Rep. Nancy Mace is calling for the mother accused of strangling her three children to face a public death penalty, a demand that goes well beyond what even the prosecution has sought in the case.
Mace, the outgoing South Carolina Republican, told TMZ on Monday that Lindsay Clancy should be put to death in front of the public for allegedly killing her three young children in 2023. The 48-year-old congresswoman and mother of two did not hedge.
"She should get the death penalty. It should be public. It should be a public execution," Mace said. She added that the method did not matter to her.
"It could be by firearm, it could be electric chair, I don't really care."
Mace called Clancy a "serial killer", a characterization, not a legal finding. Clancy has not been convicted of any crime. Her murder trial ended in a mistrial on September 4 after a hung jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. Eleven of twelve jurors sided with the defense argument that Clancy should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. One holdout juror prevented acquittal.
Clancy is now likely facing a new trial. The case has drawn enormous public attention and sharp political reaction since the mistrial was declared.
What set Mace's comments apart from standard tough-on-crime rhetoric was her stated rationale. She framed a public execution not merely as justice for three dead children but as a message aimed at other mothers.
Mace described Clancy's execution as a "warning to women everywhere, you don't kill your kids." She also said plainly: "Her children are dead, she should be dead too. She deserves nothing less."
The congresswoman also took aim at Clancy's attorney, Kevin Reddington, who had issued what S1 describes as a "Hail Mary request" to President Trump to pardon Clancy. Mace called the pardon plea a "nasty, ugly" publicity stunt.
That pardon request was always a legal dead end. Both Trump and Reddington himself acknowledged that a presidential pardon is impossible in this case because Clancy faces state charges, not federal ones. The president can only pardon federal offenses.
President Trump addressed the pardon plea on Sunday when reporters asked about it. His tone was measured and somber, a sharp contrast with Mace's remarks the following day.
"It's a very sad situation. I certainly heard that, but look, it's very sad. There is no winner there. There's no win no matter what you do. Three children are dead."
Trump did not endorse the death penalty for Clancy, did not weigh in on the insanity defense, and did not comment on the mistrial beyond acknowledging the tragedy. He treated the matter as a state case, which it is.
The mistrial itself has created its own controversy. The jury split, eleven in favor of acquittal by reason of insanity, one holdout, raised questions about the strength of the prosecution's case and the dynamics inside the jury room. One juror in the case admitted she changed her vote and may still believe Clancy is guilty, adding another layer of uncertainty to the proceedings.
Mace's demand for execution skips past a basic fact: there has been no conviction. A mistrial means the jury could not agree, and the case resets. Clancy is legally presumed innocent. Whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in a retrial, or whether a retrial will even proceed on the same terms, remains an open question.
The defense's insanity argument clearly resonated with nearly the entire jury. Eleven out of twelve jurors agreed with it. That does not mean Clancy is innocent of killing her children, it means a near-unanimous jury found she may not have been mentally responsible for her actions. A single juror blocked that outcome.
Mace's comments do not engage with the insanity defense or the jury's near-unanimous finding. She treats the case as settled when it is not. The children are dead, three of them, allegedly strangled in 2023. That fact is not in dispute. But the legal process that determines guilt, mental state, and punishment is ongoing.
The trial also drew attention for incidents beyond the courtroom. A woman was accused of filming jurors during the proceedings, an episode that underscored the intense public pressure surrounding the case.
Conservative voters rightly expect the justice system to hold people accountable for horrific crimes. Three children are dead. The public's anger is justified. And the insanity defense, especially when it succeeds, often strikes ordinary people as a loophole that lets the guilty walk free.
But calling for a public execution before a conviction exists is not accountability. It is performance. Mace is an outgoing lawmaker with no role in the prosecution, no authority over state criminal law, and no obligation to weigh the evidence the jury actually heard. Her statements to TMZ land as political theater, not a serious policy position.
The conservative case for law and order has always rested on process, fair trials, honest verdicts, and punishments that fit both the crime and the Constitution. Demanding a public execution for a defendant who has not been convicted does not strengthen that case. It undermines it.
If the system fails to deliver justice for those three children, that failure will be worth every ounce of outrage. But the system has not finished yet, and skipping to the end is not how the rule of law works.
Chinese entities allegedly supplied Iran with high-resolution satellite images of a U.S. air base in Jordan before a ballistic missile attack that killed three American service members, a revelation landing just days before a scheduled Trump-Xi summit.
The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence, reported that Iran obtained the imagery from Chinese entities prior to its July 17 strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. The attack killed three Americans and wounded four more. U.S. officials described the finding as the strongest evidence yet of Chinese involvement in the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran.
The officials stopped short of accusing Beijing's government of direct involvement and declined to name the Chinese suppliers. But the implication is clear enough: Chinese-sourced intelligence helped an adversary put American troops in the crosshairs, and three of them came home in flag-draped coffins.
The victims of the July 17 strike have since been identified. Fox News reported that Army First Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, were among the dead. A third service member, Army Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, was also killed. Their deaths brought the total number of American troops killed in the broader conflict with Iran to at least 17.
Iran fired an estimated 20 ballistic missiles at the base, according to the Washington Examiner. Eight F-15 fighter jets sustained light damage. An A-10 Thunderbolt II, the close-air-support workhorse known as the "Warthog", reportedly lost a wing. The scale of the barrage was not a lucky shot. It was a coordinated strike, and the satellite imagery allegedly obtained from Chinese entities may help explain its precision.
President Trump responded forcefully. He authorized nine consecutive nights of retaliatory strikes against Iran's coastal military sites and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces. "Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
That retaliatory campaign eventually forced Tehran to the negotiating table. Iran agreed to peace after losing dozens of its most senior leaders during Operation Epic Fury.
Senior American officials flagged the satellite imagery findings to their Chinese counterparts. Beijing's response was flat denial. Chinese officials rejected the allegations and demanded evidence, according to the Wall Street Journal's reporting.
The U.S. had already taken action months earlier. In May 2026, the State Department sanctioned multiple individuals and entities based in China and the Middle East for allegedly helping Iran obtain sensitive satellite imagery. The specific names and penalties were not disclosed in the reporting.
A War Department official offered no clarity when asked for comment, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation only that "as a matter of practice, we do not comment on intelligence-related matters." The Chinese Embassy, the State Department, and U.S. Central Command all declined to respond to requests for comment.
The timing of the disclosure adds a diplomatic edge. President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet at the White House on September 24, less than two weeks after the satellite imagery report went public. Kyodo News reported that China has threatened to cancel the summit entirely if the U.S. approves additional arms sales to Taiwan.
So Beijing denies helping Iran target American troops, refuses to engage with the evidence, and simultaneously threatens to walk away from diplomacy over Taiwan. That is not the posture of a government acting in good faith.
