The Justice Department’s leadership made an “emergency request" that career prosecutors in Florida spend the “next several days" doing "remote document review and redactions related to the Epstein files" Why Florida? Did DOJ ask this of US Attorney offices in other states?

Yet again, the student journalists @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social are crushing it.

Lest “paying off the president” seems like an exaggeration, CNN reports: The fusion deal caused an immediate **half billion dollar** boost to Trump's net worth.

The risk is that this company, TAE, will end up being a government favorite, not based on objective scientific evaluation, but because the company paid off the president. It reminds me of the Soviet Union funding scientists based on their professed ideology, not their scientific potential.

I spoke with Matt Egan of CNN about the latest Trump grift: his acquisition of a nuclear fusion “company whose fortunes will be influenced by the actions of a government that Trump himself presides over.”

Alfonsi’s email is important, but she may be whitewashing the real reason 60 Minutes spiked its Jeffrey Wigand interview, according to Hollywood’s telling of the tale in “The Insider.” See Al Pacino’s angry accusation in this clip: youtu.be/mbGqeyemofU?...

Cato explains one of the ethics risks in the government’s taking an equity stake in a private company: 👇

‘When the federal government becomes an owner, corporate decisions can shift toward political incentives rather than market-driven ones. Equity stakes & warrants create favoritism risk by encouraging markets to treat politically connected firms as preferred "winners."’ www.cato.org/blog/trumps-...

🎤 drop

Except that this Congress has been willingly handing the executive branch Article I powers (e.g., power of the purse)

This is brilliant www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/if-he-buil...

More evidence of Trump’s corrupt, personalist regime: nypost.com/2025/12/10/m...

Kavanaugh stop, Minnesota edition

President Trump & Chief Justice Roberts have replaced the rule of law with a corrupt, personalist regime. Example # 37: “the titans of Netflix and Paramount [are] courting President Trump at the White House and even at the Kennedy Center” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/t... @donmoyn.bsky.social

Thanks @akalhan.bsky.social

“effeminate”

Quite right. The president and the "branch" that the president sets up - WH staff, CEA, etc. - are merely extensions of the president. By contrast, Exec Branch departments and agencies are set up by the president *and* Congress and are creatures of both. That's the US system. Always has been.

Spoke with @dfriedman.bsky.social about Tom Homan & corruption at DHS. The fact that Homan’s acceptance of $50,000 cash did not disqualify him from a govt job sends the message to companies seeking to feed at the DHS trough that they can use such corrupt methods to obtain government contracts.

New story out on how a number of White House Border Czar Tom Homan’s former clients are now winning massive federal contracts. Ethics experts say there is an appearance of corruption - w/ @dfriedman.bsky.social & @russchoma.bsky.social www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Important insights from @pbump.com: “Nearly every element of Trump's second term … orbit[s] around the idea that he (& to a lesser extent his allies) … should not have to face accountability. … cryptocurrency … [is] a space where he & his family & friends can do what they want” w/o accountability

Even more evidence that Trump is a pro-corruption, pro-crime President: Trump pardons wealthy businessman even though his own Justice Department “had lauded the indictment of Timothy J. Leiweke as an effort to root out corruption” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/u...

There, I fixed it. Congress established — and named — the US Institute of Peace by statute. Trump doesn’t have authority to re-name it after himself by fiat. Headline writers shouldn’t attribute to Trump power that he claims but doesn’t actually have. www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

Yet more evidence that Trump is a pro-corruption, pro-fraud President:

We’ve had corrupt presidents before (for example: the Nixon-ITT scandal, Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, etc.), but Trump is our first affirmatively pro-corruption, pro-bribery president. Promoting corruption is Trump’s central policy achievement.

The Trump administration is not only corrupt, it’s pro-corruption. Trump repeatedly rewards corruption.

Trump: The Openly Pro-Corruption President Trump -- through AG Bondi -- disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force. bsky.app/profile/stev...

“Trump’s promise to pardon former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was a major drug trafficker, suggests Trump is not so much opposed to drug trafficking, he just wants a cut.”

Indiana state legislator — a Republican — calls out White House official for violating federal Hatch Act & calls out Trump administration for creating an environment of impunity for such violations dailyjournal.net/2025/11/26/s...

“Did an officer have a higher allegiance than the one to the Fuehrer? At Nuremberg dozens of generals excused their war crimes by answering in the negative. They had to obey orders, they said.” - Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 603

And for soldiers who feel that they are in that situation, reach out to the Orders Project. www.ordersproject.com

Recalling that the position of NSC legal adviser—currently vacant—was created in response to Iran-Contra.

In honor of Larry Summers, I asked the female members of my college class (1987) to say if they had any experiences with sexual harassment by teachers/professors, back when this was tolerated as, I dunno, the cost of attending college, and OH MY GOD.

“The moral and pedagogical implications of inaction are grave. … Summers is a towering figure. … But Harvard must hold its faculty to basic moral and behavioral standards, however great their accolades.”

A classic non-denial denial: Left: ProPublica reports that WH aide Paul Ingrassia sent to DHS a written “**request** to return the electronics to the Tates.” Right: Ingrassia’s lawyer says: “‘Mr. Ingrassia never **ordered** that the Tate Brothers' devices be returned to them.’”

every epstein email is some creep complaining about MeToo and then being like “oh before i forget, any advice on how to use my position of authority to force women into sleeping with me?”

It’s no wonder that Summers repeatedly sought Epstein’s counsel about how to obtain sex from the mentee. Summers, like Epstein, is a sexual predator. Summers wanted to improve his sexual predation skills, so he sought advice from an expert — Epstein.

💯👇

Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers apparently needs remedial moral education. Based on his statements today, he doesn’t understand the nature of his wrong. He invokes the language of emotion—causing pain, repairing relationships—as if marital infidelity were … www.cnn.com/2025/11/17/p...

It was on Friday — not today — when Trump told a woman reporter: 'Quiet. Quiet, Piggy.’ people.com/donald-trump...

From two years ago: "The third part of Mr. Trump’s authoritarian blueprint is to create a legal framework that would allow him to use govt resources to protect himself, attack his political enemies & force through his policy goals w/o congressional approval." donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-i-wro...

Lawrence Summers: “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.” Has he also taken “full responsibility” for: - using a racial slur to refer to a mentee? - pressuring this mentee to have sex with him? www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

If an attractive young woman a third my age didn't want to date me, then why did she ask me for feedback on an economics paper? by Larry Summers

Important reporting by @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social, but its subheadline and this post mischaracterize what Lawrence Summers was seeking from his mentee. It wasn’t a “romantic” relationship. It was a sexual one. “the probability of ‘my **getting horizontal** w [racial slur]’”

The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.

This is me at 15. I’m a child. I’m a CHILD.

“Housing shortage – Jews to blame," letter sticker, German Reich, 1938 zwangsraeume.berlin/en/context

A reminder that if you are called to be part of a jury in a political prosecution you have a right to refuse to convict on the grounds the prosecution is unjust. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

He hates it when people abide by the Constitution.

💯👇

Good day to think of the victims of the Bush administration’s Iraq War and the consequences of failing to hold people accountable for its torture program.