This was a post that was made on Sunday, one day after the shooting death of Alex Pretti in broad daylight in Minneapolis. This is from Indivisible Minnesota and it features an update and a look at the demands to stop ICE:
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Late last night, Pam Bondi sent a letter saying DHS would only leave Minnesota if the state agreed to three demands.
Let’s take each demand on its own.
First: turn over Minnesota’s Medicaid and SNAP data.
Bondi presents this as a fraud investigation. Federal agencies already have established, lawful ways to audit and investigate federal benefit programs. They do this in every state, every year. They can request records through intergovernmental channels, issue subpoenas, and pursue cases in federal court.
None of those processes require a large-scale deployment of federal agents into local communities.
If DOJ sought this data, it could have pursued it through those mechanisms. Instead, routine bureaucratic cooperation is now being presented as a condition after the fact, following a federal surge that has already occurred.
It is also worth stating plainly: the governor cannot unilaterally change state law. Minnesota’s policies exist because they were enacted through the legislature and established legal processes. Altering them requires legislative action, public debate, and lawful authority — not a letter and not a threat.
Unlike this administration, Minnesota plays by the rules.
Second: repeal “sanctuary” policies and require full cooperation with ICE detention and enforcement.
This is not a procedural request. It would require Minnesota to substantially alter how state and local systems interact with federal immigration enforcement.
There is substantial evidence that such policies affect community trust: – Immigrant residents become less likely to report crimes. – Families are separated through detainer practices. – Workers become more vulnerable to exploitation because fear keeps them silent.
It also matters which system Minnesota is being asked to support.
The federal immigration detention system has a long-documented record of harm. Deaths in custody are a matter of public record. Oversight bodies and courts have repeatedly identified serious deficiencies in medical care. Children have been separated from parents and held in federal custody for extended periods as part of enforcement operations.
That same system has operated in Minnesota under circumstances that have raised grave concern. Two Minnesotans — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — died following encounters with federal agents. In both cases, state and local officials have stated publicly that federal authorities did not fully cooperate with investigative efforts, including limits on access to evidence and scenes.
Those facts are directly relevant. Cooperation depends on mutual accountability. When federal agencies restrict state investigations into deaths involving their own personnel, it reasonably affects confidence in requests for expanded cooperation.
Third: hand over Minnesota’s voter rolls.
This demand is unrelated to immigration enforcement, public safety, or benefits administration.
Minnesota administers its elections under state law. There has been no judicial finding of widespread voter fraud or discriminatory practices that would compel federal access to or control over state voter registration systems.
Minnesota is also known for something else.
It is consistently the highest-voting state in the country. High participation. High trust. Elections run competently, locally, and transparently by Minnesotans.
So when federal officials condition the withdrawal of federal agents on access to Minnesota’s voter rolls — absent a demonstrated legal necessity — it does not read as neutral oversight.
It reads as a bid for power.
There is additional context that informs how these demands are received.
The lead federal prosecutor handling major fraud cases in Minnesota resigned after disagreements with the Justice Department’s handling of the Renee Good investigation. Multiple career prosecutors left the U.S. Attorney’s Office amid internal disputes over investigative priorities related to that death. An FBI agent involved in the case also resigned after being directed not to pursue further investigation into the killing.
Career prosecutors and agents do not resign lightly. Taken together, these departures indicate serious internal concern about how federal authority was being exercised.
Put it all together:
One demand concerns data that could have been sought through ordinary legal channels. One would deepen participation in a detention and enforcement system with documented harms and unresolved accountability failures. One directly intrudes on state control of elections while being unrelated to the stated enforcement purpose.
None of these demands required flooding Minnesota communities with federal agents in the first place. None resolve the accountability failures already exposed. And none clearly improve public safety.
Minnesota has faced pressure like this before.
When Virginia asked for the return of its Civil War battle flag — captured by the First Minnesota Regiment at Gettysburg — Minnesota’s answer was no.
We had paid the price and it was now part of our legacy.
Today’s asks also ask us to ignore who we are as a state, to Ignore the abuses of our citizens, to sacrifice our neighbors.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote an editorial to a couple newspapers in my hometown in Minnesota to wake up the people living there and show them the light in the wake of the shooting death of Renee Good. She was shot four times by an ICE agent who walked away without a scratch. Still talks of him having “internal bleeding” and “limping” are still swirling and the shooting death has widened and deepen the division between good people and evil people. It even caused me to cease communication with many of my family members for awhile until they wake up, wise up and see what is going on. The letter can be seen here.
While that was not enough, the death of Alex Pretti on January 24th, when he was beaten and gunned by ICE agents in broad daylight has pushed civilization to the point of no return. Since the incident was first put on social media, people took to the streets in protest, the state of Minnesota sent a stern statement to Trump telling him and the DHS to stand down and leave the state, yet the DHS wants the voter records beforehand. Blackmailing at its ugliest but chaos by design.
The death of Alex Pretti has sent a clear cut message around the world, which is the fact that people demand action and that we will stop at nothing to ensure that justice is served and the people responsible are held accountable. In a statement by Resistance Roundtable, the message was made abundantly clear:
On January 24th, days after the killing of Renee Good, out of control and reckless ICE agents murdered another US citizen. US Expats abroad have watched the testimonies coming out of cities, like Minneapolis, and our hearts have broken for our homeland. Despite repeated calls to lower the temperatureand deescalate tensions, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE continue to bully and terrorize American communities. The Resistance Roundtable calls for an immediate and thorough investigation into the death of Alex Pretti. ICE must stand down immediately and leave Minneapolis, and our representatives need to immediately begin the process to abolish ICE.
January 30th is the final day of federal funding before the US government goes into shutdown again. A bill that would fund DHS and ICE just passed the House thanks to seven Democrats voting with the Republicans. It now enters the Senate, where already many Republicans are joining the Democrats in voting against the funding bill. It’s a move in the right direction but one that is not enough. America is no longer a government doing business as usual and the death of Alex Pretti may have pushed us to the point where more drastic measures are needed to dismantle the DHS and ICE machine and bring people in the White House to justice. A full-fledged governmental shutdown for months on end is another step in the right direction.
Impeaching Trump may not be enough to end the MAGA nightmare with the lines of succession running deep full of Trump’s friends. What will be needed is something that other countries have: new elections right now. New president, new Congress and new Supreme Court, voted by the people who will work for the people. That should be on the table instead of waiting until November, when it may be too late to even have Mid-Term Elections. The laws are broken on the federal level. It’s time to create new ones on the fly to hold the branches of office accountable for their actions.
