SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
robert garcia
See the 19 Photos House Oversight Democrats Just Released From Epstein's Estate
"These disturbing images raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world."
Dec 12, 2025
US House Committee on Oversight and Reform Democrats on Friday released 19 of the 95,000 new photos they just received from the estate of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the Department of Justice is preparing to release its files from the federal case against President Donald Trump's former friend following votes in Congress.
"These disturbing images raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world," the committee's Democrats said on social media, with a link to the photos, all of which Common Dreams has included below, on Dropbox. "Time to end this White House cover-up. Release the files!"
The photos feature sex toys, Trump condoms, and high-profile figures including the president, film director Woody Allen, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, billionaires Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, previously known as Prince Andrew of United Kingdom.
The committee's Democrats received the photos on Thursday night and have reviewed "maybe about 25,000... so far," Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) told CNBC. "There's an enormous amount of photos we have not gone through... It will take days and weeks to ensure that we got those photos and that a redaction is done in the appropriate way."
"Obviously there are photos of powerful men, and folks that we want to have an opportunity to speak with and ask questions of,” Garcia said, noting that some shots Epstein took himself and others may have been sent to him. "Some of the other photos that we did not put out today are incredibly disturbing."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Senate Report Shares Stories of US Citizens Assaulted, Unconstitutionally Detained by DHS
"Masked ICE and CPB agents chillingly seizing Americans isn't the nation we know and cherish," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal. "Totalitarian tactics have no place in our democracy."
Dec 09, 2025
Despite US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's claim that "no American citizens have been arrested or detained" as part of the Trump administration's violent and widely condemned immigration operations, ProPublica has tracked more than 170 cases, and a Senate report released Tuesday shares the stories of 22 of them.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released Unchecked Authority: Examining the Trump Administration's Extrajudicial Immigration Detentions of US Citizens ahead of a public forum with House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and five Americans unconstitutionally detained by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents.
"While the second Trump administration has been marked by brazen lawlessness in many areas, the daily drumbeat of shocking stories detailing the behavior of federal immigration officials has been particularly chilling," the report states.
"The subcommittee's findings add to a growing body of evidence that the Trump administration is seeking to build a nationwide paramilitary force with vast resources that lawlessly detains citizens based on its own whims—an effort which has a number of unfortunate and obvious historical parallels," the publication continues.
"They couldn't even agree who had authority over me because none of them did. I was never arrested. Never charged. Never given an explanation. Never given an apology."
The report also notes that the testimonies included "represent only a subset of the likely hundreds of American citizens who have been unlawfully detained," and "also do not account for the many green-card holders, visa recipients, and others who have been captured and whose immigration status may cause them to be subject to even more severe treatment and harsher conditions than the appalling experiences of the Americans documented herein."
On June 8, when Cary Lopez Alvarado—a 23-year-old born and raised in Los Angeles County, California—was taking lunch to her husband, who was providing maintenance services on private property, masked immigration agents targeted him and her cousin in a work truck. Lopez Alvarado, who was pregnant, approached and took a video of the scene, where agents tried to pry open the vehicle's doors and threatened to break a window.
According to the report:
Cary tried again to tell the agents to stop, but, before she could finish her sentence, the officer put his hands on her and shoved her into the side of the truck. Two other agents immediately rushed over to further detain her. Cary knelt and clutched her mid-section to shield her baby from the assault. "I wasn't resisting at all," Cary recalled. "I can't fight back; I'm pregnant." The officers yanked her up and placed handcuffs around her wrists, all the while shoving her stomach against the truck. Her cousin attempted to intervene; "Be careful. Don't you see she’s pregnant?" he pleaded. At this point, Cary became dizzy from the altercation. When she regained awareness, she saw three agents on top of her cousin and several more in the process of throwing her husband on the ground. Then, the agents began kicking the back of the unoccupied work truck. A viral photo shows Cary, handcuffed and heavily pregnant, being led by a masked agent into a car.
