The week ended with federal probes into an ICE shooting, expanded immigration powers, and presidential actions on Cuba and tax litigation.
Dante Belcher
Feb 2, 2026
Trump’s 54th week ended with high-profile arrests, federal investigations, immigration actions, lawsuits and global tensions. Journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested by federal officers over their coverage of a St. Paul protest in January in which an ICE official was a pastor. The two are now facing federal charges.
At the same time, the Department of Justice (DOJ) opened a civil rights investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen and VA nurse, after he was shot by Border Patrol agents in what many called “execution-style.” Meanwhile, the FBI seized voting records in Georgia connected to the 2020 election.
Following a previous report from The Introspective detailing the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father by ICE, a federal judge ordered the two released from custody after another judge had previously ruled they could not be deported. A later report from The New York Times highlighted a memo allowing ICE agents to arrest people without warrants, raising implications following an earlier Introspective report revealing that ICE agents no longer require warrants to enter homes. Meanwhile, ICE ended its “Operation Catch of the Day” in Maine.
Trump later filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department, alleging the agencies leaked his tax returns in 2019. He then threatened to impose tariffs on countries that provide oil to Cuba while signing an executive order declaring a “national security emergency” involving the nation.
Don Lemon, Alex Pretti, and FBI
Journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested Friday over their coverage of a January protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, where a pastor was allegedly an ICE agent.
“At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X. The four were charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), a 1994 law barring intimidation and threats against reproductive clinics, hospitals and places of worship.
In a statement posted to Facebook, Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said Lemon was taken into custody while covering the Grammy Awards.
“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” Lowell said.
“This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand,” he added.
“Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
During his show Friday, Lemon said the arrests marked a moment for journalists to “stand up for each other” following his release.
“It may have started with people having their due process rights violated on the streets, violently violated on the streets. But now they’re trying to silence journalists. And I will not be silenced,” he said.
Fort, who filmed her arrest and posted it to Facebook, told CNN she would “continue to tell the stories of my community,” adding that the arrests sent a “chilling message” to the media industry.
“As journalists, we never want to be the story. But unfortunately, I did find myself in a predicament where I felt that I needed to be able to tell my own story, that I needed the world to see that journalism is on trial,” she said.
“If they can criminalize a journalist here in Minnesota, whether you’re independent or not, I think that we’ve seen a track record where this is just going to continue to escalate.”
At the same time, following the killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a civil rights investigation would be opened.
“I don’t want the takeaway to be that there’s some massive civil rights investigation that’s happening. This is what I would describe as a standard investigation by the FBI,” Blanche said.
“That investigation, to the extent it needs to involve lawyers at the Civil Rights Division, it will involve those.”
“There are thousands, unfortunately, of law enforcement events every year where somebody is shot. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice does not investigate every one of those shootings. There have to be circumstances or facts, or maybe unknown facts, but certainly circumstances that warrant an investigation.”
However, in a Truth Social post, Trump called Pretti an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist,” after a previous report from The Introspective found video of Pretti clashing with ICE agents days before his death.
“Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces,” Trump wrote.
“It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!”
Meanwhile, the FBI seized voting records related to the 2020 election in Georgia after the DOJ previously filed a lawsuit to obtain materials including ballot stubs and signature envelopes.
Immigration
Following a previous report from The Introspective detailing the detention of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father by ICE, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered the two released from custody after another judge had previously ruled they could not be deported.
“We are now working closely with our clients and their family to ensure a safe and timely reunion,” the family’s lawyers said in a statement obtained by The Introspective.
“We are pleased that the family will now be able to focus on being together and finding some peace after this traumatic ordeal.”
In his court filing, Biery criticized the Trump administration, writing that “the ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children… Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.”
He also criticized administrative warrants, which ICE agents use to make arrests without a judge’s signature.
“Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster,” he wrote.
“That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer.”
The ruling comes as a New York Times report found that ICE agents no longer require a warrant to conduct arrests.
Meanwhile, ICE ended its “Operation Catch of the Day” in Maine.
“While the Department of Homeland Security does not confirm law enforcement operations, I can report that Secretary Noem has informed me that ICE has ended its enhanced activities in the state of Maine,” Maine Sen. Susan Collins wrote on X.
“There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here. I have been urging Secretary Noem and others in the administration to get ICE to reconsider its approach to immigration enforcement in the state.”
She later said ICE would continue “normal operations” in the region that have been “ongoing for years.”
Lawsuits and Cuba
Following a previous Introspective report detailing Trump filing a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, Trump and his sons filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, alleging that a 2019 tax returns leak caused “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump.”
“Plaintiffs had no reason to believe that an unauthorized disclosure had occurred for at least two reasons,” the lawsuit read, citing The New York Times.
“First, the New York Times reporting did not state that the information came from the IRS, and second, the IRS commissioner supposedly investigated and found that the disclosure did not come from the IRS.”
IRS Lawsuit
Meanwhile, as the trade war continues, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries providing oil to Cuba while signing an executive order, Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Cuba, declaring that the “policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat.”
“The Government of Cuba has taken extraordinary actions that harm and threaten the United States. The regime aligns itself with—and provides support for—numerous hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups, and malign actors adverse to the United States, including the Government of the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, the Government of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah,” the executive order read.
“For example, Cuba blatantly hosts dangerous adversaries of the United States, inviting them to base sophisticated military and intelligence capabilities in Cuba that directly threaten the national security of the United States. Cuba hosts Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility, which tries to steal sensitive national security information of the United States.”
The order directs the Commerce Department to determine whether a country is supplying oil to the island nation, with other agencies deciding whether to impose tariffs.
“The president wants to make sure his foreign policy is being defended by all of our allies and all of our friends, and so he wants to make it clear what our allies and friends should do,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said, stating that the new order is about strengthening U.S. foreign policy.
“I think he lays it out very clearly and very carefully, and then our allies can understand what he wants to do. And as you’ve seen with all of his tariffs, the results end up being reasonable and sensible. So I would expect the same here—reasonable and sensible.”
The Introspective 
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