Here’s how the Supreme Court is helping Trump put judges at risk

Federal judges are, by and large, a cautious lot, not given to dramatic public pronouncements or calling attention to themselves. But now that the judiciary is under a sustained attack from the Trump administration and allies, some judges are speaking out. 

During a Thursday webinar presented by the newly formed Speak Up for Justice, a nonpartisan group working to defend the judiciary, a couple of lower court judges were forthright about the threats they’ve faced after ruling against the Trump administration. 

U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell, an Obama appointee, revealed that, after blocking President Donald Trump’s catastrophic funding freeze, he received 6 credible death threats, along with more than 400 threatening voicemails. 

He played one during the webinar, with the caller saying, “How dare you try to put charges on Donald J. Trump,” and, “I wish somebody would fucking assassinate your ass.” 

A cartoon by Clay Bennett.

Similarly, after U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship ban, he was swatted as a result of someone anonymously telling the police that Coughenour killed his wife. 

From the bench, Coughenour has been forthright about Trump’s actions. 

“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain,” he told Justice Department lawyers.

Yes, much of this stems from the Trump administration’s near-constant attacks on judges, often whipped up by Trump personally. There’s also the willingness of congressional Republicans to go along with it, including some of Trump’s more ardent supporters introducing bills calling for the impeachment of judges who rule against him. 

But the Supreme Court, particularly Chief Justice John Roberts, is also at fault. 

Rather than squarely addressing the fact that these threats overwhelmingly come from the right and are driven by the president, Roberts has instead offered vague, anodyne statements

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” he said in one statement. 

Yes, that’s all Roberts had to say after Trump personally called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who ordered the Trump administration to return the planes of deportees heading to El Salvador—an order the administration defied. 

Related | Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump's war on homeless people

The Trump administration has now filed a misconduct complaint against Boasberg for private comments to his judicial colleagues, in which he expressed concern about the administration defying court orders. 

The problem isn’t just that Roberts is wishy-washy about these threats, speaking about them without ever mentioning Trump by name or acknowledging that his actions are the foundation for the attacks. But he has also joined the other conservatives on the Supreme Court to give Trump whatever he wants, constantly overturning lower court rulings. 

These days, separation of powers is indeed for suckers.  

Top House Republican will never stop investigating Biden

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer is the Energizer Bunny of investigating former President Joe Biden. His newest plan of attack is to examine Biden’s judicial appointments, pardons, and executive orders and, if any were signed with an autopen, they are “in jeopardy of being declared null and void in a court of law.” 

While Comer has enough juice to go forever, his tireless nature doesn’t make up for the fact that his ideas wouldn’t survive the scrutiny of a 10th-grade civics class. Comer can examine everything Biden ever wrote or signed or didn’t sign, and none of those things would mean that Biden’s judicial appointments could be undone. The only method to remove judicial appointees is the same as to remove Donald Trump: impeachment

During a softball appearance on Fox News, Comer was asked if he was looking into Biden’s judicial appointments and said he was investigating “everything that was signed with the autopen, especially in the last year of the Biden presidency.” While Comer was not explicitly asked about Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, his whole “null and void” comment came right after a segment focusing on her. 

A cartoon by Tim Campbell.

It’s sheer buffoonery on Comer’s part to call Biden’s use of an autopen “the biggest scandal in the history of American politics.” Since Comer also thought that Trump’s insurrection was no big deal and Democrats had an “obsession with partisanship” in impeaching him, he has a peculiar idea of what constitutes a scandal.

Equally buffoonish is Comer’s attempt to explain when it’s totally cool to use autopens or digital signatures and when it is the greatest threat to the Republic imaginable. But Comer had to give it a try, given that NBC News found he used a digital signature on letters and subpoena notices related to the Biden probe—a signature inserted by someone other than Comer. 

But that’s fine because Comer always signs “legally binding subpoenas” with a wet signature, and how dare you compare that to the “unauthorized use of an autopen” in the Biden White House. Unauthorized by who, James?

Comer is also stuck with the fact that the Department of Justice approved the use of autopens in 2005, and Trump has admitted to using them as well. Nonetheless, Comer is soldiering on, insisting that if Biden didn’t have knowledge of executive orders signed with his name, it raises an issue of whether those orders are legal. Comer has floated this idea for a while now, telling Fox News last month that if Biden didn’t know about the orders, “then I think the Trump administration could get them thrown out in court, and then Trump would be able to execute his agenda a whole lot easier.”

