New Iran Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei Issues First Statement Vowing Revenge and Permanent Hormuz Closure

On March 12, 2026 – Day 13 of Operation Epic Fury and four days after being elevated as Iran’s Supreme Leader – Mojtaba Khamenei issued his first public statement as head of the Islamic Republic, delivered via Iranian state media. He did not appear personally in the broadcast; …

ICE Reveals $38.3 Billion Detention Expansion Plan for 92,600-Bed Mega-Center Network

By March 2026, ICE’s plan for a massive detention infrastructure expansion — funded through the “One Big Beautiful Bill” — was receiving sustained public scrutiny. WBUR’s On Point reported on the program on March 9, 2026, and PBS NewsHour covered the …

DOGE Cuts 1,029 More NOAA Employees, Threatening Weather Forecasting and Disaster Response

On March 12, 2026, the Trump administration carried out another round of firings at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, cutting 1,029 employees — approximately 10% of the agency’s remaining workforce — as part of DOGE-directed reductions.

The latest round targeted …

Trump Administration Launches Section 301 Trade Probes to Rebuild Tariff Regime After Supreme Court Defeat

On March 11, 2026, the Trump administration announced new trade investigations targeting China, Mexico, the European Union, and more than a dozen other economies under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, explicitly designed to reconstruct the tariff architecture that the Supreme Court had struck …

Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to End Deportation Protections for 350,000 Haitians

On March 11, 2026, the Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to clear the way for it to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants, seeking emergency relief after an appeals court blocked the termination.

Haiti was first granted TPS in 2010 following a …

Lead Prosecutor in DOJ Criminal Probe of Fed Chair Jerome Powell Replaced

On March 11, 2026, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee disclosed that the lead prosecutor handling the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had been replaced. Bloomberg reported the development as “a potentially notable …

Iran Sets Ceasefire Conditions as China and Russia Launch Diplomatic Intervention

On March 11, 2026, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi publicly confirmed that China, Russia, and France had all reached out to Tehran to discuss the possibility of a ceasefire, marking the first significant multilateral diplomatic intervention since Operation Epic Fury began on …

U.S. Records Sharpest Press Freedom Drop in Americas, Falls from 4th to 11th Place

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) released its annual press freedom index on March 10, 2026, declaring that the previous year had been the worst for freedom of expression in the Americas since the report’s inception in 2020. The United States recorded the steepest decline of any …

Senate Stablecoin Bill Stalls as Democrats Cite Trump Crypto Conflicts of Interest

As of March 10, 2026, Senate negotiations over the GENIUS Act – federal stablecoin regulation legislation – remained stalled, with Democratic senators blocking the bill over its failure to address President Trump’s direct financial conflicts of interest. Senators Elizabeth Warren …

Senate Democrats Demand Public Hearings on Iran War After Closed Briefing Raises Alarms

Following a closed-door Senate Armed Services Committee briefing on Operation Epic Fury on March 10, 2026, Senate Democrats escalated their demands for public accountability on the Iran war — a conflict now in its second week that Congress never authorized.

Sen. Jacky Rosen told reporters that what …

Public Citizen Report Finds Trump Removed More Inspectors General Than All Prior Presidents Combined

A Public Citizen report released in March 2026 documented that President Trump had removed more inspectors general than all other presidents of the United States combined, leaving a critical gap in government accountability and ethics oversight. More than 75% of presidentially appointed inspector …

Hegseth Announces "Most Intense Day of Strikes" on Iran as US Targets Drone Manufacturing

On March 10, 2026 – Day 11 of Operation Epic Fury – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the United States would launch its most intense round of airstrikes against Iran yet, stating: “Today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran: The most …

DOGE Spending Cuts Leave U.S. Government Hollowed Out as Iran War Escalates

A CNN investigation published March 10, 2026 documented how the Department of Government Efficiency’s sweeping cuts to federal agencies had materially degraded the U.S. government’s capacity to function during the Iran war that began on February 28.

