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LetMyPeopleVote's JournalDOJ removes top prosecutor who questioned case against former CIA Director John Brennan
Maria Medetis Long told her superiors there was not sufficient basis to charge Brennan, who played a key role in the finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump win.
https://www.ms.now/news/doj-removes-top-prosecutor-who-questioned-case-against-former-cia-director-john-brennan
Maria Medetis Long, a veteran prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida, told colleagues in her office that she had recently told her superiors that there was not ample justification to bring criminal charges against Brennan, according to one person briefed on her discussions who asked to speak anonymously due to the sensitivity of internal deliberations. She also told colleagues she expected to withdraw from the case.
Medetis Long sent an email Thursday to attorneys representing clients drawn into the case saying she would no longer be working on the investigation, according to a person with knowledge of her notification.
Medetis Long had agreed weeks ago to help her boss, Miami U.S. Attorney Jason Quinones, probe possible law violations tied to how former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department opened the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to the sources. Medetis Long was specifically focused on probing allegations that Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, referred to the Department of Justice in 2025, claiming he had evidence suggesting Brennan made false statements to Congress in 2023 about that investigation and his role.
DOJ removes top prosecutor who questioned case against former CIA Director John Brennan
Source: MS NOW
The Justice Department has removed the lead prosecutor overseeing an investigation involving former CIA Director John Brennan, a longtime critic of President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Maria Medetis Long, a veteran prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida, told colleagues in her office that she had recently told her superiors that there was not ample justification to bring criminal charges against Brennan, according to one person briefed on her discussions who asked to speak anonymously due to the sensitivity of internal deliberations. She also told colleagues she expected to withdraw from the case.
Medetis Long sent an email Thursday to attorneys representing clients drawn into the case saying she would no longer be working on the investigation, according to a person with knowledge of her notification.
Medetis Long had agreed weeks ago to help her boss, Miami U.S. Attorney Jason Quinones, probe possible law violations tied to how former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department opened the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to the sources. Medetis Long was specifically focused on probing allegations that Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, referred to the Department of Justice in 2025, claiming he had evidence suggesting Brennan made false statements to Congress in 2023 about that investigation and his role.
Read more: https://www.ms.now/news/doj-removes-top-prosecutor-who-questioned-case-against-former-cia-director-john-brennan
Stark warning from ex-DOJ prosecutor as another Trump lawyer disbarred: 'More to come'
In order to represent trump and do his bidding, a lawyer has to violate the code of ethics. We will see still more disbarments in the future.
Stark warning from ex-DOJ prosecutor as another Trump lawyer disbarred: 'More to come' #RawStory
— #TuckFrump (@realtuckfrumper.bsky.social) 2026-04-16T23:15:08.000Z
https://www.rawstory.com/john-eastman-2676755421/
Glenn Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney, said on a new episode of his podcast, "Justice Matters," that MAGA attorney John Eastman's disbarment this week symbolized how continued fealty to President Donald Trump can have disastrous consequences. Eastman was disbarred by the California Supreme Court on Wednesday for his role in helping Trump obstruct the 2020 election results.
Kirschner noted that other lawyers Trump worked with on the plot, such as Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro, have also been disbarred for their actions.
"Will these Trump lawyers and these Trump-affiliated lawyers never learn?" Kirschner said. "Because they're being disbarred one after another after another. And frankly, I suspect there is more to come."
"It really shouldn't be that hard for these attorneys to represent the interests of the American people and to remain loyal to the rule of law rather than serving an aspiring dictator, an autocrat, a wannabe king," he added. "It really shouldn't be that hard. If these folks would just focus for a minute on what they learned in ethics courses in law school."
MaddowBlog-IRS signals negotiations with Trump over controversial $10 billion leak lawsuit
In a court filing, the agency said it and the president’s family are engaged in “discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation.”
Remember in February, when Trump filed a ridiculous billion lawsuit against the IRS, expecting a massive taxpayer-financed payout?
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-04-17T18:05:55.234Z
The IRS signaled in a new court filing that settlement talks are underway.
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/irs-signals-negotiations-with-trump-over-controversial-10-billion-leak-lawsuit
With this in mind, Liz Dye, a columnist at Above the Law, flagged the IRS’ latest court filing in the case.
BREAKING: IRS confirms it's negotiating with Trump family to pay a "settlement" in the wildly defective lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns.
— Liz Dye (@lizdye.bsky.social) 2026-04-17T16:39:25.149Z
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
The filing acknowledged that the process “remains in its early stages,” though it also noted that the agency and the president are engaged in “discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation.”
The phrasing suggested settlement talks are underway......
