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FPF complaint targets prosecutor over Washington Post reporter raid
On Friday, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) filed an attorney disciplinary complaint against Gordon Kromberg, the federal prosecutor who reviewed and signed the search warrant application targeting Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson.
The complaint notes that Kromberg appears to have violated an ethical rule that requires lawyers to reveal relevant legal authority to the court, even if it undermines their arguments. Recently unsealed court records disclose what many suspected: The government failed to alert the court that authorized the warrant to the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, a federal law that, in most cases, forbids the use of search warrants for journalistic work product and documentary materials.
The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for FPF:
“Kromberg and the government omitted a federal law that should have prohibited the raid of Hannah Natanson’s home when applying for a search warrant. That choice now threatens to expose Natanson’s sources and cripple her ability to report, while also sending a warning shot to journalists and whistleblowers nationwide.
“Disciplinary bodies cannot look the other way and ignore misconduct that threatens the First Amendment, particularly from an administration with a long history of misleading judges and everyone else. When prosecutors abuse their power to facilitate efforts to silence reporting and intimidate news sources, disciplinary authorities must hold them accountable and impose real consequences.”
Freedom of the Press Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to helping support and defend public-interest journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption, and law-breaking in government. We work to preserve and strengthen the rights guaranteed to the press under the First Amendment through crowdfunding, digital security and internet advocacy.
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Trump-Heckling Auto Worker Keeps His Job and Faces No Discipline: UAW
"That's a union brother who spoke up," said UAW president Shawn Fain. "He put his constitutional rights to work. He put his union rights to work."
Feb 09, 2026
TJ Sabula, the auto worker who called President Donald Trump a “pedophile protector" last month, is reportedly keeping his job.
According to a report from the Detroit News, United Auto Workers (UAW) vice president Laura Dickerson said on Monday that Sabula is not getting fired from his job at a Ford truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan, and he will not face any discipline for his heckling of the president.
Dickerson, who discussed Sabula's case at the UAW's annual Community Action Program conference in Washington, DC, also took a shot at Trump for giving Sabula the middle finger while appearing to mouth or yell “fuck you” back at the auto worker.
"In that moment, we saw what the president really thinks about working people," Dickerson said. "As UAW members, we speak truth to power. We don't just protect rights, we exercise them."
UAW president Shawn Fain also took time during the conference to offer appreciation for Sabula, the Detroit News reported.
"That's a union brother who spoke up," said Fain. "He put his constitutional rights to work. He put his union rights to work."
Sabula, who said he decided to called Trump a "pedophile protecter" for his attempts to block the release of files related to late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, had been suspended from his job after the incident took place.
Critics of the president quickly rushed to Sabula's aid, however, as two separate GoFundMe campaigns aimed at raising money for the auto worker raked in a total of over $800,000.
In an interview published last month by the Washington Post, Sabula said he had “no regrets whatsoever” about yelling at the president, even though it led to his suspension.
“I don’t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity,” Sabula told the Post. “And today I think I did that.”
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'We Rely on Hispanic Labor': ICE Raids Trigger Economic Alarm Bells in Trump States
“What happens if everyone who is Hispanic thinks they’re at risk?”
Feb 09, 2026
Communities in two red states that voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election have found themselves being unexpectedly hurt by his mass deportation agenda.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that construction trade groups in southern Texas have been sounding the alarm about aggressive immigration raids on work sites that are leading to serious delays of projects, which in turn are raising prices for buyers and lowering profit margins for sellers.
Things have gotten so severe, wrote the Journal, that materials suppliers have started laying off workers and one concrete company filed for bankruptcy due to a drop off in sales that it blamed on the immigration raids.
Mario Guerrero, chief executive of the South Texas Builders Association, said that the raids were "terrorizing job sites," and grinding economic activity to a halt.
"They are basically taking everyone in there working, whether they have proper documentation or not," said Guerrero, who acknowledged backing Trump in the 2024 election.
Luis Rodriguez, a manager at a tile supplier called Materiales El Valle, confirmed to the Journal that immigration enforcement agents have started targeting all immigrants in the area, whereas in the past they would only detain specific people for whom they had an arrest warrant.
With workers afraid to come to their jobs, Rodriguez said he's started trying to recruit employees at local community colleges, where he has offered classes on installing tiles.
So far, he said, "nobody is coming forward" to fill the gap left by immigrant workers.
A Monday report in the New York Times similarly found that Trump's mass deportation policies have rocked the tiny town of Wilder, Idaho, which is still reeling from a federal raid that took place last year at a race track frequented by the local immigrant community.
