On Friday, President Trump announced via Twitter that he would be appointing current director of his Office of Management and Budget and recent acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as acting chief of staff, replacing outgoing John Kelly. That move wasn&#8217;t completely unexpected from those who follow the White House closely. In recent days, it became clear that many top candidates simply weren&#8217;t interested in the job, and that those who were interested (see Christie, Chris) would present more hazard than help in running the West Wing.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I am pleased to announce that Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management &amp; Budget, will be named Acting White House Chief of Staff, replacing General John Kelly, who has served our Country with distinction. Mick has done an outstanding job while in the Administration&#8230;.
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1073703744766922754?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8230;.I look forward to working with him in this new capacity as we continue to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! John will be staying until the end of the year. He is a GREAT PATRIOT and I want to personally thank him for his service!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1073703746432049153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Trump has been close with Mulvaney since the administration&#8217;s successful tax reform in 2017. Mulvaney has been a strong loyalist inside the administration; in 2017, he completely disclaimed chaos inside the administration in an interview with <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/11/trumps-budget-director-is-at-home-in-the-eye-of-the-storm.html">CNBC</a>, explaining, &#8220;I read many, many times that, let&#8217;s see, Steven Bannon doesn&#8217;t get along with Reince Priebus. And neither of &#8217;em get along with Jared Kushner. And nobody gets along with Gary Cohn. That&#8217;s all entirely false.&#8221;
Note to reader: it wasn&#8217;t entirely false.
But Mulvaney&#8217;s good relationships with those surrounding President Trump will certainly help him grease operations inside the White House. Mulvaney isn&#8217;t a strong personality who feels the need to challenge the president or prevent access to other top advisors. For Trump, picking Mulvaney is effectively as close as possible to picking himself for chief of staff. What&#8217;s more, Trump gets to operate from within the White House confines, which means no need to generate new chemistry in the West Wing.
Mulvaney is about as solid a pick as Trump could make under the circumstances. The biggest question will be whether he&#8217;s capable of helping the president avoid the investigative pitfalls that will surely be presented by a Democratic Congress hell-bent on picking apart every aspect of Trump&#8217;s White House, business, and life.

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Trump Picks OMB Director Mick Mulvaney As Acting Chief Of Staff

CONTINUE READING

There’s an amazing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/us/politics/biden-pardon-autopen-trump.html">story</a> out of The New York Times, where the headline absolutely does not match the content of the story (as per usual arrangement).
The headline stated, “Biden Says He Made the Clemency Decisions That Were Recorded With Autopen.”
Cool. So everything was fine; Biden said that he was going to give clemency or pardons to people. And then he simply said to his people, “Use the auto pen to sign it. I&#8217;m busy today.”
But that is not what the story actually says. It says something quite different.
According to The New York Times:
<blockquote>The full picture of what Mr. Biden did on pardon and clemency decisions, and how much he directed those decisions and the actions of his staff, including the use of the autopen, may come down to tens of thousands of Biden White House emails that the National Archives has turned over as part of the investigation by the Trump White House and the Justice Department. Those emails contain keywords like “clemency,” “pardon” and “commutation” from November 2024 through Jan. 20, 2025, according to people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
The Times has reviewed several dozen of those emails, which discussed each of the major grants of clemency that were recorded by an autopen near the end of Mr. Biden’s term. But The Times has not seen the full extent of the emails, so it is impossible to capture the totality of information they contain or what else they might show about Mr. Biden’s involvement in the pardon and clemency decisions.
But those that were reviewed by The Times show that the Biden White House had a process to establish that Mr. Biden had orally made decisions in meetings before the staff secretary, Stefanie Feldman, who managed use of the autopen, would have clemency records put through the signing device. </blockquote>
The real story was buried in Paragraph 16 and what followed:
<blockquote>At the end of his term, Mr. Biden reduced the sentences of nearly 4,000 federal convicts and pre-emptively pardoned politically prominent people he considered potential targets of Mr. Trump for criminal investigations.
Mr. Biden said in Thursday’s interview that he had his staff use an autopen for the warrants because he had granted clemency to so many people; the autopen was used, in all, on 25 pardon and clemency warrants from last December to January. Some of the individual warrants included large batches of names because they all fell into the same broad policy category, like reducing the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders who met standards Mr. Biden established.
On Oct. 30, 2024, the emails reviewed by The Times show, Mr. Biden’s White House counsel, Ed Siskel, notified senior staff to expect a flood of lobbying for clemency grants at the administration’s end and laid out a process for an orderly review.
The final step, he wrote: “The president makes the final decision on the final pardon and/or commutation slate.”
Over the next three months, Mr. Biden made four major sets of clemency actions that were recorded with an autopen. &#8230; Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed.
Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence. Even after Mr. Biden made that decision, one former aide said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to the list. Rather than ask Mr. Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version through the autopen, which they saw as a routine procedure, the aide said.</blockquote>
What’s amazing is that his aide admitted the quiet part out loud; Biden said, “Here&#8217;s a broad category of people such as nonviolent drug offenders. Go do something about it.” His people scurried around and came up with a list, which kept changing. Instead of informing the President of the United States who was on the list and what their specific crimes were, they just ran it through the auto pen based on a giant category.
That&#8217;s crazy. When you give commutations of sentences, they are for individuals. If you want to pardon everybody in a broad clemency category, as, for example, Jimmy Carter did with draft dodgers, then you have to do that as a broad category. Everybody who dodged the Vietnam War draft was pardoned, or their sentences would be commuted.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2237-the-ben-shapiro-show?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
But that&#8217;s not what Biden did. He didn&#8217;t pardon every single nonviolent drug offender; he pardoned specific drug offenders.
For several years, we did not have a President of the United States; someone else was governing the country, either Dr. Jill Biden, the greatest doctor in all the land, or Hunter Biden, the coke fiend who committed a felony gun crime, or Biden’s advisers like Jake Sullivan.
The fact that this has somehow slipped down the list to somewhere around number ten on the list of scandals that Americans care about is crazy. This should be not only the number one scandal in the country right now, it should be one of the top scandals of all time.
This is far worse than Watergate, which revolved around whether the president had authorized a break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters, an action that came in the aftermath of similar activity LBJ committed in his election against Barry Goldwater.
In this case, you&#8217;re talking about whether the President of the United States’ health condition was covered up by everyone around him, everyone in his cabinet, everybody in the media, who all knew about it.
And we should not allow it to be buried by the media henchmen for the Democratic Party.

