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Ellison Takeover of CBS ‘Unquestionably Aided’ White House Epstein Cover-Up: Democratic Senator
Wyden's claims about CBS came on the same day its parent company's CEO, David Ellison, defended the proposed megamerger between Paramount and Warner Bros.
Aug 04, 2026
Sen. Ron Wyden on Tuesday charged that the takeover of CBS by David Ellison, the son of right-wing billionaire Larry Ellison, helped President Donald Trump's White House cover up information about the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Wyden's (D-Ore.) claims about CBS came on the same day his office released a report alleging that top Wall Street banks "looked the other way and allowed Epstein to have ready access to the mountains of cash he used to lure, harbor, and transport his victims."
In a social media post, Wyden revealed that he was interviewed several months ago by former "60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, where he presented evidence his office had gathered about big banks' role in facilitating Epstein's illicit activities.
The interview never aired, Wyden said, because CBS "subsequently... pulled the segment and fired the reporter."
Wyden added that "the MAGA buyout of media has unquestionably aided the Trump administration’s cover up here."
David Ellison, whose father was a megadonor to Trump's 2024 campaign, assumed control of CBS last year after his media company Skydance merged with Paramount, the network's parent company.
Shortly afterward, Ellison hired right-wing commentator Bari Weiss to serve as CBS News' editor-in-chief, and she has since gone on a firing spree of several longtime "60 Minutes" producers and journalists, including Alfonsi, Scott Pelley, Tanya Simon, and Cecelia Vega.
The Paramount CEO's ambitions for controlling media properties extend well beyond CBS, as his company is currently in the process of acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of both CNN and HBO.
A federal judge last month paused the $110 billion megamerger between Paramount and Warner Bros., citing “compelling evidence that the combined firm resulting from the transaction will possess substantial market share in the wide-release theatrical distribution market,” making it “likely to violate antitrust laws.”
The New York Times on Tuesday published an editorial by Ellison in which he defended the merger and insisted that he could be trusted as a good steward of CNN, vowing to give its news team "independence."
"Our journalists will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve—not to any party or cause," Ellison wrote. "These were founding principles for both CNN and CBS News, for legends like Ted Turner and Edward R. Murrow, and it is exactly that kind of independence that has always fueled the greatness of '60 Minutes.'"
However, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter noted in a Tuesday news analysis that Ellison's Times op-ed made no mention about "upheaval" that Weiss has caused at CBS News, which has led to a decline in ratings at both the network's evening news program and its morning show.
"His first year owning CBS News has been defined by ratings struggles, shakeups, and controversies, mostly stemming from his appointment of Weiss as editor-in-chief," Stelter explained. "I don't hear anyone making the case that CBS News has earned back a whole lot of trust... Ellison's op-ed sidesteps the debate altogether."
Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta similarly expressed skepticism of Ellison's claims in a social media post.
"Ellison appointed Bari Weiss to run CBS News and look at the damage done there," Acosta wrote. "Stands to reason he’ll do the same at CNN. Watch what they do. Not what they say or write."
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'So It Begins': Trump's Medicaid Work Requirements—as Designed—Wreak Havoc and Pain
"Pregnant woman disenrolled by mistake. Long waits to get through to the call center for help. No clarity on the rules. Medicaid work reporting requirements don’t work."
Aug 03, 2026
A growing chorus of Democratic lawmakers, policy experts, and advocacy organizations is calling on the Trump administration to immediately rescind a rule imposing more strict work reporting requirements on Medicaid recipients, a demand that came as Nebraska began kicking people off the healthcare program for not complying with the new mandates.
Under the expanded requirements, which were established by a 2025 Republican budget package that President Donald Trump signed into law, certain Medicaid recipients must document at least 80 hours per month of work or another qualifying activity to continue receiving assistance. In a statement late last week, Families USA executive director Anthony Wright warned that "these new paperwork requirements will push patients off coverage—not because they aren’t working or not eligible, but because of bureaucratic burdens."
Wright noted that under new rules stemming from the 2025 GOP budget law, even people with terminal cancer and other serious illnesses aren't necessarily exempt from the work reporting requirements, which apply to people between the ages of 19 and 64 who don't have a disability and aren't pregnant, in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
"The requirement that a patient doesn’t just need to have cancer or another condition but must produce the equivalent of a doctor’s note with a finding that the conditions leave them unable to work," said Wright, "is nowhere in the underlying statute, and unworkable."
