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Trump Pardons 'Comically Corrupt' Crypto Magnate Who Helped Boost His Meme Coin
"Most corrupt administration in history," said Sen. Patty Murray of the latest Trump pardon.
Oct 23, 2025
President Donald Trump on Thursday formally pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges in 2023.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the pardon, noted that it came "following months of efforts by Zhao to boost the Trump family’s own crypto company."
According to the Journal, Binance has been a major financial booster of World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture backed by the Trump family that has added an estimated $5 billion to their total wealth.
"Binance has been one of the main drivers of the growth of World Liberty’s dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, called USD1," the Journal reported. "It delivered World Liberty’s first big break this spring when it accepted a $2 billion investment from an outside investor paid in USD1. Binance has also incentivized trading in USD1 across platforms it controls."
Critics of the president hammered him for pardoning Zhao, whose company willfully flouted reporting requirements that allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers. As flagged by CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane, prosecutors also found that Binance "critically undermined the effectiveness of US sanctions against Iran by providing its Iranian customers the ability to transact with the US customers."
Journalist Isaac Saul described Zhao as "comically corrupt" and said that his pardon would be "a monthslong scandal in any other normal administration" given the role Binance has played in boosting the Trump family's personal wealth.
Tommy Vietor, co-host of the Pod Save America podcast, was aghast at the brazenness of Trump's latest actions.
"Binance willfully failed to report transactions on its platform by al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad," he wrote on X. "But then Trump's crypto company made a multibillion-dollar deal in partnership with Binance, so Trump gave the founder a pardon. Shockingly brazen corruption."
Chuck Todd, the former host of NBC News' "Meet the Press," demanded that Republicans in Congress start doing their jobs and investigate the president's pardons.
"I know the GOP’s tolerance for government corruption has never been higher, but the obvious pay-to-play pardon scam for Trump family business partner Changpeng Zhao must make some elected GOPer squeamish," he said. "A normal functional congressional majority would do things like 'Oversight hearings' on what looks like obvious corrupt act like this one, and yet, cue the crickets."
Several Democratic politicians pounced on Trump's latest pardon, which they called evidence of unprecedented corruption.
"Make Trump rich and he'll gladly pardon you for your crimes," wrote Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). "Most corrupt administration in history. Meanwhile, he doesn't give a damn if you can't afford healthcare next year."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) argued that pardoning Zhao "rewards corruption" and said it makes the Trump administration "look like a RICO organized crime enterprise."
Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) expressed fury that the president would feel emboldened to pardon a criminal who helped boost his own net worth by billions of dollars.
"Trump got paid," he wrote. "And in exchange, he is rewarding a criminal who will use his new freedom to make every single American less safe. Get furious. I sure as hell am, and wish we had a single Republican who was willing to support ANY oversight."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also demanded congressional Republicans do their jobs and act as a check on the executive branch—and she warned them of political consequences if they failed to do so.
"If Congress does not stop this kind of corruption, it owns it," she said.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) noted that Trump, who commuted the prison sentence of notoriously corrupt former Rep. George Santos (D-NY) less than a week ago, seems to have a soft spot for wealthy white-collar criminals.
"Trump’s pardons and embrace of fraudsters—all to support his corruption—is just outrageous," she said. "So much for Republicans as the so-called party of 'law and order.' Insurrectionists, fraudsters, criminals—oh my."
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Trump Launches 'Appalling' Assault on Programs for Children With Disabilities
"No one is forcing Donald Trump to fire the people who make sure students with disabilities can get a good education—he just wants to," said Sen. Patty Murray.
Oct 22, 2025
The Trump administration has launched what advocates, parents, and Democratic members of Congress are calling an unlawful and immoral attack on programs that provide education services to millions of children with disabilities across the United States.
Earlier this month, the administration announced mass firings at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), terminations that would hollow out the agency tasked with administering and overseeing programs that support students with disabilities—part of President Donald Trump's effort to abolish the Education Department without congressional approval.
"This reckless and illegal action is another step toward the administration's goal of dismantling the Department of Education," Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote Tuesday. "With this latest action, the Trump Administration is effectively shuttering [the Office of Special Education Programs], which distributed $15 billion in federal grants to schools in 2025."
