This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Probably no situation could make more clear the dramatic upheaval that has happened under President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal aliens in America than the case where prosecutors are dropping gun charges against a suspect and the defense counsel may want them reinstated.
It is the case against Henrry Josue Villatoro Santos that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel now have successfully asked a judge to dismiss.
He was accused of having an illegal firearm, according to a report from Fox News.
Magistrate William E. Fitzpatrick granted the motion for dismissal but stayed it until Friday to allow Santos' lawyer to decide whether he would appeal, to have the charge reinstated.
It's because Santos is accused of being a top MS-13 gang leader along the East Coast, and without the protection of a pending court case, he could be deported.
The DOJ has been asking that the case be dropped since early in April, shortly after his arrest.
Santos' lawyer, Muhammad Elsayed, said during a court hearing the government hasn't told him what would happen to his client once the charges are dismissed, "suggesting Villatoro Santos would like to be 'summarily deported' without any due process," the report said.
Elsayed also charged the DOJ's decision on the case "came from high up in the Trump administration."
"They have already determined the outcome, that he'll go to the worst prison in the Western Hemisphere," Elsayed claimed.
The judge said it is up to the prosecutors to determine their deliberative process, and perhaps Santos would need to bring a case with the Department of Homeland Security as a party.
Bondi has been succinct regarding the case, "As a terrorist, he will now face the removal process."
Santos' lawyer earlier told the court, "The United States government, at its highest levels, has been publicly and loudly propagating allegations that Mr. Villatoro Santos 'is one of the top leaders of MS-13′ and 'one of the leaders for the East Coast, one of the top in the entire country,' claims made by Attorney General Pam Bondi at a high-level press conference on March 27, 2025."
In another high-profile deportation case, that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported even though he had a protective order aimed at preventing his deportation to El Salvador, the fight continues as the Supreme Court has ordered the government to facilitate his return, without explaining that requirement.
Further, El Salvado's president said that will not happen, leaving a multitude of questions about how an administration is supposed to enter a foreign country and take back to the United States a prisoner the government there is unwilling to give up.
A report in the Washington Examiner notes that a return trip probably would be ineffectual anyway.
George Washington University Law School professor John Banzhaf said on social media it would be likely a wasted effort since the administration could easily change his immigration status and deport him again.
"Any such return might be nothing more than an exercise in futility," he said. "There might be little purpose in flying him back if, upon his return to the U.S., his 'withholding of removal' status would very likely be immediately revoked."
Reports reveal he entered the U.S. illegally in 2011 and has been described in court documents as a past member of the violent MS-13 gang, a declared terrorist group.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told Trump this week he has no power to return him to the U.S.
"We're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Whistleblower already has charged the company with being willing to jeopardize national interests
Mark Zuckerberg, the chief of Facebook and a key player in America's Big Tech industry, has been "invited" to tell Congress about if, and how, his company kowtowed to China, possibly to the detriment of America.
That invitation comes from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has written Zuckerberg a letter calling for his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism.
It follows revelations by a former Facebook insider, now a whistleblower, Sarah Wynn-Williams, who has finished telling Congress Meta, Facebook's parent, didn't only sell out Americans, it surrendered to the Chinese Communist Party.
She explained there was a secret project, called "Project Aldrin," that apparently involved handing to the CCP access to U.S. artificial intelligence tech.
The senator told Zuckerberg, "The American people deserve to know the truth about your company."
He cited the testimony from Wynn-Williams who told of the company's willingness "to jeopardize American national interests, betray American consumers and Chinese dissidents alike, and lie about it to Congress."
The claims include that Facebook briefed Chinese officials are AI tech allowing them to compete against American interests, were willing to hand over the data on users that the CCP wanted, and muzzled a Chinese dissident.
"Worse, your company lied directly to Congress about deplatforming Guo Wengui. A top executive of your company, under oath, claimed that Facebook did so according to its normal policies. Documentary evidence unveiled in the hearing, authenticated by the whistleblower, proves that the action was taken due to pressure from China."
It previously was reported that Wynn-Williams, who worked for Facebook from 2011 to 2017 and served as director of global public policy, told Congress the corporation was willing to capitulate to the Chinese government.
Facebook claimed her testimony wasn't accurate.
But in her prepared opening statement for a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, Wynn-Williams accused founder Zuckerberg of pledging himself as a "free speech champion" while working "hand in glove" with the Chinese Communist Party to "construct and test custom-built censorship tools that silenced and censored critics of the Chinese Communist Party."
Wynn-Williams charged, 'I watched as executives decided to provide the Chinese Communist Party with access to Meta user data — including that of Americans."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President Donald Trump has ordered all security clearance authorizations removed from the "Anonymous" secrets leaker who boasted during his first term that he was a Deep Stater in the government actively working to undermine a duly election president.
The leaker, who identified himself as Miles Taylor, also is being put under investigation.
Taylor was employed in the government during Trump's first term in the Department of Homeland Security. He wrote, anonymously, in the leftist New York Times, that he was "part of the resistance" fighting Trump's agenda from inside the government.
He later released a book under the same moniker, and ultimately confirmed he was "Anonymous" when he broke cover and admitted he was working to oppose Trump's re-election.
In an executive order, Trump now has ordered the Department of Justice to investigate Taylor.
Trump warned, "Miles Taylor was entrusted with the solemn responsibility of federal service, but instead prioritized his own ambition, personal notoriety, and monetary gain over fidelity to his constitutional oath. While serving as an administrative staff assistant at the Department of Homeland Security, Taylor stoked dissension by manufacturing sensationalist reports on the existence of a supposed 'resistance' within the federal government that 'vowed' to undermine and render ineffective a sitting president."
The order continued, "He illegally published classified conversations to sell his book under the pseudonym 'Anonymous,' which is full of falsehoods and fabricated stories. In so doing, Taylor abandoned his sacred oath and commitment to public service by disclosing sensitive information obtained through unauthorized methods and betrayed the confidence of those with whom he served."
The results cannot be allowed, Trump wrote.
"Where a government employee improperly discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and government effectiveness –- all ultimately designed to sow chaos and distrust in government — this conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous and as possibly violating the Espionage Act, and therefore makes such employee ineligible for access to national secrets."
It now is, he wrote, "against America's interests to allow those associated with Taylor to access our nation's secrets."
So the order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi and the director of national intelligence, "and all other relevant executive department and agency (agency) heads to immediately take all action as necessary and consistent with existing law to suspend any active security clearances held by Miles Taylor, in addition to individuals at entities associated with Taylor, including the University of Pennsylvania, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest."
Further investigated will be his conduct where it was "contrary" to standards for federal workers as well as where he was "involved the unauthorized dissemination of classified information."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
In response to President Donald Trump's April 7 announcement that the U.S. will engage directly with Iran to begin "very high level" talks on that country's nuclear program this coming Saturday, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is pushing back, suggesting the discussions, to be held in Oman, will be indirect.
A nuclear-armed Iran – which for several decades has been one of the world's most brutal and autocratic Islamic theocracies – is totally out of the question, in the Trump administration's view.
To size up the coming showdown, WorldNetDaily spoke to retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt, once the second-highest-ranking U.S. military official at NATO.
Considering that Iran is one of the most well-endowed countries in the world in terms of oil and natural gas, Holt questioned the country's need for thousands of nuclear centrifuges in the first place. Whether it needs nuclear power or not, "What cannot be argued," Holt told WND, "is the fact that Iran has a multitude of centrifuges capable of bringing uranium to an enriched state that is considered weapons grade."
So what range of responses is the U.S. considering, should the Iran talks go badly? Noting America's B-2 stealth bombers recently deployed to Diego Garcia and captured in satellite photos, Holt said, "The United States could have easily brought those stealth airplanes into Diego Garcia in the middle of the night, hanger them, and no one would have known they were there."
Yet, he noted, they are intentionally on full display, "because," said Holt, "the president is sending a very clear message, showing Iran not only what the stick looks like, but that he's got every ability to use it." He added, "In order to have a deterrent, that deterrent has to be credible so they see we're not bluffing."
Does that mean the U.S. will strike Iran?
"It's not the president's preference," Holt told WND, adding, "The president has done something really important and very wise in terms of strategy." That is, Trump has left open the option of either moving Iran towards an acceptable outcome peacefully or by force if necessary.
Holt says within Trump's strategy there are three possible options: First, the U.S. president compels Iran to accept a peaceful solution. Second, he said, Trump "certainly has the preponderance of forces and logistics in place to remove any nuclear weapons manufacturing capability that Iran possesses." And finally, as WND has reported on extensively, "There could be a revolution from the Iranian people, pushing [Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei] out of the picture." With Iran's currency falling to a record low against the U.S. dollar, it's not out of the question for the Iranian people to throw off their widely hated leadership, prompted even further as their economy crumbles.
Contextualizing the Iran problem with the larger crises in the Middle East, Holt also warned that whatever becomes of U.S. negotiations with Iran, "it does not relieve the fact that Syria has essentially become a terror state." That, he says, is something the U.S. may not be able to ignore. "If the sun sets on the Iranian problems in the next year or so, Syria then becomes our big problem."
"You've got villains on the decline [in Iran], but you've got villains on the ascendancy [in Syria]," Holt stressed, arguing that wise and successful "U.S. foreign policy" in the Middle East "is ever more important at this time, rather than just going to the stick and dropping bombs."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Ryan Routh, suspected of a scheme to assassinate President Donald Trump while he was running for office last year, reportedly tried to buy a rocket launcher at that time.
Reports confirm that the Department of Justice has revealed Routh was trying to get "military weapons" from Ukraine at the time he allegedly was involved in the assassination scheme, which ultimately failed.
He's accused of claiming that Trump would be "bad" for Ukraine and that weapons of war get lost "all the time."
The issue over whether Ukraine knew of the scheme, and whether anyone in the United States was warned, is "absolutely massive."
According to a report at Fox News, Routh allegedly told an associate "Send me a RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] or stinger, and I will see what we can do… [Trump] is not good for Ukraine."
The details come from court documents in the case.
Amid discussions about the possible purchase, Routh said, "I need equipment so that Trump cannot get elected."
Further, prosecutors explained Routh sent his "associate" an image of President Trump's plane, and said, "Trump's plane, he gets on and off daily."
The case also now includes a 13-page motion claiming police used "impermissibly suggestive" tactics when interviewing witnesses.
"They claim the witness felt pressured to identify Routh because of the intense atmosphere created by the presence of multiple law enforcement agencies," the report said.
Authorities charge that the plot had been planned for months. Routh is accused of hiding at the Trump International Golf Course West Palm Beach with a rifle, backpack, and shopping bag, both of which contained plates that could stop small arms fire.
Prosecutors also charge he tried to buy a .50 caliber sniper rifle at the time.
After he concealed himself at the golf course, he was spotted by Secret Service agents, before Trump approached.
When confronted, he fled, leaving behind his rifle, and he was arrested miles away.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Environmental agendas? Traditionally Democrat. Immigrant advocates? Usually Democrats. Promoting labor causes? Also Democrats.
Until now, when the party's absolute hatred for all things President Donald Trump, and his Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk, has prompted members to abandon their long-held ideals.
Now, according to constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University, "Democrats have shown that very self-destructive quality of rage in adopting anti-immigrant, anti-free speech, anti-labor, and even anti-environmental positions to get at Donald Trump or his supporters."
He was referencing the exploding political violence of the left, especially that which has targeted Musk and his companies – even innocent owners of Tesla vehicles.
"What is most striking, however, is how Democrats have torched their core beliefs to pursue a scorched Earth campaign against Musk," he said.
The Democrats now are at risk, he said, of becoming "the very thing that they despise in others."
In fact, they are "jettisoning their most cherished values to strike out at those they hate."
He said the real issue is that those "rage addicts" "like it; they need it."
Even their advocacy for funding from billionaires, like George Soros, becomes a failing when another billionaire, Elon Musk, does it, because he's been supporting Republicans.
Such "scorched earth" actions now have infested the actions of Democrat lawmakers in New York, who are trying to "weaponize" state laws against Musk, he said.
He cited plans by state Sen. Pat Fahy, an Albany Democrat, who wants to ban Musk's Tesla corporation from direct sales in the state.
That's despite Fahy's long advocacy for electric cars.
"The move will make it more difficult not just for Musk but other EV dealers to survive, but climate change policies be damned. Fahy and her colleagues want to get at Musk in any way they can," Turley explained.
Turley documented:
He noted in California, labor advocates opposed more work at SpaceX that would benefit workers, because of Musk's connections.
