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Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Sep 3, 2026· Updated

A Year After Trump Signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Thomas Massie Reads Fourteen Names Into the Congressional Record and Files a Second Discharge Petition — "Perhaps Hearing These Names Will Shame the Department of Justice Into Delivering Justice"

On the House's first night back from the August recess — August 31, 2026 — Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) stood on the floor and read fourteen names into the Congressional Record as people he described as Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirators: Jes Staley, Leon Black, Les Wexner, David Copperfield, Lapo Elkann, Tom Pritzker, Glenn Dubin, Frédéric Fekkai, Edoardo Teodorani, Jean-Luc Brunel, Daniel Siad, Ramsey Elkholy, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew) and Lesley Groff. "Perhaps hearing these names will shame the Department of Justice into delivering justice," he said. The next day he and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) opened a discharge petition on the Epstein Files Transparency Act II — the same maneuver the two used to force the original Epstein Files Transparency Act to a 427-1 House vote in November 2025, over Speaker Mike Johnson's objection. The follow-on bill, H.R. 9694, was introduced in July with Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM) and Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM). It gives state attorneys general standing to obtain the unredacted federal files they need to prosecute under state law, and makes it easier for survivors and members of Congress to sue the Justice Department over non-compliance. Massie's argument is that a year after the president signed the first act, DOJ is still withholding more than three million files. The petition needs 218 signatures; it had more than three dozen by the afternoon of September 1. Massie says he needs every Democrat plus at least three additional Republicans, and has speculated that Johnson will try to run out the clock by recessing the House until after the midterms. Not every Republican is biting — Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), Massie's home-state colleague and now the state's Senate nominee, said he had already voted for release once and was "not interested in grandstanding."

“You've got to sign on. There's no other option.”
Nancy Mace (R-SC) · Sep 3, 2026

Two Fatal ICE Shootings in Houston and Maine Trigger Senate Demands for Body Cameras and Vetting Answers

Two people were killed by federal immigration officers in July 2026, neither of whom was the target of the operation that killed them. On July 7, ICE officers shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national, during a traffic stop in Houston as he was on his way to work. On July 13, officers shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national, in his car near his home in Biddeford, Maine, after ICE attempted a vehicle stop; DHS said the officer fired "fearing for public safety," while Sen. Angus King's office said Durán Guerrero was not the target of the warrant. The Associated Press subsequently reported that the ICE officer who fired in Maine, David Brouillette, had a documented history of serious mental health problems and violent behavior toward family members recorded in family court files. On July 20, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) led a letter signed by 38 Democratic senators demanding that DHS explain its vetting and training of new agents and its vehicle pursuit policies, and calling for body cameras to be issued to all officers. ICE subsequently pulled back on vehicle stops. At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents since the start of the administration's crackdown.

“We have the permanent cameras, but we also have Motorola [that] is working with us on the mics that we use.”
Markwayne Mullin (R) · Sep 1, 2026

Nine Aircraft Were Sent to a Seven-Acre Fire Near a Trump Official’s 480-Acre Idaho Ranch — Including After He Phoned Forest Service Offices in the Middle of the Night — and Three Senators Ask the Agriculture Secretary Who Authorized It

On July 12, 2026, roughly nine aircraft — helicopters, air tankers and tactical planes — responded to the Cabin Creek Fire, a seven-acre blaze in Idaho's Sawtooth National Forest. The effort lasted a few hours and cost nearly $115,000 in federal money. Some of those aircraft were pulled off fires elsewhere in Idaho. The fire was near the 480-acre ranch of Michael Boren, the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment — the official who oversees the U.S. Forest Service. Two agency officials told The Washington Post that Boren phoned regional and national offices repeatedly that day, including once in the middle of the night, demanding to know why more aircraft were not already in the air. On August 28, 2026, Sens. Ron Wyden, Amy Klobuchar and Martin Heinrich wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins demanding a full investigation and asking what safeguards exist to keep officials from steering wildfire response toward their own property. The letter landed in the middle of a record fire season: more than two million acres have burned in Oregon alone this year, and Wyden's office says fires threatening Oregon communities drew fewer resources than the seven-acre fire near Boren's ranch.

