Ann's Mega Dub

Monday, February 16, 2026

The grifters who used to be Duke and Dutches

Grifters Andrew and Sarah are no longer Duke and Duchess. They're just common grifters. Brigid Brown (The Mirror) reports:

Prince William's firm stance on dealing with the disgraced former Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been revealed, 6 years before he was finally exiled from public life by King Charles, and his reaction to that Newsnight interview.

The interview proved disastrous, not only for Andrew, whose reputation lay in ruins, but for the monarchy as a whole. Suddenly, the palace found itself engaged in a full-scale crisis, with mounting questions over its relevance in a modern world, even its survival.

In the wake of the broadcast, William contacted his father to urge him and the Queen to take swift action, concerned not only about the public response but for his own future. It comes as ex-Prince Andrew's final act that 'terminally killed' his relationship with William and Kate.

The Daily Mirror's royal editor, Russell Myers, reveals in his new book, William and Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story, what took place among the Royal Family.

He said, "The interview was a disaster, not only for Andrew, whose reputation was in tatters, but for the monarchy at large. Suddenly, the palace was engaged in a full-scale firefight, with deepening questions over its relevance in a modern world, even its survival.

And surprisingly, he remains in line for the throne. Fiona Callow (BBC NEWS) notes:

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should have his succession rights revoked so that he is no longer in line to the throne, a York MP has said.

The former Duke of York gave up his royal titles following accusations about his links with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, although he has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central, told the BBC that "time and time again, we have seen that Andrew has been conservative with the truth", and said his position as Counsellor of State should also be removed.

"All of these titles and positions need to be addressed, so we are just left with Andrew the citizen, and a citizen that is fully accountable," she said.

And then there's the ex wife Sarah. Krittika Mukherjee (Inquisitr) notes:

Despite the heavy redactions in the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice under the Trump administration, a series of emails has been made public, which allegedly show the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, contacting the convicted offender.

It was revealed that the British Royal appealed to Jeffrey Epstein for employment during a period of serious financial difficulty. The emails are just a tiny part of the massive release that includes 3 million files of documents, images, and videos related to the late financier’s criminal network and personal communications.

According to reports published by The Mirror US, the emails date back to 2010, where Sarah Ferguson appeared asking Epstein to hire her as a house assistant, while referring to a man named Andrew, who is presumed to be her ex-husband, who repeatedly appeared in the Epstein files.

“But why I don’t understand, don’t you just get me to be your House Assistant. I am the most capable and desperately need the money. Please Jeffrey think about it. Also had David Stern down for tea yesterday with Andrew he has an update for you.” Ferguson wrote.

The email was sent to Epstein when he was under house arrest in Florida after being convicted of procuring a minor for pr–titution. So far, the message sent by a woman identified as Sarah is presumed to be none other than the Duchess of York, based on the other names mentioned in the mail, like Andrew and David Stern.

Sarah is a liar and no one ever needs to forget that or pretend otherwise.

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"

Monday, February 16, 2026. ICE continues to be exposed for its lies, students protest ICE in Texas, the Epstein Class begins to suffer, and much more.

Let's start with Sam Van Pykeren's piece for MOTHER JONES about how the administration is using NAZI propaganda to soften the public up to NAZI tactics:

This past year, official social media accounts from the Department of Homeland Security, the White House, and other government agencies have adopted a distinct voice online. The posts look like memes, utilizing dramatic AI-generated art, general patriotic slogans, and cinematic language about “defending the homeland” and shaping America’s future.

But if you look closer, a pattern emerges.

Many of these phrases, images, and attached media aren’t just regular social media content. They repurpose language, symbolism, and cultural references with direct connections to neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements. It’s content that experts say is instantly recognizable to those who are in the white supremacist know, but can be largely invisible to everyone else.

So, let’s look at a couple of the more egregious examples that reveal this pattern.

There has been not one, but two posts from our government institutions that reuse a phrase ripped straight from William Gayley Simpson’s book Which Way Western Man?. It was published and promoted by the National Alliance—considered one of the “best organized” neo-Nazi groups in the United States. The book is antisemitic, racist, and explicitly states that Adolf Hitler was right.

Staying with Homeland Security, THE NEW YORK TIMES notes, "The Department of Homeland Security’s funding has lapsed and lawmakers are deadlocked over a proposal to restore it, with Democrats seeking restrictions on the federal agents carrying out President Trump’s immigration crackdown." Brittney Melton (NPR) adds, "The agency shut down after lawmakers failed to meet a Friday deadline to fund DHS and its workforce of over 260,000 people. The funding lapse points to a greater issue: Congress's consistent failure to do its job on time." Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong, Julie Tsirkin and Frank Thorp V (NBC NEWS) explain that the Democrats and the White House continue to debate what's needed before funding can be approved, "The two sides have continued to trade offers, signaling some hope for an agreement. But it remains unclear which Democratic demands the White House will agree to and Congress left Washington on Thursday without a deal.

The issues were addressed yesterday on CBS' FACE THE NATION where guest host Ed O'Keefe spoke with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

ED O'KEEFE: We turn now to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who joins us this morning from New York City. Leader Jeffries, thank you for being here.

DEMOCRATIC LEADER HAKEEM JEFFRIES: Good morning. Great to be with you.

ED O'KEEFE: So as this shutdown continues, I want to remind our viewers what it is, exactly, congressional Democrats are seeking to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. You want immigration agents to show IDs, to wear body cameras, take off their masks, stop racial profiling and seek judicial warrants to enter private property. Talks between the White House and congressional Democrats are continuing. Are you willing to compromise, to let any of these go, to get the government reopened?

REP. JEFFRIES: Well, our value proposition is simple, taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the American people, not brutalize or kill them, as we horrifically saw in Minneapolis with the cold blooded killings of Rene Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. We know, and the American people clearly know, that ICE is totally out of control and they need to be reined in. Because the American people deserve immigration enforcement that is fair, that is just, and that is humane. And so, we need dramatic change at ICE, including, but not limited to, the types of things that you laid out before any DHS funding bill moves forward.

ED O'KEEFE: With the exception of some flexibility on body cameras, because they're starting to spend some money to get those out there, some Republicans have rejected this list of policy reform proposals. You guys still seem miles apart. So when, conceivably, will we see this resolved? And again, I ask you, if- are there any of these points that you're willing to let go in order to get the government reopened?

REP. JEFFRIES: Well, we're willing to have a good faith conversation about everything, but fundamentally we need change that is dramatic, that is bold, that is meaningful and that is transformational. And these are common sense things. For instance, judicial warrants should be required before ICE agents can storm private property or rip everyday Americans out of their homes. We need to make sure that there are actual independent investigations, so that if state and local laws are violated, in many cases, violently violated, that state and local authorities have the ability to criminally investigate and criminally prosecute anyone who has violated the law. Because we cannot trust Kristi Noem or Pam Bondi to conduct an independent investigation. We believe that sensitive locations should be off limits, sensitive locations like houses of worship, schools, hospitals or polling sites, and that fundamentally ICE should be targeting violent felons who are here unlawfully, as opposed to violently targeting law abiding immigrant families, which is completely inconsistent with what Donald Trump promised the American people he would do.

ED O'KEEFE: Right. And we, of course, this past week reported that about 14% of those detained had violent criminal records. About 60% of them were wanted on criminal records overall. But it was that 14%, violent criminals. Again, I just- it sounds like this is going to go on a while, because Tom Homan wasn't terribly flexible on anything, especially on the issue of warrants and masks. You're not ceding any ground. So there's a few things coming up here. For example, State of the Union is scheduled for a week from Tuesday. Should it be held if the Department of Homeland Security is shut down?

REP. JEFFRIES: Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. It is certainly my hope--

ED O'KEEFE: --Sounds like you're going to get to it, though. I mean--

REP. JEFFRIES:--we can come to a resolution in advance of it. Well, here's the thing, the administration and Republicans have made a clear decision that they would rather shut down FEMA, shut down the Coast Guard and shut down TSA, than enact the type of dramatic reforms necessary so that ICE and other DHS law enforcement agencies are conducting themselves like every other law enforcement professional in the country. For instance, police officers don't use masks. County Sheriffs don't use masks. State troopers don't use masks. Why is it that ICE agents who are untrained, are being unleashed on American communities with this type of lawlessness, violence and brutality. Unacceptable, unconscionable, and it's un-American.

Meanwhile, the liars of ICE never stop lying. Mitch Smith and Hamed Aleaziz (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

When an immigration agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis in the leg last month in Minneapolis, touching off hours of tense protests, the Trump administration rushed to sell a version of events that demonized the wounded man and defended the agent.