"These grants," Romig noted, "pay for special education teachers and aides, speech and occupational therapists, assistive technology, screening and early intervention for infants and toddlers, and other critical services and supports that millions of families rely upon."
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said it is "appalling" that the Trump administration is exploiting the ongoing government shutdown to escalate its destruction of the Education Department.
"No one is forcing Donald Trump to fire the people who make sure students with disabilities can get a good education—he just wants to," said Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
While a federal judge paused the OSERS firings with a temporary restraining order last week, reports and public comments from Trump officials indicate that the administration's assault on programs that aid students with disabilities is just beginning.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the administration is considering placing the Individuals with Disabilities Education (IDEA) Act program under the purview of the Health and Human Services Department, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
More than 15% of students in the US receive special education services. IDEA also provides support to hundreds of thousands of infants and toddlers each year.
Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy for AASA, the School Superintendents Association, told the Post that "moving special education out of the Department of Education demonstrates a disregard for the educational needs of students with disabilities."
"America's special education students are embedded at every level, in every program that the department oversees," Pudelski added. "It's a step backward for education and for our country."
The National Education Association (NEA), the country's largest teachers union, published an article on Tuesday featuring comments from parents alarmed by the administration's targeting of programs that their kids rely on.
"I'm a proud parent of a neurodivergent student, and I'm heartbroken,” Kim Pinckney, the mother of a child with autism, ADHD, and speech disorders, told NEA Today, the union's news publication. "I am one of those parents with the audacity to love my child and to believe he deserves a free and appropriate education. I am one of millions of parents who have the audacity to believe our children are worthy and that they have their own unique genius that deserves to be unearthed."
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Trump and Vought Turn Shutdown Into a 'Weapon' to Target Democrats
"It's going to harm them," boasted Sen. Mike Lee, a top Trump cheerleader. "Russ Vought, the OMB director, has been dreaming about this moment... since puberty."
Oct 02, 2025
President Donald Trump is using the government shutdown to carry out an unprecedented attack on his enemies through more layoffs of federal workers and cuts to grants aimed at blue states.
In the Oval Office Tuesday, hours before the shutdown began, Trump told reporters that “when you shut it down, you have to do layoffs. So, we’d be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected, and they’re Democrats. They’re gonna be Democrats.”
In the days leading up to the shutdown, congressional Democrats attempted to force Republicans to roll back cuts to Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies—cuts that are expected to result in as many as 15 million Americans losing their health insurance while raising premiums for tens of millions more. Trump and the GOP have blamed Democrats for the shutdown, falsely claiming that theyare pushing to fund free healthcare for "illegal aliens."
However, they've struggled to make this story land with the American public. A Washington Post poll released Thursday found that 47% of US adults blame Trump and Republicans for the shutdown, while just 30% blame Democrats and 23% say they are unsure. The sample was divided roughly equally between those who voted for Trump and those who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris (D) in 2024.
In what Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called an effort to use "taxpayer dollars to try and shift blame," the websites for numerous government agencies—including the US departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), as well as Justice, Agriculture, and several others—were updated with banners that blamed "Democrats" and the "Radical Left" for the shutdown.
Meanwhile, government employees, including those at the Small Business Administration (SBA) were directed to include similar partisan language in their out-of-office auto-reply emails.
Experts have told Politico that the use of taxpayer money for such explicit partisan messaging likely violates multiple ethics laws, including the Anti-Lobbying Act, which forbids the use of appropriated funds for lobbying activities designed to “support or defeat legislation pending before Congress.” It also pushes the boundaries of the Hatch Act, which requires federal programs to be used in a nonpartisan fashion.
The progressive consumer watchdog group Public Citizen said it has filed complaints against HUD and the SBA for what it said was an "obvious Hatch Act violation."
"The SBA and other agencies increasingly adopting this illegal, partisan tactic think they can get away with it because Trump has gutted any and all ethics oversight of the federal government," said Craig Holman, a government ethics expert with Public Citizen.
