HEY MAGA!
Trump Grifts, Scams, and More.
Facts MAGA … FACTS.
BLOTUS™
Bully Leech Of The United States
HEY MAGA!
BLOTUS™
Trump’s long-time and “very close friend”: Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump: The Art of the Grift
The Maga Grift- how Trump’s presidency became a money-making machine – Anywhere but Washington
Trump’s Crypto Scam Explained
TRUMP MOBILE (Just another grift.)
Truth Social’s New AI Chatbot Is Donald Trump’s Media Diet Incarnate
“Truth Search AI appears to rely heavily on conservative outlet Fox News to answer even the most basic questions.
When I ask the new Truth Social AI chatbot about navigating bias in the media ecosystem, it gives what I view as pretty reasonable advice.
“Diversify your sources,” it responds. “ Rely on news outlets across the political spectrum, including those from both left-leaning and right-leaning perspectives.”
This is advice that the AI itself may not be taking to heart. For instance, to come to the above answer it cites five sources, four of which are Fox News articles. The fifth, inexplicably, is a 400-page report from US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s Health and Human Services Department titled “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria.”
Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group launched the chatbot, called “Truth Search AI,” on Wednesday. The bot is powered by Perplexity AI, a search engine that answers questions using large language models and live web search. The company has garnered investments from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and former Coinbase CTO and influential investor Balaji Srinivasan.
In 2024, WIRED published an article detailing how Perplexity had been scraping parts of websites that developers did not want it to access, in violation of the widely accepted web standard known as the Robots Exclusion Protocol. It was also prone to making stuff up, a WIRED analysis showed.
While Perplexity’s AI draws from sources on the left and center, the Truth Search AI version never cited a center- or left-leaning source in dozens of tests conducted by WIRED. In fact, the chatbot highlighted only seven sources in total in response to my queries—Fox News, Fox Business, The Washington Times, The Epoch Times, Breitbart, Newsmax, and JustTheNews.com. This was true even for innocuous, nonpolitical questions. When I ask the bot “What is 30 times 30?” It sourced its answer from a Fox Business article called “Inflation Reduction Act Estimated to Induce Mortality 30 Times More than COVID.” Similar tests by Axios and the Verge also show this extreme bias towards conservative media.
“What you are noticing is one feature known as ‘source selection,’” Perplexity representative Jesse Dwyer says when I ask about Truth Search AI exclusively pulling from conservative sources. “Source selection can take any number of forms for any number of needs, from internal documentation within an organization, custom datasets, or, as in the case you describe, domain filtering. This is their choice for their audience, and we are committed to developer and consumer choice.”
He adds that Perplexity “does not discriminate against any developers for any political reasons,” and emphasizes that they “do not claim their AI is 100 percent accurate.”
The Truth Search AI seems to be in denial about its own apparent biases, however. “I source information from left-wing, centrist, and right-wing news outlets depending on the nature of the user’s query and what sources are returned in the search results,” it says. “My responses are designed to critically analyze and synthesize information from all credible perspectives to ensure accuracy and balance.” This answer is sourced from five Fox Business articles. (The AI seems to max out at five sources per response.)
While chatbots never answer a question the same way twice, it consistently maintained the claim that it drew from sources across the political spectrum.
Given its seemingly steady diet of Fox News, I’m a little surprised that the bot answers some questions as even-handedly as it does. It denies that the 2020 election was stolen, for instance, in direct opposition to president Donald Trump’s claims. On foreign immigration to the US, it says that the overall effect is mixed, “but tends towards positive,” and adds that deporting all unauthorized immigrants would lead to “a loss of $133 billion over the next decade for Social Security, requiring tax increases to compensate.”
I expect the bot to fawn over Trump, but it gives a relatively tepid review of his presidency thus far, describing “sweeping executive action,” but negative approval ratings “with particular voter discontent on the economy and inflation.” Some of these more liberal-leaning answers cite Associated Press articles that have been republished on the Fox News website. Trump Media and Technology Group did not respond to inquiries about the AI.
But the limits of Truth Search AI’s exclusively conservative source pool come into focus when I press it on Trump’s well-documented connection to financier-pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
In spite of reporting to the contrary, it describes the connection as “tenuous,” and says there is “no credible evidence in the search results” that The Daily Beast published an article referencing a tape in which Jeffrey Epstein described Trump as “his closest friend.” It’s a different answer than the one given by Perplexity AI, which does locate and reference this article, using sourcing from the Daily Beast article itself, Yahoo News, Vox, and the Yale Review.
The sourcing for the Truth Search AI answer? Four articles from Fox News and one from Breitbart.”
~ Guthrie Scrimgeour
WIRED Business
Aug 8, 2025 6:20 PM
Don’t YOU deserve better?
Do you care that what you hear is FULLY factual or not?
PERSONAL GRIFT
Trump Seeks New ‘Investments’ in His Crypto Memecoin Fund by Selling Access to Himself Even as Previous ‘Investors’ Lose Money.
Executive Watch
Apr 23, 2026
Nearly a year ago, Donald Trump held one of the most flagrantly corrupt events of his administration—and that’s saying something. It was a dinner in which the top buyers of his cryptocurrency “memecoin” got exclusive access to him, in exchange for pouring money into a transparent con to make him richer. Now he’s doing it again, but with even less pretense.
Politico reports:
Eleven months ago, a gala dinner for major investors in the cryptocurrency token set off a buying frenzy from MAGA-loving crypto traders, outrage among Democrats and a headline-grabbing protest at the event. But a similar event planned for Saturday at Mar-a-Lago is highlighting a growing disenchantment with Trump’s crypto ventures.
Over the last year, investors have shunned the so-called $TRUMP memecoin, a type of collectible crypto token whose logo depicts Trump raising his fist in the air and the words “Fight Fight Fight.” The memecoin is currently down more than 95 percent from its January 2025 high. …
“Nobody likes it,” said Morten Christensen, a crypto investor who still plans to attend the Mar-a-Lago event and was at the 2025 dinner. “People are losing on the coin, and they are vocal. They are the people on Twitter like, ‘F— this coin’ or ‘It’s a scam.’ And they’re right, basically.” …
The Mar-a-Lago event is being advertised as “THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CRYPTO & BUSINESS CONFERENCE IN THE WORLD!” It is open to the top 297 $TRUMP investors, who will get the chance to hear from an eclectic lineup of speakers that includes several crypto executives, boxing legend Mike Tyson, motivational coach Tony Robbins and Trump, who will speak during the event’s luncheon, according to promotional materials. He is expected to be in Washington later in the day for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
As of April 2025, the Trump family and its partners had made $320 million in memecoin-related trading fees.
Justin Sun, a Trump booster and business partner who got let off the hook by Trump for his own scams, is now complaining that the Trump family’s cryptocurrency trading company is ripping him off. But as Sen. Richard Blumenthal notes, in the article above, Trump has “normalized his corruption. … A lot of people have become inured to it.”
Trump Sues His Own IRS for $10 Billion for Leaking His Tax Returns That He Should Have Himself Disclosed.
Executive Watch
Apr 17, 2026
Donald Trump has filed multiple personal lawsuits against the U.S. government seeking massive payouts for supposed damages—from a government whose lawyers take orders from him. The biggest of these suits would be easy for the government to fight, unless it chooses to settle it with a massive payout of your tax dollars to Trump and his family.
It looks like this is exactly what Trump’s minions are planning to do.
The Washington Post reports:
Federal agencies are engaging in discussions to resolve a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump and his family over the leak of their tax information to news organizations, according to new federal court filings. …
The lawsuit, when it was filed, sought at least $10 billion in damages, claiming that the federal government did not properly safeguard the tax returns “from unauthorized inspection and public disclosure.” Trump is suing the government in a personal capacity, not as president. …
Along with the January lawsuit targeting the IRS, Trump has engaged in other legal efforts to claim a large amount of money against the government he oversees. He previously sought damages over the Justice Department’s investigations into the connection between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign, and pursued a case over the FBI’s 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago property over alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Earlier this week, Democratic lawmakers announced plans to introduce legislation that would, among other guardrails, bar sitting presidents and vice presidents from collecting settlement payments from the United States. The bill, called the Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act, would also prohibit spouses, children, any trust “that exists for their benefit” or any “entity they own or control” from collecting damages payments through settlements with the federal government.
Filing a lawsuit as a personal plaintiff, then ordering its settlement from a defendant in Trump’s official control, is just a quasi-legal way of looting the U.S. Treasury for the benefit of America’s ruling family. What makes it possible is Trump’s gutting of any independence in the Justice Department and other federal agencies—and the compliance (so far) of Congress.
A Crony Is Selling Meetings to Businessmen With Trump In Exchange for $500,000 to MAGA PACs and Backing His Offer With Threats.
Executive Watch
Apr 16, 2026
No administration in history has ever sold influence for cash so openly, so blatantly, and at such a scale as this one. In the latest example, a well-connected conservative influence-peddler has been openly selling one-on-one meetings with Donald Trump in exchange for $500,000 contributions to his favorite rightwing PACs—and warning businessmen that they had better get themselves “aligned” with Trump, or else.
Popular Information has the story:
An email sent by Sinan Kanatsiz, an obscure but well-connected figure in Trump’s political orbit, offers its recipients a “one-on-one meeting and private photo with President Donald Trump” in exchange for a “contribution of $500,000 to TPUSA PAC.”
Kanatsiz describes his invitation as “strictly confidential and non-transferable.” The bottom of the message warns, “NOT FOR SHARING—CONFIDENTIAL.” The email was obtained by Popular Information from a source who received it. The source shared the email on the condition of anonymity, fearing professional consequences for providing information to a journalist. …
Kanatsiz warned business owners to “align” with Trump or suffer the consequences. “Donald Trump is a businessman and any business owner who doesn’t want to align with this administration will be left in the dark,” Kanatsiz told the [Orange County Business Journal].
