The DOJ Prosecutors Who Think They’re Trump’s Personal Lawyers

 

Congress Demands List of People Who Have Applied for Trump Slush Fund

Scott McFarlane Reports: “In a memo obtained by Meidas Touch Network, a group of Members of Congress have demanded a list of people who have applied for taxpayer-funded payouts from the Trump Administration’s controversial $1.7 billion slush fund. The 3-page memo, which was submitted to the Justice Department and Treasury Department, said the “conflicting” statements from the Trump Administration about the future of the fund have raised serious questions…”

The DOJ Prosecutors Who Think They’re Trump’s Personal Lawyers

The New Republic: “This week, more than 100 former federal prosecutors in Illinois sounded the alarm about the current leaders of the office where they all once served. “Regrettably,” their statement reads, “there is little doubt that actions taken by leadership in the last year have tarnished the reputation of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.” They list some serious concerns, including the departure of an “extraordinary” number of experienced prosecutors and the “extraordinary collapse rate” of prosecutions. 

“When judges increasingly call into question the motivation or candor of prosecutors and agents,” they write, “that is a sure sign that a standard has been compromised.” What they have witnessed merits “serious public scrutiny” because the lawyers who work there “affect not only the quality of justice, but the lives of more than nine million residents” in the district. “We write because an educated public is the only hope against overzealous prosecutions,” they conclude. 

The letter is a remarkable statement of what prosecutors fear: that the public may lose trust in the justice system, or that their own career has lost its credibility. But it’s significant less for the set of concerns expressed than the fact that they were expressed at all. Things must be especially bad, in other words, for federal prosecutors to call for the serious scrutiny of the public. They are that bad and worse. Federal prosecutors hold a lot of power, which is one reason why the Trump administration has leaned so heavily on them to defend its dirty work. 

While technically U.S. attorneys work for the Department of Justice and not for the president, such distinctions feel quite hollow when the acting attorney general pledges his loyalty and affection to Donald Trump so openly—“Thank you very much, I love you, sir,” Todd Blanche said at a DOJ press briefing in April. No wonder Blanche was officially nominated this week to stay in the job. Before all this, he was best known as the president’s personal attorney. No wonder it seems like DOJ lawyers serve in that role too. Mercifully, some of them are not very good at hiding it…”

MELANY - Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan

Blasts from the musical past enveloped my early June first the hills of Bellevue Park and then also the hills of Glass Mountains … 

Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan

Step into a world of wit, whimsy and wonderfully over-the-top theatrics with Patience (Bunthorne’s Bride) by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Singing songs of Gilbert & Sullivan

A sparkling satire of trends, vanity and the pursuit of being “fashionably different”, this colourful production delivers laugh-out-loud moments, sharp humour and some of Sullivan’s most loved patter songs.

Brought to life by a talented local cast, this is community theatre at its finest — full of heart, humour and charm.

Perfect for a relaxed afternoon in Maleny — whether you’re a long-time fan or discovering Gilbert & Sullivan for the first time.

 

Date And Time

13th June 2026 / 02:00 PM 

 

Location

Maleny Community Centre

Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan at Maleny

Community Centre

Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan is coming to Maleny!

Looking for a hilarious afternoon full of wit, music, and brilliant local talent? Look no further…

Patience is a colorful, witty masterpiece about a battle of egos, ridiculous poets, and a sensible milkmaid trying to figure out what true love actually means. It's packed with sharp humour and unforgettable tunes.

When: June 13, 14, 20, & 21 at 2:00 PM

Where: Maleny Community Centre

Grab your friends, enjoy the beautiful Maleny atmosphere, and settle in for a fantastic show!

Get your tickets here: https://www.

trybooking.com/events/landing/1537618

• Event details: https://malenycc.

org/event/patience-by-gilbert-and-sullivan/

PATIENCE

By W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, performed by the Maleny Singers and the Maleny Performing Arts Orchestra.

PATIENCE remains one of Gilbert and Sullivan's most celebrated comedies.

Its humour comes from a sharp satire of pop-culture obsessions, and the ridiculous things people do to appear fashionable.

It mocks the way people mindlessly follow trends, much as they do on social media today.

