It’s always a sign that things are going well when you have to break out the polygraph machines!

FBI Director Kash Patel has directed the use of “lie detector” tests to root out leakers at national security agencies, The Washington Post reported Monday, a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent sources from disclosing information to the press that could undermine the president’s policies.

“The seriousness of the specific leaks in question precipitated the polygraphs, as they involved potential damage to security protocols at the bureau,” the FBI spokesperson said of the Trump administration’s latest McCarthyist antic.

While polygraph tests are regularly used by government agencies in hiring practices, as well as by law enforcement for interrogating suspects, they are widely considered to be unreliable indicators of actual deception, instead indicating a subject’s anxiety levels.

“They are stress detectors,” said Steven Aftergood, an expert on intelligence policy formerly with the Federation of American Scientists, to the Post. “If for any reason the questions being posed are upsetting to an individual, your pulse might accelerate even if you’ve done nothing wrong. So polygraphs do not measure truth or falsity.”

Aftergood said the use of polygraphs was the result of “thin-skinned” agency heads who were afraid of “adverse news coverage.”

Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a startling internal memo rescinding a Biden-era policy that protected journalists from leak investigations. The updated policy would allow for the use of subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders to collect information and testimony from journalists. “Federal government employees intentionally leaking sensitive information to the media undermines the ability of the Department of Justice to uphold the rule of law, protect civil rights, and keep America safe. This conduct is illegal and wrong, and it must stop,” Bondi wrote in the memo.

Bondi pointed to reports that Dan Caldwell, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s senior adviser, had been fired. She also included a report that revealed a “secret assessment” by the National Security Council that determined that Venezuela was not directing members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to invade the U.S. as an example of leaked classified information.

Aftergood told the Post that Bondi’s memo had wrongly presumed that the White House’s communications were all “sacrosanct.”

“It’s like saying dissent will not be tolerated. It is both absurd and offensive,” Aftergood added.

Concerns over leaks within the Trump administration have been escalating since before the humiliating Signalgate scandal last month. On a podcast Sunday, an ex-Hegseth aide said that the secretary and his team had become “consumed” by leaks. “If you look at a pie chart of the secretary’s day, at this point, 50 percent of it is probably a leak investigation,” the aide said.

The growing crackdown in intelligence agencies has created what one former official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence anonymously described to the Post as “a culture of fear that there will be personal retribution.”

A former FBI field office head was more blunt. “Morale’s in the toilet,” they told the Post anonymously. “When you see people who are being investigated, or names [of agents who worked on January 6 cases] being passed over to the DOJ, it’s what the fuck?”

Amazon was almost going to break down tariff prices on its shopping platform for consumer transparency—before the White House threw a tantrum.

Shortly after the e-commerce giant announced Tuesday that it would display tariff costs for its customers alongside its marketplace items’ original prices, Amazon balked, caving to the Trump administration’s demands that it reconsider what the MAGA leader viewed as a “hostile and political act.”

“Why did Amazon do this when the Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in four years?” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt during a press briefing, adding that “it’s not really a surprise” that Amazon would do such a thing since it has, per the Trump administration, “partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm.”

Hours after Leavitt made the accusation, an Amazon spokesperson said that the larger website had never considered such a move, instead deferring blame to one of its smaller storefronts for low-priced goods, Amazon Haul.

“The team that runs our ultra low cost Amazon Haul store has considered listing import charges on certain products,” the spokesperson told The Washington Post in a statement. “This was never a consideration for the main Amazon site and nothing has been implemented on any Amazon properties.”

Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos made unexpected political waves when he appeared at Donald Trump’s inauguration, visually backing the president’s forthcoming administration. Since then, Bezos’s net worth—which is tied up mostly in Amazon stock—has tanked by some $36 billion as Trump has proposed a 145 percent tariff on imported Chinese goods, a move that would practically shatter Amazon’s supply chain and irreparably damage sellers on the market’s platform.

During the same press briefing, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that 18 countries have issued trade proposals to lower tariffs. Earlier this month, the White House promised to make 90 deals in 90 days to drive down predicted costs and erase the trade war, a pledge that economists argue is no less than a monumental task.

Major big box retailers have already rung the alarm bells over Trump’s paused plan. Last week, representatives from Walmart, Target, and Home Depot met at the White House to discuss concerns over Trump’s aggressive tariff plan.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday bragged about ending a military program he described as “yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative.”

But that initiative—the Women, Peace & Security program—was started by the Trump administration in 2017 after he signed a bipartisan bill authored by Kristi Noem and Jan Schakowsky. The measure was also supported at the time by Mike Waltz and Marco........

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