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Don’t Let The Media Bury The Biggest Conspiracy And Scandal Of Our Time

We&#8217;ve reached the point now where the entire leftist program is performative outrage.
Today&#8217;s example is the raid by ICE at a large marijuana farm in Southern California.
According to the New York Times: “Federal agents raided a large cannabis farm in Southern California on Thursday, clashing with protesters and arresting multiple people.”
That sounds like these are just normal people. “Yeah, sure, they&#8217;re illegal immigrants, but they&#8217;re picking the marijuana that America needs.”
But marijuana is damaging our country. If you don&#8217;t believe me, visit LA, visit Denver.
This pot farm was allegedly using illegal underage labor. It&#8217;s hard to think of a place more deserving of a federal law enforcement raid than a pot farm that is engaging in illegal underage labor.
The Left freaked out. Protesters showed up because they heard that ICE was showing up. At least one person showed up with a gun and fired at an ICE agent.
That person is no longer a “protester.” He’s now an attempted murderer.
But a video that went viral on social media was not the video of the so-called protester shooting a gun or the idiots who were attempting to stop an ICE vehicle using flagpoles.
It was children running from tear gas, which ICE used to disperse the crowds.
But when they say children were running away, they should point out that some of the children who were running away were presumably brought there as protesters, because if they were there as child labor, the parents should be in jail.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2236-democrats-defend-illegal-immigrant-child-labor-on-pot-farm?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
It&#8217;s a violation of federal and state law to use your small children as child labor at a cannabis farm, we should point out.
But this caused Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who desperately wants to run for President of the United States, to tweet, “Kids running from tear gas crying on the phone because their mother was just taken from the fields. Trump calls me ‘Newscum’ — but he&#8217;s the real scum.”
Amazing performative outrage.
What are the children doing there in the first place? That should be the real question.
Why have leftists incentivized parents to bring small children to protest immigration raids at a cannabis farm employing underage labor? That&#8217;s question number one. Question number two: Is Newsom suggesting that kids are crying because mom is being taken away? The only person on tape I could see who was crying about this appeared to be a young man whose mom was taken away.
If you&#8217;re a legal immigrant, the administration is not going to arrest you. You have to violate the law in some way that calls for your deportation in order for them to pursue the arrest.
President Trump has mentioned the idea of providing some sort of temporary shield for illegal immigrant farmworkers and hospitality workers, or people working in hotels. He has insisted there will be no amnesty, but also suggested that some workers might be allowed to stay if their employers take responsibility for them.
The policy that the media claim Trump is pursuing is not the policy that he is pursuing.
But because the media are lying about the actual policy and because there are people on social media who are able to blow those lies up into full-fledged stories, you end up with violence against ICE agents, people showing up en masse to stop what are clearly legitimate law enforcement raids.
The performative outrage is the entire gambit for the Left.
It&#8217;s all performative outrage.

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The Performative Outrage Of The Left

It&#8217;s time to talk about the biggest conspiracy and cover-up in modern American history.
No, I&#8217;m not talking about Jeffrey Epstein.
I am talking about the cover-up that was right in front of us that actually does go all the way to the top.
That cover-up, of course, involves the fact that the president of the United States was mentally deficient for several years and that someone else — we don&#8217;t know who — was actually running the country. 
The smoking gun to that effect was presented on Wednesday in front of Congress. Doctor Kevin O&#8217;Connor, who was former President Joe Biden&#8217;s White House physician, constantly invoked his rights under the Fifth Amendment and physician-patient privilege before the <a href="https://x.com/gopoversight/status/1943063181490032905?s=46">House Oversight Committee</a>.
That is insane.
O’Connor was asked about what he knew and when he knew it about Joe Biden&#8217;s health condition, and he pled the Fifth. He was asked if he was ever told to lie about the president&#8217;s health, whether Biden as president was unfit to execute his duties as president, and he consistently invoked physician-patient privilege and the Fifth Amendment.
Exasperated, one GOP rep asked, “Doctor O&#8217;Connor, is it your intention to decline to answer all questions put to you today by the Committee on the basis of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination?”
O’Connor again stated, “On the advice of counsel, I must respectfully decline to answer based upon the physician-patient privilege and in reliance on my right and the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”
Okay, this is insane.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2235-the-smoking-gun-in-the-biden-cover-up?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
He was claiming, based on two different things, that he would not testify. One, of course, is physician-patient privilege, the idea that you are supposed to keep secret health information that you and your doctor exchange. The doctor is not supposed to talk publicly about that.
But physician-patient privilege should probably not extend to public statements that you make about the health of the president of the United States because you&#8217;re violating patient privilege by even saying that much. If you make a statement that the president is healthy and the president has the following conditions, that&#8217;s a violation of physician-patient privilege.
In any other context, if your doctor went to a bar today and started talking about your specific health issues, even if he said you&#8217;re totally healthy and fine, that would be a violation of physician-patient privilege.
But that&#8217;s exactly what Kevin O&#8217;Connor did. He put out public statements about the health of the president of the United States. Thus, asking him about that should not be an issue.
As far as the Fifth Amendment, which protects against self-incrimination, he was saying that if he spoke, he could find himself in danger of a perjury trap or in danger of committing a crime, which is absolutely astonishing.
Remember, the original question here was, “Were you instructed to lie about the president&#8217;s health at any point?”
That is not a question about the president&#8217;s health. That&#8217;s a question about the lies surrounding the president&#8217;s health. So if he says yes, he might have committed a crime when he told the American people something false or told Congress something false.
We have an explicit amendment to the Constitution that is designed to oust people who are mentally incompetent from this office, which means all members of the Biden cabinet were complicit in the cover-up of his health condition. All Biden cabinet members were complicit in the reality that the president of the United States was not actually the president of the United States. That&#8217;s a scandal. That&#8217;s a cover-up, and requires a much deeper investigation.
It was all out in public view. There was tremendous evidence for it. Yet in 2024, O’Connor said Biden’s mental cognition was “excellent.”
Congress can easily solve this problem. All they have to do is grant him immunity, because then the Fifth Amendment concern goes away. If they say, “Anything you testify on today cannot be used as the basis for your future prosecution,” he can no longer claim the Fifth Amendment because the Fifth Amendment only applies in arenas where you could theoretically be prosecuted for the things that you are saying.
There are also other ways around this. According to the Congressional Research Service, “Under federal statute, when a witness asserts the privilege, the full House or the committee conducting the investigation may seek a court order that 1) directs the witness to testify and 2) grant the witness immunity against the use of his or her testimony.”
So that is presumably the next step.
We already know there was a cover-up. The only question is, who told O&#8217;Connor to cover up the health condition?
Was it Jill? Was it Joe who did that? Also, why was everybody else in the White House complicit in this cover-up? And who the hell was the president of the United States for multiple years?
The American people were lied to. Anybody who was involved in the Joe Biden cabinet that refused to make a move to invoke the 25th Amendment to oust him as president of the United States for mental incompetence needs to be effectively barred from politics forever.
Anyone who&#8217;s a cabinet secretary who rose to that level — the Pete Buttigiegs of the world, for example — needs to be held accountable for not having tried to invoke the 25th amendment, because the American people were robbed of having a president of the United States that they actually elected.
The fact that O’Connor is taking the Fifth Amendment is demonstrative of the lengths to which people surrounding the president will go to maintain their hold on proximity to power.
They shouldn’t get away with it.

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The Smoking Gun In The Biden Cover-Up 

