Tuesday, January 13, 2026. Senator Mark Kelly is suing social media maven Pete Hegseth, Chump continues to misuse the Justice Dept to persecute Fed Chair Jerome Powell, only 1% (per Pam Bondi) of The Epstein files has been released, Chump continues attempting to smear the name of the late Renee Nicole Good and much more.
Today on MS NOW's MORNING JOE, Joe reviewed how Donald Chump's has elected to start the new year.
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Convicted Felon Donald Chump uses the Justice Dept to go after his rivals. He thought attacking Fed Chair Jerome Powell was the thing to do. He was wrong, so wrong.
Let’s be absolutely clear about what’s happening here. Powell is being punished for refusing to bend monetary policy to the whims of an authoritarian president who believes the entire machinery of government exists to serve his personal interests and ambitions.
Even by Trump’s standards, the brazenness of this assault is staggering. The Federal Reserve was deliberately designed to be independent to avoid exactly this scenario. The Banking Act of 1935 created the modern structure of the Fed and explicitly placed monetary policy decisions beyond presidential reach. Central banks in nearly every major democracy operate on the same principle of independence — precisely because the alternative could lead to inflation and instability. Trump has never accepted the basic premise that the Fed was designed to be independent of presidents to avoid political business cycles and cronyism. The idea that someone else can say no to him — as Powell has in the past by refusing to take action on the economy according to Trump’s whims — is intolerable, so, true to form, the president has escalated.
Trump has been ramping up his attacks on Powell for months. He has called for the Fed chair to be fired, accused him of incompetence, mocked him publicly and repeatedly demanded lower interest rates as if the Federal Reserve exists simply to do the boss’ bidding. When Powell refused to comply, Trump and his enablers went searching for a pretext to exact revenge. They found it in the building renovation project.
Andrew Levin, a Dartmouth economist and former Federal Reserve official, first published a policy brief on the central bank’s building renovations for the libertarian think tank Mercatus Center. After Trump allies pounced, the report became fodder for a New York Post story sneering about a supposed “Palace of Versailles.” The Fed, for its part, kept Congress informed about the project, with Powell testifying at a Senate hearing that the renovation included no VIP dining room, no new marble, no special elevators, no water features and no roof terrace gardens.
But facts don’t matter when the goal is intimidation.
Chris Blackhurst (INDEPENDENT) observes,
"What this shows, not for the first time, is that the Trump
administration is no longer operating according to any principles of
objectivity, and that it is entirely subjugated to its master,
compliantly anticipating and carrying out his wishes. In some instances,
that may not matter greatly. But with the Fed, Trumpian officials are
playing with fire. If there is one arena that Trump cannot control, it
is the markets. They do not do emotion. They do not idolise him or
anyone else, nor are they swept along in his wake. And they are not
American. They’re global, unsentimental and unforgiving." Elizabeth Schulze, Benjamin Siegel, Fritz Farrow and Allison Pecorin (ABC NEWS) note pushback, "The
Justice Department investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome
Powell is drawing backlash from former Federal Reserve and Treasury
officials as well as current members of Congress, including those in
President Donald Trump's own party. A bipartisan group of top economic
officials released a blistering statement on Monday calling the probe an
"unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine" the
central bank's independence" and they quote a statement from Alan
Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, Tim Geithner, Jacob Lew, Hank
Paulson and others stating, "This is how monetary policy is made in
emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative
consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more
broadly. It has no place in the United States whose greatest strength is
the rule of law, which is at the foundation of our economic success." Sean James (MEDIAITE) adds, "Sen.
Thom Tillis (R-NC) said the criminal investigation into Fed Chair
Jerome Powell has called the 'independence and credibility' of the
Justice Department under President Donald Trump into question following
the president’s consistent criticism of Powell’s leadership."
Investors
took one look at the Trump administration’s criminal investigation of
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and decided to resuscitate the “Sell
America” trade, selling off US stocks, bonds and the dollar.
Stocks
opened lower Monday morning. The Dow was down 409 points, or 0.83%. The
broader S&P 500 fell 0.37%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 0.23%.
The
US dollar weakened against other major currencies. The dollar index,
which tracks the dollar’s strength against six major currencies, was
down almost 0.4% — a sharp move for the greenback.
Treasuries
fell somewhat, too. The benchmark 10-year yield, which trades in
opposite direction to prices, rose to just under 4.2%, near a one-month
high. Bond yields’ move higher suggests the Trump administration’s
action against the Fed could backfire, and rates may not start sinking
as the president has demanded.
Fed independence
is considered a cornerstone of what makes US financial markets
exceptional. Investors, economists and historians all regard an
independent central bank as key to stable financial markets, as
policymakers can set monetary policy without regard to political
interests.
