A federal judge slapped down former special counsel Jack Smith from releasing a report on President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office in January 2021.  U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, wrote in a Monday ruling that releasing the report would violate principles of fairness and justice. She said Smith undertook a “brazen” strategy by compiling the document even after she dismissed the classified document charges against Trump.  Cannon wrote that releasing the report “would cause irreparable damage to former defendants from disclosure of non-public discovery material implicating still-contested grand jury and privilege concerns; and it would contravene basic notions of fairness and justice in the process, where no adjudication of guilt has been reached following initiation of criminal charges.” Cannon dismissed the charges against Trump in July 2024, ruling that Smith’s appointment violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and that his office was not properly authorized.  Despite her dismissal order, Cannon noted that Smith continued investigating Trump and compiling a report that was intended for release to congressional lawmakers. Cannon wrote that, instead of seeking a stay or clarification of her order, Smith and his team “chose to circumvent it, for months, by taking the discovery generated in this case and compiling it in a final report for transmission to then-Attorney General Garland, to Congress, and then beyond.” “The Court need not countenance this brazen stratagem or effectively perpetuate the Special Counsel’s breach of this Court’s own order,” she added. Cannon said releasing the report would deny Trump and his co-defendants a meaningful opportunity to respond to the allegations. Smith, however, has claimed that he obtained “powerful evidence that showed Trump willfully retained highly classified documents” after leaving office in January 2021.  Cannon wrote that the court “strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt,” particularly where “the defendants contested the charges from the outset and still proclaim their innocence.” Last month, Smith faced questions from lawmakers about his investigations into Trump. He also brought charges against Trump related to the January 6 Capitol riot, which were later dismissed after Trump’s election and before he returned to office in January 2025.

Welcome to Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** I’m a Luddite in many ways, at least in theory. I hate social media, prefer to spend my free time in nature — usually with a gun, bow, or rod and reel in my hand — and long for the days when you could buy a truck with a manual transmission. In fact, I have often quipped that America went to heck in a handbasket when Ford stopped putting manuals in their F-150s (2008, for those keeping track). I’m not a big fan of governments regulating just about anything, but I applaud the fact that millions of Americans have gravitated toward the MAHA movement, which prioritizes whole foods over modern, processed garbage. If you called me a redneck or Jesus freak, I would have a hard time beating the allegations, but even as an old-school Midwesterner, I find many on the Right’s insistence that American life was better in the 1950s, or any glamorized bygone era, to be preposterous. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that “around six-in-ten (58%) say that life for people like them is worse today than it was 50 years ago.” This is unfounded. The economist Thomas Sowell is right about a great many things, including the fact that there are no solutions, only trade-offs. I despise many of the side effects of the massive industry surrounding modern medicine. Overmedication is a serious problem, and a healthy lifestyle is often a far better option than whatever a doctor may be prescribing. But when trouble comes knocking, it sure is great to have the kind of doctors and hospitals we take for granted today. In 1950, the infant mortality rate in the U.S. was 29 deaths per 1,000 live births. Today, that number is around five out of 1,000. Childbirth is so remarkably safe in the modern world, at least in developed countries, that most people never think about mortality rates, but a couple of generations ago, there was a strong chance neither of my children would have survived. My daughter required an emergency C-section after my wife labored for several hours with no progress. Of course, C-sections were not uncommon in 1950, but they were riskier for both the mother and baby. The beginning of my son’s life in 2024 was more difficult by orders of magnitude. My wife’s water broke at 28 weeks, and the little man arrived at 29. As I sped to the hospital at 5 a.m., I assumed there was a 50-50 chance our boy would survive. He was well under three pounds, and I had never personally met anyone who had a baby at his gestational age. At the hospital, however, the doctors and nurses were shockingly calm and professional. I almost couldn’t believe it when they said, “He’s doing great.” In 1950, there would have been essentially nothing that most hospitals could have done for my son. Neonatal care was nonexistent or in its infancy, depending on where you lived. Specialized incubators, ventilation, and steroid treatments were primitive, if available at all. Today, babies born at 29 weeks survive at a miraculous clip north of 90%. I wouldn’t wish a nearly three-month stay in NICU on my worst enemy. It was certainly the most trying time of our lives, but by my son’s original due date, we were bringing him home, something that would have been nearly impossible before NICUs became widespread in hospitals across the West in the early 1970s. In a generation, modern medical advancements completely transformed how premature births are viewed in the developed world, not to mention the countless diseases, such as polio and smallpox, that have been almost entirely eradicated in the West. When was the last time you thought about malaria? There is a reason why the deadliest killer in human