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Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
FBI Executes Search on Georgia Election Office
The FBI on Wednesday searched an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia, outside of Atlanta, which an FBI spokeswoman said was connected to an “ongoing” federal investigation. Federal officials have not yet disclosed the purpose of the probe, but the FBI said its actions were “court-authorized” and that the agency had obtained a search warrant. According to Fulton County government officials, the search warrant authorized federal agents to seize a “number of records related to 2020 elections.” Democratic Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory told Politico that the FBI initially did not produce a physical copy of the search warrant and that, as of Wednesday afternoon, federal agents had not taken any documents or materials from the election facility. The FBI partially disputed that claim, stating agents presented a physical, signed copy of the warrant, but added that the operation was still in progress.
- In mid-December, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a lawsuit against Fulton County’s clerk of courts, seeking access to “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files” related the 2020 presidential election.
- Last week, while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Donald Trump again claimed that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged,” and stated that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”
At Least Two Federal Agents in Minnesota Placed on Leave
News outlets reported Wednesday that at least two federal agents involved in Saturday’s fatal shooting of 37-year-old protester Alex Pretti in Minneapolis have been placed on administrative leave. Citing Department of Homeland Security Department officials, Fox News reported the action was part of the agency’s standard procedure and that it should not be seen as a disciplinary move. Also on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer unveiled a list of proposed DHS changes that Senate Democrats demand be added to a federal government funding bill before its Friday vote, including body cam requirements, a more restricted use of warrants, and bans on face masks and roving patrols. While a DHS report sent to Congress on Tuesday found that two officers had fired their weapons in the incident, new outlets did not confirm whether those were the agents placed on leave.
- One day after Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, tapped this week to lead federal immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, that the city “will not enforce federal immigration laws,” Trump posted on social media on Wednesday that Frey’s remark was “a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!”
- On Tuesday CNN reported that White House deputy chief of staff and Trump adviser Stephen Miller said in a statement that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) may have violated DHS protocol in its Minnesota immigration enforcement operations by not having extra personnel present to block activists from interfering with the agency’s on-the-ground work. “We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol,” Miller said in a statement.
Federal Reserve Leaves Rates Unchanged
Following a two-day meeting, the Federal Reserve opted to leave interest rates unchanged Wednesday, maintaining a target range of between 3.5 and 3.75 percent, in a 10-2 vote. Trump-appointed Federal Reserve Governors Christopher Waller and Stephen Miran voted to enact a one-quarter interest rate cut. In a press conference following the vote, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the central bank was letting economic data “light the way” on its monetary decision-making, noting that indicators currently show that the current interest rate has a neutral effect on the economy. But both Powell and a statement from the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee acknowledged that the economy is “expanding at a solid pace,” after describing growth as “moderate” in December, with Powell highlighting a “clear improvement” in the economic outlook since last month’s meeting. He also said that the Federal Reserve would consider reducing rates when prices fall further, adding that the central bank expects to see that later this year, provided there are no new tariffs.
- Powell did not comment on the Trump administration’s ongoing investigation and subpoena request but defended the central bank’s independence, which has “enabled central banks generally not to be perfect, but to serve the public well.”
- When asked about his decision to attend Supreme Court oral arguments in Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s challenge to the White House’s push to oust her last week, Powell said the legal proceeding “is perhaps the most important legal case in the Fed’s 113-year history.”
Zelensky Warns of Impending ‘New Massive Strike’ From Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a video message shared to social media on Wednesday, warned that Ukrainian intelligence discovered that Russia is prepping a “new massive strike” on the country, and urged the U.S. and European allied countries to “understand how this discredits diplomatic talks.” Overnight on Tuesday, Russia launched air strikes in cities across Ukraine, killing two civilians outside the capital Kyiv, and injuring four others, including two children. Russia targeted residential areas in parts of Kyiv and the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Zeleensky.
- Two defense analysts told CBS News that Iranian-designed Shahed drones equipped with SpaceX’s satellite telecommunications network, Starlink, could have been behind a Russian drone attack on a passenger train in northwest Ukraine on Tuesday, which killed five people.
- New analysis from the Institute for the Study of War found that Russia has recently ramped up its reliance on Starlink networks in Ukraine drone attacks.
- Ukraine summoned Hungary’s ambassador to the country on Wednesday, two days after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused Ukraine of attempting to interfere in Hungary’s upcoming elections, allegations that Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry characterized as “false statements.”
Rubio Testifies Before Senate Committee
Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified before the Republican-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday, answering questions on the U.S.’s recent operations and plans in Venezuela. Though the U.S. doesn’t intend to take further military action in Venezuela, when asked if more U.S. military action could force Venezuela to cooperate with U.S.-led oil sales, Rubio answered, “The president does reserve the option in self defense to eliminate that threat.” Rubio explained that Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodriguez’s government agreed to submit a monthly budget request to the Trump administration for access to some revenue collected from Venezuelan oil sales, which will be held in a Qatari-managed account. Rubio also reiterated the Trump administration’s plans for Venezuela to eventually hold elections, but emphasized concerns about whether the country can hold “free and fair” elections in its current state. “We’re not going to get there in three weeks,” but added that the current Venezuelan government “would not be acceptable to us in the long term.”
- Rubio told senators the administration’s plans for Venezuela include reopening the U.S. Embassy in Caracas in the near future.
- When asked about the recent arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier and other naval ships in the Middle East, Rubio said that it’s “wise and prudent” to have forces stationed in the region to respond to a potential strike, and, “if necessary,” pre-emptively strike Iran.
The fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by Border Patrol agents has resulted in Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino and other agents being shipped out of the city. That move was one of President Donald Trump’s first signs of backing off his aggressive posture toward Minneapolis, as was sending border czar Tom Homan there to act as a mediator between federal, state, and local officials.
But the president has not fully backed off, which might also lead to a government shutdown.
Weeks ago, TMD reported that, while lawmakers had not yet finished their work on funding the government through September, they were making noticeable progress toward passing all 12 annual appropriations bills and were likely to avert a shutdown. With Pretti’s killing, however, a shutdown looks more likely. The shooting has emboldened congressional Democrats to demand tougher restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement activities ahead of the deadline to fund much of the government on Friday.
The day before the shooting, the probability of a funding lapse looked almost minuscule. Trump had signed into law a three-bill “minibus” package funding the departments of Justice, Commerce, and the Interior, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, bringing the total number of spending bills signed to six. And the House passed the remaining bills last week. Having already approved bills dealing with the departments of State and Treasury along with federal courts, the House easily passed bills to fund the departments of Defense, Labor, Transportation, and Health and Human Services. Even the bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which proved to be the trickiest for the two parties to agree on because it funds immigration enforcement, passed the House, albeit by a small margin.
So the Senate was tasked this week with greenlighting the six-bill package and sending it to the president’s desk. Getting 60 votes to overcome a filibuster for the Homeland Security bill—which, like all the other bills, was negotiated in a bipartisan fashion—was not a guarantee, but there was a decent chance the chamber would reach that threshold. Plus, there was strong agreement between the two parties about the other bills.
Then federal agents shot Pretti dead on Saturday.
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“In the wake of ICE’s abuses and the administration’s recklessness, the Senate must not pass the DHS budget as currently written, and it must be reworked to rein in and overhaul ICE to ensure the public’s safety,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a Tuesday floor speech. At a press conference the following day, Schumer announced his party’s demands for greenlighting the Homeland Security bill. They included unmasking federal agents and forcing them to wear body cameras, having a uniform code of conduct for immigration enforcement officers, and ending roving patrols of agents.
With Democrats refusing to vote for the Homeland Security bill in its current state, there are a few options to avoid a shutdown—all of which have problems. Option 1: Democrats have asked Republicans to strip the Homeland Security bill from the other five bills in the package, which they still support. The parties would have broad agreement on 11 funding bills while they tried to hammer out a new version for Homeland Security. But quickly separating that one bill from the others would require the consent of all 100 senators, which is unlikely. The other five bills would also need a new vote in the House, which is on recess this week and not scheduled to be back until Monday evening (though Speaker Mike Johnson could call House members back before that). In short, modifying the package at all would likely lead to at least a days-long funding lapse for several agencies, including the Pentagon.
Republicans also have other incentives to dare Democrats to vote for the Homeland Security bill as-is. In a shutdown, vital functions of DHS would go on, but a lack of funding would hamper its other national security functions, such as those of the Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration. Plus, half the bill’s funding goes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is under DHS’ purview and is dealing this week with the effects of a massive snow and ice storm that hit much of the country.
Shutting down the government would also do little to impact ICE’s operation, especially since it has funding from the summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee praised the current bill before Pretti’s shooting, saying it is better than both a shutdown and a continuing resolution (CR), which extends funding temporarily at present levels. “The suggestion that a shutdown in this moment might curb the lawlessness of this administration is not rooted in reality: under a CR and in a shutdown, this administration can do everything they are already doing—but without any of the critical guardrails and constraints imposed by a full-year funding bill,” she said in a January 20 press release.
Renegotiating the Homeland Security bill is also even harder than it sounds. The current iteration of the bill passed the House on thin margins, with seven Democrats and all but one Republican voting yes. Changes to the bill in either direction can be risky.
The shooting of Pretti has led many Republicans, such as Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee dealing with the DHS bill, to question the Trump administration’s enforcement tactics. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is retiring at the end of the year, even called on Trump to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem if she does not resign. So there is probably some appetite from the GOP to rein in ICE and Customs and Border Patrol if Democrats push for it.
At the same time, GOP hardliners have not wavered since the shooting, and they are likely to revolt if there are changes to the bill package. “The House has passed an appropriations package negotiated and agreed to by Senate Democrats,” the hard-right House Freedom Caucus wrote in a letter Tuesday. “The package will not come back through the House without funding for the Department of Homeland Security.”
All these factors make Option 1 difficult. Option 2 is that enough Democrats vote for the appropriations package as-is, and the Trump administration agrees to rein itself in. The problem there is that presidents can always reverse executive actions, and Democrats do not trust Trump to keep his word after Congress funds DHS.
“Can’t trust any promises this administration makes,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, told reporters Tuesday. “It’s got to be in legislation, so there’s no way around that.”
Option 3 is that the Senate likewise approves the package without changes, and congressional Republicans and Democrats come to a deal to rein in the administration’s enforcement practices, passing a separate law to that effect. This option would appear very viable if it were only the Senate that had to craft a framework.
“I’m optimistic that there is a path forward that we can reach, even if it means some serious negotiations into Friday,” Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a Republican on the Appropriations Committee, told reporters Wednesday about working with Democrats.
But that same trust is not present among House Republicans and Democrats. Though Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries were on good terms at the beginning of the former’s tenure, their relationship has since deteriorated and was especially bad during the fall shutdown. So even if the Senate were to strike a deal, there is no guarantee it would pass the House.
For now, the Senate plans to vote today on the six-bill package as it is, without a clear path toward it passing.
Today’s Must-Read
Sea Island, the barrier island off the coast of Georgia, is grand and captivating. There’s a palatial luxury resort and rows of beachfront cottages—one of which sold late last year for $30 million. But about a mile past the hotel sits the intentionally ordinary house of Jane Fraser, an environmentalist, philanthropist, and Sea Island’s unofficial gadfly. Ask almost anyone there and they will have an opinion about the 83-year old southerner—likely a negative one. Over the past two decades, Fraser has filed nearly a dozen lawsuits against everyone from developers to local residents. Many involve environmental or development complaints, and taken together they have cost Fraser (and the various defendants) a considerable amount of money but with very few victories to show for it. Fraser wants to project an image of herself as a defender of the common man looking to break down the divide between the haves and the have-mores, even though most of her neighbors disagree. Reporting from Georgia, Michael Warren tells her story—and the history of one of Georgia’s most exclusive barrier islands.
Toeing the Company Line
In Other News
- Indiana police said they believe a motorcycle gang was behind the recent non-fatal shooting of a state judge and his wife in an apparent assassination attempt, and have arrested five suspects.
- The Trump administration announced 15 new medications—including treatments for arthritis, HIV, and Type 2 diabetes—will be added to a Medicare drug pricing program that allows the federal government to communicate directly with drug makers on prices for certain medications.
- South Carolina’s measles outbreak, which began in October, has now recorded 789 total cases, the largest since 2000, when measles was declared eliminated in the U.S.
- Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing a Delaware nurse practitioner for allegedly prescribing abortion-inducing drugs to individuals living in Texas.
- Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta released a joint statement calling on state and local authorities to “investigate potential state law crimes committed by federal agents” in their respective jurisdictions.
- The city of San Diego sued the Trump administration, arguing that federal authorities unlawfully planted razor wire fencing on city property near southern California’s border with Mexico.
- In a social media post, Trump urged Iran to reach a deal with the U.S. to end its nuclear development program, threatening an attack “far worse” than the U.S. strikes on Iran in June if the regime doesn’t negotiate.
- U.S. officials met with Danish and Greenland authorities to discuss a prospective deal that, according to a spokesman for the Danish Embassy in the U.S., “can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.”
- A new transitional Palestinian governing body for Gaza said that Hamas leaders agreed to transfer governing power to the new technocratic entity, provided that Israel fully opens the Rafah Crossing—connecting Egypt to the Gaza Strip.
- One day after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum acknowledged blocking oil shipments to Cuba, she said some oil exports to Cuba will be allowed to continue uninterrupted and that decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis.
- German police searched the German-based Deutsche Bank’s offices in Berlin and Frankfurt in connection with an ongoing investigation into money laundering.
- Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand have heightened their respective airport screening protocols as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of Nipah virus, after two fatal cases were reported in India.
- Zambia officially unlocked a $1.7 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the last block of funding in a multi-stage deal that both sides reached in 2022.
- The South Korean-based defense company Hanwha Defense reportedly agreed to invest $1.3 billion in the construction of a new weapons manufacturing plant on an Army base in Louisiana.
- United Arab Emirates-based conglomerate Al Habtoor Group announced plans to shutter all company operations in Lebanon, two days after sharing plans to sue the country’s government for an alleged $1.7 billion in investment losses.
- New Zealand-based shoe company Allbirds announced it would close its remaining stores in the U.S. amid a shift to e-commerce sales.
- Defense tech company Anduril announced it would host a drone racing competition, where prospective participants can submit code that will be used to fly a standard drone made by Neros Technologies.
- “American Water is Too Clean” (Works in Progress)
- James Parker on his experience participating in the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s 25-hour reading marathon of Moby Dick. (The Atlantic)
- Matthew Continetti on former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the only prospective candidate angling for the “renewal wing” lane in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary. (Wall Street Journal)
- Amy Kellogg provides an eyewitness account of the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown against its people. (The Free Press)
- A short biography of Violette Neatley Anderson—a lawyer who, 100 years ago today, became the first black woman admitted to practice in front of the Supreme Court. (UCLA)
The New Republic: Nicki Minaj Says “God Is Protecting Trump” in Weird Press Conference
The Telegraph: Shakespeare Was a Black Woman, Book Claims
Fox News: Keurig McCafé Coffee Pods Recalled Due to Possibly Containing Caffeine, FDA Says
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