Superintendent Group Webinar Details School Response to ICE

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Superintendent Group Webinar Details School Response to ICE

(, The Center Square) The American Association of School Administrators hosted a members-only virtual webinar last week, providing school leaders with guidance on how to respond to potential encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on school campuses, according to materials exclusively obtained by The Center Square.

The webinar highlighted that public schools should function as “safe zones” for children and are not legally required to assist federal immigration enforcement without a valid judicial warrant.

The webinar, titled: Operational Readiness: A Practical Playbook for ICE Encounters in Schools, included a “tactical, minute-by-minute” playbook for superintendents and administrators detailing legal response procedures before, during and after a potential ICE incident

Steve Smith, a former School Resource Officer and senior fellow of urban studies at the Pacific Research Institute, said school leaders should prioritize student safety and avoid elevating anxiety.

“Reaffirming someone’s rights under the Bill of Rights in terms of how encounters with law enforcement are supposed to work isn’t incompatible with safety,” Smith told The Center Square. “But if there’s a political agenda behind it, that’s where concerns arise.”

AASA represents over 10,000 superintendents and education leaders nationwide and is primarily funded through membership dues. Active memberships cost about $485 annually, which local school districts often reimburse as a professional expense.

According to ProPublica, AASA reported more than $20 million in revenue in 2024, with 66.7% of that revenue coming from program services.

The guest speaker in the webinar was Luma Mufleh, founder and director of Fugees Family, a nonprofit organization. The guidance advises that if ICE agents appear on campus, school officials should secure the perimeter, prioritize student and classroom safety, and manage parent communication.

Administrators are instructed to keep doors closed and request to see a judicial warrant before allowing entry. The seminar warned against what the playbook refers to as the “warrant trap,” which shows the difference between a judicial warrant and an administrative warrant issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

The playbook further instructs that School Resource Officers should not assist federal immigration enforcement unless legally compelled by a judicial warrant. Staff must report any such encounters directly to the school principal.

Schools that allow ICE access without a valid judicial warrant could face liability if students are questioned, detained or if student information is shared, the webinar materials stated.

Schools are also encouraged to maintain “red folders” containing response scripts, emergency contact logs, “Know Your Rights” cards, care plan summaries, and witness incident report forms. And that families should prepare for potential detainment scenarios by having four to five emergency contacts who are not at risk of deportation.

On a national level, many school districts are advising students to have “Know Your Rights” cards. The National Immigration Law Center advises individuals to assert their constitutional rights during encounters with immigration authorities, including remaining silent and requesting legal counsel.

The Center Square reached out multiple times to AASA seeking comment on the webinar and playbook, but did not receive a response.

The guidance comes amid heightened public attention to immigration enforcement. The DHS has previously stated that ICE does not conduct enforcement operations at schools.

“ICE is not going to schools to make arrests of children,” DHS Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

DHS did not respond to a request for comment from The Center Square regarding the AASA webinar.

Smith added that schools should ensure students do not interpret law enforcement presence as an indication of danger.

“If the superintendents are being careful about how they couch the language and not, you know, raising the anxiety level of students in the process, that it’s a good thing,” Smith said. “If they’re stoking fear and they’re pushing a political agenda, then that’s probably a bad thing.”

FBI Concluded Internally that Epstein Wasn’t Running a Pedophile Ring

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FBI Concluded Internally that Epstein Wasn’t Running a Pedophile Ring

(Headline USA) The FBI pored over Jeffrey Epstein’s bank records and emails. It searched his homes. It spent years interviewing his victims and examining his connections to some of the world’s most influential people.

But while investigators collected ample proof that Epstein sexually abused underage girls, they found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, internal Justice Department records reportedly show.

Videos and photos seized from Epstein’s homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn’t depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.

An examination of Epstein’s financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another internal memo in 2019.

While one Epstein victim made highly public claims that he “lent her” to his rich friends, agents couldn’t confirm that and found no other victims telling a similar story, the records said.