history is an afterthought outside of the third world. Even when I’m in the woods, away from modern technology and the worries of 21st century life, I’m still the beneficiary of modernity. Heroes of the American outdoors, such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, used inaccurate, expensive, and unreliable flintlock muzzleloaders to hunt big game. Terms such as “flash in the pan” and “keep your powder dry” are references to the myriad ways those rifles often failed to go boom, leading to an empty dinner table — or much worse in a combat scenario. I can get my cheap Ruger bolt-action rifle wet, forget to clean it, or even drop it out of a tree stand, and it’s still going to get the job done. Trail cameras, GPS mapping, modern camouflage, and scent control all give us a leg up on the tasty animals we love to hunt. Anyone who has fooled around with old, unreliable outboard motors will tell you how nice it is to power a boat with a modern, direct injection engine that fires up at the turn of a key. I’m generally an artificial intelligence skeptic, but where did I go to find infant mortality rates from the 1950s? You guessed it: ChatGPT. Of course, I double-checked the numbers since AI is still notoriously, and sometimes hilariously, wrong on occasion. But as a writer, I’d be a fool not to use AI to source my work. As much as I complain about the downfall of the manual transmission, my teenage, stick-driving self would never have imagined connecting a smartphone, which didn’t exist, to my truck using technology that didn’t exist, so I can listen to almost any song ever written for a measly $12.99/month. Modern life, the internet in particular, brings unique challenges that did not exist a generation ago. But I do know for a fact that those who insist that we got the short end of the stick never had a preemie. *** Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a writer, musician, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

President Donald Trump ripped the “sick” legacy media and Democratic Party for ignoring the families of Americans killed by illegal immigrants, officially declaring February 22 “National Angel Family Day” to recognize the families of those whose lives were taken by criminals who entered the country illegally. Trump addressed the Angel Families at the White House on Monday, one day after the second anniversary of the murder of Laken Riley. Trump’s proclamation on Monday also recognized Jocelyn Nungaray and Rachel Morin, who were killed by illegal immigrants, and Matthew Denice, Sarah Root, and Ivory Smith, who were killed by drunk drivers who entered the country illegally. “We’re willing to tell the story,” Trump said of Riley’s life and tragic murder. “I don’t know why the news doesn’t want to hear it. The Democrats don’t want to hear it, the radical Left, they don’t want to hear it. What’s not to hear? We want to stop murderers and criminals from coming into our country.” “I watch the mayor of Minneapolis, I watch these people saying we want to protect murderers. I don’t get it … there’s something sick. We can’t have a country like that,” he added. Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips, addressed the room full of reporters, Trump administration officials, and Angel Families, and thanked Trump for his work to crack down on illegal immigration and recognize the Americans killed by people who illegally crossed the border. “You have said from the beginning, literally the day after [Riley’s murder], that you would not forget about Laken,” Phillips said. “You weren’t president at that time, and you have not forgotten. You have fought a fight that most people would not want to have to fight.” Riley, 22, was brutally stabbed to death while out for a run on the University of Georgia campus on February 22, 2024. Riley’s murderer, 26-year-old Jose Ibarra from Venezuela, illegally entered the United States under the Biden administration in 2022. Ibarra was arrested for endangering a child on a scooter in New York shortly after entering the United States, but New York authorities released him from custody before Immigration and Customs Enforcement could lodge a detainer. The former NYPD officer who arrested Ibarra for child endangerment in 2023 also spoke at the White House on Monday, saying, “I did my job. I put him in custody, but the system failed. No detainer. No accountability. No deportation. And an innocent American life was taken.” Trump vowed to continue to crack down on Democrat-run “sanctuary cities.” “They protect criminals with a vengeance,” he said, adding, “There’s something wrong with them.” Trump’s event honoring the families of Americans killed by illegal immigrants comes one day before he delivers his State of the Union address, where he will likely focus much of his time on touting his work to crack down on illegal immigration. Trump said during the White House press conference that his State of the Union address would be “a long speech because we have so much to talk about.” Trump’s immigration policy has been one of his top priorities since returning to the White House last year. As Trump has effectively shut down illegal immigration at the southern border and moved to deport illegal immigrants, Democrats have raged against Trump’s policy, especially his large ICE operations in cities such as Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis. After Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by federal agents last month, Democrats ramped up their efforts to oppose federal immigration enforcement, with some Democratic lawmakers calling for ICE to be “abolished” and suggesting that ICE agents are terrorists and murderers. As anti-ICE demonstrations continued in Minneapolis earlier this month, Trump sent his border czar, Tom Homan, to Minnesota to talk with the state’s Democratic leaders. After meeting with Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Homan announced the end of ICE’s immigration surge in the state and said that local Minnesota officials agreed to cooperate with federal authorities.