As a result, 75 immigrants living in Wilder—just over 4% of its total population—have so far been deported.
Wilder resident David Lincoln told the Times that the raid "nearly destroyed" the community, and he said that it could have devastating impact on the town's agricultural economy once planting season begins this year.
“What happens if everyone who is Hispanic thinks they’re at risk?” Lincoln told the Times. “There’s fear now that didn’t exist here before. I don’t know how you make that go away.”
Chris Gross, a farmer in the town, expressed shock that so many members of the community have simply vanished in such a short time.
"We rely on Hispanic labor,” said Gross. "Nobody thought something like this could happen here."
Federal officials targeted Wilder for a raid after they were sent a tip from an informant about an alleged illegal gambling ring being operated at the local race track.
However, immigration attorney Neal Dougherty told the Times that the focus of the raid was clearly on immigration rather than trying to bust up an unlawful gambling operation.
“The one thing everyone got asked was, ‘Where were you born?’” Dougherty explained. “Not, ‘Did you see gambling?’ Not, ‘Did you participate in gambling?’ Just, ‘Where were you born?’”
The reporting came after a self-professed three-time Trump voter, identified only as “John in New Mexico, Republican,” called in to C-SPAN last week to apologize for previously supporting the president, whom he called a "rotten, rotten man," citing his immigration operations and racist post about the Obamas.
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‘One More Billionaire Front Group’: Centrist Dems Mocked Over New Initiative Led by Corporate Lobbyist
Next American Era will be headed by Cheri Bustos, former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who has lobbied for powerful corporations.
Feb 09, 2026
Centrist Democrats led by Cheri Bustos, a corporate lobbyist who previously headed her party's campaign arm in the US House, are launching a policy and advocacy organization aimed at pressuring Democrats to embrace the kind of "pro-growth" deregulatory agenda associated with the so-called "abundance" movement.
The new organization, named Next American Era, was formed "with an eye toward 2028" as Democrats work to recover from their crushing defeat to President Donald Trump in the 2024 elections, Axios reported Sunday, noting that the group describes itself as a "hub for center-left policy and advocacy."
Bustos, whose lobbying client list in 2025 included OpenAI and Larry Ellison's Oracle, said Next American Era plans to "air issue-focused ads during the midterm elections and the 2028 presidential campaign, but it won't endorse candidates," Axios reported.
Bustos said the founders of Next American Era share "many of the same principles as the Abundance movement," a loose assortment of organizations and individuals—including large corporations and prominent billionaires—broadly supporting views expressed by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their 2025 book Abundance.
"She said cutting red tape, streamlining regulations, and supporting workforce training are among the top policy goals of her group, which is structured as a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit," Axios reported.
Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank, called those proposed objectives "some of the weakest economic policies we've polled in the last 18 months."
"Not sure why you’d want to put ads out on these for candidates unless it’s an opp," Owens added.
pic.twitter.com/eWbdnyiNig
— Alex Jacquez (@AlexSJacquez) February 9, 2026
Abundance takes aim at what Klein and Thompson characterize as an overly burdensome regulatory approach that is purportedly hindering progress toward more affordable housing, public transportation systems, and a renewable energy revolution. Critics, such as antitrust advocate Zephyr Teachout, have criticized the so-called abundance agenda as far too ambiguous.
"I still can’t tell after reading Abundance whether Klein and Thompson are seeking something fairly small-bore and correct (we need zoning reform) or nontrivial and deeply regressive (we need deregulation) or whether there is room within abundance for anti-monopoly politics and a more full-throated unleashing of American potential," Teachout wrote in her review of the book for Washington Monthly.
Critics have also noted the enthusiasm with which corporations and billionaires have glommed onto the abundance narrative.
"The ambiguity of the abundance agenda’s policy proposals, strategic or otherwise, allows private interests to leverage 'abundance' as a Trojan Horse for their preferences," the Revolving Door Project observed last year. "The growing abundance movement has institutional support from fossil fuel and Big Tech affiliates, including the sprawling Koch network and crypto and AI industry players."
Axios observed that Next American Era is one of "several center-left groups" that "have popped up or expanded in the past 18 months, including the think tank Searchlight Institute, Majority Democrats, and WelcomePAC."
"Just one more billionaire front group. Just one more neoliberal policy shop," reporter and political analyst Austin Ahlman wrote mockingly on social media in response to the launch of Next American Era. "Just one more polling outfit cooking the numbers on behalf of corporate interests and we’ll win bro, I promise."
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