Summarizing the investigation in an email last July, agents said “four or five” Epstein accusers claimed other men or women had sexually abused them. But, the agents said, there “was not enough evidence to federally charge these individuals, so the cases were referred to local law enforcement.”

The AP and other media organizations are still reviewing millions of pages of documents, many of them previously confidential, that the Justice Department released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act and it is possible those records contain evidence overlooked by investigators.

But the documents, which include police reports, FBI interview notes and prosecutor emails, provide the clearest picture to date of the investigation — and why U.S. authorities ultimately decided to close it without additional charges.

Dozens of victims come forward

The Epstein investigation began in 2005, when the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported she had been molested at the millionaire’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Police would identify at least 35 girls with similar stories: Epstein was paying high school age students $200 or $300 to give him sexualized massages.

After the FBI joined the probe, federal prosecutors drafted indictments to charge Epstein and some personal assistants who had arranged the girls’ visits and payments. But instead, then-Miami U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta struck a deal letting Epstein plead guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Sentenced to 18 months in jail, Epstein was free by mid-2009.

In 2018, a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea deal prompted New York federal prosecutors to take a fresh look at the accusations.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019. One month later, he killed himself in his jail cell.

A year later, prosecutors charged Epstein’s longtime confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she’d recruited several of his victims and sometimes joined the sexual abuse. Convicted in 2021, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term.

Prosecutors fail to find evidence backing most sensational claims

Prosecution memos, case summaries and other documents made public in the department’s latest release of Epstein-related records show that FBI agents and federal prosecutors diligently pursued potential coconspirators. Even seemingly outlandish and incomprehensible claims, called in to tip lines, were examined.

Some allegations couldn’t be verified, investigators wrote.

In 2011 and again in 2019, investigators interviewed Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who in lawsuits and news interviews had accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous men, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew.

Investigators said they confirmed that Giuffre had been sexually abused by Epstein. But other parts of her story were problematic.

Two other Epstein victims who Giuffre had claimed were also “lent out” to powerful men told investigators they had no such experience, prosecutors wrote in a 2019 internal memo.

“No other victim has described being expressly directed by either Maxwell or Epstein to engage in sexual activity with other men,” the memo said.

Giuffre acknowledged writing a partly fictionalized memoir of her time with Epstein containing descriptions of things that didn’t take place. She had also offered shifting accounts in interviews with investigators, they wrote, and had “engaged in a continuous stream of public interviews about her allegations, many of which have included sensationalized if not demonstrably inaccurate characterizations of her experiences.” Those inaccuracies included false accounts of her interactions with the FBI, they said.

Still, U.S. prosecutors attempted to arrange an interview with Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He refused to make himself available. Giuffre settled a lawsuit with Mountbatten-Windsor in which she had accused him of sexual misconduct.

In a memoir published after she killed herself last year, Giuffre wrote that prosecutors told her they didn’t include her in the case against Maxwell because they didn’t want her allegations to distract the jury. She insisted her accounts of being trafficked to elite men were true.

Prosecutors say photos and videos don’t implicate others

Investigators seized a multitude of videos and photos from Epstein’s electronic devices and homes in New York, Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They found CDs, hard copy photographs and at least one videotape containing nude images of females, some of whom seemed as if they might be minors. One device contained 15 to 20 images depicting commercial child sex abuse material — pictures investigators said Epstein obtained on the internet.

No videos or photos showed Epstein victims being sexually abused, none showed any males with any of the nude females, and none contained evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote in an email for FBI officials last year.

Had they existed, the government “would have pursued any leads they generated,” Comey wrote. “We did not, however, locate any such videos.”

Investigators who scoured Epstein’s bank records found payments to more than 25 women who appeared to be models — but no evidence that he was engaged in prostituting women to other men, prosecutors wrote.

Epstein’s close associates go uncharged

In 2019, prosecutors weighed the possibility of charging one of Epstein’s longtime assistants but decided against it.

Prosecutors concluded that while the assistant was involved in helping Epstein pay girls for sex and may have been aware that some were underage, she herself was a victim of his sexual abuse and manipulation.

