Today in Politics, Bulletin 285. 1/13/26

… An auto worker yelled “pedophile protector!” at Trump today while he was touring a Ford plant in Michigan. A visibly angry Trump responded first by pointing at the man and yelling what appeared to be a curse word, then flipped his middle finger at the guy.

… NYT: “6 Minnesota federal prosecutors resigned on Tues over DOJ’s push to investigate the widow of a woman killed by an ICE agent and the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter. Joseph Thompson, who was second in command at the US attorney’s office and oversaw a sprawling fraud investigation that has roiled Minnesota’s political landscape, was among those who quit.”

… “Thompson’s resignation came after senior DOJ officials pressed for a criminal investigation into the actions of the widow of Renee Good. Thompson, a career prosecutor, objected to that approach, as well as to DOJ’s refusal to include state officials in investigating whether the shooting itself was lawful. The other senior career prosecutors who resigned include Harry Jacobs, Melinda Williams and Thomas Calhoun-Lopez.”

… “After Good was shot, DOJ decided to forgo a civil rights investigation that would establish whether the ICE officer’s use of deadly force was justified. That decision led several career prosecutors at the department’s civil rights division in Washington to resign in protest. Instead, DOJ launched an investigation to examine ties between Good and her wife, Becca, and several groups that have been monitoring and protesting the conduct of immigration agents in recent weeks.”

… MS NOW: “At least 4 leaders of the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division have left their jobs to register their frustration with the department after the AAG for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon decided not to investigate the ICE officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Good last week. The criminal section of the division would normally investigate any fatal shooting by a law enforcement officer and specializes in probing potential or alleged abuse or improper use of force by law enforcement.”

… “The departures – including that of the chief of the section, as well as the principal deputy chief, deputy chief and acting deputy chief – represent the most significant mass resignation at DOJ since February. At that time, 5 leaders and supervisors of the department’s Public Integrity Section, which investigates public officials for possible corruption, resigned rather than comply with orders to dismiss the bribery case against then-NY mayor Eric Adams.”

… Rune Crypto: “Eric Adams, former NYC major, has just removed liquidity of his new memecoin, $NYC, scamming investors for over $2,536,301. He launched a $NYC memecoin just 30 minutes ago, and has removed its liquidity after promoting it on his personal social media, claiming to be the NYC token.”

… Adams was only able to engage in this latest scheme, which more than doubled his net worth in less than an hour, because the Trump admin dropped many fraud charges against him last year for political reasons.

… PEOPLE reported that ICE shooter Jonanthan Ross lied to his neighbors about what he did for work: “A woman who lives in Ross’ neighborhood in the Minneapolis suburb of Chaska, Minn. tells PEOPLE that she was shocked to hear the news - particularly because she was under the impression he was in an entirely different field of work. The woman met Ross once at a neighborhood garage party during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, where she says he described his job to guests.”

… “He said he worked with plants, as a botanist, so he lied about what he did. So when I found out he was the one on the news, I said, ‘What! That’s so crazy!’ I had no idea he was an ICE agent.”

… “It really creeps me out that those are my neighbors - that that’s the kind of people I live next to. It’s really upsetting. I just assumed all the ICE agents were like, from TX and AZ and FL. I think it impacted a lot of our neighbors that way. People really haven’t been talking about it because you just want to maintain some peace on the road - you don’t want to start fights. But it’s just really hard to process. And then every day, you hear about more people getting detained.”

… Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) on MS NOW: “What type of man decides to walk around with a phone camera and at the same time is trying to make life and death decisions, and then decides to pump one bullet in that may have been forward-facing, but clearly the other two were on the side. Who is this person? This person is clearly not someone that should be in law enforcement. That man is a coward. He’s an absolute coward.”

… The first poll is out on the shooting of Good. YouGov: People who think the ICE agent was justified in the amount of force he used in shooting the woman in Minneapolis: 28%. Not justified: 53%. A big chunk were unsure.

… CBS: “Nearly one year after the mass pardon of more than 1,500 Trump-supporting Capitol riot defendants, members of a House committee are investigating whether any of the pardoned rioters are now working for Trump’s admin in the fast-growing ICE agency. In a letter sent to Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi, Rep. Jamie Raskin has requested all ‘records, documents, memos, and internal communications regarding the solicitation and hiring of anyone charged or investigated for actions in connection to the J6 attack on the Capitol.”

… Raskin also requested info on whether any J6 defendants “have been invited to join the ranks of this Admin, including among the masked DHS agents and officers. Unique among all law enforcement agencies and all branches of the armed services, ICE agents conceal their identities, wearing masks and removing names from their uniforms. Who is hiding behind these masks? How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on J6 and were convicted of their offenses?”

