Friday, June 12, 2026. Chump tries to prevent his name from being taken off The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, THE NEW YORK TIMES' Wednesday report on the administration's meetings to launch a cover up of the Epstein crimes continues to garner attention, Ghislaine Maxwell creates a crisis at her prison when her sweater goes missing, and much more.
Gregory Bovino, newly weaned from Chump's breasts, wants
to be president in 2028 and is willing to tell any lies to get elected.
But his campaign suffered a hit and it's only come out this week. Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) reports:
Former
Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino's nascent 2028 presidential
campaign suffered a blow when Jacob Engels, a controversial figure
tasked with launching the candidate's online presence, was arrested at a budget motel and charged with felony methamphetamine possession.
According
to reporting from The Bulwark's Will Sommers, Engels — a former protégé
of Roger Stone and associate of far-right activist Laura Loomer — had
taken the lead in promoting Bovino's candidacy before his arrest in
River Falls, Wisconsin, on May 20.
Bovino,
the polarizing face of the Trump administration's aggressive
immigration enforcement operations, had pitched himself as a
presidential candidate on X, writing: "If running for President is what
it takes to actually get it done, then all options are on the table."
Though Bovino is lost to Chump now, Chump will apparently always have Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson to defend him. Sarah Ewall-Wice (DAILY BEAST) notes:
House
Speaker Mike Johnson fumed after Republicans failed to approve a
short-term extension of a key spy authority provision, known as FISA, in
a blow to President Trump.
The president
posted on Truth Social on Wednesday, calling the extension “very
important to our Military, and keeping the American People safe,“ but
the vote failed dramatically on Thursday.
The
bill did not even get a simple majority, let alone the necessary
two-thirds majority, failing 198 to 218. 19 Republicans joined 199
Democrats to vote against the bill. Only seven Democrats voted for it.
15 members did not vote.
Democrats in both the
House and Senate have balked at the president’s naming Bill Pulte, who
has zero national security or intelligence experience, as his acting
Director of National Intelligence, upending talks on a bipartisan
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) extension.
Johnson fumed to reporters after the attempt to pass the extension failed in epic fashion in the House.
He's
a lame duck -- one (as Elaine noted last night) out of his first 100
days. Chump's going to have to learn to work with Congress if he wants
to get anything done from now on. Stop attacking them. Stop insulting
them. Start listening to them. But he's not able to listen.
No, I don't see much of a chance of that happening. I just see him continue to bully and bluster and throw his tantrums.
Lawyers for President Trump and the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday filed an
appeal of an order to remove the president’s name from the institution.
The
notice of appeal was filed as a legal deadline loomed for taking Mr.
Trump’s name off the building’s marble facade. It also challenged a
federal judge’s decision to temporarily block the president’s plan to close the center for two years of renovations.
Earlier
on Thursday, the center’s board, which is composed almost entirely of
Mr. Trump’s allies, voted to appeal the ruling, according to two people
with direct knowledge of the meeting.
Finding
that the board did not have the power to unilaterally change the name
of the arts center, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District
Court in Washington had ruled that Mr. Trump’s name must be taken down by Friday.
The ranking Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee is calling for Vice President JD Vance to testify under oath about his involvement in the White House’s Jeffrey Epstein cover-up.
Appearing
on MS NOW with host Ana Cabrera, a fuming Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA)
cited an explosive report in the New York Times on Wednesday that Vance headed meetings held in the White House Situation Room
to deal with fallout from the Epstein files. According to Garcia,
Vance, along with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles — who has also
been in attendance at the secretive meetings — both need to be hauled
before the committee headed by Rep. James Comer (R-KY).
“Well,
look, obviously, [acting AG] Todd Blanche is near the top of the list
[for testimony],” Garcia told Cabrera. “But there has been now new
bombshell reporting where we have learned, as you know, that JD Vance,
the vice president, has been holding meetings in the Situation Room,
which is used for national security purpose just to discuss Epstein and
looking at ways to exonerate President Donald Trump, coming up with a
strategy on how they're going to use Ghislaine Maxwell to clear Trump's
name.”
