Tag: donald trump

Epstein files release in chaos as Trump officials scramble to redact thousands of documents hours before deadline

Donald Trump‘s Department of Justice is working around the clock to redact thousands of pages from the Epstein files before their legally required release Friday.

White House officials are bracing for the release of the files after Trump has been the subject of rampant speculation about his connection to Epstein. 

Also believed to be in the files are former President Bill Clinton, the former Prince Andrew, and others.

There are fears that the same rushed workflow and deadline could lead to similar mistakes to the release of the JFK assassination files, which unintentionally revealed the social security numbers of more than 200 people. 

Pam Bondi’s DOJ lawyers are worried that the the Justice Department’s National Security Division don’t have the proper guidance on how to provide the most information legally possible. 

Attorneys for the DOJ are reportedly working on over 1,000 documents per week to get the files ready in time to meet their deadline, CNN reported. 

They must be able to edit the files to protect the victims of the late billionaire pedophile and meet executive and legal privacy requirements. Many are preparing for more to be redacted than is legally necessary. 

‘Either they’re going to screw it up or they’re going to withhold things. It wouldn’t surprise me. Some of it may be incompetence as much as deliberate,’ a non-DOJ lawyer awaiting the release said. 

The DOJ has asked additional counter-intelligence specialists to drop everything else they were doing to process the files. Some refused the assignment.  

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Trump’s Marijuana Executive Order Details Leaked Ahead Of Announcement, Including CBD And Hemp Provisions

President Donald Trump will be signing an executive order on Thursday that will direct the attorney to “expedite” and “complete” the marijuana rescheduling process, throw a lifeline to the hemp industry, allow doctors to prescribe CBD products that would be eligible for Medicare coverage and more, a White House official told reporters at a readout ahead of the signing event.

Marijuana Moment wasn’t invited to attend the background briefing, but obtained the transcript of the conversation.

Many details are consistent with reporting about the plan to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), but the discussion revealed additional information about the order and how the administration is framing the reform.

The official started by emphasizing that the “common sense” administrative action is “focused on increasing medical research for medical marijuana and CBD” to “better inform patients and doctors.”

That means expediting the finalization of a rule to reschedule marijuana, they said. The move wouldn’t legalize cannabis, but it would help promote research while also letting marijuana businesses take federal tax deductions they’ve been barred from under an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E.

Here are new details about Trump’s executive order on cannabis:

  • Direct the attorney general to expedite the completion of the process of rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III of the CSA.
  • Direct top White House staff to work with Congress to give patients access to full-spectrum CBD products, “while still restricting the sale and access to products that cause serious and potentially life threatening health risks.”
  • Urge Congress to examine updating the definition of hemp to ensure that full-spectrum CBD is accessible to patients—a policy change that could mitigate some concerns in the sector about a recent spending bill Trump signed with provisions that would broadly ban consumable hemp products.
  • Direct the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “develop research methods and models, to utilize real world evidence [and] to improve access to hemp-derived CBD products in accordance with federal law” while informing “standards of care.”

Separate from Trump’s order, Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), will also be announcing “a model that will allow a number of CMS beneficiaries to benefit from receiving CBD under doctor recommendation at no cost,” the White House official said.

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Extrajudicial Killings From Barack Obama to Donald Trump

In May 2013, as President Barack Obama delivered a major foreign-policy speech in Washington, I managed to slip inside. As he was winding up, I stood and interrupted, condemning his use of lethal drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia.

“How can you, a constitutional lawyer, authorize the extrajudicial killing of people – including a 16-year-old American boy in Yemen, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki – without charge, without trial, without even an explanation?”

As security dragged me out, Obama responded, “The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.” Perhaps my questions touched a chord in his conscience, but the drone attacks did not stop.

Just before that incident, I had returned from Yemen, where a small delegation of us met with Abdulrahman’s grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki – a dignified man with a PhD from an American university, someone who genuinely believed in the values this country claims to represent. He looked at us, grief etched into his face, and asked, “How can a nation that speaks of law and justice kill an American child without apology, without even a justification?”

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United States Designates the Gulf Clan as a Terrorist Organization: A Forceful Shift in the War on Drugs

The United States Government announced the decision to officially designate the Clan del Golfo as a foreign terrorist organization, a measure that raises the level of confrontation against drug trafficking in Hispanic America.

The announcement, made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, marks a profound shift in U.S. strategy by equating this criminal group with international terrorist organizations.

The Gulf Clan, considered the most powerful illegal armed group in Colombia, has for years been identified as responsible for large-scale drug trafficking to North America, as well as for systematic acts of violence that have affected entire communities.

This designation opens the door to far more severe legal, financial, and operational actions by Washington.

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Bill To Block Trump From Launching War With Venezuela Fails in the House

The House on Wednesday voted down a War Powers Resolution meant to block President Trump from launching a war with Venezuela without congressional authorization, as required by the Constitution.

The bill failed in a vote of 211-213, with nine representatives not voting. Just three Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the bill: Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), and Don Bacon (NE). One Democrat, Henry Cuellar (TX), voted against the legislation.

The legislation would have directed the president to remove “United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”

Before the Venezuela bill, another War Powers Resolution aimed at stopping President Trump’s bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean also failed. That bill failed in a vote of 210-216, with two Republicans (Massie and Bacon) voting in favor and two Democrats (Ceullar and Vicente Gonzalez (TX) voting against.

The votes came a day after President Trump declared a “complete and total blockade” on “sanctioned” tankers going into and leaving Venezuela, an action that’s widely considered an act of war under international law. President Trump and his top officials have also been clear that their goal is regime change.

“Do we want a miniature Afghanistan in the Western Hemisphere?” Massie, a co-sponsor of the bill, asked on the House floor before the vote.

“If that cost is acceptable to this Congress, then we should vote on it as a voice of the people and in accordance with our Constitution,” Massie continued. “And yet today, here we aren’t even voting on whether to declare war or authorize the use of military force. All we’re voting on is a War Powers Resolution that strengthens the fabric of our Republic by reasserting the plain and simple language in the Constitution that Congress must decide questions of war.”

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Source: Trump To Announce War With Venezuela Tonight

President Trump is expected to announce plans to launch a war with Venezuela this evening when he addresses the nation at 9:00 pm EST, a high-placed source on Capitol Hill has told Antiwar.com.

Also, earlier in the day, Tucker Carlson told Judge Andrew Napolitano that he has heard from a member of Congress that Trump is planning war.

“Members of Congress were briefed yesterday that a war is coming and it will be announced in the address to the nation tonight,” Carlson said on the Judging Freedom podcast.

On Tuesday night, President Trump announced a “total and complete” blockade on “sanctioned tankers” going into and out of Venezuela, which came after US forces boarded and seized a tanker carrying Venezuelan oil.

The Trump administration has made clear that its goal is to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. It’s unclear what kind of military action the president is preparing to take, but according to earlier media reports, he has been briefed on several options, including strikes on government targets, sending in a special operations force to kill or capture Maduro, or deploying a larger force to capture airbases and oil fields.

Any attack on Venezuela without congressional authorization would be illegal under the Constitution. The House is expected to vote on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution today aimed at blocking Trump from launching the war.

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The Inconvenient Truths Within Trump’s New National Security Strategy

Recently, the Trump administration, as most administrations do at the beginning of their four-year term, issued a National Security Strategy—I guess we would call it a white paper—outlining the approach of the administration to foreign affairs and the protection of the security in the United States.

It’s written in a different style than past reports, different than the first term. And it has a lot of emphasis, as most do, on sections of the world. But what has caused the most controversy are two things.

Abroad, the report tells Europe that it’s experiencing “civilizational erasure,” and gives advice to the Europeans about what they must do to correct that, but in a manner of brotherly love or help, which the Europeans, of course, will see as condescending and interference into their internal affairs, except they want us to do it in the NATO part of the equation, but not the EU part. And that’s caused a lot of controversy.

The other is, the critics feel that it’s not critical enough of Russia and China. But if you read it very carefully, the whole point of its Pacific discussion is to bolster the alliances of Japan and South Korea, and to warn China to keep away from Taiwan and Australia.

And then, when we get to the economic domestic aspects of the National Security Strategy, it’s all aimed at China. It’s all aimed at China. It just says that we cannot be a successful, dominant power in the world, and we don’t want any other power to be dominant. And by inference, that’s Russia and China. But on matters of trade, under matters of natural resources, under matters of the South China Sea, it’s aimed at China.

And it does say explicitly that the old paradigm that previous, both Republican and Democratic, presidencies had adhered to, namely, the more money you invest from us and put it over there in China, and the more that you import their products here, even though you’re dealing with an asymmetrical trade system—and I think the report uses the word that it’s free but not fair—don’t kid yourself. That ensuing prosperity will not create a huge consumer class who desires freedom and liberty and then will become a force for the democratization of China. That’s not gonna happen.

Instead, that foreign exchange extravaganza will be put into the largest ship-building—and I mean military ship-building—the largest aircraft production, and the largest small arms and major arms industry in such a short time that we’ve ever seen. And that’s what China’s doing. And that is outlined.

The other controversy is: Why didn’t the National Security Strategy be more condemning of Russian President Vladimir Putin? It says that the Europeans have promised to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on military matters and have promised to increase that to 5%, which would be extraordinary.

And of course, the paper says that they should and they must be watched to keep their promises, but it doesn’t really condemn Vladimir Putin in the strongest of terms.

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Susie Wiles Let’s Slip She Stands With Massie On War Powers & Venezuela

Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles said the following as part of the controversial Vanity Fair interview in reference to Venezuela policy: “If he were to authorize some activity on land, then it’s war, then (we’d need) Congress.”

But only last month when President Trump was asked about this issue, he said, “We don’t have to get their approval. But I think letting them know is good.”

All of this could come to a head if enough Congressional leaders, especially on the Republican side, decide to grow a spine and stand up to the White House’s foreign policy adventurism down south – which polls show is not supported by most Americans.

The House is expected to vote Thursday on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution. It aims to halt any potential attack on Venezuela after Trump has threatened that the US military hitting land targets would happen ‘soon’.

Introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), the bipartisan bill has 31 co-sponsors, including three Republicans: Reps. Thomas Massie (KY), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), and Don Bacon (NE).

Massie has of course been at the forefront of Trump criticisms, and he’s again helping lead the charge on Venezuela pushback, amid the huge American presence in the southern Caribbean.

“The Constitution does not permit the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn’t attacked the United States,” Massie said in a statement upon the bill being introduced. ‘

“Congress has the sole power to declare war against Venezuela. Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.” This viewpoint is precisely what Wiles has voiced in her comments to Vanity Fair.

According to a brief summary of the Trump admin’s rationale: 

A central legal question is whether the administration can treat anti-cartel maritime strikes as a form of armed conflict falling within the President’s independent Article II power or within some existing statutory authorization.

CRS reports the Trump administration has asserted drug trafficking and terrorism “involving or associated with Maduro” threaten U.S. national security, and that it reportedly told Congress U.S. forces are in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels – an assertion that other experts and government lawyers reportedly questioned. This framing signals the administration’s likely legal posture without requiring anyone outside government to guess at classified briefings.

Also, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) is simultaneously seeking to reign in the drone strikes on alleged drug boats with his own war powers legislation. No Republicans have signed on to his initiative.

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Trump Administration Responds to Ilhan Omar’s Claim that ICE Agents Targeted Her Son and Pulled Him Over

The Trump Administration has fired back at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) after she made a disturbing claim about her son being targeted by immigration enforcement recently.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, Omar alleged on Sunday during an interview with a local news outlet that ICE agents pulled her son over and demanded that he produce documentation to prove that he was a U.S. citizen.

Once he produced his passport identification, they let him go.

“Yesterday, after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by ICE agents, and once he was able to produce his passport ID, they did let him go,” Omar claimed in an interview with Esme Murphy on WCCO.

Omar also claimed during the interview that immigration agents previously entered a mosque attended by her son. The agents supposedly left without incident.

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security responded on X to Omar’s assertion about her son being pulled over and did not mince words.

“ICE has absolutely ZERO record of its officers or agents pulling over Congresswoman Omar’s son,” the post reads. “With no evidence, it is shameful that Congresswoman Omar would level accusations to demonize ICE as part of a PR stunt.”

“Allegations that ICE engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE. What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S.—NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity,” the post adds.

“Under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, DHS law enforcement uses ‘reasonable suspicion’ to make arrests.”

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White House Chief of Staff Suggests Regime Change in Venezuela Is Real Goal of Boat Strikes

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has suggested that the goal of the US bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the waters of Latin America is the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, according to a two-part report published by Vanity Fair on Tuesday.

Wiles discussed President Trump’s Venezuela strategy in an interview with Vanity Fair reporter Chris Whipple on November 2, 2025. “He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle. And people way smarter than me on that say that he will,” she told him.

While Trump and his top officials have been clear about their desire for regime change in Venezuela, they have framed the bombing campaign against boats as an effort to stop drug shipments to the US. Wiles’s comments suggest that the campaign’s real purpose, at least at the start, is to pressure Maduro.

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