After being asked about Trump's promise to lay off "Democrats" at a press conference on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance told reporters, "We are not targeting federal agencies based on politics."
But in a Truth Social post early Thursday morning Trump struck a somewhat different tone. He spoke of plans to meet with Russell Vought, the director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), "to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut. I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity."
Trump also proudly described Vought as "he of PROJECT 2025 fame," referencing his leading role in crafting the Heritage Foundation's infamous blueprint for a far-right takeover of government—a takeover carried out in part through the purging of civil servants disloyal to Trump. During the 2024 election, Trump repeatedly insisted that he had "nothing to do with" Project 2025.
Vought has already begun to unilaterally withhold congressionally appropriated dollars for projects specifically for blue cities and states.
On Wednesday, he said that $18 billion in subway and tunnel funding for New York City had been “put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional [diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)] principles.” Not long before that, Trump had threatened to entirely cut off federal funding to the city if its voters elect the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and current frontrunner, as its next mayor in November.
Vought then announced Thursday that he was also stripping away another nearly $8 billion worth of funding for climate-related projects, referring to it as "Green New SCAM funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda." Vought said that the funding was being withheld exclusively from projects in states led by Democrats: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington state.
House Republicans were reportedly told by Vought on Wednesday that mass firings would also begin in "one to two" days, though he did not outline specifics about who would be fired. However, a memo Vought issued last week instructed agencies to prepare to eliminate employees “not consistent with the president’s priorities," triggering a lawsuit from federal workers' unions.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told the press Thursday that Vought was carrying out these cuts "reluctantly" and is "not enjoying the responsibility" of deciding which programs and employees get the axe.
But in an interview on Fox News, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a top Trump cheerleader, was a bit more candid, proudly declaring that Trump and Vought are using the shutdown specifically to hurt Democrats.
"They're doing it deliberately. It's going to harm them," Lee said. "Because Russ Vought, the OMB director, has been dreaming about this moment, preparing for this moment, since puberty."
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) said that "Vought is pushing a scheme to turn a government shutdown into a weapon to fire career civil servants and dismantle programs Congress has already passed into law. That is not only reckless. It is flatly illegal and unconstitutional."
"Have we ever had a president work so hard to hurt the people he represents?" asked Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). "I'm not going to be intimidated by these crooks."
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GOP Leaders Silent After State Lawmaker Called for Rep. Jayapal to Be 'Hanged'
Top Republicans have claimed that calling Trump “fascist” or “authoritarian” is an incitement to “terrorism." But party leaders have said nothing about an explicit call for violence from one of their own.
Sep 30, 2025
It has now been almost a full week since a Republican Arizona state representative called for the execution of Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal. But top Republicans in Congress and the White House have remained silent, even as they blame the left for escalating "political violence."
On Wednesday, in response to an out-of-context clip from Jayapal's (D-Wash.) YouTube channel posted to social media, state Rep. John Gillette (R-30) wrote that the Washington state Democrat—who discussed how protesters could become "strike ready or street ready"—was calling for the overthrow of the federal government.
“Until people like this, that advocate for the overthrow of the American government are tried convicted and hanged... it will continue,” he wrote on X.
Video: Arizona's Family (3TV/CBS5)
But when the full video, published in March and titled "The Resistance Lab," was unearthed by the Arizona Mirror, it showed that Jayapal was discussing how to plan "nonviolent resistance actions." In fact, over the course of the hour-and-a-half training video, the words "nonviolent" and "nonviolence" were said a total of at least 18 times by Jayapal and other speakers.
"Getting strike ready," meanwhile, was a call for labor union members to prepare for work stoppages, which are legal.
Gillette has not apologized for his call to hang Jayapal. In fact, he doubled down, referring to the Mirror's reporting that he called for Jayapal's execution as "fake news," and reiterating the false claim that Jayapal "openly advocates for the violent overthrow of the US government."
On Friday, Jayapal issued a statement calling Gillette's comments "appalling, unacceptable, and dangerous from anyone, but particularly from an elected official."
