Tonight in Your Rights: Kash out?
Trump's FBI director reportedly may be heading toward the exit. NYAG James celebrates her victory by suing Trump's government. Judge Chutkan expedites some Epstein files.
Kash Patel’s use of taxpayer-funded jet rides to meet his girlfriend may buy him a one-way ticket out of the FBI.
That’s what MS NOW reported on Tuesday, citing three knowledgeable sources.
Patel’s anticipated ouster in the coming months follows a series of embarrassing headlines about his use of an FBI jet to meet his girlfriend Alexis Wilkins, an aspiring country music singer, in Nashville and attend golf trips with his friends at a resort in Scotland. In addition to jet-setting on the public dime, Patel also reportedly assigned SWAT agents to protect Wilkins.
The scandal burst out into public view when journalists used publicly available flight data to track Patel’s travels. Stung by criticism, Patel forced out the senior FBI official in charge of aviation.
The White House denied the report, which can be read in full here.
NYAG James takes on Trump admin, again
Just a day after the dismissal of her criminal case, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) joined a coalition suing Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development to protect billions of dollars to fight homelessness.
New York is part of an 18-state coalition suing HUD and its secretary Eric Scott Turner over threatened cuts of more than $3 billion to the Continuum of Care program.
“Communities across the country depend on Continuum of Care funds to provide housing and other resources to our most vulnerable neighbors,” James wrote in a statement. “These funds help keep tens of thousands of people from sleeping on the streets every night. I will not allow this administration to cut off these funds and put vital housing and support services at risk.”
The 55-page lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s action as unlawful and unconstitutional.
“Congress designed the program to preserve stability so providers can reliably serve people whose lives depend on it,” the complaint says. “And for decades now, the CoC Program has operated with the continuity and predictability mandated by statute, with the vast majority of funding directed to renewing permanent housing, rental assistance, and supportive service projects that have been shown to work.”
But now, the program has been thrown into “chaos,” according to the lawsuit.
It’s one of dozens of cases brought against the Trump administration by multistate coalitions of Democratic attorneys general, and a significant number of those cases accuse the Trump administration of usurping Congress’s power of the purse.
Read the full complaint here.
‘Preposterous’: Top military law expert roasts Hegseth
When Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a probe into Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Yale Law School scholar Eugene Fidell said that Hegseth’s planned investigation affirmed that “he was not fit to hold the office that he’s holding.”
“I thought his comments were preposterous,” Fidell, a top military law expert, told All Rise News in a video interview. “The course of action that he’s undertaken, presumably with a view to chilling, spoke to speakers on the other side of the aisle, is impossible to accept in a democratic society.”
Just hours after two of Trump’s politically motivated prosecutions collapsed on Monday, Hegseth announced that Sen. Kelly would be targeted for a preliminary investigation to determine whether to drag the decorated Navy veteran back into active service for a potential court-martial.
Kelly, who flew 39 combat missions and four space shuttle missions as an astronaut, has said that he will not be intimidated.
During a 20-minute video conversation, Fidell said that such an investigation would be “killed in the cradle” in a properly functioning military justice system, but Hegseth has been relentlessly attacking that system.
Among other things, Fidell noted, Hegseth fired the Judge Advocates General for the Army, Navy and Air Force, reduced JAGs’ ranks to two-star officers, and hid the legal basis for the boat strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
“It’s one thing after another,” Fidell noted.
In the full interview, Fidell dissects Hegseth’s purge of the JAG corps, denounces the Department of Defense’s rebranding as an “abuse of language,” and explains why he believes the boat strikes in the Caribbean are murder.
Look out for the full conversation to air later this week on
’s All Rise News playlist.Note: This entry has been updated to correct a typographical error involving the senator’s name.
Judge: Expedite some Epstein files
The federal judge who presided over Trump’s election subversion prosecution has ordered the government to fast-track a Freedom of Information Act request to shed light on its handling of the Epstein files.
“Because Democracy Forward has demonstrated that the Department’s handling of the Epstein files is a ‘matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government’s integrity that affect public confidence,’ […] its FOIA requests are largely entitled to expedited review,” U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in a 15-page opinion.
For expedited processing, a filer must show “widespread and exceptional media interest” and “possible questions about the government’s integrity.”
Chutkan found that Democracy Forward “cleared this bar.”
“In sum, the media coverage cited by Democracy Forward shows that the Department’s handling of the Epstein files raises possible questions regarding the government’s integrity,” the ruling states.
The Justice Department has moved to unseal Epstein-related grand jury records in New York and Florida, arguing that the recently signed legislation should steer judges to reconsider their previous denials. Two federal judges previously described the Trump administration’s efforts to unseal the grand jury minutes as a “diversion,” deflecting criticism over failing to release investigative records.
Read Judge Chutkan’s ruling here.
Many thanks for these updates, Adam. Now Patel has a reason for his deer-in-the-headlights expression!
I hope KashYAP gets yeeted. Abusing a $10k an hour jet and other resources including "security" for his mistress who (looked up a Youtube recording) sounds like a divorced waitress at a cowboy bar karaoke evening after a long day during rodeo week is unconscionable. Is that the best he could do?