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jamie raskin
Suspecting 'Insider' Dealings and 'Corruption,' Raskin Probes Donald Trump Jr.'s Venture Capital Firm
After the president's son came on board, "a trio of businessmen with heretofore lackluster records in the market was suddenly running the hottest firm in the United States."
Aug 27, 2026
Just two years ago, 1789 Capital Management "was a struggling venture capital firm that earned consistently disappointing results by serially investing in total market flops," but after recruiting President Donald Trump's eldest son in the wake of the 2024 US election, it "suddenly had the Midas touch," a key congressional Democrat highlighted this week, launching an investigation.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)—a lawyer who managed the historic second impeachment of the president—revealed Thursday that the previous day he had sent a letter demanding answers from Donald Trump Jr., who is a partner at 1789 Capital, as well as company president Omeed Malik and chief investment officer Christopher Buskirk.
After the president's son joined the firm, just four days post-election, Raskin wrote, "you became the overnight darling of the venture capital world, rocketing from $150 million in assets under management to an astonishing $3 billion. A trio of businessmen with heretofore lackluster records in the market was suddenly running the hottest firm in the United States, picking out with almost clairvoyant accuracy winner after winner by investing in companies that would soon come to win hugely lucrative federal government contracts and grants and favorable regulatory actions."
"How did this miraculous transformation in the fortunes of your LLC come about?" he wondered. "Was it indeed magic? Or was it rank corruption, a toxic blend of trading on insider knowledge, and the use of insider political influence to steer major federal contracts and other financial benefits to Donald Trump Jr.'s new favorite businesses?"
"Based on his own personal business resume, Don Jr. may have been an unlikely choice to originate investments for an upstart venture capital company. His rare solo ventures—outside the paternal eye of the Trump Organization—have been well-documented flops, including investing in dry oil wells, hydroponic lettuce farms, and an African mining company," Raskin noted. "But despite his proven record of business investment failure, Don Jr. has become the lucky charm for 1789 Capital."
Raskin's letter provides a series of examples in which 1789 Capital has identified "companies that are about to receive massive influxes of cash from the Trump administration or to benefit from significant changes in federal policies and regulations."
"On the day Donald Trump was elected, Vulcan Elements was a small startup with no active manufacturing facilities and no history of fulfilling government contracts," he detailed. "Then 1789 Capital invested several million dollars. Soon after this investment, Vulcan Elements boasted that it had been raking in federal dollars throughout its capital raise, securing nine different government contracts in the past eight months."
"While the list of 1789 Capital portfolio companies that have benefited from favorable administration decisions is too long to explore in full here, three additional companies with strikingly similar success stand out," he wrote.
There's Anduril Industries, "an American technology company founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey, a prominent Trump donor who has been dubbed 'the godfather of Republican fundraising on the West Coast,'" which got an enormous $22 billion contract that was previously assigned to Microsoft just weeks after Trump's inauguration, the letter notes. Then, it was reported that the VC firm was acquiring a stake in the company, which in March won another $20 billion contract from the US Army.
The letter also points out Juul, which "notoriously ushered in an epidemic of youth vaping in the United States by aggressively marketing its e-cigarettes to young people" and "had suffered a series of setbacks that nearly bankrupted the company" before Trump's return to office. Just months after 1789 Capital quietly acquired a $5 million stake in the company, the Food and Drug Administration ditched previous efforts to ban its products and allowed the marketing of five products.
Raskin's final example is the online prediction market Polymarket—which, at the time Trump was reelected, was banned from operating in the country by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and faced a federal investigation. Last summer, the Department of Justice closed that probe and the CFTC signed off on an acquisition that allowed the company to enter the US market. The letter notes that "a few short weeks later, it was revealed that 1789 Capital had already acquired a sizable stake in Polymarket."
"Alas, it is now impossible to believe that your firm's astonishing growth and success are due to anything other than insider political influence and thoroughgoing corruption," the congressman wrote to the trio. "Indeed, President Trump recently admitted that his oldest sons have 'inside information' with 'almost anything they do.'"
In a statement to MS NOW, which had early access to Raskin's letter, counsel AJ Merton dismissed the accusations as "unsubstantiated talking points," adding that "repackaging press clippings on congressional letterhead does not turn news headlines into evidence, and that practice is a hallmark of partisan stunts and politically motivated harassment, not oversight."
However, Raskin still wants answers from 1789 Capital by September 9. He's demanding a list of investments, communications with federal officials or contractors, records on how government policies may impact the firm, documents on the hiring of Trump's son, and more. He also told the firm to preserve all communications between its employees and the administration.