The story centres on two intertwined love triangles. The Dragoon Guards discover that their lovely ladies have become besotted, first with one poet and then another. Meanwhile, two poets, initially captivated by themselves, find themselves equally enamoured of a charming young milkmaid called Patience.

This is a wonderful, colourful production. The Maleny Singers never let us down, and there are many outstanding performances.

The Dragoon Guards (MEdia Dragon Guards 🐉), six men led by lan McMaster and Matthew Gray, are simply fabulous. They are disciplined, funny, and sound amazing; a pure joy to watch.

The two poets, played by Rod Johnson and Colin Dunn, are tunny, colourtul characters who love themselves so genuinely that it's hard not to love them back. Both have great voices and give wonderfully honest pertormances.

Patience herself is played by newcomer Vanessa Millar. She brings vulnerability to the role, conveying her character's confusion in an understated way that makes her feel real and relatable. I also cannot finish without mentioning the sublime voice of Vera Keogh as Lady Jane.

The production is directed by Margaret Taylor

O.A.M., who also conducts the excellent orchestra.

Together they bring energy, colour, and warmth to this delightful comic opera.

Patience opened last weekend and runs again on June 20-21 at the Maleny

Community Centre.

Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience. 2 down 2 more to go …

❤️😘

The White House’s Top Science Goal Is Ignorance

 

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.

~ Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

Fourth Circuit Affirms Convictions of Bullshit Tax Scam Promoters 

In United States v. Chollet, ___ F.4th ___ (4th Cir. 2026), CA4 here and GS here, the 4^th Circuit panel (Judges Niemeyer, Thacker, and Rushing) affirmed the conviction of three defendants, specifically rejecting various points that I discuss below.

The defendants were convicted of a variant of a marketed bullshit tax shelter. Two of the defendants—Kohn and his daughter Chollet—were tax lawyers; the third defendant was an insurance broker. I will not get into the specifics of the shams they created for their clients to (i) improperly hide their clients' income and resulting tax liabilities from the IRS and (ii) to make money for themselves as they shared in the false tax savings the taxpayers (clients) claimed. Suffice it to say that the scheme involved meaningless (i) limited partnerships, (ii) fake charitable contributions, (iii) fake royalties and management fees, and (iv) supposed life insurance policies.

DOJ Finds Loophole to Pay January 6th Rioters

Raw America: “The Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” may be dead, but the effort to pay Trump’s allies with taxpayer dollars is very much alive. 

After Republican lawmakers threatened to sink an ICE funding bill if the slush fund moved forward, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress the Justice Department wouldn’t proceed with it. Trump, however, refused to admit the fund was finished, and said he still loved the idea. So they found a loophole. DOJ officials are now making clear they have both the authority and the resources to settle lawsuits against the federal government however they see fit. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward posted on social media, “We’re on it,” in response to a suggestion from Senator Lindsey Graham that the government should use existing law to compensate people who claim they were politically targeted. Woodward later deleted the post. 

The legal mechanism they’re eyeing is the Federal Tort Claims Act, an 80-year-old law that allows people to sue the federal government for wrongful actions or negligence. Last Friday, nine pardoned January 6th defendants filed a lawsuit under that law, arguing their prosecutions amounted to selective enforcement driven by their support for Trump and orchestrated by senior officials at the DOJ and FBI. The Trump regime has already gone down this road. In March, the DOJ paid Michael Flynn $1.25 million to settle claims he was the victim of a politicized prosecution. Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador, later sought to withdraw the plea, and was pardoned by Trump. 

A similar settlement was reached with Carter Page, the former Trump campaign adviser who was placed under court-ordered surveillance. One January 6th plaintiff, Treniss Evans, said he thinks some defendants might have taken smaller payouts through the scrapped fund. Now he’s expecting something bigger. And there’s already a backlog building. Lawyer Mark McCloskey says he delivered boxes containing administrative claims for nearly 400 January 6th defendants to the Justice Department in December. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, those claims can move to federal court if the government doesn’t act within six months. That deadline is approaching. Legal experts are alarmed. 

Anthony Sebok, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law, put it plainly: the Justice Department, like any competent defense firm, should be making plaintiffs fight for every inch. Instead, he says, the plaintiffs’ lawyers are pushing on an open door. Keep in mind, this is taxpayer money flowing to people who stormed the Capitol, through a legal loophole. While the administration calls it justice.