Current and former government …

DOJ Releases Additional Epstein Files After NPR Investigation Exposes Withheld Trump-Related Documents

Beginning on March 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice released additional Epstein files following an NPR investigation that exposed the selective withholding of documents related to sexual abuse allegations against President Donald Trump. NPR’s investigation found 53 pages missing from …

DOJ Pursues Retaliatory Investigations of Democratic Officials and Federal Reserve Chair

By March 2026, the Trump Department of Justice had launched an unprecedented series of retaliatory investigations and prosecutions targeting Democratic politicians, federal oversight officials, and the independent Federal Reserve. Protect Democracy’s Retaliatory Action Tracker documented a …

DOJ Public Integrity Section Gutted from 36 to 2 Lawyers, Stripped of Authority to File Cases

By March 9, 2026, reporting confirmed that the Trump administration had effectively dismantled the U.S. Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section – the office created in response to the Watergate scandal specifically to investigate corruption by public officials. The section had …

DOJ Appeals Blocked Executive Orders Targeting Law Firms, Claims Judges "Bent Over Backwards" to Rule Against Trump

The Department of Justice filed appeals with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit around March 9, 2026, seeking to overturn district court rulings that had blocked President Trump’s executive orders targeting four major law firms: Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner and Block, and …

Trump Threatens Legislative Blockade Until Congress Passes SAVE America Voter ID Act

On March 8, 2026, President Trump announced he would refuse to sign any legislation until Congress passed the SAVE America Act, a federal voter ID bill requiring proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote in federal elections. The act had already passed the Republican-led House in February 2026 but …

Legal Challenges Mount Against EPA Repeal of Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding

In March 2026, a coalition of health and environmental groups were pursuing legal challenges against the EPA’s February 12, 2026 repeal of the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding – the legal foundation for all federal climate regulation under the Clean Air Act. The repeal, finalized …

Iran Names Mojtaba Khamenei Supreme Leader After Father Killed in US-Israeli Strike

On March 8, 2026 – ten days into Operation Epic Fury – Iran’s Assembly of Experts convened and elected Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of the slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as the Islamic Republic’s third Supreme Leader. Ali Khamenei had been killed in an Israeli …

War Enters Second Week as Trump Warns Iran "Will Be Hit Very Hard" and U.S. Evacuates Citizens from Middle East

As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran entered its second week on March 7, 2026, President Trump declared that Iran “will be hit very hard” and refused to consider any diplomatic resolution short of what he described as unconditional surrender. The U.S. State Department simultaneously moved to …

Trump Hosts Shield of the Americas Summit at His Own Doral Resort, Launches Military Cartel Coalition

President Trump hosted the Shield of the Americas Summit at Trump National Doral Miami on March 7-8, 2026, gathering leaders from 12 allied Western Hemisphere nations to sign a proclamation launching the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition — a multinational military cooperation initiative committing …

Iran's President Apologizes for Strikes on Neighbors While IRGC Continues Independent Military Operations, Revealing Leadership Split

On March 7, 2026 — as the Iran war entered its second week — Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian publicly apologized for Iran’s attacks on neighboring countries and announced that Iran would cease striking Gulf states unless those states themselves attacked Iranian territory. “I should …

Trump Demands Iran's "Unconditional Surrender," Refuses Any Negotiated End to War

On March 6, 2026 — the seventh day of Operation Epic Fury — President Trump posted on social media that “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” The declaration escalated the administration’s stated war aims from the four military objectives announced at …

Post-Firing Analysis Details Five Major Controversies That Ended Noem's DHS Tenure

In the immediate aftermath of Kristi Noem’s dismissal as DHS Secretary on March 5, 2026, reporting from Axios and the Washington Post catalogued the overlapping controversies that defined her 13-month tenure and accelerated her removal — providing a consolidated portrait of institutional …

DOJ Public Integrity Section Collapses to Two Lawyers, Gutting Federal Anti-Corruption Enforcement

