Heather Cox Richardson does a masterful job of drawing together the wildly disparate events of the past several days. Trump seems to be doing a good job of distracting the public, as he generates crises and then jumps into them.
HCR writes:
The news has seemed to move more and more quickly in the last week.
The story underlying all others is that the United States Congress passed a law requiring the Department of Justice to release all the Epstein files—the files from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into the activities of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—no later than December 19, and it has not done so.
Epstein and President Donald J. Trump were close friends for many years, and the material the Department of Justice (DOJ) has released suggests that Trump was more closely tied to Epstein’s activities than Trump has acknowledged. Although Trump ran in 2024 on the promise of releasing the Epstein files, suggesting those files would incriminate Democrats, his loyalists in the administration are now openly flouting the law to keep them hidden.
Despite the clear requirement of the Epstein Files Transparency Act that they release all the files by December 19, to date they have released less than 1% of the material.
Another part of the backstory of the past week is that the Supreme Court on December 23, 2025, rejected the Trump administration’s argument that it had the power to deploy federalized National Guard troops in and around Chicago, a decision that seemed to limit Trump’s power to use military forces within the United States.
Yet another part of the backstory is that on New Year’s Eve, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee released a 255-page transcript of former special counsel Jack Smith’s December 17 closed-door testimony before the committee. In that testimony—under oath—Smith said that his office had “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power. Our investigation also developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office in January of 2021, storing them at his social club, including in a ballroom and a bathroom. He then repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”
With pressure building over the Epstein files and Jack Smith’s testimony, and with the Supreme Court having taken away Trump’s ability to use troops within the United States, the administration went on the offensive.
Only a week ago, on January 3, the military captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. After months of suggesting that he was determined to end what he called “narco-traffickers,” Trump made it clear as soon as Maduro was in hand that he wanted control of Venezuela’s oil.
Then, on January 6, the fifth anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters determined to keep Trump in office despite Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s majority of 7 million votes, Trump’s White House rewrote the history of January 6, 2021, claiming that the rioters were “peaceful patriotic protesters” and blaming the Democrats for the insurrection.
That same day, after the Supreme Court had cut off the administration’s ability to federalize National Guard soldiers and send them to Democratic-led cities, the administration surged 2,000 federal agents to Minneapolis in the largest federal immigration enforcement operation ever launched.
The next morning, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good, and the administration responded by calling Good a domestic terrorist.
On Thursday, January 8, as protests broke out across the country, Republicans in both chambers of Congress began to push back against the administration. In the House, Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), the leading sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, asked U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer to appoint “a Special Master and an Independent Monitor to compel” the DOJ to produce the Epstein files as the law requires. The House also passed a measure to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for three years.
The Senate advanced a bill to stop the Trump administration from additional attacks on Venezuela without congressional approval. And, just two days after Trump had reversed the victims and offenders in the January 6, 2021, insurrection, suggesting that Capitol Police officers had been among the offenders, the Senate unanimously agreed to hang a plaque honoring the police who protected the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Congress passed a law in March 2022 mandating that the plaque be hung, but Republicans until now had prevented its installation.
Friday was a busy day at the White House.
On Friday, Trump threatened Greenland, saying that he was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”
Trump’s threat against a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally has had American lawmakers and foreign allies scrambling ever since. In a joint statement, the leaders of Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom said that “Greenland belongs to its people.” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) released a video explaining that “what you are essentially talking about here is the United States going to war with NATO, the United States going to war with Europe. You’re talking about the U.S. and France being at war with each other over Greenland.”
Trump’s threats against Greenland came at a meeting with oil executives. When he attacked Venezuela to capture Maduro, Trump told reporters that United States oil companies would spend billions of dollars to fix the badly broken infrastructure of oil extraction in that country. But apparently the oil companies had not gotten the memo. They have said that they are not currently interested in investing in Venezuela because they have no idea how badly oil infrastructure there has degraded and no sense of who will run the country in the future.
What oil executives did suggest to Trump on Friday was that they would quite like to be repaid for their losses from the 2007 nationalization of their companies from the sale of Venezuelan oil Trump has promised to control. ConocoPhillips, for example, claims it is owed about $12 billion. “We’re not going to look at what people lost in the past, because that was their fault,” Trump told them. “That was a different president. You’re going to make a lot of money, but we’re not going to go back.”