Comer: "If we can find information that would lead us to believe that Joe Biden had no knowledge of those executive orders being signed in his name, then I think the Trump administration could get them thrown out in court, and then Trump would be able to executive his agenda a whole lot easier."

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-06-01T15:05:17.476Z

Quick, someone tell Comer how a president can undo an executive order issued by a former president. There’s literally nothing easier, as all it requires is the president to issue an order saying the previous executive order is now revoked. Whatever Comer perceives is preventing Trump’s success, it isn’t Biden’s executive orders. 

Were Comer to do some digging, he might find a president who didn’t know what he was signing. Unfortunately for Comer, that president is Trump. 

Trump openly admitted he either doesn’t know what he’s signing or is letting someone sign things in his name. Trump signed the proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove Venezuelan migrants in secret, but when asked by reporters about Judge James Boasberg’s criticism of that, Trump said, “I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it,” and that “other people handled it.” 

It’s not entirely clear if that was meant to be an admission or just a self-inflicted wound incurred when Trump threw Secretary of State Marco Rubio under the bus: “Marco Rubio’s done a great job. And he wanted them out, and we go along with that.”

Comer’s well-worn path is also being trod by Ed Martin. Martin was once Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., until it became clear that Martin was too unhinged even for Senate Republicans. Martin is now the pardons attorney at the Department of Justice. 

Right after getting his new gig, Martin said his top priority was to review Biden’s pardons. Unlike Comer, Martin doesn’t think Biden’s use of an autopen is the issue, but nonetheless told ABC News, “the Biden pardons need some scrutiny. I do think we’re going to take a hard look at how they went and what they did and if they’re, I don’t know, null and void, I’m not sure how that operates.”

One doesn’t need to be a failed U.S. attorney appointee to know that, as with judicial appointments, there is no mechanism to reverse a pardon. Martin knows this, and Comer does too. But pretending they don’t is red meat for the Trump base, and that’s what they really care about. 

Retired Supreme Court justice gripes about the hot mess he helped create

Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is very concerned about what is happening with the courts, you guys. No, he didn’t have anything to do with it. Why do you ask?

Kennedy’s remarks came during his Thursday speech at a forum titled “Global Risks to the Justice System—A Warning to America.” He was one of several speakers, including judges from countries where authoritarian crackdowns threatened the independence of the judiciary. 

The bravery of those judges most definitely did not rub off on Kennedy, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan. In the face of repeated and ongoing attacks on the judiciary by President Donald Trump and his administration, the best Kennedy could do was praise judicial independence, as if that exists on the nation’s highest court any longer.

In this Oct. 8, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump watches as retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, right, ceremonially swears-in Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, left, in the East Room of the White House. Kavanaugh's wife Ashley is second from right with daughters Margaret, left, and Liza.

“Judges decide issues which have political consequences, but they don’t decide in a political way,” Kennedy claimed. “We have to honor the fact that judicial independence does not mean judges are put on the bench so they can do as they like—they're put on the bench so they can do as they must.”

Come on, Tony. Your cute little deal with Donald Trump in 2018, where you personally lobbied him to choose your former clerk Brett Kavanaugh to succeed you, was step two in Trump’s transformation of the court into a conservative grievance machine, following on the heels of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation the previous year.

You were perfectly aware that opposition to abortion was one of Trump’s litmus tests for Supreme Court nominees—he even campaigned on it. You were also perfectly aware that many of his lower court picks during his first term openly held anti-LGBTQ+ views. Trump explicitly chose judges because they would rule “as they like” instead of ruling “as they must.” 

Indeed, when judges do rule as they must, and Donald Trump doesn’t like it, he attacks them personally. He called for Judge James A. Boasberg to be impeached after he blocked the administration from deporting Venezuelan immigrants. 

At least 11 judges have had their families threatened with violence after they ruled against the Trump administration. Many of the threats occurred over at Elon Musk’s Nazi bar, X, where Musk himself amplified some of them. High-profile Trump supporter Laura Loomer shared a photo of Judge Boasberg’s daughter, alleging that she was helping undocumented gang members and calling for Boasberg and his daughter to be arrested and his entire family to be deported. James Boasberg was born in California to U.S. citizens, so the deportation demand is equal parts chilling and weird. 

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour faced both a bomb threat and a swatting incident after he ruled Trump’s birthright citizenship order was unconstitutional. During his speech, Kennedy fretted that “Judges must have protection for themselves and their families. Our families are often included in threats” without ever acknowledging who is whipping up those threats.