The founders wrote the power of the purse into Article One for one reason, to keep any president from reaching into the public treasury to reward the people loyal to him, and Madison called that power the most complete and effectual weapon the people’s representatives could ever hold. Watching it get picked apart by a loophole that pays the very people who stormed the Capitol is exactly the corruption the framers built that wall to stop.

See also Lawfare – “At least 97 of the more than 1,500 individuals granted clemency by President Trump for their roles in the January 6 Capitol attack have been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of crimes separate from Jan. 6 since their participation in the Jan. 6 riot. A Lawfare study reveals that almost one in 16 insurrectionists subject to the president’s clemency order has been arrested for and charged with—and in the vast majority of cases convicted of—other crimes, at least some of which were actively enabled by the clemency actions…”

How I interviewed a Facebook whistleblower who wasn’t allowed to speak

The Nerve’s Carole Cadwalladr was all set to talk to Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the explosive memoir Careless People, at the Hay festival when Meta’s lawyers intervened … and turned the event into ‘absurdist theatre’.

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 6, 2026

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 6, 2026 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weisshighlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. 

Five highlights from this week: One company may know everything about you; Fake ChatGPT download site infects Windows and Mac users with malware; Hackers Used Meta’s AI Support Bot to Seize Instagram Accounts; Apple Is Officially Coming for Meta’s Privacy-Invading Lunch With Its Own Smart Glasses in Late 2027; and FBI Tracks ‘Anti-Tech Extremism’ Amid Growing AI Backlash.

The White House’s Top Science Goal Is Ignorance

Bloomberg: The White House’s Top Science Goal Is Ignorance: “The administration’s actions are seen as a deliberate attempt to stifle science and ignore the reality of climate change, in order to support the fossil-fuel industry and satisfy the climate denialism of Trump’s base. 

Shutting down scientific inquiry because it discovers things you don’t like is a bit like turning off all the instruments on your plane because they warn you there’s a mountain ahead. It may satisfy your immediate urge to live in denial but will soon turn deadly. The Trump administration’s crusade to dismantle a scientific establishment long a national treasure and the envy of the world is a blueprint for deliberate ignorance. 

But that’s a feature, not a bug. As Adam Serwer wrote about the first Trump administration’s cruelty, the ignorance is the point. If objective reality as measured by science is no longer available, then it’s easier for President Donald Trump to conjure up a new reality in a way that thrills and rewards supporters, including the fossil-fuel companies that helped get him elected a second time. 

The latest example is a plan by Trump’s National Science Foundation to dismantle a vast monitoring system called the Ocean Observatories Initiative, which compiles mountains of publicly available data about every aspect of the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. One of its jobs is to track the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation(AMOC), the network of currents that helps keep Europe from freezing over, among other desirable effects. Scientists have become increasingly anxious about the health of AMOC as the planet has warmed, melting Greenland’s ice and disrupting the system that keeps AMOC moving. The shutdown of the system also comes as the world’s oceans are “at grave risk as ecosystems and habitats approach or surpass critical tipping points” because of climate change, overfishing and pollution, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.

 Dying coral reefs, declining fisheries, warming seas and rising waters are all aspects of this crisis, and all are being carefully watched by the hundreds of ocean buoys the government is shutting dow Then again, maybe if we stop measuring this crisis, it will simply go away. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump often suggested fewer Covid tests would lead to fewer Covid cases. Why wouldn’t the same logic apply here? 

Sure, you would lose that argument to any baby that has developed object permanence. But you would at least satisfy the fervent climate denialism of your base while giving you cover to continue squashing clean energy and propping up coal, gas and oil. Since the moment Trump took office again in January 2025, his administration has taken hundreds of steps to do just that, everything from ending subsidies on renewables to forcing old, polluting coal plants to keep operating. 

These are obvious, blunt-force measures to support a fossil-fuel industry that bankrolled the campaigns of Trump and other Republicans in 2024. The subtler approach is to stifle science so that we no longer measure exactly how much burning those fuels is heating the planet and making the atmosphere more chaotic. That’s the only semi-rational explanation for shutting down an ocean-monitoring system that cost $386 million to build and collects data useful to everyone from fishing-boat captains to farmers. 

