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The spot where the body of Joan Sebastian Guerrero lay after ICE murdered him
Further

ICE Is Still Killing People. Susan Is Still Concerned.

In their second fatal shooting of the wrong person in just days - and as his three-year-old daughter watched - ICE thugs murdered a young Colombian husband and father legally working in Biddeford, ME for simply trying to driving away. After state Dems blasted the killing and advocates insisted "this has gone too far," ICE waited 12 hours to say they fired "fearing for public safety" while "every law enforcement officer in America was scratching their head trying to figure out what that means."

Talk about following the money. Having somehow railroaded through last year's big obscene bill gifting over $170 billion to immigration and border enforcement - and last month inexplicably adding another $75 billion, seven times ICE’s annual budget (thanks Susan), with virtually no public accounting of how they spend it - the regime is now scurrying to spend their blood money by setting random, armed-to-the-teeth, 2,000-arrests-a-day benchmarks of what have become mere numbers of bodies in an ethnic cleansing of immigrants, brown and black people, or anyone standing near them. What could possibly go wrong?

For starters, a record-breaking mortality rate of 11 people fatally shot, over 20 other deaths in custody, over 70,000 mostly harmless people in concentration-camp-like detention, and a "systemic failure" of accountability. A new report by Physicians for Human Rights and Berkeley's Human Rights Center just added more: At least 412 incidents of "misuse" of brutal crowd-control tactics - teargas, pepper spray, "less-lethal kinetic impact projectiles" from rubber bullets to stun grenades - resulting in over 200 "lasting and traumatic injuries" including blindings, brain trauma, fractures often to journalists, elderly people, children.

As Maine goes, so goes the nation. Monday's murder of 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero came after ICE's relatively brief, grotesquely named Operation Catch of the Day last year that saw the arrest of over 500 people, most with no criminal records. Originally from Bucaramanga, Colombia, Guerrero was legally authorized to be here, worked two jobs, had a Social Security card and was going to a delivery job. After some initial confusion/lies, the regime said he was not the intended target of the endlessly inept, homicidal ICE goons; nor were any wearing body cameras that Congress had appropriated $20 million for.

The same lethal incompetence marked last week's murder in Houston TX of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three who'd spent 35 years building homes and raising his U.S. citizen kids, all of whom he helped get through college. He was shot and killed by ICE agents who said he "weaponized" his vehicle; it took about 5 minutes for Araujo's three passengers, who'd witnessed it all and were quickly detained for it, to refute the claim. So did video footage of the deadly encounter. Again, the goons had the wrong guy - and outdated address info - and none were wearing body cameras Congress generously allocated for them.

On Pool Street in Biddeford, a small southern mill city of about 22,000 with a long immigrant history, marauding ICE agents in an SUV rammed the small white Kia Guerrero was driving to work shortly after 7 a.m. Video shows Guerrero, evidently fearful after armed men rammed him, turning his car around and trying to drive away. ICE agents fired what witnesses said were up to seven shots, and at least four smashed through his windshield - though law enforcement guidelines clearly prohibit firing at a moving vehicle unless there is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, and call for police to (duh) just move away.

A neighbor said he heard a “pop, pop, pop,” looked out his window and saw the car still slowly moving until the SUV hit it again. After the Kia came to a stop, witnesses said Guerrero, bleeding from his head, was pulled from his car; several heard him say, "I tried to stop." Gruesome video shows ICE thugs handcuffing him on the ground, where his soon-lifeless body lay for five hours. Horrified witnesses said goons "yelled" at his young daughter, still in Bluey pajamas, trying to smell some nearby flowers. "I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body," said one. "I watched a little girl with a pink backpack crying because she’s never going to see her father again.”

One upset neighbor said an ICE agent claimed, "He tried to run me over." But here, as elsewhere, ICE has "lost the benefit of the doubt," and the city erupted in grief and rage. By mid-day, hundreds of pissed Mainers had marched, chanting "Whose Streets, Our Streets," to rally in Mechanics Park with signs: "Crush ICE," "Due Process For All," "Immigrants Make Biddeford Great," "Extrajudicial Killings Are A War Crime, and "Is This the America We Want?" Sadie Dilboy said Guerrero often came to her laundromat, giving his daughter quarters to buy vending-machine candy: "He was such a good person. He was always cleaning up.” A worker at Applebee’s, where Guerrero often picked up orders, would always ask if we needed anything: "He was always a good smile to see,” thus clearly "one of those dangerous criminal aliens who have turned America into a living hell."

