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Trump's Big Cash Gifts to Natalie Harp, Other Aides Were Likely Illegal, Complaint Alleges
"An investigation into this matter is clearly warranted, and, if a violation is indeed found, this matter must be referred to the Department of Justice."
Sep 10, 2026
A complaint submitted Thursday by a legal watchdog argues that US President Donald Trump's sizable cash gifts to political aide Natalie Harp and other White House staffers violated federal law because the payments improperly supplemented their government salaries.
"Laws prohibiting government employees from receiving supplemental income are not arbitrary; they exist to ensure that public servants’ priorities remain focused on public service, not a wealthy benefactor who may have other objectives in mind,” said Kedric Payne, vice president, general counsel and senior director for ethics at Campaign Legal Center (CLC), which submitted the new complaint to the US Office of Government Ethics. “An investigation into this matter is clearly warranted, and, if a violation is indeed found, this matter must be referred to the Department of Justice."
The complaint came days after financial disclosures revealed that Trump has doled out gifts totaling $155,000 to several staffers, including Harp, a former far-right news anchor whose role in the White House and relationship with the president have drawn close scrutiny in recent weeks.
Harp, Trump's most loyal aide, received a $45,000 cash gift from the president. Her salary, according to the White House, is $150,000 per year. Trump also gifted White House communications adviser Margo Martin and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris $45,000 each. The Washington Post reported that the three payments were described as "Cash Gift for Holidays."
Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, received a $20,000 gift from the president.
CLC's complaint points to 18 US Code § 209, which prohibits executive branch employees from receiving "any salary, or any contribution to or supplementation of salary," from "any source other than the government of the United States, except as may be contributed out of the treasury of any state, county, or municipality."
The watchdog group noted that, when the gifts from the president are included, the four recipients were effectively compensated at the maximum salary for a full-time White House employee—a "rate for which they were ineligible" due to their junior roles.
"In paying White House employees funds beyond their government salaries, President Trump has created the same scenarios Congress specifically contemplated and sought to prevent," the complaint states. "Additionally, it raises the legitimate question as to whether President Trump is paying them for acting on his personal behalf, rather than in the interests of the public. For these reasons, it is important that the OGE investigate whether these payments were impermissibly made."
According to the Post, "there are no other public instances of US presidents giving staff employed by the White House large cash payments. Government ethics experts said they were not aware of any other payments of this scale from a superior to a subordinate government worker."
Richard Briffault, a professor of legislation at Columbia Law School, told NBC News that Trump's cash payments to aides appeared to be "technically illegal."
“Bosses will give gifts to their assistants,” said Briffault. "[But] these are substantial sums—much more than the usual Christmas gifts for most people."
Despite the apparently unprecedented and unlawful nature of the gifts, Briffault said there is "zero chance" that the current Justice Department—headed by Trump's former personal attorney, Todd Blanche—will investigate the payments.
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Democrats, Groups Fight Back After Supreme Court Clears Way for Trump Attack on Mail Voting
"We will not stand by while Trump and Republicans try to unnecessarily inject chaos and confusion into our elections, just weeks before voting begins."
Aug 25, 2026
Democratic leaders and a "pro-voter" coalition on Tuesday announced separate actions to combat President Donald Trump's attack on voting by mail after the US Supreme Court's right-wing majority delivered a "painful setback" for critics who argue the Republican's executive order is unconstitutional.
The president’s March order directed the US Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of citizens eligible to vote, states to provide voter information to the federal government, and the United States Postal Service to craft new regulations for absentee ballots—for which the USPS published a final rule last Friday, less than three months away from the midterm elections.
The nation's top court said in a 6-3 decision on Monday that Democrat-led states had not demonstrated sufficient standing to challenge the president's order and paused a lower court injunction blocking its implementation. The attorneys general in that case, Trump v. California, vowed to keep fighting back, and as of Tuesday evening, others already are.
The chairs of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Governors Association, US Senate and House minority leaders, and heads of the party's campaign committee for each chamber of Congress on Tuesday announced the filing of a new motion for a preliminary injunction.
"Today, we are taking strong, joint legal action to stop Trump's unlawful attempt to restrict mail-in voting through the Postal Service," said DNC Chair Ken Martin, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), and Rep. Suzan DelBene (Wash.) in a joint statement.
"Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling did not say that Trump's executive order attacking voting rights is constitutional," they stressed. Rather than ruling on the merits of the challenge, the majority of justices simply said that the states had sued prematurely, as federal efforts to respond to Trump's order were still underway.
"But the law is clear: States have the authority to run elections—not the president," the Democrats said. ""We will not stand by while Trump and Republicans try to unnecessarily inject chaos and confusion into our elections, just weeks before voting begins. We are asking a district court to immediately stop the Trump administration from unlawfully disrupting mail-in voting in every state. Democrats will continue fighting every day until Trump's illegal executive order, and all of his other attempts to undermine our free and fair elections, are completely thrown out."
The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF) also continued their battle against the order, filing a new complaint on behalf of the Arizona Students' Association, League of United Latin American Citizens, Secure Families Initiative, Texas' Travis County, and the city of Madison, Wisconsin.
"Key provisions of the president's second executive order on elections have already been declared unlawful in multiple federal cases," said Anna Baldwin, CLC's director of voting rights litigation. "But the US Supreme Court's recent lawless order on the shadow docket has given USPS the green light to attempt to implement their new mail voting rules—mere weeks before mail ballots start to be sent out in some parts of the country."
"But nothing in the Supreme Court’s procedural order suggests that the rules are lawful," Baldwin emphasized. "We will not let the president's dangerous anti-voter agenda go unchecked, so we're filing a new complaint challenging USPS' unconstitutional new rulemaking to ensure all voters can cast their ballot in November."
Ripping Trump's order as a "reckless power grab that would likely result in mass confusion, chaos, and disenfranchisement of eligible absentee voters," DDF legal director Tianna Mays said that "this rule not only places ordinary Postal Service employees in the untenable position of determining whether eligible voters may receive and cast mail ballots, it wreaks havoc on state and local election officials and civic engagement groups."
"If not stopped," Mays warned, "our clients, voter advocacy groups, and local election officials in two states would be tasked with deciphering, implementing, and educating their staff and members about the rule's requirements, just weeks before Election Day."
Separately on Tuesday, Massachusetts-based US District Judge Indira Talwani found that the Trump administration violated her injunction by finalizing the rule published last week by the Postal Service, though she declined to take any action over it.
The group behind that case, the League of Women Voters Massachusetts, also pledged to keep fighting Trump's efforts to restrict voting by mail—despite repeatedly voting that way himself—after the Supreme Court's interim ruling on Monday.
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Democrats, Legal Groups Urge Supreme Court to Block Trump Ballroom Without Congressional OK
"The Constitution's system of checks and balances ensures that no individual or branch of government holds absolute power," said one legal expert. "The president is ignoring this design."
Aug 18, 2026
Just days after President Donald Trump's administration asked the right-wing US Supreme Court to allow construction of a new White House ballroom to continue while a legal challenge plays out, federal lawmakers and advocacy groups on Tuesday urged the justices to block any more work on the project absent congressional approval.
"The Constitution's system of checks and balances ensures that no individual or branch of government holds absolute power," said Trevor Potter, president of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, which filed an amicus brief with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
"The president is ignoring this design by unilaterally demolishing the East Wing of the White House and trying to construct a massive ballroom with private funds, raising the risk of corruption that constitutional checks are supposed to prevent," he continued.
Potter stressed that "Congress, not the president, is empowered to raise and spend taxpayer dollars—and it has not authorized the ballroom. The administration's reliance on private donor funding for the ballroom project violates a core principle of separation of powers embedded in our Constitution."
CREW president Donald Sherman highlighted that "President Trump has spent his second term creating pay-to-play opportunities for corporations to curry favor and advance his personal priorities, without regard for the Constitution or the American people's best interests."
Trump kicked off his second term with an inauguration dubbed "a coronation of our country’s descent into oligarchy" because of the billionaires who got prime seating at the event. Since then, according to recent disclosures, he's pocketed at least $2.2 billion, over half of it from his family’s crypto scheming.
Amid alarm over Trump's enrichment of himself and his allies—and his plummeting approval rating—Sherman said that "the Supreme Court should deny the request for a stay and ensure that this administration isn't allowed to run roughshod over the separation of powers and dodge congressional approval for spending taxpayer dollars."
Sherman and Potter's groups were far from alone in filing a brief with that demand; dozens of Democrats who serve as ranking members of various committees across both chambers of Congress as well as the minority leader, whip, and caucus chair in the House of Representatives submitted a similar filing to the nation's top court.
The Democrats "understand that the Constitution empowers Congress—not the President—to control federal property, including
determining whether (and how) parts of the White House should be demolished or constructed," their lawyers wrote, noting that they previously sent a brief to US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which earlier this month upheld a district judge's ruling that halted most construction.
The filing argues that the injunction should remain in place, and "the construction the president seeks should not proceed until Congress authorizes that construction and appropriates the funds for it," an event that is unlikely during this session, even with the GOP's narrow control of both chambers.
Welcoming the lawmakers' brief, Jon Golinger, democracy advocate at the watchdog group Public Citizen, asked, "If President Trump is so proud of his Golden Ballroom, why is he so afraid to ask Congress to approve it?"
"A key reason the Constitution requires Congress to authorize the White House ballroom project is to ensure transparency and oversight of the '$335 million of an expected $400 million' that the White House says it's raised from donors, including corporations who have been awarded billions in government contracts and anonymous donors with secret agendas," Golinger said.
"We agree that by law Congress needs to authorize it and urge the court to reject the White House's desperate 'Hail Mary' pass," he added. "The Supreme Court is expected to decide by this Friday whether to intervene in the ballroom case or to allow the Court of Appeals injunction to take effect, which would block further ballroom construction unless and until Congress authorizes it."
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is behind the legal challenge to the project, also sent its arguments against Trump's ballroom on Tuesday. The group's president and CEO, Brent Leggs, noted that "last week, the administration made two audacious claims in asking the US Supreme Court to greenlight continued aboveground construction of the White House ballroom."
"First, that no court in the land has the authority to stop them," he explained. "And second, that because they are using the same indestructible concrete used in nuclear power plants, it would be impossible to remove the ballroom even if ordered to do so. They are working around the clock in an attempt to outrace judicial review."
Leggs said that in its filing, his group "reiterated that the administration has no unilateral legal authority—constitutional, statutory, or otherwise—to build a ballroom on the site of the now-demolished East Wing, unless and until Congress expressly approves. Each court that has reviewed this case has agreed with the National Trust. We hope the Supreme Court will uphold the rule of law by stopping this illegal project."
"Our position was supported by several amicus briefs, including one from the Society for the Rule of Law and former Republican White House lawyers," he added. "These briefs highlight the point the National Trust has made for months: The executive branch lacks unilateral authority to destroy or transform the White House, and cannot use national security as a justification for ignoring the Constitution."
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'This Bill Is a Trojan Horse': GOP Pushes Voter Suppression Under Cover of Insider Trading Ban
"Republicans are trying to pull a trick this week," said US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Jul 21, 2026
Democrats on Capitol Hill and voting rights advocates on Tuesday sounded the alarm about Republicans in the House of Representatives trying to push through voter suppression legislation under cover of passing a ban on congressional stock trading.
According to a Tuesday report from Roll Call, House GOP leaders recently added "unrelated language" to what was a bipartisan bill banning congressional stock trading that would "require voters to produce photo ID at the polls, a signature issue for President Donald Trump."
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hammered Republicans for what she said were underhanded tactics that are undermining what had been a serious bipartisan effort to halt congressional stock trading.
"Republicans are trying to pull a trick this week," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a social media post. "They say we are voting on an 'insider trading' bill, but have snuck in massive SAVE Act-style voter suppression measures to it. This is a GOP effort to sabotage national mail-in voting, disguised as a trading ban. I’m voting NO."
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said that the caucus was opposing the GOP's legislation not just for its attacks on voting rights, but because it only forces congresspeople to stop making new stock trades, while not requiring them to divest of their current holdings.
"House Republicans are not serious about enacting a meaningful congressional stock trading ban," said Clarke. "The combined Stop Insider Trading Act and Voter ID Act... would allow members of Congress to continue owning, selling, and, in some cases, purchasing individual stocks while simultaneously imposing stricter voter ID requirements that would make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to vote."
"This bill is a Trojan horse," Clarke added, "using the premise of congressional ethics reform to advance a broader effort to restrict access to the ballot box."
The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) on Monday sent lawmakers a letter opposing the GOP-backed legislation, which it said would "impose onerous new requirements on voting."
Among other things, the group said the proposed legislation would "demand Americans provide ID to cast a ballot but only accept an unreasonably narrow list of acceptable types of documentation," excluding the kind of "widely held and reliable forms of ID that young people and voters of color disproportionally rely on."
The CLC also said the bill doesn't provide "sufficient safeguards" for voters wrongly deemed ineligible to prove they are legally allowed to participate in US elections.
A page on congressional contact portal 5 Calls recommended users oppose the GOP-backed bill, which it described as "partisan legislation" that "uses the guise of much-needed ethics reform to sneak through an unpopular and unrelated attack on voting rights."
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'Fuck This Coin': Trump Crypto Gala Admission Price Plummets as Meme Coin Value Down Over 90%
The president and his family made billions off Trump meme coins while investors got fleeced.
Apr 24, 2026
The price to attend Saturday's second "VIP reception" for investors in President Donald Trump's meme coin has plunged nearly as much as the cryptocurrency itself, leaving investors bamboozled and bankrupt.
Meme coins are highly volatile cryptocurrencies inspired by internet memes, jokes, or cultural trends. While many thousands of meme coins are introduced daily, the overwhelming majority of them fail after a short period as influencer-driven hype and investor "FOMO"—fear of missing out—subside.
The president's $TRUMP meme coin debuted just before his January 2025 return to the White House. Its price soared by more than 50% after its website announced last April that the coin’s top 220 investors would be invited to a private gala dinner with the president. The watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) revealed that invitees included dozens of investors in crypto assets named after white supremacist and outright Nazi themes.
However, even then, $TRUMP was already down significantly from its high of over $75 just after its launch. On Friday, it was trading at less than $3, and the top-tier entry price to Saturday's gala at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida is indicative of that precipitous plunge.
Tomorrow, President Trump will host an event for 297 $TRUMP memecoin holders at Mar-a-Lago. It’s the second time in less than a year that the president has offered special access to people who can afford to buy enough of his memecoin—and it’s somehow even worse than the first.🧵
— CREW (@citizensforethics.org) April 24, 2026 at 7:36 AM
According to the Financial Times, the 29 premier access attendees of Saturday's event held a median investment of $539,000. That's nearly 84% less than the $3.28 million median investment they had prior to last year's gala. Furthermore, the newspaper reported that many premier access winners have apparently liquidated their $TRUMP holdings since securing their VIP spots.
“Nobody likes it,” Morten Christensen, a crypto investor who went to last year's gala and plans on attending the Mar-a-Lago dinner, told Politico Thursday. “People are losing on the coin, and they are vocal. They are the people on Twitter like, ‘Fuck this coin’ or, ‘It’s a scam.’ And they’re right, basically.”
That's not stopping the gala organizers from touting what they're calling “THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CRYPTO & BUSINESS CONFERENCE IN THE WORLD!”
As Politico reported Thursday:
It is open to the top 297 $TRUMP investors, who will get the chance to hear from an eclectic lineup of speakers that includes several crypto executives, boxing legend Mike Tyson, motivational coach Tony Robbins, and Trump, who will speak during the event’s luncheon, according to promotional materials. He is expected to be in Washington later in the day for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
While $TRUMP investors may be losing big, Trump and his family have made billions of dollars in crypto profits, while the Trump family and the coin's creators raked in $320 million in trading fees, even as the coin's value tanked.
A small group of elite investors has likewise been spared severe losses, including insiders who bought up $MELANIA, First Lady Melania Trump's meme coin, prior to its launch, a practice known as "sniping" that netted them around $100 million, according to the Financial Times.
$MELANIA launched on the eve of Trump's second inauguration and soared to an all-time high of $13.73 on Inauguration Day. It's now trading at $0.12, a 99% dive. Investors subsequently sued $MELANIA's creators, alleging that it's part of a fraudulent "pump-and-dump" scheme in which they manipulated the launch of $MELANIA and other coins in order to enrich themselves while later investors got wiped out.
That's not the only lawsuit targeting the president's family over alleged crypto fraud. Billionaire investor Justin Sun is suing World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm co-founded by Trump and his sons, accusing the company of illegally blocking Sun from selling up to $1 billion worth of digital tokens. Sun said last year that he's the world's largest single holder of the president's meme coin.
Last year, US Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), as well as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), launched investigations into $TRUMP events.
“He’s normalized his corruption,” Blumenthal said of Trump during a Thursday interview, adding that the Mar-a-Lago gala is “simply another way to generate more money for himself, profiting directly from his office."
Trump—who once said he's "not a fan" of cryptocurrencies, "whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air"—has pushed crypto since returning to office, most notably in a January 2025 executive order calling for the establishment of a working group on digital assets to explore the possibility of creating a “national digit asset stockpile," a top crypto industry wish list item.
“It is literally cashing in on the presidency—creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office,” Campaign Legal Center executive director Adav Noti said last year.
Experts have warned prospective investors about the dangers associated with $TRUMP.
“Two exclusive promotional events offering access to the president created temporary price increases but did not reverse the long-term downward trend,” Marquette University finance professor emeritus David Krause wrote last month.
“With approximately 80% of the token supply controlled by Trump-affiliated entities and over $324 million in trading fees accruing to insiders, the token raises significant questions about the alignment of promotional activities with retail investor protection,” Krause added. “As political meme coins continue to emerge, the $TRUMP token may serve as a cautionary case for the risks of speculative assets tied to political figures.”
Looking forward to Saturday's Mar-a-Lago gathering—which Trump may not even attend, according to small print on the event's website—CREW said Wednesday that "like the first event, Trump will almost certainly host holders of alt-right and racist coins, foreign attendees—including those with potential ties to foreign governments—and people seeking favors."
"This weekend will provide a prime example of the level of corruption and profiteering that no other president would have even dreamt of engaging in, but Trump is comfortable doing so openly," the group added.
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Democrats File Sweeping Lawsuit to Stop 'Unlawful' Trump Attack on Mail-In Voting
"Our Constitution’s framers anticipated this kind of desire for absolute power."
Apr 02, 2026
President Donald Trump's executive order placing restrictions on mail-in voting in the US is now facing a sweeping lawsuit from the Democratic Party.
In a complaint filed Wednesday with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the Democrats argued that Trump "has tried again and again to rewrite election rules for his own perceived partisan advantage," this time going after mail voting, which he has baselessly claimed cost him the 2020 presidential election.
The Democrats contended, however, that Trump has no constitutional authority to single-handedly rewrite election laws, noting that the US Constitution explicitly gave states the power to administer their own elections.
"Our Constitution’s framers anticipated this kind of desire for absolute power," the complaint states. "They recognized the menace it would pose to ordered liberty and the ways in which it would corrode self-government like an acid... They left most election authority with the states, permitted state regulations to be displaced only upon the agreement of both chambers of Congress, and established an independent judiciary to repel threats to individual rights."
The complaint then dives into the contents of Trump's order, which it says "seeks to impose radical changes to the manner and conditions under which citizens may cast absentee or mail-in ballots," and would "imminently threaten to disenfranchise lawful voters."
Specifically, the lawsuit argues that Trump is asking the US Postal Service to "take actions unrelated to the agency's statutory mandate that run roughshod over established protections for voters who rely on the mail to exercise their fundamental right" to vote in US elections.
Given that the order doesn't "stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself," the complaint continues, "it is an unlawful exercise of authority that must be declared invalid."
A joint statement released by Democratic leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), accused Trump of trying to restrict mail-in voting as a last-ditch effort to stop voters from ousting his Republican congressional allies.
"The American people are fed up with Republicans’ price-spiking, healthcare-gutting agenda and are ready to vote them out," they said. "That’s why Donald Trump is desperately trying to rig our elections by making it harder to vote for seniors, Americans with disabilities, members of the military, rural communities, and other working families who rely on vote-by-mail. This move is blatantly unconstitutional, and we will fight against it."
Shortly after the Democrats filed their lawsuit, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy Defenders Fund filed a complaint against the Trump executive order on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Secure Families Initiative, and Arizona Students’ Association.
Danielle Lang, vice president of voting rights and the rule of law at the Campaign Legal Center, said that the suit was necessary to block Trump's "unprecedented" effort to "unconstitutionally assert total authority over our elections."
"Attempts to command the US Department of Homeland Security to work with independent agencies on efforts to disenfranchise eligible voters... are simply unconstitutional and violate long-standing protections for Americans," Lang added.
Elections expert Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, argued in a Wednesday op-ed for Slate that lawsuits against Trump's executive order would probably prove successful and that it "likely will be found unconstitutional by courts."
However, Hasen also warned that the order could still create enough chaos and uncertainty to throw the outcome of close elections into doubt.
"Trump is engaging in election denialism theater," Hasen explained. "It makes voters of all sides mistrust the election process and the virtues of democracy. It convinces his supporters that Democrats have to cheat to win, something that will come in handy should Democrats take back control of the House in November with the intent of beginning investigations and potentially impeachment."
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'Unconstitutional Power Grab': Missouri Voters Sue After GOP Passes Rigged Map
"If our communities are needlessly split by these new lines, we would no longer see our strong values reflected in the priorities of our congressional representatives," said plaintiff Terrence Wise.
Sep 12, 2025
Missouri voters sued on Friday after GOP state legislators sent a new congressional map, rigged for Republicans at the request of US President Donald Trump, to Gov. Mike Kehoe's desk.
Republicans' pending map for the 2026 midterm elections targets the 5th Congressional District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. Voters from the district, including Missouri Workers Center leader Terrence Wise, launched the legal challenge, represented by the Campaign Legal Center along with the state and national ACLU.
"Kansas City has been home for me my entire adult life," said Wise. "Voting is an important tool in our toolbox, so that we have the freedom to make our voices heard through a member of Congress who understands Kansas City's history of racial and economic segregation along the Troost Divide, and represents our needs. If our communities are needlessly split by these new lines, we would no longer see our strong values reflected in the priorities of our congressional representatives."
Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket and an elections attorney for Democrats, also repeatedly vowed this week that "if and when the GOP enacts this map, Missouri will be sued."
"Missouri Republicans have ignored the demands of their constituents in order to follow the demands of a power-hungry administration in Washington."
The governor called a special session for the map after Texas Republicans successfully redrew their congressional districts to appease Trump last month. Kehoe said on social media Friday that "the Missouri FIRST Map has officially passed the Missouri Senate and is now headed to my desk, where we will review the legislation and sign it into law soon."
Former US Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., who now leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, warned in a statement that "Missouri is now poised to join North Carolina and Texas as among the most egregiously gerrymandered states in the nation. Missouri Republicans have ignored the demands of their constituents in order to follow the demands of a power-hungry administration in Washington."
"Missouri Republicans rejected a similar gerrymander just three years ago," Holder pointed out. "But now they have caved to anti-democracy politicians and powerful special interests in Washington who ordered them to rig the map. These same forces ripped away healthcare from millions of Americans and handed out a tax cut to the very wealthy."
"Republicans in Congress and the White House are terrified of a system where both parties can compete for the House majority, and instead seek a system that shields them from accountability at the ballot box," he added. "Missourians will not have fair and effective representation under this new, truly shameful gerrymander. It is not only legally indefensible, it is also morally wrong."
As The Kansas City Star reported, Democrats, who hold just 10 of the Missouri Senate's 34 seats, "attempted to block the legislation from coming to a vote through multiple filibusters," but "Republicans deployed a series of rarely used procedural maneuvers to shut down the filibusters and force a vote," ultimately passing the House-approved bill 21-11 on Friday.
"What we're seeing in Jefferson City isn't just a gerrymander, it's a dangerous precedent," said Missouri state Rep. Ray Reed (D-83), who engaged in a sit-in at the House to protest the bill. "Our institutions only work when we respect the process. Skipping debate, shutting out voices, and following orders from Donald Trump undermines the very foundation of our democracy."
Cleaver said in a Friday statement that he was "deeply disappointed" with the state Legislature, and he knows "the people of Missouri share in that disappointment."
"Despite tens of thousands of Missourians taking the time to call their state lawmakers and travel to Jefferson City to voice their opposition," Cleaver said, "Republicans in the Missouri Legislature followed the marching orders dictated by power brokers in DC and took the unprecedented step of enacting mid-decade redistricting without an updated census."
"I want to be very clear to those who are frustrated by today's outcome: This fight is far from over," he added. "Together, in the courts and in the streets, we will continue pushing to ensure the law is upheld, justice prevails, and this unconstitutional gerrymander is defeated."
In addition to court challenges, the new congressional map is also the target of People NOT Politicians, a group behind a ballot measure that aims to overturn it.
"This is nothing less than an unconstitutional power grab—a blatant attempt to rig the 2026 elections before a single vote is cast," Elsa Rainey, a spokesperson for the group, said after the Senate vote. "It violates Missouri law, slices apart communities, and strikes at the core of our democratic system."
During Kehoe's special session, Missouri Republicans also passed an attack on citizen initiative petitions that, if approved by voters, will make it harder to pass future amendments to the state constitution—an effort inspired by GOP anger over progressive victories at the ballot box on abortion rights, Medicaid, and recreational marijuana.
"By calling this special session and targeting citizens' right to access the ballot measure process, Missouri's governor and his allies in the state Legislature are joining a growing national movement dedicated to silencing citizens and undermining our democracy," said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project.
The Fairness Project, which advocates for passing progressive policy via direct democracy, earlier this week published a report detailing how "extremist" legislators across the United States are ramping up efforts to dismantle the ballot measure process.
"Sadly, what we are seeing in Missouri is nothing new, but we as Americans should all be horrified by what is happening in Jefferson City and condemn the attempts by this governor and his allies in the Legislature to further erode our cherished democracy," Hall said Friday. "With this special session, extremist politicians in Missouri have declared war on direct democracy and vowed to silence the very citizens they have sworn to represent."
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Watchdogs Welcome House Introduction of Congressional Stock Trading Ban
"As long as sitting lawmakers are allowed to trade stocks connected to the industries they oversee, the public will question whether they are prioritizing their own personal profits," said one campaigner.
Sep 03, 2025
Government watchdog groups on Wednesday cheered the bipartisan introduction of the Restore Trust in Congress Act, which would ban federal lawmakers, along with their spouses and children, from trading individual stocks.
"The legislation would require lawmakers to sell all individual stocks within 180 days," according to NPR. "Newly elected members of Congress would also have to divest of individual stock holdings before being sworn in. Members who fail to divest would face a fine equivalent to 10% of the value of the stock."
The bill's lead supporters in the House of Representatives span the full ideological spectrum: Reps. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Seth Magaziner (D-Pa.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas).
"In a strong display of bipartisanship, leaders from both sides of the aisle in the House have worked together to produce a comprehensive and commonsense legislative measure to ban congressional stock trading," said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist with the group Public Citizen, which is endorsing the bill.
"These members worked for months in drafting a strong consensus bill that addresses all the key elements of an effective ban on congressional stock trading," he continued, welcoming that the prohibition applies to immediate family members and "covers a wide range of investments, including cryptocurrency, and is fortified with strong enforcement measures."
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, also applauded the bill, highlighting that "our representatives in Washington have access to an enormous amount of information about our economy that isn't available to the public."
"They should not be allowed to use what they learn in the course of their legislative duties to gain an unfair advantage and enrich themselves," he said. "It's time to ban sitting members of Congress from buying and selling stocks. Members of Congress cannot be trusted to police themselves, and existing ethics laws do not go far enough to prevent members from using their insider knowledge for personal gain."
Lawmakers behind this new proposal have long advocated for a full ban, arguing that existing protections—including those in the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012—are inadequate.
Advocacy groups, including the Campaign Legal Center, have also "been fighting for years to improve laws regulating the way members of Congress trade stocks," noted Kedric Payne, CLC's vice president, general counsel, and senior director for ethics.
"As long as sitting lawmakers are allowed to trade stocks connected to the industries they oversee, the public will question whether they are prioritizing their own personal profits over the public interest," Payne said. "We applaud this bipartisan legislation that incorporates the key provisions of stock act reform CLC has fought to advance—a ban on stock ownership that is enforceable and holds lawmakers accountable."
Jamie Neikrie, legislative director at the political reform group Issue One, pointed out Wednesday that "three years have passed since House leadership made a commitment to bring a congressional stock trading ban bill to the floor for a vote."
"It's time to get this much-needed reform across the finish line—no more excuses," Neikrie declared. "Members of Congress have a responsibility to hold themselves to the highest ethical standards, and passing the Restore Trust in Congress Act is how Congress shows it's serious about restoring trust and integrity in government."
"Today is a critical step for a more transparent and stronger institution," he added, urging "leadership in both chambers to seize this moment" and send the bill to President Donald Trump's desk.
Earlier this summer, Trump lashed out at Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who worked with Democrats to advance out of committee a stock trading ban, claiming that "he is playing right into the dirty hands of the Democrats."
Hawley initially called his proposal the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act—a nod to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whose husband's stock trading has drawn scrutiny. After Hawley worked with Democrats on the bill, it was renamed the Halting Ownership and Non-Ethical Stock Transactions (HONEST) Act.
After the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's July vote, Pelosi said that "while I appreciate the creativity of my Republican colleagues in drafting legislative acronyms, I welcome any serious effort to raise ethical standards in public service. The HONEST Act, as amended, rightly applies its stock trading ban not only to Members of Congress, but now to the president and vice president as well. I strongly support this legislation and look forward to voting for it on the floor of the House."
Meanwhile, Fox News' Jesse Watters at the time asked Hawley about Trump lashing out at him. The Senate Republican responded, "I had a good chat with the president earlier this evening, and he reiterated to me he wants to see a ban on stock trading by people like Nancy Pelosi and members of Congress, which is what we passed today."
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Senate Advances Bill Banning Politicians From Stock Trading—While Giving Trump a Big Carveout
"Voters have a right to know that their elected representatives are acting in the public's best interest and are not motivated by their personal financial interests," said the general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center.
Jul 30, 2025
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday narrowly voted in favor of advancing a bill that bars politicians at the federal level from trading stocks—with one highly notable exception.
As reported by Politico, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) joined with all Democrats on the committee to advance a bill to ban stock trading by elected officials. However, to get Hawley's vote, Democrats had to agree to create a carveout for U.S. President Donald Trump and to apply the stock-trading ban only to future presidents.
Business Insider reported that, as written, the legislation "would ban members of members of Congress, the president, and the vice president from buying stocks immediately upon enactment, and would block them from selling stocks beginning 90 days after that."
"It would then require lawmakers to divest entirely from their stock holdings at the beginning of their next term, and it would require the president and vice president to do so beginning in 2029—after President Donald Trump's current term," the outlet explained.
Hawley took heat from fellow Republicans on the committee for advancing the legislation, including Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who accused his Missouri colleague of demonizing the wealthy.
"I don't know when in this country it became a negative to make money," said Scott. "How many of you don’t want to make money? Anybody want to be poor?"
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said that she wished that the law didn't have a carveout for Trump, but nonetheless supported advancing the bill and she described herself as "willing to make the good work instead of waiting for the perfect."
The bill's advancement out of committee earned plaudits from some government reform advocates. Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist with Public Citizen, encouraged the full U.S. Senate to take up a vote on the package while also explaining the proposed legislation's importance.
"Members of Congress frequently have access to nonpublic information about economic and business trends and are in a position of power to influence those trends," he said. "That is why the American public—Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike—has called for this type of legislation ever since a series of insider trading scandals erupted over the last several years."
Kedric Payne, the vice president and general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), similarly praised the bill's advancement while also explaining why current transparency rules were no longer adequate.
"To prevent corruption and conflicts of interest, CLC has long called on Congress to update the STOCK Act, which merely requires members to disclose their transactions, and fully ban stock trading by sitting legislators," said Payne. "In the absence of these stronger rules, we've seen congressional stock trading proliferate. This has led to repeated examples of ethical violations and questionable financial activity, including during global health emergencies and times of great economic uncertainty."
Payne further emphasized that "voters have a right to know that their elected representatives are acting in the public's best interest and are not motivated by their personal financial interests."
The legislation advanced by Hawley and the Democrats was originally named after Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former speaker whose highly profitable stock trades have come under scrutiny in recent years.
Even though the bill has now made its way out of committee, it still faces an uncertain future in the full U.S. Senate where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority and where Democrats would need to win over some additional Republican converts on top of Hawley. And even should it pass the Senate, it's uncertain whether the legislation would be able to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear GOP Effort to Further Gut Campaign Finance Law
Watchdogs say the spending coordination limits that Republicans are challenging were put in place to "guard against the corrupting effect of large campaign contributions."
Jun 30, 2025
The Supreme Court is taking up another Republican legal case seeking to erode campaign finance law and give more power to the wealthy donors seeking to influence elections.
On Monday, the court agreed to hear a challenge to campaign finance restrictions which limit the ability of party committees to directly coordinate spending with individual candidates. The anti-corruption group Public Citizen argues that this provision was put in place to "guard against the corrupting effect of large campaign contributions."
The challenge was brought by the National Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees, as well as the 2022 campaigns of two Ohio Republican congressmen: former Sen. JD Vance, who has since become vice president, and former Rep. Steve Chabot, who lost his re-election bid in 2022.
The case seeks to overturn rules implemented in the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971, which put strict limits on the ability of party committees to spend money in coordination with specific candidates. The Democratic National Committee will defend the rule before the court after filing a motion to intervene.
The rules were put in place, in part, to stop wealthy donors from using parties to get around rules about coordinating individual spending with candidates.
Under current law, how much coordinated spending parties can undertake is limited by the population of the state or district in question. At most, parties can coordinate nearly $4 million worth of spending for a single Senate candidate and $127,200 for a single House candidate.
The Republicans bringing the challenge have argued that the limits on coordinated spending violate the First Amendment.
The Campaign Legal Center, which has argued before the court against weakening these rules, has described them as a powerful bulwark against corruption.
"Since the party coordinated spending limits were enacted in the 1970s, these limits have checked the corruptive effect of large contributions flowing through party committees to candidates and prevented the quid pro quo exchanges that such contributions would otherwise facilitate," they wrote last year in a policy page arguing against the GOP challenge.
"Because the limits allow political parties to spend only a prescribed amount of their money in direct coordination with a candidate," the Campaign Legal Center continued, "they moderate the risk that a party committee could effectively pass on every big donation—or six-figure check collected via joint fundraising—to the donor’s chosen candidate in the form of coordinated expenditures."
"This case has nothing to do with the First Amendment and everything to do with Republicans' obsession with creating a government by and for billionaires," said Brett Edkins, a spokesperson for the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America.
In 2001, the Supreme Court upheld coordination limits in another case brought by Republicans: FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee.
In that case, often described as the Colorado II decision, the majority ruled 5-4 that "a party's coordinated expenditures, unlike expenditures truly independent, may be restricted to minimize circumvention of contribution limits."
Since then, however, the Supreme Court has helped the Republican Party chip away at laws that kept powerful donors in check.
Most notably, in the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC case, they ruled that political spending is a form of protected speech and that individuals could spend unlimited amounts of money influencing the election process, so long as it was not directly coordinated with candidates and instead done through "independent expenditure only" committees, more commonly known as super PACs.
"In the 15 years since the Supreme Court's abysmal Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate and billionaire campaign spending, the corruption of American politics has gone from bad to worse," said Jon Golinger, a spokesman for Public Citizen.
Despite the supposed wall of separation, most candidates now rely on super PACs for large amounts of their political communication and organizing. In 2015, a report by Public Citizen titled "Super Connected" found that 45% of super PACs spending over $100,000 directed that spending toward a single candidate.
The amount of election-related corporate spending directed to these largely unaccountable entities has exploded in recent years. According to OpenSecrets, outside spending reached an unprecedented $4.5 billion in the 2024 election, compared with just $555 million in 2008, the last presidential election year before Citizens United.
The top three individual spenders—the Mellon family, Elon Musk, and the Adelson family—spent a combined $369 million to help Donald Trump win the presidency.
"The right-wing supermajority on the Court already dismantled decades of campaign finance protections in Citizens United, and now they’re poised to gut what few remain, inviting billionaires to bankroll candidates through political parties with no limits," Edkins said.
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