Jerome R. Corsi's Blog, page 29

Is Trump right to say he’s our ‘chief law enforcement officer’?

President Donald Trump, when asked whether he knew ahead of time about the FBI raid on the home of former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said: “I don’t want to know about it. It’s not necessary. I could know about it. I could be the one starting it, and I’m actually the chief law enforcement officer. But I feel that it’s better this way.”

Immediately, Trump detractors pounced. The Daily Beast wrote, “Trump Wrongly Claims He’s Crime Chief as He Blasts ‘Unpatriotic’ Bolton.” Its political correspondent Farrah Tomazin wrote, “President Donald Trump has bizarrely claimed he is the chief law enforcement officer of America while insisting he knew nothing about the FBI raid on John Bolton’s home.”

The Associated Press wrote, “Trump sees himself as the ‘chief law enforcement officer.'”

This is not the first time Trump made this assertion. In February 2020, The Washington Post wrote, “Post-impeachment, Trump declares himself the ‘chief law enforcement officer’ of America.”

Is it “bizarre” for a president to assert he is the nation’s “chief law enforcement officer” or official?

President Jimmy Carter at a February 1980 White House reception for state attorneys general, district attorneys and police chiefs said: “We have a time of great difficulty in our country. And here in the White House, as President, of course, I have to be primarily concerned about our Nation’s security, about defense, about the maintenance of peace. But that responsibility cannot be separated from my own as the chief law enforcement officer of our country, and the preservation of justice, fairness, equity, the control of crime, the enhancement of respect among every citizen of our Nation for our governmental processes.” Nobody gasped.

President Bill Clinton in November 1998, through his lawyers, answered questions submitted to him by the House Judiciary Committee. This was the first question: “Do you admit or deny that you are the chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America?”

Clinton answered: “The President is frequently referred to as the chief law enforcement officer, although nothing in the Constitution specifically designates the president as such. Article II Section 1 of the United States Constitution states that ‘the executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America,’ and the law enforcement function is a component of the executive power.”

On June 17, 1974, Time magazine wrote, “The Law: Is the President Legal Chief”? The piece discussed Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski’s demand that President Richard Nixon turn over tapes Jaworski deemed relevant to his Watergate investigation. Time wrote: “The President contends that his refusal to hand over the tapes on the ground of Executive privilege transcends the needs of the criminal process. Besides, says White House Counsel James St. Clair, the court should not even consider that question because Nixon is the country’s chief law-enforcement officer, head of the Executive household and ultimately Jaworski’s boss. … Yale’s respected constitutional law professor, Alexander Bickel, supports that argument.”

Time wrote: “Who is right? … The Constitution gives only faint help. Article II, Section 3 prescribes that the President ‘shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’ There is no mention of any other law-enforcement officer, including the Attorney General. Thus many experts – including a top Justice Department official – believe that the ‘ultimate’ legal authority belongs to the President.”

One of the “many experts” is the aforementioned professor Bickel of Yale, who, according to Time, agreed with the “technical correctness of (Nixon’s) argument” and was “convinced that the President is indeed chief law-enforcement officer.” Bickel nevertheless condemned Nixon’s behavior and said it exposed what Bickel called “the fiction of the President as chief law-enforcement officer in the Watergate case.” But, again, as to whether the president is “chief law enforcement officer,” Bickel agreed.

Bickel was not just any law professor. When he died of cancer at the age of 49, a New York Times obituary called him “one of the country’s pre-eminent authorities on the Constitution” and Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said, “This is a great loss to the law and the country.”

But apparently, Bickel, a “pre-eminent” authority on the Constitution, “bizarrely” considered the president the nation’s “chief law enforcement official.”

The Left’s misdefinition of Americanism

This week, Axios ran a fascinating piece about the supposed “redefinition” of Americanism under President Donald Trump. Titled “Inside Trump’s American identity project,” Axios posited that “President Trump is wielding government power to enforce a more rigid, exclusionary definition of what it means to be American.” What would this new definition entail? “In MAGA’s telling, America is the heir to ancient European civilizations, built on a Judeo-Christian foundation of white identity, meritocracy, traditional gender roles and the nuclear family,” says Axios. “These tenets are cast as universal truths – and mantras such as ‘America is an idea’ or ‘diversity is our strength’ are dismissed as liberal fictions.”