“Mr. Boren's actions constitute potentially a misuse of taxpayer funds and put American families at further risk by diverting scarce resources from high-priority wildfires threatening communities elsewhere in the region and country.”
Martin Heinrich (D-NM) · Aug 28, 2026

Trump Discloses More Than 1,000 Stock Trades in a Single Month — Including Oil Companies Made Richer by the War He Started — and Joint Economic Committee Democrats Put His Gain at $15.5 Million

Two disclosures landed a few days apart in late August 2026 and, read together, put a number on what the Iran war has been worth to the president's own portfolio. On Aug. 24, Democrats on Congress's Joint Economic Committee, led by ranking member Maggie Hassan, reported that President Trump's oil and gas holdings had risen roughly 39 percent through Aug. 17 — a gain of as much as $15.5 million — putting their estimated value between $17.2 million and $61.1 million. The committee also found he had bought up to $3.6 million in additional oil and gas stock in the first three months of 2026, the quarter the war began. Then on Aug. 27 a periodic transaction report showed more than 1,000 individual trades in June alone, an average of over 30 a day, worth between $78 million and $263 million. Among them were repeated trades in companies directly exposed to the war: two sales and a purchase of ExxonMobil, three sales of ConocoPhillips, a sale of Valero Energy, and a purchase of Occidental Petroleum. Reporters also flagged the timing of trades outside energy, including a Boeing purchase on the day the Navy awarded the company an $880 million contract and an ExxonMobil sale on the day Trump declared a ceasefire. The White House says the president has no hand in any of it: spokesman Davis Ingle said the portfolio is run by outside institutions through computer-driven model portfolios replicating indexes such as the Schwab 1000. The disclosures land ten weeks before the midterms and alongside a separate demand from Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Robert Garcia that Trump name the managers behind his accounts.

“Trump's only focus is enriching himself at the expense of the American people.”
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) · Aug 27, 2026

ICE Signs a $16.7 Million No-Bid Contract for 6,000 Pairs of Gloves That Deliver Electric Shocks — Sixteen Senators Ask Why Its Existing Tools Are Not Enough, and the Border Czar Answers "You Can’t Just Go From 0 to 100"

On August 10, 2026 the Department of Homeland Security published a notice that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement intended to spend up to $20 million on the CTG-5 G.L.O.V.E. — for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter — a patrol glove made by Compliant Technologies LLC of Kentucky that functions normally until an officer switches it into "electrical mode," at which point contact with exposed skin delivers a charge of up to 380 volts. ICE signed the contract on Wednesday, August 26 and posted the award on Thursday, August 27: $16.7 million, no bid, for 6,000 pairs at roughly $2,495 apiece. The agency wrote in its procurement documents that it "does not currently have an empty hand use of force device to provide to the field amidst unprecedented levels of threats and violence against ICE officers and agents." A DHS spokesperson said ICE is "constantly assessing the needs of our officers in the field." The purchase went through over two rounds of congressional objection. On August 20, Homeland Security Committee Democrats Bennie Thompson, Lou Correa and Shri Thanedar wrote to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin asking him to stop the procurement, citing what they called a pattern of DHS personnel permanently injuring and nearly killing people with weapons already labeled "less-lethal." On August 27 — the day the award posted — Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto led fifteen colleagues in a letter to Acting ICE Director David Venturella putting more than thirty questions to the agency about protocols, training, safety limits and accountability. The signers included Angus King, the letter's only non-Democrat. White House border czar Tom Homan had defended the device on Fox & Friends on August 13, framing it as a rung on the use-of-force ladder below lethal weapons. The device arrives against the record this site has already documented: fatal ICE shootings in Houston and Maine, an ICE agent charged with firing into a Minneapolis home, and a man in Arlington, Virginia tasered on his way to work who woke with a brain bleed.