Other Democratic lawmakers were quick to condemn the comments. Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) said Gillette "must be held accountable for inciting violence against a member of Congress." Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said Gillette's incitement "puts [Jayapal] and all active participants in our democracy in danger." Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called the comments "sick and wrong" and said that "Republican leaders need to condemn this heinous call for violence, and there needs to be real accountability."
As of Tuesday, not a single Republican in Congress appears to have publicly condemned Gillette's comments—a deafening silence at a time when top members of the party, including President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, have attempted to blame Democrats' rhetoric for recent acts of violence, like the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and last week's shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas.
On Friday, as part of a new strategy to combat what it calls "left-wing domestic terrorism," Donald Trump directed law enforcement to "disrupt" individuals and groups “that foment political violence,” including “before they result in violent political acts.” Possible "indicators" of terrorism, the memo says, include "anti-capitalism," "anti-Christianity," and “hostility” toward traditional views on family or “morality.”
Top Trump ally Steve Bannon told the New Republic that he expects the government will begin to criminally investigate and prosecute groups and individuals that describe ICE as "authoritarian," agreeing with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller that such First Amendment-protected criticism "incites violence and terrorism."
Following Kirk's assassination and the ICE shooting, liberal and leftist politicians, journalists, and activists across the board rushed to unequivocally condemn both acts of political violence, even while stating their disagreements with Kirk and with Trump's immigration policies.
Common Dreams contacted the offices of both Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) to ask if they would publicly condemn Gillette’s comments and urge others in their caucus to do the same. At press time, neither had responded.
No public condemnations appear to have come from Trump, Vance, or any other members of the Trump administration.
The local news network Arizona’s Family (3TV/CBS5) said it reached out to the office of Arizona’s House Speaker Steve Montenegro (R-21) to ask if Gillette would face any discipline over his comments. The office did not respond.
Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) harshly criticized their silence.
"Patriots don’t cower and meekly hide from condemning their political allies when they do stuff like this," he said. "Everybody should be condemning this call for violence. Period."
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'Fundamentally Sick': Trump Border Agents Arrest Two Firefighters Battling Washington Wildfire
"What a sad, screwed up reflection of this unhinged administration and the harm they are inflicting on America," said one immigration advocate.
Aug 28, 2025
Elected officials in Washington are among those expressing outrage after federal agents took two firefighters into custody as they were helping to combat a local wildfire.
As reported by The Seattle Times, two firefighters were arrested on Wednesday while helping to put out the fire at Bear Gulch, located in Washington's Olympic Peninsula.
Sources told the paper that the arrests came after federal agents working in the area demanded that the two private contractors who were fighting the fire provide identification information on all their crew members.
One firefighter who was on the scene expressed incredulity that federal officials would conduct an immigration raid on a group of people who have been trying to put out a fire that is spread out across thousands of acres and is still far from contained.
"You risked your life out here to save the community," the firefighter told The Seattle Times. "This is how they treat us."
Local news station KING 5 confirmed that the two firefighters were taken into custody by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), although the specific reasons for the firefighters' detentions are still unknown.
Democratic Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said that he was "deeply concerned" about the two firefighters being taken into custody, and he said he has "directed my team to get more information about what happened."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) was far more critical and outraged in her reaction to the arrests.
"Trump’s ICE is arresting firefighters who are ACTIVELY FIGHTING ONE OF THE LARGEST WILDFIRES IN THE UNITED STATES," she wrote on social media. "There aren't words to describe this cruelty. It's absurd and completely against America's best interests."
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) described DHS's actions in detaining the firefighters as "fundamentally sick."
"Trump has wrongly detained lawful green card holders and even CITIZENS," she emphasized. "No one should assume this was necessary. These firefighters put their lives on the line for us ALL and Trump is detaining them."
Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigration advocacy organization America's Voice, described the arrests of the firefighters as a sad reflection of President Donald Trump's immigration policies as a whole.
"Perhaps nothing captures President Trump and Stephen Miller's obsession with mass deportation and purging the nation of immigrants than the news that, quite literally, this administration is prioritizing detaining firefighters over fighting fires," said Cárdenas. "What a sad, screwed up reflection of this unhinged administration and the harm they are inflicting on America."
The Trump administration in recent weeks has expanded the scope of immigration enforcement actions to include raids on California farms and on Home Deport parking lots where day laborers frequently gather. This appears to be the first time they have targeted firefighting crews in the middle of trying to contain a blaze, however.
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'Shut Up... You Should Be Fired': RFK Jr. Sparks Backlash With CDC Purge, School Shooting Remarks
"He is a dangerous man who is determined to abuse his authority to act on truly terrifying conspiracy theories and disinformation," said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.
Aug 28, 2025
Some US elected officials are now calling for the firing of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. amid mass resignations at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and comments he made about Wednesday's mass shooting at a Catholic school.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) was the first Democratic lawmaker to call for Kennedy's firing on Wednesday night, shortly after news broke that he had ousted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, who had just been confirmed by the US Senate weeks ago. Monarez's firing subsequently triggered several other high-profile resignations at the agency.
"If there are any adults left in the White House, it's well past time they face reality and fire RFK Jr.," she said. "He is a dangerous man who is determined to abuse his authority to act on truly terrifying conspiracy theories and disinformation—leaving us unprepared for the next deadly pandemic and snuffing out potential cures while he's at it."
Kennedy further angered his critics when he appeared on Fox News Thursday morning and not only defended the purge of the CDC, but also baselessly linked this week's mass shooting at the Annunciation Church in Minneapolis with the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of drugs commonly used to treat clinical depression.
While speaking with the hosts of "Fox & Friends," Kennedy said that "we're launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence" such as the shooting in Minneapolis on Wednesday that left two children dead and 17 other people wounded.
This drew the ire of Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who profanely called out Kennedy for peddling misinformation.
"I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don't kill kids, antidepressants do," she wrote in a social media post. "Just shut up. Stop peddling bullshit. You should be fired."
She then wrote a follow-up post in which she noted that "there are 400 million guns in this country," which is larger than the entire population of the US.
"In America, we are 10 times more likely to be shot in a school or playground than any other developed nation," she said.
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) didn't explicitly call for Kennedy to be fired, although he labeled the HHS secretary's actions "disgraceful."
"What is happening at the CDC is truly a five-alarm fire and not receiving nearly enough attention," he wrote. "RFK Jr.'s undermining of our public health institutions will have disastrous consequences for generations."
Democratic lawmakers weren't the only ones calling for Kennedy's firing. Pradheep Shanker, a radiologist who regularly writes for the conservative National Review, also said he'd seen enough of US President Donald Trump's HHS Chief.
"RFK is a complete failure, and is making Trump's health policy look like a complete circus," he said. "If Trump has any credibility, he'll fire RFK."
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'You Don't Thank a Burglar for Returning Your Cash': Trump Admin Finally Releases Education Funds
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," said one Democratic senator.
Jul 25, 2025
While welcoming reporting that the Trump administration will release more than $5 billion in federal funding for schools that it has been withholding for nearly a month, U.S. educators and others said Friday that the funds should never have been held up in the first place and warned that the attempt to do so was just one part of an ongoing campaign to undermine public education.
The Trump administration placed nearly $7 billion in federal education funding for K-12 public schools under review last month, then released $1.3 billion of it last week amid legal action and widespread backlash. An administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Washington Post that all reviews of remaining funding are now over.
"There is no good reason for the chaos and stress this president has inflicted on students, teachers, and parents across America for the last month, and it shouldn't take widespread blowback for this administration to do its job and simply get the funding out the door that Congress has delivered to help students," U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday.
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," Murray added. "You don't thank a burglar for returning your cash after you've spent a month figuring out if you'd have to sell your house to make up the difference."
🚨After unlawfully withholding billions in education funding for schools, the Trump Admin. has reversed course.This is a massive victory for students, educators, & families who depend on these essential resources.And it's a testament to public pressure & relentless organizing.
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— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@pressley.house.gov) July 25, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward—which represents plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's funding freeze—said Friday that "if these reports are true, this is a major victory for public education and the communities it serves."
"This news following our legal challenge is a direct result of collective action by educators, families, and advocates across the country," Perryman asserted. "These funds are critical to keeping teachers in classrooms, supporting students in vulnerable conditions, and ensuring schools can offer the programs and services that every child deserves."
"While this development shows that legal and public pressure can make a difference, school districts, parents, and educators should not have to take the administration to court to secure funds for their students," she added. "Our promise to the people remains: We will go to court to protect the rights and well-being of all people living in America."
Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes—a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit challenging the withholding—attributed the administration's backpedaling to litigatory pressure, arguing that the funding "should never have been withheld in the first place."
They released the 7 B IN SCHOOL FUNDS!! This is a huge win. It means fighting back matters. Fighting for what kids & communities need is always the right thing to do! www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
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— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten.bsky.social) July 25, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association—the largest U.S. labor union—said in a statement: "Playing games with students' futures has real-world consequences. School districts in every state have been scrambling to figure out how they will continue to meet student needs without this vital federal funding, and many students in parts of the country have already headed back to school. These reckless funding delays have undermined planning, staffing, and support services at a time when schools should be focused on preparing students for success."
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education—starving it of resources, sowing distrust, and pushing privatization at the expense of the nation's most vulnerable students," Pringle added. "And they are doing this at the same time Congress has passed a budget bill that will devastate our students, schools, and communities by slashing funds meant for public education, healthcare, and keeping students from their school meals—all to finance massive tax breaks for billionaires."
While expanding support for private education, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump earlier this month weakens public school programs including before- and after-school initiatives and services for English language learners.
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education."
Trump also signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting down the Department of Education—a longtime goal of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led roadmap for a far-right takeover and gutting of the federal government closely linked to Trump, despite his unconvincing efforts to distance himself from the highly controversial and unpopular plan.
Earlier this week, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office determined that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department illegally impounded crucial funds from the Head Start program, which provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and other services to low-income families.
"Instead of spending the last many weeks figuring out how to improve after-school options and get our kids' reading and math scores up, because of President Trump, communities across the country have been forced to spend their time cutting back on tutoring options and sorting out how many teachers they will have to lay off," Murray noted.
"It's time for President Trump, Secretary McMahon, and [Office of Management and Budget Director] Russ Vought to stop playing games with students' futures and families' livelihoods—and end their illegal assault on our students and their schools," the senator added.
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Nonpartisan Watchdog Agency Finds Trump Admin Illegally Withheld Head Start Funds
"The Trump administration broke the law and denied communities the funding they need to create jobs, grow their economies, and support working families," said one Democratic lawmaker.
Jul 23, 2025
The Trump administration has violated at least two federal laws by withholding close to $1 billion from Head Start, the program that provides preschool education to low-income families, a nonpartisan watchdog agency found on Wednesday.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) illegally impounded crucial funds from Head Start between January 20 and April 15 of this year, when it distributed only 65% of the money it had provided to the early childhood education program over the same period in 2024.
Head Start lost more than $825 million over that time period, forcing some centers to close.
The GAO found that withholding the funds violated the Head Start Act and the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), which restricts the president's ability to rescind or delay funding that has already been appropriated by Congress.
"HHS has not provided the information we requested regarding factual information and its legal views concerning the potential impoundment of appropriated funds," said the GAO. "Yet publicly available evidence, including data recorded by HHS on its Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System, indicates that between January 20, 2025, and April 15, 2025, HHS withheld from disbursement funds appropriated for Head Start. Based on this evidence, we conclude that HHS violated the ICA."
The office added in its decision that "the Constitution grants the president no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation... If the administration wishes to make changes to the appropriation provided for Head Start, it must propose legislation for consideration by Congress."
Previously, the GAO has advised Congress that the Trump administration illegally withheld funds for an electric vehicle charging system and for the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
"Today's legal opinion from the nonpartisan GAO reaffirms a simple truth: The power of the purse belongs to Congress, not the president," said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member of the House Budget Committee. "By blocking these investments, the Trump administration broke the law and denied communities the funding they need to create jobs, grow their economies, and support working families."
"Instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to hurt working families, President Trump needs to ensure every penny of these funds get out in a timely, consistent way moving forward."
The administration has proposed entirely eliminating Head Start, which provides education to more than 750,000 children. Earlier this month it announced that children who are undocumented immigrants will no longer be accepted into the program—prompting a lawsuit that was filed this week by 21 Democratic state attorneys general.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who serves as vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, condemned President Donald Trump for "stealing money from preschool programs."
"No president in modern history has demonstrated such contempt for working and low-income American families as Donald Trump," said Murray, noting that a Head Start program in her state's Lower Yakima Valley was among those that had to temporarily close earlier this year, impacting more than 400 children and more than 70 staffers.
"Today, a top government watchdog confirmed what we've known for months: President Trump has illegally held up vast sums of funding for Head Start programs across America—blocking funding that working families count on every day for pre-K and so many critical services Head Start offers," said Murray.
"Trump has signaled he would like to eliminate Head Start—but that's not his choice to make," she added. "Congress delivered this funding for Head Start on a bipartisan basis, and instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to hurt working families, President Trump needs to ensure every penny of these funds get out in a timely, consistent way moving forward—and he must also finally get out the rest of the investments he has been robbing the American people of."
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Facing Growing Outrage and Legal Action, Trump Admin Frees Chunk of Withheld Education Funds
"He's still illegally withholding $5.5 billion more from schools," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "Congress passed it. The president signed it. Trump must release it."
Jul 18, 2025
Following widespread backlash and threats of legal action, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that it will free up part of the $6.8 billion worth of education funding the president has withheld from states.
Earlier this week, 24 states sued the administration after it announced it would refuse to send the money—which had already been appropriated by Congress—to states just weeks before the start of the school year, citing "ongoing programmatic review" to ensure that none of it is used to fund diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
According to The New York Times:
The withheld money includes about 14% of all federal funding for elementary and secondary education across the country. It helps pay for free or low-cost after-school programs that give students a place to go while their parents work. It also covers training to improve the effectiveness of teachers and help for children learning English.
These programs provide a critical source of childcare that allow low-income families to work. Without them, organizations like the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club of America have said they'd need to scale back their offerings.
A report issued last week by New America noted the disproportionate impact the cuts would have on low-income students:
Students from low-income backgrounds are especially at risk of losing education resources. Districts serving high-poverty student populations (those where over 25% of children live in poverty) will lose over five times as much funding per pupil as low-poverty school districts (those where fewer than 10% of children live in poverty). The 100 school districts facing the biggest cuts on a per-pupil basis have an average child poverty rate of 24.4%, much higher than the national average of 15.3%.
The administration held up the funding for weeks, causing a building panic among educators and families. A group of 10 Republican senators even sent a letter on Wednesday urging a top Trump official to let the money flow to their states.
Then, on Friday, the administration announced that it would allow $1.4 billion worth of funding to be released to states beginning Monday, though they would still reserve the right to choke it off once again should any of it be used to violate the president's executive orders.
The administration said it will continue to withhold the remaining $5.5 billion and provided no timeline for when it might be released.
According to Education Week, schools around the country had been "banking" on that money for teacher training, English-learner services, migrant and adult education programs, and academic enrichment being delivered on its expected due date of July 1.
David Schuler, executive director of AASA, an association of school superintendents, said that while he was happy to see some of the money released, withholding the rest was still putting severe strain on schools.
"Districts should not be in this impossible position where the administration is denying funds that had already been appropriated to our public schools, by Congress," Schuler said in a statement. "The remaining funds must be released immediately—America's children are counting on it."
Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced Friday that she would block the fast-tracking of a Trump appointee for the Department of Education until Trump releases all the funds.
"Just weeks out from the new school year, families, teachers, and school districts are suffering the consequences of President Trump's needless and illegal blockade of this funding," Murray said. "This administration won't so much as explain why the money is held up or when we can expect it to go out."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who joined Murray's efforts, welcomed the news that some of the funding had been unfrozen.
"Today we forced Trump to release $1.3 billion for more than 10,000 summer and after-school programs helping 1.4 million students," he said.
