A federal appeals court handed the Trump administration a narrow victory Friday, declining to reconsider a ruling that clears the path for the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, the 31-year-old Columbia University graduate who became the most visible face of the White House crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism. Khalil's legal team now says it will take the fight to the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit voted 6-5 against reconsidering a January decision that sided with the government on a threshold jurisdictional question, which court system has the authority to hear Khalil's constitutional claims. That razor-thin margin means the earlier three-judge ruling stands, and the remaining legal barriers between Khalil and removal from the country could dissolve quickly.
A spokeswoman for Khalil said the decision would prompt an appeal to the Supreme Court, where his lawyers plan to seek an immediate stay preventing the administration from deporting him while the justices consider the case.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Khalil in March 2025. He is a legal permanent resident married to an American citizen, and his lawyers have argued from the start that the case against him violates the First Amendment. The White House has said Khalil's presence in the United States "spreads antisemitism" and conflicts with President Trump's foreign policy agenda, citing his prominent role in Columbia University's 2024 pro-Palestinian protests and accusing him of distributing pro-Hamas fliers.
Khalil has said that criticism of Israel is not inherently antisemitic and has denounced antisemitism.
Federal officials accused Khalil of leading activities "aligned to Hamas," but as Newsmax reported, the government has not presented evidence or filed criminal charges to back that accusation. The gap between the accusation and the evidentiary record is one reason civil liberties groups have rallied behind Khalil's case, and one reason the government has preferred to route the dispute through immigration courts rather than federal district court.
That jurisdictional question is the hinge of the entire legal battle. Khalil's lawyers argued that a federal district court had the right to weigh in on his constitutional claims. The government countered that those issues belonged in immigration court, a system controlled by the executive branch. In January, a three-judge panel on the Third Circuit sided with the government.
A federal judge had previously ordered Khalil's release from immigration detention, but the administration appealed, and the Third Circuit's ruling effectively reversed that order. Khalil was detained for three months following his arrest, according to the New York Post.
Friday's decision not to rehear the case en banc came down to a single vote. The five dissenting judges did not mince words. Judge Cheryl Ann Krause wrote in dissent:
"The Judicial Branch... cannot fulfill its role as a check on the other branches of government, if we write ourselves out of relevance and leave the Executive Branch to check itself."
That language frames the stakes plainly. If immigration courts, staffed by executive-branch appointees, are the only venue where a legal permanent resident can challenge deportation on constitutional grounds, the executive branch effectively becomes judge and jury in its own enforcement actions. That is the argument Khalil's team will now press before the Supreme Court.
The high court has already found itself at the center of multiple clashes with the Trump administration over immigration policy. The justices appeared poised earlier this term to reject the president's executive order on birthright citizenship, and the administration's use of emergency appeals has drawn public complaints from Justice Sotomayor.
ACLU senior counsel Brett Max Kaufman, who represents Khalil, signaled confidence despite the loss. As Just The News reported, Kaufman stated:
"Federal courts must have the power to step in when the government exploits our country's immigration system to punish people for their constitutionally protected speech."
Kaufman also warned that the precedent reaches far beyond one Columbia activist: "If the Trump administration can target, arrest, detain, and deport Mahmoud for his speech, they can do it to anyone expressing an opinion they disagree with."
Conservatives should be clear-eyed about what this case actually involves. The government has not charged Khalil with a crime. It has not presented evidence of material support for terrorism. It has accused a legal permanent resident of speech-related conduct, organizing protests, distributing fliers, and moved to deport him through an administrative system where the executive branch controls the courtroom.
That should give anyone who values constitutional order a moment of serious reflection. The First Amendment exists precisely to protect speech the government finds objectionable. If the administration's theory holds, that immigration courts alone can adjudicate a permanent resident's free-speech claims, the precedent does not stop with pro-Palestinian activists. It extends to anyone the next administration decides is inconvenient.
None of this means Khalil is a sympathetic figure. His role in the Columbia encampments placed him at the center of protests that disrupted campus life and, in many cases, crossed the line from political expression into harassment and intimidation of Jewish students. The White House's concern about antisemitism on campuses is well-founded. But concern about antisemitism and respect for due process are not mutually exclusive.
The proper remedy for hateful or disruptive speech on a university campus is enforcement of campus conduct codes, and where laws are broken, criminal prosecution with full constitutional protections. Deportation through an executive-branch court system, without criminal charges, is a shortcut, and shortcuts in government power have a way of expanding.
The New York Times noted that Khalil's immigration case "has been sped through courts controlled by the executive branch." That phrasing carries editorial freight, but the underlying procedural reality is hard to dispute. The government chose the forum most favorable to its position and argued against allowing a federal judge to review the constitutional questions.
The Supreme Court will now decide whether that arrangement passes muster. The justices have shown a willingness to push back on executive overreach in immigration matters, as seen in the birthright citizenship arguments heard earlier this term.
Khalil's lawyers plan to petition for an immediate stay to block his removal while the Supreme Court considers the case. The timeline for that process remains unclear. If the justices decline to intervene, the administration could move quickly to deport him.
The 6-5 split on the Third Circuit suggests the legal questions are genuinely close. Five federal appellate judges believed the case warranted full court review. The Supreme Court often takes cases where circuit courts are closely divided or where fundamental constitutional questions are at stake. Both conditions appear to be met here.
The Trump administration has made enforcement against antisemitism a signature priority, and its willingness to use immigration tools against campus activists has drawn both praise and criticism from the right. Some conservatives have cheered the crackdown as overdue accountability. Others have warned that the legal theories the government is advancing could be turned against conservative speech under a future administration.
That tension, between the desire to hold campus radicals accountable and the need to preserve constitutional limits on government power, sits at the heart of several pending Supreme Court disputes involving the administration.
The government that can deport a legal resident for his protest signs today can deport one for his church attendance tomorrow. The Constitution is either a limit on power or it isn't.
Adam Johnson, the 41-year-old Florida carpenter photographed carrying Nancy Pelosi's lectern through the Capitol Rotunda on January 6, 2021, told The Times of London he expects to seek between $2 million and $5 million from the Department of Justice's newly announced "Anti-Weaponisation" fund. He booked flights from Florida to Washington to hand-deliver his letter to the DoJ.
Johnson pleaded guilty to trespass, spent 75 days in a federal prison in Florida, and received a presidential pardon after Trump took office in January 2025. Now he wants taxpayers to make him rich for the trouble.
The DoJ announced the $1.776 billion fund this week, a figure that appears to reference both the year the Declaration of Independence was signed and America's 250th anniversary. The fund is meant to compensate January 6 defendants who believe they were unfairly prosecuted. But the size of the claims rolling in, and the character of some of the claimants, should give every fiscal conservative pause.
Johnson, who goes by "Lectern Guy," did not sound like a man nursing old wounds. He sounded like a man cashing in.
"Somewhere between $2 and $5 million would set it up to where the kids wouldn't have to necessarily worry."
He told The Times that 99 percent of the money would go into index funds. His stated goal was blunt:
"We want to retire young. 99 per cent of it would go into index funds. We want to make sure we're set up for life and our kids are also taken care of."