Related | Supreme Court justices sure are quiet about attacks on their power

Congressional Republicans have attacked judges on every front. They’ve called for the impeachment of judges who block Trump’s illegal actions. The Senate tried to get a provision in the Big Beautiful Bill restricting lower courts from issuing preliminary injunctions against the government unless the plaintiff posted a bond equal to whatever the government said were its costs and damages from not being able to do illegal things right away. 

Whenever conservatives want to both-sides the threats to the judiciary, they have literally one example: At a 2020 rally outside the Supreme Court, Sen. Chuck Schumer called out Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and said, “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You will not know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Roberts immediately issued a statement quoting Schumer and saying that “threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.” 

But when Trump relentlessly attacks the judiciary, including routinely defying court orders, and elected officials call for judges to be impeached, the best Roberts could come up with was, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

This is equally as mealy-mouthed as Kennedy’s comments that the judiciary should stand for the rule of law and “we must always say no to tyranny and yes to truth.” Notably absent is any mention of who is attacking the rule of law. Notably absent is any mention that the rule of law went out the window when the conservative majority granted Trump immunity. Notably absent is any mention of who is saying yes to tyranny and no to truth.

Kennedy doesn’t deserve praise or a cookie for these vague statements. If he genuinely cared about attacks on the rule of law, he would need to challenge his former colleagues. He would need to challenge Trump, the man he cut a deal with to get Kavanaugh a lifetime appointment. He would need to say that the threats of violence against judges only occur when they rule against the administration. He would need to call out the ceaseless attempts by GOP elected officials to knee-cap the courts. 

Kennedy is not going to do any of those things, but he’s probably going to continue to make a lot of high-minded speeches. Feel free to ignore him until he tells the truth.

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Justice Department sues this state’s federal bench in wild new escalation

In an unprecedented and dangerous move, the Department of Justice has sued all 15 federal judges in Maryland—a sweeping retaliation against a court order that temporarily halts deportations. 

At the center of the legal firestorm is a May 21 order from Chief Judge George L. Russell III, which bans federal officials from deporting immigrants who file habeas corpus petitions in Maryland until at least 4 PM on the second business day after filing. 

The goal, Russell wrote, is to prevent rushed removals that deny immigrants a fair hearing, especially after business hours or on weekends, when proper review becomes logistically impossible.

“The recent influx of habeas petitions concerning alien detainees … filed after normal court hours and on weekends and holidays has created scheduling difficulties and resulted in hurried and frustrating hearings,” the order reads.

Russell cited the All Writs Act and a 1966 Supreme Court precedent that gives courts limited power to preserve jurisdiction while they review urgent matters.

But the Trump administration isn’t backing down. In a broad legal challenge, the DOJ argues that Russell’s standing order illegally grants blanket relief to all immigrants without considering individual cases and unlawfully restricts the president’s authority to enforce immigration laws. 

A cartoon by Clay Bennett.

“A sense of frustration and a desire for greater convenience do not give Defendants license to flout the law. Nor does their status within the judicial branch,” DOJ attorneys wrote.

The DOJ is asking the 4th Circuit Court to assign a judge from outside the Maryland district to hear the case, claiming that all 15 judges have an inherent conflict of interest since they are all named as defendants.

Legal analysts say this move is without recent precedent.

“It’s extraordinary. And it’s escalating DOJ’s effort to challenge federal judges,” Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola, told The Associated Press.

Speaking to The Washington Post, J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge, was more blunt. 

“It is reckless and irresponsible and yet another direct frontal assault on the federal courts of this country,” he said.

The legal action appears to be the latest and most extreme salvo in the Trump administration’s ongoing war with the judiciary over immigration. And it didn’t take long for Democrats to sound the alarm. 

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore called the suit an “unprecedented effort to intimidate judges and usurp the power of the courts” and accused the Trump administration of “turning our Constitution on its head.”

Luttig says the administration helped create the chaos initially by rushing to deport immigrants en masse without proper notice or hearings. The Supreme Court recently ruled that one such group had a right to challenge their removal before being deported.

But that hasn’t stopped Trump officials, who have continued to lash out at judges who rule against them and openly question the courts’ authority to intervene.

Attorney General Pam Bondi clarified the Trump administration’s position in a statement on Wednesday.

