Blanche Shutting Down All Accountability for Trump

Trump DOJ says he has the right to bulldoze Statue of Liberty, judge strikes down Trump immigration policy, ICE detainees in four states go on hunger strike

Good evening. I’m John Byrne, in for British Chris.

Trump’s acting Attorney General is already hard at work making it harder for Democrats to prosecute Trump and his allies under a future Democratic administration. The Trump DOJ is now defending the president’s ballroom by arguing Trump has the right to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty. A federal judge just issued a ruling striking down one of Trump’s most extreme immigration policies. And migrants locked in ICE detention facilities across the country are going on hunger strikes to protest conditions that include beatings, tear gas, and contaminated water.

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Blanche Already Working to Keep Trump Out of Jail

In 2024, Todd Blanche was Donald Trump’s personal defense lawyer, hired to keep his client out of prison. Now he’s running the same Justice Department that once prosecuted his boss, but his goal appears to be the same: keep Trump out of prison.

In a recent NewsNation appearance, host Katie Pavlich asked Blanche about whether a future Democratic administration could go after Trump. Blanche said he’s convinced a Democratic revenge plot against his boss is coming, and that he’s already making preparations.

Blanche referred to the prosecutions against Trump — which were handled by special counsel Jack Smith — as “weaponization” of the DOJ, rather than an attempt to honestly prosecute an attempted coup and the mishandling of classified documents. Most notably, he said he’s already putting “roadblocks” in place, so Trump is never prosecuted again.

The acting attorney general’s remarks came after Illinois Governor JB Pritzker suggested that a future Democratic administration should pursue criminal cases against Trump officials who broke laws. That kind of talk has sent MAGA world into full panic mode.

Blanche became acting AG in April after Trump pushed out Pam Bondi. Bondi was accused of bungling the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files while failing to deliver the prosecutions of Trump’s political enemies that the president wanted. Blanche stepped in and quickly moved to revive investigations into Trump adversaries like New York Attorey General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.

This week, Trump announced he’ll nominate Blanche to the job permanently. Blanche called it “the honor of a lifetime.”

We’re watchin the complete transformation of the DOJ into a shield for one man. Blanche is going far beyond law enforcement and explicitly working to preempt accountability before the process even starts.

DOJ Argues Trump Has Absolute Right to Tear Down Statue of Liberty if He Wants to

The Trump administration’s legal team went to a federal appeals court Friday and made an argument that should stop every American in their tracks.

The case is about Trump’s White House ballroom project, which would take the place of the demolished East Wing. A federal judge tried to halt construction back in March. The appeals court paused that ruling and let construction continue. And now the administration is defending the whole thing with a legal theory that has almost nothing to do with the ballroom itself.

The administration’s lawyers are arguing that once the federal government moves fast enough and spends enough money, courts can’t touch it: even if it’s illegal.

Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, pressed DOJ attorney Yaakov Roth, asking if the same logic applies if the government decided to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty and moved too fast for anyone to stop it legally.

Roth said yes.

The DOJ’s position is that because national security is involved, the courts should step back entirely, and if there’s a legal problem, Congress can sort it out later. Roth pointed to the 3 million pounds of steel rebar already installed as evidence the project has crossed the point of no return.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed the lawsuit, arguing the White House grounds are a designated national park and can’t be altered without congressional approval. Their attorney, Tad Heuer, made it simple: “They just don’t want to go to Congress.”

Two of the three appeals court judges on the panel expressed real skepticism about the administration’s position. The third, a Trump appointee, questioned whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue at all.

But the broader legal argument is the thing worth paying attention to. The DOJ is telling the federal courts that speed and scale can immunize presidential action from judicial review. That shows this isn’t about a ballroom, but rather about a president attempting to place himself beyond the reach of the law.

Federal Judge Rules Trump Broke the Law on Immigration

A federal judge handed down a significant ruling Friday, finding that the Trump administration violated the law when it froze immigration applications for people from 39 different countries.

The policy, implemented by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services starting last November, placed a hold on processing asylum requests, work permits, green cards and citizenship applications for immigrants from countries subject to Trump’s travel bans. Those countries span Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Chief District Judge John McConnell from the District of Rhode Island, an Obama appointee, ruled that the policy was unlawful from the start.

He wrote that USCIS “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo.” He pointed out that the people affected hadn’t done anything wrong, followed the rules, went through the legal process and were still left waiting anyway, “for months on end, for benefit requests that USCIS refuses to adjudicate.”

“The rule of law has to apply to everyone equally,” he added.

The lawsuit that led to this ruling was filed back in March by immigrant service organizations and labor unions. They argued that the administration had essentially decided to bypass the immigration system that Congress created and USCIS is legally required to administer. Judge McConnell agreed.

Murad Awawdeh, the president of the New York Immigration Coalition, called the ruling a reaffirmation of what advocates had been arguing all along: that the administration acted against both the rule of law and existing law itself, and that freezing applications based solely on a person’s country of birth is exactly the kind of thing the courts were meant to stop.

Immigrant Launch Hunger Strikes at ICE Detention Centers Nationwide

Hundreds of migrants held in ICE detention facilities in at least four states have launched hunger strikes to protest the conditions inside.

At Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, roughly 300 detainees are taking part in an ongoing hunger and labor strike. The facility is run by private prison company GEO Group under a 15-year contract with ICE. Outside the building, there have been daily protests. Inside, families say their relatives are being beaten and tear gassed by guards.

In Adelanto, California, at least 20 detainees at the Desert View Annex went on hunger strike to draw attention to what they described as substandard conditions, including mold, unsafe drinking water and inadequate medical care.

Last month, hunger strikes broke out at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, which is the largest ICE facility in the Midwest. Detainees are also on a huger strike at Moshannon Valley in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, which is the largest in the Northeast. In Pennsylvania, striking detainees were reportedly placed in solitary confinement.

The GEO Group operates all four facilities.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherill said the state Department of Health tried to conduct a health inspection of Delaney Hall and was denied full access. She’s called for the facility to be shut down, saying the consistent stonewalling “raises serious questions about what ICE is trying to hide.”

Gabriela Fuentes has been protesting outside Delaney Hall for days. Her husband came to the U.S. from Guatemala on a work visa and told her he’d been beaten and tear gassed inside.

“We’re all human, we’re all people,” she said. “Just because we’re Hispanic does not mean that we need to be treated like this.”

Attorneys and advocates are struggling to even track the full scope of what’s happening. In Pennsylvania, communication lines to affected units were cut after the strike began, leaving families and legal advocates unable to find out what was happening inside. In Michigan, an attorney called for more state oversight, noting that current mechanisms are woefully inadequate.

This is what it looks like when a government refuses to treat human beings with basic dignity.

Raw America is hard at work not only breaking down stories like these, but putting reporters on the ground at the Capitol, breaking exclusive stories the billionaire-owned outlets won’t cover. Our Capitol Hill partner, Joe Galina with Call to Activism, recently interviewed Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in Washington. We’ll be releasing that video this weekend.

We’re also expanding our live interview coverage, speaking to both prominent elected leaders and respected experts offering you inside perspectives on the biggest stories of the day that the Trump regime wants to keep hidden. If you’ve been enjoying Raw America’s independent journalism on a free subscription, now is the time to upgrade to a paying membership. None of this would be possible without you.

I’m John Byrne, with Raw America. Thanks for reading. We’ll see you next week.

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