Yesterday the government made public an executive order President Donald J. Trump signed on Friday, declaring yet another national emergency—his tenth in this term, by my count—and saying that any use of the revenue from the sale of Venezuelan oil to repay the billions of dollars owed to oil companies “will materially harm the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
Specifically, the executive order says, such repayment would “interfere with our critical efforts to ensure economic and political stability in Venezuela” and, by extension, jeopardize U.S. foreign policy objectives including “ending the dangerous influx of illegal immigrants and the flood of illicit narcotics;…protecting American interests against malign actors such as Iran and Hezbollah; and bringing peace, prosperity, and stability to the Venezuelan people and to the Western Hemisphere more generally.” So, it appears, Trump wants to retain control of the money from the sale of Venezuelan oil.
Tonight Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he is under federal criminal investigation related to his congressional testimony about a $2.5 billion renovation of historic Federal Reserve buildings. On Friday the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve grand jury subpoenas.
Powell, whom Trump appointed, released a video noting that he has kept Congress in the loop on the renovation project and saying that complaints about renovations are pretexts. Trump is threatening criminal charges against Powell because the Fed didn’t lower interest rates as fast as Trump wanted, instead working in the interest of the American people. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.” Powell vowed to “continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do, with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.”
The Federal Reserve is designed to be independent of presidents to avoid exactly what Trump is trying to do. The attempt to replace Powell with a loyalist who will give Trump control over the nation’s financial system profoundly threatens the stability of the country. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, appeared to have had enough. He posted that “[i]f there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.” He said he would “oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved.”
Kyle Cheney of Politico observed that it is “[h]ard to overstate what a remarkable statement this is from a Republican senator…accusing the Trump White House of weaponizing DOJ to control the Fed.”
Over a picture of the demolished East Wing of the White House, conservative lawyer George Conway noted: “I also must say that it’s a bit rich that Trump and his DOJ think it’s a good idea to gin up a bullshit investigation about supposed illegalities in….{checks notes}…renovating a federal building.”
On social media tonight, Trump posted a portrait of himself with the title: “Acting President of Venezuela.”
—
Notes:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/j6/
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/12/fed-jerome-powell-criminal-probe-nyt.html
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20260111a.htm
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-republican-senators-venezuela-war-powers/
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4405/text
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/06/epstein-files-release-justice-department
Bluesky:
chrismurphyct.bsky.social/post/3mc4iyclym222
gtconway.bsky.social/post/3mc73ftktkj2w
gtconway.bsky.social/post/3luuiczrpis2e
federalreserve.gov/post/3mc6san2usk2g
justinwolfers.bsky.social/post/3mc6wyjaqwk2g
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Oh God, my head is spinning now. This is why I find it so difficult to watch and read the news these days. Am I the only one who feels like Trump intentionally invented a new way to inflict whip lash on the human race –which he does in order to promote (and save) himself? I will never believe that he cares enough about people to not want to hurt anyone, as he claimed last week, because he thinks that he alone is all that counts. (But I am glad that some of his own people are starting to notice how awful he is for us and the rest of the world.)
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Trump knows Epstein will ruin him, and is grabbing for all the controversy he can to try to turn the entire apparatus of government over to his henchmen before the people throw them all in jail.
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Thiel and Vought are the ones looking to take total control when they eliminate the OFCFPP and install the Vance regime.
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“HELL NO — WE WON’T GO”
When President Trump admitted that his attack on Venezuela was all about getting Venezuela’s oil reserves, he told us that American oil companies would leap at the chance to get their hands on all that oil…but…the U.S. oil companies didn’t leap…they sat.
TRUMP FINALLY had to drag all the oil company executives to a meeting in the White House and brow beat them in front of TV cameras to say they liked his plan. The expressions on their faces said otherwise. IN FACT, Darren Woods, CEO of huge ExxonMobil, flatly stated that “Venezuelan oil is not investable at this time.”
HERE’S THE DEAL: In order for oil companies to make their profit goals, oil has to be selling at $80 or more per barrel, but oil today is selling at only $60 per barrel. The one thing the oil companies don’t want is for there to be even more oil on the market, because that would drive per barrel prices even lower and hammer their profits.