Later, a crowd of protesters swarmed the local office of Susan Collins with fierce chants of "Vote her out!." One prominent sign, speaking for us all, proclaimed, "Get the Fuck Out." Collins, forever on the wrong and bloody side of history and drunken rapists, was the deciding vote last month to approve the extra, mind-boggling $75 billion in ICE funding, though most Mainers want to see it abolished. Last year, after the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, she voted against both language seeking to curtail further violence and funding for mandatory body cameras, which most thugs are clearly not wearing anyway.

In the wake of yet another senseless murder on America's streets in broad daylight, a presumably very concerned Collins urged "a full and impartial investigation." She did not condemn ICE’s actions, nor did she voice sympathy for the man whose life was just snuffed out. Her staff later cited her vote for a few measures - optional body cameras, more oversight of concentration camps, a paltry $2 million for "de-escalation training" - for better ICE "accountability." As local police blocked her office door, they also noted ICE's "work goes far beyond immigration enforcement to help protect our country" - from brown-skinned delivery drivers, taco makers, contractors, landscapers, nurses, abuelas and kids with cancer. So fuck Susan Collins.

GOP gubernatorial nominee Bobby Charles cravenly echoed her: "Maine deserves the truth about what happened." He also urged there be ”no getting ahead of the facts - let facts, not politics, drive our conclusions," adding, "Federal agents put their lives on the line every day...If an agent's life was threatened, he had every right under the law to protect himself" - presumably from brown delivery drivers, contractors, sick kids et al. So fuck him too. He wants facts? Being here legally and driving to work should not cause death by rogue morons looking for someone else. Guerrero lay in the street for five hours. His government didn't bother to name him for almost a day, but his neighbors did. We hope his daughter gets the therapy she'll need.

The largest, darkest question: "How many more people 'not the target' will die before someone in Washington decides the answer to a wrong-vehicle stop cannot be seven rounds through a windshield?" Tuesday, ICE told their goons to suspend most vehicle stops around the country; they declined to disclose "law enforcement tactics" but said they're "always evaluating our procedures to (keep) criminals off our streets," in which case they should probably remove all their own sociopaths. But they likely won't. The outrage was nationwide - "ICE murdered a 26-year-old in front of his wife & daughter. It’s just pure evil" - and global. Colombian President Gustavo Petro: "He was killed because he was believed to be an inferior being with no rights."

Hopefully, his death will impact the electoral chances of Susan Collins, who funded it. Happily, Maine Dems were unshy about voicing their rage at her abetting ICE violence that’s gone on too long. Gov. Janet Mills: “This has to end.” Senate candidate Dr. Nirav Shah, who urged support for immigrants through the Maine Solidarity Fund, blasted Collins for approving billions more for ICE to "terrorize our communities...She gave them a blank check to kill. Maybe sit this one out.” In an angry video, Rep. Chellie Pingree asked ICE, "Why are you in Maine?" given "every report we hear is somebody picked up who's legally here. It's time to get ICE off our streets."

Troy Jackson, a top Senate contender to replace Graham Platner and the only one polls show beating Collins (though several come close) attended a Portland protest Monday, charging "our immigrant communities are under attack" by a rogue ICE that must be abolished. Advocates also argued, "Our communities are hurting." Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition head Mufalo Chita: "We are furious, and we will not allow this death to be treated as routine or inevitable." Crystal Cron of Presente!, on another family "shattered by state violence": “To say we are heartbroken does not convey the depth of the exhaustion, terror, or grief we are feeling."

Maine authorities have struggled to get information from the feds, unsurprising given they just, finally turned over to Minnesota investigators evidence from the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. It took over 12 hours, till Monday night, for ICE to name their victim and say, in fascist gobbledygook, "an illegal alien" tried to "flee" during "a targeted surveillance" and a goon, "fearing for public safety," "discharged his weapon.” Notably, there was no claim of a driver "weaponizing" his vehicle, leaving national law enforcement "stunned" as to why anyone fired: “If you want to arrest someone, this is a good example of how to do everything wrong."

