Joe Biden has spent months trying to keep a set of recordings out of public hands. A federal appeals court just made that task much harder. In a divided 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected Biden’s emergency request to block the Justice Department from releasing redacted audio and transcripts of conversations he had with memoir ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer. The decision does not mean the tapes will be released tonight. The panel paused its ruling until August 3, giving Biden a narrow window to seek further review. But unless another court steps in, material the former president has fought to keep private is now on a path toward disclosure. Former President Joe Biden lost a legal bid to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of interviews with his longtime ghostwriter. The transcripts were used in special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. — PBS News (@NewsHour) July 22, 2026 The Associated Press reported that Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Gregory Katsas formed the majority, while Judge Florence Pan dissented. Srinivasan was appointed by Barack Obama, Katsas by President Trump and Pan by Biden. The judges issued their ruling late Monday after an earlier temporary pause. Their new stay expires August 3, giving Biden time to request review by the full appeals court or the Supreme Court. The majority concluded that the public has a “substantial” interest in the redacted material. Whatever privacy intrusion remains after the government’s proposed redactions, the judges found, likely does not outweigh that interest. Pan took the opposite view. She stressed that the conversations occurred inside Biden’s home, involved personal subjects and entered government custody through a criminal investigation that ended without an indictment. Biden’s spokesman said the former president disagreed with the ruling but respected the judiciary. That split captures the real fight. Biden says these were private conversations for a book. The other side says the recordings became evidence in a federal investigation, informed a special counsel’s charging decision and now bear directly on whether the Justice Department treated a president differently from any ordinary citizen. The public-interest argument won. The recordings date to 2016 and 2017, when Zwonitzer interviewed Biden while working on the memoir “Promise Me, Dad.” Federal investigators later obtained the material during special counsel Robert Hur’s probe into Biden’s handling of classified documents from his years in the Senate and the vice presidency. That is how old book interviews became federal evidence. Special Counsel Robert Hur said investigators found evidence that Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified material after leaving office, including classified information about Afghanistan. The final investigative report ran 345 pages. Hur investigated classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center and Biden’s Delaware home, including material dating to his Senate and vice-presidential service. Hur nevertheless declined to recommend criminal charges. His report laid out evidentiary weaknesses, Biden’s cooperation and the difficulty prosecutors would face proving willfulness beyond a reasonable doubt. Investigators had to determine whether Biden knowingly broke the law or simply forgot that sensitive papers and notebooks remained in his possession. Hur concluded that the available evidence would not support a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. It also said a jury could view Biden as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory. The report specifically relied on Biden’s recorded conversations with Zwonitzer. Investigators said Biden sometimes read from notebooks containing sensitive national-security information and, in one recorded exchange, told the ghostwriter that he had found “all the classified stuff downstairs.” Biden has denied improperly sharing classified information. Now the public may get to hear more of the underlying evidence instead of relying entirely on competing descriptions from lawyers and politicians. LAWFARE: The Democrat-controlled DC Circuit Appeals Court ruled against Joe Biden’s effort to keep recordings with his ghostwriter secret. Will we finally get to hear what is on those tapes? Biden has until August 3rd to respond. — @amuse (@amuse) July 22, 2026 The legal road to this point has been unusually tangled. Biden’s Justice Department initially argued that the recordings were protected from release under federal public-records law. After President Trump returned to office, the department reversed course and said it intended to provide redacted versions to the House Judiciary Committee and the Heritage Foundation, which had sought the material through the Freedom of Information Act. Biden then sued his former department to stop the disclosure. The Justice Department’s case summary explains why U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich rejected his request in June. The court noted that Hur’s publicly released report relied on the Zwonitzer material both in discussing Biden’s alleged disclosure of classified information and in explaining the decision not to prosecute. That made the recordings relevant to more than Biden’s private life. They became part of a national dispute over prosecutorial discretion, the former president’s mental condition and the government’s handling of evidence involving the most powerful office in the country. Friedrich concluded that Biden had not shown the department acted unlawfully when it determined that his reduced privacy interests were outweighed by the public interest. The appeals court has now refused to preserve the injunction while the broader appeal continues. There is an important distinction here. These are not the same recordings as Biden’s 2023 interview with Hur, portions of which surfaced last year. These are the earlier conversations with his ghostwriter — the tapes that helped investigators reconstruct what Biden knew, what he possessed and what he said after leaving the vice presidency. Nor is release guaranteed on August 3. Biden could ask the full D.C. Circuit to reconsider the panel’s decision or seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court. Either move could delay disclosure again. Still, the burden has shifted. Biden is no longer asking a court to preserve the status quo while judges decide whether his privacy claim is likely to succeed. He has lost that request at both the district and appellate levels. For years, Americans heard that the special counsel’s written description was enough and that the underlying audio added nothing the public needed to know. Two courts have now rejected that basic position. If the recordings are released, Americans will not have to take Hur’s word, Biden’s word or the Justice Department’s word for what happened in those conversations. They will be able to listen for themselves. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here. The post Appeals Court Just Opened the Door to Biden Recordings He Fought to Keep Buried appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.