There’s no shortage of questions surrounding the civil case, including the fact that Trump appears to be on both sides of the litigation, suing his own administration in the hope it will hand him a giant check.
Writing for MS NOW, columnist Paul Waldman explained that the president’s litigation was “so brazen, so shameless, so stunning … that it will stand out in history even in a presidential term drowning in self-dealing.” Waldman added, “This latest act deploys Trump’s favorite financial weapon — the bogus lawsuit — but in a way no one even contemplated before.”
Shortly after his lawyers filed the case, the president told reporters that he assumed “nobody would care” if he receives a lucrative payout as part of the frivolous litigation. We may soon find out whether that was true. Watch this space.
Trump's legal fees slush fund is drying up
The Save America PAC is $500,000 in the red according to federal filings — and owes three times as much to the president’s many, many lawyers.
https://x.com/brontyman/status/2045111022860869743
https://www.ms.now/opinion/trumps-legal-fees-donations-fec
Both PACs are in a much worse financial state now that Trump isn’t actively running for president. Based on its quarterly filing with the FEC, Save America has $1.19 million in cash on hand. That would be a tidy sum for you or me, but Save America also owes a total of $1.6 million, all of which is meant to cover previous “legal consulting” or “reimbursement for legal fees and expenses.” Those debts are what is left after the committee already spent almost $2.3 million covering those budget items so far this year.
Save America also transferred an additional $1.6 million to Make America Great Again PAC since January. Despite that, according to its latest FEC filing, MAGA PAC only has $28,087 in cash on hand at the end of the first quarter, versus $763,000 in debts. Much as with Save America, $1.3 million of the committee’s money likewise went to paying out legal fees in the last quarter.
Save America owes the lion’s share of its debt to two firms: NechelesLaw LLP and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. The former’s lead partner, Susan Necheles, represented Trump in the 2024 New York “hush money” case that led to Trump being convicted on 34 counts of fraud. The latter firm has taken up Trump’s appeal of that hush money case and the massive $350 million civil judgement against him and his company, The Trump Organization. Meanwhile, MAGA PAC owes $318,000 to Colorado firm Campbell Killin Brittan & Ray LLC, which represented the 2024 campaign in a defamation suit, and another $183,000 to Virginia’s Binnall Law Group, which served as counsel to Trump on issues regarding the Jan. 6 insurrection.
This ignores any "pro bono" work that may have been done by the law firms who were stupid enough to agree to sign trump's executive orders. I am surprised that Sullivan and Cromwell is doing work for trump. Sullivan is a major firm.
trump stiffs everyone including his lawyers.
MaddowBlog-Shrugging at 'fake inflation,' Team Trump's economic message takes a weird turn
Taken together, it seems as if the White House decided the way to change public attitudes on the economy is to try to pull some kind of Jedi mind trick.
On the economy, the White House apparently wants to pull a Jedi mind trick on the public.
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-04-17T12:53:59.142Z
Bothered by high gas prices? Prices are “not very high.â€
Bothered by inflation? Inflation is “fake.â€
Dissatisfied with the struggling economy? The economy is the “best in history.â€
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-fake-inflation-economy-polling
With data like this in mind, it’s not surprising that Team Trump seems to realize that it has a problem. Whether it knows what to do about that problem is another matter entirely.
When Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, for example, was asked Thursday about public attitudes, he replied, in reference to American consumers, “in their heart of hearts they feel good,” regardless of what they tell “the survey people.”
https://x.com/factpostnews/status/2044855692721377418
Trump’s message was hardly better. During a brief Q&A with reporters at the White House on Thursday afternoon, the president was asked how much longer consumers should expect to see high gas prices. The Republican challenged the premise of the question.
Q: How much longer will American continue to see these high gas prices?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-16T20:47:05.369Z
TRUMP: Well, they're not very high
Q: a gallon still
TRUMP: That's what ABC says, but the stock market is up. Everything is doing really well.
......Taken together, it seemed as if Trump and his team decided the way to change public attitudes is to try to pull some kind of Jedi mind trick, telling people upset about the economy that the economy is great, telling people upset about high gas prices that gas prices are low, and telling people upset about inflation that inflation is “fake.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune was asked this week about the White House picking a fight with Pope Leo XIV, and the South Dakota Republican replied, “I’d stay focused on … the economic issues, pocketbook issues that most Americans care about, and let the church be the church.” That wasn’t bad advice, but it’d be more effective if Trump and his team had a more coherent message on economic issues.
MaddowBlog-Baffled by his own 'corner store' reference, Trump's problems with groceries persist
The president can wax rhapsodic about his marble preferences and his affection for Corinthian columns. “Corner store,” however, left him badly confused.