“And the vice president, for the very
first time, is now implicated in part of this cover-up,” he accused.
“He's meeting with Susie Wiles, he's meeting with [FBI Director] Kash
Patel, he's meeting with Todd Blanche, he's meeting with [former
Attorney General] Pam Bondi. And so it is now important that we, at some
point, this committee has to talk to the vice president. We have to
talk to Susie Wiles.”
Garcia
added of former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who recently spoke with the
Committee behind closed doors, “She said she wasn’t involved, she
didn’t know what was going on. That’s also clearly not true. She was
involved in some of these meetings, sometimes by telephone and is also a
central figure in this reporting.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES revealed a cover up. The top of the federal government conspiring to kill the story because Chump didn't like it. Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) notes MS NOW's Sam Stein speaking on MORNING JOE:
But
really, I think the most interesting and most troubling element of
this, well, there's a lot of troubling elements of this, is Todd
Blanche. Todd Blanche, at the time, is the deputy AG, okay? He is
ostensibly part of the Justice Department and therefore should have some
sort of separation from the White House. And yet he's sitting in the
Situation Room throughout this, plotting ways to shield the president of
the United States from public scrutiny and legal scrutiny.
US House Rep Melanie Stansbury posted to THREADS: "This
is Trump’s Watergate. Today, the @nytimes released a truly stunning
report on the Epstein cover-up by the White House. Collusion, breaking
the law, evading subpoenas—it’s all in there." Ruth has noted:
Why was the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, and the
FBI Director in meetings conspiring on how to avoid releasing material
that would incriminate the president? His attorney? Fine. But it is
not the Attorney General's job to protect the image of the president.
This was an attempted cover up. And it is one that continues because
acting Attorney General Blanche refuses to release the rest of The
Epstein Files despite being ordered to do so by a law that Congress
passed and that Mr. Chump signed.
We are in Watergate territory right now. The cover up is always worse than the original crime.
People are outraged learning what was happening in the Situation Room, where Blanche and others met and conspired to deceive the American people -- to lie to them, to trick them. All to protect Chump. Laura Esposito (DAILY BEAST) notes:
“All
of this effort to protect Trump... Because he’s guilty. He did it. Over
and over again. With Epstein. It’s a conspiracy to cover up Trump’s
sexual assault crimes against minor girls,” political commentator Tom
Joseph wrote on X on Wednesday.
Bill
Kristol, director of Defending Democracy, also weighed in, taking
specific aim at Blanche, the president’s former personal attorney whom
Trump recently promoted to attorney general.
“One
point very much worth noting: Todd Blanche was a central participant in
the Epstein coverup,” Kristol wrote on X, alongside a link to the Times
story. “As Deputy Attorney general, he was acting in Trump’s
interest--not in the interest of the survivors, not in the interest of
the law or of the truth.”
Behind closed doors, the
Epstein crisis—which ultimately led many MAGA devotees to turn on the
administration—had left Trump’s inner circle in full-blown panic mode,
according to the report, an excerpt from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan
Swan’s forthcoming book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of
Donald Trump.
The excerpt also
detailed infighting among former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino,
Bondi, Patel, and Wiles as the administration struggled to contain a
frustrated Trump, whom Epstein once described as his “closest friend.”
“Try
as they might, Republicans will not succeed at sweeping this scandal
under the rug,” Occupy Democrats wrote on X in response to the report.
“The Epstein child-trafficking operation is the defining element of
Trump’s life. He can delay and obfuscate, but eventually Democrats will
retake power and the floodgates will be opened wide.”
A
group of Jeffrey Epstein survivors came out in opposition to Todd
Blanche’s nomination as President Donald Trump’s permanent attorney
general, citing his participation in secret White House meetings on how
to contain the political fallout from the Epstein files.
