In the summer of 2015, three Syrian girls who had narrowly survived an airstrike some weeks earlier stood before Tulsi Gabbard with horrific burns all over their bodies.
Gabbard, then a US congresswoman on a visit to the Syria-Turkey border as part of her duties for the foreign affairs committee, had a question for them.
“How do you know it was Bashar al-Assad or Russia that bombed you, and not Isis?’” she asked, according to Mouaz Moustafa, a Syrian activist who was translating her conversation with the girls.
Tulsi Gabbard has been accused of being a Russian asset (Getty)
It was a revealing insight into Gabbard’s conspiratorial views of the conflict, and it shocked Moustafa to silence. He knew, as even the young children did, that Isis did not have jets to launch airstrikes. It was such an absurd question that he chose not to translate it because he didn’t want to upset the girls, the eldest of whom was 12.
“From that point on, I’m sorry to say I was inaccurate in my translations of anything she said,” Moustafa told The Independent. “It was more like: How do I get these girls away from this devil?”
Even before Gabbard left the Democratic Party, ingratiated herself with Donald Trump and secured his nomination to become director of National Intelligence, she was known as a prolific peddler of Russian propaganda.
In almost every foreign conflict in which Russia had a hand, Gabbard backed Moscow and railed against the US. Her past promotion of Kremlin propaganda has provoked significant opposition on both sides of the aisle to her nomination.
Her journey from anti-war Democrat to Moscow-friendly Maga warrior began in Syria. The devastating conflict was sparked by pro-democracy uprisings in 2011, which were brutally crushed by the Assad regime. It descended into a complex web of factions that drew extremist Islamists from around the world and global powers into the fray.
Why Is a Whistleblower Complaint About Tulsi Gabbard Locked in a Safe???
The Director of National Intelligence is accused of stalling a whistleblower complaint that her office calls “politically motivated,” but another official says could pose a national security risk if revealed.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been accused of…something…by a whistleblower within her department, who filed a complaint to the intelligence community’s inspector general in May. In precedented times, these kinds of complaints are typically handled by Congress, and the onus of secure transmission falls on the DNI. But it’s been eight months, and Congress still hasn’t seen the complaint, which is allegedly so potentially explosive that it’s reportedly been locked in a safe.
The whistleblower’s lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, is accusing Gabbard of stalling the process.
========
Now, Gabbard is a Russia-curious DNI who supports having a government surveillance authority in place; revoked security clearances from Obama-era intelligence officials to fulfill Trump’s revenge agenda; and, most recently, appeared at the FBI raid of an election center in Georgia. So, for her to be hiding something because it’s a national security risk? Again, I ask: what the fuck is in that complaint?
As President Donald Trump continues to allege widespread electoral fraud benefitting Democrats, his latest attempt to upend U.S. elections in the name of correcting that fraud is a call for the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting.
Warsh has made previous stops as a Morgan Stanley investment banker, an adviser to former President George W. Bush and a Fed board member, making him about as establishment as it gets. (Warsh’s wife is also the granddaughter of cosmetics magnate Estée Lauder.) It’s a notable choice for a president known for distrusting institutionalists and lauding disruptors.
It’s all about keeping the Epstein network flourishing:
President Trump with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, right, and his brother U.A.E. President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, left, in Abu Dhabi in May. Alex Brandon/Associated Press
‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company
$500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips
Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for half a billion dollars, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter. The buyers would pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities.
The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn’t previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son.
wsj.com
Sounding the alarm:
Senator Elizabeth Warren is sounding the alarm on Trump’s ‘spy sheikh’ crypto deal
Senator demands probe after report links Emirati intelligence chief to secret investment in U.S. crypto venture.
The Wall Street Journal found that the deal, signed by Eric Trump, sent $187 million to Trump family entities and at least $31 million to entities tied to Trump ally and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, months before the Trump administration approved advanced AI chip sales to the UAE.
Trump family has a claim on 75% of net revenues from World Liberty’s token sales
World Liberty’s tokens are non-tradeable; holders cannot vote for a share in profits
Critics warn of potential conflicts of interest with president’s involvement in crypto
Over $280 million raised from buyers purchasing $1 million or more in $WLFI tokens
LONDON/NEW YORK, March 31 (Reuters) – As World Liberty Financial raised more than half a billion dollars, President Donald Trump’s family took control of the crypto venture and grabbed the lion’s share of those funds, aided by governance terms that industry experts say favor insiders.
Launched last fall, World Liberty’s goal is to allow people to access financial services using cryptocurrencies and without intermediaries like banks in what is called decentralized finance, or DeFi. But it has yet to launch a public platform and has reported only a small staff, a review of the project shows.
Even so, World Liberty said in mid-March it had raised $550 million selling so-called governance tokens. Most of those sales took place after Trump’s election win in November, Reuters calculations show.
The tokens, which go by the symbol $WLFI, give holders the right to vote on changes to the project’s underlying code and to signal their opinion on its direction and plans. They cannot be traded.
As its fundraising got traction, World Liberty disclosed in January that the Trump family had taken control of the business, a review of changes in the fine print on World Liberty’s website shows. Two of its co-founders, crypto entrepreneurs Zak Folkman and Chase Herro, were replaced as the controlling parties of World Liberty by an entity in which the Trump family holds a 60% stake.
The changes have not been previously reported.
Overall, the Trump family now has a claim on 75% of net revenues from token sales and 60% from World Liberty operations once the core business gets going. The arrangement means the Trump family is currently entitled to about $400 million in fees. After World Liberty’s co-founders take their cut, the crypto venture will be left with 5% of the $550 million raised to date to build the platform, according to Reuters calculations.
The arrangements, including the Trump family’s large share of the project’s revenues and the non-tradeable nature of the governance tokens, make World Liberty unusually centralized for the industry, according to a survey of the practices of the five largest DeFi lending platforms and interviews with four U.S. academics who study the crypto industry.
“It’s hard for me to see any economic benefit to the owner of these tokens,” said Jim Angel, an associate professor at Georgetown University who has written about DeFi regulation.
David Krause, a longtime finance professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee who recently published a study of World Liberty, said that the structure of the project “pretty much excludes public investors or token holders from any meaningful financial participation.”
Note:
In a photo:
Crypto czar David Sacks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Executive Director of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets Bo Hines attend the White House Crypto Summit at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 7, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
Andrew worked with Gaddafi ally and Epstein to arrange Middle East loan
Former prince discussed setting up financial deal between Libya and Dubai, Epstein files show
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor discussed arranging billions in loans from Libya to Dubai in the last years of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, emails from the Epstein files show.
