Posted on June 16, 2026 by John Hinderaker in Crime, Terrorism

Plot Against Freedom 250 Event Foiled

The FBI has announced multiple arrests in connection with an alleged terrorist plot against the UFC Freedom 250 event held at the White House Sunday evening:

The plot to attack the White House’s UFC Freedom 250 event Sunday involved at least 12 suspects across the US who adhered to an “accelerationist” ideology and hoped to bring down American capitalism, according to federal law enforcement sources.
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The suspects are in at least four states — California, Ohio, Missouri and Nebraska.They were plotting to gather in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to launch an explosive drone attack on the White House and surrounding buildings — and then attempt to storm the gates of the White House, according to sources.

Explosive drones bring terrorism up to date, I suppose. It isn’t clear how serious a plot this was. The linked Post story says it was uncovered when “a parent of one kid in the [Signal] messaging platform reporting it to the police….” And one suspect “was allegedly plotting the attack while in a mental health facility.”

The ideology of the group is apparently confused. They are described as subscribers to “far-right ‘accelerationist’ ideology,” but also:

Investigators learned that their aim was to take out “capitalist elites,” “billionaires” and politicians who received money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee….

Which is far left. This may or may not shed more light:


More to come, no doubt. One of these days there will be a terrorist attack carried out by people who are not goofballs. It remains to be seen whether our intelligence will be good enough to thwart it, or not.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Illegal immigration, Law Enforcement, Minnesota, Trump administration

Waiting for the man

I am at the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis awaiting a press conference with United States Attorney Dan Rosen and the Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations Michael McCarthy. We have been advised that they will announce charges against several defendants for conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers and related charges arising from the efforts of members from two Minneapolis-based Antifa groups in violent oppostion to immigration law enforcement during Operation Metro Surge. That’s what the press release says. According to the Department of Justice, the press conference is to be live streamed here at 11:00 a.m. (Central): dhs.gov/live.

I observed repeatedly during Metro Surge that the resisitance was highly organized and likely illegal. It was obvious. The press conference will include a Power Point presentation that should be informativea, although I would like to see the indictment. I hope to return with more information of the good news variety after the press conference.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Iran, Trump Foreign Policy

Memo to file

This is the last in my series of posts this morning on the memorandum of understanding the Trump administration has reached with Iran. The administration has not yet entrusted us with a look at it. If it were impressive, it would have been made public.

In an appearance on CNN yesterday, Vice President Vance described the memorandum as “a very general document” with specifics of the deal to be worked out during further negotiations. “The MOU…is about a page and half so it is a very general document,” Vance said on CNN. “On a number of issues, we are going to have to figure this stuff out during the technical negotiation phase.”

The technical phase is the 60-day extension of the ceasfire that plays to the Iranian regime’s strength in delay. That is my technical interpretatation of the technical phase.

Given the administration’s nondisclosure of the memorandum text, I’ve been looking for hints of its quality, as in “Waiting for memo.” Here are a few more.

First, Vice President Vance is out selling the arrangement reflected in the memorandum and related understandings in unbelievable terms. His selling of the MOU is profoundly unimpressive.

Second, key officials who know the terms of the arrangement have to my knowledge remained silent. They include Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio as well as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. If all were really right with the arrangement, Rubio would be out there leading the charge along with Vance. We would also be hearing from Hegseth. Their silence is untenable.

Third, CIA Director John Ratcliffe reportedly has a realistic view of the regime’s intentions. He has not joined Vance in fantasyland: “Ratcliffe told President Trump and other senior officials that evidence gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies raises serious doubts about Iran’s willingness to make the nuclear concessions the U.S. is seeking in any final deal, according to three sources familiar with those discussions.” On the other hand, we have Vance’s “cool” world.

Fourth, in Tablet’s daily Scroll of June 15, Park MacDougald reviews the administration’s talking points in favor of the arrangement with the Iranian regime as distributed by the White House in a memo to media surrogates. The memo lists five “message points.” Here they are, with MacDougald’s commentary in parentheses:

1. “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.” (Quote from the preamble of the JCPOA: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire any nuclear weapons.”)

2. “President Trump ended the fighting on every front, including Lebanon. No more forever war.” (The framing of the Israeli war against Hezbollah, which involves no U.S. troops or personnel, as a “forever war” is an admittedly creative way of selling our decision to cave to Iranian demands that we protect Hezbollah as a down payment on negotiations.)

3. “The Strait of Hormuz is open again, free of charge.” (Arguable, given that Iran’s Foreign Ministry is now talking about charging ships “fees”—not tolls!—and also funny, insofar as the administration is selling a return to the status quo ante as an achievement of the war.)

4. “Iran’s rewards come from its own unfrozen money, not from American taxpayers, and only after it performs.” (From “Fact Sheet: 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal: Correcting Misconceptions,” published by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: “Misconception: The Iran deal included a U.S. payment of $150 billion to Iran. The Facts: “The money that Iran receives from complying with the agreement is not a direct payment from the U.S. government. Instead, the funds are Iranian foreign assets, which the international sanctions regime prevented Iran from accessing. Under the JCPOA, these nuclear-related sanctions were waived after Iran verifiably completed its initial obligations.”)

