Republicans on Capitol Hill are asking the Justice Department to consider bringing criminal charges against Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in President Donald Trump’s first administration who became a star congressional witness about the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, according to two sources familiar with recent developments.
GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk made a criminal referral of Hutchinson to the Justice Department in recent days, the sources said. He accused Hutchinson of lying to Congress in her summer 2022 testimony when she alleged Trump was aware of the potential for violence on January 6, 2021, and forged ahead with his attempts to rile up his supporters.
Loudermilk has long attempted to reframe the public perception of the events at the Capitol, including by scrutinizing the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot and found Trump was “directly responsible” for the riot. Loudermilk’s referral was co-signed by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who chairs the committee under which Loudermilk is running a probe of January 6.
The “charges” such as they are are about her heresy testimony about what she heard second hand about Trump in the limo and Trump saying that they could let the people with guns come in because they weren’t there to hurt him. How that translates to a crime, I don’t know but the main purpose of something like this is to serve as a warning to anyone who deigns to testify against Trump. (Epstein survivors certainly will take notice.)
These miscreants will never give up on exonerating their Dear Leader for that day. It won’t work, of course. We all know what we saw. But until he’s long dead they’ll keep trying. It’s a cult.
Americans are more likely than people in other countries surveyed in 2025 to question the morality of their fellow countrymen, according to Pew Research Center surveys in 25 countries.
We asked people around the world to rate the morality and ethics of others in their country.
In nearly all countries surveyed, more people say that others in their country have somewhat or very good morals than say their compatriots display somewhat or very bad levels of morality.
The United States is the only place we surveyed where more adults (ages 18 and older) describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad (53%) than as good (47%).
Because we have never asked this question before, we don’t know whether a majority of Americans have long held a skeptical view of the ethics of fellow Americans, or if it’s something new – and if so, what’s driving it. But partisan politics appear to play a role.
Yeah, I’d say so. And one of the parties is led by a man whose entire political career was built on grievance and hate for anyone who doesn’t lick his boots, using crude insults and endless threats against them. He governs as the president of only his own followers and punishes those who aren’t. So this makes perfect sense.
Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to rate fellow Americans as morally and ethically bad (60% vs. 46%).
That’s because it’s true. They elected a criminal to the presidency knowing exactly what he did and they didn’t care. That’s immoral. Sorry.
Bolts.com has done another interesting Q&A with state and local leaders about how they’re dealing with ICE and CBP. It’s quite interesting and somewhat inspiring. The Resistance is deep:
The violence of Trump’s immigration crackdown in cities across the country and the killing of protesters by federal agents have put pressure on local leaders to change their approach to federal immigration enforcement.
Already, a growing list of states has moved to restrict local collaboration with ICE, and in many local criminal justice elections this year, assisting federal immigration authorities has become a defining issue.
We asked our readers to send us their questions about state and local responses to the federal immigration crackdown as part of our ongoing series “Ask Bolts.” With the help of our entire staff, we respond to nine of those questions below.
Jump to the topic that interests you most, or keep scrolling to explore all nine questions.
What’s the point of having a Congress if it won’t exercise the real powers vested in it? Are they lawmakers or simply a student council?
Twice this week, the U.S. Congress, both the Senate and House chambers, voted down a demand that the president come to Congress for authorization for its war-making in Iran. The House voted 219 to 212 on Thursday, nearly along party lines, “to block consideration of a bipartisan resolution that would end offensive military operations in Iran that had not been approved by Congress.” Four Democrats opposed the resolution. Two Republicans supported it. Collectively, they surrendered their constitutional powers without a shot.
But, of course, it’s not a war. Another name will be found for it.
RAJU: You'll concede this is war?
MARKWAYNE MULLIN: We haven't declared war. They declared war on us
RAJU: The president called it war and Secretary Hegseth called it war
REPORTER: When you walked up just now, you called it war
“The Constitution is clear: Our Constitution provides Congress initiatory powers of war,” Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky and the lead sponsor of the resolution, said during debate on the House floor, directly challenging members of his own party.
Mr. Massie, who cosponsored the measure with Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, noted that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows the president to go around Congress and exercise unilateral authority to use force only if there has been a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization or a national emergency created by an attack on the United States.
“None of those conditions exist today,” Mr. Massie said.
After a series of classified briefings led by senior Trump administration officials, Democrats said the case had not been made that the president had needed to act unilaterally.
Donald Trump did anyway.
