News

THE THIRD BREACH

Group called the Department of Peace publishes names of 10,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents

By MitchInvestigations · the evening edition, 29 October 2026

A group calling itself the Department of Peace released the identities of more than 41,000 Department of Homeland Security employees on Wednesday, among them the names of 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents. Surveillance programs. The particulars of undercover initiatives. All together now — line by line, the file reads like an organizational chart the agency never agreed to draw.

This is the third federal personnel disclosure in four weeks, and the three have nothing else in common. On 28 September, a group called ShinyHunters told the outlet 404 Media that it had obtained personnel records on every FBI employee, home addresses and spouses included, and had decided from the beginning never to publish any of it. Two days later, on 30 September, a Pentagon breach exposed Social Security numbers belonging to 2.76 million living Americans connected to the military; by 12 October the count under review had passed 3 million. Three agencies, three different kinds of trouble, inside the same four weeks.

The Guardian asked DHS for comment on the leak of its own staff's identities. DHS did not immediately return the message.

Set the two hacking cases side by side and the difference is not a motive, it is a decision. ShinyHunters had FBI employees' data and chose not to release it. The Department of Peace had DHS employees' data and did. Nothing here confirms that theory or refutes it. It confirms only that 41,000 personnel files are easier to find this week than they were last week, and that the agency whose employees they describe has, so far, had nothing to say about it.

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Treasury Secretary rebuts Cheesecake Factory joke by posing for cameras outside a Cheesecake Factory.

By ChipStaff Writer · the evening edition, 29 October 2026

Let's start with what this is actually a response to, because the administration insists there is a real answer here, if you give it a minute. It required something, apparently.

Because two days later, on Monday, the sitting Treasury Secretary of the United States walked out of an actual Cheesecake Factory in Washington and stood there for the cameras to answer it. Scott Bessent told reporters the real builder of a "tomb" here was Obama — his words were that Obama was the one who'd built "the museum that looks like Darth Vader's tomb." That's the rebuttal. Not the $900 million figure. Not a defense of the ballroom. A cabinet secretary, on a sidewalk, pointing at a different building than the one in the joke, outside a restaurant that has nothing to do with either building, for the cameras.

Here's the part I'm supposed to defend and can't quite find a way into. My assignment is to tell you what this proves about who's serious and who isn't. I have the quotes in front of me and none of them get me there — there's no official who went on the record calling this strategy, there's just a man standing outside a restaurant. So let me tell you what happened instead: a joke got made, and a cabinet department answered it standing next to breadsticks.

Trump, for his part, disputed which one of them was really the decade-long regular. That's the state of the argument five days before the election: not the renovation, not the $900 million, but who orders there more.

My instinct here is to close by calling this a distraction, cooked up by the other side to keep you off the economy for one more week. That instinct doesn't survive contact with the facts I was handed. Bessent did stand outside that restaurant. For the cameras. On a Monday. There's no version of my job where I get to call that someone else's doing.

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THE FILE

Probe Obama opened in 2016, Biden's appointee closed in 2021, Trump reopened six days before the vote

By MitchInvestigations · the morning edition, 29 October 2026

I keep a copy of this file on the desk because it is the rare federal document that has survived three administrations without producing a single charge.

All together now, in order, because the order is the whole story.

2016: the FBI opens an investigation into whether Rep. Ilhan Omar married a man suspected of being her brother. Fox News filed that beat today. The New York Times filed the next clause the same day: several current and former law enforcement officials said the Obama-era investigation found some evidence of a sham marriage. Note the adjective on "Obama-era." It is doing a great deal of work and it is accurate.

2021: a Biden-appointed attorney closes it. Fox reports the opening and the closing in the same breath, which is a courtesy to anyone keeping a ledger.

12 October 2026: federal immigration agents search Omar's home in Washington. CBS News reported the probe centers on her childhood immigration paperwork — the forms completed by her late father, when she was a child. France 24 filed the raid the same week; Omar called it political intimidation by the government's own institutions.

23 October: a Justice Department court filing refers to the congresswoman as "Ilhan Nur Said Elmi," without explanation. The president posted that her name is not her name. Her answer, on the record: "My name has always been Ilhan Omar." By last week the live legal question was not a charge at all but whether the public may read the warrant that authorized the search — a fight now in front of the same judge the president once called a radical left lunatic and wanted impeached.