First off, America is heir to ancient European civilizations – particularly with reference to private property, the common law system, traditions of free speech and freedom of religion, among others. Second, America is built on a Judeo-Christian foundation. Third, America is built on the meritocracy, which argues that the best and most productive ought to succeed in a free system. America is built on traditional gender roles and the nuclear family, as is every successful society in history. While America is an idea – or a set of ideas – those ideas must be reified in institutions and human behavior. And the notion that any nation can be built on a completely specious phrase like “diversity is our strength” is counterintuitive at best.

So, what is Axios attempting to do? Axios is attempting to link actual traditional definitions of Americanism with white supremacy. Never mind that all the ideas Axios cites as “traditional” fundamentally reject ethnic identitarianism: equality before law, for example, presumes racial indifference; Judeo-Christian religion rejects racial classification; the meritocracy is definitionally opposed to racial preferences; and traditional gender roles and the nuclear family are institutions held in common by people of all races. The goal is simple: a forced choice between “racism” and a left-wing definition of Americanism that bears zero weight.

This, presumably, is the real drive behind the left’s opposition to much of Trump’s policy. The same Axios piece posits that the Trump administration’s decision to screen incoming immigrants for “anti-American” ideology ought to be seen as an outgrowth of nativism rather than common sense; that opposition to radical sexual politics in our nation’s military is a manifestation of bigotry rather than reason; that restoration of classicism in architecture represents a return to racial exclusivity rather than taste. As the authors write, “MAGA’s utopia looks a lot like America in the 1950s – before the sexual revolution, mass immigration, the Civil Rights Act and expanded LGBTQ rights reshaped the country’s culture and demographics.”

Well, actually, MAGA’s utopia looks mostly like what most Americans think of as the American dream: upward mobility, solid family structure, safety in the streets, decent education, and a vibrant social fabric complete with community and church. The fact that so many on the left – and in the media – find this vision to be irredeemably “racist” demonstrates their utter disconnect with most Americans. And it’s why Trump is president for the second time.

Making Schools Great Again, thanks to Trump

“Back to school” feels different this year, thanks to President Trump’s executive orders that remove Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Trump is also restoring the presidential fitness test Democrats had removed.

Big-name colleges, including the University of Michigan and Columbia University, have shut down or scaled back their DEI centers due to concerns about Trump pulling federal funding from the school. Meanwhile, under Trump’s leadership, colleges in red states like Texas, Florida and Kansas have ended their DEI programs to comply with state laws.

Five months ago, Trump’s Department of Education ordered public schools to eliminate their DEI programs or lose federal funding. School districts for the K-12 level were told to certify that they no longer have DEI programs, while universities were informed they would lose federal funding if they refuse to terminate their DEI.

Trump officials gave public schools two weeks to comply. Instead, many blue states ran to federal court to seek an injunction against Trump, and on Aug. 14 federal judge Stephanie Gallagher invalidated and blocked the anti-DEI letters by Trump’s Education Department.

Judge Gallagher was initially nominated by President Obama to the federal bench and, possibly as part of an unfortunate compromise, subsequently renominated by Trump in 2018. Her 76-page decision in AFT v. Dept. of Education complained that Trump had “initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct.”

A “sea change” in education is exactly what Americans wanted when they returned Trump to the White House, to focus on teaching basic skills rather than indoctrinating children with a liberal ideology. An appeal is likely of this decision in favor of Randi Weingarten’s teachers union.

The percentage of students who are in traditional public schools has declined to 83%, or about 50 million kids, as parents flee from school failures. Homeschooling is growing and may increase further with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve online learning.

Effective Sept. 1, a new law in Texas (SB 12) prohibits DEI in public schools there and requires parents to be notified if their child requests to be referred to by a different pronoun. Texas bans school clubs “based on sexual orientation or gender identity.”

In May Texas also enacted an immense school voucher program, which provides $10,000 per student to attend an accredited private school instead of a public school, and up to $2,000 apiece for homeschooled children.

But this program does not begin until fall 2026, and is initially capped at $1 billion. Some conservative legislators from rural Texas who opposed splintering their school system with this were defeated by Gov. Abbott in order to enact this voucher program.

Democrat-controlled Illinois goes in the opposite direction, by lowering its proficiency standards without giving families enough options. Trump has threatened to take over Chicago to end the crime epidemic there, and it would be tantalizing if he could take over the Chicago public schools, too.

