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    MyPillow CEO Makes Emotional Plea Following Smartmatic Court Loss

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    Mike Lindell via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told a judge he has no money left to pay the sanctions imposed against him in a defamation case brought by voting technology company Smartmatic.

    “I’m in ruins,” Lindell said tearfully during a virtual hearing before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols on Wednesday, according to a report from ABC News. “I borrowed everything I can. Nobody will lend me any money anymore.”

    Lindell was ordered to pay $56,369 in sanctions to Smartmatic, which sued him for defamation in 2022 over his baseless claims that the company helped rig the 2020 presidential election against President Donald Trump.

    A judge previously labeled a countersuit Lindell filed as “frivolous” and imposed the fine to cover Smartmatic’s legal costs.

    Lindell said he was not even able to pay the judgment in installments.

    “I can’t turn back time … but I will tell you, I don’t have any money,” he told the judge.

    The embattled pillow executive described a steep financial downfall, claiming he was forced to let hundreds of employees go.

    He also said he lost several MyPillow warehouses and owes millions to the IRS. Lindell told Nichols his only possessions were two homes and a truck he was trying to sell for cash.

    He asked Nichols to postpone any payments until after a final judgment is issued in the case.

    According to ABC News, Nichols asked Lindell on Wednesday for proof that he was in financial ruin. He described Lindell’s claims as “non-verifiable” and gave him until Friday to submit proof he was bankrupt.

    “I have nothing to hide,” Lindell reportedly told Nichols. “I want Smartmatic to see the financial situation I’m in as well.”

    Smartmatic filed a motion to hold Lindell in contempt of court for his failure to comply with the sanctions order, accusing him of dodging payments.

    FAA Contractor Pleads Guilty To Spying For Iran

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    Arrest image via Pixabay

    A former Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contractor has pleaded guilty to acting as an agent of Iran.

    The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that 42-year-old Abouzar Rahmati, a naturalized U.S. citizen and resident of Virginia, pleaded guilty to acting as an agent of Iran by pursuing an FAA job to gain access to information. From 2017 to 2024, Rahmati met with Iranian officials, communicated with security officials, and provided “non-public materials about the U.S. solar energy industry.”

    According to the DOJ, it was Rahmati who offered his services to Iran:

    In August 2017, Rahmati offered his services to the Iranian government through a senior Iranian government official who previously worked in Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and with whom Rahmati had previously attended university. Four months later, in December 2017, Rahmati traveled to Iran, where he met with Iranian intelligence operatives and government officials and agreed to obtain information about the U.S. solar energy industry, to provide that information to Iranian officials, and to conduct future communications under a cover story based on purported discussions about research with fellow academics.

    Rahmati previously was an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) 1st Lt., a branch of the Iranian Armed Forces, from June 2009 to May 2010. The IRGC is a designated terrorist group by the U.S. government.

    The DOJ said Rahmati offered his services to Iran in August 2017 through a former colleague who was a senior Iranian government official who previously worked at the country’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

    Rahmati traveled to Iran four months later and met with intelligence operatives and government officials, the DOJ said. He also agreed to gather and provide Iranian officials with information about the solar industry in the U.S.

    Read:

    24-cr-438_indictment_Download

    Rahmati provided information “relating to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, U.S. airports, and U.S. air traffic control towers” to his brother in Iran, which was then provided to government officials. He also at one point provided information related to “the National Aerospace System (NAS), Airport Surveillance Radar systems, and radio frequency data.”

    In early 2018, Rahmati obtained private and open-source materials related to the U.S. solar industry, then provided them to the office of Iran’s Vice President for Science and Technology.

    Rahmati is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 26, and he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for acting as an agent of a foreign government, and up to five years in prison for conspiracy.

    The guilty plea comes amidst President Donald Trump’s ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran in which the president has warned military options are on the table should Iran not agree to never possess a nuclear weapon.

    Report: Top Hegseth Advisor Placed On Administrative Leave

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    A top advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was escorted out of the Pentagon on Tuesday and placed on administrative leave, according to a Defense Department official. 

    Dan Caldwell had been placed on leave for an “unauthorized disclosure” of information amid an investigation into Pentagon leaks an official confirmed to Fox News Digital that Reuters’ initial reporting is accurate but declined to comment on an ongoing investigation. 

    Last month the Defense Department announced a probe into “recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information” and said it planned to use polygraphs to determine the source of leaks. 

    “The use of polygraphs in the execution of this investigation will be in accordance with applicable law and policy,” DOD Chief of Staff Joe Kasper wrote in a memo. “This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense.”

    He wrote that “information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure” would be referred for criminal prosecution.”

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

    Space Force Commander Fired After Sending Mass Email To Staff About VP Vance

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    She’s out…

    The Pentagon fired the commander at the U.S. Space Force base in Greenland after she broke with Vice President JD Vance who recently traveled to Greenland.

