Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Independent News Drop. I'm Keli, with Hast.

HAST Heavy opening. Trump at a private equity summit, March of last year, told a room of sovereign wealth fund managers that Cuba is next for U.S. intervention — then asked the press to ignore the statement. Said it twice. The audience in that room: the people who profit most from knowing which country gets restructured.

KELI From our Ground News desk. Here's what happened. Trump spoke before an audience of financial players with direct stake in knowing geopolitical moves before they're public. He named Cuba as the next target, then requested the media disregard what he'd just said. The framing most newsrooms will run: a joke, a gaffe, a moment of loose talk. The structural reality underneath: he announced policy to investors before the public, then asked press to suppress it. The mechanism is not accident — it's access. Wealth funds get the briefing. The public gets the request to forget. Watch whether the White House clarifies, denies, or lets it sit. If it sits, the private briefing held. If it's denied, the tape and witnesses remain.

HAST Staying with power and precedent. A GOP congressman from West Virginia, Riley Moore, is now running a revision of Watergate history through the Trump DOJ's weaponization probe. Moore claims Nixon was framed, that the scandal was fake, that he was couped out of office. This is not a marginal voice — Moore's a ranking member. The DOJ under Trump is investigating what it calls weaponization of the Justice Department against the former president. That same DOJ is now tolerating — or amplifying — the rewriting of the 1972 break-in and the subsequent cover-up as a frame job against Nixon. The White House Counsel's office has not responded to requests for clarification on whether the administration endorses that framing.

KELI Different scale, but related. A federal immigration agent shot and killed Renee Good during an ICE raid in Minneapolis last January. Her family is now filing lawsuits. Good was not charged with any crime at the time of the shooting. Bodycam and witness accounts show she was unarmed. The family's legal action names the agent and the Department of Homeland Security. DHS has not released findings from its internal review. The local U.S. Attorney's office said in February it would take time. No timeline has been given.

HAST On schools and AI. The Texas Education Board raised red flags about an artificial intelligence learning tool. The state flagged problems with the system's accuracy and bias testing. Months later, the same state education agency began piloting that tool in public school classrooms. ProPublica obtained records showing the board's concerns were documented — and that pilots proceeded anyway. The vendor did not release independent third-party testing results. Schools were not told the state had reservations.

KELI One more marker overseas. U.S. troops have withdrawn from Iraq — the last soldiers left Erbil Air Base on Wednesday. That ends more than two decades of continuous military presence that began in 2003 under President Bush. The withdrawal was completed under Trump's second term. Reason reports that the open question now is whether the U.S. will draw down from the rest of the Middle East or sustain bases elsewhere in the region. No formal announcement on broader footprint changes has been made.

HAST Before we close, a history note.

KELI October first, 1982: Helmut Kohl became Chancellor of Germany through a constructive vote of no confidence, replacing Helmut Schmidt.

KELI That's the Independent News Drop. For bodycam explainers and Lawz videos, check the channel. Race night tools at racer.wiki. Cards, bible-shirts, and art-shirts at inkwell.wiki slash cards. Full script at inkwell.wiki slash news. From Inkwell.

KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. There's an essay at Gil's Intelligent Version on what actually happened in 1914 — and how a real historical instinct curdled into false certainty the moment someone tried to measure it to the inch.

HAST It's called The Witness and the Ruler. At inkwell dot wiki, slash giv.