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dan goldman
Trump Gets Testy With Reporter Over Epstein Case as House Dems Demand Answers From DOJ
"Stop protecting your boss... publicly release all documents in the Epstein files that mention or reference Donald Trump," wrote House Democrats to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Jul 08, 2025
President Donald Trump responded heatedly to a White House reporter on Tuesday after they asked Attorney General Pam Bondi questions about the late billionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
During a cabinet meeting, Bondi was asked if she had any information about whether Epstein was an asset who had been used by American intelligence agencies to compromise powerful people.
Bondi began to respond to the question but Trump quickly interrupted.
"Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?" the president demanded to know. "This guy's been talked about for years! We have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things, and are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable... I mean, I can't believe that you're asking a question about Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration."
Trump: Are you still talking about Epstein?!? This guy has been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this creep? I can’t believe you’re asking a question about Epstein… pic.twitter.com/cYRuR1XHwr
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 8, 2025
Epstein, whose 2019 death while in prison was ruled a suicide, cultivated relationships with several high-profile public figures, including former President Bill Clinton, former Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, the Duke of York Prince Andrew, and Trump himself.
It had long been rumored that Epstein had a "client" list of powerful men to whom he had trafficked underaged girls and that he'd kept videos of their encounters to be used as blackmail material. However, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this week asserted that there was never an Epstein client list, that there was "no credible evidence... that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals," and that there was no evidence that "could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties."
The DOJ and FBI's new report on Epstein caused a political firestorm that upset even some of Trump's right-wing media allies such as conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and now The Guardian is reporting that Democrats in the House of Representatives are also demanding answers.
Specifically, The Guardian writes that House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and 15 other House Democrats have sent a letter to Bondi demanding that the DOJ hand over information from the Epstein case files related to the president.
"Stop protecting your boss and former client... publicly release all documents in the Epstein files that mention or reference Donald Trump,” the Democrats wrote.
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Lawsuit Aims to End 'Systematic' Snatching of Brown-Skinned People by Trump Agents
"These guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end," one attorney in the case said of Department of Homeland Security agents.
Jul 02, 2025
Immigrant rights defenders in California on Wednesday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, accusing the Trump administration of "abducting and disappearing community members using unlawful stop and arrest practices and confining individuals at a federal building in illegal conditions while denying them access to attorneys" as part of its mass deportation effort.
The lawsuit was brought by five individual workers, three advocacy groups, and a legal services provider: The Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers (UFW), the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), and Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Their complaint accuses DHS of unconstitutionally arresting and detaining people, according to the ACLU, which is assisting with the legal challenge, "in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration."
According to the complaint:
The raids in this district follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from. If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody. In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind. If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.
"DHS—at explicit direction from the Trump administration—has gone after day laborers, car wash workers, farm workers, street vendors, service workers, nannies, and others who form the lifeblood of communities across Southern California," said ACLU Foundation of Southern California senior staff attorney Mohammad Tajsar, who is representing plaintiffs in the case. "Everyone deserves to feel safe going about their daily lives. DHS must stop disappearing people from our communities."
Tajsar told the Los Angeles Times that "these guys are popping up, rampant all over the city, just taking people randomly, and we want that particular practice to end."
Alvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center and a plaintiff's attorney in the suit, said in a statement that "the federal government is waging a campaign of terror across Southern California, abducting community members off the streets and warehousing them in deplorable conditions away from their loved ones, all while denying them access to legal counsel."
"It's blatantly unconstitutional, cruelly inhumane, and a violation of any common decency," Huerta added. "If the Trump administration insists on trampling Angelenos' rights, we'll see them in court."
Plaintiffs in the case—who are seeking to represent people subjected to random stops and arrests—are asking the court to certify the case as a class action. They have also requested preliminary and permanent injunctions barring further violations of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and self-incrimination, as enshrined in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, respectively.
As the lawsuit notes, "one of the clearest patterns that have emerged in the raids in Southern California... has been stops and interrogations... on the basis of apparent race and ethnicity."
"These raids have targeted the most vulnerable members of our workforce, essential workers who are the backbone of our local economy," said Los Angeles Worker Center Network executive director Armando Gudino. "We cannot allow racial profiling, warrantless arrests, and denial of due process to become the standard operating procedure in our communities."