The document also details the experience of Dayanne Figueroa, a first-generation Mexican American and working mom to a 6-year-old in Chicago, Illinois. When she was driving down a residential street to work on the morning of October 10, an unmarked, silver Dodge Durango SUV with blacked-out windows rammed into the side of her car. She reached for her phone to call local police, "but within seconds, two masked men in camouflage leapt out of the Durango and ran over to Dayanne's black Mercedes-Benz; one raised a gun in Dayanne's direction, and the other had an assault rifle strapped around his shoulder," the report says.
"Moments later, a third armed and masked agent appeared. Two of the men ripped open Dayanne's car door and grabbed her," the report continues, noting that bystanders recorded videos. "Two agents forcibly dragged her out of her car by her legs, ripping both shoes off, slamming her to the concrete, and digging their knees into her body to restrain her, directly over the site of her recent surgery. The agents flipped over Dayanne—who stands at 4 feet 11 inches and weighs 120 pounds—and put her in handcuffs, cinching them so tight that Dayanne has since suffered nerve damage to her wrists. Three agents carried Dayanne to an unmarked, red SUV and threw her inside, while a fourth agent reached into her car and grabbed her laptop, purse, and cellphone."
They initially took her to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Broadview, where federal agents have violently responded to protesters and held immigrants in "horrific and inhumane conditions." She was then brought to a Federal Bureau of Investigation facility in another Chicago suburb, Lombard, where she started urinating blood. That afternoon, she was eventually released to paramedics. Figueroa recalled that "they couldn't even agree who had authority over me because none of them did. I was never arrested. Never charged. Never given an explanation. Never given an apology."
UPDATE: Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chair Sen. Blumenthal releases "Unchecked Authority" report with firsthand accounts from 22 US citizens "who were physically assaulted, pepper sprayed, denied medical treatment, and detained—sometimes for days—by federal immigration agents"
[image or embed]
— Tyler McBrien (@tylermcbrien.com) December 9, 2025 at 8:57 AM
While Figueroa's young child was not part of her encounter with federal agents, the report stresses that when children are involved in ICE and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents' interactions, "they are treated with reckless disregard."
For example, a now-6-year-old Massachusetts girl on the autism spectrum, called M. in the report, "was separated from her parents by ICE agents in an apparent attempt to lure her parents to leave private property so they could be apprehended" in September.
"M. was violently ill upon being returned to her family and had to be treated in the emergency room, miss school for a week, and has continued to struggle with nightmares," according to the document. It also notes that "her father has a pending asylum case and her mother has a pending request to obtain a legal status."
In a Tuesday statement announcing the report, Blumenthal said that "Americans should have a hard time recognizing our great nation in these stomach-turning, heartbreaking stories of brutal assaults on our fellow citizens."
"Masked ICE and CPB agents chillingly seizing Americans isn't the nation we know and cherish," he added. "Totalitarian tactics have no place in our democracy. I hope that elevating stories of abhorrent abuse will reinforce our resolve to preserve democratic rights."
Tuesday's public forum at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC featured testimony from American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Figueroa, and four other citizens who have encountered immigration agents, including Wilmer Chavarria, a school superintendent from Vermont, and Javier Ramirez, a Californian who was assaulted by DHS and denied adequate treatment for diabetes while being held for four days.
The other two participants are also from California: George Retes is a US Army veteran who missed his daughter's birthday after being violently arrested and detained during a raid at his job site, and Andrea Velez was falsely charged with assaulting an officer during an immigration raid she encountered on her way to work in Los Angeles.
"I served my country. I wore the uniform," Retes has warned. "If it can happen to me, it can happen to any one of us."
This article was updated after the hearing to include a video of the event and links to the witnesses' written testimonies.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Dems Introduce Bill to 'Stop Apparent Bribery Involving Trump Ballroom Donations'
"Billionaire companies are bankrolling Trump’s ballroom and it stinks of bribery," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Nov 18, 2025
Amid concerns over President Donald Trump's White House ballroom, a pair of Democratic US lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation "to root out apparent bribery and corruption" involving the $300 million project.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced the Stop Ballroom Bribery Act, described by Warren's office as "the first piece of legislation addressing the ballroom that would impose donation restrictions."