A pair of Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), similarly warned in a letter late last week that the Trump administration's implementation of the new work requirements "transforms Medicaid from a healthcare program into a bureaucratic maze that will fail eligible Americans, by design."
"It will strip coverage from people not because they are not already working or refuse to work, but because they cannot navigate a complex web of forms, passwords, and deadlines," the lawmakers wrote. "Implementing ineffective, exclusionary work reporting requirements will create costly administrative barriers and deny Americans access to health care, resulting in poorer health, higher mortality, and reduced financial security."
Wyden and Pallone urged the Trump administration to withdraw what the lawmakers described as a "disenrollment scheme" as Nebraska became the first in the US to disenroll Medicaid recipients for failing to comply with the reporting mandates.
The advocacy group Nebraska Appleseed has warned that the work requirements could put 40,000 Nebraskans at risk of losing Medicaid coverage. The requirements took effect in Nebraska on May 1—eight months ahead of schedule—and the state began disenrolling people for purported noncompliance on August 1.
In a blog post published last week, Nebraska Appleseed observed that the three months between the start of the work requirements and the first round of disenrollments was marked by "mass confusion," with Medicaid recipients experiencing "long call center waits, inoperable language lines, understaffed and undertrained caseworkers, policy questions gone long-unanswered, and the lack of public state data."
Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, pointed with alarm to local reporting about the early impacts of the work reporting mandates in Nebraska.
"So it begins," Alker wrote in a social media post on Monday. "Pregnant woman disenrolled by mistake. Long waits to get through to the call center for help. No clarity on the rules. Medicaid work reporting requirements don’t work."
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Top Finance Committee Democrat Rips Trump's New Canada Tariffs as 'Yet Another Shakedown'
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman described Trump's latest tariffs as "unutterably idiotic."
Jul 21, 2026
Critics are piling on President Donald Trump for once again picking a fight with the United States' top trading partner by moving to slap 50% tariffs on certain imported Canadian goods.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said on Tuesday that Trump's latest broadside against Canada was "yet another shakedown that will raise the cost of living for Americans, their families, and small businesses across the country."
Wyden also said that Trump has "abused every trade authority at his disposal" and vowed to soon release a bill "to rein him in and put Congress back in the driver's seat" in crafting US trade policy.
Wyden wasn't the only Democrat to take a shot at Trump over his new economic attack on Canada.
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) called Trump's new tariffs "really dumb" given that they violate a trade deal that Trump himself negotiated with Canada and Mexico during his first term.
"You cannot negotiate a trade agreement, sign it, celebrate it, then blow it up and expect anyone to trust the next deal," said Levin. "And who actually pays? American importers and American families. Tariffs are a tax on us."
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) predicted that US consumers would once again pay the price for the president's trade war.
"We're the ones who will eat the cost," wrote Huffman. "That's what happened with Trump's last tariff spree and it will happen again. Trump's failed foreign and economic policies are making life worse for hardworking people."
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman on Tuesday published an analysis trying to make sense of the justifications for Trump's latest trade war with Canada, but he came up mostly empty.
"The White House fact sheet claims that the new tariffs are a response to Canadian policies that discriminate against US products," explained Krugman, "notably the moves by most Canadian provinces... to stop importation of US alcoholic beverages. But these policies were themselves a response to the tariffs on Canadian goods Trump had previously imposed."
Krugman then noted that Trump shifted his justification for the tariffs, saying they were designed to punish Canada after smoke generated by wildfires in Ontario billowed into the US last week.
However, Krugman found this explanation even more absurd.
"Blaming Canada for not controlling fires that are, in reality, largely a consequence of global warming," Krugman remarked, "is unutterably idiotic."
Krugman concluded his analysis by arguing that "whatever the real motivation for these new tariffs, they are almost surely illegal," noting that they run afoul of Trump's own North American trade deal.
Trump on Tuesday indicated that the tariffs on Canada were not actually a response to the wildfires, though he said his administration was looking at separate measures to punish the Canadian government for purportedly doing a poor job of managing its forests.