Johnson estimates his total reputational and legal costs from January 6 at close to $250,000. He acknowledged the gap between that number and the millions he wants but argued the iconic photograph justifies a premium.
"I do think the compensation should be more than a quarter million dollars, because moving forward that picture is gonna follow not just me but my entire family for generations."
He avoided an initial charge of theft. He served 75 days. He got a pardon. And now he wants a seven-figure payout on top of it.
Johnson has not exactly spent the years since January 6 in quiet reflection. He built lecterns featuring his own silhouette ransacking the Capitol. He shared an AI-generated image of himself wearing gold jewelry with the caption "Soon." He is running for the Board of Commissioners in Manatee County, Florida.
"I've been able to build a voice, build the brand, make lemonade as it were."
That is his phrase, "make lemonade." The man turned a federal trespass conviction into a personal brand, and now he wants the federal government to write him a check worth twenty times his claimed damages. This is not a story about justice. It is a story about opportunism dressed in a flag.
Johnson also told The Times he still has questions about the 2020 election, pointing to an FBI raid earlier this year on the election office in Fulton County, Georgia, which has been at the center of Trump's fraud claims. He described storming the Capitol in generous terms:
"I think it's actually a very reasonable thing to do to air your grievances with the people you believe are manipulating and taking your country from you."
Reasonable people can disagree about prosecutorial overreach in the January 6 cases. But calling a breach of the Capitol that injured 174 police officers a "reasonable" act of civic expression stretches the word past its breaking point.
Johnson is far from the only January 6 figure lining up for a payout. Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison before Trump pardoned him. Tarrio is among those seeking multi-million-dollar payouts from the administration.
Then there is Jacob Chansley, the 37-year-old known as the "QAnon shaman," who wore a bison-horned headdress to the Capitol. Chansley told The Times he is eligible for the fund but called it "blood money." He urged fellow January 6 participants to reject the deal, calling it a "s****y deal," and to instead join his own lawsuit seeking $40 trillion from the government.
During a 30-minute phone call with The Times, Chansley expounded on several unfounded conspiracy theories. He said he is "broke" and lives with his mother. He urged others to "give Donald Trump the finger" over the fund.
So the compensation landscape for January 6 defendants now includes a carpenter who wants to retire early, a former militia leader convicted of seditious conspiracy, and a self-described shaman suing the government for $40 trillion while living with his mother. These are the faces of the fund.
The fund has drawn opposition from both sides of the aisle, and not just from the usual suspects. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he is "not a big fan" of awarding taxpayer money to January 6 defendants. Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who is teaming up with Democrats to stop the fund, was more direct:
"We're going to kill it."
California Governor Gavin Newsom, widely expected to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, attacked the fund in sharper terms:
"It's not just corruption, it's not just graft, it's a full-on criminal enterprise and it needs to be shut down."
Newsom's rhetoric is predictably overheated. But Fitzpatrick and Thune are not progressives. They are Republicans who recognize what this fund looks like to the voters who pay for it.
Two Capitol police officers who came under attack on January 6, Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, are suing the Trump administration to stop the fund from being established. The violence that day injured 174 officers. Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick collapsed later that evening after being pepper sprayed and died. Four officers subsequently committed suicide.
Those officers and their families have not, to anyone's knowledge, posted AI-generated images of themselves in gold jewelry.
Concerns have also been raised about the circumstances of the fund's creation. The Times reported that the fund was agreed after Trump dropped his case against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns in 2019. The reported arrangement allegedly includes immunity for Trump and his family from further investigation of all their past tax affairs. The formal eligibility requirements for the fund, its legal mechanism, and its oversight structure remain unclear.
Trump pardoned approximately 1,600 supporters who entered the Capitol after Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Many of those supporters believe they were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration's Justice Department. Some of them may have legitimate grievances about disproportionate sentences or selective prosecution.
But a pardon is already an extraordinary act of mercy. It wipes the conviction. It restores rights. It is, by design, a second chance, not a lottery ticket.
When a man who pleaded guilty to trespass, served 75 days, received a full pardon, built a personal brand off the experience, and is now running for local office tells the government he deserves $5 million for his trouble, something has gone badly wrong with the incentive structure.
The open questions around this fund are serious. What are the formal eligibility criteria? Who decides the payout amounts? What oversight exists to prevent the fund from becoming a patronage slush fund? What stops every one of the 1,600 pardoned defendants from filing a multi-million-dollar claim?
These are not hypothetical concerns. They are live ones, because men like Adam Johnson are already booking flights to Washington with their hands out.
Conservatives who rightly objected to the Biden Justice Department's overreach on January 6 prosecutions should be equally clear-eyed about what comes next. Correcting an injustice does not require creating a new one. And cutting million-dollar checks to convicted trespassers who turned their crimes into brand deals is not justice, it is a raid on the treasury that makes the right look no better than the spending addicts it claims to oppose.
A pardon should be enough. If it isn't, the problem isn't the government's generosity, it's the recipient's appetite.
Kyle Busch, one of the most dominant drivers in NASCAR history, died Thursday at the age of 41 after being hospitalized with what his family described as a "severe illness." No cause of death has been disclosed. The two-time Cup Series champion leaves behind his wife, Samantha, and their two children, Brexton and Lennix.
His family, Richard Childress Racing, and NASCAR confirmed the news in a joint statement released Thursday afternoon. The racing world had little warning. Just days earlier, Busch had been preparing to compete in the Coca-Cola 600.
The loss is staggering in its swiftness. A man who spent more than two decades behind the wheel at NASCAR's highest level, setting records, winning championships, building a legacy that will almost certainly land him in the Hall of Fame, was gone before anyone outside his inner circle fully understood what had happened.
The Associated Press reported that Busch became unresponsive while testing in a Chevrolet racing simulator in Concord, North Carolina. He was transported to a hospital in Charlotte. His family had announced his hospitalization three days before he was scheduled to race in the Coca-Cola 600.
The specific nature of the illness remains undisclosed. The family has asked for privacy, and no further medical details have been made public.
That kind of sudden decline, from a working professional athlete to a hospital bed to a death announcement in a matter of days, is the sort of thing that stops a sport cold. And it did.
Kyle Busch's numbers tell the story of a competitor who belonged in any conversation about NASCAR's all-time greats. He won 63 Cup Series races, ranking first among active drivers and ninth on the all-time list. He holds the record for Xfinity Series victories with 102. Across NASCAR's top three national series, he accumulated 234 wins.
He was a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion. He drove the No. 8 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Richard Childress Racing, as the Washington Examiner noted in its coverage of his death. Beyond the driver's seat, he fostered the next generation of racers as an owner in the Truck Series.
The joint statement from his family, Richard Childress Racing, and NASCAR called him "a rare talent, one who comes along once in a generation."
That is not the language of polite obituary filler. Busch earned every word of it on the track.
