Trump Corruption

Stephen Miller: “The president’s authority to fire any federal worker is plenary. There’s no lawful constraints that can be placed on the president to terminate a worker in the federal government. It’s a discretionary policy. That’s the basis of Article II in the Constitution and the idea of a single executive. When you have anyone in the federal government who …

Axios reports: The White House will issue a memo Tuesday offering to pay federal workers who don’t want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6, an administration official tells Axios. It’s an acceleration in President Trump’s already unprecedented purge of the federal workforce. The White House expects 5% to 10% of …

The New York Times reports: Starting last summer, former Representative Tulsi Gabbard publicly berated the Biden administration, claiming that she was placed on what she called “a domestic terror watch list” as punishment for critical comments she had made about Vice President Kamala Harris. The reality was more complicated. The additional security measures were triggered by an event she attended …

Mediaite reports: While Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has insisted these claims were false, Trump insisted via social media that the “United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER,” in a late Monday Truth Social post. Enter the highly-esteemed Pentagon reporter Jennifer Griffin — who cited US Defense Officials concurring with …

CBS News reports: A wide range of organizations and agencies that depend on federal health department funds say they have been locked out of the online system responsible for tracking and depositing their money, in the wake of the White House’s move to freeze funding across the Trump administration. These include state Medicaid programs which have been unable to log …

The Virginia Mercury reports: A separate memo from OMB lists off the programs that will be paused temporarily while it reviews which federal spending it deems appropriate. The list includes the Department of Agriculture’s tribal food sovereignty program, Head Start, the Veterans’ Affairs Department’s suicide prevention and legal services grants, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance, or LIHEAP, program, and numerous …

PBS NewsHour reports: The White House is pausing federal grants and loans starting on Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s administration begins an across-the-board ideological review of its spending. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is scheduled to hold a news briefing at 1 p.m. ET. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Marcia Howard, executive director of Federal Funds Information …

The Huffington Post reports: The Donald Trump administration’s Monday night announcement that it would pause all federal grants has caused concern among nonprofit organizations that administer senior nutrition programs like Meals on Wheels. The order from the Office of Management and Budget said federal agencies should pause federal “financial assistance” grants and review whether they further things like “woke gender …

404 Media reports: Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memos sent to federal workers about firing, hiring freezes, and mandatory return to office demands were seemingly written by people who were previously employed by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative think tanks with longstanding loyalties to Trump, according to metadata on the memos posted by the government online. We know this …

The Huffington Post reports: President Donald Trump fired the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel and one of its Democratic board members late Monday, setting up a likely legal battle over presidential power. Both Jennifer Abruzzo, the general counsel, and Gwynne Wilcox, the board member, were Democrats who took a broad view of workers rights under collective-bargaining law. Wilcox’s term …

“The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!” – The world’s most infamous liar, in a Truth Social post that has gone wildly viral …

The Associated Press reports: The White House is pausing federal grants and loans starting on Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s administration begins an across-the-board ideological review of its spending. The decision by the Republican administration could affect trillions of dollars and cause widespread disruption in health care research, education programs and other initiatives. Even grants that have been awarded but …

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration has instructed organizations in other countries to stop disbursing H.I.V. medications purchased with U.S. aid, even if the drugs have already been obtained and are sitting in local clinics. The directive is part of a broader freeze on foreign aid initiated last week. It includes the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, …

NBC News reports: President Donald Trump suggested Monday that the United States could pay a “small fee” to foreign countries to imprison Americans who are repeat criminal offenders, floating a kind of modern-day penal colony. “If they’ve been arrested many, many times, they’re repeat offenders by many numbers, I want them out of our country,” he said. “We’re going to …

Reuters reports: The Justice Department is firing more than a dozen officials who worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s cases against President Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents. The officials were fired after Acting Attorney General James McHenry said they could not be trusted in “faithfully implementing the president’s …

The Associated Press reports:  Trump popped in to the plane’s press cabin Saturday night while flying from Las Vegas to Florida, where he was staying at his Doral golf club through Monday evening, though he insisted he’d be too busy to hit the links. Trump called Air Force One a “special plane” but observed that it hasn’t changed much from …

The Associated Press reports: The Trump administration has fired about 17 independent inspectors general at government agencies, a sweeping action to remove oversight of his new administration that some members of Congress are suggesting violated federal oversight laws. Congress was not given the legally required 30-day notices about the removals — something that even a top Republican is decrying. “There …

The Washington Post reports: The United States and Colombia averted a trade war, for now, after the White House said late Sunday that Bogotá agreed to accept deportation flights from the United States. The two nations had spent much of the day in a tense standoff, with President Donald Trump threatening to impose steep tariffs and visa restrictions on Colombia …

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump on Sunday announced strict tariffs and visa restrictions on Colombia after the South American nation’s president, Gustavo Petro, said his country will not accept deportation flights from the United States unless the Trump administration ensures that repatriated Colombian migrants are treated with the “dignity that a human being deserves.” In a series of …

CNN reports: As President Donald Trump this week sought to rewrite the history of his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol, a database detailing the vast array of criminal charges and successful convictions of January 6 rioters was removed from the Department of Justice’s website. The searchable database served as an easily accessible repository of all cases prosecuted by the …