Raising the per barrel price of oil by $20 to make Venezuelan oil a profitable deal for the oil companies would send gasoline and diesel fuel prices soaring, as well as causing inflation to skyrocket for groceries and all consumer goods.
TRUMP CLEARLY doesn’t know any more about how the international oil market works than he does about how tariffs work.
AND THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE — IF YOU’RE OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER: After the U.S. spent 20 years fighting in Vietnam, costing over a TRILLION tax dollars in today’s dollars, and, more importantly, KILLING 58,000 U.S. soldiers their lives and wounding over 300,000 more, Just think: 58,000 + 300,000 = the entire U.S. population. America had to pull out and only then was it revealed that the whole mess had been ALL ABOUT THE OIL beneath the shallow waters of the sea off the coast of Vietnam.
AMERICA’S high tech MILITARY MIGHT that was supposed to quickly overwhelm the rag-tag Vietnamese guerilla fighters simply couldn’t do the job. When we left, those “rag tag” guerillas took over.
THAT’S WHAT U.S. oil company executives foresee happening in Venezuela where the oil lies beneath thick South American jungles like those of Vietnam that are just perfect places for long-term guerilla warfare in which hightech armies like we have just can’t ever fully defeat such an enemy. To the U.S. oil company executives, Venezuela looks like another bloody, expensive Vietnam quagmire.
When Trump was campaigning for president, he condemned previous presidents who had gotten us into military messes around the world…BUT NOW HE’S DOING THE SAME THING.
WHAT ABOUT GREENLAND? TRUMP TELLS US that we need to have military bases on Greenland to protect our national security. BUT THE TRUTH IS that since 1951 America has — and still has — the DEFENSE OF GREENLAND TREATY with Greenland in which Greenland not only allows but INVITES America to build military bases because the bases bring jobs to Greenlanders. For decades after 1951 America occupied multiple military bases on Greenland, but all but one of those bases were phased out because they were replaced by new technology, such as satellite observation from space, that did the job better than boots on the frozen ice of Greenland…more than 80% of Greenland is covered by ice, some of it is nearly TWO MILES THICK so that some of our former military bases had to be built in ice caves we had to carve out inside the glacial ice.
TRUMP ALSO TELLS US that America needs to have Greenland’s mineral resources, such as rare earth minerals. BUT, Greenland has long been begging mineral mining companies to begin operations in Greenland because that would create jobs for Greenlanders. Greenland has even GIVEN AWAY 250 mining licenses to mining companies. Yet, fewer than 10 mining companies around the world — and only 1 American company — have taken up Greenland’s offer.
THAT’S BECAUSE mining corporations, like all corporations, are interested in only one thing: Profits. And profits from mining in Greenland are very, very hard to come by because Greenland is almost entirely covered by that mammoth two-mile-thick ice glacier. Digging down through two miles of ice to where the land begins is costly, operating in the bitter cold winds wears down equipment and men, and the minerals are in what’s known as “low grade ore”, which means that in order to get an ounce of a desired mineral, the mining company has to dig out and process a ton of ore. There’s no profit in that kind of mining operation. Yet Trump makes it all sound just great.
REMEMBER that old saying: “THERE’S A SUCKER BORN EVERY MINUTE”?
We the People are being suckered.
(Copy this and share it.)
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Lots of vital info here, Quikwrit!!!
We already have several military installations in Alaska –which is MUCH closer to Russia (and China) than Greenland is, so people should not buy the nonsense that we need bases in Greenland for national security to protect us from Russia and China. Plus Alaska is where Putin and Trump have play dates together so they can talk in secret –so I highly doubt that Russia is truly an adversary these days.
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“We the People are being suckered.”
You got fleas? 😉 Because. . . NO “we the people” are not being suckered. Are there many that are? No doubt. But they make up around a third of the voting population, certainly not any mandate of any sorts.
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Heather Cox’s roundup of the last week of Trump admin’s zone-flood is very helpful, thanks for posting it, Diane. This sort of summary gives one a bit of perspective on their machine-gun approach to policy. At least we can count the bullets.
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As HRC notes early on, all the bluster and ranting have distracted the public from the Justice Department’s refusal to release the Epstein files.
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