Feds Drop Case After Border Patrol Bragged About Shooting Defendant

Federal prosecutors are seeking to dismiss charges against a woman shot by Border Patrol last month.

Marimar Martinez and her co-defendant, Anthony Ruiz, were charged with impeding a federal officer with a deadly weapon when her car collided with a Border Patrol vehicle in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood on October 4. But Martinez has argued the opposite: Border Patrol agent Charles Exum crashed into her car, and then shot her.

On Thursday, prosecutors moved to dismiss the charges just before a new hearing in federal court, where Martinez and Ruiz’s attorneys were going to reveal new text messages from Exum that have not yet been made public. Exum has already gotten in trouble for Signal texts bragging about the shooting to his fellow agents, saying, “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” Exum also sent a news article to another recipient saying, “Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes.”

The move to dismiss charges suggests damaging material was going to be revealed in the new texts. Already, the facts in the case reflected poorly on Exum, as he quickly drove his government-issued Chevrolet Tahoe to a Border Patrol mechanic in Maine for repairs before any investigation could examine the damage. Also, video from the incident allegedly shows Exum saying, “Do something, bitch,” before getting out of his car and shooting Martinez.

President Trump’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” ostensibly to enforce immigration law, has resulted in brutality against protesters and multiple court rulings against Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino left Chicago after being rebuked by a federal judge for using tear gas and other riot-prevention methods against protesters.

Martinez was a victim of this half-baked operation, along with countless immigrants in Chicago. But the White House is doing the same thing in other cities across the U.S., such as Charlotte, North Carolina. How will the government be held accountable?

President Trump is so devoted to protecting the artificial intelligence industry that he is preparing to sign an executive order attacking states’ rights to regulate it.

The order would direct the Justice Department to sue states that pass AI regulation laws. It would also have Attorney General Pam Bondi create an “AI Litigation Task Force” to “challenge state AI laws, including on grounds that such laws unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by existing federal regulations, or are otherwise unlawful.” The order would also have the Commerce Department withholding federal funding from states that didn’t fall in line with Trump on AI.

Trump could issue the executive order as soon as Friday, according to reports.

This summer, the Senate voted overwhelmingly against an effort to restrict AI regulation on the state level. Many of Trump’s own party members disagreed with the legislation on the grounds that it would protect an industry that may cut jobs, hurt children, and drive up utility prices. Those same issues—along with the erosion of states’ rights at the center of the effort—are still prevalent.

“There should not be a moratorium on states rights for AI,” MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X Thursday. “States must retain the right to regulate and make laws on AI and anything else for the benefit of their state. Federalism must be preserved.”

MTG is unfortunately correct here. States should play a large role in determining the extent to which they want AI active within their borders. Trump using an executive order with the Justice and Commerce departments to prioritize AI companies over real people feels like a shrewd, neoliberal move—not very small government or antifederalist for a Republican president.

“Preemption is a question for Congress, which they have considered and rejected, and should continue to reject,” Center for Democracy and Technology director Travis Hall told The Washington Post. “This proposal is shocking in its disregard for the democratic processes of state governments in their work to address the real and documented harms arising from AI tools.”

Even the top military lawyer for the command overseeing President Donald Trump’s strikes on alleged “drug boats” thought they were illegal—but the Pentagon ignored him.

Senior government officials reportedly dismissed legal concerns raised by the senior judge advocate general at the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, who warned against the Trump administration’s plan to bomb foreign vessels the government claims are transporting drugs. He warned that the strikes could be considered extrajudicial killings, according to two senior U.S. officials, two senior congressional aides, and two former senior U.S. officials who spoke with NBC News.

Among those senior officials were members of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the six sources said.

Three people familiar with the matter identified the senior judge advocate general as Marine Col. Paul Meagher, who is the top lawyer overseeing command for military operations in the Caribbean.

In a statement to NBC News, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell denied that anyone had “raised concerns to any attorneys in the chain of command regarding the legality of the strikes conducted thus far.”

