DOJ urges judge not to block ‘anti-weaponization’ fund despite already pledging not to pursue it
Center Left
A federal judge last week temporarily blocked the $1.8 billion fund from being used after a Jan. 6 prosecutor sued to block the Trump administration’s actions.
On the early edition of Balance of Power, Bloomberg Washington Correspondents Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz discuss the latest from the Trump Administration. On today's show, Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center Visiting Democracy Fellow Jeanne Sheehan Zaino, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Mike Pence Marc Short, Arbroath Group Managing Partner Christopher Smart and Navigator Research Managing Director Melissa Toufanian. (Source: Bloomberg)
Donald Trump said that farmers would see “good things” happen in the coming months, as the president sought to bolster his relationship an agriculture industry who have been battered by his tariffs as well as high fuel and fertilizer costs triggered by his war with Iran.
As California officials continue to be mocked for the glacier-speed ballot-counting process, the U.S. Dept. of Justice announced several investigations into possible election fraud. Without commenting on any specific allegations, acting U.S. Attorney for Central California Bill Essayli announced Friday that his office, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had opened "multiple election fraud investigations."'We will investigate and prosecute. Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out.' "Protecting the integrity of California’s elections is a top priority for my office," said Essayli in the post on social media. "California’s election system has serious structural vulnerabilities. Universal vote-by-mail with no voter ID requirements creates conditions where fraud can go undetected and unpunished, eroding public confidence."The highly anticipated results in two California elections are still in limbo as the ballot count continues. Critics accuse Democrats of stalling the process in order to allow for fraud, but others say the electoral system in California prioritizes ballot access at the expense of delayed results."We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent," Essayli added.Left in the lurch are the candidates awaiting the primary results for the Los Angeles mayoral election as well as the California governor's race. Currently, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt appear headed toward the general election, but as more tranches of votes are counted, the gap narrows for third-place Democratic competitors to steal their spot. The top two vote-getters in each race will advance to the general election.Essayli went on to say they were working to comprehensibly audit the voter rolls. "The state has stonewalled every effort to verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registered to vote. This case is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal," he added.Video from L.A. County's central processing center, where the ballots are being counted, showed an official from the U.S. Attorney General's Office reviewing and monitoring the effort. RELATED: The man who propelled AOC into Congress fails SPECTACULARLY in race for Pelosi's seat "My office will not look the other way," Essayli concluded. "We will investigate and prosecute. Every legal vote deserves to be counted. Every illegal vote cancels one out."On Thursday, Newsom's press office said, "For the record: we wish the votes were counted faster, too."Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta offered only a brief statement about the announcement."My office has a presence on the ground right now, is monitoring the situation closely, and stands ready to protect voters and ensure California’s election laws are followed," he wrote. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
A federal appeals court appeared skeptical Friday of the Trump administration’s bid to build the proposed White House ballroom, but it also sharply questioned whether a preservationist group can even sue to stop the project. A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments from both the Department of […]
The D.C. Circuit is reviewing an injunction issued by a judge who said "no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have."
It was always pretty naive to think the ultrarich individuals donating to Donald Trump’s $400 million ballroom project were doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. A new report from the nonprofit government watchdog Public Citizen has calculated that 14 ballroom donors have raked in more than $50 billion combined in government contracts over the last six months. For reference, that’s more than the GDP of countries such as Iceland and Senegal.Not only is the federal government enriching ballroom donors like Lockheed Martin, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Nvidia, but it is also actively getting them out of legal trouble. Sixteen of the 27 donors, including the companies listed above, are presently involved in some form of federal litigation, including antitrust reviews, securities charges, and labor disputes.But, since you can essentially just bribe the federal government right now, some donors’ charges have now been dropped or reduced by Trump’s Department of Justice.“This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it,” Democratic Representative Mike Levin wrote on X Thursday. “You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence.”Trump has repeatedly claimed he needs a new ballroom for security purposes, and has also tried to allocate at least $220 million in taxpayer dollars to the project. (Senate Republicans, likely realizing the unpopularity of the project, eventually scrapped the idea.)Still, the Trump administration continues to lash out at unbelievers. “The same critics who are alleging fake conflicts of interests, would also complain if American taxpayers were footing the bill for these long-overdue renovations,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told The Washington Post. “The donors for the White House ballroom project represent a wide array of great American companies and generous individuals, all of whom are contributing to make the People’s House better for generations to come.”If that’s the case, though, why not name these upstanding individuals and corporations? The White House has a fundraising contract that allows for the names of donors to be censored. Trump’s team publicly announced only 21 corporate donors; journalists have since uncovered six more.“The White House won’t even release the full donor list,” Levin concluded. “They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive.”
