Today in Politics, Bulletin 307. 2/13/26

… ICE Director Todd Lyons admitted in a statement today that ICE officers lied under oath in an investigation that led to criminal charges against two innocent men: “Today, a joint review by ICE and DOJ of video evidence revealed that sworn testimony provided by two separate officers appears to have made untruthful statements.”

… “Both officers have been placed on administrative leave. The US Attorney’s Office is investigating these false statements. Upon conclusion of the investigation, the officers may face termination of employment, as well as potential criminal prosecution.”

… This was the Fox headline on Jan 15: “ATTEMPTED MURDER: An ICE officer is fighting for his life after he was allegedly ambushed with a shovel and a broom handle by 3 illegal immigrants during a traffic stop that quickly spiraled into a foot chase, a violent struggle, and gunfire.”

… This is what Kristi Noem said right after the incident: “What we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement.”

… But now DOJ has just filed a motion to dismiss all the charges. Prosecutors said this in their motion to dismiss: “Newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations in the Complaint Affidavit.”

… In other words, ICE lied. And DHS tried to quickly deport all the other witnesses to the incident but failed before their statements were obtained. Don’t expect Fox to cover the update on this story with wall-to-wall sensational coverage like they did when Noem announced the arrest.

… Attorney Brian Clark, who represents one of the men falsely charged: “The charges against them were based on lies by an ICE agent who recklessly shot into their home through a closed door. The identify of the ICE agent should be made public and he should be charged for his crime.”

… Stunning new reporting on how Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski have used DHS as a taxpayer-funded vehicle for their ongoing adulterous affair and to promote their fantasy that she is a viable future presidential candidate. WSJ: “Kristi Noem knew she needed a reset. It was two days after federal agents had shot and killed Alex Pretti, and Noem was facing fire from all sides. So Noem’s top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, messaged Trump’s pollster with a request: They needed to cut an ad to help her.”

… “Throughout her tenure as secretary of DHS, Noem has attempted to burnish her personal stardom at every turn. Within DHS, Noem and Lewandowski frequently berate senior level staff, give polygraph tests to employees they don’t trust and have fired employees—in one incident, Lewandowski fired a US Coast Guard pilot after Noem’s blanket was left behind on a plane.”

… “Lewandowski and Noem, who are both married, have publicly denied the reports of the affair, but people said they do little to hide their relationship inside the department. The pair have lately been using a luxury 737 MAX jet, with a private cabin in back, for their travel around the country. DHS is leasing the plane but is in the process of acquiring it for approximately $70 million. DHS has previously used other planes through the Coast Guard or other agencies for the secretary’s use.”

… “In the blanket incident, Noem had to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket wasn’t moved to the second plane. The Coast Guard pilot was initially fired and told to take a commercial flight home when they reached their destination. They eventually reinstated the pilot because no one else was available to fly them home.”

… “In an incident last year that rankled some senior staff at the agency, Lewandowski made it known to top ICE officials that he wanted to be issued a law-enforcement badge and a federally issued gun. Officials are typically only issued a badge and a gun after undergoing law-enforcement training. The admin was preparing to bring on Tom Feeley, a former top ICE official in NY, as its new director when Lewandowski asked Feeley if he would be willing to issue him and several other political officials badges and guns. Feeley declined, and he was subsequently passed over for the top job at ICE.”

… Meanwhile, Noem gave a ridiculous press conference today in AZ about “election integrity” and how DHS was going to play a role in elections if the SAVE Act is passed: Reporter: Why choose to do this press conference this way? Your agency is about to run out of funding. You were just in Arizona last week. And you bussed all of us to a secure facility. This doesn't seem top secret. Noem: Oh my goodness - this is our critical infrastructure.”

… Q: “Can you offer us any examples of voter fraud in Arizona? Noem: Oh, I'm sure there's many of them.”

… Q: “Can you confirm that CBP actually hit a party balloon it thought was a drone with a laser? And why wasn't that coordinated with the FAA? Noem: You know, this was a joint agency task force, um, mission that was undertaken. And um, we're continuing to work on the communication.”