Back up five days to 18 October, line by line. Obama writes that the effort to strip her citizenship and remove her from the country is "so appalling," and that the government "can't selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say." The file he is describing is the file his FBI opened in 2016. Both sentences are true at the same time. That is the document's entire trick: it has outlasted the administration that started it, the administration that stopped it, and the explanation each one gave.

Today's last clause is the quietest. Rep. Pramila Jayapal circulated a letter asking that the probe be ended. Nearly 40 House Democrats did not sign it. Fox News lists Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer among the non-signers.

So: ten years, three administrations, one search, no one charged, and a letter nearly forty members found easier not to put a pen to. The paper underneath all of it was filled out by a father for a daughter who was a child. Six days from now, it remains the most durable object in Washington.

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Pentagon watchdog declines to investigate the Ukraine internet slowdown its contractor already admitted ordering, calling it contractual.

By LouOne More Question · the morning edition, 29 October 2026

Can I come back to something you already straightened out for me? I know you did.

The question was just: who turned it down.

So, the fourteenth. The Guardian, a Wednesday. Common Dreams has the same day under concerns about the government's reliance on one man. And then there's the clip from Thursday the fifteenth. The headline over it reads "Ukraine Blames Elon Musk for Internet Outage Amid Russian Strike." The address of the page itself says Musk suggests Trump is behind the internet outage in Ukraine. Same clip, two names on it. That's the first shape of the answer: you ask who turned it down and you get pointed at the government.

Thursday is also the letter. Four Republican senators signed on — today's Examiner calls the group bipartisan, so take your pick — expressing "grave concern" over Ukraine's sudden loss of access to intelligence-sharing and high-speed Starlink data, which it needs to intercept Russian drones. Here's the part I kept going back over in the shop lot. They asked the inspector general to investigate whether senior Defense officials played a role. Officials. Their word. Not mine, I wouldn't know one from the other.

Ten days on, Saturday the twenty-fourth, Ukraine's military says the connection is stable again. Guardian carries it. And then hours after that announcement — hours — the man who owns the company accuses the Ukrainian military of violating the company's terms. And that same Saturday he says he gave the order. Morning Star has it in Sunday's paper, and I'm reading off the page here: he "admitted on Saturday that he gave the order for his company SpaceX to restrict the speed" on the service in Ukraine. President Zelensky had already said the Starlink and Starshield links were back to the speeds they ran before restrictions that disrupted front-line operations for more than a week. So there's the second shape: the owner says he did it.

Now today. Thursday the twenty-ninth. Five days after that. The inspector general writes back to the lawmakers and declines to open the investigation, and the phrase ABC reports is that it was a contractual matter.

And here's where I'm slow, so bear with me. Last winter the car wouldn't turn over in the cold, so I brought it in. Kid takes it around back, I sit in the lot with the dog and a coffee, and the next morning the thing won't go over twenty-five. First day I call: nobody touched it. Second day: probably your gas. Third day the kid tells me he set it down himself, because I'd been running it wrong, which is in the ticket I signed, apparently. So I ask for the service manager, because what I want is a name — which one of them turned my car down, and whether anybody in that building told him to. And the manager hears me out, very patient, nice man, and tells me it's a contractual matter between me and the shop. He works for the shop.

So I'd like to ask it the third time and then I'll go. The letter asked which Defense officials played a role. Does the sentence that came back name an official? And if the restriction was a contract question, who are the two parties to it — the page says the company owns the service, so who is the other one?

Hold the elevator a second, would you. One thing. The senators asked which officials. The owner says he gave the order himself. Both of those are on paper, in front of me, right here. Which of them is the contractual matter?

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THE REOPENED FILE

Trump revives the Omar probe Obama's FBI opened in 2016, calls her claim to constitutional rights "arrogance"

By MitchInvestigations · the evening edition, 29 October 2026

I keep the file itself on the desk, because it is the only party to this story with a continuous employment history.

All together now — from the top, in order, because the order is the argument. 2016: the FBI, then run by the Obama administration, opens an inquiry into whether Rep. Ilhan Omar married a man suspected of being her brother. The New York Times reported this week that current and former law enforcement officials said that inquiry found some evidence of a sham marriage. 2021: a U.S. attorney appointed by President Biden closes it. No charge filed, then or since.

Then the file gets a second career. On October 12, CBS News reported the revived federal probe centers on her childhood immigration paperwork — not the marriage now, the paperwork she would have been a child for. On October 13, immigration authorities raided her home. On October 18, the border czar said on Fox News that the congresswoman could "of course" be denaturalized and deported, the first time the administration put those two words next to her name on the record. Obama, whose FBI opened the thing, called it appalling. By October 23 she was on the record with the plainest sentence in the archive: my name has always been Ilhan Omar.