Q: Are the Canada tariffs in response to the wildfires?
Trump: No, We're looking at that separately. They need us to survive. Without us, there's no way they can survive pic.twitter.com/ycllBXmPTd
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 21, 2026
Several studies have found that Trump's tariffs, which he kicked off in April 2025, have cost US businesses and consumers hundreds of billions of dollars, as importers pass most of the increased costs imposed by the tariffs to consumers in the form of higher prices.
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Senate Urged to Reject Trump Plot to Unleash AI for Medicare Service Denials
"The bottom line is this: Seniors who choose traditional Medicare should not have their care blocked by AI," said one campaigner.
Jul 15, 2026
Advocates for seniors on Wednesday urged US senators to vote for a resolution that, if passed, would block a new Trump administration pilot program under which claims by patients seeking certain healthcare services through traditional Medicare would be reviewed by private companies using artificial intelligence to deny care.
Upper chamber lawmakers are set to vote Thursday on a resolution introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and supported by 20 Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to stop the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' so-called Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model.
CMS claims WISeR "helps protect American taxpayers by leveraging enhanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, along with human clinical review, to ensure timely and appropriate Medicare payment for select items and services."
What CMS doesn't mention—and what alarms a growing number of physicians and advocates—about the voluntary model is that AI-assisted reviews could contribute to inappropriate care denials, despite the required human review. Private Medicare Advantage healthcare profiteers have been using AI to deny care for years.
Critics argue that, even if a human must sign off, AI will effectively drive many of the recommendations, making it easier and faster to deny or delay care. They also warn of inevitable financial incentives tied to reducing Medicare spending, raising concerns that AI would likely be used as a cost-cutting tool.
"WISeR is not wise at all. It is a dangerous, profit-motivated experiment that allows private third parties to use artificial intelligence to delay and deny seniors’ medical care," Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson said Wednesday. "Under the WISeR pilot program, which went live in January 2026, reports already show Medicare beneficiaries are waiting 2 to 4 times longer to access certain care."
"This is just one more example of the harm that Republicans’ disastrous healthcare agenda has already waged on American patients," he continued. "Last year, Republicans slashed $1 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act spending to line their cronies’ pockets. Now, they are importing the worst parts of Medicare Advantage—automated care denials—into traditional Medicare."
"The bottom line is this: Seniors who choose traditional Medicare should not have their care blocked by AI," Lawson added.
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100% Tax Proposed to Counter 'Most Corrupt Thing… Ever Seen From an American President'
Sen. Ron Wyden said the $1.8 billion slush fund was "staggeringly corrupt even by Trump's bottom-dwelling standards."
May 21, 2026
President Donald Trump's attempt to create a $1.8 billion slush fund for his political allies is coming under bipartisan attack, and congressional Democrats are proposing a 100% tax on any of its future beneficiaries to thwart what's being described as an unprecedented form of corruption in the nation's nearly 250-year history.
Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) on Tuesday introduced the first bill taxing Trump slush-fund payouts at a 100% rate, and he was followed on Thursday by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who introduced a similar bill in the US Senate.
If enacted, the legislation would negate the entire $1.8 billion venture, which was created as purported restitution for Trump politcal allies who have been convicted of committing crimes on his behalf, and force beneficiaries to return any payments received to the US Department of Treasury.
The bill would slap on an additional 50% penalty "in the case of any willful attempt to avoid or evade the tax."
Wyden described the president's slush fund, which could be used to pay out cash to Trump supporters who violently stormed the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, as "staggeringly corrupt even by Trump’s bottom-dwelling standards."
"Congress must do whatever it takes to prevent Donald Trump from stealing $1.8 billion from the American people to fund right-wing violence and handouts to insurrectionists," said Wyden. "This money doesn’t belong to Donald Trump, it belongs to the taxpayer.”
Thompson, the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax, said that the legislation is need to stop Trump's attempt "to line the pockets of January 6th insurrectionists who attacked law enforcement and tried to overturn our democratic election."
"My legislation ensures if a sitting president sues our government while in office," added Thompson, "they get taxed 100% on any money paid through a trial or settlement."
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) took some time on Thursday to provide an overview of the Trump slush fund's creation in a lengthy social media post.
