We’ve noted this in the emails members have received, but since we’ve gotten a lot of questions about it: tickets for individual nights will go on sale this coming week. We know a lot of people can’t make it in for both nights (Thursday and Friday). So for those who just want to attend the show Thursday evening or the anniversary party Friday evening, those tickets will go on sale this coming week.
I also want to take a moment to thank everyone who came out to our event with STAT News Thursday night in Cambridge (Boston). I loved the venue and it was a chance for me to finally meet a lot of longtime readers from Boston and the greater New England region. A bunch of members from Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, etc. were there. (There may have been some from Maine. But no one told me they were from Maine.) The venue was really great, I thought, and I had a great mini-discussion with Rick Berke, co-founder and executive editor of STAT News. (That was the “content” for this event before we got on to the happy hour proper.) Let me thank especially Allegra Kirkland and Christine Frapech as well as the rest of our team for putting the Boston event together.
We’ll update you when tickets for each individual night of the anniversary celebration go on sale.
President Trump notched a startling legal win Friday evening, as the Supreme Court gave an early stamp of approval to a legal theory so outlandish that experts at one point predicted to TPM it wouldn’t “get a single vote.”
Eager to cleanse his administration of the human guardrails that fenced him in during his first term, President Trump stocked his second White House with slavishly loyal zealots.
As I’ve written a few times, we can’t over-read any single move in the broad contest over big societal institutions obeying or resisting Trump administration diktats. But Sinclair Broadcasting just announced they’re ending their “preemption” of the Jimmy Kimmel show. Even their own statement seems to make clear that while they asked for concessions from ABC/Disney they didn’t get any.
As we hurtle toward an almost inevitable government shutdown, I want to note one part of the discussion I’ve seen among commentators. This is a bit in the weeds but I think it’s worth discussing. Some writers say that it’s actually a mistake for Democrats to make any policy demands in the budget standoff. So health care, pushing back on ICE, standing up for democracy … regardless of the specific demand, it’s a mistake. I noticed Bill Scher making this argument today in The Washington Monthly. I’ve seen TPM alum Brian Beutler in his Off Message substack newsletter. And these are only a couple of examples.
The argument goes like this.
These shutdown standoffs are technical budgetary questions. The side that is making policy demands is basically taking the budget hostage to extract extraneous policy concessions. Based on the evidence of the last 20-30 years of history, that side is the one who gets blamed for the shutdown because they’re “taking the budget hostage” or introducing extraneous demands even if those demands are good ones on the merits or even supported by the public. Beutler focuses on the “hostage taking” metaphor. Scher puts it this way:
Every past attempt to use government shutdowns to extract policy concessions has failed, even when the policy demands are politically popular, because shutdowns make people forget what you have to say. Public attention shifts to how shutdowns hurt average Americans and how one political party is willing to harm constituents to play political games. Once public opinion quickly turns, the shutdown agitators invariably realize the shutdown failed to provide negotiating leverage and eventually cave.
He once called Oklahoma’s teachers union a “terrorist organization.” Now state Superintendent Ryan Walters is threatening to “destroy” teachers unions nationwide.
A former small-town history teacher who waged a culture war against educators over issues such as sexually explicit books and criticism of President Donald Trump, Walters announced his resignation Wednesday night to become CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, an anti-union initiative of the Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers unions once and for all,” he told Fox News. “This fight is going national and we will get our schools back.”
Walters was expected to run in the Republican primary for governor next year. But he had increasingly alienated “pretty much everyone” in state leadership, said Deven Carlson, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma. “I do think there was still some grassroots support in pockets of the state, but it wasn’t clear how that was going to translate to the things you might need to win, say, the 2026 governor’s election.”
First as education secretary to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and then as the state’s elected schools chief for nearly three years, Walters established a reputation for a headline-grabbing and at times even outlandish brand of Christian nationalism. Even before his election in 2022, Walters singled out teachers he considered too “woke” for Oklahoma schools. Once in office, he moved quickly to revoke the teaching certificates of educators accused of violating laws against so-called “divisive concepts.”
With little initial opposition from the state’s GOP majority, he made news almost daily for controversial actions such as threatening to take over the Tulsa schools and mandating Trump-endorsed classroom Bibles. As recently as this week, he announced that every high school in Oklahoma would have a chapter of Turning Point USA, the youth-focused conservative organization Charlie Kirk founded in 2012. Most of the Wednesday’s Fox news show Walters joined focused on the growth of the organization since Kirk was killed Sept. 10 in Utah.
After Charlie Kirk’s death, Superintendent Ryan Walters posted a photo of them together, saying he “inspired the next generation and fought for truth and Christianity.” (Ryan Walters/X)
“We’ve never seen a national movement like this of so many kids, so many parents so willing to step up and say, ‘Listen, we have got to get the country back on track.’ ” he said. “We’ve got to turn away from this radical leftism.”
As Walters kept a busy calendar of appearances on right-wing media, at home, Republican lawmakers began criticizing the state chief for financial missteps, like delaying funds to schools for security upgrades. Former state officials said he failed to communicate about routine state business. He promoted stronger literacy instruction, recently launching a new tutoring initiative, but his divisive manner overshadowed his efforts to focus on learning.
One Republican who repeatedly questioned Walters’ competence for the job and supported investigations into whether he should be impeached said the superintendent’s departure is a “very positive move for Oklahoma.”
Former state Rep. Mark McBride said he hopes the person Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt appoints as an interim replacement has “no agenda other than working with students and teachers to improve outcomes.” McBride, who led an education subcommittee in the House, said he would also “love to serve Oklahoma in this capacity,” but had not yet spoken with the governor about the possibility.
Walters was an early advocate of the Freedom Foundation’s efforts to weaken the teachers unions. He appeared at the group’s 2023 and 2024 Teacher Freedom Summits.
“They’re about power and they’re about money,” he said of the unions at last year’s event. “They could care less about student test scores.”
When the foundation launched the new Alliance earlier this year, Walters issued a press release endorsing the initiative, which prompted a state lawmaker to ask Oklahoma’s attorney general to investigate its legality.
Corey DeAngelis, a school choice advocate and outspoken union critic, said Walters is the right person for the job.
“Ryan Walters has the tenacity needed to take the unions head on,” said DeAngelis, a senior fellow with the American Culture Project, an effort to mobilize independent voters around issues such as school choice and tax relief. “His fearless advocacy against the status quo is exactly what we need to lead a mass exodus from the teachers union cartel.”
An enthusiastic MAGA supporter, Walters frequently voiced his admiration for President Trump, even directing schools last year to show a video of him praying for the president.
But the administration hasn’t always reciprocated.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon reportedly snubbed him during an August stop to the state. Carlson suggested the Education Department likely coordinated the visit with Stitt’s office and, with “little love lost” between the two men, “Walters didn’t make the itinerary.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon joined Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt as he signed a bill prohibiting funding for diversity, equity and inclusion activities in higher education. She also toured a STEM school in Tulsa, but Superintendent Ryan Walters didn’t participate in the visit. (U.S. Department of Education)
Department officials have also been critical so far of his proposal to eliminate federal testing requirements in the state and said he was wrong to suggest McMahon would likely approve it.
While Stitt, current chair of the National Governor’s Association, initially supported Walters’ political aspirations, the two were no longer “on the same page,” Carlson said. “I think the governor became frustrated with the effects that Walters initiatives were having on his economic development agenda.”
The state, for example, received negative attention for being 50th in education in one ranking.
Not long before Walters jumped into politics, he was an award-winning history teacher in the McAlester school district, not far from the Arkansas state line. Former students saw him as fair and inclusive, not the anti-LGBTQ firebrand he later became as state superintendent. His love for teaching impressed McBride when the two first met in 2018.
Despite a string of scandals, Walters always bounced back. A probe into his management of state funds last year found no misconduct or missing money. Most recently, he was cleared of any criminal charges following an investigation into why a movie with nude scenes, Jackie Chan’s 1985 action film “The Protector,” was playing on a TV in his office during a state school board meeting. Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna said she found insufficient evidence that he had broken the law.
‘Constant distraction’
The episode was one of many that kept Walters in the news. Education advocates, who Walters frequently accused of indoctrinating students with left-wing ideas, largely expressed relief Wednesday night.
“We can get back to the true focus of teaching without the constant distraction and headlines from the state superintendent,” said Jami Jackson-Cole, a teacher who moderates a Facebook group of Oklahoma educators and advocates.
As Walters departs next month, they’re wondering who will take his seat, not just for the remaining 15 months of his term, but in the 2026 election.
Along with McBride, others rumored to be possible candidates for interim superintendent include Nellie Sanders, Stitt’s education secretary. A former member of a charter board, she voted in favor of approving the nation’s first religious charter school. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court split 4-4 on whether the school violated the First Amendment, allowing the state supreme court’s decision prohibiting tax dollars from funding the school to stand.
Regardless of who completes the rest of Walters’ term, advocates are also beginning to examine the records of those running for state superintendent. Republican candidates include Rob Miller and John Cox, two superintendents. Two former Tulsa board members, Democrat Jennettie Marshall and independent Jerry Griffin, have also filed paperwork to enter the race.
With Walters “being out of the picture, maybe Oklahomans who are serious about public education can now get to work turning this ship around,” said Erika Wright, an education organizer for Oklahoma Appleseed, a nonprofit law firm.
She’s been working with a coalition of organizations to develop a five-year agenda for the state’s schools that focuses on the teaching profession, student performance, funding for education and school safety.
“The possibilities that lie before us are really exciting,” she said, “but the work is not done.”
This story first appeared at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
For months, the complaints have rolled in from parts of the country hit by natural disasters: The Federal Emergency Management Agency was moving far too slowly in sending aid to communities ravaged by floods and hurricanes, including in central Texas and North Carolina. Many officials were blaming Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, whose agency oversees FEMA.
“I can’t get phone calls back,” Ted Budd, the Republican senator from North Carolina, told a newspaper this month, describing his attempts to reach Noem’s office. “I can’t get them to initiate the money. It’s just a quagmire.” The delays were caused in part by a new policy announced by DHS that requires Noem’s personal sign-off on expenses over $100,000, several news outlets reported.
But records obtained by ProPublica show how one locality found a way to get FEMA aid more quickly: It asked one of Noem’s political donors for help.
The records show that Noem quickly expedited more than $11 million of federal money to rebuild a historic pier in Naples, Florida, after she was contacted by a major financial supporter last month. The pier is a tourist attraction in the wealthy Gulf Coast enclave and was badly damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Frustrated city officials had been laboring for months, without success, to get disaster assistance. But just two weeks after the donor stepped in, they were celebrating their sudden change of fortune. “We are now at warp speed with FEMA,” one city official wrote in an email. A FEMA representative wrote: “Per leadership instruction, pushing project immediately.”
Along with fast-tracking the money, Noem flew to Naples on a government plane to tour the pier herself. She then stayed for the weekend and got dinner with the donor, local cardiologist Sinan Gursoy, at the French restaurant Bleu Provence, according to records and an interview with the Naples mayor. This account is based on text messages and emails ProPublica obtained through public records requests.
Noem’s actions in Naples suggest the injection of political favoritism into an agency tasked with saving lives and rebuilding communities wiped out by disaster. It also heightens concerns about the discretion Noem has given herself by personally handling all six-figure expenses at the agency, consolidating her power over who wins and loses in the pursuit of federal relief dollars, experts said.
Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, said that politics has long been a factor in federal disaster relief — one study found that swing states are more likely to get federal help, for example. But “I’ve not heard of anything this egregious — a donor calling up and saying I need help and getting it,” he said, “while others may be getting denied assistance or otherwise waiting in line for help that may or may not come.”
In a statement, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, “This has nothing to do with politics: Secretary Noem also visited Ruidoso, NM” — where floods killed three people in July — “at the request of a Democrat governor and has been integral in supporting and speeding up their recovery efforts.”
“Your criticizing the Secretary’s visit to the Pier is bizarre as she works to fix this issue for more than 1 million visitors that used to visit the pier,” McLaughlin added. She did not answer questions about the donor’s role in expediting the funding or Noem’s relationship with him. Reached by phone, Gursoy said “get lost” and hung up. He did not respond to detailed follow up questions.
Noem has been criticized for creating a bottleneck at FEMA. When the floods hit Texas this summer — ultimately killing over 100 people — it took days to deploy critical search-and-rescue teams because Noem hadn’t signed off on them, according to CNN. Budd, the Republican senator, said this month: “Pretty much everything Helene-related is over $100,000. So they’re stacking up on her desk waiting for her signature.”
