The Common Ills: The Snapshot

Thursday, August 13, 2026

The Snapshot

Thursday, August 13, 2026. Inflation remains high as noted in yesterday's economic report that so many try to talk up despite the reality of it, Hegseth is an abject failure as Secretary of Defense, ICE agents aim a gun at an unarmed woman in a car, family detention gets a serious exploration by MS. MAGAZINE, and much more.

The Chump economy. Steve Kopack (NBC NEWS) notes:

Inflation as measured by the consumer price index rose 0.1% from June to July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday, showing that costs broadly remained elevated for consumers amid volatile energy prices.

From a year ago, inflation dropped slightly to 3.4% from 3.5%.

But in a troubling sign for consumers, it remains above the rate of wage growth, which as of last month was pacing at 3.2%, according to the BLS. Average hourly earnings slipped 0.2% from a year earlier, as well, the agency said Wednesday.

Inflation has been wiping out wage gains for the past four months, Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote on X.

“For middle-income and lower-income Americans, this is the key issue,” Long wrote.

Wednesday's highly anticipated report did not deliver any great or even good news. Lydia DePillis (NEW YORK TIMES) notes:

As the Middle East conflict has dragged on, gasoline prices have popped up again, and averaged $4.06 nationwide in early August, according to AAA. Overall energy costs fell 1.5 percent in July, but they are still nearly 15 percent higher than they were at this time last year. The war’s impact on fuel costs was also visible in airline fares, which jumped 2.2 percent since June and are up 25.5 percent over the past year.

The elevated costs come at a time when hiring has slowed dramatically and Americans are seeing slower wage gains. The overall annual inflation rate for July remains above the 3.2 percent increase in average hourly earnings over the same period, which means that workers are still losing ground in their spending power.

Anders Bylund (THE MOTLEY FOOL) notes, "Oil prices could also throw a spanner in the works, depending on how negotiations in the Iranian conflict work out. Today, President Trump claimed 'total control' over the Strait of Hormuz. The oil market, which votes with money rather than adjectives, barely budged." And that's because neither Chump nor the US have "total control" of the region. David Goldman (CNN) explains, "President Donald Trump has routinely claimed that the United States controls the Strait of Hormuz, a claim belied by the notion that military escorts are needed to shuttle commercial vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf and Iran has attacked 64 vessels transiting the strait, resulting in 17 seafarer fatalities and 35 injuries." Christopher Rugaber (LOS ANGELES TIMES) reminds that "prices are still rising more quickly than average wages, underscoring the struggle many Americans have had with more expensive groceries, gas, and healthcare, trends that have taken on a high profile in the fast-approaching midterm elections." And Madison Hoff (BUSINESS INSIDER) points out, "Food price increases looked similar to June; food away from home rose 3.4% year over year again, and food at home rose 2.7% again. Overall food prices increased 3%, like they did in June." The bottom line's delivered by Steve Kopack (NBC NEWS), "The rate of inflation likely outpaced growth in Americans’ wages last month, according to projections, even as energy prices moderated slightly."

A man whose been involved in repeated bankruptcies can't be counted on to steer the US economy in a successful manner. We've seen that. We should grasp it. There are no writers for this 'reality' show to make Chump come off as anything but the bumbling grifter that he is.

Republicans on the Senate's Joint Economic Committee posted a series of numbers trying to sell yesterday's report as good news. Again, it wasn't. And if you doubt it, note this number that they posted:

Consumer Price Index

From July 2025 to July 2026:

Headline CPI-U inflation was 3.36 percent.
- Food price inflation was 2.98 percent.
- Energy price inflation was 14.73 percent.
Core CPI-U inflation was 2.48 percent.

Let's look at another of his 'successes' -- the USS LINCOLN. For months now, the lack of food available for sailors on the vessel has been in the news. Also well covered was the extreme length of the tours being asked of those serving on the ship. Ellie Cook (NEWSWEEK) now reports:

At least two U.S. Navy sailors have attempted to jump overboard on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, according to family members of the crew, after concerns were raised during an extended deployment for the war with Iran.