… ProPublica: “A federal tool meant to find noncitizens on voter rolls is consistently marking citizens as noncitizens, especially if they were born outside the US, causing chaos as election clerks try not to disenfranchise voters.”

… Congressional reporter Jamie Dupree: This DHS tool that's mistakenly accusing US citizens of being non-citizens is the same system that states would be required to use under the GOP's 'SAVE America Act' that was passed this week in the House.

… Jessica Riedl with Brookings Institute: “When Kansas did a version of the SAVE Act, it purged around 40 ineligible voters - and stopped 31,000 legal citizens from registering to vote (12% of all applicants). That's 775 legal voters lost for every 1 ineligible voter.”

… Trump then issued a deranged post threatening to take over elections from the states by executive order if the SAVE Act isn’t passed: “We cannot let the Democrats get away with no voter ID any longer. These are horrible disingenuous CHEATERS. This is an issue that must be fought, and must be fought NOW! If we can’t get it through Congress, there are Legal reasons why this SCAM is not permitted. I will be presenting them shortly., in the form of an Executive Order.”

… Reporter Kyle Clark: “ICE Director Todd Lyons told Congress that local law enforcement in Colorado leaked word of a raid, allowing gang members to clear out of apartments. Those apartments were being cleared out weeks earlier. Tonight, ICE deleted social media posts with the claim. Lyons made the claim about local law enforcement at a hearing this morning. His claims did not mesh with our real-time reporting in 2024 on when the apartments were cleared. We asked ICE which agency leaked their raid. Then the posts disappeared.”

… Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): “I just exercised my right as a Member of Congress to conduct an unannounced oversight visit of the ICE field facility in Baltimore. The staff I met with respected my right to visit, but what I saw was disgraceful. Kristi Noem has a budget of $75 billion she could use to ensure humane conditions, but we saw 60 men packed into a room shoulder-to-shoulder, 24-hours-a-day, with a single toilet in the room and no shower facilities.”

… “They sleep like sardines with aluminum foil blankets. Whether it’s for 3 days or 7 days, nobody would want a member of their family warehoused there. The room set aside for dangerous criminals and violent offenders was empty. We’re demanding immediate answers and action.”

… Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) on his trip to an ICE detention facility: “I sat with the kids for an hour. They were alive on the outside, they were dead on the inside. They just stared straight ahead. They saw things in these prisons they’ll never forget. The bottom line is we have a constitutional obligation to only fund an admin that’s operating lawfully. We cannot, we should not fund DHS if it’s committing these crimes.”

… The Appeal: “CoreCivic’s revenue from contracts with ICE skyrocketed in 2025, but some participants on today’s quarterly earnings call expressed concerns that ICE had not detained as many immigrants as investors hoped. One caller: ‘One of the big question has been the pace of detention by ICE, that it’s been below what investors thought it was going to be. I think people thought we’d be at that 100,000 level. We’re at a little over 70,000.’”

… “ICE’s detained population is at its highest level since the agency’s creation in 2003. The majority are incarcerated in for-profit prisons, which has meant millions of dollars in revenue for the private prison industry. During the last 3 months of 2025, CoreCivic’s revenue from ICE more than doubled from the previous year, from $244.7 million compared to $120.3 million.

… “CoreCivic’s profits spiked to $116.5 million in 2025, an almost 70% increase from the previous year. CoreCivic expects 2026 to be even more lucrative. The company projects its net revenue to increase to between $147.5 million and $157.5 million.”

… Immigration lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: “Last year Congress gave ICE $45 billion to be spent on ICE detention over 4 years. The overwhelming majority of that money is going to go to private prison companies, and they’re not happy the money spigot isn’t flowing fast enough.”

… Punchbowl: “DHS is set to shut down at midnight. On the last day before funding runs out, there will be no eleventh-hour votes on the House or Senate floor, no lawmakers seeking to make deals and no hope of a last-minute reprieve for DHS’ 260,000 employees. Instead, both the House and Senate left town, a reflection of how far off a DHS funding deal remains.”