“We write to express deep concern about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to spend up to $20 million on gloves that deliver electric shocks. If ICE proceeds with purchasing $20 million worth of electric-shock gloves, Congress needs a clear understanding of the device’s safety and authorized uses.”
Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) · Aug 27, 2026

The Third Circuit Rules 2-1 That the Speech or Debate Clause Does Not Shield Rep. LaMonica McIver — Sending the Only Member of Congress Indicted by Trump’s Justice Department to Trial Ten Weeks Before the Midterms

On August 26, 2026, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) is not immune from prosecution on charges arising from a May 2025 congressional oversight visit to the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility in Newark. The 2-1 panel allowed two of three counts of impeding and interfering with federal officers to proceed to trial and remanded the third to the district court. Writing for the majority, Judge Cindy Chung held that the charged conduct — physical contact with two officers — was "unambiguously non-legislative" and that the Speech or Debate Clause immunizes legislative acts only. Judge Thomas Ambro dissented in part, writing that the Constitution does not permit the Executive to wield prosecutorial discretion in retaliation against disfavored legislators, and would have allowed McIver discovery into the government's motives. McIver, who is running for reelection while under indictment, said the court "got it wrong" and that the ruling "chills" congressional oversight authority. The charges were originally brought by Alina Habba, whose appointment as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey the same court later found unlawful. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill both said publicly they stand with her. No Republican member of Congress was on record about the ruling in the first 48 hours.

“I fundamentally believe that the court got it wrong here. To protect the people, their elected representatives must be authorized to conduct oversight of the executive branch without fear of retaliation.”
LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) · Aug 26, 2026

House Judiciary Democrats Widen Their Kushner Probe to a $120 Million Albanian Land Deal Bought From a Suspected Drug Trafficker — and Raskin Tells the President’s Son-in-Law He Started "Another Fraud-Related International Incident All by Yourself"

On Monday, August 24, 2026, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) sent Jared Kushner a letter expanding the committee's investigation into Kushner's foreign business dealings to cover his purchase of more than $120 million of disputed coastal land in Albania for a luxury resort. The seller, Arthur Shehu, is a suspected criminal with a history of drug trafficking; the Albanian government has alleged he used fraudulent documents and forged Ottoman-era land records to claim ownership of large stretches of coastline. Democrats say Kushner bought anyway, after being warned the seller did not own the property, while pursuing a project that has drawn extraordinary concessions from the Albanian government and mass protests inside Albania. Raskin opened the letter by noting Kushner had not responded to the committee's earlier demand for records about his simultaneous work as a U.S. foreign policy official — he is the administration's Middle East envoy and a lead negotiator on the Iran war — and as a private investor funded by foreign governments. The expanded probe asks whether Kushner's conduct warrants scrutiny under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and whether federal bribery, conflict-of-interest and foreign-agent statutes need to be rewritten. Records are due September 7, 2026. The White House dismissed the demand. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly called it "the same, tired narrative" Democrats have pushed for a decade, and the administration has consistently described Kushner — who holds no Senate-confirmed post — as a volunteer whose private business is separate from his diplomacy.

“This is the same, tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family, and his administration for a decade.”
Anna Kelly (R) · Aug 25, 2026

Hegseth Polled the Nine Combatant Commanders on Killing the Military's Civilian-Protection Program Expecting Them to Call It "Woke" — Every One Said Keep It, and He Cut It Anyway

ProPublica reported on August 25, 2026 that before gutting the Pentagon's Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response program, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put the question to the nation's top combatant commanders. He appears to have expected them to agree with him that protecting civilians was a "woke" distraction from "maximum lethality." Instead, according to internal documents and current and former defense officials, every command that answered said the program should be preserved. Gen. Erik Kurilla appealed the decision directly. Hegseth made the cuts regardless. CHMR was created by Congress and built out over more than a decade of bipartisan work following civilian-casualty failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia. Under Hegseth the Defense Department fired the staff of the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence and cut CHMR positions at the combatant commands by more than 90 percent. Hegseth has publicly framed the broader project in his own words: "We became 'the woke department.' … We're done with that shit," and "No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement." The consequences arrived with the Iran war. The U.S. military has killed hundreds of noncombatants since the mission was gutted, including a strike on a school. A Defense Department inspector general report and the resulting congressional letters became the paper trail. After the blowback, the department is now weighing a partial restoration of the program it dismantled. Congress had been on this before the August revelation. On April 20, Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) opened an investigation with nine colleagues, writing that Hegseth's attempts to gut the institutions "contradicts more than a decade of bipartisan consensus and DoD-led reforms." On July 6, Warren led ten lawmakers — including combat veterans Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) — in a letter accusing the administration of acting "potentially in violation of federal law." Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking Democrat on House Armed Services, told Hegseth flatly: "You are in violation of the law right now on civilian harm." No Republican member of Congress is on record about the commanders' poll as of publication. The Pentagon's response to the letters has been that it "will respond directly to the authors."

