Tag: doj

Who entered Epstein’s jail tier the night of his death? Newly released video logs appear to contradict official accounts.

Newly released Department of Justice documents show that investigators reviewing surveillance footage from the night of Jeffrey Epstein’s death observed an orange-colored shape moving up a staircase toward the isolated, locked tier where his cell was located at approximately 10:39 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2019.

That entry in an observation log of the video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center appears to suggest something previously unreported by authorities: “A flash of orange looks to be going up the L Tier stairs — could possibly be an inmate escorted up to that Tier.”

It also appears, according to an FBI memorandum, that reviews by investigators led to disparate conclusions by the FBI and those examining the same video from the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General. 

The FBI log describes the fuzzy image as “possibly an inmate.” 

The inspector general logs it as an officer carrying orange “linen or bedding,” noting it in their final report as “an unidentified [corrections officer].”

The DOJ Office of Inspector General’s analysis of video footage describes a fuzzy orange image on the stairs leading to Epstein’s cell tier as: “it is possible someone is carrying inmate linen or bedding up the stairs.”

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DOJ Opens Investigation Into the Fed

For the first time in history, a sitting Fed chair faces a DOJ criminal probe. On Friday, January 9, grand jury subpoenas from the Department of Justice landed on the desk of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The documents threaten criminal charges, not for market manipulation or insider trading, but for his congressional testimony on the Fed’s $2.5 billion headquarters renovation project. The probe, launched by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., centered on whether Powell’s statements to the Senate Banking Committee had been misleading about costs, timelines, or oversight.

Powell appeared unruffled in his Sunday evening statement two days later. “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public,” he said, framing the investigation as an attack on the central bank’s independence. The subpoenas demanded documents, emails, and testimony related to the renovation — marble upgrades, security retrofits, and budget overruns that had ballooned amid supply-chain chaos.

Critics call it a pretext. Supporters say it’s payback for the Fed’s post-pandemic rate hikes that cooled inflation but squeezed borrowers. Behind closed doors, the story is more complicated.

Remodeling, or Monetary Policy?

The Trump administration has long chafed at the Fed’s seeming freedom from accountability (which it framed as “autonomy”). Powell, appointed by President Donald Trump during his first administration in 2017 and reappointed by Joe Biden in 2021, had resisted calls to keep rates low during the 2025 recovery. Now, with the DOJ under new leadership, the subpoenas look like a lever to pry open the black box of monetary policy.

David Malpass, a former World Bank president, weighed in on CNBC to say, “It’s worrisome. You know, the Fed has become now just a giant hedge fund. It’s lost a trillion dollars — and counting. It’s going to be a gigantic loss. What it does is borrow money at 5.4 percent from banks, and then dumps it into government bonds. So think what that does! That causes the government to think that it’s better off than it is. So that encouraged the government to be short when rates were zero.”

Was this about marble tiles, or was it a warning shot: the era of the Fed evading checks and balances drawing to a close? Republican lawmakers, usually positioning themselves as champions of the rule of law, issued guarded statements defending Fed independence. They raced to frame the situation as the president politicizing disagreements.

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House panel moves to consider criminal referrals for the Clintons

The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on whether to refer former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal charges.

The House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before most legislation gets a chamber-wide vote, is slated to consider a pair of contempt of Congress resolutions targeting the Clintons at 4 p.m. ET on Monday.

Those resolutions are expected to pass through the committee along party lines, teeing them up for final passage as early as Tuesday or Wednesday.

Both Clintons were subpoenaed to appear before the House Oversight Committee to testify for Congress’ probe into Jeffrey Epstein.

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DOJ probing incident where climate group stormed Jewish synagogue event with Democrat congressman

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into an incident this week in which climate protesters stormed a Jewish synagogue where a Democrat congressman was speaking, signaling an aggressive effort to protect houses of worship from vile intrusions from leftist activists.

Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the probe in a statement Saturday to Just the News.

“We are investigating this case and will continue to actively investigate any house of worship that is disrupted,” Bondi said.

The decision to probe the intrusion by the group Climate Defiance at a Long Island synagogue in Roslyn, N.Y., comes days after DOJ charged three activists — including former CNN anchor Don Lemon — for invading a Christian church service in Minnesota.

Both incidents involved increasingly aggressive leftist activists who are protesting the Trump administration’s arrests of illegal aliens nationwide.

The most recent episode targeted Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi over his initial vote to back a GOP-led spending bill that directed more federal funding to ICE’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Video footage showed Suozzi was speaking Wednesday night when activists from Climate Defiance stormed the synagogue with diapers and kneepads while cursing and making vile comments.

