They charged him with a felony for standing in front of a gate.

I want you to sit with that for a second. David Huerta, president of SEIU California, the largest labor union in the state, stood at the entrance of a downtown LA clothing wholesaler while federal agents conducted an immigration raid on the workers inside. He yelled at them. He told masked agents to take their masks off. He flipped them off. He sat down in front of a van. He was angry, and he made sure they knew it.

He was not violent. He did not touch anyone.

They arrested him anyway. And the arrest was not gentle. He ended up in the hospital with a head injury.

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The next day, Donald Trump sent the National Guard to Los Angeles.

I’ll be honest with you. I spent years inside the United States Capitol. I know something about how institutions use force to send a message. Sometimes the arrest is the point. It does not matter if it holds up in court. What matters is the footage of the handcuffs. What matters is that everyone watching understands what happens when you get in the way.

The charge they used was conspiracy to impede a federal officer. Civil War era. It had barely been touched before this administration started reaching for it. They were not interested in conviction. They were interested in the message.

Here is what they may not have fully understood about David Huerta. This was not a first offense. This was a life’s work.

Under his leadership at SEIU, the union built immigrant integration programs. English classes for members. Hundreds of people became US citizens. He was advocating for comprehensive immigration reform, helping workers understand their rights and become their own advocates, long before Trump’s Justice Department knew his name. The Obama White House recognized him for it. That record is archived, frozen in time, on a government website Trump cannot reach back and change.

His family were immigrants. He is a US citizen who spent his career standing up for people under pressure. That is the person they arrested. That is the person they charged with a felony.

He spent thirteen months under that charge. Thirteen months of court dates, bond conditions, the whole weight of a federal case hanging over him.

Last month, the charges were dismissed.

Huerta put out a statement. He said: “This means the government is finally admitting what we knew from day one and what was obvious to anyone who saw the videos. The charge against me was baseless and meant to intimidate anyone who dares to speak out or organize or demand justice. There was never a real case. Only an attempt to punish and silence me for exercising my constitutional rights.”

He is right. And you can tell he is right by the way the Justice Department responded to the dismissal. Their statement said, and I am quoting directly, that “The Department of Justice does not arrest people for peacefully protesting.” Then, in the same statement, they mentioned that Huerta had been compliant with his bond for thirteen months and had not engaged in the same behavior again.

That is their argument. He behaved himself, so everything worked out.

Look. I know that move. When you cannot defend the action, you pivot to the outcome. You act like the system corrected itself. But the system did not correct itself. The system dropped a case it knew it could not win in front of a jury.

That is the real reason. It was all on tape. Every one of these interactions is filmed. People are watching. And if you are going to put masked federal agents and a labor organizer in front of twelve ordinary Americans and ask them to say that man committed a felony, you are going to lose. This Justice Department knows it has been losing. The credibility is gone. They walked away from this one before the jury could take it from them.

What I cannot stop thinking about is the timing of all of this. Because what happened to David Huerta was not an isolated incident. This is a campaign. Mark Wayne Mullen has talked openly about deploying ICE to polling places on election day. Stop and think about what that means. This is not about prosecuting crimes. It is about making people afraid to show up. Afraid to be visible. Afraid to stand at a gate and say, these are my members, and I am not moving.

Courage is contagious. I believe that. I have seen it. And I have seen the other side of it too, the way fear moves through a crowd, the way one arrest can make a hundred people step back. That is what they are counting on.

David Huerta did not step back. They put him in the hospital, charged him with a Civil War felony, and watched him for thirteen months. He came out on the other side saying he has nothing to apologize for.

He doesn’t.

-Harry

*The Good Trouble Report. New episodes when there’s something worth saying.*

Check out this story and other in this week’s Standing Our Ground for paid subscribers only.

DHS took a system called the SAVE database. That stands for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements. It was built to verify immigration benefits. That’s it. That’s all it was supposed to do.

