ABC reporter suspended after ‘unhinged’ attack on Trump and Miller draws backlash

The White House fired back on Sunday after ABC News correspondent Terry Moran went off on Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and President Donald Trump in a now-deleted social media post in which he called them both “world-class” haters. 

“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater,” Moran wrote in the now-deleted post. “You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.”

“Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred only [sic] a means to an end, and that end his[sic] his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment,” Moran continued. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to the post on X, Sunday, calling it “unhinged and unacceptable.”

TRUMP BLOWS OFF ‘STUPID QUESTION’ ABOUT WHETHER HE HAS ‘100% CONFIDENCE’ IN HEGSETH DURING ABC INTERVIEW

Leavitt also joined Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” and told host Maria Bartiromo that Moran was supposed to be an “unbiased and professional journalist.” 

“This is unacceptable and unhinged rhetoric coming from someone who works at a major television network,” Leavitt added. “We have reached out to ABC, they have said they will be taking action, so we will see what they do. But I think this speaks to the distrust the American public have in the legacy media.” 

Miller also responded to Moran’s comments on Sunday.

“The most important fact about Terry’s full public meltdown is what it shows about the corporate press in America. For decades, the privileged anchors and reporters narrating and gatekeeping our society have been radicals adopting a journalist’s pose. Terry pulled off his mask,” Miller wrote. 

Vice President JD Vance also called out Moran on Sunday and said the post was “dripping with hatred.”

“Remember that every time you watch ABC’s coverage of the Trump administration,” Vance added.

“ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others. The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards — as a result, Terry Moran has been suspended pending further evaluation,” an ABC spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement.

ABC’S TERRY MORAN PANNED FOR SUGGESTING GOP WOULD END FILIBUSTER ‘IN A HEARTBEAT’ AFTER REFRAINING UNDER TRUMP

Moran interviewed the president after his 100th day in office, during which Trump called out the ABC correspondent for his questioning. 

Trump accused Moran of “not being very nice” during an exchange about the deportation of illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

“They’re giving you the big break of a lifetime,” Trump told Moran. “You’re doing the interview, I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you, but that’s okay. I picked you, Terry, but you’re not being very nice.”

Moran also pressed Trump on his relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. 

“I don’t trust you. I don’t trust a lot of people,” Trump responded. “I don’t trust you. Look at you. You’re so happy to do the interview, and then you start hitting me with these fake questions.”

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The president also attacked former President Joe Biden during the interview. 

“We had a president that was grossly incompetent,” Trump said. “You knew it. I knew it. Everybody knew it. You guys didn’t want to write about it because you’re fake news.” 

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“By the way, ABC is one of the worst, I have to be honest with you,” he added. 

Latest twist in Simone Biles-Riley Gaines feud is a gamechanger for US Olympic team

USA Gymnastics appeared to delete its transgender eligibility policy pages on its website. When the pages were officially taken offline is currently unknown. 

The organization has come under heavy public scrutiny since Friday after Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles ignited a feud with former NCAA swimmer and conservative activist Riley Gaines on social media over the issue of trans athlete inclusion. 

Previous links to three of the organization’s pages outlining its transgender eligibility policies are currently offline. 

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One link previously led to a November 2020 announcement that the organization no longer required trans athletes to undergo sex reassignment, legal gender recognition, and hormone therapy in order to compete in the gender category of their choosing, as seen in an archive by the Wayback Machine. That page still shows up in search results, but the link now goes to a 404 error page. 

Another link previously went to a three-page PDF pamphlet of USA Gymnastics guidelines for transgender and non-binary athletes, as seen in a Wayback Machine archive. That link is now inaccessible, but is still a top result on search engines. 

Another link previously went to a nine-page PDF USA Gymnastics pamphlet titled “Transgender Athlete Inclusion Resources: Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary Athletes,” as seen in a Wayback Machine archive. That link is also no longer accessible. 

The official USA Gymnastics website’s governance documents page featured the transgender and non-binary guidelines and resources pages as recently as April, as seen in a Wayback Machine archive. But now those links are absent from the governance documents page. 

The Wayback Machine is unable to pinpoint exactly when a web page was deleted or changed.

Fox News Digital has reached out USA Gymnastics for comment. 

OLYMPIAN SIMONE BILES FACES FIERCE BACKLASH AFTER CLASH WITH RILEY GAINES OVER TRANS ATHLETES DEBATE

The feud between Biles and Gaines has become one of the most viral topics on social media in the last three days, dominating the top trending section on X, while prompting heated debates and controversial media coverage of the issue. 

Gaines said in a social media video on Saturday that multiple Team USA athletes have reached out to her to say she agrees with her stance against allowing males in women’s sports.

The feud started when Biles took issue with Gaines calling out a Minnesota high school whose softball team won a state championship Friday with a transgender pitcher. 

Marissa Rothenberger, a transgender athlete, threw a shutout to help Champlin Park High School win a state title. 

Gaines, the host of OutKick’s “Gaines for Girls” podcast, noted that comments on X were turned off on the Minnesota State High School League’s post with a photo of the team on social media. 

“To be expected when your star player is a boy,” Gaines wrote. 

Biles responded, calling Gaines “truly sick” for her comment and saying Gaines should be “uplifting” transgender athletes. Biles sent a second post on X telling Gaines to “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.” 

Biles has been the subject of widespread criticism by conservatives and women’s sports rights activists alike. 

President Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. even joined in on the criticism with a pair of posts on X. 

Other major Team USA sport governing bodies have quietly amended their transgender policies amid rising opposition to trans inclusion in women’s and girls’ sports. 

USA Track and Field (USATF) official transgender eligibility policy now references the World Athletics guidelines on its official webpage. 

USATF previously referenced the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s policy, as seen in an archive via Wayback Machine. 

The IOC allows biological males to compete in the women’s category, while World Athletics bans any athlete who has undergone male puberty from competing as a woman.

USA Fencing announced in April that it is preparing to change its gender-eligibility policy, after a viral protest by women’s fencer Stephanie Turner sparked mass backlash and federal intervention by protesting a trans opponent. 

The organization said it is preparing to amend its current policies that allow biological males to compete with women and girls in the event that it is “forced” to change it. 

“In the event that USA Fencing is forced to change its current stance in accordance with oversight bodies or federal legislation, the new policy states athletes competing in USA Fencing-sanctioned tournaments must compete according to their biological sex,” the announcement read. 

The proposed updated policy ensures that the women’s category “will be open exclusively to athletes of the female sex.” The men’s category “will be open to all other athletes who are otherwise eligible for competition.”

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Trump signed an executive order in February to ban trans athletes from women’s and girls’ sports, as the majority of Americans proved to oppose biological males being allowed to compete and share locker rooms with females. 

A New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don’t think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women’s sports. 

Of the 2,128 people who participated, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports. Of the 1,025 people who identified as Democrats or leaning Democratic, 67% said transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete with women. 

Tennis star makes controversial Trump comment after becoming French Open champion

Coco Gauff became the first American in a decade to lift the trophy after the women’s singles final at Roland-Garros and she was asked what it means to represent the United States. 

After defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in three sets to win the French Open, Gauff was asked what it’s like traveling the world as an American.

“It means a lot. Obviously there’s a lot going on in our country right now,” Gauff responded, via The Tennis Letter. “Just to be a representation of that and a representation of people that look like me in America, who maybe don’t feel as supported during this time period. Being that reflection of hope and light for those people.”

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Gauff continued by bringing up this past year’s presidential election, and the response by the country after President Donald Trump was elected for his second term. She referred to it as a “down period” in the States. 

“I remember after the election and everything, it felt like a down period a little bit. My mom told me during Riyadh, try to win the tournament just to give people something to smile for. That’s what I was thinking about today,” Gauff said. 

Despite the “down period” comment, Gauff said she is “definitely patriotic.”

“Some people may feel some type of way about being patriotic and things like that, but I’m definitely patriotic. I’m proud to be American. I’m proud to represent Americans that look like me and people who kind of support the things that I support,” Gauff added. 

The 21-year-old dropped to the clay and covered her face at Roland-Garros following a thrilling match against Sabalenka. Gauff lost the first set in a tiebreak, but fought back to win the second set, 6-2, and came away with her second Grand Slam after a third-set 6-4 finish. 

The last American to win the French Open? Serena Williams lifted the trophy in 2015. 

“The crowd really helped me today,” Gauff said after the match, as celebrities like Spike Lee, Dustin Hoffman and many more were noticeably cheering her on throughout the match. “You guys were cheering for me so hard, and I don’t know what I did to deserve so much love from the French crowd. But I appreciate you guys.”

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Gauff was also showered with praise by American celebrities, including Barack and Michelle Obama, Matthew McConaughey and more. 

Senator fires back at Trump’s pressure campaign: ‘It’ll completely backfire on him’

EXCLUSIVE — One of the leading opponents of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” declared not even the commander in chief will be able to deter him from speaking out against what he sees as a bill that falls short of Republicans’ goal of cutting government waste.

“It’ll completely backfire on him,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital of any attempts by Trump to sway him on the current legislation.

Johnson has become a prominent voice of opposition against the House GOP’s offering to the budget reconciliation process. Senate Republicans finally began the tedious process of parsing through the bill this week.

‘HE’S NOT A BIG FACTOR’: TRUMP’S SENATE ALLIES DISMISS ELON MUSK’S CALLS TO ‘KILL THE BILL’

Lawmakers in the upper chamber, Johnson included, are determined to make changes to the bill, with most wanting to make reductions to Medicaid and food stamps more palatable. Trump has made it clear his bill must pass but has acknowledged the Senate will need to make a few changes.

Trump’s directive has been to deliver a bill that can survive the razor-thin majorities in both chambers.  

Johnson, however, wants to see spending returned to pre-pandemic levels, cuts that are trillions of dollars deeper than what House Republicans could stomach. And he is ready to vote against the bill unless he sees the changes he wants.

And he believes that a pressure campaign from the president against him and other like-minded fiscal hawks will fail.

He said a better approach would be to work with lawmakers and fiscal hawks like him to gain a better understanding of the reality of the country’s fiscal situation, a reality that “is grim,” he said.

SEN. RON JOHNSON PROPOSES ‘LINE-BY-LINE’ CUTS TO PASS TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

NATIONAL DEBT TRACKER: AMERICAN TAXPAYERS (YOU) ARE NOW ON THE HOOK FOR $36,214,501,400,213

Johnson has been up front about his disdain for the bill but has so far avoided public retribution from Trump. In fact, the two have spoken twice this week, once on Monday and later during a Senate Finance Committee meeting at the White House Tuesday.

The lawmaker has told Trump he’s in Trump’s corner and that he wants “to see you succeed,” but he has been steadfast in his position that the bill does not go far enough to tackle the national debt.

And the debt continues to climb, nearing $37 trillion and counting, according to Fox News’ National Debt Tracker.

The House’s offering set a goal of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, which lawmakers in the lower chamber have pitched as a positive step forward to righting the country’s fiscal ship, an offering Johnson panned as falling drastically short of the GOP’s promises to cut deep into government spending.

“What’s so disappointing about what happened in the House is it was all rhetoric. It’s all slogans,” Johnson said. “They picked a number. Literally, they picked a number out of the air.”

GOP SENATORS EXPRESS ‘CONCERNS,’ ‘SKEPTICISM’ OVER TRUMP’S SPENDING BILL AFTER MUSK RANT

Johnson views this attempt at the budget reconciliation process as a rare opportunity to “do the hard things” when it comes to spending cuts, but others in the GOP have been more hesitant to cut as deep.

Johnson said a main reason Republicans have so far fallen short of meeting the moment for the most part is that lawmakers don’t understand just how much the federal government shovels out the door year in and year out.

The lawmaker recalled a moment roughly three years ago during a debate over another year-end omnibus spending bill, when each of the dozen appropriations bills is crammed into one, bloated package that is universally reviled and almost always passes.

He asked his colleagues if they really knew just how much the government spends, and no one “volunteered to answer.”

“Nobody knew. I mean, think of that. The largest financier in the world. We’re supposedly, in theory, the 535 members of the board of directors, and nobody knew,” he said. “Why would they? We never talked about it.”

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Johnson has been busy trying to better educate his colleagues, putting together his own charts and graphs that cut out the “noise,” like the latest nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report that found the legislation would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over a decade. The GOP has universally panned that projection.

“We can’t accept this as a new normal,” Johnson said. “We can’t accept — you can take pot shots of CBO, but you can’t deny that reality. [It] might be off a little bit, but that is the trajectory, and that’s undeniable.”
 

Helen Hunt reveals ‘misery and shame’ that nearly destroyed her life in Hollywood

After years in the spotlight, Helen Hunt has learned to let go of the beauty standards that often flood Hollywood. 

During an interview with The Flow Space, the 61-year-old actress opened up about the “misery and shame” she often felt about her physical appearance early in her career and explained how she chose to move beyond expectations. 

“It felt impossible not to internalize the way you’re supposed to look,” Hunt said. “And [there was] a certain amount of misery and shame around not looking exactly that way.”

HELEN HUNT, 57, STUNS IN BLACK BIKINI WHILE ENJOYING BEACH DAY IN MALIBU

Hunt added, “I realized, ‘This could quietly ruin your whole life.’ I made a decision: I’m not playing. Not gonna [let it] take up a lot of space in my mind.”

Hunt said her approach has been influenced by “The Only Diet There Is,” a book written by the spiritual leader Sondra Ray.

“What I took from it is, eat what you want and love every bite, period,” she said. 

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Hunt isn’t the only ’90s heartthrob who has openly spoken about the struggles she faced as a young star. 

Earlier this year, Christina Applegate got candid about how the pressures of being portrayed as beautiful and sexy on “Married… with Children” led to an eating disorder.

“Playing that character kind of did things to me in my psyche that were no bueno – like anorexia,” the 53-year-old explained on her “MeSsy” podcast while speaking to guest and former “Married… with Children” co-star Katey Sagal.

“Yeah, a pretty bad eating disorder started when I was doing that show that lasted for a really long time,” she said. 

Applegate said she never told anyone about the disorder at the time and was “very, very private about it.”

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“I would hide in bathrooms to eat, because I had so much shame around eating that I would hide on the airplanes, like when we went to London,” she said. “I remember hiding in there to eat like one shrimp, ’cause I was so afraid if anyone saw me eat that they’d think I was going to try to get fat or something. I don’t know. I was in such a dark space.”

Sagal, who played Applegate’s on-screen mother on the show, which ran from 1987 until 1997, told her that she “didn’t know all that.”

Applegate answered, “Yeah, I kept everything close to the chest. There’s a lot of stuff that happened in the wings of my life that you guys didn’t know about.” 

Russian ‘ghost ships’ spark Baltic Sea showdown as US Navy flexes military muscle

NATO navies are putting on a display of maritime might in the Baltic Sea this month, as thousands of personnel from 17 countries aboard 50 vessels take part in war games led by the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet. 

Of the nine countries that share a Baltic Sea coastline, only Russia is not a NATO member, and June’s BALTOPS exercise aims to ensure those other countries can work together to defend the area, at a time when Moscow is turning up the heat. 

“This year’s BALTOPS is more than just an exercise,” said U.S. Vice Admiral J.T. Anderson in a press release this week. “It’s a visible demonstration of our Alliance’s resolve, adaptability and maritime strength.” 

Over the last year there’s been growing disquiet about Russia’s malign influence in the Baltic Sea region, with several incidents of severed undersea cables. Suspicion has fallen on Russia’s fleet of so-called “ghost” or “shadow” ships: hundreds of aging vessels, mostly oil tankers flying under foreign flags that are used to circumvent Western sanctions or trade in military hardware. 

ESTONIAN SPY CHIEF DISCUSSES COUNTERING THREATS FROM RUSSIA

There are also well-founded concerns that some of these ships are used for covert intelligence gathering, communication intercepts or to sabotage undersea infrastructure like internet cables or gas and electricity pipelines. Three crew members from a Cook Islands-registered vessel, believed to be part of Russia’s ghost fleet, are currently facing charges in Finland over damage to an undersea cable that prosecutors say happened when the ship dragged its anchor for 60 miles along the floor of the Baltic Sea.   

“There’s a growing importance of the shadow fleet to Russia’s wartime economy, and a growing awareness that NATO needs to stop it,” Tony Lawrence, a naval expert and researcher at the International Centre for Defence and Security in Estonia, told Fox News Digital. 

But after a number of NATO navies adopted a tougher stance against the ghost ships through stop-and-search tactics, the Russians announced they would use their own navy to escort the fleet through the Baltic Sea. 

“The Russian military presence in the region has always been visible, this is not a new feature. However, what is new is that Russia is protecting its shadow fleet tankers in the narrow pass of the Gulf of Finland,” Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen said in a recent television interview with Finland’s YLE TV. 

NATO governments are keeping a close eye on the latest Baltic Sea developments and preparing for any possible increase in tensions. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen spoke at a meeting of NATO’s Nordic and Baltic members this week, and described the Russian threat as real and serious. “We see a more aggressive Russian approach in the Baltic Sea region,” she told reporters. 

The Baltic Sea has relatively narrow waterways, where international maritime boundaries extend 12 miles from the coast, and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) incorporate valuable fishing grounds or offshore wind farms. Add to this some of the busiest ferry routes in the world, commercial shipping traffic, military warships and civilian craft, and it raises the possibility that a more robust Russian naval posture in the area could increase the possibility of conflict. 

“This is the risk of having more warships floating around the Baltic Sea, there is a potential for miscalculations that could escalate, and risk-reduction mechanisms that used to exist don’t work any more because the [NATO and Russian] navies aren’t talking to each other anymore,” Lawrence told Fox News Digital. 

BALTIC SEA NATIONS VOICE CONCERN AS RUSSIA CONSIDERS REVISING MARITIME BORDER

Does the Russian navy even have the capacity to escort every single ghost fleet ship in the Baltic? That seems unlikely, according to some. 

“It’s an escalation, of course, of Russian misbehavior in the Baltic Sea. But in practical terms I’m not sure it’s going to make that much difference,” Lawrence said. 

“Russia’s Baltic Sea fleet has always been the junior cousin of the Russian navy, and it’s never been particularly well-equipped or enlarged, but it’s still the biggest national navy operating in the Baltic, and they have ships that are attuned to the Baltic Sea, which is shallow, and its salinity is such that you need special kinds of sensors. And they know how to hide ships in the archipelagos of Sweden or Finland, so in that regard, they have a certain amount of specialist capability,” Lawrence explained.

The Baltic Sea war games this month – with the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Paul Ignatius and the Blue Ridge-class command and control ship USS Mount Whitney taking part – serve to remind the Russians of the power of NATO’s combined naval assets in the region. 

And some of the smaller navies will be reassured by the presence of the American warships. 

A few weeks ago, Estonia’s navy brought one suspected shadow fleet ship into its territorial waters for an inspection, and it complied. But when the Estonians tried the same tactic for a second time, the ship refused to stop and wouldn’t come into port. 

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“That makes things more difficult for other nations because the shadow fleet is learning that it can just ignore what NATO navies do and there’s little that NATO can do in that situation, especially if there are Russian ships escorting the shadow fleet,” said Lawrence. 

“But I don’t think NATO nations are going to back down. They will still follow and challenge these shadow fleet ships, or even look at other legislation, like requiring proof of insurance, to stop them from transiting the Baltic Sea.”

Navy SEAL role transformation leaves Chris Pratt unrecognizable on set

Chris Pratt looks unrecognizable. 

On Friday, the “Parks and Recreation” alum took to Instagram to share his new, rugged look while on the set of Amazon’s “The Terminal List” for season 2.

“I just wanted to say, isn’t this hair and makeup incredible?” Pratt, who plays U.S. Navy SEAL James Reece in the thriller series, said. “My team does such an awesome job.”

CHRIS PRATT MADE ‘DEALS WITH GOD’ TO SAVE HIS SON AFTER PREMATURE BIRTH

“Look at – I don’t want to tell you what I’ve been up to, but there’s blood on my hands,” he said, showcasing his blood-stained hands. 

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“They do such great makeup and such great hair,” he said. “And this mustache’s hair is like a wig – it’s a fake beard. It looks freaking incredible.”

“And the crazy thing about wearing a fake mustache or a fake beard is when you eat, you get hair in your mouth, which is gross, because it’s definitely someone else’s hair,” he continued. “And you don’t know who’s [sic] or where it came from. I mean, look at that hair.”

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“Anyways. I don’t care. I’m hungry,” he concluded the video. 

On Sunday, the 45-year-old actor gave his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger a shoutout for their sixth wedding anniversary.

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“6 years ago today, I married my best friend,” Pratt wrote, alongside a photo of the couple enjoying a dinner date. “You’ve shown me what love, grace, and strength look like.”

“Thank you for making this life so full of joy, family, and faith,” he concluded, “Happy Anniversary, Darling!”

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Famed filmmaker exposes Democratic Party lies after dramatic political shift

One famed filmmaker and playwright spoke to Fox News about his transformation from a “brain-dead liberal” to his journey into constitutional conservatism.

Film director and playwright David Mamet, known for writing the stage play “Glengarry Glen Ross” and its film adaptation, opened up about his political values during a Thursday interview on the “Brian Kilmeade Show.”

BIDEN FUNDRAISER CALLS TRUMP A ‘F—ING GENIUS’ AS DEMOCRATS WONDER IF THEIR BRAND IS BROKEN

Mamet discussed how he got “kicked out of the left” about 25 years ago and what led him to discover his right-leaning values. He noted his past comments referring to himself as a “brain-dead liberal” and urging for political civility in an article he wrote, resulting in many of his leftist peers losing contact with him.

“I didn’t know any Republicans, so I didn’t understand what conservatism was,” he said. “Then I got kicked out of the left, and I started researching what the constitutional conservatism was about, and I got very, very interested and very excited about it — here I am now.”

BILLY JOEL OPENS UP ABOUT AFFAIR THAT LED TO TWO SUICIDE ATTEMPTS

Mamet noted that he became disillusioned with the Democratic Party and its values, explaining how he thought that the party did not best represent American workers and had become the “party of the elites.” 

“I discovered my conservative beliefs because I discovered everything I thought and believed about the Democratic Party was false,” he said. 

Amid a tumultuous period in American politics, Mamet expressed optimism about the future following President Donald Trump‘s election victory in November 2024. 

“America is self-correcting again, as we saw in the election,” Mamet said.  “And the red states are thriving.” 

Referring to his vast theater experience, Mamet also touched upon the media and entertainment’s focus on “social consciousness.” 

TRUMP’S PARDON OF CHRISLEYS PRAISED BY JOE GIUDICE AS ‘THE ONLY WAY’ AFTER ‘HARSH’ PRISON SENTENCES

“Black people are people too, gay people are people too, but the problem with that is, everybody knows that,” he said. “So we don’t want to come to a theater or a movie to get lectured to, right? Our wives will do that — so in order to keep their place, the idea of a meritocracy crumbled in the media, so the awards and safety, or the illusion… was awarded to those who could scream the loudest.” 

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Mamet released his book “The Disenlightenment: Politics, Horror, and Entertainment” on June 3, which details his musings about politics and culture. 

BRETT TOLMAN: Mountain runner facing prison for using trail secretly banned by bureaucrats

Picture this: you lace up your shoes, take a breath of fresh mountain air, and hit the trail in the Grand Tetons National Park. You complete a legendary speed record in the world of ultra-running, and fellow runners are celebrating you. Then, you’re slapped with a federal crime.

Sounds like a joke, right? Sadly, it’s real—and it’s happening now to Michelino Sunseri, a 32-year-old bartender and record-setting mountain runner.

Sunseri ran a trail that hundreds if not thousands before him had done: he took a well-worn trail, one that’s been used for decades by hikers, climbers, and runners alike. There was no gate. No park ranger stopping people. Just a tiny sign about “erosion” half-hidden in the sagebrush. But that was enough for the National Park Service to charge him with a .

Now, Sunseri is looking at up to $5,000 in fines, a possible six months in federal prison, and worst of all—a permanent criminal record. To add insult to injury, he could also be banned from the Grand Tetons National Park, the mountains he loves, for the next five years.

This isn’t justice. This is overcriminalization.

Sunseri should not be a criminal. He didn’t vandalize or hurt anyone. He ran a trail. He did not damage the trail, and he was open about it. He posted his record-breaking run on a digital app, and that’s when government bureaucrats decided to make an example of him.

When federal bureaucrats act as lawmaker, judge, and jury, there’s little any of us can do. As a former federal prosecutor, I can tell you that the Department of Justice wins 90% of its cases. And too often, there is no common sense, no grace, no understanding. Just raw, unchecked power.

And here’s the truth: it can happen to you.

When the government creates a maze of vague rules and hidden signs and then prosecutes people who violate them , it’s not justice. It’s about power and control.

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Sunseri’s case is a warning to all of us. It shows what happens when Americans are expected to follow rules they can’t even see. No one in the entire federal government keeps track of them all, but we estimate there are more than 300,000 federal statutes and regulations that carry federal criminal penalties.

And remember, once convicted of a federal crime there is no expungement of your record. Even if you’re pardoned, your criminal record follows you for a lifetime and prevents opportunities for housing, education and employment.

Sunseri’s case isn’t about a trail. It’s about the growing divide between everyday citizens and an out-of-touch bureaucracy that thinks it knows best. It’s about the erosion of liberty in the name of government authority.

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We cannot sit back and let this continue. Government overreach is real, and this case is Exhibit A. We need laws written by elected lawmakers—not unaccountable federal agencies. We need clarity, not hidden signs and gotcha rules. And above all, we need a justice system that remembers the difference between a criminal—and a man who just loves to run in the mountains where he lives.

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