Baffled by his own ‘corner store’ reference, Trump’s problems with groceries persist - MS NOW apple.news/AA6gvd1eLRIe...
— (@oc88.bsky.social) 2026-04-17T16:18:20.401Z
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-corner-store-las-vegas-ballroom
Trump was touting tax cuts for small businesses when he came across the term ‘corner store’ as he read off prepared remarks. ‘What is a corner store? I’ve never heard that term. I know what a corner store is, but I’ve never heard it described a corner store,’ said Trump. He looked up sharply and said, ‘Who the hell wrote that?’
Evidently, he didn’t familiarize himself with the text that someone else had written for him ahead of the event.
Trump: "Millions of American small businesses, including corner stores. What is a corner store? I've never heard that term. I know what a corner store is but I've never heard it described-- a corner store. Who the hell wrote that?"
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-04-17T01:17:55.652Z
After years of struggling with this issue, it’s amazing he hasn’t yet familiarized himself with the basics. Early in his first term, for example, Trump insisted that consumers need to show identification while buying groceries, including cereal and bread. (None of this was true.),,,
In his second term, his approach to the issue has grown weirder, to the point that he even began characterizing “groceries” as an exotic word last year.
“It’s such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term: ‘groceries,’” Trump said last April, as if he were introducing the public to foreign terminology. “It says ‘a bag with different things in it.’”....
But his remarks in Las Vegas managed to break new ground. Trump, who used to live in a gold tower in Manhattan, and who now splits his time between a presidential mansion and a glorified country club in Florida, can wax rhapsodic about his marble preferences and his affection for Corinthian columns, but confronted with the words “corner store,” he was utterly baffled.
House Dem confronts RFK Jr. for denying racist remarks about Black children
RFK Jr.'s years of heroin usage has had an effect. RFK Jr. clearly made these statements in 2024 and I am glad that he was called out on these statements
House Dem confronts RFK Jr. for denying racist remarks about Black children #RawStory
— #TuckFrump (@realtuckfrumper.bsky.social) 2026-04-16T20:34:22.000Z
https://www.rawstory.com/rfk-jr-2676752989/
Kennedy denied making the remarks and claimed not to understand the phrase's meaning.
Sewell contextualized the offensive nature of the comments by referencing the history of family separation during slavery, emphasizing that suggesting Black families cannot raise their own children is deeply insulting. She stressed that Kennedy's words carry significant weight and responsibility given his position, noting that careless language creates confusion and causes real harm to communities.
"I expect, and the American people expect that you choose your words with sincereness and with seriousness, the seriousness that your position demands," Sewell called on Kennedy.
MaddowBlog-Acting Attorney General Blanche tries and fails to justify DOJ's personnel purge
The latest firings of four federal prosecutors weren’t the response to an abuse; they were themselves the abuse.
To hear Trump’s DOJ tell it, four federal prosecutors had to be purged because of Biden-era wrongdoing.
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-04-16T21:25:54.788Z
But that’s backwards: The firings weren’t the response to an abuse; they were *themselves* the abuse.
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/acting-ag-blanche-tries-and-fails-to-justify-the-justice-departments-personnel-purge
The partisan cleansing is ongoing. MS NOW reported this week:
At least four Justice Department prosecutors have recently been fired as part of the Trump Administration’s plan to publicly accuse the Biden administration of unfairly targeting anti-abortion protesters for their religious beliefs, according to two people familiar with the firings and a Justice Department spokesperson.
The firings are an extension of the DOJ’s so-called “weaponization” panel, which accused Biden-era prosecutors of targeting those protesting outside abortion clinics in ways that crossed legal lines.....
Asked two weeks later about his response to allegations that Trump’s DOJ has fired people for “political reasons,” Blanche, a former Trump defense lawyer, replied, “If you were a prosecutor and you were trying to prosecute your boss, you have ethical duties as a lawyer that I think prevent you from continuing to work in that environment.”
Q: “How do you respond to critics who say…you guys are firing people for political reasons?â€
— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) 2026-04-07T18:25:28.838Z
Blanche: “It’s not that. If you were a prosecutor and you were trying to prosecute your boss, you have duties as a lawyer that I think prevent you from continuing to work in that environment."
Except, as the acting attorney general ought to understand, that’s a weak argument. For one thing, many of the DOJ officials who have been purged had nothing to do with the criminal charges Trump faced. For another, even those prosecutors who did work on Trump’s cases weren’t trying to prosecute their “boss;” they followed the evidence and helped bring felony charges against a private citizen.
It’s not their fault voters elected a convicted felon to the nation’s highest office.
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