All NOTUS Stories

Ro Khanna Detained By Armed Israeli Settlers During West Bank Visit

Angie Orellana Hernandez — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 18:52:25 GMT

Rep. Ro Khanna told The New York Times he was touring Khirbet Zanuta, a destroyed Palestinian village that was abandoned by residents following attacks by Israeli settlers, on Wednesday afternoon when a car appeared with armed men. Meg Kinnard/AP

Rep. Ro Khanna said he was briefly detained by Israeli settlers brandishing assault rifles during a visit this week to a southern part of the West Bank.

The California Democrat recounted the experience in interviews with The New York Times and Reuters. He told the Times he was touring Khirbet Zanuta, a destroyed Palestinian village that was abandoned by residents following attacks by Israeli settlers, on Wednesday afternoon when a car appeared with armed men.

The men swore in Hebrew and Arabic at Khanna and his group, he said. Khanna said the men carried M4s, a type of assault rifle manufactured in the United States, and blocked the road for over an hour. The settlers then called the Israel Defense Forces, who Khanna said sided with the settlers. In videos posted by Khanna to social media, a man in military uniform and another in civilian clothing with a firearm can be seen talking with one another.

An Israeli military spokesperson told the Times on Saturday that it had received a report of Israeli citizens unlawfully blocking the vehicles of foreign nationals and members of the press near the village on Wednesday. The military disputed that it had participated in blocking their exit and said dispatched troops had reopened the road.

Khanna aide Cameron Kasky told Reuters his group was detained for more than an hour and that they requested assistance from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. The group was released after officers from what appeared to be Israeli law enforcement intervened, Kasky said.

Khanna told Reuters his visit to the West Bank was to provide him with an understanding of how Israeli occupation has impacted the area, and that the incident furthered his resolve to consider a presidential run in 2028.

Four settlers were arrested on Saturday after a separate incident involving an attack on CNN and other journalists in the West Bank.

Trump Administration Subpoenas New York Times Reporters Over Air Force One Story

Angie Orellana Hernandez — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:52:07 GMT

Before he departed Turkey on Wednesday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he’d be flying on the old Air Force One to an air base in the United Kingdom. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

The Trump administration issued subpoenas to multiple New York Times journalists this week after they wrote a story about security issues on the president’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One, the newspaper reported Saturday.

The Times said the subpoenas, some of which were delivered by federal agents to personal addresses, ordered the reporters to appear before a federal grand jury in New York next Wednesday. David McCraw, the top newsroom lawyer for The Times, called the court order an attack on press freedom.

“Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used,” McCraw said in a statement. “This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”

The Justice Department said in a statement to NOTUS that it was targeting leakers of classified information, not reporters.

“We recognize there may always be natural tension there,” the statement said, “but we are not going to ignore the law and stop investigating the people who work in the administration and think it's okay to leak classified information impacting national security.”

On Wednesday, Times journalists Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt reported that the Secret Service asked President Donald Trump to swap planes on his return flight to the United States from the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, as a security precaution.

Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that the subpoenas came after FBI Director Kash Patel met with White House officials on Friday over an investigation into leaks regarding security concerns about the new aircraft.

An Associated Press analysis from earlier this month revealed that the Qatari-donated plane did not appear to have some of the missile detection software and countermeasure systems as the outgoing Cold War-era jets.

Before he departed Turkey on Wednesday, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he’d be flying on the old Air Force One to an air base in the United Kingdom. He said he was doing so “for old time’s sake.”

Reporters asked Trump at a news conference in Turkey whether the change of aircraft was due to security concerns.

“I’m No. 1 on the kill list for Iran. They’re lovely people. I’m No. 1,” Trump replied on his last day in the country. “So, I don’t know. I can’t tell you that, but I don’t really care, because I’m doing my job.”

Trump Officials Have Told Agencies to Find More Workers to Make At-Will

Eric Katz — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 22:02:19 GMT

Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, was an original architect of the controversial plan to convert large swaths of the federal workforce into Schedule Policy/Career workers, previously known as “Schedule F.” Evan Vucci/AP Photo

The Trump administration is working with each federal agency to grow the number of jobs it can strip worker protections from, according to three people with knowledge of the process.

The effort is part of the White House’s push to tighten the president’s control over career civil servants. In an executive order last month, President Donald Trump stripped roughly 8,000 employees of protections they have historically had before facing discipline.

The Office of Personnel Management is expected to submit expanded lists of jobs that can be reclassified to at-will employment to the White House by the end of September, according to one of the sources familiar with the plan.

OPM and federal agencies are using artificial intelligence to review job descriptions to help identify the roles that will be reclassified to a designation that does not have due-process rights before a disciplinary action, one federal worker briefed on the matter said.

Another employee said their agency was told “we have to have more!” employees on its list.

A third said they were aware of several agencies across the government facing a mandate to update and expand their registers of staff falling under the new policy.

Administration officials previously estimated as many as 50,000 employees would see their jobs reclassified to the “Schedule Policy/Career” designation that does not have those protections.

Under Trump’s changes, federal employees classified as working on policy matters lose their rights to advance notice of forthcoming disciplinary action, an opportunity to respond to that decision and the chance to appeal it before a third party. Those converted to that Schedule Policy/Career designation now serve as at-will employees, a category previously reserved for political appointees and a small subset of career staff.

Officials within and outside the government told NOTUS they were surprised Trump’s initial order only impacted 8,000 workers and had expected the number to grow at some point. Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, was an original architect of the controversial plan to convert large swaths of the federal workforce into Schedule Policy/Career workers, previously known as “Schedule F.”

It hasn’t yet been determined how many employees will be included in the new wave of reclassifications.

A senior administration official said OPM was engaged in a “thoughtful, collaborative process” with agencies to review their previous submissions for conversions, update position descriptions and identify any additional roles they want to reclassify into Schedule Policy/Career. The official stressed that no decisions have been made and that a subsequent executive order from Trump to formally convert the jobs is not imminent. They instead called the process “an internal planning exercise.”

Trump attempted to make these reclassifications in the waning days of his first term, though he ran out of time before they could take effect.

The proposal has generated outcry from some lawmakers, advocates and employees who say it will strip career government workers of protections that date back to a 19th-century law meant to end the era of a government dominated by political patronage. The laws were most recently updated by the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act that passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

The policy’s implementation last month came after Trump issued a separate executive order on his first day in office reviving it, as well as final regulations earlier this year. Those regulations established that agencies would determine which employees serve in policy-related roles.

Trump administration officials told reporters last month there would be no political litmus test for federal employees subject to the reclassification.

“It’s also about a restoration, in our mind, of the democratic process,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said. “There are zero loyalty tests in this.”

Administration officials said at the time that Trump could opt to expand the number of employees affected by the policy but that no such decision was “imminent or impending.”

A coalition of groups representing federal employees is suing over the policy. The suit is still pending in federal court. Those groups and others argue the new schedule system violates federal employees’ constitutional rights and undermines existing statutory protections. Converting large swaths of federal employees to at-will employment could make them vulnerable to the political whims of the administration, lead to firings based on loyalty and erode the expertise that the career civil service is designed to develop, they have said.

The administration has said Article II of the Constitution grants the president the authority to remove federal workers without due process, and that existing civil service law is an “overcorrection” to historical abuses of power. A senior administration official said last month that any effort to cast the reclassifications as a politicization of the civil workforce was due to “historical ignorance.”

In a dissenting opinion on a recent Supreme Court ruling that expanded Trump’s power to remove leaders of independent agencies, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the new precedent could empower presidents to fire civil servants at will.

DHS Begins Search for Operator to Run Deportation Flights

Angie Orellana Hernandez — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:47:13 GMT

President Donald Trump’s administration earmarked $464.5 million for DHS earlier this year to purchase aircraft to bolster mass deportations Larry MacDougal/AP

The Department of Homeland Security kicked off the search process this week for a contractor that could operate its deportation flights, according to a posting reviewed by NOTUS.

DHS employing an outside contractor to manage a government-owned airline would be a departure for the agency, which has traditionally conducted deportations through charter flights and military aircraft.

The notice is a precursor to DHS formally launching a bid for an operator. Interested parties have until July 22 to reply.

President Donald Trump’s administration earmarked $464.5 million for DHS earlier this year to purchase aircraft to bolster mass deportations as part of the president’s wider immigration crackdown.

The agency is seeking a contractor that could provide flight operations, maintenance and logistics support to the existing fleet, consisting of two small jets and seven planes capable of transporting large groups of passengers. The flights would be intended for removal operations, medical evacuations and movement of senior officials. The planes would travel to domestic and international locations, including “remote, primitive, or austere environments,” the posting said.

Contractors would be required to perform operations at all times of the day, 365 days a year, including short-notice missions, the notice says. The agency asked contractors to submit responses to questions about their company’s services, approach to staffing and operations, and experience managing personnel with high-level security clearances.

DHS did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Drain the Pool (Again)

Marissa Martinez — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:37:54 GMT

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:37:54 GMT https://www.notus.org/final-notus-newsletter/drain-the-pool-again

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which has been beset by problems with algae and peeling paint, is being drained again for further work. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo

Good afternoon. This is the Final NOTUS newsletter for July 10, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!

THE LATEST

Donald Trump won’t sign the bipartisan housing bill many Republicans wanted to promote ahead of the midterms. The “big yawn” measure is still set to become law without him.

The U.S. and Iran appear to be slowly restoring their truce after a week of attacks by both sides — though the chance of escalations remains high.

Iran has asked to resume talks, Trump said on Truth Social this morning — but he added that the ceasefire is still “OVER.”

THE ADMINISTRATION

The White House could soon erect new fences at the ends of Pennsylvania Avenue NW that allow the Secret Service to prevent pedestrian access in front of the building.

Crews have added a tarp to the White House, hiding scaffolding as they repair the columns’ stonework.

Who’s behind the new Trump-promoted Freedom Fuel gas stations? We tried to find out.

The Reflecting Pool, beset by an algae bloom and peeling paint, is being drained again.

DHS is moving forward with plans to create its own fleet of government-owned aircraft to bolster deportations.

Witnesses who saw ICE agents shoot and kill a man in Houston earlier this week are disputing the agency’s account of what happened.

Three migrants who were also arrested during the same operation told The Washington Post that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo did not ram — or even veer the vehicle toward— ICE officers in another car.
“That is a lie,” Jose Trinidad Rojas, 51, wrote in a statement to the newspaper. “There were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides.”

THE HILL

A new video shows Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher last month before his hospitalization.

Wyoming candidate Reid Rasner, an openly gay Republican running for the state’s sole House seat, is suing members of his party for defamation, including calling him a “pedophile.”

WANT A SENATE SEAT?

https://x.com/dbessner/status/2075560875851911589

Thank you for reading! Today’s newsletter was produced by Kelly Poe and Erik Schutz. If you liked it, please forward it to a friend. If someone shared it with you, please sign up — it’s free! Got a tip or comments to share? Email us at finalnotus@notus.com

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Who’s Behind Those Mysterious Trump-Promoted ‘Freedom Fuel’ Gas Stations?

Angie Orellana Hernandez — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 18:46:06 GMT

Matt Rourke/AP Photo

In a video promoted directly by the White House, a series of drivers pulls up to a red-, white- and blue-colored gas station and thanks President Donald Trump by name for the low prices advertised by a mysterious new business: Freedom Fuel.

Despite the video’s suggestion that Trump had something to do with the decision for Freedom Fuel to lower its prices well below market average — $3.47 in honor of the 47th president — the White House insists the effort is being led by a private company and that the marketing campaign was simply meant to highlight the patriotic American business.

“There is no other entity or person subsidizing the lower gasoline costs,” a White House official told NOTUS when asked about the unusual ad shared on official administration channels. “They are simply reducing their margin to make prices at the pump more affordable for drivers in Philadelphia and New Jersey. This retailer is taking the lead; others should follow.”
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2074499867989123417?s=20Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, told Quartz earlier this week that it is unlikely Freedom Fuel is making any money on the scheme.

"Stations selling at this price, it’s not sustainable,” De Haan told Quartz. "Generally, when losses happen, somebody's got to pay for it."

It’s unclear when the Freedom Fuel stations were first unveiled, though the company’s state business record in Delaware, where the company is based, shows an incorporation date of June 23.

Trump confused many last week when he posted about Freedom Fuel and shared an apparent AI-generated image of a station using the company’s branding, referring to its “VERY smart” proprietor simply as “this retailer.”

There are 25 Freedom Fuel stations in all, spread across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to a sparse, recently created website for the company.

The Freedom Fuel Network did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A trademark application for the Freedom Fuel Network was filed the same day as Trump’s AI-generated post. Attached to it was an address in Wilmington, Delaware, for the Corporation Trust Center, a registered-agent center that receives legal and tax correspondences.

The Corporation Trust Center is also home to Walmart, Apple, General Motors and hundreds of Trump’s own businesses, according to state records. Corporations are known to register in Delaware for a business-friendly law colloquially known as the “Delaware loophole” that permits companies to minimize taxes by legally shifting earnings to Delaware. State laws also shield the owners of some kinds of companies from being revealed publicly.

Anna Vishev, an attorney based in Staten Island, was identified on a trademark application filed by Freedom Fuel as the business’s lawyer. She told NOTUS over email that she was “not authorized to disclose any information regarding this matter beyond what is officially included in the public database of the U.S. Trademark Office.”

Trump and Iran ‘Might Get Worse Before It Gets Better’

Akbar Shahid Ahmed — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:32:49 GMT

President Donald Trump this week ordered two rounds of strikes in Iran, and withdrew a license for the country to sell oil, after Iran shot at commercial vessels. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

The U.S. and Iran appear to be slowly restoring their truce after a week of attacks by both sides — though the chance of future escalations remains high.

Qatar, the tiny American ally in the Persian Gulf, is leading mediations over the root of the latest exchange of fire: the Strait of Hormuz. Iran wants significant influence over the flow of ships through the strategic waterway — which it sees as essential leverage — but the U.S. is staunchly opposed to parts of Iran’s vision, like charging fees for traveling vessels.