Federal agents raided the home of a former Democratic state lawmaker in Pennsylvania this week. What investigators say they found inside is horrifying. Jesse White, who served four terms in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, was arrested Tuesday after the FBI searched his home near Mechanicsburg. White is now facing federal charges involving the receipt, distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material. The case reportedly began with two cyber tips involving files that Google flagged and sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Those tips were later forwarded to the FBI. According to the Observer-Reporter, the alerts involved material allegedly tied to an electronic device and accounts associated with White. Federal agents then obtained a warrant for his Cumberland County home. Investigators seized two laptops and multiple external hard drives. Court records cited by the newspaper allege that the devices held more than 100 illicit files, including images involving children estimated to be between 7 and 15 years old. Some of the material was allegedly arranged in folders by category. Investigators also claimed White used Telegram, ProtonMail, peer-to-peer software and the Tor browser to access or exchange illegal content. During questioning, White allegedly acknowledged having what he called “inappropriate content” on his devices. The criminal complaint says he later clarified that he was referring to child sexual abuse material. White represented Pennsylvania’s 46th House District, covering portions of Washington, Allegheny and Beaver counties. He entered the state House in 2007 and lost his seat in the 2014 election. The former lawmaker was also an attorney. An official Pennsylvania disciplinary filing shows that he recently sought reinstatement after being disbarred. That disciplinary matter is separate from the new federal criminal case. White’s federal public defender did not respond to the Observer-Reporter’s request for comment before publication. The charges are allegations. White is presumed innocent unless and until prosecutors prove their case in court. The FBI’s Endangered Child Alert Program asks the public to help identify unknown adults seen in material connected to child exploitation investigations. Case Update: John Doe 13, part of the FBI’s Endangered Child Alert Program (ECAP), has been identified and is now in custody. Help the FBI identify and locate others wanted for child sexual exploitation as part of ECAP: https://t.co/k3SBVzQLLx pic.twitter.com/o85i09C1jl — FBI Most Wanted (@FBIMostWanted) June 18, 2025 Tips involving the sexual exploitation of children can be submitted to the FBI or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. But the claims described in the complaint are stomach-turning, and the alleged victims at the center of this case must remain the focus. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here. The post FBI Raid Of Former Democrat Lawmaker’s Home Turns Up A Horrifying Discovery appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.