The joint statement captured the weight of the moment:
"Our entire NASCAR family is heartbroken by the loss of Kyle Busch. A future Hall of Famer, Kyle was a rare talent, one who comes along once in a generation. He was fierce, he was passionate, he was immensely skilled and he cared deeply about the sport and fans. Throughout a career that spanned more than two decades, Kyle set records in national series wins, won championships at NASCAR's highest level and fostered the next generation of drivers as an owner in the Truck Series. His sharp wit and competitive spirit sparked a deep emotional connection with race fans of every age, creating the proud and loyal 'Rowdy Nation.' Our thoughts are with Samantha, Brexton and Lennix, Kyle and Samantha's parents, Kurt and all of Kyle's family, Richard and Judy Childress, everyone at Richard Childress Racing, his teammates, friends and fans. NASCAR lost a giant of the sport today, far too soon."
Speedway Motorsports President Marcus Smith offered his own tribute. "Kyle Busch was a champion among champions, a once-in-a-generation competitor whose grit, unmistakable driving style and relentless pursuit of excellence elevated him to a place among the very best drivers in our sport," Smith said.
Fellow driver Brad Keselowski captured the raw disbelief felt across the garage. "Absolute shock. Very hard to process," Keselowski posted on social media.
The family, Richard Childress Racing, and NASCAR asked for continued privacy: "During this incredibly difficult time, we ask everyone to respect the family's privacy and continue to keep them in your thoughts and prayers. Further updates will be shared as appropriate."
Busch was not a driver people felt lukewarm about. The joint statement acknowledged as much, crediting his "sharp wit and competitive spirit" with sparking "a deep emotional connection with race fans of every age." That connection built what became known as "Rowdy Nation", a fiercely loyal fan base drawn to a driver who never hid his intensity.
He is survived by his wife, Samantha, their children Brexton and Lennix, his parents, and his brother Kurt. Richard and Judy Childress were also named in the statement's expression of sympathy, a reminder that the bonds in racing run deeper than business contracts.
The sudden death of a well-known public figure always carries a particular sting, the sense that someone who seemed invincible in their arena could be taken without warning.
Busch was 41. In motorsport terms, he was still in the prime of his career. Drivers have competed at the Cup level well into their fifties. There was no reason to think his story was anywhere near its final chapter.
Much remains unknown. The hospital where Busch was treated has not been publicly identified beyond its Charlotte-area location. The specific illness that hospitalized him has not been named. No cause of death has been released. Whether additional details will emerge in the coming days depends largely on the family's wishes.
The speed of the decline, from simulator testing to hospitalization to death in what appears to have been a matter of days, has left the NASCAR community searching for answers that may not come quickly, if they come at all.
In recent months, the country has grappled with a string of unexpected deaths of public figures still in their working years. Each one prompts the same uncomfortable reckoning: life offers no guarantees, no matter how strong or successful you are.
Two hundred and thirty-four wins across NASCAR's three national series. Two Cup championships. A record that may never be matched in the Xfinity Series. An ownership stake in the Truck Series that gave younger drivers a shot at the big time. These are the facts of Kyle Busch's career.
But the statement from those closest to him pointed to something beyond statistics. They described a man who "cared deeply about the sport and fans." In an era when professional athletes are often coached into saying nothing of substance, Busch was known for saying exactly what he thought. That made him polarizing. It also made him real.
Grief in the racing community tends to be communal. Drivers, crews, and fans share tight quarters at tracks across the country for months on end. The loss of someone at the center of that world, someone who had been there for more than twenty years, leaves a gap that no statistic can measure.
The outpouring of tributes, from public figures reflecting on personal loss to fellow competitors posting raw, unfiltered grief on social media, speaks to the mark Busch left on everyone who crossed his path.
For now, the Coca-Cola 600 approaches without Kyle Busch in the No. 8 Chevrolet. The empty car will say what no press release can.
Forty-one years old. Two hundred and thirty-four victories. A family left behind. And a sport that will look different on Sunday, and for a long time after.
Some people fill a room. Kyle Busch filled a racetrack. That void doesn't close easily.
Two police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, sued the Trump administration in federal court in Washington this week, seeking to dismantle a newly created $1.776 billion compensation fund they call a "corrupt sham" designed to reward the very people who attacked them.
Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police officer Daniel Hodges filed the complaint days after the Justice Department announced creation of the so-called "Anti-Weaponization Fund" as part of a settlement resolving President Donald Trump's lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax records, Newsmax reported.
The lawsuit names President Trump, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Treasury Secretary Todd Bessent, the New York Post reported. It asks the court to dissolve the fund entirely, arguing it was created without congressional authorization, violates the Constitution, and could funnel taxpayer dollars to people convicted of assaulting law enforcement.
The Anti-Weaponization Fund emerged from a settlement that ended Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. That suit stemmed from the conduct of former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn, who was sentenced to prison in 2024 after admitting he leaked Trump's tax information to news organizations.
Under the settlement terms, the Justice Department would establish a five-member commission appointed by Attorney General Blanche to review claims from individuals who say they were unfairly targeted by the federal government. Trump described those potential claimants as victims of government "weaponization and lawfare." The DOJ said Trump and his family will not receive direct payments from the fund.
The money would come from the Treasury Department's Judgment Fund, a permanent account traditionally used to pay legal settlements against the federal government. That detail sits at the center of the legal fight. Dunn and Hodges argue the DOJ has no authority to redirect that money into a new compensation program without an act of Congress.
The complaint invokes Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which bars the United States from paying debts "incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States." The officers contend that compensating people connected to the January 6 breach falls squarely within that prohibition.
Attorneys for the officers at the Public Integrity Project wrote in the filing:
"Dunn and Hodges did not back down on January 6. Instead, they held the line to defend democracy and the rule of law. They bring this case to do so once again."
The lawsuit goes further, calling the fund "the most brazen act of presidential corruption this century" and alleging that Trump "created a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund to finance the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name," Breitbart reported, citing the complaint's language.
That language is plainly political. But the underlying legal questions, whether the executive branch can create a billion-dollar fund outside the appropriations process, and whether the 14th Amendment applies, will be decided by the court, not by the complaint's rhetoric.
The timing of the lawsuit tracks closely with Attorney General Blanche's testimony before senators on Tuesday. Under questioning from lawmakers, Blanche declined to rule out payments to people convicted of violent crimes connected to January 6.
Blanche told senators:
"I will definitely encourage the commissioners to take everything into account when determining who should get compensation."
That answer did not satisfy members of his own party. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he was "not a big fan" of the fund. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., referred to it bluntly as "the slush fund."
When Republican senators start using the same label as the plaintiffs suing your administration, the political ground is shaky. Roughly 1,600 people were charged in connection with January 6, and some were convicted of assaulting police officers. Many of those charged were later pardoned by Trump after he returned to office. Whether any of those individuals, pardoned or not, could receive taxpayer-funded payouts remains an open question the administration has not clearly answered.
The lawsuit argues the fund poses a direct threat to Dunn and Hodges personally. As the Washington Examiner reported, the complaint states:
"The Fund's mere existence sends a clear and chilling message: those who enact violence in President Trump's name will not just avoid punishment, they will be rewarded with riches."
The filing adds that "that message, by itself, substantially increases the already sizeable risk of vigilante violence Dunn and Hodges face on a near-daily basis."
