a few of them, like Michael Anton, now working in the administration with us.

Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams asked me to speak a little bit about statesmanship and, more to the point, about how to respond to some of the challenges our movement will need to confront in the years to come.

It’s an interesting question. And I think it’s useful to reflect on the state of the left in 2025 America.

Mamdani: A harrowing zeitgeist

On July 1, a 33-year-old communist running an insurgent campaign beat a multimillion-dollar establishment machine in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary.

I don’t want to harp on a municipal election, but there were two interesting threads that I wanted to highlight. The first is that it drives home how much the voters in each party have changed.

If our victory in 2024 was rooted in a broad, working- and middle-class coalition, Zohran Mamdani’s coalition is the inverse.

Look at his electoral performance, which the left is already talking about as a blueprint for future electoral success. The guy won high-income and college-educated New Yorkers — and especially both young and highly educated voters — but was weakest among black voters and those without a college degree. He did better in Bangladeshi areas of New York and worse in Chinese areas.

Mamdani’s strongest vote share was in New York’s gentrifying neighborhoods, like Ridgewood and Bushwick.

His victory was the product of a lot of young people who live reasonably comfortable lives but see that their elite degrees aren’t really delivering what they expected. And so their own prospects, with all the college debt, may not in fact be greater than those of their parents.

And I think in the results, we can start to see the future of the Democrats: as the party not of dispossession, but of elite disaffection.

RELATED: Exclusive: Vance on Mamdani: ‘Who the hell does he think that he is?’

Photo by Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The party of highly educated but downwardly mobile elites who compose a highly energetic activist base — one, critically, supplemented by carefully selected ethnic blocs carved out of the electorate, using identity politics as the knife.

That, by the way, explains all of Mamdani’s bizarre appeals to foreign politics intended to signal to one diaspora community or another in New York.

Why is a mayoral candidate in our nation’s biggest city whining about banning Bibi Netanyahu from visiting and threatening to arrest him if he tries? Or attacking Narendra Modi as a “war criminal”? Why is he talking about “globalizing the intifada”? What the hell does that even mean in Manhattan?

But what might seem like a contradiction makes sense if you peel back the onion a bit. Consider: a movement that rails against the billionaire class despite the fact that the billionaire class remains firmly in its corner. It idolizes foreign religions even as it rejects the teachings of those faiths. It rails against white people even as many of its funders and grassroots activists are privileged whites.

America in 2025 is more diverse than it has ever been. And yet the institutions that form culture are also weaker.

I was once comforted by these contradictions. How could privileged whites march around decrying white privilege? How could progressives pretend to love Muslims despite their cultural views on gender and sexuality?

But the answer is obvious, isn’t it? The radicals of the far left don’t need a unifying ideology of what they’re for, because they know very well what they’re against.

What unites Islamists, gender studies majors, socially liberal white urbanites, and Big Pharma lobbyists? It isn’t the ideas of Thomas Jefferson or even Karl Marx. It’s hatred. They hate the people in this room, they hate the president of the United States, and most of all, they hate the people who voted for him.

This is the animating principle of the American far left. It isn’t true of most of the people who vote for Democrats, of course. Most of them are good people, even if they’re misguided in their politics. But pay attention to what their leadership says outside glossy campaign ads or general election-tested messaging, and it’s obvious that this is what animates the modern Democratic Party.

FilippoBacci via iStock/Getty Images

Defining the modern left

The far left doesn’t care that Black Lives Matter led to a spike in violent crime in urban black neighborhoods, because it also led to anarchy in middle-class white neighborhoods.

The leftists don’t care that Islamism hates gays and subjugates women, because for now, it is a useful tool of death against Americans.

They don’t care that too many pharmaceutical companies are getting rich from experimental hormonal therapies, because it destroys the “gender binary” that has structured social relations between the genders for the whole of Western civilization.

They don’t care that deporting low-wage immigrants will raise the wages of the native-born, because they don’t mean to create higher living standards for those born and raised here — black, white, or any other skin color. They mean to replace them with people who will listen to their increasingly bizarre ethnic and religious appeals.

They are arsonists, and they will make common cause with anyone else willing to light the match. It’s why Mamdani himself is such an appealing instrument to the left. He captures so many of the movement’s apparent contradictions in a single human being: a guy who describes the Palestinian cause as “central” to his identity, yet holds views — abortion on demand and using taxpayer money to fund transgender surgeries for minors, for example — that would be incomprehensible on the streets of Gaza.

This politics doesn’t make sense as a positive political program. But it’s very effective at tearing down the things the left hates.

The right’s answer: Create

One task of statesmanship is to recognize what the left wishes to do to American society. But the most important thing is to be for something. And that’s the second thread I want to touch on today: If the left wishes to destroy, we must create.

The most obvious way to do that is to ensure that the people we serve have a better life in the country their grandparents built. This is why the president cares so much about tariffs — in a globalized economy, we must be willing to penalize those who would build outside our own nation.

And it’s why he worked so hard to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — if tariffs are the stick, then lower taxes and regulations are the carrots. We want to make it easy to save and invest in America, to build a business in America, and most of all to work a dignified job and earn the kind of wage that can support a family in comfort.

But this is not a purely material question, because we are not just producers and consumers. We are human beings, made in the image of God, who love our home not just because we earn a living here but because we discover our purpose and meaning here.

Every Western society has demographic problems. There is something about Western liberalism that is socially suicidal or parasitic — that tends to feed off a healthy host until there’s nothing left.

The radicals of the far left don’t need a unifying ideology of what they’re for, because they know very well what they’re against.

America in 2025 is more diverse than it has ever been. And yet the institutions that form culture are also weaker. We are confronted with a society that has less in common than ever and whose cultural leaders seem totally uninterested in fixing that.

Just four years ago, we had people promoting alternative national anthems at one of the few remaining national pastimes that transcend ethnic and cultural differences. Too many of our current crop of statesmen remain unable to break out of that moment, destined to erode the very thing that makes Americans put on a uniform and sacrifice their lives for something.

Part of the solution — the most important part of the solution — is to stop the bleeding. This is why President Trump’s immigration policies are so important. Social bonds form among people who have something in common. If you stop importing millions of foreigners, you allow social cohesion to form naturally.

But even so: If you were to ask yourself in 2025 what an American is, very few of our leaders would have a good answer. Is it purely agreement with the creedal principles of America?

That definition is overinclusive and underinclusive. It would include hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of foreigners. Must we admit them tomorrow? But at the same time, that answer would also reject a lot of people the Anti-Defamation League would label domestic extremists, even though their own ancestors were here at the time of the Revolutionary War.

welcomia via iStock/Getty Images

What American citizenship means

So perhaps the most pressing thing to build now is the meaning of American citizenship in the 21st century.

The right needs to do a better job of articulating what that means. And while I don’t have a comprehensive answer for you, there are a few things I’d suggest off the top of my head.

For one, it means sovereignty. More precisely, American citizenship must mean belonging to a nation that guards the sovereignty of its people, especially from a modern world that’s hell-bent on dissolving borders and differences in national character.

That means having a government that vigorously defends the basic qualities of sovereignty — that secures the border from foreign invasion; that protects its citizens and their enterprises against unfair foreign tax schemes; that erects tariff walls and similar barriers to protect its people’s industry; that avoids needlessly entangling them in prolonged, distant wars.

It also means preserving the basic legal privileges of citizenship — things like voting, including in state and local elections, or access to public benefits like certain state-run health care programs — for citizens. When states start handing these out to illegal aliens, they cheapen the very meaning of citizenship. And a nation that refuses to make that distinction won’t stay a nation for very long.

I’d also say that citizenship in the 21st century necessarily means building.

America is not just an idea. We’re a particular place, with a particular people and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.

