Kristi Noem Gave Huge Contract to Company Accused of People Smuggling

Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem gave a border wall contract to a company that illegally smuggled workers into the country, provided them guns, and ignored them when they got involved in a shootout. 

The Daily Beast reports that the Texas-based SLSCO Ltd. has two contracts with DHS worth a total of $1 billion to build the border wall in Laredo and Del Rio, Texas. Noem personally approved the contracts. The company also has a contract to build the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility in Florida, and during the first Trump administration, won bids of close to $2 billion to build the border wall. 

But SLSCO, a major Republican donor, was accused in court of smuggling Mexican nationals into the country as workers, later giving them guns to work as guards. Two of the company’s former security contractors, an ex-FBI special agent and a former sheriff’s deputy in San Diego, filed a lawsuit against SLSCO over alleged “human and weapons smuggling” over the U.S. border with Mexico. 

The lawsuit states that the pair started working for the company in 2019 and discovered migrants working illegally for SLSCO at border wall sites in southern California, as well as armed Mexican nationals working as guards. In July of that year, those guards reportedly got into a firefight with a different group of migrants who were trying to steal from SLSCO construction sites. 

But after the two contractors raised the issue with their superiors, nothing happened. The ex-FBI agent then told the bureau about the smuggling and the shootout, and shortly afterward, the two contractors were fired, which they allege was retaliation. But the lawsuit never made it to court because the two plaintiffs dismissed the case voluntarily. SLSCO doesn’t seem to have ever commented publicly about it, according to The Daily Beast.  

It’s yet another black mark on Noem’s disastrous tenure at DHS. The agency shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis on her watch while carrying out the Trump administration’s violent mass deportation agenda. Noem also faced criticism for hiring an eight-day-old company for a $220 million ad campaign for ICE, spending millions on luxury jets, and buying 2,500 trucks for ICE that the agency can’t even use, among numerous other misdeeds. What other ill-advised purchases has she saddled taxpayers with? 

A federal judge has quashed the Justice Department’s subpoenas directed at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

In a scathing 27-page opinion, Judge James Boasberg said Friday that the government has produced “essentially zero evidence” to substantiate its criminal case against Powell.

“A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning,” Boasberg wrote. “On the other side of the scale, the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime.”

Donald Trump’s myriad tweets railing against the Federal Reserve chief—and their clear correlation to the DOJ’s probe—did not help the government’s case.

“The President spent years essentially asking if no one will rid him of this troublesome Fed Chair,” the judge continued. “He then suggested a specific line of investigation into him, which had been proposed by a political appointee with no role in law enforcement, who hinted that it could be a way to remove Powell. The President’s appointed prosecutor promptly complied.

“Those facts strongly imply that this investigation was launched for an improper purpose, as were the resulting subpoenas,” Boasberg wrote.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, a Trump appointee whose office is leading the investigation, promised to appeal the decision.

The judge “has neutered the grand jury’s ability to investigate crime; as a result Jerome Powell today is ​now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve,” Pirro claimed, accusing Boasberg of being an “activist judge.”

“This is wrong and without legal authority,” she added.

Powell has been the subject of the president’s ire for months, facing enormous Oval Office criticism for his repeated refusal to cut interest rates as Trump sees fit. The investigation was ostensibly about the cost of renovations to the Fed’s office buildings, which occurred under Powell’s stewardship but which were nonetheless wildly exaggerated by the president as a pretext to attack Powell.

The law mandates that the Fed be politically independent, yet Powell has argued that Trump is attempting to diminish confidence in the central bank in order to gain more influence over America’s monetary policy.

“This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,” Powell said in January when the subpoenas were first announced.

This story has been updated.

The U.S. is deploying to the Middle East a Marine expeditionary unit that can conduct ground operations if needed.

Multiple outlets reported Friday that the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, which is based in Japan, is being sent to the Middle East, along with multiple other warships and fighter jets. The attached 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit has thousands of Marines and sailors and can offer land, amphibious, and aviation support.

The move could be to potentially aid the U.S. Navy in escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz—but it does not inspire faith in the success or point to the conclusion of the war on Iran, especially given that it will take the Marines 10 days to two weeks to reach the region. Just hours ago, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated, “We’re on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before … their missile force is shrinking daily.”

Iran’s retaliatory blockade and oil tanker attacks on the Strait have cost the United States $11 billion so far, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Donald Trump rambled about immigrants’ bad “genetics” Friday, during an unfiltered white supremacist rant. 

Speaking on the phone to Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade, Trump complained that while some immigrants simply shouldn’t have been let into the United States, others “go bad.”

