#accountability
4 entries with this tag
The Same Week a U.N.-Backed Panel Found "Reasonable Grounds" to Believe the United States Committed War Crimes in Trump's Iran War — Bombing an Elementary School and a Residential Area and Killing at Least 178 Civilians, Including Women and Children, With Missiles That Scattered Anti-Personnel Tungsten Pellets — Trump Told the Public, Yet Again, That Iran "Wants a Deal" and the War Was "Hopefully" Nearly Over, a Claim Iran Rejected the Same Day
On September 17, 2026, the U.N. Human Rights Council's independent fact-finding mission on Iran — chaired by the Bangladeshi jurist Sara Hossain — reported "reasonable grounds" to believe the United States committed war crimes in two airstrikes in southern Iran on February 28. The strikes killed at least 178 civilians, including women and children. One hit an elementary school in Minab; the other hit a sports complex and residential area in Lamerd with precision-guided missiles that scattered tungsten pellets, an anti-personnel effect designed to kill people rather than destroy structures. The panel's report is not binding, but it adds to the body of international evidence that could one day be used in court — and, notably, the same mission also accused Iran's theocratic government of crimes against humanity against its own people, so this is not a one-sided indictment. On the very day the war-crimes findings landed, Trump was telling the public something else entirely: that Iran "wants a deal" and the nearly seven-month war was "hopefully" nearing its end. Hours later, an Iranian official rejected talks until "Iran's conditions are met," and there have in fact been no negotiations since June. The juxtaposition is the entry. The war Trump launched on a threat the intelligence never found has now produced credible allegations of American war crimes — a bombed school, 178 dead civilians — and his response is to narrate a peace that the other side says isn't happening.
It's Over: On August 17 the Supreme Court Refused Trump's Last Appeal, Making the Jury's Verdict That He Sexually Abused E. Jean Carroll Final and Unchallengeable in Any Court — a Sitting President Now Legally Established, With No Further Appeal Possible, as a Sexual Abuser
On August 17, 2026, the Supreme Court rejected Donald Trump's final bid to escape the E. Jean Carroll case in which a federal jury found him liable for sexually abusing her in 1996 and defaming her about it. The Court had already denied his appeal of that verdict in late June; he petitioned for a rehearing; on August 17 the justices denied the rehearing too. The denial — procedurally routine, since the Court almost never grants rehearings — carries a consequence that is anything but routine: the unanimous jury verdict that Trump sexually abused Carroll, and the roughly $5 million (with interest, about $5.6 million) judgment against him, are now final and cannot be challenged in any court, ever. After years of appeals, a sitting President of the United States stands legally adjudicated, with no further recourse, as a sexual abuser. Importantly, this is the smaller of the two Carroll cases; the separate $83.3 million defamation judgment — over statements Trump made as president in 2019, where his lawyers and the Justice Department are pressing a sweeping presidential-immunity claim — remains pending before the Supreme Court, with a decision on whether to hear it likely in the fall. But the underlying finding at the heart of both cases — that Trump did what Carroll said he did — is now permanent.
ICE Agents Shot and Killed Two Men Six Days Apart — a Houston Man on His Way to Work and a Colombian Food-Delivery Driver in Maine — Neither Was the Person They Were Looking For, Neither Agent Wore a Body Camera, and When ICE Paused Traffic Stops, Trump Ordered Them Resumed the Same Day
In the span of six days in July 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fatally shot two men — and in both cases, the man they killed was not the person they had come to arrest. On July 7, an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant, in Houston as he headed to work. On July 13, ICE officer David Brouillette shot and killed Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian food-delivery driver, during a traffic stop in Biddeford, Maine. Neither man was the target of the operation. In both shootings, the agents were not wearing body cameras. Witnesses in the Maine case gave accounts "extremely different" from ICE's — saying no agent was ever in front of the vehicle and that shots came from the side of the van, contradicting the agency's report. Federal immigration agents have now killed at least four people this year, part of a documented pattern of escalating deadly force as arrests went quieter and more violent. Nationwide "ICE Out" protests erupted in Houston, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Columbia, and beyond. ICE announced it was pausing most traffic stops and expanding body-camera use — and then, on July 15, Trump issued a statement saying ICE "cannot give up" traffic stops, and vehicle stops were permitted to resume the same day. Separately, a New York Times review found that 213 of more than 400 resolved federal cases accusing people of assaulting or impeding ICE and Border Patrol agents had been dismissed, withdrawn, or ended in acquittals — collapsing the "agents under assault" narrative used to justify the aggression.
Mass Firing of Inspectors General
Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general in a late-night mass dismissal via two-sentence emails. A federal judge ruled the firings unlawful — Trump had violated statutory requirements to notify Congress 30 days in advance.