Thursday, February 5, 2026. Donald Chump continues to be haunted by
the Epstein files and by his other pedo friends, Americans are ready for
Kristi Noem to quit or be fired, while one five-year-old was freed from
Chump's gulag this week many more children remain imprisoned, Senator
Mark Kelly is not backing down, and much more.
The
Epstein Files. Still not fully released. The administration is still
refusing to follow the act of Congress and release everything And
Donald Chump is all over last week's release. There's a report of him
raping a girl, for instance, in the release last week. He keeps lying
and pretending that it's not, but it is. THE NEW YORK TIMES is so
scared of being sued that they did not note it in their coverage -- or
any of the allegations against him in the last release. They say so in an article
credited to "THE NEW YORK TIMES," "The New York Times is not describing
the details of the unverified claims." What is the paper of record
ignoring? Zachary Leeman (MEDIAITE) explains:
In a complaint made by a friend, the president was accused of forcing a 13-14-year-old to perform oral sex on him.
“[Redacted]
reported an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral
sex on President Trump approximately 35 years ago in NJ. The friend told
Alexis that she was approximately 13-14 years old when this occurred,
and the friend allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex.
The friend was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting
President Trump. The friend said she was also abused by Epstein,” the
complaint reads.
A
new tranche of Justice Department documents related to its
investigation of Jeffrey Epstein appeared to show that President Donald
Trump's and his commerce secretary may have been in contact with the
convicted sex trafficker long after they said they had ended their
relationships with him.
Amid
bipartisan demands for transparency into the Justice Department's
findings since Trump retook office last year, the president has
maintained that he ended his long friendship with Epstein in 2006, when
they had a falling out after Epstein allegedly abducted underage female
employees of Trump's Palm Beach resort. Trump also claimed he banned
Epstein from Mar-a-Lago the same year.
But
according to a report at the time from the New York Post, Epstein denied
having had his Mar-a-Lago membership revoked. In fact, he had recently
been invited to an event there, Page Six reported in October 2007. Now,
according to the latest batch of Justice Department files, Epstein
planned to communicate with Trump in April 2011.
In
an email sent by Epstein to someone named William Riley, he references a
call he planned to make to Trump regarding "vrginina." Though the file,
EFTA00909374, does not further identify the subject of the alleged
call, Virginia Giuffre, who worked as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, was
one of Epstein's most prominent accusers before her apparent suicide in
April 2025.
The email is dated April 18, 2011.
Howard
Lutnick is the Secretary of Commerce and, like Chump, his memory is
apparently not very good. He got a lot of attention in October by
claiming he had washed his own hands of Epstein in 2005 ("I will never
be in the room with that disgusting person ever again") but the records
show differently. The date dump last Friday included a December 2012
e-mails (that would be seven years after he claimed he had broken off
contact with Epstein) from Lutnik to Epstein:
“Hi
Jeff, we are landing in St. Thomas early Saturday afternoon and
planning to head over to St. Bart’s/Anguilla on Monday at some point.
Where are you located (what is exact location for my captain)? Does
Sunday evening for dinner sound good?” Lutnick wrote to Epstein on Dec.
19, 2012, according to file EFTA02151286.
Poor
memory (and easy lying) are the least of the administration's problems
when it comes to the Epstein files. Chump is insisting
nothing-to-see-here-move-along. But
Leigh Kimmins (DAILY BEAST) reports not everyone in the administration is singing from the same hymnal:
The
newest tranche of documents, released last week, re-ignited a familiar
headache for POTUS. It also saw the return of a familiar veiled plea,
after his name or related terms were found 5,300 times within the
documents. “I think it’s really time for the country to get onto
something else,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon.
But,
around an hour prior, the Daily Mail dropped a wide-ranging interview
with Trump’s second in command, where he suggested that he was open to a
fresh probe in relation to the files.