“Billionaires and giant corporations with business in front of this administration are lining up to dump millions into Trump’s new ballroom—and Trump is showing them where to sign on the dotted line," Warren said in a statement. "Americans shouldn’t have to wonder whether President Trump is building a ballroom to facilitate a pay-to-play scheme for political favors. My new bill will put an end to what looks like bribery in plain sight."
Billionaire companies are bankrolling Trump’s ballroom and it stinks of bribery.That’s why @robertgarcia.house.gov and I introduced a bill to crack down on this potential corruption.
[image or embed]
— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) November 18, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Garcia said: "Donald Trump is raising hundreds of millions of dollars to build himself a White House ballroom at a time when millions of American families can barely make ends meet. It's outrageous that the White House won’t reveal who’s bankrolling Trump’s pet project, and that the people’s house could be funded by shady figures, corrupt money, and bad actors."
"This bill will ban contributions from anyone with a conflict of interest, prevent bribery, and ensure we can hold any administration accountable for blatant corruption," he added.
Noting that many of the "wealthy individuals, corporations, and organizations" funding the ballroom "need something from the Trump administration," Warren's office flagged "serious concerns of quid-pro-quo arrangements and possible bribery."
"Ethics experts have argued that the apparent pay-to-play relationship between Trump and business leaders oversteps the norms of presidential behavior and could erode Americans’ trust in government," the senator's office added.
As Warren's office noted:
Key ballroom donors currently have business interests in front of the Trump administration. For example, Google, which recently donated $22 million to settle President Trump’s censorship lawsuit against YouTube, will benefit if Trump’s [Department of Justice] decides not to appeal a recent judicial ruling in a relevant antitrust case. Meanwhile, Union Pacific Railroad is seeking federal approval of a lucrative merger and Palantir is working to get more federal contracts.
The White House has refused to be fully transparent, publishing only a noncomprehensive donor list missing multiple key donors and offering donors anonymity. Donations for projects like the ballroom are often channeled through the National Park Service and philanthropic partners; nonprofits with formal ties to property used by the president and [Vice President JD Vance] raise unique conflict-of-interest risks when fundraising from individuals and corporations with interests in front of the federal government.
The Stop Ballroom Bribery Act would:
- Impose pre-donation restrictions, including banning contributions from entities and individuals that present a conflict of interest, make it clear that donations cannot be conditioned on receipt of benefits from the federal government, require congressional approval for foreign donations, and proscribe the president and other senior officials and their families from taking donations;
- Impose post-donation restrictions, including banning the display of donors’ names and logos, enact a two-year cooling-off period before a donor to a covered project can lobby the federal government, and prohibit conversion of leftover donated funds to anyone’s personal use or to benefit the president and other senior officials and their families;
- Require transparency, including the disclosure of any meetings with senior federal officials or their relatives within a year of the donation, and mandate National Park Service publication of all donations to covered projects and ban anonymous donations; and
- Enable enforcement, judicial review, and the pursuit of civil and criminal penalties for violators.
"President Trump's decision to unilaterally destroy the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom financed by wealthy individuals and corporations not only ignores our country's laws but raises serious ethical concerns—namely, whether individuals and corporations funded this project in the hopes of buying access and influence," said Debra Perlin, vice president for policy at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which supports the legislation.
Virginia Canter, chief counsel and director for ethics and anticorruption at Democracy Defenders Action—another backer of the bill—said that "over the past year, President Trump has raised millions of dollars for vanity projects at the White House—like paving over the Rose Garden and demolishing the beloved East Wing."
"These funds have come from private donors without meaningful transparency or accountability,” Canter added. “The highest office in the land should never be for sale, nor should it ever appear to be."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular