Federal Judge Prohibits Separating Migrant Families at U.S. Border for 8 years

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Federal Judge Prohibits Separating Migrant Families at U.S. Border for 8 years

(Headline USA) With the possibility of a second White House term for President Donald Trump becoming ever more likely, activist judges are already hoping to block his agenda by setting arbitrary timelines on injunctions that would only expire after he is safely out of office.  

A federal judge on Friday prohibited the separation of families at the border for purposes of deterring immigration for eight years, preemptively blocking resumption of an early Trump-era policy that the former president hasn’t ruled out if voters return him to the White House next year.

The separation of thousands of families “represents one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country,” opined U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, moments before approving a controversial settlement between the Justice Department and families represented by the American Civil Liberties Union that ended a legal challenge nearly seven years after it was filed.

Sabraw, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, ordered an end to separations in June 2018, six days after then-President Donald Trump halted them on his own amid intense media backlash.

The judge also ordered that the government reunite children with their parents within 30 days, setting off a mad scramble because government databases weren’t linked.

As he reminisced and congratulated lawyers on both sides, the judge recalled a sense of horror over initial allegations and how subsequent disclosures left him increasingly dismayed over how the policy was carried out in 2017 and 2018. He read from an earlier order in which he said the practice was “brutal, offensive and fails to comply with traditional notions of fair play and decency.”

Sabraw referred to another court filing in 2018 that described how many parents were deported without knowing where their children were. “Simply cruel,” he said.

The government and volunteers have yet to locate 68 children who were separated under the policy to determine if they are safe and reunited with family or loved ones, according to the ACLU. Sabraw said those children who are unaccounted for was “always my greatest fear and concern.”

Ironically, since the end of the Trump administration, the more permissive policies of the Biden administration have enabled human trafficking—including child sex-trafficking from across the border—to surge to unprecedented levels along with a record number of unaccompanied minors whose parents have voluntarily separated from them, often leaving them in the hands of dangerous coyotes, cartels and gang members.

Biden’s catch-and-release policies have allowed more than 10 million illegal immigrants into the nation’s interior over less than three years.

Per the ACLU settlement, the type of “zero-tolerance” policy under which the Trump administration separated more than 5,000 children from parents who were arrested for illegally entering the country would be prohibited until December 2031.

Children may still be separated, but under limited circumstances, as has been the case for years. Those include if the child is believed to be abused, if the parent is convicted of serious crimes or if there are doubts that the adult is the parent.

Families that were separated may be eligible for other benefits—legal status for up to three years on humanitarian parole; reunification in the United States at government expense; one year of housing; three years of counseling; legal aid in immigration court.

However, the settlement doesn’t pay families any money. In 2021, the Biden administration considered compensating parents and children hundreds of thousands of dollars each, but talks stalled following tremendous public backlash.

As he seeks to return to the White House in next year’s elections, Trump has been noncommittal whether he would try to resume family separations. He defended the results last month, arguing that it “stopped people from coming by the hundreds of thousands” in an interview with Univision.

“When you hear that you’re going to be separated from your family, you don’t come” Trump said. “When you think you’re going to come into the United States with your family, you come.”

The Department of Homeland Security referred Friday to an earlier statement by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that the settlement reflects efforts to address a “cruel and inhumane policy, and our steadfast adherence to our nation’s most dearly held values.”

ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt told reporters that the judge’s comments Friday “said it all. This was a tragic episode in our country’s history.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to the ruling Friday.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Iowans Call on GOP Gov. to Remove Satanic Display from Capitol

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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Iowans Call on GOP Gov. to Remove Satanic Display from Capitol

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Christians in Iowa started asking government officials why a monument to Satan was erected in the state capitol building right before Christmas, demanding Gov. Kim Reynolds, R-Iowa, to get rid of the Satanic statue.

The outrage started a week ago when a group called the Satanic Temple of Iowa was given permission from the state to erect an altar on the first floor of the capitol, according to the Todd Starnes Show.

Some Republicans even tried to defend the Satanists by claiming that they have a supposed constitutional right to display their evil altar in the building.

“My observation as an Iowan and a State Representative, I don’t want the state evaluating and making determinations about religions. I am guided by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. If the government picks and chooses religious expressions, someday they will use it against Christian expressions. We are not a theocracy,” State Rep. Jon Dunwell wrote.

The self-proclaimed minister then continued defending Satanists.

“I would rather have no displays than government selecting religions. The power of Christianity is Christ who lives in us. Not having the government tear down other religious displays (even the evil ones). We are not Israel,” he wrote.

For this, he received pushback from the actual Christians.

“I am literally not reading any of that but to give quarter to the enemies of God is pathetic and contemptible,” one person replied in the comments under his post, referring to his extremely long defense of those whom he, as a Christian, is supposed to oppose.

Other politicians, who also happened to be real Christians, also opposed the erection of the idol, demanding Gov. Reynolds to order the removal of the altar from the building.

“It is a tortured and twisted interpretation of the law that affords Satan, who is universally understood to be the enemy of God, religious expression equal to God in an institution of government that depends upon God for continued blessings. Such a legal view not only violates the very foundation of our State Constitution, but it offends the God upon whom we depend and undermines our wellbeing,” State Rep. Brad Sherman, R-Iowa, said.

He then continued defending Christianity.

“[To] allow satanic expression in the State Capitol and other public property is to surrender to Satan’s demands for equality with God. I am calling for our governor to have this blasphemous display removed immediately based on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and offends God upon whom the State of Iowa depends for blessings,” he wrote.

More Damning Information Revealed about RFK Jr.’s Ties to Jeffrey Epstein

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More Damning Information Revealed about RFK Jr.’s Ties to Jeffrey Epstein

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The New York Post reported last week that third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once worked out of the office of notorious multimillionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein—a fact that RFK left previously undisclosed when discussing his relationship with Epstein.

The Post cited longtime Kennedy family friend Christina Oxenberg, who wrote in her autobiography that she and RFK used Epstein’s office when planning an event that involved then-New York City mayor David Dinkins.

“The office space turned out to be Epstein’s ‘suite of offices on Madison Avenue’ where Oxenberg and the associate identified operated out of a “large and comfy conference room,” the Post reported Dec. 8.

The Post further quoted from Oxenberg’s book, which said that Epstein’s office was “populated by several female executive assistants, all of them in their early 20s and looking like flight attendants from yesteryear with tidy buns, high heels and short tight-skirted suits.”

Along with Oxenberg’s allegations, the Post also published a previously unpublicized photo of RFK and Epstein at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan in March 1994.

The new information follows RFK having to explain why he flew on Epstein’s private jet.

A Kennedy spokesperson reportedly told Newsweek last month that he had “flown one time on Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane. It was in 1993 from [New York City] to Palm Beach [Florida] to visit RFK Jr.’s mom for Easter.”

The spokesperson reportedly added that the private jet trip was facilitated through Kennedy’s then-wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who was apparently friendly with Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Richardson Kennedy passed away in 2012, and RFK Jr. has been married to Curb Your Enthusiasm star Cheryl Hines since 2014.

“Mary, Kennedy’s wife, and two of their kids were on the flight,” the representative told Newsweek. “Mary knew Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who learned that they were going to Palm Beach for Easter and offered their family a ride.”

However, what the spokesperson told Newsweek contradicts what Kennedy has reportedly told investigative journalist Whitney Webb for her Epstein magnum opus, One Nation Under Blackmail.

In that book, Webb quoted Kennedy saying he flew on Epstein’s jet twice—not once, as Newsweek reported.

“In one instance, the flight was part of a pre-planned fossil hunting trip to South Dakota, which he believed had been Ghislaine’s idea as Epstein had appeared to only have attended ‘grudgingly,’” Webb wrote.

“On that trip, Kennedy remembered that Epstein ‘did not mingle with us and hardly spoke and did not participate in the fossil hunt.”

According to Webb’s book, Epstein had a problem with Kennedy’s “rambunctious children.” Epstein purportedly ordered the flight to land in Chicago and deplaned so he could make his own way home.

A blonde was waiting for Epstein at planeside in Chicago, and Kennedy remembered that Maxwell was in “silent tears” after Epstein’s abrupt departure.

The other trip described in Webb’s book seems to be the same one reported by Newsweek.

Remarking on Kennedy changing his tune, Webb said: “I am very concerned that he told me in an interview for my book he was on the plane twice, but now is saying it was once.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Skiing Santas Hit the Slopes in Maine

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Skiing Santas Hit the Slopes in Maine

(Headline USA) Ho ho ho, away they go—Santa’s helpers took the day off on Sunday with a few hundred of the jolly ol’ elves hitting the slopes.

With beards and stocking caps flapping, some 300 red-suited Santas were lively and quick at the foggy Sunday River ski resort in western Maine as they took a break from the holiday hustle and bustle.

The annual event has been held for more than 20 years, except for once during the pandemic. The skiing Santas participate in full Kringle garb—including, of course, a white beard and red hat.

The event’s rules specifically state the hat must bear a white pompom.

The event serves as a festive kickoff to both the holiday season and the skiing season. It raises money for the River Fund Maine, an education charity.

This year’s event raised $8,000, Sunday River representatives said.

“Each year, the kindness of Santa Sunday participants contributes to creating impactful educational opportunities for our local students,” said Sunday River Resort President Dana Bullen.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Really, Dick? Watch Sen. Durbin Claim Ignorance of Jeffrey Epstein’s Flight Logs

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Really, Dick? Watch Sen. Durbin Claim Ignorance of Jeffrey Epstein’s Flight Logs

(Headline USA) Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., claimed in a Dec. 5 interview that he doesn’t know anything about Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous flight logs, despite being accused of blocking an effort by Senate Republicans to subpoena them.

Durbin’s professed ignorance stems from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., filing a request last month to subpoena the list of passengers who flew on Epstein’s private plane, dubbed the Lolita Express. Epstein and his business partner, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, allegedly used the plan to fly celebrities and politicians around the world while trafficking young girls.

According to Blackburn, Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, blocked her request for the flight logs. Durbin, for his part, has denied that allegation.

The truth of the matter is likely that both sides are playing political games.

Headline USA understands that Blackburn’s attempt to subpoena the flight logs came during a two-hour hearing to subpoena Republican donor Harlan Crow and conservative legal activist Leonard Leo as part of an ongoing Supreme Court ethics investigation.

Durbin’s office told this publication that Blackburn’s attempt was one of 177 amendments filed by Republicans for that day’s hearing, in an attempt to disrupt the subpoena of Crow. Durbin pushed through Crow subpoena in the meeting’s final moments after Republicans walked out in protest.

According to Durbin’s office, the time limit for that hearing expired before the Epstein subpoena could be considered. Headline USA further understands that  Senate congressional staffers are blaming Republicans for “filibustering” throughout that hearing.

Technicalities aside, Durbin’s professed ignorance about Epstein is astounding. When asked by Fox News correspondent Hillary Vaughn about the issue last week, Durbin suggested he had no idea what was going on.

 

“I don’t know the issue. I know who Epstein was, but I certainly don’t know anything about the issue,” the senator responded.

Durbin then insisted the issue of Epstein’s flight logs “has never been raised by anyone.” He also claimed Blackburn “hasn’t said a word to me” about her subpoena request.

Following Durbin’s interaction with the Fox News reporter, the Senator spoke about the matter with Blackburn during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. There, he signaled a willingness to issue the subpoena for Epstein’s flight logs.

“There were 177 amendments filed. I confess I didn’t know about your amendment,” he said at an FBI oversight hearing.

“I have not spoken to you one time about this issue. I didn’t even know this was a subject of your amendment,” he said.

“I’ll be happy to discuss your request with you.”

Ken Silva contributed to this report.

Fatal Stabbing of Catholic Priest Rocks Small Nebraska Community

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Fatal Stabbing of Catholic Priest Rocks Small Nebraska Community

(Headline USA) The fatal stabbing of a Catholic priest inside the church rectory where he lived has rocked the eastern Nebraska community of Fort Calhoun, a one-stoplight town where people tend not to worry if they forget to lock their doors at night.

Rev. Stephen Gutgsell
Rev. Stephen Gutgsell / PHOTO: Archdiocese of Omaha via AP

The Rev. Stephen Gutgsell, who served at St. John the Baptist church, was attacked during what authorities called a break-in early Sunday. The 65-year-old died despite being rushed to an Omaha hospital.

Officers with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man, who was still in the church rectory when they arrived six minutes after the priest called 911.

“A lot of people learned about the death of Father Gutgsell when they showed up for Mass and found the church circled with police crime tape,” church deacon Jerry Mapes told the Omaha World–Herald.

By Monday, the church, nestled in a neighborhood a block away from the elementary school, was clear of crime scene tape as it prepared to host a wake for one of its members, but the yellow plastic continued to encircle the rectory—the modest home next to the church.

A stack of church bulletins sat unused just outside the sanctuary—with a note from Gutgsell about how he had planned to preach about St. John the Baptist’s namesake from the Bible on Sunday. On the way into town, the lighted sign along the highway welcoming visitors to Fort Calhoun asked for “prayers for our church and our community.”

Gutgsell was attacked just one day after the Christmas in Calhoun celebration, where many of the town’s residents celebrated with a full day of events including a Boy Scout pancake breakfast at St. John the Baptist.

The small congregation of more than 250 families is an active one known for its fish fries during Lent and its vacation Bible school programs every summer.

Fort Calhoun hosts only about 1,000 residents, located about 16 miles north of Omaha. The town is best known for being home to Fort Atkinson, the first U.S. military post west of the Missouri River, where volunteers dress up in clothes from the period as part of a living history program. It is about 75 miles south of Sioux City, Iowa, where authorities say the suspect in Gutgsell’s death was from.

But the priest’s stabbing was the second killing to happen this year in the small town.

“You know, there’s no murders forever and ever, and then all of a sudden, bam!” said Kevin Schultz, one of two pastors at the Cherry Hill church and ice cream shop on the main highway just a few blocks away from St. John the Baptist.

A day following the attack with few new details released, residents were left to speculate about Gutgsell’s killing. Prosecutors said they expect to file formal homicide and weapons charges on Tuesday against Kierre L. Williams, 43, who was arrested inside the rectory. He doesn’t have a lawyer yet and likely won’t appear in court until Wednesday.

“It seems like there’s more to the story,” Schultz said.

Court records in Iowa show Williams is facing a misdemeanor assault charge; he is accused of punching someone at a soup kitchen in Sioux City after getting in an argument in July. The criminal charge against him in that case lists him as homeless.

Longtime Fort Calhoun resident Stephen Green said he didn’t know Gutgsell personally, although he’d been to fish fries at the church and sent his kids to vacation Bible school there, and it’s where he had his first communion as a boy.

He’s always known the town that he’s lived in since he was 5 years old to be safe, and he remembers riding his bike all over Fort Calhoun when he was young. But he said the killing of Gutgsell—and the August killing of 71-year-old Linda Childers—are eye opening.

“It’s a crazy world I guess. Anything can happen to anybody,” Green said.

In August, Childers was found dead in her rural home in Fort Calhoun in what authorities believe was a home invasion by a man she didn’t know. In that case, William P. Collins has been charged with first-degree murder and other counts.

“It shouldn’t happen in a small town like this,” said Andy Faucher, who owns the Longhorn Bar and Grill where people gathered to eat and talk about what happened. Faucher said the fact that this latest murder involved a priest only “intensifies the scariness of the situation.”