“President Trump’s executive authority has been undermined since the first hours of his presidency by an endless barrage of injunctions designed to halt his agenda. This pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand,” she wrote.

President Donald Trump has criticized adverse rulings before—at one point calling for the impeachment of a federal judge who ordered for deported immigrants to be returned to the United States. While impeachment is unlikely and would require Senate conviction, it was enough to prompt a rare public rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

“Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” he warned.

The Maryland bench, especially, has been a thorn in Trump’s side. Judges like Paula Xinis have forced the administration to reverse wrongful deportations. Others, like James K. Bredar, are overseeing lawsuits filed by Democratic state attorneys general who are challenging mass firings of federal employees. 

And in a year marked by sweeping executive actions, Maryland judges have blocked key Trump policies related to immigration, transgender health care, and civil service rights. Of the 15 judges in the district, 13 were appointed by Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. 

But legal scholars warn that the lawsuit could break long-standing norms between the executive and judicial branches. 

“The president and his attorney general will continue their ruthless attack on the federal Judiciary and the Rule of Law until the Supreme Court of the United States at least attempts to stop them,” Luttig warned. “Until now, the Supreme Court has acquiesced in the president’s war, while the devastating toll on the Federal Courts and the Rule of Law has mounted by the day.”

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Trump’s Fox News addiction is reportedly behind Iran attacks

Over the weekend, on orders from President Donald Trump, the U.S. attacked three Iranian nuclear sites, inserting itself into Israel’s conflict with that nation.

Leaders like Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York quickly noted that the military action was done without the authorization of Congress, called it a “grave violation of the Constitution,” and said it was grounds for his impeachment. (Trump has already been impeached twice, more than any president in history.)

The incident is the latest in a long line of Republican leaders pushing bombing campaigns on shaky legal and moral ground.

A B-2 bomber arrives at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on June 22.

Now new reporting indicates that what appears to have pushed Trump into attacking Iran was his most influential adviser: Fox News.

The New York Times reports from sources close to Trump that in the days leading up the action he was glued to Fox. “The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved,” the outlet noted.

Since Israel’s latest attacks on Iran, Fox News has gone into pro-war overdrive. For instance, on last Tuesday’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” which is known to be Trump’s favorite show on the network, co-host Lawrence Jones baselessly claimed, “If we ever even got into a conflict with Iran, it would be over within two days, if that.”

Similarly, a delegation of hawkish activists pushing for U.S. military intervention in Iran visited Trump at the White House on June 4. They were led by conspiracy theorist Mark Levin, host of the Fox News weekend show “Life, Liberty & Levin.”

Fox News was one of the major sources of propaganda in favor of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The network hyped then-President George W. Bush’s administration’s falsehoods about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction and links to the 9/11 attacks. In the aftermath, the war killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and thousands of American military service members. There were no weapons of mass destruction.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, shown on June 22.

Trump is obsessed with Fox News and has hired at least 23 former Fox staffers to be in his administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has been out in front on the Iranian bombing campaign, is the most prominent former Fox host in the Trump Cabinet. Other figures, like Attorney General Pam Bondi and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, were also Fox News talking heads.

Fox was also instrumental in Trump becoming a major political figure. When President Barack Obama was in office, Fox frequently hosted Trump to promote the racist “birther” conspiracy theory that falsely claimed Obama was not a native-born American citizen.

The feedback loop between Fox and Trump is consistent. The network even had to pay out a $787 million legal settlement to Dominion Voting Systems after Fox pushed Trump’s lies that he had won the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden.

Now Trump has pushed America into military strikes, seemingly based on the skewed coverage and baiting of Fox News, with more death and destruction likely to follow.

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Elon Musk tries to kiss and make up with Trump

Just last week, Elon Musk accused President Donald Trump of having deep ties to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now Musk is trying to be friends again.

After a spectacularly public breakup, the tech billionaire issued an early-morning semi-retraction, sort of apologizing for going scorched-earth on the president.

“I regret some of my posts about President Donald Trump last week,” Musk wrote. “They went too far.”

He didn’t say which posts crossed the line—and honestly, there’s no shortage of contenders. 

As Trump threatened to strip Musk’s companies of their government contracts and subsidies, Musk fired back with a veiled threat that he’d outlast Trump politically, suggested the president should be impeached and replaced by Vice President JD Vance, and warned that Trump’s tariffs would “cause a recession in the second half of this year,” and claimed, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election.” 