The former prince discussed a possible deal with Jeffrey Epstein and Terence Allen, a United Arab Emirates-based investment banker, in 2010, the communications show.
Questions have previously been raised about his “very close” friendship with Saif Gaddafi, the son of the former Libyan leader, and Tarek Kaituni, a convicted Libyan gun smuggler.
In a June 2010 email, Mr Allen asked the then Duke of York if there was “anything I can do there for you”, referring to a planned meeting with Bashir Saleh Bashir, a close ally of Gaddafi, in Johannesburg the following month.
Mr Allen and Mr Mountbatten-Windsor then discussed the possibility of arranging a loan worth up to “3 b” from Libya to Dubai, the currency of which was not clear.
The emirate had been badly affected by the 2008 financial crash, and raised billions of dollars in loans and bond sales in the following years
Jes Staley’s Jeffrey Epstein Links Exposed in Court Docs
Explosive new court documents have laid bare the extensive relationship between former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley and the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, revealing troubling financial connections and personal visits.
The Prison Visit Revelation
Among the most damning evidence are emails from 2009 showing Staley travelled to visit Epstein while the convicted sex offender was serving time in a Florida prison. The correspondence indicates Staley made the journey to maintain contact with his associate, despite Epstein’s registered sex offender status and ongoing legal troubles.
Fed holds rate steady as recent dollar slide fuels Bitcoin, crypto debate
Jan 28, 2026
The FOMC paused rate cuts, but a weakening dollar may be doing the easing instead, reshaping expectations for Bitcoin, crypto markets and US monetary policy.
Complaint Accuses Trump’s Criminal Attorney of “Blatant” Crypto Conflict in His Role at DOJ
A watchdog group is seeking an inspector general investigation into Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche after ProPublica reported that he had ordered changes to crypto prosecutions while owning more than $150,000 in digital assets.
SEC drops lawsuit against Winklevoss twins’ crypto firm
Move comes as the SEC has taken a series of friendly stances towards the cryptocurrency industry under Trump
ReutersMon 26 Jan 2026 18.04 GMTShare
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday agreed to dismiss its enforcement case against a cryptocurrency exchange founded by the billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, after investors in its lending program recovered their assets in full.
Guardian
How “Bitcoin Jesus” Avoided Prison, Thanks to One of the “Friends of Trump”
Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, drew national attention when they were taken by ICE last week. The viral image of the young boy wearing a blue, bunny-ear hat and a Spider-Man backpack during his father’s detainment has only further fueled the outrage in Minnesota and nationwide over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Representatives Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett, both Democrats from Texas, visited Liam and his father Wednesday at a detention facility, the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley. Both lawmakers reported being alarmed by the child’s condition and are demanding his release.
Castro said the preschooler asking for his mom and his family, and telling his father he wants to go back to school.
“He seemed lethargic. His father said that Liam has been sleeping a lot, that he’s been asking about his family, his mom and his classmates, and saying that he wants to go be back in school with his classmates,” Castro said at a press conference Wednesday.
Judge orders release of 5-year-old boy detained in Minnesota
Story by Joseph Pisani
• 6h
In his order Saturday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, included the photo of Liam and criticized the federal government’s mass deportation plans as “ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented.” He said that administrative warrants—which are issued by the executive branch of government and aren’t signed by a judge—weren’t sufficient to meet constitutional requirements for probable cause. “That is called the fox guarding the henhouse,” Biery wrote. “The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer.”
I heard about the acronym DARVO yesterday. You may consider it as being in a mind control playbook. I am reproducing VeryWellMind webpage on the subject.
Before you read their page, understand the signs of the mental disorder of narcissism:
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a mental health condition characterized by a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. Individuals with NPD often have difficulties in relationships and may react poorly to criticism or perceived slights. helpguide.org psychiatry.org
Have you become aware of anyone you may know who suffers this disorder in your immediate surroundings? Here is how you can protect yourself from the harm they can inflict if they have not been intercepted and treated by a psychiatrist.
DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender—a tactic used to avoid accountability.
Narcissists using DARVO can make victims feel responsible for the abuse, leading to self-doubt and mental health issues.
Educate yourself about DARVO to recognize the pattern and protect your emotional health.
Research shows that between 0.5% to 5% of the general US population have narcissistic personality disorder in the U.S., with a greater prevalence in men than women.1 However, multitudes are affected by a controlling tactic that many narcissists use called DARVO.
“DARVO is an acronym that stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. It describes a manipulative tactic often used by abusers to avoid taking responsibility for their actions and shift the blame onto their victims,” explains Avigail Lev, PsyD, founder of Bay Area CBT Center and CBTonline.
We’ll discuss what DARVO looks like, its impact on victims, and how to protect yourself if it’s being used against you.
Knowing the definition of DARVO is one thing; understanding what signs to look for in your relationship is another. Experts say there are specific characteristics to look for to determine if someone is manipulating you in this way.
Denial
Someone adamantly denies being wrong and won’t acknowledge wrong behaviors. A person using this tactic will not only say they are not abusive but will minimize your feelings. If they tell you, “It’s not that big of a deal,” or “You’re making too much of this,” that’s another way to deny the wrong behavior and its impact on you.
Attack
The accused person becomes aggressive, arguing that they are not in the wrong. They also seek to cast doubt on you as the person who is questioning their behavior.
Instead of just refusing to accept responsibility for abusive behavior, this person is actively working to make it look like you are the one who is in the wrong. “Abusers attack the credibility, character, or motives of the victim. They may use insults, threats, gaslighting, or manipulation to discredit the victim’s account of the abuse,” notes Dr. Lev.
Reverse Victim and Offender
The abuser tries to switch roles, arguing that they are the real victim and making the victim look like the offender. The abuser may claim to be unfairly accused, then say that you are making accusations to cover up your own behavior. This attempt to shift blame helps the abuser be seen in a more positive light while inflicting mental and emotional pain on the person already experiencing abuse.
In addition, an abuser will gaslight the victim, making that person wonder if they are crazy or think that what they are experiencing is not actually abuse. An abuser will also likely deflect, trying to switch gears and remove attention from the problematic behavior.
By denying their actions, attacking the person confronting them, and flipping the roles of victim and offender, the narcissist effectively redirects attention away from their own actions, often causing doubt in the victim’s claims.
“By denying their actions, attacking the person confronting them, and flipping the roles of victim and offender, the narcissist effectively redirects attention away from their own actions, often causing doubt in the victim’s claims,” notes Bayu Prihandito, founder of Life Architekture and certified psychology expert.