The aircraft carrier left the U.S. in November and was rerouted from the Pacific to the Middle East as the White House prepared to launch its war on Tehran at the end of February.

Relatives of the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines who have spent more than eight months aboard the Lincoln have raised the alarm over supply shortages, long work schedules and fears over the potential for self-harm, in multiple reports published in the past week.

More than 200 family members of the sailors met last week with Hung Cao, the acting secretary of the Navy, according to the specialist media outlet Stars and Stripes.

A second meeting, which took place virtually, between top Navy officials and loved ones of the sailors and Marines on the Lincoln also discussed concerns over mental health and safety, according to recordings seen by MS Now.

Cao said the Lincoln would be relieved by the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group but did not specify when, the outlet reported.

Harry Thompson (DAILY BEAST) adds:

Speaking to the Military Times, the partners of sailors onboard the ship have spoken of multiple incidents of service members attempting to take their own lives.

Annabelle Loma told the outlet she had been told by the ombudsman that her husband had attempted to jump overboard. She said she has only been able to speak to him a handful of times since, and that he was now in a medical hold.

“He’s scared,” she said. “He thinks he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out, his 13-year career is ruined, just like that. That’s not fair, that’s not right. That’s not what he should be worrying about right now.”

Their deployment began in November and was due to end in May, making its current service the longest of a U.S. carrier in the modern era. No return date has been made public at the time of writing.

Simon Marks (THE i PAPER) notes that it's not just the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN:

It is not yet “Mutiny on the Bounty”, but the crew aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and their families back home are making it clear to Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, and other Pentagon officials that one of America’s most iconic warfighting vessels is plagued with a potentially deadly morale problem. Back in April, barely a month into Donald Trump’s war with Iran, sailors serving on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier started grousing on social media about dwindling food supplies. Images sent to spouses and parents were leaked to the media and appeared to support claims that the ship’s supplies were coming under growing pressure. Some “meals” consisted of little more than a handful of boiled carrots and two dried-out slices of unidentifiable meat. Sailors aboard the nearby USS Tripoli were also lodging similar complaints.

At the time, Hegseth denied any problems existed, claiming that the vessels had more than 30 days of food supplies for their crews. “Our sailors deserve and receive the best,” he said. But four months later, the crisis has intensified. This week, sailors’ families confronted top Pentagon officials at what military newspaper The Stars and Stripes described as “intense town hall meetings” held in San Diego, where the Lincoln is based. Families reportedly warned acting secretary of the navy, Hung Cao, that they were increasingly fearful of suicides among the men and women serving aboard the carrier, which has been at sea for more than 250 consecutive days, more than 40 of them engaged in combat with Iran. (Photo: Getty)

Chump never served and didn't appreciate those who did. He then elected to nominate a drunken failure to be Secretary of Defense. And here we are. A Secretary of Defense who installed a beauty salon in the Pentagon so he can get his touch ups and foundation to try to cover his psoriasis and who spends more time arguing to be called the Secretary of War (can't be called that legally) and insisting he's over the Department of War (also can't be called that legally). What Hegseth isn't doing and hasn't done is taking care of the service members. Hafiz Rashid (THE NEW REPUBLIC) observes, "Trump, for his part, seems either unaware of how dire things are among servicemembers or simply doesn’t care. He touted the U.S. naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz Wednesday and bragged about how successful it is."

Earlier today on MS NOW's MORNING JOE, the gang addressed the issue.

Let's move over to ICE. They've managed to disgust the nation yet again.

div dir="ltr">

Drew Wilder (NBC NEWS) reports:

New video shows an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent pulling a gun on a Northern Virginia woman who was driving her car in Falls Church Monday afternoon. The agents accused the woman of trying to run them over. But the woman says she didn’t put them in danger.

Carolina Molina shared dashcam and cellphone videos of the interaction with News4.

