Articles & Videos

On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) released a trove of diary entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the 85-year-old immunologist and public health veteran who led the US response to the Covid pandemic in 2020. On X, Paul posted an AI-generated image of a grinning, pastel-sweater-clad Anthony Fauci lying on his stomach on a purple shag […]

Trump’s latest war is wrapped up in his egocentric narcissism and his me, me, me world. The post Donald Trump and Wars of Choice appeared first on The Intercept.

While Republican leadership attempts to pin millions of Covid-19 deaths on Dr. Anthony Fauci, some party members are zeroing in on his dismissal of their alternative “cures” to the virus.Peter Navarro, who is currently serving as a senior counselor to President Donald Trump, whined to C-Span Wednesday that Fauci had interrupted his hydroxychloroquine business at the height of the pandemic.“I had a million doses of hydroxychloroquine in warehouses … that I was trying to distribute to hospitals, and he got the FDA to stop me from doing that,” Navarro said. “Thousands of people could be here in this country right now alive if I had been able to distribute that, take that to the bank, that’s what the science says.”Extensive clinical trials have repeatedly debunked that hydroxychloroquine—an antimalarial drug predominantly used to treat lupus—could have been an effective treatment for Covid-19. The FDA revoked the drug’s emergency use authorization during Trump’s first term after emerging data made clear that it did not treat or prevent Covid-19 but instead had the potential to create dangerous heart palpitations, cause liver or kidney damage, and cause serious gastrointestinal upset.But six years later, Republicans are apparently still choosing to ignore the science.In the midst of grilling a Fifth-pleading Fauci on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson insisted that ivermectin—a drug used to treat heartworm in livestock, which was touted during the pandemic as another miracle cure—“worked.”“When it comes to ivermectin … it works,” Johnson said, proceeding to wave a stack of papers while claiming that there were dozens of studies proving the efficacy of ivermectin against the coronavirus.To this day, the FDA has only approved some ivermectin tablets at specific doses for human use, though their application is limited to treating parasitic worms. The FDA page on the matter still warns against the use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19, asserting that “currently available clinical trial data do not demonstrate that ivermectin is effective” against the virus.Furthermore, the FDA notes that taking ivermectin—or any drug dosed for an animal—can be dangerous, and that the agency has received “multiple reports” of hospitalizations after people have attempted to self-treat themselves with the drug.

Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, justified the change by citing “stabilizing” markets.

A group of survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse are going door-to-door on Capitol Hill to deliver the government’s files to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.The survivors gathered for a press conference at the National Mall Wednesday to launch the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Bookmobile, which will carry bound copies of all 3.5 million files to communities across the country throughout the midterm elections.As part of their launch, the survivors delivered printed copies straight to lawmakers’ offices, according to Miles Taylor, a former Trump official turned activist now involved with the bookmobile.The survivors took copies of the files to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is set to vote on advancing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation on Thursday.Speaking at the press conference, the survivors urged against confirming Blanche, who only recently met with survivors after months of dodging victims and their demands for the Department of Justice to keep investigating. That meeting did not go well.“A vote for Todd Blanche is a vote against justice,” Elizabeth Stein, an Epstein survivor and anti–human trafficking educator, said Wednesday.Blanche previously tried to downplay the Epstein files’ thousands of redaction errors that exposed the names of survivors while concealing the identities of alleged perpetrators.Blanche’s confirmation is already in jeopardy at the hands of his own party. Two Republican lawmakers are refusing to approve Blanche unless he puts in writing that Trump’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is actually dead.

The federal government’s investigation into former FBI Director James Comey has taken some extremely bizarre steps. Comey was charged with allegedly threatening violence against President Donald Trump in April with an Instagram post of numbers spelling out “86 47” in seashells. On Tuesday, Comey filed a motion to dismiss the case, and in that court filing, his lawyers listed some drastic steps taken by the authorities. The Department of Justice spoke to former mafia boss Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano in an attempt to prove that the “86” in Comey’s post was an allusion to murder. But Gravano’s interview didn’t help their case, as he pointed out that real organized crime figures would think using the term was too obvious. Gravano also suggested the FBI should contact former federal prosecutor and judge John Gleeson for his opinion on the term, only for Gleeson to say, “The claim that ‘86’ is mafia jargon for ‘kill’ is preposterous.” Gleeson, who prosecuted notable organized crime cases, said that in thousands of hours of debriefings and conversations with mobsters, he had never heard the term used that way. Federal agents also used emergency cell phone tracking, which doesn’t require a warrant, to monitor Comey’s location while he was driving from North Carolina to Virginia shortly after he made the post. That location tracking is only supposed to be used in extreme situations, such as an “imminent threat to life or limb.” No such emergency existed, and one Secret Service agent later said in a memo that “we did not believe that anyone’s life was in immediate danger and legally it was a bad idea to ping the phone.”Trump fired Comey in 2017 over the federal investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election, and has targeted the former FBI director in his second term as president. This case against Comey has fallen apart several times already, and has only recently been revived by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. It seems destined to fail yet again.

A suite of new laws restricting cooperation between Maine law enforcement and Department of Homeland Security agents is set to take effect today, less than three weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. These “ICE Out laws,” as they’re collectively known, will limit collaboration between state […]