Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard found Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, guilty on all ten counts of killing Riley outside of the University of Georgia’s campus on Feb. 22 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As the family pleaded for Ibarra to serve a life sentence without parole, Phillips read words Riley wrote in her entry on Jan. 17, 2023, where she promised to be a loving, God-fearing future wife and mother to her future family.

“I think one of her last journal entries dated 12/17/23 says it best, so here we go: ‘To my future husband, as silly as I feel writing this, my old small group leader once recommended it, so here I am,” Phillips read. “‘To my future husband, I want you to know that I’m thinking about you and working everyday to become the best wife I can be by working through my current relationships to best prepare me for ours and our kids one day. I’m focusing on God and what he defines as a faithful, Christian life and so that I can best embody those characteristics. I pray that you know that it is with my full faith and trust in God that I know that this relationship has been handcrafted by Him. I pray that we continue to glorify the Lord, prioritizing him in every aspect of our lives, and raise our family, our future family to be God-fearing Christians as well.’”

“‘I pray God is the singer of our relationship as it is a gift from Him, I thank Him for you before I even know you. I can’t wait to love you in the best way I know how for the rest of our lives,’” her stepfather read. “‘I pray you know and feel the importance of our love and hopes for our relationship. No matter what challenges we face, I pray that our trust in God and for one another overrules the obstacle. May our relationship last forever, Your future wife, Laken.’ That your Honor was our beautiful Laken. That your Honor is just a glimpse of what was tragically and brutally taken from her and us that day.”

The convicted murderer, who unlawfully entered in September 2022, abducted Riley while she was on a jog and murdered her by causing blunt force trauma to the head with an inanimate object. The judge found Ibarra guilty of malice murder, felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated battery, obstructing or hindering a 9-1-1 call, tampering with evidence and being a peeping tom.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that Ibarra had entered the U.S. illegally through an entryway near El Paso, Texas, and was released into the country on parole due to the lack of detention space at the time. He was later arrested for allegedly acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 years old in New York City, according to ICE.

His former roommate, Rosbeli Elisber Flores-Bello, testified during a Monday hearing that she and Ibarra traveled from New York City to Athens, Georgia, after requesting a “humanitarian flight” in September 2023, four months before Riley’s murder.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

Gaetz resigned last Wednesday shortly before the Ethics Committee was scheduled to release the investigation into allegations of the former representative engaging in sexual misconduct and illicit drug consumption. It remained unclear whether the committee’s report would be released, with Speaker Mike Johnson opposing the investigation’s publication.

“There was not an agreement by the committee to release the report,” Republican Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi, the chair of the Ethics Committee, told reporters following a committee meeting Wednesday.

WATCH: Rep. Matt Gaetz responds on Tucker Carlson Tonight to allegations of sexual misconduct:

He says a former DOJ official named David McGee is trying to extort is family for money

He says that the FBI and DOJ have audio recordings that will prove his innocence. pic.twitter.com/J95AEFtxsr

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 31, 2021

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Jong-Fast wrote in a Vanity Fair column Monday that expressing outrage over Trump’s remarks about women and “wokeness” only satisfies his supporters and is less dangerous than what he may do during his administration. The “Morning Joe” guest argued the media focused too heavily on Trump’s rhetoric throughout his first administration, and stated they should instead focus on Trump’s alleged threat to democracy and American institutions.

“We are in it for 4 years, this is gonna be a marathon, not a sprint. We need to protect norms and institutions and not focus on the aesthetic problem of Trumpism,” Jong-Fast said. “The first time there was a lot of ‘he used vulgar language,’ you know, offended by things and more focus on the norms and institutions. So, the war on woke is vague. You saw reporting that had these people, Trump voters, saying Trump had defeated woke. So that’s vague. But the structural things that Trump might do to try and fight woke could end up undermining democracy. So I feel like, more focused on democracy, democratic values, norms and institutions, the structures that keep America, America, and less focused on the aesthetic problems of Trumpism.”

Jong-Fast wrote in her piece that Trump’s tweets during his first administration distracted from the “actually terrifying things” the then-president did. She argued that his possible “outrageous” remarks that will be made in the upcoming 4 years should not get the same reactions.

“Will I be outraged? Obviously, Trump will do outrageous things. But in entering likely one of the most perilous moments for our democracy, we must focus on the assault on essential norms and institutions, because without them, we are lost,” she wrote.