I know many, many people are deeply disappointed by the fact that the DOJ and FBI just announced that the Epstein case is essentially closed: that he killed himself, that there is no Epstein List, and that it’s pretty much the end of the process. I get it. Jeffrey Epstein was a total and complete piece of human debris, a predatory criminal who inflicted unspeakable harm on vulnerable underage girls, and he deserved far worse than he got.
But that doesn’t mean that the Trump administration is lying. It doesn’t mean all our questions are answered, or that evidence has been provided to answer them.
But here’s my deal: if Dan Bongino, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, JD Vance and Donald Trump told me today that after looking at all the evidence, it turns out Epstein was a Mossad agent who trafficked young girls in order to blackmail prominent people, I’d believe them, because they saw the evidence. I haven’t.
But that’s not what they’re telling me.
So why do I believe them? Because they asked the same exact questions the rest of us did. They wanted the same exact answers.
So, here’s the deal: It’s our job to follow the evidence, or lack thereof, wherever it leads. I don’t have more evidence today that answers my questions than I did yesterday – except that I have the word of people I trust who do. I didn’t suddenly gain access to more information. But Dan, Kash, Pam, JD Vance, and Trump did.
Kash Patel and Dan Bongino were among the loudest voices demanding the truth about Epstein. They, like many of us, strongly suspected a cover-up in Epstein’s death and hoped for a bombshell revelation. These guys were never shills for the establishment – they built their reputations by challenging it.
Dan Bongino has been a stalwart defender of truth and transparency. He’s the guy who’s been on the front lines exposing the Russia hoax, the guy who’s been calling out the weaponization of federal agencies, the guy who’s been consistently right about institutional corruption. When someone like that tells you he’s reviewed the entire file and that Epstein killed himself, shouldn’t that carry some weight? Shouldn’t we extend the benefit of the doubt to people who have earned our trust through years of principled stands?
<div id="attachment_926611" style="width: 993px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-926611" class="size-large wp-image-926611" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Kash-Patel-983x576.jpg" alt="Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel testifies before the House Appropriations Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on May 07, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)" width="983" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Kash-Patel-983x576.jpg 983w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Kash-Patel-300x176.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Kash-Patel-768x450.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Kash-Patel.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 983px) 100vw, 983px" />Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</div>
And Kash Patel – this is someone who worked inside the system, who saw the deep state machinations firsthand, who helped expose the FISA abuses and the corruption at the highest levels of government. These aren’t establishment apologists. These are people who have put their careers on the line to expose uncomfortable truths. So when they, along with JD Vance, Pam Bondi, and President Trump, who all operated under the exact same assumptions, tell us that the evidence doesn’t support the conspiracy theories we’ve been entertaining, maybe – just maybe – we should listen.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2234-the-real-jeffrey-epstein-story?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Again, I understand the skepticism. After years of being lied to by the media, after seeing how institutions have been weaponized against conservatives, our default position has become one of suspicion. And that’s not entirely unreasonable. But here’s what should separate the rational from the irrational: to follow the evidence where it leads, even when it’s uncomfortable, and even or especially when it contradicts our preconceived notions.
And, again, if one day, legitimate evidence emerges that this was a coordinated cover-up and a genuine conspiracy orchestrated by this administration — I’ll be the first to come out and say I got it wrong and they lied. When new evidence emerges, I change my opinion.
That’s what it means to follow the facts.
I understand this is a tough pill to swallow. I really do. We were all making assumptions in similar ways about Jeffrey Epstein. But so were the members of the Trump administration until they saw what we haven’t seen.
For years, we’ve been operating under the collective belief that there were some mysteries to be solved here. The narrative was compelling; it made sense given the evil nature of the crimes at play.
But here’s the thing – and this is where we need to separate emotion from evidence – the facts are what the facts are. The FBI has concluded its investigation. The Justice Department has released its findings. Multiple independent investigations have all reached the same conclusion: Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide, and there is no evidence of a client list.
So, let’s go back through this case and examine the legitimate questions – and there were legitimate questions. And then let’s discuss the possibilities rationally, knowing what we know.
<div id="attachment_758081" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-758081" class="size-large wp-image-758081" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-590696434-864x576.jpg" alt="Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend de Grisogono Sponsors The 2005 Wall Street Concert Series Benefitting Wall Street Rising, with a Performance by Rod Stewart at Cipriani Wall Street on March 15, 2005 in New York City." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-590696434-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-590696434-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-590696434-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-590696434-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-590696434-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-590696434-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/GettyImages-590696434-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images</div>