Whether a federal judge agrees that the fund's existence constitutes a cognizable injury sufficient for standing remains to be seen. Courts have historically set a high bar for plaintiffs claiming future harm from government spending programs.
Conservatives who cheered the pardons of nonviolent January 6 defendants had a reasonable argument: many of those prosecuted received sentences wildly disproportionate to their conduct, while the Biden-era Justice Department treated trespassing cases like terrorism. That argument had merit.
But a $1.776 billion fund, created through a settlement rather than legislation, administered by a commission appointed by a single cabinet official, and funded from a standing Treasury account, is a different matter. It bypasses Congress. It lacks clear eligibility criteria. And when the attorney general cannot tell senators whether people who beat police officers on camera might collect a check, something has gone wrong in the design.
Legal experts and watchdog groups have questioned whether entities connected to Trump or his allies could ultimately benefit from the fund. The DOJ says Trump and his family won't receive direct payments. The word "direct" does a lot of work in that sentence.
The complaint itself leans heavily on political language, calling the fund a vehicle for "insurrectionists and paramilitary groups", that reads more like a press release than a legal brief. Dunn and Hodges have become familiar faces in the political ecosystem surrounding January 6, and their lawsuit will inevitably be read through that lens.
None of that changes the structural questions. If the executive branch can create a billion-dollar compensation program by settling a lawsuit with itself, without a single congressional vote, that is a precedent every American, left or right, should find troubling.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington. No hearing date has been announced. The complaint seeks to dissolve the fund and argues the settlement itself is legally defective.
The administration will have to defend both the fund's legality and its political wisdom, two separate problems. Blanche's testimony suggests the DOJ is not yet prepared to draw bright lines around who qualifies and who doesn't. Until those lines exist, the fund will remain a target for lawsuits and a headache for Republican leaders who would rather talk about tax cuts and border security.
Sen. Cassidy had it right when he called it a slush fund. When you can't explain who gets the money, how much they get, or why Congress wasn't asked, that's exactly what it is.
Vice President JD Vance told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that the Department of Justice is actively investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar for possible immigration fraud, a step that, if it leads to charges, would mark the most serious legal threat yet to the Minnesota Democrat's career.
Vance, who leads the administration's efforts to combat benefit fraud, stopped short of declaring guilt but left little doubt about the direction of the probe. As the New York Post reported, the vice president laid out the administration's posture in blunt terms.
"So we're going to investigate it. We're going to take a look at it. If we think that there's a crime, we're going to prosecute that crime, and that's something the Department of Justice is looking at right now."
Omar's chief of staff, Connor McNutt, dismissed Vance's statement as "a ridiculous lie." The congresswoman herself did not offer a direct, on-the-record response.
But the allegations Vance referenced are not new. They have trailed Omar for years, through two congressional campaigns, multiple news investigations, and a trail of public records that have never been fully reconciled.
The core of the long-running controversy centers on Omar's second husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a UK citizen. A Hennepin County marriage certificate previously obtained by the New York Post shows Omar and Elmi were wedded in February 2009 as part of a Christian ceremony in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
That marriage is the one that has drawn scrutiny. Multiple reports over the past decade have identified Elmi as a possible sibling of Omar. The accusations first surfaced on SomaliSpot, a Somali politics discussion board, and City Journal previously reported that those posts were later deleted.
Omar has acknowledged marrying Elmi but has claimed the two were frequently separated except for a two-year stretch between 2009 and 2011. They divorced in December 2017.
Just weeks later, in January 2018, Omar legally married Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi, a man she had first wed in an Islamic ceremony back in 2002. The couple had three children together over that period. The timeline alone raises questions about overlapping relationships and the purpose of the Elmi marriage, questions Omar has never answered to the satisfaction of her critics or, apparently, of federal investigators.
The sibling allegation gained additional traction in 2020, when Abdihakim Osman, a Minneapolis-based Somali blogger and community leader, told the Daily Mail that he knew both Omar and Elmi growing up in Minnesota. Osman claimed Omar introduced Elmi as her brother from London to members of the Somali community in the late 2000s, and that she noted her sibling was looking for "papers."
If true, that account would suggest the 2009 marriage was a vehicle for immigration benefits, precisely the kind of fraud Vance described. Osman's claim remains a witness account, not a court finding, but it aligns with other circumstantial evidence that has accumulated over the years.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on an Instagram photo that depicted Omar's third child being held by Elmi, with a caption referring to "nieces." That photo was later deleted. The detail is small but telling: if Elmi were merely a former spouse, the familial language would be odd. If he were a brother, it would make perfect sense.
Earlier this year, Vance went further than any previous administration official, stating he was working with Stephen Miller to pursue legal remedies against Omar and saying she "definitely committed immigration fraud." His Tuesday remarks at the White House confirmed that those words have translated into an active DOJ inquiry.
The immigration fraud allegations do not exist in isolation. Omar has faced repeated questions over the years about her immigration status, family finances, and potential ties to a COVID-era fraud scheme in Minnesota. Each controversy has been met with denials or deflection, but none has been definitively resolved.
Separately, Omar has drawn fire for steering millions in public funds to a clinic run by her sister, a matter that raised its own set of ethics questions. The pattern, repeated allegations, thin explanations, and an unwillingness to produce dispositive evidence, has made Omar a lightning rod for accountability demands from the right and, increasingly, from within her own party.
Democratic strategist James Carville once told Omar to leave the Democratic Party and start her own movement, a sign that even some on the left view her as a political liability rather than an asset.
Vance was careful to hedge his language on Tuesday, even as he signaled the seriousness of the probe.
"I don't want to prejudge an investigation. It certainly seems like something fishy is there, but everybody's entitled to equal justice under the laws."
That framing matters. The vice president did not announce charges. He did not cite a specific statute. He did not reference a case number, a warrant, or a subpoena. What he did was confirm, on the record and from the White House podium, that the Justice Department is looking at the matter now, not as a political talking point, but as an active law-enforcement inquiry.
No written DOJ statement or formal document about the investigation has surfaced publicly. That gap leaves room for Omar's allies to characterize the probe as politically motivated. McNutt's dismissal, calling Vance's claim "a ridiculous lie", is the only on-the-record pushback from Omar's office so far.
But calling something a lie does not make the underlying facts disappear. The marriage certificate exists. The witness account exists. The deleted Instagram photo existed. The timeline of overlapping marriages is a matter of public record. And now a sitting vice president says the federal government is investigating.
For years, critics have expressed frustration that these allegations never seemed to result in official action. Actor James Woods went so far as to leave the Republican Party over what he called the failure to investigate Omar. Whether or not one shares that level of frustration, the sentiment reflects a real constituency that has watched the questions pile up without consequence.
If the DOJ probe produces charges, Omar would face the most consequential legal reckoning of her political life. Immigration fraud is a federal matter, and a conviction could carry penalties well beyond the political.
If the probe fizzles, the administration will face its own credibility questions for announcing an investigation through a White House press availability rather than through the Justice Department's normal channels.