And he cited the Democrats' "greatest hypocrisy" in their willingness to abandon environmental priorities "for political revenge."
The Fahy issue is that Tesla was allowed to sell cars directly to consumers at some locations because it was viewed as good for the state and the environment.
"The question is, what do Democrats like Fahy now stand for when everything they are is now defined by those they hate?"
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Being used to 'surveil American citizens and harass Chinese citizens who have fled the Communist regime'
China's Communist regime has established secret police stations inside the United States and they are being used to "surveil American citizens and harass Chinese citizens who have fled the Communist regime."
And a couple of American lawmakers are working on a new plan that would put them out of business.
It is in a report at the Federalist that the threat to America is profiled.
And also the work of U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., on the Expel Illegal Chinese Police Act introduced just weeks ago, along with the companion House effort by Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa.
"No foreign government has the right to operate secret police stations on American soil. The Chinese Communist Party's actions undermine international norms and human rights by circumventing legal extradition processes and engaging in intimidation tactics. This legislation sends a clear message: the United States will never tolerate illegal operations that violate our sovereignty and intimidate individuals living within our borders," Cotton explained.
Hinson added, "The Chinese Communist Party should have never been able to operate police stations in the U.S. to surveil American citizens and harass Chinese citizens who have fled the Communist regime. … Senator Tom Cotton and I are working to end these illegal intimidation tactics that undermine U.S. sovereignty and finally hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for such egregious violations."
The bill would authorize actions that would target those running the police stations with "financial sanctions, visa restrictions, and asset freezes."
The report explains the Chinese regime's strategies already have created issues.
One Chinese citizen, Quanzhong An, already has been handed 20 months in prison for "acting on behalf of the Chinese government to intimidate individuals living in the U.S., the report said.
"This case highlights the urgent need for strong measures to protect individual freedoms and uphold national sovereignty against the covert policing tactics employed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)," the report explained.
In the past, the Federalist confirmed, Chinese Communists even have sent "undercover police" to foreign nations "to forcibly repatriate individuals labeled as 'criminals' by any means necessary."
Part of the pressure schemes included subjecting the individuals' relatives, still back in China, "to harassment, jail, torture and other mistreatment."
"In countries like Vietnam and Australia, Chinese agents have simply abducted their prey," the report said.
The police stations, estimated to number 100 around the world, including in the U.S., ostensibly are for various "services" for Chinese individuals.
"Their actual purpose is far more insidious: to monitor, intimidate, and silence overseas Chinese individuals, while aiding China's efforts to capture alleged fugitives globally," the report said.
There already have been prosecutions in the U.S. of individuals for helping the illegal policing activities, and their suspects' defense was that they "believed they were assisting a company or an individual in collecting debts, unaware that the Chinese government was involved."
And the Department of Justice has indicted 40 Chinese officers and members of the Cyberspace Administration of China for their actions.
"These cases demonstrate the lengths the PRC government will go to silence and harass U.S. persons who exercise their fundamental rights to speak out against PRC oppression. … These actions violate our laws and are an affront to our democratic values and basic human rights," the DOJ confirmed.
The report pointedly notes during Joe Biden's tenure in the White House, he "never demanded that China stop its illegal policing on U.S. soil."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Death toll estimated to be in the thousands
A catastrophic 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest city, on Friday, leaving behind a landscape of rubble from collapsed buildings and a death toll feared to be in the thousands.
The quake, also was felt in Thailand and China, was measured by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Officials in nearby Naypyidaw hospital declared their area to be a "mass casualty area."
"I haven't seen (something) like this before. We are trying to handle the situation. I'm so exhausted now," a physician on duty explained the AFP.
Ian Main, a professor in seismology at the University of Edinburgh, told the Daily Mail, "The damage is likely to be very severe near the epicenter- based on the estimated intensity of ground shaking above, and maps of population density and vulnerability of buildings.
"The USGS 'PAGER' forecast loss is, sadly, most likely to be in the range 10,000-100,000 fatalities," he said.
A 30-story building under construction in Bangkok collapsed.
Reports of fatalities were trickling in and hundreds of people were missing.
"I heard people calling for help, saying 'help me,'" Worapat Sukthai, deputy police chief of Bang Sue district, told AFP.
"I fear many lives have been lost. We have never experienced an earthquake with such a devastating impact before."