Iran froze traffic through Hormuz after President Donald Trump launched a war against it in February, and the U.S. has since attempted with limited success to restore the flow of ships, most of which contain supplies of oil and gas that are crucial for the global economy. A settlement to reopen the strait was intended to be only one element of the 60-day memorandum of understanding between Tehran and Washington signed last month to initiate a ceasefire. Now, the difficulty of agreeing just about Hormuz reflects the shrinking chance of a larger and longer-lasting U.S.-Iranian rapprochement. The best hope, officials and analysts say, is essentially developing a bandage to avoid another flare-up.

“Restarting a stupid war is in no one’s interest,” said Nate Swanson, an Atlantic Council analyst and former State Department official who worked on Iran under Presidents Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Still, “the status quo is too volatile.”

Swanson expects Qatar and others involved in diplomacy to refocus on step-by-step negotiations aimed at finding a new understanding on Hormuz. Iran has sought to ensure that ships obtain its permission before traversing the strait, while also developing a structure to charge fees for transit that will take effect later this year. The latter is unpalatable to the U.S. and to other world powers, including Arab states, China and European nations, Swanson said, but “permission is more doable.”
https://x.com/NOTUSreports/status/2075973675526860868?s=20Trump this week ordered two rounds of strikes in Iran, and withdrew a license for the country to sell oil, after Iran shot at commercial vessels. He suggested there is no hope for a ceasefire. The U.S. became “more careful” as the week wore on, however, a Middle Eastern diplomat familiar with efforts to manage tensions told NOTUS. The diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive government assessments, pointed to the lack of any new strikes within Iran by Israel, saying Washington has not allowed Tel Aviv to attack. A senior Iranian official suggested Friday that Israel could face retaliation if the U.S. attacks Iran again.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who encouraged Trump to assault Iran and has acted as America’s partner in the campaign, is far more skeptical of attempts at mediation, and has himself threatened the memorandum by defying Iran’s demands to end Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, targeting the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah and driving significant suffering in the country. And the diplomat argued that in addition to the U.S. strikes, Iran too was violating the terms of the truce.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft think tank, argued the U.S. and Iran can avoid a total collapse of their memorandum by tacitly agreeing to “defer the sovereignty dispute” over Hormuz. Ships seeking passage could be required to notify Iran as well as other countries bordering the strait, which could acknowledge Tehran’s role without representing a full concession to its preferences by the U.S. and its allies, Parsi wrote on Substack.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s often-shifting positions continue to risk a resumption of war, even if it is unintended. Parsi wrote that the U.S. appeared to want to demonstrate “escalation dominance” over Iran, and Trump has consistently suggested he sees military pressure as his most effective tool. On Friday morning, the president issued a seemingly contradictory depiction of the U.S.-Iran dynamic — referencing both conflict and diplomacy — on his Truth Social platform.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue ‘talks.’ We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!” Trump wrote.

Ali Vaez, Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit focused on conflict prevention, described the trend as “the same escalatory dynamic aimed at forcing capitulation” from Iran, which has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to hold firm in the face of U.S. demands.

“It’s not going to work,” Vaez said of counting primarily on more violence to bring a different outcome.

On Friday, observers of the conflict said they were optimistic that a new accord would emerge, while downplaying the potential for any progress in addressing the larger issues driving U.S.-Iran tensions.

“It might get worse before it gets better, but I don’t see a real risk of [escalation] going off the rails,” Vaez said. But asked about general talks based on the memorandum, which officials like Vice President JD Vance have suggested could reshape the entire region, he told NOTUS: “The chance was never high, and the odds are even lower now.”

New Video Shows McConnell Being Loaded Into Ambulance on a Stretcher

Angie Orellana Hernandez — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:31:55 GMT

J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Sen. Mitch McConnell was loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher the day of his hospitalization last month, according to new footage obtained by CNN.

In the 17-second video reportedly taken by a neighbor of the long-serving Kentucky senator, a team of D.C. paramedics can be seen gathering outside a residential home on June 14. The video then cuts to an individual’s feet on a stretcher with a paramedic nearby. The person’s face is not visible, but the neighbor reported to CNN that another witness identified the person as McConnell.

A spokesperson for McConnell declined to comment directly on the video, referring back to a recent statement that said the senator’s condition was continuing to improve in the hospital. His team has not disclosed what ailment caused the hospitalization, nor have they released any information about McConnell’s condition.

McConnell has remained in the hospital for nearly a month. Multiple media outlets have reported that police scanner traffic from the day of McConnell’s hospitalization revealed paramedics responded to a cardiac arrest and performed CPR on an individual at an address connected to McConnell. His office has not commented on the recording.
https://x.com/AnnieGrayerCNN/status/2075533936671764598?s=20The lack of concrete information has led to a spate of unverified theories about McConnell’s health — including claims by far-right activist and presidential confidant Laura Loomer, who claimed this week that McConnell was “brain dead” and not returning to the Senate. Republican leaders refuted the claims and said on Tuesday they had spoken to the senator at length by phone.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear made note of the rumors while publicly requesting a health update from McConnell’s office on Wednesday. Beshear said in a statement that McConnell’s absence has resulted in speculation that is “not fair to the Senator or to Kentuckians.”

“My hope is that this provides him the opportunity to share the information in a transparent manner, direct from the source,” Beshear said. “I wish him a safe and speedy recovery.”

McConnell has experienced other health concerns in the past. He was hospitalized for eight days in February for flu-like symptoms, and in 2023, appeared to freeze mid-speech on two different occasions. As a childhood survivor of polio, McConnell has struggled with mobility issues due to lingering effects of the disease and occasionally uses a wheelchair.

He announced last year that he would not seek reelection for an eighth time in 2026.

The Housing Bill Trump Refused to Sign Becomes Law Without Him

Raymond Fernández — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:35:11 GMT

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

Congress’ marquee housing legislation aimed at increasing the country’s housing supply is set to become law at midnight — without President Donald Trump’s signature.

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump, who could still change his mind and sign the legislation, posted on Friday.

The bill, known as the “21st Century ROAD to Housing,” is the first major housing legislation to come out of Congress in more than three decades and represents one of the biggest legislative achievements this year for both chambers. Trump repeatedly pushed for the legislation — before abruptly canceling a signing ceremony and calling the bill a “yawn” relative to election reforms he wants passed.

His indifference to the housing package could complicate things for Republicans, who were eager to address cost of living as part of their agenda. It was supposed to be a policy win that they could easily tout on the trail, once they got it through the complicated process of getting the votes for it.

Instead of becoming law with fanfare, the legislation is expected to become law through Trump’s inaction for the 10 days after Congress presented him with the bill. It is on track to avoid a pocket veto because Congress was technically in session for that period of time.

The president had long outlined the bill as a priority. In his January State of the Union address, he called on Congress to limit institutional investors' ability to purchase single-family homes, which the bill addressed.

The legislation establishes a limit on large investors that own more than 350 single-family homes, enforced through fines by the federal government.

It also requires local governments to loosen some environmental review standards to fast track housing development, raises the cap on community banks’ lending ability and allows federal funds administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to be used for the construction of new homes.

Altogether, the legislation includes Senate and House priorities and has bipartisan backing.

It was also endorsed by the White House, through its countless iterations, several times.

A senior White House official even described the package as “the best path forward to deliver an affordability win for the administration [and] for congressional Republicans” to NOTUS after the Senate passed its first version in early May.

After the president canceled the signing ceremony for the bill, which was caught up in a Senate-versus-House standoff for several months, lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R- Louisiana) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R- South Dakota), were caught off guard.

Trump began echoing what some Republicans had said privately throughout the negotiations: that the package was a “[Sen. Elizabeth] Warren centric housing bill.”

Warren (D-Massachusetts), who spearheaded the Senate’s push on the bill as the ranking member of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, immediately seized the opportunity to tout Democratic lawmakers’ commitment to address the housing crisis the country is facing.

“Donald Trump may not care, but Democrats do,” Warren said on Capitol Hill in late June, shortly after the signing ceremony for the bill was canceled.

“We're not in the majority in the House. We're not in the majority in the Senate. We sure as hell don't control the White House, but nonetheless we helped push through the biggest housing bill to lower costs, to help renters and to help homeowners.”

AJ Dybantsa Understands the Assignment

Jesse Dougherty — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:12:30 GMT

AJ Dybantsa, the first overall pick in last month's NBA draft, scored 27 points in his summer league debut. John Locher/AP Photo/John Locher

So he gets it. More than anything, that’s what we can take from AJ Dybantsa’s summer league debut, a game that, for Wizards fans, was like a giant bowl of water in the middle of a desert. Or a fountain, really. Or a whole damn river.

But first, what was your favorite highlight late Thursday night? Was it when Dybantsa, the No. 1 pick in June, put poor Justin Harmon on a poster with a thundering dunk? Was it when, late in the third quarter, Dybantsa beat one defender going to his left, hopped into the paint, then flicked in a layup while floating into the chest of a second defender? Was it when he hit a leaning, mid-range jumper while falling to the floor, the ball rattling in while the ref whistled for a shooting foul?Was it that you watched him for 27 minutes and only saw one turnover?

In the Wizards’ 92-88 win over the Jazz in Las Vegas, Dybantsa, a 6-foot-9 forward, finished with 27 points, seven rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block. He shot seven of eight at the line. He was not perfect, missing all five of his three-point attempts, and attacking some double teams when he could have used the attention to set teammates up. He also told ESPN that he sat the last minute because of some leg soreness, though assured he’ll be OK.

But the performance was everything the Wizards — and Wizards fans — could have hoped for and then some. Not because Dybantsa put constant pressure on the rim, though that was certainly promising. And not because he outshined Darryn Peterson, the No. 2 pick last month, though that was certainly an added bonus. No, it was because Dybantsa was entirely in character — which is to say that, in his first chance to prove he was the right choice, he seemed hell-bent, from the opening tip, on not leaving the faintest trace of doubt.

https://x.com/WashWizards/status/2075393776571564416

Making tough shots is one thing, in an exhibition or otherwise. Yet understanding the role and expectations of franchise player is what the Wizards will ultimately need from the 19-year-old.

Vegas was already an important place in Dybantsa’s basketball journey. In 2024, it’s where his family first met Brett Woodson, who was then co-director of Utah Prep. Woodson got to talking with Dybantsa’s dad, Ace, about whether Dybantsa might spend his final year of high school in Hurricane, Utah. Eventually they agreed on a lucrative name, image and likeness (NIL) deal that included an ownership stake in the school for Ace, according to multiple people familiar with the terms.

Many of Utah Prep’s leaders had connections to BYU, whether as grads or donors or both. Dybantsa, as we know now, would play his lone college season at BYU, earning more than $5 million in NIL money, according to a handful of people familiar with those terms. Before that, though, he starred for a Utah Prep team that barstormed around the country, including to Sin City. But about four hours before one game in Vegas, AJ unzipped his bag and found a problem: Nike had sent him the wrong-sized shoes.

Panicked, AJ called his dad’s hotel room. Ace was bunking with Tai Cecil, another team parent who would eventually become the president of Utah Prep. Cecil had driven them to Vegas, so the Dybanstas asked if he would now take them to the Nike store. Cecil did, of course, which ended with Dybantsa swarmed by people while trying to find the right pair.

“He was only 17, still a high schooler, but he was also a famous Nike athlete standing in the middle of a Nike store,” Cecil remembered. “And so he couldn’t just buy a pair of shoes to play in that afternoon without everyone trying to get photos, a handshake, any small piece of him.”

Familiarity is usually a prerequisite to comfort. For Dybantsa, this microscope isn’t new, just bigger and more expensive. And now Vegas is also where he introduced himself to the professional basketball world, no matter if it was only a scrimmage. Really, what’s a summer league game if not an excuse to overreact?

Even the most illogical fan brain knows that dunking over defenders in July is not the same as dunking over NBA defenders in February. It is, to bite off the tail end of a Mark Twain quote, the “difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” But stirring real excitement is better than any alternative, as is somehow exceeding absurd amounts of hype. Then it all popped just a bit more because of what 27 minutes made clear: The teenager knows the job.

Democrats vs The ‘Red Scare’

Evan McMorris-Santoro, Jasmine Wright, Manuela Silva — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT https://www.notus.org/newsletters/democrats-vs-the-red-scare

Seth Wenig/AP

Today’s notice: How potent is the word “communism”? A strange waiver at the SEC. Trump purges the Election Assistance Commission. CFPB’s ultimatum. And: Paul Kane recalls the highs and lows of Senate nominee replacements.

THE LATEST

Democrats are the new communists — at least that’s what Republicans are saying. During his Fourth of July speech, Donald Trump used the words “communist” or “communism” 11 times. And there’s no sign of stopping: As Republicans test out their midterms approach, you could be hearing a lot more about “communists.”

“Elevating the most radical and extreme elements of the Democratic Party is a net positive for Republicans,” Republican strategist Matt Gorman told NOTUS’ Manuela Silva, adding he believes there’s no stretch in referring to some Democrats as communists: “These people have socialist and borderline communist views, and they’re running under that label.”

Ain’t gonna work, respond Democrats.

“It is their attempt at trying to revitalize the Red Scare that many people lived through decades ago, and we are not living in the same world anymore,” says Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats.

Anti-communist messaging could still resonate with Latinos who have a generational distrust of the political ideologies, said Steve Schale, a Florida-based Democratic strategist who ran Obama’s campaigns there. But, it’s nothing new. “Republicans calling Democrats communists and socialists is a story as old as time,” Schale said.

Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau called the GOP messaging “laughable.”

“It's going to be very hard for Republicans to get into a philosophical debate and/or throw mud at Democrats, when they’re the ones in power and people are really upset and fed up at the state of the economy,” Mollineau said. Democrats’ counter? How are those Trump promises about fuel costs and grocery bills?

