The Trump Presidency Timeline

Tom Homan, Trump’s freshly-minted “border czar”, has had a stunning revelation: maybe the ICE officer who allegedly abused multiple ex-wives and then shot and killed 25-year-old Colombian man Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine shouldn’t have been hired with a gun and federal authority. Only took a dead migrant and two ex-wives publicly describing a “persistent pattern of abuse, intimidation, manipulation, fear and control” for anyone in charge to wonder if handing this guy a badge was a bad call.

Homan now wants to know how the vetting process “failed,” asking whether the information “was not available” or if they “did not know”. Fascinating questions to raise after the killing, given that Democrats like Bennie Thompson are pointing out the obvious: if this guy cleared ICE vetting, the vetting is garbage. Meanwhile, this is the second ICE killing in July — the other in Texas, where the “meth” in the van turned out to be a salt mix construction workers used as electrolytes — and neither case has body camera footage. So Homan’s big reform is to finally mandate body cams on vehicle stops, a policy upgrade that lands like installing a smoke detector in a house that’s already burned down.

But don’t worry, we’re told these are “rare instances,” as if that’s comforting when the “rare instances” involve unvetted, allegedly abusive officers killing migrants and then hiding behind missing video, contradictory lab results, and internal investigations that promise, someday, to tell us whether anyone in power should face consequences. The border security apparatus keeps insisting it’s about “law and order,” while the only consistent order is shoot first, paperwork later, accountability never.

Donald Trump, a man who has allegedly written many books but apparently owns no documents, has been told by a US judge that he actually has to hand over real records in the BBC defamation case. The BBC coughed up 87,000 pages in discovery, while Team Trump produced a majestic 735 pages — mostly news clippings and stuff they printed off the internet, which is less a legal production and more a bored intern’s first day with Google.

Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito called the BBC’s requests “oppressive” and “sweeping,” which is MAGA legal code for “they asked for things that might prove something.” He also fought against turning over records about Trump’s conversations with aides over the Capitol riot and whined that subpoenas to former officials were just a “fishing expedition” to “harass” them. Translation: don’t look in the lake, you might find a whole school of crimes.

Instead of producing documents, Trump’s team is clinging to a letter from BBC chairman Samir Shah, who apologized that a Panorama clip may have given the “mistaken impression” that Trump directly called for violence. Brito is trying to spin that into a grand “admission,” as if one carefully worded British letter wipes out everything we saw on January 6th. Meanwhile, the BBC is still asking the court to toss the whole case because the documentary wasn’t even broadcast in the US, which would make this one of the most on-brand Trump lawsuits ever: complain loudly, sue internationally, and then get dragged into discovery about your finances and the coup you keep insisting wasn’t a coup.

After three years, multiple appeals, and enough procedural whining to power a small law school, E Jean Carroll has finally received the $5.6 million a Manhattan jury said Donald Trump owes her for sexually abusing and defaming her. The money was sitting in the court’s registry investment system because both sides agreed that if Trump’s appeals died, the cash would go straight to Carroll. The appeals died. The cash went straight to Carroll. Somewhere in Florida, a gold-plated calculator is weeping.

Trump begged for more time even after the supreme court refused to hear his appeal, because of course he did; delay is the only bill he ever pays on time. Judge Lewis Kaplan responded by doing something almost unheard of in Trumpworld: enforcing the agreement Trump’s own lawyers signed. The court released the funds on 9 July, and Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan politely reminded everyone that a unanimous jury already found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation—facts he continues to deny, in the same way he denies losing elections, grasping reality, or knowing how escrow works.

And this is just the small bill. Carroll also holds an $83.3 million defamation judgment from a separate 2024 trial over things Trump said while he was president, because using the bully pulpit to smear a woman you assaulted is apparently just another day at the office. For a guy who spent his life stiffing contractors, vendors, and lawyers, being forced to actually pay a woman he attacked is a rare plot twist: the con man finally hits a legal wall he can’t bankrupt his way through.

Donald Trump, a man who never met a bill he didn’t try to stiff, is asking a judge to please, please not make him hand over the $5.8m he owes E Jean Carroll from the civil trial where a jury found he sexually abused and defamed her. The money is already sitting in a court-controlled account, gathering 11% interest like a very patient collection agency, but Trump now claims actually releasing it would cause him "irreparable harm"—unlike, say, being sexually abused and then called a liar on national television.

Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan points out that Trump already agreed back in June 2023 that the funds would be released when certain legal milestones were hit, such as the Supreme Court refusing to hear his appeal. That happened on 29 June. Trump’s response? File a rehearing petition on 6 July and insist the agreement magically doesn’t count anymore because he found a new stall tactic between rounds of golf.

His legal team argues that Carroll would suffer only a "temporary delay"—with interest!—while Trump would face "unrecoverable loss" if she donates the money as promised. Translation: the guy who spent four years turning the presidency into a personal ATM is now horrified that money he owes might go to third parties who aren’t named Trump. So he’s asking Judge Lewis Kaplan to either block the payout or at least kick the can a little farther down the road, because the one thing Donald Trump believes should never be final is a verdict against Donald Trump.

Kash Patel, the man Trump decided should run the FBI, is reportedly so desperate for likes that he may have blown through federal law and bureau rules to tweet about a sealed terrorism case. Two days after the White House’s historic "UFC 250" cage match, Patel jumped on social media to brag that five men plotting a drone-and-explosives attack had been "stopped cold" — while agents were still hunting for more suspects and the whole thing was under a court seal. Normally, exposing details of a sealed case is the kind of thing that gets you sanctioned, investigated, or fired. Unless, apparently, you’re the director.

