Trevor Aaronson

Actual history teachers: um, no

Gotta love how Hegseth gathered senior military officials to tell them "no fatties."

The vast percentage of roles in the modern US military are *not* in combat. Who cares if your mechanic can do 100 pushups? If your cook can run a sub-6 minute mile? If your intelligence analyst can deadlift 300 pounds?

And who cares if your Sec of Defense is great at PT if he cannot think or lead?

This Imam Refused to Be an FBI Informant. Now ICE Wants to Deport Him. Foad Farahi had resisted the FBI since the George W. Bush administration. Under Trump, ICE rounded him up.

After 20 years of resisting FBI coercion, Farahi is again fighting for his freedom.

My new story in @theintercept:
bit.ly/4peQ3ie

This summer, ICE agents knocked on Farahi’s door in North Miami Beach. He was detained and sent to a remote facility.

He’s now one of a record 60,000 people in ICE detention.

A judge ruled he can’t be sent to Iran, so Trump officials are trying to deport him to a third country.

Decades of investigation produced no charges.

Farahi has never been credibly accused of terrorism, much less indicted.

The government’s suspicion appears to rest largely on one informant’s uncorroborated claims.

FBI Counterterrorism Informant Spent a Decade Committing Fraud While working to ensnare Muslims in FBI stings, Mohammed Agbareia preyed on the Islamic community as a con man.

The FBI kept investigating Farahi, always coming up short.

At one point, they even hired a conman as an informant and tasked him with befriending Farahi.

While on the FBI payroll, that informant was committing crimes the Bureau ignored.
bit.ly/46phoGQ

The FBI’s Secret Rules

Years later, FBI agent Terry Albury leaked internal manuals to @theintercept.

The files confirmed what Farahi’s case suggested: this wasn’t a rogue tactic. It was codified FBI policy.
bit.ly/3I2C3XY

FBI tries to deport Muslim man for refusing to be an informant Unholy War: FBI tries to deport North Miami Beach imam Foad Farahi for refusing to be an informant

I first wrote about Foad Farahi’s case in 2009. It was one of the earliest public examples of the FBI using immigration status to pressure Muslim informants.

At the time, the FBI denied the practice outright. Even as more cases emerged, the Bureau kept denying.
bit.ly/4nh2h82

Two decades ago, the FBI used immigration as leverage to recruit an imam as a spy.

He refused, and avoided deportation.

Then the Trump administration rounded him up.

His story is a Kafkaesque saga linking the FBI’s post-9/11 informant machine to today’s immigration dragnet. 🧵

@michael-feinberg.bsky.social Michael, I'm a journalist -- I was hoping to connect with you about a project I'm researching. Could you send me a message here or via Signal (username taa.10)? Thanks.

Breaking news narratives shape our memories of major events as media cycles evolve. Learn the real stories by watching and listening to these Peabody-recognized works highlighted in our latest #PeabodyFinds newsletter.

➡️ peabodyawards.com/stories/reth...
@wnyc.org @trevoraaronson.bsky.social

@trevoraaronson.bsky.social and his team raise important questions about public narratives and the politicization of memory once reports came out after the 2016 shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, which killed 49 people and wounded 53.

They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed. (Gift Article) Three users who disagreed with the site’s owner saw views for their posts plummet.

They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Pulse Check out this great listen on Audible.com. Pulse: The Untold Story, an Audible Original from journalist Trevor Aaronson and Western Sound, investigates the Pulse nightclub shooting and raises startli...

4/ Pulse reveals the hidden connections between the FBI, the shooter, and the shooter's father — raising urgent questions about what federal agents knew before the massacre and what they chose not to reveal.

🎧 All 8 episodes are available now on @Audible_com.
bit.ly/3xQkaGG

3/ Pulse: The Untold Story investigates the 2016 shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando — the deadliest attack on the LGBTQIA+ community in U.S. history.

But there was a story you didn't hear.

Nominees - The Peabody Awards

2/ For 80+ years, the @peabodyawards.bsky.social have recognized #StoriesThatMatter — media that defends the public interest, encourages empathy, and expands our understanding of the world. bit.ly/PeabodyNomin...

I'm honored to share that Pulse: The Untold Story, my Audible Original documentary series, has been nominated for a Peabody Award in the Podcast/Radio: Documentary category.

#PeabodyAwards #Peabody85 🧵

It always boggles my mind that I, a journalist, am expressly forbidden from trading stocks, but members of Congress, with vastly greater knowledge of market-moving news, are allowed to profit by front-running markets, and so may profit by in essence stealing from the public they represent.

One man just wiped out $10 trillion in wealth, is destroying centuries-old legal protections, and seems determined to unravel humanity’s greatest public health achievement. In 3 months.

I don’t know how we get out of this. But if we do, one person can never have that kind of power again.

A trade war is brewing, markets are tumbling, and economists are warning of a recession — yet this is the lead story on Fox News' website right now.

The Department of Government Efficiency, for example

The government’s statement is a flex, not a confession of error. The important elements of the flex are these:

1. We send enemies to brutal foreign labor camps.
2. We decide who enemies are.
3. We may decide you are an enemy based on a secret informant, or our view of your tattoos.
/1

Between this guy's pardon and Carlos Watson's commutation, the message is clear: In America, the bigger your financial crime, the safer you are.

A very old Soviet joke, from an especially dark time:

Foxes are fleeing the USSR in droves.
Q: Why are you running away?
Fox: The Soviets passed a new law that they’re going to arrest all camels.
Q: But you’re foxes!
Fox: Yeah, why don’t *you* try proving to the NKVD that you’re not a camel.

How a Landlord and a Florida PR Firm Helped Trump Kick Off the Tren de Aragua Gang Panic Trump’s “Operation Aurora” swept up only one suspected Tren de Aragua gang member — but set the stage for a radical expansion of government power.

This isn’t a national crisis. It’s a moral panic — manufactured, inflated, and designed to justify a sweeping expansion of immigration enforcement power. Full story here ⬇ (7/7) bit.ly/4l57JKN

Also in the piece: a mini-scoop.

FBI special agents in charge are now expected to participate in ICE raids — for photo ops like the one shown here.

“They have to pose,” one former FBI agent told me. (6/7)

ICE’s X account is now filled with photos of men labeled as Tren de Aragua members.

Can they prove those claims? They don’t have to.

Under Trump’s wartime powers, just the accusation is enough for deportation. (5/7)

After Trump took office, ICE, DHS, and the DEA launched eight operations in the Denver area, claiming they were targeting more than 100 members of the violent Venezuelan gang.

How many suspected gang members did they actually find?

Just one. (4/7)