They repurposed it to flag American voters as suspected non-citizens. Over 24,000 names. Referred to ICE.

Here’s the part that should make your blood pressure go up. The database is full of errors. We’re not talking about a few edge cases. We are talking about naturalized citizens, people who went through the whole process, who became Americans, who have every legal right to vote, getting flagged. Being treated like they don’t belong here.

The Georgia Secretary of State got a subpoena from immigration enforcement requesting voter records, including citizenship documents, for 13 individuals. Thirteen. Individual. People. Who are American citizens.

I want to be clear about something. Andrea Flores worked immigration policy at DHS under Obama and Biden. She knows what that database was built for. She knows what it is not for. And she said flat out, this is wrong. And she said the small number of subpoenas they’ve issued tells you this is not the widespread phenomenon they wanted people to believe it was. That’s why they’re having such a hard time finding it. Because it doesn’t exist.

Mark Elias and the team at Democracy Docket are filing lawsuits. An appeals court has already blocked DHS from using SAVE to scrub voter rolls.

Sit with what this is. They built a system to help immigrants access benefits. They turned it into a tool to strip Americans of their right to vote. And they’re doing it sixty days before an election.

That’s not a mistake. That’s a plan.

Sixty days to the midterms.

All gas no brakes.

I recorded a video this week covering three things you need to know about. I’m laying them out here because this stuff is moving fast and I want you to have the details, not just the headlines.

Subscribe to watch this week’s video.

Let’s go.

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-Harry

I like to begin the Good Trouble Report each week with a word from John Lewis. The report’s title is his doing, in a sense. Lewis made it his life’s work to tell us that history can be altered by ordinary people when they put their minds to it. Not the politicians, not the powerful, not the famous. But you and me when we’re willing to get into some necessary, righteous trouble.

This week’s nominee has taken that lesson to heart. And in doing so, they’ve shown a level of courage that comes at a real price. We don’t know who they are. What we do know is that on Monday, an anonymous whistleblower inside the United States Postal Service put something on the record that every American who cares about their vote needs to hear.

The Trump administration has been pressuring the Postal Service to build a brand-new computer system for verifying mail ballots ahead of the November midterms. This whistleblower went straight to Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut with a complaint: the system is a shoddy affair, riddled with errors, and it’s liable to fail in a catastrophic way when it counts most.

Here’s how bad it is. A system like this normally takes over a year to build correctly. The USPS started this one around June 15th. Three months. That’s all they’ve given themselves to construct something that will decide whether millions of Americans receive their ballot in time to vote.

And then there’s this: a federal judge had already put a temporary block on Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting. The administration appealed it. But according to the whistleblower, the Postal Service may have kept right on building this system anyway, potentially defying that court order in the process. Put plainly: the Trump administration may have ignored a federal judge, continued building a broken system behind closed doors, and is counting on no one noticing before November.

I noticed. And you should too.

Senator Blumenthal has since written to the Postmaster General to put him on notice. I’m grateful for that. But I’ll be watching closely, because a strongly worded letter is not enough. This moment calls for oversight with real teeth. Accountability that actually means something.

What this whistleblower did took guts. We’re not talking about filing a routine complaint. This person works inside a federal agency controlled by an administration that has made abundantly clear it will bring the full weight of government down on anyone who stands in its way. We’ve seen the retaliation. We’ve seen the investigations. We’ve seen what happens to people who speak up. This person knew all of that. They knew their identity could be exposed. They knew what comes with it… the harassment, the threats, the targeting.

And they came forward anyway.

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If you’re reading this and you’re that person, thank you. You did something that most people never find the nerve to do. You saw something wrong, and you said something. You got into good trouble.

The right to vote is the foundation of everything else in this democracy. It is the most powerful tool ordinary Americans have. When that tool is being quietly sabotaged, technically, in ways most people won’t notice until it’s too late — that is not a bureaucratic error. That is an attack on democracy itself.

