Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
Forty billionaires with ties to Jeffrey Epstein have poured nearly $1.6 billion into U.S. elections since 2010. The FBI fired two Atlanta analysts for refusing to work on the reopened 2020 Georgia election probe. The White House ordered Kash Patel to investigate New York Times reporters over a leak. And Mexico says 17 of its nationals have died in ICE custody or operations, and it is now pursuing criminal charges.
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Epstein’s Friends Have Spent $1.6 Billion on Our Elections
It turns out the surest way to survive a scandal about a convicted child sex trafficker is to have a spare billion lying around.
A new report from Americans for Tax Fairness Action Fund finds that 40 billionaires and billionaire families with ties to Jeffrey Epstein have injected more than $1.57 billion into U.S. elections since 2010, when the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the floodgates.
The ties range from a mention in Epstein’s black book to what the report calls extensive personal and business relationships. The list includes Donald Trump, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Elon Musk, Jared Kushner, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
Eighty-four percent of the spending, over $1.3 billion, went to Republicans and conservative causes. Only 7 percent went to Democrats, despite a roughly even partisan split among the donors themselves.
Trump’s campaigns and allied super PACs took $282 million from this group. The Adelsons alone spent $745 million, and they turn up in the Epstein files hundreds of times.
The $1.6 billion represents 0.09 percent of their collective net worth. For that price, they bought a government.
FBI Analysts Fired for Refusing to Investigate Election
The FBI is checking 175,000 names to see if they’re alive, which is also a fair description of morale at the bureau right now.
Two Atlanta-based analysts, a married couple, were fired last week after refusing to join the Trump administration’s investigation into Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. They told colleagues they did not believe the probe was justified under FBI and Justice Department policies. They were escorted out.
Patel has directed roughly 260 intelligence analysts nationwide to devote time to what a memo called a “priority investigation” in Atlanta. That is the probe into the 2020 election in Georgia, which Joe Biden won by nearly 12,000 votes.
The FBI seized 600 boxes of ballots and election materials in January. The affidavit supporting the search warrant included fraud claims that Republican-led investigations in Georgia had already debunked.
The memo requires each analyst to complete 708 record checks by July 17. One field office received a spreadsheet of 175,000 names and dates of birth, and was told to check whether those people are alive.
An FBI spokesperson said the bureau will always investigate credible allegations, and warned that any deviation from its standards “will not be tolerated.” The couple who refused was unavailable for comment, presumably because they are alive and can be verified.
White House Orders Kash Patel to Investigate Journalists
Kash Patel canceled a trip to see his girlfriend to spend eight hours at the White House hunting a newspaper leak, which is either an abuse of power or the worst excuse for bailing on a date ever recorded.
The White House reportedly instructed Patel to hunt down the source of a Times story about Trump’s Qatari-donated Air Force One alternative. Patel had planned to fly to Chicago to see his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, and to visit an FBI field office. He abruptly canceled and spent roughly eight hours running the probe from inside the West Wing.
That Friday night, subpoenas went out. Times reporters Tyler Pager, Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton, and Eric Schmitt were ordered to testify before a Manhattan grand jury.
The story that so enraged Trump was the one that reported his new jet lacks the countermeasures found on the previous Air Force One. Secret Service raised safety concerns, and Trump switched planes before a NATO flight to Turkey. He told reporters he swapped aircraft so U.S. service members in the U.K. could tour it.
The Times also found that the plane Trump insists cost taxpayers nothing actually cost hundreds of millions to retrofit. The Times refused to reveal its sources, a principle reporters have been fined and jailed to defend.
Patel said the reporting about his trip was false, except for the part where he was at the White House. He added that “the fake news will find out why soon.” In other words, the reporting was false, except for the part that was true, which is a pretty good batting average for fake news.
Mexico Says 17 Nationals Have Died in ICE Custody. It’s Suing.
Mexico has sent eleven diplomatic protest notes to the United States, which is eleven more than it took to realize diplomatic protest notes don’t do anything.
President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Thursday that her government will pursue criminal and civil action in the United States over the deaths of Mexican nationals in ICE custody and enforcement operations. Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco said Mexico has recorded 17 such deaths since the current U.S. crackdown began: 14 in detention centers and three during operations.
The announcement follows the July 7 killing of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, shot by an ICE agent during an operation in Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood. Salgado had lived in the U.S. for decades and had a work permit application pending.
U.S. authorities said Salgado tried to evade arrest and used his vehicle as a weapon, prompting an officer to fire in self-defense. Neighbors told El País they heard him cry, “¡Me están matando!” — they’re killing me. His family said they learned of his death from videos on social media, not from authorities.
Velasco said the Foreign Ministry will refer the cases to U.S. state prosecutors and the Justice Department “against whoever is responsible.” Mexico will also send cease-and-desist letters to the private companies that run ICE detention centers.
Sheinbaum said her government could not fail to act over the deaths of Mexicans “whose only crime is working honestly in the United States.” Mexico has also appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the U.N. High Commissioner.
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