‘A crock of ■■■■’ / White House ‘freakout’ / You are here

‘A crock of ■■■■.’ Newly released transcripts of grand jury sessions in the aborted prosecution of the Broadview Six defendants make clear just how skeptical jurors were about the charges against protesters outside the Chicago-area’s ICE concentration camp back in September.

■ CNN: “The prosecutor then excused the grand juror—an approach so problematic, the U.S. attorney’s office cut short the session without asking the grand jury to vote again.”

■ Read those transcripts here.

■ Broadview Six defendant Brian Straw and his lawyer, Chris Parente, will join your Chicago Public Square columnist June 25 for a conversation about their tribulations. Admission will be free.

■ The Onion: “Mom Casually Mentions Her Bunco Group Threw Molotov Cocktails At ICE Last Week.”

With Senate control on the line … Scandalized Graham Platner looked like the winner of the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Susan Collins this fall.

■ He delivered a stemwinder of a victory speech.

■ Ex-Republican political strategist Rick Wilson—whose role used to be to ruin Democratic candidates—explains “why MAGA’s hit job on Platner failed.”

‘A master stroke of paranoia.’ President Trump’s assertion—echoed by House Speaker Johnson—that the lack of evidence of election theft is proof of election theft sent expat Tribune columnist Kevin Williams, now a resident of Portugal, back to his high school reading of 1984.

■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: “Apparently, their motto is: If you can’t beat them, say they’re cheating.”

■ The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic: “Diabolical. The fact that there is no evidence is the evidence. See, voter fraud isn’t about what you can prove up here, it’s about what you feel in here, and what you can pull out of here.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “These piss-soaked diaper-babies are screaming their heads off about how everything is rigged.”

White House ‘freakout.’ In the first published excerpt of a forthcoming tell-all book by reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, The New York Times details the administration’s internal furor over the Epstein file revelations about Trump.

■ Now, CNN’s Brian Stelter says, Trump’s team has launched a “massive” hunt to find the leakers.

Burning cross in Chicago. The Fire Department doused an iconic hate symbol yesterday in Grant Park.

■ A Chicago church is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to arrest of a suspect.

House hotseat. Chicago Public Schools chief Macquline King had a date this morning on Capitol Hill to address hostile questions from Republican representatives up in arms about the district’s care for Black and transgender students.

■ See it here.

Shorter trains, longer tax waits. The CTA’s cutting the length of some weekend trains.

■ Putting the squeeze on schools, libraries and other government agencies that depend on tax revenue, Cook County property tax bills will go out two months late.

You are here. PolitiFact was driven to post this: “Trump dozed off in Oval Office. Did he wake himself up with a fart?”

■ The Onion: “Trump Still Sleeping In MSG Seat.”

■ Columnist Neil Steinberg tours Chicago’s new Obama Presidential Center: “The place made me think of earnest interior designers laying bright fabric swatches on the back of a sofa in a house that’s on fire.”

‘I’ve been banned by Truth Social.’ Conservative former Chicago newspaper columnist Dennis Byrne writes that Trump’s site refuses to let him create an account—maybe “because I have disagreed with the president on occasion. I also don’t like him very much.”

■ Worry not: Your Square proprietor shared Byrne’s column on Truth.

And you thought Letterman and Colbert trashed it. Turns out not: The set of Stephen Colbert’s defunct Late Show has a new home—at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications.

■ Two writers for Colbert’s show have launched a podcast.

■ Last Week Tonight show host John Oliver has reportedly fulfilled his dream of landing a role in a daytime soap opera.

Chill. With temps headed into the 90s today and tomorrow, Chicago’s opened a dozen cooling centers.

■ The AP: Even as Trump trumpets coal over clean energy, solar power’s become the leading source of new power for the U.S.

Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.

‘Trump just put me on his enemies list’ / Wail to the chief / Siri, reborn

‘Trump just put me on his enemies list.’ Newly added to a White House roster of “media offenders,” author and columnist Brian Tyler Cohen vows not to follow the lead of law firms and TV networks that bent a knee: “If Trump wants to come after me and content creators, go for it. We’ll be even louder than before.”

■ Cohen’s more blunt on YouTube. (Parental advisory!)

■ The legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression calls the White House list “shameful” but not yet a First Amendment violation.

■ Former USA Today editor-in-chief Ken Paulson, now director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University: “Some news companies have concluded that speaking truth to power is a bad business model.”

■ A Northwestern University researcher was among several diabetes experts kicked out of the American Diabetes Association’s annual meeting for passing out copies of a Trump-critical editorial published in the ADA’s own journal.

‘I traveled all the way to Wisconsin!’ The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart mocked those words from NBC’s Kristen Welker in her appeal to Trump as he walked out on their interview: “One of the worst pleas in the history of journalism. … ‘Mr. President, please! Wisconsin! Wheel of Fortune is on an hour earlier here!’”

■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “Oh, the sacrifice and suffering!”

Wail to the chief. Trump was booed by the crowd as he attended last night’s Knicks-Spurs NBA playoff at Madison Square Garden.

■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: “Trump’s presence caused his chosen team to lose, just as it does with wars.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “All this disruption, just so Donny could fall asleep in public … again.”

■ The Onion: “Trump Claims He Never Promised A Livable Country.”

‘Very troubling.’ More than a hundred former U.S. prosecutors in Chicago have released a statement condemning Trump’s U.S. attorney here, Andrew Boutros.

■ Their letter, which you can read here, says his actions in the “Broadview Six” case, among others, “have tarnished the reputation of the United States Attorney’s Office.”

■ Updating coverage: The U.S. House was set today to fund immigration enforcement for the rest of Trump’s term.

‘Lightning speed for a court.’ As the nation barrels toward Trump’s wrestling-match celebration of his birthday the nation’s 250th anniversary this weekend, law professor Joyce Vance updates the legal struggle over cage fights on the White House lawn.

■ Trump’s formally nominated his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche to be the U.S. attorney general.

■ Satirist Andy Borowitz: “Blanche Quits DOJ to Pursue Dream of Going to Law School.”

Siri, reborn. The Verge counts off the seven biggest announcements at Apple’s developer conference.

■ Apple historian David Pogue says the key is a deal with Google—and “what’s wild is that … Google agreed to use Apple’s privacy structures.”

■ Also: New child safety controls.

■ Here’s a list of all the iPhone models eligible for this fall’s operating system upgrade.

For sale—maybe: Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network. In its bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, Trump-compliant Paramount Skydance has indicated it would consider putting one of the companies’ kids’ channels on the block.

■ Axios: If the deal happens, embattled CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss could also oversee CNN’s editorial coverage.

■ A source close to the deal: “The Paramount brass loves Bari Weiss.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

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