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By Ryan Faircloth

Jerry Holt/The Minnesota Star Tribune

Good morning. DFL Sen. Nicole Mitchell's burglary trial continued Tuesday, with her stepmother taking the stand and telling jurors she felt "extremely violated" after she discovered Mitchell in her basement early one morning last spring. But my colleague Kim Hyatt reports that 75-year-old Carol Mitchell struggled to answer questions because of Alzheimer's disease, forgetting important dates and family members' names. Carol Mitchell's testimony continued to raise the case's biggest question: Did the senator break into her stepmother's house to commit a crime, or was she performing a wellness check on someone with cognitive decline?

“A burglar runs,” said Bruce Ringstrom Jr., one of Nicole Mitchell’s attorneys, in opening statements. “A concerned child stays.”

Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald said that "no amount of grief or frustration can justify a home burglary."

Nicole Mitchell was “caught red-handed,” McDonald said, dressed in black and a black stocking cap. She removed her shoes to be "stealthy" and entered the home through a basement egress window, he said.

Body camera footage showed Nicole Mitchell telling an officer that her stepmother has “severe Alzheimer’s and there’s just a couple things of my dad’s I wanted to come get.” Carol Mitchell then said her stepdaughter was "not trying to help. She's trying to get money." Read more.

Vance Boelter indicted; unsealed search warrant provides new details. The man accused of assassinating Melissa and Mark Hortman wrote a rambling letter to the FBI claiming the violence was part of a conspiracy, my colleagues Sarah Nelson and Jeff Day write. Boelter wrote that he was approached about a project by Gov. Tim Walz to kill U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith. Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Joe Thompson said Boelter's letter was delusional, but its intent was not clear.

“Was it a delusion that he believes, or was it a delusion that is designed as an effort to discredit our investigation, or, to frankly, excuse his crimes? Well, that’s a good question,” Thompson said. “It certainly seems designed to excuse his crimes.”

The unsealed search warrant and indictment also reveal that Boelter cased the Hortmans’ house several hours before they were killed, and that he attempted to shoot Hope Hoffman after shooting her parents, Sen. John Hoffman and Yvette Hoffman. 

“Vance Boelter committed a terrible act of political violence and extremism, a targeted political assassination that was unprecedented in the state of Minnesota,” Thompson said. “It has been a terrible personal tragedy for the Hoffman and Hortman families.” Read more.

Former NBA player and Gophers legend Willie Burton considers U.S. Senate run. The 57-year-old Burton, who’s now an assistant instructor and doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, told me he is considering running for the U.S. Senate as a Republican. Burton said he is concerned about the state’s education system, crime and rising spending on social services.

“Trying to help everyone is going to cost Minnesota the things that made it Minnesota, such as education, parks and a lot of other amenities,” Burton said.

Burton said he lives in the Twin Cities and identifies politically as a centrist who is “fiscally responsible.” He said he’s done consulting work with the St. Paul and Burnsville school districts and believes he could be the rare Republican candidate to make inroads with Twin Cities voters.

“This is what makes me a threat,” Burton said. “I have the ability to touch those populations. … Unlike any other candidate before, I have the ability to get those votes.”

Burton said he’s been in touch with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and recently attended an event at the White House. But he’s still debating whether he wants to give up the life he has for a Senate run.

“It’s, do I want my life back in the mode of the NBA, where my life no longer belongs to me?” he said.

On Wednesday, Walz will meet with advocates for Washington Avenue Bridge suicide prevention legislation.

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A Rocky start for GOP. Republicans are off to a rocky start in Washington this week. "Crypto Week" was supposed to be a big week for Rep. Tom Emmer in particular, a longtime supporter of crypto currency.

He had anticipated Republicans would deliver on "President Trump's promise to make America the crypto capital of the world" via a crypto legislative package that seeks to put together a framework for the digital currency, my colleague Sydney Kashiwagi reports. The package included Emmer's Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act.

But 13 Republicans ended up raining on Emmer's parade and joined Democrats in blocking a procedural vote for the legislation to advance in the House.

Now, it's unclear what the rest of Crypto Week is going to look like. Republicans canceled votes for the rest of the day after the legislative package failed to advance. And Emmer's office could not be reached for comment on whether the bills will be considered later this week.

Trump may be saving the day. Punchbowl News reports that after the vote failed, Trump hosted at the White House on Tuesday evening some of the conservative Republicans who opposed the legislative package and who he said have since agreed to change their vote.

The Epstein fallout. Republicans this week also blocked attempts led by Democrats to release long-awaited files related to deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, Kashiwagi also reports. Trump, his Attorney General Pam Bondi and now the rest of the party's refusal to release whatever the government has on Epstein has MAGA hardliners in their base angry and demanding answers that they had hoped the president would provide in his second term.

First no. On Monday evening, GOP Rep. Michelle Fischbach, the only Minnesotan on the House Rules Committee, joined all of the Republicans on the committee except for one in voting down an amendment that would have released the files.

And on Tuesday, Republicans also unanimously blocked Democrats' attempt to reconsider the amendment via a procedural vote.

Second no for Fischbach. Republicans' Tuesday procedural vote was more expected and not a clear-cut vote on a stand-alone amendment to release the Epstein files. But Fischbach's Monday night vote was a direct vote on whether the files should be released, so she has technically voted no twice on releasing the files, Kashiwagi points out.

No word on why. Fischbach's office could not be reached for comment on why she voted not to release the Epstein files.

The issue isn't going away. Though Republicans have so far quashed Democrats' efforts to release the Epstein files, Democrats seem eager to capitalize on Republican and MAGA infighting on the issue. At least one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, who's in an open war with Trump, is also trying to work with Democrats to release the files. On Tuesday, Massie introduced the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), which would also require congressional release of the files.