Even the editorial board of the liberal Chicago Tribune is complaining now about how Democrat politicians are lowering the proficiency standards there. Its Aug. 22 headline shouted, “Illinois moves the goalposts on reading, math and science.”

“Now, scoring an 18 in English language arts and a 19 in math on the ACT will count as ‘proficient’ for high school juniors.” But an 18 is below the national average and far below the score of 30 to 34 that most freshmen at the University of Illinois attain.

Missouri enacted a statewide ban on all personal cellphones, smart watches, headphones and tablets by public school students, with limited exceptions such as emergencies. School districts and teachers are welcoming this law and its implementation for this school year.

As to physical fitness, President Obama ended that test for public school students in 2012, which Trump is restoring so that students can again be asked to run a mile or do situps and pushups to demonstrate their physical fitness. For more than 50 years this test was given to public school students annually in gymnasiums.

Obama’s termination of the fitness test was part of the harmful shift away from competition and individual merit in education. The Democrat Party has abandoned the vision of President John F. Kennedy, who sought a stronger America and even wrote an essay for Sports Illustrated entitled “The Soft American.”

Trump inherits a nation of children who are badly out of shape, obese and plagued by health problems. At least 20% of schoolchildren are obese, according to the CDC, and 77% of young adults are unfit to serve in the United States Armed Forces.

Chronic absenteeism has shot up to 25% of students in some school districts. A quarter of student enrollment did not show up for more than 10% of the school days last year.

NIH schemes to keep risky gain-of-function research alive despite Trump crackdown

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) plans to continue creating novel pandemic viruses in apparent defiance of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump calling for a crackdown on the research, according to three government sources involved with the process, who were granted anonymity to avoid government reprisals.

Biosafety hawks have been duking it out with officials at the NIH, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security as an interagency group finalizes Trump’s policy on dangerous gain-of-function (GOF) research — which makes viruses more deadly in the lab. Per the executive order, the policy on federal GOF research is due Sept. 2. Three intelligence agencies have concluded that a lab accident sparked COVID-19.

Former White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy Director Gerry Parker — a biodefense expert who has long been critical of the NIH gain-of-function policies that preceded COVID-19 — led the process of drafting the policy. But Parker resigned this July from the White House after a six month stint, STAT News first reported. Parker confirmed his departure to the Daily Caller News Foundation and said it was due to a personal rather than professional issue.

In the void, inertia has set in. At NIH — where the policy shop has remained unchanged since the Biden administration — a consultant hired by NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya was marginalized as an extremist for pushing for a stricter policy, according to a government source. Ed Hammond, who tracked Fauci’s biodefense buildup for years, was fired from NIH on Aug. 21, he said on X. Hammond declined to comment beyond his tweet.

After a government career lasting a little over two months, this is my final day at the NIH Office of Science Policy.

— Edward Hammond (@pricklyresearch) August 21, 2025

Bhattacharya identified the “crisis of gain of function research” as one of his top five priorities at a March confirmation hearing, yet has not been deeply involved with GOF policy.

A spokesperson for Bhattacharya’s top deputy, NIH Principal Deputy Director Matthew Memoli, declined an interview request.

Bhattacharya in April promoted Memoli’s longtime collaborator Jeffrey Taubenberger to lead the National Allergy and Infectious Diseases Institute (NIAID), Anthony Fauci’s former institute. Taubenberger, who also worked with Fauci on GOF issues, will lead GOF reforms at NIAID, according to an NIH statement to the DCNF.

“Director Bhattacharya has full confidence in Dr. Taubenberger to lead reforms at NIAID that strengthen biosafety, prohibit dangerous gain-of-function research, and align the institute’s work with the true health needs of the American people,” the statement reads.

Taubenberger had throughout his decades-long career worked with Fauci to defend GOF research, including the work in Wuhan in the early pandemic period. Restrictions would have hampered his own career. Taubenberger revived and published the genome of the infamous 1918 flu, also called the “Spanish Flu.”

About 50 million people worldwide died from the flu between 1918 and 1919, and about 675,000 people died in the U.S., per the Cleveland Clinic.

“To my knowledge there hasn’t ever been a lab leak of 1918 Spanish flu … However, the information as to how to make Spanish flu virus has leaked across the globe courtesy of the US taxpayer,” Simon Wain-Hobson, an emeritus professor of virology at the Institute Pasteur, told the DCNF.