Zohran Mamdani spent months talking like the mayor of New York City could turn the NYPD into an enforcement arm for an international court. Then his own lawyers apparently got involved. In a video released Tuesday night, Mamdani conceded that City Hall does not have the independent legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he comes to New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September. That is quite a retreat from the campaign promise that helped make Mamdani a national figure on the far left. Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. pic.twitter.com/YRezmW6YVx — Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) July 22, 2026 Mamdani did not abandon his attack on Netanyahu. He called the Israeli leader a war criminal, accused him of genocide and said he was not welcome in New York. The admission that mattered came in the very next breath: after reviewing what Mamdani described as every available legal avenue, his administration concluded that New York City cannot independently enforce the International Criminal Court’s warrant. The mayor then tried to pass the demand to Washington, calling on the federal government to join the ICC and execute the warrant instead. There is one glaring problem with that pivot. President Trump had already made the federal government’s position unmistakable. According to the Associated Press, President Trump said Monday that Netanyahu would not be arrested “in any way, shape, or form” while in the United States. The AP reported that Mamdani issued his concession late Tuesday after previously saying his administration was examining whether local authorities could act on the ICC warrant. His legal review ended with City Hall admitting it had no independent enforcement power, even as the mayor continued to demand Netanyahu’s arrest. Netanyahu is expected in New York for the U.N. General Assembly in September. The AP also noted that the United States is not an ICC member and that Washington has rejected the warrant, leaving Mamdani’s fallback appeal aimed at a federal government whose answer was already public. So Mamdani has now landed in an extraordinary position. He admits his own city lacks the power to carry out his threat, then demands help from a federal administration that has already rejected the entire premise. This was not some obscure technicality uncovered at the last minute. The United States Code says that no agency or entity of a state or local government may cooperate with the ICC in response to a request made under the Rome Statute. The same section bars state and local entities from extraditing a person from the United States to the court or providing support to it. That language does not leave much room for a mayor looking to stage an international arrest at a New York airport. The United States is also not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC. The court can issue warrants, but it has no police force of its own and depends on governments to make arrests. The United Nations treaty record lists the countries that ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute. The United States signed the treaty in 2000 but later notified the U.N. that it did not intend to become a party. The record matters because the ICC relies on participating governments to carry out its warrants. Member states accept cooperation duties under the treaty; a city government inside a non-member country cannot simply claim those powers for itself. Israel is not a party either. Although the ICC says it has jurisdiction based on the Palestinian territories, neither Jerusalem nor Washington accepts that the court can command American police agencies to detain Israel’s sitting prime minister. That is the legal wall Mamdani’s promise finally hit.

President Trump’s immigration crackdown now has a dollar figure attached to it so large that it almost looks like a typo. It is not. The Department of Homeland Security says it has issued 103,000 civil fines to illegal immigrants since Trump returned to office. The total value of those fines: approximately $84 billion. But that is only the first number in this story. The second number reveals what this enforcement campaign is really doing — and what it is not. DHS has issued $84 billion in fines to illegal immigrants under President Trump — RSBN (@RSBNetwork) July 22, 2026 Fox News Digital reported Wednesday that DHS had issued the 103,000 fines between President Trump’s return on January 20, 2025, and July 16, 2026. The penalties went to illegal immigrants who remained in the United States after receiving final removal orders. DHS says it had collected about $1.2 billion of the $84 billion assessed by that date. That means roughly 1.4 percent of the total assessment has actually reached the government. The agency is charging as much as $998 for each day a person willfully refuses to comply with a removal order. DHS also says the fines must be paid before deportation and warns that assets can be seized when a recipient refuses to pay. The numbers describe an $84 billion pressure campaign, not an $84 billion Treasury windfall. The administration is trying to make continued defiance more expensive than voluntary departure, even when the government has little chance of collecting the entire balance. DHS is using a long-dormant section of federal immigration law to make ignoring a final removal order financially painful every day the order remains defied. The maximum daily fine is $998. At that rate, one year of noncompliance can generate a penalty of $364,270. Five years can push the bill to roughly $1.82 million. That is how 103,000 fines can add up to a number larger than the annual budgets of many federal agencies. The figures also work out to an average assessment of roughly $815,000 for each fine DHS says it issued. Individual bills vary, and the public figures leave it unclear whether every fine represents a different person. Even with that caveat, the scale of the leverage is unmistakable. The legal authority is not something the Trump administration invented from scratch. A DHS and Justice Department rule published in the Federal Register traces the daily penalty to Section 274D of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Congress enacted that provision in 1996. It allows civil penalties against people who willfully refuse to depart after a final removal order, fail to obtain travel documents, skip a required departure appearance or otherwise act to prevent their removal. The original statutory maximum was $500 per day. Mandatory annual inflation adjustments nearly doubled that legal ceiling and brought the current amount to $998. The June 2025 rule also sharply streamlined the process. Immigration officers can issue penalty decisions, while appeals are handled within DHS under procedures now codified in federal regulations. A person who wants to challenge a fine has 15 business days to file a written appeal, and a different supervisory officer must review the record and issue a final decision within 45 days. The notice says the change was intended to replace a slower process that depended on referrals, additional approvals and administrative hearings. DHS argued that the older structure had made large-scale enforcement cumbersome even though Congress had authorized the penalties decades earlier. That changed the fines from an authority that mostly sat on the shelf into a system capable of operating at scale. President Trump’s first administration used the power in a small number of cases beginning in 2018. Joe Biden’s DHS rescinded that policy in 2021, calling the fines ineffective and unnecessary. Trump brought them back after returning to the White House. The administration began assessing penalties again in March 2025 and then created the streamlined process three months later. Now the totals have climbed from nearly 10,000 fines worth about $3 billion in June 2025 to 103,000 fines worth approximately $84 billion. That is a 28-fold increase in the dollar value of assessments in roughly 13 months. The administration is pairing the financial threat with an offer. Leave voluntarily, use the government’s CBP Home process and DHS says it will forgive failure-to-depart fines. Stay after a final removal order, and the penalties keep accumulating. Haitians with terminated TPS in Springfield, Ohio, are SELF-DEPORTING following the Supreme Court’s ruling last month. To others in the US with terminated TPS: self-deport today and we’ll help you get back to your country with a $2,600 check and a FREE flight home. — Homeland Security (@DHSgov) July 20, 2026 The Department of Homeland Security formally announced the fine-forgiveness policy in June 2025. DHS said non-criminal illegal immigrants who use CBP Home to leave may receive travel assistance, including a government-paid flight when necessary, preserve money earned in the United States and retain the possibility of pursuing legal immigration later. Those who refuse, the department warned, face arrest, deportation and aggressive federal collection efforts against them. The agency has also said unpaid fines must be resolved before deportation and that assets may be seized when people refuse to pay. The forgiveness applies to eligible people who document their departure through CBP Home; it is not a blanket cancellation for anyone who leaves through an unverified route. The offer is deliberately time-sensitive. A person who departs through the government program can arrange travel and receive fine forgiveness; someone apprehended first loses the chance to leave on his own schedule. DHS presents that contrast as the less expensive alternative to locating, arresting, detaining and physically removing the same person. That makes the collection gap easier to understand. Someone facing a seven-figure civil bill is unlikely to have seven figures available for the government to collect. The threat of the debt — and the possibility of asset seizure — may matter more to DHS than turning every assessment into cash. The administration’s stated objective is compliance. Revenue comes second. There is also a serious legal fight underway. The Associated Press reported in November that immigrant-rights lawyers filed a proposed class-action lawsuit challenging fines that reached as high as $1.8 million. The plaintiffs argue that the penalties are excessive, that some recipients were pursuing legal relief or reporting to immigration authorities and that the streamlined procedure denies adequate due process. Their lawsuit seeks nationwide class status and asks a federal court to halt both new notices and collection on existing assessments. DHS rejected that characterization, saying the lawsuit was an attempt to nullify federal immigration law and avoid the consequences of final removal orders. One plaintiff identified only as Nancy said she had continued reporting to immigration authorities under an order of supervision while seeking lawful status, yet received a bill of roughly $1.8 million. The government maintains that a pending request for relief does not erase an enforceable departure obligation unless a court or agency has formally stayed it. The litigation remains pending, and the gap between an assessment and a successful collection will continue to matter in court as well as in the federal ledger. Still, the enforcement machinery is no longer theoretical. For years, a final removal order could remain on paper while the person subject to it stayed in the country. The Trump administration has added a meter that can run at nearly $1,000 every day. The $84 billion total makes the policy look like a massive revenue program. The $1.2 billion collected tells the more important story. DHS has built a financial hammer. The real test is not whether Washington can collect every dollar it writes down. It is whether the hammer forces people with final removal orders to make a choice they could previously postpone. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here. The post DHS Says Its Immigration Fines Now Total $84 Billion—One Number Changes the Story appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.

A Delta Air Lines pilot approaching New York City’s LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday received a warning from air traffic control (ATC) to be on the lookout for a possible “man portable air defense system,” otherwise known as a “MANPAD.” “MANPAD alert issued at LaGuardia Airport at 0027,” ATC said. “Use extreme caution,” it added. “Can you explain what a MANPAD is?” the Delta pilot asked. “Yeah, that’s a man portable air defense system. Yeah, it’s – basically it was a report of a rocket launcher,” ATC responded. “There was a report by the Port Authority police, and they said by, I believe Terminal C. We’ve had conflicting reports, but nothing has been an issue as of yet,” ATC continued. The threat was later reported as “non-credible.” “The Port Authority said police searched the airport after receiving information from an unidentified caller, but determined the threat was unfounded,” CBS News wrote. “Officials said there was no credible threat to the traveling public or airport operations, and the incident remains under investigation,” it added. Take a listen: "Use extreme caution": A Delta Air Lines pilot approaching New York's LaGuardia Airport was warned by air traffic control Tuesday to be on the lookout for a possible man-portable air defense system, or MANPADS, following a reported threat. The Port Authority said police searched… pic.twitter.com/RnzGbtm4Qk — CBS News (@CBSNews) July 22, 2026 5 Towns Central explained further: According to aviation communications recorded around 12:27 a.m., air traffic control personnel broadcast a formal advisory to approaching aircraft regarding a potential ground-to-air missile threat near Terminal C. Controllers alerted incoming commercial flights—including a inbound domestic airliner—to exercise extreme caution while executing landings on active runways. Radio transmissions confirmed that tower staff provided clarifications to flight crews regarding the specific nature of the reported security concern. Law enforcement agencies and airport security personnel immediately investigated the surrounding terminal grounds and perimeter areas to verify the claim. Following a comprehensive sweep of the premises, authorities determined that the initial report was completely uncredible and posed no actual danger to aviation operations or passengers. Officials confirmed that normal flight schedules and airfield activities continued without major disruption, operational pauses, or terminal evacuations resulting from the advisory. Law enforcement maintains standard security protocols across all airport facilities, and no injuries or equipment damages occurred in connection with the incident. “So nonchalant about a possible man with a military-grade ROCKET LAUNCHER at the terminal. It turned out NOT to be a credible threat, thankfully,” journalist Nick Sortor commented. “For those unfamiliar, MANPADS stands for Man-Portable Air-Defense System. I could only find one other MANPADS Alert in recent US history, and that was at LAX in 2013. And that wasn’t credible either,” he added. NEW: MANPADS ALERT issued at LaGuardia Airport in NYC tonight amid reports of a man armed a PORTABLE ROCKET LAUNCHER at Terminal C Incoming flights were warned to “USE EXTREME CAUTION” by Air Traffic Control ATC: “Delta 2604… clear to land. MANPADS alert issued at LaGuardia… pic.twitter.com/U5ahmFLmN7 — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 22, 2026 Meanwhile, New York City had numerous travel disruptions on Tuesday caused by severe weather. GOTHAM CITY : New York City is under a dark, gloomy atmosphere as a Tornado Watch and Flash Flood Warning are in effect amid ongoing severe weather.#Newyorkcity #Flooding #FOXWeather pic.twitter.com/4fBxWr7zFX — FOX Weather (@foxweather) July 21, 2026 ABC7 New York has more: Rounds of severe storms triggered downpours, flash flooding, damaging winds and possible tornadoes on Tuesday, just days after storms walloped New York City and the Tri-State area over the weekend. The second dose of dangerous storms led to tornado warnings and watches being issued by the National Weather Service, which have since expired as the severe weather conditions move offshore. Parts of New Jersey were particularly hard-hit by Tuesday’s storms, including Stanhope, where a possible tornado was spotted. A video posted on social media also showed a funnel cloud on the ground at a golf center in Parsippany, about one mile north of the Troy Hills area. Watch more below: The post “Use Extreme Caution” – Delta Pilot Alerted To Report Of “Rocket Launcher” appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.