The satellite imagery connection did not emerge in a vacuum. The New York Post reported that Iran's IRGC secretly acquired a Chinese TEE-01B spy satellite in September 2024 for approximately $36 million. The satellite was purchased to monitor U.S. military sites across the Middle East. Chinese entities also provided Iran with satellite images of Muwaffaq Salti Air Base both before and after the deadly July 17 strike.
That purchase predates the attack by nearly two years. It suggests a sustained, deliberate effort by Iranian military intelligence to acquire Chinese surveillance capabilities, not a one-off transaction.
The broader pattern extends beyond China. The Associated Press reported in March, citing two U.S. officials familiar with key intelligence, that Russia also provided Iran with assistance to help target American military assets in the region. The specific form of that Russian help was not detailed.
Two of America's chief geopolitical rivals, in other words, have both been linked to helping Iran strike at U.S. forces. The pressure from Republican hawks to hold all three accountable is not hard to understand.
President Trump did not hold back about Iran's culpability. Speaking at Joint Base Andrews, he said: "We hit them very hard again tonight, and we did that in honor of the probably three, it's probably three as opposed to two great patriots."
On the Chinese angle, Trump struck a different tone. "I don't think they've been doing it, certainly not at a high level," Trump said. "And if they have, it has been very unimpactful." Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a similar assessment, stating: "Nothing that anyone's doing to help Iran, is in any way increasing their ability to target Americans."
Those statements sit uneasily alongside the intelligence assessment. U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that the Chinese-sourced imagery represents the strongest evidence yet of Chinese involvement in the U.S.-Iran conflict. Three Americans are dead after a precision strike on a base that Chinese entities allegedly helped Iran surveil.
The administration has not been passive. The May 2026 sanctions targeted the procurement networks, and the memorandum of understanding with Iran was declared over after overnight military strikes. But the public posture toward Beijing remains measured, even as the intelligence picture darkens.
Whether the September 24 summit proceeds, and whether the satellite imagery findings come up across the table, remains an open question. China's threat to cancel over Taiwan arms sales suggests Beijing would rather avoid the conversation entirely.
Critical gaps remain in the public record. Were the Chinese entities that supplied the imagery state-affiliated companies, private firms, or something in between? U.S. officials have not said. What evidence, if any, was shared with Beijing when senior American officials raised the issue? That, too, is unclear.
The nature of the imagery itself, whether commercial-grade satellite data or military-specification surveillance, has not been publicly described. Nor have the specific individuals and entities named in the May 2026 sanctions been disclosed in the available reporting.
Iran's threats against American leaders have continued even as the broader conflict has shifted. The regime's willingness to use every tool at its disposal, including foreign-sourced intelligence, to strike at American forces is not in dispute. The question is whether the countries supplying those tools face real consequences.
Three American families buried their children because a ballistic missile found its mark. If Chinese satellites helped guide it there, "we don't comment on intelligence matters" is not an answer, it's an evasion. And evasion, in this case, is a luxury paid for with American lives.
The Justice Department removed a 47-year-old Afghan woman from the United States through a specialized terrorism court that Congress created nearly three decades ago but never once used, a case her own lawyers say should raise constitutional alarms.
Nazira Haji Zada, a lawful permanent resident living in Fort Worth, Texas, was arrested at her home in July and deported to Afghanistan after she waived her right to challenge her detention before the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. The DOJ announced the completed removal on Friday, calling it a "landmark case" and a "win for national security and the rule of law." Haji Zada is now permanently barred from returning to the United States.
The case marks the first time any administration has activated the ATRC, a court Congress established in 1996 to handle deportation proceedings against non-citizens facing terrorism-related allegations when the underlying evidence is classified or tied to national security. For nearly thirty years, the court sat dormant. No attorney general, Republican or Democrat, ever filed a petition. The Trump administration changed that.
Haji Zada's removal did not happen in a vacuum. Her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, and her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, were both convicted of plotting an ISIS-inspired mass shooting targeting American voters on Election Day 2024 in Oklahoma. Abdullah received a 15-year prison sentence. Tawhedi pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, Just The News reported.
The plot was not abstract. AP News reported that Tawhedi had ordered AK-47 rifles, liquidated family assets, and purchased one-way tickets for his wife and child to fly back to Afghanistan, all as part of the attack planning. Prosecutors accused Haji Zada of working "to radicalize the family" and having her children pledge loyalty to the Islamic State.
Haji Zada herself was never charged with a crime. But the DOJ pursued her removal through the ATRC, arguing she posed a terrorism-related threat serious enough to justify the specialized proceedings. Attorney General Todd Blanche framed the action in broad terms, as BBC News reported:
"Those who support and condone terrorism should not be living in the United States, and this first-ever case before the ATRC shows how the Department will use every tool at its disposal to protect our country."
Blanche also pointed to the court's original purpose in a separate statement. Fox News reported his remarks:
"Congress created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court three decades ago to remove from the United States alien terrorists who never should have been here in the first place."
The administration's willingness to activate a long-unused legal mechanism fits a broader pattern. The Trump DOJ has moved aggressively on immigration enforcement across multiple fronts, including reviving dormant tools that previous administrations left on the shelf.
Haji Zada did not fight the removal to its conclusion. She conceded through her court-appointed lawyers that she qualified as an "alien terrorist" under the ATRC framework and waived her right to appeal, according to the DOJ. Her immigration status, lawful permanent residency, was terminated.
But her attorneys, Matthew Farley and Mary Manning Petras, made clear that her decision to accept deportation was not an admission of guilt in any meaningful sense. In a statement to The Washington Post, they pushed back hard on the proceedings themselves:
"Our client's choice to consent to removal should not be seen as an endorsement of this court's legitimacy."
The lawyers went further, arguing that the ATRC's structure, which allows the government to present classified evidence that neither the defendant nor her attorneys can see, amounts to a fundamental violation of constitutional protections. They said they were denied access to the evidence used against Haji Zada:
"Dragging lawful permanent residents into court but refusing to show them or their attorneys the evidence that will be used against them is a plain violation of due process. We are confident that the Alien Terrorist Removal Court will be struck down as unconstitutional as soon as a judge is asked to address the issue."
That constitutional challenge has not yet materialized. Because Haji Zada waived her appeal, no court has ruled on whether the ATRC's procedures pass constitutional muster. The defense attorneys' confidence that it "will be struck down" remains an untested prediction.
The case drew attention from beyond the Justice Department. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin issued his own statement, signaling that the administration views the ATRC as one piece of a wider enforcement strategy. As AP News reported, Mullin said:
"Those who plot acts of terrorism against the United States have no place in our country. We will find them, and we will use every lawful tool available to remove them."
That language, "every lawful tool", echoes Blanche's framing and suggests the ATRC may not remain a one-case curiosity. If the administration is willing to dust off a court that sat unused for three decades, it signals a posture that treats dormant statutes as live ammunition rather than legislative relics.
The broader enforcement push extends well beyond terrorism cases. ICE has posted record-breaking arrest numbers in recent months as the administration accelerates its immigration crackdown.
The Washington Examiner noted that the completed case marks the first time the specialized terrorism court has produced a final result since Congress established it, underscoring how fully it had been ignored by prior administrations of both parties.
The ATRC was designed for a narrow purpose: removing non-citizens linked to terrorism when the government's evidence is too sensitive to share in open court. That design is precisely what makes it controversial. The court's procedures allow prosecutors to present classified material that the defense cannot review, a structure that critics argue inverts the basic adversarial process American courts depend on.
Haji Zada's case sidesteps the constitutional question by ending in a concession rather than a contested ruling. She chose deportation over a fight she and her lawyers apparently concluded they could not win, at least not within a system they believe is rigged against the defendant from the start. Whether that choice reflects a genuine admission or a rational calculation about impossible odds depends on which side of the argument you stand on.
Meanwhile, enforcement operations have expanded in scope and geography. ICE arrested more than 1,300 illegal immigrants in a recent two-week operation in the Washington, D.C. area alone, part of a sustained surge that has reshaped the federal approach to immigration.
Several open questions remain. What specific evidence did the government present behind closed doors? Was Haji Zada directly involved in her son's and son-in-law's attack planning, or was the case built on her alleged role in fostering the ideology that led to it? And will any future ATRC defendant choose to fight rather than concede, forcing a federal court to rule on whether the whole structure can survive a due-process challenge?
The administration has also stepped up enforcement at airports, doubling arrest numbers as part of the same broader push that produced the Haji Zada case.
Congress built this court in 1996. Three decades of administrations, facing no shortage of terrorism cases, never saw fit to use it. This one did. The tool works. The only question now is whether it can survive the scrutiny that comes with actually turning it on.
A federal appeals court unanimously struck down the Energy Department's emergency order forcing a 64-year-old Michigan coal plant to stay open past its retirement date, a ruling that undercuts the administration's broader effort to keep aging coal facilities operational across the country.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that Energy Secretary Chris Wright exceeded his authority under the Federal Power Act when he invoked emergency powers to prevent the J.H. Campbell Generating Plant from shutting down on schedule in May 2025. Judge Cornelia Pillard, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, said the emergency provision Wright relied on was never meant for this purpose.
The plant, located in West Olive, Michigan, had gone through what the court called a "long and carefully planned retirement" before the Energy Department stepped in. Keeping it running past that date has cost roughly $259 million so far, the Associated Press reported, citing new financial filings. Those costs are expected to land on Midwest families and businesses through their electricity bills.
Wright had argued the Campbell plant was needed to ensure reliable electricity in the region. But the three-judge panel rejected that reasoning outright. Pillard wrote that the Federal Power Act's emergency authority "is essentially a narrow, last-resort backstop", not a tool for the federal government to override state energy planning and prop up preferred fuel sources.
She went further. By reversing the plant's planned closure, Pillard wrote, "the results are disruptive." The court found there was "no 'emergency' within the meaning" of the statute that would justify the order.
In a passage that cut to the core of the legal dispute, Pillard wrote that the Energy Department's interpretation of its own power would let it "pick its preferred power sources in Michigan, or, presumably, any other state, and order them to operate without regard to the multiple procedural and substantive constraints built into state reliability planning processes."
That framing matters. The court did not merely say the administration got the facts wrong about whether Michigan faced a power shortage. It said the entire legal theory, that the Energy Department can use emergency authority to keep specific plants running indefinitely, stretches the statute past its breaking point.
The financial toll is not abstract. The $259 million price tag covers the cost of operating a plant that its owners had already decided was no longer economically viable. The Campbell facility is 64 years old. Its retirement had been scheduled, planned for, and built into regional energy forecasts long before the Energy Department intervened.
Who pays that bill? The filing details remain incomplete, the specific financial documents have not been publicly identified, but environmental groups and state officials say the costs flow to ratepayers. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel put it bluntly, as AP News reported:
"This administration does not get to invent fake emergencies to bypass the rule of law against the best interests of Michigan residents."
Conservative voters who care about honest markets and government accountability should find that number hard to ignore. A quarter-billion dollars spent keeping a single plant running, not because the market demanded it, not because the grid was failing, but because a federal agency decided it knew better than the utilities, the states, and the regulators who had already made the call.
The Energy Department has faced scrutiny for other decisions that appeared to override market forces and state-level planning in pursuit of policy preferences. The pattern raises a fair question about whether executive power is being used to manage the grid or to manage politics.
The Michigan case is not an isolated episode. The Trump administration has used similar emergency orders to force approximately half a dozen coal-fired plants across the country to remain operational. Plants in Indiana, Colorado, Florida, and Washington state have received comparable directives. An oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania was also ordered to keep its turbines running, reportedly as a hedge against electricity shortages in the mid-Atlantic grid.
The administration has framed these moves as part of a response to a national energy emergency declared in January 2025. But the D.C. Circuit's ruling calls into question whether that declaration, on its own, gives the Energy Department the legal authority to override individual plant retirements state by state.
Michael Lenoff, lead attorney for the environmental law group Earthjustice, said the ruling drew a clear line. He told reporters that the court "rejected the Department of Energy's use of emergency authority, and agreed with our interpretation that emergency authority is to be used for actual emergencies, not picking preferred resources."
Environmental groups wasted no time signaling that more legal fights are coming. Ted Kelly, the Environmental Defense Fund's U.S. clean energy director, said the ruling rejected the administration's effort to force "unreliable, aging coal plants that are bleeding money and polluting communities to stay online." He added:
"The Energy Department's unlawful actions attempted to make families and businesses in the Midwest wastefully pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a coal plant that should have been shut down over a year ago."
Kelly called the Campbell plant and other aging facilities "incredibly expensive, dangerous to our health and break down frequently." Sierra Club lawyer Sanjay Narayan called the ruling "a victory for families across the Midwest" who have been "paying to keep this old, expensive and dirty power plant online."
Narayan also promised broader action, saying the Sierra Club would "continue to fight back against the other illegal extensions across the country." That suggests the remaining emergency orders, in Indiana, Colorado, Florida, Washington state, and Pennsylvania, could face the same legal challenge that just succeeded in the D.C. Circuit.
Several questions remain unanswered. The ruling applies directly to the Campbell plant, but its legal reasoning could apply to every similar order the administration has issued. Whether the Energy Department will seek further review, either from the full D.C. Circuit sitting en banc or from the Supreme Court, is unknown. The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It is also unclear whether the ruling forces the Campbell plant to shut down immediately or simply vacates the emergency order, leaving room for further proceedings. The administration has shown willingness to escalate legal disputes to higher courts when lower courts rule against its executive actions.