Investigators examined Epstein’s relationship with the French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who once was involved in an agency with Epstein in the U.S., and who was accused in a separate case of sexually assaulting women in Europe. Brunel killed himself in jail while awaiting trial on a rape charge in France.

Prosecutors also weighed whether to charge one of Epstein’s girlfriends who had participated in sexual acts with some of his victims. Investigators interviewed the girlfriend, who was 18 to 20 years old at the time, “but it was determined there was not enough evidence,” according to a summary given to FBI Director Kash Patel last July.

Days before Epstein’s July 2019 arrest, the FBI strategized about sending agents to serve grand jury subpoenas on people close to Epstein, including his pilots and longtime business client, retail mogul Les Wexner.

Wexner’s lawyers told investigators that neither he nor his wife had knowledge of Epstein’s sexual misconduct. Epstein had managed Wexner’s finances, but the couple’s lawyers said they cut him off in 2007 after learning he’d stolen from them.

“There is limited evidence regarding his involvement,” an FBI agent wrote of Wexner in an Aug. 16, 2019, email.

In a statement to the AP, a legal representative for Wexner said prosecutors had informed him that he was “neither a coconspirator nor target in any respect,” and that Wexner had cooperated with investigators.

Prosecutors also examined accounts from women who said they’d given massages at Epstein’s home to guests who’d tried to make the encounters sexual. One woman accused private equity investor Leon Black of initiating sexual contact during a massage in 2011 or 2012, causing her to flee the room.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office subsequently investigated, but no charges were filed.

Black’s lawyer, Susan Estrich, said he had paid Epstein for estate planning and tax advice. She said in a statement that Black didn’t engage in misconduct and had no awareness of Epstein’s criminal activities. Lawsuits by two women who accused Black of sexual misconduct were dismissed or withdrawn. One is pending.

No client list

Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News in February 2025 that Epstein’s never-before-seen “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now.” A few months later, she claimed the FBI was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of Epstein “with children or child porn.”

But FBI agents wrote superiors saying the client list didn’t exist.

On Dec. 30, 2024, about three weeks before President Joe Biden left office, then-FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate reached out through subordinates to ask “whether our investigation to date indicates the ‘client list,’ often referred to in the media, does or does not exist,” according to an email summarizing his query.

A day later, an FBI official replied that the case agent had confirmed no client list existed.

On Feb. 19, 2025, two days before Bondi’s Fox News appearance, an FBI supervisory special agent wrote: “While media coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein case references a ’client list,’ investigators did not locate such a list during the course of the investigation.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

 

Jeffrey Epstein’s Network Gave $1 Million to Clinton Foundation, Emails Suggest

Ken Silva
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Jeffrey Epstein’s Network Gave $1 Million to Clinton Foundation, Emails Suggest

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell helped fund the Clinton Global Initiative, seemingly contributing at least $1 million to the organization, according to the newly released “Epstein files”—the trove of documents released by the Justice Department.

Indeed, an Oct. 7, 2004, email from former Clinton Foundation official Mary Morrison to Maxwell asks for a $1 million wire transfer.

“I told them to be expecting $l million USA dollars… and that it would be coming in the next few days,” Morrison, who was an executive assistant to former President Bill Clinton, said at the time.

About a week later, Epstein responded to the email with a message, likely to Maxwell: “Ask him to tell you why i million now and where will it be going.”

It’s not clear what happened after that. However, the emails are the latest indication that Maxwell and Epstein indeed had a major role in the Clinton Foundation—the conduit allegedly used by Hillary Clinton to trade political favors for monetary donations.

Maxwell revealed Epstein’s ties to the Clinton Foundation in her interview with the DOJ last July, when asked whether he had business ties with Bill Clinton.

“I was part of the beginning process of the Clinton Global Initiative. And that was something that I helped with and that was me, and Epstein may have helped me help them. And in that context, he may well have involved himself, but only in the context of something that I was trying to do,” she told prosecutors, according to the interview transcripts.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche then asked whether Epstein donated to the foundation, and Maxwell said she believes he had.

