KELI From Inkwell, this is the Independent News Drop. It's Monday, June first. The time is six a.m. Central. I'm Keli, with Hast.
HAST Good morning. We've got a filing story from the dispatch desk that's worth the straight read.
KELI On May twentieth, the same day the Department of Justice waived all pending IRS claims against the former president on pre-settlement filings — meaning the audit excuse is gone for good — a gaggle question landed: would he release his current tax returns now? He said he might. The press covered that as a transparency story. But from our Ground News desk, here's the structural piece most outlets missed: the waiver is the immunity story. The filing waivers lock in place that no future administration can revisit those old returns. The promise to maybe release current ones is entirely voluntary and can be walked back anytime. Both happened the same day. Only one actually changed the legal footing. Watch what happens over the coming weeks — if he releases nothing, the press will circle back to the current-returns question, not the immunity grant. That's how structural immunity gets buried under procedural noise.
HAST Staying with how things work, but shifting ground entirely. There's a new piece out from Reason on the economics of mass deportation — argues the numbers don't hold up the way some policy makers are framing them.
KELI We've covered the deportation executive orders before. This is a cost-analysis update from the Society for the Rule of Law. The argument is straightforward: removing millions of workers would crater labor supply in agriculture, construction, hospitality. The wage gains for native workers would be offset by inflation and slower growth. It's technical work, not a political counter-argument, just the math. Worth reading if you're tracking what the next round of immigration policy fights might actually cost.
HAST Different scale, but there's a pharmaceutical pressure point developing this morning. Eli Lilly gave hospitals in a federal drug discount program five days — we're talking by Friday — to submit their claims data or the company stops honoring price breaks. The 340B program lets safety-net hospitals buy drugs at steep discounts and resell them to uninsured patients. Lilly's move is a negotiating escalation. If hospitals don't hand over the data, they lose the discount. We'll be watching to see if other drugmakers follow or if this gets walked back.
KELI On a different front, Ghana's parliament passed an anti-LGBTQ+ bill that would impose prison sentences for people identifying as part of that community. The president said yesterday he'll scrutinize it before approval — that's the opening for possible revision or veto. There are sixty countries worldwide with laws criminalizing same-sex relationships. Ghana's would be one of the harshest in terms of sentencing. The president's review window is narrow but real. Check back in a few days to see which way it moves.
HAST One more on citizenship. NPR's reporting this morning that Trump's vow to revoke hundreds of naturalized citizenships is hitting legal walls. The executive branch can't just strip citizenship — there's federal statute, case law, and naturalization records to work through. Some of the cases he's targeting involve paperwork issues from decades ago. It's legally messier than the rhetoric suggested, and courts are likely to slow-walk any mass revocations. That one will move in the background for months.
KELI Before we close, one date marker. Fifty-two years ago today, a doctor named Henry Heimlich published a paper in the journal Emergency Medicine describing a technique for rescuing choking victims — a sharp upward thrust to the abdomen that clears an airway obstruction.
HAST Simple, portable, and it works. No equipment needed.
KELI That's the Independent News Drop. We'll be back this evening. From Inkwell.