About two hours after the gunfire, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman claimed that three people had attacked an agent with a broom and snow shovel. She said the agent “fired a defensive shot to defend his life” as he was “being ambushed.” The next day, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, accused the men of trying to kill the agent.

But the federal government’s account soon shifted. And by Friday, it had fully unraveled.

When assault charges were filed days after the shooting against Mr. Sosa-Celis and one of the other men, Alfredo A. Aljorna, officials changed their narrative, saying it was not three people who attacked the agent, but two. Several other details revealed in court records also differed from the original account.

Then on Thursday, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota asked a judge to drop the case, saying that “newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations.” On Friday, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, said two agents had been placed on leave for providing accounts that appeared to conflict with video footage of what happened. Those agents, he said, could eventually face termination and prosecution.

[. . .]

The collapse of the government’s narrative, which came just as the administration was ending its more than two-month surge of immigration agents to Minnesota, was the latest instance of the Department of Homeland Security providing an account of a shooting that later proved questionable or outright wrong. For many, especially those already skeptical of the Trump administration’s deportation agenda, the repeated emergence of evidence that undermines official accounts has cast doubt on almost anything the government says about immigration enforcement.

In response to this news, Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:

This is absolutely egregious. Two men were accosted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and one took a bullet to the leg. Then the federal government called them murderers and hit them with heavy charges, all for ICE’s own head to admit that his agents appear to have been lying under oath—a crime that this administration doesn’t seem to take very seriously.

This shooting happened one week after Renee Good was killed, and just over a week before Alex Pretti was killed. The Trump administration lied to us about both of those events, as well. Only time will tell just how many more of these ICE shootings were offensive rather than defensive.

On HBO's LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER last night, John addressed the lies of Homeland Security.

Around the country, protests continue against ICE. J. David Goodman, Mary Beth Gahan and Callie Holtermann (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

Students in more than three dozen states have walked out of class to protest the Trump administration’s deportation tactics in recent weeks, a wave of defiant demonstrations that continues as some officials have vowed to crack down.

Teenagers in Utah carried backpacks and bullhorns as they walked out of eight schools in Salt Lake County. In Maine, students in mittens convened on a bridge over the Kennebec River. Scores of students were seen stopping highway traffic in Maryland. Classmates at a high school in Sunnyside, Wash., lined a parking lot carrying hand-drawn posters. “We are skipping our lesson to teach you one,” read one.

But in Texas, where more than half of all public school students are Hispanic, Republican leaders have tried teaching a very different lesson of their own, threatening students, teachers and school districts with severe consequences for taking part in demonstrations.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has suggested that state funding could be stripped from school districts and that students who are disorderly during protests should be arrested. The Texas Education Agency has warned that districts found to have facilitated walkouts could be taken over by the state.

“Schools and staff who allow this behavior should be treated as co-conspirators,” Mr. Abbott said in a social media post last week, which focused on one walkout in Kyle, Texas, outside of Austin.

Yet despite the threats from state officials — and the pleas to students from many school administrators — the protests over immigration enforcement did not stop.

THE COLLEGIAN editorial board counters Abbott:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatening to take away state funding from high schools with students who participate in protests is a restriction of the First Amendment.

In response to high school students protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Jan. 30, Abbott argued walkouts are disruptive and lead to criminal chaos, and the schools allowing this behavior should be treated as co-conspirators.

But what is so criminal about student walkouts?

This type of political demonstration has been conducted by students since 1766. The Great Butter Rebellion at Harvard University, where students protested poor food quality, is considered the first student protest in the United States.

And Abbot's threats didn't deter turnout last week. Chris Moss and Bianca Rodriguez-Mora (FORT WORTH REPORT) report:

As Seguin High sophomore Janelle walked to the corner of Silo and Eden roads in Arlington, a green shirt with a Mexican flag stitched on the back draped over her shoulders.

Worry, anger and fear all washed over her as she stood next to classmates and wondered what the consequences would be for walking out of school to protest recent deportations and deadly shootings related to immigration enforcement. Then she remembered her grandmother, who inspired her to attend Thursday’s protest in the first place.

“She came here as an immigrant,” Janelle said. “So I feel like I should be out here and show her that I can do it, and I can protect people.”

Janelle was one of many in Arlington and Mansfield who participated in walkouts this week to protest against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Caitlin Leggett (KTXS) reports, "Students from Abilene High School walked out of class and marched to Abilene City Hall around noon Thursday, staging a student-led protest centered on concerns about immigration enforcement and what they described as recent actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement." KTAB/KRBC offer a photo essay here. CNN notes, "More than 100 Dripping Springs High School students walked out of class and marched Tuesday to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but some participants left the demonstration with traffic citations. Students carried signs and chanted as they left campus. One student, asked what they decided to put on their sign, said, 'We are skipping our lessons to teach you one. ICE out'." Jacob Daniels (KRISTV) adds, "Students at multiple Corpus Christi Independent School District campuses walked out of classes Thursday afternoon, carrying signs and chanting in what many described as a powerful statement. The demonstration sparked debate among community members about student safety and supervision during the protest." Arthur Clayborn (KLTV) notes, "Kilgore High School students walked out of classes Thursday morning to protest deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, with organizers saying recent family separations in their community motivated the demonstration. Student organizer Kemuel Ondinyo said he was inspired to act after watching similar protests at other Texas schools and witnessing deportations affecting people in his community." Bianca Seward (HOUSTON PUBLIC MEDIA) notes, "More than 50 students from the Houston Academy for International Studies walked out of school Tuesday protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in the United States. The protest, which students said they started planning last week, started just after noon. While chanting 'ICE off our streets, ICE off our streets,' several students said they were there to call attention to the treatment of immigrants under the Trump administration."

And on Friday, walk outs continued. Priscilla Rice (KERA) reports, "Young North Texans continue to protest the federal government’s anti-immigration policies by walking out of class. More than 200 students walked out of Grand Prairie High School just after 11 a.m. on Friday. Students told KERA stronger U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement measures have affected not only their community, but communities nationwide." WBAP notes, "Several dozen students walked out of the Dallas Uplift Williams Prepatory School Friday morning, hiking into Dallas to protest ICE immigration activities at the American Airlines Center. Waving flags from several nations, students say they are protesting immigration and other federal agent violence, illegal arrests, and illegal deportations of their teachers and neighbors who have been here for years." Daniel Perreault (KVUE) adds, "Students at multiple Austin ISD schools walked out of class during the school day once again on Friday to protest. Students from three Austin high schools walked out around 1:30 p.m. and then marched to Austin City Hall." And Matt Mitchell (HOODLINE) notes, "More than a hundred McNeil High School students walked out of class in Round Rock on Friday afternoon, marching off campus to the corner of McNeil Drive and Parmer Lane to protest recent actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The midday demonstration kicked off shortly after 2 p.m., part of a wave of student-led protests that has rolled across Central Texas since late January."

And John Andrews (WSWS) reports:

On Friday thousands of high school students walked out of Los Angeles-area schools to protest ICE’s Gestapo tactics, participating in another national “day of action.” Those who gathered outside the federal jail in downtown Los Angeles heroically stood up against an attack with gas and batons by federal agents.

Helicopter video by local television stations show demonstrators standing their ground near the U.S. Metropolitan Detention Center, many obviously teenagers, some shoving back and throwing objects at the federal thugs in self-defense.

[. . .]

In a related retaliatory action, Ricardo Lopez, a history teacher at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Charter Synergy Quantum Academy in South Los Angeles, was fired for opening a locked gate to allow students, who were then risking injury by climbing over gates and fences, to join the walkout, a move school administrators labeled insubordination. Already almost a thousand signatures have been collected demanding Lopez’s reinstatement. To date the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) bureaucracy has issued no statement in support of the victimized teacher.

Protests took place across the nation. Today? Austin Hanson (FOX 59) reports:

A group of singers gathered in downtown Indianapolis Sunday night to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The demonstration, which was organized by Indy Singing Resistance, was held at Monument Circle at 6 p.m. Instead of chanting, protestors used their signing voices to express themselves.

In a release sent ahead of the protest, Singing Resistance indicated that a small group of people would lead all who show up for the event. Those leaders taught demonstrators the songs they planned to sing during the protest upon their arrival at the event. No singing experience was required for protest attendees.