In a new statement obtained by CNN, 19 women responded to The New York Times’s reporting
that Blanche and other senior officials participated in Situation Room
meetings to discuss how to respond to growing pressure for more
transparency as the issue became a public relations crisis for the
administration.
“We are deeply disturbed to learn
that so many senior members of the administration gathered in the
Situation Room to discuss the release of the Epstein files as a
reputational problem, rather than an opportunity to pursue investigative
leads and try to figure out what actually happened,” the survivors of
Epstein’s abuse said in the joint statement. “These revelations confirm
our worst fears about the administration prioritizing political
expediency over justice for survivors and truth for the American
people.”
The survivors raised specific concerns
about Blanche, who played a key role in overseeing the release of the
Epstein files after Congress passed a law mandating it, who has now been
nominated by President Donald Trump to permanently serve as the
nation’s top law enforcement officer.
“We are
especially concerned that Todd Blanche, the person nominated for the
highest law enforcement position in the country, was at that table.
Blanche has consistently minimized legitimate concerns about how the
files have been handled, including problematic redactions and the
exposure of survivors’ personal information. Blanche failed to deliver
transparency, and he has gravely failed survivors. This is failing
upward, plain and simple,” they wrote.
“We deserve
better. We deserve truth, transparency, and accountability. We deserve
to be taken seriously when we come forward. And we deserve an attorney
general who will use the full power of that office to pursue justice,
protect others, and ensure that what happened to us never happens
again,” the women continued.
And the survivors do deserve better. Blanche has gone before Congress and repeatedly lied He's never told Congress that, as Deputy Attorney General he participated in plotting a cover up. He's pretended to care about the survivors but he doesn't care bout them. He's not bringing them up in the cover up meetings, he's not noting how they were harmed. He's just plotting for ways to trick the public and to kill the Epstein story.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued the following yesterday:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, demanded
Chairman James Comer immediately arrange interviews of Vice President
JD Vance, acting-Attorney General Todd Blanche, Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff
Susie Wiles, and other senior Trump Administration officials following
explosive new reporting
from The New York Times revealing secret Situation Room meetings to
orchestrate the White House’s cover-up of the Epstein files in order to
protect President Trump. Vance reportedly presided over a meeting in the
Situation Room to coordinate the handling of the Epstein files.
“We have been fighting the White House cover-up for months—and now we
know Vice President Vance is leading Epstein meetings from the
Situation Room. Vance gathered Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, Kash Patel,
Susie Wiles, and the rest of Trump’s inner circle to figure out how to
kill the Epstein story to protect the President, even debating a pardon
for Ghislaine Maxwell. Chairman Comer needs to bring the Vice President
and the other top Administration officials before our Committee
immediately,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.
In the letter to Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Garcia requested to
bring the following Administration officials before the Committee:
J.D. Vance, Vice President of the United States;
Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff;
Tyler Budowich, White House Deputy Chief of Staff;
James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff;
Karoline Leavitt, Press Secretary;
Steven Cheung, Communications Director;
Kash Patel, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI);
Dan Bongino, former Deputy Director of the FBI; and
Stanley Woodward, Jr., Associate Attorney General
According to reports, Vice President Vance presided over a meeting in
the Situation Room about how to manage and kill the Epstein story,
joined by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi,
then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and
other senior officials.
3. Officials allegedly discussed transparency moves they knew wouldn’t produce new files
One
reported strategy involved petitioning courts to unseal grand jury
records, even though officials acknowledged the request was unlikely to
succeed and the materials would likely remain sealed. Even if unsealed,
officials believed the records would offer little in the way of
meaningful new information.
Why it matters:
Critics will argue this suggests some officials were focused more on
managing public anger than uncovering new information.
4. The White House was terrified of losing the MAGA base—not Democrats
The
crisis emerged after DOJ and FBI findings undercut years of
expectations about a secret Epstein “client list.” According to the
Times report, the administration’s biggest fear was backlash from its
own supporters and influencers, not Democrats.