Either way, the allegations that have dogged Omar since her first campaign for the US House in 2018 are no longer just opposition research or conservative media fodder. They are, by the vice president's own account, the subject of an active federal investigation.
Omar has built a career calling for the dismantling of immigration enforcement agencies. It would be a fitting turn if the immigration system she sought to weaken is the one that finally holds her accountable.
A federal jury in Oakland, California, needed less than two hours on Monday to reject Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, not because the claims lacked merit, but because Musk waited too long to bring them. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers adopted the advisory verdict immediately, ending a three-week trial without ever reaching the question at the heart of the dispute: whether Altman and his colleagues hijacked a nonprofit charity and turned it into a profit machine worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Musk and his legal team said they will appeal to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The fight over OpenAI's soul, and its fortune, is far from settled.
The nine-member jury found unanimously that Musk's claims of "breach of charitable trust" fell outside a three-year statute of limitations, CNBC reported. The court also dismissed the claim against Microsoft, which invested in OpenAI as early as 2019 and was named as a co-defendant. Judge Gonzalez Rogers told the courtroom she adopted the verdict "on the spot" and said there was "a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury's finding."
But the ruling left the underlying allegations untouched. Musk helped found OpenAI in 2015 and testified he contributed roughly $38 million to the venture. He left the board about three years later. His lawsuit, filed in 2024, accused Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman of abandoning the company's founding charitable mission and enriching themselves in the process.
The jury never weighed those accusations. It simply concluded that Musk knew, or should have known, about the alleged breach too long ago to sue now.
Musk wasted no time framing the loss as procedural rather than substantive. On his social platform X, he wrote:
"There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!"
As the New York Post reported, Musk also wrote that "the judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality." He sought roughly $150 billion in damages and an order unwinding OpenAI's for-profit status.
His attorney Marc Toberoff told CNBC outside the downtown Oakland courthouse that the case "at its core, is about preserving charities from this kind of exploitation. If they get away with it, they shouldn't."
OpenAI's lead attorney, William Savitt, rejected the "technicality" framing. He told reporters the decision was substantive:
"It says: You brought your claims too late, and you did it because you were sitting on them to use them as a weapon of a competitor who can't compete in the marketplace. And so we're delighted to get it."
That line cuts to the core of OpenAI's defense throughout the trial. Its lawyers portrayed the lawsuit as Musk's attempt to hobble a rival after he failed to gain control of the company, not a principled stand for charity.
UC Berkeley law senior fellow Vincent Joralemon offered a blunt assessment of how quickly the jury reached its conclusion. "I'm guessing the jurors got into their room and said, 'does it seem like Musk knew about this in 2019?' and everyone said 'yes' and then they go, 'we're done,'" he told the New York Post.
The timeline supports that reading. Microsoft invested in OpenAI as early as 2019, a move that signaled the nonprofit was shifting toward commercial partnerships. Musk had already departed the board by then. He started his own AI company, xAI, in 2023. He did not file his lawsuit until 2024, well past the three-year window California law apparently required.
For Musk's team, the argument is that the full scope of the alleged breach only became clear later, as OpenAI completed a 2025 restructuring that enabled the growth of its for-profit arm. Whether that argument gains traction on appeal remains an open question. The jury and the judge clearly found otherwise.
A Microsoft attorney issued a statement welcoming the verdict: "The facts and the timeline in this case have long been clear, and we welcome the jury's decision to dismiss these claims as untimely." The company added that it remains "committed to our work with OpenAI to advance and scale AI for people and organizations around the world."
This was no ordinary contract dispute. The three-week trial featured testimony from some of the most powerful figures in technology, including Altman, Brockman, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Fox News confirmed the verdict was reached after the extended proceeding. Musk's legal team had sought as much as $180 billion in "ill-gotten gains" and asked the court to remove Brockman from OpenAI's leadership.
The financial backdrop is staggering. OpenAI raised $122 billion in late March at a valuation exceeding $850 billion. Meanwhile, SpaceX, which merged with Musk's xAI in February, reached a $1.25 trillion valuation and confidentially filed for an IPO in April. A SpaceX prospectus could become public this week.
Both sides, in other words, are operating at a scale where the word "billion" barely registers. But the principle at the center of Musk's case, whether a nonprofit can be quietly converted into a profit engine for its executives, matters far beyond Silicon Valley balance sheets.
Newsmax reported that Judge Gonzalez Rogers accepted the advisory jury's verdict as the court's own and dismissed Musk's claims outright. Musk's lawyer Steven Molo reserved his client's right to appeal directly to the judge, but Gonzalez Rogers expressed skepticism about that path, leaving the 9th Circuit as the likely next battleground.
The verdict adds to a string of major legal confrontations involving prominent public figures. A separate jury verdict found Musk misled Twitter shareholders ahead of his $44 billion acquisition, underscoring how frequently the tech mogul finds himself in courtrooms where the outcomes carry enormous financial and reputational weight.
OpenAI's lawyers made a calculated case during the trial. They showed that Musk had at one point pushed OpenAI to fold into Tesla, a detail that undermined his portrayal of himself as a disinterested champion of the nonprofit mission. They argued his donations were not restricted and that restructuring was necessary to compete with rivals like Google DeepMind and Anthropic in the enterprise AI market.
Musk's team countered that any recovered money should go to "the OpenAI charity" rather than to Musk personally, an effort to frame the lawsuit as something other than a billionaire grudge match. Whether that framing holds up on appeal will depend on how the 9th Circuit views the statute-of-limitations question and whether Musk can show the lower court erred.
The case arrives at a moment when the federal judiciary is handling an unusual volume of consequential trials. Former FBI Director James Comey faces a criminal trial set for July 15, and the Supreme Court is wrestling with major litigation in the Roundup cancer-warning lawsuits. Courts at every level are being asked to resolve disputes with billions of dollars and fundamental principles on the line.
The 9th Circuit appeal will test whether the statute-of-limitations finding can survive scrutiny. Musk's lawyers will likely argue that the full extent of OpenAI's departure from its nonprofit charter only became apparent with the 2025 restructuring, well within the three-year window. OpenAI will counter that the warning signs were public and obvious years earlier.
For now, the practical effect is clear: OpenAI continues its march toward commercial dominance unencumbered by the lawsuit. Its $850 billion-plus valuation and $122 billion fundraising round proceed without a court order threatening to unwind the for-profit structure. Altman and Brockman remain in their leadership positions.
Musk, for his part, is not short on legal fronts or business ventures. SpaceX's looming IPO and the xAI merger give him plenty to occupy his attention. But the OpenAI fight is personal in a way few corporate disputes are. He helped build the organization. He funded it. And he believes, with considerable public evidence to support the claim, that the people he entrusted it to changed the rules after he left the room.
The jury never said he was wrong about that. It said he was late.
In American courtrooms, timing can matter as much as truth. Whether that serves justice in this case is a question the 9th Circuit will have to answer.
A 38-year-old man died Saturday after a great white shark attacked him near Rottnest Island, a popular resort destination off Australia's western coast. Police said the attack happened just before 10 a.m. at Horseshoe Reef, roughly 19 miles west of Perth.