We have to pay attention. We have to stay loud. And we have to make sure the people willing to risk everything to tell us the truth know that we are listening.

That’s what the Good Trouble Report is for.

Keep getting in good trouble.

— Harry

He had his hands up.

An Arkansas police officer punched him in the face twice. Then the police report said the officer felt threatened because Tedrick “postured himself as if he was going to strike him.”

That’s not what’s in the video. In the video, his hands are up.

This week on Standing Our Ground I break down exactly what happened, get into RFK Jr.’s quiet gutting of the food safety system and what it’s actually costing us, and give you an update from my trip to West Virginia. We are 62 days from Election Day and I have a lot to say.

Watch this week’s episode by subscribing:

I wish this wasn’t the story. But it is.

Officer Franz Fulcher. Officer Peter Sheldon. Their names are on the January 6th plaque. They were in that building when the mob came through. They defended the Capitol, defended the members of Congress inside it, and they took the same oath I took.

Now they along with four other officers are charged with stealing $441,000 in fraudulent overtime.

I’ll be straight with you about something. I don’t trust Jeanine Pirro. Hell, I can’t believe a word that comes out of that office on a good day. But I read the indictment. And it’s damning.

So here’s where I have to go, even when I don’t want to.

Accountability doesn’t have a resume attached to it. It doesn’t matter what you did on January 6th. It doesn’t matter that you held the line, that you took hits, that you gave up things most people will never understand to protect people who didn’t even know your name. What the indictment says they did after that has to be answered for. That’s not optional.

People say back the blue no matter what. I hear that. I wore that badge for fifteen years. I know what it means to put on that uniform and walk into situations most people run away from. That experience doesn’t leave you. It shapes how you see everything.

And it’s exactly why I can’t look away from this. Because I know what the badge means. I know what the oath means. And betraying that trust, taking $441,000 in fraudulent overtime while your name is on the plaque that honors the people who defended democracy, that is a betrayal of the oath. Full stop.

This isn’t about tearing down officers. We’re not doing that here. Both these men will have their day in court and they deserve that. The process matters.

But we don’t circle the wagons. That’s the move the other side makes. That’s what Trump does: reward the loyal, protect the connected, look away when the accountability gets inconvenient. We don’t do that. We hold people accountable no matter who they are, no matter what they’ve done, no matter whose side they were on.

That has to mean something. Otherwise it means nothing.

Franz Fulcher and Peter Sheldon held the line on January 6th. I know what that cost. I respect it. And I’m still saying their names in the same breath as accountability because that is what accountability actually requires.

Nobody is above it. Nobody.

— Harry

Jared Kushner requested the meeting. I want to start there because people keep missing that detail.

He reached out. Not Hakeem Jeffries. Jared Kushner picked up the phone and asked for a sit-down with the man who is likely going to be the next Speaker of the House. That tells you exactly what the internal polling inside the Trump world looks like. The writing is on the wall. Democrats are taking the House in November. Even Jared Kushner has accepted that.

So he wants a meeting. And Hakeem Jeffries took it.

I’ll be honest. I was loud in my disgust and I’m staying loud. But I also want to be fair about what’s actually being asked here. Jared Kushner is not an elected official. He has no cabinet position. He is the President’s son-in-law, personally pocketing millions from foreign deals his father-in-law is blessing from the Oval Office. Taking a formal meeting with him as though he represents a legitimate branch of government gives him a legitimacy he has not earned and does not deserve.

My answer would have been two sentences: We can talk in November. When you’re under oath in front of a committee.

That’s it. That’s the whole response.

Hakeem Jeffries put out a video after the New York Times reported the meeting. The backlash was loud. He explained himself. He said he wants accountability. He said nobody is above it.

Here’s what I know. If you’re explaining, you’re losing.

The fact that he felt the need to respond tells you he heard the backlash. That’s actually encouraging. The base was loud. He listened. I want to give him credit for that.

