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Dear readers, I trust you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. If you stayed away from news coverage, even better! But now that we’re getting back into the swing of things, here are six news stories you may have missed.
Epstein Files Dump
Under the law passed by Congress [ [link removed] ] in November, the US Department of Justice was supposed to release all of the files it had on Jeffrey Epstein by December 19, the Friday before Christmas. Only the identities of victims and information related to ongoing investigations were supposed to be redacted. But the DOJ only released [ [link removed] ] a small portion of the documents in its possession and the released documents are heavily redacted.
MTG Interview
The New York Times published a fascinating profile of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene by veteran journalist Robert Draper, including exclusive interviews that provide insight on Greene’s break with President Donald Trump.
Here are a few key quotes:
“Our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong,” she told me in her Capitol Hill office one afternoon in early December. “You just keep pummeling your enemies, no matter what. And as a Christian, I don’t believe in doing that. I agree with Erika Kirk, who did the hardest thing possible and said it out loud.”
…
But Greene — who for years took a back seat to no one when it came to reactionary rhetoric, going so far, before she was in office, as to accuse Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of treasonous conduct and adding that treason was punishable by imprisonment or death — realized that she had suddenly lost all appetite for vengeance. She later told a friend, who confirmed the exchange: “After Charlie died, I realized that I’m part of this toxic culture. I really started looking at my faith. I wanted to be more like Christ.”
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After the hearing [with Epstein victims], Greene held a news conference at which she threatened to identify some of the men who had abused the women. (Greene says that she didn’t know those names herself but that she could have gotten them from the victims.) Trump called Greene to voice his displeasure. Greene was in her Capitol Hill office, and according to a staff member, everyone in the suite of rooms could hear him yelling at her as she listened to him on speakerphone. Greene says she expressed her perplexity over his intransigence. According to Greene, Trump replied, “My friends will get hurt.”
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“I had the same caricatured opinion of her as everyone,” [Rep. Ro] Khanna told me. “I saw her heckling President Biden at the State of the Union address. I thought she was a person on the fringes. But my view of her completely changed. At our press conferences, she didn’t even seek to speak. She was genuinely moved by the [Epstein] survivors, so much so that we hugged each other during one woman’s testimony. I found her to be a person of integrity and courage, considering the pressure she faced from the White House.”
Read the whole thing with this gift link [ [link removed] ].
Pipe Bomber Confession
On December 28, the Justice Department released notes [ [link removed] ] on a confession by the alleged J6 pipe bomber. During the Jan. 6, 2021 riots, you may recall, unexploded pipe bombs were planted at the national headquarters of both the Democrat and Republican parties. Brian J. Cole Jr., a 30-y-o Virginia man, was arrested for those crimes in early December.
The pipe bomber has been wrapped up in many conspiracies around J6, often alleging government involvement. But the confession showed a more straightforward motivation.
On Nov. 8, 2025, The Blaze published an article claiming [ [link removed] ] to have identified the J6 pipe bomber as a female former Capitol Police officer based upon “gait analysis,” and even published her name. This article was widely shared across right-wing platforms. After Cole’s arrest, The Blaze retracted [ [link removed] ] the article.
According to the DOJ,
The defendant explained: “I didn’t agree with what people were doing, like just telling half the country that they – that their – that they just need to ignore it. I didn’t think that was a good idea, so I went to the protest.” The defendant “has never really been an openly political person” and does not discuss politics often with his family to avoid conflict. According to the defendant, “no one knows” his political views, including his family. The defendant stated that he does not align politically with his family members and did not tell them that he “was going to a protest in support of [then President] Trump.”
Later in the interview, the defendant explained that after the 2020 election, “when it first seemed like something was wrong” and “stuff started happening,” he began following the issue closely on YouTube and Reddit and felt “bewildered.” In the defendant’s view, if people “feel that, you know, something as important as voting in the federal election is being tampered with, is being, you know, being – you know, relegated null and void, then, like, someone needs to speak up, right? Someone up top. You know, just to, just to at the very least calm things down.” The defendant felt that “the people up top,” including “people on both sides, public figures,” should “fascists.” Instead, “if people feel that their votes are like just being thrown away, then . . . at the very least someone should address it.”
WSJ on Trump Pardons
The Wall Street Journal published an in-depth report on presidential pardons under Trump on December 23. The short version: Just about anyone can get a Trump pardon as long as they are either politically connected or funnel a lot of cash to Trump.
WSJ writes,
Administration officials and lobbyists describe two playbooks that have emerged. There is the official track, which involves pardon czar Alice Johnson, Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin and the White House Counsel’s Office. Applicants usually go through one of the three, and ultimately White House counsel Dave Warrington reviews the application and makes a recommendation to Trump. The two men meet every few weeks to discuss pardons, administration officials said.
The second track is riskier but can be much faster. If an applicant can find Trump at Mar-a-Lago or a White House event and ask for a pardon directly, Trump is often inclined to be helpful, administration officials said—particularly if someone says the magic words: “unjust persecution.”
Trump has often claimed that those he pardons were the victims of “witch hunts.”
Read the whole thing with this gift link [ [link removed] ].