“Dr. Taubenberger’s paper has been downloaded in labs across the globe including Russia, North Korea, Iran … And with Dr. Taubenberger atop the NIAID, it is logical that dual use research of concern around infectious agents will not get the thought needed to protect US citizens,” he added.

NIH directed other questions to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. However, NIAID oversees the government’s largest portfolio of GOF research.

Taubenberger did not respond to a request for comment.

Bhattacharya said of Taubenberger that “past associations do not dictate future inclinations” in an Aug. 24 tweet.

In May, Trump signed an executive order that set a 120-day deadline for establishing a new GOF policy.

An earlier draft of the executive order would have immediately banned dangerous GOF research outright, the DCNF previously reported. In writing the executive order, Parker, the former White House pandemic preparedness lead, had taken pains to avoid involving NIH, which has historically defeated attempts to stop GOF, according to a source familiar. It remains unclear why the executive order was watered down.

But Trump’s top health officials characterized the executive order as a ban in the making in an Oval Office signing ceremony.

“A historic day: The end of gain-of-function research funding by the government,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arguing that GOF is indistinguishable from bioweapons research.

Dr. Fauci “cannot recall.” If I’d presided over the catastrophic bioweapons program and pandemic response, I’d probably want to forget too.https://t.co/OFBd0JGXJb

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) January 10, 2024

“The conduct of this research does not protect us against pandemics, as some people might say. It doesn’t protect us against other nations,” said Bhattacharya at the time. “Any nation that engages in this research endangers their own population and the world, as we saw during the COVID pandemic.”

NIH Director Bhattacharya: “Two weeks ago…the President of the United States signed an executive order banning dangerous gain of function research…Dangerous NIH-approved research will never be conducted again”https://t.co/4Kuf51HeO3

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) May 26, 2025

However, the reality of the policy has fallen significantly short of the promise of a ban at the White House signing ceremony, according to the government sources.

The draft policy has prompted confusion among multiple agencies, one former government source said. The policy will be determined by the heads of relevant agencies rather than standardized across agencies. This approach could also invite loopholes from subversive bureaucrats, a separate former government source said, who added that there are teams of scientists dedicated to exploiting loopholes.

The same NIH official responsible for former President Joe Biden’s policy has been tasked by Bhattacharya with overhauling it.

NIH Associate Director for Science Policy Lyric Jorgenson, who also led former Biden’s GOF research policy and whose expertise is in neuroscience, now leads NIH on writing Trump’s policy, according to two government sources.

NIH officials intend to maintain certain pre-COVID policies that allowed for coronavirus engineering projects to be offshored to Wuhan, according to three government sources. Projects would fall under a spectrum according to their risk — “green light,” “yellow light,” or “red light” — with “red light” projects recommended by each agency to a higher-level review.

But NIH would determine which of its projects are subject to stronger review without external audits of the completeness of NIH’s reports, according to two government sources. That same approach under NIH’s pre-COVID policy — the Potential Pandemic Pathogens Committee (P3CO) — paved the way for the exportation of coronavirus engineering projects to Wuhan without adequate review, some experts say. The program officers who review grants are often friendly with the virologists they fund, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show.

NIH would also dole out exemptions for “national security” purposes.

NIH contractor Alex Washburne, a former Sandia National Laboratories scientist who in 2023 published research pointing to a probable lab origin of COVID, has pushed for a continuation of gain-of-function research in order to match gain-of-function research in hostile countries like China, according to two government sources.

Washburne shared with the DCNF in June that he is developing dual use research of concern — viral research that could be misapplied as a bioweapon — bringing his future research plans squarely under the policy upon which he advises. The research involves phages — viruses that infect bacteria — but has implications for other viruses, Washburne said.

In February 2025, Washburne wrote in his Substack that combatting Trump and “the goons who enable him” was of higher priority than reining in pandemic pathogens, his current task at NIH. Washburne also wrote that he would withhold further analyses about the origins of COVID due to his opposition to Trump.

Washburne included this AI-generated photo in a Substack in which he argued that combatting Trump on DEI was more important than reining in pandemic pathogens, his current task at NIH.

He has since deleted it, along with several other posts. His Feb. 10 repost of an apparent call to scientists to vocally oppose the actions of the Trump administration at NIH remains up.

