The lead federal prosecutor in James Comey’s criminal prosecution related to his Instagram assassination post has resigned from the case.

Matthew Petracca, an Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina, has resigned from Comey’s case and other criminal cases.

According to NBC News, Petracca thought about leaving the DOJ, but decided to remain at the Department after taking a week off.

Ellis Boyle, Acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, hired Petracca several months ago.

NBC News reported:

A rookie federal prosecutor who brought a case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Donald Trump’s life by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram has stepped off the case.

Matthew Petracca, who had been recently hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina, is no longer on the Comey case, according to a court filing.

Petracca also dropped off of other criminal cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina in recent days, according to court filings. Petracca is a former Republican county committeeman in New Jersey whom Eastern District of North Carolina W. Ellis Boyle hired months ago, NBC News has reported. Boyle oversaw the highly criticized case, which will go to trial in October if it manages to survive legal challenges.

Petracca had contemplated leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to two people familiar with the matter, but instead remained a DOJ employee after taking a week off. Petracca had not responded to a previous request for comment on his status at the Justice Department, and did not respond to an additional request for comment on Friday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

James Comey posted his threatening ‘8647’ Instagram post last May.

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey said.

’86 47′ is a threat to ‘eliminate/kill’ the 47th president.

James Comey was indicted by a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina on two felony counts last month:

COUNT ONE: Knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States;

COUNT TWO: knowingly and willfully did transmit in interstate and foreign commerce a communication that contained a threat to kill the President, Donald J. Trump

Read the indictment here.

North Carolina-based US District Judge Louise Flanagan, a George W. Bush appointee, agreed to postpone Comey’s trial date to October.

Comey is facing up to 20 years in prison.

The post BREAKING: Lead Federal Prosecutor in James Comey Criminal Prosecution Resigns from Case appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

A federal judge on Friday launched an investigation into the Trump Administration’s settlement with the IRS that led to the $1.77 billion anti-weaponization fund.

Earlier this month, President Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns in exchange for a deal.

Trump dropped his blockbuster lawsuit against the agency in exchange for a $1.7 billion taxpayer-funded fund to pay people who were unfairly targeted by the Biden Regime.

In January, President Trump, Eric Trump, Don Jr., and the Trump Org filed a lawsuit against the IRS for leaking their tax returns.

They sought $10 billion in damages.

After Trump agreed to drop his lawsuit in exchange for the anti-weaponization fund, a group of former judges asked a federal judge to launch an inquiry to determine whether the Trump Administration defrauded the court.

On Friday, Miami-based US District Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee, launched the inquiry.

Politico reported:

A federal judge is demanding answers to allegations that President Donald Trump defrauded her court by filing a lawsuit against the IRS as a pretext to reach a settlement that resulted in a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to make payouts to his political allies.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams launched the inquiry Friday, after closing the lawsuit on her docket last week. The Miami-based Obama appointee cited a request by 35 former federal judges who urged her to reopen the case to determine whether Trump’s effort amounted to “serious misconduct” and an abuse of the court system.

In September 2023, federal prosecutors charged a former IRS contractor who worked for the agency from 2018 to 2020 with unlawfully obtaining and disseminating the tax details of a high-ranking public official and numerous affluent Americans to media outlets.

According to court documents and an official press release from the Department of Justice, Charles Littlejohn, 38, of Washington, D.C., stole tax return information associated with a high-ranking government official, referred to as Public Official A  – now known as Donald Trump. He then disclosed this information to a news organization identified as News Organization 1 – now known as The New York Times.

Littlejohn reportedly stole IRS information on thousands of wealthy people. The stolen information was then disseminated to two news outlets (New York Times and ProPublica).

Littlejohn was only sentenced to five years in prison. Political leaders said he should have been sentenced to 60 years.

The post Obama Judge Launches Investigation Into Trump Settlement with IRS appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California continues to light his constituents’ tax dollars on fire.

Moreover, he has done it in the name of cultural pandering and with dubious constitutionality.