But here’s what the base is actually screaming for right now. Not perfection. Not a perfect meeting strategy. They want someone who fights with the same audacity that Trump fights with. Loud. Unapologetic. No apology tours. No explanations. No sitting across from the President’s son-in-law and pretending that’s a normal thing to do.

I’ll say something people on social media don’t want to hear. I understand the gap. If my own election had been held on Threads or Twitter or Bluesky or Substack, I win 60% of the vote. Easily. But that’s not how elections work. Hakeem Jeffries wins his district by 80 points every single time he runs. He knows things about holding a coalition together that social media does not.

But knowing how to manage a coalition and knowing how to lead a moment are two different things. November is a moment.

Get the majority. Then subpoena everyone. Investigate everything. Keep that energy into 2028. No moving on. No getting over it. Accountability first, for all of it.

That’s the prize. Stay focused on it.

— Harry

Picture this.

You spend years inside one of the most powerful companies on Earth. You’re an engineer. You’re working on safety, the systems designed to protect people, including kids, from being exploited on the platform. You believe in the work. You give the company the benefit of the doubt.

Then you see them refuse to do right by it.

You bring the data to Mark Zuckerberg himself. Dozens of times. You sit across from him, show him what his platform is doing to children, and watch him take it in and do nothing.

Then on August 19th, you find yourself in a federal courtroom in Oakland. Forty-eight state attorneys general are in that room. The country is watching. You have one choice: tell what you know, or play it safe.

Arturo Béjar told what he knew.

He testified that the culture Zuckerberg has built at Meta makes it “practically impossible” to put proper child safety measures in place. Not difficult. Not a matter of funding. Practically impossible. And the only person with the power to change that, Zuckerberg… simply wouldn’t.

So he called him a liar. By name. Under oath.

I know what that moment costs.

I was in the Capitol on January 6th. I was there in my uniform, holding the line, watching officers around me take blows from people who had been told by the President of the United States that we were the enemy. I was called racial slurs by people I had been trained to protect. And when it was over, I had to decide whether to tell the truth in front of Congress knowing full well who I was up against and what they were capable of.

There’s a calculation that happens in that moment. You know the reach of the people you’re calling out. You know how long their memory is. You know the industry you work in, the relationships you’ve built, and what goes on the line when you walk into that room and speak.

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Béjar knew all of it. He spent years working at Meta. He knew exactly how deep this negligence went.

He testified anyway.

I’ll be direct about why this matters beyond the courtroom.

Zuckerberg wasn’t on the dais at Trump’s inauguration by accident. He is not a tech executive who wandered into politics. He is power, the device in your pocket, your kid’s phone, the platform that reaches billions of people and he has shown time and again that engagement is worth more to him than what it does to the children on the other side of the screen.

That’s not my opinion. That’s the data Béjar held in his hands for eight years.

Meta eventually put $17 billion on the table to settle. Analysts will tell you that’s pocket change for a company that size. Forty-eight states put in years of work and the company wrote a check.

But you can’t unwrite testimony. A settlement ends a lawsuit. It doesn’t un-call a man a liar in open court when the charge is true and it’s on the record.

That’s what Béjar did.

There’s nothing performative about it. It wasn’t a press tour. It wasn’t a book deal. It was a man who had been inside the machine, who knew exactly what it would cost him, and who chose to tell the truth anyway.

That’s what we mean when we say good trouble.

Arturo Béjar — Standing Our Ground Good Trouble honoree, August 26, 2026.

You tried to make it work from the inside for eight years. When you couldn’t, you didn’t go quiet. You went before 48 attorneys general and every parent in America and you told them the truth.

We see what that took. Thank you for it.

Standing Our Ground exists to put a face on the people who do the right thing when it isn’t safe or easy. If that matters to you, consider becoming a paid subscriber. You’re what makes this possible.

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Check out this week of Standing Our Ground by subscribing to this substack.