Open tabs: Inside Trump’s Oval Office Decision to Ditch the Iran Ceasefire (WSJ); Grocery Stores Race to Cut Prices (NYT); The renaming of Palm Beach’s airport after Trump (Palm Beach Post); The hidden costs of low-tax states (Axios); Erika Kirk Secures Release of More Evidence From Her Husband’s Killing (NOTUS)

From the SEC

Scoop: The strange case of the anonymous conflict of interest waiver. Securities and Exchange Commission HR director David Reinhold granted a waiver in May to an unnamed official holding stocks in Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft despite that official’s work on an investigation that could involve the companies, NOTUS’ Taylor Giorno reports.

Very unusual stuff: The Trump administration has granted more than 250 conflict-of-interest waivers in his second term. But this is the only one that redacts the name and position of the official, Taylor writes.

“[C]ertain information may be redacted if it would otherwise be exempt from disclosure under FOIA,” Danae Serrano, the ethics counsel copied on the conflict of interest waiver, told NOTUS. The SEC declined to comment.

From the Election Assistance Commission

A new mass firing. “All three EAC commissioners were relieved of their positions as of 4pm ET today,” reads an email from Amy Cohen, executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors, to her membership last night. Jasmine snagged a copy of the message.

What the EAC is: NOTUS’ government bureaucracy knower, Eric Katz, explains: EAC is a small federal agency Congress created after the tightly contested 2000 election to write election management guidelines, provide best practices to state and municipal election officials and develop specifications for testing and certifying voting systems. EAC guidance is voluntary and the agency holds no enforcement authority. Republicans have tried, unsuccessfully, to eliminate it, though Joe Biden doubled its size during his term. After Trump cuts, it now has just 65 employees.

What administrators are saying: “Irresponsible and dangerous,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, wrote in a statement posted online.

More on this from NOTUS’ Marissa Martinez.

From the CFPB

Move to D.C. — or else. Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Russ Vought (a man with a couple of administration hats) signed warnings in June to employees of the department: Move to the District to work in the HQ at least two days a week by September, or lose your job. Employees have been given until July 21 to decide, NOTUS’ Jade Lozada reports.

This is not the traditional RTO demand. Many of the roughly 450 CFPB employees spread around the country are in roles designed to be outside Washington, Jade writes. The White House has said over and over it hopes to eliminate the agency entirely, but courts have blocked mass layoffs. The CFPB union sees Vought’s order as an attempt to force workers to quit and further diminish the agency. Vought says he’s carrying out RTO orders laid down by the president in an early executive order.

From the campaign trail

Alan Keyes, Arne Carlson, Frank Lautenberg: NOTUS’ Paul Kane reminds us of some of the highlights and lowlights of Senate nominee replacements in the wake of Graham Platner’s meltdown in the Maine Democratic primary. The good news for Democrats: Some of these people won. The bad news: While the Maine party has promised an open process, Paul writes that replacing a nominee usually requires a back-room deal, an idea that is very out of favor with voters in both parties right now.

NEW ON NOTUS

Who’s got the power? Data centers, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency mining and manufacturing, according to the 2026 draft of the National Transmission Needs Study, published every three years by the Department of Energy. NOTUS’ Mara Hoplamazian reports that this year’s report says those Trump administration priorities are straining the grid, requiring more transmission infrastructure to handle the demand.

That's a shift in focus from three years ago, when a Biden-era report cited a clean energy transition as the biggest challenge for the grid.

More: Chuck Grassley Joins Democrats in Demanding Info on Kash Patel’s Spending, by Jose Pagliery

DOJ Sues Maryland Over New Sanctuary Law, by Marissa Martinez

Former Olympian Pleads Not Guilty to Reflecting Pool Vandalism Charge, by Angie Orellana Hernandez

Mexico Seeks Charges Over Deaths of Mexicans in ICE Custody, by Torrie Herrington

Appeals Court Keeps Block on Texas In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students, by Jackie Llanos

NOT US

Rubio tries to enlist other nations in antifa fight, but some allies recoil, by Ellen Nakashima, John Hudson and Adam Taylor for The Washington Post
Trump seeks do-overs at a Supreme Court that rarely grants them, by John Fritze for CNN
Meet the Man Who Could Cost Candace Owens Millions, by Will Sommer for The Bulwark

BE SOCIAL

Recycling is good.

https://x.com/alecahernandez/status/2075274819440914450

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Senate Candidates Have Been Replaced Before. Here's How It Went.

Paul Kane — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 09:30:00 GMT

Graham Platner had survived earlier scandals, but an ex-girlfriend accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2021. While he denied the allegations, he announced that he would withdraw by the deadline to formally remove his name from the ballot. Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

The campaign team for Claire McCaskill went from euphoria to dread within a few hours.

In August 2012, the Missouri Democrat’s challenger had uttered a politically fatal line that boosted McCaskill’s chances of winning reelection to the Senate. Then her aides realized state law gave then-Rep. Todd Akin until late September to withdraw from the race, possibly handing Republican insiders a chance to handpick his replacement.

“That was the longest six weeks of that campaign,” Caitlin Legacki, a top McCaskill adviser, told NOTUS.

That contest turned into one of the more wild Senate races of the past 50 years, and ended with McCaskill winning a second term. But it’s not the only one in which one of the parties had such a flawed nominee that leaders intervened and tried to find a replacement candidate.

The results are often a mixed bag and offer some clues — and warnings — for how Maine Democrats should proceed as they sort out who will replace the disgraced Graham Platner on the ballot to go up against five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November.

Most prominently, Democrats had to replace Joe Biden two years ago after the president — at 81, already facing voter skepticism about his age — had a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump. Biden endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, and the party quickly coalesced around her. Harris narrowly lost every swing state and Trump won a second term.

In the Maine contest, Platner had survived earlier scandals, but an ex-girlfriend accused him in a story published this week of sexually assaulting her in 2021. While he denied the allegations, he announced Wednesday that he would withdraw by the Monday deadline to formally remove his name from the November ballot.

State party officials are setting up a fairly wide open process to find a replacement. Potential candidates are already announcing bids, and Democrats have asked county organizations to send several hundred delegates to a convention so they can choose a replacement by July 27.

The plan might win plaudits from party activists who had recoiled at the efforts by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Washington operatives to line up support for Gov. Janet Mills in the primary. She ended up leaving the race as Platner surged.

Veterans of past tumultuous Senate campaigns are urging Maine Democrats to use the next few weeks to focus on only one thing.

“The North Star needs to be: How do we beat Susan Collins? And then work backwards from there,” Legacki said.

Almost every other recent Senate replacement candidate was chosen in a back-room deal, an idea that is very out of favor with voters in both parties right now.

Perhaps the most cataclysmic mid-campaign change came in 2004. Illinois Democrats nominated an ambitious young state senator, Barack Obama, as their nominee. Republicans settled on Jack Ryan, a business executive with a deep background in charity. The public release of family custody records during divorce proceedings forced Ryan to bow out of the race.

Illinois Republicans spent six weeks flailing in their bid to find a prominent politician to take the nomination, leading to a failed courtship with the famed Chicago Bears head coach Mike Ditka.

Eventually they gave the nomination to Alan Keyes, a former Reagan administration official who became a prominent Black Republican commentator — even though he lived in Maryland. Obama won the election by more than 40 percentage points, and would be elected president four years later.

The most successful last-minute, back-room deal might have come in 1990, when the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial nominee withdrew with only about a week left in the race after multiple stories of sexual misdeeds emerged.

The state auditor, Arne Carlson, who was the runner-up in the primary, became the backup pick.

“I was a surfer who caught a beautiful wave,” Carlson, now 91, told Gabe Fleischer of Wake Up to Politics, which recounted the story in its Wednesday newsletter.

He won by a few points in 1990, then won reelection by a nearly 2-1 margin and retired as one of the most popular Minnesota governors ever.

John Warner ended up having a 30-year tenure in the Senate even though he finished second in the 1978 Virginia Republican primary. The winner died in a plane crash and a team of 78 state operatives chose the replacement, settling on the former Navy secretary who was a political celebrity after marrying actress Elizabeth Taylor.

“John Warner is a man of principle,” he said in accepting the nomination. He won that November by less than 5,000 votes.

In 2002, New Jersey Democrats pulled off another successful insider deal for a candidate swap. Wounded by years of Justice Department investigations, Sen. Bob Torricelli’s support cratered.

At the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters, senior staff repeatedly sent word to New Jersey for their candidate, business executive Doug Forrester, to not call for the senator’s resignation. They thought they’d have a better chance facing off against the tainted incumbent, known as The Torch.

In late September, Torricelli withdrew, setting off a legal dispute about whether he could be replaced that late in the cycle.

"You can put somebody else on the ballot when somebody else has died, but political death does not qualify. He still has a pulse,” Mitch Bainwol, the executive director of the NRSC at the time, told reporters.

Local courts decided otherwise and former Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who had previously served three terms, won by almost 10 percentage points in a year that was otherwise good for Republicans.

A decade later, a similar scenario faced the McCaskill team when they started to absorb the fallout from Akin’s controversy.

McCaskill’s campaign had spent $2 million on an ad campaign that waded into the Republican primary with messages like “Todd Akin is too conservative” — boosting his popularity with the die-hard conservatives who show up to early-August primary elections.

Akin won the GOP nomination with just 36 percent of the vote, ahead of two much better-financed candidates.

But Akin himself would soon make a major mistake, in his response to a question about the right to an abortion in the case of rape or incest.

“From what I understand from doctors, it's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Akin told an interviewer.

Legacki can still recall the note she sent to the campaign team: “Even for Todd Akin, this is crazy.”

The McCaskill campaign worried Akin would drop out and Republicans would pick someone better able to target McCaskill’s strengths, especially with moderate women in the voter-rich suburbs of St. Louis. Their biggest fear was Jo Ann Emerson, a 16-year veteran of the House with a voting record much more moderate than Akin’s.

Legacki said the McCaskill campaign found ways to feed polling data to allies of Akin that showed the race was still close. They also tried to stiffen opposition to Emerson or other potential moderate replacements by sending anonymous research packets to local conservative operatives about their moderate records.

It may have helped. Akin held a news conference on Sept. 25, the deadline to withdraw, defiantly staying in the race.

On election night, McCaskill coasted to victory by 15 points, even as Missouri voters gave Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney a 10-point victory.

Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Missouri since.

Inside Russ Vought’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Jade Lozada — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 09:30:00 GMT

More than a year after the Trump administration attempted to shutter the agency, the CFPB remains mired in endless lawsuits over mass layoffs and agency funding. Lillian Bautista/NOTUS

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was slowly stirring back to life this year. The agency had started issuing a flurry of new rules, and staff were beginning examinations of financial institutions again and moving ahead on their enforcement casework.

Then hundreds of employees across the country received notices in late June signed by Acting Director Russell Vought: Move to Washington, D.C., by September, or lose your job. They were given until July 21 to decide.

“You can’t give somebody two months to sell their house and move 2,000 miles,” one CFPB financial auditor based in the San Francisco Bay Area said.

“I knew right then, there's no way I could do it. So this is them firing me,” they added, requesting anonymity out of fear of reprisal.

More than a year after the Trump administration attempted to shutter the agency, the CFPB remains mired in endless lawsuits over mass layoffs and agency funding. Still, 1,174 people were on payroll as of March.

NOTUS spoke with current and former employees, and reviewed staff testimonies given to the agency’s union. These workers recounted an agency barely functioning and a workforce in constant fear of dismissal. Some haven’t been assigned work since President Donald Trump returned to office last January. Many see the return-to-office mandate as the latest attempt to shut down the bureau.

“This illegal forced relocation is another attempt in Vought’s yearslong crusade to drive workers out of public service and close the CFPB,” Cat Farman, the CFPB union president, said in a statement to NOTUS.

The National Treasury Employees Union, the umbrella organization that represents CFPB employees, negotiated an extension of the deadline for staffers to decide whether to relocate to Washington, according to a message sent to union members late Thursday night and reviewed by NOTUS. More than 350 employees may receive superseding notices giving them until November 2 to decide whether to relocate, pending a judge’s orders.

The CFPB financial auditor — whose job is to ensure banks, lenders and debt collectors are following federal consumer finance laws — is waiting to see whether they will be given an exemption for a disability. The auditor said they suffered severe burns in a fire when they were a child and are under doctor’s orders to avoid walking more than a quarter mile each day, and they must keep their foot propped up when sitting, or they risk requiring amputation. The auditor, who is over the age of 60, also cares for their adult son, who has a serious mental illness, with their spouse.

Moving to Washington would result in an automatic $24,000-a-year pay cut because it’s a lower-cost-of-living area and would require them to sign a new lease while still paying their family’s expenses in California, the auditor said.

But retiring comes with its own costs. The auditor said leaving the workforce now would mean they’d receive $2,000 less per month in Social Security and pension benefits than they planned.

“They're screwing me all up there,” they said.

It’s unclear how many employees have already received exemptions or what factored into the decision to issue them. The CFPB did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.

Roughly 450 employees living around the country received return-to-office notices in recent weeks, including many working in roles designed to be outside Washington, D.C. If they choose to relocate, most must begin in-person work by September 6.

About 650 CFPB employees already live within a 50-mile radius of the city and are expected back in the office starting July 13. The agency cited Trump’s January executive order mandating in-person work for the federal workforce, as well as the president’s orders to eliminate government waste and cut taxpayer costs in its notices to workers.

Employees must work from the office at least two days a week. Several staff members told NOTUS they’re under the impression there won’t be enough desks for all the employees who will soon be required to work in the office. They added that staff had been paired up with colleagues and scheduled to come in on different days.

“So you're going to move across the country, uproot your life, and then you'll only be in the office about 50% of the time?” an employee in the agency’s supervision division said.

Many employees are skeptical about quickly relocating for jobs that agency leaders have repeatedly attempted to eliminate. They are weighing the risk of selling their homes, sinking cash into moving expenses and arranging costly child or elder care to comply with the order, according to interviews with current employees and written testimonies collected by the employees’ union and shared with NOTUS.