“No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”
Pete Hegseth (R-MN) · Aug 25, 2026

ICE Has Detained More Than 50 Spouses and Parents of Active-Duty Troops — an Army Sergeant’s Wife Was Deported to Honduras Days After the Sailor on the USS Lincoln Learned His Father Was Taken in Key West

An Associated Press investigation published August 5, 2026 found that more than 50 immediate family members of active-duty U.S. troops — spouses and parents — have been placed in federal immigration detention since January 2025. At least six had been deported, one self-deported, and eight remained in custody when the AP published. Separately, DHS data obtained by Congress showed that between January 20, 2025 and January 26, 2026, ICE arrested 125 military veterans, nearly two-thirds of whom had no active criminal warrant, and moved to deport at least 282 veterans and family members. The through-line is a policy change: in April, ICE rescinded its long-standing guidance treating military service as a "significant mitigating factor" in whether to pursue enforcement, replacing it with a far less protective policy. Processing time for military parole in place — the discretionary protection recruiters have long cited to non-citizen family members — has more than doubled, to about 12 months. On August 9, 2026, a bicameral group of Democrats sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding an accounting. It was led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth and Richard Blumenthal and Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander, Delia Ramirez and Lizzie Fletcher, and signed by roughly 55 members in all, including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi. The letter argues the Pentagon's new coordination with DHS — detaining people on military property and handing them to ICE — turns bases into "traps" and creates a chilling effect on service members and their families, who "may avoid accessing bases, medical care, housing offices, or support services — or leave the military entirely." The signers set an August 23 deadline for answers. The Pentagon declined to comment and said it would reply directly to the authors. Two cases put faces on the numbers in the last week of August. On Monday, August 24, Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo — wife of Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, stationed at Fort Bliss — was deported to Honduras, at least the seventh military spouse or parent removed under the crackdown. She was detained July 11 outside a Walmart near the base; she had no known criminal record, and her appeal and military parole-in-place application were still pending. Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso, had opened a congressional inquiry into her case and visited her in detention. Two days earlier, in Key West, Border Patrol arrested Luis Manuel Aviles Roa, a Nicaraguan handyman of nearly 20 years' residence whose son Joshua is a sailor in his ninth month aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln — the carrier already at the center of a Senate inquiry over its record 250-day deployment. DHS has not disputed the pattern; it has defended it. "Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation's laws," the department said of the Aviles arrest, adding that "U.S. military service alone does not automatically grant lawful immigration status, or exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws." Republican chairmen of the Armed Services and Veterans' Affairs committees, Roger Wicker and Jerry Moran, did not respond to press requests for comment.

“My heart breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for. There are far too many families like theirs who are being targeted instead of supported.”
Veronica Escobar (D-TX) · Aug 24, 2026

Aug 24, 2026· Updated

ICE Immigration Crackdown in Minnesota

Federal immigration enforcement operation "Metro Surge" in Minneapolis-St. Paul has sparked protests, economic boycotts, and political backlash after two fatal shootings by federal agents. The crackdown has led to hundreds of businesses closing in solidarity, state legislators nationwide proposing limits on ICE cooperation, and a growing constitutional clash between state and federal authorities. In August 2026 the operation produced a second scandal. Court filings in the Minneapolis conspiracy prosecution — reported by the Minnesota Reformer on August 13 and detailed further in documents covered by NPR on August 25 — showed that DHS ran a parallel covert surveillance campaign, codenamed in part "Operation Puppet Master," against labor unions, environmental groups, churches and community organizations that had protested the crackdown. Undercover agents attended a meeting at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and a public library gathering, photographed license plates, built dossiers on attendees including their families and jobs, and subpoenaed the financial records of unions including the Communications Workers of America and SEIU. None of the organizations was accused of criminal wrongdoing. On August 24, House Oversight Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA) sent records demands to Attorney General Todd Blanche and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. The Justice Department defended the operation in a court filing, calling undercover membership in the groups it was investigating "a standard law enforcement practice."