Maxwell also said in the interview that she—not Epstein—was friends with the Clintons first. She added that she never witnessed the former president commit any wrongdoing—a similar statement she made about President Donald Trump.

The Clinton Foundation has reportedly been under renewed scrutiny from Trump’s FBI. A new document released by the bureau last year shows that agents apparently had a strong criminal case against the group in the mid-2010s—but top officials shut down the investigation in the leadup to the 2016 election.

Indeed, the FBI had an informant who “possibly” had information about the Clinton Foundation, the newly released FBI memo said. The informant’s info made it all the way up to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who reiterated that no further steps should be taken without his approval.

Weeks later, the DOJ became more adamant about stifling the investigation. Then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the Eastern District of Arkansas to “shut it down” entirely. The memo doesn’t explain the reason for Yates’s decision.

The DOJ was against the investigation, despite the fact that the FBI had a cooperating witness who recorded conversations with someone associated with the Clinton Foundation, according to the newly released FBI memo.

After Trump won in stunning fashion, agents started worrying that the statute of limitations was approaching. Still, nothing happened. Trump did say that he wouldn’t be pursuing charges against Clinton.

About a decade later, the second Trump administration is reportedly investigating whether the Obama administration conspired to tilt the election towards Clinton in 2016.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

Washington Post Publisher Calls it Quits

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Washington Post Publisher Calls it Quits

(Headline USA) Washington Post publisher Will Lewis said Saturday that he’s stepping down, ending a troubled tenure three days after the newspaper said that it was laying off one-third of its staff.

Lewis announced his departure in a two-paragraph email to the newspaper’s staff, saying that after two years of transformation, “now is the right time for me to step aside.” The Post’s chief financial officer, Jeff D’Onofrio, was appointed temporary publisher.

Neither Lewis nor the newspaper’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos participated in the meeting with staff members announcing the layoffs on Wednesday. While anticipated, the cutbacks were deeper than expected, resulting in the shutdown of the Post’s sports section, the elimination of its photography staff and sharp reductions in personnel responsible for coverage of metropolitan Washington and overseas.

They came on top of widespread talent defections in recent years at the newspaper, which lost tens of thousands of subscribers following Bezos’ order late in the 2024 presidential campaign pulling back from a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, and a subsequent reorienting of its opinion section in a more conservative direction.

Martin Baron, the Post’s first editor under Bezos, condemned his former boss this week for attempting to curry favor with President Donald Trump and called what has happened at the newspaper “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”

The British-born Lewis was a former top executive at The Wall Street Journal before taking over at The Post in January 2024. His tenure has been rocky from the start, marked by layoffs and a failed reorganization plan that led to the departure of former top editor Sally Buzbee.

His initial choice to take over for Buzbee, Robert Winnett, withdrew from the job after ethical questions were raised about both he and Lewis’ actions while working in England. They include paying for information that produced major stories, actions that would be considered unethical in American journalism. The current executive editor, Matt Murray, took over shortly thereafter.

Lewis didn’t endear himself to Washington Post journalists with blunt talk about their work, at one point saying in a staff meeting that they needed to make changes because not enough people were reading their work.

This week’s layoffs have led to some calls for Bezos to either increase his investment in The Post or sell it to someone who will take a more active role. Lewis, in his note, praised Bezos: “The institution could not have had a better owner,” he said.

“During my tenure, difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news to millions of customers each day,” Lewis said.

The Washington Post Guild, the union representing staff members, called Lewis’ exit long overdue.

“His legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution,” the Guild said in a statement. “But it’s not too late to save The Post. Jeff Bezos must immediately rescind these layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future.”

Bezos did not mention Lewis in a statement saying D’Onofrio and his team are positioned to lead The Post into “an exciting and thriving next chapter.”

“The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity,” Bezos said. “Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus.”

D’Onofrio, who joined the paper last June after jobs at the digital ad management company Raptive, Google, Zagat and Major League Baseball, said in a note to staff that “we are ending a hard week of change with more change.