“The psychology behind DARVO is rooted in a strong need for self-preservation and control. They will often employ this strategy to protect their ego and maintain their desired self-image at all costs,” he adds.
If you or a loved one are a victim of domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential assistance from trained advocates.
Abusers who use DARVO methods on their victims often achieve the intended results. Studies show that when people saw one person using DARVO tactics on another, the victim was viewed as “less believable,” while the perpetrator was seen as “less abusive and less responsible.”2 As you can imagine, dealing with that level of manipulation day in and day out takes a massive toll on its victims—physically, mentally, and emotionally.
“DARVO negatively impacts the victim’s mental health because they internalize the false narrative that they are the perpetrator and that the problems in the relationship or abuse are their fault. They convince themselves that they are the cause of their own mistreatment, leading to feelings of self-blame and self-doubt,” Dr. Lev says.
DARVO negatively impacts the victim’s mental health because they internalize the false narrative that they are the perpetrator and that the problems in the relationship or abuse are their fault.
“Being subjected to repeated manipulation through DARVO can lead to … anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, self-doubt, a sense of powerlessness, and narcissistic abuse syndrome as well as pseudo identity/personality, where the victim develops a pseudo personality that echoes and repeats the narcissist’s false self- their grandiose narrative of themselves,” she states.
DARVO survivors also experience post-traumatic stress disorder. The abusive behavior can leave victims feeling isolated and unable to cope, especially when reversing the victim and offender leads to a continual cycle of abuse.
Once you learn more about DARVO and think you may be the victim of this manipulative tactic, you can take steps to help yourself.
Educate yourself. Know what signs to look for. When you understand the pattern that DARVO abusers use, you can see it coming. You’ll be able to recognize their tactics and be able to better control and manage your emotions when it happens. “Once recognized, this pattern becomes more predictable and quickly loses some of its power and influence,” Prihandito notes.
Stand up for yourself. Clearly name what it happening, what you will allow, and what you will not allow.
Learn what healthy communication looks like in a relationship. Along with saying what you won’t put up with, make sure the abuser knows what you expect.
Find a support group. Friends and family members can give you the encouragement that you need. “Having a strong support network can help you validate your experiences and counteract the effects of DARVO,” adds Dr. Lev.
Document your experience. “Keep a record of the abusive incidents, including dates, times, and descriptions. This can also include recordings or videos if your state allows,” Dr. Lev states.
Get professional help. Mental health professionals who are familiar with and understand narcissistic abuse can be pivotal in your healing journey. “There are a number of therapeutic resources for individuals dealing with DARVO, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and trauma-focused therapy. I would recommend victims to work directly with a licensed professional who can provide customized strategies to cope and heal from this trauma,” says Prihandito.
Of course, if you’re in a situation where the behavior has escalated to physical abuse, or you believe your life is in danger, call 911 and seek help immediately.
Ultimately, what’s most important is that if you are a victim of DARVO, you realize it is not your fault. Confront the reality of what happened and your experience. Seek the help you need to end the cycle of manipulative behavior and heal physically, mentally, and emotionally.
“Victims find it incredibly difficult to come to terms with the fact that the abuse was intentional the entire time. They must accept this in order to break free,” Dr. Lev concludes.
Verywell Mind’s content is for informational and educational purposes only. Our website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Ⓒ 2026 People Inc. — All rights reserved
Verywell Mind is part of the People Inc. publishing family.
See a recent article ‘DARVO by Design’ written in response to the death of Alex Pretti, hete is an extract:
I am writing now because the DARVO unfolding here – the denial, the narrative inversion, the sustained refusal to answer for lethal force – is overt, structurally supported, and impossible to ignore. When the details of Alex Pretti’s death – a kind, compassionate man, ICU nurse, and federal employee who worked at the local VA – clashed with the demonizing character assault from this administration, I knew I needed to write about DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender).
An estimated 600,000 people have been affected by flooding across southern and central Mozambique, particularly in Gaza, Maputo, and Sofala provinces, following heavy and persistent rainfall since mid-December. The majority of the people affected, 75 percent, are in Gaza.
Access bottlenecks are hampering relief operations, as road access to affected areas is largely cut off. This is also significantly disrupting supply chains. Air and maritime assets are urgently needed to allow the dispatch of urgent supplies, including those being airlifted to Maputo.
High-volume dam releases are contributing to elevated river levels and continued downstream flooding with more areas being affected. The floods have had severe impacts on lives, livelihoods, and essential services, including damage to sections of the main road linking Maputo to the rest of the country.
Key priorities include the rapid deployment of air assets for search and rescue and to secure humanitarian access to hard-to-reach areas, urgent mobilization of civil engineering and disaster management specialists to temporarily restore key access routes and reinforce flood control measures.
A large-scale increase in humanitarian assistance is required with a particular focus on food, WASH, emergency shelter and NFIs, and essential health services with strong protection measures in place to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse, and gender-based violence.
Tulsi Gabbard monitors raid by FBI on election office as she carries out, as she sees it, “President Trump’s directive to secure our elections and work with our interagency partners to do so.”
Warner: ‘Why is Tulsi Gabbard at an FBI raid on an election office in Fulton County?’
Story by Ryan Mancini
• 15h
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) ono Wednesday shared Reuters’s photo of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard during the FBI’s search of 2020 voting records at the Fulton County, Ga., elections office, questioning why she was there.
“Why is Tulsi Gabbard at an FBI raid on an election office in Fulton County?” Warner asked in a post on the social platform X, which included a video.
Reuters photographer Elijah Nouvelage captured the photo of Gabbard wearing a baseball cap and talking into a smartphone while next to a vehicle loaded with boxes, her eyes turned toward the camera.
Warner said there were two explanations for why Gabbard would be at the election offices.
“Either Director Gabbard believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus — in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees ‘fully and currently informed’ of relevant national security concerns — or she is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for the office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy,” he wrote in a response to his first post.
==============
“We don’t know why they took them, and we don’t know where they’re taking them to,” county Board of Commissioners Chair Robb Pitts said.
Fulton County played a pivotal role following President Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) indicted Trump on racketeering charges in 2023 for allegedly conspiring to subvert the election results and win Georgia to stay in office. The case was dropped in 2025 ahead of the president’s return to the White House and after Willis was disqualified from the case.
