Chinese academics at top U.S. schools and labs were part of CCP’s infamous Thousand Talents Program - Jerry Dunleavy

 

by Jerry Dunleavy

The CCP's notorious Thousand Talents Program is designed to acquire and U.S. proprietary information to China. A number of U.S. colleges have brought in Chinese academics linked to the program.

 

A recent oversight report highlighted significant worries that some of America’s most elite colleges and labs have been “infiltrated” by Chinese academics who are affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party’s infamous “Thousand Talents Program” which has historically been used to steal U.S. technological and scientific know-how for the benefit of China.

A conservative non-profit watchdog group, the American Accountability Foundation, reported that it found nearly two dozen Chinese academics working at elite U.S. schools and labs “who because of the dual-use threat of their research, close ties to the military research sector in China, and/or clear ties to the Chinese Communist Party should be expelled from the United States or never be re-admitted."

Multiple Chinese students with links to the CCP’s "talents programs" — the most prominent of which is the Thousand Talents — appeared in the AAF report as attending top U.S. colleges.

The Chinese government’s since-deleted website for its Thousand Talents Program said its leadership working group was “composed of” the Central Committee of the CCP, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, among other Chinese entities, all showing the CCP’s control over the program.

U.S. taxpayers funding projects that pose security risks to U.S.

The new AAF research document — titled "Chinese Scientist Infiltration Threat Assessments" — says that Chinese students working at some of America’s top colleges, often receiving U.S. federal funding (some of it from the Pentagon) to conduct research into advanced technologies have troubling backgrounds which could pose a risk to U.S. national security.

The American universities in question, which have brought on Chinese scientists with ties to the Thousand Talents Program — Cornell University, Purdue University, Penn State University, the University of Wisconsin, and Carnegie Mellon — did not respond to emailed requests for comment from Just the News. None of the Chinese academics responded to requests for comment either.

Xi calls CCP’s Thousand Talents Program part of United Front "magic weapon"

The Thousand Talents Program was also explicitly named as being part of the United Front Work Department by the program’s since-defunct website. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said that “the United Front is an important magic weapon for the party to defeat the enemy.”

The DOJ in 2020 stated that “China’s Thousand Talents Plan is one of the most prominent Chinese talent recruitment plans that are designed to attract, recruit, and cultivate high-level scientific talent in furtherance of China’s scientific development, economic prosperity and national security” and that “these talent programs seek to lure Chinese overseas talent and foreign experts to bring their knowledge and experience to China and reward individuals for stealing proprietary information.”

Harvard professor Charles Lieber, who was found guilty in December 2021 on federal charges related to concealing his ties to the Wuhan University of Technology and the Chinese government’s Thousand Talents Program while receiving U.S. government funding. Lieber was sentenced to time served, along with two years of supervised release with six months of home confinement. The former Harvard professor went on to join Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School in 2025.

The House Select Committee on the CCP warned in its “CCP on the Quad” report in 2024 that “China’s Thousand Talents Plan is well known, but it is just one of hundreds of talent programs developed by the PRC to acquire cutting-edge technology and knowledge from abroad.”

“Talent recruitment is also a critical ingredient of the CCP’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy—a plan to redirect ostensibly civilian research into military applications. Military-Civil Fusion is a foundational component of Xi’s ongoing effort to transform the People’s Liberation Army into a ‘world-class military’ by 2049,” the House committee warned. “It includes a strategy to aggressively acquire intellectual property, leverage research in cutting edge technology from private industry, and systematically reorganize the PRC science and technology enterprise to advance military and other national strategic objectives.”

The AAF report also showed that a Chinese scientist had links to the CCP’s similarly named and closely linked Hundred Talents Program.

The Justice Department in 2020 charged Zhengdong Cheng, a Chinese national, for allegedly seeking to defraud NASA and “leverage NASA grant resources to further the research of Chinese institutions.” The DOJ specifically said the Chinese defendant “participated in the PRC’s Hundred Talents Plan.”

The DOJ added: “The Chinese Talent Plans are programs established by the Chinese government to recruit individuals with access to or knowledge of foreign technology or intellectual property. Through these plans the Chinese government has created a significant financial incentive for foreign, talented individuals to transfer international technology and intellectual property to China, licitly or otherwise.”

Cheng entered into a plea agreement with the DOJ and was sentenced to time served.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in 2020 that the Hundred Talents Program was established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1994, and highlighted “the program’s role in facilitating the eventual return of science and technology expertise to China.”

Military-civil fusion projects

The commission said that “the Hundred Talents Program seeks to attract researchers who can contribute to projects furthering military-civil fusion” and that a 2019 guidebook by the Chinese Academy of Sciences about the Hundred Talents Program “noted that priority funding would be available to researchers whose work concerned core technologies associated with China’s strategic priorities like deep space, deep sea, and military-civil fusion.”

The White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing said in 2018 that “China’s talent recruitment strategically complements China’s efforts to target emerging high technology industries” and that the CCP programs “include the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Hundred Talents Plan.”

The Pentagon’s red flag list warning about “Foreign Talent Recruitment Programs that Pose a Threat to National Security Interests” specifically notes both the “Thousand Talents Plan” and “Hundred Talents Plan” among other Chinese government talent programs.

The new report by AAF also pointed out that a Chinese student who had been here in the U.S. had a prior membership in the CCP’s “Chunhui Program.”

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in 2020 that “China’s government runs myriad programs to bring Chinese students and scholars living in the United States back to China temporarily to engage in scientific activities relevant to its economic and military modernization” and that “one prominent program” — the Chunhui Program — “targets high-profile Chinese scholars appointed to teaching positions at prominent universities.”

Yet another Chinese scientist working at an American university had been mentored by the now-former director of Chinese National Office of the Recruitment Program of Global Experts, the AAF report showed. This appears to be just another name for the Thousand Talents Program.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee assessed in 2019 that “the Chinese government has refined its centrally organized foreign talent recruitment plans into a strategy to ‘use talent to strengthen the country’ by targeting the specific technology sectors” and said that the “Recruitment Program of Global Experts” was another name for the Thousand Talents Program.

