TV News LIES

President Trump’s plans to use the Justice Department to seek revenge against his perceived enemies may have just hit a major roadblock. Earlier this month, Memphis federal district court judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. issued an opinion in the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia in response to a motion to dismiss for vindictive and selective prosecution.

The judge found “that the totality of events” surrounding the bringing of the Abrego indictment “creates a sufficient evidentiary basis to conclude that there is a ‘realistic likelihood of vindictiveness,’” entitling him to discovery and an evidentiary hearing before his motion is decided.

This decision has wide-ranging ramifications. It is likely the death knell of the indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), as well as other perceived enemies whom Trump has threatened for prosecution solely for political revenge. Trump’s enemies list includes Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former CIA Director John Brennan.

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The Trump administration laid off more than 4,100 employees Friday amid the ongoing government shutdown, according to a new court filing from the Justice Department. 

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston had ordered the administration to hand over the information in a lawsuit government unions filed just before the shutdown began.

Various agencies have since confirmed the layoffs, but the government’s new court filing provides the clearest picture yet of the breadth of the cuts.

The most significant layoffs took place at the Treasury Department, with 1,446 employees receiving RIF notices Friday.

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which would have required sweeping changes on campus in exchange for a funding advantage in federal grant awards.

The 10-point memo was provided to nine higher learning institutions last week, requiring reforms such as a rewiring of the admissions process by adjusting the consideration of race or ethnicity, student grading and demanding that transgender women be excluded from women’s locker rooms and sports teams.

The document “includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution,” reads a Friday letter from MIT President Sally Kornbluth to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

“And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,” she added. 

MIT is the first institution to publicly rebuke the offer, in spite of its ties to preferential funding.

TVNL Comment:  Congratulations to MIT for making this decision!

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A Rutgers University professor who taught a course on anti-fascism and was blocked from leaving the US for Spain on Wednesday night, according to media reports, hours after Donald Trump hosted a White House roundtable highlighting the impact of antifa – or “anti-fascist” – far-left activists is now departing.

Mark Bray, an historian who published the 2017 book Antifa: the Anti-Fascist Handbook and has taught courses on anti-fascism at the New Jersey university, posted on the social media platform Bluesky that “Our plane to Spain is in the air!”. Bray was attempting to board a plane at Newark airport when he was informed at the boarding gate that the reservations for him and his family had been cancelled.

The professor, nicknamed “Dr Antifa” by a group of students, had said he was moving to Europe after receiving death threats. Turning Point USA activists have claimed he is a “financier” for the leftwing movement.

“‘Someone’ cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second,” Bray posted on Bluesky. “We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared’.”

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The FBI has fired two special agents involved in former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Trump, according to multiple reports. 

On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee released an unclassified document showing that the FBI analyzed the phone records of nine Republican members of Congress in 2023. The document, dated Sept. 27, 2023, says a bureau special agent — whose name is redacted — completed “preliminary toll analysis” of eight Republican senators and one GOP representative.

The records obtained were of the lawmakers’ communications Jan. 4-7 in 2021, covering events prior to, during and after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the committee said in a news release. The committee, chaired by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), added that the data obtained shows when and to whom a call was made, the duration of the call and the location of the call. It does not include what was said on the call.

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A grand jury in Virginia indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday, marking the second Trump foe to face federal prosecution in recent weeks.

James was charged with one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution. The indictment alleges that James bought a house in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020 with a mortgage that required her to use it as a second home, but she ultimately rented it to a family and used it as an investment property. It accuses her of misrepresenting how the house was used to get a more favorable interest rate.

Lindsey Halligan, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement: "No one is above the law. The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public's trust."

James called the charges "baseless" in a video statement.

"This is nothing more than a continuation of the president's desperate weaponization of our justice system," she said.

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