Last week handed Democrats something real. Primaries in Florida, Wyoming, and Alaska showed cracks in Trump’s hold on his own party. Mike Lindell got smoked in Minnesota and still hasn’t conceded. Trump-backed candidates are losing. That’s the story.

Now the one I didn’t want to cover. But we’re covering it because that’s what we do here.

Two officers whose names are on the January 6th plaque have been charged with stealing over $441,000 in fraudulent overtime. Officer Franz Fulcher. Officer Peter Sheldon. Their names are on that plaque. They were in that building. So was I.

I’ll say it plainly. I don’t care what they did on January 6th. Accountability doesn’t have a resume attached to it. Doesn’t matter what you’ve sacrificed, who you protected, or which side you were on. When you break the law, you answer for it. Nobody gets a pass. Not the rioters Trump pardoned. Not the officers who defended us. Nobody.

And then there’s Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner. I held off on this one because I wanted to hear Jeffries respond to the backlash first.

He did. And I’ve got a lot to say about it including what it actually tells you that he felt the need to respond at all, what the base is genuinely asking for right now, and what I think needs to happen next.

Watch the full video by subscribing. If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, now’s a good time.

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This morning I was in a room with over 2,000 people. Advocates. Educators. Survivors. The National Sexual Assault Conference, right here in Washington DC. And I want to tell you something. I walked in there as an ally and I walked out feeling like I had been plugged into something. You could feel the resilience. You could feel the hope. From every single person there, whether they were a survivor, an advocate, or someone like me who showed up to stand alongside them.

I recently joined the advisory board of Women’s HQ. Please check out their website at womenshq.org. They are here for victims and survivors of violence and they offer helping hands to those who need it. I am honored to be part of that work.

I was also there because someone I have come to call a friend was going to be there. And I want to talk about her.

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GOOD TROUBLEMAKER: ELIZABETH STEIN

If you know the name Elizabeth Stein, you know why she matters. She is a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein. And she has been loud, and public, and relentless about what she is demanding: accountability. Transparency. Specifically around the Epstein Transparency Act. She has been on the front lines. Standing up for other survivors. Being there for them. Supporting them.

I saw her testify before the Democratic Judiciary Committee in the Senate. That was the first time I got to be in the same room with her. Today I got to see her again. And I have to say, in the months I have been getting to know her, Elizabeth Stein has inspired me.

I am tabbing her as a Good Troublemaker. She is empowering other women. She is being loud when she could be quiet and choosing that path every single day. She is choosing courage when silence would be so much easier.

Elizabeth, keep up the good fight.

GOOD TROUBLEMAKER: SUNITA DODDAMANI

The second person I want to highlight today is a former federal prosecutor. An Assistant US Attorney out of the Eastern District of Michigan. Her name is Sunita Doddamani.

She was fired by the Justice Department. She says it was retaliation, and I believe her. She is suing the Trump administration saying she was unlawfully dismissed for political reasons tied to her work prosecuting cases under the FACE Act. That is the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrants, a federal law that makes it a crime to use force or obstruction to interfere with people seeking or providing reproductive health care.

There have been so many people illegally fired by this administration. FBI agents. Lawyers. DOJ employees. People terminated for nothing other than doing their jobs in ways Donald Trump did not like.

Sunita Doddamani is not taking it lying down.

She is taking a huge risk. When you go after this administration at the legal level, they come back at you. This Justice Department has unlimited resources. And she is not letting that stop her. She is a career prosecutor. She was following the law. She believed in doing her job right. And they fired her for it.

I am giving her special kudos today. Good luck with your lawsuit, Sunita. Keep fighting.

Courage is contagious.

I felt it in that room this morning at the NSAC. I felt it watching Elizabeth Stein walk to the front and speak. I felt it reading about what Sunita Doddamani is doing.

Courage is contagious, y’all. When you see somebody standing up, it makes you want to stand up too. Let’s keep getting in good trouble. Necessary trouble.