In the wake of Team USA’s first Olympic gold in men’s hockey since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice,” two prominent leftist outlets derided the patriotic celebration, triggering a visceral response from the American public. Huffington Post posted the following on X: “If waving the American flag or chanting ‘USA!’ turns you off right now, you’re not alone.” If waving the American flag or chanting “USA!” turns you off right now, you're not alone.  https://t.co/ndUODJtix4 — HuffPost (@HuffPost) February 21, 2026 The HuffPo article linked in X post went further, arguing: “While President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda separates families, and federal agents detain 5-year-olds and kill unarmed civilians, American athletes are winning medals on behalf of the nation at the Olympics right now. This whiplash between pride for United States competitors and national shame for the federal government is common.” The article continued: “The degree to which you feel shame and guilt right now for cheering U.S. Olympians might also depend on how much cognitive dissonance you have between the stated values of being American –– freedom, revolutionary spirit, opportunity for all –– versus how our government has actually acted in the hundreds of years since the U.S. was formed …” The post was brutally “ratioed” — social media shorthand for when replies vastly outnumber likes. By Monday morning, it had received roughly 25,000 replies compared to about 1,500 likes. “If you can’t be excited about winning gold at the Olympics— including in OT vs Canada, you don’t have a pulse. Some people will pick victimhood and being miserable over having an ounce of patriotism. Good luck,” Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin wrote on X. If you can’t be excited about winning gold at the Olympics— including in OT vs Canada, you don’t have a pulse. Some people will pick victimhood and being miserable over having an ounce of patriotism. Good luck.

It was not uncommon for the United States Army Corps of Engineers to hand out pamphlets offering federal assistance for municipal infrastructure projects to bolster local communities across the nation. The problem? The money didn’t always exist. Some of the advertised services were not covered by an approved federal budget and amounted to empty promises, according to Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle. This is just one of the many issues detailed by Telle’s “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” initiative at a Pentagon roundtable discussion last week. He’s hoping to bring more efficiency to the department known most recently for its work in Southern California after the 2025 wildfires. The 27 different initiatives aim to rein in bureaucratic bloat within the department. One of those initiatives is “consistency in communication of the president’s budget,” which would avoid more pamphlet mishaps by making it clear what the federal government can and cannot cover. “Their mode has been out there to market to see ‘Hey, bring us more work. Bring us more work,’ instead of focusing on delivering the things that are nationally strategic,” Telle told The Daily Wire. Other key initiatives outlined include scrapping “inactive projects,” improving prioritization, and ending contracts not considered beneficial. In another example, he cited a Port Everglades project in South Florida with a price tag of $3.2 billion. In reality, it should have only cost $600 million to “deepen and widen” the key commerce hub. “It’s because of all the processes and all the environmental concerns, all the, you know, lack of leadership to say ‘Hey, let’s be reasonable.’ Yes, we need to mitigate the environment, but it doesn’t need to cause a project to be 5X [the cost],” he said. “I mean, our competitors around the globe are not paying 5X for a port based on these types of concerns.” It’s no secret that the Trump administration has been aiming to cut contracts and other efforts it has deemed unnecessary, most notably through the Department of Government Efficiency. Last April, War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the War Department would scrap $5.1 billion in contracts. “We need this money to spend on better health care for our warfighters and their families, instead of $500 an hour business process consultant,” Hegseth said at the time. “That’s a lot of consulting.” The month prior, he had announced $580 million in cuts. As for the engineering corps, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll stated that “continuous Army transformation is about rapidly delivering war winning capabilities to the Army today, not years in the future. But that’s not all; we’re also transforming at home, too.”