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COMMENTARY

Trump’s Weaponization of DOJ Notice to Pick Up His Passports Negates Claim He Will ‘Do Whatever’ to Tamp Down Anger

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One week after the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago mansion Donald Trump on Monday made what appear to be false allegations against the FBI, claiming the Bureau “stole” his passports in “an assault on a political opponent.” That same day he gave an interview to Fox News repeatedly mentioning the “anger” he says stretches across the country over federal agents’ execution of a lawful search warrant and confiscation of 20 cartons of materials that include highly-classified documents, while wrapping that in an offer to “do whatever” to help.

Monday evening Politico reported that FBI agents had taken Trump’s passports – swept them up unintentionally. The passports were found by a “filter team” that goes through everything that was confiscated to ensure items like privileged attorney-client communications are not assessed or included as part of their investigation.

The FBI notified Trump’s attorneys they had the passports, telling them they could pick them up.

RELATED: Rumors Swirl as ‘Flight Risk’ Trump Claims FBI Took His ‘Three Passports’ – He Can Still ‘Ask for Asylum’

“So Trump team now publicizing this email,” from the Dept. of Justice, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports, “which shows: 1) DOJ obtained three passports (two expired, not one, as Trump said) and alerted Trump lawyers 2) They were recovered by a filter team, which weeds out privileged info. 3) Trump publicized this after DOJ offered them back.”

“Wow!” Trump declared on his Truth Social social media platform, after DOJ notified his lawyers and told them to pick up the passports. “In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else. This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!”

Meanwhile, on Monday in an exclusive Fox News interview, which appeared to be more a transcription of a statement into interview form with no questions asked and no pushback offered, Trump said he was willing to “do whatever” to help tamp down the anger across the country, anger he and his allies have been fueling.

The Dept. of Justice did not publicize the raid on Mar-a-Lago to the press, Trump did. FBI agents did not even wear the usual blue and yellow outerwear and shirts that say “FBI” when executing the search warrant, and we now know they called ahead to notify Secret Service they were coming.

READ MORE: Does Trump Still Have Classified Docs? DOJ May Think So After Asking Judge to Keep Affidavit Sealed Former Fed Says

“Former President Trump said he ‘will do whatever’ he can ‘to help the country,’” Fox News said in its interview Monday, “after the FBI’s raid of his Mar-a-Lago home last week, telling Fox News Digital that the ‘temperature has to be brought down,’ while stressing that the American people are ‘not going to stand for another scam.’”

“The country is in a very dangerous position,” Trump told Fox News. “There is tremendous anger, like I’ve never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one—years of scams and witch hunts, and now this.”

“There has never been a time like this where law enforcement has been used to break into the house of a former president of the United States, and there is tremendous anger in the country—at a level that has never been seen before, other than during very perilous times.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Trump repeated. “It is a very dangerous time for our country.”

Fox News also reported that “Trump said he had his representatives reach out to the Justice Department to offer to help amid outrage over the FBI’s unprecedented raid on his private residence last week,” and he “told Fox News that his team ‘has not heard yet’ from the Justice Department on whether they will accept his offer for help.”

“People are so angry at what is taking place,” Trump added again. “Whatever we can do to help—because the temperature has to be brought down in the country. If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen.”

Peter Strzok, former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, notes: “And it all resolves in a nothingburger. Small interesting note, the DOJ email confirms an expected filter team: that filter agents – not the investigative team – seized the passports. More proof FBI/DOJ are taking extra care to avoid privileged material.”

If Trump were interested in doing “whatever” he can do “to help the country,” why falsely claim the FBI “stole my three Passports” and call it an “assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country”?

Civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill answers that question.

“So while saying that the ‘temperature needs to be lowered,’ Trump was elevating the temperature by accusing the DOJ on social media of ‘stealing’ his passports, when in fact DOJ lawyers are the ones who alerted Trump that they had the passports & had already returned them,” Ifill wrote on Twitter. “Awful,” she added.

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COMMENTARY

Trump Starts Weekend Early After Griping Workers Get Too Many Days Off

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7 months ago

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June 20, 2025

By

After stalling on a decision in the escalating Middle East crisis and delaying action—some say potentially in defiance of federal law—on the congressionally mandated TikTok ban, President Donald Trump, facing sliding poll numbers, a widely criticized budget bill on the brink of collapse, a looming debt ceiling showdown, and apparent tensions with his Director of National Intelligence, is heading to his Bedminster golf resort for a MAGA dinner and an early weekend likely to include several rounds of golf.