In Tennessee, WCYB reports, "Despite rainy conditions, protesters took to the streets in Johnson City on today to rally against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the region, saying they are concerned about what they describe as an increased ICE presence spreading across Northeast Tennessee. Community members gathered holding signs and chanting, saying they would not stay silent against what they described as growing enforcement efforts by ICE. Pandora Burns a protestor said, 'I mean they don't stop deporting people in the rain either so'."

Meanwhile unhinged Pam Bondi sent out a letter on Saturday announcing that all the Epstein files had been released.

The Epstein Class. A group Chump's protecting. His friends. Remember the ones that would be hurt by the release of the Epstein files? He yelled that at Marjorie Taylor Greene, remember? Christopher Lamb (CNN) reports:

Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser to US President Donald Trump, discussed opposition strategies with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein against Pope Francis, with Bannon saying he hoped to “take down” the pontiff, according to newly released files from the US Department of Justice.

Messages sent between the pair in 2019, released in the massive document dump last month, reveal Bannon courted the late financier in his attempts to undermine the former pontiff after leaving the first Trump administration.

Bannon had been highly critical of Francis whom he saw as an opponent to his “sovereigntist” vision, a brand of nationalist populism which swept through Europe in 2018 and 2019. The released documents from the DOJ appear to show that Epstein had been helping Bannon to build his movement.

“Will take down (Pope) Francis,” Bannon wrote to Epstein in June 2019. “The Clintons, Xi, Francis, EU – come on brother.”

Pope Francis was the people's pope so it's only natural that a disgusting creep like Steve Bannon would want to take him "down." The Epstein Class is being made uncomfortable and a few are having to find the exit door. Claire Zillman (FORBES) notes:

On Thursday, Goldman Sachs said general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler will leave the bank in June after the documents showed she stayed in close contact with Epstein until 2019, at one point calling him “Uncle Jeffrey” as she thanked him for high-end gifts. And on Friday, Dubai-based logistics group DP World named a new chair and new CEO, signaling the departure of Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem whose emails with Epstein included references to sexual experiences. Both ousters followed earlier resignations in the U.K. public sector, namely those of former U.S. ambassador Peter Mandelson from the House of Lords and Morgan McSweeney, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff who’d advised on Mandelson’s appointment.

And Charisma Madarang (ROLLING STONE) notes another out the door:

Following an exodus of talent who have left the Wasserman Group talent agency after emails between founder Casey Wasserman and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell were revealed in the Justice Department's latest tranche of documents, pressure for the founder to step down came to a boiling point. On Friday, Wasserman announced that he was selling the company as he had become a "distraction" to the business he founded 24 years ago.

Niall Stanage (THE HILL) notes:

The latest releases also placed a shadow over the previous accounts given by allies of President Trump — from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to Elon Musk — regarding their dealings with Epstein.

There is no suggestion of criminality around either Lutnick or Musk, but the latest batch of emails contradicted Lutnick’s earlier assertions of when he had cut off contact with Epstein and called into question Musk’s previously emphatic insistence that he “refused” to visit the disgraced financier’s Caribbean island.

In one newly released email, the entrepreneur asks Epstein which day or night might feature the wildest party on the island. It’s unclear if Musk actually visited.

Beyond all of that, there is the broader fear and anger raised by the nature of the Epstein story.

Specifically, it stokes the sense of a wealthy and powerful elite hovering above the rest of society, forming a chummy circle of mutual protection, and remaining out of reach of the laws and ethical standards to which everyone else is subject.

At a time when anti-elitist populism is already one of the strongest animating political forces in the United States — and in many other parts of the world — the Epstein story is rocket fuel.

Donald Chump is a pedo protector and he's got a lot of people he's protecting. David McAfee (RAW STORY) notes:

A Donald Trump insider has been revealed to have been in "regular contact" with the late child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, including in one email that says "miss u," according to the latest DOJ release.

CBS News reported on the Epstein files release on Saturday in an article called, "Trump insider Tom Barrack kept in regular contact with Jeffrey Epstein for years, files show." Barrack is also an administration ambassador to Turkey.

"President Trump's longtime confidant Thomas Barrack, now serving as U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, was in regular, close contact with Jeffrey Epstein for years after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor, a CBS News analysis of over 100 texts and email exchanges from the newly released Justice Department documents shows," according to CBS.

The outlet further reported, "The correspondence places Barrack, a globe-trotting billionaire, among a circle of wealthy and influential figures who maintained social contact with Epstein even as his criminal history became widely known. Their relationship continued even after Barrack became a prolific fundraiser for Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign, and later, led his inaugural committee and became a frequent presence in the White House."

And Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) reports on a document in the recent release of Epstein files:

According to an FBI document released by the DOJ, the agency received a tip in June of 2021 from an individual whose name has been redacted, but is described as an alleged “victim,” a former member of the Sinaloa Cartel, and a close confidant of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

According to the document, the individual was formally interviewed by an FBI agent, and accused Trump of being aware of and having funded “underage sex parties at the Donald Trump Golf course.”

That individual went on to claim that they had “recordings of Trump, Epstein and Maxwell discussing marketing strategies for high profile sex parties,” according to the FBI official who drafted the document, their name also redacted. The individual claimed that in one of the recordings, Trump can be heard stating “he was aware of the underage sex parties.”

Let's wind down with this from Senator Alex Padilla's office:

Padilla and Wyden sound alarm that IRS errors improperly exposed private taxpayer information to ICE

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, demanded answers and accountability from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the agency admitted in a court filing that the flawed system it adopted to transfer people’s home addresses to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) potentially led to thousands of records being shared improperly in violation of taxpayer privacy laws. In a new letter to Acting IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the Senators also raised grave concerns that the automated system the Trump Administration created to transfer taxpayer data to ICE may have misidentified a large but unknown number of taxpayers — possibly including American citizens — in response to ICE inquiries, potentially exposing them to immigration enforcement actions at a time when serious questions are being raised about how such actions are being carried out.

“The IRS failed to properly verify that the information it disclosed to ICE belonged to the correct taxpayers. Instead, it used a faulty, automated verification system to identify the taxpayers whose information it thought it could disclose under the terms of the agency’s data-sharing agreement, which it reached last year with the Department of Homeland Security,” wrote the Senators. “… The IRS now admits that this system led to exactly the kinds of grave mistakes our taxpayer privacy laws were designed to prevent, and that Congress as well as IRS employees previously warned could happen under this data-sharing agreement.”

Senators Padilla, Wyden, and additional Senate Democrats warned early last year that the data-sharing agreement between the IRS and ICE would result in serious errors and violate taxpayer privacy. They demanded details about the status and potential misuse of the data sharing program as recently as January 30 of this year.

“The risk to innocent people was entirely predictable once taxpayer data was used for immigration enforcement,” continued the Senators. “Because the administration ignored the warnings, we now face the extraordinarily troubling likelihood that in some significant, unknown number of cases, the IRS not only provided return information to ICE in violation of strict taxpayer privacy laws, but it also provided information about the wrong taxpayers. Those individuals may have been injured by ICE, improperly detained or imprisoned, or improperly deported.”

In their letter, the Senators called for explanations of exactly how many taxpayer records were shared improperly, who was responsible and what accountability measures will be taken, whether anyone has been wrongly detained or deported based on shared data, and what steps the Trump Administration is taking to notify taxpayers whose information was improperly disclosed. The letter was also signed by Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Angus King (I-Maine), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

Last spring, Senators Padilla, Wyden, and Cortez Masto condemned the IRS’ plan to provide sensitive taxpayer information to the Department of Homeland Security to locate suspected undocumented immigrants. The Senators also led a March 2025 letter to IRS and DHS leadership raising the alarm on reports that DHS and the Department of Government Efficiency illegally requested sensitive taxpayer information from the IRS.

Full text of today’s letter is available here and below:

Dear Acting Commissioner Bessent and Secretary Noem:

We write with alarm following up on our January 29, 2026, letter to Acting Commissioner Bessent regarding the IRS’s disclosure of 47,289 taxpayers’ return information (including “last known addresses”) to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. Validating our fears expressed in that letter, an IRS court filing made on February 11, 2026, confirms that thousands of these disclosures may have been improper.

The government has argued that it was permitted to disclose tax return information with respect to specific taxpayers who were under active investigation by ICE. That premise is subject to litigation, and ICE’s initial claim that it had more than a million active investigations underway is absurd. Furthermore, the IRS failed to properly verify that the information it disclosed to ICE belonged to the correct taxpayers. Instead, it used a faulty, automated verification system to identify the taxpayers whose information it thought it could disclose under the terms of the agency’s data-sharing agreement, which it reached last year with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This agreement was signed by Secretaries Bessent and Noem. The IRS now admits that this system led to exactly the kinds of grave mistakes our taxpayer privacy laws were designed to prevent, and that Congress as well as IRS employees previously warned could happen under this data-sharing agreement.