Trump administration admits DOGE accessed personal Social Security data
What Happened: Court filings show operatives of Elon Musk’s DOGE at the Social Security Administration may have improperly accessed and shared sensitive data, including potential voter roll matching, after secret communications with an election overturning advocacy group. DOJ disclosures cite unapproved servers, continued access after court orders, and possible unauthorized data transmission.
Why It Matters: Federal data systems are being pulled into partisan election operations. When Social Security records are repurposed for political targeting, the line between governance and surveillance disappears.Source: Washington Post
We’ve broken lots of major stories about ICE this month, but we’re just getting started (I have more leaked documents than time to write them up!)
“We have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist,” a masked federal agent taunted a protester filming him in Maine last week.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin’s response was firm: “There is NO database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS.”
There’s just one problem: She’s lying.
Two senior national security officials tell me that there are more than a dozen secret and obscure watchlists that homeland security and the FBI are using to track protesters (both anti-ICE and pro-Palestinian), “Antifa,” and others who are promiscuously labeled “domestic terrorists.”
I can reveal for the first time that some of the secret lists and applications go by codenames like Bluekey, Grapevine, Hummingbird, Reaper, Sandcastle, Sienna, Slipstream, and Sparta (including the ominous sounding HEL-A and HEL-C reports generated by Sparta).
Some of these, like Hummingbird, were created to vet and track immigrants, in this case Afghans seeking to settle in the United States. Slipstream is a classified social media repository. Others are tools used to link people on the streets together, including collecting on friends and families who have nothing to do with any purported lawbreaking.
There’s practically nothing available that further describes what these watchlists do, how large they are, or what they entail.
“We came out of 9/11 with the notion that we would have a single ‘terrorist’ watchlist to eliminate confusion, duplication and avoid bad communications, but ever since January 6, not only have we expanded exponentially into purely domestic watchlisting, but we have also created a highly secretive and compartmented superstructure that few even understand,” says a DHS attorney intimately familiar with the subject. The attorney spoke on the agreement that their identity not be disclosed.
Prior to 9/11, there were nine federal agencies that maintained 12 separate watchlists. Now, officially there are just three: a watchlist of 1.1 million international terrorists, a watchlist of more than 10,000 domestic terrorists maintained by the FBI, and a new watchlist of transnational criminals, built up to more than 85,000 over the past decade.
The new domestic-related watchlists—a set of databases and applications—exist inside and outside the FBI and are used by agencies like ICE and the Border Patrol to organize the Niagara of information in possession of the federal government. Collectively, they create ways to sort, analyze, and search information, a task that even artificial intelligence has failed to conquer (so far).
Among other functions, the new watchlists process tips, situation reports and collected photographs and video submitted by both the public and from agents in the field; they create a “common operating picture” in places like Minneapolis; they allow task forces to target individuals for surveillance and arrest; and they create the capacity for intelligence people to link individuals together through geographic proximity or what is labeled “call chaining” by processing telephone numbers, emails, and other contact information.
Administration officials have alluded to all of this, though contrary to the Hollywood idea of some all-seeing eye, actual government watchlists are more a patchwork system of lists and applications, each of which might have individual justification or even legitimate purpose to aid law enforcement but overall form the basis for massive violations of American civil rights.
“One thing I’m pushing for right now … we’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding and assault, we’re going to make them famous,” Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, told Fox News earlier this month.
Watchlists in general fly in the face of the spirit of the Constitution and the protections it’s supposed to embody against unreasonable search and seizure, and relating to the right of privacy.
“The very essence of the ‘list’ is its secrecy and its lack of any opportunity for the listed to be heard,” Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter said of a Justice Department list of subversives during the Red Scare. “It is the shrouding of the process in a veil of secrecy that is the most offensive to our democratic traditions.”
Now, the national security community has developed an interlocking set of lists and applications that are secret not just to the public but opaque to most who toil in the federal agencies themselves. Asked about the watchlists, a Border Patrol agent recounted to me how they punch their data into their own proprietary application, not really knowing what happens after that.
Again, these watchlists aren’t the all-seeing eye of Sauron that many imagine. They’re more like the compound eye of a fly, a fragmented array of lenses (over 3,000 per eye in the common housefly!) that collectively form a mosaic. That mosaic—the ability to unify all the disparate lists into one master picture—doesn’t yet exist, sources tell me. That, however, is the direction we’re going, especially with software packages like Palantir that can be customized to aggregate all that is collected.
“We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement,” says McLaughlin. “Obstructing and assaulting law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime.”
Impeding federal law enforcement has emerged as the Trump administration’s primary justification for actions against people like Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
As part of its new effort to support its operations in places like Minneapolis and Los Angeles, the Homeland Security Department, working with the Justice Department, has started more methodically tracking what it calls “aggressive protesters.” According to one senior official, this is a new designation the agency uses to describe the supposed threat posed by people on the streets.
Both Good and Pretti were considered aggressive protesters; in Good’s case, for criticizing ICE officers while operating a vehicle; and in Pretti’s case, getting up close to immigration officers while filming them.
Bangor plane crash kills 7: Private jet linked to ‘anti‑Trump’ lawyers who defended illegal aliens
Story by TOI World Desk
• 2d
Bangor plane crash kills 7: Private jet linked to ‘anti‑Trump’ lawyers who defended illegal aliens
Seven people were killed and one crew member seriously injured when a private jet crashed on takeoff at Bangor International Airport in Maine on Sunday night, officials said.
The Bombardier Challenger 600 went down during a heavy winter storm as it tried to lift off at about 7.45 pm local time. The aircraft was reportedly connected to a Houston law firm.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that the jet, carrying eight people, crashed during takeoff amid freezing snow and icy conditions.
Emergency responders were on the scene for hours as the airport was closed and flights were cancelled in the region.
Here is an extract from Michael D Sellers Substack, January 29, 2026, showing his belief Minnesotans have set the example for America:
They showed how accountability can be built quickly:
A simple neighborhood signal that mobilizes bodies.
A distributed set of cameras that creates an evidentiary wall.
Rapid dissemination that prevents early narrative capture.
A swarm of analysis that makes denial look ridiculous.
A press ecosystem forced—by the thickness of the record—to engage reality rather than press releases.
That’s not just “resistance.” It’s civic competence. It’s the muscle memory of self-government.
And it appears to have mattered on the ground. ICE isn’t gone. The larger machine doesn’t dissolve because one community stands up. But it does seem like something shifted. Peak madness—at least in that place, in that phase—hit a limit. Not because power became kinder, but because citizens made the cost of unchecked lying higher.
