ICE Arrests Right-Wing Influencer After He Defends Trump Crackdown
A Brazilian influencer who openly backed President Trump’s hard-line immigration policies was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday.
Junior Pena, whose Instagram account boasts almost half a million followers, was detained in New Jersey after missing a court hearing related to his own immigration status, a friend told the Brazilian Times.
Pena immigrated to the United States in 2009, according to The Guardian. He openly identifies as an immigrant on social media, and frequently shares stories of others who have come to the U.S. in search of a better life.
But he has also been outspoken in his support for Donald Trump, explicitly defending the president during his immigration clampdown.
After reports that Brazilians were among the many immigrants being detained and deported in Trump’s first week in office, Pena urged his followers to stay calm.
“Don’t panic, thinking they’re deporting everyone,” he said in Portuguese. “There’s a news report showing ICE arresting [people], which even includes Brazilians, but they’re all criminals. All criminals. Don’t believe just any influencer.”
Pena’s friends have now launched a fundraising campaign to cover the influencer’s legal fees and court expenses. The campaign hopes to raise $50,000.
Donald Trump was mentioned more than 38,000 times in the latest batch of Epstein files, according to a New York Times review of the Justice Department’s Friday public release of some three million pages from the sprawling investigation into child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The references include documents pertaining to Trump, his wife Melania, and their residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago.
The president’s name appears in an FBI tip sheet several times in abuse allegations, including one in which an unknown source accuses Trump of forcing one of Epstein’s victims, presumed to be 13 or 14 years old, to perform oral sex on him, “approximately 35 years ago” in New Jersey.
Other mentions are bizarre, such as a censored image that is very clearly of the president, sparking concerns about how far the DOJ actually went to conceal Trump’s connection to Epstein. The photograph came up in an exchange between Epstein and Trump’s first term chief strategist, Steve Bannon, though the widely circulated image was not incriminating in and of itself.
Meanwhile, the agency neglected to redact nude images of young women in the files, some of whom may have been teenagers at the time.
All in all, Trump was flagged in more than 5,300 files in the document cache, according to the Times.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday that the DOJ reviewed the files last summer but did not find credible evidence against the president warranting further investigation.
“There’s a lot of correspondence, there’s a lot of emails, there’s a lot of photographs—there’s a lot of horrible photographs that appear to be taken by Mr. Epstein or people around him, but that doesn’t allow us necessarily to prosecute somebody,” Blanche said, noting that the public now has the opportunity to “see if we got it wrong.”
The Trump administration revealed on Friday that it would only release half of the Epstein files, blatantly violating the recently passed law that required the documents’ full release some six weeks ago and sparking concerns about a governmental cover-up.
Donald Trump’s botched takeover of the Kennedy Center is drawing criticism from America’s most prominent political family.
After a board of Trump loyalists voted to add Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center in December, the president announced on Sunday that the prestigious theater will shut down for two years for “Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding.”
The building will close on July 4 “in honor of the 250th Anniversary of our Country,” Trump wrote.
That means that while the Kennedy Center served as America’s cultural center for over 50 years, the Trump–Kennedy Center will last a grand total of seven months before closing.
Many have speculated that the planned temporary closure is an attempt by Trump to save face after his decision to rename the building led to a sharp decline in ticket sales and multiple artists canceling shows.
After Trump’s announcement, Joe Kennedy III, a great-nephew of John F. Kennedy, wrote on social media: “While this trespass on the People’s will is painful, President Kennedy would remind us that it is not buildings that define the greatness of a nation. It is the actions of its people and its leaders. So, do not be distracted from what this Administration is actually trying to erase: our connection, our community, and our commitment to the rights of all.”
Maria Shriver, the daughter of JFK’s sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, mocked Trump in her own post, writing: “I’ve determined that due to this change in schedule, it’s best for me to close this center down and rebuild a new center that will bear my name, which will surely get everybody to stop talking about the fact that everybody’s canceling… right?”
JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg similarly ripped into Trump. “Trump can take the Kennedy Center for himself,” Schlossberg wrote. “He can change the name, shut the doors, and demolish the building. He can try to kill JFK. But JFK is kept alive by us now rising up to remove Donald Trump, bring him to justice, and restore the freedoms generations fought for.”
Unsurprisingly, one Kennedy has taken a different stance: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s secretary of health and human services.
RFK Jr. said he had “bigger fish to fry” when asked about Trump renaming the building in December. He has not commented on the president’s announcement that the building will be shut down for two years.
In its latest release of files relating to Jeffrey Epstein, the Department of Justice included several unredacted nude photos of young women, some of whom may have been underage when the photos were taken.
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