On Sunday evening, the congregation held a vigil at St. John the Baptist to remember Gutgsell, who served at several different parishes across the Archdiocese of Omaha during his 39 years as a priest.

In addition to leading St. John the Baptist in Fort Calhoun, Gutgsell helped at St. Francis Borgia in Blair, where the archbishop held a special service after the stabbing on Sunday and met with members of the congregation.

“We continue to pray that the Lord of mercy and love will welcome Father Gutgsell into his Heavenly kingdom,” Archbishop of Omaha George J. Lucas said in a statement. “May Our Blessed Mother intercede for us all as we grieve his death.”

The Archdiocese said Gutgsell was a native of Kansas City, Missouri, who graduated from the University of St. Thomas in 1980 and attended the St. Paul Seminary in Minnesota before joining the priesthood in 1984.

Funeral arrangements for Gutgsell are pending.

Kelly Tegels told KETV that she had just seen Gutgsell at Mass on Saturday night, so his death didn’t feel real yet.

“It’s going to be hard,” Tegels said at the vigil. “I’m bringing flowers tonight because he always had this altar decorated with flowers, and I know he would appreciate it.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Bill Clinton: Hillary’s 2016 Campaign Unable to Sell ‘P***y on a Troop Train’

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Bill Clinton: Hillary’s 2016 Campaign Unable to Sell ‘P***y on a Troop Train’

(Headline USA) Former President Bill Clinton reportedly bashed his own wife’s 2016 presidential campaign, claiming she couldn’t sell “p***y on a troop train.”

In his new book, The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution, Ryan Grim of The Intercept wrote that the former president was frustrated with Hillary Clinton’s campaign and blasted her team for being ineffective communicators. He allegedly made the statement to a close confidante during the fall of 2016.

“Former president Bill Clinton, surveying the landscape and the ham-handed efforts at identity politics, was bereft, lamenting to a longtime friend in the fall of 2016 that Hillary’s campaign ‘could not sell p***y on a troop train,'” Grim wrote, according to Fox News.

This wouldn’t be the first time Bill Clinton confronted his wife’s campaign. According to journalists Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen, Bill also chastised Hillary’s team for ignoring the swing states and opting to campaign in bigger blue states, such as California, instead.

“He thought, these eggheads don’t really know politics. They don’t understand persuasion,” Allen said during an ABC News podcast at the time.

Bill also allegedly advised Hillary’s campaign to visit suburban and rural areas where Hillary likely would not garner most of the votes, because he “knew there was some power just in showing up,” Allen said.

Former President Donald Trump, who beat Hillary in 2016, argued Hillary’s campaign should have taken advantage of Bill Clinton’s charisma and political experience.

“I think they did a great disservice by not using him when I went against Hillary. I think that they had this unbelievable weapon known as Bill Clinton, who was a natural politician,” Trump said last year.

“Bill Clinton had an instinct, a natural instinct,” Trump explained. “People who are good at things have a lot of natural instinct. They said, ‘No, no, no, the polls indicate that he can’t win Wisconsin,’ and I ended up winning Michigan and Wisconsin.”

Air Force Disciplines 15 as IG Finds Security Failures Led to Massive Classified Docs Leak

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Air Force Disciplines 15 as IG Finds Security Failures Led to Massive Classified Docs Leak

(Headline USA) The Air Force has disciplined 15 personnel in connection with the massive classified documents leak by an airman earlier this year, concluding that multiple officials intentionally failed to take required action on his suspicious behavior, the Air Force inspector general reported Monday.

Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira is accused of leaking highly classified military from the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts where he worked.

The punitive actions range from relieving personnel from their positions, including command positions, to non-judicial punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Teixeira, 21, has been behind bars since his April arrest on charges stemming from the most consequential intelligence leak in years. He is charged under the Espionage Act with unauthorized retention and transmission of classified national defense information. He has pleaded not guilty, and no trial date has been set.

Prosecutors said in a court filing last week that the two sides have not yet engaged in “substantive” plea discussions.

