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HERE & ABROAD
❧ DEEP DIVE: DOJ’s Busy Month of Indictments ❧
On Sept. 21, at Charlie Kirk’s hagiographic Trump rally—sorry, memorial service—President Donald Trump famously dissented from the opinion of the deceased. “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” Trump said of Kirk’s Christian belief in forgiveness. “I hate my opponents and I don’t want what’s best for them.” Around the same time, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended (it has since been reinstated), Trump followers began doxxing people en masse for doing anything less than drawing hearts around Charlie Kirk’s name, and the Trump administration successfully pressured Erik Siebert, U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, to resign after he would not bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called this campaign of retribution “consequence culture,” and it seems to have become the motto of Bondi’s Department of Justice.
In the month since Kirk’s memorial, the DOJ has plowed forth in dispensing consequences, chasing down the President’s political enemies and charging them with crimes that Trump or his friends may or may not have committed, too.
Art by Skutch from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 6
John Bolton:But his emails… Trump’s former national security advisor was indicted last week on 18 counts related to the mishandling of classified information, similar to what Trump himself has been indicted on. Bolton is accused of sending extensive logs of his daily activities to two of his family members using his Gmail and AOL accounts, as well as an encrypted messaging service. Bolton’s email accounts were later hacked by an associate of the Iranian government. Apparently in an attempt to blackmail him, the hacker sent Bolton a message saying, “This could be the biggest scandal since Hillary’s emails were leaked, but this time on the GOP side!”
The emails were supposedly one way Bolton compiled material for The Room Where It Happened, his tell-all memoir. If the DOJ succeeds in its prosecution, Bolton could face decades in prison, locking him away for what may be the rest of his life. This sentence would be considerably softer, however, than the punishment Bolton suggested Ed Snowden receive for leaking classified information. Bolton said Snowden should be put to death, “hung from a tall oak tree.”
James Comey: The former FBI Director has also found himself in the middle of an email scandal, reopening the investigation into Hilary Clinton’s use of a non-governmental email account as Secretary of State just days before the 2016 presidential election. Even though it has been argued that Comey’s announcement might have helped sway that election in favor of Trump, the President hates Comey for his leaked memos and his role in the FBI’s investigation of Trump’s relationship with Russia. The case against Comey is weak—so weak that Trump had to install Lindsay Halligan, a previous insurance attorney and member of his personal legal team, to replace Siebert and bring the charges. Comey is accused of lying to Congress, misstating that he did not authorize a member of the FBI to anonymously speak to the media when he actually had.
Art from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 6
Letitia James: New York Attorney General is the only one on this list to successfully prosecute Trump, nailing him for fraud after he habitually misrepresented his assetsso he could get better rates from lenders. The conviction originally carried a half million dollar fine—considered commensurate to the illegally won income—that was lateroverturned on appeal. In a twisted game of “I know you are but what am I,” Halligan, again breaking from Siebert, has indicted James for fraud—mortgage fraud. James is accused of falsely claiming on a loan application that a house she purchased in Virginia would be a second home when she actually rented it out.
Kate Shaw, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, made a prescient comment in a Sept 2. episode of the Ezra Klein Show. As the two discussed “democratic backsliding” and Trump’s targeting of government officials, Shaw said, “I don’t think they will announce that they’re targeting critics because they have criticized. I think they will manufacture some justification—mortgage fraud or whatever. But I think that is something we absolutely have to view as within the realm of the possible.”
In the four weeks since Kirk’s memorial, Shaw’s realm of the possible has become reality.
❧ In Other News ❧
❧FREE SANTOS 2025. He’s baaccckkkk. Trump has commuted the sentence of one-time House Representative George Santos. The Long Island Republican (click the link if you have 20 minutes to kill) was convicted of, as the Associated Press writes, “deceiving donors and stealing the identities of 11 people — including his own family members — to make donations to his campaign.” But, really, Santos is so much more than his criminal activity. His lies and misdealing have made him a star of this News Briefing. Santos even earned himself a Briefy Award for Innovation in Political Corruption back in 2023. The award judges wrote of their selection:
There is really no other choice here besides Congressman George Santos, who took the phrase “fake it ‘til you make it” to heart by fabricating basically every aspect of his career and personal life. This is actually not what brought him down, though. Rather, he flew a bit too close to the sun by, according to a federal indictment, stealing the credit card information of various Republican donors and starting a fake nonprofit whose proceeds he used to buy designer clothing, among other things. (In the United States Congress, being corrupt is perfectly ordinary; the only real crime is being corrupt too loudly, and drawing attention to all the others.)
UPDATE: Santos now says he will be fleeing New York City because he’s scared of Zohran Mamdani. This is very silly, but it may also cause a measurable drop in the city’s crime rate.
❧ SAVE OUR SIGNS.While history textbooks, statues, and government websites get all the attention, public signs and educational placards have a similar, albeit more concise, power. The way we write them and where we place them changes the way we understand ourselves as a country. And just as they have wiped scores of government webpages containing facts that delegitimize their narrative, the Trump administration has ordered for all signs and placards that are within the purview of the Department of the Interior and mention “negative” parts of American history to be taken down—a bat signal for librarians at the University of Minnesota, as well as the folks at Safeguarding Research & Culture and the Data Rescue Project. 404 Media reported that the group launched Save Our Signs, a crowdsourced photo database of signage at national parks across the country. Every photo is in the public domain, so they’re free to use, and you can upload your photos of signs, too.