The media, including “Morning Joe,” spent the entirety of the 2024 election season warning that Trump is a “threat to democracy” and will govern as a dictator, even likening him to former Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Scarborough accused Trump of being the single biggest “threat to democracy since the Civil War” and compared him to Hitler during a Sept. 23 segment, while one of their guests Claire McCaskill claimed he is “more dangerous than Hitler” during a November 2023 segment on the program.

Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski met with Trump in Mar-a-Lago on Friday to discuss their concerns regarding policy issues, including abortion and illegal immigration.

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The GOP has held on to control of the House, securing the 218 seats needed for a majority with five races still yet to be called, according to The Associated Press. However, Trump has already selected three Republican House representatives to serve in his presidential cabinet, resulting in special elections that could reduce the GOP’s already razor thin majority in the chamber.

“There will not be a minute to waste, you can see his resolve already in how quickly he’s making really smart picks,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Tuesday following Trump’s nominations of Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik for Ambassador to the United Nations and Republican Florida Rep. Mike Waltz for National Security Adviser. “I know he’s already pulled a few, really talented people out of the House, hopefully no more for a little while until special elections can come.”

Rep. @SteveScalise on President-elect Trump: "I know he's already pulled a few really talented people out of the House, hopefully no more for a little while…" pic.twitter.com/gTnOWgMxor

— CSPAN (@cspan) November 12, 2024

The day after Scalise made the comment, Trump nominated former Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for U.S. Attorney General, with Gaetz stepping down from congress shortly thereafter.

The process of filling vacancies in Florida can take months, as state law does not stipulate a specific amount of time within which the governor must call a special election, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. The replacement of former Democratic Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings following his death in 2021, for example, took roughly nine months.

If the three GOP vacancies remain unfilled when the 119th Congress begins on Jan. 3 and the Democratic party wins the five remaining uncalled races — four of which are currently within 1.5 percentage points — House Republicans could start the session with a 215-217 seat minority.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not expected to slow walk filling Waltz and Gaetz’ seats, writing on X that he had “instructed Secretary of State Cord Byrd to formulate and announce a schedule for the upcoming special elections immediately.”

Florida’s special election process takes at least six weeks from when the governor begins the process, according to the Tallahassee Democrat, meaning Gaetz’ seat could be filled early on in the new congress. If Waltz leaves around Inauguration Day, his seat would not be filled until at least March.

Unlike Florida, New York law requires Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul call a special election within ten days of when Stefanik leaves the House, with the election to be held between 70 and 80 days after the call is made. As a result, if Stefanik leaves on Jan. 20 the special election would be held in April.

Gaetz resigned and indicated he would not be sworn in to the new Congress. It is unclear when Waltz and Stefanik will put in their notice.

While the vacancies could temporarily weigh on the GOP House majority, the seats are considered to be in safe districts. Gaetz, Waltz and Stefanik all won re-election by more than 20 percentage points in November, according to the AP.

Regarding the special election to replace Stefanik, New York State Republican Party spokesman David Laska told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “this is a safe Republican seat. We expect to retain it comfortably, irrespective of how much resources the DCCC chooses to waste on the race.”

Laska went on to address the GOP majority broadly, telling the DCNF: “The Republican House majority will remain intact, delivering President Trump a trifecta to implement the overwhelming mandate he and Republicans received from the American people last week.”

Republican Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez echoed a similarly confident sentiment regarding the Florida special elections.

“Florida is now a Safe Republican state blessed with a bounty of GOP talent,” Gimenez told the DCNF. “The Members of Congress selected to serve in the Trump Administration, hail from rock-solid Republican districts where the eventual GOP Congressional nominee is surely to win the General Election. Speaker Johnson has been an exceptional leader & is actively working with all those involved to ensure our GOP majority is not impacted by these nominations. Our Members understand that we must vote in unison to pass President Trump’s agenda through Congress & protect our nation!”

The Florida GOP and Scalise’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Johnson’s office did not provide original comment.

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Sanctuary cities and other localities across the U.S. have freed more than 22,000 criminal migrants wanted by federal immigration authorities since January 2021, according to data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). The numbers pertain to ICE detainer requests ignored by local law enforcement agencies, instances when the enforcement agency provided insufficient notice to ICE or early releases of migrants subjected to detainer requests.