<h3>WHAT WERE THE ALLEGATIONS?</h3>
<h3>Ghislaine Maxwell: The Facts</h3>
She was convicted for her role in recruiting, grooming, and trafficking underage girls for the sexual abuse of Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was identified as the main perpetrator.
<h3>So, Who Alleged the Involvement of Third Parties?</h3>
Virginia Giuffre: She claimed that Maxwell and Epstein told her to have sex with Epstein’s powerful friends and associates, including Prince Andrew, Senator George Mitchell, and Alan Dershowitz. She provided zero supporting evidence of these allegations about anyone but Epstein and Prince Andrew, who appeared in a photo with Giuffre and Maxwell in London. Prince Andrew settled a civil lawsuit and did not admit guilt. She had credibility problems: she apparently changed her details many times, including even her age when she met Epstein. She gave a deposition in 2016 in which she contradicted earlier statements about interactions with individuals, including her allegations that she had not been in a helicopter with Bill Clinton. She also dropped her claims against Dershowitz, saying she may have erred. Prosecutors didn’t even include her allegations in the case against Ghislaine Maxwell.
<div id="attachment_900695" style="width: 846px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-900695" class="size-large wp-image-900695" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-1903196548-836x576.jpg" alt="" width="836" height="576" />Emily Michot/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images</div>
Sarah Ransome: She alleged that Maxwell and Epstein trafficked girls to Epstein’s “colleagues” and powerful men, including Clinton, Trump, and Richard Branson. She provided no evidence to support the allegations. She sued Epstein and Maxwell, and settled out of court. She claimed that she was sexually trafficked when she was 22, that she was threatened, and her passport was removed.
Johanna Sjoberg: She testified about being present with Giuffre, Prince Andrew, and Maxwell, and said Prince Andrew acted inappropriately, but she didn’t allege that Maxwell trafficked her to third parties.
<h3>Why Did Epstein Settle His Original Criminal Case in 2008? </h3>
Originally, he settled under a non-prosecution agreement, after facing a 53-page federal indictment for sexually abusing dozens of underage girls. Prosecutors instead pursued solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution. The non-prosecution agreement (NPA) didn’t just protect Epstein, it protected four named co-conspirators and any unnamed co-conspirators. He served only 13 months in county jail, much of it on work release.
Acosta and his team believed that Epstein registering as a sex offender was better than running through a trial that may have ended the way P. Diddy’s case did. He claimed that it would have put underage girls through trauma.
Multiple Department of Justice reviews found no evidence that Acosta’s decision was motivated by corruption, Epstein’s wealth, status, or associations. The DOJ concluded that Acosta exercised &#8220;poor judgment&#8221; but did not commit professional misconduct or act under improper influence.
<h3>Is There Any Evidence Epstein Was An Intelligence Asset?</h3>
Then-US Attorney Alexander Acosta allegedly claimed that he was told by higher officials that Epstein was “of importance to the government” and to “leave it alone.” Acosta apparently decided to resolve the case through a plea arrangement before the federal investigation had concluded. Acosta, when asked if Epstein “belonged to intelligence,” refused to comment, citing DOJ guidelines. He never publicly made this allegation. He actually said, “There has been reporting to that effect. And let me say, there’s been report to a lot of effects in this case. Not just now but over the years. And again, I would, I would hesitate to take this reporting as fact.”
Zero governments, U.S. or otherwise, have acknowledged Epstein as an intelligence asset.
Epstein’s properties were wired with hidden cameras, and witnesses reported surveillance footage monitored and stored.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert Maxwell, allegedly had ties to Israeli intelligence.
Epstein had an Austrian passport with a false name as well as a Saudi address, and worked with Adnan Khashoggi, a known arms dealer and intelligence asset. 
<h3>How Did Epstein Make His Money?</h3>
He started working at Bear Stearns in the 1970s and became a limited partner by 1980. He then founded a consulting firm called the International Assets Group/Intercontinental Assets Group, which claimed to recover stolen money for wealthy clients. He worked with Steven Hoffenberg at the Towers Financial Corporation, which later was exposed as a Ponzi scheme. It’s not clear how involved he was. He then founded the Financial Trust Company, which had essentially one client – Leslie Wexner, of Victoria’s Secret fame – which was the basis for his wealth. Wexner later accused Epstein of misappropriating vast sums of money for personal use. He also received $158M from Leon Black for tax and estate planning services.
Deutsche Bank was fined $150 million for compliance failures related to Epstein; JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank settled lawsuits alleging that they benefitted from his illegal activities.
<h3>Did Epstein Kill Himself?</h3>
The DOJ has run multiple investigations and found that Epstein killed himself.
The DOJ and Bureau of Prisons stated that the missing minute of tape is a recurring technical artifact: the video system resets at midnight every night.
The camera angle didn’t include Epstein’s cell because two other cameras malfunctioned. Available footage, according to the DOJ, would have covered anyone going in or out.
Again, I don’t know the answers to all the questions. But I know people who have far more access to evidence than I do. I know them personally. Maybe they’re all lying to me. Maybe they’re all in on it.
But here’s the thing: if they told me the opposite, I’d believe them. So, here’s what should happen next: a full report from the FBI and DOJ explaining just why they came to the conclusions they did. One that answers our questions as fully as possible – and explains what they don’t know, either. More transparency is a good thing.
But in the meantime, I’m not going to call all of these people liars or suggest they’re victims of an op or running one. Because I have no evidence for that.
And when the evidence changes, I change my position.