But, Sanders added, "it's not enough. He's still illegally withholding $5.5 billion more from schools. Congress passed it. The president signed it. Trump must release it."
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Progressives, Democrats Vow Fight as Senate GOP Aims to Claw Back Billions in Federal Funding
Republicans plan to utilize a rare process called "rescission" to skirt Congress' power of the purse and illegally allow Trump to withhold hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding to critical programs.
Jul 10, 2025
The U.S. Senate will soon vote on whether President Donald Trump can claw back billions of dollars that have already been appropriated by Congress.
Last month, the House narrowly voted to allow Trump to rescind $9.4 billion in funds that were meant to fund global health initiatives—including AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis prevention—and public broadcasters like PBS and NPR.
It's far from the first time that this Republican-controlled Congress has voted on massive budget cuts, but progressive groups and some Democratic lawmakers say this vote has another frightening dimension to it.
These funds were among the more than $420 billion appropriated by Congress that Trump illegally impounded, or refused to spend, at the start of his term.
In a letter sent Wednesday to members of Congress, a coalition of more than 100 groups—including Public Citizen, the AFL-CIO, and Greenpeace—warned that by voting to approve these rescissions of federal funds, they would be giving Trump tacit approval to unconstitutionally take away Congress' authority to spend money.
"This rescissions proposal does not ask Congress, as required by the Impoundment Control Act, to approve the entirety of the federal spending that has been illegally frozen by the Trump administration," the letter notes. "The administration is merely trying to establish a veil of legitimacy while it continues unconstitutional actions that it began more than 100 days ago."
The groups went on to warn that allowing the president to unilaterally cut funding that he doesn't approve of "risks irreparable damage to the regular bipartisan appropriations process."
"Despite the political back-and-forth, Congress eventually reaches a bipartisan agreement on government funding every year, one way or another," they said. "The basis for that bipartisan agreement is that both parties must agree to compromises to achieve any of their goals. If a party with a political trifecta can simply rescind funding for the parts of appropriations bills they compromised on, they undermine congressional checks and balances and the basis for future bipartisan dealmaking on an already politically fraught process."
Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, presidents are forbidden from unilaterally refusing to spend funds. However, Congress is allowed to pass a "rescission" bill within 45 days of canceling them if the president requests it.
Trump would be the first president since Bill Clinton in 1999 to successfully have funds rescinded by Congress, and it would be the largest rescission in four decades.
But as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out, there is a key difference: "The administration illegally impounded the funds at issue for months before proposing the [rescission] package" and that it is "unlawfully withholding much larger amounts of funding that it has not proposed for rescission."
According to a tracker created by the office of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who sit on the House and Senate appropriations committees, respectively, the Trump administration is blocking congressionally appropriated funds for programs including:
- Research into Alzheimer's disease, women's health, cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses;
- Natural disaster relief;
- School lunch assistance for children;
- Early childhood education through the Head Start Program; and
- Birth control and cancer screenings for over 800,000 patients
Russell Vought, the head of the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has openly indicated a desire to use rescission to cut all of this spending "without having to get an affirmative vote" from Congress.
According to The New York Times, Vought is planning to use an even more arcane and illegal maneuver known as "pocket rescission" to avoid spending the funds. As Tony Romm reported in June:
Under the emerging plan, the Trump administration would wait until closer to Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, to formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires.
Some Senate Democrats have indicated they'd be willing to risk a government shutdown to prevent the rescission bill from passing.
In a letter published Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote that the prospect of the rescissions bill passing had "grave implications."
"[I]t is absurd for [Republicans] to expect Democrats to act as business as usual and engage in a bipartisan appropriations process to fund the government, while they concurrently plot to pass a purely partisan rescissions bill to defund those same programs negotiated on a bipartisan basis behind the scenes," Schumer wrote.
Murray called out Vought directly on Wednesday at a markup session on the next round of bills in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"For us to be able to work in a bipartisan way effectively, that requires us to work with each other. To not just write bipartisan funding bills—but to defend them from partisan cuts sought by the president and the OMB director," she said during her opening remarks. "We cannot allow bipartisan funding bills with partisan rescission packages. It will not work."
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