Because it is common for multiple taxpayers to have similar or identical names and because not all ethnic groups follow the same naming conventions, the IRS needs more than an individual’s first and last name to ensure it does not disclose information about the wrong taxpayer in violation of Internal Revenue Code (IRC) section 6103.

In its recent court filing, the IRS admits it provided return information, including the taxpayers’ “last known addresses” (which may be current addresses unknown to ICE), even in many cases where ICE’s request for taxpayer information included a name but not a complete or accurate address.

As an example, if ICE requested the last known address of “John Doe” at “Unknown Address, 99999” the IRS’s automated system would disclose the last known address for a person named John Doe to ICE. This is because the IRS system only looked to see if the address field in ICE requests was or was not populated, not whether it was populated with an address that matched IRS records.

The IRS estimates that up to five percent of its 47,289 disclosures to ICE may have involved insufficient address data. In other words, thousands of taxpayers’ information may have been disclosed in violation of section 6103, including those who are not targets of immigration investigations.

The risk to innocent people was entirely predictable once taxpayer data was used for immigration enforcement. Because the administration ignored the warnings, we now face the extraordinarily troubling likelihood that in some significant, unknown number of cases, the IRS not only provided return information to ICE in violation of strict taxpayer privacy laws, but it also provided information about the wrong taxpayers. Those individuals may have been injured by ICE, improperly detained or imprisoned, or improperly deported.

That would be an unimaginable nightmare for those wrongly targeted people and their families. Conditions in ICE facilities are horrific, and 32 people died in ICE custody last year, meeting the record last reached in 2004, and another 8 have died this year alone. The Trump administration has deported people to foreign torture prisons, third countries they have no ties to, or back to their home countries, despite having pending asylum claims. Exposing people to such risk because of an improper sharing of tax information is unconscionable.

As noted in our prior letter, penalties for 6103 violations are severe. IRC section 7213 requires responsible employees to be terminated, and IRC section 7431 allows a taxpayer to bring a civil lawsuit for damages.

Injured taxpayers will not know they can sue until the government informs them of their rights. The government is required by section 7431 to inform the victims when a person is criminally charged with a violation of section 6103 or when the IRS proposes an adverse action against an employee.

Accordingly, please respond no later than March 15 to the following questions:

1. Exactly how many taxpayers’ return information was disclosed in circumstances that the IRS now considers improper or potentially improper?

a. How and when did you find out about the inappropriate disclosures?

b. Who at the IRS first became aware that the inappropriate disclosures were made?

2. Which officials are responsible for approving, executing, and supervising the disclosures now considered to be improper or potentially improper?

3. Has any IRS or DHS employee been investigated, charged, disciplined, placed on administrative leave, or otherwise held accountable in connection with any improper disclosures?

a. If not, explain why not.

b. If so, please identify the employee and describe the accountability measure taken.

4. Have DHS or ICE accessed, reviewed, relied upon, copied, or further disseminated the affected data before remediation efforts began?

5. What specific steps have DHS or ICE taken to prevent further disclosure or dissemination of the data?

6. What specific steps are DHS and ICE taking to dispose of data improperly disclosed by the IRS?

7. Have any of the 47,289 taxpayers whose information the IRS provided to ICE been questioned, arrested, detained, or deported?

a. If so, how many are among the subset of individuals whose information the IRS shared improperly with ICE?

b. What steps are the IRS and DHS taking to make this determination?

c. What plan has the IRS and DHS put in place to remedy any detainments or deportations made in error?

8. Have any affected taxpayers been notified that their information has been improperly disclosed?

a. If not, when will the notification occur?

b. If the IRS has concluded that such notice is not required, provide the legal basis for that determination.

We look forward to your prompt and complete response.

Sincerely,

###

The following sites updated:

Thursday, February 12, 2026

Pam Bondi lied to Congress

Con artist Pam Bondi. Our attorney general who thinks she is actually Donald Chump's personal attorney. Klaus Marre (WhoWhatWhy) reports:

If we had to make a list of Trump administration officials who need to face accountability for their roles in trying to turn the United States into a lawless, authoritarian state, it would contain dozens of names. That of Attorney General Pam Bondi would not be far from the top for violating her oath of office and besmirching the Constitution.

And we hope that a future administration, one that is actually interested in the rule of law and in dissuading the next generations of fascists from betraying the nation’s ideals, will force her to stand trial (and hopefully send her to prison) for her misdeeds.

It shouldn’t be difficult to find a real reason to charge her (and not a contrived one like her department’s attempt to indict Democratic lawmakers for stating a fact). Obstruction of justice in many cases comes to mind, or the failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

However, if future prosecutors are looking for a particularly low-hanging fruit, then we want to direct their attention to Bondi’s embarrassing appearance before the House Judiciary Committee.

Fortunately for her, making a fool of herself, hurling prepared insults at lawmakers instead of answering questions, and refusing to acknowledge the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell aren’t crimes (and they shouldn’t be).

Perjury, however, is.

And it is quite clear that Bondi, like so many other Trump administration officials who appeared before Congress, lied under oath.

In an exchange with Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC), the attorney general said that Maxwell “was not transferred to a lower-level facility.”

Now, while most Trump administration officials probably can’t tell the truth from a lie anymore, they need to choose their words more carefully when they are testifying before Congress than, for example, when they invent figures to butter up the boss during a cabinet meeting or when they appear on Fox News.

Bondi may wish she had… because her claim regarding Maxwell is demonstrably false.

After Epstein’s confidante met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and told him what he wanted to hear (instead of pleading the Fifth, which is what she did on Tuesday when faced with a less sympathetic crowd), she was moved from FCI Tallahassee to FBC Bryan in Texas.

According to its website, the former is a “low security federal correctional institution,” while the latter is a “minimum security federal prison camp.”

According to the Bureau of Prisons, that’s not the same thing.

In fact, its website makes it quite clear that a “minimum security” prison is a lower-level facility than a “low security” prison.

She lied. She committed perjury while testifying to the House Judiciary Committee.

She needs to face real and true consequences.

She is supposed to represent justice and she didn't. She lied. Flat out lied. Like the con artist that she truly is.

Some comments on the article:

salvatore koose

2 hours ago

Uh oh, perjury. That's funny. She'll claim it is semantics but like the author showed. Going from a double fence perimeter to zero fence. That seems to be a lower level of security, but who knows I'm no lawyer or security expert.

Nothing will happen now. The new standard of any administration will likely be blanket pardons upon exit of their president from office. Both sides will do this lawfare thing into the future.

B Rowe

15 hours ago

Bondi lied and then refused to apologize to the victims standing behind her for including personal information about them in the Epstein files. This was a terrible performance for our chief law enforcement officer, and she should resign.

W B

14 hours ago

The fact that the Chairman (Jordan) allowed Bondi to run amok, not answer questions, and outright insult sitting members of congress during this hearing shows what a worthless chairman Jordan is and how complicit Jordan and most of the GOP are with the attempt to cover up the Epstein sexual crimes against minors.

Thank you, Senator Massie, for being a lone sane voice among your GOP peers.

James Berendsen

16 hours ago

Bondi has shown herself to be a horrible person. Rude, combative and insulting everyone who asks a question. She is not Trumps personal lawyer, she is supposed to be Americas lawyer.

Can't wait for the Mids

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"

Thursday, February 12, 2026. Pam Bondi has a psychotic break while appearing before the House Judiciary Committee, she also reveals on camera by accident that the Justice Dept is spying on members of Congress, AP looks into ICE and finds several problematic issues, and much more.

"You don’t tell me anything you washed up lawyer." So hissed Pam da Bimbo Bondi yesterday as she appeared before the House Judiciary Committee. She can't speak plainly. She can't address facts. All she knows how to do is rage like an angry sow. She embarrasses herself in front of the nation. US House Rep Jim Jordan is the Chair of the Committee and US House Rep Jamie Raskin is the Ranking Member. We'll note the Ranking Member's opening statement.

Ranking Member Jamie Raskin: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Attorney General Bondi.

You’ve got the best lawyer’s job in America. Your mission is justice and your clients are the American people.