Veteran FBI officials say this isn’t a one-off; it’s a pattern. Patel allegedly pesters agents on conference calls for fresh case details not to, say, solve crimes, but to craft his next heroic tweet. Former counterterrorism official Lauren Anderson describes a director more interested in "what my tweet should look like" than in the actual investigation, with behavior brushing up against unprofessional even by post-2016 standards. Other agencies, like the Secret Service, are reportedly thrilled — deputy director Matt Quinn politely reminded everyone not to "choke on your own smoke," which is DC-speak for "tell your influencer boss to stop leaking our cases."

This is also not Patel’s first performance as America’s least reliable crime reporter. He previously blasted out premature victory laps about suspects in the Charlie Kirk murder and a mass shooting at Brown University, only for those people to be released without charge. You’d think repeatedly misidentifying suspects to millions of followers might cause some introspection, but instead we get custom whiskey bottles and more misconduct allegations. The FBI insists nothing was compromised in the UFC plot case and that no subjects were named before unsealing, which is a bold statement when the core problem is that the director treats sealed investigations like his personal content calendar.

Under normal circumstances, an FBI employee leaking a sealed case for self-promotion would be staring down the Office of Professional Responsibility and possibly a contempt citation from a very annoyed judge. Under Trump’s remake of federal law enforcement, the guy allegedly doing it is the one in charge of discipline. America’s top cop is basically a clout-chasing true-crime podcaster with subpoena power, and the only thing truly sealed in this administration is accountability.

The Supreme Court has quietly told former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page to take his Comey fanfic lawsuit and file it directly in the circular bin. Page was trying to revive a case against James Comey and seven other former FBI officials over the spectacularly sloppy FISA warrants used to spy on him during the Russia investigation. Yes, those warrants were a mess — the DOJ’s own watchdog said so — but the courts pointed out a minor issue: Page waited so long to sue that the statute of limitations basically turned to dust.

The federal government already cut Page a check in a separate settlement, which the Trump administration’s DOJ used as a chance to issue a statement thundering that the whole thing was a “political sham from the get-go” against a man “never charged with a single crime.” Bold words from the same political universe that loved warrantless surveillance right up until it singed one of their own. Once again, FISA — the beloved toy of the national security state — is treated as perfectly fine for mass surveillance of random Americans, but a civil rights tragedy when it lands on a guy who used to sit near the Trump campaign’s craft services table.

Trump, naturally, folded this into his ever-expanding Russia “hoax” mythology, casting Page as the wronged hero of Deep State fanfic. But when it came time for the big legal showdown, the justices didn’t bite: no hearing, no dramatic showdown, just a one-line rejection. Page’s claims against the individual officials are dead, Comey’s lawyer isn’t even bothering to comment, and the only real legacy here is a bipartisan reminder that the government’s surveillance powers are both overbroad and incompetently managed — right up until someone important gets mad, and then it’s grievance merch for the base.

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who treats indictments like merit badges, just got a glowing endorsement in his US Senate race — for his opponent. Dan Cogdell, the Houston attorney who spent nearly a decade defending Paxton from corruption and securities fraud accusations and helped him skate through his 2023 impeachment trial, has decided that maybe, just maybe, the guy who worships Donald Trump more than he governs Texas shouldn’t be promoted.

Cogdell insists he doesn’t think Paxton should’ve been removed from office and swears he doesn’t dislike him personally; he just thinks Texas needs things like education and healthcare, not a full-time Trump bootlicker rubber-stamping whatever the Mar-a-Lago brain trust dreams up. After nine years of hauling Paxton’s legal baggage, the man has apparently hit his limit on client loyalty cosplay and would like a senator who can talk about policy without checking Truth Social first.

Paxton’s camp, naturally, responded with the intellectual rigor we’ve come to expect, dismissing Cogdell as a “Democrat” — in a state where you don’t even register by party — while lead impeachment lawyer Tony Buzbee rushed to X to reaffirm his fealty. Meanwhile, Democrat James Talarico, who’s running on the radical idea that senators should maybe focus on their state instead of their indicted cult leader, is suddenly looking competitive in deep-red Texas. When your own corruption defense attorney decides the country’s safer with you not in the Senate, that’s not a vibe, that’s a warning label.

John Bolton, former mustachioed warmonger-in-chief of the National Security Council, is reportedly set to plead guilty to mishandling classified documents — finally proving that in Trump’s America, the Espionage Act is less a law and more a loyalty test. The Justice Department, which somehow found the time to prosecute a high-profile Trump critic while still pretending the Mar-a-Lago Document Warehouse & Golf Club was a normal thing, nailed Bolton for one count of illegal retention of sensitive national security documents.

Bolton will also cough up a more than $2 million fine, which is a fascinating new pricing guide for classified mishandling, assuming you’re not named Donald Trump or happen to own the Republican Party’s base in bulk. The charges landed in October 2025, right in the middle of a magical season when Trump critics mysteriously kept catching indictments like it was flu season for dissenters. Trump, naturally, claimed he knew nothing about it while helpfully noting Bolton was a “bad guy” — the closest this administration ever gets to a probable cause affidavit.

Court records say Bolton will be back in court on 26 June to make it official, while every remaining Trump loyalist who ever waved classified folders around for a Fox News hit continues to enjoy total impunity. Rule of law is still on an extended vacation, but selective prosecution? That’s working overtime and billing double.