Meetings and access to top officials have always been dangled as a reward for large donors, but rarely is this offered with such a direct, explicit, and vast price tag—or accompanied by such a direct threat. Yet this is how our system works now.
The White House Let Kristi Noem’s Corruption Slide For Over a Year Before Allowing an Investigation.
Executive Watch
Apr 01, 2026
One of the hallmarks of the Trump administration is its open and spectacular political corruption—often conducted under protection from the very top. But now that Kristi Noem has taken the fall for the bad press from executing Trump’s policies at the Department of Homeland Security, investigators are beginning to dig into the corruption there.
The New York Times has an overview:
The focus of the investigation by the inspector general, Joseph V. Cuffari, who was nominated to his post by President Trump in his first term, reflects the widening fallout from Ms. Noem’s rocky tenure. Mr. Trump abruptly fired her last month amid criticisms of an expensive advertising campaign that prominently featured her. The inquiry deepens the questions about the latitude she granted to Mr. Lewandowski, a special adviser who was not an official government employee and was supposed to serve in a limited capacity. …
Mr. Cuffari, who was confirmed to his position in 2019, is one of the few remaining inspectors general after Mr. Trump fired or demoted many of them in his second term.
Mr. Cuffari clashed with Ms. Noem when she was leading the department, and he told Congress earlier this year that D.H.S. officials had blocked him from accessing critical information and databases needed for his investigations. Ms. Noem said at the time that Mr. Cuffari was seeking overly broad access to department information. …
The inspector general’s inquiry is intensifying the spotlight on the tight grip that Ms. Noem and Mr. Lewandowski had on contracts inside the agency, and the concerns among homeland security officials that Mr. Lewandowski was trying to enrich himself through his role, as The Times previously reported.
The question is why this investigation is only happening now. After more than a year of persistent reports of corruption at DHS, it seems the few remaining inspectors general are only permitted to do their job once the president has stopped running interference for one of his loyalists.
Trump Helps His Crony to Loot Taxpayers By Requiring DOJ Loyalists to Hand Over Millions to Settle a Bogus Lawsuit.
Executive Watch
Mar 25, 2026
Donald Trump’s most direct attempt to loot the federal Treasury is to file a lawsuit against the U.S. government that will be settled by Justice Department officials directly taking his orders—allowing him to order them to pay himself millions. Trump’s cronies and supporters are already getting in on this racket for themselves.
The Associated Press reports:
The Justice Department has settled for roughly $1.2 million a lawsuit from Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump who pleaded guilty during the Republican’s first term to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a top Russian diplomat and was later pardoned.
Court papers filed Wednesday do not reveal the settlement amount, but a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose nonpublic information, confirmed the total as about $1.2 million.
The settlement resolves a 2023 lawsuit in which Flynn sought at least $50 million and asserted that the criminal case against him amounted to a malicious prosecution. It also represents a stark turnabout in position for a Justice Department that during the Biden administration had pressed a judge to dismiss Flynn’s complaint. Attorney General Pam Bondi, a former personal lawyer for the president, has openly criticized the Russia investigation in which Flynn was charged and the Justice Department in the last year has opened investigations into former officials who participated in that inquiry….
Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI when he said he had not discussed with the Russian envoy, Sergey Kislyak, sanctions that the outgoing Obama administration had just imposed on Russia for election interference. During that conversation, Flynn advised that Russia be “even-keeled” in response to the punitive measures and assured him “we can have a better conversation” about relations between the countries after Trump became president.
Flynn admitted to lying, and the facts of the case are not under dispute. But as with Trump’s lawsuit, the government’s lawyers are not trying to protect our money from being siphoned off through frivolous lawsuits. They are actively cooperating with the looting.
Administration Insiders Might Be Illegally Making Billions on Massive Iran War Insider Trading Without Fear of Being Investigated.
Executive Watch
Mar 23, 2026
It has long been speculated that Trump insiders are using advance knowledge of his chaotic decisions to make huge amounts of money from stock market fluctuations as he imposes, lifts, and reimposes tariffs. Now it looks like they’re doing the same thing in a grimmer context, trading off of Trump’s ever-changing pronouncements about his war with Iran.
CNBC reports on the suspicious pattern:
S&P 500 futures and oil futures flashed an unusual burst of activity early Monday minutes before a market-moving social media post from President Donald Trump.
At around 6:50 a.m. in New York, S&P 500 e-Mini futures trading on the CME recorded a sharp and isolated jump in volume, breaking from an otherwise subdued premarket backdrop. With thin liquidity typical of early trading hours, the sudden burst stood out as one of the largest volume moments of the session up to that point.
A similar pattern was observed in oil markets. West Texas Intermediate May futures also saw a noticeable pickup in trading activity at roughly the same time, with a distinct volume spike interrupting otherwise quiet conditions.
Roughly 15 minutes later, at 7:05 a.m., Trump said on Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran had held talks and that he was halting planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure. That announcement prompted an instant rally in risk assets, with S&P 500 futures soaring more than 2.5% before the opening bell. West Texas Intermediate futures dropped nearly 6% following the announcement.
The timing of the earlier volume spikes across both equities and crude caught the attention of traders, particularly given the absence of an obvious catalyst at the moment they occurred.
What is perhaps even worse than the fact that insiders are making money off of matters of life and death for men and women in uniform is that none of this has a prayer of being investigated by Donald Trump’s Securities and Exchange Commission.
Prediction Markets Getting Flooded with Accounts Making Money Off Iran War Raise Concerns About Corrupt Betting by Trump Insiders.
Executive Watch
Mar 23, 2026
Alongside cryptocurrency, the Trump administration has championed online “prediction markets,” a kind of legalized gambling that gives scope for corrupt insiders to make money by “predicting” events that they already know are going to happen. Combine those two, and you get Trump insiders using crypto to scam the prediction markets.
The Guardian describes the pattern:
Eight accounts, all newly created around 21 March, bet a total of nearly $70,000 on there being a ceasefire. They stand to make nearly $820,000 if such a deal is reached before 31 March.
An account that made the same bet was created shortly before the US struck Iran on 28 February. It also placed a winning bet on those strikes, which raised similar questions around insider trading, and so far has bet on nothing else.
The new accounts all appear to have been created late last week, around the time when the U.S. president, Donald Trump, appeared to first double down on war with Iran, then suggest in an after-markets Truth Social post that he was considering “winding down” military operations.
The wallets “definitely [look like] someone with some degree of inside info”, said Ben Yorke, formerly a researcher with CoinTelegraph, now building an AI trading platform called Starchild.
Polymarket accounts are anonymous, and it is extremely difficult to trace the owners of the crypto wallets that laid the bets.
There is a segment of the tech industry that is devoted to finding technologically novel ways to commit white-collar crime. They are matched, at this moment, by an administration that is determined not to investigate, prosecute, or regulate such crimes—perhaps because its own insiders are busy committing them.
Kristi Noem’s Unofficial Chief of Staff and Rumored Lover Corey Lewandowski Is Accused of Soliciting Bribes In Exchange for DHS Contracts.
Executive Watch
Mar 19, 2026
Kristi Noem may be on her way out at the Department of Homeland Security, but her tenure has shown us the vast corruption that is tolerated and encouraged in this administration. Much of it involves her unofficial chief of staff and rumored lover, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski who was thrown out, among other things, due to allegations of unwanted sexual overtures toward a donor.
NBC News reports on just one allegation of Lewandowski soliciting bribes:
Lewandowski took a role as an unpaid “special government employee” at DHS once the new administration was sworn in, where he advised and acted as a “de facto chief of staff” to Noem and, sources said, influenced contract awards. …
Zoley offered to put Lewandowski on retainer—a recurring consulting fee—with GEO Group, according to two industry sources familiar with the matter.
Lewandowski balked, saying he wanted to be compensated based on the company’s new or renewed contracts with DHS, the two sources said.
“He wanted payments—what some people would call a success fee,” said a person with knowledge of the meeting. Zoley declined, the two sources said. …
A senior DHS official told NBC News that within weeks of Lewandowski’s second meeting with Zoley, Lewandowski told him not to award more contracts to GEO Group. …
White House officials have not taken any action against Lewandowski, in part out of fear that Trump will come to his defense, according to three sources familiar with the thinking inside the West Wing.
That last part is important. This is not just a story about a guy seeking to profit from his proximity to power. It’s about the impunity granted to him by his loyalty to a president who sees this kind of corruption as merely one of the perks of power.
Trump Hands a No-Bid Contract to the Company That Planned the Jan. 6 Rally.
Executive Watch
Mar 18, 2026
The purpose of political corruption is not just for political insiders to cash in. It’s also to shovel the taxpayers’ money into the pockets of the president’s key supporters. This gives his faction more resources, while starving the opposition, making it easier for him to stay in power. A new case reveals that pattern in particularly stark form.
The New York Times reports:
The Trump administration has bypassed regular procedures to award more than $13 million in contracts to the company that helped organize President Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021, repeatedly creating hidden business opportunities that only one firm could win.
Those contracts have transformed Event Strategies Inc., staffed by veterans of Mr. Trump’s campaigns and first White House, from a minor federal contractor into the government’s highest-paid event planner. The firm has arranged celebrations of the Navy’s 250th birthday and a Treasury Department event to tout new savings accounts for children, called “Trump accounts.”
By law, federal agencies are generally supposed to seek competing bids before awarding contracts, to get the best value for taxpayers. Event Strategies won contracts that were particularly lucrative, the kind that other companies say they would have liked to win.
In at least five cases, other firms never got the chance.
President Trump originally ran on a promise to “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington, D.C. But he is not draining the swamp he is harnessing the swamp by engaging in unprecedented corruption for the sole benefit of himself and his allies.
Nobody Knows What Happened to the Mega Donations for Trump’s Presidential Library.
Executive Watch
Mar 11, 2026
Presidential libraries have long carried the potential for corruption, allowing former presidents to solicit vast donations with no transparency. Donald Trump has taken this legal loophole and exploited it to a whole new degree. Early in his second term, he has already coerced vast sums in bogus legal settlements—and no one is quite sure where the money went.
