President Donald Trump has tapped Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to be the acting director of national intelligence — elevating a real estate scion without any clear national security credentials to a key post as the U.S. remains at war with Iran.

Trump made the surprise announcement Tuesday on social media that Pulte would be replacing Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii congresswoman who had served as the director of national intelligence. Trump said Pulte will keep his other positions even as he fills in for Gabbard, who resigned last month after revealing her husband’s cancer diagnosis.

The Republican president cited Pulte’s work at the FHFA and his role as chair of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as indicating that his real estate work would overlap with the skills needed to coordinate 18 federal agencies tasked with aspects of foreign and domestic security.

“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Trump’s choice to elevate Pulte, who would also continue in his post at FHFA, shows how the president is putting a greater priority on loyalty to him, even as the side effects of the Iran war has damaged Trump politically going into November’s midterm elections and raised basic concerns about the quality of advice that aides are giving to a president who has rewarded flattery.

It’s unclear what national security expertise Pulte brings to bear as the U.S. faces conflict in the Middle East, helps Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s assault and manages the emergence of artificial intelligence as a military tool. But Pulte, who’s 38 years old, has been a frequent guest on Air Force One as Trump has traveled to Mar-a-Lago, his home and club in Palm Beach, Florida.

On one such flight, the housing finance director stood in a doorway as Trump discussed with reporters the ballroom he’s building at the White House and handed Trump a series of renderings of the project that the president held up.

Tuesday’s announcement quickly drew criticism from Trump administration opponents that Pulte could undermine the credibility and integrity of America’s intelligence agencies. But even some Republicans were wary about Pulte being the director of national intelligence.

“We don’t need a weaponized DNI. We need professionals there,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota. “I’m trying to get more information about the current state of their thinking about that position. And, again, if he’s somebody they want in that position permanently, he’s got, as you all know, a lengthy road ahead of him.“

Democrats noted that Pulte’s major qualification appeared to be his enthusiasm for fulfilling Trump’s requests.

“The concern is not only that Mr. Pulte lacks the ‘extensive national security experience’ required by statute for the job, which was created after intelligence failures led to the deaths of thousands of Americans on 9/11,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in a statement. “It is that he appears to have been selected precisely because the White House believes he will provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Pulte has been “abusing his authority” as the federal housing finance director and Trump is now “rewarding his lackey — who has no national security experience — with a perch atop our nation’s intelligence community. What could go wrong?”

...

As the grandson of the founder of PulteGroup, one of the country’s largest homebuilders, Pulte has cut a combative streak on social media and used his post at the FHFA to attack perceived opponents of the Trump administration. His time overseeing mortgage finance has been linked with criminal referrals over allegations of mortgage fraud by public officials Trump sought to punish, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat; Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; and Lisa Cook, a board member of the Federal Reserve, who was nominated by a Democratic president, Joe Biden.

The prosecution against James was dismissed in November after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges was illegally appointed. Other referrals made by Pulte, including against Schiff and Cook, have not yielded any criminal charges. Lawyers for both have denied any claims of wrongdoing. But Trump did try to use the possibility of mortgage fraud as grounds for removing Cook from the Fed.

Cook’s lawyer accused Pulte of pursuing mortgage fraud on a partisan basis, focusing on Democrats and refusing to pursue similar allegations against Republicans.

Pulte told reporters at the White House several months ago that he had also made criminal referrals regarding at least one Republican official, but he declined to provide the name.

He has famously gone after then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting the central bank’s benchmark interest rates as aggressively as the president wanted. He has also been linked to ideas such as the 50-year mortgage and efforts to lower mortgage rates through the purchase of home loan debt that have not paid off as promised, as mortgage rates began to climb after the Iran war started at the end of February.

Pulte has a reputation for cultivating enemies. In a legal feud pursued by Pulte that involved his family namesake’s homebuilding company, he accused his grandfather’s widow of insider trading. He was believed to be the driving force behind a website trashing an aunt as a “fake Christian.” And he publicly blasted another relative as “a fat slob,” “weirdo” and “grifter,” according to court records.

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/66701198

cross-posted from: https://piefed.blahaj.zone/c/aww/p/774677/busy-bee

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47453072

A former senior CIA official with top secret-level clearance is accused of stealing hundreds of gold bars worth more than $40 million from the federal government and stashing them in his home.

David Rush was arrested and charged with criminal theft of public money last week, according to federal court filings in Virginia, where he lives.

From November to March, Rush requested and received a “significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses,” according to an affidavit from an FBI agent investigating the case.

The affidavit says its unclear what Rush intended to use the funds for, but that a portion of it was found in a storage space near his office.

Federal officials searched his home on May 18 and seized more than 300 gold bars with an estimated value of more than $40 million, according to the affidavit. They also seized roughly $2 million in U.S. currency and some 35 luxury watches, many of them Rolexes. Rush was arrested the next day, the FBI said.

The FBI affidavit concludes that there’s probable cause to believe that Rush “knowingly embezzled, stole, purloined, or knowingly converted a thing of value of the United States” for his personal use.

...

The FBI affidavit also notes that Rush appears to have lied for years about his education and military background. The bureau’s investigation found he had falsely claimed to be a Navy pilot and that he’d graduated from Clemson University in South Carolina and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

Instead, they found he had enlisted in the Navy in 1997 and then served in the U.S. Navy Reserves from 2004 until 2015, when he was honorably discharged as a lieutenant. The affidavit states he does not appear to have underwent any evaluations as a pilot during that time, and he did not attend either college.

Rush is being held in custody pending a hearing Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.

Glad those with Top Secret clearances are so thoroughly vetted. Interested to see what comes of this. It's Patel's FBI so, gl.

On social media, the Justice Department defended the move, saying, "We are proud to reverse the DOJ's weaponization under the Biden administration. We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping DOJ's website of partisan propaganda."

A review by NPR found that the deleted material included information about some of the most serious assaults on law enforcement that occurred that day. NPR maintains the most complete database and visual archive of the Jan. 6 prosecutions.

The purged news releases covered cases including:

• Daniel Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty to driving an electroshock device into the neck of former Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone, and who was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison. 

• Albuquerque Head, who pleaded guilty to assaulting police and grabbing Fanone by the neck and pulling him into the mob of rioters while yelling, "I got one!" Head was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. 

• Thomas Webster, who was convicted by a jury of assaulting law enforcement with a metal flagpole, tackling a police officer to the ground and trying to remove the officer's gas mask. Webster was sentenced to 10 years in prison. 

• Christopher Alberts, who was convicted by a jury of assaulting police with a wooden pallet and carrying a loaded handgun on Capitol grounds. Alberts was sentenced to seven years in prison.

• Peter Schwartz, who was convicted by a jury of assaulting police officers with pepper spray and throwing a metal chair at law enforcement. Schwartz was sentenced to 14 years in prison. 

The previously accessible news releases now lead to a "Page not found" message.

The mass deletion of government information about the riot, in which a mob of Trump supporters injured 140 police officers and threatened the lives of members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence, follows a broader effort by the Trump administration to whitewash the attack.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/46848864

The president is a vocal critic of mail-in voting, alleging that the practice is rife with fraud as he pushes lawmakers to pass a far-reaching elections bill that would clamp down on it. A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found that mail voting fraud occurred in only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast, or about four cases per 10 million.

Trump himself has also used mail ballots, most recently last week in local Florida elections. The White House has said that Trump is opposed to universal mail-in voting, rather than individual voters who may need the alternative voting method for reasons such as travel or military deployment.

Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly poised to be paid $10bn by investors as part of a deal to create a US-controlled version of TikTok.

The $10bn, considered by the US government as a sort of transaction fee, will be paid by the administration-friendly investors who took control of TikTok’s US operations from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, according to reporting that first appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

The investors in the popular social media app include software company Oracle; MGX, an investment firm based in the United Arab Emirates; and private equity business Silver Lake. These entities, along with other backers, paid $2.5bn to the US treasury when the deal closed in January and are set to make further payments in the unusual arrangement until the total hits $10bn.

Trump has previously said that the US will get a “tremendous fee-plus – I call it a fee-plus – just for making the deal and I don’t want to throw that out the window”. The president signed an executive order in September approving the deal, amid bipartisan concerns that TikTok’s Chinese ownership posed a national security threat given the platform’s popularity among Americans.

“It’s owned by Americans, and very sophisticated Americans,” Trump said at the signing of the order. “This is going to be American operated all the way.”

A government taking a transactional fee for a deal between private businesses is exceptionally rare and the $10bn amount appears much larger than the roughly 1% slice that investment bankers take in such circumstances. JD Vance has said the US version of TikTok is valued at about $14bn, meaning the fee taken by the government is closer to 70% of the deal.

A Florida handyman who was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison for molesting two children had been convicted of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but was pardoned by President Donald Trump.

Andrew Paul Johnson, 45, is among several Jan. 6 defendants who have been charged with new crimes since Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Capitol rioters. On his first day back in the White House last year, Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases for all 1,500-plus people charged in the attack.

Johnson was convicted last month of two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation of a child and one count of electronically transmitting material harmful to a minor, according to prosecutors in Hernando County, Florida. County Circuit Judge Judge Stephen Toner handed down Johnson’s life sentence.

Sheriff’s deputies began investigating the child molestation allegations against Johnson in July 2025. One of his victims told investigators that the abuse started around April 2024, several months before Johnson was sentenced for his Capitol riot conviction.

Johnson told one of his victims that he expected to be compensated for being a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant and would be putting the child in his will to inherit any leftover money, according a sheriff’s office report.

“This tactic was believed to be used to keep (the child) from exposing what Andrew had done,” the report said. Investigators found sexually explicit messages that Johnson exchanged with one of his victims on the Discord messaging app, according to Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Bill Gladson’s office.

“In the messages, Johnson attempted to have the victim download another application for a more private conversation and encouraged the victim to delete their messages afterwards,” Gladson’s office said in a news release.

More at link

Les Wexner: Full Deposition to House Democrats Also: Invidious link

Posted by DropSite News. Released with latest doc dump. Dated from late 2018 - early 2019 Invidious Link

Delete if video links not allowed.

The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.

Both men were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent scores of armed and masked agents across the city.

CBP, which employs both men, has so far refused to release their names and has disclosed few other facts about the deadly incident, which came days after a different immigration agent shot and killed another Minneapolis protester, a 37-year-old mother of three named Renee Good.

(more at link)

Getting in the right head space for No Kings

Edward Louis Bernays (/bɜːrˈneɪz/ bur-NAYZ; Austrian German: [bɛrˈnaɪs]; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".[3] 

While credited with advancing the profession of public relations, his techniques have been criticized for manipulating public opinion, often in ways that undermined individual autonomy and democratic values.[4][5]

His best-known campaigns include a 1929 effort to promote female smoking by branding cigarettes as feminist "Torches of Freedom", and his work for the United Fruit Company in the 1950s, connected with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954. His involvement in Guatemala facilitated US imperialism and contributed to decades of civil unrest and repression, raising ethical concerns about his role in undermining democratic governance.[6][7]

He worked for dozens of major American corporations, including Procter & Gamble and General Electric, and for government agencies, politicians, and nonprofit organizations.

Of his many books, Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928) gained special attention as early efforts to define and theorize the field of public relations. Citing works of writers such as Gustave Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter, Walter Lippmann, and Sigmund Freud (his own double uncle), he described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct—and he outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in desired ways.[8][9] Bernays later synthesized many of these ideas in his postwar book, Public Relations (1945), which outlines the science of managing information released to the public by an organization, in a manner most advantageous to the organization. He does this by first providing an overview of the history of public relations, and then provides insight into its application.

Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the twentieth century by Life.[10] Despite this recognition, his work has been linked to the rise of modern propaganda techniques that some argue have eroded democratic engagement and suppressed dissent.[11][12] He was the subject of a full-length biography by Larry Tye entitled The Father of Spin (1999) and later an award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC by Adam Curtis entitled The Century of the Self.

Highly recommend the Adam Curtis documentary Century of the Self

Much more in the Wiki article.

In March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago’s Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which was sent to the FBI, according to a new report. The unnamed citizen was later admitted into the country. Their DNA was added to the FBI’s database of genetic material despite the lack of criminal charges.

The 25-year-old is one of about 2,000 US citizens whose DNA was collected between 2020 and 2024 by the Department of Homeland Security and shared with the FBI, researchers from Georgetown’s Center on Privacy and Technologyfound in an analysis of recently released data from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP officers took genetic material from some citizens as young as 14, according to the report.

“In a flagrant and alarming abuse of power, the DHS has been regularly collecting DNA from US citizens without legal justification,” said Stevie Glaberson, the director of research and advocacy at Georgetown’s privacy center. “The lack of checks on DHS’s collection power we think renders the program unconstitutional and violates the fourth amendment.”

Once immigration authorities collect DNA and share it with the FBI, it is stored in a database called the Combined DNA Index System (Codis), which is used across the country by local, state and federal law enforcement to identify suspects of crimes using their DNA. A May 2024 report, also from Georgetown’s Center on Privacy and Technology, found that CBP had been collecting the DNA information of every migrant detained. Border patrol was also collecting and sharing the DNA information of migrant children, according to the agency’s data. Initial estimates show that the sensitive genetic information of about 133,000 teens and children was being uploaded and stored in this federal criminal database in perpetuity.

The new CBP documents specifically cover how many US citizens have had their genetic information collected at various ports of entry, including major airports. The agency compiled the data and included the ages of the people whose DNA samples were collected by border agents as well as what charges were being levied against them. Like the 25-year-old, about 40 US citizens had DNA samples taken by CBP and shared with the FBI even though they were charged with no crime. Six of these were minors.

Under current regulation, CBP is permitted to collect the DNA of any individual – regardless of citizenship status – who has been arrested, is facing charges or has been convicted of a crime, as well as non-US citizens who have been detained.

What the law does not allow border patrol agents to do, Glaberson asserts, is collect the DNA samples of US citizens simply because they have been detained. But the recently released data shows that CBP does not have a system to check whether there is a lawful reason to collect an individual’s DNA, she said.

In some unusual cases, US citizens had their DNA swabbed for civil – not criminal – infractions such as “failure to declare” – which could be as simple as a person not declaring an item they bought abroad. In at least two cases of citizens having their DNA swabbed, the CBP agent simply wrote down “inspection by immigration officer” under charges.

“This is CBP’s own administrative data,” Glaberson said. “This is what they’re writing down. What that data shows is pretty chilling. In case after case, CBP agents are pulling US citizens aside and swabbing their mouths without any reason to do so.”

In about 865 of the nearly 2,000 cases of US citizens having their DNA swabbed by the CBP, no formal federal charges were filed. That means the cases never went before an independent arbiter such as a judge, according to Glaberson.

“None of these folks necessarily go before a judge to get the legality of detention and arrest reviewed,” she said.

DNA data can reveal incredibly sensitive information, including a person’s genetic relations and information about those relatives – regardless of their citizenship status. The information, accessible in a criminal database used to investigate suspects of crime, could subject people to investigations that they would otherwise not be swept up in, Glaberson said.

“If you think that your status as a citizen protects you from of the authoritarian practices, this is proof that it does not and will not,” she said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider expanding President Donald Trump’s power to shape independent agencies by overturning a nearly century-old decision limiting when presidents can fire board members. In a 6-3 decision, the high court also allowed the Republican president to carry out the firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, while the case plays out.

It’s the latest high-profile firing the court has allowed in recent months, signaling the conservative majority is poised to overturn or narrow a 1935 Supreme Court decision that found commissioners can only be removed for misconduct or neglect of duty. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the decision allowing Slaughter’s firing. It comes after similar decisions affecting three other independent agencies.

“Congress, as everyone agrees, prohibited each of those presidential removals,” Kagan wrote. “Yet the majority, stay order by stay order, has handed full control of all those agencies to the President.” The majority did not detail their reasoning on allowing Slaughter’s firing, as is typical on the court’s emergency docket.

The justices are expected to hear arguments in December over whether to overturn a 90-year-old ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor. In that case, the court sided with another FTC commissioner who was fired by Franklin D. Roosevelt as the president worked to implement the New Deal. The justices unanimously found commissioners can be removed only for misconduct or neglect of duty.

That 1935 decision ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination and public airwaves. But it has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue such agencies should answer to the president. The Justice Department argues Trump can fire board members for any reason as he works to carry out his agenda. “The President and the government suffer irreparable harm when courts transfer even some of that executive power to officers beyond the President’s control,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. Courts have no power to order reinstatement, only back pay, Sauer argued.

But Slaughter’s attorneys say that regulatory decisions will be based more on politics than on board members’ expertise if the president can fire congressionally confirmed board members at will. “If the President is to be given new powers Congress has expressly and repeatedly refused to give him, that decision should come from the people’s elected representatives,” they argued.

The court will hear arguments unusually early in the process, before the case has fully worked its way through lower courts.

The court rejected a push from two other board members of independent agencies who had asked the justices to also hear their cases if they took up the Slaughter case: Gwynne Wilcox, of the National Labor Relations Board, and Cathy Harris, of the Merit Systems Protection Board. Those cases will continue to work their way through the lower courts.

The FTC is a regulator enforcing consumer protection measures and antitrust legislation. The NLRB investigates unfair labor practices and oversees union elections, while the MSPB reviews disputes from federal workers.

The court has already allowed the president to fire all three board members for now. The court has suggested, however, that the president’s power to fire could have limits at the Federal Reserve, a prospect expected to be tested by the case of fired Fed Governor Lisa Cook.