Murdering brown people in cold blood for no reason is likewise a good example of how to topple democratic governance and the rule of law. “Does the senseless murder of this man make any of our lives better in any way?" asked Kelli Brennan of the Maine State Nurses Association. Critics argue every member of Congress who voted for more money for ICE or DHS has blood on their hands; so do their supporters. During last spring's shutdown, Susan Collins, that act's deciding vote, whined it wasn't "fair" to those thugs to have a "cloud of uncertainty" over whether they'd be paid. “They are keeping us safe,” she mewled. Fuck Susan Collins and the incomparable real-world damage she's done. Vote like your life and many others depend on it, because they do. Fundraiser here.

 Johan Sebasti\u00e1n Dur\u00e1n Guerrero and his daughter Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero and his daughterPhoto from Facebook

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In 'Death Knell for America's Wildlife,' Trump Admin Guts Habitat Protections for Endangered Species
News

In 'Death Knell for America's Wildlife,' Trump Admin Guts Habitat Protections for Endangered Species

President Donald Trump's administration on Friday paved the way for letting US corporations destroy the habitats of endangered species by rescinding a longtime interpretation of the Endangered Species Act.

As reported by The New York Times, the Interior Department and the Commerce Department announced that they were narrowing the law's definition of what constitutes harming endangered species.

Whereas the law has for decades been interpreted as protecting endangered animals' habitats from significant "modification or degradation," the administration said that offenders would have to directly injure or kill an endangered animal to be considered in violation of the law.

"The change could open the door for fossil fuel companies, agricultural interests, land developers, and others," wrote the Times, "to disturb or even destroy the habitats of vulnerable species."

The Endangered Species Act has been interpreted as protecting animals' habitats for decades, and that interpretation upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1995.

Environmental advocates expressed horror in response to the rule change, which they said would put endangered species at unprecedented risk.

Kristen Boyles, attorney for Earthjustice, vowed that the administration would face legal challenges for its rule change, which she said would jeopardize endangered animals' ability to "raise their young, or search for food."

"Let’s be clear: There is no support for the Trump Administration’s rule—no scientific support, no legal support, no public support," Boyles said. "We will see the Trump Administration in court."

Ben Greuel, wildlife campaign manager at the Sierra Club, called the rule changed "a direct attack on the foundation of the Endangered Species Act" that, if kept in place, would put species "on a path to extinction."

"This rule ignores that reality in an unlawful attempt to open the door for corporate polluters to degrade vitally important habitats, wildlife be damned," Greuel emphasized. "The Endangered Species Act is a bedrock law that must be followed."

Tara Zuardo, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, pointed out that "habitat destruction is the number one threat to endangered species," while calling the Trump administration's new policy "a death knell for America’s wildlife."

"If animals don’t have a place to live, they can’t live," Zuardo said. "Spotted owls, Atlantic salmon, Florida panthers, and thousands of other species need protections for the wild places where they make their homes."

Andrew Bowman, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, accused the Trump administration of embracing an "erroneous and nonsensical interpretation" of the Endangered Species Act that he vowed to challenge in court.

"We intend to fight back with the full force of the law," said Bowman, "to defeat this attack and innumerable others by the administration on the statutes and regulations that protect America’s cherished wildlife."

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Block the Merger pin
News

'No One Is Above the Law': 12 States Sue to Block Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger

In filing an antitrust lawsuit against Paramount Skydance over its proposed $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, 12 state attorneys general on Monday deployed a legal tactic successfully used in 2022 to block another megamerger pushed by book publisher Simon & Schuster.

States including California, New York, Colorado, and Washington argued in the lawsuit that should the merger be approved, just one massive corporation would control more than 30% of anticipated top-grossing blockbuster films with large budgets and audiences, while just four distributors—Paramount, Disney, Universal, and Sony—would control more than 90% of those films.

In 2022, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) argued successfully that Simon & Schuster's proposed acquisition of Penguin Random House would harm competition among book publishers as they vied for the rights to books anticipated to be bestsellers.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the coalition of states in the biggest legal challenge against the merger thus far, said that "the unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the US."

The lawsuit also argues that after the proposed merger, just three distribution companies would control 75% of wide-release theatrical films and 27% of the market in licensing for basic cable television channels.

The merger, said the attorneys general in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, would violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which bars business mergers and acquisitions that substantially lessen competition or create a monopoly.

"In this country, no one is above the law," said Bonta. "With this lawsuit, California and our sister states are fighting for free and fair markets, not rigged markets. America has no kings in government or our economy.”