    After the vice president’s visit, Col. Susannah Meyers emailed base personnel on March 31, writing, “I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base.”

    She added that she had “spent the weekend thinking about Friday’s visit — the actions taken, the words spoken, and how it must have affected each of you.” The email was first reported by Military.com.

    The Space Force said in a public statement Meyers had been relieved of command “due to loss of confidence in her ability to lead.” 

    “Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties,” the statement read. 

    Col. Shawn Lee has now assumed the command, Space Force said. 

    “Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense,” Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell posted on X. 

    Meyers became commander of the 821st Space Base Group in July, according to a Facebook post about the change-of-command ceremony. 

    Vance, during his visit to the snow-covered island, criticized Denmark for treating Greenlanders as “second-class citizens.” 

    “Our message to Denmark is very simple,” Vance said. “You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security of this incredible, beautiful landmass.”

    Vance was the highest-ranking official to ever travel to the base in Pituffik, the White House said. 

    The Trump administration has made acquiring Greenland a top goal. 

    “We need Greenland for national security and international security,” President Donald Trump said on March 11. 

    Supreme Court Rules Wrongfully Deported Man Must Return To US

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national living in Maryland, from an El Salvador prison.

    Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported to the El Salvadoran mega-prison last month for being an alleged MS-13 gang member, however, his attorneys maintain he does not have any gang ties. Garcia’s wrongful deportation has triggered an onslaught of criticisms from both sides of the aisle. (RELATED: IRS, DHS Reach Game-Changing Agreement For Trump Immigration Agenda)

    The Supreme Court sided with U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis who initially ordered federal officials to coordinate Garcia’s return back to Maryland in a Monday order, calling his deportation “wholly unlawful.”

    Fox News reports:

    “On March 15, 2025, the United States removed Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from the United States to El Salvador, where he is currently detained in the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT),” the order states. “The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal.” 

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she “would have declined to intervene in this litigation and denied the application in full.”

    “Nevertheless, I agree with the Court’s order that the proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the processes to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador,” Sotomayor wrote. “That means the Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard, in any future proceedings.”

    The Justice Department responded to the order in a statement to Fox News in a statement. 

    “As the Supreme Court correctly recognized, it is the exclusive prerogative of the President to conduct foreign affairs,” the statement says. “By directly noting the deference owed to the Executive Branch, this ruling once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the President’s authority to conduct foreign policy.”

    Trump Secures Release Of American Ballerina In Prisoner Swap With Russia

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0
    (Miami - Flórida, 09/03/2020) Presidente da República Jair Bolsonaro durante encontro com o Senador Marco Rubio..Foto: Alan Santos/PR

    The Trump Administration has reportedly secured the release of another American being held prisoner in Russia.

    On Thursday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the release of American ballerina Ksenia Karelina.

    Moscow released Karelina in exchange for German-Russian citizen Arthur Petrov, who was arrested in 2023 in Cyprus at the request of the U.S. on charges of exporting sensitive microelectronics, the Wall Street Journal reported.

    “American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States. She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release. @POTUS will continue to work for the release of ALL Americans,” Rubio wrote on X.

    Karelina was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian penal colony after pleading guilty to treason for donating $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity in early 2024.

    She was initially detained for “petty hooliganism” while visiting family in Russia in February 2024, but the charge was later upgraded to treason after accusations that she was acting as an American spy.

    Russian authorities claimed that Karelina, who lived in Los Angeles, raised money for the Ukrainian army and took part in “public actions” that supported Ukraine while in the U.S. 

    Her boyfriend, boxer Chis Van Deerden, told Fox News Digital last year that she was “proud to be Russian, and she doesn’t watch the news. She doesn’t intervene with anything about the war.”

    She is the latest American prisoner detained in another country to be freed under President Donald Trump’s administration. In February, Trump brought American history teacher Marc Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since 2021, back to the U.S.

    In March, the Taliban agreed to release American prisoner Faye Hall after President Donald Trump removed multimillion-dollar bounties on senior members of the militant group, according to a report by the Telegraph.

    The White House shared a video on X of Hall thanking the president.

    “I’m glad you’re the President, and thank you for bringing me home,” Hall said. “I have never been so proud to be an American citizen. Thank you, Mr. President.”

    In a response posted to Truth Social, Trump wrote, “Thank you Faye — So honored with your words!”

    Trump Announces Pause On Tariffs, Except For China

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0
    Image via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    On Wednesday, President Trump raised tariffs on China to 125 percent and implemented a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs against all other trading partners, causing a major surge in the markets.

    “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform.

    Trump’s decision to pause the higher reciprocal tariffs that he announced last week, which hit about 60 countries on Wednesday morning, caused an immediate market surge.

    Moments after his social media post, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising by 2,000 points after days of major losses on Wall Street.

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

    Report: Supreme Court Gives Trump Green-light To Axe Some Probationary Workers

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0
    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    Just in…

    On Tuesday, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration by enabling officials to fire thousands of federal workers in their probationary period, saying the government employee unions that sued don’t have legal standing. 

    The emergency ruling, for now, lifts one of two lower court orders reversing the mass terminations. The other injunction, which has not yet reached the high court, remains in effect and still protects many employees’ jobs. 

    Read:

    24a904-orderDownload

    “The District Court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case. But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing,” the court wrote in its unsigned ruling. 

    Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, both members of the court’s liberal wing, publicly dissented. 

    Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have sought to rapidly reshape the federal bureaucracy, sparking dozens of lawsuits across the country.

    Democrat-led states, government unions and individual employees have filed several lawsuits alleging the administration did not follow the proper procedures for firing probationary employees

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

    Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Order For Trump Admin To Return Wrongfully Deported Immigrant

    By
    admin
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    1
    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    Chief Justice John Roberts has temporarily paused a lower court’s order requiring the Trump administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. This pause delays the midnight deadline previously set for Abrego Garcia’s return.

    U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had earlier mandated the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return by midnight, emphasizing that his deportation was an “administrative error.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged the mistake but argued that the court’s injunction was “patently unlawful,” asserting that the government lacks the authority to retrieve him from El Salvador.

    Abrego Garcia, 29, had been residing legally in the U.S. with authorization from the Department of Homeland Security and has no criminal record. An immigration judge had previously ruled in 2019 that he should not be deported due to the likelihood of facing persecution by gangs in El Salvador. Despite this, he was detained and deported last month.

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/us_icegov/54295293536/in/photostream/, Creative Commons Attribution-Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal (CC BY-NC-SA 1.0)

    The Hill reports:

    Roberts agreed to hold the deadline until the high court can resolve the Trump administration’s emergency request to wipe it completely.  The chief justice set a fast briefing schedule for the request, ordering the plaintiffs to respond by Tuesday afternoon.

    Monday’s “administrative stay” does not address the underlying merits of the dispute and is not necessarily an indication of how the court will rule.

    The Trump administration has acknowledged an “administrative error” that mistakenly removed Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who resides in Maryland, despite an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling protecting him from being deported to El Salvador over fears of violence. 

    Abrego Garcia was one of hundreds of migrants deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison last month. The administration has accused him of being connected to MS-13 based on a report from a confidential informant, but Abrego Garcia’s family rejects that he has any gang ties.

    Casa Presidencial El Salvador, Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/fotospresidencia_sv/, Creative Commons Attribution-Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal (CC BY-NC-SA 1.0)

    DOJ asserts that it cannot return Abrego Garcia to Maryland now that he is under the supervision of Salvadoran authorities.

    The administration has linked Abrego Garcia to the MS-13 gang, a claim that has been contested due to a lack of supporting evidence. The case has drawn significant attention, highlighting tensions between judicial authority and executive actions in immigration enforcement.

    Appeals Court Blocks Trump Firings, Setting Stage For Supreme Court Showdown Over Executive Power

    By
    admin
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    0
    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    In a major reversal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 7–4 to block the Trump administration from removing two Democratic appointees from federal labor boards. The ruling puts Gwynne Wilcox back on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Cathy Harris back on the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).

    Both Biden appointees were previously ousted by President Trump, who argued that restructuring federal agencies gave him the authority to fire appointees at will. A three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals initially backed that move. But the full court disagreed.

    In its Monday ruling, the court said the firings broke the law—specifically, legal protections that say members of independent agencies like the NLRB and MSPB can only be removed for cause, such as “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The majority leaned on long-standing Supreme Court precedent to support their stance.

    The dissenting judges argued that courts shouldn’t have the power to reinstate executive officers.

    AgnosticPreachersKid, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    With Wilcox and Harris back in place, both boards now have quorum and can resume their functions in overseeing employee grievances and labor disputes.

    The highly unusual ruling takes direct aim at one of the Trump administration’s core legal claims: that the president can fire appointees at will, even in independent agencies.

    Politico‘s Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney have additional details on the fallout and what to expect next:

    It’s a whiplash-inducing turn for the two officials, fired by Trump in the first days of his term. Judges on the federal district court bench in Washington reinstated both of them, harshly scolding Trump for ignoring the laws meant to protect the officials from removal without misconduct or other improper behavior.

    But last month, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit blocked those orders from taking effect, ruling 2-1 that the laws improperly restricted the president’s ability to manage the executive branch. Monday’s ruling, in turn, withdraws that order and allows the officials to return to their posts.

    In the unsigned order Monday, the appeals court’s majority pointed to Supreme Court decisions from the 1930s and 1950s in which the justices “unanimously upheld removal restrictions for government officials on multimember adjudicatory boards.” While more recent rulings from the high court have undermined the rationale of those decisions, the justices have never flatly reversed them.

    Legal analysts expect the case to head to the Supreme Court. If it does, it could become a defining case on the limits of presidential power and the independence of federal agencies.

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