Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
Todd Blanche is begging a federal judge not to fine him $1,000 a day for failing to hand over the Epstein files. The Justice Department has quietly opened a criminal probe into Republican Congressman Cory Mills over sex misconduct, campaign finance, and financial disclosure violations. It has now been 37 days since Mitch McConnell was hospitalized and two weeks since anyone claims to have spoken to him. And detainees at the largest ICE facility in the country say guards beat them, starved them, and denied them medical care.
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Blanche Begs a Judge Not to Fine Him Over the Epstein Files
Trump signed the Epstein transparency law the way you RSVP to a party you’re hoping gets canceled.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is now pleading with a federal judge to spare him a $1,000-a-day fine. The penalty is the latest turn in a lawsuit brought by journalist Katie Phang, who accused the DOJ of a “brazen, shocking, and ongoing violation” of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law Trump signed reluctantly in November.
The DOJ keeps insisting the Epstein investigation has been handled with “an unprecedented commitment to transparency.” Millions of files are still missing or redacted.
In June, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered Blanche to produce previously redacted materials. Those include FBI notes from a woman who alleges Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, when she was 13, plus email exchanges with Epstein about a “torture video” and the names of potential co-conspirators.
Sullivan gave Blanche until July 2. Blanche missed it. On Monday, he lashed out in a brief calling Phang’s argument “outlandish,” “absurd,” and “hyperbolic rhetoric.” Whatever’s in those files, it’s apparently worth more than a thousand dollars a day.
DOJ Investigating Republican Congressman Cory Mills
Cory Mills has survived more allegations than floor votes this session.
The Florida Republican is finally under a criminal investigation after months of compounding accusations. The DOJ is looking into alleged sexual misconduct, campaign finance violations, financial disclosure violations, inappropriate gifts, and a string of ethics violations.
Mills’s reaction, by phone: “This is the first I’m hearing about it.”
The allegations are not new to anyone else. He allegedly harassed his ex-girlfriend, former Miss United States Lindsey Langston, and threatened to release revenge porn after she left him. He is also accused of assaulting a second woman, who reported him to police.
Mills faced no criminal consequences in that case, because interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin refused to sign the arrest warrant. Later reporting found Mills tried to dodge arrest by threatening to call then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Republicans in Congress decided not to pursue expelling him. Mills is still running for reelection. His party’s plan is to let Florida’s August 18 primary handle it.
The DOJ is just now catching up to what AlterNet America readers already knew. We’ve been reporting on Cory Mills’s mounting scandals for months. We don’t wait for an investigation to tell you what’s happening, because we don’t answer to advertisers or billionaire owners with opinions about which stories we cover. If that matters, upgrade your subscription today.
No One Has Spoken to Mitch McConnell in Two Weeks
The closest thing to proof that Mitch McConnell is alive is a row of unmarked police SUVs parked outside a hospital.
It has been 37 days since the Kentucky senator was hospitalized after a June 14 fall that left him “briefly unconscious,” and two weeks since anyone even claimed to have talked to him. His colleagues don’t know where he is either.
The only thing that could be confirmed is that Capitol Police are still stationed outside George Washington University Hospital, where the 911 call reported a possible heart attack and CPR.
McConnell put out one proof-of-life photo and a July 12 statement. He said he broke no bones, had no concussion, no heart attack, no stroke, no tumors, and no hemorrhages. Just a mild case of pneumonia.
His office, led by a $226,000-a-year aide, declined to say whether the senator has spoken to any of them recently. Governor Andy Beshear says he got two calls from unnamed agencies suggesting McConnell had died. Josh Hawley says a senator has “an obligation to your constituents and the country to tell them what’s going on.”
Even Josh Hawley thinks this is suspicious, and that man will believe anything.
ICE Guards Accused of Brutally Beating Detainees
Human Rights Watch and the ACLU released a report Wednesday based on over 70 interviews with detainees at Camp East Montana, the immigration detention center near the U.S. Army’s Fort Bliss in El Paso. The findings run dozens of pages.
Detainees described routine beatings and excessive force by guards, chronic malnutrition, and unsanitary, degrading living conditions. They say they were denied medical care and blocked from contacting their families and lawyers.
One detainee, identified as Ismael M., 28, from Honduras, described more than five months of depressive episodes and suicidal thoughts. “I sometimes look at my bed sheets, and I wonder if it would be easier to hang myself instead of trying to survive this torture,” he said.
This is not the first warning. A government watchdog reported last month that the facility failed to issue use-of-force reports, withheld medicine from seriously ill detainees, and wasted tens of millions in taxpayer dollars on rushed contracts.
DHS called the reports “categorically false” and insisted no one is being beaten or denied care. About 50 people have died in ICE custody since January of last year.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
The U.S. Attorney Fired After 54 Minutes Is Suing Trump. Roger Rogoff was sworn in last week as the top federal prosecutor in the Western District of Washington, then learned less than an hour later that Trump had fired him. A former judge and prosecutor, Rogoff had been unanimously appointed by a panel of federal judges to fill a Seattle post that had sat vacant for months, exactly as federal law allows. On Tuesday he sued Trump, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and the DOJ, arguing the firing was unlawful and violated the Appointments Clause. He is the first judge-appointed U.S. attorney to fight the administration in court after being pushed out.
A Court Ordered the Education Department to Wipe Out Loans for 500,000 Borrowers. On Friday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to escape the Sweet v. McMahon settlement, forcing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to keep discharging federal student loans for more than 500,000 Americans. The 2022 agreement provides $23 billion in loan discharges, refunds, and credit repair for borrowers defrauded by mostly for-profit schools. The administration’s only remaining move is the Supreme Court, which already declined to halt this same settlement in 2023.
Mamdani Rolls Out Over 50 Reforms to Cut Red Tape for Small Businesses. Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced “OPEN for Small Business,” a package of more than 50 regulatory reforms aimed at the roughly 180,000 small businesses that employ one million New Yorkers. Building on January’s Executive Order 11, the plan directed seven city agencies to inventory their fees and penalties. The reforms eliminate outdated permits, redundant paperwork, and unnecessary fines for restaurants, bodegas, barbershops, and more, with 25 changes for food businesses alone and a new concierge point of contact for owners navigating city government.
Animal Shelters Across New Mexico Get Funding to Improve Care of Cats and Dogs. Seventeen animal shelters across New Mexico are getting a combined $2 million from the state to fix up their facilities, with grants going toward new kennels, ventilation systems, drainage repairs, and a full veterinary surgical suite in Carlsbad. The money comes through the state’s Animal Welfare Program, and if you’re keeping score, the shelter dogs of rural New Mexico are now on track to have better climate control, plumbing, and healthcare access than a significant chunk of the people living near them. At least everyone can agree the animals deserve it.