New York Mayor Zohran Mamadani expressed pride that his state was fighting the deal, which he said "is not a merger that serves the public."

The media advocacy group Free Press emphasized that along with reducing competition among film distribution companies, the merger would create a "media colossus" that would also include control over CBS—taken over by Skydance Media CEO David Ellison last year after his company merged with Paramount—and CNN.

The merger would give tech mogul Larry Ellison and his family—allies of President Donald Trump's administration—"the power to shape public discourse at the president’s direction in exchange for the administration’s regulatory approval," said Free Press. "That’s why administration officials like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have openly rooted for the Ellisons to obtain CNN, based on their documented promises to make 'sweeping changes' to the network to please Trump."

Following the Ellisons' takeover of CBS, the leadership of newly appointed right-wing editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has been condemned by First Amendment advocates as Weiss has sought to remake CBS News—spiking a "60 Minutes" segment on Trump's mass deportations and firing the leadership of the flagship investigative news show.

“President Trump and his cronies want to rush this anti-competitive deal through because David Ellison has demonstrated time and again that he will leverage his control of his media empire to silence Trump’s critics and amplify MAGA propaganda," said Free Press co-CEO Jessica González, thanking the state attorneys general for their legal challenge. "That’s corruption, plain and simple. Any merger of this scale would diminish creativity and diversity in entertainment, weaken journalists’ ability to hold those in power accountable, and further endanger our democracy."

"This is especially true when the Ellisons are in charge," said González. "To win approval for their takeover of CBS News, the Ellisons promised to gut hard-hitting reporting across the network—and have gleefully followed through. And they’ll do the same to undermine editorial independence at CNN if they gain control of the global news network."

Although Paramount's proposed merger has already been approved by 20 countries and regions globally, and Trump's DOJ claimed the creation of an even larger media empire was "not likely to harm competition or American consumer,” regulators in the United Kingdom and the European Union have leaned toward looking more closely at the deal. The lawsuit, said González, "means that this corrupt merger is far from a done deal."

"While the administration won’t take a stand against the president’s billionaire cronies, we can still stop the Ellisons’ power grab," said González. "While Paramount is flaunting its corruption and toasting Trump officials, we’re standing with the workers and artists at the heart of the news and entertainment industries—and with the American people, who deserve a diverse and independent media system that works on their behalf, and against the self-interest of greedy billionaires and unethical politicians.”

The lawsuit also followed a series of town halls held in Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta by the American Economic Liberties Project, titled "Main Street vs. the Merger." Anti-monopoly advocates heard from entertainment workers, small business owners, and others who would be impacted by the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal.

Comedian Adam Conover warned at one town hall that the merger would lead to higher streaming prices, and writers and other media workers shared fears that the deal would lead to mass layoffs.

"I spent the last month meeting with the workers and business owners who’d be hit with this deal,” said Alvaro Bedoya, senior adviser at American Economic Liberties Project, on Monday. “The rich guys who run Paramount can say what they want, but the people who actually work for them know that this will kill jobs and screw over the small businesses that are the lifeblood of this industry. I hope the states win and win fast, because these people need it.”

Lawsuits challenging mergers typically take at least several months and up to a year to be decided by a judge, and the states are asking the companies to freeze the proposed merger deal—which was set to close in the third quarter of 2026—which the case is being adjudicated. California also said it would seek a temporary restraining order if the companies did not agree to pause the deal.

Paramount has agreed to pay Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders $650 million for each quarter the deal isn't finalized, starting in October.

“This illegal merger would mean layoffs for artists and workers, higher prices for consumers, and the death of Hollywood,” said Matt Stoller, research director at American Economic Liberties Project. “State enforcers have done the right thing in seeking to block it. It is time to stop oligarchs from strip-mining our culture and selling America off for parts. Blocking this megamerger is the first step in doing so.”

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'World's Most Famous Sore Loser': Ossoff Delivers Preemptive Smackdown of Trump's Election Speech
News

'World's Most Famous Sore Loser': Ossoff Delivers Preemptive Smackdown of Trump's Election Speech

Sen. Jon Ossoff on Thursday delivered a preemptive rebuttal to President Donald Trump's planned Thursday night speech on election security in the United States.

While speaking with reporters, Ossoff (D-Ga.) predicted that Trump would use the speech to once again peddle lies about the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden.