“This is a challenging time across all media organizations, and The Post is unfortunately no exception,” he wrote. “I’ve had the privilege of helping chart the course of disrupters and cultural stalwarts alike. All faced economic headwinds in changing industry landscapes, and we rose to meet those moments. I have no doubt we will do just that, together.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press



Dozens of Anti-ICE Protestors Arrested in Minnesota after Attacking Police

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Dozens of Anti-ICE Protestors Arrested in Minnesota after Attacking Police

(Headline USA) Several dozen protesters were arrested Saturday outside a federal building in Minneapolis after attacking police.

Scores of protesters gathered across the street from the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building around midday, throwing bottles and sex toys at a line of police guarding the property. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s office said that the arrests began after the crowd started throwing chunks of ice and some property was damaged. A deputy was hit in the head, and a squad vehicle’s windshield was smashed, the sheriff’s office said on its Facebook page.

Police declared the gathering unlawful and ordered protesters to leave. Many complied, the Star Tribune reported, but about 100 remained in a standoff with deputies, state troopers and state conservation officers.

The sheriff’s office later told television station KSTP that at least 42 arrests were made. No one from the sheriff’s office responded to email, voicemail and text messages from The Associated Press on Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile on Saturday, hundreds gathered on a snow-covered field in a Minneapolis park to honor Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Event organizers echoed recent criticisms of the immigration crackdown across Minnesota, characterizing it as a federal occupation.

A federal immigration officer shot and killed Good in her car in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Three agents surrounded her Honda Pilot SUV on a snowy street a few blocks from Good’s home. Bystander video show an officer approaching the SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.

The vehicle began to pull forward, striking an ICE officer. That officer then pulled his weapon and immediately fired at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moved toward him. The Trump administration called Good as a domestic terrorist who tried to run over an officer with her vehicle. State and local officials have rejected that characterization.

Pretti was killed on Jan. 24 during a scuffle with immigration officers on the street. Bystander video shows a half-dozen officers took Pretti to the ground. One spotted Pretti’s gun, which he was licensed to carry, and shouted “He’s got a gun.” Two officers then opened fire. Pretti was seemingly disarmed when he was killed.

The Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, on Wednesday announced the administration would pull 700 immigration officers from Minnesota — roughly a quarter of the officers deployed to the state — after state and local officials agreed over the past week to cooperate by turning over arrested immigrants. Homan did not say when the administration would end its crackdown in the state, however.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

 

Poll: Majority Prefer Trump’s Immigration Policies over Biden’s

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Poll: Majority Prefer Trump’s Immigration Policies over Biden’s

(, The Center Square) A majority of Americans say they prefer President Donald Trump’s approach to border security and immigration than they do former President Joe Biden’s, according to new polling data.

The poll from Napolitan News Service found that 52% prefer Trump’s handling of the issues to 33% who prefer Biden’s. The remaining 15% said they were not sure.

The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted by pollster Scott Rasmussen Feb. 4-5, after two people protesting deportation actions in Minneapolis were shot and killed by federal agents in separate incidents.

“Democrats think they have a winning issue by attacking ICE and keeping the center of attention on what happened in Minneapolis. And on one level, they have a point. People don’t like the tactics they saw…” Rasmussen said. “The challenge though, for the Democrats, is you can’t talk about ICE without talking about the larger issues of immigration and border security. And on that, Republicans still have a very significant advantage.”

Opinions, however, are divided along party lines: 90% of Republicans say Trump’s approach is better, and 63% of Democrats say Biden’s was better.

RMG Research, Inc., conducted the field work for the survey, which has a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.

Federal Court Orders Government to Pay Legal Fees for Illegal Aliens

Jose Nino
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Federal Court Orders Government to Pay Legal Fees for Illegal Aliens

(José Niño, Headline USA)  The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has sided with two immigrants who were held in detention for extended periods without being given the opportunity to appear before a judge to request their release on bond. The Monday decision involved Adolph Michelin and Adewumi Abioye, who both challenged their detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as unconstitutional.

Abioye, a Nigerian citizen, came to the United States on a tourist visa in 2018. After completing a prison sentence for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, ICE detained him in May 2022. He remained locked up for more than 16 months without a hearing to determine whether he could be released on bond. In October 2023, Abioye filed a legal petition arguing that holding him for so long without a hearing violated his constitutional right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania agreed with Abioye and ordered that he receive a bond hearing. Following that hearing, he was released in December 2023 after posting a $5,000 bond. Abioye then requested that the government pay his legal bills under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), a law that allows people to recover attorneys’ fees when the government’s position in a case was not reasonably justified. The District Court granted his request, awarding him $18,224.58.

Michelin’s case followed a similar path. The Jamaican citizen was taken into ICE custody in January 2022 and spent more than a year detained without a bond hearing. He filed his own legal challenge in early 2023, and the District Court ordered his release on a $10,000 bond. Like Abioye, Michelin sought payment of his legal expenses under the EAJA and was awarded $15,841.60.

The government appealed both fee awards to the Third Circuit, making two main arguments: first, that legal challenges to immigration detention don’t qualify as “civil actions” under the EAJA, and second, that its handling of Abioye’s case was reasonable enough that he shouldn’t recover fees. The appeals court rejected both arguments and upheld the awards.

The Third Circuit emphasized the long-standing recognition of habeas corpus—the legal mechanism both men used to challenge their detention—as a civil action. The court stated, “Habeas actions are civil actions. They have been since before our Nation’s Founding.”

Regarding the government’s claim that its position was justified, the court found that holding Abioye for more than 16 months without a hearing was unreasonable. The court concluded, “When detention becomes unreasonable, the Due Process Clause demands a hearing.”

The case can be found here.

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino 

Conservative Agitator Arrested for Destroying Anti-ICE Sculpture at Minnesota Capitol

Jose Nino
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Conservative Agitator Arrested for Destroying Anti-ICE Sculpture at Minnesota Capitol

(José Niño, Headline USA) Jake Lang, a pardoned January 6 protester and notorious agitator, was arrested outside the Minnesota State Capitol on Thursday after destroying an ice sculpture protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, according to a report by CBS News.

The 30 year old from Lake Worth, Florida kicked and damaged the display that spelled “Prosecute ICE,” leaving fragments that read “Pro ICE.” Capitol security dispatchers observed Lang vandalizing the sculpture around 2:30 PM on the front steps. He left in a vehicle but was pulled over by a state trooper near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and University Avenue.

Lang was booked into Ramsey County Jail on suspicion of criminal damage to property.

Fox 9 reported that the sculpture was a permitted display installed hours earlier by Common Defense, a veterans advocacy organization, along with Minnesota Rep. Jamie Long and community leaders. The installation protested ICE’s aggressive enforcement operations in Minnesota, where federal officers have surged into the Minneapolis area sparking daily demonstrations, per a report by the Minnesota Star Tribune.

According to Raw Story, Lang claims he caused $6,000 in damage, which under Minnesota law elevates the offense to a felony carrying up to five years in state prison. 

The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that Lang previously attempted to hold an anti-Islam, anti-Somali rally at Minneapolis City Hall on January 17, where he announced plans to burn a Quran and march to the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, home to Minneapolis’s largest Somali community. A few of his supporters appeared while hundreds of counter-protesters chased him away, according to Fox 9. He was reportedly injured in the confrontation.

Jacob Thomas, a veteran and Common Defense communications director, condemned the vandalism stating “For a January 6 insurrectionist to destroy our display is an attack on the First Amendment veterans like me fought to defend.”

Lang’s arrest didn’t keep him quiet for long. He was back out on the streets Saturday, driving by protestors in a U-Haul with a cross, pouring out bags of ice in an apparent pro-ICE pun.

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino

Alleged Pedophile Charged w/ Threatening JD Vance

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Alleged Pedophile Charged w/ Threatening JD Vance

(Headline USA) An Ohio man has been charged with threatening to kill Vice President JD Vance while he was visiting his home state last month. But the man’s lawyer said his health makes it unlikely he would have been able to carry out the threat.