From Thousand Talents member to Hundred Talents leader — with stint in U.S. in between

The AAF report alleged that “Dr. Yu Zhao posed a high national security risk because his research advances precision biological payload delivery systems that are widely recognized as strategically sensitive” and argued that “this risk is no longer theoretical: Zhao has returned to China and accepted a postdoctoral position under Zhejiang University’s Hundred Talents Program, effectively placing U.S.-derived expertise inside a PRC system designed to absorb and operationalize advanced foreign research.”

Zhao’s LinkedIn profile and Google Scholar page both say he was very recently at Cornell University but that he has since returned to China to work at Zhejiang University. Cornell until recently said Zhao was a postdoctoral associate there, now listing him as a “former member” of the Jiang Lab at Cornell, which says it is “Focusing on Biomaterials and Drug Delivery.” 

Zhejiang now lists Zhao as a “Doctoral Supervisor” and “Hundred Talents Program Researcher” at the school’s College of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Zhao’s current role as a Hundred Talents leader should come as little shock — while studying at a Chinese university years ago, he conducted research funded in part by the “Thousand Talents Program for Young Professionals.”

Neither Zhao nor Cornell responded to a request for comment.

Zhao had also previously worked on research projects funded in part by the National Key Research Development Programs of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Work on biological agents

Zhejiang University now says that Zhao is focused on “precision nano-hybrid biological agents” and “smart nano-vaccines” research there.

The House select committee on the CCP warned in 2025 that “Zhejiang University is not just any Chinese academic institution — it is co-administered by SASTIND, holds classified PRC research credentials, and operates several defense laboratories. It has a documented history of involvement in Military-Civil Fusion projects and has conducted cybersecurity research funded by the Ministry of State Security — China’s internal security and intelligence agency.”

Zhao’s Google Scholar and LinkedIn pages say that he received his PhD at Nankai University prior to his time at Cornell.

Nature Magazine assessed that Nankai University was among “the leading collaborators with People's Liberation Army” and among the “top five domestic collaborators with People's Liberation Army” — the Chinese Academy of Sciences was number one, Peking University was number two, and Nankai University was number three.

“Zhao’s move to Zhejiang University through the Hundred Talents Program, combined with his prior funding from Chinese national science agencies, places him directly within China’s military-civil fusion ecosystem, where such technologies are actively leveraged for state objectives,” the AAF report argued. “His skill set would materially strengthen China’s ability to develop next-generation genetic delivery systems at scale—capabilities the U.S. government explicitly identifies as critical to national security, making the risk of strategic technology transfer both credible and significant.”

Leader of CCP’s “Spring Sunshine” effort allowed to work at advanced U.S. lab

The report by AAF argued that “Peihao Geng’s involvement with the Los Alamos Laboratory, coupled with his current association with a SASTIND-affiliated University, and his role in Chinese overseas recruitment programs, is highly significant from a national security perspective.”

Geng’s online bio says that he is an assistant research professor at Penn State, and the Penn State website lists Geng as an “research associate alumni” at the school’s Materials Processing and Characterization Laboratory. This lab focuses on “thermodynamics and kinetics in materials modeling.” Geng’s research profile says he left Penn State in 2025.

Geng’s profile at the Chinese university says he was an “overseas project leader” for the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Chunhui Program — translated as the “Spring Sunshine” program.

Neither Geng nor Penn State responded to a request for comment.

The National Academies wrote that “the Spring Light Program, which brought Chinese researchers educated abroad back to visit China following the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989, became Ministry of Education policy in 1996.” The National Academies said that “the Chinese government and the CCP established and expanded part-time programs for overseas scholars once it became apparent that these would be more attractive than full-time programs” — leading to the Thousand Talents Program.

The House Select Committee on the CCP said in 2025 that the Chinhui Plan “emphasizes leveraging overseas expertise to support the technological transformation and upgrading of large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises — entities that often serve as pillars of China’s strategic industrial base and are closely tied to national defense, infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing sectors.”

The committee said “this objective underscores the Chunhui Plan’s role in accelerating domestic innovation through the targeted acquisition and application of foreign-developed technologies.”

Geng now appears to currently be an associate professor at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The chairman of the House CCP committee said in 2024 that “Shanghai Jiao Tong University has helped drive China’s military modernization and intelligence capabilities, including by contributing to the development of nuclear weapons, carrier rockets, nuclear submarines, and fighter jets.”

Bill Evanina, the former head of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, warned in 2025 that the Chinese school “has historically been tied to the CCP's intelligence and cyber hacking programs.”

Geng’s research involves advanced practical applications for machine learning.

Penn State touted Geng’s AI research work in 2025, noting it had been funded by the NSF and Energy Department.

Some of Geng’s work at Penn State “was conducted in part at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility” with the project noting that “Los Alamos National Laboratory” operates under an Energy Department contract.

One research project in 2025 on large language models was worked on by Geng and by Penn State professor Jingjing Li through the Penn State lab.

Jingjing Li still helps lead the Penn State lab. Prior versions of her Penn State biography noted that she had graduated from both Beihang University and Tsinghua University.

Li’s research appears to have been funded in part by the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation, among others. Jingjing Li did not respond to a request for comment.

Beihang has been dubbed one of the “Seven Sons of National Defense” by the CCP. The House select committee on the CCP describes the Seven Sons as “leading universities with deep roots in military and defense industry, subordinate to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology” and that the ministry “drives the Party’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy and the integration of civilian industries and cutting-edge technologies into the PRC’s military and security ecosystems.”

The House CCP committee warned in 2025 that Beihang University “adheres to the principle of educating talents for the Party and the nation” and “is guided by the Party’s leadership” while Beihang “emphasizes the central role of the Party's political construction and adheres to Xi Jinping Thought.”

Beihang has been blacklisted by the Pentagon and the Commerce Department for many years.

The House Select Committee on China noted in 2024 that Tsinghua is “co-supervised by the State Administration for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, an arm of the Chinese government … which seeks to leverage these universities for defense purposes.” 

The committee also said that Tsinghua “has a documented history of serving the PRC’s national security and defense apparatus, including involvement in defense research and alleged cyberattacks targeting various international entities.”

The AAF report assessed that “Geng’s research, with dual-use and defense applications, is funded by various military and federal agencies. These facts, along with his association with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, a high-risk institution in China, and China’s overseas scientist recruitment program, raise serious national security concerns.”