Noem has denied there were delays in the Texas flood response and has defended her expense policy, saying it has saved billions of dollars. “Every day I get up and I think, the American people are paying for this, should they?” she recently said. “And are these dollars doing what the law says they should be doing? I’m going to make sure that they go there.”
Once a sleepy fishing town, Naples is now home to CEOs and billionaires (a property listed for $295 million recently made headlines as the most expensive home in the U.S.). The city is known as an important stop for Republican politicians raising money, and Noem has held multiple fundraisers in the area. State credit card records suggest she visited Naples at least 10 times during her last four years as South Dakota governor.
Noem’s top adviser, Corey Lewandowski, also appears to own a home in Naples near the city’s pier, according to property tax records. Lewandowski is an unpaid staffer at DHS serving as Noem’s de facto chief of staff. (Media reports have alleged the two are romantically involved, which they have both denied.) Lewandowski told ProPublica that he was not involved in the pier decision and that he was not in Naples during Noem’s visit.
For the first seven months of the Trump administration, the pier reconstruction was in bureaucratic purgatory. The city had long been struggling to secure the regulatory approvals it needed to start building, and emails suggest Trump’s wave of federal layoffs had made the process even slower. “These agencies are undergoing significant reorganizations and staff reductions,” a city official told a frustrated constituent in early August. That “sometimes means starting over with new reviewers — something we’ve faced more than once.”
McLaughlin said “both past FEMA and the City bear responsibility” for the delays. She listed “several failures” since the process started in 2023, including “FEMA staff changing up” and indecision by the city government.
By this summer, Naples officials were getting desperate. In June, one tried to enlist Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to press FEMA to move ahead. “We were told yesterday that Secretary Noem would have to ‘personally’ approve the Pier project before FEMA funding would be obligated,” the city official wrote to the senator’s staff. The Naples mayor, Teresa Heitmann, also personally wrote to FEMA. Heitmann said she was “perplexed” by the delays and begged the agency for guidance.
Heitmann had long been paying expensive Washington consultants to help her city navigate the process. But she was “feeling increasingly helpless,” she later said, until she had the idea that would finally put her project on the fast track. On July 18, the mayor emailed a Google search to herself: “Who is the head of Homeland security?” She was going to go straight to Noem.
Heitmann determined that her best bet for getting Noem’s attention was Gursoy. A Naples cardiologist, Gursoy has no obvious experience working with the federal government; much of his online footprint centers on his enthusiasm for pinball. But Gursoy gave Noem at least $25,000 to support her campaign for governor in 2022. That was enough to put him near the top of Noem’s disclosed donor list. (In South Dakota, campaign contributions remain relatively small.)
On planning documents for the 2024 Republican National Convention obtained by ProPublica, the Florida doctor is listed as an attendee affiliated with the delegation from South Dakota, a state he has no apparent connection to besides his support for Noem. Heitmann told ProPublica that Gursoy introduced her to Noem at a political event at a private home in Naples while Noem was governor.
“Hello it’s Teresa,” the mayor texted Gursoy in early August. “I really need your help.” She explained the tangle of bureaucracy she’d been contending with. “FEMA is holding us up,” Heitmann wrote. “Kristi Noem could put some fire under the FEMA employees slacking.”
Gursoy responded: “Okay. I will get on it.”
The next week, on Aug. 11, the doctor gave Heitmann an update. “Kristi was off for a few days for the first time in a long time, so I left her alone,” he said. “I just txted her now.” Within 24 hours, he had exciting news. He told the mayor to expect a call from Noem’s “FEMA fixer” shortly.
The identity of the “fixer” is not clear, but by Aug. 27, Naples officials were seeing a “flurry of activity” from Noem’s agency. That day, a FEMA staffer told the city that “FEMA is intending to expedite the funding” for the pier. “Secretary Noem took immediate action when I reached out to ask for help,” the mayor soon posted on Facebook.
Two days later, Noem flew to Naples. Her schedule listed a 30-minute walk-through at the pier with the mayor, followed by a nail salon appointment and dinner at Bleu Provence, which serves wagyu short ribs and seared foie gras. Noem then stayed through the weekend at the four-star Naples Bay Resort & Marina. Heitmann told ProPublica she wasn’t at the French dinner but Gursoy was. “I didn’t ask her to come, but she showed up,” the mayor told the local news. “I was very impressed.”
Before she left town, Noem posted about the Naples pier on Instagram. She was finally getting the project back on track, she said. “Americans deserve better than years of red tape and failed disaster responses,” Noem wrote. “Under @POTUS Trump, this incompetency ends.”
DHS did not answer questions about whether the government paid for Noem’s weekend in Naples.
Do you have any information we should know about Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski or DHS? Josh Kaplan can be reached by email at joshua.kaplan@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 734-834-9383. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.
Donald Trump’s corruption of the Justice Department came to its fullest fruition last evening with the bogus indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
Retooled by Trump to eat one of its own, the Justice Department now serves as a sword for the president to use against his perceived foes and as a shield of himself and his cronies. In just eight months, Trump has decimated a department that prized legal professionalism, was proud of its history of defending the marginalized, and was universally respected by the courts.
The two-count indictment handed down by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia is remarkably bare bones, but it stems from Comey’s September 30, 2020 Zoom testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the investigation into the connections between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
But the ostensible basis for the indictment and the arduous process ahead of a criminal trial should not obscure the fundamental corruption of President Trump in firing his own U.S. attorney who wouldn’t seek an indictment and then siccing Lindsey Halligan, his former personal lawyer, on Comey. It is all of a piece with Trump abusing the powers of his office for a wide-ranging campaign of retribution against investigators, prosecutors, and political adversaries.
The Trump Justice Department no longer upholds the law without fear or favor, a loss of a vital democratic tradition for which Trump will forever bear responsibility.
Succinct and to the Point 👏
The NYT, to its credit, framed the corrupt prosecution of Comey almost perfectly:
An inexperienced prosecutor loyal to President Trump, in the job for less than a week, filed criminal charges against one of her boss’s most-reviled opponents. She did so not only at Mr. Trump’s direct command, but also against the urging of both her own subordinates and her predecessor, who had just been fired for raising concerns that there was insufficient evidence to indict.
Not a Clean Win With the Grand Jury
The grand jury rejected the first count of the original three-count indictment it was presented, forcing prosecutors to present a revised two-count indictment for its consideration. The original Count I (in an indictment misnumbered with two Count IIs) was an additional false statement to Congress charge.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lindsey R. Vaala, to whom the indictment was presented in court, expressed puzzlement over the dueling documents, the WaPo reports:
“This has never happened before. I’ve been handed two documents … with a discrepancy,” Vaala said. “I’m a little confused why I was handed two things … that were inconsistent.”
Halligan said at the lectern she hadn’t seen the first indictment that was rejected, but Vaala noted Halligan appeared to have signed that original document.
Halligan, who has no experience as a prosecutor, reportedly presented the case to the grand jury personally, an unusual move for a U.S. attorney. She did so after being presented with a memo by prosecutors in her office that pointed to the weak evidence against Comey, the WaPo reported.
Comey Draws a Biden Appointee As Judge
The judge assigned to the case is Biden appointee Michael Nachmanoff, who sits in Alexandria, Virginia. Nachmanoff was a federal public defender for more than a decade before becoming a magistrate judge in 2015. Biden appointed him as a district judge in 2021.
Comey: ‘We Will Not Live on Our Knees’
Somber but spirited, Comey posted a video on social media responding to the indictment about an hour after it was returned:
Troy A. Edwards Jr., who is married to Comey’s daughter Maurene (who is suing the Justice Department for her wrongful termination in July), was serving under Halligan as the deputy chief of the national security section in the Eastern District of Virginia U.S. attorney’s office. Edwards resigned from the Justice Department after the Comey indictment was handed down. He was spotted on the first row in the courtroom gallery last evening when the indictment was presented to a judge.
BREAKING Troy Edwards, James Comey’s son-in-law, has resigned from the Department of Justice. Edward’s as a prosecutor in the same office that just indicted his father-in-law.
Comey friend Patrick Fitzgerald, the longtime U.S. attorney in Chicago who was the special counsel in the Valerie Plame case, will be representing Comey in his criminal defense. Fitzgerald entered his appearance in the case late yesterday along with Jessica Carmichael, who is local counsel in Virginia.
“Jim Comey denies the charges filed today in their entirety,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “We look forward to vindicating him in the courtroom.”
Comey is scheduled to be arraigned on Oct. 9.
Trump: ‘Comey’s a Bad Person. He’s a Sick Person.’
President Trump feigned a hands-off approach to the Comey indictment earlier in the day even as he belied the truth of the matter by lashing out at him yet again:
Trump on the possible Comey indictment: "I think I'd be allowed to get involved if I want."
This morning, Trump chimed in post-indictment, in ways that are singularly unhelpful to actually winning a conviction since its more fodder for Comey’s vindictive prosecution argument:
Quote of the Day
“What we are seeing is the almost wholesale collapse of the Justice Department as an organization based on the rule of law.”–former DOJ official Alan Z. Rozenshtein, now a law professor at the University of Minnesota
The Challenge of Covering Corrupt Prosecutions
I talked with Greg Sargent (before the news of the Comey indictment broke) about yesterday’s Morning Memo, the challenge of covering political prosecutions, and the dangerous moment we’re in. You can listen here:
Every living former Federal Reserve Chair, from Alan Greenspan to Janet Yellen, signed on to an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court not to allow President Donald Trump to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook while her case against the president moves through the courts. Allowing Trump to remove Cook as she challenges his attempt to fire her, the former officials said, would amount to a severe compromise of the Fed’s independence and risk the reputational trustworthiness of the central bank.
The former Fed chairs were joined by former Department of Treasury secretaries, former Fed governors, and other federal economists and officials.
In the Thursday friend-of-the-court filing, officials presented a series arguments in favor of central bank independence, pointing to stability of the U.S. dollar and more controls on inflation, borrowing costs, and maximum employment.
“Granting the government’s request to remove Governor Cook from the Board immediately would … expose the Federal Reserve to political influences, thereby eroding public confidence in the Fed’s independence and jeopardizing the credibility and efficacy of U.S. monetary policy,” the 26-page brief states.
If the public loses confidence in the independence of the central bank, its ability to maintain low and stable inflation would be compromised, the former officials said: “Because the stability of long-run inflation expectations is a necessary condition for stable inflation, the Federal Reserve will no longer be able to perform its statutorily mandated objective if its independence is threatened.”
The former officials also called into question any government strategy that compromises central bank independence in favor of “small, short-run gains,” which ultimately result in “substantial long-term harm.”
Later in the brief, they pointed to the recent case of Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdoğan who fired several central bank leaders, ordered a lowering of interest rates, and saw inflation reach 85%. Turkey’s economy had nothing positive to show for it, the brief says.
While Trump’s comments are not explicitly mentioned in the brief, the president has vehemently, publicly urged the Fed to dramatically cut interest rates to lower borrowing costs without consideration of whether such a reduction reflects a data-informed policy decision. Indeed, in several speeches since Trump retook office, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has cited economic data about rising prices and slowing employment in the central bank’s policy decisions. Thursday’s filing warns about the ways similar political pressures on central banks in other countries have weakened economies.
Trump tried to fire Cook in August in a further escalation of his attacks on the Federal Reserve, its governors and its chair. Bill Pulte, Trump’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, posted a criminal complaint on X accusing Cook of committing mortgage fraud, something tax officials in both municipalities where she owns homes have denied. It’s part of a strategy from the Trump White House to disingenuously accuse the president’s political enemies of misrepresenting their primary residences on mortgage documents to obtain more favorable interest rates. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, the White House has maintained Trump has the right to fire Cook “for cause.”
The bipartisan list of 18 former officials spanned the Reagan administration to the Biden administration, and further included former two-term Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, Jared Bernstein, former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under former President Joe Biden, and Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary under former President Bill Clinton.
Democrats are using what little power they have in the Senate as a government shutdown nears to hold the Trump administration to account for some of its abuse of power. Specifically, they are trying to force the executive branch to let the legislative branch do its job, demanding, in exchange for their votes to avert a shutdown, it stop seizing from senators their power to set spending levels. The White House’s response? Threatening to conduct mass firings of federal workers unless Democrats cave and help Republicans pass a stopgap measure to keep the government open without concessions.