Vigilance remains essential; anyone who thinks the story ends neatly is not paying attention. But we should still be able to say, without embarrassment, that ordinary people pushed back—and that pushback changed the weather.
So the question becomes the one you asked implicitly: have we learned enough to repeat this?
Will other cities show the same spirit and resolve?
It’s too soon to promise. Civic courage is not guaranteed, and it is never evenly distributed. But Minnesota has set an example that can’t be unseen. It has reminded the country of something we forget at our peril: institutions are not the only guardians of public truth. Sometimes they are the problem. Sometimes they are late. Sometimes they are compromised. Sometimes they are trapped by access and incentives.
When that happens, the people become the record.
And maybe that is the most hopeful part of this story: not the outrage, not even the exposure, but the quiet competence of a community that remembers how to become a community in a crisis.
A whistle. A door opening. Footsteps in the snow. Phones raised, not for spectacle, but for the simple insistence that what is happening is seen.
In that sense, “The Eyes of Minnesota” is not just a poetic line. It’s a civic achievement.
The eyes prevailed—not because they were perfect, but because they were many. Because they were close. Because they were brave enough to be present. Because they understood, at last, that the first battle is for the story, and that the story belongs to the people who show up.
And for that, Minnesota has shown the rest of the country a standard worth honoring—and worth imitating.
The example has been set.
The Eyes of Minnesota have prevailed.
Over to you America
Another 2 apps which provide an ICE worker with phone details in targetted locations:
How ICE uses phone and internet data to identify and track people
People listen to clergy and faith leaders call for accountability at the site where Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 8.
Ben Hovland | MPR News
404Media identified these apps:
What acting ICE Director Todd Lyons called the “largest immigration enforcement operation ever” continues to unfold in Minnesota. And we are learning about the tools federal law enforcement agents use to track the people they’re trying to arrest, as well as protesters.
ICE recently purchased two programs called Tangles and Webloc, which are used to track the cell phone activity of entire neighborhoods and monitor people over social media and through internet data, according to reporting by 404 Media. 404 Media journalist Joseph Cox joined MPR News host Nina Moini with insight on those tools and how they’re used to track people.
More ICE software surveillance app, Mobile Fortify:
An ICE agent points a government-issued smartphone at someone’s face, snaps a photo, and within seconds knows whether that person has a deportation order—or at least, whether an algorithm thinks they do. The tool, called Mobile Fortify, went live in June 2025, and it searches more than 200 million photographs stored in federal databases. No warrant required. No reasonable suspicion needed. Point and scan.
Over 1,000 state and local agencies now have access to the companion Mobile Identify app. Driver’s license photo is searchable unless you live in one of six states that have blocked access.
US immigration agents are using an app developed by Palantir that draws on the health records of millions of Americans to find and detain people they deem illegal immigrants.
The revelation comes as the US’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) comes under increased scrutiny after the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37 year old intensive care nurse, by ICE agents in Minneapolis over the weekend.
It has now emerged that data from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is being fed—along with other commercial and public datasets—into an analytics app developed by Palantir, according to an investigation by news outlet 404 Media.1
Testimony from an ICE official and internal documents obtained by 404 show the app, Enhanced Leads Identification and Targeting for Enforcement (Elite), maps areas to help agents decide where to conduct detention raids.
The tool was reportedly used in recent operations, including a raid in Oregon in October in which 30 people were arrested.
According to the 404 investigation, Elite pulls names, addresses, and photos from health records. It reportedly works like Google Maps, showing ICE agents which areas have higher densities of people who could be detained. It also generates dossiers on individuals, including their name, photo, and “confidence scores” that they are at home.
An HHS spokesperson contacted by The BMJ did not clarify what information was given to ICE but said the information sharing was permitted under national law.
“Several federal laws authorise the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to make certain information available to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS),” the spokesperson said. “Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, ‘any information in any records kept by any department or agency of the government as to the identity and location of aliens in the US shall be made available to’ immigration authorities.”
There is no data sharing agreement between CMS and DHS on “US citizens and lawful permanent residents,” they added.
In July 2025, it was revealed that a data sharing agreement between the US health department and ICE would see the personal data of 79 million Americans receiving Medicaid assistance handed over to the deportation agency.
This includes names, addresses, birth dates, and ethnic and racial information.2
In November 2023, NHS England awarded Palantir a £330m contract to create a new data management system called the Federated Data Platform (FDP) that aims to provide “joined up” NHS services.1 Palantir is an American technology company that specialises in artificial intelligence powered military and surveillance technology and data analytics.2 Concerns have been raised about the cost of NHS England’s contract with Palantir and whether it offers value for money, as well as questions about public trust in Palantir and the procurement process.3
This contract has become increasingly controversial as Palantir has vocally announced it is supporting the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) with their assault in Gaza. Since October 2023, Palantir has been outspoken in its support for the Israeli military.45 In January 2024, Palantir signed a deal with the IOF to increase its “advanced technology provision” to Israel in support of war related missions.2 Palantir’s CEO Alex Karp says he is “exceedingly proud” of Palantir’s involvement in what he calls “operationally crucial operations in Israel.”6
IOF operations have been described as a “war on hospitals” because of the systematic destruction of Gaza’s entire health system and 943 IOF attacks on healthcare.78 Hundreds of health workers have been detained, tortured, and killed.91011
In addition to directly attacking healthcare, ongoing bombardment, forced displacement of Palestinians, and near complete siege of Gaza, the IOF has created a severe health and humanitarian crisis with high rates of malnutrition, infectious disease, famine, and dehydration. In January 2024 the International Court of Justice issued an interim judgment which stated that Israel’s actions constitute plausible genocide.
The fact that NHS England still considers Palantir an appropriate partner raises serious questions about NHS England’s integrity. The multiple contracts awarded to Palantir over recent years have brought with them allegations of favouritism by NHS executives, backdoor meetings, donations to the Conservative party, ministerial directives being used to override patient confidentiality rules, and Palantir’s Peter Thiel’s own confession that the company is “buying its way in”’ to the NHS.121314
Patients and campaigners have been raising concerns about Palantir’s creeping involvement with the NHS for years based on concerns about ethics, outsourcing, and privacy. The tech company has a long and controversial history of supporting predictive policing, deportations, state surveillance, and drone strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.15
NHS England risks further losing the trust of health workers, patients, and the public if it continues with this contract with Palantir. On 3 April 2024, more than 100 health workers, patients, and allies picketed the offices of NHS England to demand that the contract is cancelled.16
Outrage from health workers, patients, and the public will only grow as further atrocities are committed by the IOF. If NHS England is to recover its own reputation and maintain public trust in health data systems, it must cancel the contract with Palantir.