The man was spearfishing with a friend near a dive boat when the shark bit him on the legs, AP News reported. Companions pulled him from the water and rushed him about one kilometer back to the island by vessel. St. John WA Ambulance paramedics met him on shore but could not save his life.
The fatal attack marks the second time this year a shark has killed someone in Australian waters, a grim reminder that even well-traveled coastlines carry real danger.
A spokesperson for St. John WA Ambulance described the sequence in a statement to Fox News:
"A 38-year-old man was in the water at Horseshoe Reef when he was believed to have been bitten by a shark. The man was conveyed by vessel to shore, where he was met by St. John WA paramedics. Sadly, the man was unable to be revived."
Western Australia Police Sergeant Michael Wear provided additional detail. "The victim was near a dive boat when he was bitten on the legs," Wear said. Lifeguards had reported a five-meter, roughly 16-foot, white shark in the area before the attack occurred.
Perth's Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development told AFP, as cited by BBC News, that the shark was reported to be a great white. The department urged the public to take "additional caution" in the surrounding waters.
Footage from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation showed police at the scene with a boat and rescue officers. Authorities have not publicly identified the victim.
Saturday's death is the second fatal shark attack in Australia so far this year. In January, a 12-year-old boy died a week after a shark attacked him in Sydney Harbor. Within the same two days as that January incident, three other people were attacked along the New South Wales coast in separate, non-fatal encounters.
The cluster of incidents earlier this year already had Australian officials and beachgoers on alert. The New York Post noted that authorities described Saturday's attack as the second deadly shark encounter in Australia this year and warned visitors to exercise caution in nearby waters.
Rottnest Island draws tourists and locals alike for its beaches, snorkeling, and diving. That a fatal attack occurred at a well-known reef near a resort island, not in remote open ocean, underscores how unpredictable these encounters remain, even in waters people visit every weekend.
Tragedies in and around water can unfold with little warning. A Coast Guard rescue swimmer recently died during a helicopter rescue off the Washington coast, another reminder of the risks faced by anyone who enters the ocean, whether for work, sport, or leisure.
Several details remain unclear. Authorities have not released the victim's name. The source of the "13-foot" measurement widely cited in initial reports has not been specified, and it is unclear whether officials independently confirmed the shark's species or relied on witness accounts describing it as a great white.
Police have not said whether other witnesses were present beyond the victim's diving companion. Nor have they disclosed whether any formal investigation into the circumstances, such as whether warning signs were posted after lifeguards spotted the large shark, is underway.
Reconstructing the exact sequence of events in fatal incidents is painstaking work. Investigators in a recent drowning case involving an Alabama student in Barcelona relied on CCTV footage to piece together the final moments, a process that took considerable time.
Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to St. John WA Ambulance for further comment. No additional response has been disclosed.
Australia's coastline stretches more than 16,000 miles. Millions of people swim, surf, dive, and fish those waters every year. Fatal shark attacks remain statistically rare, but they carry an outsized psychological weight, particularly when they happen at places families and tourists consider safe.
What happened Saturday at Horseshoe Reef is not a policy failure or a bureaucratic lapse. It is a stark encounter with nature. But the fact that lifeguards had already spotted a large white shark in the area before the attack raises a fair question: what protocols exist to warn divers and swimmers once a dangerous animal is sighted, and were those protocols followed?
Violent and sudden deaths, whether from shocking attacks in schoolyards or predators in the open ocean, demand honest accounting from the officials responsible for public safety.
That accounting starts with answering the questions still hanging over Rottnest Island. A 38-year-old man went spearfishing on a Saturday morning and never came home. His family, and the public, deserve to know exactly what happened, and whether anything could have been done differently.
The ocean does not owe anyone a safe passage. But the people charged with managing public beaches and waterways owe the public clear answers when someone dies on their watch.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency application from Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones to restore a congressional voting map that could have flipped four House seats from Republican to Democrat. The justices issued no comment and noted no dissent, a swift, wordless end to a redistricting gambit that Democrats had staked enormous political hopes on.
The loss marks the second court to rule against Virginia Democrats in rapid succession. Earlier this month, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the map by a 4-to-3 vote. Jones, a Democrat, then rushed to the nation's highest court with an emergency filing, and got nothing for his trouble.
What makes the episode worth watching is not just the outcome but the legal theory Jones deployed to get there. The New York Times reported that the Virginia Democrats' argument rested on a federal-law question, a move so unusual that Richard L. Hasen, an election-law specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that when he read the state court's decision, "it did not even occur to me that there would be a federal issue to take to the U.S. Supreme Court."
The stakes were not abstract. The rejected map, had it survived, would probably have shifted four U.S. House seats from red to blue. In a chamber where control often hinges on a handful of districts, that is not a minor adjustment. It is a wholesale restructuring of Virginia's congressional delegation.
Virginia Democrats framed the state court's ruling as an affront to voters. In their emergency appeal, they argued that the decision "deprived voters, candidates and the commonwealth of their right to the lawfully enacted congressional districts," Just The News reported. Democrats went further, calling the Virginia Supreme Court's action "judicial defiance" of the will of the voters.
Strong words. But two courts, one state, one federal, looked at the legal arguments and said no.
The Virginia Supreme Court had invalidated the redistricting referendum on procedural grounds, ruling that the legislative process used to create it was unconstitutional under the state constitution. That is a state-law question, which is precisely why Hasen and other legal observers found the leap to federal court so surprising.
The Supreme Court has been at the center of political battles on multiple fronts recently, and redistricting is among the most consequential. But the justices' refusal to intervene here, without a single noted dissent, suggests that the emergency application did not present the kind of federal question that merits the court's attention.
Attorney General Jones did not take the loss quietly. In a statement carried by multiple outlets, Jones cast the defeat in sweeping political terms.
"Let's be clear about what is happening. Donald Trump, Republican state legislatures, and conservative courts are systematically and unabashedly tilting power away from the people for Trump's political gain."
That framing, as AP News reported, fits a broader Democratic narrative that recent redistricting decisions have benefited Republicans. AP noted the court's order followed other recent Supreme Court actions siding with Republicans in redistricting disputes in Alabama and Louisiana.
But Jones's rhetoric obscures a basic fact: the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the map on state constitutional grounds. The four-justice majority found a procedural defect in how the referendum was enacted. That is not a partisan conspiracy. It is a state court applying its own constitution.
Democrats argued the dispute raised a federal-law question involving the definition of "Election Day." That theory was novel enough to surprise even sympathetic legal scholars. And the U.S. Supreme Court dispatched it without ceremony.
The Virginia case did not arise in a vacuum. It sits within a broader mid-decade redistricting push that has played out across multiple states. Virginia Democrats argued their map amendment was meant to respond to Republican gains in states like Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Florida, Breitbart reported.
In other words, Democrats wanted to use Virginia's map to offset Republican redistricting victories elsewhere. When their state court blocked that effort, they tried to federalize what was fundamentally a state-law dispute.
The practical consequence is clear. The Washington Examiner reported that Virginia will now use its current congressional map for the 2026 elections. Any new referendum effort likely could not affect elections until 2028. Democrats' window to redraw the lines before the next cycle has closed.