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The Epstein Case: Why I Believe We Are Getting The Truth

We have seen a massive spike in the number of attacks on ICE agents over the course of the last six months, since President Trump took office and decided we were actually going to enforce our border.
On Monday morning, a 27-year-old man with a rifle and tactical vest was killed after <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-gunman-in-tactical-gear-killed-after-opening-fire-on-border-patrol-agents?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=BREAKING%3A+Gunman+In+Tactical+Gear+Killed+After+Opening+Fire+On+Border+Patrol+Agents">exchanging fire</a> with law enforcement officers at a border patrol facility in McAllen, Texas.
Border Czar Tom Homan has said attacks on ICE agents are up nearly <a href="https://grabien.com/story?id=535014">700%</a>. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks said Left-wing anti-police rhetoric is having something to do with the uptick in violence, <a href="https://grabien.com/story?id=535050">asserting</a>, “All of the rhetoric and the false information that&#8217;s been put out by the Left is just increasing violence against our agents, and it&#8217;s just unacceptable.”
The Left has been claiming for a very long time that if you use rhetoric that is too colorful, if you say things that are borderline, this can lead to “stochastic terrorism.” What you&#8217;re doing is creating a permission structure for terrorism.
As I&#8217;ve said before, unless you are actually excusing or inciting violence, you are not responsible for that violence. With that said, when you raise the temperature, there will be people who bubble over.
That doesn&#8217;t mean Bernie Sanders is responsible for the congressional baseball shooter, for example, but what it does mean is that when you keep saying over and over and over that Republicans are going to kill your grandparents when they take away Medicare or some other such nonsense — and then somebody goes and shoots a bunch of Republican congresspeople for playing baseball — at the very least, you should consider whether the language you used was well-calibrated.
This is the problem. The language currently being used by the Left with regard to ICE or Border Patrol is extraordinary. It sets up a permission structure that causes people who are unhinged to take their behavior to the next level.
In the same way, if you keep saying President Donald Trump is Hitler, at some point, someone might take you seriously and go and try to kill Hitler.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2233?elementPosition=3&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Here are just a few examples of members of the high-ranking Left going after ICE and Border Patrol in language that is completely unhinged.
Failed Vice-Presidential candidate <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVOrOkxeCD4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tim Walz</a>: “Donald Trump&#8217;s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They&#8217;re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons. No chance to mount a defense. Not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye.”
Boston Mayor <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1930630848832831496">Michelle Wu</a>: “I don&#8217;t know of any police department that routinely wears masks. We know that there are other groups that routinely wear masks.” 
Los Angeles Mayor <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/newsom-files-emergency-motion-to-block-military-deployment-in-la/">Karen Bass</a>: “Which is why I say that I feel like we have all been in Los Angeles a part of a grand experiment to see what happens when the federal government decides they want to roll up on a state, or roll up on a city, and take over.&#8221;
Rep. <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2025/06/12/dem-rep-goldman-dhs-agents-are-using-gestapo-like-tactics/">Dan Goldman</a> (D-NY): “The combination of these Gestapo-like tactics with the fact that these are nonviolent, non-criminal immigrants doing things the right way &#8230;”
Rep. Alexandria <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-blasts-conditions-at-migrant-detention-centers">Ocasio-Cortez</a> (D-NY): “I mean, in that last facility, I was not safe from the officers in that facility.”
Rep. <a href="https://x.com/DailyCaller/status/1933172641646416273">Stephen Lynch</a> (D-MA): “You know, my dad served in the Second World War. He fought the Nazis in Northern Africa. He fought the Nazis on the Italian peninsula. And I think he&#8217;s looking down right now, and he&#8217;s happy that I&#8217;m fighting today&#8217;s Nazis.”
There are a lot of prominent Democratic figures using this kind of rhetoric, and that language is going to have some sort of consequence.
It doesn&#8217;t mean they&#8217;re responsible for a person trying to shoot Border Patrol agents, but if you keep increasing the temperature and if you keep excusing violence on the other end — which, by the way, the Democrats have been doing for quite a long while, ranging from the sort of violence we saw during the BLM riots of 2020 to excusing the alleged murderous actions of Luigi Mangione on the streets of New York — you&#8217;re obviously going to lead to an uptick in violence.
You may not like President Trump&#8217;s immigration policy; that is your prerogative. But it is also the law of the land. You are not allowed to cross our southern border illegally and simply live here.
That is the law of the land. If you don&#8217;t like that law, you should talk to your member of Congress. If you don&#8217;t like that law, then you should try to change that law.
That&#8217;s how it works in a democracy.
You don&#8217;t get to simply call the people who are enforcing the law “Nazis” and “Gestapo agents” and then act surprised when people attack the supposed Nazis and Gestapo in our midst.

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From Words To Bullets: The Cost Of Calling ICE ‘Nazis’