But, to promote justice for the people, you must listen to the victims, like the women seated behind you. They’re some of the hundreds of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s global sex trafficking ring demanding the truth for America and accountability for the abusers who trafficked and raped them. You still haven’t met with these survivors.

So with their permission, let me introduce to you the survivors and late survivors’ family members who are present today:

Theresa Helm; Jess Michaels; Lara Blume McGee; Dani Bensky; Liz Stein; Marina Lacerda; Sky and Amanda Roberts, who are the family of the late Virginia Giuffre; Sharlene Lund; Rachel B.; and Lisa Phillips.

Now, you’re not showing a lot of interest in the victims, Madam Attorney General.

Whether it’s Epstein’s human trafficking ring or the homicidal governmental violence against citizens in Minneapolis, as Attorney General, you’re siding with the perpetrators and you’re ignoring the victims. That will be your legacy unless you act quickly to change course.

You’re running a massive Epstein cover-up right out of the Justice Department. You’ve been ordered by a subpoena and by Congress to turn over six million documents, photographs and videos in the Epstein files but you’ve turned over only three million. You say you’re not turning over the other 3 million because they’re somehow duplicative. But we know that there are actual memos of victim statements in there. And you also took down the Department of Justice’s prosecution memo from 2019. So it’s clearly not all duplicative. But even if it were, why not release it, just release all the duplicative stuff.

In the half you did produce, you redacted the names of abusers, enablers, accomplices and coconspirators, apparently to spare them embarrassment and disgrace, which is the exact opposite of what the law ordered you to do.

Even worse, you shockingly failed to redact many of the victims’ names, which is what you were ordered to do by Congress. Some of the victims had come forward publicly, but many had not. Many had kept their torment private, even from family and friends. But you published their names, their identities, their images on thousands of pages for the world to see. So you ignored the law.

And even with over 100,000 employees at your disposal, you acted with some mixture of staggering incompetence, cold indifference, and jaded cruelty towards more than 1,000 victims raped, abused and trafficked. This performance screams cover-up.

Convicted sex trafficker and groomer Ghislaine Maxwell “opened the gates of hell” to Virginia Giuffre and hundreds of other victims, as Virginia recorded in her remarkable book Nobody’s Girl. But when Maxwell was subpoenaed to testify before Congress, you and Todd Blanche quickly moved her from a higher-security prison to a minimum-security camp in Texas where she’s enjoyed five-star treatment, including catered meals, private gym time, and access to a therapy puppy. All because Todd Blanche, who has utterly failed to investigate the monstrous crimes of Epstein and Maxwell’s co-conspirators, spent nine hours with Maxwell to satisfy himself she would have nothing untoward to say about Donald Trump, which is your only real interest in this whole matter.

But abandoning victims and coddling perpetrators is what you do best. When the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the brutal killing in Minneapolis of Renée Good, a poet and 37-year-old mother of three, by Trump’s masked paramilitary ICE agents, you shut it down. You claim you’re investigating the cold-blooded murder of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the VA, but how can we trust the Administration when the President and Kristi Noem call Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and Stephen Miller called him a “would-be assassin”? Not only do you refuse to share evidence with the state and local investigators and prosecutors in Minnesota, but you blocked their access to the crime scene and the evidence.

How are you seeking justice for Marimar Martinez, the Montessori school teacher in Chicago who was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent who bragged about it over text; or the family of Keith Porter Jr., a father of two shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent in LA; or the family of Silverio Villegas González, shot and killed in Illinois minutes after dropping his children at school? There’s no sign of any movement at the Department of Justice. You even launched a criminal investigation into Renée Good’s grieving widow.

But it’s even worse. You’ve turned the People’s Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge.

Donald Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza, and you deliver every time. He tells you to go after James Comey, Letitia James, Lisa Cook, and Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve Board, and Members of the United States Congress including Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin, Chrissy Houlahan, Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio and Maggie Goodlander to name just a few. And you snap to it. You replace real prosecutors with counterfeit stooges who robotically do the president’s bidding. Nothing in American history comes close to this complete corruption of the justice function and contamination of federal law enforcement.

The good news is many serious lawyers at DOJ, including your very own political appointees—your own people—have refused your lawless orders.

Danielle Sassoon, your original pick for Acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, resigned rather than follow your corrupt order to quash an indictment against Mayor Eric Adams as a political favor from Donald Trump. A Federalist Society member who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, U.S. Attorney Sassoon refused to participate in this blatantly corrupt scheme. Her top assistant, Hagan Scotten, an Iraq War veteran and two-time Bronze Star recipient who clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts and then-Judge Kavanaugh, promptly resigned too, writing to your office: “I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”

You and the President nominated Erik Siebert, a fifteen-year career prosecutor, to be your U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. But after five months investigating Letitia James and James Comey, Siebert found no evidence to justify criminal charges. So you forced him out and replaced him with Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s personal lawyer from the Mar-a-Lago documents case, who had zero prosecutorial experience and no qualifications. And then you were humiliated when a federal judge found that this corrupt appointment was blatantly unlawful and threw out Halligan’s indictments entirely. And grand juries of American citizens have repeatedly rejected your vendettas and baseless indictments brought by the hacks left at DOJ now, with two different grand juries in Virginia voting down indictments against Letitia James in a single week. Just yesterday, another grand jury shut down your vendetta factory by rejecting an indictment against the six Members of Congress who had reminded servicemembers that they have a duty to refuse illegal orders.

You tried to get a grand jury to indict six Members of Congress who were veterans of our armed forces, on charges of seditious conspiracy, simply for exercising their First Amendment rights. I hope you will heed the wisdom and the constitutional patriotism of those grand jurors and not try it again by doubling down on that humiliation.

As your best lawyers are sacked for having participated in the January 6 case or just flee for the exits now, your new lawyers keep lying in court. In dozens of cases, your lawyers have been excoriated for lying to federal courts. Chief Judge Boasberg, right here in the District of Columbia, suggested your DOJ presented “a fraud on the court.” Other judges found your DOJ’s statements to be “inexplicably misleading,” “patently incredible,” “totally inconsistent,” and “so disingenuous that the Court is left with little confidence that the [government] can be trusted to tell the truth about anything.”

Now, as Ranking Member, I asked the Chairman to add a few extra rounds of questions today because we each have five hours of questions, not five minutes, but we’re stuck with five minutes. That’s clearly insufficient to give voice to America’s victims and survivors and demand answers about the corruption and cover-ups that have overtaken your Department.

We have just one round, so we ask you politely but firmly, Madam Attorney General: please don’t waste one second of our precious time by evading our questions, changing the subject, randomly reciting statistics to eat up time, or engaging in personal attacks against Members of Congress. We saw your performance in the Senate and we aren’t going to accept that. This isn’t a game. In the Senate, you brought a burn book, a binder of smears, to attack Members personally for doing the people’s work of oversight. Please set the burn book aside and answer our questions. And when you hear us reclaim our time, that means it’s time for you to stop speaking. We only have five minutes, so when we reclaim our time, that means you stop. And if you don’t, we will ask the Chair to stop the clock and let you go on his time.

The quality of justice in America depends on the character of our government. Please do your job and bring the Department of Justice back from the brink. The survivors seated behind you, and the American people watching everywhere, deserve a Department of Justice worthy of its name.

I yield back.

She lied in her opening remarks insisting that she had spent her "entire life fighting for victims and I will continue to do so." No, Pam, you can't go after Chump's political enemies and then claim you've spent your life fighting for victims.

All she wanted to do was to rant and rave and attack. As she's done before, she came armed with binders. It's where she writes down her insults ahead of time. She also carries papers in the binders and that got her into trouble in this hearing.

Let's note this exchange which was a fairly typical exchange.

US House Rep Pramila Jayapal: We are joined in this room by some of the thousands of survivors from Jeffrey Epstein's horrific sex trafficking ring. They have shown incredible courage in speaking out, in demanding accountability to bring the predators and pedophiles to justice. The Epstein Files Transparency Act required your Department of Justice to disclose the perpetrators connected with Epstein's criminal activities and to redact the information of survivors to protect their identities. Let me show you what actually happened. First, in violation of the law, your department has shown a pattern of redacting the names of powerful predators. Here behind me is one example of an e-mail from Epstein to a man whose name was redacted. The e-mail reads "Where are you? Are you ok. I loved the torture video." Only after members of Congress demanded that we see the unredacted files did the world learn the name of this individual, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulaye, the chairman and CEO of a company that had financial ties to President Trump's business and personal ties to Trump's advisors, Steve Bannon Second, the survivors were not similarly protected. Also in violation of the law. Here is another e-mail entitled Epstein Victim List. We have blurred the names of the survivors for their protection but your Department of Justice initially released this list of 32 survivors names with only one name redacted along with numerous files that disclose not only the names, the e-mails and the addresses of survivors but also nude photographs and even the identities of Jane Does who had been protected for decades until your department released their names. Survivors are now telling us that their families are finding out for the first time that they were trafficked by Epstein. In their words "This release does not provide closure. It feels like a deliberate attempt to intimidate survivors, punish those who came forward and reinforce the same culture of secrecy that allowed Epstein's crimes to continue for decades." To the survivors in the room, if you are willing, please stand, [at least 7 women stood up] and if you are willing please raise your hands if you have still not been able to meet with this Department of Justice. Please know for the record that every single survivor has raised their hand. Attorney General Bondi, you apologized to the survivors in your opening statement for what they went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein. Will you turn to them now and apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through with the absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information?