That timeline matters. With the 2026 midterms approaching, the map that will govern Virginia's House races is settled. Republicans hold those four seats, and they will defend them on the existing lines.
The most interesting wrinkle in this saga is the legal theory itself. The original headline on the Times report noted that Virginia Democrats "pressed legal theory embraced by Trump." The implication is pointed: Democrats reached for the same kind of aggressive, boundary-pushing federal argument they have criticized when deployed by the other side.
This is not the first time partisan lines have blurred when it comes to Supreme Court strategy. Both parties have shown a willingness to adopt whatever legal theory serves their immediate political needs, then discard it when the shoe is on the other foot.
But the speed of this rejection is telling. No comment. No dissent. The court did not even pause to explain why the application failed. That is about as definitive a brushoff as the justices can deliver.
The pattern of lawmakers and officials crossing expected party lines has become a recurring feature of the current political landscape. Some Democrats have broken with their own party on high-profile votes, while Republicans have occasionally defected on key legislation as well.
In this case, though, there was no crossover. The Virginia Democrats moved in lockstep, and lost in lockstep.
For Virginia voters, the immediate effect is straightforward: the congressional map stays as it is. The four seats Democrats hoped to flip remain competitive under existing lines, but the structural advantage the new map would have provided is gone.
For the broader legal landscape, the rejection reinforces a principle that conservatives have long championed: state courts interpreting state constitutions should not be second-guessed by the federal judiciary absent a genuine federal question. The U.S. Supreme Court's silence on this application suggests the justices agreed that no such question existed here.
Jones can rail against "conservative courts" and "Republican state legislatures." But the Virginia Supreme Court's four-justice majority applied the state constitution's procedural requirements and found the referendum wanting. The U.S. Supreme Court saw no reason to override that conclusion.
The episode also raises questions about how political actors navigate institutional boundaries when the stakes are high enough. Democrats wanted four House seats badly enough to try a legal theory that even a sympathetic election-law professor found implausible on its face.
Virginia Democrats bet big on a novel legal argument, took it all the way to the Supreme Court on an emergency basis, and walked away empty-handed, twice. The state court said no on state-law grounds. The federal court said nothing at all, which said everything.
Jones's accusation that the system is rigged deserves the scrutiny it would receive if a Republican attorney general had said the same thing after losing in court. When you lose 4-to-3 in your own state and then get rejected without a single dissent at the Supreme Court, the problem may not be the courts. It may be the argument.
When the law doesn't say what you need it to say, blaming the judges is easier than admitting the case was never there.
Claudine Longet, the French-born singer and actress whose glamorous entertainment career was eclipsed by the 1976 fatal shooting of her boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir "Spider" Sabich, has died. She was 84.
Her nephew, Bryan Longet, announced the death in a social media post on Thursday and confirmed it by phone to The Associated Press. He did not reveal the cause of death.
Longet's passing closes a chapter on one of the most sensational criminal cases of the 1970s, a case that left a 31-year-old Olympian dead, produced a sentence many Americans found shockingly lenient, and raised hard questions about whether celebrity and wealth tilt the scales of justice.
A native Parisian, Longet arrived in American pop culture through the usual doors of talent and timing. She met singer Andy Williams in the early 1960s while dancing in a Las Vegas revue. The two married and had three children. Her career flourished: hit albums, including one titled "Claudine," television appearances, and a featured role alongside Peter Sellers in the 1968 film "The Party," where she performed the song "Nothing to Lose."
By the mid-1970s, Longet and Williams had divorced. She was living near Aspen, Colorado, with Sabich, who had competed for the United States in the 1968 Winter Olympics and was a star on the professional ski circuit.
On March 21, 1976, Sabich was shot once in the abdomen with a Luger pistol at the couple's home. He died from the wound. Longet accompanied him in the ambulance to the hospital.
She contended the gun fired accidentally while Sabich was showing it to her.
Longet was charged with reckless manslaughter. The trial in Aspen attracted worldwide attention, turning a Colorado ski town into a media circus. Andy Williams, despite the divorce, stood by his former wife. He escorted her to and from the courthouse and paid her legal fees.
Williams later explained his loyalty. In a 2009 appearance on "CBS This Morning," he said:
"I thought it was unfair, I thought she was innocent, I thought it was an accident."
The case was complicated by law enforcement errors. Officials took a blood sample from Longet without a warrant, a procedural failure that likely weakened the prosecution's hand.
After four days of deliberation in January 1977, the jury found Longet guilty not of reckless manslaughter but of the lesser charge of negligent homicide. The sentence: two years' probation, a $250 fine, and 30 days in jail, eventually served on dates of her choosing.
Thirty days. Dates of her choosing. For the death of a 31-year-old man.
Sabich's family filed a $1.3 million lawsuit against Longet in 1977. The two sides ultimately reached a settlement that barred Longet from ever publicly discussing Sabich or the trial. That silence held for the rest of her life.
The case became a fixture in American pop culture. "Saturday Night Live" mocked it in a skit. The Rolling Stones recorded a song called "Claudine." The name became shorthand for a particular kind of celebrity justice, the kind where fame, beauty, and good lawyers seem to soften the consequences of taking a human life.
Longet later married Ron Austin, the defense attorney who had represented her at trial. The couple lived together in Aspen. In the decades that followed, much like other entertainment figures whose lives ended or changed abruptly, Longet largely vanished from public view.
Bryan Longet's social media post offered a warm farewell to his aunt, free of any reference to the case that defined her public image.
"You have been a true inspiration in my life and you will always be. Another star in the sky. Thank you for everything, my aunt."
The cause of death remains unknown. No further details about her final years have been disclosed.
The Longet case arrived in an era before cameras in the courtroom, before 24-hour cable news, before social media turned every high-profile trial into a national referendum. Yet even by 1970s standards, the outcome left a mark. A woman shot a man in their home. He died. She served 30 days on her own schedule and walked away with probation and a fine smaller than a traffic ticket.
The procedural failures by law enforcement, the warrantless blood draw, handed the defense an advantage the prosecution could never recover. That is a familiar pattern. When officials cut corners, justice suffers. The question is always who pays the price for those mistakes. In Aspen in 1977, it was Spider Sabich's family.
High-profile cases involving fatal gunshot wounds and celebrity families continue to grip the public for the same reason the Longet trial did: ordinary citizens sense, correctly, that the system does not always treat everyone the same.
The entertainment world has seen its share of tragic and violent endings. From unsolved deaths tied to the comedy world to reality television figures dying under tragic circumstances, these stories share a common thread: fame distorts the lens through which the public, and sometimes the courts, view accountability.
Longet's settlement with the Sabich family ensured she would never have to answer publicly for what happened on March 21, 1976. She kept that bargain. The silence lasted nearly half a century.
Now the silence is permanent. But the questions it papered over never really went away, and for the family of a 31-year-old Olympian who never got to grow old, they never will.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., says she has received death threats after traveling to Cuba in April as part of a congressional delegation and meeting with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, a trip the White House called "shameful" and critics say raised serious questions about a sitting lawmaker's freelance diplomacy with a hostile communist government.
