#trump

State legislation to attempt to protect privacy forthcoming hopefully.

A report last month out of the University of Washington found several local police departments authorized U.S. Border Patrol to use their license plate reader databases. And in other cases, Border Patrol had backdoor access without express permission. In some instances, police conducted searches on behalf of the federal agency. By Worries extend beyond immigration.

Authorities in Texas this year searched thousands of the cameras, as far as Washington state and Illinois, in their search for a woman believed to have had a self-administered abortion.

Innocent until proven guilty. Unless you have a race, speak Spanish, speak with an accent, or your job involves physical labor.

In Los Angeles, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling has temporarily allowed immigration enforcement agents operating in that city to use race as one of the reasons for a stop. They can also use people speaking Spanish, accented English, and working certain physical labor jobs to guess if someone is in the country without legal status.

Journalists who don’t abide by the policy risk losing credentials that provide access to the Pentagon, under a 17-page memo distributed Friday that steps up media restrictions imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“Information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified,” the directive states. The signature form includes an array of security requirements for credentialed media at the Pentagon.

Advocates for press freedoms denounced the non-disclosure requirement as an assault on independent journalism. The new Pentagon restrictions arrive as Trump expands threats, lawsuits and government pressure as he remakes the American media landscape.

Towards the end of last year, federal prosecutors started examining two loans totaling $8m wired to Trump Media, through the Caribbean, from two obscure entities that both appear to be controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the sources said.

The expanded nature of the criminal investigation, which has not been previously reported, threatens to delay the completion of the merger between Trump Media and DWAC, which would provide the company and Truth Social with up to $1.3bn in capital, in addition to a stock market listing.

Even if Trump Media and its officers face no criminal exposure for the transactions, the optics of borrowing money from potentially unsavory sources through opaque conduits could cloud Trump’s image as he seeks to recapture the White House in 2024.

The extent of the exposure for Trump Media and its officers for money laundering remains unclear. The statutes broadly require prosecutors to show that defendants knew the money was the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity and the transaction was designed to conceal its source.

But money laundering prosecutions are typically based on circumstantial evidence and can be based on materials that show that the money in question was unlikely to have legitimate origins, legal experts said.

The first $2m payment to Trump Media came in December 2021 when the company was on the brink of collapse after the planned merger with DWAC – that would have unlocked millions for the company – was delayed when the SEC opened an inquiry into whether the arrangement broke regulatory rules.

Trump Media needed a bridge loan to keep the company afloat. But it struggled to get financing until DWAC’s chief executive Patrick Orlando sourced a $2m loan wired from Paxum Bank registered in Dominica, according to the wire transfer receipt reviewed by the Guardian.

The wire transfer identified Paxum Bank as the beneficial owner, although the promissory note identified an entity ca

Presidents and congressional representatives from both parties have established a dangerous precedent of expanding Presidential power to the point of conducting full scale war without congressional approval. It is unconstitutional and a failure of the elected officials on both sides to uphold the constitution.

A Florida judge granted motions to dismiss to The Guardian and other defendants in a defamation lawsuit filed by Truth Social’s parent company, Truth Media & Technology Group Corp. (TMTG), the latest example of President Donald Trump’s legal actions against media companies not holding up in court.

The dispute arose from two articles published by the UK-based Guardian in March 2023 “reporting on a federal criminal investigation related to TMTGs receipt of two payments totaling $8 million,” Judge Hunter Carroll of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit Court for Sarasota County wrote in his order summarizing the case, including reports that “federal prosecutors in New York were conducting a money laundering investigation related to the payments, which were wired through the Caribbean from Paxum Bank and ES Family Trust, entities with ties to an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin and a history of providing banking services to the sex worker industry,” and that the origins of the loans caused alarm at TMTG and TMTG’s then CFO weighed returning the money, but the money was ultimately not returned.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, blasted the Pentagon’s investigation of Kelly and the FBI’s probe of him and other lawmakers.

“Senator Kelly valiantly served our country as an aviator in the U.S. Navy before later completing four space shuttle missions as a NASA astronaut,” Murkowski wrote in a post on X.

“To accuse him and other lawmakers of treason and sedition for rightfully pointing out that servicemembers can refuse illegal orders is reckless and flat-out wrong,” she wrote. “The Department of Defense and FBI surely have more important priorities than this frivolous investigation.”

How did the last security guarantees from the US (to give up nuclear weapons) work out for Ukraine?

The new Trump plan to end the war in Ukraine would grant Russia parts of eastern Ukraine it does not currently control, in exchange for a U.S. security guarantee for Ukraine and Europe against future Russian aggression, a U.S. official with direct knowledge told Axios.