Our ancestors realized that to carve a successful nation from a new land meant creating new, tangible things. New homes, new towns, new infrastructure to tame a wild continent. That attitude enabled us to build the world’s greatest cities, its tallest skyscrapers, the most impressive dams and canals.

Over time, it expanded the horizons of what we even thought possible as human beings, with Americans taking our species into the air and, just a generation later, into Earth’s orbit. Our innovations revolutionized communications, medicine, and agriculture, extending human life spans decades at a time.

None of that would be possible if our citizens believed we lived in a postindustrial era. Or an era when our finest minds just went to what are essentially speculative trades or to writing software that makes us more efficient consumers.

We need to build. We need to make great things here, for the betterment of our fellow Americans but also for our posterity. We need to continue to invent groundbreaking innovations and to leave homes and libraries and factories that our descendants will look at someday and feel awe.

This country is not a contradiction. It’s a nation of countless extraordinary people across many generations, a land of profound ingenuity and tradition and beauty.

And we need to build together. Getting to the moon required a lot of brilliant scientists working on what were effectively pocket calculators. But it also required a national system of education that produced that level of genius and inspired young graduates to want to design new rockets on behalf of their nation. And it required a ton of phenomenally talented engineers and welders and custodians to manufacture cutting-edge engines and keep the facilities that housed them spotless. It was a national project in the truest sense of the phrase.

To be a citizen in the 21st century, I think, should mean seeking out similar projects. Citizenship should mean feeling pride in our heritage, of course. But it should also mean understanding milestones like the moon landings not only as the product of past national greatness but as an achievement we should surpass by aligning the goals and ambitions of Americans at all levels of society.

Lastly, I’d say citizenship must mean recognizing the unique relationship, and especially the unique obligations, you share with your fellow Americans.

You cannot swap 10 million people from anywhere else in the world and expect America to remain unchanged. In the same way, you can’t export our Constitution to a random country and expect it to take hold.

That’s not something to lament but to take pride in. The founders understood that our shared qualities — our heritage, our values, our manners and customs — confer a special and indispensable advantage. A decisive one, even, in rebellion against the world’s greatest military power at the time.

That means something today. Citizenship — true citizenship — is not just about rights. In a world of globalized commerce and communication, it’s also about obligations, including to your countrymen. It’s about recognizing that your fellow citizens are not interchangeable cogs in the global economy, nor, in law or commerce, should they be treated that way.

And I think it’s impossible to feel a sense of obligation to something without having gratitude for it. We should demand that our people, whether first- or 10th-generation Americans, have gratitude for this country. We should be skeptical of anyone who lacks it, especially if they purport to lead it.

And that brings me back to the likely next mayor of New York. Today is July 5, 2025, which means that yesterday we celebrated the 249th anniversary of the birth of our nation.

The person who wishes to lead our largest city had, according to media reports, never once publicly mentioned America’s Independence Day in earnest. But when he did so this year, this is what he said.

America is beautiful, contradictory, unfinished. I am proud of our country even as we constantly strive to make it better.

There is no gratitude here. No sense of owing something to this land and the people who turned its wilderness into the most powerful nation in the world.

Zohran Mamdani’s father fled Uganda when the tyrant Idi Amin decided to ethnically cleanse his nation’s Indian population. Mamdani’s family fled violent racial hatred only for him to come to this country — a country built by people he never knew, overflowing with generosity to his family, offering a haven from the kind of violent ethnic conflict that is commonplace in world history.

And he dares, on its 249th birthday, to congratulate it by paying homage to its incompleteness and to its, as he calls it, “contradiction.” Has he ever read the letters from boy soldiers in the Union Army to parents and sweethearts they’d never see again? Has he ever visited a gravesite of a loved one who gave his life to build the kind of society where his family could escape theft and violence? Has he ever looked in the mirror and recognized that he might not be alive were it not for the generosity of a country he dares to insult on its most sacred day?

Who the hell do these people think they are?

Photo by Unsplash

Make America Great Again

Yesterday, I visited the construction site for the Teddy Roosevelt presidential library. We went hiking in the badlands of North Dakota. My 5-year-old so desperately wanted to see a buffalo, and he saw a dozen of them. My 8-year-old spotted a bald eagle perched on a low cliff. And my 3-year-old brought me a dandelion.

Her little lungs weren’t strong enough to send the dandelion seeds over the hillside, so she asked me to do it. Watching her face light up as she watched those seeds blow over the hills, I felt a profound sense of gratitude for this country. For its natural beauty, the settlers who carved a civilization out of the wilderness. For making the love story of that little girl’s mother and father possible. For the common yet profound joy of watching a 3-year-old’s beautiful eyes light up as she watches a dandelion’s seeds dance in the wind against an ancient rock formation.

This country is not a contradiction. It’s a nation of countless extraordinary people across many generations, a land of profound ingenuity and tradition and beauty. But more importantly, it’s home. For the vast bulk of Americans, it’s where we’re born, it’s where we will raise our children and grandchildren, and it’s where we ourselves will one day be buried. And when that day comes, I hope my kids can take solace in knowing that their inheritance as Americans is not some unfinished or contradictory project, but a home that provided their parents shelter, and sustenance, and endless amounts of love.

Thank you, and God bless you.

Editor’s note: This article was adapted from JD Vance’s address to the Claremont Institute on July 5, 2025, and published originally at the American Mind.

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Recognizing that both parties remain fundamentally aligned but are presently speaking at cross-purposes, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has endeavored to “translate” the concerns of both President Donald Trump, with whom he has recently been in contact, and the MAGA base about the Epstein controversy.

The Justice Department and the FBI prompted significant backlash from the MAGA base by concluding earlier this month that agents had no evidence that child sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein kept a client list, blackmailed powerful elites, or was murdered.

Trump — justifiably sensitive to leftist efforts to undermine his agenda after multiple witch hunts and imprisonment efforts, two bogus impeachments, numerous betrayals, and two known assassination attempts — has criticized supporters’ persistent demands for answers about the matter, suggesting in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that Democrats’ “new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bulls**t,’ hook, line, and sinker.”

“They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years,” continued the president. “I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax. Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats [sic] work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”

The president told reporters hours later in the Oval Office that “instead of talking about the things we’ve achieved — we’ve had tremendous achievement — they’re wasting their time with a guy who obviously had some very serious problems who died three, four years ago. I’d rather talk about the success we have with the economy, the best we’ve ever had, and all of the things we’ve done.”

Trump noted further that those raising concerns about the Epstein list are “stupid people” unwittingly aiding the Democrats.

RELATED: Charlie Kirk outlines ’10 immediate credible action items’ Pam Bondi can take on Epstein case

Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images

On Wednesday, Charlie Kirk — whom Trump reportedly called over the weekend to express support for Attorney General Pam Bondi — worked to unpack the president’s anger regarding the renewed push for DOJ disclosures about Epstein, noting that Trump is, in part, “venting” because the public appears fixated on “a guy who has been dead for six years” instead of his incredible accomplishments over the past six months.

Kirk said:

Energy prices are going down. The border is hermetically sealed. He passed the big, beautiful bill despite a three-seat majority in the House of Representatives. He’s embarking on mass deportations. He ended a war between Israel and Iran. He took out the Iranian nuclear facilities. He ended the India-Pakistan war. He ended the Congo-Rwandan war just in his spare time. He is going after DEI. He is reducing the federal workforce. He has the biggest welfare reform in American history.

Kirk further suggested that Trump’s frustration, manifest in the Wednesday post on Truth Social, should not be taken personally.

The TPUSA founder speculated that Trump was largely “pushing back on what he thinks is a misaligned press narrative from what he wants to see as celebration of all the victories over the past six months.”