In addition to the charge for threatening Vance, prosecutors also charged Shannon Mathre with possessing digital files depicting child sexual abuse that were discovered during the investigation. That second charge carries a much stiffer potential penalty of up to 20 years in prison. The charge related to the threats could lead to a maximum five-year sentence.

Lawyer Neil McElroy said that Mathre’s health challenges would have been apparent to anyone in the courtroom Friday when he pleaded not guilty to the charges, so he doesn’t think the threat charge makes sense. McElroy said he couldn’t comment on the charge related to the possession of child sexual abuse files because prosecutors haven’t yet provided any details about that at this early stage of the case.

“Anyone that spends any time in a room with Mr. Mathre or has any knowledge of his condition—physical condition, mental condition—can see that it’s a farce,” McElroy said. He declined to go into detail about Mathre’s health challenges, but the lawyer said that Mathre has “some mental disabilities and a variety of other conditions.”

Still, the Justice Department and Secret Service took the threat very seriously after Mathre said “I am going to find out where he (the vice president) is going to be and use my M14 automatic gun and kill him.”

The indictment filed in court doesn’t offer many details about the threat or the images he allegedly possessed, but the Secret Service said the investigation went beyond the online threat to also examine Mathre’s actions and behavior. The 33-year-old Toledo man’s Samsung phone was seized on Jan. 21 as part of the investigation.

“Our attorneys are vigorously prosecuting this disgusting threat against Vice President Vance,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “You can hide behind a screen, but you cannot hide from this Department of Justice.”

David M. Toepfer, who is the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said “hostile and violent threats made against the Vice President, or any other public official, will not be tolerated in our district.”

Another Ohio man was charged last month after officials say he broke windows at Vance’s Ohio home not long after the Vice President returned to Washington following a weekend visit to Ohio. The Secret Service arrested William D. DeFoor, 26, as he ran from Vance’s home on Jan. 5. Vance is currently in Milan, Italy, attending the start of the Winter Olympic Games.

The Secret Service agent in charge of the Toledo office, Matthew Schierloh, said there should be zero tolerance for any kind of political violence in this country.

“The safety and security of those we protect is paramount to everything we do,” Schierloh said. “Thanks to vigilant members of the public and the tenacious work of our special agents, a comprehensive joint investigation was conducted, resulting in the arrest of a defendant for making threats against the Vice President.”

Mathre is doing back in court on Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether he will remain in custody as the case moves forward.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

 

DOJ to Allow Lawmakers to See Unredacted Versions of Epstein Files

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DOJ to Allow Lawmakers to See Unredacted Versions of Epstein Files

(Headline USA) The Department of Justice will allow members of Congress to review unredacted files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein starting on Monday, according to a letter that was sent to lawmakers.

The letter reportedly says that lawmakers will be able to review unredacted versions of the more than 3 million files that the Justice Department has released to comply with a law passed by Congress last year.

To access the files, lawmakers will need to give the Justice Department 24 hours’ notice. They will be able to review the files on computers at the Department of Justice. Only lawmakers, not their staff, will have access to the files, and they will be permitted to take notes, but not make electronic copies.

The arrangement, first reported by NBC News, showed the continued demand for information on Epstein and his crimes by lawmakers, even after the Justice Department devoted large numbers of its staff to comply with the law passed by Congress last year. The Justice Department has come under criticism for delays in the release of information, failing to redact the personal information and photos of victims and not releasing the entire 6 million documents collected in relation to Epstein.

Still, lawmakers central to the push for transparency, described the concession by the Justice Department as a victory.

“When Congress pushes back, Congress can prevail,” Rep. Ro Khanna, who sponsored what’s known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act, posted on social media.

Khanna has pointed to several emails between Epstein and individuals whose information was redacted that appeared to refer to the sexual abuse of underage girls. The release of the case files has prompted inquiries around the world about men who cavorted with the well-connected financier. Still, lawmakers are pressing for a further reckoning over anyone who may have had knowledge of Epstein’s abuse or could have helped facilitate it.

Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019 while he faced charges that he sexually abused and trafficked dozens of underage girls. The case was brought more than a decade after he secretly cut a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to dispose of nearly identical allegations. Epstein was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

 

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