BREAKING: Massive DOJ Revolt Rocks Trump's AG Nominee

Trump in Turkey Dogukan Keskinkilic/Pool via REUTERS

Good morning, this is Really American. It is Tuesday, July 7, 2026. Trump is in Turkey today selling F-35s to Erdoğan. Also, he’s is getting humiliated on every front.

More than a thousand Justice Department veterans just launched an open revolt against Todd Blanche, the personal lawyer Trump wants to install as Attorney General, and the letter they sent the Senate is brutal. On the world stage, Trump strong-armed FIFA into erasing a red card for Team USA, and Belgium responded by crushing the Americans 4-1 and taunting Trump directly. In Maine, Democrats are proving what accountability actually looks like, moving within hours to force Graham Platner out of a critical Senate race after a devastating allegation. And Bruce Springsteen just delivered the definition of patriotism that Trump never wants you to hear. All of it is below.

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1,205 DOJ VETERANS REVOLT AGAINST TRUMP’S AG PICK

A group of 1,205 Justice Department alumni is demanding the Senate reject Todd Blanche, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, in a scathing letter delivered ahead of his July 15 confirmation hearing.

Blanche is not a normal nominee. He spent years as Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer, including during the New York hush money trial. Trump handed him the department in April after firing Pam Bondi over her botched handling of the Epstein files, and Blanche immediately went to work running Trump’s revenge operation from inside the DOJ. He has targeted Trump’s political enemies, stonewalled the Epstein file releases, and pushed the widely mocked “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” Now Trump wants to make the arrangement permanent.

The former officials are begging the Senate Judiciary Committee to stop it. According to the letter obtained by Politico, “corruption and abuses... have defined” Blanche’s tenure atop the department. The signatories went further, warning about what Blanche has done to the career workforce that keeps federal law enforcement honest. “The culture of fear Blanche has instilled within DOJ’s workforce must end,” they wrote, adding that the Attorney General must serve a “government of laws, not of men” instead of exhibiting fealty to Trump.

The letter landed the same day a federal judge handed Blanche another defeat. Judge Emmet Sullivan refused to toss a lawsuit over the DOJ’s Epstein file redactions and ordered the department to unredact names in key emails. Sullivan also ordered the DOJ to hand over FBI interview notes from a woman who says Epstein introduced her to Trump, and that Trump sexually assaulted her when she was a minor. Trump denies the allegation. Sullivan previously found that Blanche violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the disclosure law Trump himself signed.

This is the man Trump wants running the Justice Department for the next two and a half years. The people who actually built that department are telling the Senate, on the record, that he is corrupt. Every Senator who votes to confirm him owns what comes next.

BELGIUM HUMILIATES TRUMP AFTER HIS FIFA PRESSURE CAMPAIGN BACKFIRES

Trump personally pressured FIFA to erase a red card for Team USA, and it blew up in his face on live television. Belgium demolished the United States 4-1 on Monday night, knocked the Americans out of the World Cup, and then mocked Trump directly. The Belgian national team posted two words on X after the final whistle: “Overturn this.”

Here is what Trump did. Team USA striker Folarin Balogun picked up a red card last week against Bosnia and Herzegovina, which carried an automatic one-game ban. Trump did not accept that. He called FIFA President Gianni Infantino, his personal sycophant who literally invented a “FIFA Peace Prize” to console Trump after the Nobel Committee snubbed him, and asked him to make the suspension disappear. The White House spent a full day huddling with lawyers and the men’s national team before Trump placed the call. FIFA caved, clearing Balogun to play for the first time since 1962 that a red card carried no suspension.

Trump then bragged about it. He told reporters “All I did was ask for a review. I didn’t say, ‘You have to do this.’” He also admitted that before the suspension, “I didn’t know what the hell a red card was.” That did not stop Trump from smearing the referee as “a little bit suspect” and telling journalists to “check his past,” or from thanking FIFA on Truth Social for “reversing a great injustice.”

The soccer world erupted. The Daily Beast reported that UEFA, Europe’s governing body, said FIFA had “crossed a red line” and called the decision “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable.” Belgium demanded an explanation before kickoff. FIFA responded by twisting the request into a formal appeal and then declaring it inadmissible. Then Belgium settled it on the field, and now the “Trump Curse” is trending as fans point out that Trump’s meddling preceded the worst American loss of the tournament.

Trump corrupted the world’s biggest sporting event to fix one game, and the team he “helped” got blown out anyway. The whole planet watched Trump lose. No Truth Social post can overturn a 4-1 scoreline.

DEMOCRATS MOVE TO FORCE PLATNER OUT AFTER ASSAULT ALLEGATION

The Democratic Party is showing what a real red line looks like. Within hours of a woman accusing Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner of sexual assault, party leaders across the country pulled their endorsements and demanded he leave the race.

Politico first reported the allegation from Jenny Racicot, a Maine woman who previously dated Platner. She says that in 2021, a drunken Platner forced her to have sex after she told him to stop. “He violated multiple layers of consent that night,” Racicot said, adding in a CNN interview that she did not fight back out of fear that Platner, a former Marine, would turn more violent. Platner denies everything, calling any accusation of non-consensual behavior “categorically false,” but he also canceled town hall events and said he is weighing the “best path forward” for his campaign.

The response from Democrats was immediate and unified. Chuck Schumer and DSCC chair Kirsten Gillibrand jointly demanded Platner “immediately withdraw” so Maine Democrats can pick a nominee who can actually beat Susan Collins. DNC chair Ken Martin said Maine Democrats should choose someone new. Elizabeth Warren, Ruben Gallego, and Ro Khanna all pulled their endorsements, with Khanna saying “sexual assault or violence against women is a red line.” Even Platner’s most loyal progressive backers walked away.

The stakes could not be higher. Maine is one of the seats Democrats must flip to retake the Senate, and Platner has until July 13 to withdraw so the party can name a replacement by July 27. Governor Janet Mills is waiting in the wings, and polls already showed Platner dragging the ticket down before this broke.

Remember the contrast here. Democrats just spent one news cycle cutting loose their own nominee in a must-win race over an assault allegation. Trump’s party made an adjudicated sexual abuser the President of the United States. One party has a red line. The other has Trump.

SPRINGSTEEN DEFINES THE PATRIOTISM TRUMP CANNOT STAND

Bruce Springsteen just gave Americans a definition of patriotism that should be taped to every refrigerator in the country. In his new PBS special, Finding America in Song, the Boss explained why criticizing your government is the most patriotic thing you can do.

“I believe in critical patriotism,” Springsteen said, per Variety. He described a patriot as someone who loves their country so much that they are willing to see it clearly, name its faults, push it to be better, and carry in their heart “the country that is waiting.”

Springsteen has backed those words with action all year. His Land of Hope and Dreams tour doubled as a protest against the administration, including a blistering takedown of Pam Bondi for prosecuting Trump’s perceived enemies and protecting his powerful friends. He also aimed straight at Trump: “You want to talk about snowflakes? We have a president who can’t handle the truth.”

Trump’s response proved Springsteen’s point for him. Trump used Truth Social to demand a MAGA boycott of Springsteen’s music, calling one of the most beloved artists in American history a “total loser” and a “very boring singer” suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” An 80-year-old president spending his time raging at a rock singer is not strength. It is exactly the thin-skinned weakness Springsteen described.

Trump wants you to believe patriotism means worshiping him. Springsteen is reminding the country that patriotism means holding power accountable. That is the fight every reader of this newsletter is already in.

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— The Really American Team