Why
it matters: Modern Trump-era scandals usually involve attacks from
opponents. This was a rare case where pressure came from inside Trump’s
coalition.
5. Officials reportedly considered using Ghislaine Maxwell as a way to defend Trump
Among
the most eyebrow-raising accounts in the report is one detailing
officials’ discussions of having imprisoned Epstein associate Maxwell
interviewed in a manner that could help rebut allegations involving
Trump.
Why it matters: Maxwell is one of the
most infamous figures connected to the Epstein case, and the idea that
her testimony might be used in political damage control would inevitably
attract scrutiny.
No one brought up -- in the cover up sessions -- the women Maxwell harmed or the crime she committed when it was wondered if a pardon could be granted to her. No, the only thing the elves wanted to talk about was how Chump might face backlash for pardoning Maxwell.
Ghislaine
Maxwell is reportedly at the center of another eyebrow-raising prison
controversy, and this time, it allegedly brought daily life inside her
Texas federal prison camp to a halt. According to a new report, Jeffrey
Epstein’s former associate unintentionally triggered hours of lockdown
chaos at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, after reporting a
personal item missing. The bizarre incident has only fueled new
accusations that Ghislaine Maxwell is receiving preferential treatment
behind bars.
Sources told the Daily Mail
that the minimum-security prison camp was placed on lockdown in
February after Maxwell alerted authorities that one of her belongings
had disappeared. Hundreds of inmates were reportedly sent back to their
dorms and kept there for several hours while prison staff searched the
compound.
The situation
allegedly began after Maxwell reported a zip-up fleece she purchased
through the prison commissary had gone missing, claiming her ID badge
and important papers were inside the pockets. However, the lockdown
reportedly ended after another inmate came forward and explained there
had been a misunderstanding.
“Max was saying
she had her ID badge and important papers in the pockets. But nobody had
stolen anything. This lady had picked it up to give it back to her,” a
source claimed.
Despite the explanation,
inmates reportedly remained confined for hours. “It was all an innocent
mistake, but they still kept everyone locked down for four or five hours
for their investigation,” the source added. “They do this a couple of
times a month for a fight, a medical emergency, or a random count – but
never for a lost sweater.”
Former
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told CNN's Kaitlan Collins that
President Donald Trump is a traitor for refusing to release the Epstein
files to protect his associates.
Greene said
Trump called her a traitor for urging transparency, but she countered,
arguing those covering up the files — including the President — are the
real traitors.
"He told me on the phone that his
friends would get hurt, and that's why he's against releasing the
Epstein files," explained Greene.
She criticized Trump for campaigning as a drain the swamp candidate while allegedly working to suppress documents.
Chump
filed a lawsuit against THE WALL STREET JOURNAL last year when they
reported on the birthday letter he wrote (and drew) to Jeffrey Epstein.
It is Chump's signature. As he continues attempting to sue them, the
paper has responded. Thomas Kika notes:
The
Wall Street Journal is arguing that one detail matches its reporting
about President Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
In a new legal filing,
lawyers for Dow Jones, the company that owns the Wall Street Journal,
argued that Trump "cannot" dispute that a signature appearing on a
typewritten note and a sketch of a naked woman sent to Epstein resembles
his own.
[. . .]
The
defense lawyers are telling the court to throw out Trump's lawsuit
because "the article is true." After the Journal reviewed the letter and
sketch with Trump's signature, Epstein's estate released the "Birthday
Book" to the House Oversight Committee in September.
"The
article is true because the description of the letter 'bearing Trump's
name' in the article is an entirely accurate description of the letter
as it appears in the Birthday Book," the filing read.
"The
article states that the Journal 'reviewed' the letter before
publication and described its contents in detail (which exactly match
the contents of the letter released by Congress)," the legal filing
argued, adding that Trump doesn't even dispute the resemblance of his
signature to the one in the birthday book "because he cannot."