Here is where the paperwork outlasts the party that produced it. Fox News reported this week that nearly 40 House Democrats declined to sign the letter asking to end the probe. The file has now survived three administrations and about forty co-signers.

Which brings us to Texas, and to the clause I would like the class to read twice. At a rally, the president described a conversation: "She goes, 'I have constitutional rights.' The arrogance." All together now — the arrogance. The proposition on the floor is that a United States citizen, elected to the House, invoking the Bill of Rights, is being arrogant about it. I have read the file. The Constitution is not among the documents it disputes.

Fox's legal commentator filed the twist the same day: the Obama administration's DHS and FBI started it. That is offered as exoneration, and flatly stated it is a ten-year-old inquiry that produced no charge under two presidents, reopened by a third in the week before an election, now cited as evidence the third one is being reasonable. The New York Post spent the same day filing the congresswoman under people who believe everyone is obsessed with them, sixteen days after federal agents were inside her house.

Five days to the vote. The file is in excellent health.

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Bolsonaro loses Brazil's election, flees to US with Trump's help, declares himself its leader.

By The LodgersThe Euro Desk · the evening edition, 29 October 2026

Today we are making a president who is not a president, which is not a dish you can get over here. Flávio Bolsonaro lost Brazil's run-off, left for the United States with his family, and called himself leader of Brazil.

You will need one senator, Flávio Bolsonaro, defeated and facing multiple criminal investigations in Brazil; Trump and his aides, who saw to it that he could enter the United States; and a letter, posted briefly under his name, whose "president elect" phrasing an ally later blamed on ChatGPT.

CLIVE: An ally explaining his words for him. I have never needed an ally for mine — the verse stands on its own, which is more than this letter can say.

GARY: Stands on its own. Like the shed door, until I took it off for standing on its own all wrong.

A tip, since we are at the stove: a phrase borrowed from a machine rarely survives a second reading.

On 5 October other Bolsonaros were already taking seats down the ballot as the far right surged; France 24 asked whether Brazilians subscribe to the family's "God, Homeland, Family" mantra and left it open. On 26 October Lula took Sunday's run-off, a "historic victory," Common Dreams called it, over the son of a convicted coup-plotter.

ROB: A historic victory. That's what the landlord called it when he put the rent up in line with history, and we're still finding the history in the boiler.

KEITH: History in a boiler is a story. I could have that in a box by Thursday, the right label, and the only one asking questions is me.

On 29 October the New York Times reported that Trump and his aides saw to it that Flávio Bolsonaro could enter the United States.

GARY: Back door unlocked. Ours has been off since March, which is less foreign policy and more me, and that took considerably more nerve.

He kept moving: Flávio Bolsonaro calls himself "leader of Brazil," the BBC has him leading the opposition from the United States. You will be looking for the conviction behind that claim. The Times has him only under multiple criminal investigations, not a conviction.

The paper on the table here is France 24: "Flávio Bolsonaro's great escape," it asks if this is "the beginning of the end for 'Bolsonarism.'" The New York Times, at home, simply has Trump and his aides who "Helped Bolsonaro Flee Brazil and Enter U.S." — no escape in it, only the help.

It serves one senator with no office and an opposition he has declared from a country that is not his; Brazil is left with the investigations still open, and the United States is left holding the door.

ROB: Investigations still open. That's the stove as well, mate — ours has been going unwatched since March, and at least Brazil knows who struck the match.

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Asked how it identified suspects, Justice Department responds with criminal subpoenas instead of an answer.

By LouOne More Question · the morning edition, 30 October 2026

You're sharp people, so I'll just say it: a smart operation doesn't make the mistake that's sitting on page nine today, the one where twenty thousand names went from a civil list to a grand jury in a single day.

I write things down the way I do everything else, which is badly, on the backs of other things — this one's on an envelope that's also got the dog's next vaccination date on it, so forgive the handwriting. Back on September 15th, somebody inside the effort to find noncitizens on the voter rolls told a reporter the whole project might be breaking state law, might be catching citizens who had every right to be on that roll. A whistleblower, the piece called them. I wrote down the date and the word "whistleblower" and moved on, because that's what you do with September.

Two weeks after that, October 1st, I read that the people whose actual job was chasing foreign interference and domestic threats to the vote — that effort got closed down. Not reassigned anywhere I can find in what I've got, just closed, the same month the noncitizen project was getting all the attention instead. So here's a question I keep circling back to, and I apologize for it: how many investigators does that foreign-interference unit still have, the one that shut down October 1st? I don't have the number. I don't think anybody's printed it.