Or for no longer tracking America’s billion-dollar weather disasters when they’re more numerous than ever, driving up insurance costs across the country. Or for cutting off funding for a global databank of weather disasters. Or for dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research(NCAR), which helps meteorologists predict the weather, a service with an annual economic benefit of $31.5 billion, while also gathering data on a heating planet. 

A federal judge recently halted some of NCAR’s demolition, and the White House Office of Management and Budget has proposed moving the institution’s weather studies to new management. But the uncertainty about its future has already shut down research and chased away scientists who might never return. Trying to separate weather science from climate science is like trying to separate duck science from waterfowl science. 

They’re not exactly the same, but you can’t have one without the other. The administration’s stated rationale for wrecking NCAR gives away its game. Despite being led by OMB, this vandalism has nothing to do with saving money. OMB Director Russell Vought dismissed NCAR as “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” echoing language used in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, of which Vought was a co-author.”

 Tech Influence Watch as AI follows crypto into politics

Molly White – citation needed: “I’ve been running my website Follow the Crypto since 2024, tracking the cryptocurrency industry’s influence on our democracy. The industry spent more than $130 million buying the 2024 elections, and the strategy worked. Pro-crypto politicians have proposed or passed industry-drafted legislation that threatens to open the floodgates to even more predatory crypto products, regulatory agencies were gutted, and crypto executives bought direct access to the President and positions in the White House. Now the artificial intelligence industry is following the same playbook. Continuing to track only crypto would mean missing half the story. The same operatives are running both campaigns. Josh Vlasto, longtime adviser and spokesperson for Fairshake — the cryptocurrency super PAC network responsible for the bulk of crypto’s 2024 spending — is now simultaneously heading Leading the Future, a pro-AI super PAC network. Chris Lehane, the political consultant and Coinbaseboard member who helped establish Fairshake and famously told Coinbase employees who questioned whether a crypto voter bloc existed that they would simply invent one, is now also an OpenAI executive and one of the people behind the Leading the Future PAC network. The same venture capital firms are funding both: Andreessen Horowitz, a crypto heavyweight in the 2024 elections, is now splitting its political spending across crypto and AI PACs. The PACs may look different from the outside, but they’re increasingly the same operation with aligned goals: deregulate the tech sector, slash consumer protections, and allow tech companies to capture even more enormous profits at the expense of everyday people.

• So I’ve expanded the site to track both. It’s now called Tech Influence Watch, and it documents more than $400 million(and counting) in contributions from crypto and AI companies and their executives this election cycle. When two industries with shared backers and shared operatives are spending this much to write their own regulations, someone needs to be watching.
• The site is live now at influence.citationneeded.news.a Here’s a little of what I found while building it…”

Who won the redistricting fight? GOP with +8 to +10 seats

Data is Beautiful: “The GOP is forecasted to pick up +8 to +10 U.S. House seats via legislative redistricting as new congressional maps are finalized. Legal challenges may still overturn some maps. Geographically, most projected GOP gains are concentrated in Deep South states which have a long history of Voting Rights Act litigation. Several of the key seat pickups come from districts previously created to provide Black representation (eg, TN, AL and LA). All states redistricting in favor of Democrats did so through a voter-approved map. All states redistricting in favor of Republicans did so through the state legislature or through the courts overturning a voter-approved map.

• Tools: Built by hand in React + TypeScript — the timeline chart and US choropleth are raw SVG (no D3 or charting libraries; state shapes from a public-domain Wikimedia map), driven by a JSON file of redistricting events, with live Polymarket odds as the only dynamic data.
• Methodology: Estimated seat impact for each enacted, court-approved, or voter-approved congressional redistricting action relative to the prior map. Ohio is shown as 0–2 GOP seats because previously safe Democratic districts became toss-ups rather than guaranteed GOP pickups. This is an isolated analysis of states that changed maps and is not a full 2026 House forecast. Used actual news stories and Polymarket data to corroborate confidence…”

‘Sacred home’: Australian in Kyiv angered by Russian desecration of monastery

 ‘Sacred home’: Australian in Kyiv angered by Russian desecration of monastery

There were few options for Anastasiya Byesyedina to find shelter when Russian missiles began slamming into Kyiv about midnight on Monday.

Byesyedina and her mother ran out of time to reach the safety of the Kyiv metro tunnels, so they had to wait in a corridor on the first floor of their apartment building while 60 missiles struck the city over four hours.

Firefighters try to put out the fire at the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex in Kyiv.AP PHOTO/EVGENIY MALOLETKA

Across town, in one of the worst bombardments of recent times, the explosions set fire to the Pechersk Lavra monastery, a sacred site to Ukrainians and home of the Orthodox Church in Kyiv for a thousand years.

Byesyedina, 33, is an Australian who was born in Kyiv and chose to return there with her family – and she is angry at what she regards as Russian desecration.

“Russia was launching, consecutively, many ballistic missiles at Kyiv,” she said, speaking to this masthead on the day after the attack.

“It’s dangerous to run around in the open to get to the underground metro for shelter, so we went to the first level of our apartment building.

“For me, it feels normal now. But it is a shocking experience. It’s just shocking when you feel explosions vibrating through the entirety of your body, and you’re kind of numb and shaking. But that’s the everyday life of a Ukrainian.”

Anastasiya Byesyedina is an Australian and Ukrainian historian living with her family in Kyiv.

Like others, she left her home with a handful of possessions: an “emergency bag” she keeps by the door with her phone, paperwork, medicines and other essential items.

She and her mother emerged safely. Her grandmother, 84, was also safe, even though she had spent the night in a corridor on the 10th floor, near the family’s apartment. With the elevators out of service during the attack, she could not get down the stairs to a shelter.

Byesyedina has a clear view of the terror over Kyiv on some nights. From their apartment high above the streets, she and her family can see missiles flying towards their targets.

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The attack on the monastery, however, was personal for Byesyedina. As a student of politics, she has explored its role in Ukrainian faith and culture as part of a dissertation for a PhD at the University of Sydney. She submitted the thesis in May, and her degree will be conferred this Monday.

World leaders have condemned the attack on the Pechersk Lavra, which was founded in 1051 and has UNESCO world heritage status. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskycalled it one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date.

“I cannot believe they’ve done it,” said Byesyedina. “From another perspective, knowing well of Russia’s historical suppression of Ukrainian religious freedoms, it’s actually entirely expected for them to strike the monastery complex that stands in continued defiance of Russian aggression.”

The monastery was the heart of the Orthodox church after the formation of the Kyivan Rus nation in the late 800s, but this makes it part of a contested history. Russian President Vladimir Putin claims to lead a single monolithic civilisation that traces its ancestry to Kyiv, and he denies Ukraine exists as a nation of its own.

That makes the monastery a symbol of an independent Ukraine. Other religious sites also demonstrate the nation’s freedom. When protesters rebelled against Russia-backed leaders during the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, they were given sanctuary in St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery.

A rescue worker inside the building after the attack.AP PHOTO/EVGENIY MALOLETKA

For centuries, Russian priests taught in Russian at the Pechersk Lavra. This only changed in 2019, when the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, signed the “tomos” that recognised the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as a self-governing church, independent of Moscow.

Now it has independence – known as autocephaly – the church teaches in Ukrainian.

“You’re seeing a united people in Ukraine giving a signal about wanting independence,” Byesyedina said.

“The Revolution of Dignity in 2014 was a very crucial moment that showed on an international and regional level, to orthodoxy, that we are independent.”

A golden cupola from one of the damaged churches.AP PHOTO/EFREM LUKATSKY

Firefighters put out the flames at the Pechersk Lavra in the hours after the airstrikes, and the building has no structural damage, according to local news reports. But at least five people were killed, and 35 were injured in the attacks on Kyiv during the night, when authorities estimate Russian forces fired 70 missiles and 611 drones against Ukraine.

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Metropolitan Epiphanius, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, blamed the “Kremlin Antichrist” for the destruction.

“Another Russian crime against humanity, against history, against Christianity,” he wrote on X.

Byesyedina was born in Kyiv and moved to Australia with her family when she was seven. She returned to Ukraine in 2022 to help her mother and grandmother, but she said her reasons for staying were about more than family.

“It was one of those decisions that was really tough, but something that I had to do, not only for my family, but also for myself, for my connection to my sacred home, and for the integrity of my research on Ukraine,” she said.

“Sometimes you feel like that’s all you have in the tools or weapons that you can use against an aggressor – being home, being on sacred land.”

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