And should that not suffice, the next step is to secede from the Union, with the West Coast states going their way and Canada taking the remaining Blue States. Mark Carney is probably watching this and should take this into serious consideration. What Trump’s mission is to take as much money from the Blue States as possible and let the people suffer. What we need to do is refuse that and go our own way. This is something we need to think about in reality.
Alex Pretti’s death should send a clear signal to Germany and other European countries that have problems with far-right governments. Especially in Germany as the AfD is poised to win elections in two eastern German states- Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Pommerania- this fall and is leading in three other states in that region. The Donald Trump effect is infusing confidence in the party and has even garnered support by many in these states. Others have been following these developments and are shocked and alarmed at them.
As an American expat, I must ask you this question: What type of government in Germany (be it state or federal) would you like to see? If it is the AfD, what is happening in Minnesota and the rest of the US is what you will receive. There are more democratic parties that can handle problems in Germany better than these people. We are all on our own, but we can do better than this. It’s time we show Trump that we are like the Minnesotans fighting this: We are open-minded, empathic and welcoming to those who want to live here. We want to work together. We don’t want what Trump wants.
For those who voted for Trump last year, this is not what you voted for. However, I would like to close with this statement that has been going around. It’s similar to the good vs evil story except one can change if one wants to.
Author’s Note:
Several vigils will be taking place during the week, of which the one in Frankfurt is scheduled to take place January 31st. Place and time to be determined. The Files will update you on the event once it’s finalized, along with other events in Germany and elsewhere.
There are many reasons we should be shutting down the US government and block funding for Kristi Noem’s DHS, which is in charge of ICE. Apart from the murder of Alex Pretti yesterday in Minneapolis which is the second time in 17 days, we have this development from writer, Brad Reed: A database for people who even film and document the atrocities of ICE. But the reactions are reciprocal as databases likewise are being developed in Texas, Oklahoma and elsewhere that list people working for ICE. Looks like we all will be spied on and when this nightmare ends, who will stand to lose from all this?
In my opinion, the ones who committed the atrocious acts of violence will receive their judgement day. Here’s his piece:
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A masked federal immigration enforcement agent was caught on camera this week telling a legal observer in Maine that she was being put in a database for purported “domestic terrorists.”
At the start of a video that spread across social media on Friday, the masked agent appears to be scanning a license plate number before walking toward the woman recording him.
The woman informs the agent that it’s legal for her to record and then asks him why he’s trying to gather information on her.
“Because we have a nice little database, and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist,” the agent responds.
At this point the woman starts laughing incredulously at him.
“For videotaping you?!” she asks him. “Are you crazy?!”
Democrats on the US House Homeland Security Committee were quick to denounce the actions of the agent on the video.
“Big government Republicans have unleashed a secret police state on peaceful American citizens,” they wrote in a social media post. “This should shake every American to their core.”
Other critics, however, noted that it isn’t just Republicans who have been supporting the right-wing police state. Seven US House Democrats, including Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), voted with the vast majority of Republicans on Thursday to give US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) an additional $10 billion.
“Corporate Democrats are complicit with the full breakdown of our constitutional rights,” commented Sunrise Movement.
Greg Krieg, media director at political consulting firm Slingshot Strategies, took particular aim at Golden for shoveling more money to ICE despite documented evidence of agents violating Americans’ civil liberties.
“Thank you Jared Golden, special man who understands Maine better than anyone on the planet, for telling us how much people actually like this horseshit,” he wrote sarcastically.
Nico Perrino, executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said the agent’s behavior crossed a line that should be condemned by Americans of all political persuasions.
“I hope the vast majority of freedom-loving Americans are uncomfortable with the idea,” he wrote, “that masked police are now telling people engaged in First Amendment-protected activity that they are ‘domestic terrorists’ who will be added to a secret government database.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, predicted that federal agents’ aggressive taunts against legal observers would backfire politically against the Trump administration.
“Ironically these kinds of threats do more to radicalize opposition to ICE tactics than they do to stop people from recording ICE,” he observed.
Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News, also thought the optics of the Maine video were terrible for Republicans.
“It’s hard to overstate how unpopular this crap is with normie Americans,” Saul wrote. “On top of the gross civil rights violations, that Trump is letting these goons loose in Maine, a state where Democrats could actually pick up a Senate seat in nine months, it’s political malpractice.”
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Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
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A statement on Alex Pretti will appear in the next post…..
The shooting, which city officials say occurred on Nicollet Avenue near 26th Street, left a 51-year-old man dead, according to a hospital record obtained by the Associated Press.
17 days after the death of Renee Good, another citizen was attacked and killed by ICE in Minneapolis. A summary of the incident is in the link above and the video of the incident is enclosed below 👇
Nick Francis of the Apple Valley Police Department in his post to social media shows us the gravity of the situation in Minneapolis as a result of the ICE raids. Apple Valley is located south of Minneapolis and according to him, the situation involving ICE is nothing he has ever seen in the nearly three decades of his career. In fact, when reading and asking around about the raids and arrests, many will agree that these acts of terror are un-American and comparable to Nazi Germany with the Gestapo. Francis provides some tips on how to help those affected by the ICE raids. Many of these I find useful.
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If you live in Minnesota and are reading this today, there’s a good chance you’re not feeling quite like yourself. The past month has tested all of us in ways we never expected. There’s no need to revisit every detail of what has unfolded in our state, as most of us are carrying those moments with us already. What matters is the shared truth: our communities are strained, our patience is thin, and the ongoing battle between the federal and state levels have placed Minnesotans, especially law enforcement officers, in an extraordinarily difficult position.
As a police chief in the metro area, I’ve spent the last two weeks in back-to-back conversations with fellow chiefs, officers, community leaders, school administrators, elected officials, and worried residents. In every meeting, someone inevitably asks what my department is going through. And each time, I find myself searching for the right words.
Explaining what we’re experiencing isn’t simple, because it’s not just operational, it’s emotional. It’s about where we stand as a department and how this moment feels from the inside. And I know many other police chiefs are trying to explain it as well. I’ve finally found the clearest way to describe what this moment feels like: we are trapped in a bitter divorce. I hesitated for weeks before using that comparison, but the truth is unavoidable.
After more than 25 years in law enforcement, I’ve responded to countless domestic disputes, custody battles, and painful breakups. The patterns I’ve seen in those homes—the manipulation, the fear, the emotional whiplash—are now playing out publicly on our televisions, radios, and social media feeds.
Our federal and state leaders are locked in open conflict, and the rest of us are caught squarely in the middle. Their language toward each other grows more demeaning by the day. Like parents in a bitter fight, each is trying to convince us to choose them, to believe they are the only one who can keep us safe. They point fingers, highlight each other’s perceived failures, and insist that the other side is the real danger. And here we are, watching the ugliest argument our “parents” have ever had, helpless to stop it and forced to absorb every blow.
And just like children trapped between feuding adults, Minnesotans are feeling scared, confused, and powerless. We’re closing businesses. We’re shifting schools to remote learning. We’re rearranging our daily lives because we no longer know who to trust or who is actually looking out for us. It’s an impossible position, and the vast majority of people in this state are stuck in the middle of a fight they never asked for.
So the question I keep coming back to is simple: what can I do about it?
Sadly, the best guidance I can offer is the same advice officers have given people trapped in emotional separations or custody disputes for decades:
1. Don’t isolate yourself. Many others are feeling the same strain. Stay connected to family, friends, and neighbors. Share how you’re doing, ask how they’re coping, and support one another through the uncertainty.
2. Have a safety plan. Know your limits. Recognize when stress or fear is pushing you toward a breaking point. Think about what your family needs to stay healthy, grounded, and safe.
3. Reach out for help and resources. Whether it’s food support, mental-health services, or spiritual guidance, our communities are full of organizations ready to
help you, your loved ones, or your neighbors meet basic needs.
4. Decide what makes you feel safer. That might mean stepping away from the news cycle, taking time off, or seeking professional support. This kind of emotional strain takes a toll, and only you can determine what brings you back to a place of stability.
As difficult as it is to admit, the same advice we give children caught in a volatile household may be what helps all of us navigate the turmoil we’re living through. At some point, something has to change. Our federal and state leaders need to stop fighting long enough to remember who they serve and what their responsibility is. I can’t predict when that shift will happen, but I know it’s the outcome my community is hoping for.
Residents in Apple Valley and across the entire state are looking for relief, clarity, and leadership. We depend on our state and federal elected officials to provide it. It’s time for them to set aside the conflict and start taking care of their kids.
We’re ready for the fighting to end. We’re ready for real leadership from those at the federal and state levels. As the police chief of Apple Valley, I see every day how much our community depends on stability, clarity, and genuine care. My department will continue to serve, to answer every call, to remain unbiased, and to navigate the difficult space between conflicting directives. But it’s time for our state and federal leaders to rise above the conflict so the Apple Valley community and people of Minnesota are no longer the ones stuck in the middle.
Nick Francis
Apple Valley Police Chief
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The Files just created a page solely for the topic on Trump, which include a wide array of sections from key terms, to the Endgame, the origins of fascism, and even the protests to date. It includes the campaigns to stop Project 2025 and boycott anything that supports Trump. Click on the window below and check it out. You can also find it in the menu section:
Keep in mind that more posts about this will come on a regular basis, including a series on Stories from Minnesota, a real-life account of the ICE atrocities from people affected there. You can contribute your stories by using the contact information here.
There is a moment in American Psycho when Patrick Bateman realizes that the rules do not apply to him. Not because he has outsmarted the system, and not because the system has collapsed, but because it never truly existed for someone like him. Status insulates. Presentation protects. Violence dissolves into noise so long as it […]
Today is the total Minnesota shutdown. Businesses in the Twin Cities and the state are closing in protest, with schools shuttered and all forms of economic life now at a standstill. This is part of the initiative to force ICE to leave the state as well as other states and allow people to return to their normal lives. And rightfully so, for as you will see in this post, written by an anonymous person, the people have had enough of the terror- children being kidnapped, people sprayed in the faces and assaults with weapons have replaced biking along the trails, meeting neighbors, going to school and learning together, and even a simple stop at a store to shop and say hi. A link at the end of the post has some more sources for you to look at.
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I live in South Minneapolis.
Given recent events, I know a lot of you are trying to make sense of everything you’re seeing on the news and social media.
So, I want to take a moment to share about what it’s been like here, from the perspective of my daily life. Please settle in for a long, but important read.
I want to add, I know that in our online and increasingly AI-filled world, it’s hard to tell fact from fiction. In this post, I’ve tried to write only about things I can verify with at least one credible source (video or article) or have experienced first-hand. Where possible, I’ve included footnotes with video links in a Google Doc – I encourage you to watch these videos if you have time, as they add important context. You can (as always) reach your own conclusions.
The atmosphere here in the Twin Cities is… very tense. To say the least.
When I ask people how they are feeling, the two words I keep hearing are: “Scary” and “Surreal”
The presence of federal agents in our city is now just an unavoidable reality. Federal agents in the city now outnumber our local police force nearly 5-to-1. [6a]
(You’ll see an image I’ve attached of a map with pins of just SOME of the locations of federal agents, with many more on their way.)
Public schools were closed last week, after ICE conducted a raid while parents were picking up kids from school. Chemical agents were deployed on bystanders, including students, and several school staff were taken by ICE. [2] While most schools are open again, most have added remote learning optional – others have still gone into lockdown mode due to ICE activity on or near school grounds [3]
Classroom attendance across the district has dropped sharply (25-50%), especially for minority students who are afraid they or their parents will be targeted. [4]
Everyone is just a little bit “on edge” when in public spaces.
If you go to Target or Walmart, you may see federal agents in the parking lots. You can often recognize them as groups of men wearing masks and carrying guns. Often they are in trucks or SUVs, but sometimes they are spotted in more everyday vehicles like Honda Civics. Some have been seen in vans that look almost identical to Amazon delivery vans (only without the logo).
Sometimes they will just be sitting in cars, watching people. Other times, they will wander around parking lots questioning people (mostly non-white people), asking to see papers to prove you are a US citizen. [5a] [24]
Gas stations are another popular spot for stops, since people are forced to be outside their vehicles to pump gas. [5b]
On Friday, federal agents tackled two Target employees while they were working at the Richfield Target, which I regularly shop at when I go to Target. Both were young Hispanic men. In the video, you can hear them repeatedly pleading, “We’re U.S. citizens,” as agents pin them to the ground. Bystanards are distressed, demanding to see a warrant. The agents ignore these pleas, handcuff the men, and load them into an unmarked SUV. One of the young men was later found bloodied and shaken, dumped in a Walmart parking lot miles away. When a bystander approaches him and asks if he is okay, he says “no I’m not okay” and begins sobbing uncontrollably. He is a 17 year-old US citizen. I encourage you to watch these videos. [1a] [1b] [1c]
Many business like restaurants, day cares, construction and roofing companies [5a], house cleaning services, and other businesses that rely heavily on immigrant labor are unable to operate normally, causing lots of shortages and disruptions to businesses. [5b] Many immigrants, even those who are legally documented, are afraid to leave their houses or go to work.