Cutting edge researcher previously funded by the Thousand Talents Program

The report by AAF warned that Zebin Li at the University of Wisconsin-Madison “is working on next-gen semiconductors and was a participant in China’s notorious Thousand Talents program focused on recruiting overseas scientific talent for the CCP.”

Li’s prior research received support from the CCP’s Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars and the Thousand Talents Program, as well as from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Ministry of Education, the National Science Foundation of China, and the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality.

The Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars appears to be a progenitor of the Thousand Talents Program that was established by the Chinese Ministry of Education.

The National Academies has said that the Recruitment Program of Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars and the Supporting Scheme for Returned Overseas Chinese Students’ Entrepreneurial Start-ups are amongst “Foreign Talent Programs That May Pose a Threat to the National Security Interests of the United States.”

Li’s Google Scholar page and LinkedIn page say that he is currently a postdoc researcher at the University of Wisconsin, focused on “data analytics for material science and advanced manufacturing.”

Neither Li nor the University of Wisconsin responded to a request for comment.

Li also attended the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems through the Chinese Academy of Sciences as well as Sichuan University.

The House select committee on the CCP in 2024 said the Beijing Institute is a “problematic Chinese institution” and assessed in 2025 that Sichuan University is a “SASTIND-affiliated University.”

Li is currently listed as a postdoctoral researcher at the Mesoscale Computational Modeling Research Group at Wisconsin, and Li’s work at the school receives both U.S. federal funding and Chinese government funding.

“Dr. Li has participated in one of China’s talent programs which are notorious for espionage and intellectual property theft activities,” the AAF argued. “The U.S. cannot allow a high-risk researcher like Dr. Li into the country.”

“Director of Chinese National Office of the Recruitment Program of Global Experts” as a mentor

The report by AAF described Ge Chen as “a Purdue electrical engineering postdoc working on electrical grid technologies whose mentor is a leading CCP official in China and has ties to their defense industry.”

Chen’s GitHub page says that he is currently a postdoctoral research associate at Purdue University. His profile also says that “he completed his PhD in Electric and Computer Engineering in 2023 at the State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City, University of Macau, under the supervision of Prof. Yonghua Song.”

Chen’s named mentor at the Chinese state-run lab — Yonghua Song — had been the “Director of Chinese National Office of the Recruitment Program of Global Experts” according to his biography at the University of Macau, where he is the “rector.”

Song did not respond to a request for comment.

Another biography specifically says that the Chinese recruitment program led by Song was the Thousand Talents Program. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations also said that the name of the recruitment program led by Song is interchangeable with the Thousand Talents Program.

Song “submitted a letter to President Xi Jinping” in 2018, according to the University of Macau, and the university blared that “we’ve received a letter from President Xi!” The university said that Xi replied to Song’s letter “with important instructions through the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.” Song also won a “State Scientific and Technological Progress Award” in 2020 at an award ceremony attended by Xi.

As for the University of Macau itself — which Chen attended under the mentorship of Song — the school has repeatedly touted its role in the CCP’s Thousand Talents Program.

Chen’s biography also says that he received degrees from Xi’an Jiaotong University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

The House select committee on the CCP assessed in 2025 that Xi’an Jiaotong is “co-administered by the State Administration for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense” and that “SASTIND plays a critical role in managing China’s defense R&D outside the PLA, coordinating weapons development, setting technical standards for defense industries, and integrating efforts across provincial and national levels.”

Bethany Allen, ASPI’s head of China investigations and analysis, warned last year about the troubling joint venture between Xi’an Jiaotong University in China and Liverpool University in Britain, with ASPI saying the “findings raise serious questions about research collaboration into sensitive technologies, including those with military applications.”

Allen said that Xi’an Jiaotong is “a leading Chinese defence university that has supplied the Rocket Force of the People’s Liberation Army and is supervised by China’s defence-industry ministry.”

The House CCP committee has also said that Huazhong is a “SASTIND-affiliated University” as well.

The Pentagon has placed the “Defense S&T Key Laboratory of Multi-spectral Information Processing Technology” at Huazhong University on its “list of foreign institutions engaging in problematic activity” as part of the Defense Department’s “important continuing effort in highlighting and countering mechanisms of unwanted technology transfer to foreign countries of concern.”

Chen’s GitHub page says Chen is a “Postdoctoral Research Associate” at Purdue who is “working with Prof. Junjie Qin.”

Qin’s webpage at Purdue says that he is an assistant professor at Purdue’s school of electrical and chemical engineering, and that “I am also affiliated with” the Center for Innovation in Control, Optimization, and Networks” and with the “Advancing Sustainability through Powered Infrastructure for Roadway Electrification” — the latter of which is backed by the NSF.

Qin himself attended Tsinghua University. The House Select Committee on the CCP also warned about Tsinghua in a 2024 report. Neither Chen, Purdue, nor Qin responded to requests for comment.

The Purdue electrical and chemical engineering school where Chen works and which Qin helps lead counts among its partners such U.S. government funders as Naval Sea Systems Command, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Sandia National Laboratories, and others.

The AAF report said that “Chen’s prior history with Chinese defense/intelligence gathering universities, as well as his mentor’s relationship with the CCP made him a high-risk U.S. visa holder” and that he “should never have been allowed access into the country.”

CCP member used U.S. college perch for Hong Kong recruitment

Just the News also previously reported on how Jingao Xu, an expert in drone research technology at Carnegie Mellon University, previously helped lead the CCP chapter on his campus at Tsinghua University in China.

Xu also used his perch at Carnegie Mellon to engage in recruitment efforts seemingly similar to those carried out by members of the Thousand Talents Program, with the Chinese scientist using his U.S. university spot to recruit PhD students to work at Hong Kong University.

“I’m joining the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Hong Kong as a tenure-track Assistant Professor, starting in Spring 2026. I’m actively seeking highly motivated students to join our group at HKU,” Xu wrote.

Neither Xu nor Carnegie Mellon responded to requests for comment.

The Chinese scientist also said in his recruitment pitch that his followers would seek to answer “how can cutting-edge CV/AI advances empower running robots, flying drones, and soaring satellites (NOT just excel on datasets or in simulators)?”