“It's ridiculous, it's inhumane, it's unprofessional, it is beyond what any reasonable person I think would consider normal or called for,” said Chuck Werner, an information technology worker at the CFPB. “The harm being done is that no one's being asked to do their job for the most part. Well, what are they all of a sudden planning to ask people to do their job?”

Werner, who is based in Pittsburgh, said he has a medical condition that makes walking difficult, increasing the risk he develops sores that lead to infections. He’s been hospitalized multiple times and anxious that he’ll get injured.

Relocating would mean leaving his relatives hundreds of miles away and risking his mental and physical health, he said.

Within two days of receiving Vought’s notice, Werner received an email from Chris Chilbert, the CFPB’s chief information officer, to the tech team.

“I know that this is incredibly upsetting and disruptive, and there is nothing I can write or say that will change that,” Chilbert wrote in the email, which was reviewed by NOTUS. “Exemption decisions were made by the acting director and are final.”

Werner said he will defer his decision to relocate until he receives guidance from the union. He plans to file for an exemption for his medical condition, but he refuses to simply “give up” and relocate.

“I want to be a part of setting a precedent of the protections of federal workers against political influence,” Werner said. “We cannot go back to the systems of the past where every political appointee or every government hire was just someone's retinue, his patronage council.”

Current CFPB employees say that agency leadership has assigned them questionable projects that diminish the quality and potential impact of the bureau’s work.

The California-based auditor said they have received zero assignments since Trump took office last year. They would typically have conducted eight or nine exams over the course of those 17 months, they said.

“We're the police force of the financial world,” they said. “Imagine if a city just fired all their police officers, and the criminals were able to do whatever they wanted to do, and nobody stopped them.”

The supervision department has been among the hardest hit at the CFPB. The department has 173 fewer employees than were authorized for the 2025 fiscal year, a March court filing by the CFPB shows.

Examiners once visited financial institutions around the country to listen in on their customer service calls, access their computer systems and review their records to ensure compliance with federal consumer finance laws.

Examinations, which started up again around late spring, last around three weeks and involve two to three examiners, supervision employees said. Before the pandemic, bank examinations took eight weeks and involved as many as 10 examiners.

Current agency leaders only allow examiners to work within a narrow scope of issues when reviewing banks, the supervision employee said.

“We are actually conducting exams, but they are kind of laughable,” the employee said. “We are severely limited in time, severely limited in resources, although we have enough of both. And the reason that there's such a shortage is because they don't want us to go deeper. They don't want us to actually examine and conduct legal analysis into the full work that we are used to doing, that we're charged and mandated to do.”

The agency has issued 21 rules so far this year, from standardizing data practices to a rule that would tighten criteria for discrimination claims in credit lending in line with Trump’s executive orders on merit-based opportunity.

The enforcement division also remains active, though the majority of its cases have been closed since Trump returned to office. CFPB attorneys are quietly working on at least three cases, including against the consumer credit reporting company Experian, the debt-relief company Strategic Financial Solutions and the debt collector United Debt Holdings.

Vought has sought to further shrink the enforcement division, which investigates and litigates violations of consumer financial laws.

In March, Vought requested a modification to an appeals court’s previous order to allow reductions in force, or RIFs, of more than half the bureau’s remaining employees, including massive cuts to the supervision and enforcement divisions. The court denied Vought’s request in June.

In a joint filing with the CFPB’s union late Thursday night, Vought agreed to temporarily delay the agency’s request and await Senate confirmation of Trump’s pick for CFPB director, Capital One executive and former deputy director of the agency Brian Johnson.

“The parties agree that Mr. Johnson, if confirmed, should be given the opportunity to review the 2026 RIF plan and decide whether he would like to pursue it,” the filing read.

If the joint action is approved, Vought’s request to modify the court order and allow RIFs will go back into effect 60 days after Johnson’s confirmation. If Johnson is not confirmed by January 3, 2027, Vought's request will expire.

The CFPB reported 549 fewer employees in the March filing than were authorized for the 2025 fiscal year. Many have opted to retire or left for other job opportunities as the bureau’s future became uncertain.

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amy Berman Jackson first issued an injunction halting layoffs in March 2025, though the agency remains mired in a legal battle over the future of its workforce.

CFPB employees are now placing their hopes in Jackson siding with them in a potential legal challenge to the return-to-office notices.

In any case, the supervision employee said they’re willing to move across the country to keep the agency alive.

“I want to help keep the lights on, and so if it comes down to it, then yes, I would ultimately move,” the employee said. “We're really losing a lot of people who have, you know, institutional knowledge, have a certain level of expertise and also have been here for the reasons that the bureau was intentionally stood up, so I want to be part of stopping that hemorrhaging.”

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include new details about the union's negotiations with CFPB's leadership over the return to office notice and the agreement to delay RIF plans.

The Case of the Redacted SEC Conflict of Interest Waiver

Taylor Giorno — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 09:25:00 GMT

The conflict of interest waiver, which is dated May 28, was signed by David Reinhold, the director of the SEC’s office of human resources. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

Ethics officials granted a conflict of interest waiver to an unnamed official at the Securities and Exchange Commission, allowing them to hold on to stocks in Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft despite their work on an investigation that could involve the companies.

The waiver, which has not been previously reported, grants the SEC official permission to maintain the stocks even though they “likely” need to send subpoenas and document requests to the companies as part of an investigation into “an unrelated party.”

Federal law bars government employees from participating in official matters that could be compromised by their financial interests. They can secure a waiver, however, if their financial interest is deemed “too remote or too inconsequential” to compromise the integrity of their work.

Since President Donald Trump took office, agencies across the federal government have issued more than 250 conflict of interest waivers, according to the Office of Government Ethics database, which has waivers going back to September 2024. But this is the only waiver that redacts the name and position of the official, which is highly unusual.

And it takes a particularly lenient stance on conflicts of interest: The waiver acknowledges that the stock holdings, which make up 10% of the individual's non-real estate assets, could be “disqualifying,” but concludes it is “not so substantial” as to impact their work in the agency’s Office of the Inspector General.

It raises a “huge red flag,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen.

The stocks make up a significant portion of the individual’s assets, which “alone can be a serious potential conflict of interest that could affect the official's decisionmaking,” Holman wrote in an email. And because the tech companies are “directly and intimately affected by public policies,” Holman added, the investments affect both the personal financial income of the official and the “integrity of government regulation.”

When ethics officials see a potential conflict of interest, a federal employee would typically divest from the asset in question or be disqualified from working on the matter.

“The only element I see correct in this waiver is a recognition that the official could not adequately perform his or her duties if subject to the conflict of interest law. The solution is to make the official divest of these investments or find someone else to do the job who is not so conflicted,” Holman wrote.

The conflict of interest waiver, which is dated May 28, was signed by David Reinhold, the director of the SEC’s office of human resources.

"I believe that the disqualifying financial interest that will arise in certain particular matters directly and predictably affecting your holdings in these technology companies is not so substantial as to affect the integrity of the services which the government may expect from you,” Reinhold wrote.

He said that the waiver did not cover any interaction with the companies, which he described as "repositories of records concerning their users,” beyond third-party documents or information requests.

It’s rare for an agency to redact an official’s name or title in public disclosures. Of the more than 16,600 ethics disclosures — including conflict of interest waivers, financial disclosures and transaction reports — on file with the OGE, this is only one of two forms where the name has been withheld, according to a NOTUS analysis of the database. The CIA also redacted the name of an employee on a certificate of divestiture issued in 2021.

Danae Serrano, the ethics counsel copied on the conflict of interest waiver, told NOTUS in an email that “certain information may be redacted if it would otherwise be exempt from disclosure under FOIA.”

She pointed to the final paragraph in the waiver, which cites a federal statute that allows an agency to withhold any information about an individual’s financial interest that is “more extensive” than what is legally required to be disclosed in their financial report.

An SEC spokesperson declined to comment.

Trump Purges Election Assistance Commission

Marissa Martinez — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 01:02:24 GMT

On Thursday, a Trump official fired Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland — the panel’s two Democratic commissioners — via email, Votebeat reported. Patrick Semansky/AP

The White House fired two Democratic Election Assistance Commission members Thursday afternoon, completely vacating the federal agency in charge of election management guidelines after the remaining Republican member resigned.

President Donald Trump’s move comes after a recent Supreme Court ruling that vastly expanded the president’s ability to fire independent government regulators. The court exempted the Federal Reserve, blocking Trump's attempts to remove one of its governors, Lisa Cook.

On Thursday, a Trump official fired Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland — the panel’s two Democratic commissioners — via email, Votebeat reported. The third commissioner, Republican Christy McCormick, resigned afterward. A fourth commissioner, Republican Donald Palmer, had already left the agency earlier this year to join the Heritage Foundation.

“Trump couldn’t rig the elections through the SAVE Act, so he’s now moving unilaterally to subvert the 2026 elections starting with sacking the bipartisan EAC commissioners,” said Tim Lim, a Democratic strategist working on election administration issues. “Between the FBI surging into Fulton County and today’s action, it’s clear Donald Trump is determined to stop a free and fair election this November.”

Congress established the small federal agency through the Help America Vote Act after the tightly contested 2000 presidential election in order to provide best practices to state and municipal election officials, as well as to develop specifications for testing and certifying voting systems. The four-person, bipartisan panel issues voluntary guidance and holds no enforcement authority.

Republicans have tried — unsuccessfully — to eliminate the agency, the size of which former President Joe Biden doubled during his term. It now has just 65 employees after a wave of Trump cuts.

Other election officials and lawmakers have criticized the agency for not adequately advancing election security measures in the past, though the commission’s membership has been in flux throughout its existence. The EAC lacked a quorum for years — frozen in its abilities to update voting guidance — until the Senate confirmed new commissioners in 2019.

After the Supreme Court’s June ruling, it is still unclear whether the EAC would fall under the executive branch’s expanded ability to fire independent regulators. Trump’s termination of a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Election Commission earlier this year didn’t end in a lawsuit, leaving little precedent for this type of panel vacancy. The FEC has not had a quorum since April 2025 after two other commissioners, both Republicans, departed the six-person panel — freezing the campaign finance agency's ability to issue guidance.

Thursday’s EAC firings could further endanger the government’s ability to make bipartisan election-related recommendations ahead of the midterms, particularly as Trump moves to aggressively reshape the way the country votes.

Democratic secretaries of state panned the dismissals, saying the White House has continually undermined nonpartisan election integrity and made it difficult for election officials to do their work.

“The EAC plays a critical role in supporting state and local election officials, and it will again fall on Secretaries of State and other election administrators to fill the gap,” said Cisco Aguilar, chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State.

DOJ Sues Maryland Over New Sanctuary Law

Torrie Herrington — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:21:47 GMT

The Department of Justice’s lawsuit said Maryland’s new measure violates the Supremacy Clause on multiple fronts, including obstruction of federal immigration enforcement and improper regulation of the federal government. Tom Williams/AP

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it is suing Maryland over a new law that restricts local police collaboration with federal immigration enforcement.

The agency’s suit seeks to invalidate Maryland’s Community Trust Act, which prevents local police and correctional facilities from informally collaborating with ICE. The DOJ alleges Maryland has since refused to transfer undocumented immigrants to federal officials even after federal agents issue a detainer — a legal request that a jail hold someone up to 48 hours past release so that ICE can assume custody.

It’s the latest in a series of lawsuits the DOJ has brought against more than a dozen states and municipalities, including New York and Illinois, for what it deems “illegal policies designed to thwart federal law enforcement.”

Last month, 17 of Maryland’s 24 sheriffs sued the state over the CTA as well. Democratic Gov. Wes Moore did not sign the CTA because he said it presents challenges that need to be addressed with executive action in next year’s legislative session, and let it become law without his signature.

“Maryland will also work with federal law enforcement when it makes Marylanders safer, but we will not let untrained, unqualified and unaccountable ICE agents deputize local law enforcement officers to do federal immigration work,” Moore’s office said in a May statement.

The DOJ’s lawsuit said Maryland’s new measure violates the Supremacy Clause on multiple fronts, including obstruction of federal immigration enforcement and improper regulation of the federal government.

“Such blatant disregard for federal laws that have been on the books for decades is not merely a political disagreement or passive abstention; it is deliberate, disruptive action that jeopardizes the public safety for all Americans,” the lawsuit reads.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“Federal immigration officers merely enforce the laws that our Nation’s elected representatives in Congress passed, reflecting the will of We the People,” DOJ Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement. “When sanctuary jurisdictions enact laws to shield illegal aliens from federal law enforcement, it is not merely federal law that is violated, but the voices of everyday American voters silenced. Today’s suit proves that this Department will never stand for such lawless action from blue state leaders.”

Appeals Court Keeps Block on Texas In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students

Jackie Llanos — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 23:37:56 GMT

The 2-1 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit sided with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Trump administration. David Buono/Icon Sportswire/AP

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that federal law prevents undocumented students from qualifying for in-state tuition benefits in Texas, one of 12 states where the Trump administration is seeking that outcome.

The 2-1 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit sided with Gov. Greg Abbott and the Trump administration. It upheld a district court decision from last year that brought an end to in-state tuition for undocumented students graduating from Texas high schools, which lawmakers passed with bipartisan support under the Texas Dream Act in 2001.

The case hinged on a federal statute from 1996 that prevents undocumented immigrants from getting higher education benefits unless it is available to all U.S. citizens regardless of where they live. Austin Community College, immigrant advocacy groups and a student had sought to intervene in the lawsuit and restore the law.

The 5th Circuit majority found that the federal law preempts the state law and that the groups could not intervene.

“In-state tuition is about one-tenth the amount of out-of-state tuition and represents a monetary form of assistance, not merely a hollow status,” Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan-appointee, wrote in the majority opinion.

The end of the in-state tuition policy was swift. It came six hours after the federal government filed the lawsuit against Texas in June of last year, with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton entering an agreement to halt the provisions.

“Texas and the Trump DOJ just secured another major victory for the rule of law,” Abbott wrote on X. “The Fifth Circuit upheld the END of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in Texas.”

Tania Chavez Camacho, president and executive director of La Unión del Pueblo Entero, which was one of the groups petitioning the court, said in a statement that education “is a human right, no matter someone's immigration status or background.”

“We are deeply disappointed in today’s ruling, but it will not deter us from continuing to advocate for equitable access to higher education for all Texans,” Camacho said.

The dissenting judge, Irma Carrillo Ramirez, pointed out the speedy timeline of the agreement between the state and Trump administration in her dissent. The Biden-appointee wrote that the lower court’s decision didn’t contemplate whether the federal law was unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment.

The Austin Community College Board of Trustees said in a statement the institution will follow the law.

“We continue to work with legal counsel to fully understand our next steps and the implications of the court's decision,” the board said.

Chuck Grassley Joins Democrats in Demanding Info on Kash Patel’s Spending

Jose Pagliery — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 23:25:04 GMT

United States Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is seen at a Senate Committee on the Judiciary business meeting in the Hart Senate office building in Washington, DC, on Thursday, June 18, 2026. Mattie Neretin/Sipa USA via AP

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley sought information from FBI Director Kash Patel over his use of the bureau's private jets and other spending, in a previously undisclosed letter that adds bipartisan heft to similar oversight efforts from Democrats.

The May letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman was reviewed by NOTUS on Thursday, as Patel prepares for a scheduled trip to the FBI field office in Chicago on Friday. Patel’s girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, is scheduled to perform in Chicago on Saturday.

Patel has faced questions from Democrats about his travel and use of private planes for months, while Republican lawmakers have largely been silent.

Grassley, a staunch Trump administration supporter, referred to his past oversight of prior FBI directors' use of the planes and efforts to reduce government waste and cited media reports detailing Patel's travels.

Grassley's letter also demanded to know why Patel had purchased armored BMWs, a luxury European brand, instead of the typical American-made Chevy Suburban sport utility vehicles typically used by the bureau.

The details of the letter were not made public until MS NOW first reported on it Thursday.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) referred to Grassley’s letter in their own letter Wednesday launching a bicameral investigation into what they called “misuse and mismanagement of Federal Bureau of Investigation resources.”

The Democrats’ letter cited a “VIP snorkeling experience in Hawaii,” jet skiing, and a “taxpayer-funded helicopter tour during your multi-country jaunt across East Asia.”

Before he became FBI director, Patel criticized his predecessor's travel on FBI aircraft, saying on a podcast, "Maybe we ground that plane." After taking the director role, Patel defended his use of the plane under congressional questioning last year.

Welch Grills FBI Director Patel During Judiciary Committee HearingThe FBI's public affairs office said Thursday that "FBI Director Patel has made just a fraction of the personal trips annually compared to prior FBI directors.”

The bureau pointed out that Patel has opted to use government airfields like Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, while previous directors flew out of the privately run Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which charged a $4,526 landing fee that added up to millions of dollars over the past two decades.

The FBI said the BMWs were purchased from the State Department, which had kept them “sitting idle and unused in their warehouse.” The FBI said two of its armored Chevy Suburbans normally reserved for protective details “were experiencing significant maintenance issues and needed to be replaced,” a tradeoff the bureau said saved $270,000 per vehicle.

But the timing of the back-and-forth could take on a new significance given Patel’s planned trip on Friday to Chicago, where Wilkins is scheduled to perform on Saturday.

Patel has been criticized in the past for using a government jet related to Wilkins. Kyle Seraphin, an ex-FBI agent who is now a conservative podcaster, first drew the public’s attention to flight records that appeared to show a government jet skipping around Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania — which lined up with Patel joining Wilkins at a Hulk Hogan event in Pennsylvania in October. Seraphin pointed out that the jet then flew to Nashville “where she lives.”

Patel's upcoming trip to Chicago also comes after Douglas DePodesta, the former head of the Chicago field office, was recently forced out. Seraphin, whom The Bulwark has dubbed Patel’s “nemesis,” pointed out the trip and concert in a July 1 X post that described the director’s Chicago visit as meeting with field office officials.

https://x.com/KyleSeraphin/status/2072294568242880599

One former FBI official who spoke to NOTUS last week said Patel’s visit was “cover to attend his girlfriend’s concert.”

In the letter Wednesday, Raskin and Durbin conceded that an FBI director is a “required use” traveler who can use government-owned aircraft for security reasons, even for personal travel. But they pointed out that ethics rules prevent Patel from a “taxpayer-funded vacation where official business was limited to perfunctory, pro forma meetings designed to cover the tracks of essentially personal travel.”

Patel would be required to pay the taxpayer back for personal travel, “and there is no exception for personal trips where you add a cosmetic work meeting or two,” the Democrats' letter said.

The FBI said Patel “has reimbursed ALL personal travel and expenses, strictly following the Office of Management and Budget rules, in the exact same manner as all previous FBI directors — and is fully compliant.”

Grassley’s May 5 letter asked Patel to provide all records of having reimbursed taxpayers for his trips and gave him two weeks to respond. It’s unclear if the FBI responded. Grassley’s staff did not reply to a request for comment and the FBI did not say whether the bureau had done so.

Trump’s Draft Report on the State of the Nation’s Power Grid Centers On AI

Mara Hoplamazian — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 22:47:16 GMT

Power lines rise in front of electric towers and smokestacks at the Palo Seco power plant in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, Thursday, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo)

The Department of Energy’s assessment of the nation’s power grid is out: Data centers, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency mining and manufacturing — major priorities of the Trump administration — are straining the system.

The National Transmission Needs Study, which comes out every three years, is like a report card for the grid. In the 2026 version, a draft of which was published Thursday, the DOE lays out a similar assessment as it has in years past: The U.S. needs more transmission infrastructure to handle increasing demand for electricity.

The source of that increasing demand, however, has shifted substantially over the last three years.

Concerns about a clean energy transition that took center stage in the 2023 version of the study got passing mentions. This time, officials are citing utility and industry assessments that AI data centers are the main drivers of electricity demand growth.

Based on a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report, officials say data centers could represent up to 12% of the nation’s electricity consumption by 2028. Virginia and Texas are projected to see the biggest increases.

While many regions are updating their transmission infrastructure because of concerns about reliability, Texas’ grid operator, ERCOT, said growth in demand was the main driver.

In PJM Interconnection’s territory, which spans 13 states and the District of Columbia and is the nation’s largest power grid, transmission congestion cost $2.5 billion in 2022 and more than $1 billion in 2023. Those costs have grown in recent years, peaking at $7.3 billion in 2025.

The congestion made it difficult for Dominion Energy to deliver power to data centers, the study said. Last summer, Dominion proposed 44 “supplemental” transmission projects to address increasing power needs from data centers.

The Trump administration has tried to accelerate transmission development, including by putting $1.9 billion toward transmission technologies. But efforts to build more transmission lines have long faced local pushback and permitting challenges.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright met with congressional Republicans in May to discuss permitting reform, around the same time top Senate leaders met to revive talks of a bipartisan bill, according to E&E News.

Democrats, however, have maintained that the Trump administration’s animus toward wind and solar energy is a major sticking point to accomplishing reforms.

“The thing that is the biggest threat to permitting reform right now is that the Trump administration backslid into a series of stalled-out permits,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee told E&E. “They’re permitting fossil fuel projects left and right, and they’re not moving solar, wind and batteries.”

Since 2016, investments in transmission infrastructure have remained relatively steady, the study said. But some regions have approved large projects, including a $21.8 billion investment in MISO and a $33 billion project in Texas, which has since been challenged by landowners and state lawmakers.

The administration has been bullish on investments in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, especially when it comes to building data centers. Wright said political pushback around data centers has been “overblown” at an Amazon Web Services conference earlier this month. Last week, during the historic heat wave across the East Coast, he instructed grid operators to push data centers to their generators to preserve the stability of electricity.

The Department of Energy will accept public comments on the study until Sept. 8.

Mexico Seeks Charges Over Deaths of Mexicans in ICE Custody

Torrie Herrington — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 21:19:34 GMT

Candles are lit during a vigil for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, whose shooting death by an ICE agent partially triggered Mexico's request for criminal charges.
Mark Felix/AP

Mexican officials are seeking criminal charges in the deaths of 17 Mexicans who died in U.S. custody or during immigration enforcement operations under the Trump administration.

Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco said Thursday the country wants to initiate “forceful legal actions” in response to Tuesday’s shooting death of Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Houston, which Velasco called a “painful tragedy.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum “instructed us to initiate forceful legal actions to respond to this painful tragedy,” Velasco said in Spanish, adding that his country would “respond to protect the human rights of Mexicans in the United States.”

The request for criminal charges carries no legal weight as Mexico has no legal authority inside the United States, but it does raise the stakes in diplomatic tensions between the neighboring countries.

According to the Mexican government, 14 Mexicans have died in detention centers and three have died during ICE operations since President Donald Trump’s second term began.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that there has been “NO spike in deaths” among detained migrants over the past decade and that only ".008% of the detained population" has died under the Trump administration. (Immigrant advocacy groups, however, have claimed the mortality rate of migrants in U.S custody is at itshighest in a decade and has more than doubled since President Donald Trump returned to office.)

“As bed space has rapidly expanded, we have maintained higher a standard of care than most prisons that hold U.S. citizens — including providing access to proper medical care,” the department said in an unsigned statement. “For many illegal aliens this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives.”

The department added that ICE agents are “trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and our officers. Officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the White House referred questions to DHS.

Velasco also announced that Mexico will be sending cease-and-desist letters to companies that operate ICE detention centers regarding “actions and conditions that violate human rights that led to the death of 14 Mexicanos by way of the private operators of ICE detention centers.”

“We are formally asking these companies to stop performing these actions, that they have to change these conditions that have brought Mexicans' deaths,” Velasco said at a news conference.

Sheinbaum said the killing of Salgado Araujo “is not only sad and regrettable, but also appears to have been targeted.”

Salgado Araujo, who had lived in the United States for decades, was fatally shot by ICE agents during a targeted enforcement stop, according to DHS. His family has demanded an investigation.

DHS has said ICE agents were pursuing Salgado Araujo because he was living in the country illegally. The department said he was shot after disregarding orders and attempting to run over an agent with his vehicle.

What Killed RFK Jr.’s Ads?

Marissa Martinez — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 20:18:14 GMT

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 20:18:14 GMT https://www.notus.org/final-notus-newsletter/what-killed-rfk-jr-s-ads

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrives to testify before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions during a hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget for the Department of Health and Human Services in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on April 22, 2026 in Washington, D.C. Samuel Corum/Sipa USA via AP

Good afternoon. This is the Final NOTUS newsletter for July 9, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here— it’s free!

THE LATEST

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had big plans last year for a “Take Back Your Health” ad campaign from the Health and Human Services Department. It never came together — and he can blame former Homeland Security head Kristi Noem, NOTUS’ Paige Winfield Cunningham scoops.

The White House was skittish about featuring RFK Jr. in a campaign after receiving heavy backlash for Noem’s ad appearances, including one on horseback. They quietly canceled the health initiative, worth up to $20 million, a few weeks ago.

Scoop: A new statewide poll shows a tight fight among candidates vying to replace Democrat Graham Platner in the Maine Senate race.

Platner’s not technically out yet: He plans to file paperwork to end his campaign on Monday, the last possible day, Axios reports.

Epidemiologist Nirav Shah, however, is officially in.

THE ADMINISTRATION

Mexican officials will request criminal charges over 17 Mexicans who died in ICE custody or during Trump’s immigration enforcement push. The request carries no legal weight.

The government’s new climate change office will now be headed by a climate critic after being gutted last year.

Trump has his name on yet another landmark. Palm Beach International Airport became President Donald J. Trump International Airport today. Travelers won’t see the airport code PBI change to DJT until August.

THE COURTS

Former Olympian David Hearn pleaded not guilty to a felony charge today in connection with damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

A district court judge granted Erika Kirk’s request for public disclosure of evidence in the case against the man accused of killing her husband, Charlie, last year.

The FBI has until the end of the month to provide records from director Kash Patel’s security team including terms like “alcohol,” “intoxicated” and “sleeping,” a federal judge ruled today in Democracy Forward’s lawsuit against the agency.

Senate Judiciary chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had privately requested information from Patel in May, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) disclosed in a joint letter to the FBI director’s office today.

TWEET, TWEET

https://x.com/aseitzwald/status/2075202364189917192

The White House Killed an RFK Jr. Ad Campaign. He Can Blame Kristi Noem.

Paige Winfield Cunningham — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:44:31 GMT

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was dispatched around the country on a “Take Back Your Health” tour. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had big plans for his much touted "Take Back Your Health" campaign last year. The Health Department he leads requested bids for "bold, edgy" pitches for TV and digital ads warning about the dangers of processed foods. Kennedy wanted to appear in ads wearing a device used by diabetics to track blood sugar.

None of it ever came together. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had rained on Kennedy's parade.

The $10 million to $20 million health campaign wasn’t officially canceled until a few weeks ago, according to a notice posted June 8 to a government website. But two sources familiar with the internal conversations told NOTUS that the reason why the campaign fell apart goes back to the immigration-related ads Noem filmed while DHS secretary.

The White House, skittish about generating negative attention and spending money on contracts amid widespread government cuts, didn't want Kennedy featured in a campaign. It had recently received heat for the Noem ads, which cost tens of millions of dollars in contracts and featured the secretary telling illegal immigrants to self-deport. Noem garnered even more pushback when she appeared on horseback in one ad filmed later that year.Kennedy’s senior counselor, Stefanie Spear, had narrowed down bidders for the “Take Back Your Health” campaign to three public relations firms last August when White House officials directed HHS to abort the effort, according to the two sources.

The agency kept quiet about terminating the campaign. The June 8 notice gives only a vague explanation for why contracts were never awarded.

“Due to significant programmatic changes and shifts in agency operational objectives, the current request for proposals … no longer accurately reflects the government’s requirements,” the notice says.

The campaign, which HHS solicited bids for in June 2025, was intended to highlight the links between processed foods and chronic disease, especially diabetes.