“There’s something wrong there. The genetics are not exactly your genetics, it’s one of those problems, Brian,” Trump said. “It’s a terrible thing, and it happens, it happens too often.”

Critics slammed Trump’s comment as blatantly racist and speculated that the president might admire more about Adolf Hitler than just his economic and political machinations.  

“Trump is an old school eugenicist nativist. He actually is fine with immigrants as long as they have the right ‘genes,’” David J. Bier, director of immigration for the Cato Institute, wrote on X. “This argument was the basis of the creation of the restrictive US immigration system 100 years ago.”

“He’s a white supremacist. He doesn’t hide it,” Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan wrote on X. 

This isn’t the first time Trump’s fearmongering about immigrants has crossed the line into talk of genetics. 

Speaking to a conservative radio show host in October 2024, Trump claimed that former Vice President Kamala Harris had allowed murderers with “bad genes” to live in the United States. The year before, Trump channeled the language of Hitler while suggesting that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”

A dark money group is offering influencers $1,500 for one negative social media post about progressive Illinois House of Representatives candidate Kat Abughazaleh.

MS Now reported that Democracy Unmuted, a secretive, unofficial organization that registered its website two weeks ago, offered TikTok and Instagram influencer Amanda Informed $1,500 to push anti-Abughazaleh rhetoric on social media. She declined, and made the offer known to the media.

Democracy Unmuted is made up of “individuals from the [Illinois] area who have served in the highest offices and been at top of their game in the media,” Matt Anthes, founder of the digital political advocacy firm Advocators, told MS NOW’s Brandy Zadrozny.

“The money didn’t feel right coming from someone who’s not disclosing where the money is coming from,” Amanda Informed told MS NOW. “That’s not something that I want to be involved in. I want to make sure that it’s coming from a source that is not doing nefarious things like interfering with elections.”

Anthes was the one who sent Amanda the offer. But even he remains secretive about the group’s members and funding, stating, “We don’t comment on or disclose the identity of our clients. What we can tell you is that all of our dealings and practices are fully compliant with FEC rules and regulations, including those at our creative agency partner, Upstart Factory.”

According to the memo Amanda received, Democracy Unmuted is asking political influencers on TikTok and Instagram to “encourage voters to look past viral personalities and ask real questions about who is running and why.”

The group alleged that Abughazaleh is a political newcomer, grew up wealthy, and didn’t know her district well enough. “Kat’s campaign appears designed for attention rather than impact,” it stated.

Some influencers may have accepted the money. Missouri-based political influencer Justin Kralemann—who goes by “The Woke Ginger” on social media—essentially read Democracy Unmuted’s anti-Abughazaleh talking points word for word in a recent Instagram and TikTok post, while wearing a hat reading “WOKE” and mispronouncing Abughazaleh’s name.

“It’s important to look past viral personalities and ask who is running and why,” the Woke Ginger said, a near exact quote from the brief. Even still, he has stated that he was not paid for the video.

A literal secret group paying random influencers across the United States to smear one of the more progressive congressional candidates of 2026 should be a massive scandal, but America’s laissez-faire campaign finance laws have made it possible, and completely legal.

“Dark money groups have grown to exercise tremendous influence.… With a lot of these competitive races, these groups can spring up overnight,” said Abigail Bellows, senior policy director of anti-corruption at Common Cause. “These dark money groups use these shadowy vehicles for political participation that really undercuts voters.… It just breeds distrust.”

Abughazaleh’s campaign responded, calling the claims defamatory and asserting that they were funded by foreign interests.

“We have become aware of a coordinated influencer campaign attacking Kat Abughazaleh that appears to be funded through opaque entities exploiting loopholes in federal election law. The materials being circulated are filled with false and defamatory claims about Kat’s background and campaign,” their statement read. “At a minimum, this raises serious questions about transparency and whether voters in Illinois’ 9th District are being targeted by undisclosed money and potentially foreign-linked actors across social media platforms.”

On a new website, Democracy Unmuted claimed that they were “called out” by MS NOW. “Here’s what they didn’t tell you: Reporter Brandy Zadronzny has [sic] long-running relationship and a joint podcast with Ben Collins, partner of candidate Kat Abughazaleh.” But while that may be interesting, it has little to do with the topic of Zadrozny’s article—that a secret organization is offering influencers $1,500 to read from their script.

Abughazaleh is running against a massive primary pool of 15 other Democrats for the chance to replace retiring Representative Jan Schakowsky in Illinois’s 9th congressional district.