Over
the weekend, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Andrew
Mountbatten-Windsor, previously known as Prince Andrew, should be
prepared to testify before Congress about his past dealings with late
convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019.
“I
saw Keir Starmer said something about this,” Vance told the Mail,
before firmly stating his position. “I’m certainly open to it,” he
added.
As Trump was trying to brush three million files under the rug in the
Oval Office, the vice president was telling one of the world’s most read
publications that he thinks official probes into the files should
continue.
President
Donald Trump lost it at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins as she tried to ask him a
question about survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in
the Oval Office.
“What would you say to survivors–” Collins, 33, started to ask before the president, 79, cut her off.
“You
are so bad. You know, you are the worst reporter. No wonder,” Trump
ranted. “CNN has no ratings because of people like you.”
The
president then turned to others in the room, which included multiple
Republican lawmakers and reporters, as he kept attacking her.
“She’s
a young woman. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. I’ve known you
for 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face,” Trump
said.
Collins countered that she was asking a question about Epstein’s survivors, but the president kept going.
“You
know why you’re not smiling? Because you know you’re not telling the
truth, and you’re a very dishonest organization, and they should be
ashamed of you,” the president lashed out.
The
one not telling the truth is, as usual, Donald Chump. And his ties
with people close to Epstein remain largely unexplored.
Etan Nechin (HAARETZ) notes:
Pro-Trump
billionaire Marc Rowan, whom the president appointed to his Board of
Peace tasked with reconstructing Gaza, maintained close connections with
child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, newly released documents from the
U.S. Department of Justice show.
Rowan
co-founded the private equity firm Apollo Global Management with fellow
Wharton graduate Josh Harris and investor Leon Black. He has been its
CEO since 2021, succeeding Black, who was forced to step down in 2021
after revelations that he paid Epstein more than $150 million for
personal financial advice. Black was also accused of raping a
16-year-old girl with Down syndrome and autism, allegations he denied.
The
documents show that Rowan had multiple phone conversations and email
exchanges with Epstein. These included discussions in which Epstein
considered purchasing Rowan's private jet and plans for the two to meet
at Epstein's home.
The Financial Times reported
that Rowan discussed tax arrangements and sent Apollo financial
documents to Epstein over several years, even though the company
previously stated that it had no business with him.
According
to the FT, the two met at least once. In an email, Epstein wrote, "Mark
[sic] was here this morning; we talked Athene, Montauk Rothschild.
Planes boats etc."
In another email from 2016,
Epstein's assistant confirms plans for Rowan to visit his townhouse that
day, along with members of the Edmond de Rothschild financial group and
a business partner of Rowan.
A
Dallas-area pastor known for his involvement in GOP politics and his
close relationship with President Donald Trump has been indicted in
Oklahoma on child sex charges which stretch back four decades.
Robert Morris was the lead pastor of the Gateway megachurch until last year when he resigned due to sexual abuse allegations.
The
63-year-old served on Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board in 2016,
hosted the President's 2020 "Roundtable on Transition to Greatness" a
fundraising dinner which cost $580,600 per couple, and worked to
organize Evangelicals in 2021 ahead of Trump's 2024 Presidential bid.
He is now indicted in Oklahoma for allegedly committing repeated indecent acts to a child in Oklahoma in the 1980s.
Musk,
it seems, had few concerns about corresponding or—whether or not they
ever actually hung out—associating with Epstein given his reputation. To
the contrary, it seems to have been the point of associating with
Epstein. Of course, the millions of emails released last week make it
clear that a lot of other powerful people, most of them men,
felt the exact same way. There is a sense of admiration, sometimes even
envy, in their correspondence with Epstein. Mostly, though, they
thought he was a good hang—not in spite of his reputation but because of
it.
Musk’s defense is notable because it mirrors the one offered by Donald Trump of his yearslong friendship
with Epstein, which began in the late 1980s and ended in the mid-2000s.
But Trump’s relationship with Epstein was not limited to
correspondence. Indeed, given Trump’s relative paucity of grown-up
friendships, one could credibly make the case that his relationship with
Epstein was one of the deepest of his adult life. (Epstein told the
journalist Michael Wolff—whose disturbingly close relationship with his “source” is detailed throughout the files—that Trump was once his “closest friend.”) “I’ve known Jeff [Epstein] for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York
magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that
he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the
younger side.” Around the same time, he sent Epstein a birthday card
featuring a hand-drawn silhouette. “A pal is a wonderful thing,” Trump wrote. “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump has since suggested
that his relationship with Epstein deteriorated when he learned that
his friend was a creep—specifically when Epstein attempted to “steal” a
young masseuse (possibly Virginia Giuffre, who recently published
a memoir detailing Epstein’s abuse and who died by suicide last year)
who worked at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. Trump’s allies have repeated that claim
ad nauseam, also claiming that Epstein was “banned” from the club at
the same time. There’s no evidence that’s true. (Epstein, it seems, was
never a dues-paying member of Mar-a-Lago but was treated as one, given
his close relationship with Trump.) Instead, the best contemporaneous
evidence of their falling out suggests that it was over real estate, not
Epstein’s treatment of women: The two engaged in a bitter battle to buy a historic Palm Beach property in 2004 that ultimately destroyed their friendship.
That real estate, not misogyny or criminal sexual activity,
destroyed Trump and Epstein’s relationship makes sense because it’s
clear from public comments and private correspondence that Trump was
aware that Epstein was a creep—he just thought it was cool. Every day
with him, after all, was a “wonderful secret.” The fact that Epstein
liked women on the “younger side” was something to toast. The extent to
which Trump participated in Epstein’s criminal activity is not clear.
But what is obvious is that he was well aware of who his friend was, and
that it was worth celebrating. He liked Epstein because he liked young
girls and was frequently surrounded by them. Which is also why, years
after Epstein and Trump’s falling out, Musk wrote to him to ask when he
would be throwing the “wildest” party.
On
Tuesday evening, community members were encouraged to walk along the
sidewalk at Sam Houston Math, Science and Technology Center to protest
senior Mauro Yosueth Henriquez's detention by U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement.
Henriquez and his father,
Mauro Rigoberto Henriquez, were taken into custody on Dec. 16 and are
reportedly at a detention center in Conroe. The younger Henriquez is a
senior captain and midfielder of the school's soccer team and also
volunteers as a local soccer coach in the community.
A
GoFundMe by Esther Galvez has raised over $8,000 to cover the family's
legal expenses and help them cope with "immense emotional and financial
strain," caused by the absence of the elder Henriquez, the primary
breadwinner.
"He (Mauro Yoseuth Henriquez) is
known by teachers and mentors as a hardworking, respectful young man who
loves his school and community," Galvez wrote. "They are pleading for
his release so he can return home and graduate with his class."
Neither
the father nor the son has a criminal record, according to Harris
County District Clerk's Office. According to the Houston Chronicle, the
two are originally from Honduras, but ICE has not responded to a request
for comment on their immigration statuses.
Children
are being held in these gulags all over the country. Five-year-old
Liam is one that ICE was ordered to release. US House Rep Jasmine
Crockett was part of the effort to free Liam and she revealed this week
"so many other children whose names you don't know that are suffering
right now -- including children as young as one month old."
Judge
Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas issued an order releasing
five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father Adrian Conejo Arias from
the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. Liam became a symbol of the
human cost of the Trump administration’s occupying surge in Minnesota
when a camera caught him standing in the cold with a blue bunny hat and
backpack while government agents arrested the child. Judge Biery’s
short, poignant order delivers a comprehensive civics lesson laced with
contempt for what the judge calls “the perfidious lust for unbridled
power.”
[. . .]
Judge Biery may have fired off a bare bones opinion, but it only takes a handful of sentences to lay out the legal issue:
Civics
lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the
executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is
called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an
independent judicial officer.
This is, of
course, exactly right. ICE has been conducting enforcement actions based
on administrative warrants — essentially permission slips the executive
branch writes for itself — rather than judicial warrants supported by
probable cause. The Fourth Amendment requires the latter. This has
always been the case, and the administration keeps lying about it.
The
Trump administration’s response to the two recent killings in
Minneapolis has achieved the peculiar distinction of being both
horrifying and ridiculous at the same time — like watching “The Death of
Stalin,” except without the self-awareness or the courtesy of being
fiction
One of the faces of
this farce is that of Kristi Noem, the cowgirl-hat-wearing secretary of
Homeland Security, who told the nation that Renee Good and Alex Pretti
were “domestic terrorists,” while the immigration officers who killed
them were just practicing, you know, wholesome, all-American defensive
shooting.
It takes a special kind of audacity
to announce the exact opposite of what everyone can plainly see on viral
videos. Which raises an obvious question: Why would anyone attempt a
lie this naked and doomed?
Noem became a serial
prevaricator the same way that teenager in the old anti-drug ad learned
to smoke weed: “I learned it by watching you.”
Trumpworld
is a finishing school for shamelessness. Graduates are taught that
prudence is weakness, apology is surrender and reality itself is
alterable — if you just say the right words with enough swagger.
Homeland
Security Secretary Kristi Noem has shown little interest in restraining
her rhetoric lately, posting and posturing with the apparent confidence
that having President Donald Trump firmly at her back would shield her
from real consequences. That swagger didn’t hold up for long.
In
a sharp and very public setback, a federal judge in the U.S. District
Court for the District of Columbia issued a stay blocking Noem’s
directive to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of
Haitian immigrants living and working in the United States — a ruling
that landed just as her toughest talk was echoing back at her.
Judge
Ana Reyes made Noem’s humiliation stick when she even used Noem’s
hateful and bigoted words from a December social media post about
immigrants against her in an 83-page opinion issued Monday, Feb. 2,
denying the secretary’s plan to strip Haitians of their TPS, according
to news outlets.
In
December Noem wrote on X several days before announcing the decision to
revoke TPS for Haitian immigrants that after meeting with President
Donald Trump, “I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country
that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement
junkies.”
“Our
forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love
of freedom—not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry
our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS,” a
spiteful Noem continued before adding, “WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.”
Reyes’ scathing opinion threw Noem’s words right back in her face.
“The
plaintiffs are five Haitian TPS holders. They are not, it emerges,
‘killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies,’” Reyes wrote.
“They
are instead: Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, a neuroscientist researching
Alzheimer’s disease, Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national
bank, Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology
department, Marica Merline Laguerre, a college economics major, id., and
Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse.”
She
is an embarrassment and a hate monger. And this administration of
scolds and hall monitors (like Prissy Pete Hegseth trying to order the
Scouts around) has realed themselves to be deeply corrupt. That's why
the pubic is turning on them.
Sarah Davis (THE HILL) reports public sentiment is against Kristi Noem:
More
than half of respondents in a new poll said they support the removal of
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem.
The
Quinnipiac Poll comes as Democrats in Congress have called for Noem’s
ouster after federal immigration agents shot and killed two people in
Minneapolis last month. Noem is overseeing the largest immigration
enforcement operation in DHS history in Minnesota, and more than 2,000
agents were reportedly deployed to the state.
Of
the poll’s respondents, 58 percent said they would support replacing
Noem, while 34 percent were in favor of keeping the secretary in her
role.
Nearly
a year ago, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had the Epstein client
list on her desk for review. Then the administration waffled and refused
to turn over its files. On Friday, it finally did release 3 million
pages of documents.
And on Thursday night, knowing that release was imminent, the Justice Department just happened to arrest journalists.
That doesn’t feel like a coincidence.
It doesn’t even feel like politics. It all feels like a test democracy desperately needs America to pass.
Chump thinks he can distract from reality but he is mistaken. He can't even distract his new hires at ICE.
BALLER ALERT notes:
New
hires at ICE are blasting the agency for not delivering the huge
bonuses they were promised when they signed up to expand Donald Trump’s
immigration enforcement ranks.
In multiple Reddit posts reviewed by the International Business Times UK,
federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents complained that they
“hadn’t yet seen their signing bonuses materialize.” Others said that
when their bonus finally arrived, it was only a “few thousand dollars
after taxes.” One agent said they “were unable to cover medical costs
for their sick child due to an insurance coverage gap.” The
Trump administration pledged up to $50,000 in incentives for recruits
willing to beef up so-called homeland defenders, a campaign that helped
swell ICE’s ranks. The Department of Homeland Security touted an
incoming class of 12,000 new agents after receiving more than 220,000
applications, though the rapid growth has reportedly strained internal
systems. One unnamed administration official previously described the
hiring surge as a “s**t show” inside ICE.
The
names send a message that immigrants in the U.S. are “sub-human,”
Congressman Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat, told The Associated
Press.
“That is why they have those disgusting
names,” said Gomez, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.
Administration officials “don’t even use that kind of language when they
conduct operations across the globe dealing with some of the worst
terrorists imaginable.”
Operation
Catch of the Day, which wrapped up in Maine last month, immediately
drew backlash from Democratic lawmakers when the name was first
announced. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree called the branding “racist and
degrading” to Mainers in general and the state’s immigrant communities
in particular.
“It’s a sick joke,” Pingree said in a social media post.
Shenna
Bellows, Maine's Democratic secretary of state who is also running for
governor, denounced “the grotesquely named operation,” warning the Trump
administration's actions and messaging have chilled business and civic
life in the state.
“When ICE agents are
patrolling the streets and arresting and imprisoning people, wrongly,
then people are afraid to go out,” Bellows told AP.
State Democratic Sen. Joe Baldacci agreed: “This isn’t a special on a restaurant menu. This is people’s lives.”
A
new poll from The Economist and YouGov on Tuesday shows a 15 percent
uptick in Americans saying immigrants make the country “better off.” In
January 2025, 31 percent of Americans felt that sentiment, the pollster
notes.
A shifting
public stance toward immigration could influence congressional races and
policy strategies ahead of the midterm elections, as Republicans weigh
the potential costs of hard-line enforcement—while Democrats seek to
mobilize voters against mass deportation efforts, arguing the Trump
administration’s tactics have punished the U.S. economy while triggering
a humanitarian crisis.
The
trend also intersects with approval of President Donald Trump’s
handling of immigration, which registered net-negative ratings in recent
national polling.
Most
Americans (61%) believe that the Trump administration hasn't been
honest about the death of Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by
federal agents in Minneapolis nearly two weeks ago, according to a new
Quinnipiac poll.
Why it matters: Public opinion
on President Trump's hardline immigration agenda is hardening, even as
the administration attempts to tamp down fallout from the killings of
Pretti and Minneapolis mother Renee Good.
The
polling comes as Trump's border czar Tom Homan announced the
administration would withdraw 700 federal immigration agents from
Minnesota "immediately" — a major de-escalation move following weeks of
backlash over Pretti's killing.
By the numbers: 93% of
Democrats and 65% of Independents say the administration hasn't been
honest about the shooting, compared with 19% of Republicans.
62% of voters say the shooting was not justified, while 22% say it was — and 16% did not offer an opinion.
State
of play: The vast majority of Americans (80%) say there should be an
independent investigation into the shooting, compared with just 15% who
disagree.
Senator Mark Kelly is retired military. He and others
who have served taped a public service announcement noting that those in
the military have a duty to not follow an illegal order. It's part of
training, what they announced. But the White House ginned up outrage as
they usually do with the demented Donald Chump insisting that Mark and
others could be executed for what they had stated. And Panties Pete
Hegseth took time off from playing Secretary of 'War' to attack Kelly.
He went beyond throwing words and announced that Kelly was going to be
dropped to a lower rank.
Will Neal (DAILY BEAST) notes:
Pete
Hegseth looks to be heading home with his tail between his legs after a
judge poured cold water on the defense secretary’s vengeful crusade
against a top Democrat.
“You’re asking me to do
something that the Supreme Court has never done,” D.C. District Judge
Richard Leon said in a preliminary hearing reported by the New York Times.
He further described the Pentagon’s case against Sen. Mark Kelly as a “bit of a stretch.”
“You're
asking me to do something the Supreme Court has never done,” the judge
told Justice Department attorney John Bailey. “Isn't that a bit of a
stretch?”
Bailey argued that
Congress decided that retired military service members are subject to
the same Uniform Code of Military Justice that applies to active-duty
troops.
“Retirees are part of the armed forces,” Bailey said. “They are not separated from the services.”
Benjamin
Mizer, one of Kelly's lawyers, said they aren't aware of any ruling to
support the notion that military retirees have “diminished speech
rights.” And he argued that the First Amendment clearly protects Kelly's
speech in this case.
“And any other approach would be to make new law,” Mizer added.
Jan Wolfe (REUTERS) notes,
"The judge, who said he intends to rule by February 11, signaled
agreement with Kelly that the demotion proceedings were unlawful
retaliation for constitutionally protected free speech. The
judge said there is no question that the Defense Department can limit
the free speech rights of active-duty soldiers to promote cohesion, but
that the Trump administration wants to create new precedent that would
allow it to treat retired personnel similarly."
Senator Kelly's office issued the following:
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Warren: “It is not a surprise
that ICE agents seem to think that they are above the law because
Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the Republicans are treating them like they
are above the law.”
Warren: “It is Congress’s
responsibility to step up and say we are going to put new rules in place
for ICE, but most of all, we’re going to demand accountability for
those who break the law.”
Video of Exchange (YouTube) | Renée Good’s Family Testimony (YouTube)
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) questioned witnesses in a spotlight forum held by Senator
Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and U.S. Representative Robert Garcia
(D-Calif.) on the violent tactics used by agents of the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) and the lack of accountability following
instances of misconduct. At the forum, Renée Good’s two brothers
testified on her behalf.
This spotlight forum follows months of violent and abusive tactics
used by ICE agents, including the murder of Renée Good and Alex Pretti
in January. Recent comments from the Trump administration raise concerns
that ICE agents are being told to behave illegally when conducting
immigration enforcement. Vice President J.D. Vance has reportedly told
agents they have “absolute immunity” from any repercussions. This week,
Senator Warren led her colleagues in a push for an expedited probe of ICE’s violence after a watchdog confirmed an investigation.
Among these witnesses was Ms. Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen who
was shot five times by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents on her way
to a doctor’s appointment. At the forum, Ms. Martinez confirmed that
she has not been informed of any investigations against the agent who
shot her and that the agent left the state after the shooting, making it
more difficult to pursue an investigation.
Senator Warren criticized the Republican Party for attempting to
expand ICE’s federal budget, “an amount that is larger than most
countries' military budgets.” When asked whether there had been any halt
in ICE’s “slush funding” in response to the killing of Renée Good, the
Good family’s legal attorney, Mr. Antonio Romanucci, confirmed that he
was “not aware of any money being frozen as a result of what is
happening in Minneapolis or any of the other cities.” Mr. Romanucci also
called for a public investigation to ensure accountability.
Senator Warren highlighted Congress’s duty to ensure there are
consequences when ICE agents break the law, as well as the importance of
independent investigations similar to local officer-involved shootings.
“It is Congress's responsibility to step up and say we are going to
put new rules in place for ICE, but most of all, we're going to demand
accountability for those who break the law,” concluded Senator Warren.
###
The following sites updated:
