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Protesters Slam Trump’s Newest Crackdown on Democrat-led City

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Residents of Charlotte, North Carolina, are rallying in opposition to the invasion of their city by federal immigration enforcement agents under President Donald Trump.

On Saturday, Homeland Security official Tricia McLaughlin announced that the Trump administration is “surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte” in an operation dubbed “Charlotte’s Web.”

Agents conducted searches and arrests across the Democratic-led city, which is home to a significant immigrant population. Thus far, the operation has targeted local retail stores and a church. Many businesses closed down because, as a local bakery owner told The Charlotte Observer, “They’re not chasing criminals. They’re chasing anyone who looks, speaks like me, who has an accent like me, who looks like me.”

In one incident, agents detained a U.S. citizen—who had also been stopped previously by agents—after shattering the window of his truck.

In a statement, Charlotte’s mayor and other local officials said the operation was “causing unnecessary fear and uncertainty in our community as recent operations in other cities have resulted in people without criminal records being detained and violent protests being the result of unwarranted actions.”

Hundreds have peacefully protested the agents’ presence, with one major demonstration at a park in uptown Charlotte, and others at locations where Border Patrol agents were spotted.

“They’ve been doing terrible things in Chicago, and we’re not happy that they’re bringing it here to North Carolina,” one protester, who held a sign that read “Stop kidnapping our neighbors,” told the Observer.

As President Donald Trump and Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s feud over Jeffrey Epstein boils over, survivors of the late sex criminal have reportedly issued a collective statement of support for the Georgia Republican.

The bizarre development comes amid a deepening internal rift in the MAGA movement.

The letter, as reported Saturday by MeidasTouch News, thanked Greene “for standing up against the intimidation, silencing, and abuse that Epstein survivors have endured for decades.”

“When you speak the truth and refuse to bow to threats, you become a survivor by proxy—an ally who carries part of the fight with us,” the message continued. “That courage matters. You have our full support. We stand united with you against any attempt to bully, rewrite history, or shut down accountability.”

The 27 reported signatories, who faced or were otherwise impacted by Epstein’s abuse—such as Maria and Annie Farmer, Courtney Wild, and the family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre—promised to defend Greene “with everything we have” and offered “to help and to talk.”

Greene, a far-right politician, former Trump disciple, and frequent purveyor of bigotry and conspiracy theories, has drawn the president’s ire in recent days for her efforts to compel government transparency on the Epstein case.

She was among four House Republicans to back a successful bid to force a (now forthcoming) floor vote on the release of the Justice Department’s Epstein-related documents.

The president, in turn, has publicly withdrawn his support of Greene, dubbing her a “RINO”—or Republican in name only—as well as nicknames like “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene” and “Marjorie Taylor Brown” (because, he explained, “Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!”).

Greene on Saturday said Trump’s abuse has “fueled and egged on” threats against her.

President Donald Trump thinks it’s possible that, some time in the past year or so, his political enemies planted damaging information about him in Jeffrey Epstein case files.

Following the latest release of Epstein-related records, Trump on Friday was asked about the possible publication of more such files.

The president floated a wild theory.

“If they had anything, they would have used it before the election, OK?” Trump said, evidently referring to Democrats. “I can’t tell you what they put in since the election, but if they had anything, you don’t think they would have used it before the election?”

This week, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 pages of documents obtained from Epstein’s estate, including private emails mentioning Trump. In one such message, the disgraced financier suggested Trump “knew about the girls” he had trafficked. The recent dump followed the committee’s release of tens of thousands of pages of Epstein-related documents in September.

Friday was not the first time Trump or his allies have baselessly claimed that Democrats fabricated Epstein documents. “I can imagine what they put into files,” the president said in July, as the controversy was gaining steam.

And in September, when the House Oversight Committee published Epstein’s 50th birthday book from 2003, featuring a lewd letter from Trump, the White House claimed the subpoenaed document was a fake. MAGA lawmakers joined in on the conspiracy theorizing, with Representative Tim Burchett saying the Biden administration may have forged the letter and somehow gotten it into a decades-old book in possession of the Epstein estate.

Next week—despite Trump’s best........

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