Art from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 6
❧ CIRCLE WHICH ONE DOESN’T BELONG: FROG HEADS, BODY CAMS, AND MARC BENIOFF. Trick question. They all have something to do with the National Guard deployments and the protests against them. Protesters in Portland are riding their bikes naked and dressing up in ridiculously fun animal costumes. The frog heads and chicken suits not only highlight how absurd and unwarranted the national guard deployments are, but can protect protesters from tear gas. A judge in Chicago has ruled that both federal agents and ICE agents have to wear body cams after being presented with evidence that agents used excessive force against journalists and protesters. Los Angeles County has declared a state of emergency in order to protect immigrants from ICE. The declaration “sets the stage for a future eviction moratorium for households that have lost income due to the raids,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Meanwhile in northern California, Silicon Valley is taking a shine to federal law enforcement. Billionaire Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the National Guard should come to San Francisco, actually. It was later revealed he had privately lobbied ICE to use Salesforce software and expand its hiring of agents. Meta took down a Facebook group that tracked ICE in Chicago at AG Bondi’s behest, and Google and Apple removed apps that followed ICE’s movements. Google, as if reading from a Department of Homeland Security press release, called ICE “a vulnerable group.” ICE, you know, the same group of militarized agents that randomly sprayed a minister with tear gas in Chicago and shot an unarmed protester in the head with rubber pellets at close range as the woman crouched behind a van. That ICE.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
If you’re in the New Orleans area, the local chapter of the Starbucks Workers United labor union is holding a fundraising concert this coming Thursday, October 23. We recently interviewed Jason Woods, one of the organizers for the union in Louisiana, about baristas’ ongoing struggle for a fair contract; since then, the company has refused to come to the bargaining table, and workers around the country are running practice pickets and building up strike funds in case they become necessary. Come help them out—more details are available on the SBWU Instagram page.
ALSO IN NEW ORLEANS!
Your humble editors will be running a stall at the ACAB Zinefest (which the organizers insist stands for “Art, Crafts, and Books”—nothing to see here, Mr. President) on Saturday, October 25, at the Fred Hampton Free Store at 5523 St Claude Ave. Stop by and visit, and support the Free Store generally—it’s a very cool local mutual aid project. A number of punk and metal bands will also be playing the Fest, including Laughing Torso and Nonbinary Assault Weapon. (No, we are not making those up.)
On the topic of Silicon Valley Billionaires, Current Affairs has a piece from Dean Preston, who, for five years, was the lone democratic socialist on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He tracks how the billionaires took control of the political narrative (doom loop, anyone?) and used it as a stepping stone to taking over the city government, which is now run by billionaire-bankrolled “moderates.” He calls this nothing less than “a sweeping transformation that has turned the country’s most famously progressive city into a test lab for billionaire politics,” and it’s not going well. “Not coincidentally,” Preston writes, “San Franciscans are suffering more than ever in just about every measurable way.” But this political playbook, he warns, might be coming to a city near you.
❧ In More News ❧
❧ THE CEASEFIRE-ISH IN GAZA REMAINS ISHY. Last week, this News Briefing wrote about the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that took effect on Oct. 10 and quickly faltered. Reuters reports that there was an “explosion of violence” over the weekend after Israel responded to the killing of two its soldiers in Gaza with an airstrike that killed dozens of Palestinians. Still, Trump says the ceasefire is holding, and that the attacks on Israeli soldiers might not have been carried out by Hamas. Negotiations continue between Israel and Hamas as major sticking points, like Palestinian governance and disarmament, are yet to be hammered out.
Also worth noting: Israel is still occupying more than half of Gaza’s physical territory,
making it impossible for many Palestinians to return to their homes until
a second phase of withdrawal is reached. (Map: Al Jazeera)
❧ NO KINGS DAY WAS A SUCCESS, POOP BE DAMNED. Seven million people turned out across the country on Saturday to once again peacefully protest the dictatorial tendencies of Donald Trump. The President responded by posting an AI video of himself, wearing a crown and dropping tons of aerial feces on protesters out of a plane that reads “KING TRUMP.” Republicans called the No Kings Day protests “hate America” rallies and tried to paint the protestsas the work of antifa, funded by shadowy Soros dollars. (They’re especially agitated about Trotskyists selling newspapers on the fringes of the events, something that’s been happening at various protests since approximately 1928.)
On its face, it’s ridiculous to say that children and families, carrying handmade cardboard signs, are members of a group Trump has designated as a “domestic terror organization,” but this kind of gross mischaracterization is part of Republicans' larger push to criminalize dissent — and the buck doesn’t stop here. Last week, Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson spoke with journalist Ken Klippenstein about NSPM-7, “a sweeping order that directs federal agencies to treat political dissent as a form of domestic terrorism.”
Art from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 5, Issue 6
❧ YOU CAN NOW BUY BYGONE TWITTER HANDLES. If you stopped posting on Twitter after Elon Musk walked into its headquarters carrying a sink (“let that sink in” was the joke—in case it was too funny for you to comprehend, too), then someone might be able to buy your handle. The Verge reported that X has launched an online marketplace where paying X subscribers buy inactive handles. Users can only keep their purchased handle for as long as they continue to pay for their X subscription. If they stop paying, their handle will revert to whatever it was before they repo’ed yours.
ANIMAL FACT OF THE WEEK
The plumed basilisk lizard can walk on water!
Well, sort of, anyway. Also known as the “Jesus Christ Lizard” for their miraculous feats/feets, these guys are found in Central American rainforest and are 70 percent tail. They have a crest on their back that looks like a fin, which is puzzling because their whole thing is being on top of the water, not swimming within it. And oh baby, when they do take to the water’s surface, they switch from four legs to two (human-style) and look like Fred Flintstone driving his foot-powered car, hind legs spinning into a blur. Speed is the name of the game here: if the lizards move fast enough, they catch air bubbles in their webbed feet and float. Take a look for yourself:
Writing and research by Emily Carmichael. Editing and additional material by Alex Skopic and Nathan J. Robinson. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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