Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
The Justice Department says it’s legally forbidden from handing New Mexico the unredacted Epstein files for its investigation. The government is prosecuting an American citizen for wiping his own phone at the Atlanta airport. A Heritage Foundation defense director walked into a Senate office building with a loaded magazine and pills that tested positive for cocaine and fentanyl. And a third of Trump’s own 2024 voters now believe gas would have been cheaper if Kamala Harris had won.
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The DOJ Won’t Give New Mexico the Epstein Files
The federal government says it cannot legally hand over the files. It has not explained why the files it did hand over were newspaper clippings.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday it is prohibited by law from releasing unredacted files on Jeffrey Epstein requested by New Mexico, escalating a feud with state officials investigating the late sex offender.
The state reopened in February an investigation into Epstein’s former ranch south of Santa Fe, where he is accused of abusing women and girls for nearly three decades. On Tuesday, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez released a letter accusing the DOJ of deliberately obstructing the probe by refusing to hand over the files.
Torrez said the U.S. Attorney’s Office only produced 31 pages of documents that had already been made public, contained unusable redactions, or were photocopies of local news stories.
The DOJ says its hands are tied. “Federal law, court orders, and privacy protections for victims and witnesses do not allow us to release millions of unredacted documents,” a spokesperson claimed.
New Mexico’s DOJ noted that federal prosecutors routinely ask courts to modify protective orders so they can share material with state law enforcement for criminal investigations. The state legislature’s Truth Commission is expected to release an interim report this month.
The US Is Prosecuting a Citizen for Wiping His Own Phone
Like a bottle of shampoo over three ounces, the Constitution apparently stops at passport control.
Federal agents detained US citizen Sam Tunick at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport on January 24, 2025, allegedly questioning him about child exploitation images. Prosecutors now say Tunick gave agents a fake “duress password” that wiped his phone when they tried to seize it, using a feature of the privacy-focused GrapheneOS.
To charge him, the government reached for a little-known and rarely used statute that makes it illegal to destroy or damage property to stop authorities from seizing it.
Tunick’s lawyers say the child-exploitation angle was a pretext for a fishing expedition into his connections to the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta. They argue agents refused him a lawyer, produced no warrant, and never informed him of his rights.
The government’s defense of the no-warrant part is instructive. It says it wasn’t required to produce one because Tunick had not yet been granted permission to enter the US.
Marlon Kautz of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund put it plainly: we all have a right to secure our private data against unconstitutional searches, especially in a time of rising authoritarianism.
If Tunick had child exploitation images on his phone, he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But the government arguing that a US citizen doesn’t have constitutional rights until he’s been formally admitted to his own country should terrify everyone. Most outlets see the words “child exploitation” and back away from the story, which is exactly how the government gets away with it. If you want coverage that treats both issues as important, become a paid subscriber today.
MAGA Aide Brought Drugs and Loaded Gun Into Senate
A Heritage Foundation director walked into a Senate building with a loaded magazine, cocaine, and fentanyl. There is no punchline. He got a misdemeanor.
Matthew Christopher Wingate, the Heritage Foundation’s government relations director for defense and foreign policy, was detained by Capitol Police on July 14 after an X-ray scan of his briefcase revealed what looked like a pistol magazine at the Russell Senate Office Building.
Wingate initially told officers there “shouldn’t be” a magazine in his bag. Investigators recovered one loaded with 10 rounds of 9mm ammunition. He held a valid D.C. carry license, but firearms are prohibited inside Senate office buildings.
The further search of his brown briefcase turned up more than ammunition. Authorities allege they found a plastic sandwich bag containing four capsules and three blue pressed pills which tested positive for cocaine and fentanyl. Wingate told investigators the drugs were his and were “prescribed by a medical professional.”
Wingate previously worked for Republican Senators Joni Ernst and Ted Cruz. He was released on a misdemeanor charge and is due back in court August 27.
Heritage is the group behind Project 2025, the blueprint for overhauling the federal workforce with loyalist appointments. Loyalty is apparently the only thing they test for.
Trump Voters Think Gas Would Be Cheaper Under Harris
A third of Trump’s own voters just arrived at the conclusion the rest of us arrived at in 2024.
According to a new Politico poll, only 34 percent of Trump’s own 2024 voters believe gas prices would have gone up more under a Democratic president. Thirty-five percent said prices would have risen the same amount. The other 31 percent think he made it worse.
Overall, 42 percent of respondents said gas prices would not have gone up this high under Harris. Only 18 percent said a Democrat would have been worse.
Gas averaged $4.060 per gallon nationally on Wednesday, up 29 percent from a year earlier. California hit $5.545. Analysts have warned that the national average could climb to $4.15–$4.25 in the coming weeks.
Sixty-three percent of Americans say the war is a factor; 40 percent blame Trump’s tariffs.
Trump made tackling inflation the cornerstone of his 2024 campaign and hammered Joe Biden over prices. Only 33 percent of Americans now approve of his handling of the economy, the lowest the Washington Post/Ipsos poll has recorded.
Sixty-eight percent of Americans say the war isn’t worth fighting. If only there were some kind of system where the majority gets what it wants.
Be Part of the 5 Percent
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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.
POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Democrats Favored to Win House, Underdogs in Senate 100 Days Out. Decision Desk HQ’s first 2026 midterm forecast gives Democrats a 61 percent chance of flipping the House. The Senate is projected at 50-50, with Vice President Vance as the Republican tiebreaker. Democrats led the generic ballot by 7 points in May but that’s down to 3.5 now, and mid-decade redistricting in Texas and California has made the House map tougher for them. The Iran war and gas prices remain the wild cards, as Democratic numbers have grown as the conflict has escalated. The most likely outcome is a divided government, or as Americans call it, government.
Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Bid to Curb Mail-In Voting in 23 States. A Boston-based federal appeals court declined to let the Trump administration enforce his executive order tightening mail-in voting rules across 23 states before November’s elections. In a 2-1 ruling Saturday, the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift an injunction that Democratic-led states secured, which found key parts of the order unconstitutional. The March order directed DHS to compile citizenship-based voter lists, ordered the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to approved voters, and told the DOJ to prioritize prosecuting local election officials who issued ballots to people deemed ineligible.
Paramount Agrees to Delay Warner Bros. Merger for Months. Paramount’s $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery just hit a wall. A coalition of state attorneys general, led by California, sued to block the deal on antitrust grounds, and a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order earlier this week. Now Paramount has agreed not to close the merger until after an antitrust trial is held or June 1, 2027, whichever comes first. And the delay isn’t free: Paramount owes Warner Bros. shareholders a “ticking fee” of 25 cents per share per quarter starting September 30, which could add roughly $1.7 billion to the deal price. If the whole thing falls apart, Paramount owes a $7 billion breakup fee.
Goodbye Cavities? New Gel Could Regrow Damaged Tooth Enamel. Researchers at the University of Nottingham have developed a gel that may rebuild tooth enamel, the hardest tissue in the body and one it cannot repair on its own once it is lost. The material is made from proteins designed to mimic the natural proteins that guide enamel formation in infancy. Applied like a fluoride varnish, it forms a durable coating that fills microscopic cracks and pores, then draws calcium and phosphate from saliva to grow new mineral crystals aligned with the tooth’s existing structure. In testing that simulated brushing, chewing, and acidic foods, the regenerated enamel behaved like healthy natural enamel, and it may also help people with exposed dentine.