There was horrifying news over the weekend, and as you would expect, both the Democrats and their lapdogs in the media attempted to unfairly blame the Trump administration.
Deadly floods struck across Texas on July 4, and at least 90 people are feared dead as a result. The majority of those deaths, including at least 28 children, occurred in Kerr County.
This isn&#8217;t a rarity. Unfortunately, in these parts of Texas, there have been situations like this before. According to Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the river rose 26 feet in 45 minutes, which is a shocking, shocking increase — and it happened in the middle of the night.
<div id="attachment_943769" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-943769" class="wp-image-943769 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223864073-864x576.jpg" alt="CENTER POINT, TEXAS - JULY 06: People stand together beyond caution tape on the banks of the Guadalupe River on July 06, 2025 in Center Point, Texas. Heavy rainfall caused severe flooding along the Guadalupe River in central Texas, leaving more than 70 people reported dead. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223864073-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223864073-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223864073-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223864073.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Brandon Bell/Getty Images</div>
President Trump put out <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114806881411557795">a statement</a> saying that he had signed a major disaster declaration for Kern County to ensure responders would immediately have the resources they need:
<blockquote>These families are enduring an unimaginable tragedy, with many lives lost and many still missing.</blockquote>
Despite the fact that the Trump administration was working closely with state and local leaders in the wake of the tragedy, it didn’t stop the media from immediately spinning out a lie.
Whenever there is a terrible situation that occurs in the United States, the first move is to try to find the person to blame politically. Sometimes that&#8217;s justified. Sometimes it turns out that there could have been measures that were taken on a state or local level that could have prevented these things.
But notice how the media immediately turned to the national government as the source of the problem as soon as a Republican is in power.
Remember when there were those massive wildfires earlier this year in Southern California that ate up a huge percentage of the acreage? A lot of the blame fell on local leadership as well as on California Governor Gavin Newsom. That was putting the blame where it probably ought to lie, if you&#8217;re going to make public policy decisions. That’s because you&#8217;re talking about natural disasters, the first line of defense is the local government, and then the state government.
During the Lahaina fires in Hawaii, the first line of blame never went to Joe Biden. It always went to the governor of the state or the local leadership in Maui, which was appropriate.
But as soon as a Republican is the president, immediately the media spins it as the president’s fault. We&#8217;ve seen this for decades.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2232-dems-lie-blame-trump-for-storm-deaths-plus-illegal-immigrant-superman?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
During Hurricane Katrina, the entire media decided that despite the fact that the New Orleans flooding was the fault of the state and local leadership, and the poor response was the fault of the state and local leadership, it was the responsibility of George W. Bush and FEMA&#8217;s failures that led to the problems.
The media are trying to do the same thing this time. They&#8217;re blaming President Trump for the deaths in Kerr County by suggesting that DOGE cuts to the National Weather Service were somehow responsible for all of this.
George Stephanopoulos, Mr. Clintonista, a Clinton apparatchik from back in the 1990s who is now perceived supposedly as an objective, neutral news anchor on ABC&#8217;s “This Week,” had <a href="https://x.com/BrentHBaker/status/1941867108624699499">this to say</a>: 
<blockquote>We’re also learning that there were significant staffing shortfalls in the National Weather Service&#8217;s offices in the region.</blockquote>
Al Sharpton, who, of course, is a clown, was on MSNBC claiming that all of this was happening because Trump was making cuts to FEMA and to the National Weather Service, saying: 
<blockquote>The incident comes as the Trump administration is making deep cuts to weather forecasting services and openly discussing shifting more of the burden for disaster recovery from FEMA to state governments.</blockquote>
Sharpton said this as Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, nodded along.
Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of Meidas Touch <a href="https://x.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1941456923263631811">wrote on X</a>: 
<blockquote>When experts warned for months that the NDS ‘is being destroyed’ by rump’s personnel cuts, Howard Lutnick assured Congress that forecasting won’t be affected. Now TX officials are blaming a faulty forecast by NWS for the deadly impact of the storm.</blockquote>
There&#8217;s a big problem with this. It’s not true.
Kristina Dahl, Vice-President for Science at Climate Central, <a href="https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnr/date/2025-07-06/segment/19">told CNN</a>:
<blockquote>It&#8217;s clear that &#8230; many, many people did not see those warnings, did not have any chance to respond to them to get to safety before the waters rose, because they were rising so, so quickly. And so obviously there&#8217;s a need to investigate what happened and where that communications breakdown happened. But to be clear, the National Weather Service did its job in warning first to a large area to say there is flood risk in this area, and then over time, as the risk became clearer and clearer, they kind of refined those warnings and issued updates. But obviously the loss of life here really indicates how unprepared we are as a nation for disasters of this scale.</blockquote>
She is saying that the National Weather Service did its job.
Tragedy occurs in life. That’s reality. Not every tragedy is preventable. You do the best that you can.
There are no indicators, none, that DOGE cuts led to the failure of a federal response. This is an excuse by the media to attack the Trump administration.
According to Wired — which is definitely not a Trump outlet:
<blockquote>Meteorologists who spoke to Wired say that the NWS accurately predicted the risk of flooding in Texas and could not have foreseen the extreme severity of the storm. What&#8217;s more, they say that what the NWS did forecast this week underscores the need to sustain funding to the crucial agency.</blockquote>
The staffing levels were not just fine, they were actually larger than normal. The National Weather Service office in Austin, San Antonio, was staffed with five meteorologists throughout the storms on Thursday and Friday, according to NWS meteorologist Jason Runyan.
They usually have two when the weather is clear.
<div id="attachment_943773" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-943773" class="size-large wp-image-943773" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223208053-865x576.jpg" alt="HUNT, TEXAS - JULY 6: Vehicles sit submerged as a search and rescue worker looks through debris for any survivors or remains of people swept up in the flash flooding on July 6, 2025 in Hunt, Texas. Heavy rainfall caused flooding along the Guadalupe River in central Texas with multiple fatalities reported. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223208053-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223208053-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223208053-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/07/GettyImages-2223208053.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />Jim Vondruska/Getty Images</div>
The Department of Homeland Security put out its <a href="https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1942282490653335622">own thread</a>, which stated:
<blockquote>The mainstream media is deliberately lying about the events leading up to the catastrophic flooding in Texas. The National Weather Service executed timely, precise forecasting and warnings, despite unprecedented rainfall overwhelming the region. Here is the timeline of NWS’s proactive response: 
Morning, July 3rd: NWS Austin/San Antonio conducts forecast briefings for emergency management, flagging flash flood risks. Morning, July 3rd: National Water Center issues Flood Hazard Outlook, identifying flash flood potential for Kerrville and surrounding areas. 1:18 PM, July 3rd: NWS issues Flood Watch for Kerr County, effective through Friday morning. 6:10 PM, July 3rd: Weather Prediction Center issues first of three Mesoscale Precipitation Discussions, warning of excessive rainfall and flash flood potential. 6:22 PM, July 3rd: National Water Center warns of considerable flooding risks north and west of San Antonio, including Kerrville. 11:41 PM, July 3rd: First Flash Flood Warning issued for Bandera County.
1:14 AM, July 4th: Flash Flood Warning with “Considerable” tag issued for Bandera and Kerr Counties, triggering Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) and NOAA Weather Radio notifications. 4:03 AM, July 4th: Flash Flood Warning upgraded to Flash Flood Emergency for south-central Kerr County, including Hunt. 4:35 AM, July 4th: Kerr County Sheriff’s Office reports flooding at low water crossings, 201 minutes (over 3 hours) after the 1:14 AM warning. 5:00 AM, July 4th: National Water Center warns of widespread considerable and catastrophic flooding. 5:34 AM, July 4th: Flash Flood Emergency issued for the Guadalupe River, signaling a “large and deadly flood wave.”
The National Weather Service provided over 12 hours of advance notice via the Flood Watch and over 3 hours of lead time for Flash Flood Warnings, with escalated alerts as the storm intensified.</blockquote>
This is a manufactured scandal out of whole cloth. But it shows you the tremendous, tremendous animus so many members of the media and the Democrats have for the Trump administration.
This pattern has been continuous throughout my lifetime. When there is a Republican president and there is a natural disaster, the immediate response is to blame the Republican president. When there&#8217;s a Democratic president and a natural disaster, the immediate response is to try to shift the blame to climate change, something that is utterly uncontrollable by mankind.
That is always the goal, always and forever.
The media and the Democrats are dishonest hacks.
And that’s putting it mildly.