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Corrupt ‘Cash-for-Clemency’ Trump Pardons Have Cost Crime Victims $1.7 Billion in Damages
“Wealthy white-collar criminals and drug traffickers hire Trump insiders, pour money into his political operation... and suddenly the doors of the White House swing open for a pardon.”
Aug 21, 2026
President Donald Trump's pardons for rich criminals have robbed their victims of $1.7 billion in compensation, according to a report out Friday from the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
The analysis, released by the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), examines how Trump has turned the traditional pardon process into a “cash-for-clemency” system that has allowed influencers and fixers close to the president to make millions by selling access to his pardon power.
"Donald Trump has taken one of the most solemn constitutional powers of the presidency and turned it into a bustling marketplace for insider political influence and unjust personal enrichment," Raskin said in a statement on Friday.
"Wealthy white-collar criminals and drug traffickers hire Trump insiders, pour money into his political operation or cultivate his family’s financial interests, and suddenly the doors of the White House swing open for a pardon, commutation, and forgiveness of all fines and financial restitution owed," he continued.
Drawing on Reuters' reporting from June, the report examines how Trump has sidelined the traditional Department of Justice guidelines for offering pardons, which long involved career civil servants evaluating petitions for clemency based on the seriousness of the offense, the individual's rehabilitation, and restitution to victims.
In its place, Trump has consolidated control of the pardon power within the White House, where the determining factor has often been a person's connections to Trump's inner circle. This has allowed the clique of people with access to the president to act as gatekeepers and reap the rewards.
According to Reuters:
Reuters identified 290 advocates, or influencers, who publicly or privately helped secure clemency for 197 recipients. Because some of the advocates worked on behalf of multiple candidates, their efforts at times overlapped, representing 624 different acts of influence. Among the influencers, 73 helped secure more than one pardon or sentence commutation. Brett Tolman, a former US attorney now in private practice in Utah, has been involved in at least 12 pardons or commutations. Roger Stone, a veteran political consultant and longtime Trump confidant, had a hand in at least five.
Trump's use of the pardon system to reward friends and donors is widely reported. But Raskin's report sheds new light on the other side of the equation: the victims who were denied compensation after Trump waved away the sentences of those who scammed and stole from them.
Trevor Milton, an auto company executive who was convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors after pretending that one of his company's vehicles had autonomous capabilities, was potentially on the hook for nearly $700 million.
But after he and his wife donated a combined $1.8 million to committees supporting Trump and soon-to-be Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in 2024, Milton received a pardon from the president that wiped out his obligation to pay.
Afterward, Trump called Milton personally and told him to "call Bobby [Kennedy] and thank him" for the pardon, according to Reuters.
Paul Walczak, a healthcare executive who funded a lavish lifestyle by stealing millions in payroll taxes from his low-wage employees, got a pardon from Trump weeks after his mother, a top GOP fundraiser, attended a $1-million-a-plate event at Mar-a-Lago. As a result, he got out of paying back $4.5 million in stolen payroll taxes, which go to fund programs like Medicare and Social Security.
Jason Galanis, who was convicted of stealing millions from the Oglala Sioux Nation and defrauding pension funds for union workers in New York State, avoided paying over $84 million in restitution after Trump pardoned him in early 2025.
A longtime associate of former President Joe Biden's son Hunter, Galanis gained favor with Trump after he appeared as a star witness for Republicans during their impeachment effort over the Democratic president's alleged "influence peddling."
Other fraudsters relied directly on the network of pardon lobbyists, like nursing home owner Joseph Schwartz, who also stole payroll taxes from his employees and had separately lost several wrongful death lawsuits for neglecting elderly patients.
While in prison on a three-year sentence, Schwartz spent more than $1.1 million on lobbyists to advocate for his release. This included access to the powerful pro-Trump influencer Laura Loomer, White House “pardon czar” Alice Marie Johnson, and White House Counsel David Warrington.
The report said this got him out of paying $33 million he still owes in federal taxes, and the report also notes his apparent attempts to avoid paying out wrongful death judgments.
The report also details Trump's pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who'd been convicted of helping the Sinaloa Cartel import hundreds of tons of drugs into the United States.
He was convicted in 2024 after prosecutors spent more than 15 years building a case against him. But his role in helping rich, MAGA-allied tech moguls, including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, with a project called Próspera—a libertarian “charter city” for cryptocurrency investors—made his case a cause célèbre among Trump’s inner circle.
Roger Stone, who claimed that pardoning Hernández would "save the Próspera experiment," joined former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and others at Mar-a-Lago to push for the ex-Honduran leader's freedom, and within hours it was granted.
As the report details, "the Bureau of Prisons paid a tactical team overtime to drive Mr. Hernández from his maximum-security prison in West Virginia to the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, where he was treated to a luxury stay at taxpayer expense in one of New York’s finest hotels."
Some of the criminality pardoned by Trump verges on cartoonish. A former Las Vegas City Council member, Michele Fiore, nicknamed "Lady Trump," stole $70,000 from a memorial for police officers killed on duty and used it to pay for rent, cosmetic surgery, and her daughter's wedding. To this day, she refuses to pay the money back.
Adriana and Andres Camberos, meanwhile, escaped having to pay their victims over $50 million and forfeit an additional $30 million in illegal proceeds from an elaborate grocery store fraud scheme that allowed them to pay for luxury sports cars, beachfront properties, investments, and cryptocurrency.
Adriana, who'd previously been convicted for selling counterfeit 5-Hour Energy drinks filled with fake liquid, had already had her sentence commuted at the end of Trump's first term after her brother donated to his 2020 campaign and got the ear of two attorneys close to the president, defense attorney Adam Katz and White House Counsel Stefan Passantino. After she and her brother were convicted of grocery fraud, they went back to Katz and Passantino, who helped secure a pardon for both of them last year.
“In recent months, often to justify immigration crackdowns or cuts to healthcare and food assistance programs, House Republicans have, hilariously, made ‘fighting fraud’ one of their central talking points,” the report concluded. “But convicted fraudster Donald Trump and the MAGA pardon industrial complex are all about committing fraud, protecting fraudulent schemes, and pardoning convicted fraudsters.”
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'Bogus Indictment?' Raskin Opens House Probe Into DOJ Reflecting Pool Prosecution
Rep. Jamie Raskin wants to know if the Trump administration withheld "key evidence to blame the disastrous reflecting pool renovation on an innocent man?"
Aug 11, 2026
The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday launched an investigation into the Trump administration's attempt to prosecute former Olympic canoeist David Hearn for felony vandalism amid reports that the White House is pushing the Justice Department to reopen the dropped case.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) announced the new probe in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro, a longtime friend and ally of President Donald Trump, dropped the vandalism case against Hearn earlier this month, saying in a filing that the damage he was accused of inflicting on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool "was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism."
"Did DOJ prosecutors knowingly bring a bogus indictment?" Raskin asked in his letter. "Did [the Department of Interior] withhold key evidence to blame the disastrous reflecting pool renovation on an innocent man? Did President Trump pressure or influence either department to engage in wrongful actions against an American citizen?"
"At a minimum, it appears that members of the Trump administration were ready and willing to imprison an innocent American for a decade in a desperate effort to soothe an ex-landlord’s wounded ego about a terrible paint job and wasteful contract,” Raskin added. "We must get to the bottom of these murky waters to rid our justice system of any and all residual contamination."
"The conclusion seems inescapable that at least one, if not both, of you have misled the American public about the evidence and used it to corrupt and weaponize our justice system."
News of Raskin's investigation came shortly before The Wall Street Journal reported that "White House officials have asked the Justice Department to consider a new prosecution" of Hearn "as President Trump fumes over US Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to drop the case."
"A new prosecution of the defendant... would be highly unusual, especially after Pirro told a judge in surprising detail that the government’s decision to indict him on a felony charge was ill-informed," the Journal noted. "Pirro said a botched renovation, not vandalism, was responsible for the reflecting pool’s problems."
Trump publicly accused Pirro of "folding like a cheap umbrella" after she dropped the effort to prosecute Hearn, whose legal team is seeking documents to show whether Justice Department prosecutors "were candid with the grand jury" when pursuing their indictment against the 67-year-old former Olympian.
Pirro, a former Fox News host who boasted in July that she had "tremendous evidence" of Hearn's guilt, has privately blamed Burgum for the debacle.
In his letter on Tuesday, Raskin demanded that Pirro and Burgum turn over "all documents related to the decision to prosecute" Hearn as well as "all communication between DOJ, DOI, and the White House related to the prosecution." Raskin also demanded "all evidence presented to the grand jury in connection with the indictment" of Hearn, a Maryland resident and one of Raskin's constituents.
"The conclusion seems inescapable that at least one, if not both, of you have misled the American public about the evidence and used it to corrupt and weaponize our justice system against an innocent 67-year-old American citizen," Raskin wrote.
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Padilla Unveils Bill to Stop Trump From Selling Access to 'Market-Moving Social Media Posts'
"Americans deserve a government that works for them, not one that’s for sale to hedge funds and Wall Street banks."
Aug 04, 2026
US Sen. Alex Padilla on Tuesday introduced legislation aimed at blocking President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and future occupants of their offices from profiting by selling early access to official or personal social media posts that could move financial markets, calling the practice a blatant abuse of public office for private gain.
Padilla's (D-Calif.) Stop Corrupt Trading Act would prohibit any sitting president or vice president—and any business in which they hold a substantial financial interest—from selling advance or exclusive access to presidential social media announcements. It would also establish civil penalties for the sale of nonpublic government information through such services.
“This is out in the open—Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in American history," Padilla said in a statement introducing the legislation. "Despite already being the richest president in history, President Trump’s number one priority in office is to make himself richer while everyday Americans struggle to make ends meet."
“Selling access to his market-moving social media posts is just one example of the brazen corruption we’ve seen coming out of the Oval Office—and I am fighting back to put a stop to it," he added. "Americans deserve a government that works for them, not one that’s for sale to hedge funds and Wall Street banks that can afford the subscription fee.”
Padilla's bill comes days after the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) launched a premium service offering subscribers expedited access to the president's Truth Social posts, a move that ethics watchdogs and government accountability advocates have warned could provide wealthy investors with an unfair advantage if presidential statements affect stock prices, tariffs, or other market-sensitive policies.
US House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) responded to TMTG's move by announcing an investigation into what he called an "insider-information scheme."
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Raskin Launches Probe of Scheme to Sell Insider Access to Trump Truth Social Posts
"This White House-Wall Street-Trump-Business feedback loop represents the depraved essence of insider trading," said the Maryland Democrat.
Jul 31, 2026
"Are you helping the president sell people advance access to market-moving information?"
That's the opening line of a Thursday letter that US House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sent to Kevin McGurn, interim CEO of President Donald Trump's Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) Corp.
TMTG runs Trump's Truth Social platform and earlier this month announced plans to launch "Truth API" by August 1. API, or application programming interface, lets software applications talk to each other. Critics have warned that the new endeavor will give Wall Street firms faster access to posts by the president and other top accounts.
"Trump Media's target market for buyers of this service is 'high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms,' which would each pay a
handsome $100,000 monthly subscription fee," Raskin wrote. "Nearly half of each fee would go directly into the pocket of Donald Trump, who owns roughly 41% of the company's shares through a trust that he continues to control."
"Put another way, Trump Media will soon be selling early access to President Trump's so-called 'Truth' missives to the most sophisticated investment firms in the world," he stressed. "This insider-information scheme will enable Wall Street to profit from the president's frequent market-moving posts on major businesses and cash in on swings in stock prices caused by the president's buying and selling (or pumping and dumping, if you prefer) of publicly traded stocks to unwitting retail investors."
As Investopedia pointed out Thursday: "In recent months Trump has posted about new developments in the Iran War, which is particularly important for buyers and sellers of futures contracts who are trying to ascertain where oil prices are headed. Over the past year, he has also posted about tariff policy, government investments in publicly traded companies, and other corporate news developments."
Additionally, as Raskin highlighted, "Trump has promoted over 20 companies on his Truth Social account shortly after purchasing the companies’ stocks, including government contractors where the Trump administration exerted substantial ability to move markets in those companies' favor. Donald Trump Jr.'s investment firm, 1789 Capital, has posted a staggering 200% investment return since his father's return to the White House, with the president recently admitting that his oldest sons are coventurers in his corruption."
Once the new service is up and running, "whenever President Trump uses Truth Social to announce that a ceasefire is imminent, or prematurely leaks US jobs data, his customers will now be able to front-run the market using their privileged access to his social media posts, leaving retail investors, pension plans, and retirement accounts irreparably disadvantaged," he warned. "This is precisely the type of harm that federal securities laws are designed to prevent."
Concerns about TMTG's plans led Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Adam Schiff (Calif.) to demand that US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins launch an investigation. The senators wrote to the Trump-nominated SEC leader on Tuesday that the current administration "is the most corrupt in the nation's history," and the company's "new service threatens to undermine the integrity of capital markets."
In the meantime, Raskin—a constitutional scholar who managed Trump's historic second impeachment—is conducting his own probe of what he called a "reverse Robin Hood scheme," arguing that "this White House-Wall Street-Trump-Business feedback loop represents the depraved essence of insider trading." The congressman is demanding a lengthy list of records from the CEO of Trump's company by August 13.
"The president of the United States should be using the office to 'take care' that laws are enforced and to advance the public interest," he said, nodding to the US Constitution. "Instead, President Trump is, once again, using it to enrich in spectacular fashion himself, his family, and corporate cronies while also destroying the integrity of financial markets in the process."
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Raskin Launches Investigation Into Evidence Epstein Was 'Foreign Agent' Working to Influence Trump Policies
"Numerous recently released documents now show he acted aggressively on behalf of multiple foreign governments... in order to influence policies of the first Trump administration."
Jul 21, 2026
The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, launched an investigation Monday into whether the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein worked on behalf of foreign governments to influence President Donald Trump during his first term.
In a letter addressed to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche; Trump’s nominee to be director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton; and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Raskin (D-Md.) said that files provided to the Judiciary Committee show “substantial evidence” that Epstein acted to advance the interests of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, advised the Russian government on its dealings with Trump, and worked as a consultant to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
“Jeffrey Epstein never registered as a foreign agent," Raskin said. "Yet numerous recently released documents now show he acted aggressively on behalf of multiple foreign governments, including several with interests adverse to the United States, in order to influence policies of the first Trump administration."
Epstein, a convicted sex criminal who was found dead in his jail cell in 2019 after being charged with trafficking minors, has long been surrounded by questions about his relationships to foreign governments. But this is the first time an inquiry from the US Congress has expressly focused on them.
Raskin called attention to a trip taken by Epstein to Riyadh in November 2016, the week of Trump's first election, during which he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) before sending one of his representatives an email offering to become the "financial confidant" to members of the Saudi government. "I am happy to represent [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] interests. period," he said.
Epstein also apparently offered to represent Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund in the US and serve as an adviser to a development project overseen by MBS. The crown prince's response to the proposal has not been provided to the committee, according to Raskin.
Several emails to friends and confidantes indicate that around the same time, Epstein was regularly boasting of his visits to Trump Tower and meetings with "Trump people" during the presidential transition, which he said presented "lots of opportunity."
Other correspondence seems to indicate that Epstein coached the emir of Kuwait on how to deal with Trump. In May 2017, prior to a summit of Gulf states in Riyadh, Epstein wrote to an unnamed political figure that he had “much to do around the Trump trip.”
The figure responded that he wanted “tips on how we should communicate with Trump,” specifically on the Saudi-led war against Yemen; Kuwait had played host to three months of UN-led negotiations related to the conflict the year before.
It is unclear from the records which US officials, if any, Epstein intended to engage on Kuwait's behalf.
Raskin also highlighted what is perhaps Epstein's most well-documented foreign government contact, Ehud Barak, who served as Israel's prime minister from 1999 to 2001 and later its minister of defense.
According to a trove of leaked emails published by Drop Site News last year, Epstein worked to create a backchannel between Barak and the Russian government and helped him to pursue a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in 2013 as he pushed for Russia to abandon its support for then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which was a major national security priority of Israel.
Epstein also provided information about US officials to Barak as he tried to push the Obama administration to take a harder stance toward Iran and Syria.
It is one of many instances in which Epstein and Barak worked to advance Israeli interests across the world, including brokering security and surveillance agreements with the governments of Mongolia and Côte d'Ivoire and helping to build the relationship between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Other emails reveal Epstein advising high-ranking Russian officials on how to deal with Trump as they sought to avoid sanctions placed by the US over its interference in the 2016 election and its aggression toward Ukraine.
Raskin said that Epstein seemed to be consciously acting as a foreign agent despite never registering as one under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The congressman pointed to exchanges in which Epstein appeared to advise Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon on how to avoid FARA reporting requirements.
Raskin argued that Epstein's deep well of knowledge about Trump and his apparent access to members of his circle "posed a major national security liability." Epstein often bragged that he had leverage over the president and said he was "the one able to take [Trump] down."
The congressman argued for transparency in light of the administration’s efforts to delay the release of the files and withhold information despite congressional requirements.
Beyond potentially embarrassing revelations about Trump, he said the repeated use of the White House Situation Room to discuss the Epstein scandal indicated that it posed possible national security concerns that have not been disclosed to the public.
Raskin called on the Department of Justice and State Department to release all files referencing Epstein and other foreign nations and information that may point to his efforts to avoid FARA requirements.
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'Another Unauthorized Trump Fund': Democrats Fume Over $300 Million in Taxpayer Money for Ballroom
"While Republicans slash healthcare and other programs Americans depend on, President Trump is reportedly using hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for a White House ballroom," said US Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi.
Jun 18, 2026
Democratic lawmakers are reacting with disgust amid new reporting on how the White House has been using sneaky budget maneuvering to get US taxpayers to fund President Donald Trump's luxury ballroom that was never approved by Congress.
According to a Thursday report in The Washington Post, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) mysteriously shifted $352 million within the US Secret Service budget that had been earmarked for training and recruitment, but that will now be spent on White House security measures.
An insider familiar with the process told the Post that the redirected funds were related to the construction of the ballroom.
A White House spokesperson did not deny that the money was going toward the ballroom project, while insisting that "the East Wing Modernization Project is inextricably tied to the security of the president, the White House grounds, and the certain security infrastructure assets."
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, told the Post he was concerned that money "intended to pay Secret Service agents and ensure they have the technology and resources they need to keep individuals under their protection safe" is now being spent on the president's "vanity project."
In a Wednesday interview with NOTUS, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said it appears Trump "was just flat out lying when he said the taxpayers will not pay a dime for his ballroom," adding that it appears "he is now trying to find ways to funnel public money into it."
In a Thursday social media post, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) contrasted Trump's willingness to use taxpayer cash for his ballroom with cuts he and the GOP made to vital healthcare and food assistance programs.
"While Republicans slash healthcare and other programs Americans depend on," Krishnamoorthi wrote, "President Trump is reportedly using hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for a White House ballroom he claimed would be privately funded."
Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) similarly argued that while the GOP's 2025 budget law "kicked 4.3 million people off SNAP and 5 million people off [Affordable Care Act] health insurance coverage," the administration is now "dishonestly spending millions of dollars of YOUR money to fund a ballroom instead of helping struggling Americans put food on the table and receive essential medical care."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) linked the ballroom money to other Trump schemes to enrich himself through the presidency, including his acceptance of a luxury jet from the government of Qatar and his $1.8 billion slush fund for political allies.
"Now we learn that Trump’s bad architecture obsession is costing us all $600 million," Raskin wrote, in reference to earlier reporting on how the ballroom project has ballooned in costs from the White House's early estimates. "Turn your illegal Qatari jet over to the people and we’ll sell it for $400 million and we’ll take the rest out of other illegal emoluments and slush funds, including the $1.776 billion fund for insurrectionists, and the Board of Peace, another unauthorized Trump fund bankrolled by money misallocated from the State Department."
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Raskin Introduces BLANCHE Act to Destroy Trump DOJ's Plot for 'Super Pardon' of President and His Family
"If the administration and its allies in Congress are truly walking away from the $1.8 billion criminal enrichment fund, they should have no problem joining us in banning it outright," the Maryland Democrat said.
Jun 04, 2026
Though acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche has said President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “weaponization” slush fund is now “dead,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin on Thursday unveiled draft legislation that would eliminate what he describes as a “super pardon” buried in the Department of Justice settlement reached last month.
While Blanche—whom Trump said he plans to nominate for a full term as attorney general—has backed off the fund that would allow the DOJ to disburse taxpayer money to Trump allies and January 6 insurrectionists amid bipartisan backlash, a news release from Raskin’s (D-Md.) office on Thursday said the acting AG has done nothing to rescind “the mother of all sweetheart deals he tucked into his unprecedented settlement with Trump.”
The settlement, created in exchange for Trump dropping a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for improperly leaking his tax returns, gives Trump, his entire family, and all their business ventures total and permanent immunity for “any matters currently pending or that could be pending” not only before the IRS, which Trump sued in the case that led to the settlement, but also before “other agencies or departments.”
The Maryland Democrat also said that despite retreating on the "weaponization" fund, the DOJ is still using its Judgment Fund to improperly reward the president's allies.
According to the Washington Post, as of April, the DOJ had already paid $8.5 million to prominent Trump allies who claimed to have been wrongly targeted by the Biden administration, even though no court formally determined that they had been.
“If the administration and its allies in Congress are truly walking away from the $1.8 billion criminal enrichment fund, they should have no problem joining us in banning it outright,” Raskin said. “But no one should be fooled by Trump and Blanche’s tactical pause: Nothing has been dismantled, and nothing has been renounced. Trump’s scheme to raid the Judgment Fund, bankroll political allies using taxpayer cash, and score a sweeping Super Pardon is alive and well and remains a clear and present threat to our constitutional order.”
Raskin, who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced a new legislative package on Thursday, aiming to destroy the remaining vestiges of the DOJ deal and ensure that future presidents can never use federal settlements to reward themselves.
The Block Lawless Agreements and Nullify Corrupt Handouts and Emoluments (BLANCHE) Act, bars sitting presidents from entering settlements for money damages with the federal government and requires independent judicial oversight of any such agreements, including ones that grant the president "super pardons" like the one granted to Trump by the DOJ.
“My legislative package would end the slush fund, outlaw collusive settlements, and make clear that no president can use taxpayer dollars to cut partisan loyalty reward checks,” Raskin said.
He also introduced the Constitutional Rights Defense Act, which would allow individuals to file suits against the federal government when their rights are violated by agents of the state.
In contrast with the January 6 Capitol riot participants who have been claiming compensation under the fund, Raskin said his bill "ensures that all people who have actually had their constitutional rights violated by the government will have access to justice."
Raskin has previously introduced legislation that would block the use of federal funds to finance the Trump IRS settlement and prohibit payouts to January 6 Capitol riot participants and other Trump allies, including family members.
"Congress must act with urgency to shut down this presidential plunder once and for all,” Raskin said.
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Top Democrats Demand DOJ and IRS Answer for Trump 'Taxpayer Shakedown' and 'Super-Pardon'
"Never in American history has a president pursued corruption this brazenly or on such a colossal scale," wrote Reps. Jamie Raskin and Richard Neal.
May 20, 2026
Top Democrats on a pair of panels in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday demanded that Justice and Treasury department leaders answer for how they settled President Donald Trump's $10 billion "sham" lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax records.
In their letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) slammed the settlement as "one of the most brazen acts of public corruption and self-dealing in American history."
"Rather than protect the public fisc from obvious plunder, this DOJ and IRS caved," the lawmakers argued, condemning the creation of a $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" as a "taxpayer shakedown" intended to line the pockets of the president's allies, including pro-Trump rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
"This massive slush fund will be governed by a sham commission of the president's cronies," Raskin and Neal noted—and due to the terms of the agreement, "the public and members of Congress may never know who received payments."
CNN reported Tuesday that longtime Trump adviser and former administration official Michael Caputo has filed the first known claim, describing his family as "survivors of the illegal Russiagate investigations" and seeking $2.7 million.
"Congress and Congress alone has the power of the purse under the appropriations clause of the Constitution. But Congress never authorized or appropriated funds for a $1.776 billion political slush fund," the House Democrats stressed. "This settlement is a transparent attempt to circumvent the separation of powers and use the judgment fund for a scam Congress never contemplated: rewarding the president’s political allies at the expense of American taxpayers."
Additionally, under the settlement, the IRS is "forever barred" from pursuing any other actions against Trump and his relatives.
"Essentially, the federal government threw in a super-pardon for the president, his family, and related and affiliated entities, freeing them not only from any accountability for any taxes they may have dodged, but other pending federal criminal or civil investigations like insider trading, antitrust violations, false statements, or even sexual harassment," the lawmakers wrote.
Raskin and Neal called on the federal departments to "retain all documents, including both hard copies and electronically stored information (ESI), related to the settlement and establishment of the fund," including messages sent via "private email addresses, text messages, mobile applications (e.g., Signal), or other forms of electronic communications."
They also directed the agency leaders to send over the IRS memorandum on the settlement, other related records, and answers to their list of questions by next week, before Bessent’s scheduled appearance before the Ways and Means Committee.
Blanche was on Capitol Hill Tuesday to testify about the DOJ budget request. However, he faced various other questions, and attempted to counter Democrats' framing that, as Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (Wash.) put it, Trump is using "tax dollars to set up a slush fund to enrich his own friends."
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) questioned Blanche about public disclosures of payouts and measures to ensure Trump family members don't get any fund money, while Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) asked about the eligibility of January 6 rioters, including those who assaulted Capitol Hill police or committed sex crimes against children.
A pair of police officers who helped defend the Capitol during the 2021 attack filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday with the aim of dissolving the fund, arguing that "no statute authorizes its creation, the settlement on which it is premised is a corrupt sham, and its design violates the Constitution and federal law."
After the House Democrats' letter was released Wednesday morning, Raskin introduced the No Taxpayer-Funded Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2026 to block Trump's fund. He also moved to subpoena Blanche, Bisignano, Bessent, and other individuals involved in creating the fund: Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward and Treasury Department General Counsel Brian Morrissey.
"Mr. Blanche orchestrated this outrageous slush fund as part of the settlement with Donald Trump, which was also signed by Mr. Woodward, and Mr. Bessent will oversee the payout of these funds. Mr. Bisignano signed off on this settlement for the IRS, and Brian Morrissey remarkably resigned as this deal was being announced," Raskin said. "These individuals all possess critical insights into Trump's self-dealing scheme with his own agencies to create this fund and reward his supporters and friends."
The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee rejected the proposed subpoenas in a party-line vote.
This article has been updated to include Rep. Jamie Raskin's bill and the results of the subpoena vote.
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'He's Just Stealing Your Money': House Dems Launch Bid to Block $1.8 Billion Trump-MAGA 'Slush Fund'
"It's illegal and corrupt as hell," Congressman Don Beyer said of the president's self-dealing $1.77 billion IRS settlement. "We're fighting it in court."
May 18, 2026
Ninety-three House Democrats on Monday launched a bid to block President Donald Trump's $1.77 billion taxpayer-funded settlement with the Internal Revenue Service, through which the president could reward supporters, including people convicted of seditious and violent felonies during the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
The Democratic lawmakers joined an amicus brief filed in Trump v. IRS before Judge Kathleen Williams in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Their action followed the Trump administration's announcement of the creation of a so-called "Anti-Weaponization Fund" as part of an agreement to drop a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over a leak of the president's tax returns.
Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche described the fund as “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization" allegedly carried out by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) during the Biden administration "to be heard and seek redress.”
However, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called the settlement "pure fraud and highway robbery," noting that Trump oversees the agency that agreed to settle with him.
"No president can concoct a fake case for $10 billion in damages against the government so he can be plaintiff and defendant and then ‘settle’ his bogus case against himself as a judge," Raskin said.
"This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election-stealing schemes," he added.
Trump's slush fund would give nearly $2 BILLION in taxpayer dollars to his supporters, including violent criminals.He's just stealing your money.There's no transparency, we won't know who gets paid, or how much.It's illegal and corrupt as hell. We're fighting it in court.
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— Congressman Don Beyer (@beyer.house.gov) May 18, 2026 at 10:41 AM
The Democratic lawmakers' amicus filing seeks to block the settlement, which could use taxpayer funds to compensate pro-Trump figures like the nearly 1,600 Capitol insurrection defendants charged or convicted of crimes connected to the Capitol attack, including seditious conspiracy, assault on law enforcement officers with dangerous weapons, and other felonies.
“Trump suing the IRS was never about justice, it’s another self-enrichment scheme on the backs of hard-working taxpayers," House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said Monday.
“Now, with the court poised to weigh in only days from now, Trump is scrambling to cut a backroom deal and solidify his position as the judge, jury, and executioner," Neal added. "Reporting detailing Trump’s interest in a billion-dollar slush fund for the J6 criminals and permanent immunity from any further IRS scrutiny only deepens the stench of corruption."
Matt Platkin and Norm Eisen, lawyers representing the Democrats, said Monday: “It's against the law for the president to in effect sue himself—and then settle for a huge sum. The court has the power to put a stop to these shenanigans and should do so."
Trump was accused of rewarding political violence when he granted blanket pardons to the January 6 insurrectionists on his first day back in the White House. According to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, dozens of pardoned Capitol attackers have since been charged or convicted of serious crimes, including child sex crimes, rape, grand larceny, burglary, home invasion, gun violations, death threats against public officials, and fatal DUI incidents.
The president and other MAGA figures have accused the Biden administration of "weaponizing" the DOJ against Trump and his supporters. Meanwhile, Trump has targeted political opponents; federal officials involved in investigating and prosecuting him for alleged election interference and mishandling classified documents; pro-Palestine activists; universities and corporations resisting his anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion crusade; journalists; civil society groups; and others.
Progressive advocacy groups and legal experts joined Democratic lawmakers in condemning Trump's settlement.
“Donald Trump and his compromised Department of Justice have created a slush fund to make payouts to Trump supporters and cronies,” Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman said in a statement. “This scheme amounts to the creation of a January 6 payment fund.”
I say without hyperbole that this is the most brazenly corrupt action in US Presidential history. That it does not immediately lead to impeachment is a dangerous sign of how far the rule of law has declined.
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— Ryan Enos (@ryanenos.bsky.social) May 18, 2026 at 10:28 AM
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and public affairs at Stand Up America, said that “while Americans struggle with rising costs fueled by his economic mismanagement and war with Iran, Donald Trump is teaching a masterclass in grift."
"He’s negotiated with himself to create a $1.7 billion tax-dollar slush fund with no oversight, no transparency, and no accountability," Edkins continued. “In simple terms, Trump is stealing $1.7 billion in taxpayer dollars to hand out to himself, his cronies, his donors, or anyone he deems sufficiently loyal—including supporters who were convicted by juries of assaulting police officers on January 6, 2021."
"This is truly unprecedented corruption," he added, "and American taxpayers will foot the bill.”
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