… “Senators departed for pre-planned travel, including a big trip to the Munich Security Conference, and they aren’t scheduled to return for 10 days. It’s telling that Senate Dems have been incredibly united behind their ICE demands, more so than the fall fight over health-care. Only one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman, joined Republicans to support a failed procedural vote on a DHS funding bill.”

… Sen. Chuck Schumer: “Our caucus is passionate about this. If you sat in on our caucus meetings, you’d see how strongly people feel. And you know who are among the strongest? Some of the very people who didn’t vote with us last time.”

… Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) on her ongoing review of the unredacted Epstein files: “I appreciate the urgency of those telling me to name names or STFU, and believe me, I share it. But I’m doing this the responsible way by thoroughly vetting every individual before naming them publicly. Not everyone on my list is an alleged predator. Some are witnesses. Some are survivors whose names I need to ensure are protected, not exposed. I’m just one person with a very small staff.”

… “But I promise you, very soon. Here’s where things stand: Letter sent to the DOJ yesterday about missing documents pulled down from their website. SDNY Monday since their documents are still redacted particularly for the names of co-conspirators. CIA Tuesday. The CIA is in possession of information I believe the public has every right to see. I also want to be clear: I love life.”

… Rep. Thomas Massie posted a similar comment to let people know if anything happened to him it is because he got Epsteined: “I am not suicidal. I eat healthy food. The brakes on my car and truck are in good shape. I practice good trigger discipline and never point a gun at anyone, including myself. There are no deep pools of water on my farm and I’m a pretty good swimmer.”

… Joe Rogan: “Why is the sultan who sent Epstein the torture video’s name redacted?What is this? This is not good. None of this is good for this admin. It looks fucking terrible. It looks terrible for Trump when he was saying that none of this was real that this was all a hoax. This is not a hoax. Like, did you not know? And if you got redacted people’s names, and these people aren’t victims, you’re not protecting the victim. So what are you doing? And how come all this shit is not released?”

… MAGA influencer Catturd to his 4 million X followers: “I was always been neutral on Steve Bannon. Didn’t really care or follow his war room. But now I’ve read the emails between him and Jeffrey Epstein, My God, it’s so disgustingly bad. And save your breath acting like it was a documentary, I’ve been reading the emails between them, they’re best friends, trying to take down Trump together. It’s so bad. Anyone from the War Room who’s trying to justify this, is full of shit. It’s so bad, and there’s no coming back from this.”

… Turd’s post was hit with this fact-check Community Note: “Catturd has not always been neutral on Steve Bannon. Per Catturd: ‘I stand with Steve Bannon.’ Source: Catturd.”

… New AP-NORC poll:

• Trump approval-36%, Disapprove-62%.

• Economy is Poor-65%, Economy is Good-34%

• Country moving in right direction-29%, Wrong direction-69%.

• Vance approval - 32%.

… CNBC: “High home prices, faltering supply and weaker consumer confidence in the economy all continue to weigh on the US housing market. The chief economist for the National Assn of Realtors, Lawrence Yun, is calling it ‘a new housing crisis.’ Sales of previously owned homes in Jan dropped a much wider-than-expected 8.4% from Dec to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 3.91 million. Sales were 4.4% lower than Jan 2025. That is the slowest pace since Dec 2023 and the biggest monthly drop since Feb 2022.”

End of another long week as I am off tomorrow with the Weekend Bulletin out next on Sunday night. We are headed up the coast of Maine where they just held the International Tobogganing Championship because they open the chute to the public the following two weekends before taking it down. There is at least a 50% I will chicken out and end up on the snow tubing hill though.

If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.

… NBC: “Inside a suburban Philadelphia strip mall, between the Hair Cuttery and a Citizens Bank, a dozen people lay on black ergonomic beds a few feet apart, hooked up through a needle in the crook of their arms to machines pumping blood out of their veins. They were there to sell their plasma in exchange for $65 on a prepaid debit card.”

… “It’s a scene repeated by an estimated 200,000 people a day across the country as part of a multibillion-dollar business fueled by a growing number of Americans willing to trade their blood for money in an economy where many have seen their job prospects weaken, costs rise and savings dwindle. Middle-class Americans say they