Minnesota’s Fraud Scandal
The fallout from a scandal in Minnesota involving social services fraud is ongoing, including Governor Tim Walz’s decision this week to not run for reelection. Over the Christmas break, this scandal was a case study in how events become hyper-polarized in today’s environment. While the capture of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro took this story off the front pages, you’ll likely hear more about it, especially as we get closer to the midterm elections. Here are a few bullet points to keep in mind as you learn more:
This is a Democrat scandal. Minnesota is controlled by Democrats and when there were warning signs of fraud early on, Democrat officials were reluctant to investigate because those involved, Somali immigrants, are a key voting bloc.
While fraud in government programs is nothing new, the sheer size — $1 billion and counting — makes this scandal particularly newsworthy.
The fraud was mostly conducted by Somalis, and the Somali community is receiving much of the blame, but the perpetrators are only a small part of the Somali population. 76 Somalis have been charged. 80,000 Somalis live in Minnesota. That’s 0.00095%.
The Trump administration and MAGA influencers are using this scandal to expand their ongoing xenophobic and racist messages and policies.
The scandal is not new. While it’s a Democrat scandal, it was also Democrats who helped uncover the scandal. The U.S. Department of Justice investigation began during Biden administration. The first prosecutions came in 2022 under Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In Minnesota, nonpartisan investigators in the Office of the Legislative Auditor were also key to uncovering part of the scandal and reporting [ [link removed] ] on state Democrats’ reluctance to prosecute due to election considerations.
A young Youtuber’s video [ [link removed] ] helped this story go viral on the right, which led to Trump freezing child care funding, first nationwide then later narrowed to five states, all Democrat-led. The video’s veracity has been questioned [ [link removed] ].
Many right-wing messengers claim the scandal is being ignored by mainstream news. A simple Google search [ [link removed] ] will demonstrate that’s false, but also, this scandal was first reported by mainstream news sources. When I do a Google search for “Minnesota fraud scandal” prior to December 1, the first two pages of news sources include the DOJ releases, The New York Times [ [link removed] ], and local ABC and Fox channels. The only source on the right reporting on it by then was the Cato Institute [ [link removed] ].
Trump’s Not-So-Merry Christmas
President Trump spent Christmas Day [ [link removed] ] posting unhinged rants over 100 times to his Truth Social account. Many of the posts included the false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. One repost said former President Barack Obama should be prosecuted for the 2020 election outcome. Several posts made disparaging remarks about Somali immigrants. Trump finished his Christmas rant fest with a lengthy post about the Epstein scandal.
“Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his Island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest guy on earth ....” The effort to release the Epstein files is a “Radical Left Witch Hunt,” he added. He ended his Christmas post with a warning to Democrats: “Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas!”
What Else We’re Reading
KJZZ: “This Phoenix pastor says vilifying Charlie Kirk isn’t the way forward”
And his legacy there will be, I think, you know a example of the virtues of free speech and individual liberty and our capacities to have public disagreement in well-reasoned ways without violence. And I, and for those who see that in him, I honor all those values. My take on him though, is I do see that that was an image that was curated, and he did say that he stood for a lot of those things and gave example of it.
I also see, and this would be the legacy in perhaps a different community, that he leveraged derisive speech, dehumanizing behavior, fear mongering to grow a media empire that made him millions of dollars at the expense of those whose voices are not being platformed or elevated, or those who are at risk, or those who have been pushed to the margins of the community, the communities that we’re in and that he was popular in. And in that sense, I think his legacy will be as a aggressive and divisive political pundit in the lane of Rush Limbaugh. I think that there’s a large shift taking place with inside the American Evangelical Church around our theology of power. Whether or not power and influence is something to be leveraged to dominate over others who we disagree with, or if power is something to be like Jesus, used in service of others in self-sacrificial ways.
LINK [ [link removed] ]
The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Robert P. George and the Great Campus Vibe Shift”
I’ve noticed another phenomenon that I had not experienced until recently, and that is students coming in with minds closed around right-wing ideologies that are unfriendly to the principles of the American civic order. It’s an anti-Americanism on the right. These students arrive with the idea that the seeds of 1968 were planted in 1776. The trouble was that men like Madison and Jefferson were liberals, and the woke ideology that these students are rebelling against was planted by Enlightenment-era liberals like the American founders. That’s a very crude understanding, really a misunderstanding, of the founders. Although there are distinguished academics who, in a much more sophisticated way, hold a version of that view. And I want my students to be exposed to those academics, such as Patrick Deneen. But what I’m seeing is something much cruder, and sometimes, very regrettably, it’s connected to grotesque ideologies such as racism and antisemitism. I don’t want to exaggerate the scope of the problem because it’s a very small number of students. But prior to maybe three years ago, I hadn’t seen it at all.
LINK [ [link removed] ]
NBC News: “Slain Minnesota lawmaker’s children call on Trump to remove social media video amplifying false claims about her death”
The children of slain Minnesota state lawmaker Melissa Hortman are urging President Donald Trump to remove a post on Truth Social that promotes a conspiracy theory alleging the state’s governor, Tim Walz, was involved in Hortman’s death.
LINK [ [link removed] ]
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