By March 2026, the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section – the unit created after Watergate specifically to prosecute corruption by government officials at all levels – had been reduced from 36 full-time lawyers to just two. NOTUS reported the collapse in detail, noting …

DOJ and FBI National Security Divisions Decimated by Purges as U.S. Confronts Iran War

A March 6, 2026 Washington Post investigation documented the severe degradation of the DOJ’s and FBI’s national security capabilities at the precise moment the United States was confronting a shooting war with Iran. The reporting found that many offices within the DOJ’s National …

Trump Fires DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Names Sen. Markwayne Mullin as Replacement

President Donald Trump announced on March 5, 2026 that he was dismissing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, making her the first Cabinet secretary removed in his second term. Trump announced that Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) would replace her, effective March 31, 2026. Noem …

Iran Secretly Contacts CIA to Discuss End of War; Trump Says It Is "Too Late" for Talks

On March 5, 2026, reports emerged that operatives from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence had quietly reached out, indirectly, to the Central Intelligence Agency with an offer to discuss terms for ending the conflict. The contact was delivered through a third country’s intelligence service. …

DOJ Releases Previously Withheld Epstein Files Containing Sexual Assault Allegations Against Trump

The Department of Justice released more than 1,000 previously withheld pages from the Epstein files on March 5-6, 2026, following an NPR investigation that revealed dozens of pages had been suppressed. The newly released documents included summaries of three FBI interviews conducted in 2019 with a …

Trump Publicly Champions Crypto Industry in Stablecoin Battle While Family Firm Profits from Same Rules

On March 3-4, 2026, President Trump publicly attacked the banking industry for opposing the stablecoin yield provisions in the Clarity Act, companion legislation to the GENIUS Act. Trump declared: “The GENIUS Act is being threatened and undermined by the Banks, and that is unacceptable.” …

Treasury, State, and HHS Begin Phasing Out Anthropic Products Following Trump Executive Directive

Following President Trump’s executive directive accompanying the Department of Defense’s national security supply-chain designation of Anthropic, multiple civilian federal agencies began formally announcing plans to phase out Anthropic products in the first days of March 2026. The …

Senate Formally Defeats Iran War Powers Resolution 47-53, Ceding War Authority to Trump

On March 4, 2026, the U.S. Senate voted 47-53 to reject a War Powers Resolution that would have required President Trump to seek congressional authorization before continuing military strikes on Iran. The resolution was introduced by Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and co-sponsored by 26 colleagues …

Pentagon Uses Banned Anthropic Claude to Select 1,000+ Iran Strike Targets While Simultaneously Blacklisting the Company

Reporting published on March 4-5, 2026 revealed that the U.S. military had been using Anthropic’s Claude AI — embedded in Palantir’s Maven Smart System on classified networks — to generate and prioritize strike targets in the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran that began on …

Pentagon Formally Designates Anthropic a National Security Supply-Chain Risk, First US Company So Labeled

On March 4, 2026, the Department of Defense formally notified Anthropic via letter that the company and its products had been officially designated a “supply-chain risk to America’s national security.” The designation, typically reserved for foreign adversaries such as Huawei and …

OPM Data Confirms Federal Workforce Shrunk 12% Under DOGE, 386,000 Positions Eliminated

On March 4, 2026, newly released data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management confirmed that the federal civilian workforce had shrunk by 12% between September 2024 and January 2026 — a net reduction of 277,872 employees, from a headcount of 2,313,216 to 2,035,344. The figure represented the …

House Rejects Iran War Powers Resolution 212-219, Completing Congress's Abdication of War Authority

On March 4, 2026, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted 212-219 to reject a War Powers Resolution that would have required the Trump administration to seek congressional approval before continuing military operations against Iran. The narrow margin — a seven-vote spread — underscored the …

White House Offers Shifting, Contradictory Rationales for Iran War as Intelligence Contradicts Claims

As US bombs fell on Iran beginning February 28, 2026, Trump and his senior officials offered a cascade of justifications that shifted, contradicted each other, and in several cases were directly contradicted by the administration’s own intelligence assessments.

