U.S. Justice Department Secretary Pam Bondi finally took noticed and fired the wife of the man who developed a controversial "anti-ICE" warning system after far-right influencer Laura Loomer attacked her on X.
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. Last 18 July, she received an email from the department informing her that her position would be terminated.
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.
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.
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, a few days ago, pro-President Donald 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.
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."
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.