Dems Investigate Trump Attempt to Take $230 Million From His Own DOJ

House Democrats have formally begun an investigation into President Trump’s brazen attempt at a $230 million payout from his own Justice Department.

The probe is led by Representatives Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia.

“If either of your claims had any merit, you could have taken them to court by now and litigated them publicly,” wrote Raskin and Garcia, the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees. “You did not do that. Instead, you waited until you became President and installed your handpicked loyalists at DOJ, knowing that you could instruct them to co-sign your demand notes in secret behind closed doors, and then you could present the notes to the U.S. Treasury for cold hard cash courtesy of the American taxpayer. That isn’t justice, it is theft.”

The president is seeking reimbursement for DOJ investigations into Russian election interference and Russian ties to Trump’s 2016 campaign, as well as for the 2022 FBI search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents. Trump made the claims in 2023 and 2024, but now his own DOJ is in charge of resolving the matter. The $230 million payout would come from taxpayer funds.

Republicans, however, don’t seem to be too worried about the high levels of potential fraud and corruption associated with an unprecedented move like this.

“I don’t know the details about that, I’ve just read it, I didn’t talk with him about that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson replied when asked about the payout on Wednesday. “I know that he believes he’s owed that reimbursement. What I heard yesterday was if he receives it, he was gonna consider giving it to charity, he doesn’t need those proceeds.”

Donald Trump is apparently so proud of the ballroom he’s building at the White House that he doesn’t want anyone to see the construction in progress. 

On Thursday, the Secret Service closed off access to the Ellipse park, where journalists were taking pictures and video of the demolition of the White House’s East Wing. Both CNN and Reuters photojournalists had to leave the area, according to CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

Images of the ongoing destruction of a major section of the White House seem to have caused enough of a backlash that Trump is trying to keep the public from seeing them. It’s easy to see why: Trump previously claimed that the ballroom would result in no demolition of any part of the White House, and ignored the normal legal process for making any changes to the building. 

The ballroom itself is going to be a garish 90,000-square-foot construction full of Trump’s trademark gold decor. Gone will be a guest entrance as well as offices for the first lady’s staff and other White House employees. A majority of Americans are opposed to the demolition, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has called the backlash “fake outrage.” She  claims that Trump is doing what other presidents have only dreamed of, saying “he was reelected back to this people’s house because he’s good at building things.” 

While Trump claims that the ballroom construction isn’t being paid for by taxpayer funds, that’s not reassuring: $300 million in donations is coming from the president’s wealthy friends, allies, and corporations looking to curry favor with his administration. That money could be considered a bribe. 

Now the Trump administration is attempting to hide the probably illegal destruction and construction from news coverage, and while that won’t make the story and images disappear, nothing will or likely can be done now that a big chunk of the White House is gone. Future occupants of the Oval Office will now inherit a big ballroom that nobody asked for. 

Donald Trump just pardoned a crypto criminal who’s making the president’s family richer, according to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report Thursday.

After months of lobbying the Trump administration, the president signed a presidential pardon Wednesday for Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former chief executive of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

“The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over,” announced White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. But is another war on American customers just beginning?

Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 for failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program at Binance, earning him a four-month prison sentence. Binance Holdings Limited agreed to pay the United States $4 billion to resolve an investigation into violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act, failure to register as a money-transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Why would Trump pardon Zhao? Likely because he helped line the Trump family’s pockets through his support of World Liberty Financial, or WLFI, the decentralized finance platform that is majority-owned by a Trump business entity.

Binance has repeatedly boosted and incentivized the use of USD1, WLFI’s stable coin, which is a cryptocurrency that maintains a value of $1. Binance provided WLFI its first significant boon in May when the platform accepted a shady $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi–based MGX made in Trump’s stable coin. The announcement followed an April meeting between Zachary Witkoff, son of special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, who is a “promoter” of WLFI, and Zhao in Abu Dhabi where they discussed USD1.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that representatives from the president’s family met with Zhao to discuss a potential stake in Binance.US, the company’s American arm, which has been heavily restricted due to regulatory issues. The company had first reached out to the president’s allies last year, looking to strike a deal to bring the exiled firm back to the United States.

New York City’s second mayoral debate did not pan out well for disgraced ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo, least of all when one of his accusers emerged from the crowd to prompt a question.

Charlotte Bennett was the second of 13 women to accuse Cuomo of sexually harassing them during his time in office. Bennett worked as an executive assistant and health policy adviser in the Cuomo administration, but left after the governor asked several unwelcome questions about her sex life and if she “had ever been with an older man.”

Bennett sued Cuomo in 2022 but eventually dropped the case. In April, she agreed to receive a settlement claim tied to separate litigation regarding Cuomo’s alleged harassment. But Cuomo has since said that he would sue Bennett for defamation, effectively silencing her during the mayoral race.

Bennett was apparently invited to the debate hall Wednesday night by Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and her presence forced one of Cuomo’s most contemptible scandals to center stage.

“You sought to access her private gynecological records,” Mamdani said, referring to actions that Cuomo’s legal team undertook as part of his defense. “She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak.

“What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?” Mamdani pressed, turning to face Cuomo as the crowd roared.

Despite months of bankrolled debate prep that quickly proved worthless, the former governor’s reply was remarkably underwhelming.

“Uh—if you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature,” Cuomo stammered, before noting that he had never been found criminally or civilly liable for his alleged behavior.

Continuing the takedown of Cuomo into the next day, Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa followed up with his own zinger, telling reporters Thursday morning that “if you’re under 30, Cuomo’s always flirty.”

Andrew Cuomo’s campaign for mayor of New York City is not going well. In polls, he consistently trails the front-runner and Democratic nominee, New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. And on Wednesday night, he was on the receiving end of blistering attacks during the final debate of the mayoral race.

How did Cuomo respond the following morning? By making an offensive and bigoted 9/11 joke about Mamdani, a Muslim.

The former New York governor was on the WABC radio show Sid and Friends in the Morning, and asked host Sid Rosenberg, “God forbid, another 9/11—can you imagine Mamdani in the seat?”

“He’d be cheering,” Rosenberg replied, to which Cuomo replied, “That’s another problem.”

It’s one thing to claim Mamdani lacks the experience to handle a major crisis like a terrorist attack. It’s quite another to insinuate that the Democratic nominee would cheer on a horrific tragedy to the city he’d be leading, with a nod toward Islamophobia in the process. And the radio show is not even the first instance of Cuomo engaging in bigotry against Mamdani.

On Wednesday, right before the debate, the Cuomo campaign quickly posted and deleted an AI-generated video showing “criminals” supporting Mamdani’s campaign, including a drunk driver, domestic abuser, and a Black man wearing a keffiyeh shoplifting.

It’s quite clear the Cuomo campaign is getting desperate in the final weeks of the mayoral race. Mamdani has managed to gather support from the city’s diverse communities, and Cuomo’s little joke may set him back further in his attempt to drum up support for his flagging campaign.

Listen to Cuomo’s interview with Rosenberg at WABC radio’s website (the “joke” is at the 21-minute mark).