You knew he would. So did Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic:
During the run-up to the 2016 election, I wrote that “if you’re a voter who believes that Donald Trump is against foreign wars and regime change, unlike the globalist elites in Washington, D.C., you have been misled.” At the time, I noted that Trump released a video in 2011 that sought to pressure President Obama to invade Libya. Trump also argued that George H. W. Bush should have ousted Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and wrote in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, “We still don’t know what Iraq is up to or whether it has the material to build nuclear weapons.” He added, “Am I being contradictory here, by presenting myself as a deal-maker and then recommending preemptive strikes? I don’t think so.” In 2011, he urged the Navy to wage war on Somali pirates.
Now Trump has proved his proclivity for interventionism, without congressional approval or the support of the public. And there’s no evidence to suggest that he will stop here. If Congress continues allowing him to deploy force unilaterally, he may pursue land strikes on drug cartels in Mexico, a prospect that he raised early this year in an interview with Fox News; regime change in Cuba, a longtime dream of Rubio’s; and God knows what else. He is an impulsive man who gambles, especially when the most significant risks are borne by others. There is no way to know how exactly he will surprise Americans next.
“The United States is now enmeshed in so many conflicts that its foreign policy is closer to ‘world police’ than ‘America First’, ” chides Friedersdorf. As candidate, Trump promoted himself as the “peace president” while lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize.
“It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel,” Trump’s sister Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal judge, told Trump’s niece Mary L. Trump in a secretly recorded interview.
“He has no principles. None. None.”
Trump is engaged in another criminal enterprise, this time involving spilling blood. The question is whether Congress has the balls to parent a career criminal with possession of the nuclear launch codes and in control of the world’s most powerful military. It is because Trump is the most insecure, emotionally damaged president of our time that he surrounds himself with total nincompoops. And because he helps elect them to Congress expressly to do his bidding, over half of that body is populated with ass-kissing Otis wannabes.
Noem testified before Congress this week that Trump approved her $200 million ad campaign that featured her and Trump was supposedly very angry and it led to her firing. They’ve been playing for over a year in every media market. But I recalled that this story has been around since the early days of the administration and Noem has always told the same story — and Trump never denied it. The details are even more juicy that what they’re reporting today:
The Department of Homeland Securityhas budgeted up to $200 million to run anti-immigrant ads in the United States and overseas that repeatedly thank President Donald Trump for leading an immigration crackdown. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Friday night that these ads were Trump’s idea, and during the administration’s transition to power, the president asked her to star in ads thanking him “for closing the border.”
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Ronald Reagan dinner on Friday night — at a tux and gown affair that served striploin, mashed potatoes, and raspberry cake — Noem recalled Trump telling her after she was nominated: “I want you to do [ads] for the border, and I want you to do those everywhere, not just in the United States, but I want them around the world. I want you to tell people not to come to this country if they’re going to come here illegally.”
She said the president continued: “We’re not going to let the media tell this story, because the media will never tell the truth. We’re going to run a marketing campaign to make sure the American people know the truth of what you’re doing.”
The ad campaign amounts to an extremely expensive taxpayer-funded propaganda blitz to scare off migrants and to flatter Trump on television. On Friday, Trump’s DHS secretary entertained the CPAC high-roller audience with her account of how Trump orchestrated the whole thing.
Noem said that Trump instructed that he didn’t want to be in the ads himself, telling her: “I want you in the ads, and I want your face in the ads … but I want the first ad, I want you to thank me. I want you to thank me for closing the border.” She recalled: “I said, ‘Yes, sir, I will thank you for closing the border.’ So if you notice, in that ad, we thanked him for closing the border.”
Lol! I don’t know about you but Kristi’s story has the ring of truth if only because she so clearly doesn’t understand how much it makes him look like a narcissistic moron.
Of course that’s what he said. He’s always demanding that people thank him. It’s him.
Hegseth: "No stupid rules of engagement. No nation-building quagmire. No democracy-building exercise. No politically correct wars…An effort of this scope will include casualties. War is Hell and always will be." pic.twitter.com/yuvwJWTk0V
The Feb. 28 strike that hit an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab is the deadliest known episode of civilian casualties since the United States and Israel attacked Iran — and no side has yet taken responsibility.
But a body of evidence assembled by The New York Times — including newly released satellite imagery, social media posts and verified videos — indicates the school building was severely damaged by a precision strike that occurred at the same time as attacks on an adjacent naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
And official statements that U.S. forces were attacking naval targets near the Strait of Hormuz, where the I.R.G.C. base is located, suggest they were most likely to have carried out the strike. […]
The elementary school is in the small southern town of Minab, more than 600 miles from Tehran but near the critical waterway of the Strait of Hormuz. Since Saturday is the start of the Iranian workweek, children and teachers were in class at the time of the strike, health officials and Iranian state media said.