And the administration is not backing down on the broader strategy. Even as the D.C. Circuit issued its ruling, the Energy Department reportedly moved forward with another emergency order for a coal plant in Washington state, a signal that the legal setback in Michigan has not changed the administration's posture.
For supporters of executive energy policy, the question is whether the administration can find a legal mechanism that survives judicial review. The Federal Power Act's emergency provision, as the D.C. Circuit just made clear, was not designed to serve as a permanent subsidy for plants the market has left behind.
The broader debate over grid reliability is real. Parts of the country face genuine concerns about whether enough power generation will remain online as older plants retire and new capacity, whether natural gas, nuclear, or renewables, takes time to come online. The administration has moved aggressively to reshape federal agencies and energy policy, and the impulse to keep the lights on is not unreasonable.
But the court's ruling draws a line that conservatives who value limited government and the rule of law should recognize. Emergency powers exist for emergencies. When a federal agency uses them to override years of state-level planning, bypass market signals, and force ratepayers to cover a quarter-billion-dollar tab for a plant that was already scheduled to close, that is not grid management. That is central planning.
The collapse of government-backed energy deals in other states has already shown what happens when political preferences override economic reality. The Campbell plant saga is the same lesson from a different direction.
If the goal is reliable, affordable energy, the path runs through market discipline and sound planning, not through emergency orders that courts keep striking down.
Former President George W. Bush defended his decision to visit a Washington mosque six days after the September 11 attacks, framing religious freedom as central to the ideological fight against terrorism.
Bush made the remarks Wednesday evening at his presidential center in Dallas during a public conversation with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The event, titled "A Legacy of Service: America at the 25th Anniversary of 9/11," revisited the decisions Bush made in the days and weeks after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
The centerpiece of the discussion was Bush's September 17, 2001 visit to the Islamic Center of Washington, a trip that, at the time, drew both praise and sharp criticism. Standing inside the mosque just six days after the Twin Towers fell, Bush declared two words that defined his administration's posture toward American Muslims: "Islam is peace." He met with Muslim leaders and raised alarms about reports that Muslim women wearing head coverings were being harassed and intimidated across the country.
Rice opened the subject directly, asking Bush to explain his reasoning. As Fox News Digital reported, Rice told the audience:
"I want you to talk about a couple of those events. You talked about going to the Islamic Center and trying to make sure that our Muslim American citizens knew that we didn't blame them for what had happened."
Bush responded by pointing to specific reports that had reached him in the chaotic first week after the attacks. He said he had grown alarmed by accounts of Muslim women being targeted at shopping centers, singling out Michigan as a state where the harassment was especially visible.
"I did so because I was deeply concerned about stories of women in coverings being harassed at shopping centers, particularly in Michigan."
Michigan's large Arab and Muslim American population made it a flashpoint for anti-Muslim hostility in the weeks following the attacks. Bush framed his mosque visit not as a gesture of sympathy toward a foreign religion, but as a defense of a core American principle. Political questions about influence and allegiance in Michigan's Muslim communities have persisted in the years since, but Bush's stated concern in 2001 was narrower: American citizens were afraid to leave their homes.
Bush went further, connecting the mosque visit to his broader view of the war on terror as an ideological contest, not merely a military one. He argued that abandoning religious liberty at home would undercut the case America was making abroad.
"It became clear to me that if this was an ideological struggle, which is what I viewed it as, and we forego one of the most important parts of our ideology, which is the freedom to worship the way you want to worship."
He also restated a claim that drew fierce debate at the time and has not aged quietly: that the 9/11 hijackers had distorted their own faith.
"I also made it clear that Islam was a religion of peace, not a religion of war, and that these people subverted their religion."
That phrase, "Islam is peace", became one of the most contested lines of Bush's presidency. Critics on the right argued it was naive at best, and that it shielded an ideology with deep theological roots in conquest and coercion from honest scrutiny. Supporters countered that Bush was drawing a necessary line between enemy combatants and millions of law-abiding American Muslims.
Bush, at the 2001 visit, also addressed the harassment directly, declaring: "That should not and that will not stand in America."
The Dallas event was not the first time Bush returned to this subject. His September 2001 mosque visit was followed by additional outreach to Muslim communities over the course of his two terms. In June 2007, Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington again, his third visit to a Muslim center as president, where he removed his shoes as a sign of respect and called on Muslim leaders to denounce radical extremism, as the New York Post reported at the time.
At that 2007 visit, Bush framed the effort in sweeping terms: "I have invested the heart of my presidency in helping Muslims fight terrorism and claim their liberty and find their own unique paths to prosperity and peace." He urged Muslim leaders to help "rescue a proud and historic religion from murderers and beheaders who seek to soil the name of Islam."
Whether that investment paid dividends remains an open question. The broader war on terror stretched across two decades, cost trillions, and ended with a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan under a different administration. The ideological struggle Bush described, winning hearts and minds inside the Muslim world, never produced the clear victory he envisioned.
The approaching 25th anniversary of September 11 has already made political friction. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani recently urged New York officials he views as unsympathetic to the day's meaning to stay away from anniversary ceremonies. The question of who gets to speak for 9/11's legacy, and who should stay silent, remains unresolved.
Bush's revival of the "Islam is peace" message arrives at a moment when the conservative movement has largely moved past the framework he championed. The Republican base today is more skeptical of nation-building, more blunt about radical Islam, and less inclined to separate the religion from the political ideologies that operate under its banner in much of the world.
That shift did not happen in a vacuum. Two decades of war, repeated domestic terror plots, and the rise of groups like ISIS forced a harder conversation about whether the "religion of peace" framing obscured more than it clarified. Bush's position, that the terrorists "subverted their religion", was always more assertion than argument, and many conservatives came to view it as a diplomatic courtesy that prevented honest policy debate.
Debates over political figures signaling deference to Islamic communities continue to draw conservative criticism, particularly when the gestures come near the anniversary of the attacks themselves.
None of that erases the specific problem Bush described in 2001. American citizens were being harassed for their appearance. A president who had just ordered the most consequential military response since World War II chose to spend political capital defending their right to walk into a grocery store without fear. That was a decision grounded in constitutional principle, whatever one thinks of the theology Bush attached to it.
But principle and accuracy are not the same thing. Bush could have defended Muslim Americans' civil rights without declaring Islam itself peaceful, a claim that required him to adjudicate a 1,400-year-old theological debate he was not equipped to settle. The fact that he felt he had to make that leap tells you something about the political pressures of the moment. The fact that the conservative movement eventually rejected it tells you something about what the next twenty years revealed.
Immigration and border enforcement have only sharpened these questions. Conservative leaders today increasingly demand accountability from lawmakers on who enters the country and under what terms, a conversation that barely existed in the compassionate-conservatism era Bush represented.