… Slate’s Laura Jedeed: “The plan, when I went to the ICE Career Expo in TX last Aug, was to learn what it was like to apply to be an ICE agent. Who wouldn’t be curious? The event promised on-the-spot hiring for would-be deportation officers: Walk in unemployed, walk out with a sweet $50k signing bonus, a retirement account, and a license to brutalize the country’s most vulnerable residents without consequence—all while wrapped in the warm glow of patriotism.”

… “I sat across the black folding table from her on one of the uncomfortable black chairs. She asked for my name and date of birth, then whether I am over 40 (I am 38). Did I have law enforcement experience? No. Military experience? Yes. Did I retire from the military at 20+ years, or leave once my enlistment was up? The latter, I told her. then repeated my carefully rehearsed, completely true explanation for why the résumé I’d submitted had a large gap. ‘I had a little bit of a quarter-life crisis. Ended up going to college for part of that time, and since then I’ve been kind of—gig economy stuff.’ She was spectacularly uninterested.”

… “The entire process took less than 6 minutes. The woman took my résumé and placed the form she’d been filling out on top. ‘They are prioritizing current law enforcement first. They’re going to adjudicate your résumé,’ she told me. If my application passed muster, I’d receive an email about next steps.”

… “9 days later, impatience got the best of me. For the first time, I logged into USAJobs and checked my application to see if my drug test had come through. What I actually saw was so implausible, so impossible, that at first I did not understand what I was looking at. Somehow, despite never submitting any of the paperwork they sent me—not the background check or identification info, not the domestic violence affidavit, none of it—ICE had apparently offered me a job.”

… “According to the application portal, my pre-employment activities remained pending. And yet, it also showed that I had accepted a final job offer and that my onboarding status was ‘EOD’—Entered On Duty, the start of an enlistment period. I moused over the exclamation mark next to ‘Onboarding’ and a helpful pop-up appeared. ‘Your EOD has occurred. Welcome to ICE! Your duty location is NY.”

… “By all appearances, I was a deportation officer. Without a single signature on agency paperwork, ICE had officially hired me.”

… “Many of ICE’s critics worry that the agency is hoovering up pro-Trump thugs—J6 insurrections, white nationalists, etc.—for a domestic security force loyal to the president. The truth, my experience suggests, is perhaps even scarier: ICE’s recruitment push is so sloppy that the admin effectively has no idea who’s joining the agency’s ranks.”

… “We’re all, collectively, in the dark about whom the state is arming, tasking with the most sensitive of law enforcement work, and then sending into America’s streets. And we are all, collectively, discovering just how deadly of an arrangement that really is.”

… “The aspiring officers fall broadly into three categories: thick-necked law enforcement types who look like they do steroids but don’t know how to work out, bearded spec-ops wannabes who look like they take steroids and do know how to work out, and dorks. Pencil-necked misfits.”

… NewsNation: “There's new video of a woman in Minneapolis saying she's trying to get to a doctor’s appointment and these federal agents bust into her car, drag her out. Is it fair to say some of these operations are going too far? Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL): If you break the laws and resist arrest, it's not going to be pretty. This is what happens.”

… Host: “But only 39% support the president's approach. Miller: I don't believe that. I don't know how they're doing their polling.”

… Trump gave a deranged speech in MI today, where he was sweaty, hair disheveled, an inch thick of bronzer makeup slathered on, in an extremely ill-fitting suit: "One of the reasons they're doing these fake protests - I mean they're just terrible. It's so fake. 'Shame! Shame! Shame!' You see the woman. It's all practiced. They take hotel rooms and they all practice together. It's a whole scam. We're finding out who's funding all this stuff too."

… Trump: "We intend to imprison any fraudster, politician, or public official involved in these sick plots to loot and pillage our country. Think of that Ilhan Omar. She lives in Somalia. All they have is murder and robbing. Pirates. That stopped. Same missile. Ping! That's the end of them."

… AOC on why she will oppose the additional funds for ICE being sought by Republicans: “I want everybody to understand that the cuts to your health care are what’s paying for this. You get screwed over to pay a bunch of thugs in the street that are shooting mothers in the face.”

… She was asked if impeachment of Trump should be the first priority for Dems if they regain the House: “I’ve personally never run to represent my district on grounds of impeachment or not. I run for health care. My community wants to hear about raising the minimum wage, expanding unions, strengthening health care, and I think it’s important that we have an affirmative, positive vision for the country. But that doesn’t mean that we shy away from what needs to be done in terms of accountability.”