On GOF, Washburne has found an ally in Taubenberger, according to two government sources.

On the new acting director of NIAID, Jeffery Taubenberger: https://t.co/ZU1I5Anndv

— Alina Chan (@Ayjchan) April 25, 2025

Wain-Hobson threw cold water on the idea that GOF remains necessary for national security purposes. “They don’t need to play around with the virus just to see how deadly it is. That is macabre and unhelpful,” he said.

NIH revealed in a July 21 post on X that Taubenberger’s institute had underreported a list of dangerous GOF research projects to the White House. The tweet blamed “NIAID staff.”

In accordance with Executive Order 14292, the Office of the Director asked NIAID to identify projects that could potentially fall under the definition of dangerous gain of function (dGOF) research. The NIAID staff identified those projects, but then inappropriately made an…

— NIH (@NIH) July 17, 2025

The DCNF obtained the initial list of 40 GOF projects reported by NIAID to the White House. According to that list, coupled with public records, Taubenberger’s institute failed to flag a project by University of North Carolina virologist Ralph Baric involving GOF and MERS, a coronavirus with an estimated 35% fatality rate. An ongoing North Carolina legislative commission is probing Baric’s pre-COVID collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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Misdemeanor? Lower charge suggested for famed sub sandwich thrower

Sean Charles Dunn, 37, a now-former federal employee, was accused of shouting obscenities and throwing a sub sandwich at federal officers in Washington, D.C., striking one officer.

It turns out that a grand jury in that leftist enclave declined to indict him on a charge that presumably fell under “Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees.”

That law bars those who assault, resist, or oppose anyone engaged in official duties, and provides penalties of up to eight years in prison if there’s physical contact “or intent to commit another felony.” It provides that “simple assault” be penalized with a sentence of up to one year.

According to Jonathan Turley, an expert on the U.S. Constitution, law professor at George Washington University, and popular commentator, “The District of Columbia is known as one of the most Democratic and liberal jury pools in the country. However, this may be a case of overcharging in the eyes of the jury.”

He noted Dunn was “on video shouting obscenities at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents standing near 14th and U streets in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 10 and then striking an officer with a wrapped sandwich.”

“Dunn appeared to shrug off the incident, saying, ‘I did it. I threw a sandwich,'” Turley noted.

He concluded, “There is a basis for a criminal charge of assault. A refusal to indict even on a lower offense would, in my view, be a form of jury nullification.”

He said the question now is whether prosecutors will seek the lower charge.

“She should do so. Law enforcement officers are not dunk-tank targets for any citizen with rage issues. There need to be consequences—even if it is only a misdemeanor charge,” he suggested.

‘We will come after you’: Grand jury decides fate of man who threw Subway sandwich at federal agent

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You’re FIRED! D.C. sandwich thrower worked for prominent federal agency

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Hospital failure caused baby to be born with disabilities, judge determines liability is a billion dollars

A judge has assigned liability for disabilities suffered by a Wyoming baby to the hospital system that ran the facility where she was born, and it’s nearly a billion dollars.

A lawyer for the family of Azaylee Zancanella said the family should be able to collect a substantial sum, even if it’s not the full award of $951 million, from the corporation that closed and sold its hospitals.

A report at the Daily Mail noted the judge in the case emphasized the child would have been safer being born in “the bathroom of a gas station, or a hut somewhere in Africa.”

The pregnancy, which had been normal, took a turn in October 2019 when Anyssa Zancanella’s water broke during a trip from the family’s Wyoming home to Salt Lake City.

They rushed to Jordan Valley Medical Center West Valley Campus, which was operated at the time by the now defunct Steward Health Care, the report said.

There, the lawsuit charges, the mother as given “excessive” doses of Pitocin, a labor-inducing drug.

And then ignored.

Eventually a C-section was performed, but, the lawsuit charged, the failures deprived the baby of oxygen, causing brain damage.

“[The obstetrician] abandoned mother and fetus/infant when she was fully aware of significant and dangerous issues with the ongoing labor process and the ongoing health and well-being of the fetus,” the lawsuit said.

Azaylee now suffers seizures, and experiences “damages, including but not limited to, permanent neurological and cognitive damages, physical damages, emotional damages, limitations in physical, cognitive and mental function, as well as pain and suffering,” the case charged.