Bush, now 78, did not address any of that evolution in his Dallas remarks. He spoke as a man revisiting a decision he still believes was right, in a political landscape that has moved well past him. Rice, for her part, kept the conversation focused on the immediate post-9/11 period rather than its long aftermath.
Defending Americans' right to worship freely was the easy part. The harder question, whether the ideology behind the attacks deserved the diplomatic cover Bush gave it, is one the 43rd president has never fully answered. Twenty-four years later, he still isn't answering it.
A juror who voted to acquit Lindsay Clancy of criminal responsibility in the strangling deaths of her three children now says she initially wanted to convict, and that "big personalities" in the jury room swayed her decision.
The anonymous woman, the fourth juror to speak publicly since the Massachusetts trial ended in a mistrial, told CBS Boston that she walked into deliberations believing Clancy was guilty. She walked out having voted the opposite way. And she is not entirely sure she made the right call.
Her admission lands in the middle of a widening public reckoning over what happened inside that jury room, a reckoning that has exposed deep fractures among the twelve citizens asked to decide whether a 36-year-old mother who killed her three young children was criminally responsible for their deaths.
The jury of nine women and three men deadlocked 11, 1 in favor of finding Clancy not criminally responsible by reason of insanity. A single male holdout refused to join them. Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial.
But the anonymous juror's interview complicates the narrative that the other eleven were unified and confident. She told CBS Boston she started out on the holdout's side.
"Originally, I felt that she was guilty and she was criminally responsible for it."
She then added a line that should trouble anyone who thinks this case was cleanly decided by eleven reasonable people overruled by one stubborn man.
"Maybe I still believe that, in a certain way."
That is not the voice of a juror at peace with her verdict. It is the voice of someone who capitulated under pressure and is now trying to reconcile what she did with what she thinks.
The juror described a deliberation room dominated by forceful personalities who dug in early. She said the holdout juror clashed with the majority "almost immediately," but she pushed back on the idea that he was the only inflexible person in the room.
"This standalone juror was not the only one that was unwilling to see things from the other side, so I'm going to kind of defend that individual."
She added that "big personalities" shaped the outcome, a polite way of saying that louder voices won.
"There were some big personalities in that room, but at the end of the day, I feel like it just came down to an inability to move past your convictions."
The shouting during deliberations was loud enough to be heard from other rooms inside the courthouse, as Breitbart reported. The jury spent more than 36 hours over seven days trying to reach a unanimous decision before the judge ended it.
That timeline alone suggests this was not a case of one rogue juror blocking an obvious verdict. It was a fractured panel struggling with genuinely difficult questions, and at least one member of the majority now concedes she may have landed on the wrong side.
Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children, Cora, age 5; Dawson, age 3; and Callan, just 8 months old, with exercise bands inside her Massachusetts home in 2023. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, arguing that postpartum psychosis left her unable to understand what she was doing.
The anonymous juror said the 911 call placed by Clancy's husband, Patrick, when he discovered the children's bodies, was the single most devastating piece of evidence she encountered.
"I will never be the same after that 911 call. If these people could have heard that visceral, blood-curdling scream. It was horrifying."
She described herself as the "perfect juror" because she has no children and had never heard of the case before jury service. She said she does not watch the news. Yet even she, someone with no emotional framework for what it means to lose a child, found the evidence of what Clancy did devastating enough to initially vote guilty.
Her explanation for ultimately switching sides rested on what she called "too much gray area" in the prosecution's case. She said there was no single moment that proved beyond doubt that Clancy understood what she was doing.
"There was not a single moment throughout that presentation of that case that you could say, 'Oh yep, 100 percent I'm certain she did it.' There is too much gray area."
She also expressed sympathy for Clancy, saying she believed the defendant was "a woman who was not mentally healthy" and "so deep in it that she couldn't see her way out."
That framing, treating a woman who strangled three small children as herself a victim, is precisely the kind of reasoning that erodes public confidence in the justice system. Sympathy for a defendant's mental state is one thing. Letting that sympathy override a juror's own belief in guilt is something else entirely. The mistrial outcome now forces prosecutors to decide whether to try the case again.
Three jurors came forward before the anonymous woman. Jury foreperson Roni Carlson told NBC Boston she had been "so excited" to acquit Clancy before the holdout refused to budge. Carlson claimed the holdout "admitted he had reasonable doubt" about Clancy's criminal responsibility but told fellow jurors he still would not vote not guilty.
Jurors Kellie Farina and Paula Devlin also went public to condemn the holdout.
Farina's credibility, however, took a hit when the New York Post reported that resurfaced Facebook posts showed her to be a vocal supporter of Karen Read, another high-profile Massachusetts defendant. Farina was a member of the "Free Karen Read" Facebook group and had publicly attacked investigators and prosecutors in that case. After Read was acquitted, Farina reportedly wrote: "Over and Out Page. Massachusetts Jury did their rightful duty today. Karen's free."
A juror who entered a murder trial with a documented history of celebrating acquittals and attacking prosecutors raises obvious questions about impartiality. Whether those posts should have disqualified her during jury selection is a question the court will have to grapple with if the case goes to retrial.
Clancy's defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, appeared on Good Morning America after the mistrial and made a remarkable public plea. He asked President Donald Trump to consider pardoning his client.
"I'd like to say that perhaps Donald Trump, who felt compelled to speak out about this case. Mr President, I hope that you would consider this young lady, the type of person she is, what she's been through, and consider a pardon."
Reddington described Clancy as "intelligent," "hardworking," and "a wonderful, wonderful person." He also acknowledged that his post-trial boasting, he had publicly claimed he "crushed" prosecutor Tim Cruz, may have been excessive.
"I think I perhaps could have been a little more circumspect dealing with Tim Cruz, and instead of saying I crushed him, I could have said I did a good job."
He expressed openness to negotiating a plea deal with Cruz, whom he said he has known for 30 years, to avoid a retrial. Reddington has also filed a motion under Massachusetts Rule 25 asking Judge Sullivan to enter an outright acquittal, arguing the evidence was legally insufficient to prove criminal responsibility. Fox News reported that a hearing on that motion is scheduled for September 29.
The case has drawn attention well beyond the courtroom. A Clancy supporter named Dawn Light was arrested and charged with jury intimidation after allegedly filming jurors leaving the courthouse, as previously reported. That incident, combined with the parade of jurors going on television to attack the holdout, raises fair questions about whether any future jury pool in Massachusetts can hear this case without contamination.
The anonymous juror's interview is the most revealing piece of this post-trial spectacle, not because she changed her vote, but because she admits the change may not reflect what she actually believes. She voted to acquit a woman she thinks may be guilty because other jurors were more forceful than she was.
The holdout juror, whatever his reasoning, did what the system asks every juror to do: vote his conscience. The foreperson wanted to celebrate an acquittal. At least one other juror brought a history of cheering for defendants into the room. And the one juror who said no, who refused to fold, is now being publicly shamed by colleagues who cannot accept that a single dissent kept them from the outcome they wanted.
