Utah County prosecutors argued that Tyler Robinson targeted conservative activist Charlie Kirk, as they urged Judge Tony Graf in a court filing on Tuesday to allow Robinson to stand trial on murder charges. After a week of preliminary hearings earlier this month in a Utah court, state prosecutors offered a written brief to Graf late […]
A new court filing from ex-CNN host Don Lemon was filed Wednesday, alleging that a Department of Homeland Security officer lied under oath in a statement to the judge in his case. Lemon is included with several other journalists charged by the Department of Justice, which claims that Lemon and other reporters were protesting when they were filming at a Minnesota church where one of the pastors was coordinating with immigration agents. National security expert Marcy Wheeler noted that this is the second time the Justice Department has asked Judge Douglas Minko to accept a complaint from an ICE agent who watched the video of the church broadcast and testified to what was in it. According to Lemon's filing, the agent made false claims about the journalists joining in the chanting from protesters. "That sworn allegation about Mr. Lemon was false," the filing states. "The government did not produce the draft complaint affidavit until July 17, 2026. At the July 24 hearing, the government explained that it submitted the affidavit to the Court in late January, but the Court did not sign it. The government then 'took Chief Judge Schiltz's advice' and obtained a grand jury indictment on January 29, 2026. Thus, only two days before securing the indictment, the government submitted a complaint affidavit falsely alleging that Mr. Lemon and the other journalists joined in the chanting. The timing strongly suggests that the government presented the same false account of the journalists' conduct to the grand jury."On Friday, in a rare move, Judge Minko ordered that the Justice Department turn over all testimony and evidence presented to the grand jury at the time. Their specific request is to find whether this sworn statement and any others were used to secure a grand jury indictment.The proceedings for a grand jury are typically kept secret, but in recent events, judges have allowed that information to be released to the defense in trial courts. In a recent Chicago case, the Justice Department was found to have misled the grand jurors and even dismissed jurors that they felt wouldn't give them the indictment they sought. That case involved six political leaders and activists protesting outside of an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. The charges have been dropped and the accused have asked for a special counsel to investigate the incident. Judge Minko said that he wanted to examine the information himself first. However, Matthew Ebert, who represents freelance journalist Georga Fort, said that the government has made false claims about his client already, including in sworn affidavits, Minneapolis Public Radio reported last week. “The presumption of regularity has collapsed,” Ebert said.Justice Department prosecutor Neville Hedley told the judge that no false information in earlier documents made it into the indictment. That doesn't indicate whether the information was revealed to the grand jury to obtain the indictment, however. “These were not material falsehoods," Hedley said. “This was a mistake, this was a miscommunication.”The affidavit signed by DHS-ICE Special Agent Timothy Gerber reads, "Broadcast video obtained from Cities church also shows ARMSTRONG, ALLEN, LEMON, RICHARDSON, KELLY, FORT, LUNDY, CREWS chanting with agitators and obstructing parishioners' path of travel."Hedley didn't indicate what was "miscommunicated" in the claim. Lemon and his attorneys have alleged that the case against him and the journalists is "weak."
On Wednesday, a new CNN poll revealed that President Donald Trump’s approval rating has cratered to a record low among his most essential support group: white people. As Newsweek notes, this demographic “has long formed the backbone of his electoral coalition,” and the fact that he’s losing white voters reflects the massive scale of the public’s “growing dissatisfaction” with his performance. The poll found that Trump’s net approval among white voters has plunged to a historic low of -20, a major drop from the flat 0 net approval he held with white voters one year ago. What’s more, it showed that Trump’s overall approval rating has sunk to just 34 percent, matching the lowest point in his political career, which came just after the January 6th insurrection during the last days of his first term. But the new survey reveals that his standing is even worse than his previous low. While his approval rating is the same, his net approval is actually lower, falling to -32 points today versus the -28 he held just after J6. According to Newsweek, “The difference is driven by higher disapproval. In the latest July 2026 survey, 66 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's performance, compared with 62 percent in January 2021, meaning more voters now hold a negative view of the president than they did in the immediate fallout from the 2021 riot." Growing dissatisfaction with Trump has been caused by a range of issues, most notably his poor handling of the economy and the disastrous war with Iran, as well as a variety of highly visible domestic follies, from his mishandling of the Epstein files release to anger over brutal immigration crackdowns to his obsession with vanity projects.The poll found that “a record-high 73 percent of Americans believe Trump has not paid enough attention to the country's most important problems, while just 27 percent said he has focused on the right priorities,” explains Newsweek. “Public frustration extended beyond policy disagreements. Around three-quarters of respondents said Trump is not in touch with the problems ordinary Americans face in their daily lives, while roughly two-thirds said he does not put the country's interests ahead of his personal gain. Only 27 percent described Trump as someone who understands the challenges facing ordinary Americans.”What’s more, “just 25 percent approved of his handling of inflation, while only 21 percent approved of his management of gas prices. Approval of his handling of the situation in Iran stood at 28 percent…Roughly two-thirds of Americans believe Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions and that his military decisions relating to Iran have hurt the United States.”
Republicans have argued that the pre-emptive pardon Dr. Fauci received from former President Biden ought to preclude him from invoking the Fifth Amendment. But the pardon applies only to what happened before it was issued.
