President Trump scheduled to testify before House Oversight Committee?

Bill Clinton became the first former president compelled to testify to members of Congress today. At a closed-door session in Chappaqua, New York, the House Oversight Committee heard from Clinton about his connections to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr. Clinton said he did nothing wrong, adding -- quote -- "I saw nothing that ever gave me pause."

Republican Chairman James Comer spoke late this afternoon.

How about President Trump?

The top Democrat on the congressional committee investigating Jeffrey Epstein has accused the US justice department of withholding files containing allegations of sexual abuse of a minor made against President Donald Trump.

Robert Garcia, who sits on the House Oversight Committee, said he had personally viewed documents containing the allegation that had not been made public.

In response, the justice department said "NOTHING has been deleted", adding that documents were withheld only if they were "duplicates, privileged, or part of an ongoing federal investigation".

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein case and has recently said he has been "totally exonerated".

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Arizona legislator seeks to use firing squad for executions

Republican legislators in Arizona want to bring back death by firing squad as an option for those sentenced to the death penalty, and as a requirement for people convicted of killing a law enforcement officer, reported the Arizona Mirror. 

A similar proposal, sponsored by Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin, failed in the Arizona House of Representatives last year, but Sen. Kevin Payne, R-Peoria, revived the idea this year. 

Payne’s Senate Concurrent Resolution 1049 would ask voters in November to amend the Arizona Constitution to allow death row inmates to choose to be executed by lethal injection, the gas chamber or firing squad. If the person was sentenced to death for murdering a law enforcement officer, the firing squad would be the only execution option. 

Senate Bill 1751, also sponsored by Payne, would put the same rules about firing squad executions into state statute, but would only be triggered if voters favor SCR1049. 

Firing squads would be made up of at least three volunteer shooters, and one of those shooters would be given a blank round. 

Last year, Kolodin said his firing squad proposal was inspired by an independent review of Arizona’s death penalty, commissioned by Gov. Katie Hobbs.

Hobbs spiked the draft report from that review, written by retired federal Magistrate Judge David Duncan, which detailed the numerous problems the state has encountered when trying to procure the drug used for lethal injections. Many pharmacies refuse to provide drugs for lethal injections, to avoid harassment and controversy. 

Multiple judges and advocates, including Duncan, have spoken about the use of firing squads and recommended them as a way to continue executions in a more humane manner. Duncan concluded that, although lethal injection appears to be painless and humane, the reality is that it is “fundamentally unreliable, unworkable and unacceptably prone to errors.” 

Kolodin also cited retired federal judge Alex Kozinski, who in 2014 wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the firing squad should be reinstated because it was “foolproof,” unlike lethal injection.

That isn’t true, however. In 2025, South Carolina executed Mikal Mahdi by firing squad. An autopsy revealed only two of the three shooters — all were firing live rounds — hit Mahdi, and none hit him in the heart, as is supposed to happen. Instead, he was shot in the liver and other internal organs. Pathologists said that allowed his heart to remain beating and for him to remain conscious, and in pain, as he bled to death. 

“Mr. Mahdi did experience excruciating conscious pain and suffering for about 30 to 60 seconds after he was shot,” one pathologist wrote in a report filed with the South Carolina Supreme Court.

Arizona has its own history of botched executions by lethal injection, including one in 2014 that was so bad the state didn’t conduct executions for eight years after that. 

Other states have also looked at bringing back the firing squad as a method of execution, and Idaho last year made it the state’s default form of execution. Recently, an inmate in Georgia lost a petition to have his death penalty sentence be imposed by a firing squad as opposed to lethal injection. President Donald Trump has also signaled his support of the method. 

Only one person formally registered in support of HCR1049, while 330 registered in opposition. 

Dale Baich, a former federal public defender in Arizona who has litigated death penalty cases in Ohio and Arizona, urged the legislators to vote against the resolution. 

Baich, who has taught a course on the death penalty in the Arizona State University law program for 22 years, said that the proposals present “constitutional, operational and public policy concerns.”

Although Baich said he recognizes the seriousness of death penalty cases and the profound loss of the victims’ families, Payne’s proposals would not solve the state’s death penalty problems. 

“Instead, it will likely increase litigation, costs and national scrutiny,” he said. “Recent evidence shows firing squad executions are not immune from serious failures or prolonged suffering.”

Baich pointed to Madhi’s botched execution in South Carolina. The South Carolina Supreme Court in 2024 upheld the state’s law allowing execution by firing squad, passed in 2021, saying that it wouldn’t count as unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment “unless there is a massive botch of the execution in which each member of the firing squad simply misses the inmate’s heart.”

Courtney Quinones-Machado, who said she was a disabled military combat veteran, a former corrections officer and now a chaplain for those on death row, said she “deeply opposed” Payne’s proposals. Quinones-Machado also spoke against Kolodin’s proposal last year. 

She asked the committee members to think about what participating in an execution would do to the correctional officers. 