"Here's what's going to happen tonight," Ossoff began. "The world's most famous sore loser will deliver a primetime presidential sour-grapes address to pursue his six-year-old grievances about the 2020 election, while his war in the Middle East spirals out of control, the cost of living continues to rise for Americans across the country."

The Georgia Democrat said he expected Trump to "reheat debunked conspiracy theories" about the 2020 election, while all but daring the president to declare the results in his home state illegitimate.

"Let me be very clear about this," said Ossoff, who was elected in 2020 and is up for reelection this year. "If the president declares Georgia's elections illegitimate, or if the president declares Georgia's sitting United States senators illegitimate, he is declaring Georgia voters illegitimate."

Ossoff then reminded reporters that it was Trump who attempted to steal the 2020 election when he called Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asked him to "find" the votes necessary to overturn Biden's victory in the state.

"It's Donald Trump who tried to defraud Georgia voters in that election," the senator said, "Donald Trump who tried to commit election fraud."

Ossoff's broadside against Trump's 2020 election lies came one day after he cornered Jay Clayton, Trump's nominee to be the next director of national intelligence, during a Senate confirmation hearing over his refusal to say who won the 2020 election.

"Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question?" Ossoff asked Clayton at one point. "To have to indulge the president’s delusions?"

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Partner of man killed by ICE agent in Biddeford speaks out publicly for the first time
News

Johan Sebastián Guerrero ‘Had So Many Dreams Left to Fulfill,’ Says Wife of Man Killed by ICE in Maine

Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero "always dreamed big, and he had so many dreams left to fulfill," said Martha Karolina Rojas Alvarez Thursday evening, three days after she and the couple's 3-year-old daughter saw Guerrero's body lying in the street outside their home in Biddeford, Maine, moments after he was fatally shot by a federal agent.

Alvarez, joined by her husband's sister and the family's translator, wanted to make a public statement about Guerrero's killing "to ensure that Johan Sebastián’s memory does not become a casualty of the same people who so needlessly took his life," said Benjamin Gideon, her attorney.

The grieving 23-year-old widow talked about her husband's devotion to their young daughter, Dulce, who she said now "asks for Papá, and I don’t have the strength to tell her that Papá isn’t coming, that she can't hug him anymore or tell him, ‘Papi, I love you.'"

“From the moment he held her in his arms and held her tiny hand, he never let her go,” Alvarez said, adding that her daughter had a daily morning ritual of calling out "to Papá to tell him she was awake and had slept well."

"He always worked so that his gordita, as he called her, would never go without," she said through tears.

Alvarez also described Guerrero's dedication to their marriage, saying he spoke to her of growing to be “little old people” together.

“He always said I was his life, and that he dreamed of a whole lifetime with me," she said. "He was always happy, and his joy was contagious... He loved to work, and he couldn't stand sitting still. From the moment we met, we never separated again. We were always one."

Alvarez's remarks on her husband echoed the accounts of many of the family's neighbors. A resident named Wendy told the Portland Press Herald that Guerrero, who was 25, had a connection with her special needs son.

“We as a nation and we as a community have to answer a simple question: Do we accept the idea that innocent, loving partners and loving and devoted fathers of 3-year-olds can be collateral damage to this government’s policies?”

“The way that he interacted with my son was really beautiful,” she told the newspaper. A local mail carrier said the young family was always together.

Julio Mosquera, a friend and former co-worker of Guerrero's, told The New York Times, “All he did was work and talk about his little girl."

Witnesses reported that Alvarez and her daughter, still dressed in her pajamas, came out of their house and saw Guerrero's body in the street after he was shot early Monday morning. Nelson Elias, a neighbor who knew Guerrero from their delivery jobs, told the Maine Morning Star he saw the mother and child sitting in the street, crying.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has acknowledged that the young father, who worked as a cleaner at a veterinary clinic as well as delivering groceries, was not the target of the investigation that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were carrying out in Biddeford on Monday.

Alvarez spoke out the same day that the ex-wife of the ICE agent who shot Guerrero, David Michael Brouillette, told the Press Herald that Brouillette was abusive and had claimed the shooting was "justified... because the guy tried to hit him with his car.”

"He was asking me to lie for him and to cover for his character,” Ashley Brouillette told the Press Herald. “I told him that I was not going to lie for him."

She said she had seen video footage of the shooting and had told her ex-husband, “Nowhere in there does it show that this man charged at you with a car.”

