#accountability
8 entries with this tag
Days After Trump's Party Lost Both Chambers in the Midterms, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie Filed Eight Articles of Impeachment Against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — a 34-Page Resolution Centered on Waging War Against Iran Without Congressional Authorization — and Read All Eight Aloud on the House Floor for About an Hour and Twenty Minutes, Restarting the Clock That Forces a Vote With the GOP Majority Down to 218-214; Trump Vowed to "Stand By" Hegseth Even if He's Impeached
On November 9, 2026 — less than a week after Trump's Republicans lost both the House and Senate in the midterms — Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, introduced eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a 34-page resolution accusing him of high crimes and misdemeanors. The central charge is the one this archive has documented from its origins: that Hegseth helped wage war against Iran without congressional authorization and abused the powers of his office. Massie read all eight articles aloud on the House floor, speaking for roughly an hour and twenty minutes, and the filing — a re-introduction of articles he first offered in September — restarted a two-day clock that forces Republican leaders to schedule a vote. The timing and the math make it serious: with the GOP majority now down to a razor-thin 218-214, only a handful of Republican defections would be enough to impeach a sitting Defense Secretary. Hegseth dismissed the effort as "sham articles of impeachment" and defended his Pentagon record in a video; Trump said he would "stand by" Hegseth even if the House impeached him. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries backed the push, calling Hegseth "the architect of the reckless and costly failed war of choice in Iran." That the drive is led by a Republican — and newly viable because Trump's party just lost its cushion at the ballot box — makes it a convergence of two threads this archive has long tracked: the unauthorized war, and the collapse of the political protection that shielded those who ran it.
Trump Spent the Year Insisting the 2026 Midterms Were a Referendum on Himself — and the Voters Answered by Flipping Both the House and the Senate to the Democrats, Who Won at Least 259 House Seats and a Senate Majority, Even Taking a Texas Senate Seat for the First Time in Over Three Decades; Having Said on Election Night He Was "Absolutely Willing to Accept Those Results," Trump Spent the Weekend Calling the Outcome a "Giant Step Back in History" and Asking "How Could the Polls Be So Wrong?"
In the November 3, 2026 midterm elections, the voters delivered the clearest possible verdict on the administration this archive documents: Democrats flipped both chambers of Congress, winning control of the House (projected at least 259 seats) and the Senate (projected at least 54), and even captured a Texas Senate seat for the first time in over three decades. The defeat was especially pointed because Trump had spent the year framing the midterms as a referendum on himself — nationalizing the races, campaigning relentlessly, and telling candidates to run on his record — even as many of them tried to keep their distance. On election night, to his credit, Trump told the New York Times he was "absolutely willing to accept those results." That posture did not last the week. By Sunday he was posting on Truth Social that America had taken a "giant step back in History with the results of the last Election," demanding to know "How could the Polls be so wrong???" and insisting the outcome was not a hit on him. The whiplash is the story: a president who spent months priming the ground to dispute an unfavorable result — refusing to rule out the Insurrection Act, saying he would honor the results only "if they're honest," attacking mail voting and voter rolls — lost decisively, briefly accepted it, then reverted to disparaging the voters' judgment rather than absorbing it. The sweep is the accountability this archive exists to document; the reaction is the same refusal to be accountable that produced the archive in the first place.
Three Days After the Midterm Rout, Trump Pushed Out Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — Reportedly Blaming Her for the Party's Losses in Front of Others — and Handed the Most Powerful Staff Job in the White House to Stephen Miller, the Hardline Architect of the Administration's Most Extreme Policies; Rather Than Course-Correct After a Historic Rebuke, Trump Scapegoated His Aide and Doubled Down on His Most Divisive Adviser
On November 6, 2026 — three days after voters flipped both chambers of Congress against him — Trump announced that Susie Wiles was out as White House chief of staff and would be replaced, effective November 9, by Stephen Miller, until then the deputy chief of staff for policy and the homeland-security adviser, and the figure most associated with the administration's hardest-line immigration and executive-power policies. Accounts of the exit differ: Axios reported Wiles submitted her resignation; others, citing CNN, said she resigned after watching Trump lose confidence in her; the Washington Post flatly described Trump as having removed her. The New York Times reported that Trump had blamed Wiles for the party's midterm losses in front of other people. Whichever framing is right, the through-line is the same, and it is a failure of character and of judgment rolled into one. Handed a historic repudiation at the ballot box, a leader capable of self-correction asks what he got wrong. Trump instead faulted his chief of staff — the latest in a series of women pushed out of top roles in his administration — and elevated, to the single most powerful position in the building, the adviser most responsible for the very agenda the voters had just rejected. It was the opposite of a course correction. It was a doubling-down, with a scapegoat.
The Trump Justice Department Is Relitigating Watergate — Opening a Review of Whether the Prosecutors Who Brought Down Richard Nixon Committed "Misconduct," and Recasting the Most Thoroughly Proven Presidential Crime in American History as a "Deep State" Plot Against an Innocent Man — in a Transparent Bid to Delegitimize Accountability Itself and Lay Groundwork to Excuse Trump; a Member of the Committee That Voted to Impeach Nixon Called It "Beyond Stupid"
In early October 2026, it was reported that the Trump Justice Department has opened a preliminary review of whether the Watergate special prosecutors — the ones who held Richard Nixon accountable in the 1970s — committed misconduct. The review follows a presentation by Geoff Shepard, a former Nixon aide and longtime Watergate revisionist who argues the prosecutors violated defendants' rights and that Nixon was treated unfairly. The purpose is not subtle. It is the latest move to recast Nixon as a victim of the "deep state," and to yoke his case to Trump's: Vice President JD Vance has said that "how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it's not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump." In other words, if Watergate can be reframed as a frame-up, then so, by extension, can every investigation of Trump. Elizabeth Holtzman — who as a member of the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Nixon — called the effort "just beyond stupid and beyond absurd," because to believe Nixon was railroaded, "you'd have to say that everybody was duped — that the Republicans were duped, that the Supreme Court was duped, that everybody was duped except this guy and Trump." Watergate is not a contested historical question. It is the best-documented presidential crime in American history, ended by Nixon's own tape-recorded voice. Using the Justice Department to pretend otherwise is not scholarship. It is the weaponization of law enforcement against the historical record, in the service of the current president.
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.