“Note to Prospective Students. Thanks for your interest to join my group,” Xu also wrote in his effort to recruit students to come to Hong Kong. “Our group will work on building mobile systems, with a long-term focus on exploring how cutting-edge CV/AI advances can empower running robots, flying drones, and soaring satellites to operate in the real world, NOT just excel on datasets.”

FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News on Friday that “this FBI, under this leadership, has prioritized the threat against it by the CCP against us, and we've taken swift action.” It remains to be seen to what extent the bureau’s anti-CCP crackdown will extend to U.S. colleges and universities. 

Jerry Dunleavy

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/chinese-academics-top-us-schools-and-labs-were-part-ccps-infamous

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Arab foreign ministers condemn Israel's new West Bank measures - i24 News

by i24 News

Statement warns actions undermine the two-state solution and international law

 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with members of Israeli war cabinet at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, March 22, 2024.David Azagury, US Embassy Jerusalem

 

Foreign ministers from eight countries strongly condemned Israel’s recent measures in the West Bank, saying the steps violate international law and undermine prospects for peace. The statement followed sweeping decisions by Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday to reshape the territory’s civil and land framework.

In a joint declaration, the ministers of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt said they rejected what they called “illegal Israeli decisions and measures aimed at imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty” and entrenching settlement activity in the West Bank. The ministers warned that these policies, in their view, fuel violence and conflict and undermine efforts toward regional stability.

Statement issued by the Foreign Ministers of the Hashemite Kingdom of JordanThe Foreign Ministers of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

 

The condemnation came after Israel’s security cabinet approved a major policy overhaul on Sunday affecting civil, land, and administrative authority in the West Bank. The measures include opening previously confidential land registers to the public, repealing Jordanian-era laws that barred the sale of land to Jews, and expanding civil and law enforcement powers in Areas A and B, officials said. The cabinet also reactivated the Land Acquisition Commission and transferred planning authority over key sites in Hebron from the Palestinian municipality to the Israeli Civil Administration.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised the changes as reinforcing Israel’s presence in the territory, while Defense Minister Israel Katz said they establish a permanent strategic anchor for settlement policy. Critics argue the decisions deepen Israeli control in the West Bank and make land acquisition and settlement expansion easier.

Israeli security cabinet meeting: West Bank and Gaza situation on the agenda

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The Arab foreign ministers stressed that fulfilling what they described as the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood in accordance with international resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative remains, in their words, the only path to achieving just and comprehensive peace, security, and stability in the region.

i24 News

Source: https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/artc-arab-foreign-ministers-condemn-israel-s-west-bank-measures-after-cabinet-decisions

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FBI secretly prepared for disputed election and political violence in 2020, bombshell J6 memos show - John Solomon and Steven Richards

 

by John Solomon and Steven Richards

What did they know, and when did they know it? The memos from 2020 recently turned over to Congress by FBI Director Kash Patel also warned that foreign enemies like Iran and China were likely to foment domestic violence on U.S. soil.

 

The FBI conducted a tabletop exercise in summer 2020 that imagined what sort of violence might ensue in a contested presidential election that year, devising strategies like undercover informants and mass prosecutions for minor crimes that it would later use with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, documents obtained by Just the News show.

FBI Director Kash Patel turned over the long-secret memos to Congress last week, providing fresh evidence that federal law enforcement was acutely concerned for months ahead of time about the potential for violence in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

The memos show the bureau's Boston office led the tabletop exercise and culled open-source intelligence on the potential for violence from both left-leaning anarchists to right-leaning extremists.

“The FBI assesses domestic violent extremist (DVE) threats related to the 2020 elections likely will increase as the election approaches, despite the current focus of many DVEs on the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest,” an August 2020 memo concluded. "'Election-related threats' include but are not limited to those against candidates, campaign events, presidential conventions, party offices, elected officials, voter registration events, and threats or plots related to electoral outcomes," the memo added.

The memos also warned that foreign enemies like Iran and China were likely to foment domestic violence on U.S. soil.

Many left-leaning advocacy groups insisted, with the assistance of legacy media, that the concept of foreign election interference should be dismissed as mere "conspiracy theories" and disregarded, but the memos show the FBI considered it a real possibility.

"As of 15 July 2020, the Governments of the People's Republic of China, Iran, and especially Russia appear to have broadly encouraged illegal activity and violence in the hypothetical event that 2020 Presidential election results are disputed, especially via the use of opportunistic, social media-enabled influence operations," one memo said, citing information from the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

"China and Iran were motivated to interfere with US elections and civil stability by an interest in undermining US democratic processes," it added.

You can read the memos here.

Loudermilk Letter October 30 2025 Production Final 1_Redacted.pdf

The long-secret memos memorializing the exercise were briefly referenced by former FBI Director Christopher Wray in June 2021 testimony before Congress in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, but were only turned over for the first time after a request last year from Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Judiciary's Select Subcommittee on January 6. 

J6 riot could have been avoided

Loudermilk said the memos show the FBI had far more concerns about a disputed election and violence than it acknowledged during the Biden years and yet failed to adequately alert the U.S. Capitol ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 tragedy.

"This document is evidence that Wray’s FBI predicted, as early as September 2020, that an attack on the Capitol was possible," he said. "It also suggests that the FBI infiltrate online chat forums and build a network of Confidential Human Sources (CHS) prior to January 6. It further outlines how the FBI should pursue heavy-handed prosecutions for minor offenses, which Biden’s DOJ carried out quite effectively after the attack."

"We now know, through CHS reports and other intelligence, that the FBI had enough information to not only predict an attack on the Capitol, but to prepare for one," he added. "So why did the FBI not take steps to protect the U.S. Capitol?"

The memo shared a threat assessment exercise conducted by the FBI’s Boston Field Office about the possible threats such violent extremists may play in the case of a disputed election, warning that the growing prevalence of threats towards elected officials in particular, made that outcome more likely.

Of particular concern to the Boston office was the possibility that a contentious election dispute may prime certain violent groups to prepare for future violence, which could be set off by “the next major social upheaval or event.” 

To combat this, the FBI office recommended developing a “robust source base” that would be “embedded” with possibly violent groups in order to provide “early detection and disruption of planning for future events.” 

The office also envisioned a strong law enforcement response to even "minimal criminal activity” as a way to deter any group’s plans for future violent action.  

“A strong and effective law enforcement response to even minimal criminal activity, along with community messaging that violence will not be tolerated, may dissuade those looking to take the next step to violent action,” the field office concluded. 

Biden's agencies used J6 as platform to increase spying and actions against U.S. citizens

These tactics were employed six months later during and in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. After repeatedly refusing to elaborate to Congress how many FBI informants were present in the crowd that day, after-action complaints from FBI agents showed about two dozen informants were embedded in the crowd and that more than 250 agents were deployed to deal with the crowds, Just the News previously reported. 

The thousands of Jan. 6-related prosecutions pursued by the federal government in the aftermath of the riot, with some offenses only amounting to misdemeanor trespassing, were later used by the FBI to inflate the Domestic Violent Extremism threat metrics, used to justify a sweeping expansion of federal law enforcement–later catching up traditional Catholics and parents speaking at school board meetings. 

The Biden White House released its “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” in June 2021, echoing the conclusions of the earlier August 2020 report, but with the Jan. 6 riot in hindsight. 

“The Intelligence Community (IC) assesses that domestic violent extremists (DVEs) who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021,” the Biden-era domestic terrorism document argued, citing the Capitol riot as an example. 

The document never disclosed, however, the key difference between the Capitol riot and other domestic terrorist attacks. Unlike the perpetrators in the previous deadly domestic terrorist attacks, the January 6 rioters did not kill a single person, Just the News previously reported.  

John Solomon and Steven Richards

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/monfbi-secretly-prepared-disputed-2020-election-and-political-violence

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Labor unions are leading the anti-ICE resistance, but they once opposed immigration - Steven Richards

 

by Steven Richards

The vigorous activism against the Trump administration’s enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws is a far cry from the positions once advocated by the nation’s most powerful unions.

 

American unions, once wary of — or even outright hostile — to immigration because of its threat towards American wages and bargaining power, are now at the forefront of the anti-ICE protests opposing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns.

Since President Donald Trump took office last year, several of America’s most prominent unions, like the Service Employees International Union, United Auto Workers, and others under the AFL-CIO umbrella, have opposed deportations of illegal immigrants and other ICE operations through general strikes, protests, and workplace training.

Aligned with left-wing entities

Oftentimes, these unions partner closely with radical leftist organizations to do so, such as the radical Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Marxist People’s Forum, the Revolutionary Communists of America, and local chapters of the Communist Party USA, as Just the News has previously documented. 

Unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella have been instrumental in organizing strikes across the country to protest Trump administration deportation operations. AFL-CIO even provides a tracking map for users to identify workers’ strikes organized by its affiliates. 

The union umbrella has sharply criticized the deportation actions, claiming they put “innocent” workers in danger and also called on ICE to leave Minnesota after the shooting deaths of two individuals that federal authorities say were impeding operations. 

"America's unions join the call for ICE to immediately leave Minnesota before anyone else is hurt or killed. We demand local authorities conduct a full, transparent investigation that will lead to accountability for this tragic and violent act, and for Congress to use its power to hold ICE accountable,” AFL-CIO said in a statement after the second shooting, which left Alex Pretti dead. 

Pretti, a healthcare worker, was a member of the local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO umbrella.

The union group is part of an alliance of union and leftists political organizations that ordered a general workers’ strike in Minneapolis following the shootings, Just the News reported last month. 

The strike was announced by ICE Out Now and was sponsored by many local AFL-CIO affiliates. The plans for the Jan. 23 shutdown, which attracted thousands, included “a unified statewide pause in daily economic activity” including “no work (except emergency services),” “no school,” and “no shopping or consumer spending.”

Affiliated unions, like the SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, have also organized trainings for healthcare workers to “Know-Your-Rights” when dealing with ICE and demand “ICE out of healthcare.”  

Unions: "ICE creating fear, chaos and violence"

“We are facing an unprecedented crisis. Federal ICE agents are creating fear, chaos, and violence in our community and interfering with our ability to care for patients,” one event graphic posted by SEIU reads. 

The “critical and confidential” trainings were described as addressing “what to do if ICE shows up at our facilities, understand our legal rights, and discover how we can force employers to protect us and our patients.” 

SEIU, which is one of the largest unions in the United States and represents employees in the service sector and healthcare sectors, has been at the center of several rounds of anti-ICE protests since last summer. 

Last June, protests erupted in Los Angeles after targeted immigrations raids in the city. SEIU’s California branch president, David Huerta was arrested becasue he alleged blocked a vehicle and he was charged by prosecutors with conspiracy to impede a federal officer. SEIU said in a statement that Huerta was “peacefully bearing witness to a ruthless raid” when he was “assaulted and violently detained by ICE.” 

After the initial demonstrations, which remained peaceful, the anti-ICE protests escalated over the weekend to include more than 1,000 rioters filmed assaulting immigration officers, burning self-driving vehicles, temporarily closing down at least one city highway, and throwing concrete rocks at law enforcement officers, Just the News previously reported. 

Yet, the vigorous activism against the Trump administration’s enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws is a far cry from the positions once advocated by the nation’s most powerful unions, who often viewed illegal immigration as a threat to legal workers’ wages and bargaining power. 

Unions' reversal of policy

“Over its long history, few issues have caused the American labor movement more agony than has the issue of immigration,” Vernon Briggs, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Labor Economics, School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University testified to Congress in 2007, just as the new, pro-immigrant stance of American labor unions was taking shape. 

Organized labor is presented with a dilemma, he said. “If it seeks to place restrictions on immigration as well as to press for serious enforcement of its terms, the labor movement risks alienating itself from those immigrants who do enter (legally or illegally) and do find jobs which may make it difficult to organize them.” 

If, however,  “they support permissive or expansionary immigration admission policies and/or lax enforcement against violators of their terms,” the increasing availability of labor can crowd out the market and undercut economic benefits for existing membership, Briggs said. 

The earliest American unions chose the former. The National Labor Union, one of the earliest labor associations in the United States, lobbied for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which imposed a 10-year ban on immigration from China, specifically targeted at laborers, who American groups believed were undercutting wages. The act was later made permanent by the turn of the century before being repealed during the Second World War. 

By the early 20th Century, the American Federation of Labor (AFL)–which still wields influence today as AFL-CIO–had a decidedly anti-immigration bent in its earliest days under the leadership of founding President Samuel Gompers. 

AFL lobbied for a literacy test for immigrants, and two national bills, the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924 that together imposed the first ceiling on immigration from outside the Western Hemisphere. The history of Gompers’ tenure is still acknowledged by the union today, despite its drastic policy evolution to date. 

Labor hero Chavez fought illegal immigration

In one of the most famous historical cases, the United Farm Workers union, led by labor hero Cesar Chavez, took a firm stance against illegal immigration, blaming it for undercutting the bargaining power of legal migrant and other workers. Often, illegal Mexican workers would be used to break strikes by the UFW, leading Chavez to encourage members to form an informal border patrol force, called wet lines, to attempt to stop Mexcian workers from entering the United States. 

It was the leadership of SEIU’s California branch that is credited with shifting standard position on illegal immigration within the American unions, most especially Eliseo Medina, the current secretary-treasurer of SEIU. 

Medina, who once worked for the illegal immigration-wary UFW, eventually joined SEIU and experienced representing an industry — especially janitors —that was increasingly populated by illegal workers. 

“The vast majority of them were undocumented, but boy, they were just as tough and willing to fight and courageous as any other set of workers,” Medina told TalkingPointsMemo in 2013. “But the situation was a huge problem, because you had to deal with the question on a regular basis of what happens if people get raided, arrested, and deported.”

Medina told the outlet that he began agitating for American labor organizations to revise their longtime opposition to illegal immigration as the percentage of illegal workers in his union’s fastest growing fields increased. The dam eventually broke, and AFL-CIO reversed its long-time opposition, calling for full amnesty for illegal workers by 2000. 

Steven Richards

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/culture/now-leading-anti-ice-resistance-labor-unions-were-once-against-immigration

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The Ruling Class Panic - Stephen Soukup

 

by Stephen Soukup

The Western ruling class is unraveling: elites panic, institutions crumble, and the gap between rulers and the ruled has never been clearer.

 

If you take a close look at some of the major news stories that have captured our collective attention over the last few weeks, you may notice a peculiar pattern.

We’ll start in Minneapolis, with the story that has dominated the headlines for weeks. Although Tom Homan, President Trump’s “border czar,” has deftly negotiated a de-escalation of tensions in the nation’s most aggressive, bizarre, and aggressively bizarre sanctuary city, protests there continue. More to the point, state and local politicians continue to behave as if federal laws are irrelevant and as if they have no responsibility whatsoever to abide by rules that they have decided are unpleasant.

From there, we move to the story that has dominated headlines—off and on—for years. The Justice Department recently released a new trove of documents from the “Epstein Files,” and, to no one’s surprise, the most powerful people in Washington state, Washington DC, London, Cambridge (Massachusetts), and all points in between have been revealed—once again—to be among the most loathsome creatures God ever made. As it turns out, we should be grateful that the worst thing Bill Gates ever gave us was “Clippy” or Windows Vista, given what he, apparently, gave his now-ex-wife.

And speaking of Washington, this past week, The Washington Post, once famous for enabling a jilted bureaucrat to take down an American president, laid off one-third of its staff and fully shuttered its sports section. Peggy Noonan, the onetime speechwriter for presidents who were repeatedly and viciously maligned by the Post, nevertheless lamented the paper’s collapse and lectured the rest of us that we too should mourn the loss of this institution that openly and unabashedly loathed us: “The capital of the most powerful nation on earth appears to be without a vital, fully functioning newspaper to cover it. That isn’t the occasion of jokes, it’s a disaster.” Maybe Noonan is right. Maybe the Post’s collapse isn’t the occasion of jokes. If that’s the case, however, maybe someone should tell the paper’s “journalists,” who seem bound and determined to prove her wrong at every possible opportunity.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, the American Medical Association decided, after much soul-searching, that maybe it’s not a great idea for minor children to lop off various parts of their bodies in vain hope of changing their gender. Less than five years ago, the AMA could hardly control its fury at state legislators who took this same position (that subjecting minors to transgender surgery was a grievous mistake) and railed against “the governmental intrusion into the practice of medicine that is detrimental to the health of transgender and gender-diverse children….” Times change, however, and sometimes science turns out not to be as settled as the righteous scolds would have us believe.

Finally, across the pond, in Europe, the censors have been resurgent of late. Last week, for example, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told the World Government Summit in Dubai that he and his government intend to hold the executives of social media companies liable for the naughty, untrue, or just inconvenient things their users might say on their platforms. Sánchez laid out a five-point plan for fixing the “failed state” of social media and imposing law and order on that lawless ecosystem. Like the rest of Europe’s establishment leaders—from Germany to France to the UK—the Spanish government sees the “unregulated” speech found on social media to be a threat to its ability to govern “effectively.” By week’s end, Sira Rego, the Spanish Minister of Youth and Children, was calling for a flat-out ban on Twitter/X—and not just for kids.

By now, you may be wondering: what, exactly, is peculiar about all these stories? What makes them especially interesting? As I said, you have to look closely. You have to look beyond the superficial, beyond the “who, what, where, when, and why” of journalistic lore. If you do that, if you read them with an eye toward social and cultural forces driving the broader narrative, rather than the specific characters and storylines in each narrow tale, you will notice that they are all, in some very real and relevant ways, the very same story. They all describe, in some form or another, at various stages in the process, the cracking up of the Western ruling class: the self-destruction, the exposure, and the inevitable freakout of the gatekeepers of our society, the men and women who have, for the last century, deigned to rule us and to subject us to their every whim—for our own good, of course.

As I am fond of noting, fifteen years ago, the brilliant and incomparable Angelo Codevilla wrote what came to be seen as the cri de coeur of American neo-populists, those whom he called “the country class.” Since the end of the American Civil War (more or less), the American ruling class has been consolidating its power, setting itself apart from those it rules in taste, manners, and interests, and depriving its “subjects” of the liberty to which they are entitled by their creator. Over the past quarter-century or so, however, the ruling class has overplayed its proverbial hand and has prompted a response, a near-revolution by the country class, which resents the arrogance and insolence of its so-called “betters.” Slowly but surely, both the United States and Western compatriots have been moving toward some sort of revolutionary denouement, as Codevilla noted:

The ruling class wears on its sleeve the view that the rest of Americans are racist, greedy, and above all, stupid. The country class is ever more convinced that our rulers are corrupt, malevolent, and inept. The rulers want the ruled to shut up and obey. The ruled want self-governance. The clash between the two is about which side’s vision of itself and of the other is right and which is wrong. Because each side—especially the ruling class—embodies its views on the issues, concessions by one side to another on any issue tend to discredit that side’s view of itself. One side or the other will prevail. The clash is as sure and momentous as its outcome is unpredictable…

All of the stories above—be they about the recklessness and fecklessness of the neo-Confederates in Minnesota, the neo-totalitarians in Europe, or the pedophile and pedophile-adjacent “elites” in the United States and England—suggest that this denouement is approaching, that the ruling class is, at long last, facing judgment, and is, as a result, panicking. No one “needs” the gatekeepers at The Washington Post any longer to tell us what is and is not “news.” No one believes—as Tim Walz and Pedro Sánchez insist—that demanding national borders is akin to the Holocaust. No one believes that it is sound practice to castrate teenagers or that the doctors who advocated for castration will be forgiven and forgotten. No one believes that Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, and Larry Summers were mere innocent bystanders. No one believes any of what the ruling class insists, and no one believes that they should any longer have the power to manipulate institutions and deny reality to maintain their glorified status.

Western elites speak nobly about “public service,” but they possess almost no public spirit. Plato famously envisioned a republican ruling class that loved knowledge and chose to live the simple life.  By contrast, members of the Western ruling classes today revel in intellectual fads, the advocacy of moral radicalism, and the gratification of all their material desires.  They are, in many ways, the perfect opposite of the ruling class Plato imagined for his Kallipolis.

Of course, as Codevilla noted, our constitutional “republic” is long dead and gone. Our ruling class saw to that. What comes next, however—what comes after the denouement—is still very much in doubt.

Stephen R. Soukup is the Director of The Political Forum Institute and the author of The Dictatorship of Woke Capital (Encounter, 2021, 2023)

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/02/09/the-ruling-class-panic/

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West Virginia worked with ICE — 650 arrests later, officials say Minnesota-style 'chaos' is a choice - Charles Creitz

 

by Charles Creitz

West Virginia AG JB McCuskey contrasts his state's cooperation with Minnesota's 'riots and violence' during federal immigration enforcement

 

 

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A relatively brief, but lucrative ICE surge into West Virginia netted roughly 650 illegal immigrant arrests earlier this month — a two-week, statewide operation officials say unfolded with little disruption and now stands as a counterpoint to the turmoil surrounding similar enforcement efforts in Minnesota.

From Jan. 5 through Jan. 19, federal agents fanned out across the Mountain State — at times working with local law enforcement — targeting illegal immigrants with criminal histories or prior deportation orders, DHS officials told Fox News Digital.

Officials involved contrast the West Virginia operation with recent tensions in Minnesota, where ICE-related enforcement actions have sparked sustained protests, surveillance of federal agents and confrontations with law enforcement.

"I think the most important thing to notice here is that West Virginia and similarly situated states… have made it very, very easy for criminal illegal aliens to be picked up and processed by ICE," West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.

MANY OF AMERICA’S SAFEST CITIES ARE IN JURISDICTIONS THAT COOPERATE WITH ICE

West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey speaks outside the Supreme Court. (Oliver Contreras/Getty Images)

Some of the operations even reached the state’s bluer-tinged Eastern Panhandle, the fast-growing exurb of Washington, D.C., where officials say cooperation, not confrontation, defined the response.

There, Jefferson County Sheriff Thomas Hansen confirmed a two-week operation with ICE in his jurisdiction, which includes Charles Town, Harpers Ferry and Summit Point.

"The (JCSO) was impressed with the professionalism and work ethic of the agents and how well they interacted with the citizens and local law enforcement officers," Hansen said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.

McCuskey said the lack of disruption in West Virginia reflected a cooperative approach that he argued prevented the kind of disorder seen elsewhere.

"When you contrast that with places like Minnesota, where you have Keith Ellison — who's obviously embroiled in a massive fraud scandal involving Somali immigrants, et cetera, what you see is riots and violence," he said.

McCuskey suggested the West Virginia mission shows Minnesota’s leadership can no longer blame federal law for its approach, noting that all states still operate under the same immigration statutes that have remained intact since the Obama administration.

TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION VICTORY IN A MINNESOTA COURT IS A WIN FOR ALL LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS

An ICE agent standing in front of a house in a residential area. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"All God-fearing Americans believe in immigration. We believe that the promise of this country should be available to those who want to come to America the right way, follow our laws, and become great parts of this incredible quilt that is the American experience," McCuskey said.

"And if your first act as a hopeful new American is to break our laws, that trust has been broken."

McCuskey also accused Minnesota’s leadership of failing on parallel issues, calling Ellison "dalliant" in confronting social services fraud.

"My office [oversees] the same things," he said, noting West Virginia also has a high proportion of residents on entitlements but lacks the level of fraud he says plagues Minnesota.

Just across the Potomac River from ICE’s Martinsburg sting, Maryland Democrats lambasted ICE’s presence in Washington County.

ICE REVEALS 'WORST OF THE WORST' ARRESTS IN JUST ONE DAY AFTER ROUNDING UP 'THUGS' CONVICTED OF VILE CRIMES

ICE officers arrested Sagar Singh, an Indian national previously ordered removed, during Operation ICE Wall after he was stopped for failing to clear a mandatory commercial vehicle brake check. (ICE)

McCuskey called that a "representation of the generalized idiocy of most of the Democrats in Congress, who have sat on their hands for the last 25 years and done nothing about the very immigration laws that they're very angry about being enforced."

Ellison, by contrast, showered protesters with praise at a recent public appearance, calling ICE's operations a "federal invasion" and telling those assembled in the Twin Cities that he "wanted you to know that I was here with you, fighting with you, standing with you. Keep fighting, stand up strong, don’t back down."

Fox News Digital reached out to Ellison and Gov. Tim Walz for comment, but neither office responded. DHS officials, however, said they expect states that cooperate with ICE to see similar success to West Virginia.

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said "work[ing] together can make America safe again."

DHS told Fox News Digital of similarly low-profile ICE operations in Alabama, including activity near Birmingham that netted a violent illegal immigrant accused of stabbing a federal agent, along with enforcement actions in other cities reported by local media.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and Sen. Tommy Tuberville told Fox News Digital they will continue to welcome federal agents in the Yellowhammer State, with Tuberville, a candidate for governor, quipping that one mayor who has pledged to protect illegal immigrants "won’t like me very much" if he succeeds Ivey.

Those arrested in the West Virginia sweep included Mexican national Enrique Vergara, convicted of assault with a weapon; Guatemalan national Isaias Santos, convicted of several violent charges; Julian Garza, charged with auto theft; Brayan Canelis-Giron, charged with domestic violence and gun offenses; and Dennis Paz-Vallecillo, convicted of child neglect.

Not every Mountaineer leader was on board, however, as West Virginia Democratic Party Chair Mike Pushkin — a state delegate from Kanawha County — told Fox News Digital people "have to be honest about what’s really going on here."

FROM PROTEST TO FELONY: THE LINES MINNESOTA ANTI-ICE AGITATORS MAY BE CROSSING

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison showered protesters with praise at a recent public appearance, calling ICE's operations a "federal invasion."  (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

"The difference between what you’re seeing in Minnesota and what’s happening in West Virginia isn’t complicated — it’s courage," Pushkin said, crediting Minnesota leaders with standing up to President Donald Trump "trampl[ing] due process and ignor[ing] the Constitution."

"Republican leaders here won’t even clear their throats — and trying to compare the size and scope of the Minnesota operation to what happened here is just silly. That’s like comparing a house fire to a burnt piece of toast and pretending they’re the same emergency," he said.

Pushkin cited a Clinton-appointed judge’s order that some of the detainees be released, including two men picked up on the West Virginia Turnpike.

"In the court’s words, there wasn’t ‘a shred of evidence to justify the government’s position’ — that should be the headline. That should alarm anyone who cares about freedom or the rule of law," Pushkin said.

"Minnesota leaders pushed back. West Virginia’s Republican leadership just clicked their heels, saluted, and fell in line."

HOMAN ANNOUNCES DRAWDOWN OF FEDERAL PRESENCE IN MINNESOTA, HAILS 'UNPRECEDENTED COOPERATION' FROM LOCAL POLICE

Video

Fox News Digital also asked several blue-state leaders about the cooperation contrast but heard back from only one.

A spokeswoman for California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that if the feds truly cared about getting "hardened criminals off our streets, they would pick up every person released from our state prisons that have immigration detainers placed on them."

Diana Crofts-Pelayo said there’s only a one-in-eight rate in that regard, which she said shows the Trump administration just wants to "cause panic and fear to ultimately ensure compliance to a dangerous immigration agenda that threatens Americans’ safety, affordability and freedom."

A California source familiar with the immigration enforcement dynamic there said that immigrants who commit crimes are subject to certain exceptions that do allow local law enforcement cooperation with ICE, particularly those charged with a violent felony.

DHS said cooperation with federal law enforcement is the safest and most effective option for state officials.

"Sanctuary politicians who refuse to cooperate with DHS law enforcement are wasting law enforcement time, energy, and resources, while putting their own constituents in danger," McLaughlin told Fox News Digital, crediting West Virginia officials with allowing such a quick and effective operation and expressing hope that other states would follow suit.

 

Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital. He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant. Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/west-virginia-worked-ice-650-arrests-later-officials-say-minnesota-style-chaos-choice

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US-Iran negotiations could leave Israel vulnerable to attack, experts say - analysis - Amir Bohbot

 

by Amir Bohbot

Israeli defense officials estimate that the entire US-Iran negotiation process is bad for Israel, as it will likely not take Israel's security concerns into account.

 

Senior defense officials are expressing concern about the ongoing talks between Iran and the United States, amid assessments by Iranian experts that Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei does not intend to abandon the nation's nuclear project. 

According to experts, Khamenei views nuclear developments as critical to the regime's survival and will, at most, agree to temporarily pause the development process. What is more, it is not known where Iran's 60% enriched uranium is stored.

Additionally, Iran does not intend to give up its arsenal of ballistic missiles, some of which are aimed at Israel. 

Thus, defense officials estimate that the entire US-Iran negotiation process is bad for Israel, as it will likely not take Israel's security concerns into account.

Currently, there are two options. The first, a "safe haven" agreement, would prevent Israel from attacking Iran.

The second, an "open" agreement, would allow Israel to attack Iran in order to remove threats and maintain security interests. This is reminiscent of the agreement between the Houthis and the US - it left the threat open-ended but gave the IDF freedom to act.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is welcomed by an Omani official upon his arrival in Muscat, Oman, in this handout image obtained on February 6, 2026. (credit: IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY/WANA (WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY)/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)

The latter option appears to be more advantageous for Israel, accounting for the possibility of a breakdown in US-Iran negotiations leading to US military action in Iran. The IDF is prepared for this possibility, among others. 

The IDF is also preparing for a variety of scenarios in which talks break down and Iran uses proxies to harm Israel in a way that would require a military response.

The framework of the negotiations will be revealed in the coming days, at which point it will be possible to understand the extent to which the US military presence in the Middle East realistically deters the Iranian regime.

Netanyahu to meet Trump in Washington to discuss US-Iran talks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump are expected to meet in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the US-Iran nuclear negotiations, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Saturday evening.

“The prime minister believes that any negotiations must include limiting ballistic missiles and ending support for the Iranian axis,” the PMO stated.

Previously, Trump stated that the nuclear talks, which took place on Friday in Muscat, Oman, were “very good” and that US and Iranian officials are “going to meet again early next week,” while speaking with reporters on Air Force One.
 
“They want to make a deal,” Trump said of Iran, adding that, regardless of other terms that may be included in a potential future deal, Iran will be allowed “no nuclear weapons.”

Goldie Katz contributed to this report. 

Amir Bohbot

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-885903

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