As explained by Levin, the fund came about after Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) earlier this year over the 2019 leaking of his tax returns.
Levin noted that "IRS lawyers did their jobs" by writing a memo of legal arguments they believed would defeat Trump's lawsuit in court.
However, before the case could be fully heard in a courtroom, Trump agreed to drop his lawsuit while the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the creation of the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" as a settlement.
Levin also called attention to the structure of the committee, which he said was riddled with conflicts of interest.
"The acting attorney general, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, picks the five commissioners who decide who gets paid," he said. "Trump can fire any of them. Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are not ruled out."
Levin concluded by calling the fund "the most corrupt thing I've ever seen from an American president."
While Democrats are taking the lead in the effort to block Trump's slush fund, some Republicans have also indicated their opposition to the initiative.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), one of the most vulnerable GOP members of the House, said on Wednesday that "a nearly $1.8 billion DOJ-controlled fund cannot be created, defined, and distributed in the shadows," and he demanded acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche provide answers about who will be eligible to receive payouts and under what legal authority.
"Taxpayer dollars will not be turned into a discretionary payout fund," Fitzpatrick emphasized. "Transparency is not optional. Accountability is not negotiable."
According to a Thursday report from Punchbowl News, Senate Republicans are preparing to slap restrictions on the $1.8 billion fund that could prevent any payments from going to January 6 rioters who attacked police officers.
In an interview with Punchbowl News, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) expressed incredulity that such guardrails were even necessary.
"Imagine that—a fund that is set up to compensate people who assaulted Capitol Police officers," Tillis said. "How absurd does that sound coming out of my mouth?"
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Wyden Denounces 'Highly Questionable' $370 Million Tax Giveaway to Gas Giant by Trump IRS
Sen. Ron Wyden called the IRS' decision to grant Cheniere Energy a massive tax windfall "extremely troubling" given that it was one of the companies President Donald Trump promised to help during the 2024 campaign.
Apr 17, 2026
Sen. Ron Wyden is calling foul over a $370 million tax break that the Trump administration recently gave to Texas-based gas company Cheniere Energy.
In a letter to Cheniere CEO Jack Fusco, Wyden (D-Ore.) demanded more information from the company about the windfall it received after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) signed off on what the senator described as a "novel and highly questionable tax position."
According to Wyden, the IRS determined Cheniere was eligible to receive the Section 6426 credit—intended to incentivize the use of "alcohol fuel, biodiesel, and alternative fuel mixtures"—which the energy company said it used to power its liquified natural gas (LNG) transport carriers.
Taking advantage of the tax credit in this manner, Wyden argued, is a complete distortion of what it was intended to accomplish.
"The alternative fuel tax credit that Cheniere claimed is for alternative fuel mixtures in 'motorboats,'" wrote Wyden. "'Motorboat' is defined elsewhere in federal regulations as a vessel '65 feet in length or less.' LNG carriers are closer to one thousand feet in length, and the 'alternative fuel' that Cheniere's carriers were powered by was reportedly LNG boiloff that would have been wasted if it were not used to power the carriers."
Wyden emphasized this point by adding, "If Cheniere’s carriers are in fact 'motorboats,' then the Titanic was a dinghy."
The Oregon Democrat said the IRS' decision to grant Cheniere this tax credit was "extremely troubling" given that the gas giant "was among the oil and gas companies then-candidate [Donald] Trump promised to give a free hand in rulemaking" during the 2024 presidential election campaign.
Wyden then demanded that Cheniere provide him a copy of the closing letter the IRS sent to the firm following its review of the alternative fuel tax credit claim; a list of each carrier, complete with the carrier's length and displacement, that Cheniere has designated as a "motorboat"; and an explanation for "how $370 million in alternative fuel costs was calculated for the periods 2018 to 2024."
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Democratic Lawmakers Demand Probe Into DHS Warrantless Location Tracking
“Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medical conditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time."
Mar 03, 2026
Over 70 Democratic US lawmakers on Tuesday demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans' location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement—which critics say violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unwarranted search and seizure.
In a letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, 72 congressional Democrats led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) wrote, "Public contracting documents indicate that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently resumed buying Americans’ location data from a shady data broker" after the agency "ended a previous program to purchase Americans’ cellphone location data in 2023, following an investigation by your office and scrutiny from Congress."
"Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medical conditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time," the lawmakers' letter states. "It is for that reason that ordinarily, the government must obtain a warrant from a judge in order to demand such data from phone or technology companies."
While the Fourth Amendment generally prohibits the government from searching or obtaining Americans' private information without a warrant, federal agencies have circumvented the proscription by buying sensitive personal data from private brokers.
"Public reports indicate that ICE has resumed its location data purchases, even though DHS has yet to adopt all of the recommendations from your prior review," the lawmakers noted in their letter.
The letter continues:
ICE issued a no-bid contract to the surveillance company PenLink in 2025, which included licenses for its location tracking product, Webloc, according to press reports. Webloc was developed by the controversial surveillance company Cobwebs Technologies, which was combined with Nebraska-based PenLink as part of a $200 million private equity deal in 2023. Cobwebs gained notoriety when Meta banned the company in 2021, as part of a crackdown on surveillance mercenaries after detecting the company’s customers targeting activists, opposition politicians, and government officials in Hong Kong and Mexico.
ICE is now stonewalling congressional oversight into its purchase of location data. Sen. Wyden’s office requested a briefing from ICE soon after this contract was revealed in the press, in October, which was scheduled in December, for February 10, 2026. One day before that briefing was to take place, ICE canceled it with no explanation and without any offer to reschedule.
"Given DHS’ failure to adopt a policy for the use of commercial data, coupled with ICE awarding a no-bid contract to a shady data broker that is likely violating federal law, we urge you to open another investigation into the purchase," the lawmakers wrote.
The letter asks:
- Whether ICE and other DHS components are purchasing illegally obtained location data about Americans;
- If so, why does DHS not have policies in place to prevent taxpayer dollars from going to contractors that have invaded Americans’ privacy in violation of federal law;
- How ICE and other DHS components have used location data and whether they have used it to investigate Americans for engaging in constitutionally protected activities, including protesting or monitoring ICE operations;
- Whether ICE and other DHS components are auditing employee access to commercial location data to identify likely patterns of abuse; and
- Why has DHS still not adopted a policy for the use of commercial location data, as you recommended in 2023?
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently explained, ICE has spent $5 million on Webloc and Tangles, another location and social media surveillance product made by PenLink.
According to EFF:
Webloc gathers the locations of millions of phones by gathering data from mobile data brokers and linking it together with other information about users. Tangles is a social media surveillance tool which combines web scraping with access to social media application programming interfaces. These tools are able to build a dossier on anyone who has a public social media account. Tangles is able to link together a person’s posting history, posts, and comments containing keywords, location history, tags, social graph, and photos with those of their friends and family. PenLink then sells this information to law enforcement, allowing law enforcement to avoid the need for a warrant. This means ICE can look up historic and current locations of many people all across the US without ever having to get a warrant.
There have been several attempts to solidify restrictions on government purchase of Americans' personal data in recent years, most notably the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act (FANFSA), which failed to pass.
Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement Act, which would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act but is also intended to protect Americans from warrantless spying, including by closing the data broker loophole that lets law enforcement buy their way around the Fourth Amendment.
Also last month, Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) led 13 Democratic lawmakers who sent a separate letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seeking answers about ICE's use of PenLink surveillance technology "designed to collect and analyze cellphone location data across entire neighborhoods."
"Mass surveillance of entire communities or city blocks raises serious questions about data privacy and potential violations of civil liberties," Brown wrote.
"Americans should be able to trust their government to uphold the Constitution and respect fundamental rights," she added. "Instead, DHS appears to be engaging in broad surveillance practices to monitor entire communities, violating Americans’ fundamental civil rights and civil liberties to punish dissent and advance the president's cruel and unconstitutional mass deportation agenda."
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Wyden Presses DEA for Answers About Drug-Trafficking Probe Targeting Epstein and 14 Associates
"I’m convinced there’s a mess of financial crimes running throughout the Epstein story, and a lot of other people who were directly involved are still walking free," said the senator.
Feb 27, 2026
US Sen. Ron Wyden has given the Drug Enforcement Administration two weeks to provide key information on a secretive, long-running investigation into potential drug trafficking and money laundering by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and 14 co-conspirators.
The Oregon Democrat wrote to DEA Administrator Terrance Cole asking for a fully unredacted version of a 69-page memo from 2015 that was prepared by the director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Fusion Center, a specialized Department of Justice (DOJ) unit that President Donald Trump shut down last year.
A heavily redacted version of the memo was included in the Epstein files that were released last month and referred to an OCDETF probe nicknamed "Chain Reaction."
The investigation had been opened in 2010, according to the document, and was still active at the time the memo was drafted. Epstein's 14 co-conspirators, all of whom had their names blacked out in the file release, were being investigated for "illegitimate wire transfers which are tied to illicit drug and/or prostitution activities occurring in the US Virgin Islands and New York City."
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the release of files related to Epstein's sex trafficking operation, requires that redactions are used to protect the identities of victims, "not members of a criminal sex trafficking organization," Wyden wrote in his letter.
“The fact that Epstein was under investigation by [OCDETF] suggests that there was ample evidence indicating that Epstein was engaged in heavy drug trafficking and prostitution as part of cross-border criminal conspiracy. This is incredibly disturbing and raises serious questions as to how this investigation by the DEA was handled,” Wyden wrote.
“Since Epstein and his 14 co-conspirators were never charged by the DOJ for drug trafficking or financial crimes, I am concerned that the DEA and DOJ during the first Trump administration moved to terminate this investigation in order to protect pedophiles," he continued. "I am also concerned that the excessive redactions of this memorandum for operation ‘Chain Reaction’ go well beyond the intent of the Epstein Files Transparency Act."
In a statement on social media Friday, the senator said the Senate Finance Committee, of which he is the ranking member, needs "to know the results" of the OCDETF's investigation.
"Did it result in any charges being brought against the targets? Why did it end, and when? Did the first Trump administration squash it?" he asked.
This document is proof that it’s essential to keep following the money. I’m convinced there’s a mess of financial crimes running throughout the Epstein story, and a lot of other people who were directly involved are still walking free. That’s unacceptable.
— Senator Ron Wyden (@wyden.senate.gov) February 27, 2026 at 10:15 AM
"This is a big one," Wyden said of the redacted memo.
Wyden has led efforts to get to the bottom of financial secrets regarding Epstein's sex trafficking and other criminal operations. Last summer he drew attention to Suspicious Activity Reports that were filed with the US Department of the Treasury, including information on more than 4,725 wire transfers involving Epstein's bank accounts, totaling $1.5 billion in value.
The redacted memo in the Epstein files, he said, "is proof that it’s essential to keep following the money."
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Senate GOP Kills Bill That Would've Reversed $10 Billion Trump Corporate Tax Break
Sen. Ron Wyden called the tax giveaway "indefensible at a time when so many Americans are getting battered by inflation and barely staying afloat."
Feb 10, 2026
Nearly all US Senate Republicans on Tuesday voted to block a resolution that would have reversed a Trump administration regulatory change set to give some of the country's richest companies a $10.3 billion tax break.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution was spearheaded by Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Angus King (I-Maine). The vote on whether to advance it was 47-51. The only Republican to vote in favor was the other Mainer, Susan Collins, who just confirmed she is running for another term, despite two strong Democratic challengers.
In a statement after the vote, Wyden tied the target of his resolution—an Internal Revenue Service guidance undermining the corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT)—to the sweeping budget package that GOP lawmakers passed and President Donald Trump signed last summer, which also featured significant tax breaks for the rich.
"The ink is barely dry on the megabill Trump and Republicans passed to give $1 trillion in new tax breaks to giant corporations, and now his Treasury Department is throwing another $10 billion handout to the most profitable corporations in America," Wyden said.
"The pattern we're seeing is that the Trump administration gives big corporations and ultrawealthy donors whatever tax benefits they want the second they walk through the door at the Treasury Department, but that doesn't mean the Senate has to allow this giveaway to happen," he stressed. "Stuffing $10 billion into the coffers of corporations that are already raking in enormous profits is indefensible at a time when so many Americans are getting battered by inflation and barely staying afloat."