President Trump pardoned his former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and a slate of other key figures charged in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a U.S. pardon attorney.

The list includes several high-profile individuals connected to the effort to overturn the 2020 election: Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn and others.

The “fake electors” scheme sought to push former Vice President Mike Pence to certify Trump-supporting electors in those critical states instead of the true Electoral College votes cast for former President Biden. It took place in New Mexico and Pennsylvania, as well, though charges were never brought there. On Jan. 6, 2021, Pence declined to do so, and a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol. Trump previously pardoned hundreds of supporters federally charged in connection to the riot, including those who attacked law enforcement that day. The efforts to challenge the 2020 election results have already had consequences, aside from convictions, for Trump’s allies. Giuliani was disbarred from practicing law in New York and the District of Columbia for making numerous false claims related to the 2020 presidential election and was forced to turn over most of his assets to two election workers he defamed. Eastman, Chesebro and Clark have also faced disciplinary action or proceedings. And several who were pardoned, including Chesebro, Powell and Ellis, had entered guilty pleas to state criminal charges stemming from their post-2020 election work. The Trump attorneys promoted baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud in the aftermath of 2020, and Eastman helped concoct the fake electors’ scheme, which aimed to keep the president in office. Trump faced a federal indictment on charges related to his effort to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, but special counsel Jack Smith moved to toss the case after the president was elected to his second term.

Instead of presenting a new indictment to the full panel after it rejected one of the counts, interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan gave the grand jury’s foreperson an updated version — not seen by the other grand jurors — to sign.

“Trump’s Take” is a real-time financial tracker documenting the cash and gifts that President Donald Trump and his family have received by selling the presidency. For our purposes, the family includes President Trump, Melania Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump, hereafter referred to collectively as the “Trump family,” but excludes Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

Trump has made most of the cash by launching his own crypto ventures—reversing his outspoken, skeptical stance on crypto—while aggressively deregulating the industry. Trump takes a cut in cash from the trades and sales of the family’s coins and tokens along with stablecoin interest. The “take” is the cash he has received calculated in real time, based on actual trading activity and stablecoin interest. It can only go up. We have also added the value of the gifts, legal settlements, and the income from Melania Trump’s documentary paid directly to Trump or to his presidential library.

Due to the complex nature of these earnings, which are channeled through multiple financial vehicles, our calculations are constantly being updated and refined. A comprehensive methodology detailing the determination of the Trump family’s crypto income is available here.

We have excluded income from assets Trump had before his November 2024 election victory—including real estate, hotels, licensing deals, and more—even though their value has inarguably increased as a result of his election. We made one notable exception by including income from his first crypto venture, World Liberty Financial Inc. (WLFI). WLFI launched in September 2024, and nearly all of the income from this venture was made after his election in November of the same year.

It’s not that the Trumps are the first to leverage the presidency for profit. Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy, promoted Billy Beer—and took money from the Libyans. Richard Nixon had his brother Donald’s phone tapped amid concerns about business dealings. Hunter Biden received more than $1 million for artwork of questionable quality. But no first family has used the office to make as much money as Donald Trump’s.

Crypto is the big driver, but additional funds have come from advising right-wing companies in America and partnering with cash-rich firms overseas, especially in the Middle East. Family members who never had significant fortunes of their own—Eric, Don Jr., Barron and Melania—have accumulated tens, then hundreds of millions of dollars. All told, the family (including the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner) is now worth an estimated $10 billion, having nearly doubled its net worth since last year’s election.

Your stopover in the United Arab Emirates, where you will reportedly seal a deal relaxing export controls on sensitive U.S. technology, is poised to showcase this new level of grifting – and it will come directly at the expense of U.S. national security.

You and your family are financially tied to World Liberty Financial (WLF), a crypto venture that recently launched the stablecoin USD1.3 In March, prior to the official launch of USD1, your crypto assets – including WLF holdings and your $TRUMP meme coin –accounted for nearly 40 percent of your total assets.4 Your holdings in WLF have clearly expanded your wealth since you took office and will only further expand it as USD1 issuance grows.

On May 1, Eric Trump and the son of your Special Envoy Steve Witkoff announced that Emirati state-owned investment firm MGX will use USD1 to complete a $2 billion dollar transaction with cryptoexchange Binance. 5 In selecting USD1, the Emirati-backed fund will likely pay hundreds of millions of dollars in transaction fees, and WLF will be able to reap returns on any investments it makes with the $2 billion deposit. In essence, WLF – and you and your family by extension – are receiving a cut of this deal.