Oh, and Musk also accused the Trump administration of covering up the files around Epstein in order to protect the president.

“[Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk posted. (That one’s since been deleted.)

President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speak to reporters from a Tesla vehicle on the South Lawn of the White House on March 11.

Musk is clearly trying to revive their once-close alliance. In recent days, he’s also shared Trump’s Truth Social posts about the brutal immigration raids and subsequent protests in Los Angeles, and he’s even nodded along to a post suggesting the two are “stronger together.” 

Maybe Musk saw the public wasn’t exactly rallying to his side in the breakup. Perhaps he realized he still wants those government contracts. Or maybe the pressure from Trump’s inner circle finally got to him. Who knows.

What’s not clear is whether Trump wants him back.

On Friday, Trump mostly brushed off the drama, telling CNN, “He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem.” But by the time Musk’s retraction dropped, Trump’s tone had softened.

In a brief interview with the New York Post on Wednesday, Trump said he thought Musk’s apology was “very nice.”

“I thought it was very nice that he did that,” he said, though he dodged whether he was ready to make up.

And in a previously recorded New York Post podcast released Wednesday, Trump said he didn’t blame Musk for anything but was “disappointed” in him.

Will Trump ever forgive Musk?

“I guess I could,” the president replied in the interview, though he quickly pivoted. “My sole function now is getting this country back to a level higher than it’s ever been.”

Trump also walked back earlier threats to yank Musk’s federal contracts or probe his immigration status—attacks egged on by Steve Bannon, an informal Trump adviser and a loud critic of Musk.

Steve Bannon exits court in New York on Feb. 11.

Notably, Bannon isn’t letting it go. He’s publicly urged Trump to launch multiple investigations into Musk, starting with whether the world’s richest man is an “illegal alien.”

He “crossed the Rubicon,” Bannon said of Musk on Friday. “There’s no going back.”

This week, Bannon ramped things up even more, calling for a special counsel to investigate Musk over alleged drug use, referencing a report from The New York Times that claimed Musk was using while working closely with the administration.

“Pull the security clearance for the drugs, temporarily,” Bannon said. “Investigate the whole drug situation.”

The whole meltdown traces back to when Musk’s role in the administration ended. Once the face of Trump’s push to slash spending and gut the federal workforce, Musk turned on his old boss fast, calling Trump’s signature domestic bill a “disgusting abomination.” From there, the spat spiraled into wild accusations and personal jabs.

There’s some chatter that the recent protests in Los Angeles might’ve prompted Musk’s attempted truce, since immigration is one of the few issues he and Trump still largely align on. Musk’s been echoing Trump’s talking points on the protests, seemingly trying to show they’re still ideologically synced.

Still, trying to make peace with someone you just accused of being involved with a sex offender says more about Musk than anyone else. 

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Trump wants you to know he’s definitely not mad about Musk dissing him

President Donald Trump isn't mad about his ugly and public break up with his billionaire benefactor and now-former co-President Elon Musk.

He’s fine! Everything is fine! Never been better!

At least, that's what he called multiple reporters on Thursday and Friday to insist upon, as Americans point and laugh that Trump’s sugar daddy is now trashing Trump’s signature piece of legislation, drawing attention to Trump’s ties to noted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and even calling for Trump’s impeachment.

Trump told CNN's Dana Bash in a phone conversation that he's "not even thinking about" Musk and that he won't be speaking to his now former First Buddy anytime soon.

Related | How Trump and Musk went from best friends to frenemies to nuclear war

Bash recounted her conversation with the scorned commander in chief: “He said, ‘He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem.’ I said, ‘So no call with Elon now?’ And he said, ‘No, I won’t be speaking to him for a while, I guess, but I wish him well.’”

Trump also called CBS News correspondent Robert Costa to say he's "totally" focused on his presidency and not at all focused on Musk. "I don't focus on anything else," Trump told Costa of his presidency.

He told Politico's Dasha Burns that his public breakup with Musk is "okay," and that his presidency is “going very well, never done better.”

In a call with the New York Post—which poked fun at Trump’s break-up with Musk on the tabloid’s front page—Trump said he wasn’t surprised about the fact that his friendship with Musk went south.

“Nothing catches me by surprise. Nothing,” Trump told the Post, adding that everything is awesome! 

“The numbers are through the roof, the stock market is up, billions are pouring in from tariffs, and my poll numbers are the highest they’ve ever been. Other than that, what can I tell you, right?” Trump said.