Historically, the U.S. would use intelligence to stop vessels that could be involved in drug trafficking, and then board and search them. But starting in September, Trump has opted to just blow them up, killing dozens of crew members, violating international law, and costing the U.S. valuable intelligence allies.

The Trump administration has claimed that its military strikes on these foreign vessels have targeted “unlawful combatants” engaged in an “armed conflict.” But a closer look at some of the men killed in these strikes revealed that they were not so-called “narco-terrorists” or members of criminal gangs or cartels. Crucially, they weren’t all smuggling drugs. Those that were were smuggling cocaine, not synthetic opioids responsible for killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is meeting with President Trump at the White House on Friday, where he plans to discuss how New Yorkers are struggling to afford to live in their city.

Mamdani spoke to MS NOW’s Chris Hayes Wednesday night, saying that his office reached out to the president “because of a commitment that I made to New Yorkers that I would be willing to meet with anyone and everyone so long as it was to the benefit of eight and a half million people who call the city home and their struggle to afford the most expensive city in the United States.”

“I want to just speak plainly to the president about what it means to actually stand up for New Yorkers and the way in which New Yorkers are struggling to afford this city,” Mamdani added. “Frankly, cost of living is something that I heard time and time again from New Yorkers about why they voted for Donald Trump.”

A few days after Trump won the presidential election in 2024, Mamdani, then a New York state assemblyman, took to New York’s streets to ask people why they voted for Trump. What he found was that they were upset with politics, angry about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and feeling squeezed by the city’s high cost of living.

One year later, Mamdani defeated a well-funded opponent, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, to be elected mayor, despite facing multiple attacks on his agenda of affordability and policy items such as free city buses and childcare. Right-wing figures, including Cuomo, made bigoted remarks about Mamdani’s Muslim faith and support for Palestine.

Trump was no exception, urging New Yorkers to vote for Cuomo and continuously calling Mamdani a Communist, even in his announcement on Truth Social of Friday’s meeting. What happens in that meeting will preview how Mamdani will handle a president who has already sent the National Guard into cities he doesn’t like and threatened to revoke all federal funding to New York.

Donald Trump was reportedly still in contact with Jeffrey Epstein as he ascended to public office.

Trump has claimed he cut off contact with Epstein after the financier was convicted in 2009 for soliciting underage prostitutes, referring to Epstein as a “creep.” But he rang his old “pal” in 2016, shortly after he won the presidential election, according to one of the sex trafficker’s closest confidants.

“After the election—you know I used to speak to Jeffrey regularly—and one of the calls we spoke, Jeffrey told me that Trump, it was after the election that Trump called him,” Epstein’s brother Mark told CNN Wednesday.

“And it was sort of like, can you believe this? Because nobody believed Trump was going to win. Trump was very surprised himself that he won, so Jeffrey said he called him like, ‘Can you believe this?’” Epstein continued, specifying that Trump had called his brother and not the other way around.

Trump and Epstein were friends for decades before their relationship reportedly dissolved over a real estate dispute in Palm Beach, Florida. Prior to his death, the child rapist described himself as one of Trump’s “closest friends.” The socialites were named and photographed together on several occasions and were caught partying with underage girls in New Jersey casinos. Epstein was invited to attend Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples in 1993, and in 2002, Trump told New York magazine that Epstein was a “terrific guy.”

“He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump told the magazine at the time.

But the pair weren’t always simpatico, especially in the years leading up to Epstein’s death. In the same interview with CNN, Mark Epstein recalled a documented conversation between his brother and former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon, in which the New York financier said he “stopped hanging out with Trump when he realized Trump was a crook.”

“That’s a direct quote from Jeffrey,” Epstein told the network.

Bannon assisted Epstein in navigating the political and legal quagmire that was the last year of his life. As part of that, Bannon conducted a series of interviews with Epstein between 2018 and early 2019, totaling about 15 hours of unseen footage.

“Crook” wasn’t the only bad word that Epstein shared about his longtime friend. In a 2017 exchange with Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary and president of Harvard University, Epstein said that Trump was “dangerous” and was one of the worst people he’d ever met. “Not one decent cell in his body,” Epstein wrote to Summers.