Gov. Tim Walz's viral jab at Trump over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool cleanup drew conservative blowback pointing to Minnesota's fraud scandal.
Comedian John Oliver warned Sunday that President Donald Trump's profane attack on Barack Obama is going to come back to haunt him.On "Last Week Tonight," the HBO host zeroed in on Trump's G7 appearance in France, where the president, seated beside Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, mocked Obama's 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump tore up in his first term, and claimed Iran once "laughed at Obama" and called him "a stupid son of a b----" over a $1.7 billion payment.Oliver pointed out that Trump's own memorandum of understanding commits Iran to receiving at least $300 billion in reconstruction aid. “If Iran called Obama a stupid son of a b---- for letting them get $1.7 billion, I think we’re about to find out what the Persian word is for someone 300 times dumber than that,” Oliver quipped.The host argued the agreement is "less a comprehensive peace deal and more a plan to eventually have one, with some pretty big holes in it," noting it "doesn’t even address Iran’s nuclear program—supposedly the whole point of this war in the first place.” He also flagged that the deal has been criticized within Trump's own party.Even as Trump keeps boasting that his deal beats the one Obama struck in 2015, the former president gave his own verdict in an NBC interview that aired Friday.“We’ve now fought a war, spent billions and billions of dollars, you know, put enormous strain on our military, a lot of people have died, and it feels like we’re back where we were before we started the war,” Obama said. “Except maybe a little bit worse.”
A veteran federal prosecutor's grand jury misconduct is so pervasive that the Justice Department now expects to review more than 100 cases she handled going back to 2007.A court filing in the Northern District of Illinois names the collapsed prosecution of the "Broadview Six" as the case that started it all. News reports identify the lead prosecutor as Sheri Mecklenburg, a nearly two-decade veteran of the Justice Department whose conduct before a grand jury unraveled a high-profile case against six Democratic officials and activists arrested for protesting outside a Chicago Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility during the Trump administration's "Operation Midway Blitz" deportation campaign.Prosecutors made three attempts to indict the protesters on a rare felony conspiracy charge.During those attempts, Mecklenburg allegedly dismissed grand jurors who were skeptical of the government's case, had private conversations with grand jurors outside formal proceedings, and told jurors she would "never ask you to charge somebody if I didn't think there was probable cause." One dismissed juror had told her the case was "a crock of s— then and I still think it is.""I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts," U.S. District Judge April Perry said. "That trust has been broken."The Broadview Six case collapsed entirely, with all charges dismissed with prejudice.A separate court filing revealed Mecklenburg had ex parte contact with grand jurors in an unrelated arson case, telling them she "can prove this case" and that "we don't catch the smart ones." The government now estimates her conduct will trigger a review of grand jury minutes in more than 100 cases since 2007.Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called Trump's Justice Department a campaign to "bully, prosecute, punish and silence" political foes. Slate noted the Department of Justice admitted to "weaponizing a prosecution against Trump's foes."Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) confirmed Mecklenburg's detail to the Senate Judiciary Committee was terminated after the misconduct became public.
Alan Dershowitz is scheduled to sit down with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 20 as part of its sprawling investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and the government's handling of his case, according to Politico."I asked to be allowed to set the record straight and correct various misconceptions," Dershowitz said in a text message. "I look forward to doing so."The prominent defense attorney, whose past clients include O.J. Simpson and President Donald Trump, was part of the legal team that negotiated Epstein's controversial 2008 plea deal, which let the financier plead guilty to Florida state charges, including soliciting prostitution from a minor, and avoid federal sex-trafficking charges. Critics have long argued the lenient deal allowed Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019, to keep abusing girls for years before his later arrest.Dershowitz, who has said he wants to testify publicly and "about everything," has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing connected to Epstein's crimes. He has also proclaimed his innocence over an accusation by Virginia Giuffre, who alleged Epstein trafficked her to him. Giuffre withdrew the claim in 2022, saying she "may have made a mistake." She died last year.Dershowitz's appearance would add to a roster of high-profile figures the committee has questioned, including Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates and Ghislaine Maxwell, as Epstein's survivors continue demanding answers. The panel is also expected to interview investor Leon Black, whose Epstein ties have faced scrutiny for years.
The President is threatening jail time for the alleged vandals he's blaming for damaging the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington.