Jim Edwards (FORTUNE) elaborates,
"Markets moved back into 'Sell America' mode overnight as traders
digested the prospect of an incoming Fed chair who lacks independent
credibility: The dollar sank 0.32% against a basket of international
currencies; the yield on 5-year Treasuries moved sharply up, a sign that
investors now regard U.S. government bonds as being suddenly more
risky; gold futures -- the traditional safe haven -- rose 2.21% today to
hit a new record high over $4,600 per troy ounce; and S&P 500
futures are down 0.66% this morning prior to the opening bell." Medha Singh and Pranav Kashyap (REUTERS) note, "Goldman
Sachs' Jan Hatzius said the indictment threat against Powell has
heightened concerns over the Fed's independence, though he expects the
policy decisions to remain data‑driven."
Chump and his stupidity keep destroying our economy. MARKETWATCH's Mike Murphy adds,
"West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, was flat after
giving up sharp early gains amid uncertainty around Venezuela’s oil
industry following Trump’s assertion that the U.S. will control the
nation’s oil after U.S. military action that deposed President Nicolás
Maduro last weekend, and unrest in Iran that has seen hundreds of
demonstrators reportedly killed, leading the U.S. to consider a military
response. Oil prices rose more than 3% last week." Ed Carson (INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY) notes, "Credit-card and card-issuing stocks fell after President Trump called for a one-year cap on credit card rates to 10%."
President Donald Trump’s long-running war against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has escalated.
The
U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia has opened a
criminal investigation into Powell over the renovation of the Central
Bank’s headquarters, according to The New York Times. The probe includes a review of Powell’s public statements and an examination of spending records.
The
U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that even if President Donald Trump
can fire the heads of independent agencies, it may ensure there are
protections to stop these powers applying to the Federal Reserve.
The
Trump vs. Slaughter case is being heard by the Supreme Court, which, if
approved, could give the president the power to dismiss the heads of
independent agencies at will, changing a 90-year-old policy.
It
stems from Trump firing Democratic FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter
in March, whose term was not set to expire until 2029, but the findings
could be applied to whether Trump can fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome
Powell, as tensions between Powell and the Trump administration
escalate.
Turning to the Jeffrey Epstein files which remain unreleased, December 23rd the US Justice Dept issued this statement:
A. Tysen Duva serves as the Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division. In this capacity, Mr. Duva supervises the Division’s more than 1,100 federal prosecutors and staff members who conduct investigations and prosecutions involving violent crime, sex trafficking, cartels and transnational criminal organizations, human smuggling and trafficking offenses, cybercrime, fraud, corruption, money laundering, child exploitation and other crimes, as well as matters involving international affairs and sensitive law enforcement techniques.
Today, Ben Penn (BLOOMBERG NEWS) reports the latest on the Jeffrey Epstein files which is that the DOJ put a new "expanded team" over the files January 5th headed by . . . Tyson Duva:
A supervisor in an office within the Criminal Division that’s been deluged with Epstein review relayed to staff that DOJ leadership is “well aware that the project got off to a very rocky start and numerous issues continue to be flagged for more concrete guidance,” according to a Jan. 8 email obtained by Bloomberg Law.
Tysen Duva, who was sworn in last month as head of the Criminal Division, acknowledged the challenging task at hand, telling employees Jan. 9 that he knows this isn’t how they wanted to start their year, said the individual, who like others spoke anonymously about internal communications.
Duva commended the division for increasing its daily output through the week, saying they collectively surpassed 200,000 pages on Jan. 8. But Duva also said reviewers needed to improve their individual metrics the following week.
The Criminal Division, home to about 600 lawyers in Washington focused on white collar and violent crime cases, was enlisted to support previously assigned reviewers at the FBI, National Security Division and US attorney’s offices in Manhattan and Miami after more than two million documents were identified late last year related to the late financier and convicted sex offender.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche informed a federal judge Jan. 5 of plans to divert 400 attorneys across the department to dedicate all or most of their workdays to complying with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. But even with additional reviewers, the complexities remain in protecting victim identities, as required by the law.
Congress voted The Epstein Files Transparency Act into law and then (November 19, 2025) Chump singed the law. The law gave 30 days for the Justice Dept to release the files. That was December 19th and Pam da Bimbo Bondi missed that deadline -- well, blew it off. Blew it off? Pam told the court last week that the Justice Dept had thus far only released about 1% of the files.
