Trump Hunts Leaker Who Revealed Epstein Panic Meeting

ICE is keeping a database of protestors that observe agents, World Cup players and referees are being denied U.S. entry, and construction on Trump's arch will run 20 hours a day

Good morning. I’m Ryan Rose, filling in for Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.

The Trump White House has launched a “massive leak hunt” to find out who talked about a “panicked” Epstein files meeting. ICE threatened a Maine occupational therapist with a domestic terrorism watch list for viewing agents from ten feet away. Players and referees alike are being detained and barred from the World Cup despite having approved U.S. visas. And in order to finish Trump’s 250-foot arch, construction will run 20 hours a day for three years.

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Now, let’s go.

Trump Is Hunting the Leaker Who Revealed His Epstein Panic

Nothing says innocence quite like a massive internal investigation into who’s talking about the Epstein files.

The Trump administration has launched what CNN describes as a “massive leak hunt” to find out who spilled details about the White House “freakout” over the release of the Epstein files. The trigger was a new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, excerpted by The New York Times on Wednesday.

The book describes a Situation Room meeting that Trump did not attend and reportedly did not know about. Vice President JD Vance and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles were there, as well as then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel.

According to the excerpt, Vance “appeared panicked” about how the Epstein files would divide the president’s base. “This is a huge problem,” he reportedly told the group.

Some senior officials had the impression that Vance is a believer in the darker conspiracy theories about Epstein and a cabal of predators within the country’s ruling class. Wiles even told others that the vice president had proved himself to be a major conspiracy theorist.

Coming soon: a leak hunt to find out who leaked about the leak hunt.

ICE Keeps a List of Protesters Who Simply Stand and Watch

The Trump administration would like you to know it absolutely does not keep a database of protesters, which is why it called a woman at home to tell her that her spouse might end up on a domestic terrorist watch list.

Last January in Portland, Maine, pediatric occupational therapist Xenia Pantos stopped while driving to work to observe masked federal agents. Pantos stayed at least ten feet away and did not interact with anyone. Hours later, Pantos’ spouse, Carly Williams, got a call from a blocked number from a man identifying himself as Department of Homeland Security.

The caller asked if Williams knew her spouse had stopped at an incident that morning. Then he warned that people “doing that type of thing are getting added to a domestic terrorist watch list.”

For months, DHS has repeatedly denied keeping any such database. At a February hearing, then-acting ICE director Todd Lyons said flatly: “There is no database for protesters.”

But in a previously unpublicized April 21 letter to Congress, reviewed first by NPR, Lyons acknowledged ICE collects “essential biographic and biometric information and situational details” at protests, and maintains records on people who were never arrested.

Pantos uses they/them pronouns. The DHS caller kept calling them “she.” The agency tracking your every detail could not get that one right.

Funny enough, we have a database of our readers. It’s called a subscriber list. The difference is we asked first, we’re transparent about it, we won’t call your spouse, and we’ll get your pronouns right. Consider upgrading your subscription today.

World Cup Players and Officials Are Being Denied U.S. Entry

The United States is hosting a tournament for 48 nations, and it has decided the best way to welcome the world is to send Africa’s top referee back home from the airport.

Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan, named Africa’s best men’s referee last year, was denied entry at Miami International Airport on Saturday and forced to fly back home. He was one of 52 referees FIFA selected for this year’s tournament.

Artan said he was detained for 11 hours and questioned. CBP said he “was determined to be inadmissible due to vetting concerns.”

He was not the only one. The Iraqi team’s official photographer, Talal Salah, was detained at Chicago O’Hare, handed over his phone, and was banned after 12 hours. Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein was held for seven hours before being released.

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott explained the policy at an event hosted by the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies. A visa, he said, does not guarantee entry. “If you’re playing FIFA, or you’re a referee or whatever … we’re not letting you in just because we want you to referee a game.”

Artan was greeted by a crowd in Mogadishu when he landed. “I promise you, God willing, that I will attend the next one,” he told them. Assuming they let him in.

Construction on Trump’s 250-Foot Arch Will Run 20 Hours a Day

The Romans built triumphal arches after winning wars. This administration has decided losing one is enough.

To finish Trump’s “Triumphal Arch” before he leaves office, the National Park Service plans construction 20 hours per day, year-round, for two to three years, according to planning documents released by the Interior Department. The work runs in two 10-hour shifts.

The reports explain that “smaller heights were not considered representative of this milestone.” So the arch will rise 250 feet, clad in U.S.-sourced granite over concrete, requiring multiple cranes up to 320 feet tall.

The foundation alone takes about five months of “continuous heavy equipment operations,” driving 75 feet down to bedrock. After roughly two years, a 300-foot mobile crane installs a gold statue at the top.

The design has not been approved by the National Capital Planning Commission, which last week asked the administration to address a series of problems. Trump falsely claimed it had already been approved.

A group of Vietnam veterans has sued to block construction, arguing Congress should approve it. The administration says a 100-year-old statute on the nearby Arlington Memorial Bridge authorizes the whole thing. Forcing them to disclose their reasoning, DOJ lawyers warned, would “wreak havoc” on the Executive Branch.

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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Trump opened a complaint line and got 35,000 complaints about himself. The Trump administration asked National Park visitors to report any exhibits they found “negative” about Americans, hoping to turn the parks into what it called “uplifting public monuments.” It then received 35,000 public comments in response, the vast majority of which called the policy un-American and fascist. In the meantime, at least 59 signs and exhibits have already been altered or removed, including displays about slavery at Independence National Historical Park

A Court Closed the Endangered Species Act Loophole for Coal Miners. As May ended, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the federal government’s effort to undercut Endangered Species Act protections for coal mining was illegal. Coal mines had relied on a streamlined process that skipped any real analysis of the harm they cause. The court vacated the nationwide biological opinion that let mines avoid the more thorough review. Senior attorney Jared Margolis called it “an incredibly important victory for the streams and rivers of Appalachia.”

Colorado’s Tamale Act Lets Residents Sell Homemade Food. Colorado residents can now legally prepare and sell a wider range of homemade foods under the Tamale Act, signed Wednesday by Gov. Jared Polis. The law expands on the 2012 Cottage Foods Act, which had barred foods requiring temperature control, like many meat and dairy products. Sellers must complete a food safety course, keep proof of it, and may not transport food more than once or for longer than two hours. House Majority Leader Monica Duran said the law lets people turn family recipes into a business opportunity.

California’s First Eight-Hour Grid Battery Goes Online. On June 1, the Tumbleweed project in Kern County became the first major U.S. battery installation that can discharge power for up to eight hours at a time, twice as long as a typical four-hour facility. The 125-megawatt system was doubled in size simply by adding more battery boxes, literally doubling the number of battery boxes on the site. The project exists because California regulators in 2021 ordered utilities to procure longer-duration storage. Notably, the state’s investor-owned utilities pushed their own deadline from 2026 to 2031, while the scrappy nonprofit teams plowed ahead.