Teixeira enlisted in the Air National Guard in 2019. He shared military secrets he illegally collected from his intelligence unit with other Discord users, authorities said—first by typing out classified documents he accessed and then sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings.

In its investigation of the leaks, the Air Force inspector general found both security gaps occurred in part because personnel had access to classified documents without supervision, and because in instances where Airman 1st Class Teixeira was caught violating security policies none of the personnel who either witnessed the violations or had responsibility for Teixeira took the actions necessary in response.

Teixeira worked as a cyber transport systems specialist, essentially an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks. As such, Teixeira had often unsupervised access as part of a three-person team at night to Top Secret–Secret Compartmentalized facility to perform maintenance inspections.

Teixeira remains in the Air National Guard in an unpaid status, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.

“At times, members were required to perform preventive maintenance inspections and other tasks, which required individuals to be on their own for hours, unsupervised in other parts of the facility,” said the report from Lt. Gen. Stephen L. Davis, the inspector general.

“Further, no permission controls were in place to monitor print jobs, and there were no business rules for print products,” it added. “Any night shift member had ample opportunity to access [classified] sites and print a high volume of products without supervision or detection.”

Inside Teixeira’s 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron, members had what the IG described as a “more complete” picture of the breadth of Teixeira’s active unauthorized intelligence-seeking but “intentionally failed to report the full details of these security concerns” because they thought security officials might overreact.

For example, in fall 2022 Teixeira was seen writing down notes from a classified document onto a Post-It note. While he was confronted about the note, there was no follow up to ensure the note had been shredded and the incident was not reported to security officers.

It was not until a January 2023 incident that the appropriate security officials were notified, but even then security officials were not briefed on the full scope of the violations.

If any of the personnel had taken the appropriate actions it may have curtailed “the length and depth of the unauthorized and unlawful disclosures by several months,” the IG found.

Those unit officials “who understood their duty to report specific information regarding A1C Teixeira’s intelligence-seeking and insider threat indicators to security officials, intentionally failed to do so.”

But the IG also said the unit’s own policy, which encouraged its tech support service members to attend intelligence briefings “to better understand the mission and the importance of keeping the classified networks operating,” was improper and problematic because it exposed the service members to higher levels of classified material than they needed to know.

The documents released on social media revealed sensitive U.S. intelligence on the Russia–Ukraine war, the Middle East and an array of other topics.

As a result of the security breach, Col. Sean Riley, 102nd Intelligence Wing commander, received administrative action and was relieved of command and the 102nd Intelligence.

Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group commander Col. Enrique Dovalo received administrative action for concerns with unit culture and compliance with policies and standards.

The Air Force also said previously suspended commanders from the 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron and the detachment overseeing administrative support for airmen at the unit mobilized for duty under Title 10 USC were permanently removed.

The Air Force took the intelligence mission from the 102nd after Teixeira’s leaks were discovered and the group’s mission remains reassigned to other units.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

SCOTUS Declines to Hear Case Involving Satanic FBI Informant

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SCOTUS Declines to Hear Case Involving Satanic FBI Informant

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a dark case involving a Satanic, neo-Nazi FBI informant who pushed others into doxing left-wing journalists in an alleged intimidation campaign.

SCOTUS’s Monday decision means that Kaleb Cole—a leader of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen—must serve the remainder of his seven-year sentence, which he received in January 2022 for mailing threatening posters or gluing the posters to the homes of journalists. The posters included the addresses and other personal information of the journalists, and the U.S. government took that as a threat.

Cole’s case grabbed national headlines in August 2021, when he filed a motion that revealed that a member of an online Atomwaffen chat group was longtime FBI informant Joshua Caleb Sutter, who also ran a Satanic publishing company. Cole revealed that Sutter received more than $144,000 over roughly 16 years as an informant—meaning that the FBI was essentially bankrolling a publisher of Satanic literature.

“The CI [confidential informant] is a convicted felon and currently owns and operates a publishing company that distributes white supremacist writings,” Cole said in his Aug. 13, 2021 filing.