High-profile criminal cases that end in hung juries and mistrials are not new. The question is always the same: did the system work, or did it break down?
In the Clancy case, the answer depends on which juror you ask. But only one of them is honest enough to say she is not sure she got it right. And retrials after deadlocked juries exist for exactly this reason, because sometimes twelve people cannot agree, and the law says the question has to be asked again.
Three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, are dead. Their father's screams on that 911 call still haunt the juror who voted to let their mother go. The least the system owes those kids is a jury that votes on evidence, not on who talks the loudest.
President Trump gave cash holiday gifts totaling $155,000 to four close White House staffers in 2025, a longstanding personal practice, his office says, that Democrats are already trying to weaponize on the campaign trail.
Personal financial disclosures published by the White House this month show that executive assistant Natalie Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin, and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris each received $45,000 in cash described as a "gift for the holidays." Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, received $20,000. All four gifts came from the president personally, and three of the disclosure documents list Trump's Palm Beach address, ABC News reported.
The documents do not specify exact dates for the gifts beyond describing them as holiday presents. A White House official told ABC News the practice is nothing new.
"The President has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector. The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals' official government duties, and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards."
For a president who disclosed more than $2.2 billion in personal income on his own June financial filing, including over $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency ventures, a combined $155,000 in Christmas bonuses for trusted staff barely registers as a rounding error. But the disclosure arrives during a midterm season in which Democrats have made Trump's inner circle a campaign talking point, and any dollar figure attached to the president's name becomes raw material for opposition messaging.
Each of the four recipients has deep roots in Trump's orbit. Harp, who earns $150,000 a year as the president's executive assistant, is frequently seen at his side, photographed with him at the East Potomac Park golf course in June, aboard Marine One en route to Houston in late August, and at an agriculture event in the Oval Office in early September.
Martin, also earning $150,000, is a longtime staffer who served during Trump's first administration, joined his 2024 campaign, and now works as a key social media conduit for the president, regularly capturing and posting behind-the-scenes content of him carrying out his duties.
Harris, paid at the same $150,000 level, served in the first Trump White House, continued working for the president in Florida after he left office, and returned to Washington for the second term. He was also appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts earlier this year. Nauta, the highest-paid of the four at $175,000, served as Trump's valet during the first term and has remained one of his closest aides. He was charged alongside Trump in the special counsel investigation into the former president's alleged handling of classified information.
The gifts appear to be personal in nature, and the White House's statement frames them as consistent with Trump's private-sector habits. No formal ethics investigation has been reported, and the disclosures themselves are the routine filings required of senior government employees.
Harp has drawn particular attention from Democrats during the midterm cycle. Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff invoked her name at a rally in August, taking aim at Trump's travel arrangements and personal relationships.
"[He] wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar."
Ossoff's remark referenced the Qatari-gifted jet that now serves as Air Force One, the same plane Trump is expected to fly to Ireland this week. In July, Trump secretly switched aircraft while departing a NATO summit in Turkey amid threats from Iran. Trump has said the plane will receive upgrades in October.
When Ossoff's comments reached Trump in the Oval Office, the president said he "would much rather do other things" before shifting the conversation to White House renovation projects. The exchange was brief and dismissive, not the reaction of a president who considers the criticism serious.
Ossoff's line of attack fits a broader Democratic strategy of personalizing opposition to the Trump administration. Rather than engage on policy, the approach zeroes in on staffing, spending, and optics. It is the same instinct that has driven a Democratic Party struggling with its own internal dysfunction to focus its midterm energy on Trump's orbit rather than its own record.
The gift disclosures come weeks after the White House dealt with an actual staff ethics problem, and acted swiftly. In July, Gabriel Perez, Trump's longtime teleprompter operator who earned $175,000 a year, was found to have made more than $100,000 on Kalshi's "mention markets," where users bet on whether specific words or phrases will be uttered during a public speech. Kalshi flagged the suspicious activity to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the platform's regulator. Perez was placed on unpaid administrative leave and later fired.
That episode involved a staffer apparently exploiting inside knowledge of presidential remarks for personal profit, a genuine ethical breach. The White House removed him. The holiday gifts, by contrast, involve a wealthy president giving his own money to employees he values. The two situations are not comparable, but their proximity in the news cycle invites conflation.
The broader context of the Trump administration's personnel decisions underscores that the White House is not shy about making changes when warranted. Recent staff transitions have reflected an administration willing to shuffle its team based on strategic priorities, not one that circles the wagons around every aide regardless of circumstance.
Trump's June financial disclosure showed income exceeding $2.2 billion, with crypto ventures alone accounting for more than $1.4 billion. Against that backdrop, $155,000 spread across four people amounts to roughly 0.007 percent of his reported annual income. The man gave Christmas bonuses. He disclosed them. His aides disclosed them. The paperwork is public.
The legal framework governing gifts from a president to government employees permits personal gifts unrelated to official duties, which is exactly how the White House characterizes these payments. The disclosures do not indicate any connection between the cash and the recipients' government work. No ethics office has flagged the gifts. No investigation has been reported.
Trump's executive authority has been affirmed and expanded in other areas this term as well. The Supreme Court recently handed the president broad new power to fire agency heads, overturning century-old precedent in a decision that reinforced the scope of presidential discretion over the executive branch. A president who can hire and fire at will can certainly give a Christmas gift.
Democrats who spent years trying to criminalize Trump's conduct through investigations and prosecutions, efforts that even Biden privately considered short-circuiting with a pardon, now find themselves reduced to mining routine financial disclosures for campaign fodder. The shift from special counsels to Christmas-gift outrage tells its own story about where the opposition stands heading into the midterms.
Meanwhile, the administration has continued exercising its clemency powers on matters of actual consequence, issuing pardons and making policy decisions that carry real weight. Holiday cash to four loyal staffers does not rank among them.
The filings leave a few loose threads. They do not specify which three aides' documents list the Palm Beach address and which does not. They do not name the specific legal or ethical standards the White House claims authorize the gifts. And they do not reveal whether Trump gave similar holiday gifts to other staff members whose disclosures have not yet been published or who fall below the reporting threshold.
None of those gaps suggest wrongdoing. They reflect the routine limits of financial disclosure forms, which capture dollar amounts and general descriptions but rarely provide granular detail. If Democrats believe the gifts raise genuine legal questions, they are free to request a formal ethics review. So far, they have opted for rally applause lines instead.
A boss who rewards loyalty with his own money is not a scandal. A political class that pretends otherwise has run out of real ones.
Rudy Giuliani urged New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to skip the 25th-anniversary 9/11 memorial, saying Mamdani’s planned presence offends him after Giuliani lost friends in the attacks.