“I, too, thought, when I went into the military, I could handle it,” Quinones-Machado said. “I came home a different person.” 

She said that her whole family suffered because of her post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism. 

“I understand you will say this is a voluntary position,” Quinones-Machado said. “I understand that most people think they can handle killing somebody. But I promise you, once you have, it is a different outlook.” 

Both of Payne’s proposals passed the committee along party lines and will next head to the full Senate for consideration. 

Sen. T.J. Shope, R- Coolidge, who voted for both measures, described himself as a “very strong supporter of the death penalty being an option, especially in some of the most heinous crimes that take place in this state.” 

Shope said he hoped that Arizona could look toward Utah for guidance on how to handle any legal issues concerning firing squad executions since that state has carried them out “successfully for decades.” 

Only Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Mississippi allow execution by firing squad. 

Utah has only executed three people that way since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Those executions happened in 1977, 1996 and 2010.

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Florida carries out its second execution of 2026

 The 4th Execution of 2026

Melvin Trotter, convicted of killing a 70-year-old grocery store owner, was put to death on February 24, 2026 in Florida, becoming the second person executed by the state this year after a record 19 executions in 2025, reported The Guardian.

Melvin Trotter, 65, was pronounced dead at 6.15pm following a lethal injection at Florida state prison near Starke for the 1986 stabbing death of Virgie Langford, according to authorities. Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesperson for Republican governor Ron DeSantis, said there were no complications.

Trotter was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1987. After the state supreme court found the trial court erred in handling aggravating factors in his case, he again drew the death penalty at a resentencing in 1993.

The execution and another earlier this month in Florida follow the unprecedented 19 executions by the state last year. In 2025, DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty’s reinstatement in 1976. The previous Florida record was eight executions in 2014.

According to court records, Trotter stabbed and strangled Langford on 16 June 1986, at her store in Palmetto near the southern edge of Tampa Bay. Afterward, a truck driver found Langford bleeding but alive on the back floor of the store, and she provided key details about her attacker before dying at a hospital.

Besides recalling Trotter’s physical appearance, Langford said he had a Tropicana employee badge with the name “Melvin” on it. According to court records, police later found a T-shirt with Langford’s blood type at Trotter’s home and the man’s handprint on a meat cooler at the store.

The Florida supreme court recently denied appeals in which Trotter’s attorneys argued officials had mismanaged his death penalty protocols. They also argued Trotter’s advanced age of 65 should exempt him from execution.

The US supreme court denied Trotter’s final appeal on Tuesday.

Separately, Justice Sonia Sotomayor raised questions about the state’s administration of lethal drugs. Trotter’s attorneys argued that Florida could “maladminister” the state’s protocol in a way that heightens the risk for a “mangled” execution in violation of the eighth amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Sotomayor wrote that, going forward, she hopes the state “will recognize the paramount importance of ensuring that it conducts executions consistently” with the proper protocols.

A total of 47 people were executed in the US in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each last year.

Besides the two Florida executions this year, Texas and Oklahoma have conducted one execution each so far in 2026.

On 10 February, a man convicted of killing a traveling salesperson became the first person executed in Florida this year. Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, received a lethal injection for the 1989 killing of Michael Sheridan.

Two more Florida executions are scheduled next month, starting with Billy Leon Kearse on 3 March and Michael Lee King on 17 March.

All Florida executions are carried out by injecting a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the department of corrections.

Hours before Tuesday’s execution, Florida corrections officials said, Trotter awoke at 3.20am and had one visitor during the day. He requested a meal that included fish, cornbread, cake and soda

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CREATORS: Limiting an Attorney's Access to Client During Trial

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
February 24, 2026

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to render a decision soon in a Texas case that has implications for lawyers representing clients who testify on their own behalf at criminal trials.

David Asa Villarreal was charged with murder in Texas. During his trial, Villarreal took the stand in his own defense. In the middle of being questioned by his attorneys, the court adjourned for the evening. The trial judge instructed Villarreal's attorneys not to confer with him during the overnight break.

The judge told counsel, "I'm going to ask that both of you pretend that Mr. Villarreal is on the stand. You couldn't confer with him during that time." Villarreal's lead counsel objected under the Sixth Amendment to this limitation.

The next day, Villarreal resumed his testimony, and no further objections about the limitation were raised. Villarreal was ultimately convicted and sentenced to sixty years in prison.

Villarreal appealed and his case wound its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court got involved due to disagreement among state and federal courts on the issue of communication with a testifying client during a recess in testimony.

On one side of the conflict, according to Villarreal's attorneys, "several state supreme courts have held that while the trial court may not prohibit all communications between a testifying defendant and his attorney during an overnight recess, it may prohibit communications specifically about the defendant's ongoing testimony." On the other side, "several federal circuit courts of appeal have held any restriction on communication with counsel during an overnight recess is impermissible."

Villarreal argued to the Supreme Court that the judge's ban on his ability to discuss his testimony with counsel violated his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

Attorney-client conversations about testimony are necessary. For instance, counsel may need to advise a client to avoid unwitting perjury; the necessity to recant testimony or corrections in the defendant's testimony that counsel knows is inaccurate.

Additionally, Villarreal asserted that lawyers could use overnight recesses for purposes not directly related to testimony. For example, Villarreal argues that attorneys might need to remind their clients to make a good impression on jurors, such as a change in wardrobe, make eye contact with jurors or sit up straight.

Villarreal argues that decisions in 1976 and 1989 support his position. The 1976 case found that overnight recesses are important times for the defense team to regroup, evaluate the day's events, and make decisions about future proceedings. The 1989 decision held that an order not to talk with a client during a fifteen-minute daytime recess did not violate the Sixth Amendment.

The length of the recess triggers the Sixth Amendment protections. Villarreal argues that a short recess would not infringe on a defendant's right to assistance of counsel, but an overnight bar on talking with a client would violate those constitutional protections.

A criminal trial can be thoroughly unsettling for an accused. The language and cadence of a criminal trial is foreign to even the most learned layperson. A trial recess, even in the midst of a defendant's testimony, is essential to providing emotional support, clarifying legal issues and helping to maintain the defendant's trust in a fair and impartial criminal justice system.

The inability to act in the interest of a client undermines zealous and effective representation focused on protecting the rights of an accused.

To that end, Villarreal argued, "The Sixth Amendment text does not limit counsel's assistance to particular topics or particular times of day." The state cannot argue that the founders in 1791 meant for the word "assistance" to mean "assistance except for discussions of testimony," or "assistance but not overnight."

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, "The Executioner's Toll," 2010, was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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Mangino discusses Nancy Guthrie disappearance on Court TV

Watch my interview with Matt Johnson of Court TV discussing the latest developments in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE

ICE has a 'deficient, defective and broken' training program

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who resigned this month from his job instructing new recruits came forward as a whistle-blower, describing what he said was a “deficient, defective and broken” training program with a pared-back curriculum as the Trump administration races to expand the agency. reported The New York Times.

The account by Ryan Schwank, a former ICE lawyer who worked at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy, coincided with the release by Senate Democrats of several dozen pages of internal ICE records that suggest the Trump administration has curtailed the agency’s basic training.

“For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program,” Mr. Schwank said at a forum held in Washington by congressional Democrats. “Cutting 240 hours of vital classes from a 584-hour program — classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention and the limits of officers’ authority.”

He added: “New cadets are graduating from the academy despite widespread concerns among training staff that even in the final days of training, the cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs.”

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Support for ICE immigration tactics tanks

In the weeks after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota during a surge to apprehend undocumented immigrants for deportation, Americans oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics by wide margins and President Donald Trump’s approval on immigration has dipped to the lowest of his second term, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel.

Trump, who has focused much of his second term on the immigration crackdown, is now 18 percentage points underwater in how Americans rate his handling of immigration -- with 58% disapproving and 40% approving -- the worst ratings he has had on immigration in his second term, ticking down from his October ratings and almost exactly where he was in July 2019 when 40% approved and 57% disapproved of how he was handling the issue.

By a 2-to-1 margin, Americans oppose the tactics ICE is using to enforce immigration laws, 62% to 31%. Half of Americans strongly oppose ICE’s tactics, including 89% of Democrats and 53% of independents. Only 4 in 10 Republicans strongly support the tactics ICE is using to enforce immigration law, rising to over half among MAGA Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who call themselves MAGA.

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A Cautionary Tale: Former Philippines president faces International Criminal Court for 'war on drugs'

Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is set to appear before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a crucial pre-trial hearing next week, a milestone in the long-running international case alleging crimes against humanity linked to Duterte’s administration’s controversial “war on drugs,” reported JuristNews.

Despite criticisms over Duterte’s violent "war on drugs," he and Donald Trump maintained a strong, positive relationship.

The hearing, which will take place from February 23 to 27, has been called a “crucial opportunity for justice” by human rights watchdog Amnesty International. 

“Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s long-awaited day in court is a significant step towards delivering justice for victims and survivors of his administration’s deadly so-called ‘war on drugs’,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard said. “It also reminds the international community that nobody is above the law […].”

Judges of the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber will hear evidence in the upcoming week to decide whether there are sufficient grounds to move the case to trial. Confirmation of charges is not, in and of itself, a determination of guilt. Still, the hearing serves to fulfill a procedural requirement under Article 61 of the Rome Statute that assesses whether the prosecutor’s evidence supports the allegations. 

Duterte, who was arrested in March 2025 under an ICC warrant and surrendered to the court in The Hague, faces three counts of the crime against humanity of murder for alleged conduct during his 2016-2022 presidency, and previously as Mayor of Davao City. The charges stem from his administration’s aggressive anti-drug campaign, which rights groups say resulted in thousands of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug users and dealers. 

