Articles & Videos

Texas Senator John Cornyn and North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis just caved to Donald Trump’s demands, paving the way for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to move toward a full Senate confirmation.The two Republican holdouts announced Monday that they had reached a deal with the Justice Department that they claimed satisfied their aims to end Trump’s $1.8 “anti-weaponization” fund.“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund,” the outgoing lawmakers said in a joint statement. “Additionally, the Department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share.”Cornyn faced a barrage of criticism Sunday after he decided that Blanche’s vague assurances against Trump’s slush fund were good enough.Cornyn had previously predicated his support for Blanche’s promotion on the fund’s end. But a tricky memo released by Blanche Sunday night seemed to have tripped up both senators’ offices—and their conditions.On its face, Blanche’s note appeared to terminate the fund, specifying that the order was “rescinded and shall have no force or effect.” However, journalists were quick to comment that the language employed in the rest of Blanche’s memo not only suggested that the honey pot fund would be preserved in some form, but also failed to terminate Trump’s underlying IRS immunity arrangement.But vague gestures at accountability were apparently all Cornyn and Tillis needed to get in line.In his own comments addressing the backlash on X Monday morning, Tillis wrote that he and Cornyn had only sought a “written document addressing our concerns on the IRS audit agreement and the anti-weaponization fund” and “legally ending the anti-weaponization fund.”“Additionally, the Department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share,” he added.But attorneys responding to Tillis flamed the North Carolinian for his paltry litmus test.“You cannot unilaterally alter a settlement agreement, and you know it,” responded lawyer Robin DesCamp.The fund was the result of an unprecedented deal that Trump made with himself after he dropped his faltering $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service. The arrangement included a curious addendum from Blanche, immunizing Trump from further federal prosecution. The government of the United States, Blanche wrote, would be “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing “any and all claims” against Trump, his family, or his business. The fund itself would be used as reparations, paid for by U.S. taxpayers through the Department of Justice, to virtually any right-winger that felt impugned by the previous presidential administration.The idea of the fund fell apart following weeks of backlash, numerous lawsuits, and opposition from even Republican lawmakers, who felt the issue had gummed up party efforts to pass a reconciliation bill.But Trump has refused to let the topic go, repeatedly affirming his support for the supposedly defunct fund.“It is dead, but I wish it weren’t, to be honest with you,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Friday. “I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused.”Trump doubled down on the fund while speaking with reporters on Air Force One Sunday. He said he wanted it to provide “a reimbursement for the pain” his supporters have supposedly endured.“A lot of people like it. A lot of big supporters of Trump like it,” he insisted.Blanche’s efforts to salvage the fund should be viewed as yet more evidence that the fund is not as dead as officials have publicly claimed.“Let’s be clear: It’s more certain that Trump is still pursuing bounties for rioters today than when this started,” wrote legal journalist Adam Klasfeld on Monday. “Trump is openly stating that’s the goal, taking legal action to get there and refusing to do the one thing that would kill it.”Cornyn and Tillis are in the twilight years of their last term in office, after their decades-long careers were cut short by Trump’s decision to endorse another candidate in Texas’s and North Carolina’s GOP primaries. The cut cord has granted the pair the breathing room to ignore larger party directives and push back harder against the Trump administration’s off-color orders, but apparently, they are only willing to take that so far.This story has been updated.

Trump’s White House runs a mob-style extortion racket that will bankrupt the country the way Trump bankrupted his casinos.

For decades, regular citizens and advocacy groups have filed suits that forced companies and the federal government to clean up the environment. Trump officials have moved to limit that power.

For six decades, politicians have blurred the distinction between protecting Medicaid from abuse and using abuse to discredit Medicaid itself.

In May, the Department of Homeland Security informed the Tohono O’odham Nation, the largest Native nation located along an international border, that it was beginning construction on a border wall that would cut through its reservation. But DHS failed to ask the Tohono O’odham’s authorization to cut through its lands, which include present-day Arizona and […]

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. President Donald Trump has announced that about 200 entities have signed on to his nonbinding “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” expanding a voluntary commitment that claims to ensure US consumers will not bear the cost of the AI data center build-out. Trump delivered remarks […]

Senator Bernie Moreno finally spoke up amid appalling allegations against Rep. Max Miller but in Trump's party it seems not to matter. Elsewhere, Robert F. Kennedy dragged CNN to a new interview low.

Anthony Fauci was once presented as the unimpeachable voice of science. Now, confronted with questions about gain-of-function research, the Wuhan laboratory and what government officials knew about COVID-19’s origins, he has invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern joins Robert Scheer to examine the newly released documents, the intelligence agencies accused […]