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."
Reports that OpenAI’s rogue AI agent compromised a second company’s environment after the recent Hugging Face cyber incident underscore the growing national security and public safety implications of frontier AI systems. According to reporting from Reuters and Axios, the AI agent, which reportedly escaped containment during internal safety testing before conducting a multi-stage cyberattack against Hugging Face, also exploited a vulnerability within a customer environment hosted through Modal Labs. While Modal stated that its own infrastructure was not compromised, the incident demonstrates that the consequences of the attack extended beyond a single organization and affected additional real-world systems.“OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in Washington this week and he should not be allowed to leave D.C. without Congress seeking to understand, from him, publicly how one of the company’s most advanced AI systems escaped its intended testing environment and reportedly carried out offensive cyber operations affecting multiple companies,” said J.B. Branch, Director of Federal AI Governance at Public Citizen. “Voluntary disclosures after the fact are not a substitute for congressional oversight. The American people deserve a full accounting of what happened, why existing safeguards failed, and what concrete steps are being taken to prevent it from happening again. Most importantly, Congress must act, not rely on voluntary action by Big Tech companies. AI systems are creating real-world consequences. Congress should treat this with the urgency it deserves.”“The federal government must develop emergency authorities and response capabilities for advanced AI systems. If a frontier model demonstrates dangerous autonomous behavior, the government cannot be left relying solely on private companies to decide when — or whether — to pause, contain, or disable it. A credible national emergency preparedness framework is now an essential component of AI governance.”Public Citizen urges Congress to hold immediate oversight hearings, obtain all relevant incident reports and technical findings, and evaluate whether additional statutory safeguards — including mandatory incident reporting, independent safety evaluations, cybersecurity standards for frontier AI systems, and pre-deployment oversight for exceptionally capable models — are necessary to protect the public.
A visibly rattled Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) announced Wednesday he had scheduled a vote that could see senators hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, a citation that, if referred to and acted on by the Justice Department, could carry criminal penalties of up to a year's imprisonment and up to $100,000 in fines.The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci was compelled to appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee Wednesday to testify on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the roughly three-hour hearing, Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.Near the end of the hearing, Paul, the chair of the committee, acknowledged that Fauci had received a pardon from former President Joe Biden for conduct between Jan. 1, 2014 and Jan. 19, 2025. Given that Republican senators had also pressed Fauci on his conduct after Jan. 19, 2025, Paul, as the hearing was coming to a close, said he found Fauci's claimed privilege unfounded and explicitly ordered him to answer questions.Again, Fauci pleaded the Fifth.“Because you refuse to answer, citing a privilege that is unsupported because of your pardon, this committee has scheduled a vote next week on a resolution certifying your contempt,” Paul said.Fauci has come under renewed scrutiny in recent days following the publication of thousands of pages from his personal diary, details of which were repeatedly seized on by Republican senators during the hearing.Sen. @RandPaul calls to schedule a vote on a resolution to certify Anthony Fauci's contempt of Congress after the former health official pleaded the Fifth throughout his testimony pic.twitter.com/rIQWFc9rMN— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) July 29, 2026
Retired CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos responded to a recent assertion that President Donald Trump has made a U-turn on Ukraine as Russia continues to attack. Outgoing Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) this week complained from the Senate floor that Ukraine still hasn't received the $400 million appropriation Congress approved in 2025."I asked Secretary Hegseth why the Pentagon is taking so long to send this critical aid to Ukraine. He didn't have a good answer," said Durbin. "President Trump needs to send $400 million in funds immediately. They're desperately needed in Ukraine to stop Russian advances. Doing so will help bring President [Vladimir] Putin to the negotiating table. Secretary Hegseth also needs to move $200 million that we appropriated and president signed into law for the Baltic Security Initiative to help frontline NATO allies prepare for Russian intimidation and retaliation."Polymeropoulos said he's dubious about whether Trump has truly made such a shift in his stance on supporting Ukraine. The only thing that will convince him is "substance," he said," not just vibes.""Where is the 400 million?" he questioned of those cheerleading Trump's pivot. Reports this week revealed that Russia has sold off half of its gold reserves, Radosław Sikorski, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, said. Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and Ukraine's Minister of Economy, translated a recent interview with Sikorski, quoting the Polish leader as saying that Moscow has sold off 44 tons of gold. "It’s a sign Moscow is running low on resources. This winter may be Putin's last chance to break Ukraine, so Europe's help decides if Ukraine wins," said Sikorski. He added that he didn't see Trump swooping in at the last minute to win the war for Ukraine. Secretary Marco "Rubio's call with [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov lasted 37 minutes. I don't see grounds to expect a breakthrough from that. Real progress needs Putin himself to lower his ambitions about conquering Ukraine, and I don't believe that's happening," Sikorski said. "Russia keeps testing NATO's response threshold with provocations like drones crossing into member states' territory. Naming these as deliberate tests actually lowers the odds Moscow repeats them, since a provocation everyone expects can't deliver its shock," he added. Poland, he said, is ready to add "our own newest Patriot-class interceptor technology" to the fight, since U.S. support is up in the air.
Washington Examiner columnist Joe Concha warns that the Democratic Socialists of America want to make the United States unrecognizable as candidates aligned with the movement continue to gain traction. “What we see here with DSA candidates is that they have to own what they have said,” Concha said on Fox News’s Fox and Friends First […]
Last week, the Trump administration announced a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. The deal would allow the kingdom to develop nuclear power using American technology and could eventually pave the way for uranium enrichment on Saudi soil. But the agreement must first undergo congressional review — and survive President Donald Trump’s social […]
A top Democrat in the House of Representatives sounded the alarm on Tuesday after some "really troubling" signs of President Donald Trump's midterm ploy emerged. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) joined CNN's Kasie Hunt on "The Arena," where he was asked about upcoming threats to the midterm elections. He mentioned the possible confirmation of Jay Clayton as Trump's new Director of National Intelligence as one threat, considering that Clayton wouldn't confirm that Joe Biden won the 2020 election during his Senate hearings. Trump has also directed his national intelligence agencies to be more involved in the midterms, which raised concerns about his intent to meddle in the elections. Raskin also noted that he has not seen evidence of Republicans campaigning in rural areas he's visited, which leads him to believe the party is focused on undermining the election rather than winning it. He shared a little bit about what it has been like to campaign in upstate New York with some of his fellow Democrats. "We see no evidence of Republican activity anywhere," Raskin said. "I don't even see MAGA hats anymore, which makes me afraid that they're just focused on trying to undermine the election or take the election through some kind of strategic mischief. We're not seeing Republican campaigning, and the bottom seems to have fallen out of their public support."Raskin also noted that Clayton would be taking over the DNI slot at a time when the intelligence agency is "a shell of itself." He noted that acting director Tulsi Gabbard "fired hundreds" of people during her tenure, and the new acting chief, Bill Pulte, conducted four rounds of layoffs that impacted a still-to-be-determined number of intelligence professionals. "What's really troubling is they're cleaning out that office as they go," Raskin said. "He's not really interested in the kind of national intelligence that we got, for example, about Vladimir Putin's involvement and interjection of himself in our 2016 campaign," Raskin added. "And that's where Trump rejected the findings of 17 different U.S. intelligence agencies and said he believed Vladimir Putin because Putin told him he didn't do it."