Cole’s revelations were a part of his unsuccessful to have evidence suppressed that was gathered with the help of Sutter, and the Atomwaffen leader was found guilty several months later.

He appealed his conviction to SCOTUS in October. But rather than arguing entrapment, Cole said his activities should have been protected by the First Amendment.

“Specifically, the charges relate to sending posters via mail to journal­ists and lobbyists and affixing them to their doorsteps and offices. The problem though was that from Cole’s perspective, it was not a campaign of threats but an exercise in activism, specifically demonstrative and retalia­tory speech,” Cole argued in his October petition.

Cole further noted that the FBI, which had thoroughly infiltrated Atomwaffen and was tracking all the group’s activities, told the journalists targeted that they were never in real danger.

And according to Cole, the government asserted at his trial that the posters were threats of violence, but was unable to quantify what exactly that threat entailed.

“They maintained from the criminal complaint onward that Cole had caused ‘emotional distress’ in his alleged victims and had derived subjective intent to threaten from the aforementioned information,” argued Cole, who represented himself.

Cole warned that earlier court rulings have opened a “pandora’s box” by allowing convictions for constitutionally protected speech.

SCOTUS is apparently content to leave that pandora’s box open for the time being. The court did not require the Justice Department to respond to Cole’s petition before dismissing it, not did it give any reasons for declining to hear the case.

Cole’s case bares similarities to that of neo-Nazi inmate Bill White, who was imprisoned in 2008 for publishing the information of a federal juror involved in the case of Matthew Hale—a white supremacist who allegedly solicited an undercover FBI informant to kill federal judge Joan Lefkow.

White is the source of an ongoing Headline USA series called the Fed Files, which is about the FBI’s infiltration of the American Nazi movement. As it happens, White is the man who first accused Sutter of being FBI informant around 2017—four years before Sutter’s identity as an FBI informant was confirmed in Cole’s case.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Was Donald Trump the Source of Tucker Carlson’s JFK Assassination Bombshell?

Ken Silva
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Was Donald Trump the Source of Tucker Carlson’s JFK Assassination Bombshell?

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A year ago this week, then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson made waves when he reported that the CIA was involved in the Kennedy assassination—citing an unnamed source with access to records that are still classified.

“We spoke to someone with access to the still-hidden CIA documents. The person was deeply familiar with what they contain. We asked this person directly: Did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy, an American President?” Carlson said on Dec. 15, 2022.

“And here’s the reply we received verbatim. Quote, ‘The answer is yes. I believe they were involved. It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.’”

Carlson’s reporting corroborated what many researchers have been arguing for decades.

But a year later, it’s still not clear how Carlson came to his conclusion. Who was his source?

Libertarian Institute fellow Richard Booth has a novel theory: Carlson’s source was none other than Donald Trump.

Not only would Trump be one of the few people with access to the JFK records; as noted by Booth, the statement quoted by Carlson has the same cadence as the former President.

“Who says, ‘It’s all fake’? You can guess who his source is by looking at the language they use. Who talks like that?” Booth recently pointed out on Twitter.

“Who uses the monosyllabic word ‘fake’ to describe complex authoritarian intelligence gambits? Well there is one guy…” Booth added.

“I will forever believe that Donald J. Trump was Tucker’s source for this. If it were anyone else, they would name the source! I’m sure Trump said something like, ‘You can print what I say but you can’t identify me. They would kill me.’”

Carlson’s source aside, it’s not clear whether the public will ever see the full set of JFK assassination records.

Under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, all documents related to the assassination were supposed to have been released by 2017. But Trump delayed the full publication of all records and ultimately left it in the hands of Joe Biden, who in 2021 delayed full release until last year, only to do so again.

The Mary Ferrell Foundation sued the Biden administration last year to force production of the records, but a federal judge ruled in favor of the government in July.

“The JFK Act provides the President with significant discretion to determine that postponement is ‘made necessary’ by national security concerns,” the judge said in July.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

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