ICED OUT

Bondi Takes Revenge on Family of Man Who Created Anti-ICE App

Joshua Aaron created ICEBlock to show where raids are taking place. Now the DOJ is making moves.

exclusive

Pam Bondi’s Justice Department has fired the wife of the man who developed a controversial “anti-ICE” warning system after far-right influencer Laura Loomer attacked her on X, the Daily Beast can disclose.

Carolyn Feinstein, who is married to ICEBlock developer Joshua Aaron, had served as a forensic accountant at the DOJ’s Office of the U.S. Trustee for almost a decade. On Friday she received an email from the department informing her that her position would be terminated.

“This was retribution. I was fired because of the actions, or activism, of my husband,” Feinstein told the Daily Beast Monday. “It is insulting to me because I dedicated myself and my career to serving the people of the United States, and now the DOJ is claiming I was attempting to harm some of them. And that’s not true.”

Feinstein, who specializes in bankruptcy fraud, says she was “targeted” because of her husband’s work. Aaron found himself on the receiving end of MAGA’s fury after giving an interview to CNN late last month in which he explained how his app works and why he had developed it.

“When I saw what was happening in this country, I wanted to do something to fight back,” Aaron told the network, comparing the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration crackdown to purges carried out by the Nazi regime in Germany. “We’re literally watching history repeat itself.”

With almost a million downloads at last count, ICEBlock provides users with an “early warning system” when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been spotted within a five-mile radius of their location, allowing targets of immigration raids to avoid confrontation with the authorities.

Within hours of the CNN segment airing, GOP supporters had worked themselves into a frenzy, with Trump administration officials like Department for Homeland Security border czar Tom Homan and ICE Acting Director Tom Lyon blasting the network for “pushing” the app and calling on the DOJ to investigate the matter.

“We will not be intimidated. We will not be deterred,” Aaron told The Daily Beast at the time. “As long as ICE agents have quotas, and this administration ignores people’s Constitutional rights, we will continue fighting back. No human is illegal.”

ICE-BLOCKED

Trump’s Border Czar Calls for DOJ Investigation Into CNN

Amber Levis

Feinstein says that she took it upon herself to inform the DOJ of her relationship with Aaron after the backlash first kicked off more than three weeks ago.

“Since we live in the same house, I thought it was pertinent to contact my employer, the DOJ, to notify them of death threats that were coming in and just in case I needed to be out of the office, so they would be prepared,” she told the Daily Beast.

ICE BREAKER

ICE-Tracking App’s Popularity Surges Following MAGA Meltdown

Tom Sanders

Within a week, she said that she was then contacted by the Office of the U.S. Trustee, which said it was reaching out on behalf of an ethics committee.

“They asked me about my relationship to the ICEBlock App,” she said. “And I informed them in so many words that I really didn’t have any relationship or involvement in the app, I was married to the creator.”

While Feinstein says she does appear as a minority shareholder of All U Chart, Inc., the company that holds the IP for ICEBlock, this is a purely practical arrangement so that “if Joshua were incapacitated, or further, I have the ability to shut it down.”

Then, last Wednesday, pro-Trump influencer Laura Loomer claimed on X that she had identified Feinstein as Aaron’s spouse and revealed that the couple lives together in Texas.

In a subsequent interview on NewsMax, Homan said Loomer had been in touch to share those findings and that he had since contacted the DOJ over the matter, telling the host that “all [Aaron is] doing is giving a heads up to criminals.”

“The DOJ’s looking at it, and they need to throw some people in jail,” he added.

NOT APPY

MAGA Melts Down Over CNN Anti-ICE App Coverage

Will Neal

Loomer later posted that Attorney General Pam Bondi, or “Blondi” as she’s dubbed her amid the ongoing “Epstein list” furor, “could have a big win right now if she FIRES Carolyn Feinstein from the DOJ and launches a criminal investigation into both Joshua Aaron and Carolyn Feinstein for their role in ICEBlock app.”

She also called on Trump to “have a little chat with [Apple CEO] Tim Cook” for allowing the app to be listed on the Apple Store in the first place, adding, “We need to MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!”

Feinstein says she received her termination note “within 24 hours” of Homan’s Newsmax interview airing. While she underscored again that she has no involvement with the app, she said the “language used to describe the ICEBlock app and its function” in the DOJ’s termination letter “is not only incorrect, but offensive,” taking particular issue with terms like “illegal alien.”

“My service to the people of the United States was unbiased,” she added. “Each one of them landed on the same level for me. I didn’t play favourites, I didn’t have a disservice to any person within the United States because of who they are, what they look like, or where they work.”

Responding to emailed requests for comment on Feinstein’s firing, the White House told the Daily Beast it defers to the DOJ on “any DOJ-related staffing matters.”

A spokesperson for the DOJ said it had spent “several weeks” looking into Feinstein’s activities and discovered she has interests in the company that holds the IP for the ICEBlock app. “ICEBlock is an app that illegal aliens use to evade capture while endangering the lives of ICE officers” and that the department “will not tolerate threats against law enforcement or law enforcement officers,” the spokesperson said.

The Department for Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to a request for comment.

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Will NealReporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.