AG Pam Bondi: Congress woman, you sat before Merrick Garland, sat in this chair twice --

US House Rep Pramila Jayapal: Attorney General Bondi --

AG Pam Bondi: No, I'm gonna finish my answer.

US House Rep Pramila Jayapal: No, I'm going to reclaim my time because I asked you [crosstalk] Attorney General, I would like you to answer the question which is will you turn to the survivors? This is not about anybody that came before you. It is about you taking responsibility for your Department of Justice and the harm that it has done to the survivors who are standing right behind you and are waiting for you to turn to them and apologize for what your Department of Justice members

Chair Jim Jordan: Members get to ask the questions, the witness gets to answer in the way they want to answer,

Pam Bondi: Mr Chairman she doesn't like my -- Why didn't she ask Merrick Garland this.

US House Rep Pramila Jayapal: I'm reclaiming my time and when I will claim --

Pam Bondi: I'm not oing to get in the gutter for her theatrics.

Chair Jim Jordan: The time belongs to the gentle lady. The gentle lady has 17 seconds.

US House Rep Pramila Jayapal: Thank you. You're not going to answer this question, so let me just

[cross talk]

US House Rep Pramila Jayapal: The witness is interrupting.

Pam Bondi: The gutter with this woman.

Chair Jim Jordan: The gentle lady from Washington controls the time. The gentle lady has 17 seconds. You can proceed with your final 17 seconds.

US House Rep Pramila Jayapal: What a massive cover up this has been and continues to be . Donald Trump made the release of the Epstein files the center of his political campaign because he thought it would benefit him. Then you got into office, Attorney General, claimed to have a client list, only to then say that there was no list. Your deputy, Todd Blanche, met alone with Ghislaine Maxwell --

Chair Jim Jordan: The gentle lady has expired.

US House Rep Pramila Jayapal: -- and transferred her to a minimum security prison and now you continue the cover up. And I wish that you would turn around to the survivors who are standing right behind and on a human level apologize for that for what have you done?

It was shocking to see Pam Bondi scream and screech and throw down. You never had the notion that she was defending the country but you always saw her rush to lie for Donald Chump. Holly Baxter (INDEPENDENT) notes Pam's horrific performance:

At one point, those survivors of sexual abuse stood up and identified themselves. It was a particularly painful back-and-forth: Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) asked the Epstein victims to stand if they were comfortable. They did. She then asked them to raise their hands if they’d been unable to meet with Bondi’s DOJ, and every one of them did so.

Asked whether she’d like to apologize for such an oversight, Bondi then started talking over Jayapal, repeatedly saying that she should ask Biden’s AG, Merrick Garland, instead. She never once glanced back at the victims and eventually ended up at: “I’m not gonna get in the gutter for [Jayapal’s] theatrics.” The Epstein victims remained in their seats, unacknowledged.

Even for Bondi, this was an eye-opening performance.

“The Dow is over $50,000!” she yelled at one point, before adding, after the shocked laughter of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), “I don’t know why you’re laughing! You’re a great stock trader, as I hear, Raskin… That’s what we should be talking about!”

Indeed, indeed, that is what we should be talking about. Sure, we could ask about emails that describe children — possibly as young as 9 years old — being sexually abused on a secret pedophile island visited frequently by international elites. Emails that say things like “loved the torture video”. Emails that should have been released long ago, that the president promised to release as soon as he came into power about, and that for some reason he just…didn’t, until they started appearing anyway, still heavily redacted. But why not instead discuss EMAILS ABOUT HOW MY SHARES IN BOEING ARE UP, AMIRITE, PAM?!

At one point during the hearing, exasperated by the fact that Bondi wouldn’t even directly answer a question about whether it’s important to protect the identities of sexual assault victims, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said, “You do a kind of Jekyll and Hyde routine over here.” Bondi immediately tried to drag him into a back-and-forth about what Jekyll and Hyde “means” (I’m going to charitably assume here that she is aware of the book) and we never really got to the bottom of anything else. For what it’s worth, Johnson had been asking whether Bondi believed that the identities of sexual assault victims should be fully protected.

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig noted:

There are vital questions that the American public needs transparency, needs substantive answers on. Instead, what do we get? Accusations of Trump Derangement Syndrome, name calling, you’re a loser lawyer, this and that. I mean, coming from the AG of the United States . . . did we get any meaningful clarity on the Epstein investigations on Epstein files? To your point, do the victims feel, to what you were saying earlier, like they’ve been given any transparency, any clarity on any of this? Have we learned anything new about what DOJ is doing to investigate in Minnesota? Have we learned anything new about the search warrant in Fulton County? Have we learned anything new about the fact that dozens of judges across this country have found that this DOJ lacks credibility? No, it’s been name calling. It’s been amateurish. It’s an embarrassment to the Justice Department what we’re seeing from Pam Bondi.

MORNING JOE today has already noted Bondi's appalling performance.

"We're laughing because she's making a fool ofherself."

The Jayapal exchange revealed something else. Remember Pam's binder? Dan Manan (NBC NEWS) reports:

Attorney General Pam Bondi at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday seemed to have a printout of Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s history of searches of the Department of Justice’s database of documents related to the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Photos of a black binder that Bondi had at the hearing showed the words “Jayapal Pramila Search History” and a list of documents whose numbers coincide with the number of Epstein files.

Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, and other members of Congress have visited the DOJ in recent days to view documents related to Epstein that are not available to the public.

Jayapal blasted Bondi in a post on X on Wednesday evening.

“It is totally inappropriate and against the separations of powers for the DOJ to surveil us as we search the Epstein files,” Jayapal wrote.

“Bondi showed up today with a burn book that held a printed search history of exactly what emails I searched,” the congresswoman said.

“That is outrageous and I intend to pursue this and stop this spying on members.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., when asked by MS Now if Bondi’s alleged action was appropriate, at first said, “I’m not going to comment on an allegation that is unsubstantiated. I don’t know anything about it.”

“I haven’t seen or heard anything about that, but that would be inappropriate if it happened,” Johnson said.

Washington, D.C. (February 11, 2026)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, issued the following statement after photographs revealed that Attorney General Pam Bondi has tracked the search history of Members of Congress who have reviewed the unredacted Epstein files at a satellite office of the Department of Justice:

"The Department of Justice has required Members of Congress who wish to review the slightly-less-redacted Epstein files to travel to a DOJ annex, sit at one of four DOJ-owned computers, use a clunky and convoluted software system provided by DOJ, and search for and read documents while DOJ staffers look over our shoulders. It is the perfect set up for DOJ to spy on Members’ review, monitoring, recording, and logging every document we choose to pull up.

“Today, photographs of Attorney General Bondi’s ‘burn book’ confirmed my suspicions. These photos show Bondi came to our hearing with a document entitled ‘Jayapal Pramila Search History’ and then listed the documents my colleague, Rep. Jayapal, reviewed while at DOJ, apparently to prepare the Attorney General for any questions Rep. Jayapal might ask.

“Not only has the Department of Justice illegally withheld documents from Congress and the American people. Not only has Attorney General Bondi failed to bring a single indictment against a single co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. But now Bondi and her team are spying on Members of Congress conducting oversight in yet another blatant attempt to intrude into Congress’s oversight processes.

“It is an outrage that DOJ is tracking Members’ investigative steps undertaken to ensure that DOJ is complying with the Epstein File Transparency Act and using this information for the Attorney General’s embarrassing polemical purposes. DOJ must immediately cease tracking any Members’ searches, open up the Epstein review to senior congressional staff, and publicly release all files—with all the survivors’ information, and only the survivors’ information, properly redacted—as required by federal law. I will also be asking the DOJ Inspector General to open an inquiry into this outrageous abuse of power. Let us use this humiliating disclosure about the Attorney General's work ethics to do a complete reset on the Epstein coverup.”