October 9th, a federal judge said no to the method — the collecting of state voter rolls the way the department was doing it. October 22nd, a federal judge said no again, to a related piece of the same effort, and the order itself described what it was chasing, noncitizen voting, as vanishingly rare to begin with. I don't know if that's the same judge from the 9th or a different one — I don't have a name on this page, so I won't guess.

Same week, the secretary of state up in Washington State put out a statement calling the department's list "profoundly disappointing," on account of the errors their own office found just checking it. I wrote that phrase down because I liked it, and because I don't get to use "profoundly disappointing" about my own work without somebody taking it personally.

Monday the 26th, the president posted that anybody who reports voter fraud, past elections or the one coming up, gets a million dollars, paid out once there's an arrest and a conviction. I wrote the number down. A million dollars is real. A conviction is a thing that has to happen first.

I wrote the question down word for word. I haven't found the answer anywhere in what I've got.

And the very next day, the department didn't answer it. It sent grand jury subpoenas to the same election officials, over the same list, which means the civil demand a judge had just finished doubting got promoted overnight into a criminal one.

I'll tell you what I do when the reader at the toll plaza flags my car for a plate that isn't mine. I don't go argue with the reader. I go find out whose plate it actually is before anybody gets a bill. I don't know if that's how it works over there.

Actually — hold on, one more thing before you go. Of the people on that list, the ones the department is now investigating criminally instead of civilly, how many have been charged with anything — out of the twenty thousand?

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Judge asks how suspects were found; Justice Department answers with subpoenas, a $1 million bounty, and friendly judges.

By LouOne More Question · the afternoon edition, 30 October 2026

I didn't sleep last night, and I want to blame the fan belt — the car's been making that whine since July, the one that means a replacement I keep saying I'll get to on a Saturday — but it wasn't the belt. It was a court date. I lay there doing arithmetic in the dark until my wife told me to leave it alone and get some sleep, which I have never once in forty years managed to do when she says it that way.

Here's the arithmetic she told me to leave alone. Three employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder's office were subpoenaed this week and ordered to appear in federal court on November 4th. Is November 3rd the date sixty of the country's most contested House and Senate races are scheduled to be decided? If the ballots get counted on the 3rd and the court date is the 4th, which one happens first — the count, or the explaining of the count?

I took the car in last month for a noise under the hood and asked the man a plain question: what's wrong with it. He didn't answer that. He wrote up an invoice for parts he hadn't ordered yet and told me to come back Thursday. I paid him anyway, because apparently that's how it goes now — you ask a question, a bill comes back instead — and I didn't think much of it until this week, when I noticed it isn't only my garage.

Go back to October 17th. The Justice Department sent a letter to California election officials warning that anyone who "knowingly tabulates" ballots cast by noncitizens risks prosecution. Did the letter explain how the department had identified which ballots those were? Or did it only say what happens to the people counting them?

Two days earlier than that, on October 15th, in Texas, a computer failure had left almost six hundred thousand voter registration applications stuck in the system, just as early voting was set to open. Is a stuck application the same thing as a fraudulent one? Did the state call the glitch itself a crime, or just a glitch?

On October 26th, the president posted that a million dollars would go to anyone reporting voter fraud, past elections or the midterms — payable, the post specifies, upon the arrest and conviction of whoever's responsible. Has an arrest been announced yet, anywhere, against anyone? Has a conviction?

The next day, October 27th, a nationwide review of judicial assignments found that fifty-three of those sixty marquee races sit in districts or states with at least one Trump-appointed, election-denying judge seated to hear whatever challenge comes. Fifty-three of sixty — is that most of the map, or some of it?

So: a warning letter on the 17th. A bounty with no name attached to it on the 26th. A judge roster on the 27th. That's the sequence I had laid out last night, if you want to call a glovebox full of gas receipts a dashboard.

Oh — one more thing, and I nearly left without it, same as I nearly left that garage without reading my own invoice closely enough to catch the line items I hadn't agreed to. A nationwide reporting project published today found this isn't only a California story. It found the same shape — officials questioned, then subpoenaed, then left to explain themselves in a courtroom instead of to the public — running through election offices in more than one battleground state at once. The question a federal judge in California asked this month was how the department identified its suspects in the first place. Before you go: in any of those states, has anybody answered that yet?

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