A long-time expert in swimming pools knows the culprit behind the Reflecting Pool "vandalism" that caused an ongoing algae bloom. For the past several weeks, CNN has welcomed on "Swimming Pool Steve," a second-generation pool builder who has a YouTube channel dedicated to explaining aspects of swimming pools and hot tubs. Speaking to host Boris Sanchez on Monday, Steve Goodale said there would always be an algae problem in the Lincoln Memorial's Reflecting Pool. "Let's start with the algae leak theory," Sanchez began. "What is more likely: that someone planted this algae or that it occurred and spread naturally?" "Well, somebody definitely planted the algae and it was the very first bird that landed in the water," said Goodale. "You know, in an open-air environment like this, there's no stopping the algae from coming. It's going to be in the water. It's just how are you going to deal with it knowing that it will be expected."The way to fix it, he explained, is a multi-pronged solution: the pool must be drained and the immediate remediation would likely follow. The algae problem is likely to be back-burnered, he said, while they figure out the problem with the liner. Monday morning a baby duck was found dead in the pool's water, prompting Sanchez to question whether the new chemicals put in the pool could be the culprit. "It would really come down to a matter of concentration," said Goodale. "And again, we're talking about, you know, 6.5 million gallons of water or more. So, it would take an awful lot of product to get to dangerous levels of contamination here. It's why hydrogen peroxide would be commonly used for an open-air, clear water environment like this, because it is kind of the safer of the options. It's why we don't use something like chlorine, which wouldn't be as safe for the wildlife."He also passed along his sympathies for the tragic death of the baby duck. Sanchez then asked about Trump's claims of vandalism and the "300-foot gash" that was carved into the liner. Goodale explained that the material used is one that would require considerable equipment to produce the gash Trump described. "You know, in my experience, and, you know, when I heard that it had been vandalized as well, my reaction was surprise as I really tried to understand the mechanism of damage that would cause this kind of vandalism," he said. Goodale said it would be noticeable and require advanced equipment like power tools."This is a robust, strong puncture-proof material," Goodale said of the lining installed by Virginia-based contractor Atlantic Industrial Coatings. "That's why it was likely chosen for this application. It's why it's used in commercial and industrial applications. So it would take, absolutely, a concerted effort. I don't know exactly — what it would take, but it would take a concerted effort to cause significant damage like that."In an earlier conversation, CNN reporter Manu Raju called on the White House to release footage of the vandalism that caused the gash.
President Donald Trump’s Reflecting Pool scandal speaks to deeper systemic failures in his presidency, at least according to one Marine veteran.“With the news that the Trump administration’s attempt to beautify the Reflecting Pool is looking like a spectacular backfire, a lot of people said it was a perfect analogy of how things are going in general,” wrote Joslin Joseph, an Iraq war veteran and recipient of the Military Reporters and Editors award for Best Commentary-Opinion, in an editorial for The Hill.Joseph added that Trump “likes to get things done, but he doesn’t get them done right.” In the case of the Reflecting Pool, Trump reportedly focused on getting the pool done as fast as possible and hired his personal associates rather than contracting the process out to the highest quality business willing to perform at the lowest bid. From there, Joseph connected Trump’s Reflecting Pool debacle to his recent attempts to wrap up the war he waged against Iran.“Just like the Interior Department’s claim of crystal clear water, the Trump administration is now selling the American public that the job he set out to do in Iran was done right, despite evidence pointing to the contrary,” Joseph wrote. “Although the Reflecting Pool and Iran are on different levels of importance to the American people, the outcomes from both so far are an indictment on how poorly Trump’s ‘get things done and worry about the fallout later’ approach goes.”In addition to his shunning of expertise and planning with the Reflecting Pool and the Iran war, Joseph also pointed to Trump’s DOGE destroying government agencies “without understanding how the government worked only to see the effort fail to cut spending and waste,” as well as his “Liberation Day” tariffs that raised prices, harmed the economy and were in some cases found to have been illegal.“Getting things done is laudable, especially with the gridlock that has plagued Washington for a while,” Joseph concluded. “But competence, accountability and judgement are still needed to get things done right. If you don’t have those, you end up with sweetheart deals for Iran and a reflecting pool that looks like a swamp.”Joseph is not alone among individuals scoffing at Trump’s attempts to renovate the Reflecting Pool. Despite the president pressing charges against people for supposedly vandalizing the Reflecting Pool — claims that he has made without evidence, and despite the physical implausibility of someone making a 100-yard gash in the sealant as he alleges — commenters by and large do not seem to believe his claims."Reflecting Pool story: Under Obama, responsible people carefully studied the problem, sought best solutions - and failed,” conservative journalist David Frum posted on Sunday. “Under Trump, irresponsible people imposed a hasty solution that enriched inept cronies - and failed even more spectacularly."A top former government official, like Joseph, connected Trump’s Reflecting Pool failure to his broader shortcomings as an administrator."Like most things Trump touches, the Reflecting Pool is now in worse shape than before,” former US Attorney Barbara McQuade said on X on Sunday. “Adding cosmetic paint did not solve the underlying problem. And now he baselessly blames vandals for his failure."
A federal judge on Monday struck down the Trump administration's revamped voter-citizenship database, ruling that federal agencies broke the law by building a centralized system that swept up the private data of millions of Americans and wrongly flagged U.S. citizens as non-citizens.In a sharply worded opinion, U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan vacated the 2025 overhaul of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system, along with two related privacy notices issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. She found the changes violated the Social Security Act, the Privacy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act."[T]he federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote," Sooknanan wrote. "This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens."The overhaul followed President Donald Trump's March 2025 executive order on elections that expanded SAVE to include records of natural-born citizens, tap Social Security data including SSNs, as well as let states run their entire voter rolls through the system in bulk.The judge, an appointee of President Joe Biden, noted internal records showed the agencies knew the database was "not in compliance" with the Privacy Act and that accuracy shortfalls "could cause incomplete or false results." Naturalized citizens with outdated Social Security files were among those wrongly flagged as non-citizens, with some forced to prove citizenship within 30 days or lose their registrations. An investigation in one Texas county found a quarter of the system's "non-citizen matches" were people who had already proven citizenship, the court filing detailed.The case, brought by the League of Women Voters and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, follows months of warnings about the error-prone system, which even several red states refused to feed their voter data.