Madaleine Rubin (NEW YORK TIMES) notes, "The agents repeatedly accused her of trying to run them over with her car and threatened to arrest her. But in videos captured from several angles, there is no indication that Ms. Molina had tried to harm the agents." Billal Rahman (NEWSWEEK) quotes Carolina Molina stating, "Something should be done about these thugs who can get away with pointing a gun at someone for absolutely no reason and killing others. I don’t understand why the White House isn’t doing anything about them. They’re unhinged and emotional. Maybe they need therapy resources." And what many Americans may not understand is why ICE (a) thought they could get away with lying that someone was trying to attack then with their car (Carolina's dash cam and cell phone footage demonstrated she had not done that) and (b) why ICE thought they could pull a gun on an unarmed person?

They act that way because they haven't been trained and because they are often the dregs of society -- hired due to a need not as a result of qualifications.

Dan Gooding (NEWSWEEK) reports:

Immigration agents on Friday detained a father in New Jersey, with his neighbors rallying around the family and raising thousands of dollars to try to help his legal fight.

Tonny Quesada-Ramirez’s detention in South Orange is the latest case involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detaining immigrants with pending legal status applications—a gray area that has seen agents avoid arrests until a decision is made.

A GoFundMe set up for Quesada-Ramirez, known to his community as Tony, quickly surpassed the $25,000 target and sat at over $36,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.

Neighbor Shuly Adams, who started the fundraiser, wrote: “He was kind. He was easy to work with. He lit up when talking about his family, most of all his two sons, the older of whom has Down’s syndrome.”

A life destroyed by ICE. Uriel J. García, Alex Nguyen, Colleen DeGuzman and Alex Ford (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) report:

Earlier this year, a 16-year-old student at a Los Angeles high school was looking forward to starting his junior year, where he planned to try out for the school’s varsity tennis team. His parents were both college psychology professors.

But in April, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested the family, who immigrated from Iran more than a decade ago, after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told immigration officers to revoke their permanent legal status. ICE separated the family, sending them to two different Texas detention centers.

For the past 123 days, the teen and his mother have lived in an immigrant detention facility in Dilley, where he and other detainees share their rooms with swarms of cockroaches, spiders and mosquitoes, he wrote in a sworn affidavit. Meanwhile, his father is at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall.

“We have been put through hell for the past four months, and our physical and mental health have deteriorated in ways that might not be reversible for years,” Maryam Tahmasebi, his mother, wrote in The Nation on Tuesday. “We are only allowed to speak with my husband for 10 minutes every two weeks, under supervision.”

The teen is one of at least 60 children who the Trump administration has held in the Dilley detention center for 100 days or more — far exceeding the 20-day limit for detaining immigrant children — according to a Texas Tribune analysis of federal government data.

On average, children in the Dilley detention center spend 25 days there — but in a six-month period ending in December, that average peaked at 47 days, according to the Tribune’s analysis.

The teen, who is only identified by his initials — S.M.H. — in court documents, said in a sworn declaration that being arrested and detained was “terrifying” and he has lost 10 pounds since his arrest.

Family detention? In a major piece on the issue, Abby Wheatley (MS. MAGAZINE) reports on Chump's use of family detention:

On Aug. 6, just days after the Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14160, which aimed to remove birthright citizenship for children of undocumented parents and temporary visitors, the president signed two new executive orders targeting birthright citizenship and so-called birth tourism.

The first order, “Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” aims to exclude babies born to employees working for foreign governments, among others.

The second order, “Ending Birth Tourism,” denies visas to women suspected of misrepresenting their reason for traveling to the U.S. in order to give birth on U.S. soil.

These executive orders are the administration’s latest attempt to police American identity, punish migrant women for entering the U.S. and ultimately regulate their reproduction. Beyond the issue of birthright citizenship, immigrant women and children continue to be targets of a hostile immigration system that seeks to control them through detention, family separation and deportation.

Trump’s efforts to criminalize and punish women, including mothers and pregnant women, have been expanding since his first term, when he signed Executive Order 13768, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States in 2017,” removing protections for pregnant women to allow for their frequent detention in immigration facilities. This EO ensured pregnant women could be held in detention centers, despite the fact that they require specialized healthcare, access to medical labs and high-quality ultrasounds that are not readily available in these facilities.

Immediately following this order, more than 2,100 pregnant women were detained, many of whom were detained upwards of weeks or months.