Secretary General Callamard, in her statement, urged the Pre-Trial Chamber to swiftly confirm the charges and protect witnesses from intimidation, while also calling on the Philippine government to enforce any additional warrants and to pursue its own domestic accountability efforts, in tandem with ICC proceedings:

The government’s surrender of Duterte to the ICC does not absolve it of responsibility to deliver domestic accountability for violations in the ‘war on drugs’. Alongside the ICC, the government must carry out effective investigations against all others suspected of involvement in extrajudicial executions and hold perpetrators accountable in fair trials.

The ICC, in a recent procedural development, allowed Duterte to waive his physical attendance at the confirmation hearing. Despite prosecutorial opposition, the confirmation of charges will proceed in absentia, through Duterte’s legal team and the prosecution, who will present legal arguments and evidence. If the Pre-Trial Chamber confirms some or all of the charges within 60 days of the hearing’s conclusion, the case will advance to a formal trial phase. 

In its statement, Amnesty International characterized the upcoming hearing as a critical test of international accountability mechanisms. Urging the court to ensure rigorous scrutiny of the evidence presented, the organization stressed that this hearing presented a unique, meaningful opportunity to combat impunity and create a lasting impact on broader international criminal law.

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David Cole on Trump administration's defiance of court orders

Daniel Drake interviewed David Cole, former national legal director of the ACLU, for The New York Review: 

Cole: The sheer number of judges who have called the administration to task for violating their orders is astounding. I have practiced constitutional law for more than forty years, and I have never seen anything even close to the defiance and bad-faith obstruction of court orders this administration has shown. Some of the violations could be the result of miscommunications, short-staffing, and the like, and neither Trump nor his attorneys have, as far as I know, asserted that they have the authority under law to disobey court orders. But they are repeat offenders many times over, and actions speak louder than words.

The overall tenor of the administration’s responses to court orders, especially in immigration cases, appears to reflect a message from the top that outright obstruction of court orders will be not just tolerated but welcomed. That is obviously not how the system is supposed to work. Government officials have a responsibility to do justice, and to understand that with power comes responsibility. That ethic seems in remarkably short supply in this administration.

Question: What options do we have? Judges can hold government officials in contempt for their actions. They can impose fines and even imprisonment to coerce parties to follow court orders. They can hold hearings, compel government officials to attend, and require that they answer direct questions on the record. In extreme cases they can recommend prosecution for defiance of court orders—though the decision to prosecute would be up to United States attorneys, who Trump has ensured are loyalists. So I wouldn’t hold my breath for a prosecution.

Answer: That means true accountability lies with the American people. Do we sit by and accept such behavior? Or do we take to the streets (and eventually the polls) to express our disapproval of what the government is doing in our name? If we do the latter, as the brave people of Minneapolis did, it can have tangible results. Trump was forced by the people, the political leaders, and the judges in Minneapolis to retreat. That’s an important form of accountability that we should never underestimate.

On the other hand, while Judge Boasberg’s initial ruling was ignored, the essential principle in that case—that the Alien Enemies Act could not be used to expel foreign nationals without due process—has, since that time, continued to apply. The Trump administration has not attempted to use that rationale again, and their efforts to get Judge Boasberg impeached or cited for misconduct have failed. The courts seem, to some extent, to be holding up against the executive’s assault. Are there other hopeful signs of the judicial branch’s ability to restrain this drive to authoritarianism?

By and large, the federal courts have been the principal institutional check on abuse by this administration. As the Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith, a former high-level Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, has argued, the courts have blocked many of Trump’s initiatives. This includes the Supreme Court, which, in addition to the order you note about the Alien Enemies Act deportations, required Trump to facilitate the return of an El Salvadoran man who had been wrongly deported, blocked Trump from deploying the National Guard to states where governors have objected, such as Minnesota, California, and Oregon; and stopped him, for now, from firing a Democratic appointee to the Federal Reserve, Lisa Cook. By the end of the current term it will issue rulings on his imposition of worldwide tariffs and his attempt to deny birthright citizenship to children of certain foreign nationals born here—and may well rule against him on both initiatives.

The Court’s “shadow docket” rulings, on requests for emergency relief while cases are making their way through the courts, have been troubling. And the Court will almost certainly give Trump more unchecked power to fire heads of agencies that Congress sought to make independent. So the jury is out on how the Supreme Court will respond to Trump. But one thing is certain: over the past year, the courts have played an essential part by reining in the executive. Progressives unhappy with the Supreme Court have long castigated the judiciary as ineffectual, political, or worse. But where would we be now without them?

Question: In a recent interview, your Georgetown colleague Steve Vladeck made the point that in the clash between the executive and judicial branches, the crisis is due in large part to the absence of the legislative branch—what Vladeck calls the “indolent Congress.” While Republicans maintain a majority in the Senate and House, this indolence seems likely to continue, but within the bounds of the Constitution, what kind of powers can the minority party exercise in Congress to help put a check on the president?