###

The hearing was a disaster for Pam Bondi. Sean James (MEDIAITE) notes:

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson said Attorney General Pam Bondi should quit or be canned after she said lawmakers and American citizens should be celebrating the stock market “smashing records,” rather than being fixated on the files tied to Jeffrey Epstein.

Erickson shared his disgust with Bondi’s answer in a post on X on Wednesday.

“When the Attorney General of the United States is asked why she has prosecuted no one related to Jeffrey Epstein and this is her answer, she should be fired or resign,” he posted. “But neither will happen, which is another reason the Democrats are going to have a good election year.”

Let's note another moment from the hearing.

US House Rep Jasmine Crockett: And to be clear, I'm not going to ask any questions of this witness because this witness has revealed she has no intentions of answering questions. But instead I'm going to ask some very basic questions really quickly of my colleague Becca Balint if she will answer. Right or wrong, raping children?

US House Rep Becca Balint: Wrong.

US House Rep Jasmine Crockett: Right or wrong, killing random citizens?

US House Rep Becca Balint: Definitely wrong.

US House Rep Jasmine Crockett Right or wrong, enriching yourself as the sitting president of the United States?

US House Rep Becca Balint: Definitely wrong.

US House Rep Jasmine Crockett: Okay, thank you because I probably never would have got that with our witness. Our witness who somehow is a lawyer but doesn't understand how it works with witnesses. I'm not really sure what law school she went to and what all kind of cases she tried but typically when you come into a space and somebody's a witness then they sit there and they answer questions instead of asking questions. And then we also have this objection that we use as lawyers called non-responsive when a witness fails to actually answer the question. But nevertheless, let me address the survivors because that's exactly who they are. They are not victims. They are survivors. Let me say thank you for having more courage and more moral clarity in your pinky fingers than the entire Department of Justice. We are currently the laughing stock of the world partially because of the failed leadership within the DOJ as we see kings and queens fallen everywhere around the world but we don't know the basics of right and wrong in this country because it's not about partisanship. And that's why I applaud [US House Rep] Thomas Massie because he's the only person on the Republican side that has a backbone and knows how to stand up to corruption. But nevertheless let me keep going. My Democratic colleagues have been attacked this entire Committee hearing. They have been lied on. And frankly the American people weren't looking for that. They were looking for answers about the corruption that they see coming from this administration. In the written testimony of this witness -- of this particular witness -- she stated that when she took office, she had main goals. The first was to end the weaponization of justice and, second, to return the department to its core mission. Not only have you lied about both, you've intentionally done the exact opposite. You're spending more taxpayer resources arresting journalists than you are prosecuting pedophiles and creeps. In fact, your boss, the president of the United States, stated that this administration "took the freedom of speech away" and at your direction DOJ has arrested Don Lemon and Georgia Fort and I might add that ya'll actually had a judge that rejected ya'll for trying to arrest Don Lemon before just like the grand jury rejected ya'll as it relates to Senator Kelly -- just like a grand jury rejected ya'll as it relates to Senator [Elissa] Slotkin -- just like the case against Tish James was dismissed and the case against Mr. [James] Comey was dismissed. I completely don't get how it is that you're sitting at the top of DOJ because you don't seem to be good at your job. You're spending more tax payer resources arresting these journalists. In fact, we know after Georgia Fort and Don Lemon were arrested, we know that there were homes of journalists that were raided. We know that threatened prosecution against students protesting your actions and forced tech companies to remove apps used to track ICE's activities. But let's circle back to you protecting pedophiles and creeps. because I want to talk about the president and his possible involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. Now I don't know what the president might have done with Jeffrey Epstein but unlike this administration, I believe the facts matter so let's talk about the facts. Fact number one, Donald Trump is one of the most named people in the Epstein files. At least 5,000 files contain more than 38,000 references to Trump, his wife or Mar-a-Lago. Fact number two, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell made young girls available to Trump on multiple occasions. For example, according to this file, Ghislaine Maxwell presented a young girl to President Trump who spent more than 20 minutes apparently flirting with her. Here's another example: this shows notes from FBI investigators that describe Jeffrey Epstein transporting a victim to Mar-a-Largo to meet with President Trump where he bragged to Trump that, "This is a good one." Now I'm not saying that the president is a pedophile but there is a lot of evidence in these files that suggest he's very close friends with a lot of men who are pedophiles. What's crazy about all of this is just that this is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it. In fact, this administration is complicit. But there are numerous others like how the DOJ is attempting to obstruct justice in the investigation of the rogue agents who have murdered American citizens. Or how the DOJ seized voter data from Fulton County in an attempt to steal the 2026 mid-term elections or how federal agent have Tom Homan on tape accepting a bribe and your agency killed the investigation. Or how your agency is willing to give the president a $230 million payday which is unconstitutional. The Constitution is clear: "The president shall not receive any payment except his salary while in office." The fact of the matter is that you will be remembered as one of the worst attorney generals in history -- an attorney general who has prioritized obstruction over justice, corruption over the law, fealty to the president over loyalty to the Constitution. And, Mr. Chairman, I will yield.

After the hearing concluded, the Democrats on the House Committee issued the following:

Washington, D.C. (February 11, 202)—Today, during her oversight hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to answer basic questions, aggressively filibustering and resorting to ad hominem attacks that revealed the depth of her incompetence and incredibility.

Here are the questions the Attorney General refused to answer before Congress, amid nationwide calls for truth and transparency:

Bondi refused to answer how many of Epstein’s co-conspirators her DOJ has indicted (zero).
Bondi refused to answer whether she would create a joint task force to give state attorneys general and district attorneys around the country access to DOJ’s trove of evidence regarding Epstein and his co-conspirators, so they can go build the cases and bring the indictments DOJ refuses to pursue.
Bondi refused to answer whether the email from the Epstein files involving Steve Tisch is worthy of further investigation.
Bondi refused to answer whether it’s important for prosecutors to protect sexual assault victims’ identities.
Bondi refused to answer why 500 of her attorneys somehow didn’t redact dozens of survivors’ names, identities, and sensitive photographs.
Bondi refused to answer why she refused to investigate Prince Andrew who is shown in disturbing photos in the Epstein files.
Bondi refused to answer whether she has knowledge if President Trump was at parties with underage girls.
Bondi refused to answer whether she has prepared a list of so-called domestic terrorism groups. And she refused to commit to providing the committee with that list.
Bondi refused to answer when DOJ decided not to investigate Lex Wexner as a co-conspirator and why.
Bondi refused to answer whether DOJ owes anything to Epstein’s victims, even as Donald Trump sues for $10 billion in personal damages from the federal government.
Bondi refused to answer how many employees work at the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (which she eliminated).
Bondi refused to answer whether DOJ has questioned Secretary Lutnick and other Administration officials about their ties to Epstein.
Bondi refused to answer who at DOJ signed off on Ghislaine Maxwell’s transfer.
Bondi refused to answer whether her Department would consider recommending a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell.
Bondi refused to answer whether the President has lied when he spread a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory about the murder of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman.

Moving over to the topic of ICE . . .

At ABOVE THE LAW, Jonathan Wolf writes:

I know a little place where the ingredients are always fresh. You can get a mega-burrito and a Dos Equis to wash it down for not much more than 10 bucks.

If you’re in a bad mood when you arrive, you won’t be for long, because the workers smile, they laugh, they seem like they’re having so much fun making your food just the way you like it that you can’t help but start to feel like you’re having a little fun yourself. When I’m in there with my parents, the staff are careful to treat them (and any other older people) with respect. Someone always comes around from behind the counter to carry my mom’s food to her table for her.

Last week my favorite burrito shop was dark. The door was locked. A note posted outside indicated that they would be closed for the foreseeable future for kitchen renovations.

No mention had been made of upcoming renovations at any of my prior visits though. With ICE known to be skulking about, it didn’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what had really happened.

Immigration agents reportedly kidnapped several of the employees and are in the process of deporting them. I confirmed this as best I could, which basically meant asking people in the area what they had heard, because the Department of Homeland Security generally won’t tell taxpayers (their bosses) who they are taking or what they are doing with them.