Climate Defiance called Suozzi a “hideous, grotesque, fascist-loving coward” with “blood on his hands” in a social post.

The New York probe will be slightly different than the Minnesota case, where a worship service was underway.  Wednesday’s event involved a speech by a politician hosted by a house of worship.

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DOJ Epstein Files Reveal Michael Wolff’s Political Collaboration with Jeffrey Epstein to Undermine Trump

Previously unreleased emails reveal sustained, strategic, and often personal communications between journalist Michael Wolff and Jeffrey Epstein, with exchanges focused on political messaging, media influence, and repeated discussions about Donald Trump—including efforts to shape public narratives about his candidacy and presidency.

Among the newly released records from the Department of Justice—part of a 3.5 million-page document production under the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed by President Trump—are emails between author Wolff and Epstein that reveal a striking level of political discussion, media planning, and apparent coordination related to Trump’s rise in 2015 and beyond.

The released records include a February 2016 message from Wolff warning Epstein, “NYT called me about you and Trump. Also, Hillary campaign digging deeply. Again, you should consider preempting.” Epstein responded simply, “Lots of reporters.” To which Wolff replied, “Yeah, you’re the Trump bullet.”

In another exchange from October 2016, Wolff said, “There’s an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him. Interested?”

Wolff workshopped talking points and responses with Epstein, in December 2015 musing: “If we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?” The question came in response to a heads-up from Wolff the night before: “I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship wit= you–either on air or in scrum afterwards.” The next afternoon, Wolff followed up with strategic advice:

I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.

In May 2016, Wolff reached out again ahead of a planned interview, asking, “Anything you think I should ask?” Epstein replied with a list of what he considered damaging topics for Trump, including “revenue of golf courses as income,” “total debt of all cost,” and “how much did his father leave.”

In a March 2016 email titled “Patterson,” Wolff advised Epstein that he needed an “immediate counter narrative” to the upcoming James Patterson book, proposing that Donald Trump offered “an ideal opportunity.” He wrote that “Becoming an anti-Trump voice gives you a certain political cover which you decidedly don’t have now,” and urged Epstein to go public. Wolff outlined a media strategy that could include a television interview, an op-ed, and social media efforts and suggested assembling a group of media allies to support the effort.

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MILLIONS of explosive new Epstein files dumped by DoJ in shock release

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Friday morning that the Department of Justice had released at least three million new Epstein files to the public.

Hundreds of thousands of Epstein-related documents had already been made public by the House Committee on Oversight in late 2025, including sickening images showing Epstein surrounded by young-looking women.

The files, released following Epstein’s death in 2019, contain disturbing photographs of women’s bodies, harrowing notes, and references to famous figures including former President Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson.

Previous document dumps have sparked fierce backlash after large swathes of material were heavily redacted by the Justice Department. Officials said the caveats were necessary to protect victims’ privacy, national security, and other sensitive interests.

Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell has since claimed that 29 of Epstein’s associates were shielded through ‘secret settlements’ with the Justice Department. The allegation was made in a habeas corpus petition she filed on December 17 seeking to overturn her conviction.

Key Epstein files dates:

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Former CNN Anchor Don Lemon Arrested

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been arrested, Newsmax’s James Rosen and a Justice Department official familiar with the matter confirmed Friday.

CBS News also reported the arrest, citing sources.

Lemon livestreamed a demonstration that interrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month that protested President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the area.

Lemon’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, called his arrest an “unprecedented attack on the First Amendment.”

Lemon said he was at the demonstration as a journalist. He said he was tipped off ahead of time but did not know the activists would disrupt the service.

He can be seen arguing with a parishioner about immigration enforcement. Trump administration officials quickly condemned the demonstration and accused protesters of intimidating Christian worshippers.

It was not immediately clear what charge or charges Lemon was facing in the Jan. 18 protest. The arrest came after a magistrate judge last week rejected prosecutors’ initial bid to charge the journalist.

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Ghislaine Maxwell Drops New Epstein Allegations—and They’re a Doozy

Longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell has revealed that more than two dozen men received cushy plea deals with the government.

In a habeas petition filed Tuesday aimed at preemptively ending her prison sentence, Maxwell alleged that 29 friends of the notorious sex trafficker had been “protected” by the Justice Department by way of “secret settlements.”

Those settlements went to “25 men” and four potential “co-conspirators,” reported The Daily Beast. The petition has prompted questions regarding the identities of the cloaked individuals—and why the DOJ would offer them protection.

Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act on November 19 to force the executive branch to release the files in their entirety. The bill stipulated that the Justice Department had 30 days to comply, but that deadline has since disappeared in the rearview. It is now late January, and less than one percent of the files has been made publicly available.

In a Tuesday court filing, the DOJ offered vague placations that it expects to process the trove, which includes two million documents, “in the near term.” Officials did not provide a specific date for the full release, as required by law.

Employees at the Justice Department are reportedly manually reviewing the pages to find and redact the names of victims and, presumably, censor mentions of protected individuals.

So far, the DOJ has released roughly 12,285 documents related to the Epstein files, totalling 125,575 pages.

Earlier this month, Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie called for a special master or independent counsel to hold the DOJ to a timeline as it drags its feet on the cache.

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DOJ Filing on Forced Reset Triggers Contradicts Pledges and Complicates Midterms

“@TheJusticeDept  just filed an anti-gun statement of interest in Rare Breed Triggers’ lawsuit against @HoffmanTactical,” Gun Owners of  America posted on X Monday. “It says @ATFHQ  has a “strong interest… in limiting the sale and distribution of FRTs” or forced reset triggers.”

Read the full, anti-gun filing where @TheJusticeDept reveals its unconstitutional plans to hamstring ownership of forced reset triggers here,” GOA added, posting a copy of the “Statement of Interest of the United States of America” filed Monday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

That makes fair the question “Why?” since it’s not in the interests of the millions of gun owners who voted for a Trump administration based on promises he repeatedly made to roaring and adoring crowds:

“Right from the beginning, for four incredible years it was my honor to be the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House, by far. Now I stand before you with a very simple promise: Your Second Amendment will always be safe with me as your president when I’m back in the Oval Office,” Trump promised to resulting exuberance. “No one will lay a finger on your firearms. It’s not going to happen…”

Inarguably the administration has been “better” on the Second Amendment than any in our lifetimes, as exemplified by positive actions like filing briefs against bans on so-called “assault weapons” and standard capacity magazines, repealing “zero tolerance” of minor FFL errors, reviewing rules including “engaged in business” restrictions, supporting challenges to Hawaii’s restrictive carry laws, investigating “pattern or practice” by the Los Angeles County Sheriff for “slow walking” concealed carry permits, working on rights restoration and working to defund grants and foreign aid for gun control advocacy groups.

But it then turns around and in a seemingly bipolar move does things like backing NFA registration of untaxed firearms (to the exploitative delight of anti-gun groups).

Every infringement also contradicts the  promise made by AG Pam Bondi in her April 8 “all hands” memo from last year, where she pledged:

“For too long, the Second Amendment, which establishes the fundamental individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms, has been treated as a second-class right. No more. It is the policy of this Department of Justice to use its full might to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”

The purpose of that memorandum was to introduce the Second Amendment Task Force – an idea that seemed to have great political value at the time, until it became apparent that no gun owner representation meant everything would be decided by careerists with political stakes in the game. One wonders how many infringements would be advanced if groups like GOA or Firearms Policy Coalition had advisory seats at the table to help caution against missteps before they are made. You don’t have to contradict yourself and backtrack too often before people begin to suspect you’re insincere and will only tell voters what they want to hear long enough to secure their votes.

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Trump admin refers Minnesota case to DOJ over transgender athletes in girls’ sports

The Trump administration on Monday moved toward stripping federal funding from Minnesota by referring its investigation into alleged Title IX violations involving transgender athletes competing in girls’ and women’s sports to the Department of Justice for enforcement.

The civil rights offices at the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services said the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League have refused to comply with Title IX requirements by “allowing men to compete in women’s sports and occupy women’s intimate facilities.”

“Despite repeated opportunities to comply with Title IX, Minnesota has chosen defiance — continuing to jeopardize the safety of women and girls, deny them fair competition, and erode their right to equal access in educational programs and activities,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.

McMahon also linked the referral to broader criticism of state leadership. “As Minnesota reels from a massive fraud scandal exposing Gov. Tim Walz’s dereliction of duty, today’s referral to DOJ underscores the state’s ongoing failure to safeguard its citizens and uphold the rule of law,” she said.

A joint federal investigation concluded in September that both the state education department and the high school sports league violated Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination by permitting males to compete in multiple female sports programs and use female-only locker rooms and facilities. Investigators offered Minnesota a proposed resolution agreement that would have allowed the state to voluntarily resolve the findings.

The Education Department said Minnesota indicated in December that it would neither accept the agreement nor negotiate its terms. Since then, federal officials say the state has taken no action to address the violations.

“Minnesota is violating Title IX, and we will not look the other way,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. “When states allow males to compete in girls’ sports, they deny young women and girls the protections the law guarantees.”

The referral follows a February executive order signed by President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to enforce Title IX protections based on biological sex. The order authorizes agencies to review and, if necessary, withhold federal funding from schools and programs found to be out of compliance.

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