But Trump got a little fiestier with ABC News' Jonathan Karl, telling him that Musk is “the man who has lost his mind" and that he's “not particularly" interested in speaking to Musk, even though Musk wants to talk.

It’s as if he’s going through the five stages of grief in real time. Denial (insisting that he’s not mad Musk is trashing him), and anger (insulting Musk as having lost his mind) are up first. We’ll see when he gets to bargaining, depression, and later, acceptance.

But it’s safe to say, if Trump is speaking to reporters to insist that he's fine and not thinking about Musk, he is absolutely thinking about Musk—who could use his immense wealth to go after Republicans in the 2026 midterms.

Ultimately right now, Trump is the living embodiment of the infamous Dril tweet :

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Democrat tears into GOP over BS Biden probes and campaign lies

Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida used his time at Thursday’s House Oversight Committee to slam Republicans for resurrecting their failed impeachment investigation of former President Joe Biden as a distraction from years of unfulfilled promises.

"So I want to do the ‘don't listen to what they say, watch what they do.’” Moskowitz said. “They said they would lower food costs. They said they would take us into the Golden Age. They said they would end the war in Ukraine and Gaza. They said they wouldn't touch Medicaid. They said they would lower interest rates. They said they would lower our debt. They said they would release the Epstein files. … The biggest one, my favorite, they said they would make [the] government more efficient,” he added. "Name one department, one government service—anything that the government does that they made more efficient? Certainly not the Newark airport. Definitely not FEMA."

Moskowitz’s righteous rebuke came just hours after President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing his administration to investigate Biden, using the fallacious conspiracy theory that Biden wasn’t mentally fit during his presidency. Biden himself has noted that Trump’s obsession with him conveniently aligns with the GOP’s deepening divisions over their “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” which would throw millions off health insurance and add trillions to the deficit. 

Moskowitz’s skillful breakdown of the GOP’s unkept promises highlights the conservative movement’s ongoing failures. Trump’s ill-conceived tariffs have only driven up costs, the exact opposite of his campaign promises to lower grocery prices. Trump’s need to ingratiate himself with Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin has not only embarrassed the U.S. but also jeopardized its relationship with foreign allies, while failing to end a single conflict.

The Republican-led assault on government agencies has left our aviation safety in chaos with delays caused by understaffing and technical issues. At the same time, it has greatly diminished the federal government’s ability to predict and respond to extreme weather events that affect millions of people.

As for the promises of releasing billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s case files? It turned out to be just a publicity stunt. In fact, as of the writing of this story, former co-president Elon Musk has thoughts about the Epstein case files and Trump’s lack of transparency on the matter.

Republicans’ hope to use their committee as a distraction from their party’s catastrophic failures to govern has been dashed, as Democratic lawmakers make it clear that they will no longer play their games.

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Crazed Republicans can’t stop obsessing over Joe Biden’s health

House Republicans are ramping up their investigation into President Joe Biden’s health, targeting a new round of former aides with interview requests.

GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the House Oversight Committee, announced on Wednesday that he’s now seeking testimony from more top Biden officials, including former chief of staff Ron Klain and senior adviser Anita Dunn. Also on Comer’s list are longtime adviser Mike Donilon, former deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, and counselor Steve Ricchetti.

“The Committee requests your testimony to evaluate your eye-witness account of former President Biden’s decline,” Comer wrote in nearly identical letters, adding that the aides must agree to appear by June 11 or face a subpoena.

This latest batch of targets follows Comer’s round of demands last month, when he requested to question Biden’s personal physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, and White House staffers Anthony Bernal, Neera Tanden, Annie Tomasini, and Ashley Williams.

“These five former senior advisors were eyewitnesses to President Biden’s condition and operations within the Biden White House,” Comer said, claiming that they could shed light on who was really “calling the shots.”

It’s not clear what Comer expects to get out of this, but we won’t have to wait long to find out. 

On Tuesday, he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that staff attorneys have already been in touch with the various aides’ legal teams and that he expects each official to testify voluntarily. Where that actually happens, and what the GOP even considers a “win” here, remains to be seen.

But even if this whole thing turns up nothing, Republicans will still have accomplished what they set out to do: keep the attacks on Biden coming. It’s all part of a larger GOP effort to undermine Biden’s legacy by painting him as unfit for office, even after leaving it. 

