Monte Mader

Leaks In The Dam

Exclusive: White House probes claims of missing Kennedy Center money in "MAGA blood feud"

President Trump has directed his White House counsel to examine explosive allegations dropped on him Friday in the Oval Office:

• Former Trump attorney Alina Habba told the president that another one of his top advisers — former Kennedy Center leader Ric Grenell — failed to deposit a multimillion-dollar donation that her billionaire husband made to the center a year ago, according to four senior administration officials and three insiders briefed on the controversy.
• Grenell denied the accusations as "absurd" and a "lie."
• Habba and her husband, Turhan Mildon, declined to comment through a spokesperson.

Why it matters:

The extraordinary row between the two top-tier presidential advisers and former allies provides a rare and acrimonious behind-the-scenes glimpse into the intersection of power, influence and money in Trump's Washington.

• The total value of the contribution in question: nearly $6 million, White House sources said Habba told them.
• A senior administration official cautioned that "these are only allegations. We don't know if they're true. This could be a misunderstanding."
• Said another: "POTUS doesn't want to deal with this. Of course, he's concerned. But if there is missing money, this is a big, big problem."

Just a few months ago, Grenell was friends with Mildon and Habba. But he was notably absent from their $10 million wedding that was attended by Trump world officials, power brokers and luminaries last month.

• "This is the ultimate MAGA blood feud," said one Trump world insider with knowledge of the conflict.

Zoom in:

The dispute grew out of a friendship between Grenell and Mildon, sources familiar with the conflict say. The men had mutual interests in Venezuela in early 2025, immediately after Trump returned to the White House.

• Grenell, as a Trump special envoy, was advocating for normalizing U.S. relations with Venezuela's leader at the time, Nicolas Maduro.
• Mildon, a Turkish national, had extensive Venezuelan business interests that were threatened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio's hardline pressure campaign targeting Maduro.

The intrigue:

In the spring of 2025, Grenell persuaded Mildon to include a multimillion-dollar Kennedy Center donation in a lump-sum $17.6 million payment for a business deal involving a U.S. company, Habba told the president and White House staffers, two sources said.

• Habba's attorneys plan to give the White House documentation — reviewed by Axios — to support her allegations about Grenell soliciting a Kennedy Center donation from Mildon to go to a private company in the spring of 2025.
• "The White House counsel has asked for documents and proof. None has come so far," a White House official said.

Grenell called the statements from Habba to Trump "Absurd. I've never asked for one cent to be sent somewhere else pretending it was for the Kennedy Center, and I've never received any payment from him at all. Make him give proof to what he is saying, not make these absurd allegations."

• When Habba initially leveled her accusations against Grenell, she said the total amount of the Kennedy Center contribution was $17 million, the sources said. But as she learned of the specifics from her husband, she said the amount of the contribution in question was $5.6 million.
• "This has been hard to track because numbers have changed," the White House official said.

After making his alleged contribution, Mildon never checked to see if it was deposited. He believed it had been credited because he was treated like a VIP donor at the Kennedy Center, where he met Habba in late 2025 before their whirlwind romance and marriage, those sources said.

Friction point:

Mildon and Habba, the sources said, discovered the issue after their business relationship frayed with Grenell, who lost an internal administration power struggle with Rubio that culminated in the U.S. seizing Maduro on Jan. 3 and taking him to New York City to face narcotics charges.

• In June, Maduro's successor, Delcy Rodriguez, issued an order revoking one of Mildon's company contracts to operate state-owned cement plants in Venezuela, the New York Times reported Monday. A source familiar with the situation told Axios this summer that her action was partly due to the U.S. government's prodding.
• Rodriguez then reversed herself, the Times reported, after learning of Mildon's new relationship with Habba because the Venezuelan leader believed Mildon therefore had Trump's backing.
• Amid the Times' reporting into Mildon's contract, Habba discovered that Mildon's supposed donation never made it to the Kennedy Center, the sources said.

Inside the room:

Habba then headed to the White House last Friday to tell the president about the situation.

• "Alina hit the roof" when her husband told her that he hadn't donated the money directly to the Kennedy Center, whose records indicate that Mildon actually owed a $270,000 pledged donation.
• There was no record of Mildon giving anything close to $5.6 million, officials said. Mildon on Tuesday paid the $270,000, records show, to the Kennedy Center.

In partial confirmation of Habba's story, Kennedy Center staff reported that late last year there was a search for Mildon's contribution — then thought to be $6 million — but that it couldn't be found, an official said.

• But Lisa Dale, who handled finances for the Kennedy Center then, said the only record in her books connected to Mildon showed he owed $270,000. "There was nothing about $6 million," she told Axios. "I would have heard about that."

Context:

Habba and Grenell trace their roots to Trump's first administration.

• Grenell was Trump's ambassador to Germany and then his acting director of national intelligence. Habba was Trump's private attorney and briefly was U.S. attorney in New Jersey during this term.

Between the lines:

The Kennedy Center has been an ongoing sore spot for Trump, beset by controversy over his efforts to put his name on the building and fundraising woes.

• If Habba's allegations of missing money are true, it could prove particularly galling to Trump, who views the center and its fundraising personally.
• Those who know the president's thinking say he is particularly disapproving of people who use his name or misuse positions he has given them. His dismissal Tuesday of Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle was the latest reminder of that.
• Two top Trump world figures being engaged in such a bitter feud adds to the complexity.
• "Nobody wants to get in the middle of Alina Habba and Ric Grenell going to war," one official said.

Kimmie's Burn Book

Daddy State Awareness Guide, Rule 6:

Total criminalization

If we're all guilty, then you can't hold me accountable without the risk of exposing your own culpability.

Kimberly Guilfoyle Allegedly Threatening White House Over Ouster

Kimberly Guilfoyle is threatening to bring the Trump family down with her following her shock ouster this week, insiders say.

The White House said Tuesday that Guilfoyle, 57, had been asked to resign as ambassador to Greece after claims that she threatened foreign officials, gave lobbyists privileged access, and tried to solicit payments for political favors.

But the former attorney and Fox News personality, who was previously engaged to the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., 48, has no plans to go quietly into the night.

Administration insiders claim Guilfoyle has been keeping a secret "burn book" on the first family and that she's now threatening to tell all when she returns to the U.S., the Daily Mail reports.

Those sources have apparently nicknamed her diary "The Devil Wears MAGA."

"Having her back in America would be a nightmare," one person familiar with the behind-the-scenes furor said.

"Kimberly knows where the bodies are buried. She knows the people, the secrets, the fights, the relationships," they went on. "Nobody wants an angry Kimberly back with nothing to lose."

Another insider told the Mail that "Kimberly knows everything" because she was "way inside that family and political operation for years."

A third added: "Keeping Kimberly happy keeps Kimberly quiet."

It is not clear at this stage what Guilfoyle's alleged diary may contain.

But its contents are apparently explosive enough that allies of the president set out on a desperate last-minute dash to save her job before she was effectively fired on Tuesday.

Her ouster comes after reports that Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were "extremely pissed off" by the snowballing claims of misconduct leveled against Guilfoyle over the past several weeks.

Before she took office, Guilfoyle allegedly asked a MAGA donor to pay off a $100,000 credit card bill in exchange for connecting him with officials who could help with his tax and legal troubles once she was confirmed, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

Those accusations came after the newspaper's earlier revelations that she told Greek officials during a formal dinner earlier this year that the U.S. could destabilize "any country we want."

She allegedly also used diplomatic engagements to lobby for a private Greek company and gave one of that firm's lobbyists privileged access to senior officials and foreign leaders.

The inspector general at the State Department, where Guilfoyle worked before her departure on Tuesday, has since opened an investigation into those and other allegations, including what's said to have been a hard-partying lifestyle during her diplomatic deployment.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the State Department for comment on this story.

The Usual Shit

The plutocrats talk shit about government waste, but their view is really: "Any tax money not going into my pocket is a waste."

These people are monumentally hypocritical leeches. They are exactly the parasites they spend billions trying to convince us we need to despise.

They came to Washington to dismantle government. Now, they’re profiting from it.

DOGE alumni have leveraged their government experience, raising at least half a billion dollars for firms spanning cyberwarfare, AI and data centers, a Post analysis found.

Last year, billionaire Elon Musk unleashed a small army of Silicon Valley techies to drain what he called the “swamp” of Washington — wielding the U.S. DOGE Service to slash at a bureaucracy they argued was bloated and corrupt.

But today, many of his former DOGE foot soldiers have leveraged their government stints to fuel private-sector ambitions: building companies that tap government largesse or that deploy knowledge they garnered during their brief tenures in Washington.

A Washington Post analysis found that roughly two dozen former DOGE staffers have parlayed their government experience into relevant private-sector jobs or investments — becoming founders, securing CEO positions or senior executive roles, amassing large stakes in start-ups looking to win government contracts or approvals, or taking the skills developed at DOGE to the private sector. Though several of the businesses are only months old, with little public activity, at least six DOGE alumni have registered on Sam.gov, a government contracting portal examined by The Post.

The migration of former staffers from DOGE — short for the Department of Government Efficiency — into the private sector has prompted a burst of funding for their businesses. Start-ups founded by, or with key investment from, DOGE alumni have raised at least half a billion dollars in funding, according to an analysis of government data, investor research platforms and venture capital funding disclosures, paired with lists of confirmed DOGE members compiled by The Post, the New York Times and ProPublica. They have built a cottage industry of ambitious but largely untested businesses, often helmed by inexperienced founders, sometimes drawing initial valuations in the billions of dollars.

Despite DOGE’s shaky track record on trimming the federal budget, the private sector has come to see experience with the group as a valuable commodity, said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a nonprofit-sponsored organization that advocates for government work to serve the public interest.

“They have enormous juice,” he said of ex-DOGE members, adding that they effectively combine two coveted power centers — Silicon Valley knowledge and government connections — leading to a dynamic where technologists with intimate, albeit limited knowledge of government functions and sometimes hyper-partisan viewpoints are in demand.

“The student has become the master,” Hauser said.

The start-ups include a host of firms focused on cybersecurity and defense technology, as well as ventures dedicated to helping businesses across America deploy artificial intelligence tools. Among the largest is Cathedral, an AI-enabled cybersecurity firm, founded by Gavin Kliger and Luke Farritor. Valued by investors at $1.4 billion, Cathedral aims to sell to both corporate America and government agencies, including the Pentagon, according to a person familiar with the business, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the firm has not made its operations public.

Kliger joined the Pentagon in 2025 and served as the Defense Department’s chief data officer until April 2026, according to his LinkedIn. He began fundraising for Cathedral by May. A Pentagon instruction issued in 2020, during the first Trump administration, said senior employees are barred from seeking government contracts for up to two years after serving. But fundraising for start-ups intending to seek government work would probably fall into a gray area, Hauser said.

Cathedral declined to comment. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

Farritor, who has since left the company but still owns shares and “remains close,” the person said, served in roles across the Energy Department, the Health and Human Services Department and the General Services Administration during DOGE’s initial six-month blitz.

The co-founders of Special, a start-up that aims to “transform critical American industries” through AI, said in a company announcement that its founders were “motivated to extend the ethos of our work at DOGE back into the private sector.”

Special did not respond to a request for comment.

A former senior government ethics official said the large investment garnered by ex-DOGE members exceeds any example of trading on government experience he’s previously seen. Before the second Trump administration, many DOGE members were relative unknowns in Silicon Valley and unlikely to draw major investment.

“It has the appearance that they found a new way to monetize government service that is far beyond anything lobbyists ever dreamed of,” said Norm Eisen, who served as a White House ethics lawyer during the Obama administration and chairs a group that has filed numerous lawsuits challenging DOGE and its authority.

The revolving door that rewards public service with private-sector windfalls is a long-running and oft-criticized facet of federal work. An entire industry of executives, advisers and K Street lobbyists has leveraged experience in government for profit.

But those former officials often bring deep subject-matter experience and long track records, far exceeding the months-long government tenures allowed for the many DOGE members serving as special government employees.

While DOGE faced widespread public disapproval and fell far short of Musk’s promised $2 trillion in cuts, alumni have pitched their government experience as an asset to investors, said four people familiar with the pitches from Cathedral and Special, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Some investors view the founders’ time working in the tight-knit, pressurized environment of DOGE as an asset, according to one of the people, who compared it to undergoing training in efficiency.

It’s “less about what they got done in the time they had” than the mindset they developed from being part of DOGE, the person said: Looking deeply into government, “what did they see about what could be built or fixed?”

As former DOGE officials have moved into the private sector, they have formed an increasingly interconnected business network, investing in and working with one another. Two of Cathedral’s board members, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire, are allies of President Donald Trump who helped advise DOGE.

“I believe DOGE will be looked back upon as a generationally important program, and the Cathedral founders were some of its most talented builders,” Maguire said in a text message. Andreessen Horowitz, which has also invested in Special, declined to comment.

Special — founded by former DOGE members Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox — has drawn investment from at least seven former DOGE staffers or associates, according to a post from Andreessen Horowitz.

One of its investors, Banner VC, was founded by former DOGE members Adam Ramada and Brooks Morgan. The venture capital firm has raised nearly $300 million to date, according to Crunchbase.

Representatives of Banner VC did not respond to requests for comment.

Blitz Industries, founded by former DOGE member Ethan Shaotran, is registered to bid for government contract awards on Sam.gov. A LinkedIn page for Shaotran says he is “Rapidly hiring!”

While some firms now helmed by DOGE alumni have existed for years, a Post analysis of investor-focused sites, including Crunchbase and Pitchbook, and fundraising data, including Crunchbase’s Heat Score, found that the companies began attracting more investment interest after their leaders’ time in DOGE, leaving them flush with capital.

After former DOGE member Stephen Ehikian was appointed CEO in September 2025 of C3 AI, an AI software company targeted to federal and private customers, its stock increased by about 20 percent in the following weeks. In December, the company announced that the Department of Health and Human Services had selected C3 to power AI enterprise software, in what Ehikian called in a news release “a major step toward a modern, AI-ready architecture for national health data.”

C3 did not respond to a request for comment.

Others were able to pivot their careers post-DOGE, taking on high-level roles in areas where they had little experience.

After Tyler Hassen, a former DOGE staffer appointed to the Department of Interior, was named CEO of a cleaning supply company in June, the business announced a shift to focus on providing infrastructure and permitting for data center buildouts. It soon unveiled a new name, Zone Frontier, and announced a $100 million public offering. Alex Spiro, who has served as Musk’s attorney, was appointed as the chairman of its board of directors.

Hassen, a former oil executive without tech experience before joining DOGE, said in an earlier interview with The Post that he was inspired by his time working with AI in the government to bring that experience to the private sector.

Some DOGE alumni have found themselves working in spaces dependent on government approvals. Unlike other DOGE members, Elie Mishory joined the cost-cutting group with prior government experience, including nearly two years in senior roles at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to his LinkedIn profile. In June, Mishory took a job as chief regulatory and legal affairs officer for Novig, a sports prediction market company backed by start-up incubator Y Combinator and venture capital firm Lux Capital, which is also a Cathedral investor.

Novig’s regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was touted in an August news release as “among the fastest in CFTC history.” In the release, Mishory said the certification was “approved in record time.”

Novig did not respond to a request for comment.

For some investors, however, the DOGE connection carries a potential downside: It could draw scrutiny if Democrats regain control of Congress, according to two of the people familiar with DOGE investment pitches.

Investors have advised some of the founders to prepare for a potential midterm sweep by seeking to avoid the appearance of impropriety or hyper-partisanship, according to the two people.

“Everything has been done fairly, cleanly, openly, transparently and assuming that anyone could be the poster child … for congressional ethics targets,” said one of the people.

Hauser, of the Revolving Door Project, said government ethics rules were designed around long-tenured employees, without anticipating the outcomes of the temporary work arrangements afforded to many in DOGE. Though short, these stints allowed them to learn intimate details about the agencies in which they served.

“Washington is kind of vulnerable to this because a lot of our ethics laws were built in the 1970s [and] haven’t been updated since,” Hauser said. “There’s going to need to be a serial reconsideration of ethics laws.”

The Guilfoyle Thing

And now we get to wonder about the deal-making. Instead of just firing her ass like a normal administration would do, I'm betting there's a negotiation going on.

What does Guilfoyle have in her pocket in terms of shit she can spill on Don Jr (eg), and will that be enough to get Rubio to put up some bullshit cover?

Daddy State Awareness Guide, Rule 6:

Total criminalization.

If we're all guilty, then you can't hold me accountable without the risk of exposing your own culpability.

AP source: Trump, Rubio weigh firing US envoy to Greece after mounting reports of improper conduct

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are considering firing U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle after a series of reports alleging she has engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens.

A senior U.S. official said Sunday that Trump and Rubio are “extremely pissed off” by Guilfoyle’s reported conduct and would likely decide on what action to take this week after Monday’s Columbus Day holiday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Rubio had been particularly angry, not least because he visited Athens just last week and Guilfoyle attended most, if not all, of his events and greeted him on his arrival with a bear hug as the allegations swirled.

In a series of stories, The Wall Street Journal has reported questionable conduct by Guilfoyle, including an alleged threat to a host country official, accepting improper gifts and services and offering to use her influence inside the administration in return for the payment of a large credit card bill.

Guilfoyle has not addressed the reports directly, but in a statement released late Sunday, her lawyers denied she had done anything wrong and claimed that the money she was seeking from the Trump donor was payment for services — public appearances and speaking engagements that predate her ambassadorial nomination — that had not been paid.

The lawyers, David Schwartz and Jesse Binnall, also rejected allegations of impropriety related to Guilfoyle’s travel on private planes, saying that before every such trip she “sought, obtained and followed State Department guidance and followed the Department’s travel regulations,” they said.

“Ambassador Guilfoyle has served, and will continue to serve, with integrity, honor and distinction. We are evaluating all available legal remedies to collect this debt and any other potential causes of action,” the lawyers said.

After defending Guilfoyle following the first report, Rubio has declined to comment publicly on the growing allegations. On Wednesday, Rubio said: “Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here.”

But after another report appeared late Wednesday, Rubio on Thursday before leaving Athens berated journalists for asking about the allegations, saying he didn’t know if they were true and that he would not respond if he could not confirm them.

“You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel. It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me. That’s not the way we do things,” Rubio said at the foot of his plane as Guilfoyle, who was there to see him depart, looked on.

The official said that Rubio had grown increasingly frustrated as the reports multiplied.

A second U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said the State Department’s inspector general is looking into the allegations, which first began surfacing in the Journal late last month and have since multiplied.

The second official could not say if a formal IG probe had begun. Inspectors general often conduct informal inquiries into complaints against staffers and many times those inquiries do not result in a full-on investigation, which can result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.

The State Department has declined to comment on a potential IG investigation.

IG investigation? We have IGs?

The top two Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees, Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, as well as the ranking member on the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform, Robert Garcia, D-Calif., have already called for an investigation into Guilfoyle.

Since late September, the Journal has detailed numerous accounts of questionable conduct by Guilfoyle. Its first report said that she had told guests at a reception that the U.S. could undermine the Greek government if it chose to, promoted the business interests of one particular Greek construction and energy company, and allowed its lobbyist into private diplomatic meetings.

While Rubio was in Athens, the Journal reported — citing text messages — that Guilfoyle had asked a Trump donor and supporter to pay a $100,000 credit card bill just before her confirmation hearing, promising him access to administration officials if he did.

The Journal then reported that Guilfoyle had been enraged about not being invited to a Greek-themed event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year and demanded to attend while boasting about luxury travel to France with energy company executives.

Another report, from the British tabloid The Daily Mail, said that Guilfoyle had alienated staff at the U.S. Embassy in Athens and had pushed the bounds of behavior appropriate for the top representative of the U.S. government to Greece.

Guilfoyle is a former Fox News Channel host and California prosecutor who was once engaged to Trump’s son Donald Jr.

War Profiteering

Donald J Trump is a fuckin' crook.

Trump’s oil investments have gained millions during Iran war as his accounts keep trading

Key Points

• President Donald Trump’s nine largest disclosed oil and gas holdings gained an estimated $1.5 million to $4.4 million from the eve of the Iran war through Aug. 31, according to a CNBC analysis.
• Trump’s accounts have continued buying and selling energy stocks including Exxon and Chevron during the conflict, making trades on days when his decisions jolted oil markets.
• CNBC found no evidence Trump directed the trades or had advance knowledge. The White House says independent managers control the portfolio, and the Trump Organization has said Trump’s asset managers use automated trading.

Trump’s oil and gas holdings gained as the Iran war drove up energy prices
As President Donald Trump’s wartime directives in Iran repeatedly jolted global markets, his personal energy portfolio surged.

Throughout the first six months of fighting, Trump’s investment accounts continued aggressively trading energy stocks. Between the eve of the war, on Feb. 27, and Aug. 31, his nine largest oil and gas holdings gained approximately $1.5 million to $4.4 million, according to a CNBC analysis of his annual financial disclosure, quarterly corporate reports and FactSet market data.

CNBC identified the nine holdings by aggregating Trump’s year-end 2025 positions in the same oil and gas companies across his investment accounts and ranking them by their disclosed value. They are:

• Chevron
• ConocoPhillips
• Exxon Mobil
• Kinder Morgan
• Marathon Petroleum
• Occidental Petroleum
• Phillips 66
• Valero Energy
• Williams Companies

CNBC calculated the range of gains using the minimum and maximum values Trump disclosed for each holding and their share-price changes from market close on Feb. 27 through market close on Aug. 31.

Trump’s accounts reported purchases and at least 23 sales involving the nine companies through June 29, which is the most recent date Trump has disclosed any trades. Because the filings do not disclose exact share counts, execution prices or which shares were sold, the estimates do not represent realized profits or Trump’s precise current holdings.

CNBC found no evidence that Trump or his investment managers traded on advance knowledge of his decisions, that his financial interests influenced policy, or that he directed any specific transaction.

“Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence, or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle told CNBC in response to questions about Trump’s energy investments. “All investment decisions are made entirely by independent managers. There are no conflicts of interest.”

The Trump Organization did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. The Trump Organization previously told CNBC that outside financial institutions control individual investment decisions and that Trump’s assets are held in fully discretionary accounts that rely heavily on automated strategies.

Still, the filings are the latest example of Trump holding a multimillion-dollar financial stake in an industry directly affected by his administration’s military and diplomatic decisions.

“When a president can move a market through official decisions and personally benefit from the result, the public is left wondering where national policy ends and private financial interest begins,” said Donald Sherman, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal-leaning government ethics watchdog.

Trump made profits from his oil-industry holdings as he publicly blasted Exxon and Chevron by name for “making too much money based on a shortage.”

“I don’t like it,” Trump told reporters Aug. 3, days after they reported soaring second-quarter profits. “Chevron, too much money. ExxonMobil, too much money ... They’re going to give some of that back to the public and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.”

Despite Trump’s misgivings and his accounts having outside managers, ethics experts say outsourcing daily trading doesn’t erase the underlying conflict of interest.

“A discretionary account is a smokescreen, not a blind trust,” said Scott Greytak, deputy executive director of Transparency International U.S., a nonpartisan, nonprofit anti-corruption organization.

“Someone else might be executing the trades, but [Trump] still knows he is heavily invested in energy,” Greytak told CNBC. “Trump likely knows where his money is parked and would still see the upside when his administration’s actions send those [energy] stocks climbing.”

Moving the market

Trump’s accounts repeatedly traded energy stocks on days when wartime developments sent markets swinging.

On March 2, the first trading day after the initial U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, Trump’s accounts reported purchases of shares in eight major oil and gas companies, including buying between $100,001 and $250,000 of shares in Exxon.

Trump entered the war with between $3.2 million and $12.5 million invested in Exxon, according to his financial disclosures. By market close on Aug. 31, the rise in Exxon’s share price had added an estimated $176,000 to $690,000 to that initial stake, before accounting for later trades, based on a CNBC analysis of Trump’s holdings and share prices.