Sherri from my co-working space works in home remodeling. She told me she went to a house recently to check if an appliance had been delivered, and she found one of the contractors hiding in a closet, trembling. He was afraid she was ICE. He couldn’t speak much English, but kept patting his chest and saying “heart hurts”, “heart hurts”.
The Minneapolis Police Department cannot keep up with calls, and has reported many instances of ICE agents breaking local laws and creating public safety risks. [6b] [7b] For example, ICE will apprehend people from their cars and take them away, leaving abandoned vehicles parked in the road, still running. In one instance, they actually left a car in drive after taking the owner, letting the vehicle roll down the road unattended. Other times, they take people from cars, leaving pets or children crying in the backseat… again, unattended. [7a]
Many people have also reported ICE damaging their property with no consequences — ramming vehicles with their trucks, breaking car windows, and firing rubber bullets out of cars. [8] [9]
The aggressive, escalatory, and sometimes illegal [25] manner in which ICE is operating is deeply concerning to many, to be sure. But what has been equally disturbing to me are some of the things ICE agents have been saying to Minneapolis residents.
A few examples:
➡️ A pastor was peacefully protesting when ICE agents pepper-sprayed him and detained him in their car. After intimidating him, they eventually let him go, since he is a US citizen. As they released him, an agent said to him: “You’re white anyway. You wouldn’t be any fun.” [10]
➡️ In one video captured by a resident from their window, an ICE officer and a local man can be seen in a verbal argument in the street. The ICE officer can be heard saying: “I’ll shoot you in front of your goddamn house.”
➡️ An Uber driver who was surrounded by ICE agents asked why he was being interrogated. The agent replied (tellingly): “Because you have a different accent than me.” [11]
➡️ My acquaintance Patty was detained by ICE while legally observing. She was handcuffed and put into their SUV. She recounts that the officer told her: “You need to stop obstructing us, haven’t you learned your lesson yet? That’s why that lesbian b*tch is dead.” [12] (referring to Renee Good)
➡️ Patty also reported in a video interview with CBS that while in detention, ICE offered a bribe to her friend Brandon, saying they would grant US legal status to any undocumented family member in his life if he would share names of any undocumented people he knows or the names of the people organizing protests. [12]
➡️ The youth group leader at my church told me that his friend in St. Paul said ICE agents were going door-to-door interrogating residents, asking “do any asian people live in your neighborhood,” and if so, to point out which houses. (Verified this claim in New Republic article [13])
➡️ ICE tracks license plates of people attending anti-ICE demonstrations or who are attempting to film them and will use the license plate data to look up where they live and then loiter outside their homes to intimidate them. [14]
Of course, these are not representative of every interaction people have with ICE, to be sure. But they reveal an important pattern we are seeing…. There is a kind of moral emptiness – an inhumanity – behind this operation that is unlike anything I have seen before from law enforcement. There is a “might makes right” approach to enforcement, and a “guilty until proven innocent” application of law that is very troubling… to say the least. And it’s deeply scary.
It’s scary because many people here feel these officers are untrained, aggressive recruits who have demonstrated over and over again that they are NOT operating with the safety of our community in mind. Rather, their goal seems to be inflicting a level of intimidation and trauma on people, simply because they have the power to.
I should also note: this is scary and dangerous for the agents themselves, who are also put in almost impossible situations. They are asked to go into tense, hostile scenes without proper training for civilian engagement. [15] Additionally, these agents are under pressure to hit daily arrest quotas, causing them to move hastily and without time for proper de-escalation. (This is part of the reason many states ban police from using arrest quotas) [16]
Additionally, the systems of accountability you would expect from traditional law enforcement agencies that interact so heavily with civilian populations is also missing. Unlike police, these ICE agents are often masked, can carry rifles, and do not always wear body cameras.
When a contentious incident happens, there is no external review system for officer misconduct, such as might be found in local police department with civilian “use of force” boards. And there is no video footage unless bystanders are recording it. Instead, their agency is walled off from any meaningful civilian oversight.
Minnesota’s requests for oversight and accountability have been denied. For instance:
➡️ The FBI is refusing to share evidence with state inspectors into the shooting of Reene Good, limiting our state from performing a proper investigation into the killing of its own citizen. [17]
➡️ Minnesota state lawmakers went to an ICE detention facility to ask to inspect the facility where people are being taken by ICE. They have the legal right to inspect the facilities under law. They were denied access. [18]
➡️ Our mayors, state representatives, and governor have all asked the federal government to withdraw or reduce ICE presence. In response, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced they would be sending 1000 more agents to Minneapolis – scaling up the already largest DHS operation in history to unprecedented levels. [19]
On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump posted about Minnesota: “THE DAY OF RECKONING AND RETRIBUTION IS COMING!” This morning, he said he is considering invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the US military into the streets of Minneapolis against the request of our Governor, an act not done in the US since 1965. [20]
DHS continues to insist that it is going after only “the worst criminals to keep our community safe.” [21] However, DHS’s own data shows that 73% of people detained by ICE nationally have NO criminal convictions at all, and only 5% have violent convictions. [22]
In addition to this data, Minneapolis residents have already witnessed with our eyes over and over, our neighbors and friends being taken, questioned, and threatened — these are people we KNOW are not “the worst of the worst”… in fact, many of them are some of the best of us. They are the family that owns our favorite local taqueria, members of our congregations at church, contractors and construction workers, bus drivers, nannies to our families, and kind, peaceful, and productive members of society.
Lastly, I want to end by sharing a story from last night:
I am a youth group leader at my church, and last night during our group sharing time, we asked students how they were doing. Every single one of these 20 kids was struggling. Many looked on the verge of tears. And truthfully, all of us leaders were too.
Students shared about how this is affecting their lives. One girl shared that her science class, which normally has 30-36 students in class only has about 10 students now.
Another shared that her high school is located in a complex that shares common hallways with other public areas downtown and that it “makes her sad and scared to have to walk past masked men with guns to get to class”.
We reflected on how, in some ways, life was so “normal”… all the same things as a normal day. Breakfast, school, work. But then you notice how different things feel in the small ways: “NO ICE OR CBP PERMITTED” signs on business doors, whistles piercing the air from time to time, parents volunteering for shifts of “ICE watch duty” at school or daycare to protect the kids they are responsible for. Staff meetings before church events to rehearse the plan if ICE agents show up to church. Passing empty cars stopped in the road, windows smashed, still running — a crowd of people gathered around. People walking around with numbers Sharpied on their arms (phone numbers of emergency contacts in case they are detained).
It’s strange how life can feel so “normal” and so “not normal” all at the same time…
Nearly every student expressed confusion about why this is happening. – “What is the point of all this?” – “How is this making us safer?” – “Aren’t we technically all immigrants in this country?” – “Isn’t the government supposed to be protecting us, not threatening us?” – “Why won’t they leave?”
One of our students, who is an immigrant (US citizen with a passport) shared that he is afraid every time he leaves the house.
Later that night, his mom told me that he has a neckstrap passport holder and that he wears it around his neck everywhere he goes now. “Like a trendy necklace,” she joked, trying to laugh off the tension. But I could see the heartbreak in her eyes… Both she and her black, immigrant son knew full well why this was necessary in today’s America.
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Thank you for taking the time to read about what’s happening in a state that’s not your own. I’m not an expert; I’m just a regular person trying to share what life is like here now.
If you are a person of faith, please pray for Minneapolis right now. Pray that we would know how to stand with wisdom, love, truth, justice, and solidarity with our neighbors and the way of Jesus. Pray for us to have leaders who will call us toward these virtues.
If you feel grief or anger over this version of America our leaders are attempting to normalize, make your voice heard – call your representatives (5calls.org) and vote in November.
And if you do not want this to become the story of your city, make your voice heard now.
Because if you wait until this arrives in your town… it is already too late.
The Files just created a page solely for the topic on Trump, which include a wide array of sections from key terms, to the Endgame, the origins of fascism, and even the protests to date. It includes the campaigns to stop Project 2025 and boycott anything that supports Trump. Click on the window below and check it out. You can also find it in the menu section:
Keep in mind that more posts about this will come on a regular basis, including a series on Stories from Minnesota, a real-life account of the ICE atrocities from people affected there. You can contribute your stories by using the contact information here.
“Donald Trump’s desire to invoke one of the presidency’s most extraordinary, emergency powers is ten years in the making. I believe he will do it. And I believe we have real options to fight back.”
Miles Taylor, who once had worked for Trump during his first administration, presented this sobering piece of how his grasp on power came to being, how he would remain in power at any cost, and what tools we have left to pry him of that. Trump’s quest at fascism dates back ten years even though it has been revealed in the open once he took office the second time. We should use this to connect the dots and include the Insurrection of January 6th 2021 and his attempts at making a poster boy out of Minneapolis and Minnesota. It fits the rule where once a fascist grabs power, the only solution is extreme measures including a war. I hope we have other non-war measures that will work and according to Taylor, there are, as long as the window of opportunity is open.
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Donald Trump’s desire to invoke one of the presidency’s most extraordinary, emergency powers is ten years in the making. I believe he will do it. And I believe we have real options to fight back. As news outlets reported this week, the White House is openly threatening to deploy U.S. troops into Minnesota under the Insurrection Act after protests erupted following the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent. Federal forces have already flooded Minneapolis. The president is now warning that unless the state “stops the professional agitators and insurrectionists,” he will send in the military using one of his most extraordinary powers.
Contrary to the analysis of many pundits, this isn’t bluster. It’s the culmination of a nearly ten-year fixation I witnessed firsthand inside Donald Trump’s first administration.
Last night I went on Jen Psaki’s show on MSNOW to explain why this moment has been coming for a decade — and why Trump has always wanted to test the outer limits of his “apex” powers. We’ve been here before. In fact, I watched Trump nearly invoke the Act — and talked him out of it.
I’ve written repeatedly about the Insurrection Act because I saw how dangerously close we came to it during Trump’s first term. Indeed, it was the very first thing I disclosed when I first came forward against the president ahead of his re-election campaign.
In 2019, while I was chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, Trump nearly used the Act to dramatically militarize the Southern Border, where he’d openly mused about repelling migrants by force, i.e. shooting them.
I got a phone call that tipped me off. Trump had just watched cable news footage of a migrant caravan approaching the Southern Border, and he was furious. Aides alerted me that he wanted to announce in his State of the Union address that he was sending the military to take over border security and to override any objection, law, or court.
Our lawyers told us this was madness. This didn’t rise to the level of a “foreign invasion.” Not even close. I agreed. What’s more, we feared that if he did this at the border, it would be a slippery slope: he’d send the military anywhere in the country that he wasn’t getting his way.
When the Secretary and I got to the White House, the President was practicing his speech in the Map Room. He greeted us with a grin, as if unable to hide his excitement at preparing to exercise a power he’d been told was one of the “break glass” emergency authorities of the presidency. We immediately set about convincing him this was the “wrong time” to do such a thing and the “wrong circumstances.”
What followed was a torturous night of ping pong. We enlisted the White House lawyers to help us persuade the boss. We called the Secretary of State. We phoned colleagues in the Government of Mexico to see what more they could do to tamp down the caravan. And when we persuaded him the situation was under control — and couldn’t possibly warrant the use of powers meant for wartime — he eventually (and begrudgingly) relented.
But after that moment, it was clear: he would try again.
In fact, he never let go of the idea. On other occasions in conversations with us, he referred almost wistfully to the Insurrection Act as his “magical authorities.” He believed — and still believes — that Article II of the U.S. Constitution allows him to do “whatever I want as President.”
Since returning to office, Trump has been trying to foment an “insurrection” or “rebellion” to justify emergency action. Last year I warned repeatedly that Donald Trump was edging toward this moment. He began experimenting in Los Angeles, pushing troops beyond their lawful support roles, daring the courts to stop him. The very day he announced he was sending the Marines into California last June, I wrote this:
This could be the beginning of Trump’s worst abuse of power. Who is to say he won’t send U.S. troops into each “Blue State” that opposes his policies? Or to shut down organizations he doesn’t like? Or to round up his critics?
That’s almost exactly what has happened since (including the White House putting in place measures to designate opposition groups and individuals as “domestic terrorists” and to charge his opponents with fake crimes). They tried to create the circumstances that would justify an invocation. They probed Los Angeles. They probed Chicago. They probed Washington, D.C. They probed Portland.
In each case, the opposition refused to play the role Trump and Stephen Miller wrote for them. Protests were loud but largely peaceful. And local officials kept order, meaning that suddenly invoking the Insurrection Act would not have passed the laugh test.
What’s more, the courts shot down those National Guard and troop deployments. From California to Washington, D.C., federal judges ruled that the president’s actions were flat-out unconstitutional. On New Year’s Eve, Trump quietly and ruefully said he was withdrawing the National Guard — but hinted ominously at what was to come.
Perversely, those rulings only accelerated his interest in the Insurrection Act, the one statute that could give him a colorable excuse to send the military back in and make it harder for the courts to constrain him.
Here’s why Minnesota might be different. Knowing these people, I strongly suspect the Trump administration studied the map of American unrest the way a fire inspector studies old burn scars on a building’s walls. That’s why cities with a big protest history (LA, DC, Chicago, Portland) were up first. But they didn’t deliver.
Then, White House aides remembered 2020. Specifically, I imagine they recalled how the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis became a national symbol at the end of Trump’s first term, and they knew it could be a potential powder keg.
So they poured in thousands of federal agents, under the flimsy excuse that kindergartens run by Somali-Americans were rife with fraud — as if that’s the type of national security threat that requires shock troops instead of investigative accountants. The tension rose the past few weeks, by design. Then an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. While I don’t believe her death was part of some scripted plot, the confrontational posture made such a tragedy more likely.
Now the White House is gathering the visuals it was hoping for. They’re asking ICE officers to grab street footage for them, too, in an effort to document clashes, grieving crowds, and a state under pressure. Trump’s message is predictable and pre-planned: Nothing can fix this but the U.S. military.
Trump’s use of the Insurrection Act would surely be illegal. Here are a few ways I think we can stop him. The Insurrection Act was written in 1807 to repel invasions and suppress genuine rebellions. It is meant to be a last resort when states cannot protect constitutional rights or enforce federal law. Minnesota does not meet that standard, by any stretch of the imagination. The state retains full control of its own National Guard, local police and courts are functioning, there’s no observable “insurrection” in sight.
In fact, using the Act there would invert its purpose. The federal government would be deploying troops against a state that is capable of maintaining order, simply because the president dislikes its politics. Courts should absolutely strike this down. But Trump has never treated the law as a guardrail, and he’s counting on the fact that federal courts will be slow to respond.
Despair is exactly what the White House wants. However, there are practical, powerful steps federal, state, and local leaders can take to check Trump’s wayward use of his presidential power if he invokes the Act.
First, Minnesota should sue and strip away the pretext. The governor and attorney general could seek a declaratory judgment that the Insurrection Act’s conditions are not met and that the state retains primary authority over public safety. Minnesota should simultaneously build the factual record: activated National Guard units under state control, mutual-aid agreements, functioning courts, and certifications from law-enforcement leaders that order can be maintained. A formal declaration of capacity would gut Trump’s claim that only the U.S. military can restore peace.
Second, other states MUST move together. It’s time for the governors to have an emergency summit. Illinois, California, Oregon, and others should file parallel briefs stating they will not consent to federal military policing within their borders and will challenge any similar deployment. Governors should convene in emergency session to adopt a joint compact defending federalism and coordinate Guard resources so no state can be isolated and bullied. Unity is a legal shield and a political deterrent, and we are LONG overdue for the governors to come together to show that.
Third, Congress must put the military on notice, immediately. Members should announce they will open Congressional investigations into any manifestly unlawful orders issued under a sham invocation of the Act, with inspectors general requests and committee subpoenas ready to go. Uniformed leaders need to hear, before a single deployment, that obedience to manifestly illegal commands carries personal and institutional consequences. This is not intimidation; it’s a reminder of their oath to the Constitution.
Fourth, impeachment must begin the moment he acts. Even if today’s GOP majority in the House blocks impeachment proceedings, opposition Members of Congress should file articles of impeachment and create the constitutional record that courts and future Congresses will rely upon. Silence would be treated as acquiescence. And if Democrats retake Congress, those proceedings can and must resume where they left off. Donald Trump fears impeachment if he loses the midterms, and he should.
Fifth — and most importantly — this would be a moment for mass civic resistance. If U.S. troops are sent against an American state, the response must be the largest peaceful mobilization in our history. By that, I mean coordinated marches in every state capital and cities large and small, labor walkouts, faith leaders in the streets, veterans standing between soldiers and citizens, mayors opening city halls for lawful assembly, and more. Trump is portraying the opposition as “terrorists” and “insurrectionists”; millions of calm Americans can shatter that illusion overnight.
This is not an exhaustive list. There’s a great deal more that can be done. And in the coming days and weeks, those options will be fleshed out. What we cannot do, though, is be lulled into a false sense of comfort that this is another Trump “joke” and not the real thing. We have to be ready.
Like I’ve said, again and again, Trump has been rehearsing this play for a decade. I watched the dress rehearsals. This time he believes the stage is set. But it isn’t, unless we surrender it to him. The Constitution still works when Americans use it, and the United States won’t become a despotism unless we allow it to be one.
Before that ever happens, we have options to fight back — lawfully, peacefully, and defiantly.
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The Files just created a page solely for the topic on Trump, which include a wide array of sections from key terms, to the Endgame, the origins of fascism, and even the protests to date. It includes the campaigns to stop Project 2025 and boycott anything that supports Trump. Click on the window below and check it out. You can also find it in the menu section:
Keep in mind that more posts about this will come on a regular basis, including a series on Stories from Minnesota, a real-life account of the ICE atrocities from people affected there. You can contribute your stories by using the contact information here.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has called the deployment “wildly disproportionate” and a massive waste of taxpayer dollars, noting “at times, there are as many as 50 agents arresting one person.” City Council President Elliott Payne put it succinctly: “This is a military occupation, and it feels like a military occupation.”
Carin Mrotz, Minneapolis resident and Senior Advisor in the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, posted her stories about the ICE atrocities in the Twin Cities in social media before it was taken down. Her account is being featured here so that you have another account of what is happening, bringing this to full view:
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“A post for my friends and family outside of Minneapolis. There is a lot of misinformation flying around and I want to share my perspective if it’s useful or compelling or helps cut through the clickbait and profiteering.
Over the past several weeks, thousands of ICE agents have been deployed to the Twin Cities and more are expected this week. There are currently more ICE agents than local law enforcement in the metro area. In some places they are visiting businesses that are likely to employ or serve immigrants looking for people to arrest. In some places they are camping out in cars on highway exit ramps and pulling over drivers they believe look like they could be immigrants.
In neighborhoods like mine that are primarily residential with few business corridors, they are staging targeted raids of homes. But they mix it up, yesterday they were driving around the neighborhood and a neighbor reported that an agent pulled over and asked her husband, who was out walking the dog, if he was a US citizen.
Yesterday morning I received a text in my neighborhood group chat that more than a dozen agents were staging outside of a house a few blocks away, legal observers were needed. I put on boots and drove over to a home near our middle school and found the street full of SUVs and men in militarized but not standardized gear with big “POLICE” labels all over them. These men were carrying big guns.
Several of my friends had already been maced and one of the agents was spraying mace into a crowd of observers as casually as a dad might spray his lawn with a hose in the summer. The agents brandished their guns at us a warning, or a threat, maybe both. Neighbors stood on the front lawns and blew whistles or banged on drums and asked to see the agents’ warrant. ICE is not supposed to be able to enter a home without a judicial warrant, which is a warrant signed by a judge. If you are a law and order person, that might mean something to you.
Yesterday, after a few minutes of arguing with neighbors, 10-15 agents mustered and broke down the door of the single family home. They entered and after a few minutes, they re-emerged with a tall Black man in a tee shirt, shorts, an unzipped hoodie, and rubber slides. They led him to their vehicle. It was about 15 degrees out. His wife stood on the front lawn, begging to know why they took him. Behind her the front door stood broken, offering no security to a house full of family members, including children.
Several of us observers asked to see the warrant, and I took a picture. I will not share it out of concern for the man’s privacy, but it was an administrative warrant, signed by an ice agent, not a judge. If it matters to you that residents follow the law in engaging with our occupying agents, this should matter to you. If you are a law and order person, you might consider that what I witnessed was an abduction, not an arrest.
Across the Twin Cities, raids like this continued all day. On the southside, ICE agents surrounded a legal observer in her vehicle, broke the windows, and dragged her and her passenger out of the car and detained them. Everyone I know knows someone who has either had a relative (or multiple relatives) taken or has been a witness to one of these abductions. The pace of the operations has been relentless, manic, and the agents are acting with remarkable brutality.
Yesterday, as one of my neighbors attended to another who’d been sprayed with mace, pouring clean water in her eyes on the icy sidewalk in below freezing temps, her mother stood nearby on the phone with MPD, asking them to send someone to help. I don’t know if their decision not to was strategic or just simply about capacity, no local law enforcement has been present at any of the operations I’ve witnessed.
If you are someone who believes that you should absolutely just do whatever law enforcement tells you to do and you will be safe and respected, I would ask if you’ve ever had big guns drawn on you by someone yelling orders at you, those orders sometimes conflicting and unclear. And what if they were also spraying you with chemical irritants in 15 degree weather. If someone maced you for blowing a whistle at them, how confident are you in their ability to calmly follow procedure and not shoot you?
This summer our House Speaker Emerita and her husband were murdered in their home by someone impersonating a police officer. How confident are you that you could make sense of the meanings and markings of a uniform under stress? If armed men filled your street and broke down your neighbor’s door without a warrant, how confident are you that you could stay calm? These are questions we are asking ourselves constantly.
I have a lot of opinions about why this is happening, why Minnesota has been targeted and why our elected leaders are making the decisions they are and what will happen next, but this post is primarily to level set and let you know what’s going on. Because I also want you to know how we are responding.
First, I want to say that my experiences are those of a white professional who is not at risk for deportation. Immigrants and people afraid of being mistaken for immigrants are having a different set of experiences. ICE has been putting detainees on planes and sending them to places like Texas before their families can even hire lawyers or find out where their loved ones have been taken.
People are afraid and avoiding leaving their homes, even to get groceries. After ICE tear-gassed parents and school staff at a local high school last week, our public schools closed and have now re-opened with hybrid learning so that parents who are afraid to send their kids to school have an option.
Neighbors are organizing to protect and care for each other. We observe and document raids. We show up at schools at dropoff and pickup time, we pick up groceries for those who are staying home. Some of the muscle memory of the neighborhood watches we formed during the uprising 5 and a half years ago has reengaged. The Twin Cities is connected and resilient and pissed off and will continue to protect each other.
That is the important thing to know right now: Our cities are under occupation and we are being attacked by our federal government. And we are tenacious and we love each other and we will continue to protect each other. We will continue to blow whistles and bang pots and pans to alert our neighbors that ICE is nearby. We will continue to argue with them and waste their time knowing that someone else will have 15 more minutes to get away. We will continue to share videos of them slipping and falling on their asses on the icy walks and we will laugh hard at them. We have legal tools to fight them and we also have our long history of organizing and resistance.” — Carin Mrotz
This post was from January 12th. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
The Files has created a page on Trump 2.0, which includes stories, terminology and campaigns to end his regime and with that, Project 2025. You can find it here and in the Menu section:
While ICE has been busy with terrorizing people in Minnesota and Trump has been obsessing over acquiring Greenland and possibly Canada, another news story that has slipped past traditional media and also the social media (whose postings were removed as fast as its release to the public) has to do with the Ukraine. While bombings and casualties have become part of daily life there, another threat not mentioned is Trump secretly collaborating with Putin regarding the country’s future, as you can see in this column below. And if this is true, it would have full-blown destructive potential for the US, its European neighbors and lastly, NATO. In normal terms, it would count for impeachment for treason on the part of Trump. Yet the damage may be too severe to even repair. Here’s what France and Ukraine did:
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France and Ukraine deliberately gave the U.S. false intelligence to see if Trump/his admin would pass it onto Russia—and they did. The media is not talking about this which further proves that our mainstream media is as untrustworthy.
Ukraine Ran Sting on U.S. Intel to Catch Russia Leaks A French ex-intelligence operative claims it proves that Washington shared strategic information with Russia Only two weeks into the year and the geopolitical landscape of 2026 has been marked by a significant realignment of intelligence sharing protocols between Ukraine and its traditional western partners.
Ukrainian intelligence services deliberately fed false strategic information to their American counterparts to test whether it would leak to Russian forces, according to former French DGSE operative Vincent Crouzet, in a claim aired on France’s LCI television network om 15 January that highlights deepening distrust between Kyiv and Washington under the current U.S. administration.
Vincent Crouzet, a former operative of the French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) and a noted commentator on security matters, alleged during the ‘24h Pujadas’ programme that Ukrainian intelligence services have engaged in a deliberate campaign of disinformation directed at the United States. According to Crouzet, the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, known as the GUR, intentionally provided false strategic data to American agencies.
This operation was reportedly designed as a ‘sting’ to identify the source of sensitive information leaks to Russian forces. The implications of such an action are considerable, as they point toward a belief within the Ukrainian leadership that high-level officials in Trump’s administration may be compromising strategic secrets.
The shift toward European intelligence autonomy This development occurs against a backdrop of increasing friction between the White House and the administration of President Zelenskyy in Ukraine.
Since his return to office in 2025, President Trump has frequently criticised the scale of American assistance to Ukraine and has advocated for a swift resolution to the conflict, which many observers interpret as favouring Russian territorial interests using scripts which appear to follow almost word for word those emanating from the Kremlin.
In March 2025, the United States briefly suspended intelligence sharing to pressure Kyiv into peace negotiations, a move that appears to have permanently altered the bilateral security relationship.
French positioning French President Emmanuel Macron has positioned France as the primary alternative to American intelligence dominance.In his January 2026 address to the French military, Macron asserted that France now provides two-thirds of the strategic intelligence required by Ukraine.
This claim suggests that European agencies, specifically the DGSE and the military intelligence agency DRM, have successfully filled the vacuum left by the withdrawal or unreliability of American support. While some Ukrainian officials, including Kyrylo Budanov, continue to emphasise a dependence on technical American assets such as satellite imagery, the broader trend indicates a pivot toward European ‘sovereign’ intelligence.
Historical precedents The suspicions voiced by Crouzet and echoed in French media are not without historical context. Critics of the current American administration often cite past incidents to justify their wariness. These include the 2017 disclosure of classified Israeli intelligence to Russian diplomats in the Oval Office and the 2023 Pentagon leaks, which exposed critical vulnerabilities in the way the United States handles sensitive data related to the Ukrainian war effort.
The alleged Ukrainian sting operation represents a sophisticated evolution in this relationship. If the GUR did indeed feed disinformation to the U.S. only to see that information influence Russian military movements, it would provide empirical evidence of a direct pipeline between Washington and Moscow. Such a revelation would necessitate a total replacement of American intelligence channels with those of France, the United Kingdom, and Germany to ensure the survival of the Ukrainian state.
Trump is casual with intel Besides the fact that Trump stored classified files in his bathroom at Mar-a-Lago and refused to return them, there are several known instances of his laxity over US secrets. Trump was indicted over this issue but the matter was discontinued when he was elected.
Geopolitical consequences of the ‘divorce’ The ‘divorce’ between Ukrainian and American spy agencies, as described by Crouzet, has wider implications for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and European security, which is already struggling to manage Trump’s ranting about taking over Greenland.
The lack of independent verification (as of time of writing) for these specific intel claims does not diminish their impact on the public and political discussion in Europe. If European leaders conclude that American intelligence is no longer a secure partner, the drive for strategic autonomy will probably accelerate.
France and other European nations have already begun to increase their commitments, with discussions involving the deployment of multinational forces to monitor borders and provide security guarantees. As of January 18, 2026, the situation remains fluid, with official denials from Washington and silence from Kyiv. However, the narrative of a Franco-Ukrainian intelligence axis is becoming a central pillar of the European response to the ongoing Russian genocide in Ukraine.
Realignment of the NATO intelligence architecture The reported Ukrainian ‘sting’ operation and the subsequent pivot toward European intelligence providers signal a fundamental — and worrying — shift in NATO’s internal security dynamics. This transition from a U.S.-centric model to a more fragmented, polycentric architecture is sad but necessary and carries significant implications for the Alliance.
Erosion of the single point of truth: The provision of disinformation to U.S. agencies by a partner state creates a ‘trust deficit’ that undermines collective decision-making. If intelligence is used as a tool for internal vetting rather than external defence, the coherence of NATO’s strategic assessments is compromised. Rise of European strategic autonomy: France’s emergence as a primary intelligence provider accelerates the ‘Europeanisation’ of security. This reduces the risk of single-country policy shifts but creates potential interoperability challenges between European ‘Sovereign’ systems and U.S. technical assets (TERCOM data used by Storm Shadow, for example). Splitting of data flows: We are witnessing a transition toward ‘coalitions of the willing’. Intelligence is increasingly shared in smaller, high-trust clusters (e.g., France, UK, Germany, and Ukraine) rather than through broader NATO channels, potentially leaving some eastern flank members vulnerable. These shifts require a formal reassessment of NATO’s ‘need-to-know’ protocols to ensure that political volatility in one member state does not jeopardise the operational security of the entire Alliance, whether that includes the US or not.
Other destabilising news In case you missed it, there are also stories circulating that the US delayed delivery of air defence missiles to Ukraine in December which gave Russia an opportunity to launch major attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, reducing grid power by 40%. President Zelensky has called Ukraine’s air defence supplies “insufficient”, having revealed several systems were “without missiles” until Friday morning. [16 January 2026]
“I can say this openly because today I have those missiles,” the president said, adding that Ukraine had received a “substantial package” earlier in the day. His comments follow days of intense Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving thousands of people without heating and electricity during a bitterly cold winter. — BBC
Was this pause in US missile supplies deliberate, requested by Moscow? Whatever the reason, this further erodes trans-Atlantic trust.
Conclusions There is clearly distrust in NATO countries about the US’s intentions and trustworthiness as an ally. If the main story is verified then this is a major issue as many NATO systems depend on intel data provided by the US. So was there a Ukrainian intel sting on the US?
I’m inclined to believe the story and have serious doubts about Trump’s motivation. There are very real fears in NATO over Trump’s trustworthiness and there is clear concern that this extends downwards into his administration, particularly the intelligence apparatus.
And it’s getting worse as the mad megalomaniac goes on a geopolitical rampage. NATO is going through a very rocky patch as Trump threatens Canada, Greenland and Denmark and says he will impose tariffs on any country that does not support his desire to gain control of Greenland.
The Files just created a page solely for the topic on Trump, which include a wide array of sections from key terms, to the Endgame, the origins of fascism, and even the protests to date. It includes the campaigns to stop Project 2025 and boycott anything that supports Trump. Click on the window below and check it out. You can also find it in the menu section:
Keep in mind that more posts about this will come on a regular basis, including a series on Stories from Minnesota, a real-life account of the ICE atrocities from people affected there. You can contribute your stories by using the contact information here.
THE FLENSBURG FILES 