It was Third District Judge Patrick Corum who found Steward Health Care liable in Zancanella’s medical malpractice case, as reported by the Salt Lake Tribune

Corum awarded Zancanella, her partner, Daniel McMichael, and their daughter $951 million.

The judge noted Steward essentially walked away from any participation in the case.

“Indeed, since at least the early Spring of 2024, Defendants’ entire strategy seems to have been nothing other than an attempt to thwart justice and the judicial process,” the judge said.

The family’s lawyer, Jennifer Morales, said she expects the family to be able to collect about half of the award, which represents punitive damages.

‘Two State Solution’: Plan proposes dividing California to free more conservative areas

Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif.

Republicans in California are a minority, often measuring in the 30% range when votes are counted.

Even so, they’re still under-represented in Congress, as some 80% of the state’s delegation is Democrat.

That means they vote futilely, in elections, as the majority party always gets its way.

But there could be a solution, as Republicans are calling for a change, which would require the approval of Congress, to create a second state made up of California’s 35 inland counties.

“I want to take a step back from all of the chaos we had and talk about the forgotten people of California,” Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher confirmed.

According to a Center Square report Gallagher and others are working on Assembly Joint Resolution 23, known as the “Two State Solution.”

“It would allow the creation of the state under Article, Section 3, of the U.S. Constitution and would require approval by the state Assembly and Senate as well as Congress. Democrats hold supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature, meaning Republicans would have to sway a number of Democrats to back it,” the Center Square documented.

Residents of those inland counties now “feel they’re victims of the policies of the Democrats” in the state, the report said.

“I think this is about the trucker in the Inland Empire who is told he has to get rid of his truck because of the regulations in this state. I think of the single mom who’s trying to get by when the rent’s too high and gets her PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) bill, which once again is increased, and struggles to get into that first house because costs are way too high,” Gallagher explained.

He explained secession is appropriate because the Democrat legislature has done nothing to make the state more affordable.

The move is being launched just as Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is working with Democrat lawmakers to try to eliminate some of the small representation Republicans in the state now have.

He wants to “redistrict” his state so that Democrats are in the majority in even more districts.

The report said the Democrats’ Proposition 50 purportedly would give Democrats an advantage in another five districts, on top of the 30-some they already hold.

“Whether you are from the North State, Central Valley or the Inland Empire, life has become harder and completely unaffordable,” Gallagher said. “We have been overlooked for far too long, and now they are trying to rip away what little representation we have left.”

The plan is for the new state to have about 10 million residents of Northern California, the Sierra Nevada, Central Valley and Inland Empire. The coast still would belong to Democrats.

Gallagher noted that voters approved splitting the state in two, because of political representation disputes, back in 1859, but nothing happened in Congress because of the Civil War.

Newsom’s office responded with a personal attack on Gallagher, claiming he “does not deserve to hold office…”

WATCH: JD Vance leads crowd in prayer for gunned down children

Vice President JD Vance prays during a speech.
Speaking to a crowd gathered in Wisconsin Thursday, Vice President JD Vance took time to say a prayer for the two children killed in the church shooting in Minneapolis this week.

WATCH:

"I would ask you to join me in prayer…"

VP JD Vance takes a moment to lead a heartfelt prayer to honor the lives of the children lost in the Minneapolis shooting. pic.twitter.com/5ZJwBVooRG

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 28, 2025

‘It is shocking to me’: Vance accuses Democrats of attacking prayer in wake of shooting

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Man in Batman PJs detains burglary suspect: ‘Gave me the extra confidence I needed’

A quick-thinking man in Cape Coral, Florida, dressed in his favorite Batman pajamas, sprung into action early Wednesday morning to detain a neighborhood burglary suspect.

As the Gateway Pundit reports, Kyle Myvett was alerted to the burglar by his home security cameras before confronting and detaining the intruder. He credited his pajamas for giving him the confidence boost he needed to grab the suspect.

The incident began when Myvett noticed his cameras showing someone breaking into his truck. Still wearing his Batman pajamas, he rushed outside and confronted the suspect, identified as Justin Schimpl, who was rummaging through the vehicle.

Myvett then tracked Schimpl to a neighbor’s garage, where he grabbed hold of the burglar’s shirt and wrist, warning him not to resist.

The Cape Coral Police Department wrote on Facebook:

On August 27, 2025, at 2:03 AM, Cape Coral Police officers responded to a burglary in progress at a home in Southeast Cape Coral.