Where are the documents? And if help was needed, shouldn't Pam Bondi have known that before the December 19th deadline? But they didn't appoint someone to head the release until December 23rd -- four days after everything was supposed to have been released. US House Rep Ro Khanna's office released the following near the end of last week:
Today, Representatives Ro Khanna (CA-17)
and Thomas Massie (KY-04), the leaders of the Epstein Files Transparency
Act, sent a letter to Judge Paul Engelmayer of the United States
District Court for the Southern District of New York, requesting the
appointment of a Special Master to compel the Department of Justice to
release the full Epstein files as required under Rep. Khanna and Rep.
Massie’s law.
“The Department of
Justice is openly defying the law by refusing to release the full
Epstein files. Millions of files are being kept from the public,” said Rep. Ro Khanna. "The
DOJ has failed to make the necessary redactions to protect survivors
while removing records after publication without any explanation. That
is why we are requesting the appointment of a Special Master to oversee
the release of the files and ensure that the DOJ is following the law.”
"Attorney General Pam Bondi is egregiously violating the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act," said Rep. Thomas Massie.
"Under her leadership, the Department of Justice is missing statutory
disclosure deadlines, making excessive redactions, and illegally
withholding the Department's internal communications. Because the
Department of Justice has shown it cannot be trusted with making the
disclosures required by law, a Special Master should be appointed to
oversee the release of the Epstein files.”
We
write jointly as Members of the United States House of Representatives
who sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Public Law 119-38 and
as amici curiae in the above-caption manner. We respectfully request permission to file this brief as amici curiae given
our unique expertise as the leads of the Epstein Files Transparency
Act. We are writing to suggest the appointment of a Special Master and
Independent Monitor to compel the Department of Justice (DOJ) to make
mandatory production under the Act.
As
the leads of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, we have urgent and
grave concerns about DOJ’s failure to comply with the Act as well as the
Department’s violations of this Court’s order.
On
December 19, 2025, the Department of Justice released only a portion of
responsive materials. That release, however, did not comply with the
statute as written. The Department failed to meet the Act’s requirements
in multiple respects, including missing the statutory deadline,
asserting common-law privileges that the Act does not permit, and
applying extensive redactions that appear inconsistent with the Act’s
expressed prohibition on withholding or redacting records to protect
politically exposed persons.
Several
federal courts, including this District, have already recognized that
the Act’s disclosure mandate is clear and that its specific statutory
language supersedes pre-existing secrecy rules and generalized privilege
doctrines. Nonetheless, the Department has continued to rely on
arguments that courts have rejected, including the claim that Congress
did not “speak clearly” enough to require disclosure of unclassified
investigative and internal materials, despite Section 2(a)’s unequivocal
language.
Compliance concerns
have been further heightened by the Department’s handling of records
after their release. Independent investigators identified numerous files
that were publicly released on December 19, 2025, and later removed,
including file EFTA00000468. While removal may have been undertaken to
protect victims depicted in the material, an objective that is both
appropriate and required, the Department’s own statements underscore
that this issue is more significant than DOJ has suggested.
DOJ
has acknowledged that, despite tens of thousands of manual redactions
and quality control checks, information that victims believe should have
been redacted was nonetheless posted publicly. DOJ also represented to
the Court that it interprets the Act to require publication of grand
jury and discovery materials unless a statutory basis for withholding
applies, with victim privacy protected through appropriate redactions
rather than categorical withholding. Consistent with those
representations, and with the Court’s order directing DOJ to certify
that victim-identifying information is being protected, the Act allows
narrowly tailored and consistently applied redactions, not the wholesale
removal of records after release or assertions of privilege
inconsistent with the Act. Whether the Department’s actions complied
with those limits is a fact-specific question that would benefit from
neutral, independent review.
We
have reviewed the DOJ’s most recent submission to this Court on January
5, 2026, Dkt. 826, where the DOJ states that it has only produced
“approximately 12,285 documents (compromising approximately 125,575
pages).” The DOJ claims that there is still “more than 2 million
documents potentially responsive to the Act in various phases of
review.” Other reports suggest that the DOJ may be reviewing more than 5
million pages. Because these figures are self-reported and internally
inconsistent with prior representations, there is reasonable suspicion
that the DOJ has overstated the scope of responsive materials, thereby
portraying compliance as unmanageable and effectively delaying
disclosure.
The conduct by the
DOJ is not only a flagrant violation of the mandatory disclosure
obligations under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but as this Court
has recognized in its previous rulings, the behavior by the DOJ has
caused serious trauma to survivors.
In
addition, the DOJ has not complied with Section 3 of the Act, which
requires the Attorney General, within fifteen days of the deadline for
release, to submit a report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees
identifying the categories of records released and withheld and
summarizing all redactions and their legal bases. To date, no such
report has been provided. Without it, there is no authoritative
accounting of what records exist, what has been withheld, or why, making
effective oversight and judicial review far more difficult.
Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act.
While
we believe that criminal violations have taken place and must be
addressed, the most urgent need now is for the DOJ to produce all the
documents and electronically stored information required by the Act. In
its November 26, 2025, letter (Dkt.813), the DOJ represented to this
Court the categories of documents in its possession, much of which has
not been produced.
Thus, in our capacity as amici curiae, we
suggest pursuant to its inherent authority and Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 53, this Court appoint Special Master and/or Independent
Monitor for the purpose of ensuring all the documents and electronically
stored information are immediately made public to be in accordance with
the Epstein Files Transparency Act. We also suggest the Independent
Monitor be given authority to notify and prepare reports to this Court
about the true nature and extent of the document production and if
improper redactions or other improper conduct is taking place. We also
suggest this Court compel testimony from the person or persons most
knowledgeable from the DOJ SDNY office about the production that has
been made, the pending productions, and the representations that have
previously been made to this Court.
Absent
an independent process, as outlined above, we do not believe the DOJ
will produce the records that are required by the Act and what it has
represented to this Court.
We
appreciate the Court’s attention to this letter. We can make ourselves
available to the Court at a future hearing or participate in a briefing
on the need for a Special Master or Independent Monitor or any topic
this court deems helpful for the full and fair administration of
justice.
###
Khanna then went on MS NOW's THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O'DONNELL to discuss the issues and the lack of progress on the part of DOJ.
Meanwhile, US Senator Mark Kelly took to the Senate floor to announce that the whims of Pete Looselips Hegseth were not going to be the final words.
Michael Kunzelman (AP) reports,
"Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly sued the Pentagon on Monday over attempts
to punish him for his warnings about illegal orders. Kelly, a former
Navy pilot, is seeking to block his censure from Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth last week. Hegseth announced last Monday that he censured Kelly
over the former Navy pilot’s participation in a video that called on
troops to resist unlawful orders." Alex Woodward (INDEPENDENT) reports the filings note, "It
appears that never in our nation’s history has the Executive Branch
imposed military sanctions on a member of Congress for engaging in
disfavored political speech" and that this is put at risk “protected
speech, chill legislative oversight, and threaten reductions in rank and
pay. . . . Each of these actions also signals to retired service
members and members of Congress that criticism of the Executive’s use of
the armed forces may be met with retaliation through military
channels."
The senator spoke with Lawrence last night about the lawsuit.
The US government murdered Renee Nicole Good on January 7th in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. ICE agent Jonathan Ross, a man with years of
training in using a firearm and who provided training to others ("a firearms instructor, an active shooter instructor"),
shot and killed the mother of three who was unarmed. Ross, apparently
needing to make social content while on the clock, filmed her and when
the video was released, the world saw that her last words to him were, "I'm not mad at you." By contrast, he or one of his fellow agents immediately called Renee a "f**king bitch"
after plugged her with three bullets. The federal government
immediately began attacking Good -- even though they should be stating
"I can't comment on an ongoing federal investigation."
Instead, as NPR's Martin Kaste observed on January 9th, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED,
"And I think what's not
normal here is the way the federal officials have been publicly passing
judgment on a case that's still being investigated. For instance, just
today, the vice president posted a video that appears to have come from a
device being held by the agent who shot Renee Good on Wednesday. It
shows Good smiling and saying she's not mad at the officer. But Vance
called the video evidence that the officer was in danger. So there seems
to be a real disconnect right now on the basic level of what the
evidence means."
Billie
Eilish has joined a growing number of artists criticizing U.S.
immigration enforcement following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole
Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis,
prompting a sharp response from the Department of Homeland Security.
In
a series of posts shared with her millions of followers, Billie Eilish
described ICE as a "federally funded and supported terrorist group" and
urged Americans to contact their members of Congress to demand that the
agency be defunded. She also called for the arrest and prosecution of
the officer involved in the shooting and circulated a list of people who
reportedly died in ICE custody last year.
Serial
liar Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin is quoted and we don't quote
her. She's lying and that's her pattern. You lie to the courts, no
one needs to believe you anymore. She's lied to the press repeatedly.
She also has a husband who got a sweetheart -- and unethical deal --
from Kristi Noem. Was the pay off for that unethical deal that she has
to lie now? I have no idea. But known and repeat liars don't get
quoted here.
“At a very minimum, that woman was very, very disrespectful to law enforcement,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
In the days since Good (37) was shot and killed by Jonathan Ross, an Ice agent, Trump administration officials have used a variety of arguments as they have tried to justify the episode.
They have called it an act of self-defence,
and Trump has falsely claimed Good “ran over” the agent. JD Vance, the
vice-president, has argued that Ross has “absolute immunity.”