The pre-strike justification …

Senate War Powers Resolution on Iran Fails as Republicans Defend Trump's Unauthorized War

On March 3, 2026, the Senate voted on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution introduced by Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and co-led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA). The resolution, which had been introduced on January 29, 2026 - weeks before the strikes began - sought …

Senate Republicans Block Four Democratic Resolutions Condemning Trump Foreign Emoluments and Crypto Conflicts

In early March 2026, Senate Democrats brought four resolutions to the floor addressing President Trump’s financial conflicts of interest, all of which were blocked by Senate Republicans via unanimous consent objections. The four resolutions collectively covered the major categories of foreign …

Kash Patel Fires FBI Counterintelligence Unit That Tracked Iran, Days Before U.S. Strikes

FBI Director Kash Patel fired approximately a dozen agents and staff members from the bureau’s CI-12 counterintelligence unit – a squad whose work included monitoring Iranian threats to U.S. national security – just days before the United States launched strikes against Iran. The …

Operation Epic Fury - US and Israel Launch Massive Military Strikes on Iran

On February 28, 2026, President Trump authorized the launch of Operation Epic Fury, a massive coordinated US-Israeli military campaign targeting Iran without congressional authorization. Codenamed Operation Roaring Lion by Israel, the strikes commenced with simultaneous attacks on Tehran, Isfahan, …

Evangelical End-Times Theology Shapes Trump's Iran War Decision as Hagee and Huckabee Push Biblical Case for Strikes

As Operation Epic Fury launched on February 28, 2026, reporting and advocacy group statements documented the extent to which evangelical end-times theology — not solely geopolitical calculation — had shaped the decision to strike Iran. The convergence was visible across multiple layers of the …

US Catholic Bishops Call Trump Birthright Citizenship Order "Affront to Catholic Teaching," File SCOTUS Brief

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in late February 2026 arguing that Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants violates not only the Fourteenth Amendment but Catholic teaching on the …

Trump Blacklists Anthropic, Designates AI Company a Supply Chain Risk to National Security

On February 27, 2026, President Donald Trump issued a directive ordering all United States government agencies to “immediately cease” using technology from Anthropic, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth formally designated the AI company a “Supply-Chain Risk to National …

Witkoff and Kushner Lead Iran Nuclear Talks While Holding Massive Gulf State Financial Conflicts

On February 26, 2026, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff represented the United States in the third round of Iran nuclear talks in Geneva, Switzerland - both carrying staggering undisclosed financial entanglements with the very Gulf states whose economic interests were directly at stake in any Iran …

White House Circulates Draft Emergency Order to Seize Control of Federal Elections

Anti-voting activists who claim to be coordinating with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would allow President Trump to declare a national emergency and seize sweeping control over federal elections ahead of the 2026 midterms. The draft order, dated April 12, 2025 …

US-Denmark Announce "Greenland Victory" Defense Cooperation Deal with Mining Rights and Military Access

The United States and Denmark formally announced a sweeping defense cooperation agreement on February 26, 2026, centering on Greenland and rebranded by the Trump administration as “Greenland Victory.” The agreement was structured as a defense modernization and resource cooperation deal …

Fired Inspectors General Testify to Congress That Trump Administration Dismantled Federal Oversight Ecosystem

On February 25, 2026, a former Inspector General for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management testified before a congressional committee that the Trump administration had systematically dismantled the institutional infrastructure of federal oversight — firing dozens of IGs without legally required …

Bloomberg Op-Ed Documents White Christian Nationalism Driving US Foreign Policy

A Bloomberg Opinion column published February 25 documented how Trump administration foreign policy decisions reflect a framework shaped by race and White Christian nationalism, examining patterns across diplomatic appointments, aid priorities, and rhetoric toward different nations and populations. …