When officers arrived, they found the suspect already detained – by a neighbor wearing Batman pajamas.

The neighbor, Kyle Myvett, told detectives he had gone to bed when his home security cameras alerted him to someone breaking into his vehicle. Still dressed in his Batman pajamas, Kyle went outside to investigate and saw the suspect rummaging through his truck. Moments later, he found the same suspect in his neighbor’s garage and detained him until officers arrived.

Thanks to a quick-thinking neighbor in his Batman pajamas, another burglary suspect was put behind bars

“Without the person seeing me, I grabbed a hold of their shirt and right wrist and told him, listen, don’t try to get away, I have plenty of experience with this,” Myvett told local station Fox 4.

Myvett previously worked in corrections.

“I’m really glad I had my Batman pajamas on because that gave me the extra confidence I needed,” Myvett added.

Obama and the Russiagate conspiracy: What he knew and when

Barack Obama speaks on Night 2 of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024.

A new report at Fox News explains that newly declassified government papers have confirmed that Barack Obama was at key meetings with key government bureaucrats “that led to critical steps in the opening of the Trump-Russia investigation.”

That would be “Russiagate,” the fabricated conspiracy theory apparently started by Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign that claimed Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia.

A years-long investigation by a special counsel came up with no evidence, but that didn’t stop some diehard anti-Trump activists like then-Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., from claiming they’d seen the evidence. Some even continue to claim it to this day.

The investigation, called “Crossfire Hurricane,” now is being exposed by government documents being released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Obama was, according to Trump, a “ringleader” in the conspiracy. Obama denies that, and his spokesman described the suspicions as “bizarre” and “ridiculous.”

However, Obama and his key administration players now are under investigation by Congress, and the Department of Justice, in the case and the Fox report cited a number of meetings at which the scheme was promoted, and Obama was there, over and over.

For instance: On Aug. 3, 2016, then-CIA chief John Brennan reportedly briefed Obama on how Clinton was allegedly creating a plan to link Trump to Russia, in order to distract voters from her own email scandal.

Another meeting, July 31, 2016, involved a decision to open the investigation into the Trump campaign.

Fox said it got details about a Counterintelligence Operational Lead in 2020 that said, “The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate.”

It added, “Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date. An exchange (REDACTED) discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”

Other details charge that foreign “sources” allegedly linked to left-wing billionaire George Soros, an ardent critic of Trump, were sending emails about the new “probe.”

One activist confirmed in an email, “The media analysis on the DNC hacking appears solid …. Julie (Clinton Campaign Advisor) says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”

That same adviser later said that Clinton approved the “idea” about Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections.”

“This should distract people from her own missing email, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level,” the activist wrote. “The point is making the Russian play a U.S. domestic issue. Say something like a critical infrastructure threat for the election to feel manic since both POTUS and VPOTUS have acknowledge the fact IC would speed up searching for evidence that is regrettably still unavailable.”

After Trump won the election, the report said, Obama warned Trump not to have Michael Flynn, formerly Obama’s head of military intelligence, in his administration.

He later was caught up in Russiagate, pleading guilty to making false statements about a meeting with a Russia official.

Later, the report said, the DOJ dropped its case when documents appeared showing agents discussing their motivations for interview him, in order to “get him to lie.”

He ultimately charged Obama’s supporters set him up in a “perjury trap.”

The report explained, “Current Director of National Intelligence Gabbard recently declassified documents claiming that the Obama administration ‘manufactured and politicized intelligence’ to allegedly create the narrative that Russia was attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election, despite information from the intelligence community stating otherwise. Documents revealed that in the months leading up to the November 2016 election, the intelligence community consistently assessed that Russia was ‘probably not trying…to influence the election by using cyber means.'”

Other documents have undermined the Democrat claims about Trump and Russia, including then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who said, “Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the U.S. presidential election outcome.”

Further, Brennan told Congress any hacking “did not achieve a notable disruptive effect.”

And the report cites declassified information in charging Obama officials allegedly “leaked false statements to media outlets” claiming that “Russia has attempted through cyber means to interfere in, if not actively influence, the outcome of an election.”

Then-President Obama held an Oval Office meeting Jan. 5, 2017, with then-FBI Director James Comey, then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-Vice President Joe Biden,” the report said, when Comey reportedly lobbied Obama to hide “Russia” information from the incoming Trump administration.