HHS had asked for pitches for “bold, edgy national campaigns with innovative messaging” especially aimed at Americans with diabetes. Pitches could include social media, TV, print and digital ads, public service announcements, text messages and audience engagement tools.

“The campaign’s creative content will turn heads, create viral moments on social media, and—above all else—inspire Americans to take back their health through eating real food,” the bid description said.

HHS had reviewed more than two dozen different bids before narrowing them to three, the sources said. One bidder pitched a Super Bowl ad and another wanted ads to feature TikTok influencer Alix Earle, according to text messages viewed by NOTUS.

Ad pitches should focus especially on diabetes, which affects more than 38 million Americans, the bid description said. “The campaign should be a wake-up call to Americans that eating processed foods dramatically increase the risks of diabetes and chronic disease,” it said.

Spokespeople for the White House and HHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Instead of a national ad blitz, the administration has dispatched Kennedy around the country — sometimes to swing districts — on a “Take Back Your Health” tour where the secretary has touted his efforts on new dietary guidelines and other food reforms.

The campaign received some initial positive reviews from nutrition experts, who have largely applauded Kennedy’s emphasis on improving Americans’ diets as a critical step to reducing the nation’s chronic disease burden.

Last month Kennedy visited Colorado, where he and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced a new website that encourages people to exercise and participate in outdoor recreation.

The administration has allowed another ad campaign to lapse — the long-running and highly effective series called “Tips From Former Smokers.” States are being given some funding to run ads from the campaign’s archive but the federal government isn’t producing new ads or airing them nationwide, The New York Times reported.

Erika Kirk Secures Release of More Evidence From Her Husband’s Killing

Jenna Monnin — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 18:33:28 GMT

Erika Kirk was in Utah for a hearing in the case against Tyler James Robinson, the man accused of killing her husband, Charlie Kirk. Marielle Scott/AP

A district court judge in Utah sided Thursday with Erika Kirk and the family of her late husband, Charlie Kirk, granting their request for public disclosure of evidence in the case against the man accused of killing the conservative activist last year.

The Kirk family cited concerns over the rampant spread of conspiracy theories about the case, in a motion filed Wednesday.

“The family deserves to see the evidence that’s been gathered in this investigation,” Jeffrey A. Neiman, a lawyer for the Kirk family, said in court Thursday to Judge Tony Graf, who is presiding over the defendant’s preliminary hearing.

“To receive evidence in a manner shielded from those seated in the courtroom — as

happened today — is not transparency,” Neiman wrote. “And in the absence of transparency, speculation and conspiracy theories related to the tragic assassination of Mr. Kirk will continue to proliferate in the public domain, breeding doubt and distrust in the judicial system.”

The preliminary hearing for defendant Tyler Robinson began in Provo, Utah, on Monday, and the proceedings will determine whether the case heads to trial. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Robinson, who is charged with killing Charlie Kirk as he spoke in front of a crowd of students at Utah Valley University campus on Sept. 10.

Robinson’s legal team attempted to block the court from presenting a video of Robinson’s romantic partner at the time of the shooting, Lance Twiggs, claiming that Robinson admitted he killed Kirk. Robinson’s attorneys have argued that playing the video in open court could affect the defendant’s right to a fair trial if prosecutors attempt to characterize it as a confession.

The defense team has also questioned the methods used to test the DNA found on a towel wrapped around the rifle Robinson allegedly used in the shooting and a screwdriver found on the roof where the defendant allegedly fired the gun. Prosecutors argued that they have presented enough evidence for Judge Tony Graf, who is presiding over the dayslong hearing, to allow the case to proceed to trial.

The high-profile nature of the case has led to a rash of conspiracy theories about what exactly happened. Candace Owens, a longtime friend of Charlie Kirk’s and a prominent conservative political commentator, has been locked in a feud with Erika Kirk following her husband’s assassination. In unsubstantiated claims, she has accused Erika Kirk of knowing more about Charlie Kirk’s death than she has publicly disclosed and even called her a "true psychopath" in an interview with the Shawn Ryan Show released last week.

Owens and others on social media have repeatedly questioned the evidence released to the public, including a video allegedly showing Robinson near the scene.

“I will keep asserting my viewpoint that they had multiple decoys on the ground that day for this military operation,” Owens posted Thursday on X. Robinson is the only person charged in connection to this case and law enforcement officials have not indicated that additional individuals were involved in the assassination.

A New Poll Shows a Tight Fight for Platner Replacements

Elena Schneider — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 17:55:59 GMT

Graham Platner exited the race Wednesday. Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty

A poll of potential replacements for Graham Platner, who dropped out of the Maine Senate race on Wednesday, found a trio of former gubernatorial candidates in tight head-to-head battles against Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

The statewide poll, shared first with NOTUS, pitted Collins against former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and former state Senate President Troy Jackson. It found the potential contests at 47 percent for Shah to 46 percent for Collins; 47-47 for Bellows versus Collins; and Jackson getting 47 percent to Collins' 48 percent. All three results are within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Shah and Jackson have both announced plans to run, while Bellows said she is “seriously considering” it.

The survey was conducted by Z to A Research and commissioned by a pro-Shah outside group, according to a person directly familiar with the research.

The new poll comes as a growing slate of Democrats in Maine begin a frantic sprint to position themselves as the best candidate to revive their party’s chances of beating Collins.

Platner’s campaign team conducted its own flash poll on Tuesday, Politico reported. It found Jackson, a former Platner ally, as performing the best against Collins, 49 percent to 44 percent. Bellows and Shah, per the Platner poll, were both essentially tied with the Republican senator.

The poll shared with NOTUS does not include head-to-head tests of other recently announced candidates, including Maine Beer Company founder Dan Kleban and former Capitol Hill staffer Jordan Wood, who lost a contested primary for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.

Platner, who has been accused of sexual assault, exited the Senate race on Wednesday, after a cavalcade of former supporters called on him to step aide. Following the allegations, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and its aligned super PAC said it would yank its financial support for Platner. In a video announcing his exit, Platner denied the allegations and blamed “the political establishment.”

Maine Democrats are now scrambling to find a replacement for one of the most hotly contested Senate races in the country. The Maine Democratic Party, charged with naming a new nominee by July 27, approved a plan to hold a nominating convention ahead of that deadline. The convention would include 600 delegates, primarily made up of local party officials, who would ultimately select the replacement.

The Z to A Research poll of 988 likely voters was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, ahead of Platner’s announcement that he was leaving the race. A quarter of voters said they thought Platner should stay in, while nearly two-thirds said he should drop out. Additionally, 72 percent of voters view Platner very or somewhat unfavorably.

Former Olympian Pleads Not Guilty to Reflecting Pool Vandalism Charge

Angie Orellana Hernandez — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 13:46:55 GMT

Samuel Corum/Sipa USA/Sipa USA via AP

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of destruction of property during his arraignment hearing on Thursday in connection with damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Supporters for Hearn gathered outside the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse before and after the hearing, carrying signs that read “Scapegoat for deflecting pool fail: Free Davey” and “Davey’s a champ, not a scamp!”

Norm Eisen, a lawyer for Hearn, told reporters outside the courthouse that if Hearn “can be charged with a felony for touching the Reflecting Pool, every American is at risk — and every American should be alarmed about this prosecution.”

“The indictment reflects the administration’s efforts to scapegoat Davey and to shift blame for their own failures. We will litigate these issues vigorously,” said Eisen, the co-founder of the Democracy Defenders Fund. “We have confidence in our justice system to see through this misuse of government power against an ordinary American based on a false and politicized narrative.”

Hearn entered his plea before Judge Carmen McLean in D.C. Superior Court. McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced Hearn’s indictment on July 2, contending that the 67-year-old from Bethesda, Maryland, allegedly caused more than $1,000 of damage to the Reflecting Pool. If found guilty, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Pirro accused Hearn of using his bare hands to “forcefully and violently” pull up and remove about 2 square feet of sealant from the bottom of the Reflecting Pool on June 19. An employee from the National Park Service on that day commanded Hearn to “stop his behavior and stop what he was doing,” Pirro said in a press conference July 2. He was arrested at the scene.

“Hearn reacted by shouting at the parks employee, saying that she cared too much about the Reflecting Pool, and why did she even care since it wasn’t her pool,” Pirro said. “Mr. Hearn’s behavior was characterized by witnesses as belligerent, rude and disrespectful.”

Hearn is one of at least seven people to be arrested at the Reflecting Pool for alleged destruction of property and vandalism, according to the White House. After a first phase of renovations ordered by President Donald Trump ahead of America’s 250th anniversary, the iconic pool began to see algae blooms and the peeling of Trump’s favored “American flag blue” paint that had recently been used to coat the pool’s surface.

Hearn and his lawyers have maintained his innocence. Hearn told NBC News in June that he stopped by the Reflecting Pool after a bike ride on the day of his arrest “to satisfy my curiosity as a citizen of what was happening with all the algae and the peeling blue coating.” He said he only touched the paint.

“It was kind of stiff, stiff, but flexible, pretty rubbery. Didn’t feel brittle in any way,” Hearn said. “I didn’t remove, tear, rip, break or destroy any of it. The condition of the Reflecting Pool was the same after I stepped away from the water as it was before I got there.”

Hearn’s next court date is scheduled for Aug. 5.

The Maine Vacancy

Evan McMorris-Santoro — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 10:00:00 GMT https://www.notus.org/newsletters/the-maine-vacancy

Robert F. Bukaty/AP

Today’s notice: Platner exits with harsh words for the establishment. Progressives wrestle with vetting. An exclusive poll from Pennsylvania. USCIS’ new focus on Afrikaner refugees. Bare-knuckle politics in Illinois. And: Is everything about to change in Data Center Alley?

THE LATEST

Graham Platner again denied the allegations, blamed the corporate media, entrenched forces and a rigged political system but ultimately said he would suspend his campaign in a late-evening video. It was not the “false allegations,” he said, but the system to blame, NOTUS’ Igor Bobic reports.

“It's the fact that [the allegations] are being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us,” Platner said, running emotional at times. “We live in a political system that is not built for normal people. It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed.”

In a call with campaign staff earlier, Platner said the 154,058 Maine voters who supported him “didn’t just reject this kind of politics, they voted for something,” and that the sole goal all along was to defeat incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins. And now the race for the Democrat to take her on continues.

Several Mainers are already lining up, NOTUS’ Torrie Herrington writes, and the gates are wide open for more. The Maine Democratic Party says it will hold a convention to pick its new nominee, with a name due by July 27.

Whomever the Dems choose will likely require some vetting. NOTUS’ Emily Kennard reports on the fallout from the Platnerpocalypse inside Democratic politics. Has the progressive, populist push for more “outsider” candidates come at the expense of rigorous candidate vetting? A lot of people point at Maine and say obviously, yes. But progressives insist the party cannot turn away from outside-the-box candidates, even as they struggle with the aftermath of their strong support for Platner as red flag after red flag was waved.

Open tabs: DOJ Issues Nationwide Threat to Prosecute Local Election Officials (NOTUS); Judge orders E. Jean Carroll be paid $5.8M (AP); Republicans juice spending to protect Senate “red wall” (Axios); Former judge fined $5K, spared prison for helping immigrant avoid arrest (WaPo)

From Air Force One

Back to the war that had not really ended. Donald Trump told reporters aboard the new Air Force One en route from Great Britain to Washington that Iran called and wanted to make a deal — but he just doesn’t trust them. Earlier in the day, the president declared the nascent ceasefire “over” as he called the Iranian leaders “sick people and they're vicious, violent people.”

From the campaign trail

First on NOTUS: Democrats’ favorite firefighter leads in PA-07. Retired firefighter Bob Brooks, a populist who has united many of the party’s factions behind him, is leading incumbent Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie 47%-43%, per a new poll from House Majority PAC, the Democratic spending group. The closely-watched race takes place in a district Trump won by a single percentage point in 2024. The PAC’s polling now shows Trump’s popularity waning there, with a 44% favorable rating and a 51% unfavorable.

From DHS

Inside the focus on Afrikaner refugees. As of June, all but three of the 7,730 refugees admitted into the U.S. in fiscal 2026 were from South Africa. The Trump administration has reshaped the entire refugee system run by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to focus on White South Africans who say they are facing racial discrimination, NOTUS’ Eric Katz and Natalie Alms report.

Dozens of USCIS staffers who used to work in countries around the world on refugee issues have been recalled. Only South Africa is staffed now.

“You started to hear, ‘So-and-so’s going to South Africa,’” said agency veteran Jason Marks, who took a deferred resignation offer last year. “It was almost like, are we being trolled here? Is this like a trolling exercise?”

From the Hill

Rep. Chuy García’s heavy electoral hand. The retiring House Democrat from Illinois already became a Main Character when he timed his retirement perfectly to allow his chosen successor, his chief of staff, Patty Garcia (no relation), the nomination. Now, Mayra Macías, one of the Democrats who got into the race as an independent, says Chuy García’s staff is actively trying to get her kicked off the ballot by challenging signatures with the state Board of Elections, NOTUS’ Oriana González reports. Macías is urging the House Ethics Committee and the Office of Congressional Conduct to investigate Chuy García and his office for allegedly using official House time for political activity.

NOTUS METRO

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Sports desk: The Nats’ Trade Deadline Matters. But The Draft Matters More. By Jesse Dougherty

NOTUS PERSPECTIVES

The lesson of Platner’s exit, Matt K. Lewis argues at NOTUS Perspectives, is that Trump didn’t change the rules of political scandal for everyone. He just changed them for Trump.

NEW ON NOTUS

Location, location, location. Why does Northern Virginia get so many data centers? NOTUS’ Zara Norman, Taylor Giorno and Samuel Larreal explain the phenomenon. The region was home to its own tech boom for years, based in part on its proximity to big tech buyers at the Pentagon and CIA. Then Virginia lawmakers approved a tax break for data center operators in 2008. The AI boom arrived, and with it, the desire for ever more data center capacity.