King similarly declared that "it's downright unfair to give billions in tax relief to America's most successful corporations when Maine people are struggling to afford their prescription drugs, childcare, and groceries." He described their resolution as "a commonsense step toward a fairer tax policy that prioritizes people over profits and levels the playing field."
Although the defeat was predictable, economic justice advocates lambasted Senate Republicans for killing the resolution.
Americans for Tax Fairness executive director David Kass said in a statement that "after passing historic tax giveaways for billionaires and big business through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA), blowing up the deficit, and cutting billions from critical healthcare and nutrition programs to pay for it, Trump and his GOP allies in the Senate are taking every opportunity to ensure economic elites can avoid paying their fair share."
"This guidance would effectively circumvent Congress and create numerous opportunities for corporate tax evasion while increasing the deficit and national debt, thus creating more imbalance in a tax code that already favors the wealthy and large corporations," Kass said. "Sen. Wyden is right to lead the charge to stop this guidance—average Americans should not be forced to subsidize some of the most profitable companies on Earth."
Like the Senate, the House of Representatives is also narrowly controlled by the GOP. Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, noted in a Tuesday blog post that "even if lawmakers of both parties had sufficient backbone to retake the legislative power that the executive branch has usurped, President Trump would veto such a bill."
"But as a matter of educating lawmakers and the public, the recently rejected measure was a success given that tax legislation (such as this resolution) up for a vote in Congress usually gets an official budget score from Congress' revenue estimators at the Joint Committee on Taxation," he wrote. "And in this case, that reveals that this unilateral corporate tax cut from the Trump administration will cost $10 billion over a decade unless it is reversed."
"The Senate's failure to ratify Wyden's resolution may be only the opening salvo for members of Congress who want to retake the power given them under the Constitution to make tax law," Gardner suggested. "The regulation in question is not the first, and surely not the last, attempt by President Trump to unilaterally cut corporate taxes."
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Resolution Aims to Undo ‘Hidden’ $10 Billion Trump Tax Giveaway to Massive Corporations
"Congress must not accept this unjustifiable, $10.3 billion giveaway," said the office of Sen. Ron Wyden, who is leading the repeal effort.
Feb 10, 2026
The Republican-controlled US Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on a Democratic resolution aimed at overturning a major tax giveaway to large corporations that the Trump administration quietly implemented last year without congressional approval.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution is led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. In a memo released ahead of Tuesday's vote, Wyden's office noted that the Trump administration's regulatory assault on the Biden-era corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) is expected to hand corporations and private equity firms more than $10 billion in tax breaks.
"This tax break is hidden inside new guidance, IRS Notice 2025-28," Wyden's office observed. "The notice makes changes to the rules governing how corporate giants and private equity firms can count income coming from partnerships they own, essentially giving those corporations a 'choose-your-own-tax-rate' adventure."
The CAMT, approved under the Inflation Reduction Act in an effort to combat corporate tax avoidance, requires highly profitable US companies to pay a tax of at least 15% on so-called book profits, the numbers that are reported to shareholders.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, said in a statement opposing the Trump administration's weakening of the CAMT that the Trump administration's guidance "offers corporations a 'rainbow of choices' in how they calculate their share of partnership book income for minimum tax purposes, several of which deviate significantly from the statutory intent of tying corporate minimum tax liability to book income rather than taxable income."
"The weakened rules, combined with the administration’s hollowing out of IRS enforcement (which make it less likely that corporations, complex partnerships, and their owners will pay what they legally owe) mean corporations are racking up large tax cuts that weren’t enacted by Congress," the group added. "The corporate minimum tax was initially estimated to raise $222 billion over ten years, but the actual revenue will likely be far lower in part due to special giveaways already granted by the administration."
Wyden's effort to overturn the Trump administration's unilateral erosion of the CAMT—which comes on top of the massive tax cuts for corporations that congressional Republicans approved last summer—also drew support from the conservative Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, whose president, Maya MacGuineas, said in a Tuesday statement that "we ought to be strengthening the tax base and improving tax enforcement, not opening up new loopholes that undermine the intent of the law."
"The current Congressional Review Act measure would help restore the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax to its intended design," said MacGuineas. "It would be a small first step—a baby step really—toward beginning to get our fiscal house in order."
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