Epstein Survivors Bash Trump's AG For Lying Under Oath

Trump's DOJ has indicted a former Cuban president, a former prosecutor has been charged for sending herself Jack Smith's report, and January 6th police officers are suing to stop Trump's slush fund

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

The acting attorney general told eighteen Epstein survivors under oath that he’d already met with them when he hadn’t. The U.S. just indicted Raúl Castro for the 1996 killing of four Americans, and given what happened to Maduro, this may be less symbolic than it sounds. A former federal prosecutor is being charged for emailing herself one of the most classified documents in Washington. And the cops who got beaten on January 6th are now suing to make sure the guys who beat them don’t get a government check for it.

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Now, the news.

The Acting Attorney General Lied to Epstein Survivors Under Oath

Todd Blanche apparently committed perjury this week, which is a bold career choice for the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Blanche was questioned by Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen about the Epstein survivors who have been desperately trying to meet with the Department of Justice. Van Hollen told Blanche the survivors were frustrated that the DOJ kept asking them to come forward with more evidence while refusing to actually sit down with them.

Blanche replied that Van Hollen’s characterization was “false” and that he had in fact already met with the survivors and their lawyers. “So whoever told you that unfortunately gave you bad information,” he said.

There was just one problem — or rather, 18 of them. A group of survivors then released a statement confirming that Blanche had not met with any of them, despite seeking a meeting with the Department.

The survivors noted they had already reported abuse to federal authorities “many times over the course of years” and said the burden should not be on them to keep making reports, but instead on the DOJ to investigate credible allegations and account for its own failures.

The DOJ’s response was to continue not meeting with them.

Trump’s DOJ Just Indicted Raúl Castro. Ask Maduro How This Works.

The Justice Department found some time between running slush funds and lying to Congress to indict Raúl Castro.

A U.S. grand jury in Florida handed down federal criminal charges against the 94-year-old former Cuban leader and brother of the late Fidel Castro in connection with the Cuban military’s fatal downing of two civilian planes in 1996, which killed four people.

Castro was charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder, and two counts of destruction of aircraft. Five others were also named in the indictment.

Castro served as president of Cuba from 2008 to 2018 and as the top official of the country’s Communist Party from 2011 to 2021. The charges mark an escalation in the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the Cuban government.

Cuba does not extradite people to the United States, which used to be the end of the conversation. Nicolás Maduro thought the same thing until U.S. forces showed up in Caracas, grabbed him, flew him to New York for trial, and installed a friendlier government in his place.

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Former Federal Prosecutor Charged With Stealing the Jack Smith Report

A former federal prosecutor is in court today over a very unusual dessert recipe.

Carmen Lineberger, a former managing assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida, has been charged with emailing herself a copy of Jack Smith’s sealed Volume II report, which contains the full findings of his investigation into Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents.

The indictment accuses her of sending the report to her personal Hotmail account with the subject line “chocolate cake recipe.”

Judge Aileen Cannon had barred the release of Volume II back in February, ruling it was “not customary” for a prosecutor to release findings in a dismissed case. The indictment notes that Cannon had issued an order in January 2025 prohibiting any DOJ official from “releasing, sharing or transmitting” the report outside the department.

Lineberger managed the Fort Pierce branch of the Southern District office, which was not part of the special counsel team, but in a supervisory role that gave her access. She faces charges including theft of government property and concealment of government records and could face up to 20 years in prison. She pleaded not guilty Wednesday during an appearance in West Palm Beach.

We don’t know what’s in the report. The government doesn’t want us to know. The recipe, for the record, has not been released either.

January 6 Officers Are Suing to Kill Trump’s Slush Fund

Two police officers who helped defend the U.S. Capitol from the January 6th attack filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday to block anyone, including the rioters themselves, from receiving payouts from Donald Trump’s new $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

The plaintiffs are retired Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Daniel Hodges. Their lawsuit describes the fund as a “corrupt sham” and argues it will compensate the very rioters who attacked them.

“In the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century,” the 29-page suit reads, Trump has created a taxpayer-funded slush fund to “finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name.”

Vice President JD Vance and Acting Attorney General Blanche both declined to rule out compensating January 6 rioters who attacked police.

The fund was created as part of a settlement after Trump sued his own IRS over the leak of his tax returns. Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, will appoint a five-member commission to determine who gets the money. The fox will be selecting the henhouse commission shortly.

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