… Fox5 (DC): “For the first time, lawyers representing accused pipe bomber Brian Cole, Jr., are speaking out on behalf of their client. In a wide-ranging interview, FOX 5 learned more about Cole’s political beliefs - specifically, that he voted for Trump twice - and his attorney’s plan to argue that Trump’s J6 pardon applies to Cole. After his arrest, Cole told investigators he believed someone needed to ‘speak up’ for people who thought the 2020 election was stolen.”

… “Cole’s lawyer, Mario Williams, says Cole voted for Trump twice before he was arrested and charged with interstate transportation of explosive devices and malicious attempt to use explosive devices in Dec. Williams also says he believes the president’s pardon for all J6 defendants applies to Cole. Cole’s lawyers plan to make a filing with the court soon, laying out their argument that the pardon applies.”

… Williams was asked if his client should be covered by Trump’s J6 pardon: “100%. The allegations are that he went out there and he set down these components and that they were found on J6, the judge says that it’s a part of J6, and it says that you were allowed to get a pardon for everything related to the events that occurred on or at the Capitol building on J6.”

… Politico: “Two of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s top aides were placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into their conduct by the agency’s in-house watchdog. A complaint filed with DOL’s inspector general accuses Chief of Staff Jihun Han and his deputy, Rebecca Wright, of devising official events for Chavez-DeRemer in order to facilitate her personal travel. Both Han and Wright worked for Chavez-DeRemer while she served in the House.”

… “The complaint alleged Chavez-DeRemer was having an affair with another agency employee and drank on the job, among other things - and that the two aides were aware of her actions.”

… NYT: “The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump admin said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last Sept. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings. The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the admin has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful because Trump ‘determined’ the US is in an armed conflict with drug cartels.”

… “The laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called ‘perfidy. Retired Maj. Gen. Steven Lepper, a former JAG for the Air Force, said that if the aircraft had been painted in a way that disguised its military nature and got close enough for the people on the boat to see it - tricking them into failing to realize they should take evasive action or surrender to survive - that was a war crime under armed-conflict standards.”

… Gen. Lepper: “Shielding your identity is an element of perfidy. If the aircraft flying above is not identifiable as a combatant aircraft, it should not be engaged in combatant activity.”

… The reason for this is to prevent civilian aircraft from become military targets. If a country is unable to distinguish between military and civilian aircraft because an aggressor is actively disguising that fact, a defending country may begin shooting down all aircraft in the area including passenger airliners.

… Forbes: “Weeks after the Trump admin lowered minimum wages for some temporary farmworkers, the Trump Organization sought approval to hire 36 foreign workers for its VA winery at a pay rate nearly $2 an hour below what it previously offered—highlighting the company’s continued reliance on overseas labor even as Trump argues Americans are being pushed out of jobs.”

… In Oct 2025, Trump’s Dept of Labor enacted a rule changing how wages are calculated for some temporary foreign farmworkers on H-2A visas, lowering pay rates for certain jobs. Two months later, Trump Org filed paperwork seeking approval to hire 36 foreign workers via H-2A visas for its winery, saying it could not find enough US workers. The jobs pay $13.90 an hour—$1.91 less than what the winery paid in 2025 and below what it has offered for similar roles since 2021.”

… “Trump Org has sought to bring at least 2,069 foreign workers into the US since 2008, the first year for which records are available online.”

… Bloomberg reported that Mike Johnson wasn’t thrilled with Trump’s Truth Social post demanding that credit card companies lower interest rates to 10% on credit cards on Jan. 20 in honor of the anniversary of his inauguration: “Mike Johnson throws cold water on 10% credit card rate cap and warns of negative consequences like restricted lending. Spoke to Trump about and Says they would ‘have to work’ to build consensus on it.”

… Mike Johnson later to reporters in the Capitol: “One of the things the president probably had not thought through is when you bring interest rates down to 10% the problem is that the credit card companies would just stop lending money.”

One of those darker news days where there isn’t a whole lot positive to report. You know me though, I give it to you straight and don’t sugar-coat things because I think one of the most important things we need to be right now is very well-informed and vigilant. The courage and energy of the protestors, and govt officials refusing to go along with this regime is very encouraging even in the worst of times.

No Bulletin tomorrow because I have my two podcasts - Uncovered and Ask the Editor. Please submit any questions you have or topic you want me to talk about more on Ask the Editor in the comments section below. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.

… NYT: “Bari Weiss’s message to the ‘CBS Evening News’ team was blunt. ‘Let’s make sure every single night has something with viral potential,’ Weiss wrote to top producers as they prepared for the show’s new anchor, Tony Dokoupil, to start his tenure this month with a two-week tour of the country. ‘The goal for this road show is not to deliver the news so much as it is to drive the news. We need to be the news for