The Washington Post reports:
[ABC, Meta, Paramount, and X] each committed millions of dollars to the project through legal settlements with Trump in the months after the 2024 presidential election, seeking to resolve claims they had harmed him by restricting his access to social media or defaming him in their coverage. The commitments totaled at least $63 million, according to company statements and media reports.
But the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund, Inc., which was set to receive at least some of the settlement funding, was administratively dissolved in September by Florida officials after it did not submit a mandatory annual report. …
A second nonprofit, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc., was created last year and reported in December that it received $50 million in contributions but has yet to confirm publicly that it took possession of the settlements. Federal rules do not require presidential library nonprofits to disclose their donors. …
Trump has said that he plans to use his planned Miami-based library to take possession of a Boeing 747-8 aircraft given by Qatar and valued at $400 million, among other gifts. The president’s allies have also worked to acquire prized real estate for the site.
Everything about the “imperial presidency” has become bloated and exaggerated, including the vast monuments presidents erect to themselves. But no one has yet matched Trump in turning the presidential library into a vehicle for soliciting bribes and as a permanent personal slush fund for his own aggrandizement.
DOGE Bro Who Stole Our Social Security Data to Illegally Transfer it to His Company Said He Expected a Presidential Pardon.
Executive Watch
Mar 10, 2026
When DOGE went rampaging through the federal bureaucracy, one of the first things it did—on its way to not actually cutting government spending—was to trample flat all the institutional safeguards meant to protect our data from being stolen, especially in big databases used for Social Security numbers.
The Washington Post reports on a previously buried allegation that this is precisely what happened:
According to the disclosure, the former DOGE software engineer, who worked at the Social Security Administration last year before starting a job at a government contractor in October, allegedly told several co-workers that he possessed two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information, and had at least one on a thumb drive. The databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” include records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names. The complaint does not include specific dates of when he is said to have told colleagues this information, but at least one of the alleged events unfolded around early January, according to the complaint. While working at DOGE, the engineer had approved access to Social Security data.
According to the complaint, he allegedly told the whistleblower that he needed help transferring data from a thumb drive “to his personal computer so that he could ‘sanitize’ the data before using it at [the company.]” The engineer told colleagues that once he had removed personal details from the data, he wanted to upload it into the company’s systems. He told another colleague, who refused to help him upload the data because of legal concerns, that he expected to receive a presidential pardon if his actions were deemed to be illegal, according to the complaint. …
A separate complaint, made in August by the agency’s former chief data officer, Charles Borges, alleges members of DOGE improperly uploaded copies of Americans’ Social Security data to a digital cloud, putting individuals’ private information at risk. In January, the Trump administration acknowledged DOGE staffers were responsible for separate data breaches at the agency, including sharing data through an unapproved third-party service and that one of the DOGE staffers signed an agreement to share data with an unnamed political group aiming to overturn election results in several states.
The Trump administration claims this allegation was investigated but dropped for lack of evidence—but after gutting its independent inspectors general, this is not an administration that can be trusted to investigate itself.
The Labor Secretary Is Mired in Scandal and Corruption, Just Like Her Boss.
Executive Watch
Mar 03, 2026
Donald Trump has set the precedent that public office is a perk to be used for personal gain, and this permeates his entire administration. Accusations of corruption and sex scandals are coming particularly thick at the moment from the Department of Labor.
The Daily Beast provides an overview:
Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer is under investigation over allegations of misconduct, fraud and an “alcohol stash” found in her office, while her husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, has been banned from the department’s headquarters following allegations that he sexually harassed at least one female employee. (Dr. DeRemer has called the allegations “false.”)
Chavez-DeRemer is, specifically, facing claims that she engaged in an improper relationship with a member of her security detail. Additionally, The New York Times reported that formal complaints were filed with the department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) alleging that her top aides “pressur[ed] staff to direct the awarding of department grants to benefit the secretary’s political career and elevate her standing with donors and consultants.” According to NBC News, the secretary’s chief of staff and his deputy allegedly engaged in “travel fraud” by setting up professional events as an excuse for personal travel. …
Now, wait for it: The man responsible for investigating whether Chavez-DeRemer used taxpayer dollars to further an inappropriate relationship was himself accused of using taxpayer dollars to further an inappropriate relationship. That man is Anthony D’Esposito, the Labor Department’s Inspector General—a partisan actor who is deeply compromised and lacks the credibility required for such a role.
It wasn’t just Trump’s personal example that gave the green light to this kind of corruption. It was also his decision, shortly after returning to office, to fire independent, nonpartisan inspectors general, replacing them with political hacks. This has led a lot of the people he appointed to think they can get away with anything.
POLITICAL CORRUPTION
RFK Jr. Buries a Report Confirming the Efficacy of COVID Vaccines Because It Conflicts With His Quack Beliefs.
Executive Watch
Apr 22, 2026
In order to bring in a bloc of anti-vaccine voters, Donald Trump promised to appoint an anti-vaccine zealot as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Now, under his supervision, the agency is suppressing information about the efficacy of vaccines in order to prevent embarrassing the administration in advance of the midterm congressional elections.
The Washington Post has the inside information:
A report showing the efficacy of the covid-19 vaccine that was previously delayed by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been blocked from being published in the agency’s flagship scientific journal, according to three people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The report showed that the vaccine reduced emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults by about half this past winter.
The move, which has not been previously reported, has raised concerns among current and former officials that information about the vaccine’s benefits is being downplayed because it conflicts with the views of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been an outspoken critic of the shots. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda has received pointed questioning from lawmakers during budget hearings that began last week and conclude Wednesday. …
The report is gaining attention at a delicate political moment: The Trump administration has sought to soften its public posture on controversial vaccine actions ahead of the midterm elections. GOP pollsters have warned of the political risks of vaccine skepticism, and many voters oppose Kennedy’s efforts to roll back vaccine policies. Publishing findings showing the vaccine’s effectiveness would be at odds with the administration’s moves to restrict its use, particularly for children, former CDC officials say.
The report had cleared the agency’s scientific-review process, which includes dozens of scientists, according to two of the three people who spoke to The Post. Stopping an MMWR report at that stage is highly unusual, former CDC officials say.
This is the worst form of political corruption, in which vital government programs that are literally a matter of life and death are sabotaged for the political expediency of people in power—and the truth itself is buried to prevent them from having to confront it.
Trump’s Ballroom Contract Ensures Anonymity to Donors and Prevents Congress From Getting Answers for Conflict of Interest Queries.
Executive Watch
Apr 21, 2026
The worst part about Donald Trump’s plan to build a ginormous gilded ballroom is not the ballroom itself, as gaudy and bloated as it is. It’s the fact that it is being built with nearly half a billion dollars that Trump squeezed out of private donors—and the fact that, by the very design of the project, we don’t even get to know who paid these bribes.
However, The Washington Post at least got a hold of the contract that governs the donation scheme:
The Trump administration’s contract governing hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations to build President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom shields donors’ identities, excludes the White House from conflict of interest protections and was disclosed only after a lawsuit and a judge’s order, records obtained by The Washington Post show. …
The contract provisions, taken together, allow wealthy donors with business before the federal government to contribute anonymously to a sitting president’s pet project, while exempting the White House from key conflict of interest safeguards and limiting scrutiny by Congress and the public. …
Charles Tiefer, a retired law professor at the University of Baltimore who spent three years on a congressionally authorized commission scrutinizing wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the anonymity provisions potentially set up the Trump administration to block congressional inquiries into the project’s funding.
“If Congress knocks on the door, the White House is going to slam it shut and say, ‘You’re not allowed to know these donors,’” Tiefer said.
In some respects, the Trump administration’s corruption is all being done out in the open. We know that rich people and big corporations are giving millions to feed his vanity. But the details are all kept completely in the dark. We know that favors are being traded, but what those favors are and who gets them is not for us plebeians to know.
Trump Openly Muses Mass Pardons for Henchmen Who Commit Crimes for Him.
Executive Watch
Apr 10, 2026
The pardon power was created to grant clemency for the deserving—the unjustly prosecuted or those who have made restitution for their crimes through some other service to the country. Trump is instead using it to grant unlimited immunity to his supporters, and he is now promising to issue mass pardons to henchmen who break the law to do his bidding.
The Wall Street Journal has the scoop:
President Trump has repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office, according to people who have heard his comments.
“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a recent meeting to laughs, according to people with knowledge of the comments. That radius appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. Another person who met with Trump earlier this year said the president quipped about pardoning anyone who had come within 10 feet.
In one conversation with advisers in the dining room next to the Oval Office last year, Trump said he would host a news conference and announce mass pardons before he left office, some of the people said. The people said they weren’t aware of specific pardons being offered to specific people for specific acts. …
The president has repeatedly raised the specter of pardons with White House aides and other administration officials, particularly when staff have suggested they could face prosecution or congressional investigations over decisions, people familiar with the comments said. Trump is known to joke about matters that he later seriously pursues, and the frequent references have led some aides to believe he is serious about the pardons, too.
As the Journal puts it, “The unconditional power to pardon is one of the most sweeping powers offered to the presidency.” But it is clearly an abuse incompatible with a free society to exempt the entire executive branch and the president’s own political movement from the rule of law.
Foreign Steel Maker Gets Tariff Breaks In Exchange for Free Steel for the Trump Ballroom.
Executive Watch
Apr 09, 2026
Donald Trump’s massive White House ballroom has become a nexus of corruption before it even gets built. The latest news is that a foreign company offered to donate its steel for the ballroom—so much for “made in America”—and then promptly got a special break on Trump’s tariffs.
The New York Times reports:
President Trump has championed the U.S. steel industry, promising to strengthen it and to impose stiff tariffs on foreign metals to shield manufacturers from overseas competitors.
Yet…ArcelorMittal, a Luxembourg-based firm that is the world’s second-largest steel maker, is providing steel for the structure of the ballroom project, the people said. They said the steel was produced in Europe, where the bulk of ArcelorMittal’s production is concentrated.
The White House has not disclosed details of the donation, but Mr. Trump said last October that he had been offered a donation of steel for the ballroom valued at $37 million.
The president’s comments came just days before the White House made adjustments to its tariffs that could benefit ArcelorMittal, by cutting in half the tariffs applied to exports of automotive steel from its Canadian plant.
Note that Trump could grant this favor because he claims the sole, arbitrary power to set and alter tariff rates, including for specific countries and industries. But it’s fitting, in a way, that his ballroom’s entire construction process offers a preview of the kind of corrupt deals that will be made there—if it ever gets built.
DOJ Seeks to Divert the Settlement in a Predatory Lending Case From Hispanic Victims to ICE to Target Them.
Executive Watch
Apr 09, 2026
Donald Trump has been eager to scrape together sources of funding that do not require him to ask the permission of Congress. Here is a novel one: Using settlements from unrelated Justice Department cases to divert money from restitution to victims and use it for Trump’s policy priorities. That’s exactly what his DOJ is doing in a case in Texas.
ProPublica has the story:
In December 2023, the U.S. Justice Department sued a Texas land developer it accused of duping tens of thousands of Hispanic residents into predatory mortgages, a landmark case for the Biden administration. …
Three years later, the Trump administration and Colony Ridge are on the verge of resolving the case. But the $68 million proposed settlement provides no money for victims of the alleged scheme. Instead, it sets aside $20 million for policing and immigration enforcement — a provision that may be used to target the very people who were victimized by the developer, according to former government officials who worked on such cases.
“I’ve never seen a settlement like this, with a complete misalignment between what you’re settling and what the resolution is,” said Elena Babinecz, who led fair lending investigations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for 12 years under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, before leaving in October. …
As federal investigators built a case around how Colony Ridge had treated its largely immigrant customers, conservative media and politicians aligned with Trump—who had made immigration enforcement a cornerstone of his campaign—did not focus on how consumers had been harmed. They instead accused the development of being a haven for immigrants.
They claimed, without providing evidence, that the development was a base for Mexican drug cartels and a “no-go” zone for police. Local law enforcement disputed the assertions, saying that violent crime there was no different from other neighborhoods in and around Houston. State legislative panels convened to investigate the allegations also fizzled out after they were unable to substantiate such claims.
This is an attempt to harness the legal resources of the Department of Justice to shake down defendants for money for Trump’s political projects. Fortunately, the case will soon go before a judge who will have the ability to block the settlement—but not every judge is going to step up to prevent these abuses.
The DOJ Declares the Presidential Records Act Unconstitutional to Give Trump Cover to Destroy Evidence of Presidential Corruption and Illegality.
Executive Watch
Apr 04, 2026
Donald Trump’s theory of presidential power is that it is a grant of absolute authority vested in one man, answerable to no other institution. It isn’t even subject to questioning or scrutiny, which is why his Justice Department has now declared the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional—laying the legal groundwork to destroy records of his presidency and refuse to hand them over when he leaves office.
Politico reports:
The Trump administration’s abrupt declaration that the federal law governing presidential records for the past 48 years is unconstitutional is creating confusion about access to records of past presidencies, including documents that are on the verge of public release.
The Wednesday memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which challenges the Presidential Records Act, appears intended to give President Donald Trump the legal leeway to destroy White House records from his current term. It also gives him legal backing to refuse to hand over any remaining records to the National Archives and Records Administration when he leaves office in 2029. …
[T]he Archives received more than 200 requests for White House records from Trump’s first term after the legal window for such requests opened on Jan. 20. The future of those requests now appears to be up in the air.
Kelly McClanahan, a lawyer pursuing several lawsuits seeking copies of records Trump took to Mar-a-Lago during his first term and the White House’s handling of several national security-related controversies, said he was incensed by the new opinion and fears the administration could begin to destroy records at any time.
To be sure, anyone as neck-deep in corruption, abuses of civil rights, and the mass killing of civilians as the Trump administration would certainly want to be able to destroy all official records of their actions. But a free society, which holds its leaders accountable, demands that they be prevented from doing so.
PRESIDENTIAL RETRIBUTION
The DOJ Targets SPLC for Infiltrating White Nationalists and Helping FBI Do Its Job
Executive Watch
Apr 24, 2026
A hallmark of the Trump administration is its tolerance of overt racists, so it seems fitting that they would now be prosecuting the Southern Poverty Law Center—the legal bane of Klansmen and neo-Nazis—for infiltrating and exposing hate groups. But Donald Trump sees these groups as his allies, and he sees the SPLC as his enemy.
The Associated Press reports:
The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting, with more than $3 million paid to informants through a now-defunct program to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups. …
The indictment came shortly after the SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its disbanded informant program to gather intelligence on extremist group activities. The group said the program was used to monitor threats of violence and the information was often shared with local and federal law enforcement. …
The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.
The investigation could add to concerns that Trump’s Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics…. The center regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.
The case here seems to be that the SPLC was committing fraud for keeping its secret informants, well, secret. This is a standard that would prevent anyone from investigating or infiltrating such groups, which we can assume is the whole point.
FBI Targets the Reporter Who Exposed that Kash Patel’s Girlfriend Was Obtaining Free Perks From the Agency
Executive Watch
Apr 22, 2026
Donald Trump has been itching to make reporting itself into a crime, and now some of his minions at the FBI are inching toward finding the way to do it: Label reporting as “stalking.” They used this approach in an investigation of The New York Times reporter who broke a story about FBI Director Kash Patel misusing agency resources for his girlfriend.
The Times itself reports:
The F.B.I. began investigating a New York Times reporter last month after she wrote about the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, using bureau personnel to provide his girlfriend with government security and transportation, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Agents interviewed the girlfriend, queried databases for information on the reporter, Elizabeth Williamson, and recommended moving forward to determine whether Ms. Williamson broke federal stalking laws, the person said.
Those actions prompted concerns among some Justice Department officials who saw the inquiry as retaliation for an article that Mr. Patel and his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, did not like, and who determined there was no legal basis to proceed with the investigation, according to the person briefed on the matter.
The scrutiny of Ms. Williamson is an example of the Trump administration examining whether to criminalize routine news gathering practices that are widely considered protected by the First Amendment.
The FBI’s premise seems to be that politically connected people enjoy extreme protections for their privacy, even in stories relevant to the abuse of public funds—while reporters enjoy no protections whatsoever. The government did not end up filing charges in this case, but the point of exposing this story is to prevent them from working up the nerve to do it.
The Administration Threatened the Pope With Dire Consequences if He Didn’t Back Off His Criticism of Trump’s Wars
Executive Watch
Apr 08, 2026
The Trump administration’s professions of religious piety have always been repeated with greater vehemence than credibility, but it is still shocking to see a new report claiming that in January, top officials at the Pentagon attempted to strong-arm Pope Leo XIV for refusing to lend his moral authority to Trump’s wars.
The normally Trump-friendly outlet The Free Press couldn’t pass up the scoop, but if you don’t want to cross their paywall, The New Republic has a summary:
Days after Pope Leo XIV delivered his State of the World speech, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s U.S. representative, to a closed-door Pentagon meeting for a bitter lecture.
“The United States,” Colby said, according to a blistering new report by The Free Press, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
One U.S. official present at the meeting brought up the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy bent the Catholic Church into submission, ordering an attack on Pope Boniface VIII that led to his downfall and subsequent death and forcing the papacy to relocate from Rome to Avignon, a region inside France. …
The Vatican was so alarmed by the Pentagon’s warning that Pope Leo cancelled his plans to visit the U.S. later in the year, reported Hale, who noted that “many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”
As appalling as this is, it is also somewhat comical, and not just for the hypocrisy given the administration’s loud appeals to Christian traditionalism. It raises the Trump administration’s attempts to persecute and intimidate his critics to the level of insane hubris, targeting an institution so large and powerful that it has humbled kings centuries before Trump came along.
Trump Threatens CNN for Allegedly Fake Reporting About His Iran Cave-In
Executive Watch
Apr 07, 2026
Trump and his loyalist FCC Chairman Brendan Carr keep threatening to abuse their power to punish Trump’s political enemies. They just did it again, threatening CNN for posting “fake news”—when it was simply reporting a real announcement from the Iranian regime that contradicted Trump’s claims.
Deadline reports:
About 90 minutes after announcing a two-week ceasefire in the war in Iran, Donald Trump was irate over CNN’s reporting of a statement issued by the country’s Supreme National Security Council, declaring victory and averting the president’s threat to launch attacks on civilian infrastructure.
Trump posted on Truth Social at 8:01 p.m. ET, “The alleged Statement put out by CNN World News is a FRAUD, as CNN well knows. The false Statement was linked to a Fake News site (from Nigeria) and, of course, immediately picked up by CNN, and blared out as a ‘legitimate’ headline. The Official Statement by Iran was just released, and posted on TRUTH, below. Authorities are looking to determine whether or not a crime was committed on the issuance of the Fake CNN World Statement, or was it a sick rogue player? CNN is being ordered to immediately withdraw this Statement with full apologies for their, as usual, terrible ‘reporting.’ Results of the investigation will be announced in the near future.” …
CNN is defending its reporting on the statement. A spokesperson said, “The statement in question was obtained by CNN from Iranian officials and reported on multiple Iranian state media outlets. We received the statement from specific official Iranian spokespeople who are known to us.” …
Other outlets, including The New York Times and PBS, reported on a statement similar to the one that CNN did. …
Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, also weighed in on Trump’s post attacking CNN.
Carr wrote, “More outrageous conduct from CNN. Fake news is bad enough for the country, but pushing out a hoax headline in such a sensitive national security moment as this requires accountability. Iran put out an official statement that simply cannot be squared with the one CNN’s false headline attributes to them. Time for change at CNN.”
The Justice Department is currently reviewing Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN.
Carr has no direct authority over CNN, because it broadcasts on cable TV, not over the airwaves. But Trump has a history of abusing the extensive powers of the executive branch, including using antitrust regulations to block planned mergers, to shake down media companies and intimidate them into providing friendlier coverage.
Trump Is Continuing to Weaponize the Justice System Against James Comey for Investigating Russian Election Interference
Executive Watch
Mar 19, 2026
Donald Trump has suffered repeated setbacks in his attempts to gin up bogus federal prosecutions of his political enemies—but he keeps trying. Most recently, he has used the same sympathetic judge who bogged down Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of him, who is now supervising a grand jury tasked with churning out indictments of Trump’s enemies.
Axios has the story:
Former FBI Director James Comey has been subpoenaed in the wide-ranging “grand conspiracy” case against the ex-officials who investigated and prosecuted President Trump, two sources with knowledge of the situation tell Axios. …
The Trump administration’s grand conspiracy theory posits that Democratic officials bent the rules, broke the law, and lied under oath to investigate, prosecute, and otherwise undermine Trump from his election in 2016 through his federal indictments in 2023.
The Comey subpoena, issued last week, relates to his alleged role in the drafting of a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) concerning Russia’s election interference that favored Trump. …
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee who threw out the federal prosecution against him in his classified documents case in 2024, impaneled the grand jury in the Southern District of Florida.
The main corrupt motive here is simply for Trump to seek revenge against his political enemies. The deeper corrupt motive is to criminalize the process of drafting Intelligence Community Assessments whose results the president does not like, making it impossible for career officials in the administration to do their jobs without political interference.
DHS Targets Hundreds of US Citizens With Bogus Prosecutions for Protesting ICE
Executive Watch
Mar 07, 2026
Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is supposed to target illegal immigrants. But the Department of Homeland Security is also becoming Donald Trump’s enforcement squad against protesters, turning its power inward in a campaign of intimidation, arrests, and malicious prosecutions against U.S. citizens.
The Wall Street Journal investigates:
Of the 279 people accused by [DHS] officials on X of attacking federal officers in the past year, 181 were U.S. citizens, the Journal found. Close to half of those Americans were never charged with assault. None have been convicted at trial.
Yet names, mug shots and other identifying details posted by the government put a bull’s-eye on them. They had to explain the accusations to family, friends and employers. In a few cases, their home and workplace addresses were leaked online, drawing death threats. …
Federal prosecutors in cities with high-profile immigration operations said they have been pressured by Justice Department leaders to aggressively pursue assault charges, even in cases undermined by contradictory evidence or ones that fail to appear worthy of prosecution. Some have quit in response. Others say the time spent on flimsy cases takes them away from prosecuting drug cases, public corruption and gun-related crimes.
Federal agents have acted as if civilians have no right to observe or record them, said David Bier of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. “Once you adopt those positions then everyone’s a viable target,” he said. The consequences—physical intimidation, tackling, arrests and hours in custody without access to a lawyer—“amounts to going after the political opposition,” Bier said.
Constitutional experts say aggressive policing tactics can deter people from exercising their First Amendment rights, which include the freedom to witness or protest government activities in public places.
There is an old lesson that we have to re-learn: When we give our government unchecked powers to go after a foreign bogeyman, those powers often end up being turned back against ourselves.
Trump’s DOJ Is Systematically Launching Bogus Lawsuits Against its Enemies to Harass Them
Executive Watch
Feb 21, 2026
The Trump administration keeps threatening its enemies with legal retribution, only to have the cases fail—as was the case with the six members of Congress whose video urged members of the military not to follow illegal orders. But the underlying story is that this legal harassment, even if it is ultimately unsuccessful, is fueled by the government systematically lying in court.
The Guardian provides a good overview:
In recent months, the federal government has relentlessly prosecuted protesters, government critics, immigrants and others arrested during immigration operations, often accusing them of physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties.
But many of those cases have recently been dismissed or ended in not guilty verdicts.
In several high-profile cases, the prosecutions fell apart because they relied on statements by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers that had no supporting evidence or in some instances were proven by video footage to be blatantly false.
Criminal defense lawyers said it was unusual for federal prosecutors to pursue a high volume of charges over minor clashes with law enforcement, and that it was extraordinary to see the DoJ lose case after case across jurisdictions.
Still, the costs for defendants, even if ultimately exonerated, have been enormous, with many having their mugshots blasted by the government and some forced to languish in jail or have criminal charges hang over them for weeks and months.
When the federal government files false charges against someone, the process is the punishment. By peddling provable lies in court, Trump’s Department of Justice is hoping it can deter dissent by imposing legal costs and disrupting the lives of anyone it chooses to target, no matter how clearly innocent they are of any crime.
CBS Attempts to Censor Stephen Colbert at the Behest of Trump’s FCC
Executive Watch
Feb 18, 2026
Stephen Colbert announced that his CBS show—already on the chopping block to curry favor with the Trump administration—was blocked from interviewing a Democratic candidate because the network is complying in advance with a constitutionally dubious FCC ruling designed to suppress coverage of opposition politicians.
Popular Information describes the situation:
CBS forbade Late Show host Stephen Colbert from interviewing Texas State Representative James Talarico, a Democrat running to unseat Republican Senator John Cornyn. The incident is a chilling example of how the Trump administration and allied media organizations are colluding to suppress critical coverage of the administration.
Addressing the incident on Monday night’s show, Colbert said he was also told by CBS’ lawyers not to discuss the decision to spike the Talarico interview. But Colbert, whose show is being canceled in May, ignored that directive.
At issue was the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) “equal time rule,” which states that if a broadcast radio or television station provides time to a candidate for political office, it must provide equal time to all other candidates. (The rule does not apply to cable, streaming, or other non-broadcast platforms.) There is, however, an exception to the rule for news coverage and interviews. And, for decades, that exception has also applied to interviews of politicians by talk show hosts.
In a January 21 “Public Notice,” the FCC declared that interviews of political candidates on late night and daytime talk shows would no longer have a blanket exemption. Rather, the FCC would make a case-by-case determination of whether a program was conducting interviews for “bona fide” news purposes or for “partisan purposes, such as an intention to advance or harm an individual’s candidacy.” The notice did not provide any guidance as to what makes a show “partisan.” …
In a Fox News interview, Carr made clear that the rule was targeting Colbert and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel. Carr said that if Colbert or Kimmel did not want to comply with the new requirements, they could move to cable or a podcast, which are outside the FCC’s jurisdiction.
Note also that Carr has not chosen to apply the same directive to conservative-leaning talk radio. This is pure presidential retribution against a whole genre of shows that he regards as politically hostile—and another reminder that the power of the FCC needs to be limited, and its independence restored, to protect our freedom of speech.
FTC Targets an Ad Agency for Using a Fact-Checking Site That Rates Some Right-Wing Outfits as Unreliable
Executive Watch
Feb 06, 2026
The one consistent enemy of the Trump administration is fact-checking. Donald Trump loves creating and spreading false reports, rumors, conspiracy theories, and misinformation—and he resents any independent source of information that can counter his wild claims. Now he is abusing his power to cut off support for a prominent and well-regarded anti-misinformation site.
The Washington Post reports:
Founded in 2018 by a pair of veteran media executives, NewsGuard researches news sites and assigns them “reliability ratings” based on their journalistic standards, selling these scores to readers, tech platforms, and advertisers that want to steer clear of low-quality sources. The company, which insists it is rigorously nonpartisan, has made enemies in recent years by giving low ratings to conservative outlets such as the right-wing cable news channels Newsmax and One America News.
Last May, Trump’s FTC launched an investigation of NewsGuard…. Then, before approving a $13 billion merger that created the world’s largest ad agency, the FTC included an order that effectively blocks the newly formed goliath from ever doing business with companies like NewsGuard. …
NewsGuard argues that the FTC embarked on a targeted regulatory campaign it likened to “the witch hunts of the McCarthy era,” violating its First and Fourth Amendment rights. While the FTC is tasked with enforcing fair business practices, NewsGuard’s lawsuit alleges that under Trump-appointed Chairman Andrew Ferguson, the agency is “brazenly using its power not for any issue concerning trade or commerce, but rather to censor speech.”
This is the fruit of Trump’s obsession with an alleged “unitary executive” in which officials in traditionally independent regulatory agencies now take orders from him personally—and carry out his vendettas against his political enemies.
DHS Is Building Secret Databases of Anti-ICE Protesters, Pro-Palestinian Activists, and Other Dissenters to Target Them as ‘Domestic Terrorists’
Executive Watch
Jan 28, 2026
The Trump administration is obsessed with describing anyone who might oppose it as a “domestic terrorist”—which is pretty rich for the guys who staged Jan. 6 and then pardoned hundreds of people convicted of actual assaults on the Capitol police. There have been rumblings about the Department of Homeland Security forming a database of anti-ICE protesters to be targeted for retribution. Now we have confirmation that these enemies lists are real.
Ken Klippenstein has the scoop:
We have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist,” a masked federal agent taunted a protester filming him in Maine last week.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin’s response was firm: “There is NO database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS.”
There’s just one problem: She’s lying.
Two senior national security officials tell me that there are more than a dozen secret and obscure watchlists that homeland security and the FBI are using to track protesters (both anti-ICE and pro-Palestinian), “Antifa,” and others who are promiscuously labeled “domestic terrorists.” …
“One thing I’m pushing for right now … we’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding and assault, we’re going to make them famous,” Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, told Fox News earlier this month. …
Impeding federal law enforcement has emerged as the Trump administration’s primary justification for actions against people like Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
As part of its new effort to support its operations in places like Minneapolis and Los Angeles, the Homeland Security Department, working with the Justice Department, has started more methodically tracking what it calls “aggressive protesters.” According to one senior official, this is a new designation the agency uses to describe the supposed threat posed by people on the streets.
Both Good and Pretti were considered aggressive protesters; in Good’s case, for criticizing ICE officers while operating a vehicle; and in Pretti’s case, getting up close to immigration officers while filming them. …
The key issue is this: “Under the Privacy Act, Levinson-Waldman explains, the government is prohibited from collecting and retaining information about Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.”
The Trump administration is taking tangible steps toward making mere dissent into evidence of criminality.
Trump Opens a Bogus Investigation Against the Fed Chief for Refusing to Slash Interest Rates
Executive Watch
Jan 13, 2026
Donald Trump has long been putting political pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates to give a short-term boost to the economy that would help Trump politically (at the long-term cost of higher inflation). He has already ordered his underlings to trump up bogus criminal charges against a Fed governor, and now he is targeting the Fed’s chairman for retribution.
The New York Times reports:
The U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia has opened a criminal investigation into Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, over the central bank’s renovation of its Washington headquarters and whether Mr. Powell lied to Congress about the scope of the project, according to officials briefed on the situation.
The inquiry, which includes an analysis of Mr. Powell’s public statements and an examination of spending records, was approved in November by Jeanine Pirro, a longtime ally of President Trump who was appointed to run the office last year, the officials said. …
The Fed chair warned that the investigation signaled a broader battle over the Fed’s independence. “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president,” Mr. Powell added. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”
The independence of the Federal Reserve has been one of the few remaining holdouts against Trump’s attempt to centralize all power in his person and have every agency run by his lackeys. In this case, Trump’s takeover of the Justice Department, which is no longer insulated from direct presidential control, makes this next takeover more likely.
POWER CONSOLIDATION
Hegseth Blocks Merit-Based Promotion of Women and Minority Servicemembers and Fires Decorated Generals For Insufficient Loyalty
Executive Watch
Apr 02, 2026
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has begun an unprecedented intervention in the promotion system in the U.S. military, blocking candidates with excellent records recommended by promotion boards. His overall pattern is to block promotion of women and minorities—but also to purge officers with suspect political loyalties.
NBC News reports:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken steps to block or delay promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four branches of the military, some of whom are seen as having been targeted because of their race, gender, or perceived affiliation with Biden administration policies or officials, according to nine U.S. officials familiar with the process.
The process within the Army, the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines is structured to ensure the most qualified officers get promoted. Hegseth’s decision to intervene in the process has raised concerns among some officials within those military branches and the White House, the nine U.S. officials familiar with the situation said. …
On Thursday Hegseth fired the Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, whose term was expected to be four years ending in September 2027. George, the Army’s top officer, was senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the Biden administration.
By law the president has the most authority to block a military promotion, either an individual recommendation or a name on a list. If a recommended promotion is pulled before it is transmitted to the White House, a reason must be provided, such as an ongoing investigation or an allegation about an officer’s conduct, and the defense secretary typically does not make those decisions. Candidates for promotion have been removed in the past if there were allegations against them or military investigations into them. The people removed from promotion lists did not have open investigations against them, U.S. officials said.
When we connect this with the administration’s ongoing commission of war crimes, its threats to commit more war crimes, and Donald Trump’s repeated threat to deploy troops to suppress political protest at home, this suggests the kind of political purge of the military necessary for a dictator to ensure unquestioned obedience and consolidate absolute power.
Trump Issues an Unconstitutional Executive Order Asserting Control over Voting Lists and Mail-In Ballots
Executive Watch
Mar 31, 2026
Donald Trump is desperate to disrupt this year’s midterm congressional elections, which are almost certain to wipe out his party’s majority in Congress and lead to increased congressional resistance to his agenda. He has already attempted once to exert direct presidential control over the election process, and now he’s making another try.
A British newspaper, The Guardian, is somehow far more forthright about how this contradicts the U.S. Constitution than most American outlets:
Donald Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to compile a national voter file and to restrict the use of mail-in ballots, an unprecedented move that is probably unconstitutional.
The executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to compile a list of verified US citizens who can vote in every state. It also directs the United States Postal Service (USPS) to begin rule-making on a process that would require states to notify the agency of voters who intend to receive a mail-in ballot and prohibit them from receiving one unless they are on a USPS-approved list of eligible voters.
Trump repeated a series of falsehoods about voting before signing the order in the Oval Office on Tuesday. …
“There’s not a single provision in here that will withstand judicial review. This is a wholly unconstitutional EO,” said David Becker, the executive director for the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a non-profit.
The US constitution gives the president no authority over elections and expressly authorizes states to set election rules.
The Constitution’s dispersal of voting administration to the states is intended to prevent exactly what Trump is trying to do. But the goal of this executive order is not just to get away with a presidential takeover of the process. It is also laying the groundwork to challenge the legitimacy of any vote that doesn’t follow Trump’s rules—and to try to overturn it.
Hegseth Stops Investigation of Apache Pilots Who Conducted Unscheduled Flybys Over Kid Rock’s House During No Kings Protests
Executive Watch
Mar 31, 2026
Is the U.S. military intended to be used to protect American citizens and secure our national interests—or is it available as an extremely expensive way to provide free publicity for politically connected celebrities? The Trump administration is treating it as the latter, in the case of a helicopter flyby used to create social media content for a pro-Trump, has-been celebrity.
The Washington Post reports:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday nullified an Army investigation into the unauthorized helicopter flybys of musician Kid Rock’s estate and anti-Trump protests in Tennessee over the weekend, announcing the move just hours after military officials opened their disciplinary review of the soldiers involved.
“No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, Patriots,” Hegseth wrote on social media.
Kid Rock, whose legal name is Robert Ritchie, is an enthusiastic, longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, and he is widely admired among the president’s political base. Hegseth’s swift intervention in the case raised immediate questions about whether the military can hold its own accountable for actions that Hegseth may deem politically favorable. …
Earlier Tuesday, Army officials had said the Apache pilots were suspended while officials investigated the incident.
“The Army takes any allegations of unauthorized or unsafe flight operations very seriously and is committed to enforcing standards and holding personnel accountable,” it said in a statement.
This is another example of Pete Hegseth turning the U.S. military into a political instrument by sabotaging its internal institutions and overruling the decisions of independent and nonpartisan boards.
Minnesota Is Suing the Trump Administration for Illegally Withholding Evidence About Shooting Deaths by ICE Agents
Executive Watch
Mar 24, 2026
Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign predictably turned into a reign of terror over American cities, culminating in ICE goons shooting several U.S. citizens. Trump’s administration has refused to investigate these shooting, and it is now being sued by the state of Minnesota for withholding evidence from the state’s independent investigation.
MS Now reports:
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans want a judge to force the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to share evidence, as would typically happen in such cases.
“Instead of sharing information, federal authorities took exclusive possession of evidence that had been collected, and they denied Minnesota investigators access to key information,” the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint filed in federal court in Washington.
Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was fatally shot Jan. 7 by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. Several videos of the shooting indicate that Good was driving away, not toward, the officer, who stood in front of Good’s vehicle and shot her.
Despite that, top administration officials labeled Good a “domestic terrorist,” and Vice President JD Vance said federal officers were “protected by absolute immunity”—a comment he later walked back.
The BCA—the state’s primary investigative agency—began a joint investigation into Good’s killing with the FBI, but the FBI reversed course, informing the BCA that the investigation would be solely led by federal officials.
Refusing to allow access to evidence is an admission that, despite its claims, the administration knows these shootings were unjustified. But Trump’s Department of Justice, rather than holding government agents accountable to the law, has set out to provide them with absolute impunity.
Trump’s Lackeys Shamelessly Approve Putting His Face on a Coin In Violation of America’s Tradition Against King Worship
Executive Watch
Mar 19, 2026
Ancient societies put the face of the king or the emperor on a coin, because that one man was the ultimate source of authority. In America, authority flows from the people, not from a king. So both in law and custom, we have long opposed putting the faces of current political leaders on our currency, only honoring them after their deaths. Donald Trump has ended this tradition.
The New York Times reports:
President Trump’s handpicked arts commission voted on Thursday to approve a commemorative, 24-karat gold coin bearing Mr. Trump’s image, brushing aside debate over whether the coin violates American tradition.
The coin, which is supposed to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary, shows Mr. Trump with his fists pressed against a desk and a glowering expression on his face. The back of the coin features an eagle.
It is one of at least three coins featuring Mr. Trump’s face, including a $1 coin that will circulate as currency, that the administration is planning….
Many of America’s founders, including George Washington, were fiercely against taking steps that would make its government officials appear like kings, and that included featuring them on the country’s coins. Only a handful of times in history have people been featured on US currency while they were alive.
The administration’s move to mint official coins with Mr. Trump’s face is also legally aggressive. An 1866 law called the Thayer Amendment states: “Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities.”
“Legally aggressive” is yet another press euphemism for “blatantly illegal.” The last word on this should go to the chair of the Citizens Coinage Advisory Council, which refused to even consider this proposal: “If you issue a coin with a portrait of a sitting president, it will send a message that the sitting president is a king.”
Trump Threatens to Revoke Broadcast Licenses of TV Stations That Don’t Boost His Iran War
Executive Watch
Mar 15, 2026
Donald Trump’s favorite executive power to abuse is the FCC’s ability to revoke a broadcast license if it decides a broadcaster isn’t serving the “public interest.” Trump interprets the “public interest” to mean not being critical of him, and now he and his loyal FCC chair Brendan Carr are once again threatening broadcasters, this time over their coverage of his war in Iran.
Forbes provides an overview of Trump’s amplification of Carr’s threat:
Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said Iran “is known for a lot of fake news” before claiming without evidence that U.S. television networks were working with Iran to disseminate that material. Trump told reporters that this was a “very dangerous thing for our country,” and broadcasters “could be in serious jeopardy.” The president made this unsubstantiated claim in his [social media] post as well, writing that Iran was “working in close coordination with the Fake News Media” to push an AI-generated video of the USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier on fire.
Trump’s post comes a day after Carr issued a threat to broadcasters over purported “fake news” while resharing an earlier post made by the president complain about the war coverage. The Trump appointee wrote: “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions—also known as the fake news—have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.” Carr…appeared to threaten the networks saying: “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.” Like with Trump, Carr did not provide any evidence of so-called fake news or distortions pertaining to the war.
Over the past few days Trump has repeatedly complained about the media’s coverage of the conflict. Last week, Trump insisted that the U.S. was “winning” the war and said: “If you read the Failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think that we are not winning.”
We need a free press for the same reason we need a Congress that asserts its power—so someone independent of the president can question the reasons for the war, its goals, and whether we really are winning or not. Trump is trying to prevent the American people from making such an independent evaluation.
The Department of Defense Threatens to Appropriate an AI Company That Refuses to Allow its Technology to be Used for Surveillance
Executive Watch
Feb 24, 2026
The use of artificial intelligence by the U.S. military may be necessary to keep up with other countries that make use of it. But it also raises difficult questions about the potential abuse of the new technology by the military and other agencies, particularly for internal surveillance. The Trump administration’s response to these concerns is to threaten to simply to seize the new technology.
The Washington Post reports:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened Anthropic, saying officials could invoke powers that would allow the government to force the artificial intelligence firm to share its novel technology in the name of national security if it does not agree by Friday to terms favorable to the military, people familiar with the ongoing discussions said.
But Anthropic is prepared to walk away from the negotiations—and its $200 million contract with the Defense Department—if concerns over the use of its technology for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance are not addressed, according to the people familiar with the discussions. …
Tensions have risen between the firm and the Pentagon in recent weeks over how Anthropic’s AI was applied during the raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Defense officials responded swiftly, suggesting that if Anthropic did not allow the Pentagon to apply the AI as it wants to, within lawful limits, the company would be considered a supply-chain risk, costing it and any firm subcontracting its AI future business opportunities.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Hegseth went further, saying Anthropic could in addition be subject to the Defense Production Act—which enables the government to gain control of firms and their products—in the name of national security. The DPA was used during the covid pandemic to address medical supply shortfalls.
America’s military strength depends on our government’s partnership with the world’s best scientists and most innovative companies. But their willingness to work with the government depends on the presumption they are working for the good guys—and if this administration substitutes threats and expropriation for persuasion, they will destroy that presumption.
Trump Tries to Get a Democratic Official Fired From the Netflix Board for Being a Democrat
Executive Watch
Feb 22, 2026
Donald Trump is not in favor of capitalism or a free market. He’s in favor of a personalist system in which all economic decisions have to be passed by him. That has been on display in the Netflix-Warner Brothers merger negotiations, where he has repeatedly intervened on behalf of a rival company owned by his supporters, and he is now dictating who Netflix can hire.
The Guardian reports:
Donald Trump has told Netflix to remove the Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice from its board or “face the consequences,” while the streaming platform is locked in an extraordinary corporate battle to take control of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). …
Trump’s comments herald a fresh intervention in the takeover battle between Netflix and Paramount Skydance for the studios and streaming businesses of WBD only weeks after promising not to get involved.
Rice was a member of Netflix’s board from 2018 to 2020, before leaving during the Biden administration. She rejoined in 2023 and sits on the company’s nominating and governance committee.
She appeared on a podcast in recent days, during which she said that corporations, law firms and news organizations that showed loyalty to Trump would be held accountable if the Democrats returned to power.
This is not the first time Trump has attempted to tell private companies who they can employ. It’s an attempt to starve out his political opposition, ensuring they cannot prosper or rise to positions of prominence and influence—so that there will be no independent voices to contradict him.
POLICY ILLEGALITY
The President Uses the Threat of War Crimes Against Iran as a Negotiating Tactic
Executive Watch
Apr 05, 2026
Donald Trump has raised, then dropped, multiple different strategic objectives for his war against Iran. But he has been consistent about America’s tactics. He has repeatedly announced a contempt for international law and a fascination with indiscriminate destruction that crosses the line to war crimes.
The New York Times reports on his latest threats:
Power plants, desalination stations, oil wells, roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
They are the foundations of civilian life in Iran, and their destruction by American and Israeli forces would cause widespread suffering among the country’s 93 million people—and in most cases would be considered a war crime under international law.
Yet President Trump has repeatedly threatened to do exactly that, with the aim of sending Iran “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong,” as he put it in a speech on Wednesday. …
International laws aimed at preventing the horrors of total war are codified in a series of agreements, including the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, the Nuremberg Principles and the United Nations Charter. Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure violate those. So does pillaging a country, which Mr. Trump has suggested he might do by taking Iran’s oil. …
During a standoff with Iran in his first administration, Mr. Trump threatened to destroy 52 cultural sites in the country. Mark T. Esper, then the defense secretary, acknowledged that hitting such sites would be a war crime and said the Pentagon would not do it.
The second Trump administration has taken a different approach.
Then he went further, posting: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” basically a warning that he is prepared to use nukes to commit genocide on a mass scale to try to win an illegal war with no clear purpose.
Basically, what this suggests is that unless something stops him, there is no limit to the cruelty he will unleash to get his way.
Trump Issues an Executive Order to Dictate the Rules for College Football and Enforce Them by Cutting Federal Funding
Executive Watch
Apr 03, 2026
Donald Trump views executive orders, not as mere directives for the administration of the government, but as edicts expressing his demands for control over all parts of society, as if he were an absolute monarch entitled to have the final say on everything. That now includes the internal rules of college football.
CBS Sports reports:
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order of “urgent national action to save college sports,” an intervention at the highest level aimed at federally regulating NIL collectives, limiting transfer movement, capping player eligibility, and enacting funding requirements for the Olympics and women’s sports, the White House announced Friday.
Trump’s recommendation includes strict guardrails on player transfers and even mentions the return of the NCAA’s “one-time” transfer rule, with an exception for grad transfers. …
Trump’s order includes a provision to review federal government grants and contracts for schools and potentially cut funding if they fail to comply with NCAA rules, according to the fact sheet released by The White House. …
Many of those in attendance at Trump’s gathering last month favored the SCORE Act, first introduced in July 2025 by members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Backed by the NCAA and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, the SCORE Act aims at regulating payments made to collegiate athletes, but has not passed.
This is another attempt by Trump to weaponize federal funding to impose his edicts on universities. And note that this is not just a grab for direct presidential control over NCAA rules. It is also an attempt to use executive decrees to bypass Congress entirely.
Trump Threatens to Withdraw from NATO, an Illegal Act Without Congressional Approval
Executive Watch
Apr 01, 2026
Donald Trump likes to go around claiming the power to rule by his personal whim, asserting authority the president simply does not possess under the U.S. Constitution. He has already started a war without approval from Congress, and this has emboldened him to talk about withdrawing from NATO—and its underlying treaty—also without approval from Congress. But this is expressly illegal.
CNN reports:
Trump told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper in an interview published Wednesday that he would reconsider the US’ NATO membership. He later doubled down, telling Reuters he was “absolutely” considering withdrawing from the alliance. …
Yet despite Trump’s claims that he can withdraw the United States from the alliance, a law passed by Congress in 2023 says the move would require the advice and consent of the Senate, with two-thirds of senators in agreement, or an act of Congress. …
The requirement for congressional approval means that even if all Republicans voted with Trump to withdraw the United States from NATO, it would require several Democrats—at least 14 if all Republicans are present—to join them to pass the legislation.
That’s unlikely to happen, as Sen. Thom Tillis, the top Republican on the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, has warned against damaging the military alliance.
Tillis said in a March interview with ABC’s “This Week” that it is “factually not true” that Trump can pull out of NATO without Congress.
The 2023 law is redundant. NATO was formed by the North Atlantic Treaty, and under the Constitution, treaties are made with the approval of Congress and then become the law of the land—which implies that a treaty cannot be dissolved without the approval of Congress, either.
Stephen Miller Ordered ICE to Provoke Violent Confrontations With Minneapolis Protesters that Led to the Execution of Two Americans
Executive Watch
Mar 30, 2026
The killings of observers at immigration raids in Minneapolis early this year were no accident. We now have confirmation from insiders at the Department of Homeland Security that this was the result of a deliberate policy out of the White House to initiate violent confrontations in order to deny opponents of mass deportations the appearance of a public relations victory.
The Daily Mail has the scoop behind a paywall, but it is summarized by The New Republic:
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s outrageous order to immigration officials may have sparked the confrontation that killed an American citizen.
During one of his many furious morning calls with immigration enforcement officials, Miller demanded that federal agents be dispatched to certain areas of Minneapolis in order to “force confrontations” with anti-ICE protesters, two senior DHS sources told the Daily Mail.
Miller repeatedly urged federal agents to engage with protesters in order to win a “PR battle,” one official told the outlet.
He told officials that anti-ICE could not be viewed as successful, and repeatedly said that demonstrators “need to be vanquished by any force necessary,” another DHS source told the Mail.
Miller is the architect and instigator of Donald Trump’s militarized mass deportation policy, and he is the one person who has not been thrown under the bus by Trump and still retains his full backing. But he is responsible for the policy that triggered the murder of bystanders for exercising their First Amendment right to observe their government.
Trump Keeps Illegally Appointing Unqualified US Attorneys Even as Courts Keep Swatting Them
Executive Watch
Mar 09, 2026
The central goal of Donald Trump’s second term in office is to bypass the legislative branch entirely, figuring out how to govern without Congress. One way he is doing this is a concerted attempt to bypass the Senate confirmation process for his appointees, particularly those in the Department of Justice, where he wants pliant lackeys to persecute his opponents.
Trump had one of his DOJ appointments in New York ruled unlawful, but when a panel of judges appointed a replacement, Trump fired him. Now another judge has ruled that after Trump’s pick for the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey was disqualified as an unlawful appointment, Trump illegally installed her successors as well.
The Washington Post reports:
A federal judge upended the leadership of New Jersey’s U.S. attorney’s office again Monday, ruling for the second time in less than a year that the Trump administration had illegally sought to bypass Congress and install its own picks to head the prominent prosecutorial outpost.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann said that a trio of Justice Department lawyers who have been leading the office since late last year had been unlawfully serving in their positions. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed them after Brann disqualified Alina Habba, President Donald Trump’s previous choice for U.S. attorney in the state, in August amid similar questions over the legality of her appointment. …
Typically, U.S. attorneys, who have broad authority to oversee all federal criminal and civil cases in their districts, are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate. But Trump, facing pushback over some nominees, has adopted several legally questionable tactics to keep his unconfirmed picks serving in their roles. …
Across the country, courts have disqualified a half-dozen of Trump’s picks to lead U.S. attorney’s offices on an interim or acting basis, finding that each had served well beyond the statutorily defined limits of their temporary appointments or were never legally appointed in the first place.
The power to initiate federal prosecutions is easily abused, since the resources of the federal government are so vast that even if a defendant is acquitted, he is already punished by the process itself. This is why the president’s appointments are supposed to be constrained by federal law—an inconvenience only to a president who craves the latitude to abuse his power.
Trump’s Killing Spree Off the Coast of South America Continues Apace
Executive Watch
Mar 08, 2026
With everything else going on, and the U.S. now waging a whole new war against Iran without congressional authorization, it’s important to note that the Trump administration is still randomly and arbitrarily murdering boaters off the coast of South America.
NBC News reported on one strike a few weeks ago, and now The New York Times reports on a new one:
The Defense Department said on Sunday that it had blown up a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean earlier in the day, killing six people. The strike raised the death toll in the campaign by the United States against people it accuses of smuggling drugs at sea to at least 156.
The U.S. Southern Command announced the strike on social media with an 11-second video clip that showed a stationary boat, with two or three outboard engines, floating in the water and then suddenly exploding.
Legal specialists on the use of lethal force have said the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because the military cannot deliberately target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence, even if suspected of engaging in criminal acts. The Trump administration has not provided evidence of drug smuggling.
The administration has had months to offer evidence to justify these killings, but it never does. This reinforces the sense that this murder spree is just for the theater of making Trump look tough by blowing things up, and to satisfy the bloodlust of Trump’s sycophants—”for fun,” as Trump himself put it.
ICE Isn’t Targeting the Worst But Legal Immigrants Playing by the Rules, Including Musical Stars Who Visited the White House
Executive Watch
Mar 08, 2026
The big lie of Donald Trump’s mass deportations is that they would only target criminals, the “worst of the worst.” Instead, Trump has overwhelming targeted legal immigrants who were working through the system and complying with everything asked of them. The latest case is two young musicians who were recently honored on the floor of Congress.
The New York Times reports:
Last June, two teenage brothers from South Texas and their high school mariachi bandmates traveled to Capitol Hill. They had been invited there by their congresswoman, Monica De La Cruz. She was going to recognize the band on the House floor for winning a state mariachi competition.
“Your community is so so proud of your hard work, your talent, and your dedication,” Ms. De La Cruz, a Republican, told the students.
Nine months later, the brothers, Antonio Yesayahu Gámez-Cuéllar, 18, and Caleb Gámez-Cuéllar, 14, along with their parents and younger brother, are in ICE detention and facing deportation. …
The family entered the United States in 2023 at the border crossing in Brownsville, Texas, on an asylum claim and settled in nearby McAllen, according to Luis Antonio Martínez, the father.
In an interview last week, Mr. Martínez said that he and his wife and children were fleeing threats in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, where he had been kidnapped by cartel members.
The family had been attending its required court dates and last had a check-in with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in January, where they were told to return in June, Mr. Martínez said.
Then he received a call from ICE saying that the family needed to check in on Feb. 25. They were detained at that check-in.
The most chilling line in the report is actually this one: “They hope to be released by asking for habeas corpus, a last-resort legal procedure that many detained migrants have come to rely on.” A last resort? Habeas corpus—showing actual cause for imprisoning someone—is the very first requirement the government should be expected to meet, but which this administration systematically refuses to do.
DHS Tried to Bury the Murder of Another US Citizen by Blaming Him for His Death
Executive Watch
Mar 07, 2026
The most famous killings of U.S. citizens by Department of Homeland Security officers happened earlier this year in Minneapolis. But it turns out the first such killing during Trump’s second term happened almost a year earlier—but DHS refused to acknowledge it. Newly released evidence indicates that they lied to cover up the case.
The Washington Post reports:
The investigative material released Friday by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows that Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, was given conflicting instructions as he encountered law enforcement officers from multiple agencies near the scene of a previous vehicle accident in South Padre Island, Texas, in the early-morning hours of March 15.
His car moved forward very slowly in the moments before Homeland Security Investigations Agent Jack C. Stevens fired three shots into Martinez’s blue Ford sedan. The footage does not show Martinez speeding up rapidly or appearing to target a second Homeland Security Investigations agent, Hector Sosa. …
Sosa told investigators that Martinez’s car struck his legs, causing him to fall over the hood before Stevens opened fire. …
More than a dozen people have been shot by DHS personnel over the past 14 months, including two other fatal shootings of U.S. citizens during immigration enforcement operations. In January, immigration personnel in Minneapolis shot Renée Good and Alex Pretti in separate incidents days apart. Three months earlier, a Border Patrol agent shot and injured Marimar Martinez in Chicago. In each of those three cases, administration officials accused the victims of endangering the officers before they were killed, and some of their characterizations were proved false once more information about the shootings became public.
This is the consistent character of the mass deportation system Donald Trump has established. DHS officers feel emboldened to use deadly force on the slightest provocation or with no provocation at all, and then to lie about it—while they are assured by their superiors, all the way up to the president, that they can do so with total impunity.
Blind Refugee Dies After Being Disappeared, Then Abandoned, by Border Patrol
Executive Watch
Feb 25, 2026
Trump’s mass deportation agenda has quickly reproduced all the characteristics of a brutal police state, including unlawful disappearances in which ordinary people, including children, are swept up into the system and no one knows what happened to them. Then, if these people are released, they are routinely dumped in isolated areas without notification. One of them just died.
The Guardian reports:
A nearly blind Burmese refugee who was abandoned by border patrol agents has been found dead in Buffalo, New York, city officials confirmed. …
[Nural] Shah Alam had been in the Erie county holding center for the past year, after being arrested by Buffalo police in 2025 on charges of assault, trespassing and possession of a weapon. The arrest stemmed from an incident in which Shah Alam got lost while on a walk and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home. He had been using a curtain rod as a walking stick, according to his attorney.
The woman called the police, and when Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they Tasered and beat him, his attorney said.
He was released on bail, and then transferred to border patrol custody.
Border patrol agents then dropped him off at a Tim Hortons about five miles from his home. Neither his attorney nor his family were notified of his release.
“We are saddened to learn that our client, Nurul Amin Shah Alam, was found deceased last night in the City of Buffalo,” the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo said in a statement shared with the Guardian.
The negligence and indifference to human life in this case is so systematic it cannot be attributed to accident. Cruelty and lawlessness toward anyone even suspected of being an immigrant is the openly declared policy of this administration. The result: Nural Shah Alam came to the U.S. as a refugee fleeing oppression and brutality—and found it all over again here in America.
Whistleblower Reveals That ICE Is Teaching New Recruits to ‘Violate the Constitution’ and Our Rights
Executive Watch
Feb 23, 2026
An ICE whistleblower has testified that the organization’s training has been dangerously reduced to accommodate Donald Trump’s deportation surge and that recruits were specifically taught to ignore constitutional protections against search and seizure—in direct contradiction to what the Department of Homeland Security has told Congress.
The New York Times reports:
The account by Ryan Schwank, a former ICE lawyer who worked at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy, coincided with the release by Senate Democrats of several dozen pages of internal ICE records that suggest the Trump administration has curtailed the agency’s basic training.
“For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program,” Mr. Schwank said at a forum held in Washington by congressional Democrats. “Cutting 240 hours of vital classes from a 584-hour program—classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention and the limits of officers’ authority.” …
Mr. Schwank was hired as an ICE lawyer in 2021 and became an instructor last year at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy in Georgia, where he taught courses on the law. He resigned on Feb. 13 after he and another publicly unidentified person submitted a confidential whistle-blower complaint on a separate matter that has raised constitutional questions: a new ICE policy allowing deportation officers to enter homes and arrest people without a judicial warrant.
“ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution,” he said on Monday at the event with congressional Democrats.
Training matters because it indicates what the administrations wants from the agents who enforce its policies—and what this administration wants is for them not to adhere to the Constitution or protections for our rights.
Trump Responds to the Supreme Court Ruling Overruling His Illegal Tariffs by Imposing More Illegal Tariffs
Executive Watch
Feb 23, 2026
As predicted, the Supreme Court ruled to strike down tariffs Donald Trump imposed illegally under an “emergency” statute that did not, in fact, grant him a taxing power the Constitution reserves for Congress. Trump responded by declaring that he would impose new tariffs under a different emergency measure. But these tariffs are no more legal than the old ones.
CBS News explains:
Section 122 authorizes the U.S. president to impose tariffs to rectify what the statute describes as “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.” …
But trade and legal experts said Section 122 might not apply in the current context because the large U.S. trade deficit, which Mr. Trump has invoked to justify tariffs, does not qualify as a balance-of-payments deficit. …
“Section 122 is for a balance of payments crisis, which is when you don’t have enough foreign reserves to pay external debts,” Philip Luck, director of the economics program at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The U.S. has a very large trade deficit, but so long as we can continue to sell assets to the global market, we have no challenge conducting international trade.”
Trump’s strategy is obvious. He wants to do something illegal and unconstitutional, so when the courts strike down one legal rationale for doing it, he switches to another bogus rationale—but keeps the illegal policy, daring the courts to stop him again. The only constant is his contempt for legality and constitutionality as such.
Don’t YOU deserve better?
Do you care that what you hear is FULLY factual or not?