I say “kidnapped” because this most definitely was not an “arrest” and there is no better word for what actually took place. When a police officer takes another person into custody, he or she is acting under the color of legal authority. This police officer must respect the constitutional rights of the accused, and must have probable cause indicating that the person being arrested has committed a crime. When police officers make arrests, their badges and the badge numbers on them are visible, their last names are stitched into their uniforms, and their faces are uncovered, so that if your rights are indeed violated while you are in custody, you know who to complain about later on. When a police officer goes beyond the legal authority with which he or she is entrusted, that police officer is subject to disciplinary action, civil liability, or even criminal prosecution.

The color of someone’s skin or the fact that they speak English with an accent does not amount to probable cause. Simply being an undocumented immigrant is not even, on its own, a crime.

The president — who has himself been convicted of far more serious crimes than almost all of the people his administration is deporting — calling some thug a police officer does not make him one. Masked, unaccountable, unidentifiable ICE agents who trample the constitutional rights of every person they encounter are not law enforcement. One cannot enforce the law by breaking the law, and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. These are kidnappings, plain and simple.

Plain and simple. And let's call it what it is. The American people are exhausted by Chump's lies on immigration. Natasha Korecki (NBC NEWS) notes:

Support for President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is in free fall in early 2026 after federal immigration agents shot and killed two Americans last month, according to the new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.

The administration’s aggressive tactics and deportation goals have dragged down Americans’ views of Trump on the very issue that helped sweep him into office, the survey shows.

Immigration and border security had long stood out as a strength for Trump in polls, both as he ran for a second term in 2024 and in the first year of his new administration. Now, Trump’s ratings on the issue have sunk to the same level as his overall job approval rating.

In a double-digit shift, 49% of adults strongly disapprove of how Trump has handled border security and immigration, up from 38% strong disapproval last summer and 34% in April. Self-identified independents drove the erosion, with the share of strong disapprovers in that group having risen 11 points since August.

Fully 60% of those surveyed in the week after the death of Alex Pretti in Minnesota somewhat or strongly disapproved of Trump’s actions on border security and immigration. Another 40% approved of Trump on the issue, including 27% who strongly approved and 13% who somewhat approved.

Meanwhile, his overall approval rating declined slightly to 39%, about even with his rating on immigration and border security.

Ryan J. Foley (AP) reports on some serious issues with ICE:

Investigators said one immigration enforcement official got away with physically assaulting his girlfriend for years. Another admitted he repeatedly sexually abused a woman in his custody. A third is charged with taking bribes to remove detention orders on people targeted for deportation.

At least two dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees and contractors have been charged with crimes since 2020, and their documented wrongdoing includes patterns of physical and sexual abuse, corruption and other abuses of authority, a review by The Associated Press found.

While most of the cases happened before Congress voted last year to give ICE $75 billion to hire more agents and detain more people, experts say these kinds of crimes could accelerate given the sheer volume of new employees and their empowerment to use aggressive tactics to arrest and deport people.

The Trump administration has emboldened agents by arguing they have “absolute immunity” for their actions on duty and by weakening oversight. One judge recently suggested that ICE was developing a troubling culture of lawlessness, while experts have questioned whether job applicants are getting enough vetting and training.

“Once a person is hired, brought on, goes through the training and they are not the right person, it is difficult to get rid of them and there will be a price to be paid later down the road by everyone,” said Gil Kerlikowske, who served as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2014 to 2017.

Foley notes specific cases from last year and this year:

Arrests of ICE personnel over the last year have been a headache for the agency, which has labeled many of the people they deport as the “worst of the worst” because of their rap sheets.

The AP found at least nine such arrests across the country. They include the assistant ICE field office supervisor in Cincinnati, who has been jailed since December after a judge found he was a danger to the public who had violently assaulted his girlfriend for years.

Two ICE employees in Minnesota faced federal sexual misconduct charges related to underage girls last year, including an employment eligibility auditor arrested in a sting operation in November. The auditor has pleaded not guilty. An ICE investigator in the state pleaded guilty to sending images and videos of himself having sex with a 17-year-old girl, whose background he searched in a law enforcement database.

Two ICE agents face charges for incidents that occurred outside Chicago while they were off-duty but which involved their agency work. One was charged last month with assaulting a protester who was filming him at a gas station. Another was cited for driving drunk shortly after leaving work at a detention center with his government firearm in the vehicle.

The AP’s review found a pattern of charges involving ICE employees and contractors who mistreated vulnerable people in their care.

A former top official at an ICE contract facility in Texas was sentenced to probation on Feb. 4 after acknowledging he grabbed a handcuffed detainee by the neck and slammed him into a wall last year. Prosecutors had downgraded the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor.

In December, an ICE contractor pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a detainee at a detention facility in Louisiana. Prosecutors said the man had sexual encounters with a Nicaraguan national over a five-month period in 2025 as he instructed other detainees to act as lookouts.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Adam Schiff's office:

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla (both D-Calif.) joined Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) in leading a letter to U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio pushing the Trump administration to immediately end deportation flights to Iran.

Last month, it was reported that the administration resumed the deportation of dozens of Iranians, many of whom could be persecuted, tortured, or even executed if they are forced to return to Iran. That reporting came amid massive demonstrations in Iran, the Iranian government’s violent crackdown on protesters, and threats from President Donald Trump to use U.S. military force against the current Iranian regime.

“Given Iran’s horrific human rights record, we are deeply concerned that the Trump administration is returning people to a country where they may be persecuted or tortured, in violation of U.S. and international law,” the Senators wrote. “As you know, the United States has long been a safe haven for Iranians fleeing oppression and persecution by the Iranian regime because of their political ideology, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation. In the eyes of the regime, some of these ‘crimes’ are punishable by death, and deportees have stated they’ll likely face such sentences if sent back to Iran.”

The Senators continued, “…despite your acknowledgement of the Iranian government’s wanton disregard for basic human rights, the Trump administration has chosen to return Iranian citizens to the very place that they fled for their lives.”

“Throughout your career in the Senate, you were an advocate for Cubans escaping oppression and persecution by the Castro regime and for the protection of political dissidents and religious minorities around the world. We were glad to work with you on these issues,” the Senators concluded. “Now we ask you and the Trump administration to ensure that the United States does not violate U.S. and international law by returning people who have a well-founded fear of persecution and torture by the brutal Iranian regime.”

In addition to Schiff, Padilla, Kaine, and Welch, the letter was cosigned by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jeffrey Merkley (D-Ore.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

The full text of the letter is available here and below:

Dear Secretary Rubio,

In late September, the media and Iranian American human rights advocates began reporting that the Trump administration had reached a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran to deport Iranian citizens back to Iran. According to these reports, the administration sent 45 people to Tehran via Qatar in late September or early October. Some of these individuals stated that they “begged not to be sent to Iran because they feared for their lives.” Once they landed in Tehran, they said that they were “made to fill out forms explaining why they had left Iran and sought asylum in America,” and were “called in for interrogation by the intelligence wing of the Revolutionary Guards Corps.” On December 7, 2025, the administration deported another approximately 50 Iranian citizens to Iran, this time through Kuwait. On January 25, yet another flight deported approximately 14 Iranians; the number would have been much higher if not for a major measles outbreak at the detention site and widespread bipartisan pushback.

Given Iran’s horrific human rights record, we are deeply concerned that the Trump administration is returning people to a country where they may be persecuted or tortured, in violation of U.S. and international law. As you know, the United States has long been a safe haven for Iranians fleeing oppression and persecution by the Iranian regime because of their political ideology, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation. In the eyes of the regime, some of these ‘crimes’ are punishable by death, and deportees have stated they’ll likely face such sentences if sent back to Iran.

Iran’s violations of human rights are extensive, well-documented, and horrifying. Basic rights, like those of the freedom of expression, religion, and assembly are not only infringed upon – they are violently suppressed through torture, imprisonment, forced disappearances, and executions. You and others in the Trump administration spoke extensively about the horrors of the Iranian regime when attempting to justify the June 22, 2025, U.S. military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program. More recently, you personally have spoken against the regime’s violent suppression of protesters that experts believe have left more than 6,800 people dead – a figure that continues to climb. Yet despite your acknowledgement of the Iranian government’s wanton disregard for basic human rights, the Trump administration has chosen to return Iranian citizens to the very place that they fled for their lives.

Throughout your career in the Senate, you were an advocate for Cubans escaping oppression and persecution by the Castro regime and for the protection of political dissidents and religious minorities around the world. We were glad to work with you on these issues. Now we ask you and the Trump administration to ensure that the United States does not violate U.S. and international law by returning people who have a well-founded fear of persecution and torture by the brutal Iranian regime.

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The following sites updated: