'Birds of a feather': Trump stuns with new pardon of porta-potty exec and sludge dumper

'Birds of a feather': Trump stuns with new pardon of porta-potty exec and sludge dumper
U.S. President Donald Trump reacts after signing an executive order to create a White House Olympics task force to handle security and other issues related to the LA 2028 summer Olympics in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 5, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

President Donald Trump set off a stream of mockery and online backlash after he issued a full and unconditional pardon to a Southern California portable toilet executive convicted of illegally dumping sludge.

According to New York Times reporter Kenneth P. Vogel, Trump pardoned Arie Eric De Jong III, a 59-year-old executive at Diamond Environmental Services, a San Marcos, California-based portable toilet company. De Jong, the company’s owner, pleaded guilty in 2017 to illegally disposing of sludge in multiple cities across Southern California, according to media reports.

He was sentenced to five years in 2018, but prison records show he was released later that same year, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Friday.

The MAGA leader’s latest pardon move drew immediate ridicule on social media, where critics wasted no time mocking the decision.

“Another fraudster protected by Trump!” the official X account for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office wrote, before posting “Holy” next to a pile of poo emoji.

“He spent more time thinking about literal s--- than how to bring down the cost of groceries,” Democratic activist Julie Alderman Boudreau posted to X.

"Birds of a feather...," commented X user @ seksi.

“The. Best. Porta-Potty. People,” Nicholas A. Kovach, a Fox News producer in Cleveland, wrote online.

“Flooding the swamp with BS since 2015,” X user Dana Rosebud told her followers.

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Infighting inside the Department of Homeland Security has erupted with senior leadership turning on a top border official over what aides described as an excessive office renovation request.

That’s according to a Politico exclusive, which reported Friday that Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott is at the center of the internal conflict after he sought approval for a sweeping $2.1 million renovation of his office suite. The request came as the Trump administration continues to press DHS to ramp up deportations and accelerate construction of the border wall.

The proposal included nearly $300,000 for new furniture, more than $86,000 for furniture-related services, and $33,000 for “window treatments, millwork, and equipment,” according to a memo obtained by Politico.

“That request was met with befuddlement by Noem’s team, who were surprised that such an ask was made because they felt the proposed amount of money to spend was excessive, according to the three officials granted anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak to the media,” Politico reported Friday, referring to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

“We were like, what? This seems totally insane,” one administration official told the outlet, especially as CBP is expected to relocate its headquarters in the coming years.

While DHS ultimately greenlit roughly $1.9 million of the project for mold remediation, security improvements, and IT infrastructure, about $137,000 worth of cosmetic upgrades was rejected late last year.

But according to Politico, the internal strife runs deeper than office décor.

“As the Trump administration faces internal fallout from the deadly Minneapolis shooting, top DHS political leadership, including Noem and top aide Corey Lewandowski, have told people they’re frustrated that Scott is not delivering results at the speed that they want, according to the three officials,” the report stated.

Finalizing border wall contracts, according to one of the administration officials who spoke to Politico, “should be the focus each and every day, and it’s clearly not. “That’s the president’s priority, that was the president’s campaign promise, and so to not prioritize that as top of the billet is pretty unacceptable.”

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Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig warned Friday that Justice Department officials may be actively undermining their own case through inflammatory public comments, as outrage continues to ripple through Minnesota following last week’s fatal shooting of 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good.

Honig’s comments came Friday during an appearance on CNN, where the network's senior legal analyst issued a blunt assessment of DOJ’s conduct as he reacted to federal officials publicly floating a potential criminal investigation against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

“I don't know if DOJ even realizes this, but by making these public statements, they're sabotaging themselves,” Honig said Friday on CNN’s “The Source.”

“If they ever were to indict any of these folks who they've singled out explicitly,” Honig added, “any one of these people who gets indicted will have a very strong vindictive prosecution case that could get this thrown out.”

Honig, a former assistant U.S. attorney, went on to say that while he has been critical of certain comments from the Democratic elected officials, their remarks are “core, protected First Amendment political speech.”

“If you have public officials, as we do here, making political speech, even if it's explosive, inflammatory, aggressive, and then that causes people to protest or to call 911, that is simply not obstruction of justice,” Honig said. “If they bring an indictment for obstruction, I promise you they will lose.”

At one point during the segment, the CNN legal analyst said the Trump Justice Department’s approach in the days following Good’s death reflected a stunning deviation from what is expected of the agency.

“DOJ has lost its damn mind,” he said bluntly as he recounted the series of events and public statements from the department that followed the fatal shooting. “They're just off the rails at this point.”

Donald Trump lashed out on social media Friday after his former personal attorney issued a shocking walk-back criticizing New York prosecutors involved in the president’s hush money case.

Trump swiftly responded after Michael Cohen published a Substack post titled “When Politics Blind Justice,” where he accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Leticia James of blurring the lines “between justice and politics” to boost their own profiles.

“I felt compelled and coerced to deliver what they were seeking,” Cohen wrote as he recounted his experiences with both offices.

Trump quickly seized the opportunity to amplify his former attorney's attacks on the prosecutors he has long targeted.

“These horrible Radical Left people, doing everything possible to destroy our Country, should pay a big price for this!” the president wrote Friday on his Truth Social platform. “It was a SET UP from the beginning. New York Courts, with many fair and wonderful Judges, are embarrassed by what has happened! We cannot let this pass.”

Trump is continuing to appeal his hush money conviction. An appellate panel recently instructed U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein to review his earlier ruling that kept the hush money case in state court instead of removing it to federal court.

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