In 2018, Trump implemented a “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in the separation of more than 5,000 families and the incarceration of children as young as 4 months. These children were housed in abhorrent conditions and without basic amenities, including a blanket, toothbrush and something to eat. Images of children held behind chain-link fencing sparked public outrage on both sides of the political spectrum and the family separations eventually ended, though as of 2024 as many as 1,360 children still had not been reunited with their families.

Family detention differs from the earlier zero tolerance policy that resulted in children being separated from their parents, but it’s no less traumatic. It is a practice designed to detain whole families in immigration facilities while they await hearings.

While halted under Biden, many people don’t know that the Trump administration reinstated family detention in March 2025 and reopened two family detention centers in Texas: the Karnes Family Civil Detention Center in Karnes County, which can house 830 people, and the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, which has space for 2,400 people. Both the Karnes County and South Texas facilities are run by private companies: CoreCivic and GEO Group, respectively.

Family detention allows the administration to get around the optics of separating families while ramping up immigrant detention and undermining the rights of families and children. In fact, since 2025, “the number of families in detention centers has more than tripled,” according to a report by the Children’s Equity Center, “detaining children of all ages, starting in infancy.” These facilities function like civil detention centers or prisons and are unsuitable for stays of any duration.

In addition, minors are being held in residential centers much longer than the 20-day limit set by the Flores Agreement, a 1997 law which outlines basic standards of care for minors in immigration detention.

And let's note this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), alongside Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. demanding he explain why the Trump administration planned to award a no-bid contract to a Trump-aligned law firm with no apparent immigration law experience, allowing them to represent unaccompanied children who are in the care and custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

“Given the political connections between the firm’s senior leadership and the Trump administration, we have concerns about why you sidestepped the competitive bidding process to select this firm to provide legal services for children who are in ORR care and custody, and demand transparency into whether all federal procurement processes were followed,” the senators wrote. “Children deserve competent representation by attorneys who practice at the intersection of child welfare and federal immigration law, but Americans also deserve to know why their federal dollars are being doled out to Trump’s friends and allies.”

The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through ORR, has an obligation to ensure that unaccompanied children are provided competent legal aid as they navigate the immigration process. Despite this, Secretary Kennedy has cut legal service funding for 26,000 unaccompanied children, proposing to shift funding to the Trump-aligned Burke Law Group, despite the firm’s lack of experience protecting the rights of immigrant children.

“The firm appears to have little relevant experience with the legal and practical challenges that children face, raising serious concerns about the firm’s ability to provide not just representation but adequate, zealous representation,” the senators added. “Within hours of the notice in the Federal Register, the firm appears to have updated their website to include content about immigrant youth that didn’t exist on the website the previous day. At best, this is concerning, and at worst, it is a part of a coordinated scheme to paper over the firm’s lack of experience.”

Burke Law Group’s inexperience in the area of the law they would be contracted to perform could result in serious harm for the nearly 2,000 children in ORR’s care. The firm itself employs 26 people in total, adding an additional concern about the firm’s capacity to provide adequate legal representation to innocent children, let alone its competency to do so. Instead, the only clear outcome of this contracting award is that another Trump-aligned business will receive millions from the Trump administration.

In the letter, the senators demanded that Secretary Kennedy provide transparency as to why the Burke Law Group was considered for this contract and details about the firm’s plans to provide legal assistance to unaccompanied children.

Full text of the letter is available HERE and below:

Secretary Kennedy,

We are alarmed by the recent news that the Trump administration intends to award $150 million to a Houston law firm with close ties to President Trump and no apparent expertise in immigration law, to provide legal representation to unaccompanied children. Given the political connections between the firm’s senior leadership and the Trump administration, we have concerns about why you sidestepped the competitive bidding process to select this firm to provide legal services for children who are in the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s care and custody, and demand transparency into whether all federal procurement processes were followed. Children deserve competent representation by attorneys who practice at the intersection of child welfare and federal immigration law, but Americans also deserve to know why their federal dollars are being doled out to Trump’s friends and allies.