-Harry

P.S. If this report means something to you, the best way to support the work is to subscribe to Standing Our Ground and share it with someone who needs to read it. I’m doing this because I believe in it and I want to keep it going. Your support makes that possible.

Become a subscriber for just $80 a year to watch this week’s episode of Standing Our Ground or follow me on YouTube to see last week’s episode which is now live for everyone.

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Here is what I talk about in this week’s episode and a free preview:

On Friday, Donald Trump was up in New York campaigning. Not for himself, but does he ever really do anything that’s not for himself? He was in Nassau County stumping for his longtime friend Bruce Blakeman, trying to help him unseat Governor Kathy Hochul. Nothing new there. The man is a walking Hatch Act violation.

What caught my attention wasn’t the rally. It was the backdrop.

Row after row of law enforcement officers standing behind him. Clapping. Hanging on every word, including when he bragged that “we killed DEI” and then gestured at the officers behind him like props. “I don’t see the people behind me big on DEI. That’s not a DEI group, I can tell.”

Kind of ironic, considering the number of women and Latino officers standing right there behind him.

I wore that uniform for over 15 years. I believe policing is one of the most noble professions there is, when you do it for the people and not for a power kick. Protect and serve. That’s the job description. So watching officers stand there and cheer for the man who fomented the mob that beat and sprayed and stabbed my coworkers on January 6th, the man who pardoned the people who assaulted us and now wants to pay them?

It’s an absolute disgrace.

In this week’s episode of Standing Our Ground, I get into all of it. Why the Fraternal Order of Police endorsing Donald Trump three times is a betrayal of every officer who bled on January 6th, and why I turned in my own FOP membership. A story about the FOP and a January 6th rioter that I lived through and still can’t believe. And a self-proclaimed “proud J6 patriot” who has loaned himself millions of dollars to try to buy a seat in Congress, with Rudy Giuliani and Mike Flynn campaigning at his side. I’m naming him. I’m telling you exactly what he said about January 6th. And I’m telling you what I plan to do about it.

The full episode and the rest of this post are for paid subscribers. That’s how this work stays independent. No ads, no corporate sponsors, no political handlers. Just me, standing my ground, every week.

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Hey y’all, first, sorry for the late drop for this week’s Good Trouble Report. Technology got the best of me yesterday, and by the time I figured it out, it was too late to post. But this story couldn’t wait another day.

I want to take you to Salisbury, Maryland, right there on the Eastern Shore. It’s a town of about 33,000 people, and roughly one in ten of those residents is Haitian. That community has been there, working, building, worshipping. And right now, they’re terrified.

Since Trump revoked Temporary Protective Status for Haitians, ICE has been running raids through that community. TPS was put in place after the 2010 earthquake because Haiti was in a humanitarian crisis. Violence. Instability. No safe place to return to. Over a million people nationwide hold TPS, and about 350,000 of them are Haitian. These are people who came here legally, under a protection the United States government offered them. And now that protection has been yanked away.

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Pastor Roosevelt Toussaint at World Life Center church in Salisbury, says that his Sunday attendance has dropped more than 50 percent in just a few weeks. People are afraid to leave their homes. Think about that, a community so scared that they can’t even go to church. And he had this message for the President and he didn’t mince words: “We’re expecting you to have compassion for our people. They haven’t done anything wrong. All they came to this country to do is work and make a difference in our economy. There’s no security at home. If you really send us over there, you send us to die.”

That’s a pastor. Speaking plainly. That’s the truth.

Then there is Marjorie Estime, an American citizen of Haitian descent, and she had a message too: “I want to tell the President of the United States to stop the ICE program so that people can work, so that ICE can stop shooting them, persecuting them, and we can go back to normal.”

Back to normal. That’s all people want. To work. To worship. To live.

Pastor Toussaint sent a message to his congregation in Haitian Creole. He told them: “I’m praying this afternoon that God can make you invisible to the enemy.” And: “They put a lot of terror in your heart but God has come to tell you ‘Do not be afraid.’”