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Largest pharmacy benefit manager in the U.S. may be sending affiliated pharmacies inflated payments, elbowing out competitors
“[T]axpayers deserve to know
that (government funds) are being used for their intended purpose, not
for potential self-dealing by DHA contractors.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), wrote
to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Keith Bass, urging
him to follow through on commitments he made to release data that would
allow Congress to evaluate whether Express Scripts, the largest
pharmacy benefit manager in the United States and military pharmacy
contractor, may be sending inflated payments to its own pharmacies and
under-reimbursing competing pharmacies.
“[T]axpayers deserve to know that [government funds] are being used
for their intended purpose, not for potential self-dealing by [Defense
Health Agency] contractors,” said Senator Warren.
The Defense Health Agency (DHA) spends billions
of dollars to provide TRICARE pharmacy benefits — as part of the
military health care system — to 9.6 million service members, retirees,
and family members. Since 2009, DHA has awarded Express Scripts an
exclusive TRICARE pharmacy contract, which involves running the
military’s retail pharmacy network and mail order program.
But Express Scripts also owns mail order and specialty pharmacies that participate in the TRICARE network. Reporting has revealed
that Express Scripts appears to be charging the military $484 more, on
average, to dispense generic drugs through Express Scripts’ own
mail-order pharmacies than through competing pharmacies.
“[This] creates a clear conflict of interest,” said Senator Warren.
As a result of onerous contract terms offered by Express Scripts, more
than 13,000 retail pharmacies have left the TRICARE network since 2022,
leaving hundreds of thousands of military families without an in-network
pharmacy.
In a recent hearing,
Senator Warren pressed Assistant Secretary Bass to commit to conducting
annual audits of TRICARE’s pharmacy contract and providing Congress
with the difference in reimbursement rates, fees, and other price
concessions for Express Scripts-owned pharmacies and their competitors
in the network. Bass agreed, but with no particular timeline in place.
“You gave me your commitment that you would do so. I appreciate your
prompt attention to this matter and request that you provide my office
with all relevant and pertinent data in accordance with these
commitments by June 22, 2026,” concluded Senator Warren.
Senator Warren has led the fight for affordable health care and fair practices for military families:
In May 2026, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) pushed DHA head Keith Bass
to commit to an annual audit of Express Scripts’ contract and releasing
both pharmacy reimbursement data and the results of audits to Congress.
Bass agreed to do so following Senator Warren’s questioning.
In October 2025, at a hearing of the Senate Special Committee on
Aging, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) asked Mark Cuban, founder of Cost Plus
Drugs, and Dr. Jeanne Lambrew, Director of Health Care Reform and Senior
Fellow at The Century Foundation, about the potential for greater transparency
in the pharmaceutical industry to lower costs for taxpayers and
military families. Cuban agreed with Senator Warren that requiring
Express Scripts to report the difference in reimbursement rates between
affiliated and unaffiliated pharmacies would save money and help smaller
independent pharmacies stay in business.
In March 2025, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
Senator Warren (D-Mass.) questioned Lieutenant General Dr. Douglas J.
Robb of the U.S. Air Force about price gouging in the military’s prescription drug system.
Lieutenant General Robb agreed that this taxpayer overcharging is
“unfair” and said that Express Scripts needs to “follow what is the
business policy and what is the contractual law.”
In June 2024, Senators Warren (D-Mass.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Peter
Welch (D-Vt.), U.S. Representative Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), and 20 other
lawmakers wrote to the then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health
Affairs and Director of the Defense Health Agency, raising concerns over Express Scripts’ exclusive contract to administer TRICARE’s pharmacy program, the healthcare system for the military, retirees, and their families.
In August 2020, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and then-Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) requested information
from five of the largest mail-order pharmacies and pharmacy benefit
managers (PBMs) about any delays or other problems with mail-order
deliveries of medications as a result of operational changes at the
United States Postal Services (USPS) by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
Reports indicated that President Trump and Postmaster General DeJoy's
sabotage of the USPS is resulting in significant delays for every type
of mail - including life-sustaining prescription drugs for seniors,
veterans, and millions of other patients.
