Photo illustration by Emma Spainhoward with photograph by Getty Images.
Good morning. Mostly sunny with wind gusts and a high temperature around 46 today. A low near 29 overnight. The Wizards visit Cleveland tonight. You can find me on Bluesky, I’m @abeaujon.87 on Signal, and there’s a link to my email address below.
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I can’t stop listening to:
Solas (featuring Rhiannon Giddens), “Lay Your Money Down.” The reunited celtic-music groupplays the Birchmere tonight.
Take Washingtonian Today with you! I made a playlist on Spotify and on Apple Music of last year’s music recommendations. I’ll make one soon for 2026.
Here’s some administration news you might have blocked out:
No bill prize: A grand jury in DC declined to indict six Democratic lawmakers who made a video that angered President Trump. (NBC News) Such refusals were rare in the past, but the Department of Justice’s “campaign to target President Donald Trump’s perceived adversaries has repeatedly been rebuffed by grand juries and judges.” (Washington Post) Tuesday “wasn’t just an embarrassing day for the Administration,” US Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, one of the legislators in question, said. “It was another sad day for our country.” (Axios) Meanwhile: A federal judge in California dismissed with prejudice charges against a protester federal immigration authorities had claimed attacked them with the brim of his cloth hat. Jonathon Redondo-Rosales spent six months in jail first, though. (Guardian)
Tariffs department: The House could vote this week to disapprove some of Trump’s tariffs after three Republicans joined Democrats to defeat an attempt by Speaker Mike Johnson that would protect his caucus from politically difficult votes like this one. (Politico) Johnson tried to redefine one day as lasting between yesterday and July 31 for the purposes of legislation. (NYT)
Epstein, Epstein, Epstein: US Representative Ro Khanna read the names of six men whose identities DOJ redacted from recently released files about the deceased, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein on the House floor yesterday. “[I]f we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files,” Khanna said. (Politico) Here’s who they are. (Guardian) DOJ re-released one document to include the unredacted names of three men—including the billionaire Les Wexner—the FBI had described as “co-conspirators” after Khanna’s action, but it still hides the names of four others. (NBC News) US Representative Jamie Raskin said that one of the files he’d seen contradicts Trump’s claims that he kicked Epstein, a former pal, out of his Mar-a-Lago club. (Axios) Recently released files show efforts to get Trump to sign a “birthday book” for Epstein. Trump has denied he signed the book with a drawing of a naked woman with his distinctive signature “mimicking pubic hair.” (WSJ) Republicans in Congress “are getting more unsettled” about links between Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Epstein. (Semafor)
Jabs report: The FDA said it won’t review Moderna’s application for a new mRNA-based flu vaccine, baffling the company, which was under the impression its trial of the drug had been deemed adequate. (Washington Post) Health Secretary RFK Jr. has criticized mRNA technology. (AP) The National Cancer Institute is studying whether ivermectin—nothing ever goes away, does it?—can fight cancer. (KFF Health News) Kennedy’s department’s new AI-powered chatbot “gleefully and dangerously give Americans recommendations for the best foods to insert into one’s rectum.” (404 Media)
Administration perambulation: Administration personnel tried to get ahead of what could be a dunning jobs report today. Trump adviser Peter Navarro cautioned that the numbers might look bad because of all the people Trump has deported. (NYT) The search warrant affidavit behind the FBI’s investigation of a Fulton County, Georgia, election facility “relied heavily on claims about ballots that have been widely debunked” and was confected by election-denying lawyer Kurt Olsen, who helped Trump pursue his bogus claims about the 2020 election, which Trump in fact lost to Joe Biden. (NYT) The White House plans to withhold transportation funds from four states that didn’t vote for Trump. It’s already planning to withhold health grants from those states. (AP) Trump will reportedly order the Pentagon to buy electricity from coal-powered plants to prop up the coal industry. (Reuters) ICE zip-tied kids during a raid in Idaho. (CBS News) Currently internally exiled Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino praised an agent who shot unarmed Marimar Martínez five times in Chicago. The administration labeled Martínez a “domestic terrorist,” a smear it also directed against Alex Pretti. (Chicago Tribune) DOD contractor Brashad Johnson, who conducted background checks for ICE personnel, was arrested amid a prostitution sting in Indiana. (KSTP) The EPA will “repeal the legal framework that underpins its power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.” (NBC News) ICE will have a presence at the World Cup, its acting director said, which ought to help ticket sales. (Axios) Vice President JD Vance‘s office deleted a social post “that commemorated massacres of Armenians as a ‘genocide.'” (Reuters) Trump’s out-of-nowhere broadside against a bridge between Canada and the US followed a meeting with a billionaire whose family operates a competing bridge. (NYT)
Recently on Washingtonian dot com:
• Thousands of people at the National Cathedral yesterday greeted Buddhist monks who walked from Texas to DC. We have photos of the scene.
• Chef Timothy Yu‘s Canton Disco, an all-day Cantonese-inspired restaurant, will open next week in Navy Yard.
Local news links:
• Washington City Paper owner Mark Ein was among the wealthy locals who reportedly approached now-former Washington Post Publisher Will Lewis with a plan to spin off the Post’s local and sports desks into an operation that City Paper would host. It went nowhere. (The Verge) The Commanders left three seats open for laid-off Post reporters at a press conference yesterday. (PFT)
• Democrats Elizabeth Bennett-Parker and Kirk McPike absolutely walloped their Republican opponents in a special election for the General Assembly in Virginia yesterday. Bennett-Parker defeated Julie Robben Lineberry, getting 83 percent of the vote; McPike got 82 percent of the vote in his contest against Mason Butler. (The Alexandria Brief)
• Democrats in the Virginia legislature moved ahead with plans to gerrymander the state. (Washington Post)
• Police in Rockville say a 16-year-old accused of shooting a fellow student at Wootton High School on Monday pointed a gun at another student earlier in the day. (WUSA9)
• Both of the men charged with killing Blake Bozeman in a DC nightclub in 2023 worked as “violence interrupters” for the District. (Washington Post)
• Police are investigating antisemitic graffiti left at an Olney synagogue. (WUSA9)
• A DC cop is charged with scamming a Pennsylvania man over the purchase of a PlayStation. (WCP)
• Javan King pleaded guilty to stealing thousands of government cell phones. (WUSA9)
• Jerrold Coates, who’s accused of fatally striking DC police officer Terry Bennett with his car in December, “had a blood-alcohol level twice the legal limit” at the time, a court heard. (WTOP)
• The Crystal City Metro station will close for ten weekends this spring while workers construct a new entrance. Potomac Yard and National Airport’s stations will close on three of those weekends. (The Alexandria Brief)
• Kids in Arlington made a fort out of snowcrete. (ARLnow)
• Fairfax’s Thomas Jefferson High School named two women the head coaches of its varsity football and basketball teams. (WUSA9)
• Local ultramarathoner Michael Wardian broke a world record when he “completed a seven-day string of back-to-back ultramarathons in every corner of the world on Friday morning.” (ARLnow)
Wednesday’s event picks:
• The DC Independent Film Forum opens today.
• Nine Inch Nails plays Capital One.
• Watch a live taping of Slate’s “Political Gabfest.”
See lots more picks for today and this week from Briana Thomas, who writes our Things to Do newsletter.
Join the conversation!
Senior editor
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.