5. “Obama never even got a signed document. President Trump did, from strength, after dismantling Iran’s program.” (A “signed document”? Who cares?)

Until such time as the administration entrusts the American public with a view of the memorandum of understanding, you be the judge.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Iran, J D Vance, Trump Foreign Policy

The closing continues

This is the second in a series of posts this morning on the memorandum of understanding the Trump administration has reached with Iran. Vice President Vance is out selling it in a mode that recalls the “Always Be Closing” message conveyed by Nick to the desperate real estate salesmen in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. In a “you have got to be kidding me” appearance on CNN yesterday, Vance argued that the Iranian regime is turning over a new leaf. It’s “the coolest thing.” You be the judge.

Quotable quote: “The coolest thing we’ve made about the progress we’ve made over the last few weeks…”

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Iran, Trump Foreign Policy

Keane versus Vance

Jack Keane is the retired four-star General, former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army and chairman of the Institute for the Study of War. He is smart and well-informed. He appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show following Vice President Vance’s “always be closing” turn in the previous segments. I think that General Keane has bent over backward to give the administration the benefit of the doubt about the unseen “deal,” but he found Vance’s vacuities tough to stomach.

Hannity is possessed by a powerful will to believe. But but but, he pushed back against Keane, Vance said if the Iranians “don’t abide, they get nothing out of the deal, and then I would imagine we go back to where we were last week.” What about that?

Keane said: “I want to believe that, but if you have a reliable high-level administration source saying, ‘We’re not going to get rid of the dust. We’re gonna downblend it,’” Keane replied. He continued:

And they’re not going to take centrifuges out, and they’re not going to take the cascades out, which means you can have weapons-grade. And there’s going to be a moratorium in terms of, you can’t have a nuclear deal for 10, or 20 years, similar to the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action].

And the funding is real. There’s $300 billion investment fund. Who cares where the money comes from [contrary to the vacuous point Vance had argued]? If it doesn’t come from the United States, I get that. Of course it shouldn’t. But it shouldn’t come from anybody. I mean, when we recovered Germany and Japan, the Nazis weren’t in charge, the Japanese imperialists weren’t in charge. Here, the Iranians are in charge. The killers and thugs are still in charge. We don’t give them that money because what are they going to do with it? They’re going to recover everything we have taken away from them. Who cares whether it’s coming from the Arabs or Qataris or whatever. They don’t get it. They shouldn’t get any of it. That’s just the reality of it. They’re going to take that money and recover everything. And you know that, Sean. You know that you can’t trust these people.

Below is a brief clip with General Keane’s concluding comment. Fox News has posted the entire segment here. I have borrowed the transcription of General Keane’s comments above from Mediaite. More on the $300 billion fund here in David Ignatius’s Washington Post column.

Posted on June 15, 2026 by John Hinderaker in Gavin Newsom, Trump Justice Department

Newsom: Investigated for What?

In an unusual move, Gavin Newsom has publicly announced that he is being investigated by federal law enforcement. Newsom made the announcement on Twitter (liberals may hate it, but if you want people to see your announcement, BlueSky will hardly do). Notably missing from Newsom’s anti-Trump spiel was any suggestion as to what he supposedly is being investigated for:


The Department of Justice hasn’t confirmed whether Newsom is or is not being investigated, let alone for what. So maybe Gavin made the whole thing up, to boost his credibility with Democrats amid sagging poll numbers.

More likely, though, there is something to it. But what?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) claimed Monday that President Donald Trump directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate him and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, but multiple reporters say the federal probe predates Trump’s return to office.
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Despite Newsom’s claims, award-winning journalist Adam Housley said the investigation began during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Housley said the investigation consists of multiple components and has connections to California’s Napa Valley. According to Housley, the matter was initially handled by agents from the FBI’s Sacramento field office before being transferred to the bureau’s San Francisco office.

“The investigation has multiple arms. Some of it connected here in the Napa Valley,” Housley wrote. “It was first handled by agents from the Sacramento FBI, and I was told it was taken over by the San Francisco office.”

Separately, Shelby Talcott, a White House Correspondent for Semafor, reported that a source familiar with the matter described “several investigations” involving Newsom. According to Talcott, the inquiries are focused on Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s taxes and Newsom’s chief of staff. She further reported that the investigations originated in Sacramento and involve whistleblowers.

I have no idea whether Newsom and his wife are being investigated, or if so, by whom or for what. But I don’t take Newsom’s effort to get ahead of the story and turn it into a story about President Trump as evidence of innocence.

Posted on by John Hinderaker in Democrats, Liberals

A Liberal Legacy

An actress dies, and this is how her family remembers her:

What a legacy! Liberals are haters, with perhaps a few honorable exceptions, and hating Trump is what passes for both religion and philosophy for most of them. It is sad, but also dangerous. I don’t think we have seen anything like it in our history, until now.