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Surprise: Dems, Media Lie, Blame Trump For Storm Deaths

Opinion

Donald Trump

Mick Mulvaney

Watch The Michael Knowles Show live Monday–Friday at 9:30 a.m. ET to chat with Michael Knowles and join in on exclusive Memberblock challenges and reactions.

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The Michael Knowles Show

Music Monday: SWAG By Justin Bieber | Ep. 1770

Today on the Matt Walsh Show, we're now being told that there's nothing to see here with Jeffrey Epstein. No client list. No other culprits. And he did kill himself. We'll sort through the latest on this story, and I'll explain why I don't buy the official narrative for even a second. Also, bureaucrats weep and wail in the street as relatively minor layoffs hit the State Department. A woke DA drops all charges against a registered sex offender who attempted to kidnap a child from a playground. And, Chip and Joanna Gaines produce a new show that features a gay couple with children.

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The Matt Walsh Show

Ep. 1622 - They Want You To Forget About Epstein. Don’t. [Member Exclusive]

New metadata reveal that Jeffrey Epstein's cell footage was edited, top Trump officials might go down over the debacle, and an LGBT activist gets caught doing exactly what you'd expect.


Ep. 1770 - New Data Pour Gasoline on the Epstein Conspiracy Fire

The Biden autopen scandal comes to a fore, and the Jeffrey Epstein story continues to percolate, with some serious questions remaining…plus A LOT of grifting and cowardice; last, we examine what’s next on the Congressional agenda.

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The Ben Shapiro Show

Ep. 2237 - The Biden Autopen Scandal Breaks WIDE OPEN [Member Exclusive]

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson speaks with psychologist and autism researcher Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen about the nature of empathy, systemizing, and the neurological basis of autism. This needed conversation explores how humans develop theory of mind, the differences between cognitive and affective empathy, and why some individuals gravitate toward systems over social interaction. They discuss the evolutionary roots of invention, gender differences in cognition, and how autistic traits relate to creativity and pattern recognition. Unflinchingly, they also discuss the darker side of empathy deficits—including psychopathy and cruelty—raising urgent questions about compassion, human development, and our capacity for evil.

Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, Simon Baron-Cohen is Director of the Autism Research Centre and a global leader in autism research. He pioneered the 'mindblindness' and 'empathizing-systemizing' theories, has authored over 770 scientific papers, and was knighted in 2021 for his contributions to autism understanding. His work spans clinical practice, public education, and cutting-edge research on cognitive sex differences, empathy, and neurodiversity.

This episode was filmed on July 5th, 2025


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For Simon Baron-Cohen:

On X https://x.com/sbaroncohen?lang=en 
Read Dr. Baron-Cohen’s most recent book, as discussed in the show, “The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention” https://a.co/d/9hsG5MR 

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Trump Picks OMB Director Mick Mulvaney As Acting Chief Of Staff

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