Jim Acosta Tells Me CNN Buyout “Absolutely Un-American”
And Kash Patel is apparently drunk as the Trump DOJ drops 23,000 criminal probes to pursue immigrants
Hey, Raw America family. Welcome to the Sunday Wrapup. I’m here with my cup of coffee, reflecting on a genuinely remarkable week for independent media.
I scored an exclusive sit-down with Jim Acosta this week: the former CNN chief White House correspondent and Trump antagonist who’s built one of the most successful Substacks in the country. I’ll also update you on how the Trump DOJ quietly dropped 23,000 criminal probes, while our FBI Director is apparently as drunk as a skunk.
To our paying subscribers: thank you. Your support made my interview with Jim possible.
If you’re not yet a paid subscriber to Raw America, I hope what you read below convinces you to upgrade your subscription. This is exactly the kind of conversation — unfiltered, unsponsored, nobody telling us what we can and can’t ask — that your subscription makes possible. Thanks for considering it.
On the Epstein Cover-Up
Jim Acosta has been one of the most dogged investigators of the Epstein files. I asked him what he thinks the most important thing in the Epstein files is that the public still doesn’t understand.
“I think the biggest thing is: what’s the deal with Donald Trump? It seems as though there’s a cover-up going on to prevent the public from learning that.”
He pointed the finger directly at acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s former personal defense attorney.
“Is it Donald Trump’s defense lawyer’s job to be in charge of releasing the Epstein files?” Jim asked. “And why was Pam Bondi all of a sudden fired right before she was supposed to testify before the House Oversight Committee?”
There are allegedly 3 million or so files that haven’t been released. Jim’s read: “If there wasn’t anything to hide, we’d have all the material released. There’s got to be something.”
Jim also echoed a concern I’ve had, that mainstream outlets have been reluctant to say out loud. I’ve felt that Trump launched the Iran war in part to take the heat off the Epstein files.
“The prevailing intelligence was that Iran wasn’t even close to having a nuclear weapon,” Jim said. Netanyahu’s presentation to Trump was essentially the same one Israeli officials have been making to American presidents for the last 10 to 20 years. Trump was just the first one to go for it.
On the Cowardice of Corporate Media
Jim also didn’t hold back on his former colleagues in corporate media. When I asked what has most surprised him since going independent, his answer was pointed.
“I don’t want to call it the complicity of the corporate news media,” he said, “but the cowardice of the corporate news media, that has greatly surprised me.”
Jim called the Warner Bros. Discovery/Ellison merger “a travesty” and “absolutely un-American.”
The Ellisons have already taken over CBS and are moving on CNN. It could get worse, he said.
“They could buy NBC. They could buy ABC. They could merge with Fox. We have no idea where this could go from here.” He put it plainly: we already have one Fox News that functions as state TV for MAGA. Do we really want another?
He also called out Pete Hegseth, who has stocked the Pentagon briefing room with what he called “MAGA ringers” from propaganda outlets. He noted that it was recently reported Hegseth might be sitting at the CBS table at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
“That is a joke,” he said.
On What Has to Happen Next
Here’s the part I found inspiring. Jim sees independent media like Substack, YouTube, and outlets like Raw America as the beginning of something real.
“My hope is that we’re going to see independent media forces banding together, joining forces, and forming networks that can compete with the larger legacy media outlets,” he said. “I think it’s coming.”
The journalism will get there, he said. But it takes time, resources, and most importantly, readers who are willing to fund it directly.
“Everybody’s going to look bad 10, 15, 20 years from now,” he said. “Our kids and grandkids are going to say, ‘You guys were a bunch of cowards and sell-outs, and all you wanted to do was make money.’ And it’s wrong. It’s just absolutely wrong.”
This is why Raw America can use your support. Thanks for considering upgrading your subscription today.
While the FBI Director Was Drunk, 23,000 Cases Got Dropped
I also want to talk about Kash Patel. What The Atlantic reported Friday should make you furious.
According to more than two dozen current and former FBI officials, Patel has been showing up to lead the nation’s top law enforcement agency visibly intoxicated, going missing for unexplained stretches, and apparently calling aides to announce he’d been fired, all because he couldn’t log into a computer.
That’s who’s running the FBI.
Now layer in another report from ProPublica. The news outlet found that in the first six months of Trump’s second term, the DOJ quietly closed more than 23,000 criminal cases.
Hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime, drugs and other offenses were dropped as they shifted resources to immigration. Twenty-three thousand cases. Gone.
Here’s what that means. Nearly one-quarter of FBI agents nationwide have been reassigned to support ICE. The white-collar crime squad in Houston was decimated in 2025 by orders to put dozens of their agents onto immigration enforcement. One DOJ investigation into a financial services firm stalled entirely because the investigators were told to chase immigrants.
The numbers tell you everything. White-collar prosecutions hit a projected low of just 3,862 in fiscal year 2025, compared to over 10,000 per year in the 1990s. Corporate bribery enforcement actions dropped more than 70 percent last year.
Think about what that means. The financial criminals ripping off ordinary Americans are getting a free pass. Trump has granted clemency to more than 70 allies previously convicted of fraud. He also signed an executive order undercutting bribery laws, saying antibribery laws hurt American companies’ competitiveness abroad.
The billionaires are safe. The corporate criminals are safe.
And the man nominally in charge of holding them accountable apparently can’t even log into his computer on a Friday afternoon.
Raw America Puts It Together
I like to use my weekly column to highlight aspects of the news that haven’t been tied together. This week, the thread is this: Trump is fertilizing the ground for white-collar crime while dismantling the institutions that would catch it.
When your FBI Director’s chief qualification was writing a children’s book depicting Trump as a king, and he’s reportedly too drunk to be woken up by his own security detail, nobody’s coming for the billionaires looting the country in broad daylight.
And the corporate press Jim Acosta described, the cowardly, consolidating, Ellison-captured press, isn’t going to tell you that story either. They have bosses to protect.
That’s why this newsletter exists. Raw America doesn’t have a billionaire owner. We don’t have a merger waiting to close. We answer to you and only you, which is the only reason we can connect these dots in the first place.
If what you read this week made you angry, please let that anger do something. A paid subscription to Raw America is direct fuel for this kind of journalism: the interviews corporate media won’t do, the investigations they won’t run, the threads they won’t pull. We have reporters on Capitol Hill. We have more coming. But only if readers like you make it possible.
Please become a paid subscriber today. This is the fight. You’re already in it by reading. Help us stay in it with you.
Thank you for being here. It genuinely means everything.
— John Byrne / Founder, Raw America and Raw Story
P.S.: Here’s the video of our interview with Jim. He’s really in top form this week. I encourage you to check it out. And if you’re not already following his Substack, you should be.