Answer: Sadly, there’s not much that the minority party in Congress can do. In our system of majoritarian rule, at the moment the Republicans exercise the power of initiative in both houses of Congress. Democrats can ask hard questions in hearings called by Republicans, as Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland and his colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee did this week in a remarkably combative hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi. But the Republicans control what hearings are held on what subjects, what bills come to a vote, what subpoenas are issued, what investigations are conducted. Democrats’ only power is to withhold votes, as they have done with respect to the budget, where they have sufficient support from a handful of Republicans. But for the Democrats—and Congress—to exercise any meaningful checking function, we’ll have to wait for the midterms. 

Question: What do you make of Trump’s suggestions that the midterm elections should be nationalized? How much of a realistic threat does this present?

Answer: I don’t think we can discount that threat. Trump has already shown how far he is willing to go in obstructing elections that he loses. At the moment, it seems the Republicans are likely to lose the midterms in a big way. That will be Americans’ first formal opportunity to register their assessment of the job Trump has been doing. His approval ratings are low—currently hovering around 40 percent—and the Republican share of the vote has dropped precipitately in the handful of elections that have occurred since he took office. Those signs suggest that, if the midterms were held today, the Democrats could win in a landslide, even though partisan gerrymandering has rigged many results.

Trump of course knows that. So we cannot ignore the risk that he will try to obstruct the results by asserting baseless claims of election fraud and seeking to take control of the ballot counting. At the same time, that has never happened in this country; the Constitution assigns that work to the states. Such a transparent effort to subvert democracy would not play well. We are, after all, a democracy, not an autocracy. Voting matters; it’s what legitimates government authority. But at that point it will be on all of us as Americans to defend our democracy.

Question: In your most recent essay for the Review, “Trump’s War,” writing about Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its president, you say that “It was an illegal operation, actually. Illegal on so many fronts that it can be challenging to keep them straight.” Given the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States that a president enjoys absolute immunity for any acts conducted in his capacity as president, what kind of justice or recourse can even exist for an executive who seems to violate so many laws? That is, short of an unlikely Supreme Court ruling overturning Trump v. US, what can be done to hold this administration accountable when they’re out of office? 

Answer: Well, the first thing we need to do is make sure they are sent out of office, both in the midterms and in 2028. A decisive vote to reject the administration’s efforts to destroy the climate, the rule of law, and indeed the livelihoods—and lives—of many people will be the most important form of accountability we can deliver. If the people resoundingly reject Trump 2.0, the question will be less how we hold the bad guys accountable than how we build back the norms and legal limits necessary to stop this from ever happening again.

Criminal accountability for Trump himself remains possible, even under the Supreme Court’s misguided immunity decision. It left open prosecution of the president for nonofficial actions, such as the rampant corruption that Trump has invited into the White House. And even many official acts can still be the subject of prosecution; the only absolute immunity the Court provided was for exercises of unilateral executive authority over which Congress has no say whatsoever. So Trump is not free and clear by any means. Impeachment also remains an option, though it will require at least a significant subset of Republicans Senators to vote their conscience rather than putting fealty to Trump and the MAGA movement over what’s best for the country.

And yet the most important thing to remember is that accountability is in our hands as “we the people.” We can render judgment that this method of governing is an object lesson in how not to run a responsible, caring, and humane democracy—but only if we get engaged now and stay engaged until he leaves office. We can all take a lesson from the people of Minneapolis.

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More than 400 federal judges have ruled against Trump's immigration policies 4,421 times since October

Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.

The decisions amount to a sweeping legal rebuke of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Yet the administration has continued jailing people indefinitely even after courts ruled the policy was illegal.

"It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written," U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston of West Virginia, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote last week, ordering the release of a Venezuelan detainee in the state.

Most of the rulings center on the Trump administration’s departure from a nearly three-decade-old interpretation of federal law that immigrants already living in the United States could be released on bond while they pursue their cases in immigration court.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration is "working to lawfully deliver on President Trump’s mandate to enforce federal immigration law."

Under Trump, the number of people in ICE detention reached about 68,000 this month, up about 75% from when Trump took office last year.

A conservative appeals court in New Orleans last week gave the Trump administration a victory in its drive to lock up more immigrants. Just because prior administrations did not fully utilize the law to detain people “does not mean they lacked the authority to do more,” U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones wrote in a decision reversing rulings that led to the release of two Mexican men. Both remain free, their lawyer said.

Other appeals courts are set to take up the issue in the coming weeks.

Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said the increase in lawsuits came as "no surprise" - "especially after many activist judges have attempted to thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American people's mandate for mass deportations."

The department did not respond to more specific questions about the cases and data findings in this story.

With few other legal paths to freedom, immigrant detainees have filed more than 20,200 federal lawsuits demanding their release since Trump took office, a Reuters review of court dockets found, underscoring the sweeping impact of Trump's policy change.

In at least 4,421 cases, more than 400 federal judges ruled since the beginning of October that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding people illegally as it carries out its mass-deportation campaign, Reuters found.

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Arendt: The authoritarian influence of an American strongman

Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, has been widely discussed since Trump rose to power, writes Robert J. Shapiro in the Washington Monthly.

Unquestionably one of the most important Western political thinkers of the 20th century, Arendt was shaped by Adolph Hitler’s rise. She had been a student of Germany’s three leading philosophers of her time—Edward Husserl, Karl Jaspers, and Martin Heidegger. As a Jew, she fled Germany for Paris in 1933. She emigrated to the United States in 1939, where she taught at Princeton University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and the New School for Social Research.

Her 1951 analysis of the movements that propelled the rise of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes begins with the insight that their followers were not a typical interest group seeking benefits or rights. Instead, they’re individuals who feel that recent disruptive societal changes cost them their status and are brought together by a charismatic leader who exploits their shared sense of injury.

The leader of these movements offers lies to explain why his followers lost their place, claims he can restore it given enough power, and, equally important, manipulates his followers’ anger to support violence committed at his behest.

With violence and threats now part of our politics, the question becomes, is the MAGA movement a populist version of a normal interest group or an extremist faction of the type that modern dictators have used to help establish and support their rule?

That MAGA is a mass movement is not in question. 

As a matter of history, the role of Trump’s mass movement in advancing his ambitions to become an American strongman has some parallels with Hitler’s devoted followers in the Sturmabteilung, the Brownshirts of the SA. The SA began as an outside movement affiliated with the Nazi Party that intimidated and harassed Hitler’s opponents and Jewish Germans. It was always distinct from the Schutzstaffel or SS, the brutally violent agency of the Nazi government that broke off from the SA following the Night of the Long Knives purge in 1934. But members of the original SA mass movement became loyal, public supporters of Hitler’s steps to suspend Germany’s constitution, much like many MAGA followers today.

We don’t have brownshirts brawling across American cities.  But threats of government-sanctioned violence are palpably present, as they were in Germany in the early 1930s, and the president and his administration have repeatedly defended the bloodshed in Minnesota and elsewhere by some elements of ICE.

Based on the facts, MAGA is not an interest group, even an atypical one, but a mass movement following an aspiring strongman of the kind Hannah Arendt saw in Germany. Its political significance rests on its followers’ extreme views about violence and democracy, their faith in Trump’s big lies, their defense of the political use of intimidation and threats, and their support for Trump’s attacks on democratic institutions. In these ways, MAGA shares features of the popular movements that supported the rise and consolidation of dictatorial power in the past century and the early years of this one.

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Grand jurors standing up to tyranny nationwide

Something extraordinary is happening in federal courthouses across America: Grand juries are exercising their power to reject criminal charges in high-profile cases, according to Chesa Boudin, the former San Francisco district attorney and Eric Fish a law professor at the University of California, Davis writing in   The New York Times.

In Washington, a grand jury refused to return a felony indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer during a crackdown ordered by President Trump. In Chicago, grand jurors have declined to indict in several felony cases stemming from a similar operation; prosecutors seemed to get the message and dismissed additional cases. In Minnesota, federal prosecutors have charged some demonstrators with misdemeanors in cases involving encounters with federal agents — and it is very likely that they did so in some cases because the prosecutors expected grand juries would reject felony charges.

Federal grand juries in Virginia twice decided not to indict Letitia James, the New York attorney general, after a judge dismissed an initial case against her. Another federal grand jury in Virginia declined at least one charge against James Comey, the former F.B.I. director; the prosecutor later improperly filed a version of the indictment the full grand jury never saw.

This week, a grand jury rejected an effort by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington to indict the six members of Congress who appeared last year in a video underscoring the obligation of service members to refuse illegal orders.

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CREATORS: Obeying an Unlawful Order is Not a Defense

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
February 17, 2026

Befehlsnotstand is a word worth noting. The word is of German origin. The legal term refers to soldiers who obey illegal orders because they are afraid of the consequences if they do not obey. The defense didn't work in Nuremberg after World War II and won't work today.

In a weird twist on the concept of befehlsnotstand, last fall, Sen. Mark Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers released a video advising U.S. military personnel that they "can refuse illegal orders."

Kelly was joined by Senator Elissa Slotkin and Reps. Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander, and Chris Deluzio — all with military or intelligence backgrounds.

They emphasized, "Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders," while urging troops to uphold their oath to the Constitution. This statement came amid concerns regarding potential unlawful orders by the Trump administration, particularly from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

This comes into focus, yet again, as the Trump administration, through the U.S. military, carried out another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the Caribbean Sea.

According to ABC News, the U.S. Southern Command announced that the boat "was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations." It said the strike killed three people. A video linked to the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.

This most recent attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration's strikes on alleged drug boats to 133 people in at least 38 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Under both U.S. and international law, it is flagrantly illegal to use the military to kill civilians suspected of only crimes. The United States is not in an armed conflict with anyone in Latin America. That means the people on these boats are civilians. Civilians, including those suspected of smuggling drugs, are not lawful targets.

The Trump administration countered by saying the cartels behind the drug trafficking are terrorists and, therefore, the attacks are legal. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued a "secret" memo to legally justify the US military's strikes on these boats and their occupants.

This memo reportedly details the Trump administration's legal reasoning. Initially, the strikes are lawful because the United States is in an "armed conflict" with unspecified drug cartels, and the officials who have authorized or carried out these strikes should not be prosecuted for murder or other crimes, reported the American Civil Liberties Union. Even as legal experts from across the political spectrum have challenged these claims, the administration has refused to release the OLC memo or any related records.

To complicate things even further, on at least one occasion, two survivors of a boat attack, considered shipwrecked, were killed by a second attack. In addition, reports from January indicate that the U.S. military has used disguised aircraft, designed to look like civilian planes, to attack suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. This tactic has raised serious legal and ethical questions regarding "perfidy," which is considered a war crime under international law, according to The Guardian.

Under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), service members are legally obligated to obey only lawful orders. According to the military website MyBaseGuide.com, an illegal order is a directive that violates a law, regulation, or the Constitution.

Examples of illegal orders include committing a crime, engaging in unethical acts, or violating human rights standards. The UCMJ requires military personnel to disobey patently illegal orders, such as those directing war crimes or "targeting civilians."

International Courts have established that befehlsnotstand is not a defense. The defense was unsuccessful for senior members of Adolph Hitler's leadership during the post-World War II Nuremberg trials and likely would be unsuccessful today.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, "The Executioner's Toll," 2010, was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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People who fight culture wars often believe what they say, people who lead culture wars often don’t

Russell Moore writes at Christianity Today: 

People have almost given up on bridging the divides in American life. Republicans and Democrats cannot pass any bipartisan legislation or even watch the same Super Bowl halftime shows. And yet throughout the last two decades of polarization, one figure seems to have discerned the code for bringing both sides of the culture war together. His name was Jeffrey Epstein.

The Epstein files have largely been redacted, with parts of them hidden from us, but we’ve seen enough to know that Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell were two of the most corrupt and connected sex criminals in American history. Despite how much is still confusing, we can also see this: On at least one important point, the most outlandish theories were right. There really is a global conspiracy of wealthy, elite sexual perverts fleecing the masses. And many of them were people building a following by telling others that there is a global conspiracy of wealthy, elite sexual perverts fleecing the masses.

Reading through the names of those connected with Epstein, one can hardly believe the range listed there. Some were unsurprising: for instance, creepy filmmaker Woody Allen or the man formerly known as Prince Andrew. But even then, the scope is unsettling. Even the Dalai Lama had to put out a statement noting that he was never involved with Epstein. Just as incredible, many of the people listed were partying with those they spend a lot of time telling the rest of us to hate.

Both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton were apparently friendly with Epstein. The New Age syncretist Deepak Chopra is in the documents many times—often with shady, enigmatic phrases—but so are those who accused the pope of New Age syncretism. With Middle Eastern tensions what they are, still the files include both sheikhs and Israelis. All over the files are connections with both left-wing populist provocateur Noam Chomsky and right-wing populist provocateur Steve Bannon. Epstein makes fun of evangelicals yet recommends a James Dobson article.

How can this be?

Maybe one reason is that Jeffrey Epstein figured out the deep, dark secret of this moment: The people who fight culture wars often believe what they say, but the people who lead culture wars often don’t.

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Thousands of new parents reported to police over false-positive drug tests

In at least 70,000 cases in 21 states, parents were referred to law enforcement agencies over allegations of substance use during pregnancy, according to six years of state and federal data obtained and published for the first time by The Marshall Project. In many cases, the referrals began with false positive results from flawed drug tests — sometimes triggered by the women’s prescribed medications.

 Harris-Rashid with her third child, Rai. Harris-Rashid used legal CBD gummies and a topical hemp-based ointment to ease frequent nausea and pain when she was pregnant with Rai in 2021. Kathryn Gamble for The Marshall Project 

 After Harris-Rashid gave birth, the hospital staff administered drug tests, and she and her child tested positive for marijuana. Kathryn Gamble for The Marshall Project

The sheer number of people that law enforcement is tracking is far higher than experts previously knew, including academics and reproductive rights organizations monitoring what they call pregnancy criminalization. Even so, the numbers The Marshall Project compiled represent a significant undercount.

“My initial genuine reaction is, frankly, shock and dismay,” said Dana Sussman, senior vice president of the legal advocacy organization Pregnancy Justice, which counted more than 1,800 pregnancy-related arrests and prosecutions from 2006 through 2024. She added, “This represents an incredibly regressive and counterproductive approach.”

The Marshall Project spent a year collecting and analyzing data on referrals to law enforcement. Reporters began with a request for federal data, then asked state child welfare agencies to verify the numbers and provide state policies. The totals reflect the number of newborn cases that those agencies shared with police or prosecutors.

Although most of those referrals did not lead to criminal investigations, many women were threatened with arrest or criminally charged. Others were confronted by police in their hospital rooms or homes and forced to turn over their children.

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Stay Outraged: Trump summarily attacks another boat in the Caribbean

A U.S. military strike killed three people and blew up a boat in the Caribbean Sea on Friday, the U.S. Southern Command said, raising the death toll in the Trump administration’s five-month-old campaign against suspected drug smugglers at sea to 133, according to The New York Times.

The attack was the first known strike in the Caribbean Sea since early November and the 39th disclosed by the U.S. government in the campaign, according to a tracker maintained by The New York Times.

The announcement on Friday was accompanied by an 11-second video clip that appeared to show a missile striking the middle of the boat as it traversed open waters, and destroying it.

The command said, citing unspecified intelligence, that the boat had been following “known drug-trafficking routes in the Caribbean” and that it was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.

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Sheriff: 'Guthrie will be found' has operation change form rescue to recovery?

 According to The New York Times:

Officers Block a Street: Late Friday, law enforcement officers came to a neighborhood about two miles from Nancy Guthrie’s home and closed off a street. The police operation is related to the investigation into her abduction on Feb. 1, a Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman said.

Sheriff Discusses the Case: Chris Nanos, the Arizona sheriff leading the search for Nancy Guthrie, described investigators’ disappointment when learning a person they detained this week was not involved. But in an interview with The Times, he said DNA had been discovered on Ms. Guthrie’s property and sent for testing and expressed confidence that Ms. Guthrie would be found. Read more ›

Flood of Tips: The release of security video showing a masked man on Nancy Guthrie’s porch early on Feb. 1, the morning she disappeared, has opened a floodgate of possible leads to law enforcement. More than 4,000 calls were made to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in the 24 hours after the images were made public this week. Read more ›

Oklahoma executes man involved in drive-by shooting

The 3rd Execution of 2026

Kendrick Simpson who admitted to killing two men in a drive-by shooting in 2006 was put to death February 12, 2026 in Oklahoma, reported The Associated Press.

Simpson, 45, was pronounced dead at 10:19 CST following a three-drug injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, prison officials said. He was convicted of killing Anthony Jones, 19, and Glen Palmer, 20, by firing into their car following an altercation at an Oklahoma City nightclub.

“I love y’all,” Simpson said to his family and members of his legal team while he was strapped to a gurney inside the death chamber. “Thank y’all for being here to support me.”

Simpson’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Don Heath, read Scripture in the chamber during the execution, which lasted about 12 minutes. A doctor entered the room and declared Simpson unconscious about five minutes after the first drugs began to flow.

Simpson, who had fled to Oklahoma City from the devastated city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, admitted to the killings during a clemency hearing last month. He apologized to the victims’ families and to a third man who was in the vehicle when Jones and Palmer were shot.

Palmer’s sister, Crystal Allison, witnessed the execution and said she was disturbed to see Simpson smiling at his family members while strapped to the gurney.

“The same smile that had been tormenting me for 20 years, he still smiled that same smile laying on his deathbed,” she said.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement Thursday that justice had been served for Palmer and Jones.

“Their young lives were taken tragically and far too soon,” Drummond said. “I hope today brings some measure of peace to their families who have endured unimaginable pain for the past 20 years.”

Simpson had apologized to the victims’ families and accepted responsibility for the killings during last month’s clemency hearing.

“I don’t make any excuses,” Simpson said at the time. “I don’t blame others, and they didn’t deserve what happened to them.”

Despite his apology, the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board narrowly voted to deny Simpson clemency.

On Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court had no comment after rejecting a late appeal to block the execution.

Simpson’s attorneys had argued that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from chronic trauma in his childhood years growing up in a New Orleans housing project.

“Kendrick is a man worthy of your mercy and compassion,” his attorneys wrote in his clemency application. “The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the worst of the worst offenses and offenders. Kendrick and his case represent neither.”

On the night of the killing in January 2006, prosecutors say, Simpson had placed an assault rifle in the trunk of a vehicle he and his friends drove to a club in northwest Oklahoma City. After an altercation at the club between Simpson and Palmer, prosecutors say, Simpson and his friends followed Palmer and Jones from a nearby gas station, and that Simpson pointed the gun out the window and fired about 20 rounds into their car. Both victims were shot multiple times.

The state uses the sedative midazolam, followed by vecuronium bromide to halt breathing and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

Simpson’s scheduled execution was to be the second of the year in the United States. Florida, which conducted a state record of 19 executions in 2025, put Ronald Palmer Heath to death with a three-drug injection on Tuesday for his conviction in the 1989 killing of a traveling salesman he and his brother met at a Gainesville bar.

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025, with Florida leading the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second place with five executions each that year.

Florida is scheduled to carry out the next execution in the U.S. on Feb. 24, the planned lethal injection of Melvin Trotter for the killing of a grocery store owner during a robbery.

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