Immigration detainers are submitted to local law enforcement agencies after they take custody of a non-citizen — typically on criminal charges unrelated to immigration violations — that ICE suspects to be living in the U.S. unlawfully. These detainers ask the enforcement agency to hold on to the non-citizen long enough for an ICE agent to arrive and make an apprehension on-site.

However, countless localities have passed laws that strictly forbid their law enforcement from cooperating with ICE, which would include honoring immigration detainers. The data published by CIS suggests that sanctuary cities increasingly ignored detainer requests under the Biden-Harris administration, meaning more criminal migrants were released back into the community over the years.

There were 2,512 declined detainers in fiscal year 2021, beginning when Biden assumed office on January 20, 2021, according to the ICE data. There were 5,723 declined detainers in fiscal year 2022, 7,934 declined detainers in fiscal year 2023 and 5,871 declined detainers in fiscal year 2024 only up to the middle of July.

The number of criminal aliens freed into the country by sanctuary authorities could potentially be much higher given that, in numerous instances, local law enforcement releases criminal migrants before ICE is able to become aware of their apprehension and lodge a detainer request.

There are an estimated 17 million illegal migrants currently living in the U.S. as of June 2023, resulting in local law enforcement agencies having countless run-ins with individuals who do not hold lawful status. Since early 2023, ICE has lodged an average of roughly 10,000 immigration detainer requests a month, according to the Transactional Records Clearinghouse.

President-elect Donald Trump — who won office on a hardline immigration platform — has pledged to crack down on sanctuary cities, which could include withholding federal funds. However, sanctuary city leaders have so far expressed intense opposition to the idea of cooperating more with ICE agents.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said her police force would not be helping the president-elect’s expected plans for mass deportations, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson pledged to resist the upcoming administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. Since Trump’s election victory, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been working with city officials to fast-track a bill that would enforce sanctuary laws in her city, and she hopes to have it passed before Trump makes it into office.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation about the detainer data.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

Sanctuary cities and other localities across the U.S. have freed more than 22,000 criminal migrants wanted by federal immigration authorities since January 2021, according to data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). The numbers pertain to ICE detainer requests ignored by local law enforcement agencies, instances when the enforcement agency provided insufficient notice to ICE or early releases of migrants subjected to detainer requests.

Immigration detainers are submitted to local law enforcement agencies after they take custody of a non-citizen — typically on criminal charges unrelated to immigration violations — that ICE suspects to be living in the U.S. unlawfully. These detainers ask the enforcement agency to hold on to the non-citizen long enough for an ICE agent to arrive and make an apprehension on-site.

However, countless localities have passed laws that strictly forbid their law enforcement from cooperating with ICE, which would include honoring immigration detainers. The data published by CIS suggests that sanctuary cities increasingly ignored detainer requests under the Biden-Harris administration, meaning more criminal migrants were released back into the community over the years.

There were 2,512 declined detainers in fiscal year 2021, beginning when Biden assumed office on January 20, 2021, according to the ICE data. There were 5,723 declined detainers in fiscal year 2022, 7,934 declined detainers in fiscal year 2023 and 5,871 declined detainers in fiscal year 2024 only up to the middle of July.

The number of criminal aliens freed into the country by sanctuary authorities could potentially be much higher given that, in numerous instances, local law enforcement releases criminal migrants before ICE is able to become aware of their apprehension and lodge a detainer request.

There are an estimated 17 million illegal migrants currently living in the U.S. as of June 2023, resulting in local law enforcement agencies having countless run-ins with individuals who do not hold lawful status. Since early 2023, ICE has lodged an average of roughly 10,000 immigration detainer requests a month, according to the Transactional Records Clearinghouse.

President-elect Donald Trump — who won office on a hardline immigration platform — has pledged to crack down on sanctuary cities, which could include withholding federal funds. However, sanctuary city leaders have so far expressed intense opposition to the idea of cooperating more with ICE agents.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said her police force would not be helping the president-elect’s expected plans for mass deportations, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson pledged to resist the upcoming administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. Since Trump’s election victory, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been working with city officials to fast-track a bill that would enforce sanctuary laws in her city, and she hopes to have it passed before Trump makes it into office.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation about the detainer data.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

Americans “overwhelmingly rejected the ideological takeover of political and civic life by narrow-minded identity politics” in the Nov. 5 election, a coalition of 38 financial officers wrote in letters warning companies that the new administration will “hasten the demise of DEI.”