Most Americans agree children should not be forced to navigate the complex immigration process without adequate counsel, and Congress has enacted several provisions and funded counsel for these children for many years. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) directs the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), to “ensure, to the greatest extent practicable . . . that all unaccompanied alien children . . . have counsel to represent them in legal proceedings or matters and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.” Recently, ORR moved to withhold funding from over 100 legal services providers that had provided counsel to children for decades, which essentially cut off all funding for representation of approximately 26,000 unaccompanied children currently navigating the immigration court process.

Yet, seemingly overnight, ORR bypassed the competitive bidding process entirely, awarding the Burke Law Group (“the firm”) a one-year single-source cooperative agreement. We are awaiting final details, but the new agreement appears to cover around 1,800 children currently in ORR custody.

The firm appears to have little relevant experience with the legal and practical challenges that children face, raising serious concerns about the firm’s ability to provide not just representation but adequate, zealous representation. Within hours of the notice in the Federal Register, the firm appears to have updated their website to include content about immigrant youth that didn’t exist on the website the previous day. At best, this is concerning, and at worst, it is a part of a coordinated scheme to paper over the firm’s lack of experience. Furthermore, the firm’s senior leadership has political ties to the Trump administration. One of the founders of the firm was a Trump appointee – to an agency with no involvement in either child welfare or immigration law – and still another founding partner now serves as Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and has a questionable connection to harms perpetuated against detainees at immigration detention centers.

Consistent with the TVPRA, Congress has funded, and ORR administered, robust legal services to unaccompanied children under past Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Counsel for children should have at a bare minimum, experience and knowledge of the complex laws, policies, and dynamics of the intersection of immigration and child welfare law. Beyond the professional duty of legal competence, there is long-standing concern about adequate representation by qualified counsel for this vulnerable population, which is why Congress authorized and funded the program originally. HHS has yet to clarify how a 26-person Houston-based law firm will be able to adequately satisfy the TVPRA’s mandate to provide representation for unaccompanied children in ORR’s care and custody.

For these reasons and our deep concern regarding the treatment and protection of unaccompanied children, we call for an independent, timely, transparent, and public investigation at both the state12 and federal level into this award, with the full cooperation of ORR and HHS.

We request the following information and responses to questions by August 25, 2026.

Please provide:

Names of all legal services providers considered for this cooperative agreement. Please include the type of provider (e.g., law firm, nonprofit) and their qualifications.
A copy of the firm’s application for the award.
A copy of the cooperative agreement and justification for single-source funding.
All communications between employees of the firm and agency personnel at ORR and HHS.
Copies of the merits determination for this agreement and the compliance justification for why the agreement is in line with the grants policy agreement.

Questions:

Nothing in this agreement discusses how children who were already represented will be supported by the firm or how such children will be transferred to attorneys of the firm.
1. What is the firm’s plan to ensure adequate continuity, experience, and knowledge in taking these cases, including its anticipated case-per-attorney ratio?
2. What, if any, subcontractors will the firm employ or plan to employ to handle the workload?
3. Describe the firm’s coordination, if any, with the supplemental cooperative agreement awardee, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
There are currently only two attorneys at the firm listed as having any immigration experience. How is the cooperative agreement expected to ensure proper legal representation of approximately 1,800 children in ORR custody?
Will firm attorneys be required to convey a represented child’s sensitive personal information, or information of the represented child’s family members or prospective sponsors, to ORR or DHS without specific and credible reason to believe such information-sharing is in the best interest of the represented child?
1. Please explain what the firm is expected to share with ORR or HHS, including who will have access to such information, the cadence by which that information will be shared, and the purpose of such information-sharing.
2. Please also explain how the firm will be in compliance with ABA Model Rule 1.6 and Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct 1.05 and 1.06, involving a client’s informed consent.
How will this firm be handling ‘Know Your Rights’ presentations and legal consultations? How will they be providing these services to children not in Texas? Please clarify whether these services will be provided in-person or virtually.

Sincerely,

###

Turning to Chump's dead best friend, notorious sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, Sarah Ewall-Wice, and Laura Esposito (THE DAILY BEAST's SWAMP) note Epstein's co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was creative in her conversations with Todd Blanche last July:

Todd Blanche may have scraped through his Senate nomination (just), but The Swamp has uncovered documents exposing a major lie he appears to have missed during his controversial questioning of Ghislaine Maxwell.

