Trump Corruption

From the new Substack site Musk Watch: Several of Elon Musk’s associates installed at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have received unprecedented access to federal human resources databases containing sensitive personal information for millions of federal employees. According to two members of OPM staff with direct knowledge, the Musk team running OPM has the ability to extract information from …

First, a reminder about this guy: Interim D.C. U.S. attorney Edward R. Martin, Jr., on Friday dismissed about 30 federal prosecutors who have worked on Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot cases over the past four years, undertaking a housecleaning of the top prosecutor’s office in Washington, while preparing to extend the office’s scrutiny to top Democratic leaders and former Justice …

NPR reports: Elon Musk’s X broadened an existing lawsuit on Saturday to include several major brands — accusing more companies of illegally boycotting the social media platform in 2022 following Musk’s acquisition. The suit, which was filed last year in a federal court in Texas, initially targeted the boycott organizer, the World Federation of Advertisers, along with companies including CVS …

Bloomberg News reports: Elon Musk said his “DOGE team” of government efficiency enforcers is shutting down payments to federal contractors, suggesting that the world’s richest man may have access to sensitive systems used at the U.S. Treasury Department. “The corruption and waste is being rooted out in real-time,” Musk posted on X on Sunday, saying officials reporting to his so-called …

“Secretary of State Rubio is in Panama — Panama right now. And we’re talking about the Panama Canal. What they’ve done is terrible. They violated the agreement. They are not allowed to violate the agreement. China is running the Panama Canal. That was not given to China. That was given to Panama, foolishly. But they violated the agreement. And we’re …

The Associated Press reports: Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters on Monday, according to a notice distributed to them, after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency. USAID staffers said they tracked 600 employees who reported being locked out of …

CNN reports: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa responded on Monday to US President Donald Trump’s threat to cut off aid over the alleged mistreatment of White farmers, denying Trump’s claim that authorities were “confiscating land.” “South Africa is a constitutional democracy that is deeply rooted in the rule of law, justice and equality. The South African government has not confiscated …

“Canada has been very abusive of the United States for many years. They don’t allow our banks. And you know that Canada does not allow banks to go in, if you think about it. That’s pretty amazing. “If we have a U.S. bank, they don’t allow them to go in. Canada has been very tough for oil on energy. They …

NBC News reports: Dozens of employees who attended a diversity training course that former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos [photo] encouraged during President Donald Trump’s first administration have been placed on paid leave as part of Trump’s targeting of DEI programs, a union official told NBC News. Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents hundreds …

Wired reports: Elon Musk’s takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing, and at the center of things is a coterie of engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college. Most have connections to Musk and at least two have connections to Musk’s longtime associate Peter Thiel, a cofounder and chairman of the analytics firm …

CNN reports: Two top security officials at the US Agency for International Development were put on administrative leave Saturday night after refusing to allow officials from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access systems at the agency, even after DOGE personnel threatened to call law enforcement. Personnel from the Musk-created office physically tried to access the USAID headquarters in …

Canada’s CTV News reports: As Sunday morning began, U.S. President Donald Trump took to social media to blast Canada and other trade partners. He repeated his claims that the U.S. subsidizes Canada to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, without explaining why he categorizes his country’s trade deficit with Canada as a subsidy. “Without this massive subsidy, Canada …

Posted this morning to Truth Social: The “Tariff Lobby,” headed by the Globalist, and always wrong, Wall Street Journal, is working hard to justify Countries like Canada, Mexico, China, and too many others to name, continue the decades long RIPOFF OF AMERICA, both with regard to TRADE, CRIME, AND POISONOUS DRUGS that are allowed to so freely flow into AMERICA. …

Reuters reports: Lawyers at the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) have been told they need to seek permission from the politically appointed leadership before formally launching probes, two sources briefed on the matter said, in a marked change in procedure that could slow down investigations. The change, which has not been previously reported, was made under new leadership at the …

The Desk reports: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Saturday said it will stop e-mailing news organizations and reporters with updates about two plane crashes that occurred earlier this week. Moving forward, the federal agency tasked with investigating transportation-related accidents and disasters said news organizations and reporters will have to follow the agency’s official account on X. The Desk …

The New York Times reports: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system late on Friday. Mr. Bessent granted access to the payments system to a handful of staff members affiliated with DOGE, including Tom Krause, the chief executive of a Silicon Valley company, Cloud Software Group. Access …

The Daily Beast reports: A photo from the FBI’s training academy in Quantico, Virginia, has gone viral as a grave symbol of the Trump administration’s push to strip diversity, equity, and inclusion values from all facets of the federal government. The image, which has racked up millions of views on social media, shows a man painting solid gray over a …

From the Wall Street Journal editorial board: Mr. Trump’s justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says they’ve “enabled illegal drugs to pour into America.” But drugs have flowed into the U.S. for decades, and will continue to do so as long as Americans keep using them. Neither country can …

The Hill reports: The Trump administration forced out a number of FBI officials Friday, removing agents who worked on the criminal cases into President Trump as well as the heads of various field offices. A source familiar said agents who had worked on the Mar-a-Lago and Jan. 6 investigations were escorted out of the Washington Field Office. The same source …

The New York Times reports: The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra, was fired on Saturday, prematurely ending a five-year term that was scheduled to run through late 2026. “With so much power concentrated in the hands of a few, agencies like the C.F.P.B. have never been more critical,” Mr. Chopra wrote in a letter he posted …