DHS has been holding arrested people in the basement of a federal building in downtown Los Angeles commonly referred to as B-18. The lockup has no beds, showers, or medical facilities, according to the ACLU of Southern California. Furthermore, B-18 is meant to hold only a small number of people on a temporary basis while they are processed.
"We have heard from over 100 families of Individuals taken to B-18 and other detention centers that attest to their loved ones being kept in overcrowded, cold, and inhumane conditions," said CHIRLA executive director Angelica Salas. "They are held in small windowless rooms with dozens or more other detainees, in extremely cramped quarters while being verbally humiliated and pressured into signing papers they don't understand."
The ACLU of Southern California said: "The ongoing raids have led to the disappearance of more than 1,500 people. The suit details how federal agents consistently refuse to identify themselves or what agency they are with when asked, using anonymity as a tactic to shield lawlessness."
UFW president Teresa Romero noted in a statement that "the raids in the greater Los Angeles area have not been limited to the urban center; we have also seen horrific instances of Border Patrol agents chasing down farm workers in the fields of Ventura County. The spouse of a UFW member was among those unjustly detained."
"Now the very workers who feed America go to work in fear," she added. "Their American-born children are scared not knowing if their parents will come home. Farm workers deserve better. We've seen these unconstitutional and un-American tactics before, with Border Patrol targeting random farm workers and anyone with brown skin in Kern County during their large sweep in January. We sued then and we are suing now."
While U.S. President Donald Trump, members of his administration, and Republican lawmakers and supporters claim the DHS crackdown is targeting dangerous criminals, critics have noted that people legally seeking asylum, families, relatives of American citizens, and even citizens themselves have been swept up in the mass deportation dragnet.
According to the libertarian Cato Institute, 65% of people taken by ICE had no criminal conviction whatsoever and 93% had no conviction for violent offenses.
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'No Secret Police Act': Democratic Bill Would Ban Trump's Masked Federal Agents
"If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous," said Rep. Adriano Espaillat.
Jun 26, 2025
From the abductions of foreign students Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil to the violent accosting of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander as he was trying to shield an immigrant from arrest at a courthouse, the images have become familiar to many Americans: masked federal agents descending on communities across the U.S. and arresting citizens and immigrants alike.
Two Democratic lawmakers on Thursday demanded an end to the Trump administration's use of "secret police," introducing legislation that would require all law enforcement officers and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—to clearly display identification and their official badges when detaining or arresting people.
"If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous," said U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.). "DHS and ICE agents wearing masks and hiding identification echoes the tactics of secret police authoritarian regimes—and deviates from the practices of local law enforcement, which contributes to confusion in communities."
Espaillat was joined by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) in introducing the No Secret Police Act, which would also direct Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to conduct research and development to enhance the visibility of official insignia and identification.
"Across the country, plain-clothed federal agents in homemade face coverings are lying in wait outside immigration courts to snatch law-abiding, nonviolent immigrants going through our legal system the right way," said Goldman. "This isn't about protecting law enforcement, it's about terrorizing immigrant communities."
The legislation was introduced a day after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed during a Senate hearing that she hadn't been aware of federal agents' recent practice under the Trump administration of wearing masks while completing law enforcement work.
PETERS: How are you gonna ensure the safety of the public & officers if they continue to not follow required protocol to ID themselves as law enforcement?BONDI: That's the first that issue has come to me. You're saying officers when they cover their faces? I do know they are being doxxed.
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) June 25, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Todd Lyons, ICE's acting director, also said recently that the agency's officers "wear masks for personal protection and to prevent doxxing."
But as New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote Wednesday, "ICE has no right to anonymity."
"All people engaged in public service, from the president to an officer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are bound by the nature of a public office to act with some fidelity to the public interest," wrote Bouie. "At a minimum, they must be accountable to the people they serve, ready to accept responsibility when they abuse their power or violate the trust of the public."
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, said that by granting ICE agents anonymity, the Trump administration has begun "a war on immigrant communities carried out in the shadows... an unconstitutional campaign of terror."
"Armed, unmarked federal agents are stalking immigrants outside courtrooms and targeting people who are following the rules and fighting for their lives. These tactics are ripped straight from an authoritarian playbook," said Awawdeh. "We will not be silenced nor intimidated by these actions. We are on the right side of the law and we will fight tooth and nail to end this assault on our people and our democracy. We call for the swift passage of the No Secret Police Act."
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