Far be it from us to suggest that Blanche’s Ghislaine grilling was a way to ensure she didn’t reveal anything unseemly about the president’s friendship with Jeffrey “Kryptonite” Epstein. But it seems the British socialite who was conveniently moved to a cushy hotel prison after talking to Blanche misled the new attorney general about her own relationship with Trump.

Maxwell told Blanche on July 24, 2025, that she met Trump in 1990 when she flew to New York to help her media mogul father, Robert Maxwell, with “some advertising issues with the New York Daily News.

“And in fact, I met—I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much,” she continued. “And I think it should be said that he also very much liked Ivana, because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from. So I don’t—I don’t remember if I did meet him or not in 1990 with my dad, but I knew that that’s how I knew about—about Mr. Trump.”

Maxwell went on to make the point that she didn’t meet Epstein until the following year, adding that her father never met the child predator who killed himself/was murdered exactly seven years ago last Monday.

The only problem is that The Swamp has unearthed a newspaper clipping from the May 17, 1989 issue of the New York Daily News which reports how both Trump and Ghislaine were guests at a party on board her father’s yacht—named Lady Ghislaine—with “caviar flown in from Paris on the Concorde and salmon served from the vessel’s stores by shoeless waiters.”

Also on board were John Tower, the former senator whose defense secretary nomination was shot down over his thrifting and heavy drinking, literary agent Mort Janklow and Peter Kalikow, then owner of the New York Post.

The report said Maxwell insisted his well-heeled guests took off their shoes before boarding his yacht. Trump, it said, had a “much bigger yacht and was happy to discuss them with Maxwell.”

The report, by gossip columnists Phil Roura and Tom Poster, was not just in the New York Daily News; it was syndicated nationwide.

The obvious question for Trump’s then deputy attorney general and now his top lawman is this: If Ghislaine was able to snow him so easily with this lie, how much else should we believe about her account of her and Epstein’s relationships with the president?

More Epstein documents may be on the verge of being made public. This is due to Maxwell's latest court failure. Nicole Charky-Chami (RAW STORY) reports:

The British socialite and Epstein's former girlfriend had pushed to keep federal grand jury materials out of the public following the Trump Justice Department’s request to unseal them, Courthouse News Service reported. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska granted the release of the documents.

In her opinion, Preska outlined her decision.

"As noted above, Maxwell has lodged a veritable kitchen sink of objections to the government’s request to publish the sealed materials in compliance with the Act," Preska wrote.

"The court finds that all of Maxwell’s objections are meritless and that, in light of the Act, any remaining materials in the Government’s possession should become part of the public record, subject to any victim-protecting redactions authorized by the Act," Preska wrote.

Epstein and Maxwell enabler Todd Blanche was called out yesterday in a press release by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee:

Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released the following statement after the Department of Justice published an Office of Legal Counsel memo declaring that the President could claim executive privilege over communication with his “private advisers.” This unprecedented memo has major implications for any investigation into Trump Administration officials, including the Epstein investigation, shady government contracts, and grifting projects by the President and his family.

“In one of his first acts as Attorney General, Todd Blanche launched a plan to hide Donald Trump’s crimes and corruption from the American people, and obstruct our Epstein investigation. This dubious expansion of executive privilege to cover Trump’s outside advisors is a clear attack on Congress’s oversight powers, and creates an environment ripe for corruption that protects only the President and his friends. We are ready to fight to uphold our power and authority,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.

In July 2026, Ranking Member Garcia and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin urged the Senate to reject Blanche’s nomination ahead of his confirmation hearing for his failed handling of the Epstein files and his personal involvement in moving Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security prison. In June 2026, following the transcribed interview of former Attorney General Pam Bondi, Ranking Member Garcia demanded the Committee bring in Blanche for a transcribed interview regarding the Epstein investigation. In January 2026, Ranking Member Garcia condemned Blanche after the Department of Justice (DOJ) had released only half of the Epstein files after months of defying the Oversight Committee subpoena and Epstein Files Transparency Act.

###

The following sites updated: