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January 21, 2026

5 entries on this date.

House Speaker Mike Johnson endorsed impeaching judges Boasberg and Boardman over their rulings against Trump

House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a Capitol news conference on January 21, 2026 that he supports impeaching U.S. District Judges James Boasberg and Deborah Boardman, calling their rulings against the Trump administration "egregious abuses" and saying "extreme times call for extreme measures." His remarks endorsed an impeachment campaign already underway among House and Senate Republicans, including articles Rep. Brandon Gill had filed against Boasberg and a Senate hearing Sen. Ted Cruz had convened arguing both judges violated their constitutional duties.

ICE deported pregnant asylum seeker Zharick Buitrago Ortiz from Atlanta amid reported medical distress, pending asylum claim

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Zharick Daniela Buitrago Ortiz, a 21-year-old Colombian asylum seeker who was eight months pregnant, from Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport on January 21, 2026, while a derivative asylum claim on her mother's application remained pending. Her attorney said she was in "serious medical distress" with intense back and abdominal pain and had been denied medical care before the flight; DHS disputed the medical-distress claim on the record, saying she had been medically cleared per policy and describing her as a suspected gang member who had previously been removed. Hours later, a federal judge granted part of an emergency motion to halt the removal, but ICE had already put her on the plane.

TSA Acting Administrator McNeill falsely told Congress TSA does not send passenger data to ICE; FOIA-obtained agreement showed it does

On January 21, 2026, Acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security that TSA does not send passenger data to ICE, saying the agency only "helps ICE check against information." A Memorandum of Agreement between TSA and ICE, signed in May 2025 and disclosed by American Oversight through a FOIA lawsuit on July 28, 2026, states that TSA "intends to share specified data elements with ICE" and sets procedures for ICE to retain that information.

Institute of Museum and Library Services funded 'Freedom Trucks' museums that presented fabricated and AI-generated history to the public

The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded a $14 million grant to Freedom 250 to fund a fleet of six "Freedom Trucks" mobile museums, which launched January 21, 2026 and toured schools and communities nationwide with content produced by PragerU and Hillsdale College. Reporting by The Washington Post, Inside Higher Ed, and independent journalist Jonathan Larsen documented that the exhibits presented fabricated and AI-generated historical claims, including an invented George Washington quotation, a false statement that Muhammad Ali had "disavowed" Islam, and a long-debunked myth that Congress authorized an official "Aitken Bible." Historians said the government-funded exhibits advanced a sanitized, Christian-nationalist account of American history.

Michigan Department of Civil Rights shelved $1.1M tribal boarding-school report and omitted its apology recommendation

Bridge Michigan reported on January 21, 2026 that Michigan's Department of Civil Rights had shelved a $1.1 million report on the state's role in Native American tribal boarding schools, completed in October 2025 by Washington-based consulting firm Kauffman and Associates, rather than release it to the public. Kauffman said the department and the Attorney General's office, serving as its legal counsel, directed the firm to cut its initial 350-page report to 50 pages and remove references to local government involvement. A follow-up House hearing in late February found the department had also omitted the report's recommendations, including a recommended state apology, from the 16-page summary it gave the Legislature.