Is it all about to change? Major data center projects in the region have been canceled recently due to public pressure. An increasing number of politicians are running for office on slowing or halting data center development altogether. The tax break for data center operators is still there, but Virginia recently passed a first-of-its-kind tax on data center energy consumption.

More: Rahm Emanuel Changes His Tune on Israel in Fiery Speech From Tel Aviv, by Jenna Monnin

Judge Dismisses Trump Media’s $3.8 Billion Suit Against The Washington Post, by Angie Orellana Hernandez

Kentucky Governor Demands McConnell Give an Update on His Condition, by Angie Orellana Hernandez

NOT US

The Low-Key Lawyer at the Center of the Search for a Platner Replacement, by Tim Balk for The New York Times

The Death of Renee Good Has Yet to Be Properly Investigated, by Quinta Jurecic for The Atlantic

To justify his arch, Trump cites a 1925 plan. That vision was very different. By Julia Ledur and Dan Diamond for The Washington Post

The Art of the Candidate Swap, by Gabe Fleisher for Wake Up To Politics

BE SOCIAL

A new-ish idea?

https://x.com/emiliepfrank/status/2074657513232863616

Corrections: Yesterday’s newsletter misstated the status of Troy Jackson’s potential candidacy in Maine. He filed to form an exploratory committee. The newsletter also misstated the origin of Project 2029, which is being drafted by a group of Democrats.

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The newsletter was produced by Thomas Burr, Brett Bachman and Erik Schutz. Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/AP.]]>

Trump Is Deploying Every U.S. Refugee Officer to Just One Country

Eric Katz, Natalie Alms — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 09:40:00 GMT

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau greets Afrikaner refugees from South Africa, Monday, May 12, 2025, at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP)

In the fall of 2024, the Department of Homeland Security had employees in dozens of countries, from Peru to Turkey, to vet the most vulnerable and persecuted individuals in the world for potential entry into the United States.

Just one year later, those screeners were working in just one country: South Africa, where the Trump administration has singularly focused U.S. refugee resettlement efforts on the country’s white population.

As of June, all but three of the 7,730 refugees admitted into the U.S. in fiscal 2026 were from South Africa, according to newly released State Department data, an exponential increase from the one South African admitted in the fiscal year before Trump took office.

The situation is “unprecedented,” said Brandon Prelogar, who led the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ International and Refugee Affairs Division in the opening months of the Trump administration and has worked in several government roles in the refugee space since 2004. “It’s the only place the refugee corps has been deployed to.”

“Usually you circle to other places, but here they’re just having people come in and out” of South Africa, said another former senior USCIS official briefed on current procedures.

USCIS did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment.

When President Donald Trump moved back into the White House last year, he quickly paused refugee admissions. USCIS subsequently began repatriating all of its refugee corps that had been deployed abroad.

Soon after, Trump made an exception for Afrikaners in South Africa, tasking the government to prioritize the ethnic minority group that governed the country during apartheid as “victims of unjust racial discrimination.” In the year plus since, he’s reshaped the entire system to this end.

Claims of white genocide in the country have been discredited. But Trump and Elon Musk, who is South African and previously led DOGE for the Trump administration, have long made the alleged persecution of Afrikaners a talking point. Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa publicly clashed over the subject during a dramatic Oval Office meeting last year.

Within USCIS, many of the initial changes implementing the refocus on Afrikaners happened behind closed doors, from the top down. All-hands meetings were canceled soon after the start of the second Trump administration, so it was more difficult to find out about the work of the agency, said Jason Marks, who worked on both refugee and asylum issues at the agency for over a decade before taking the administration’s deferred resignation offer last year.

“You started to hear, ‘So-and-so’s going to South Africa,’” he said. “It was almost like, are we being trolled here? Is this like a trolling exercise?”

Jen Smyers, a former deputy director of the Health and Human Services refugee office who left when Trump took office, also initially questioned the veracity of Trump’s order.

“I read it and thought it was an Onion article, and then, no, it was very real,” Smyers said.

Concentrating resources on one group of people is “just unheard of,” Marks said. “To basically repurpose the entire refugee program and concentrate all of its resources on one location for one politically and racially favored group and then exclude everyone else is, frankly, heartbreaking.”

A former senior USCIS official said the Trump administration has changed the definition of a refugee to accommodate Afrikaners.

“The standard for what is considered a refugee has been changed, has been sort of lowered so they can meet this population’s concerns,” the former official said. “Our law has a different bar that wouldn’t normally meet their definition for persecution.”

Typically, refugee processing is a years-long process involving multiple entities, including the United Nations refugee agency, although that organization said it wasn’t involved in the vetting of the first group of Afrikaners that arrived in the U.S. last spring.

The speed at which people from South Africa were brought to the U.S. is “remarkable” compared to the typical process, Marks said. The former senior USCIS official said the administration was “expending a massive amount of resources” on each refugee, calling the per-capita allocation unprecedented.

The United States admitted more than 100,000 refugees in 2024. A year-and-a-half later, fewer than 18,000 are being admitted annually. Trump’s administration has slashed capacity of the web of agencies that undertake the typically years-long process of identifying, screening and admitting refugees into the country.

The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration was so gutted by mass layoffs that the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, an entirely domestic agency, took over its international operations. The Administration for Children and Families, the HHS arm that houses the refugee office, itself shed 31% of its staff under Trump.

USCIS, responsible for the primary vetting and interviewing of refugee candidates, has shed half of its refugee corps since Trump took office.

The agency also began pushing its refugee corps to accept deployments to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to work on administrative matters largely involving immigrant records. Despite their misgivings, one-fourth of refugee officers accepted the temporary assignments due to pressure they felt from management. Last year, for the first time, the agency also began hiring officers with law enforcement duties including making arrests, carrying firearms and executing warrants.

USCIS Director Joseph Edlow last year tasked staff with reviewing the cases of all refugees admitted into the United States under former President Joe Biden. Michael Knowles, a USCIS asylum officer of 34 years who retired in October but still represents asylum and refugee staff as part of the American Federation of Government Employees, said that work has been highly labor-intensive and has only validated the prior administration’s work.

For USCIS workers, their jobs have now manifested their biggest fears.

“My staff was petrified about what the Trump administration would do to them,” Prelogar said. “Their most widely imagined concerns ended up being verified as legitimate ones.”

Prelogar said refugee officers sign up for their work to help “some of the worst off people on planet Earth,” while also protecting against national security threats.

“To be redirected to a population that doesn’t pass the laugh test as far as being one who we would normally be admitting into the U.S., I think it has been wildly disheartening for staff to pivot to that sort of population,” he said.

The president has significant latitude over the U.S. refugee system in responding to changing global dynamics, and they’re charged by law with setting the target number of refugees to be admitted each year. But multiple sources told NOTUS any efforts to rebuild the decimated infrastructure of the system in the future could be arduous.

“Let's say the president resigned today, and all of a sudden the vice president decided he wanted a strong refugee program — it would take a long time to rebuild that infrastructure,” a second former USCIS official told NOTUS.

In the meantime, the system is only working for South Africans. Earlier this year, Trump increased the refugee cap for 2026 by 10,000 — with all additional slots reserved for Afrikaners.

“A lot of people were vetted, approved and are now just shut out,” said Marks, who had previously been working on the Biden-era initiative to resettle vulnerable Afghans following the exit of the U.S. from Afghanistan. The Trump administration has since discontinued that program.

“It’s devastating,” he said.

The Nats’ Trade Deadline Matters. But The Draft Matters More.

Jesse Dougherty — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 09:15:00 GMT

This weekend's MLB draft is a chance for Washington's new front office to prove itself. John McDonnell/AP Photo

This is not a mock draft, nor is it a look at who the Nationals could select in the MLB draft this weekend, during which they’ll pick 11th, then 42nd, then 78th and so on. It’s also not a breakdown of how the Nats might divvy up their bonus pool money, though the draft will be a fascinating glance at the new front office’s approach to working the system to collect the most talent.

No, the reason we’re here, sharing this tiny slice of the internet, is bigger than any one amateur player or signing bonus. The reason, to put it plainly, is that the draft is this new front office’s thing, the part of the team-building process that many of these executives have built their careers on. And with this draft in particular, it’s their first opportunity to meaningfully change the type of players in the Nats’ minor league system — and to really show why they’re the right group to turn the organization around.

Good, bad or otherwise, the results won’t be immediate. The draft isn’t set up that way, which is why the trade deadline has gotten much more oxygen in D.C. in recent weeks, including on this website. But the draft process has already offered the best illustration yet of how this front office operates, particularly with how it’s blending amateur scouting and player development.

Here are three things to know on that front, all based on conversations with members of the front office:

1. The Nats’ player development staff produced reports for the top 200 or so players on the team’s draft board, detailing how they would train them if they joined the organization. (The PD staff also did the same for a handful of players the front office might be interested in in later rounds.)

2. When the front office remade the PD staff this winter, that included hiring a director of hitting (CJ Gillman) and a director of pitching (Grayson Crawford). When it spoke to candidates for each role, it stressed that the directors would be involved in player acquisition, which would include a significant role in draft preparation. In turn, when the Nats interviewed more than 40 players at the MLB draft combine in June, Gillman and Crawford were in the room. During those conversations, the directors walked prospects through the team’s development plans for them.

3. This week, many members of the PD staff have been central to discussions in the draft room at Nationals Park, a notable increase in their input compared to the previous front office’s process.

This is the stark change that was promised with new people in charge, starting with Paul Toboni, the Nats' 36-year-old president of baseball operations. The idea, which is far from novel across the sport, is to mesh draft strategy with the org’s strengths in player development. But even if, on the surface, this is more the Nationals catching up than innovating, they believe they’re melding the departments more than the average team. Toboni’s first hire last fall was the earliest sign of that.

Devin Pearson had run amateur scouting in Boston, which was also where Toboni came from. But instead of offering him that job with the Nats, Toboni asked Pearson, now one of the Nats’ assistant general managers, to oversee player development. If that seemed odd to outsiders, it made total sense to the two of them. As Boston’s amateur scouting director, Pearson had helped integrate amateur scouting and player development, which Toboni wanted to be a major part of their identity in D.C.

“It seems like it should be easy, right?” Pearson told me. “An organization should be aligned on what you believe in with developing players, and you should draft to those beliefs, you know? But it’'s not always that easy, so we’ve spent a lot of time with our scouting group understanding their process. And then as we talk through guys in the draft room, it’s like: ‘Alright, we’re projecting on this guy improving velocity, but what is our confidence level we can actually do that with this player?’”

It’s certainly better to ask those questions before the draft than after. Pearson was also quick to credit the two people most responsible for the Nats’ draft prep: Justin Horowitz, the team’s new assistant GM in charge of all acquisitions, and Desmond McGowan, director of amateur acquisitions (focused solely on the draft).

Horowitz most recently ran amateur scouting for the Pirates, though he previously worked with Toboni and Pearson in Boston. McGowan was the Mets’ manager of data science before coming to D.C. Toboni has worked in both of these areas, leading amateur scouting for Boston before he was promoted to oversee that department and PD at the same time. So all together, they’re plugging a ton of inputs on each player into their draft model: analytics, biometrics, traditional scouting and the public perception of a prospect, among other things.

Blake Butera AP - 26174856404679 (4360x2907, AR: 1.50)The goal, at least broadly, is to find players with traits the team believes are hard to teach. Then, once they identify a player with at least one of those rare traits, they’re looking for flashes that tell them they could help him learn additional high-level skills in the future. Maybe there are indicators he could add a considerable amount of bat speed down the line. Maybe, for a pitcher, they see signs that later adding a new pitch, like a sweeping slider, could make him take off. This is where the player development staff is key, especially if they’ve been part of the discussions from the beginning.

And then there’s the bonus — and this is critical — of both departments feeling a shared responsibility for each player’s success (or failure). Take it from first-year manager Blake Butera, who used to work in player development for the Rays, a progressive org that has long blended PD into their draft process.

“Once you get both of them under the hood before that player is in the organization and start to have some of that dialogue, then when the player is either having a lot of success or is going through it, there has already been that line of communication,” Butera said. “And it’s not like we’re going to point fingers and be like: ‘Why’d you take this guy?’ … ‘Well why’d you change his swing? “There is a lot of: ‘No, no, we saw what he looked like before, we had this conversation.’ And it just allows that dialogue to continue throughout their minor league career, and not feel like it’s PD and scouting [separately]. It’s the Nationals.”

That kind of finger-pointing happened way too often under the previous front office, according to conversations with team officials — past and present — over many years. Now, once a player is drafted, the expectation is that there will be a thorough plan for his first month of development. Then the PD staff will plot out his next 30 days, adjusting if need be based on the early feedback. Then they’ll repeat those steps over and over.

But in the meantime, in the leadup to the draft, the front office will keep toying with what they call their scenario calculator. That looks something like this:

If we pick this player and sign him for a number that’s this exact amount lower than the bonus assigned to his draft slot, then …

Or how about if we pay this amount OVER slot value for this player in the third round, then go under slot for these players in the sixth and seventh. Maybe then we could …

“And we’re just obsessed with it,” Pearson said with a laugh. “And it can get really, really crazy.”

Yes, some in the new front office know each other well, going back years of using a scenario calculator in different rooms in a different city. But it’s also their first draft as a full group, meaning Pearson is already picturing how the process can be better.

Beyond the first month after the draft, could they eventually project how a player’s development might look, in granular detail, in two years? In three? Heck, what about four?

“I don’t think we’re there yet as an org, just with all of us being new,” Pearson said. “But over the next few years, we’ll have the confidence to project this guy to physically look like this in X amount of time, to throw this hard in X amount of time, to move the bat this fast in X amount of time.’ That’s just going to take time to prove that we can do that.”

Graham Platner’s Collapse Is a ‘Reckoning’ for Political Vetting

Emily Kennard — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 09:13:00 GMT

Some old-guard Democrats are using Graham Platner’s fall from grace to hit outsider campaigns beyond Maine. Robert F. Bukaty/AP

Graham Platner’s implosion in Maine is driving an intense debate among Democrats over how they wound up in this mess — and if the progressive, populist push for more “outsider” candidates has come at the expense of rigorous candidate vetting.