NHS England, a quango under the Tories, is due to be incorporated into the non-departmental public body and will be integrated into the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC). The Prime Minister criticised the excessive overlap between the DHSC and NHSE. He argued the move to make NHSE more autonomous from central government.
NHS England to be abolished – what it means and how it could affect you
I am reproducing this Substack I found analysing the Mamdani interview with Trump in November last year.
It is a ‘a case study in how a bully behaves when he can’t rely on fear, and how a principled politician behaves when he refuses the role of the victim.’
There’s a strange thing that happens when you watch the full thirty-minute interview instead of the clipped version the internet tosses around. The edges soften. The masks slip. And you start to see the actual geometry of the interaction — where power sits, where insecurity leaks, where the tone changes, where the truth speaks by accident. The viral clip makes it look like a moment. The full meeting reveals a dynamic.
This wasn’t a showdown. It wasn’t a humiliation. It wasn’t a triumph for either man. It was something far more revealing: a case study in how a bully behaves when he can’t rely on fear, and how a principled politician behaves when he refuses the role of the victim.
The meeting begins as all Trump meetings do — with noise.
The first five minutes are pure Trump: monologues disguised as greetings, numbers inflated beyond physics, scattered recollections of the 1980s like the era froze and preserved him in amber. You can practically hear his brain flipping through its greatest hits, trying to set the tone: This is my room. My chair. My story.
But Mamdani doesn’t react to any of it.
And that is the first hinge of the meeting.
A man like Trump needs emotional feedback to function. Fear works. Flattery works. Even anger works. Mamdani gives him nothing. He sits there with the calm of someone who refuses to let the other person set the emotional tempo. It’s a small thing, but with Trump, it’s enough to break the cycle.
Then comes the shift — the “gracious Trump” phase.
People mistake this for maturity or diplomacy. It’s not. It’s a reflex Trump only deploys when he can’t dominate the room. The tone goes soft, the eyebrows lift, the compliments come out in forced, syrupy bursts.
“You’re doing great work.”
“New York is lucky to have you.”
“You’re a very smart guy.”
It sounds statesmanlike until you remember the same man called him a communist threat two weeks earlier. What’s happening here isn’t respect — it’s adaptation. A chameleon trying to match the color of the wall.
Trump is gracious when graciousness benefits Trump.
As Mamdani shifts to policy, Trump drifts into autobiography.
This is the most telling stretch — minutes twelve to eighteen. Mamdani tries to talk like a mayor-elect:
transit
housing
Rikers
federal cooperation
immigrant protections
Real issues, real stakes, real governance.
Trump responds by vanishing into his own mythology. Crime statistics from memory that don’t exist. Grievances about prosecutors. Stories from “the old days.” Complaints about how unfairly he’s been treated.
It’s not sabotage — it’s incapacity.
Mamdani is speaking a civic language Trump’s brain can’t decode.
They aren’t having the same conversation.
They aren’t even on the same continent.
Then comes the moment everyone’s dissecting — the “fascistic tendencies” line.
And yes, it happened in the room, not after. Mamdani doesn’t weaponize the word. He doesn’t turn it into a headline. He does something more dangerous: he analytically names the pattern.
Immigrant raids.
Political retribution.
Targeting dissent.
Erosion of checks and balances.
Threats against the judiciary.
He lays out the evidence and names the behavior: fascistic tendencies.
Trump nods and smiles like someone being told he has an excellent golf swing.
It’s not bravado. It’s not denial.
It’s something almost sadder: he doesn’t understand the language of critique unless it’s blunt and emotional. Mamdani moved the discussion into the realm of political analysis, and Trump’s instincts don’t live there. So he simply… accepts it. Not because he agrees, but because he can’t absorb what the words actually mean.
The last ten minutes are the clearest portrait of Trump’s psyche.
Once Mamdani refuses to bend, Trump compensates by overcorrecting into flattery:
“You’re going to surprise people.”
“I feel very comfortable with you.”
“We’re going to get along great.”
It’s dominance disguised as benevolence. When Trump can’t conquer, he tries to adopt. He folds the other person into his narrative: You and I are the same. We’re allies. You approve of me. I approve of you.
It’s a kind of political camouflage — digest the threat by complimenting it.
Mamdani doesn’t take the bait.
He doesn’t fight.
He doesn’t flatter.
He just continues speaking plainly.
Which leaves Trump in the one position he hates most:
performing civility for an audience that isn’t fooled.
What the meeting really showed
The full interview isn’t about Mamdani calling Trump a fascist.
It’s not about Trump pretending to be gracious.
It’s not about a progressive mayor meeting an authoritarian president.
What the meeting showed is simpler and more damning:
Trump is only powerful when the room fears him.
Take the fear away, and he becomes oddly gentle, strangely polite, and completely unable to dominate the conversation.
People think tyrants rage because they’re strong.
But the truth is they only rage when they know the room will absorb it.
Mamdani didn’t absorb it.
So Trump didn’t rage.
He folded.
Nicely. Neatly.
Like a man who knows the cameras are watching and doesn’t want the world to see what he looks like when the mask cracks.
And if there’s a lesson here for the rest of the country, it’s this:
Fear is the oxygen of authoritarianism.
Take it away, and even a strongman starts to sound like a man.
Now we have Homan in Minneapolis, Charlie Sykes on Substack describes the man:
Homan is a blister of a man who relishes and celebrates brutality. His rhetoric frequently frames all undocumented individuals as criminals and threats; and he is notorious for “promoting cruelty as deterrence” and normalizing abusive practices like ripping children from their parents. Indeed, he has been a voluble supporter of family separation.
“I’m sick and tired of hearing about the family separation,” he declared in 2023. “I’m still being sued over that…
“I don’t give a s***, right? Bottom line is, we enforced the law.”
Last year Senator Chris Hollen (D-MD) described Homan as “the Trump thug who wants to deny due process rights to migrants and brag about tearing families apart.”
And now we learn Alex Pretti was already on the database (Palantir/Oracle) of federal immigration authorities:
Slain ICU Nurse Broke Rib in ICE Encounter Days Before Death
Updated Jan. 27 2026 3:53PM EST Published Jan. 27 2026 3:33PM EST
The ICU nurse who was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday reportedly broke his rib during a prior interaction with federal officers about a week before his death.
Sources told CNN that federal immigration authorities had documented information about Alex Pretti, 37, before he was killed on Saturday, as part of an effort to collect personal and identifying details about anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis.
