Biden Pardons FBI Agent Dobule Murderer, Trump Send Troops into Mexico?, Hamas/Israel Hostage Handoff Borders on Riot (The Five for 01/21/25)
Plus, what's up with re-naming that mountain?
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter.
There is obviously a near-infinite amount of coverage and commentary of the Inauguration, so there’s nothing I can say there that hasn’t already been written…so let’s dive into what’s actually happening in the world.
So…let’s dive into the news.
[one]
Up first, let’s talk about the love/hate of the executive orders yesterday. MSNBC published the full list, which I’ll attempt to summarize:
“Drill baby, drill” (opens up Alaska for more oil and gas)
“TikTok lives to fight another day” (self explanatory)
“We quit” (the World Health Organization, Paris Climate Accords)
“Two Genders, Male and Female” (self explanatory)
“No more DEI” (self explanatory)
“You kill a cop? We kill you” (death penalty for murdering a police officer)
“Names, ‘Merica” (The Gulf of America, Alaska’s Mount Denali becomes Mt. McKinley again, which had been renamed by Obama).
Of course, because those are all executive orders, the next Democratic President can just erase ALL of it. And the next Republican President can put it all back…which just seems like we’re in for long term whiplash.
[two]
Around 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees were freed from Israeli jails and into the occupied West Bank on Sunday, as part of an exchange under ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel that went into effect Sunday morning. Their release comes hours after three Israeli women were set free by Hamas-led Palestinian militants who held them hostage in Gaza for 471 days.
This was the first of several hostage and detainee exchanges set to take place during the planned six-week ceasefire in Gaza that's aimed at ending the 15-month war. Negotiations to extend the deal are expected to begin in coming weeks.
In the West Bank, the freed Palestinians arrived in a bus to scenes of cheering and celebration. Hundreds of people were there to greet them at the release site, in a traffic circle in a suburb of Ramallah. Families were bundled up in winter coats and waving Palestinian flags while waiting for hours in the cold.
Several young men, wearing what appeared to be Israeli prison uniforms, were hoisted onto the shoulders of friends and family.
According to the Palestinian Authority's Commission for Prisoners' Affairs, the Palestinians released in the exchange were women and minors.
Worth noting…NPR somehow failed to report on how Hamas forces could barely hold their citizens back from trying to rip the hostages out of the Red Cross Vans, according to France 24.
A dense crowd of Palestinians had gathered to watch the moment, the first release of hostages seized on October 7, 2023, under the new ceasefire that came into effect on Sunday.
Hamas fighters struggled to hold the crowds back from the convoy of Red Cross SUVs that had arrived at Saraya Square in the west of Gaza City to collect them.
Many of those in the crowd chanted "Allahu Akbar", or "God is greatest" in Arabic.
The video footage tells the story well:
[three]
So…are the Navy Seals gonna start whacking the Sinaloa cartel?
It’s…complicated.
U.S President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday he will launch a new anti-drug advertising campaign to show the physical impact of taking drugs like fentanyl and repeated his threat to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
"We're going to advertise how bad drugs are for you. They ruin your look, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin, they ruin your teeth," Trump said at a conference of the conservative group Turning Point in Phoenix, Arizona.
Trump gave few concrete details about the ad campaign, which he does not appear to have mentioned before and that he likened to running a political campaign. He said his administration would spend "a lot of money" on the program but that it would be a "very small amount of money, relatively."
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for further information.
Trump's plan has echoes of the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign, led by Republican former first lady Nancy Reagan in the 1980s to encourage young Americans to refuse drugs.
Between 50,000 and 60,000 Americans are projected to die from synthetic opioid overdoses this year, most from taking fentanyl or closely related drugs.
The fentanyl crisis featured heavily in Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, even though synthetic opioid deaths more than doubled under his 2017-2021 administration.
Trump on Sunday also revived a campaign vow to designate Mexico's drug cartels as terrorist groups.
"I will immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations," Trump said.
While in office in 2019, Trump shelved such a plan at the request of Mexico's then-President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he wanted U.S. cooperation on fighting drug gangs, not intervention.
Some U.S. officials had also privately expressed misgivings that the measure could damage relations with Mexico and hinder the Mexican government's fight against drug trafficking.
On a livestream this morning, Trump told one reporter “we will see” about sending Special Forces into Mexico to battle drug cartels.
Of course, this could be just verbal sparring to advance his agenda, as Trump also announced that Mexican goods will be hit with a 25% import tariff starting on February 1st, just 11 days away.
This will immediately increase grocery prices if it goes through, which Trump won’t want attached to his name. Which makes me question if we’re really doing any of this.
[four]
Well, I didn’t have “guy who murdered two FBI agents walks free” on my Inauguration Day BINGO card…
The FBI Agents Association expressed outrage after now-former President Joe Biden granted clemency to Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents.
The former president issued a number of pardons and sentence commutations in his final moments in the Oval Office this week, chief among them being Leonard Peltier, who was convicted in 1975. Per UPI:
Among the names granted clemency Monday was longtime jailed Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who many say was America’s “longest-serving political prisoner” after he was convicted in 1975 of allegedly killing two FBI agents on his property in a trial many viewed as a sham.
Biden “was right” to commute the life sentence of the Indigenous elder and activist “given the serious human rights concerns about the fairness of his trial,” Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said Monday in a statement.
Meanwhile, the British-headquarterd Amnesty International had for decades advocated for Peltier’s release to the U.S. government, doing so publicly at least twice in the last few months of last year.
In a statement released on Monday, the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) called the former president’s commutation of Peltier’s sentence “disgraceful,” noting the “brutal murders of FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams.”
“This last-second, disgraceful act by then-President Biden, which does not change Peltier’s guilt but does release him from prison, is cowardly and lacks accountability. It is a cruel betrayal to the families and colleagues of these fallen Agents and is a slap in the face of law enforcement,” it said.
Agents Coler and Williams gave their lives in service to this nation, and their families continue to bear the heavy burden of that sacrifice. The loss of these heroes is felt as deeply today within the FBI family as it was in 1975,” it added.
Special Agent Ronald A. Williams was 27 years old when he died in service of the country, which means you may be reading this at an older age than he will ever be.
It’s a tough thing to explain…and maybe Biden can’t, because he doesn’t remember.
[five]
Finally, House Speaker Mike Johnson told The Free Press that he met with President Biden a year ago about an executive order banning Liquid National Gas exports to Europe…and Biden had no idea he had signed off on it.
Johnson told the Free Press’ Bari Weiss he didn’t believe Biden was lying, but was left to believe the then-81-year-old leader “genuinely didn’t know what he had signed.”
The troubling encounter happened in the Oval Office in early 2024, when the two met to discuss the latest aid package for Ukraine.
Afterwards, Johnson asked Biden why he had inked an executive order pausing new permits for American liquid natural gas export to European allies — a crucial issue for his constituents in the Bayou State, which in 2023, handled 61% of the nation’s LNG exports, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
“Why would you do that? Cause you understand we just talked about Ukraine, you understand you are fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine, because they gotta get their gas from him,” Johnson said he told Biden.
Biden was stunned, Johnson said.
“I didn’t do that,” the president said, according to Johnson.
“Sir, you paused it, I know. I have the export terminals in my state. I talked to those people in my state, I’ve talked to those people this morning, this is doing massive damage to our economy, national security,” Johnson said he told the commander-in-chief.
Well, we will not lack for news in the coming days…what’s next? Your guess is as good as mine.
Until the next one,
-sth