#chilling-effect
5 entries with this tag
Trump's FBI Removed Two of Its Senior Counterterrorism Leaders — the Head of Counterterrorism at the Washington Field Office and His Deputy — Not for Failing to Stop a Threat, but for Declining to Keep Investigating Allegedly Harassing Phone Calls to Katie Miller, the Podcaster Wife of Top White House Adviser Stephen Miller, After Agents Judged the Calls Did Not Warrant It
In September 2026, the FBI under Kash Patel ousted two of its senior counterterrorism officials — Michael Burgwald, the special agent in charge of counterterrorism at the Washington Field Office, and his deputy, Courtland Rae — after their team determined that allegedly harassing phone calls received by Katie Miller did not warrant further investigation. Katie Miller is a conservative podcaster and the wife of Stephen Miller, one of the most powerful advisers in the Trump White House. The agents' professional assessment — that the calls were not the kind of threat that merited a continued federal investigation — reportedly angered FBI leadership, and the two men were removed from their posts. (Burgwald already had a strained relationship with Patel; a senior executive overseeing the D.C. office confirmed the ousting but denied the order came from Patel personally.) Strip the names out and the principle is alarming: FBI leaders were punished not for a failure of security but for exercising independent judgment in a matter touching a politically connected family. It is the inverse of how a professional law-enforcement agency is supposed to work. The message to every agent is that the correct amount of investigation is however much the connected complainant wants — and that declining, on the merits, is a career-ending mistake when the complainant is close to power.
The Trump Administration Revived and Sharply Expanded the 1882 "Public Charge" Rule — a Wealth Test With Documented Eugenicist Roots — Letting DHS Deny Green Cards to Lawful Immigrants on a Guess That They Might Someday Use Public Benefits, and Now Counting Even the Medicaid and Food Aid Their U.S.-Citizen Children Receive; by the Government's Own Estimate, 1.3 Million People Will Drop Off Health Care, Food, and Housing Assistance Out of Fear
On September 18, 2026, a sweeping expansion of the "public charge" rule took effect, giving USCIS and DHS officers broad new power to deny green cards and visas to lawful immigrants if they predict the applicant might someday become reliant on public benefits. The rule lets officers weigh a wide range of means-tested benefits that mostly could not be counted before — Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), CHIP, housing vouchers, TANF, SSI, WIC — and, critically, benefits applied for on behalf of family members, including the applicant's U.S.-citizen children. About 580,000 green card applicants a year are subject to these reviews. The point is not only the denials but the deterrence: the government's own estimate is that roughly 1.3 million people will disenroll from or forgo Medicaid, food aid, children's health insurance, and housing assistance out of fear that using benefits they are legally entitled to will cost a parent a green card. The "public charge" test dates to 1882, and its scholarly history is not flattering: as UCLA historian Kelly Lytle Hernández, author of "Racist by Design," puts it, it has long been "a tool of eugenicists and white nationalists across time who have tried to filter who is allowed to enter the country." Trump imposed a similar version in his first term; it was litigated and rescinded under Biden. This one is broader, and more than a dozen states have already sued to stop it.
Trump Handed His Acting AG a Stack of News Articles with "Treason" Written in Sharpie — The DOJ Then Tried to Drag Post and Journal Reporters Before a Grand Jury, and Backed Down
The Washington Post reported on June 23, 2026, that Trump's Justice Department issued grand jury subpoenas this spring to compel reporters from The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to testify under oath in a leak investigation — then withdrew them earlier this month after the two newsrooms challenged them in a secret legal fight in the Eastern District of Virginia. The targets were Post national security reporter Ellen Nakashima and three unnamed Wall Street Journal reporters. CNN reported that Trump personally pushed acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to issue the subpoenas, handing him a stack of printed articles with the word "Treason" written across them in Sharpie. The leak hunt was driven by Trump's anger over carefully sourced stories warning of the risks of attacking Iran — stories that turned out to be prescient. Compelling a journalist to reveal sources before a grand jury is extraordinarily rare; the National Press Club called it "one of the most aggressive actions against a free and independent press in recent memory." It followed a deliberate dismantling of press protections: in April, AG Pam Bondi rescinded the Biden-era policy shielding reporters' records, and in January the FBI searched the home of Post reporter Hannah Natanson and seized her devices. No reporter testified — but the DOJ offered no explanation for the withdrawal, leaving open whether the subpoenas will simply be reissued.
Visa Applicants Must Set Social Media to "Public" — Government Screening Your Posts to Decide Entry
The State Department now requires visa applicants across 15+ categories to make all social media profiles public for government review. Refusing means visa denial. The ACLU, Brennan Center, and EFF say it violates the First Amendment and chills free speech worldwide.
DOJ Admits ICE Courthouse Arrests Based on "Erroneous" Legal Authority
The DOJ admitted it wrongly used an ICE memo to justify arresting hundreds of immigrants at immigration courthouses. The memo only applied to criminal courts, not immigration courts. The DOJ blamed ICE. DHS said arrests would continue anyway.