The Guardian has confirmed that ICE is increasingly using a smartphone app called Mobile Fortify to scan faces in Minnesota and nationwide, allowing agents to instantly pull biometric data from multiple databases, a practice critics warn risks misidentification, racial bias, and privacy violations, has sparked lawsuits and protests, and prompted Democratic lawmakers to push legislation restricting or banning its use outside ports of entry.
Wired has confirmed that Meta blocked users on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads from sharing links to a database listing names and photos of ICE agents, citing privacy violations, as tensions rose in Minneapolis after aggressive ICE operations, with critics calling the move censorship and the Trump administration arguing the site endangers officers by effectively doxing them
A UC Berkeley analysis found that in the first nine months of the Trump administration, ICE street arrests and internal deportations surged—driven by an 11-fold increase in street arrests—resulting in a sevenfold rise in arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions as enforcement shifted away from prioritizing criminal history and detention capacity expanded.
404 Media/ Podcast research on Palantir tool tailored for ICE – ELITE:
‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid
Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activities on the ground.
Dave Aronberg, Substack 28th Jan 2026 on important Trump regime rebukes by Judge Schiltz:
First, we look at the case of Juan Hugo Tobay Robles, an Ecuadorian man wrongfully detained for weeks despite a court order. When Judge Schiltz threatened to hold Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons in contempt, the administration finally blinked and released Robles.
Then, there is the stunning attempt to arrest journalist Don Lemon for covering an anti-ICE protest inside of a Minneapolis church. Judge Schiltz and the 8th Circuit recently rejected the DOJ’s emergency bid for arrest warrants,. It’s a vital reminder that even in a aggressive ICE crackdown, the rule of law must prevail.
In Minneapolis, USA, another valuable human being has been executed.
Alex Pretti, ICU nurse, executed whilst trying to protect a woman who had been thrown to the ground by ICE agents
We are heartbroken but also very angry.
“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital.
“Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact.
“I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.
“Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs.
“He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper-sprayed.
“Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you
Sky News
ICU nurse with no criminal record who ‘cared deeply for people’: What we know about Alex Pretti, victim of DHS shooting
Alex Pretti worked as an ICU nurse and had spent time working with the Department of Veterans Affairs
Graig Graziosi in Washington, D.C.Sunday 25 January 2026 01:39 GMT
This photo is gleaned from a video the NYT verified as real, shows the execution of a helpless PRETTI by a manic, untrained, unsupervised group of ICE agents
Terrence Goggin on Substack, Jan 25th 2026:
Today is a very sad day in my household. The murder of the Intensive Care Nurse Alex Pretti, one of our own, he worked at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis taking care of the sickest of us, struck me hard. Very hard. I looked at the numerous videos of him trying to aid a female protestor. His last words to her before he was shot were “Are you all right”. He was shot helping another human being who was gassed by ICE. HE WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN BY THE VETERAN COMMUNITY. And neither will his killing. It demands justice!
Today:
Recently, seven House Democrats voted in favor of a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which includes funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This decision has sparked significant backlash from their party, as many Democrats oppose ICE’s actions and are calling for more oversight and accountability. Newsweek The Independent
The 7 are:
The seven Democratic representatives who voted yes to approve ICE funding were:
Tom Suozzi (New York)
Henry Cuellar (Texas)
Don Davis (North Carolina)
Laura Gillen (New York)
Jared Golden (Maine)
Vicente Gonzalez (Texas)
Marie Glusenkamp Perez (Washington)
Chris Murphy revealed:
Pam Bondi just sent a letter to MN officials saying ICE will leave if the state turns over its voter database to Trump.
So that is what ICE are really being tasked to do, it would seem: to implement fear, chaos, death and economical damage until a state agrees to turn over its voter database. Then the mid term elections can be manipulated.
If they continue to resist then the Insurrection Act hangs over them like the Sword of Damocles.
Just looked back at a Huffington Post article almost 2 years ago:
Ex-GOP Strategist Has A Stunningly Scathing Response To Latest Republican Loss
“Is there really any question why this party is losing?” Stuart Stevens asked.
Stevens then detailed just some of the stark issues facing the party, scathingly writing:
A party led by a rapist that believes it can fix its problem with women by attacking Taylor Swift, with weird little creeps like Mike Johnson as a public face in Congress, that has no serious policy, that has decided to abandon decades of support for freedom in Europe to back a genocidal dictator, a party that is 85% white in a 59% white country, a party that has decided higher education is a gateway drug to Socialism, that believes public health policy should be set by random freaks on the internet and not doctors, a party that is still fighting cultural wars of gender politics the rest of America ended a decade ago, a party that has replaced American optimism with anger and fear of the future.
Catch up with Stuart Stevens today on Substack, Lincoln Project.
Perpetuating the misery are Trump’s Appellate Judges:
Trump’s ‘Superstar’ Appellate Judges Have Voted 133 to 12 in His Favor
President Trump promised to fill the appeals courts with “my judges.” They have formed a nearly united phalanx to defend his agenda from legal challenges.
Mattathias Schwartz covers the federal courts. Emma Schartz has spent months tracking lawsuits challenging Donald Trump’s agenda.
Jan. 11, 2026
President Trump has found a powerful but obscure bulwark in the appeals court judges he appointed during his first term. They have voted overwhelmingly in his favor when his administration’s actions have been challenged in court in his current term, a New York Times analysis of their 2025 records shows.
Time and again, appellate judges chosen by Mr. Trump in his first term reversed rulings made by district court judges in his second, clearing the way for his policies and gradually eroding a perception early last year that the legal system was thwarting his efforts to amass presidential power.
When Mr. Trump criticized a ruling from a so-called “Obama judge” in 2018, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. responded that “we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.”
I am adding a piece from Chris Hedges’ Substack today, Jan 26 2026, entitled ‘Imperial Boomerang’:
The murders of unarmed civilians on the streets of Minneapolis, including the killing today of the intensive-care nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti, would not come as a shock to Iraqis in Fallujah or Afghans in Helmand province. They were terrorized by heavily armed American execution squads for decades. It would not come as a shock to any of the students I teach in prison. Militarized police in poor urban neighborhoods kick down doors without warrants and kill with the same impunity and lack of accountability. What the rest of us are facing now, is what Aimé Césaire called imperial boomerang. Empires, when they decay, employ the savage forms of control on those they subjugate abroad, or those demonized by the wider society in the name of law and order, on the homeland. The tyranny Athens imposed on others, Thucydides noted, it finally, with the collapse of Athenian democracy, imposed on itself. But before we became the victims of state terror, we were accomplices. Before we expressed moral outrage at the indiscriminate taking of innocent lives, we tolerated, and often celebrated, the same Gestapo tactics, as long as they were directed at those who lived in the nations we occupied or poor people of color. We sowed the wind, now we will reap the whirlwind. The machinery of terror, perfected on those we abandoned and betrayed, including the Palestinians in Gaza, is ready for us.