“You stand at an important crossroads,” the letter states. “Either you can heed the voice of the American people—your shareholders, customers, and employees—or you can bow to fringe activists who demand that you double down on a failing ideology.”

Companies scored on the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Viewpoint Diversity index, along with Fortune 1000 companies not scored, received letters from the investor advisor coalition.

ADF’s 2024 Viewpoint Diversity index revealed that 91 percent of companies scored use critical race theory in their training materials for employees. The index measured the 85 biggest technology and finance companies on their respect for free speech and religious freedom.

Jeremy Tedesco, senior vice president of corporate engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Daily Caller News Foundation it’s clear that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is already “on its way out.”

“What the Trump administration does could really speed up that process, which will ultimately be good for those corporations, for their workforce, for the broader society, because DEI is a toxic ideology that harms everybody it comes into contact with,” he said.

Some companies have already changed DEI policies as a result of pressure from consumers and shareholders, ending their participation in the left-wing Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and abandoning diversity initiatives, Tedesco noted. Under pressure from conservative activist Robby Starbuck, companies like Lowe’s and Tractor Supply Co backtracked on DEI policies, including sponsoring LGBTQ pride parades.

Companies began rolling back their DEI programs after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in higher education in 2023 and conservatives increased their focus on specifically targeting corporations with legal challenges.

“While we urge you to distance yourself from DEI and highly divisive groups like the Human Rights Campaign—which bullies companies into adopting radical, wrong-headed, and reputationally disastrous policies—we also want to caution you against retracting your goal of protecting the civil liberties and dignity of all employees,” the letter continues. “As fiduciaries of your companies, we manage over $16 billion in assets, and we represent working Americans who depend on us to safeguard their financial future, retirement planning, and more. You owe these investors transparency and, when necessary, proactive changes that are in their best financial interests to serve and foster a healthy civil society.”

Inspire Investing director of corporate engagement Tim Schwarzenberger, whose company signed onto the letters, said shareholders “expect those in the c-suite to deliver positive financial results that meet customer demand and contribute to a healthy, civil society.”

“That’s not too much to ask,” Schwarzenberger said in a statement to the DCNF. “For too long, however, corporate leaders have been bullied into taking increasingly extreme positions on hot-button cultural issues and implementing harmful DEI policies that divide up the workforce and society itself.”

Dr. OJ Oleka, Chief Executive Officer of the State Financial Officers Foundation, said public employees “like teachers, law enforcement officers, and fire fighters rely on state financial officers to make and recommend sound fiduciary decisions to secure their financial future.”

“I know this firsthand, as my mother is the beneficiary of my late father’s public pension from his career as a public university professor,” he said in a statement. “My mother deserves the promise of my late father’s pension, and so does everyone else who worked hard to earn one. The DEI regime does not deliver on that promise.”

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The media has faced allegations of bias against Trump and he also got indicted four times during his 2024 presidential campaign. Smerconish, on “Press Club,” argued that these factors ended up helping Trump rather than hurting his appeal with voters.

“I don’t want it all distilled into this one sound bite or conclusion, but at the top of my list, I’ll say it that way … It’s like a parenting lesson. The more that you tell people what they can’t do, what’s intolerable, you must not do this, you should not do this, the more they’re going to rebel,” Smerconish told Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin. “Maybe they would have ultimately come to their own conclusion and rejected Donald Trump. I don’t know.”

“But I think that the constant browbeating and the combination of the media influence and the four indictments, one conviction, and showing that god-awful joke from Madison Square Garden a week in advance of the election on a loop — and I felt it, and I said it,” he added. “I can’t sit here, Aiden, telling you, well, this is the way I called the election, but I definitely felt the potential for a boomerang effect, and I think that came true. I really do.”

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe performed at Trump’s Oct. 27 Madison Square Garden rally, calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and receiving significant media backlash. However, Trump ended up winning a majority of Hispanic male votes nationwide in his race against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Republican voters in Georgia told MSNBC during a May segment that Trump’s legal issues have made them more passionate about supporting him.

“It’s actually caused me to support him more,” a voter named Antonio Jones said. “I just don’t believe that it’s a coincidence we have a trial happening in Atlanta, we have one happening in New York, so the question people are beginning to ask themselves like I did, is like, why now?”

Trump leads Harris in the popular vote by 2% with over 76 million votes as of Friday morning, according to The Associated Press.

After Trump’s election victory, his two federal cases will be dropped and his state cases probably will too, though there’s a possibility that ambitious local prosecutors could extend the battle, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. For instance, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis signaled during a Wednesday interview with Atlanta News First that she intends to proceed with her case against Trump, which accuses him of attempting to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

Trump announced Gaetz’s appointment on Truth Social Wednesday, asserting that “Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations, and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.” Jennings, on “CNN News Central,” said he was “surprised” by Trump’s choice, adding that it reflects the president-elect’s confidence that Republicans will support his agenda without resistance.

WATCH:

“Are you not entertained? I mean, this is the most entertaining transition I’ve ever seen … I’m as surprised as anyone. But what I take away from this is that this is a president-elect who is feeling his power,” Jennings said. “I mean, this is someone who is appointing people to things, whether it’s Gaetz or anything else we’ve seen today, who is feeling his power, feeling his influence, doesn’t feel like he’s in a mood to negotiate with the people in Washington, D.C. He’s here to do what he wants to do and he’s going to expect the Republicans to fall in line.”

“It is apparent to me that Trump is in a decisive mood and is not someone who’s interested in picking things that he would consider to be watered down,” he added. “So that’s my initial reaction … I mean, we truly learned about it two seconds before we came on here, so pretty wild day.”

Trump also announced he would appoint former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be director of National Intelligence for his second administration in a Wednesday statement, writing that she will bring a “fearless spirit” to the intelligence community to help secure “Peace through Strength.” Moreover, the president-elect named Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his pick for secretary of state in another Wednesday statement, calling him an “Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies and a fearless Warrior.”

Trump on announced in a Tuesday statement that Fox News host and veteran Pete Hegseth is his choice for secretary of defense in his upcoming administration.

“You can’t underestimate Donald Trump’s influence over the Republicans in the Senate on this. And he’s going to be insistent that he get his government and his administration. And look, here’s the thing: He won. And he won the popular vote and he believes he has a mandate,” Jennings said. “And honestly I think he does too. And some of these picks are conventional. Marco Rubio, for instance, you know? Well-known name. But some of them are designed to shake up Washington. And I am assuming that’s what Donald Trump believes he’s doing here with a few of these folks.”

CNN anchor Dana Bash said Wednesday that she couldn’t come up with a single “example” of why governing “could be harder” for Trump in his second term due to his strong support among elected Republicans.

“That really does change the game for Donald Trump in how he can get things through, who he can get through and the kind of support he has for what he wants to do,” she said.

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The outlet claimed in a Wednesday editorial that the platform contains “disturbing content” that includes so-called “conspiracy theories” and “racism.” The editorial team has decided to promote their content elsewhere to avoid Musk’s alleged ability to “shape political discourse.”

“We wanted to let readers know that we will no longer post on any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X (formerly Twitter),” the editorial reads. “We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere. This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism.”

“The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse,” the editorial continued.

Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X https://t.co/j4fRgzSYde

— The Guardian (@guardian) November 13, 2024

The company’s staff will still be able to use X to promote their own work, and users are still permitted to post The Guardian’s content on the platform, the editorial team wrote. They alleged that X “plays a diminished role” in their goal to reach new audiences and prefers that readers obtain their content from their website.

“Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us to reach new audiences but, at this point, X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work. Our journalism is available and open to all on our website and we would prefer people to come to theguardian.com and support our work there,” the editorial continued.

President-elect Donald Trump’s victory led to a surge in users allegedly quitting X, most notably MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, who claimed she deleted her account as an act of “self preservation.” However, Wallace’s account appears to still exist.

Prior to Musk taking over X in April 2022, the platform locked the accounts of the New York Post and then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany shortly before the 2020 election for sharing the outlet’s reporting that contained emails allegedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop indicating that he and his father, President Joe Biden, met with a Ukrainian executive from the oil company Burisma. Musk and journalists including former Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi detailed how the former executives of the platform intentionally suppressed the New York Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop at the behest of the FBI.

The previous executives running the platform permanently banned Trump’s account for allegedly inciting or justifying violence at the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

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