FLAWS AND IMPROVEMENTS: White House border czar Tom Homan admitted yesterday that the federal deportation campaign in Minneapolis has been flawed and that there could be a “drawdown” if local officials allow his immigration agents access to local jails.

  “I’m not here because the federal government has carried out this mission perfectly,” Homan said at an early morning news conference at the federal building just outside Minneapolis. “Certain improvements could and should be made.”

  More protests are being organized for today.

  As many as 3,000 federal agents were surged into the twin cities area as part of what the Department of Homeland security calls Operation Metro Surge. Officers have rounded up immigrants from nannies and gardeners to hardened criminals  … as well as innocent US citizens. Heavily-armed agents have been seen approaching the front door of a home in a combat “stack” formation as if they are hitting a terrorist cell. Their behavior sparked sometimes violent street protests in which two American citizens have been killed by immigration agents. 

   Homan was sent to Minneapolis to relieve the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino under whose command there have been uncounted incidents in which officers stopped people for their skin color or accent.

  Asked about the fatal shootings Homan responded: “Do I have an opinion? Yeah. A personal opinion. I’m not going to share that with you.” He said, “We’ll let the investigation play out.” 

BALLOT ISSUE: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was present Wednesday when FBI agents seized records and ballots from the 2020 election at the Fulton County, Georgia election center. Gabbard’s unannounced presence was caught on camera by a Reuters photographer.

 Gabbard’s job is to coordinate all the intelligence services both internal and external and report directly to the President. A senior administration official told The NY Times that Gabbard “has a pivotal role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections against interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases, and election infrastructure.”

  But according to law, neither she nor her office have any operational authority in law enforcement.

  In the five years since the 2020 election no one in the Trump orbit has provided evidence that the 2020 election was rigged. But remember that Trump told the audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos that, “everybody now knows” the 2020 presidential election was rigged and that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”

BIG SPENDERS: Senate Democrats struck a deal with Republicans and the White House to keep funding a large portion of the government for the remainder of the fiscal year with a stopgap measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security for only two weeks while they negotiate over reining in the behavior  of immigration agents. 

THE REGIME:

— Canada signed an automobile production deal with South Korea as Prime Minister Mark Carney moves to reduce his country’s trade dependence on the US and the moods of Donald Trump. 

  President Trump has repeatedly said the US does not need cars made in Canada.

— President Trump on social media yesterday vented his outrage that the Federal Reserve declined to lower interest rates on Wednesday. In a lengthy rant he said, “Because of the vast amounts of money flowing into our Country because of Tariffs,” Trump said, “we should be paying the LOWEST INTEREST RATE OF ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.”

  He did not explain the connection between tariff income and lower interest rates.

— The President said yesterday on the event of his first cabinet meeting of the year that he was falling asleep during his last cabinet meeting in December because “it got pretty boring, no offense.”

— First Lady Melania Trump walked a black carpet last night entering the premier showing of her documentary, “Melania,” about her life leading up to her husband’s second inauguration.

  Amazon paid $40 million for rights to the movie and committed $35 million to marketing. It’s not so much a documentary as a vanity project with Melania in control. 

  Seen on the internet: “Melania” was the inflight movie on a cross country passenger jet and the audience walked out.

POLICE BEAT: The white former sheriff’s deputy convicted of murdering an unarmed Black woman in her Springfield, Illinois home in 2024 was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a racially charged case that drew national headlines.

  Sonya Massey, 36, had called officers to her home complaining of a possible prowler outside. Bodycam video inside showed Massey with a pot of boiling water in her hand and deputy Sean Grayson, 31, shouting at her to put it down or he would shoot her in the face … which he then did.

DOWNHILL: American downhill racer Lindsey Vonn crashed today in her last race before the Olympics, putting her appearance in Cortina in doubt.

  Vonn climbed out of the netting favoring her left knee and slowly skied to the bottom of the course. Her right knee has been surgically repaired with a titanium implant and at age 41 she’s been making a dramatic return to the top of her sport.

THE SPIN RACK: With about 800 cases, the measles outbreak in South Carolina is the largest in the US since the disease was declared eliminated in this country more than 20 years ago. — A Minnesota man posing as an FBI agent Wednesday night tried to spring accused murderer Luigi Mangione from a Brooklyn jail with a chef’s fork and a pizza cutter as his weapons. Mangione is the young man accused of gunning down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

BELOW THE FOLD: In an effort to reduce grade inflation in which more than half of all grades issued at Harvard are A’s, the university is considering adding “A+” to the grade scale to recognize the most brilliant students, reducing mere A students to a second tier. 

  What do you want to bet that if this happens some Harvard student will sue because their A’s have been devalued? 

-30-