Do not be afraid. That’s Good Trouble language right there. John Lewis told us that. And I’ve seen what happens when people stand up. I think about Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, American citizens in Minnesota who stood up for others and lost their lives for it. Courage is real, and it costs something. But so does silence.

Y’all know how I feel. These are human beings. They came here legally, they built lives, they are our neighbors. Sending them back to a country in crisis isn’t enforcement is cruelty. And the rest of us have a responsibility to say so out loud.

Courage is contagious. We must abolish ICE.

—Harry

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This week I’m covering three things that made me tired, then made me angry, then made me want to keep going.

The Oath Keepers case got dismissed. January 6th defendants are suing the government for $1 million each, claiming it was a government trap. ICE is deploying body cameras — but only releasing footage when it’s in their interest. And Governor Wes Moore did something in Maryland I want to talk about.

Paid subscribers get the full breakdown today — the written post, the Off Duty reflection on Friday, and everything throughout the week.

Free Preview:

If this is the week you’ve been thinking about subscribing, now’s a good time.

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📬 In Case You Missed It

→ The Fingerprints That Remain — my monthly series on what January 6th left behind

→ They Dismissed the Case. Now the Only Footprint Left Is Ours.

And a couple of clips worth sharing:

→ The Judge’s Chilling Words: “That Book Is Now Closed”

→ This is what fighting back actually looks like, not what they told you it would look like.

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On August 4th, the last January 6th case was dismissed.

Th…

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I testified in Judge Mehta’s courtroom several times.

I sat in that witness chair and told the truth about what happened on January 6th. What I saw. What I lived through. What it cost me. I did it because it was a continuance of my service to my country. I believed testimony mattered. Evidence mattered. That a federal courtroom was still a place where ac…

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First: The rioter payments. Trump’s team paid January 6th defendants — not out of sympathy, but as a strategic investment. You pay the people who will riot again when you need them. Senator Cornyn said it plainly. Nobody in the GOP did anything a…

Read more

But there’s a second election happening underneath that one. And nobody voted to hold it.

…

Read more

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___________________…

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He said something I can’t stop thinking about: “Justice doesn’t run out of leads. It runs out of courage.”

Then he pointed directly at the problem. When the Department of Justice won’t cooperate with active investigations into Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators. When victims keep asking where accountability went. When powerful people appear untouchable. That’s when the public loses faith in the institutions supposed to protect them.

Justice delayed is one thing. Justice obstructed is something else entirely.

Which brings me to Todd Blanche. Trump’s personal lawyer. The guy who represented him in multiple legal cases. Now Trump wants to make him Attorney General.

Let me be direct about what that means. The Attorney General is supposed to be the lawyer for the American people. Not the lawyer for one man. Not Trump’s fixer 2.0. The entire point of the Justice Department is to pursue justice without fear or favor, regardless of how powerful the person is.

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If Blanche gets confirmed, we’re handing Trump the keys to weaponize the very institution that’s supposed to hold him and everyone else accountable. We’re saying to every victim, every witness, every person waiting for justice: sorry, Donald comes first.

I’m grateful that Republican senators like John Cornyn and Thom Tillis are showing enough hesitation to postpone the confirmation vote. But honestly, I wish more people were raising hell about this. Because this isn’t partisan. This is about whether the Justice Department works for all of us or just for Donald Trump.

I’ve stood on the Capitol steps as a cop. I’ve watched what happens when people decide rules don’t apply to them. I’ve seen the chaos that follows. And I’m telling you, putting Trump’s personal lawyer in charge of the Justice Department is how democracies stop working. It’s how justice becomes a tool for whoever has the most power.

Although the vote on Blanche’s nomination got postponed. (That’s a small win) But postponed isn’t stopped. We need to keep the pressure on. Congress needs to hear from us. They need to know this isn’t acceptable.

The American people weren’t born yesterday. Don’t let them sell us out.

-Harry