“People have overcorrected. … We do need more candidates from different backgrounds. We do need people who bring real-world perspective to our politics,” said Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic strategist who was publicly critical of Platner and his campaign. “But there is a reason that party committees do vet their candidates, and they do the research typically before these candidates launch.”

She added that this campaign should “serve as a cautionary tale.”

Some old-guard Democrats are using Platner’s fall from grace to hit outsider campaigns beyond Maine.

“Say what you will, but the establishment vets candidates,” posted Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, two hours after the first article about his alleged sexual misconduct was published by Politico on Monday. It was followed by more allegations published by The Washington Post on Tuesday, and culminated in his dropping out of the race Wednesday evening.

Platner, who has denied wrongdoing, won his primary with a resounding 72% of the vote and was polling competitively against the seat’s longtime incumbent, Sen. Susan Collins. Some progressives have pointed to this strong primary turnout, despite his several scandals at that point, as proof that voters ultimately desire nontraditional candidates — and are willing, to some degree, to look past indiscretions that may come with a candidate without lifelong political aspirations.

In today’s political environment, where voters have voiced serious consternation with both the economy and the Democratic Party, an insurgent, populist candidate can meet the moment, one progressive strategist told NOTUS, but it’s “a double-edged sword.”

“Voters, truly, and primary voters, too, they want outsiders. They want people from outside the system, they want people who are not politicians, who are not scripted or come off as inauthentic, and then to realize that kind of person almost necessarily entails risks,” the strategist said.

“Platner’s appeal to some was the fact that he had tattoos and was gruff and had a bit of a checkered background, or a lived experience,” the strategist continued. “Aesthetics is not a substitute for actual working-class political commitments, I guess, is a lesson to be learned here.”

In spite of his scandals, the progressive candidate, with his everyman aesthetic and his populist shtick, successfully launched himself as Maine’s Democratic nominee for Senate, ultimately winning at least tepid support from the very party establishment he once swore off.

From the jump, Platner’s campaign framed him as an anti-establishment pick and swatted away questions about his previous scandals — from his sordid digital footprint to his tattoo that resembled a Nazi symbol — with statements in that tenor. That pattern continued this week, when his campaign denied the allegations of sexual assault in a statement, and claimed that his accuser was “coached and coordinated by out of state establishment operatives.”

Long before these specific allegations, Platner’s success had routinely sparked arguments among Democrats over what the party should reasonably look past to embrace a so-called outsider. Aside from the revelations about his chest tattoo, his history of misogynistic and racist posts on Reddit drove concerns among Democrats about his character — and worries about what additional bombshells could blow up what otherwise looked like a competitive campaign for the general election.

Dan Moraff, a lead strategist for Platner, told The Wall Street Journal in June that the campaign had done only a quick vet of Platner’s personal history before he launched his bid.

“We paid a nice firm a whole chunk of money and got some stuff back. Some of what you’ve seen on the news we got back, other stuff we didn’t,” Moraff told the outlet. He acknowledged that the vet didn’t reveal Platner’s tattoo or all of his Reddit posts.

The party is trying to move quickly to select his replacement. And in the meantime, some fed-up Democratic operatives are blaming Platner’s team for shepherding him through his past scandals.

Among Democrats, the knives are out for Fight Agency, a progressive campaign operation that handled his communications. The firm — which has worked for candidates including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego and Dan Osborn, a Senate candidate in Nebraska — played a role in responding to Platner’s tattoo, which the campaign framed in public statements as an opportunity to show that the Democratic Party is “open to redemption.”

Fight Agency did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the firm told Axios on Wednesday that until the days before the Politico article dropped, the team was unaware of any sexual misconduct allegations.

It’s unclear what Fight Agency staff is now doing behind the scenes, or whether it’s still working with Platner at all. In the leadup to Platner suspending his campaign, some Democratic operatives were frustrated with the firm’s unwillingness to take a public stance against him.

“It's one thing to be a part of a team that ends up losing a campaign,” a Democratic campaign operative said. “But that's a lot different than actively helping and assisting a man who over and over and over has shown red flags.”

Adam Carlson, a progressive strategist and pollster, had previously been a vocal Platner supporter. He publicly apologized Monday, and told NOTUS that “there were a lot of red flags” that he and others were willing to overlook due to the excitement about Platner’s agenda and what he represented.

“The establishment does vet their candidates, right? There is that infrastructure in place to vet them, there's the money in place to vet them, there's the connections in place,” Carlson said. “Things get missed when you're a scrappy underdog. Things that are like scrappy upstart candidacies that have taken off, like, it is absolute chaos. It's exciting, but there's way too much going on, and you're often dealing with a lot of people who haven't run major campaigns before.”

But progressive strategist Anat Shenker-Osorio told NOTUS that Platner’s campaign troubles seemed to be more than a matter of poor vetting or a lack of resources for candidates who aren’t establishment favorites.

“Once different elements of it did become public, like the Nazi tattoo, like the Reddit posts, at that point, you can't really say, ‘We didn't do proper vetting,’ because the information is now staring you in the face, and you're continuing on. That's not a vetting problem,” Shenker-Osorio said. “They should be reflecting on their own role in bringing the situation to this place, and what they knew, and when they knew it, and if they didn't know it, why didn't they know it?”

It’s impossible to say in hindsight whether the traditional candidate vetting operations Carlson described would have led to these newest revelations earlier. Any candidate's digital footprint or interpersonal history can harbor landmines, one progressive strategist said.

“This is a reckoning for the political ecosystem writ large, and we all need to contend with how we're vetting and looking at candidates,” said another progressive strategist. “It's not just an issue on one side of the political spectrum.”

How Northern Virginia Became ‘Data Center Alley’

Taylor Giorno, Zara Norman, Samuel Larreal — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 09:10:00 GMT

One region in Northern Virginia is home to more than 300 data centers, with about 200 more expected to go up in the coming years. Ted Shaffrey/AP

“Faithful Servant, now at Peace,” reads one heart-shaped headstone in Tippets Hill Cemetery. But in the background of this final resting place, there is an incessant whirring sound and a shrill beep that blares again and again.

That’s because the small, historically Black burial ground in Loudoun County, Virginia, is surrounded on all sides by data centers. The cemetery’s few parking spaces had construction vehicles parked in them when NOTUS visited in early June.

The cemetery — and Northern Virginia at large — didn’t always look like this. At the turn of the century, there were a handful of data center campuses in Loudoun, Prince William and Fairfax counties — a region now known as data center alley.

Today, those counties are home to more than 300 data centers. Almost 200 more are expected to go up in the coming years. Loudoun specifically has the highest concentration of data centers in the world.

But that title may be in jeopardy. Public sentiment towards data centers has soured, with opponents pointing to rising household utility bills and environmental concerns. Politicians are weighing how to balance constituent demands with a behemoth industry those same constituents rely on for cloud computing and county revenue.

“Virginia has our biggest concentration, but as the old saying says, ‘Don't put all your eggs in one basket,’” a senior executive at a data center company told NOTUS. “Based on what happened this year, it's further emphasis that we clearly have to spread our business around. Our customers are going to be looking for the lowest cost of occupancy — that's just math.”

Sterling VA Data Centers.gif (1020x679, AR: 1.50)

Ramping Up

A big part of Northern Virginia’s appeal is its geography.

Loudoun County’s proximity to D.C., CIA headquarters and the Pentagon made it an early hot spot for the technology contractors that intelligence agencies and the military have increasingly depended on since World War II, said Ali Fard, an assistant architecture professor at the University of Virginia who wrote a book about “grounding” cloud computing.

The county became ground zero for the internet in the late-1990s, when telecommunications companies UUNET and AOL both moved their headquarters to Ashburn. AOL, the once ubiquitous dial-up internet giant, installed a massive network of fiber to create an “information superhighway” around its campus, laying the foundation for Northern Virginia’s data center industry with cheap and plentiful power, Fard said.

Things accelerated in 2008, when the nation was reeling from the financial crisis and housing market crash. Northern Virginia was hit hard. Loudoun’s regional economy was 81% dependent on residential real estate at the time, Buddy Rizer, the county’s economic development director, said in a statement shared with NOTUS.

“We lost a third of our tax base almost overnight. I came in with one clear goal: build a stronger, more diverse commercial tax base to stabilize our future,” wrote Rizer, who assumed his role in 2007. “That’s when I saw an opportunity in data centers.”

“The data centers kind of bailed them out,” said Sarah Parmelee, a land use representative with the Piedmont Environmental Council. “There was a bunch of built-out infrastructure that Loudoun needed to figure out how to pay for, and data centers took up the slack.”

Loudoun also had the Potomac River, which up until a major sewage spill this year was a “really unflappable and incredible water source,” Parmelee said. It also has one of the largest reclaimed water systems in Virginia, a major attraction for the data centers that rely on those systems to cool tenants’ servers.

To seal the deal, Virginia lawmakers approved a tax break for data center operators in 2008 that invested at least $75 million and created 100 new jobs. (The criteria are currently $150 million in investment and 50 new jobs.) The sales and use tax exemption applies to equipment including generators, HVAC systems, water pumps and storage tanks, cabinets, battery racks, and software.

At the time, policymakers estimated the exemption would cost the state $1.5 million in lost revenue. In 2025, it saved data centers $1.9 billion, making it Virginia’s largest tax break.

The data center company executive, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive dynamics of an industry under intense scrutiny, said the exemption gave Virginia a “leading edge” when they were considering where to build.

The stage was set, and the need emerged with the advent of cloud computing. Data that had long been stored on consumers’ personal devices had to be stored in centralized data centers, which began as smaller, fairly innocuous buildings, Fard told NOTUS. The COVID-19 pandemic kick-started the “work from home” era, intensifying demand.

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 marked a new era of computer processing power needs. Companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft — often referred to as “hyperscalers” — began spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year to build new data centers to meet the enormous demand. Some projections expect the industry to spend roughly $7 trillion in data center construction by the end of the decade.

Loudoun rolled out the red carpet for data center developers, slashing its approvals process to just six months.

“I was literally flying around the country meeting with major players like Amazon, Microsoft, Equinix, and Digital Realty, pitching Loudoun as the best place in the world to build digital infrastructure,” Rizer wrote. “We had empty buildings from the dot-com bust, tons of unused fiber in the ground thanks to AOL, available land, and power.”

By 2016, Loudoun County officially became home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers. Today, data centers generate almost half of its property tax revenue.

Bull Run VA Data Centers.gif (1000x767, AR: 1.30)

A Changing Landscape

Data centers first came onto Elena Schlossberg’s radar in 2014. She discovered, she said, that the construction of a transmission line set to cut through her property was triggered by a single customer: Amazon. The company was building a data center campus in Haymarket as part of a $600 million cloud computing contract with the CIA.

“There was really not much we could do,” said Schlossberg, a rural Prince William County resident who leads an anti-data center coalition. “We would be not only sacrificing our property through eminent domain, we would be paying for that abuse.”

Today, her county — located just south of Loudoun — is home to 55 data centers, with 75 more planned or under construction, according to a county database. Between 1986 and 2016, only 10 were constructed county-wide. That number surged in 2017, when six were built — four of them by Amazon. Another wave of construction came around the AI boom, with 20 centers built in 2024 and 2025.

But developers looking to build in Prince William County are increasingly running into backlash.

The county almost became home to the world’s largest data center campus, known as the “Digital Gateway.” Pitched in 2021 and approved in 2023, the project — a sprawling 2,100 acre data center campus on the edge of the historic Manassas National Battlefield Park — was halted by resident lawsuits.

Prince William County and one of the two data center operators, Compass, abandoned the project this spring after an appeals court upheld a decision to block the necessary zoning.

The second data center operator, Quality Technology Services (or QTS), appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court but fully abandoned the project last week. The news was first reported by Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources saying company executives didn’t think it was worth it to continue the legal fight.

In a statement to NOTUS, a spokesperson for QTS confirmed that although the company remains tied to Virginia, it “will proceed with a responsible and orderly termination of project activities, consistent with our commitments and values as a company and community partner.”

Activists see the withdrawal as a victory.

“They messed with the wrong people,” Schlossberg told NOTUS.

VA data centers home (5712x4284, AR: 1.33)

Tradeoffs

In 2025, John McAuliff was running for the Virginia House of Delegates as a Democrat. His district, which includes western Loudoun, is split almost down the middle politically.

But McAuliff found something everyone wanted to talk about: data centers. He said he had to “convince” his team that this was an issue worth investing time and resources in. It was “a bit of a risk,” he told NOTUS, but it ultimately paid off.

McAuliff won the delegate seat in fall 2025. In his first term, lawmakers passed his bill barring the Department of Environmental Quality from issuing air permits for data center applications unless their generator emissions fall below a certain threshold.

The Virginia legislature as a whole seemed to wake up this spring to the negative public sentiment surrounding data centers. While a push to sunset the data center sales and use tax exemption early ultimately failed, Virginia did pass a first-of-its-kind tax on data center energy consumption.

The speed with which that political calculus shifted shocked even advocates and lawmakers who had been working for years to rein in the rampant growth of data centers in the state. Industry executives were surprised, too, and have started to discuss focusing on some of the 37 states with the sales and tax use exemption that are more interested in their business.

The data center industry contributes roughly $9 billion of yearly economic growth to Virginia’s state economy, according to a 2024 economic audit commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly in 2023. Most of those benefits derive from constructing, rather than operating, data centers, that report noted.

But as construction accelerates, elected officials and voters are seeing skyrocketing utility bills they blame on data centers. A recent E3 analysis paid for by the Data Center Coalition, which reviewed the analysis prior to its release, pointed to inflation, grid resilience, market structure and other factors in rising rates.

Ultimately, fast-changing communities are questioning if the trade-offs are worth it.

“We can't just pretend that it's just revenue,” McAuliff said. “We need to look at the other side, too.”