Giuliani, who led New York during the September 11 attacks, told Newsmax there was “no question” that Mamdani should stay away. The New York Post reported that the former mayor tied his objection to Mamdani’s record and associations.
The dispute pits two former New York leaders against the current mayor as the city marks 25 years since the attacks. Mamdani says he will attend, while Giuliani and former Gov. George Pataki argue that he has not rejected extremist views clearly enough.
More than 2,700 people died in New York City on September 11, 2001. Giuliani served as mayor from 1994 through 2001 and became a central public figure during the city’s response, the Washington Examiner noted.
Mamdani’s office says he will stand with the families, survivors and first responders at the commemoration. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also insists that the sitting mayor belongs at the ceremony.
Giuliani said his objection comes from his own ties to people who died and to families affected by the attacks.
In his interview, Giuliani said:
“The reality is this ceremony is for the families and for America to remember historically. Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.”
Giuliani also claimed Mamdani “doesn’t agree that September 11 was an Islamic terrorist attack on the United States Of America.” The material provided does not identify a specific Mamdani statement supporting Giuliani’s charge.
Just the News reported that Mamdani signed executive orders declaring September 11 a citywide Day of Remembrance and Service and updating emergency preparedness procedures. It also reported that Mamdani gave a ceremonial pen to chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, whom it linked to past legal representation of an al-Qaida operative.
That tension extends beyond the ceremony. Mamdani has faced broader criticism over his public language, including concerns examined in our coverage of anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York City.
Pataki, who served as governor during the attacks, also called on Mamdani to stay home. He focused on Mamdani’s relationship with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker and the mayor’s response to the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
Piker previously said, “America deserved 9/11,” though he later rejected that remark. Pataki said Mamdani must put clear distance between himself and such views.
Pataki told City and State:
“With respect to the mayor, I think anyone who doesn’t intentionally distance themselves from Hasan Piker, who has said that America deserved the attacks of September 11th, should not be there.”
Pataki also said anyone refusing to reject “globalize the intifada” should not attend the memorial site. He described the phrase as an unequivocal call for violence against Jews and gave Mamdani two choices.
“I think [Mamdani] has two choices: reject those extremist views against America and calling for violence against Jews, or voluntarily decide it’s not in the families’ and the victims’ interest for him to be there.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman joined the opposition. Fox News reported that Blakeman urged attendees to turn their backs peacefully if Mamdani appears.
Relatives of victims also launched a petition asking the National September 11 Memorial & Museum to bar Mamdani from the ceremony. The petition had gathered nearly 100,000 signatures, while the memorial organization said the event should remain nonpartisan.
The mayor’s political troubles are not limited to his language. His administration has also drawn opposition over its fast-track housing court plan, another fight involving government power and private property.
Hochul rejected Giuliani’s demand while speaking at the West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn. She said Mamdani’s office carries a duty to represent the city at the commemoration.
Hochul said:
“He absolutely should be there. He is the mayor of New York City and I have utmost respect for the small number of families that have expressed that, but I think it would be more insulting to the vast majority if he did not come.”
Hochul did not provide numbers to support her comparison between the “small number” of objecting families and the “vast majority” she said would oppose his absence.
She argued that the ceremony should display unity against terrorism and support for law enforcement, first responders and grieving families. Hochul also accused Republicans of turning a communal event into a political division.
But the opposition is not based merely on Mamdani’s party label. Giuliani and Pataki pointed to specific statements and associations that they want the mayor to reject without qualification.
That demand for clear answers comes as Mamdani faces criticism over other city problems, including a reported Manhattan homeless encampment and questions about City Hall’s response.
Mamdani’s office issued its answer months before the latest public dispute. The mayor said he intended to take part in the 9/11 commemoration and honor those harmed by the attack.
His office released this statement:
“I will proudly honor the families, the survivors, the first responders forever impacted by that horrific terror attack by standing alongside them at this year’s 9/11 commemoration, reaffirming that we will never forget the solemn day felt by all of us who call this city home and, frankly, by all of us who call this country home.”
The statement commits Mamdani to remembrance, but it does not answer every objection raised by Giuliani and Pataki. Neither former leader challenged his right to hold office; both questioned whether his record fits the solemn purpose of the day.
That is the choice before the mayor. Attendance can honor the office, but public trust also requires direct answers when families and former leaders raise serious concerns.
A solemn memorial should center the victims, their families and the first responders. Political leaders earn their place there through clarity, respect and accountability.
President Trump freed convicted Philadelphia labor leader John Dougherty from prison two-thirds of the way through a six-year sentence for embezzlement and fraud, a move his own Justice Department had rejected just two months earlier.
Trump signed the commutation on September 3, releasing the man known as "Johnny Doc" from behind bars and, according to multiple reports, wiping out roughly $1.6 million in court-ordered restitution. Dougherty's lawyer, George Bochetto, told the Daily Caller that his client could walk free as early as Thursday night or Friday. The stated reason: Dougherty's wife, Cecilia, is terminally ill, her private nursing funds have run out, and she needs her husband home.
The commutation came as part of a broader batch of 30 clemency grants covering drug offenders, a former Navy sailor, and others, announced by White House pardon czar Alice Marie Johnson. But Dougherty's case stands apart, a lifelong Democratic operative and power broker whose corruption convictions made him one of Philadelphia's most prominent white-collar criminals in recent memory.
Dougherty ran IBEW Local 98, the electricians' union that served as his personal political machine in Philadelphia for decades. A federal jury convicted him in 2021 on one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and seven counts of honest services wire fraud. The scheme involved trading perks, Philadelphia Eagles tickets and a union salary with benefits, to former City Councilmember Bobby Henon in exchange for influence at City Hall.
Two years later, in 2023, a second conviction landed. Dougherty was found guilty of embezzling more than $600,000 from the very union members he was supposed to represent.
Then-U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero put it plainly at the time, as the New York Post reported:
"While he was backslapping his electricians with one hand, he was ripping them off with the other."
A federal judge sentenced Dougherty to six years in prison in 2024, combining both cases. He had served roughly two years when Trump intervened.
Dougherty's legal team did not go straight to the Oval Office. They first filed a commutation petition through the standard channel, the Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney. That office denied the request in July 2026, case file C315010. The specific grounds for the denial were not made public.
Trump's decision to override his own Justice Department's recommendation is not unprecedented, but it underscores the breadth of presidential clemency power. The president has used that authority aggressively throughout his second term, weighing plans for as many as 250 pardons to mark America's 250th anniversary.
Bochetto framed the commutation as an act of compassion that crossed party lines:
"I must say, President Trump really steps up on this matter. It's no secret that Johnny Dougherty was a powerful Democratic politician working for Democrats in Democratic elections across the board, and for a Republican president to step up and grant this kind of compassionate release I think really says a lot about the man."