Greg Bovino ‘loses top job at Border Patrol’ and locked out of social media
Story by Stephen M. Lepore and Phillip Nieto
• 5h
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, one of the faces of Donald Trump‘s immigration crackdown, has been removed from his role and sent back to California.
He will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon, the Atlantic reported on Monday, citing a Homeland Security official and two people with knowledge of the change.
Bovino had his government social media accounts revoked on the orders of his boss, Border Patrol Commissioner Rodney Scott, Homeland Security sources confirmed to the Daily Mail. Bovino had spent the weekend sparring online over the shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti.
He had tweeted multiple times ‘don’t assault federal officers’ in response to people sharing positive information about Pretti.
Bovino also, in response to one account claiming that Pretti ‘never at any time produced a gun,’ wrote that ‘the SUSPECT confronted and assaulted officers and was armed while doing so.’
He even got into it with lawmakers, including Republican Thomas Massie, after the Kentucky Congressman wrote that ‘carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a Constitutionally protected God-given right and if you don’t understand this you have no business in law enforcement or government.’
Bovino responded: ‘Attacking law enforcement is not a right like you want it to be.’
The commander also wrote angrily at Republican Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico, both of whom called for independent investigations into the shooting, as well as author Stephen King.
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, one of the faces of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, has been removed from his role as ‘commander at large’
The move would be a part of a major shakeup by the Trump administration at the request of Border Czar Tom Homan
After tweeting over 40 responses to various reactions to the Pretti shooting on Saturday and Sunday, Bovino’s X account has gone silent for the past 11 hours.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said Bovino had not been fired and remained a ‘key part of the president’s team.’
Bovino – who has been dubbed ‘little Napoleon’ – and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have both been sidelined as Homan heads for Minneapolis.
He had previously served as the Chief Patrol Agent of the El Centro Sector of the Border Patrol in southern California before he was elevated during the second Trump administration.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Customs and Border Patrol for comment.
The decision is aimed at de-escalating the violence between federal agents and rioters which exploded on Saturday after the killing of Pretti, an ICU nurse.
Bovino, the controversial face of Trump’s crackdown and a close ally of Noem, sparked fury in the White House when he claimed Pretti intended to ‘massacre’ federal agents.
Bovino – who has been dubbed ‘little Napoleon’ – and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have both been sidelined as Homan (pictured) heads for Minneapolis
Bovino has reportedly lost access to his government social media accounts, after spending much of the weekend sparring online over the shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti (pictured)
Trump spent hours on Sunday and Monday watching cable news coverage and was unsettled by how the administration was being portrayed, one official told CNN.
Noem branded the ICU nurse a ‘domestic terrorist’ and claimed he brandished a firearm, sparking further frustration among administration officials.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt distanced Trump from Noem’s language on Monday, arguing that it was not a position that the President had taken.
Bovino is a loyalist to Noem and her rumored lover Corey Lewandowski, and both have quietly pushed him as a potential replacement for current Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott, a longtime ally of Homan.
Noem has sought to sideline Scott by having Bovino report directly to her, an unprecedented move within the agency.
Bovino’s removal from Minneapolis underscores Noem’s fading standing with the White House as Trump dispatches Homan and his closest allies to seize control of the operation on the ground.
A Border Patrol veteran of 30 years, Bovino was selected last year from his role as chief patrol agent of the agency’s El Centro sector in Southern California to lead highly publicized immigration crackdowns across the country.
His aggressive tactics, often highly choreographed public displays, sparked backlash from local officials.
Bovino often stood out as the only agent not wearing a face covering when Border Patrol descended on Home Depots and gas stations.
The decision is aimed at de-escalating the violence between federal agents and rioters which exploded on Saturday after the killing of Pretti, an ICU nurse
He has gone viral on social media as he is frequently spotted on the frontlines sporting a severe buzzcut and trench coat, which German media has likened to a ‘Nazi aesthetic’.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on X: ‘Greg Bovino dressed up as if he literally went on eBay and purchased SS garb. Greg Bovino, secret police, private army, masked men, people disappearing quite literally, no due process.’
Bovino hit back, claiming he had the coat for more than 25 years and it was official Border Patrol merchandise.
Jenn Budd, an author and expert on Border Patrol, described Bovino as ‘the Liberace’ of the agency.
‘He was just a little Napoleon who wants you to think that he is the most moral and capable guy in the world, and everything around you is dangerous but he’s the one who’s going to save you,’ Budd told The Times. ‘It’s all a show for him.’
He once invited journalists to watch him swim across a canal in Southern California’s Imperial Valley in a bid to deter migrants considering the crossing.
After Trump was re-elected Bovino used similar public relations expertise to catch the president’s eye.
He sent dozens of agents to arrest migrants at gas stations along the highway ahead of Trump’s inauguration.
Asked why Bovino was chosen to lead the force, McLaughlin told reporters bluntly: ‘Because he’s a badass.’
But while Bovino’s strongman image earned him Trump’s respect, his self-proclaimed ‘turn and burn’ enforcement strategies have sparked concern.
A federal judge accused Bovino in November of being ‘evasive’ and at times ‘outright lying’ in sworn testimony about an immigration crackdown in Chicago, finding his account ‘simply not credible.’
Judge Sara Ellis wrote that Bovino even admitted he lied about being hit with a rock before ordering tear gas used, and noted that video evidence flatly contradicted his claim that he never tackled a protester.
A Substack author, Ken Klippenstein, obtained reactions from experienced ICE agents about new recruits after the Pretti shooting. Here is an extract:
Though all of the federal agents I’ve spoken to this weekend support immigration enforcement, they indeed see the Minneapolis operation as something else entirely” an open-ended counterinsurgency in a faraway land and under an out-of-touch leadership in Washington more concerned with optics than immigration.
“This is a no-win situation for agents on the ground or immigration enforcement overall,” a Border Patrol agent said in the private group chat shared with me.
He closed on a plaintive note: “I think it’s time to pull out of Minnesota, that battle is lost.”
“Fuck this,” a senior ICE officer said about the shooting of Pretti.
borderslynn 
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