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For Immediate Release
November, 30 2020, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Peter Hart, phart@fwwatch.org, 732-266-493
Senate GOP COVID Relief Proposal is a Cruel Joke
WASHINGTON
According to a Bloomberg News report, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is backing a limited COVID stimulus package that is woefully insufficient, failing to protect Americans facing water service shutoffs while promoting corporate liability measures.
In response, Food & Water Action Executive Director Wenonah Hauter released the following statement:
"This Republican proposal is nothing but a cruel joke. Once again, Mitch McConnell shows that he is more interested in protecting corporations that have put workers' lives at risk than he is in protecting Americans who have lost their water service. As the COVID crisis only grows more deadly, this disgraceful proposal puts the lives of everyday Americans at even greater risk."
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
(202) 683-2500LATEST NEWS
'Worse Than a Lackey': Advocates and Dems List the Many Reasons Blanche Is Unfit to Be Attorney General
If senators "ignore the evidence and advance Blanche’s nomination, they will share responsibility for the abuses that follow," said one critic.
Jul 15, 2026
As acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche faced questions on Wednesday regarding the defunct "slush fund" he helped create for President Donald Trump's allies, his role in the release of the Epstein files, and other details of his tenure at the Department of Justice, advocacy groups and Democrats demanded that senators reject the nomination of an official who "has made it clear he’ll put Donald Trump first."
Those were the words of Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, who was among those speaking out about Blanche's "damning" record of weaponizing the DOJ against Trump's perceived enemies with "politically motivated" investigations and indictments.
While serving as deputy to fired former Attorney General Pam Bondi and in his current acting role, said Stand Up America, Blanche has led inquiries into Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide whose testimony implicated the president in the violent riot by Trump supporters at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021; the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue; the anti-hate group Southern Poverty Law Center; and former FBI Director James Comey, whom Blanche claimed "knowingly and willfully [made] a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon” Trump in an Instagram photo in 2025.
"Senate Judiciary Committee members have a duty to hold Blanche’s feet to the fire and demand answers about his record of weaponizing the DOJ to protect Donald Trump," said Edkins ahead of Wednesday's confirmation hearing for Blanche, who represented Trump during his legal cases regarding hush-money payments to an adult film star and his retention of classified documents.
"If they ignore the evidence and advance Blanche’s nomination, they will share responsibility for the abuses that follow," he added.
Along with using the power of the federal government against those who oppose the president, Blanche led the creation of a $1.77 billion settlement agreement to end Trump's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leak of his tax records—a deal that included both a "super pardon" to protect the president and his family from ever facing accountability for tax violations and an "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to dole out taxpayer funds to January 6 insurrectionists and other Trump allies.
A federal judge blocked the settlement this week and found Trump's lawsuit against the IRS to be illegal self-dealing, and Blanche has indicated the DOJ will no longer pursue the creation of the "slush fund," but advocates as well as senators at Wednesday's confirmation hearing said the effort put on display the acting attorney general's unfitness to lead the DOJ.
"The Senate must look at the facts and refuse to confirm Todd Blanche," said Virginia Kase Solomón, president and CEO of Common Cause, which referred Blanche for a disciplinary investigation after the federal ruling was handed down Monday. "He continues to prioritize the president’s interests over the American people. He orchestrated this sham lawsuit to fleece the American people out of almost $2 billion to pay the President’s allies, including people who violently assaulted law enforcement on January 6, and to provide the president, his family, and associates unprecedented immunity for their misdeeds."
"The American people deserve an Attorney General who is independent of the White House and has an unassailable ethics record," said Kase Solomón. "Senators can’t confirm someone who is willing to skirt the law as our nation’s top law enforcement officer."
At the hearing Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) noted that while Blanche has declared the slush fund "dead," the order to create the fund still exists on the DOJ website and the acting attorney general attacked the judge who blocked the settlement as orchestrating "a hit" on Blanche.
Sen. @DickDurbin: One of your first official actions as acting AG, Mr. Blanche, was to establish the $2 billion slush fund to benefit J6 cop beaters while immunizing Trump from IRS liability. You defended the slush fund by claiming "people who hurt police get money all the time." pic.twitter.com/06he9g8kLS
— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) July 15, 2026
At Slate on Tuesday, Shirin Ali wrote that Blanche's conduct regarding the slush fund revealed that he is "worse than a lackey."
In the federal case against Trump's IRS lawsuit, wrote Ali, "the judge’s conclusion confirmed what we’ve all been thinking: The acting AG and the president’s interests in this case were 'one and the same.'"
"At the end of the day, the DOJ’s responsibility is to zealously represent the interests of the US, not the president, and Blanche has violated the agency’s commitment to remain insulated from political influence," Ali added.
Blanche also faced questioning on the settlement agreement from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who lost a primary election earlier this year and has been identified as one of two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee—the other being Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)—who could vote no on Blanche's confirmation.
Blanche's involvement in the release of files regarding the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a former associate of the president's, was also a focus of outcry ahead of and during the confirmation hearing, which was attended by some survivors of Epstein's abuse.
US Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who is leading an investigation into the DOJ's withholding of the Epstein files as ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote to Durbin and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), noting that Bondi identified Blanche as having overseen the long-delayed, botched release of the documents earlier this year.
"Mr. Blanche is therefore responsible for a DOJ process that exposed the names, photographs, and other personally identifying information of Epstein survivors thousands of times, including information related to more than two dozen minors," said Garcia. "Survivors have described DOJ’s actions as retraumatizing, and some have reported harassment after their identities spread online."
Garcia also pointed to recent public reporting that FBI and DOJ personnel were instructed to "find, log, and redact President
Trump’s name from Epstein-related records," and to a "highly unusual interview" of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, "shortly before her suspicious transfer to a minimum-security facility."
"Mr. Blanche still has not explained why he met with Maxwell, what she was offered, or what influenced her treatment by DOJ," wrote Garcia. "To this day, Maxwell continues to pursue a pardon from President Trump as she resides in a minimum-security facility with amenities that should not be afforded to prolific sex traffickers."
Garcia said in a statement that Blanche's "failed handling of the Epstein files... raises serious concerns about whether he is working for the American people or just protecting Donald Trump. The attorney general’s job is to uphold the rule of law, not serve as the president’s personal lawyer. Blanche is unfit for the role, which is why we’re calling on the Senate to reject his nomination."
Blanche did not commit to personally meeting with the Epstein survivors who attended the hearing when he was questioned on the matter by Durbin, telling him there could be ethical rules that would prevent such a meeting.
"You’re dancing on the head of a pin here," replied Durbin.
In another call from the lower chamber of Congress, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) provided a fact sheet including 15 ways in which Blanche "still behaves like Trump's defense attorney."
Along with his involvement in the slush fund, investigations of Trump's enemies, and the Epstein files, Raskin named Blanche's "aggressive DOJ investigations into reporters," his shutdown of a probe into an alleged bribe taken by border czar Tom Homan, and his blocking of investigations into the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers as more reasons for senators to reject Blanche as attorney general.
"The American people deserve a Senate that acts as a coequal branch," said Edkins, "not a rubber stamp on Trump’s handpicked henchman.”
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Contrary to Evidence, Trump Energy Secretary Says Data Centers Are Best Tool to 'Stop the Rise of Electricity Prices’
His comments came one day after the largest power grid in the US announced massive rate hikes and said the "primary driver of that growth is data centers."
Jul 15, 2026
After New York’s Democratic governor enacted a temporary ban on the construction of large data centers to curb their enormous power consumption, President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, made the evidence-free claim that the facilities are actually the “greatest tool” for reducing the sharp increases in energy prices.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order barring for one year the construction of "hyperscale" data centers that can consume 50 megawatts of power or more, saying that unchecked expansion "threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers."
New York was the first state to place a moratorium on data center development, and more than a dozen other states have considered enacting moratoriums as evidence has mounted that data centers tend to spike power demand and drive up costs.
But as the rapid growth of data centers has sparked furious backlash in communities of all political stripes, the industry has maintained a steadfast ally in the Trump administration, which has continued to champion rapid data center buildout by fast-tracking permits, opening federal land to developers, promoting new energy infrastructure, and offering federal financing and tax incentives to new projects.
On Wednesday morning, Wright took to Fox News to blast Hochul's block on data center development.
"Gov. Hochul has it exactly backward," he said. "Data centers are the greatest tool we have right now to stop the rise of electricity prices and ultimately to bring them back down."
Wright, a former fracking executive, protested that “Democrat green energy policies” were responsible for driving up energy prices in New York, pointing to its ban on fracking, the blocking of a major natural gas pipeline, and an “insane climate law” requiring the state to transition away from fossil fuels by 2040.
"Energy is extremely expensive in New York and now sparse because of bad Democrat policies," he said. "Nothing to do with data centers."
Wright did not elaborate on how exactly data centers could be used as a "tool" to bring down energy prices. But if this is the case, nobody has informed the energy companies themselves.
His comments came just a day after PJM, which serves 67 million customers and is the nation's largest electric grid operator, released the results of an electricity auction that added $6.3 billion in costs to consumers' energy bills in 2028-29 due to growth in energy demand.
"The primary driver of that growth is data centers," the company said in a press release. "New data center facilities and expansions of existing sites can be developed quickly, up to two to three times faster than many of the electricity generation technologies that are necessary to serve them and allow PJM to maintain the reliability customers expect."
That increase is not confined to the future. It has already begun. According to Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s independent market monitor, since 2024, the auctions have added $29 billion in costs to the customers across the 13 states plus Washington, DC, where it operates. New York is not one of the states supplied by the PJM grid.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has found that recent PJM auction increases have added as much as $20-30 to monthly bills in some parts of the company's regions, and projects that continued data-center growth could eventually add roughly $70 per month for an average household.
The labor-focused media organization More Perfect Union, which has published many pieces documenting the effects of data centers on American communities, called Wright's claim "one of the most blatant lies we’ve ever heard."
"Data centers are pushing energy prices up," the outlet said. "That is not a matter of debate, it’s a fact."
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Trump Demands ICE Restart Traffic Stops That Were Paused After Latest Two Killings
"These stops are not effective at 'fighting crime.' They’re effective at terrorizing immigrants," said one critic.
Jul 15, 2026
President Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement restart its traffic stops just one day after the agency mostly paused them.
In a Truth Social post, Trump argued that the government "CANNOT give up one of ICE's most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!"
"Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s (sic) hands," the president added. "The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won't happen on my watch. ICE, be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job."
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday announced it would temporarily halt traffic stops after ICE officers fatally shot two people—52-year-old Mexican national Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and 26-year-old Colombian national Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine—in the span of a week.
The shootings sparked outrage and prompted Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the most vulnerable Senate Republican this election cycle, to ask Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to stop ICE traffic stops.
Trump's demand to reinstate the stops drew sharp criticism.
Journalist Radley Balko said that Trump's purported concern for crime was just an excuse for him to carry out a nationwide intimidation campaign.
"These stops are not effective at 'fighting crime,'" Balko wrote. "They’re effective at terrorizing immigrants. That’s what he doesn't want to give up."
Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst, similarly argued that the traffic stop policy "has nothing to do with fighting crime."
"It is effective at terrorizing the American public though," Helt added. "I suspect that’s the point."
Attorney Will Stancil, who monitored ICE actions during its siege of Minnesota earlier this year, said the reversal on traffic stops raises broader questions about Americans' tolerance for a rogue law enforcement agency.
"I’m probably biased but it’s starting to feel like the conflict over ICE is going to be the defining feature of Trump’s second term," Stancil wrote. "Will America have an unaccountable paramilitary terror force serving at the whim of the regime, or will we be a nation of laws?"
Andrew O'Neill, national advocacy director for Indivisible, summed up Trump's policy reversal by remarking that "the state-sanctioned murders will continue until morale improves."
Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief at MeidasTouch, said Trump's announcement will be damaging to Collins as she faces a tough campaign this year. Collins recently voted to approve tens of billions of dollars in additional funding for ICE.
"Susan Collins assured the people of Maine yesterday that she persuaded Markwayne Mullin to stop ICE traffic stops," Filipkowski wrote. "Trump overruled her."
Brian Finucane, senior adviser with the US Program at the International Crisis Group, said that Collins still had options for forcing Trump's hand to end the traffic stops.
"The chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee might be able to do something about this if she wanted to," Finucane wrote.
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