The California man arrested for allegedly bringing a machete and knives in his swastika-strewn truck near the DNC has an initial court appearance scheduled to begin soon.
Trump DOJ opposes the release of SPLC grand jury transcripts, but what the memo *doesn't* say speaks volumes. Feds don't dispute the SPLC's account of the Trump admin's "gross misrepresentations" about the informant program.
Instead, the US Attorney says that's "not relevant."
Why that matters.🧵
The SPLC's motion seeking the grand jury records rattled off a series of "false statements" by Trump and his surrogates about Charlottesville and the informants program.
By the DOJ's own account, the SPLC's informant program was cheap and effective.
For a fraction of a *percentage* of their annual budget, SPLC penetrated the nation's worst hate groups and published their secrets with info from their turncoats.
The DOJ's case assumes donors felt defrauded by this. buff.ly/cwTnYg6
The Trump DOJ alleges that the SPLC spent about $3 million on informants over the course of a *decade.*
Check out of the SPLC's revenue and expenditures from 2024, the last fiscal year records were public. That's a typical year, and it's a drop in the bucket. projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/org…
In return, SPLC infiltrated the KKK, the neo-Nazis, and other extremist groups, and they shared their secrets with federal law enforcement until Kash Patel put an end to that last October.
Two Trump appointees on the D.C. Circuit panel blocked Boasberg from even INVESTIGATING contempt of court related to the March 2025 flights to El Salvador.
The dissent: "Without the contempt power, the rule of law is an illusion, a theory that stands upon shifting sands."
This is the second time Judges Rao and Walker granted a writ of mandamus, an "extraordinary" rebuke of a lower court judge.
But Walker went out of the way to praise Boasberg, saying he was in a tough spot even as Walker overruled him.
The nuance here will be important to note in light of the Trump DOJ's campaign to vilify Boasberg, whose D.C. Circuit peers largely stood up for him even when his rulings didn't hold.