No biggie.
It reminds me of the comment by former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs who defended the targeted killing of American Anway Awlaki by saying, “he should have had a more responsible father.” If those little Iranian kids didn’t want to be killed they should have had the good sense to be born American and live in the United States. Of course, that’s no guarantee that Trump’s administration won’t kill them too but it may be slightly less likely.
President Trump told Axios in an interview Thursday that he needs to be personally involved in selecting Iran’s next leader — just as he was in Venezuela.
Trump revealed this exclusively in an eight-minute phone call — his second conversation with us to explain his war planning.
Trump acknowledged that Mojtaba Khamenei, son of assassinated supreme leader Ali Khamenei, is the most likely successor — while making clear he finds that outcome unacceptable.
For several days, the Iranian regime has postponed the announcement of the new supreme leader. But statements by Iranian politicians on Thursday suggested an announcement could be imminent.
“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela,” Trump said.
He added that he refuses to accept a new Iranian leader who would continue Khamenei’s policies, which he said would force the U.S. back to war “in five years.”
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments represent an extraordinary claim of American power over Iran’s political future, further muddying the objectives of the massive U.S. military campaign he launched on Saturday.
No shit. So I guess we’re going in with boots on the ground and plan to occupy the country? Because that’s the only way he’s going to get a vote on this.
They aren’t giving their country to him the way Trump’s puppet Delcy did. They are fighting. And I guess we’re fighting too — because Trump is so braindead that he doesn’t understand how any of this works
Ice Barbie told the Congress that Trump had approved her spending hundreds of millions on ads promoting herself and he got mad so he’s replaced her with the stupidest man in the U.S. Senate, Markwayne Mullin. It gets more and more surreal every single day.
A congressman embarks on a secret mission to rescue five American citizens, demanding a huge sum of cash from an ambassador – immediately! – to make it all work.
Truth, as people who follow politics closely, is always stranger than fiction.
Which brings us to the curious case of Oklahoma Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin and his suspended attempt to enter Afghanistan with a big sack of money that he hoped would be arranged for him by the US ambassador to Tajikistan.
“Mullin told the embassy that he planned to fly from Tblisi, Georgia, into Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, in the next few hours and needed the top diplomat’s help, according to the two U.S. officials familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations about a sensitive matter.
“The answer was no. Embassy officials told Mullin they could not assist him in skirting Tajikistan’s laws on cash limits on his way to visiting one of the most dangerous places on earth.
“Mullin was outraged by the response, the officials said — threatening U.S. ambassador John Mark Pommersheim and embassy staff and demanding to know the name of staff members he was speaking with.”
Even more remarkable? That this wasn’t, according to the Post, the first time that Mullin had attempted to pull this stunt. “Last week, Mullin traveled to Greece and asked the Department of Defense for permission to visit Kabul,” the Post wrote. “The Pentagon denied Mullin’s request, an administration official said.”
And this detail! “As of late Tuesday, U.S. officials said they were unsure of Mullin’s location. Mullin’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment before this story published.”
More highlights:
PAMELA BROWN (ANCHOR): Look, early voting is kicking off. The race is super tight, as you know. Some of Trump’s confidantes are starting to scare GOP veterans, based on our reporting just coming in. I have to ask you, should right-wing firebrands like Laura Loomer, who once said 9/11 was an inside job, be in Trump’s ear?
SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): Yeah, President Trump is real good about surrounding himself around people that gives him the positive advice and information that is useful to him winning the election. To say who should be around his ear or who shouldn’t — this is a guy that’s been very successful in business. He’s built a wonderful brand, very successful business along the way. He’s not been in politics, but he knows how to put the right people in place to get the job done.
That was during the last campaign. After Trump had already been president for 4 years.
Markwayne Mullin: "War is ugly. It smells bad. If anybody has ever been there and been able to smell the war that's happening around you and taste it, and feel it in your nostrils, it's something you'll never forget. And fortunately you have President Hegseth — or Secretary… pic.twitter.com/kFTyKxS3Z8
Markwayne Mullin has never been in the armed service.
Markwayne Mullin was shook by the end of this CNN interview with Kasie Hunt. He's increasingly serving as a Trump spokesperson on TV and it's not going well. pic.twitter.com/TDfBpNQpXL
Sen. Markwayne Mullin: "Think about this, they were literally out there protesting carrying a foreign flag. That is absolutely insane. I mean, they're not just peaceful protesters."