RELATED: Why MAGA wants the Epstein list — and won’t settle for less

Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images

Kirk suggested that Trump’s response is also informed by experiences in his first term — of losing Cabinet members, of distracting witch hunts, and turncoats — as well as his understanding that much of the documentation concerning Epstein was produced under former FBI Director James Comey and other antipathetic characters.

‘We’re worried the deep state will derail Trump.’

“He saw that his presidency in 2017 was largely taken from him in Trump 1.0 because a lot of people jumped aboard the [Robert] Mueller bandwagon,” said Kirk, “and with that, he kind of saw so much of his momentum that he had from the election thwarted. When people demand that he fires Pam Bondi, he hears people demanding that he explode his admin, just like what happened in the first term.”

— (@)

While appreciative of Trump’s suspicion, Kirk stressed that the MAGA base does “not care about the story as a way to hurt Donald Trump. In fact, it’s the opposite. We love President Trump. We love what he’s doing.”

More importantly, MAGA wants answers about Epstein because a failure to take action now might leave the greatest threats to the president in play.

“We are caring about the Epstein story because we are afraid that if we do not lance the intelligence community bull that tried to murder him on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania; that tried to take him out with Russia, Russia, Russia; and that very same deep-state actor that spied on him and leaked the phone call of him between Zelenskyy that resulted in his first impeachment — we’re worried the deep state will derail Trump,” said Kirk. “We look at the Epstein story as a skeleton key to be able to look under the hood, dismantle and deconstruct the administrative state to protect Donald Trump from his adversaries.”

“The base cares about this because they have [Trump’s] best interests at heart,” added Kirk.

The TPUSA founder noted further that the base has an appetite for answers because Trump made the answers seem possible: “President Donald Trump taught us to drain the swamp. President Donald Trump taught us to want to go after the deep state. So I actually think we are all agreeing on this.”

Kirk later summarized on X:

People are talking about Epstein because they LOVE Trump. We are fearful the same people who tried to kill Trump, impeach him, and throw him in prison were behind Epstein. Epstein represents a symbol of an out of control shadow government, and this is a chance to bring it to heel.

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Maurene Comey, longtime prosecutor and the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, was fired from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.

Comey had been involved in the prosecutions of Sean “Diddy” Combs, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and his trafficking associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

She had worked at the prosecutor’s office for nearly a decade.

The reason for her termination was not immediately clear, according to a Politico report, and she did not respond to requests for a comment.

Comey’s title at the department was senior trial counsel. She had worked at the prosecutor’s office for nearly a decade.

Politico said her termination was confirmed by two people who were granted anonymity.

President Donald Trump excoriated James Comey most recently after he was investigated over a seashell message he claimed to have found on the beach that many saw as a threat against the life of the president. Comey said he did not realize the numbers “8647” could be taken as a death threat.

Maurene Comey was a part of the eight-attorney team in the case against rapper Sean Combs, which ended with mixed results. He was able to escape the most serious charges, though a jury found him guilty of two lesser charges.

RELATED: Trump rips into Comey over seashell message: ‘He knew exactly what he was doing!’

The Associated Press also confirmed the story.

James Comey was abruptly fired from the FBI in 2017 during Trump’s first term.

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Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, told Blaze News that a male was suspected of having committed a string of crimes Monday morning.

Police said Michael Salas broke into a home, led police on a car chase, and then fled on foot before arriving at an apartment on the southeast side of the city, KRQE-TV reported.

‘Please don’t touch me. Please get out of my house.’

Suddenly, Salas barged into the unit — and encountered wheelchair-bound Anthony Nichogi, who was in the residence with his young son, the station said.

Nichogi’s wife had left the front door unlocked when she departed, KRQE said, adding that Salas burst inside only a minute later.

“I was in fear for my life and my son,” Nichogi told the station, adding that Salas “reached for me, and I told him, ‘Please don’t touch me. Please get out of my house.'”

KRQE said Salas has a long rap sheet full of burglary arrests and convictions.

RELATED: Shocking video: Boys, just 7 and 9 years old, wrestle for loaded gun — and 1 points it at deputies during tense standoff

Michael Salas. Image source: Metropolitan Detention Center, Bernalillo Co., N.M.

Burglaries are nothing new for Nichogi, who told the station his neighborhood has suffered many of them — and he was prepared: “You know, I have video footage of all the five years’ worth of incidents, and I’m expecting it.”

Nichogi repeatedly told Salas to get out, KRQE said, adding that he soon motored on his electric wheelchair to the bedroom to get mace.

But it wouldn’t be so easy.

“I turned my chair around, and as I went into the bedroom to go unlock it and retrieve it, he followed me into the bedroom,” Nichogi explained to the station.

With that, Nichogi opted for a more powerful means of self-defense. He instead grabbed his gun, KRQE said.

And that wasn’t all.

Describing what happened next as a rush of adrenaline, Nichogi told the station he performed a rare physical feat: He got up from his wheelchair and commanded Salas to leave.

Indeed, video shows a clearly unnerved Salas putting up his hands and retreating to the front door as Nichogi points a gun at him and walks after him, even following Salas out of the apartment.

“I never expected to have to defend my home like that,” Nichogi added to KRQE. “This is a first for me.”

The medical condition that necessitates his wheelchair use is not clear.

RELATED: ‘The Left is completely out of control’: New Mexico GOP headquarters torched in ‘horrific attack’

Police told the station that officers had been following Salas after deploying a GPS dart on his car and then pursued him on foot.

Police added to KRQE that Salas was found on a roof next door and arrested.

According to jail information police provided to Blaze News, Salas on Wednesday remained incarcerated in Bernalillo County’s Metropolitan Detention Center on no bail. Salas, 40, was charged with aggravated burglary with a deadly weapon, burglary, reckless driving, and resisting, evading, or obstructing an officer. He also has a warrant for burglary from an automobile.

Police told KRQE that Salas had an accomplice with him — Christina Herrera — who is facing a residential burglary charge.

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Law enforcement officials showed their sense of humor when they appeared to use voice impersonation software to issue an order to anti-ICE protesters in the voice of President Donald Trump.

Protesters verbally abused the officers at the ICE facility in Portland and tried to disrupt operations by blocking driveways, which led to the humorous message made by loudspeaker.

‘Everyone must leave this restricted area and may be subject to detention or arrest for failing to depart the restricted area.’

Video of the incident was posted to social media by Katie Daviscourt of the Post Millennial.

“This the Federal Protective Service. The facility is closed and not open to the public,” the Trump-impersonating voice said.

“Stay out of the area in the driveway to allow for vehicular traffic. Remain on the sidewalk or across the street. Everyone must leave this restricted area and may be subject to detention or arrest for failing to depart the restricted area,” the voice added. “Thank you!”

The video shows that protesters were confused and angry about the use of the Trump impersonation.

The video then shows officers pushing and shoving protesters out of the driveway to allow for vehicular traffic.

“You are not following the law! You are not following the law when you follow illegal orders!” one protester yells.

At the end of the video, two female protesters threaten to punch the reporter.

RELATED: ICE facility in Portland under daily siege by Antifa militants as riots spread

The ICE facility has faced numerous acts of vandalism from anti-ICE protesters, including smashed windows, cut internet cables, broken sprinklers, burned flags, and assaults on federal officers. The left-leaning city council has sought legal means to shut down the facility rather than impose law and order.

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Conservatives have been questioning Biden’s mental fitness since before he got into office, and finally, publications like the New York Times are beginning to catch up.

“Even the New York Times was admitting that the legacy questions are striking a nerve with the former president,” BlazeTV host Jill Savage says on “Blaze News: The Mandate,” noting that Biden’s recent interview with the publication consisted of a 10-minute phone call.

“He was able to talk for 10 minutes. I think that in itself is impressive,” Savage adds.

Now, evidence shows that Biden staffers, not Biden himself, approved controversial pardons using an autopen. Over 4,200 pardons were issued during his term, and 96% happened in his final year — including the clemencies for Dr. Anthony Fauci and Gen. Mark Milley.

“I feel like every time we get a new information dump about the pardons, it’s just so much worse every time,” Savage says.

“The big picture here is the New York Times has to come out and deal with this now,” BlazeTV host Matthew Peterson chimes in. “Biden has to be trotted out to, you know, start rambling because he’s trying to save a legacy that is rapidly eroding in real time in front of the American people.”

“And this thing has legs. It’s not going to go away, because there are legal issues involved,” he continues.

“This is a good sign,” Savage agrees, “because now you have the New York Times covering autopen and going deep into this. This means that this is going to be a story that sticks around.”

“Even if you were a leftist who didn’t want to believe it for a very long time,” she adds.

Blaze Media D.C. correspondent Christopher Bedford has a slightly different theory.

“This investigative journalism is coming from inside the White House. It’s coming from team Biden, and they’re trying to get out ahead because this is their favorite thing,” he explains.

“First they say you’re a conspiracy theorist and it’s not happening. Then they say it happened, but it’s old and it doesn’t matter. Then there’s no point where they say, ‘All right, that was really bad, unconstitutional, and completely insane,’” he continues.

“It’s either, ‘This is a right-wing conspiracy. It’s not happening.’ ‘Fine, it happened. It didn’t matter.’ And that’s the stage that they’re moving on to now,” he adds.

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In a blatant display of government overreach, California’s police departments deployed drones to spy on patriotic Americans celebrating the Fourth of July with fireworks, only to send fines through the mail without even facing citizens directly.

The drones, which are part of a new enforcement plan, were used to catch those shooting off illegal fireworks.

In Riverside, California, police say they issued over 60 citations for the use of illegal fireworks, which is more than double the number of citations issued last year during the Fourth of July festivities.

Property owners who are being accused of allowing the use of illegal fireworks on their property face $1,500 in fines.

“We’re in a rightful place in the sky. It’s no different than when we have our police helicopter. We have two brand-new or newer police helicopters that go patrol, and they’re looking for things to help support the officers on the ground,” Riverside police officer Ryan Railsback told CBS News Los Angeles.

“You can’t tell who it is,” BlazeTV host Pat Gray says, criticizing the quality of the drone shots on “Pat Gray Unleashed.”

“There’s no way you could prove that the people you charge were the people responsible from the drone 400 feet in the sky,” he continues, adding, “$1,500, that’s a serious fine. That’s worth fighting.”

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A tense Wednesday congressional hearing exposed how nongovernmental organizations contributed to the Biden administration’s immigration crisis, profiting off of American taxpayers and fueling an invasion that led to trafficking and exploitation.

The Committee on Homeland Security’s hearing, “An Inside Job: How NGOs Facilitated the Biden Border Crisis,” was a part of “a years-long investigation by the committee into whether NGOs used taxpayer dollars to facilitate illegal activity during the Biden-Harris administration.”

‘What was allowed to happen to these children is truly one of the largest humanitarian crises of our lifetime.’

Blaze Media national correspondent Julio Rosas, Oversight Project president and Blaze News contributor Mike Howell, and GUARD Against Trafficking president and co-founder Ali Hopper provided their testimony to lawmakers, highlighting the horrors of child trafficking and detailing how NGOs’ well-funded services incentivized widespread illegal immigration.

— (@)

Tension escalated almost immediately during the hearing, as Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) interrupted Howell’s testimony, calling for a recorded vote to deem the witness’ statements irrelevant to the hearing’s topic.

While the Republican majority voted to allow Howell to proceed, the hearing was frequently interrupted and slowed down by the Democratic minority initiating unscheduled procedural votes. They subsequently accused the chairman of breaking the rules when these votes prompted him to repeatedly suspend the hearing temporarily to give lawmakers time to return to the chamber to cast their votes.

Rosas stated during his opening testimony, “Ultimately, the goal of these NGOs was to get people to their desired destination within the United States and help them settle in, even though their legal status was far from being secured.”

“By having this guaranteed help once they reached U.S. soil, illegal aliens had greater incentive to put their lives in danger by traversing through the Darien Gap and cartel-controlled territory in Mexico,” he continued. “One shelter in El Paso told me in 2023 around 80% of the women who came to them had been raped, many times in front of their children. This highlights that despite the NGOs having the stated goal of helping these people, their ‘help’ ends up harming the people who used their services. Yes, they made it to the U.S., but at what cost?”

RELATED: Nonprofits aided the invasion — now they obstruct deportation

Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.). Image Source: Homeland Security Committee

Several Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), took issue with Rosas mentioning a well-known Catholic organization as one of the many NGOs that used taxpayer funds to facilitate illegal immigration.

Correa told Rosas to “be careful” with his testimony, stating, “I’m a Catholic. I’m kind of disappointed in that.”

“Why?” Rosas asked.

Correa replied that the group does “good work.”

— (@)

Howell highlighted how the same NGOs that aided the previous administration’s border crisis are now attempting to hinder President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts.

Howell said in a statement to Blaze News before the hearing, “The Biden administration funneled billions of dollars through nonprofits and contractors for the sole purpose of facilitating the invasion into the United States. Now many of those same actors are on the forefront of the resistance to the lawful consequence of illegal immigration: deportation.”

“As the Democratic Party continues to promote violence and illegal resistance to lawful enforcement, it is critically important that consequences are imposed,” Howell said. “Congress has a role in conducting oversight of the money that was spent on their behalf for these purposes. These organizations should continue to be subject to intense scrutiny for their indispensable role in one of the darkest chapters in American history.”

RELATED: ‘They’re not organic. They’re funded by NGOs.’ Rooftop Korean Tony Moon reveals truth about ICE riots to Glenn Beck

Oversight Project president and Blaze News contributor Mike Howell. Image Source: Homeland Security Committee

Hopper informed Blaze News that she intended to bring attention to “the heartbreaking details of the crisis and exploitation that occurred to unaccompanied alien children (UACs) under the disastrous policies of the Biden-Harris administration.”

“Through our direct interviews with unaccompanied alien children (UACs), incarcerated human traffickers, cartel members, and whistleblowers, I’m going to provide specific details of the horrors these children experienced throughout the smuggling and trafficking process,” Hopper said. “I will highlight the role NGOs played — how they became the middleman in a humanitarian pipeline of children that was exploited by cartels and obscured by federal contracts.”

“What was allowed to happen to these children is truly one of the largest humanitarian crises of our lifetime,” Hopper stated.

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​News, Julio rosas, Illegal immigration crisis, Illegal immigration, Immigration crisis, Immigration, Deportations, Non-governmental organizations, Nongovernmental organizations, Ngo, Ngos, Mike howell, Ali hopper, Politics 

President Donald Trump said the Coca-Cola company has agreed to start using real cane sugar in its soda after he persuaded them on the issue.

The president made the announcement on his social media account on Wednesday. Many praised the decision and said they preferred the taste of cane sugar in Coca-Cola.

‘This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!’

“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. l’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola,” the president wrote.

“This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!” he added.

Coca-Cola has used high-fructose corn syrup for soda produced in the U.S. since the 1980s, due to concerns about agricultural requirements and cost, according to the New York Post.

Nutrition scientists say cane sugar is not chemically different from corn syrup, despite some claiming that the move has to do with the “Make America Healthy Again” movement.

RELATED: Pastors sue Coca-Cola: The black community is ‘losing more people to sweets than the streets

Some Democrats, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, accused the president of trying to distract from the controversy over the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The president is such a fan of Diet Coke that he installed a button on the famous Resolute Desk in the Oval Office specifically dedicated to providing him with Diet Coke at one press.

In celebration of the president’s second inauguration in 2025, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey presented Trump with a limited-edition commemorative inaugural Diet Coke bottle.

The Coca-Cola Company has a market capitalization value of nearly $300 billion.

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A Louisiana pastor said he was fired from the East Baton Rouge Parish Library after he refused to use a woman’s preferred pronouns.

Pastor Luke Ash said he was fired over a conversation on July 7 after working as a technician at the library for less than six months. Ash is the lead pastor of Stevendale Baptist Church in Baton Rouge.

‘That co-worker corrected me, said that the person she was training preferred to be called ‘he,’ and I refused to use those preferred pronouns.’

Ash described the events in an interview with Tony Perkins on his show, “Washington Watch.”

“I was in a conversation with a co-worker about someone that she was training, and I did not use preferred pronouns in that conversation,” Ash said.

“That co-worker corrected me, said that the person she was training preferred to be called ‘he,’ and I refused to use those preferred pronouns,” he continued. “The next day, I was reprimanded by my supervisor and the head of reference, and Thursday morning, I was fired.”

He said they gave him the option to use the person’s incorrect biological pronouns but that he refused.

“I am not going to lie,” Ash said. “I cannot do it.”

He went on to admit that he knew he was in violation of the library’s code of conduct but that he was asserting his religious convictions.

“I believe that there are … religious convictions and then there are other kinds of convictions, and when those things are in contradiction with one another, there has to be given preference to one or the other,” he said to WBRZ-TV.

“I refuse to say anything that is not true, because of my religious convictions,” he added.

RELATED: Teacher fired for refusing to use student’s preferred pronouns secures religious freedom victory

Forum for Equality board member Logan Wolf told WBRZ that using someone’s preferred pronouns was simple decency and accused Ash of inventing his grievance.

“He’s doing this because he wants to be aggrieved, instead of actually being aggrieved, and it’s just not right,” Wolf said.

The pastor said he is considering his next step in the case.

Blaze News has reached out to several officials at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library for comment, but none responded by time of publishing.

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​Pastor fired for pronouns, Preferred pronoun misuse, Misgendering firing, Pastor luke ash, Politics 

China’s state-run digital identification system will protect internet users from online companies, fraudsters, and criminals that wish to access their information. Instead, it will give it all to the government.

China has already implemented a “real-name registration” system for the better part of a decade that allows companies to know exactly who is shopping, playing video games, or commenting on their platforms.

Now, the communist government is looking to completely invert that system and is claiming it wants to give the power of privacy back to the citizen.

‘Truly feel “security is within reach” while enjoying convenience.’

The National Online Identity Authentication app is to “protect the information security of citizens,” the government says, and what better way to do that than hand over all of one’s data to the CCP in one convenient place.

In order to apply for the unique internet identification number — essentially a username made up of letters and numbers — Chinese nationals will need to provide a trove of documents.

According to the Library of Congress, this includes resident ID cards, passport (if residing overseas), travel passes, and/or permanent resident ID cards for foreigners. The Washington Post reported that registration also includes a face scan.

In exchange, the users will get their own login credentials and a “network identity authentication certificate that carries the network number and non-clear-text identity information of a natural person.”

Chinese companies will be forced to comply too.

RELATED: Chinese nationals on student visas allegedly ripped off elderly Americans in nasty scheme

The Chinese government explained that while the new online ID remains voluntary, any internet service provider or website may not request real user information (unless required by law) from those using the government-issued credentials.

Service providers must also ensure that users who use the authentication method have the same level of access to services as those who use their real names.

Therefore, when shopping online or visiting social media sites, companies will simply see a digital ID, making the user effectively anonymous to the online world, except for government assets.

China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua, described the new program as a “protective shield” that allows the masses to “truly feel ‘security is within reach’ while enjoying convenience.”

The Cyberspace Administration of China added that the ID system helps to “support the healthy and orderly development of the digital economy.”

RELATED: China’s 35 million incels face bleak future of state-run AI ‘romance’ — are American men next?

Photo by Cheng Xin/Getty Images

China’s “Great Firewall” already filters internet traffic coming into the country while simultaneously blocking certain content — such as Western social media sites, for example — from its populace.

According to Newsweek, a 2017 cybersecurity law required Chinese internet users to use their real names in order to access certain digital services, like e-commerce sites and video sharing platforms.

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A university has become the target of a federal investigation following an alarming pattern of potential national security threats.

In June, two Chinese scholars with ties to the University of Michigan were charged with attempting to smuggle a biological pathogen that could devastate crops into the United States. The suspects claimed they wanted to use the fungus, Fusarium graminearum, to conduct research at the university’s laboratory.

‘As the recipient of federal research funding, UM has both a moral and legal obligation to be completely transparent about its foreign partnerships.’

Interim U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon described the pathogens as a “potential agroterrorism weapon.”

One week later, federal authorities arrested another Chinese scholar with ties to the university on similar charges. The suspect was accused of mailing packages containing “biological material related to round worms” from Wuhan to the Michigan university.

The recent arrests appear to have prompted the Trump administration’s Department of Education to open an investigation into the University of Michigan for allegedly violating federal disclosure laws.

A Tuesday letter from Education Department officials to UM interim President Domenico Grasso claimed that the university provided “incomplete, inaccurate, and untimely” disclosures of foreign gifts and contracts related to Chinese research. The university disclosed $375 million since January 2021, and roughly $86 million, or over 20%, was allegedly provided in an untimely manner.

The letter further stated that the university “erroneously identified” the counterparty as “nongovernmental” in “many” of its disclosure reports.

RELATED: From Wuhan to Michigan: Feds nab ANOTHER Chinese scholar in alleged bio-material smuggling plot

Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

The Education Department Chief Investigative Counsel Paul Moore stated, “Despite the University of Michigan’s history of downplaying its vulnerabilities to malign foreign influence, recent reports reveal that UM’s research laboratories remain vulnerable to sabotage, including what the U.S. Department of Justice recently described in criminal charges as ‘potential agroterrorism’ by Chinese nationals affiliated with UM. As the recipient of federal research funding, UM has both a moral and legal obligation to be completely transparent about its foreign partnerships.”

“Unfortunately, tens of millions of dollars in foreign funding in UM’s disclosure reports have been reported in an untimely manner and appear to erroneously identify some of UM’s foreign funders as ‘nongovernmental entities,’ even though the foreign funders seem to be directly affiliated with foreign governments. [The Education Department’s Office of General Counsel] will vigorously investigate this matter to ensure that the American people know the true scope of foreign funding and influence on our campuses.”

RELATED: Agroterrorism plot? Chinese nationals arrested for smuggling potential bioweapon into US: FBI

Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

Colleen Mastony, UM’s assistant vice president for public affairs, told the Detroit News that it “is dedicated to advancing knowledge, solving challenging problems, and improving nearly every facet of the human experience. Our research enterprise is united in this commitment to serving the people of Michigan and the world.”

“The University of Michigan takes its responsibility to comply with the law extremely seriously, and we will cooperate fully with federal investigators. We strongly condemn any actions that seek to cause harm, threaten national security, or undermine the university’s critical public mission,” Mastony added.

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A Texas man who went to the media to denounce racist vandalism at his home was arrested by police for allegedly burning down the home and killing two people, including one of his relatives.

An unsealed federal indictment detailed the charges against Mario Raynard Roberson, who had blamed racial hatred for vandalism at his Huntsville home in 2023. Later, that home burned to the ground, leading many to blame racism and call for a federal investigation.

‘People are being terrible because of the hatred in their heart.’

That federal investigation has led to numerous charges against Roberson, including one that carries a sentence of life in prison.

Roberson went to the media when racist vandalism was spray-painted onto his home after a heated neighborhood association meeting where members voted to ban the use of homes as short-term rentals in May 2023. He claimed that someone at the meeting had threatened him.

“People are being terrible because of the hatred in their heart,” said Roberson at the time.

The graffiti read, “We don’t like your kind,” and ended with a racial epithet. Roberson, who was described as black in a KTRK-TV report, said he would not leave the neighborhood and would stand up to the alleged racism instead.

At the time Roberson also claimed that someone fired a gunshot at him through a window in his house, narrowly missing him.

‘Racism, power-hungriness, money has gotten us to this place.’

Only one month later in June, the home burned to the ground.

Two people were killed in the home, and a witness said that the witness had seen a man running out of the home while fully engulfed in flames before stripping his clothes and driving away.

Roberson again blamed racism.

“Racism, power-hungriness, money has gotten us to this place,” Roberson said to KTRK at the time.

That led to some organizations demanding that the Department of Justice investigate the incidents. In a June 2023 KRIV-TV report, a spokesperson from CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says that the group demanded that the FBI open an investigation into the matter as a possible hate crime.

RELATED: Democrat who blamed GOP and Trump for ‘Hinduphobic’ messages has been arrested by Texas Rangers for alleged race hoax

Roberson was arrested in Nov. 2023, as previously reported by Blaze News, after an investigation pointed to him as the arsonist.

On Thursday, a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas said that the man had been indicted on July 1 on 12 counts related to the fire.

Prosecutors said that Roberson hired three men, one of whom was a relative, to commit the arson so that he could make an insurance claim on his property with State Farm Insurance. However, something went wrong, and two of the three alleged arsonists died in the flames, prosecutors believe.

According to KTRK, police found the man who had driven away from the house fire after he crashed his truck into a ditch. Police body-camera video obtained by the station showed that he told police he was brought out for an insurance scam.

“I’m telling you. I’m from Houston. This dude, he told me to bring him out here to Huntsville,” the man reportedly said. “He said somebody wants to do a numbers job on a house.”

Police said a “numbers job” refers to insurance scams.

“Whoever is doing it, he knows the man with the house,” said the man. “A numbers job or something. That’s all I know.”

Roberson denied the claims, but KTRK said it also found several civil lawsuits against him, mostly related to money.

The most serious charge Roberson faces is conspiracy to commit arson against a property used in interstate or foreign commerce resulting in death, which carries a sentence of life in prison.

RELATED: Biracial woman said four white males lit her on fire in racist attack — prosecutors found no evidence that it happened

Roberson also faces charges ranging from wire fraud to conspiracy to commit arson and conspiracy to violate the Travel Act.

“The defendant is alleged to have orchestrated a scheme to collect an insurance payout through a purported racially motivated arson, which led to two deaths,” said U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei. “Now that he is in federal custody, he will answer these charges and, if found guilty, be held accountable for the death of these two men.”

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​Black racial hoax, Race hoax huntsville, Mario roberson hoax, Cair race hoax, Politics, Crime 

Not only were 361 illegal immigrants arrested during an ICE raid at a Ventura County California cannabis farm, but 14 children were rescued from potential forced labor, exploitation, and trafficking.

Ten of the children were unaccompanied.

The raid is believed to be one of the largest in ICE history — and, of course, the left is up in arms over the result — claiming they were all just here for a better life.

“And of the 361 illegals arrested, you know, all these people here in search of a better life, it’s just women and children coming in for a better life. It’s just strange because there were some convicted of rape, kidnapping, child molestation, serial burglary, DUIs, hit-and-runs,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“It really is incredible,” she continues. “We’ve disenfranchised minorities. We’ve disenfranchised the actual citizens here, the black community, the Hispanic community. I guess we’ll just try to bring in the illegals so that we can have some form of slavery here.”

“You guys really seem to love your slave labor,” she adds.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is among those on the left rendered furious after the massive raid, using a video of Vice President JD Vance at Disney with his family to illustrate his feelings on the matter.

“JD is back in California. He won’t take the time to debate and defend gutting our Medicaid system, taking away kids’ school meals, militarizing America’s streets, or adding trillions to the debt. Instead, he’s off to Disneyland. Probably to detain Mickey Mouse at this rate,” Newsom wrote in a post on X.

Vance responded, “Had a great time, thanks.”

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Former first lady Jill Biden’s senior adviser, Anthony Bernal, appears desperate to avoid questions under oath about the former president’s cognitive decline while in office, its cover-up, and its alleged exploitation behind the scenes.

Bernal was originally supposed to appear for a voluntary transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee on June 26 but bailed after learning that President Donald Trump was taking a page out of his predecessor’s book and waiving executive privilege for the investigation, meaning Bernal would be required to provide lawmakers with “unrestricted testimony.”

Bernal — characterized as one of the most influential people in the Biden White House and a key member of Biden’s so-called politburo in CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson’s new book, “Original Sin” — was subsequently met with a subpoena compelling his testimony before the committee.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee, emphasized in the letter accompanying the subpoena his desire to know whether Bernal “contributed to an effort to hide former President Biden’s fitness to serve from the American people.”

Bernal had been, after all, in a prime position to conceal and possibly exploit Biden’s decrepitude.

Former Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg told an undercover Project Veritas reporter earlier this year that “Jill Biden’s chief of staff had an enormous amount of power” in the White House.

RELATED: Biden tried defending autopen use to the New York Times. He made it a whole lot worse.

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Deterrian Jones, a former staffer in the Biden administration’s Office of Digital Strategy who also gabbed to an undercover reporter, suggested that Bernal was a “shadowy, ‘Wizard of Oz’-type figure” who “wielded an enormous amount of power.”

“I can’t stress to you how much power he had at the White House,” Jones added.

Exactly one week after Joe Biden’s White House doctor, Kevin O’Connor, refused to answer the committee’s questions on-theme, Bernal similarly clammed up, citing the Fifth Amendment.

The concern shared by both men over self-incrimination appears to signal that investigators are right over the target, particularly with regard to the matter of the use and possible abuse of the autopen.

‘Every order, every bill that was signed, every memorandum — so far as I’m concerned — are null and void.’

“This week new reporting confirms President Biden’s aides took unauthorized executive actions during his presidency amid his cognitive decline,” Comer noted on X. “It’s no surprise that Anthony Bernal is pleading the Fifth Amendment to shield himself from criminal liability.”

The chairman was referencing the New York Times’ recent reporting on Biden White House emails which indicated that the former president was not directly involved in numerous controversial actions that were run through the autopen.

Biden also admitted last week to the Times that he orally communicated his decisions to aides; that the autopen was used liberally because there were “a whole lot of people”; and that he did not personally approve every individual categorical clemency.

Comer indicated that Bernal specifically pleaded the Fifth “when asked if any unelected official or family members executed the duties of the President and if Joe Biden ever instructed him to lie about his health.”

RELATED: A look at the next Biden insiders to testify to Congress about ‘historic scandal’

Photo by Mandel Ngan – Pool/Getty Images

“This is a historic scandal and Americans demand transparency and accountability,” Comer continued. “We will continue to pursue the truth on their behalf and examine options to get the answers we need.”

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) told reporters on Wednesday, “The fact that [Bernal] couldn’t make any statement, the fact that the White House doctor couldn’t make any statement, and they both pled the Fifth — which is their constitutional right to do, and we respect the Constitution like every American does — but the fact that they are now hiding behind the Constitution so that they don’t have to tell the truth to the American people about Joe Biden’s capabilities and mental faculties while he was president of the United States is not just shocking; it’s stunning, and it demonstrates the level of corruption that was going in that administration.”

Donalds noted further that if Biden was not in fact in charge of his administration, “then every order, every bill that was signed, every memorandum — so far as I’m concerned — are null and void.”

Time will tell whether the other Biden insiders set to testify before the committee in the coming weeks will similarly plead the Fifth.

Ron Klain is set to testify on July 24; Steve Ricchetti on July 30; Mike Donilon on July 31; Bruce Reed on Aug. 5; and Anita Dunn on Aug. 7.

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The Department of Homeland Security says the media is misleading the public about who is being deported.

Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin decided to strike back against media members who have accused her agency, especially Immigration and Customs Enforcement, of increasingly going after illegal aliens who do not have criminal backgrounds.

New ICE arrest data from late June shows that federal agents ramped up arrests of those who are considered “other immigration violator(s),” but it is that definition that has some journalists and the DHS playing the blame game.

‘This deceptive “non-criminal” categorization is devoid of reality and misleads the American public.’

The DHS is battling narratives from outlets like NPR, CBS News, and the Cato Institute that have argued that the Trump administration said, through Attorney General Pam Bondi and border czar Tom Homan, that enforcement would focus on aliens who have committed crimes in addition to illegally crossing the border.

CBS host Major Garrett even posited to Homan last week that “a growing number of those detained … are not criminals.”

“They are here illegally, which is a crime. But they don’t have other felonies on their records,” Garrett explained.

A report from journalist Austin Kocher made the same point, showing that 44% of ICE’s arrests now represent illegal aliens who have not committed additional crimes.

It is precisely this angle that the DHS is calling a “false” and “deceptive” narrative.

RELATED: Pot farm raid update: Trump’s DHS found convicted rapists and kidnappers working near migrant kids

– YouTube

“The media continues to peddle this FALSE narrative that ICE is not targeting criminal illegal aliens,” Assistant Secretary McLaughlin told Blaze News in a statement. “The official data tells the true story: 70% of ICE arrests were criminal illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges.”

It is likely that, as June’s data is incomplete, the secretary is using data from May, which shows about 71% of ICE arrests included those with either prior convictions or pending criminal charges.

Those without additional convictions, or “other immigration violators,” make up the remainder. ICE defines this category as individuals without any known criminal convictions or pending charges in “ICE’s system of record at the time of the enforcement action.”

However, the DHS assistant secretary says the media are reading between the lines and using their own narrative.

“Many illegal aliens categorized as ‘non-criminals’ are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gang members, and more — they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S. This deceptive ‘non-criminal’ categorization is devoid of reality and misleads the American public,” McLaughlin’s statement added.

RELATED: ICE accuses Democratic congressman of joining ‘violent mob,’ doxxing agent

Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images

“The criminal numbers are much higher than a lot of the media is reporting,” Homan said on CBS News. “They’re simply not counting misdemeanors [and] those that are pending criminal charges.”

Many of the convicted criminal aliens are with others who have not committed additional crimes, Homan asserted.

“They’re coming, too,” he reminded the host. “We’ll tell ICE agents, ‘You’re going to enforce the law.'”

The border czar added, “We still focus on public threats and national security threats, but if we find an illegal alien in the process of doing that, they’re going to be arrested too.”

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While the MAGA base continues to demand answers about the administration’s botched handling of the Epstein files, President Donald Trump is not backing down.

In his latest Truth Social post, Trump likened the Epstein scandal to the “fully discredited” Russia hoax and the “Laptop from Hell,” referring to Hunter Biden’s laptop. The common thread according to Trump is that all of these scandals were manufactured by Democrats to threaten his presidency.

‘The American people feel highly disappointed. They feel like they’ve been betrayed.’

“These Scams and Hoaxes are all the Democrats are good at – It’s all they have – They are no good at governing, no good at policy, and no good at picking winning candidates,” Trump said Wednesday.

Trump criticized the legacy media and even some of his supporters who think there’s more to the Epstein story, calling them “weaklings” and saying he no longer wants their support.

RELATED: The White House will need to do plenty more to get past Epstein

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bulls**t,’ hook, line, and sinker,” Trump said. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”

“I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” Trump added. “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats [sic] work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”

RELATED: FBI, DOJ Epstein memo sparks right-wing outrage: ‘Nobody is believing this’

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Although Trump is urging Republicans to turn the page on Epstein, several lawmakers told Blaze News that they would be in favor of additional transparency.

“We’ve gotta address this thing. America is ticked off about it,” Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told Blaze News. “But I think President Trump gets it.”

“The American people feel highly disappointed. They feel like they’ve been betrayed,” Republican Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri told Blaze News. “This issue isn’t going to go away.”

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A former elementary school teacher in South Carolina is accused of engaging in a “prolonged and inappropriate relationship” with a teenage boy, according to police.

Multiple jurisdictions have been investigating the allegations.

‘Looking back, it sickens me knowing Nikki manipulated our son and our family.’

The Anderson County Sheriff’s Office charged Nicole Ballew Callaham, 33, with three counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The Greenville Police Department hit Callaham with eight counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor and four counts of unlawful conduct toward a child, as the alleged victim attended school there. In addition, the Clemson City Police Department has been conducting a parallel investigation.

The Anderson School District Five stated that Callaham had been a kindergarten teacher for the Homeland Park Primary School from 2017 until her May 21 resignation.

The Anderson County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that an investigation into Callaham was launched in May 2025 after police discovered evidence of misconduct against a teenage boy.

The Greenville Police Department added in a press release, “The investigation revealed that Callaham engaged in an inappropriate and unlawful relationship with a 14-year-old male.”

Police said the alleged misconduct began in 2021 when the boy was 14 and continued for at least two years.

Investigators said Callaham “engaged in grooming behavior toward the boy during his early teenage years.”

“The relationship intensified as she reportedly signed the student out of school, transported him to practices, and served as a supervisor for after-school activities,” the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office stated.

Detectives said Callaham engaged in a “prolonged pattern of abuse, which was corroborated by search warrants and ongoing cooperation with the victim’s family.”

Citing arrest warrants, WHNS-TV reported that Callaham provided the alleged victim with marijuana, nicotine, and alcohol. The arrest warrants also accused Callaham of engaging in sexual intercourse with the teen boy at a Greenville hotel and a downtown Greenville parking garage.

Callaham “voluntarily surrendered herself” Thursday morning to the Anderson County Detention Center, the sheriff’s office said. The next day, Callaham was booked at the Greenville County Detention Center.

During Callaham’s bond hearing in Anderson County last week, a detective read a letter in court from the mother of the alleged victim, according to WYFF-TV. The mother claimed that her family first met Callaham while she was serving as the director of musical theater productions for a play in which her son performed.

RELATED: Florida teacher accused of ‘disturbing’ sexual misconduct against student — including in classroom just hours before arrest

“Our son, who was an innocent, naive 14-year-old boy, had worked hard for years in hopes of earning a lead role. Our son was finally given an opportunity by Nikki, and we were beyond thrilled for him,” the mother wrote.

The mother said she and her husband “trusted her completely with our son, as she seemed to be a wonderful mentor to our son and other young actors and actresses by investing in them.”

“Looking back, it sickens me knowing Nikki manipulated our son and our family,” the mother stressed. “She was waiting on this opportunity, and she found the perfect victim and family to prey on.”

The letter stated, “She saw our son’s innocence and that he was very easily manipulated. … She saw a family who had a lot of love and kindness to share with those who needed it.”

The mother accused Callaham of having a “plan to groom our son” and added that Callaham referred to her as her “best friend.”

“However, Nikki was abusing our trust and abusing our young teenage son right under our noses,” she wrote.

The mother claimed that Callaham “led a double life” and put up a “facade” to “blind us from her evil, sick intentions.”

The mother added that Callaham is a “sick, twisted, calculating sex offender.”

The mother also said she witnessed behaviors around her son that were “questionable and inappropriate,” and her family instructed her to cease all contact with the teen.

The mother alleged that Callaham continued to contact her son through social media and purchased an Xbox video game system in order to interact with him.

WHSV-TV reported that the alleged victim — identified as Grant Strickland — spoke out following Callaham’s bond hearing.

RELATED: Married ex-teacher hit with 52 additional child sex charges related to multiple alleged trysts with 15-year-old male student

The station said he decided to come forward as an 18-year-old after time spent processing the trauma he said he experienced.

Strickland told WSPA-TV that confronting Callaham was like a “weight lifted off his shoulders.” He noted that he was a “child” when the alleged misconduct occurred.

“All I really want the public to know is that that was a traumatic event. I’m here to fight, and I’m not going to back down,” Strickland said following the hearing, according to WRDW-TV. “I think more awareness needs to be brought to things like this. And just because I’m a man doesn’t mean that it should be shunned away. Because I was a child.”

Strickland added, “I would love to bring more awareness to show that this happens, and it happens a lot, and it’s not just to women. It’s to men too, and it happens to young children, and it’s gotta stop.”

Strickland continued, “I would never want somebody to go through what I went through, because I don’t really think that most people would be strong enough to survive it. Because I almost didn’t.”

WSAV-TV reported that at Callaham’s bond hearing in Greenville on Monday, she was seen smiling at people in the courtroom, including her family and fiancé.

RELATED: Florida middle school teacher sent nude photo, engaged in ‘lewd conduct’ with 14-year-old student: Police

Callaham’s lawyer asked for leniency since his client is pregnant and needs prenatal care.

“Miss Callaham is eight to nine weeks pregnant,” attorney William Epps III said.

Her bond was set at $120,000 in Greenville County, and her bond was set at $40,000 in Anderson County.

WRDW reported that as part of her bond requirements, Callaham will be placed under house arrest until she secures employment. A judge also ordered Callaham to not have contact with the alleged victim; in addition, she must undergo a psychological evaluation and will be required to wear a GPS monitor.

The Anderson County Sheriff’s Office stated that the Anderson School District Five is aware of the investigation and charges made against Callaham.

Blaze News reached out to the Anderson School District Five for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

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President Donald Trump continues to deliver on campaign promises and to surmount obstacles thrown before him by radical Democrats and activist judges. His accomplishments in recent weeks, however, while impactful, have been overshadowed by his Justice Department’s conclusion that child sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein did not have a client list that could implicate deep-pocketed elites.

Amid mounting criticism over the lack of substantial insights from the DOJ, Turning Point USA founder and President Charlie Kirk — whom Trump reportedly called on Saturday to express support for Attorney General Pam Bondi — noted on his show Monday, “I’m going to trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done, solve it; ball’s in their hands.”

‘Anything that’s credible, I would say, let them have it.’

Kirk subsequently outlined “10 immediate credible action items” Bondi could take that might satisfy Americans’ hunger for answers and help the president move on to other matters with the reinvigorated support of his base.

Backlash, persistent curiosity

The backlash over the DOJ’s conclusion was particularly severe in part because of Trump’s campaign promise that he would “be inclined” to release Epstein’s list of clients, saying, “I’d have no problem with it.”

It certainly did not help that after telling cable news on Feb. 21 that the Epstein client list was “sitting on [her] desk right now,” Bondi handed out to Trump-supporting podcasters binders titled “Epstein Files: Phase 1,” loaded with publicly available information and documents devoid of significant revelations. She then failed to deliver the promised second phase of possibly substantial documents.

It also didn’t help that the FBI’s Epstein prison video is reportedly missing nearly three minutes of footage from one of two stitched-together clips.

Trump appears keen for the scandal “over a guy who never dies” to blow over.

“Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more?” Trump noted in a Truth Social post on Saturday. “They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands.”

RELATED: The White House will need to do plenty more to get past Epstein

Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Recent polling indicates that public interest in the alleged Epstein list isn’t going anywhere.

A Rasmussen Reports poll revealed on Tuesday that only 21% of likely U.S. voters believe the FBI and the DOJ are telling the truth about Epstein; 56% don’t think they’re telling the truth; and 23% aren’t sure. Sixty-eight percent of Democrats, 66% of Republicans, and 69% of unaffiliated voters reject the idea that the Epstein case is closed “and instead believe that there are dozens of powerful and wealthy offenders who need to face justice,” reported Rasmussen.

10 action items

“I don’t understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Tuesday.

“I think really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going. But credible information? Let them give it. Anything that’s credible, I would say, let them have it.”

Responding to Trump’s remarks, Charlie Kirk identified 10 immediate action items that could result in the production of “credible” information for the American public. Here are the 10 items in his list, summarized.

Release the DOJ’s 2020 Office of Professional Responsibility report that evaluated Epstein’s 2008 plea deal.Unseal all of Ghislaine Maxwell’s grand jury testimony.Press Alexander Acosta about what he knew about Epstein working for foreign intelligence. Acosta was the secretary of labor during Trump’s first term and oversaw Epstein’s 2008 plea agreement.Release underlying facts concerning Epstein’s indictment in 2019, except child sexual abuse material.Release a full report concerning the “butchered” Bush-era federal investigation into Epstein.”Green-light Maxwell to speak freely and learn what she knows.”Establish how exactly Epstein made his money and source relevant “bank records and financial statements.”Overrule privacy rules and release the names of prisoners on the floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center on the night Epstein died.”Get the missing minutes of the prison footage.”Hold a press conference as soon as possible to remedy any remaining confusion.

— (@)

Action items one and three are related, as they both center largely on the insights of Acosta, who, while serving as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, approved the plea deal that enabled Epstein to plead guilty to a single charge of solicitation in exchange for a non-prosecution agreement — what the Miami Herald called the “deal of a lifetime.”

‘He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off.’

The deal that Acosta arranged reportedly scuttled the federal probe into a possible international sex-trafficking operation and prevented both the victims and the judge from knowing how many girls Epstein may have sexually abused between 2001 and 2005.

RELATED: Why MAGA wants the Epstein list — and won’t settle for less

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Bradley Edwards, a former state prosecutor who represented some of Epstein’s victims, told the Miami Herald, “How in the world do you, the U.S. attorney, engage in a negotiation with a criminal defendant, basically allowing that criminal defendant to write up the agreement?”

Mike Benz, the founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online, recently told Kirk, “In the process of that [DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility] investigation, they interviewed everyone at Justice who was involved in that 2008 plea deal and sought to put the story to bed by collecting transcribed interviews, audio, and basically reams of files.”

Benz indicated that the OPR report referred to an interview with Acosta in which he apparently discussed Epstein’s intelligence ties.

The Daily Beast reported in 2019 that when being interviewed for the job of labor secretary in the first Trump administration, Acosta was allegedly asked whether the Epstein case was going to cause a problem for his confirmation hearings.

RELATED: The Epstein files may be Trump’s biggest liability yet

Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell (Photo by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

According to the Daily Beast, “Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade.”

Acosta allegedly told his interviewers, “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”

‘No one from the government has ever asked her to share what she knows.’

While evidence of an intelligence link might not get the American public any closer to a client list, it could help explain why such a list may have been developed over time and was then suppressed.

As for action item six, Maxwell — whose father the Telegraph indicated was a newspaper baron who had “known links with MI6, the KGB, and the Israeli intelligence service Mossad” — might be able to shed some light on the operations she ran with her former lover and boss.

Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison for her role in a scheme to sexually exploit and abuse minor girls as young as 14 with Epstein, going all the way back to the early 1990s.

A source close to Maxwell recently told the Daily Mail that the convicted groomer “would be more than happy to sit before Congress and tell her story.”

“No one from the government has ever asked her to share what she knows,” said the unnamed source. “She remains the only person to be jailed in connection to Epstein, and she would welcome the chance to tell the American public the truth.”

When asked about Maxwell possibly testifying, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters, “I’m for transparency. We’re intellectually consistent in this,” reported CBS News.

The steps outlined by Kirk might help Bondi satisfy the American people’s desire for truth about the “guy who never dies” and possibly also his clients.

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