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Trump won’t rule out invoking the Insurrection Act for the November midterm elections. His Justice Department is reviewing whether the prosecutors who brought down Richard Nixon over Watergate treated him unfairly. The Treasury Department has auto-enrolled more than 60 million children in Trump Accounts that nobody asked for. And a man charged with raping two 13-year-olds is on track to become the chief of police in a Louisiana town.
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Trump Won’t Rule Out Invoking the Insurrection Act Around the Midterms
The last time a president invoked the Insurrection Act, Los Angeles was literally on fire.
Trump told Time in an interview published Thursday that he hasn’t ruled out invoking the Insurrection Act or declaring a national emergency around the November midterm elections. Asked about the limits of his presidential power, he said: “I’m not committing to anything. We’re going to see how it plays out in court.”
The 1807 Insurrection Act allows the president to send in troops or federalize a state’s National Guard in the face of an insurrection or obstruction of the law. It has been invoked by fifteen presidents, never for an election. It was last used by President George H.W. Bush during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the act during his second term. He said he’d use it on anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles in June last year, and made the same threat about protests in Portland that October.
Trump has also relied on Title 10 throughout his second term to send federal troops to cities in a “supporting role” for local law enforcement. Those deployments cost taxpayers $496 million.
Trump’s DOJ Wants to Know if Richard Nixon Was Unfairly Prosecuted
Anything but investigating the people in the Epstein files.
The Department of Justice is investigating whether the special prosecutor’s office that investigated the Watergate break-in engaged in misconduct, The Wall Street Journal reports. The review comes more than 50 years after the scandal forced President Richard Nixon to resign.
The review was sparked by Geoff Shepard, an 81-year-old former Nixon aide who has spent years making the case that the deep state pushed Nixon out of the White House. Shepard gave a two-hour presentation at DOJ headquarters titled “Watergate As Lawfare,” in which he laid out his theory that prosecutors met behind the scenes with judges, violating due process.
The language Shepard used in his presentation is eerily similar to the language Trump uses when talking about his own legal problems. Trump has long claimed that his opponents are “deep state” actors using “lawfare” on him.
Shepard had asked for an investigation in 2022 but the Biden administration’s DOJ declined to open one. The current review is preliminary, and the department said it’s not yet clear whether it will lead to a full investigation.
Vice President JD Vance has been making a similar case, telling the Nixon Presidential Library in June that what happened to Nixon was not all that different from what happened to Trump during his first term. He also said Watergate would be a 12-hour news story if it happened today. That part is true.
Treasury Auto-Enrolls 60 Million Children in Trump Accounts Nobody Asked For
Sixty million kids just got their first retirement accounts and their first data breaches at the same time.
More than 60 million children have been automatically enrolled in Trump Accounts, a new type of tax-deferred retirement account for minors, the Treasury Department announced this week. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement that the accounts are now ready to be claimed by parents and guardians.
The auto-enrollment was the administration’s response to extremely low participation. A study by the national nonprofit Commonwealth found that only 5 percent of low- to moderate-income families who qualified for a 530A Trump Account had actually opened one. Families cited confusion over eligibility and taxes, and a lack of trust in the administration.
Children born between 2025 and 2028 could get a one-time $1,000 contribution from the government. Parents can claim an account by downloading the Trump Accounts app and verifying their child’s identity, which requires entering their child’s Social Security number.
The auto-enrollment means the government has linked Social Security numbers of 60 million children to accounts their parents never created. Nobody in the administration has revealed who controls the data, or what security protocols protect it.
Child Rape Suspect on Track to Become Police Chief in Louisiana
A village in Louisiana is about to elect a police chief who may need to arrest himself.
The lone candidate for chief of police in Elizabeth Village, Louisiana was charged with two counts of second-degree rape of two 13-year-old girls. Christopher Paul, 48, was arrested last month after Allen Parish detectives received a complaint, and is currently out on bond.
Sheriff Doug Hebert said detectives received a complaint in early August that Paul raped two girls when they were 13 years old in 2005 and 2006. Paul turned himself in on September 8, after a warrant for his arrest was issued.
Paul’s only opponent, Zachary LaCaze, dropped out of the race Sept. 23 after being told he’d have to choose between his civilian security job at Fort Polk and running for office. LaCaze said he couldn’t afford to lose the family’s main income.
That leaves Paul as the only candidate on the ballot. Elizabeth Village Mayor Mandy Leo Green issued a statement acknowledging residents’ concerns, but said neither her office nor the Board of Aldermen has the power to remove a candidate from the ballot.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Vance Rally in Florida Disrupted by Multiple Protesters. Vice President JD Vance was heckled twice during a Thursday rally in Florida, a state Trump won by 13 points in 2024. The first interruption came while Vance was praising senator Ashley Moody and her record on immigration. The second came while he was promoting Byron Donalds, the Republican candidate for governor. Vance has been traveling through competitive states to boost Republican midterm candidates, but the Florida stop was supposed to be a layup. Instead, he spent part of the event responding to protesters in a room that was hand-picked by his team.
Florida Democrats Out-Register Republicans for the First Time in Years. Florida Democrats added 29,633 active registered voters from September to October, outpacing Republicans, who added 29,140. This is the first time that Democrats have posted a larger monthly net gain than Republicans since the start of Florida voter registration tracking in mid-2021, according to Decision Desk HQ analyst Michael Pruser. Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried credited years of rebuilding the party through year-round organizing and door-to-door conversations. The change comes days ahead of the state’s October 5 voter registration deadline for the November 3 general election.
Upstate New York Protesters Help Two Men Escape Border Patrol Arrest. More than 50 people gathered Wednesday in Oswego, New York and prevented Border Patrol agents from arresting two men who had been trapped on the roof of a house for seven hours. The Oswego Fire Department at one point arrived with a ladder, but the crowd pushed it away. Border Patrol then decided to withdraw, and the two men were able to leave the rooftop and depart in waiting cars. Oswego Mayor Robert A. Corradino said in a statement “our responsibility as a city is clear: we protect our residents, safeguard our neighborhoods, and maintain order.”
Habitat for Humanity Turns Blighted Wisconsin Factory Site Into 20 Affordable Homes. Twenty families now live on a blighted factory lot in Waukesha, Wisconsin that had been vacant and used as a dumping ground for years. Habitat for Humanity completed the Domenica Park subdivision on the former Aeroshade Company site, consisting of 16 single-family homes and two duplex townhomes. Over 1,000 people volunteered or contributed to the project and the City of Waukesha invested $1 million in ARPA funding. Most of the new homeowners are first-time buyers, and Habitat guarantees that monthly mortgage payments will not be more than 30 percent of a homeowner’s income.