Ed Martin, pardon attorney for the Department of Justice 

Similarly, President Donald Trump’s pardon attorney for the Department of Justice, Ed Martin, is now digging into Biden’s end-of-term clemency decisions, including the mechanics of how they were approved.

Comer, who just wrapped up a failed 15-month impeachment probe, even floated the idea of having Biden testify before Congress over the use of an autopen. Despite MAGA’s breathless obsession, autopens are legal, and presidents have used them for years.

The GOP has seized on a string of stories to fuel its narrative: first, gossip that Biden’s team downplayed health concerns during his reelection bid, then the announcement of his metastatic prostate cancer diagnosis. Republicans immediately—and without evidence—accused his staff of orchestrating a cover-up.

While Biden’s health decline was evident during his chaotic final debate against Trump, there’s no public proof that others were running the show for him or that he couldn’t perform the core duties of the presidency. His allies have rejected that framing outright.

But those facts haven’t slowed the GOP down. According to CNN, the House Judiciary Committee is also preparing to interview David Weiss, the former Hunter Biden special counsel, behind closed doors this week. And Republicans have also been chasing two DOJ tax prosecutors involved in the Hunter Biden probe.

These moves are easier with a compliant House and White House, and the political benefits are obvious. The investigations feed their narrative, keep Biden in the headlines, and pull focus from GOP turmoil. Even Comer admits as much.

“It is a whole different environment,” he told CNN.

In other words, the hunt continues.

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Republicans won’t stop beating up on Biden because it’s all they have

President Donald Trump hasn’t even been back in office for 200 days, and already, his second term is a full-blown disaster.

He’s sort of breaking up with his tech billionaire co-President Elon Musk. His so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill,” pitched as the cornerstone of his legislative revival, is tearing the GOP apart. His power grabs are being dragged through the courts. And his tariff plan—if it survives—could drive up prices and tip the economy toward a recession.

With all that chaos on their plate, Republicans should be laser-focused on solving problems. Instead, they’re still obsessed with former President Joe Biden.

Two recent stories gave them just enough cover. First, a Beltway tell-all claimed Biden’s team downplayed his health issues when he launched his reelection bid. Then came news of his metastatic prostate cancer diagnosis—and Republicans immediately, and without evidence, cried “cover-up.” 

Rep. James Comer, after leading a failed 15-month impeachment investigation, even suggested that Biden should testify before Congress over his use of an autopen, as if that somehow proves cognitive decline. For the record: Autopens are legal. Presidents, including Barack Obama, have used them, despite MAGA’s ongoing paranoia.

To be clear, Republicans aren’t the only ones who raised questions about Biden’s mental and physical fitness. Democrats did too. So did the media. His age and decline weren’t hidden—they were headline news. Voters knew what they were signing up for.

And sure, it’s possible this issue could resurface in 2026 or 2028. But if it does, it won’t be because MAGA world kept doomposting about Biden’s brain scans; It’ll be because Democrats failed to give voters anything else to care about.

Let’s be real. The defining story of the next election won’t be Biden’s prostate. It’ll be Trump—his chaos, his legacy, and the wreckage he’s already leaving behind.

To name just a few lowlights: He’s nuked the economy with asinine tariffs. He’s gutted the federal workforce, undermining basic services like Social Security and weather forecasting. He’s threatened law firms to scare them away from challenging his illegal moves—or defending his political enemies. He’s openly ignoring court orders, plunging the country into a full-blown constitutional crisis.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Voters won’t forget. Republican lawmakers are already getting grilled by angry constituents at town halls. The idea that Biden’s medical chart will outweigh Trump’s reign of chaos is laughable.

But that’s the GOP’s bet because they need Biden in the narrative. They need a scapegoat, a boogeyman, a distraction. They can’t run on their record, so they run on fiction.

Just look at how Democrats have responded to the Biden book: no freakouts, no backstabbing. Most agree he shouldn’t have run again—but they aren’t re-litigating 2024 or knifing one another over 2028. That unity says more than any hot take. Republicans need Biden in the story. Democrats have already moved on.

Of course, in MAGA-land, Biden’s name will never die. His health, his staff, his supposed “cover-up”—all filed under the same deranged umbrella as Benghazi, birth certificates, George Soros, and Kamala Harris’ laugh. None of it’s real. It’s just Republican fan fiction. And when the headlines dry up, the fever swamp always circles back to its favorite fantasy villains.

Still, if swing voters are actually talking about Biden in 2028, Democrats will only have themselves to blame for failing to give the country something better to talk about.

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