Investigators have not yet released precise details of the shooting at the intersection of Hill and Pool Streets in Biddeford.

Gideon said Thursday that Guerrero simply pulled out of his driveway to leave for work while the ICE agents were in the area, allegedly conducting surveillance on another person who was subject to a deportation order, and was fatally shot.

A spokesperson for ICE said Guerrero "attempted to flee the scene and fearing for public safety an officer discharged his weapon."

Fleeing a scene is not grounds for a law enforcement agent to use force or discharge a weapon, according to Department of Justice policy.

Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, where Guerrero grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in the city of Bucaramanga, has denounced the young man's killing, saying Tuesday that "what has happened in Maine is a murder of a Colombian, a Latin American, at the hands of the US government."

Despite the fact that Guerrero was not the target of the agency's surveillance, DHS has appeared eager to claim the shooting was part of legitimate immigration enforcement operations. The agency claimed Wednesday that Guerrero entered the US without authorization in September 2023, and said his work authorization—issued by the Trump administration, according to Gideon—did not "confer legal status in the United States."

On Thursday, Gideon said that “we as a nation and we as a community have to answer a simple question: Do we accept the idea that innocent, loving partners and loving and devoted fathers of 3-year-olds can be collateral damage to this government’s policies?”

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JD Vance, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner
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Iran Accuses Kushner, Witkoff of Pursuing Profits Over Peace in Diplomatic Talks

Iranian officials reportedly warned US Vice President JD Vance late last month that two officials leading the Trump administration's diplomatic efforts in the Middle East—special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner—were trying to profit from their proximity to critical negotiations rather than working to secure a lasting peace agreement.

According to Drop Site, which cited an unnamed Iranian official, "Iran conveyed to Vance that the pair were more interested in exploiting insider knowledge of the negotiations to profit in financial markets than they were in reaching a deal." The Iranian side also "expressed concern about repeated leaks from Kushner to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."

Iranians estimated that people with inside information have raked in $9 billion in profits stemming from financial market moves related to the US-Israeli war on Iran, which sparked significant volatility in energy and equity prices.

On several occasions during the war, massive trading volumes have closely preceded major conflict-related announcements by US President Donald Trump. (Kushner is Trump's son-in-law, and Witkoff is a close personal friend of the president.)

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian Parliament and the country's top negotiator, accused the Trump administration in March of peddling "fake news" to "manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped."

According to Drop Site, Iranians "conveyed through intermediaries" that $4.5 billion of profits allegedly accumulated through market manipulation should be "allocated to the Iranian side."

“The exchanged texts will ultimately become part of the historical record," said the unnamed Iranian official.

The Trump administration denied that Vance received messages from the Iranian side related to Kushner and Witkoff, and accused Drop Site journalists of being "so filled with hate for America and devoid of respect for themselves that they have become full-throated propagandists for the Iranian regime."

Concerns that Kushner and Witkoff's personal and familial financial interests could influence their approach to diplomatic talks are hardly new.

"The public has no reason to trust Jared Kushner’s integrity as a government official to put their interests above his financial benefit," Donald Sherman, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said after Trump formally named Kushner a special peace envoy in February.

Less than a month later, The New York Times reported that Kushner was trying to raise at least $5 billion in funding for his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, from Middle East governments. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is the largest investor in Affinity.

Witkoff, a real estate investor, has also faced scrutiny for potentially massive conflicts of interest.

Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) noted during a House hearing last month that Witkoff "co-founded the cryptocurrency venture firm World Liberty Financial, alongside President Trump and President Trump’s children."

Stanton continued:

Days before Trump’s second inauguration, a firm controlled by a member of the royal family of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Tahnoon, bought a 49% stake in the company. That was a $500 million investment. $31 million of that went straight to the Witkoff family.

Witkoff was still a financial stakeholder in World Liberty as he was simultaneously leading high-level US government negotiations in his role as special envoy. One of those negotiations was over the export of America’s most advanced AI chips to the UAE, negotiations personally attended by Sheikh Tahnoon.

Drop Site's reporting came as the Trump administration on Wednesday expanded its aerial assault on Iran, hitting targets in the northern part of the country as the prospect of a negotiated resolution appeared increasingly remote. Recent US strikes have killed more than 30 people and wounded hundreds of others, according to Iranian officials.

Iran said it retaliated with strikes on US military installations in the region, including in Kuwait and Bahrain.

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