The decision to leave the White House early on Friday comes after he left the G7 early this week, reportedly to make a decision on whether or how to help Israel attack Iran. His former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, jokingly said Trump exited the conference with top world leaders because he was “bored,” The Hill reported.

The President is slated to exit the White House at 2 PM Friday.

READ MORE: ‘People Will Die’: Shock Over Trump Shutting Down LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline Is Growing

“With the world on edge, the president’s early departure underscores a pattern critics say reflects misplaced priorities, favoring fundraising and familiar retreats over the day-to-day demands of governance,” MeidasTouch News reported.

The long weekend also comes just hours after President Trump denounced “too many days off” for federal and other workers, a remark he made on Juneteenth, a federal holiday signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021. Trump had campaigned on passing the legislation to honor and celebrate the day that symbolizes the end of slavery, but made no mention of it this year.

“Too many non-working holidays in America,” Trump decried Thursday evening.

“I know this is a federal holiday.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. “I want to thank all of you for showing up to work. We are certainly here. We’re working 24/7 right now.”

This week, in addition to meeting with his national security team, and an “awkward” meeting with players of the Juventus soccer team, Trump presided over the installation of two 88-foot flag poles and the raising of massive American flags at the White House.

READ MORE: ‘Make Asbestos Great Again?’: Trump Slammed for Move to End Ban on Russia-Tied Carcinogen

Trump’s long weekend also comes just one week after millions protested his policies across all 50 states and internationally on Saturday, while he attended a military parade celebrating his and the U.S. Army’s birthdays, and after a tragic political assassination of a Democratic lawmaker and her spouse.

It also comes one week after Trump appeared to make a major about-face, saying farm, hotel, and restaurant workers are valuable and extremely difficult to replace. He suggested that ICE would pause targeting those workers, only to turn around just days later to announce “the largest mass deportation program in history.” The pause on deportations was canceled, leading one notable political commentator and legal analyst, Joyce Vance, to wonder if Trump is actually in charge.

“Who’s running the show?” she asked, suggesting someone may have “countermanded” him on the deportations. “Who’s in charge? Trump or someone else?”

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War

 

Image via Reuters

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COMMENTARY

‘The Generals Stay Silent’: Experts Alarmed as Trump Politicizes Army at Fort Bragg Rally

Published

8 months ago

on

June 11, 2025

By

Military and political experts, veterans, and journalists are condemning President Donald Trump’s political rally at Fort Bragg on Tuesday, warning he crossed a critical line by delivering overtly political and authoritarian-themed remarks before U.S. Army troops. They also expressed alarm that uniformed soldiers appeared at ease booing his political opponents—another troubling breach of military norms. Some now say the time has come for generals to publicly speak out.

The commander in chief entered the event to “Hail to the Chief,” and as he took to the stage, his “MAGA anthem,” “Proud to Be an American,” played. For nearly one hour, in about 9,000 words, Trump delivered a political stump speech. He attacked his political opposition, Democrats, including President Joe Biden and his administration, California Governor Gavin Newsom (“Newscum”) and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. He attacked transgender Americans. He attacked the Democratic U.S. Senators who opposed the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, calling them “a very hostile group of people that I think really don’t want to see America be great again.”

He got the soldiers to boo “the fake news” media, and President Joe Biden. He told them the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen.”

READ MORE: ‘Show. Us. The. Plan.’: Pentagon Chief Ripped for Dodging Budget Details in Heated Hearing

He attacked the people in Los Angeles protesting his deportation policies, describing it as “anarchy,” while telling the soldiers that defending their  civil rights was not the reason Americans fought overseas:

“Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third world lawlessness here at home like is happening in California. As Commander in chief, I will not let that happen. It’s never going to happen. What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country.”

He thanked the generals, and mentioned some by name. He talked about “the real generals,” as opposed to the ones Americans see on television.

Critics are warning of grave consequences.

“This is the most unacceptable and egregious politicization of our troops we’ve ever seen,” wrote veterans’ activist Paul Rieckhoff, an Army combat veteran, responding to video of Trump getting the soldiers to boo the press, President Joe Biden, and the mayor of Los Angeles.

“And it’s not a one off. It’s a strategy,” added Rieckhoff, who is also the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). “And one we’ll see in full and dangerous display this weekend at his military birthday parade for himself. Trump wants the world to think our great military is HIS military. And wants to coerce and manipulate troops into making them think it is too. And driving down their public trust and approval by the minute. Trump has created America’s greatest civil-military relations crisis since the Civil War. And it’s just getting started.”

Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, a former Director of European Affairs for the National Security Council (NSC), warned: “America’s Generals and Admirals are terrified. They are cowed. They seem unlikely to hold the line and live up to their oaths to serve the U.S. Constitution.”

Lamenting that “the Generals stay silent,” he added: “Our democracy is in great danger. This morning I wonder if we crossed a line and there’s no going back.”

Army combat veteran Fred Wellman, a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School who is now the host of the podcast “On Democracy.” responded to Vindman by saying, “The silence is deafening.”

READ MORE: Trump Mixes Up World Wars, Days, Civil Rights in Latest Remarks

Retired U.S Army lieutenant general Russel L. Honoré, who served as the commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, blasted Trump’s speech: “Damn @POTUS Speech At #FortBragg  was inappropriate, criticizing previous administration, and Generals while speaking to troops , I never witnessed that S..t like this in 37 years in Uniform.”

Author and former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel observed, “Unlike other militaries, American soldiers do not swear an oath to the state, or a person, or a monarch, but to the Constitution. Trump calls them ‘his’ military—but they are ours, and they swear to ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ not one man.”

Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and Russia expert, at The Atlantic targeted the generals for staying silent.

He wrote, “senior officers of the United States military have an obligation to speak up and be leaders. Where is the Army chief of staff, General Randy George? Will he speak truth to the commander in chief and put a stop to the assault on the integrity of his troops? Where is the commander of the airborne troops, Lieutenant General Gregory Anderson, or even Colonel Chad Mixon, the base commander?”

“Where is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine? He was personally selected by Trump to be America’s most senior military officer. Will he tell the man who promoted him that what he did today was obscene?”

Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, often seen on cable news, called Trump’s speech “a disgraceful politicization of the active Armed Forces. He is the Commander in Chief. The only loyalty of the Armed Forces is to the Constitution. Their focus is on protecting America from foreign enemies. Grave danger.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Doesn’t Even Know Who He’s Talking to’: Newsom Scorches Trump Over Military Deployment

 

Image via Reuters

 

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COMMENTARY

Trump Mixes Up World Wars, Days, Civil Rights in Latest Remarks

Published

8 months ago

on

June 10, 2025

By

President Donald Trump made a series of inaccurate claims in his remarks on Tuesday, conflating World War I and World War II, incorrectly suggesting he spoke with the governor of California on Monday when it was just after midnight Saturday morning, and asserting—contrary to the First Amendment—that protests, even peaceful ones, can be shut down with “heavy force.”

During remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked when he last spoke with California Governor Gavin Newsom. “A day ago,” he said Tuesday afternoon, which was three and a half days after the governor confirmed his phone call. Trump also confirmed the call by sending a screenshot to a Fox News reporter. The screenshot read June 7, 1:23 AM.

“Recently, other countries celebrated the victory of World War I, France was celebrating, really,” Trump told troops at Fort Bragg on Tuesday afternoon. “They were all celebrating. The only one that doesn’t celebrate is the USA and we’re the ones that won the war. Without us, you’d all be speaking German right now. Maybe a little Japanese thrown in. But we won the war.”

RELATED: ‘Doesn’t Even Know Who He’s Talking to’: Newsom Scorches Trump Over Military Deployment

The United States was part of a coalition during both WWI and WWII. Trump was speaking about WWI, but then claimed, “Without us, you’d all be speaking German right now. Maybe a little Japanese.”

That’s a reference to World War II—Japan was on the side of the Allies, with the U.S., in WWI.

Also on Tuesday, Trump declared that anyone caught protesting his controversial military parade on Saturday will be met with “very heavy force,” despite the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly protecting political protests.

READ MORE: ‘Show. Us. The. Plan.’: Pentagon Chief Ripped for Dodging Budget Details in Heated Hearing

“We won the war, and we’re the only country that didn’t celebrate it, and we’re going to be celebrating big on Saturday,” Trump claimed. Veterans Day was initially created as Armistice Day to honor those who died in World War I.

“And if there’s any protestor that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force. By the way, for those people that want to protest, they’re gonna be met with very big force. And I haven’t even heard about a protest, but, you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.”

The First Amendment protects both political speech and the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Trump did not state “violent protestors,” or “rioters.” He said “any protestor.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Subterfuge’: Noem Push a ‘Prelude’ to Invoking Insurrection Act, Experts Warn

 

Image via Reuters

 

 

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