According to the urban policy-focused City Journal, the state’s “Tribal Wildfire Resilience” program, overseen by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CAL FIRE, has distributed $24 million to “tribal groups and other nonprofits” to teach American Indians, identified as “cultural fire practitioners,” how to clear brush from forests in ways their ancestors would have found familiar.

Meanwhile, taxpayers have seen no appreciable return on that expenditure. How much brush have the tribes cleared? California has released no data.

Of course, this is not meant as an attack on the tribes — far from it. After all, one could probably find $24 million between the couch cushions at the Pentagon.

What makes this expenditure maddening is that it, like most things in California, is dripping with wokeness.

For instance, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, who effectively oversees the program, justified it not on fire management grounds but as a remedy for historical injustices. California, he said, originated in a “state-sanctioned policy of genocide.” Thus, Crowfoot made it sound as if the governor had a plan to return the land to the “leadership of California Native American tribes.”

Newsom, of course, has no such plan. But saying that he has one sounds good in upscale places like the French Laundry.

Worse yet, the “Tribal Wildfire Resilience” program engages in discrimination by allocating resources based on race.

“As part of this commitment to ‘cultural burning,’” the City Journal wrote, “California has created separate fire-certification processes for nontribal and tribal populations. White, black, Latino, and Asian fire bosses must receive technical certifications, including a 40-hour burn-boss course and, in some cases, a federal certificate. ‘Cultural fire practitioners,’ by contrast, are certified through simple tribal recognition that a person has ‘substantial experience’ burning for cultural purposes.”

Should anyone ever make a case of it, the U.S. Supreme Court almost certainly would find those race-based provisions unconstitutional.

Again, none of this reflects in any way on the tribes themselves. Perhaps some “cultural fire practitioners” really do have “substantial experience” in clearing brush via controlled fires. After all, early American history is filled with stories of Indians skilled in that practice.

In that case, however, why do they require public funding? Why must the privileged Newsom, one of the whitest of white men who ever lived, teach them traditional cultural techniques?

In February, CNN data guru Harry Enten referred to the 2028 Democratic presidential field as a “clown car.” Newsom, long regarded as a possible front-runner, might be the car’s driver.

For one thing, stories of his grotesque mismanagement of the state have become too ubiquitous to ignore.

In a 2023 debate, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida made Newsom’s name synonymous with the human feces-covered streets of San Francisco.

Of course, when destructive wildfires hit Los Angeles in January 2025, Newsom botched the state’s response. (Imagine what Los Angeles firefighters could have done with $24 million.)

Then — in a remarkable video that every American should see — Newsom, when confronted by a distressed constituent, lied about having then-President Joe Biden on the phone, and then the governor doubled down on the lie.

In short, the “Tribal Wildfire Resilience” program has the makings of another woke-inspired Newsom disaster.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Not Satire: Newsom Took Money That Could Have Helped Stop Palisades Fires and Spent It Teaching American Indians to Start Fires appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The bus driver who caused a fatal crash in Virginia is a naturalized US citizen from China and doesn’t speak English.

Five people were killed, including two children, and more than 40 were injured in a bus crash on I-95 early Friday morning.

Multiple vehicles were involved in the crash after the bus driver failed to slow down in time and crashed into a Suburban.

The Suburban got pushed into an Acura SUV.

“The Acura caught fire, police said. Four of the five people killed were in the Acura: a 45-year-old man, a 44-year-old woman, a 13-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, all from Greenfield, Massachusetts, police said,” ABC News reported.

“The fifth victim killed, a 25-year-old woman, was in the Suburban, police said,” the outlet reported.

“Forty-four people were taken to hospitals, including three with critical injuries, police said,” ABC reported.

According to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the driver of the bus doesn’t even speak English.

The driver obtained his CDL in Democrat-run New York in 2024.

Full statement from Transportation Secretary Duffy:

Five people are dead, including a 13-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, after the driver of a motorcoach slammed into stopped traffic on I-95.

@FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs and our investigators are on the ground at the crash site working with the @NTSB.

Local police confirm the driver of this motorcoach — a man from China who became a U.S. citizen — doesn’t speak English. He received his commercial drivers license from New York State in 2024.

Unacceptable. This is exactly why we are holding states’ accountable, enforcing the rules of the road, and cracking down on drivers who can’t speak English.

If you can’t be properly trained, read our road signs, or communicate with law enforcement, you have no business driving a bus.

Our investigators are reviewing New York licensing records, training documentation, and the driver’s history. Any company, trainer, or school that contributed to putting an unqualified driver on the road will face intense scrutiny.

We’ll share more updates soon.

My prayers are with the loved ones of the innocent lives lost and those who were hurt in this horrific crime.

Update on the tragic bus crash in Virginia:

Five people are dead, including a 13-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, after the driver of a motorcoach slammed into stopped traffic on I-95. @FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs and our investigators are on the ground at the crash… pic.twitter.com/NWPBd9aLPr

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) May 29, 2026

The post HORROR: Bus Driver Who Caused Deadly Crash in Virginia That Killed FIVE People is From China and Doesn’t Speak English appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

What can one possibly say to leftist protesters who believe that by blocking traffic they can save illegal aliens?

As an exasperated truck driver said to a group of protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “What’s wrong with y’all?”

What indeed? In fact, the truck driver acted for millions of Americans by directing his righteous anger toward those cowering fools.

The incident occurred late Wednesday outside an ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey. As usual, the American left’s best and brightest showed up to protest those who enforce immigration laws.

In fairness, some protesters did try to talk sense into their fellow miscreants.

“These guys are not the enemy,” one woman insisted, referring to the drivers of the vehicles to which some protesters refused to allow passage.

Then, a masked protester who sounded female said something inaudible about people “inside,” presumably the detention facility.

“I understand that,” the first woman replied. “And that’s why we’re here. But these people are working. They have families, too. We’ve been letting cars go through here all day long.”

Incredibly, it was clear from the video that the somewhat rational-sounding woman was outnumbered. In fact, she grew frustrated with the tactics as more masked protesters justified stopping traffic.

Moments later, another unmasked protester — this time a young male — chastised the masked traffic-blockers for failing to recognize that the truck drivers were “working class people just like us.”

Finally, a large truck driver had had enough. He got out of his truck and confronted the lunatics.

“Y’all wanna get locked up?” he yelled. “Huh? What am I doing? Am I bothering y’all?”

WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some may find offensive.

Truck driver goes off on protesters as some decide to block multiple trucks outside Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark NJ pic.twitter.com/aOVbJ0Xnbo

— Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) May 28, 2026

No doubt the fact that the truck driver was black and still did not sympathize with their cause left the protesters’ minuscule brains scrambled and frozen. After all, why else would they shy away from him after acting so tough moments earlier?

The entire scene, of course, unfolded like a typical leftist protest. It had everything: misplaced priorities, nonsensical arguments, and even knuckleheads quarreling over tactics.

The following videos, also posted to X, show the same protesters clashing with federal agents and trying to block ICE vehicles.

BREAKING: Pepper spray, Pepper Balls and Massive Barricade Clashes between Anti-ICE Protesters with Shields and Federal Agents at Delaney Hall ICE Detention Center

Protesters built barricades and used cement blocks to reinforce their line blocking facility as ICE pushed back pic.twitter.com/bHQG9YP9jK

— Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) May 28, 2026

NOW: HUNDREDS of rioters are here outside ICE Newark attempting to block ICE vehicles from coming in and out of the facility

But ICE is NOT allowing them to win

GOD BLESS ICE! America is WITH you! pic.twitter.com/5hAyKJGG2K

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 28, 2026

To the sane reader and viewer, of course, none of this makes any sense.

Never mind the head-scratching sympathy for illegal aliens in federal custody. The idea that forcibly stopping traffic would aid your cause could only occur to the mentally ill or the demon-possessed.

And that explains the entire scene, including the truck driver’s angry response. After all, to the true leftist nihilist, sowing anger-inducing chaos in the most cowardly fashion possible is the entire point.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Watch: Anti-ICE Agitators Show Their True Colors When Truck Driver Gets Out of Vehicle and Confronts Them appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.