The terms of the commutation go well beyond early release. Fox News reported that Dougherty will face no house arrest and no monitoring of any kind. More striking, the commutation also eliminates his obligation to pay approximately $1.6 million in restitution, money that would have gone back to the union workers he defrauded.
A White House official confirmed the rationale in a brief statement: "John Dougherty has served 2 years for embezzlement and wire fraud. His sentence has been commuted, so he can care for terminally ill wife." The official added that Cecilia Dougherty's previous caregiver, her father, had recently passed away, leaving her without support.
NBC 10 Philadelphia reported that Cecilia Dougherty was happy to hear her husband would be coming home. The nature of her illness was not disclosed.
Bochetto elaborated on the urgency:
"Cecilia Dougherty is in desperate need of care. Her money has run out for private nursing, and she desperately needs John by her side. And that's why now."
As of Thursday night, Bochetto said he had not yet spoken to his client directly about the news.
Newsmax reported that Dougherty's commutation was part of a 30-person clemency package that included pardons and commutations across a range of federal convictions. Among the recipients: Holly Leanne Frantzen, convicted on drug offenses; Emory Clash Jones, sentenced for crack cocaine distribution and described as an associate of Jay-Z; and Patrick Adamiak, convicted of illegal firearms charges.
Alice Marie Johnson, the White House pardon czar who herself received clemency from Trump during his first term, announced the grants:
"My prayer is that each of these 30 people makes the most of this extraordinary second chance and becomes a greater blessing to their families, communities and the world."
Trump has made clemency a recurring feature of his second term. He has pardoned defendants convicted in emissions-tampering cases he called Biden-era overreach, and he has not shied from the political fallout that follows, even publicly criticizing a congressman he had pardoned when their interests diverged.
The humanitarian case for letting a man care for his dying wife is straightforward. Few people would argue a terminally ill woman should be denied her husband's presence. Bochetto called the move bipartisan proof that "doing the right thing" transcends party. And Trump's willingness to extend mercy to a Democratic operative does cut against the charge that clemency is reserved for allies.
But the terms raise harder questions. Dougherty did not merely break an obscure regulation. He stole more than $600,000 from working electricians, the dues they paid in good faith, and corrupted a city council seat in the process. The union members who funded his lifestyle through their paychecks will now see none of the $1.6 million a court ordered him to repay.
Compassionate release from prison is a recognized tool. Eliminating financial accountability to victims is something else entirely. The DOJ's own pardon office looked at this case two months ago and said no. The White House overruled that judgment without public explanation beyond the family hardship.
Several questions remain unanswered. What was the basis for the July denial? Was Bobby Henon, the councilmember who allegedly traded his vote for Eagles tickets and a union paycheck, ever held to account? And did the White House consult with the defrauded union members before wiping out their restitution?
Trump has shown he is willing to use the pardon power broadly, and the Constitution gives him wide latitude to do so. Reasonable people can disagree about where mercy ends and impunity begins.
The electricians who lost $600,000 probably have a clearer view of that line than the lawyers do.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is pushing back hard against a Reuters report claiming the White House is considering replacements for his deputy, Steve Feinberg, a story he says is “COMPLETELY false” and driven by outside interests opposed to reform.
On September 5, 2026, Pete Hegseth took to X to flatly deny that the White House had interviewed candidates to replace Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg, after a report from Reuters, published the day before, according to Mediaite’s reporting, sparked speculation about more turnover at the top of the Pentagon. Hegseth’s response was blunt and personal, calling the story “COMPLETELY false” and framing it as an attack by “outside forces” threatened by Feinberg’s success in advancing the president’s agenda.
“The [Department of Defense] has never had a better Deputy Secretary than Steve Feinberg,” Hegseth declared in his post, adding, “Outside forces (i.e. companies he is pressing for results!) want Steve gone because he is so effective in advancing [President Donald Trump’s] agenda. His leadership is HISTORIC.”
Reuters had reported, citing three unnamed people familiar with the discussions, that the White House had interviewed candidates to replace Feinberg. But Hegseth’s public denial left little room for ambiguity, and the Department of Defense under his leadership is presenting a unified front against what it views as unfounded rumors.
The controversy comes as the Pentagon faces scrutiny over leadership turnover. Dan Driscoll resigned as Army secretary during the same week, and the article noted that other senior Army officials, Randy George, Christopher Donahue, and David Hodne, had also left or been ousted from their roles. Mediaite reported that Politico recently highlighted concerns about Hegseth’s focus on “social and cultural issues” within the military and the pace of leadership changes, further stoking debate about the department’s direction and stability.
Hegseth’s response did more than deny the Reuters report; it pointed to what he sees as resistance from entrenched interests. He alleged that “outside forces,” specifically companies being “pressed for results,” want Feinberg out because of his effectiveness in backing President Trump’s priorities within the Pentagon. The secretary’s framing paints Feinberg as a target for doing his job too well, challenging business as usual and fighting Pentagon bloat, even in the face of pushback from the defense industry and bureaucratic actors.
Sean Parnell, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for public affairs, also weighed in, defending Hegseth’s leadership and dismissing talk of instability as overblown. Parnell described Hegseth as a “transformative leader” who is cutting through “turbulence” and slashing bureaucracy. A defense official echoed that sentiment, telling Mediaite that Driscoll, the outgoing Army secretary, had tried to change “how quickly the Army could learn, experiment, and buy,” while Hegseth focused on core questions about “what soldiers look like, how they behave, and who gets to lead them.”
While Hegseth and his team are rejecting the latest rumors as baseless, the Pentagon’s upper ranks have seen significant change. The Mediaite article noted that along with Driscoll’s departure from the Army, Randy George, Christopher Donahue, and David Hodne, each holding key Army leadership roles, were also described as having been ousted. The timing has spurred further questions about the Trump administration’s approach to military leadership and its willingness to challenge longstanding practices.
Politico’s recent reporting, as referenced by Mediaite, suggested internal concern about Hegseth’s focus on social and cultural issues, as well as the implications of rapid leadership turnover. Yet the Pentagon’s public-facing message is that these changes are part of an intentional effort to streamline command and get results, not signs of dysfunction or instability.
Despite Hegseth’s categorical denial, Mediaite’s summary of the Reuters report leaves open several questions: Which candidates, if any, were considered to replace Feinberg? Did the White House actually conduct interviews, or was this speculation from anonymous sources? Hegseth’s accusation of “outside forces” influencing the narrative hints at a deeper clash between reformers and the defense establishment, but the article does not specify which companies or interests he had in mind.
What is clear is that the Pentagon is now a battleground, not just between military leaders and contractors, but over the direction of America’s defense policy itself. Hegseth’s allies insist that the shakeups are a sign of needed change, not chaos, and that entrenched interests are fighting back precisely because serious reform is underway.
Cuts to the old order are rarely quiet, and when powerful interests feel threatened, rumor becomes a weapon, especially when real accountability is finally on the table.