Jayapal told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the fallout has been severe and personal. But the congresswoman offered no sign she plans to change course. Instead, she defended her outreach, dismissed the criticism as fabricated, and announced she is drafting legislation to soften U.S. policy toward Havana.
The real question isn't whether Jayapal received threats, no one in public life should, but whether a member of Congress should be conducting what amounts to parallel diplomacy with a regime that represses its own people, harbors American fugitives, and maintains ties to Iran, Russia, and China.
At a Seattle briefing following the Cuba trip, Jayapal's comments went viral on X and drew sharp conservative criticism. Conservatives labeled her a "traitor" and accused her of "conspiring against the U.S." She pushed back hard in her interview with Fox News Digital.
"People are calling for me to be shot, and it's just a fabrication. It is what's wrong with so much of the work that we do."
She framed the trip as routine congressional business. Fox News Digital reported her saying she met with ambassadors from "a couple of countries" to assess how U.S. sanctions affected those nations.
"We meet with ambassadors all the time. That is part of our job, to assess what's going on on the ground."
Jayapal also said she met with senior Cuban government officials, political dissidents, civil society groups, and foreign diplomats during the delegation. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, D-Ill., accompanied her. She described a humanitarian crisis on the island, citing babies in NICUs unable to receive care because incubators lacked power, and widespread food shortages.
What she did not address in any detail: the Logan Act, a rarely used federal law that bars unauthorized individuals from negotiating with foreign governments in disputes involving the United States. Her actions have raised questions about whether her meetings crossed the line from fact-finding into negotiation, a distinction she did not clarify.
The White House did not mince words. Spokesperson Olivia Wales issued a statement blasting the trip as "shameful" and accusing Jayapal of undermining U.S. interests.
"The Democrats continue to show Americans who they really are, the America Last party who sip margaritas with terrorists, advocate for illegal alien criminals, and undermine the United States to aid a failed communist regime."
The Trump administration considers Cuba's ties to adversarial countries and actors, including Iran and Hezbollah, a national security concern. That context makes Jayapal's cheerful account of sitting down with Díaz-Canel all the more striking. This is not a friendly government. It is a regime the State Department has designated a state sponsor of terrorism.
Democrats have faced a pattern of scrutiny over controversial associations and inflammatory conduct in recent months, including Stacey Abrams rushing to defend the SPLC after a DOJ fraud indictment. Jayapal's Cuba trip fits a broader pattern of progressive lawmakers appearing more sympathetic to America's adversaries than to the policies designed to contain them.
This was not Jayapal's first foray into Cuba policy. She has called for lifting the U.S. embargo, removing Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, and supporting legislation to block potential U.S. military action against the island. She told Fox News Digital she is now "working on legislation to address negative impacts of U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba."
Her position is not new. The New York Post previously reported that Jayapal and Rep. Ilhan Omar led an earlier delegation to Cuba that was not disclosed beforehand. During that trip, Jayapal wrote on X that Cuba's placement on the terrorism list "has made it nearly impossible for Cuba to do international business, driving an economic downturn that has led residents to flee the country." She added: "It's time to re-engage with Cuba."
That earlier trip also drew Republican fire. The Washington Examiner reported that Rep. Nicole Malliotakis called it "outrageous that Members of Congress would visit a country that jails, abuses, and murders their citizens and supports Iran, Russia and Communist China against our interests." Jayapal and Omar were also among 40 House Democrats who voted against a 2021 resolution supporting peaceful demonstrations against the Cuban government, a vote that speaks volumes about where their sympathies lie.
The broader question of Democratic accountability has lingered across multiple fronts, from House Democrats staying silent on expelling Eric Swalwell to progressive members openly challenging their own party's stated positions on national security.
Four Cuban-American Republican House members held a press conference demanding the State Department maintain Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terror. National Review reported that Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart pointed out that Cuba "harbors fugitives from American law" and "is now training troops to fight for Russia in Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
Rep. María Elvira Salazar offered a pointed contrast when Code Pink activists disrupted the event to defend Cuba. She noted that if they had pulled the same stunt at a press conference held by Díaz-Canel, "they would be in a place called Villa Marista. They put you there, they torture you."
That exchange captures the core absurdity of Jayapal's position. She frames her Cuba outreach as humanitarian concern for ordinary Cubans. But the regime she sat down with is the same one that jails dissidents, tortures political prisoners, and crushes the very civil society she claims to champion.
Jayapal insists the embargo, in place for over 60 years, has failed. She told Fox News Digital she believes "the way to engage with Cuba is through a true diplomatic negotiation" and that "none of the embargo... or the fuel blockade is helping us to achieve any of that."
She also said she has "every right to go travel and to meet with other ambassadors" as a member of Congress. That is technically true. Members of Congress travel abroad regularly. But there is a difference between a fact-finding trip and what looks increasingly like a one-woman diplomatic initiative on behalf of a communist government that the United States officially considers a state sponsor of terrorism.
Newsmax reported that during a prior visit, Jayapal told Reuters: "The reality is a lot of people in the United States want to engage with Cuba. And we should figure out a way to do that and we should support the reforms that the Cuban government is working to implement." What reforms those might be, in a country with no free press, no free elections, and no independent judiciary, she did not specify.
The political climate around these kinds of provocations has only grown more charged. Threats against public officials are wrong, full stop, a principle that applies regardless of party, as recent episodes involving threats against leaders on both sides have made clear.
Several important details remain unclear. Jayapal has not identified which ambassadors she met with or which countries they represented. She has not named the specific legislation she says she is drafting. No evidence or records supporting the death threats she described have been made public. And the specific comments from her Seattle briefing that went viral on X have not been detailed in full.
The Logan Act question also hangs in the air. No one has been successfully prosecuted under the statute in modern history, but Jayapal's meetings with a foreign head of state while openly working to change U.S. policy toward that state's government at least raise the question of where congressional oversight ends and unauthorized negotiation begins.
Meanwhile, other House Democrats have been busy floating impeachment threats against Trump administration officials, suggesting the progressive wing's appetite for confrontation with the current administration extends well beyond Cuba policy.
Nobody should threaten a member of Congress. That is not in dispute. But Jayapal is using the threats as a shield against legitimate scrutiny of her conduct, conduct that involves cozying up to a brutal dictatorship, working to dismantle sanctions designed to contain it, and then acting surprised when Americans who fled that regime and their allies in Congress object.
She described babies dying in Cuban NICUs and food shortages across the island. Those are real tragedies. But the cause is not the U.S. embargo. The cause is a communist government that has spent six decades impoverishing its own people while enriching its military and intelligence apparatus. Jayapal's proposed solution, ease the pressure, lift the designation, normalize relations, rewards that government for its failures and its repression.
Jayapal can travel wherever she likes. She can meet with whomever she chooses. But the rest of us can notice that when a member of Congress sits down with a dictator, comes home advocating his government's preferred policy outcomes, and then calls the backlash "ridiculous," something more than a fact-finding mission took place.
When your policy prescription is indistinguishable from the talking points of the regime you just visited, the conspiracy theories write themselves.