“Instead of investigating the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, DHS sought to criminalize U.S. citizens exercising their constitutional rights.”
Robert Garcia (D-CA) · Aug 24, 2026

IndyCars Race Past the Capitol at 160 MPH: Trump Closes the National Mall for a Grand Prix He Ordered by Executive Order — and the Speaker Says He Will Push to Make It Annual

On August 23, 2026, IndyCar drivers ran 147 laps on a 1.66-mile temporary street circuit looping the National Mall and running down Pennsylvania and Independence avenues, reaching about 160 mph past the Capitol, the Smithsonian museums and the National Gallery of Art. Kyle Kirkwood won. President Trump, accompanied by the first lady, led a slow lap in the presidential limousine and waved the green flag. Organizers put attendance at up to 150,000 over the weekend. The race exists because Trump ordered it. He floated it in an AI-generated video on Truth Social in January 2026 and signed an executive order on January 30 authorizing it as part of the country's 250th-anniversary celebrations, directing Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to designate a route and secure permits "as expeditiously as possible." When the original route ran into congressional jurisdiction over Capitol grounds, Duffy called organizers and proposed proceeding under the executive order with an adjusted course. The event was run by Freedom 250, a Trump-backed nonprofit lodged inside the National Park Foundation, which the White House built as a parallel to America250 — the bipartisan commission Congress chartered to organize the anniversary. On July 2, 2026, Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee, led by Ranking Member Jared Huffman, released an interim report alleging that donors who intended to give to the congressionally chartered America250 were instead handed wire instructions routing their money to Freedom 250's bank account, conduct the report said could constitute wire fraud. Race weekend brought three hours of flight suspensions at Reagan National, extensive downtown road and parking closures, and a vibration study by the National Gallery of Art, which implemented protective measures for its collection. Trump administration officials and the House Speaker spent the weekend arguing the event should be repeated; the race's own organizers were more cautious, with Penske Corporation president Bud Denker calling it "the first ever. It might be the only," and IndyCar president Doug Boles calling it likely a one-year event.

“The track is wonderful. You know, we’re going around the Capitol, but this turned out to be a better track, and so now we see the Capitol.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Aug 23, 2026

A Republican Senator Has Frozen Every One of Trump’s Postal Board Nominees Ten Weeks Before a Mail-Heavy Midterm — and Says He Will Not Lift the Hold Until Service Matches "the Days of the Pony Express"

Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota has placed a blanket hold on every one of President Trump's nominees to the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, blocking floor confirmation of the entire slate. His grievance is service, not politics: first-class mail that is supposed to arrive in three days is taking closer to ten in South Dakota, veterans' prescriptions arrive late or not at all, and bills reach constituents on the day they are due. Rounds announced the holds on Aug. 12 alongside a bill to strip bonuses from USPS executives, and on Aug. 21 told the Postal Service he would release the hold only when service "returns to levels at least equal to the days of the Pony Express." By Aug. 28 USPS had told the South Dakota delegation it would upgrade its Sioux Falls facility, and Rounds's office said it was in talks with the White House. The hold lands on a slate that is already contested for a different reason. Trump has nominated only Republicans to a board that has been bipartisan by tradition, and in July the Homeland Security Committee's ranking Democrat, Gary Peters, asked Chairman Rand Paul to freeze the nominees until the administration puts forward Democratic names as well. Two nominees, Jeffrey Brodsky and William Gallo, were otherwise headed for a floor vote.

“It is my intent to only release this blanket hold when my concerns are fully resolved by USPS leadership and service returns to levels at least equal to the days of the Pony Express.”
Mike Rounds (R-SD) · Aug 21, 2026

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