The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the DHS Inspector General just opened an audit into a $38 billion warehouse-to-detention scheme that Kristi Noem and her top adviser Corey Lewandowski rammed through.
ICE bought 11 vacant warehouses in a matter of months, paying 11 to 13 percent above market value.
The properties weren’t even zoned for detention. No working plumbing for thousands of detainees. But Noem and Lewandowski pressured ICE to open them by year’s end anyway.
The result? At least $1 billion already spent on nine facilities. Nearly 50 contractors paid $1.7 billion since Trump took office.
Companies with zero immigration detention experience suddenly winning massive federal contracts.
One firm that didn’t even exist until June 2024 got a $6 million DHS contract this January.
Noem is gone.
Lewandowski is gone.
But the bill is still landing on the taxpayer, and the IG investigation is just getting started.
Accountability cannot end when the perpetrators walk out the door.
Every contract needs scrutiny.
Every dollar needs to be traced.
Every official who steered money to inexperienced contractors needs to answer under oath.
https://t.co/GGvxSniGqM
🚨BREAKING: Republicans just voted AGAINST my amendment to stop Trump's $1.8 billion slush fund from bailing out the convicted felons who assaulted cops on January 6th.
You read that right. They blocked us from even debating the issue on the House floor.
Beyond shameful.
This is another reason why we are forcing a Ukrainian aid and Russian sanctions bill for a vote in the House. The United States must take more forceful action to defend freedom against this Russian aggression against civilians.
@neal_katyal@Lawrence The best thing I have read all year. Congrats on this accomplishment at a time when everything seems hopeless for many. A story of focus and diligent, hard work!
What could we do with the billions that the US is squandering on the Iran War at a rate of $1.3 million a minute? I did the math: free college, restoration of health care subsidies & an end to malnutrition that costs 1.5 million lives a year. Read: https://t.co/jEpecwgi6k
A three-year-old company operating out of a WeWork with reportedly fewer than five employees is being considered for up to $25 BILLION in nuclear energy funds from a trade deal Trump brokered with Japan.
The company has never built a nuclear plant or completed a nuclear project of any kind.
What does this company bring to the table? The father of its CEO donated $2 million+ to Trump and the GOP, and one of its advisors is a former RNC co-chair and Trump appointee.
In this Administration, that’s apparently all you need.
Ukrainian journalist Yana Suvorova was abducted in occupied Melitopol when she was just 18 years old.
After a closed, staged trial, she was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of terrorism and treason. Her case has been classified. She has disappeared from the prisoner exchange lists.
Yana about her imprisonment: “The cell is cold. Rats are running around. The lights are never turned off.”
Her boyfriend says that after being transferred to Donetsk, Yana’s condition sharply deteriorated — she was held together with girls who had attempted suicide. The psychological pressure was constant.
Russian courts are reclassifying Ukrainian journalists as terrorists in order to prevent them from being included in prisoner exchanges.
Russia is blocking their exchange, hiding them from public view, and sentencing them to decades in prison.
By 2025, russian courts had fabricated terrorism cases against journalists from RIA-Pivden. Sentences range from 14 to 16 years.
One exception — Mark Kalyush — was released and confirmed systematic torture in detention.
Yevhen Ilchenko, a citizen journalist, documented life under occupation.
He was abducted in July 2022, tortured with mock executions, filmed in a staged “confession” of terrorism, and then forced into hard labor — digging trenches near the front line.
Ilchenko’s case is the first in nearly 40 years in which a journalist was abducted, tortured, and subjected to forced labor amounting to slavery.
He is currently being held in the Taganrog pre-trial detention center under constant light and in inhumane conditions.
Vladyslav Hershon — 15 years. Heorhii Levchenko — 16 years. Charges: participation in a terrorist organization. Evidence: activity on Telegram.
Journalist Anastasiia Hlukhivska is being held incommunicado. Russia refuses to confirm her detention.
In the Kizel pre-trial detention center, Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was tortured to death.
Russia is currently holding 50 journalists in prison — 29 of them Ukrainians.
Russian “anti-terrorism laws” strip civilians of legal protection and block exchanges. Without a mechanism for the return of civilians, these sentences may effectively become life imprisonment.
Source: This text was translated and adapted from Tymofiy Milovanov.
This is the interview Donald Trump didn’t want you to see.
His FCC refused to air my interview with Stephen Colbert.
Trump is worried we’re about to flip Texas.