The quake struck about 1:30 p.m. local time.
Kelly Rhodes, a tourist on Bangkok, told MailOnline of being evacuated 24 flights of steps down.
Water splashed out and cascaded down the sides of highrises with rooftop pools.
"All of a sudden the whole building began to move, immediately there was screaming and a lot of panic," Fraser Morton, a tourist from Scotland, told the Daily Mail. "I just started walking calmly at first but then the building started really moving, yeah, a lot of screaming, a lot of panic, people running the wrong way down the escalators, lots of banging and crashing inside the mall."
Rows of people were lined up at emergency rooms.
The Red Cross issued a warning about the threat that remained to large dams in the area, offering the potential for major flooding.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Just as the issue of taking hard-earned money from taxpayers to give to the leftist ideologues at PBS and NPR has come up before the Department of Government Efficiency, and Congress, one member, Rep. Brandon Gill, has posted online a video of some of the most hateful comments they have broadcast over the years.
Including a hope that a man will "get AIDS from a transfusion" and the wild claim that Christians in America blow up people "every single day."
The video comes from NewsBusters of the Media Research Center.
Twitchy noted, "Taxpayers funded Nina Totenberg's salary so she could wish Jesse Helms would contract AIDS and the panel could laugh about it."
Other comments, about a Supreme Court justice, "I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease."
On an explanation about how Islam teaches that to kill other people is a good thing? "But Christians do that every single day, in this country."
A Fidel Castro's "charisma remains as strong as ever."
"America is exceptionally religious, has always been … founded by a theocratic cult of religious nuts."
And a comparison that President Trump's first term was like Kristallnacht, that infamous Nazi event of book-burning and destruction.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who runs the administration's Department of Government Efficiency which is cutting fraud, waste and corruption in federal spending programs, already have taken on a long list of federal departments.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, for example, was revealed to have delivered millions and millions of taxpayer dollars for highly questionable projects, and largely has been closed down with a few remaining functions taken over by the State Department.
Taxpayers are being saved, actually, billions of dollars through DOGE.
And some members of Congress have come alongside the president's work, including U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who during a congressional hearing brought the receipts for why she believes biased and partisan government operations like National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting System should be defunded.
She pointed out the obvious bias they exhibit, specifically for having claimed Musk gave a Nazi salute, following an arm motion that repeatedly had been exhibited by Democrats:
The news that these entities produced is either resented or increasingly tuned out and turned off by most of the hardworking Americans who are forced to pay for it. They no longer view NPR and PBS is trusted news sources. As a matter of fact, with these people, they're a threat. In fact, when Elon Musk put his hand over his heart and extended it and told the American people, his heart goes out to them, PBS News posted the clip, called it a fascist Nazi salute and described how it was similar to the same he used by Nazis and their victory rallies. Not once did PBS or NPR report on the numerous accounts of Democrats making the same gesture — AOC, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, somebody that lost a presidential race, Hillary Clinton, Governor Tim Waltz. Why wasn't this treated exactly the same way? Is there not a standard in journalism today? Apparently not.
She also highlighted the so-called "children's content" that is present, and viewed as offensive.
For example, she said, PBS' use of a drag queen for children's programming was a problem: "If I walked in my living room and seen this child predator, this monster targeting my children, I would become unglued."
A report at RedState explained that chiefs of the publicly funded organizations were feeling "the heat" and she came "loaded for bear."
"As if this week wasn't bad enough for the Democrat Party and their mainstream media allies, the DOGE subcommittee is currently holding a hearing on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), where the CEOs of both purported "news" and information outlets are in attendance as witnesses," the report said.
Those officials are PBS' Paula Kerger and NPR's Katherine Maher.
Greene called the people at those agencies a "threat" that "hard-working Americans" are forced to fund.
The report explained, "while the hearing undoubtedly was designed to show the American people more evidence against PBS and NPR as various Republican-sponsored bills on the matter make their way through the House and Senate, satisfaction will only be gained if their defunding finally becomes a reality after many years of talking about it."
Later in the hearing, U.S. Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, asked Maher several pointed questions about opinions that have been given a venue via NPR, including support for "the whole community of genderqueer dinosaur enthusiasts."
President Trump already has supported cutting of tax money flowing to both groups.