“Everything that has happened with oil has been directly tied to the largest oil supply disruption in history from the war,” said Pavel Molchanov, a senior investment strategist who covers the energy sector at Raymond James & Associates. “Oil is a global commodity, so no one is immune from price increases.”

Three weeks after the March 2 purchases, on March 23, Trump postponed threatened strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure before the market opened, citing “very good and productive conversations.”

Brent crude plunged nearly 11% on the prospect of de-escalation. That day, Trump’s accounts reported 16 oil and gas stock buys and no sales, worth a combined approximately $163,000 to $570,000, including shares of Exxon, Chevron and Phillips 66.

“Trump’s work to get a ceasefire directly played into investment decisions his accounts were pursuing and benefiting for the president,” Greytak told CNBC.

The timing of sales is equally striking, watchdogs say.

On April 7, a Trump investment account reported selling between $500,001 and $1 million in Exxon shares. A little more than two and a half hours after the market closed, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran.

Exxon opened more than 6% lower the next morning. If the shares sold had been held since before the war, CNBC estimates that, in addition to averting the next day’s loss, they had gained roughly $35,000 to $70,000 since Feb. 27. The disclosures do not identify the purchase dates for the shares that were sold, so the estimate does not represent the transaction’s actual profit.

In all, Trump’s accounts reported at least 23 sales involving the nine companies through June 29, the latest transaction date disclosed. If those shares had been held since before the war, CNBC estimates they would have been worth $36,000 to $95,000 more when sold than on Feb. 27 — a fraction of the larger paper gains Trump continued to hold.

“The optics of avoiding thousands in losses right before a market-moving announcement are impossible to defend,” Sherman told CNBC. “The selling is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Democratic staff on the congressional Joint Economic Committee estimated in an August report that Trump’s broader oil and gas portfolio had increased in value by as much as $15.5 million this year.

“Donald Trump held millions in oil and gas company stocks at the end of 2025. Today, those stocks are worth as much as $15.5 million more,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote on X following the report. “What happened? He started a war with Iran this year — and sent oil and gas stocks soaring.”

Trump’s energy holdings are part of broader financial interests related to the Middle East, including tens of millions of dollars in income from a booming foreign real-estate licensing business.

Several congressional Democrats have raised the prospect of investigating Trump’s stock trading and his family’s business ventures if they win control of either chamber of Congress in November’s midterm election.

On Aug. 27, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., opened an investigation into 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, alleging the firm benefited from Trump administration contracts, funding and regulatory actions. Trump Jr. told The Guardian the allegations were “unsubstantiated talking points.”

Pressure at the pump

The war’s disruptions have delivered a windfall for oil companies while driving up costs for consumers.

The nine energy companies in Trump’s portfolio reported a combined $47.6 billion in second-quarter profit, triple the $15.9 billion they earned a year earlier, according to a CNBC analysis of company filings.

Exxon and Chevron, Trump’s two largest energy holdings, reported a combined $26.6 billion in profit, up from $9.6 billion a year earlier as higher oil prices and refining margins lifted earnings. Marathon, Phillips 66 and Valero, three refiners in his portfolio, collectively reported another $12.7 billion in combined second-quarter profit.

The forces driving those profits — and raising costs for consumers — could persist. On Exxon’s July 31 earnings call, CEO Darren Woods said refining capacity relative to demand was the tightest he had seen outside the pandemic. “These high margins lead to high product prices,” he said.

Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier struck a similar note Aug. 5 in his company’s earnings call, saying refining conditions would remain strong “even if peace broke out tomorrow.”

That could prove politically toxic in the midterm election, based on polling.

Affordability issues such as gas prices are dominating the midterm campaign: 48% of Americans rank the cost of living as their top voting issue, while 70% disapprove of Trump’s handling of it, according to an early August Reuters/Ipsos poll of 4,505 general population adults aged 18 or older, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

Even after a recent pullback, U.S. crude traded around $91 on Friday, 36% above prewar levels. Gas averaged $4.09 nationally, with the Labor Day weekend expected to be the most expensive ever for gas, according to AAA.

Since the war began, Americans have paid an extra $71.5 billion for gasoline, or about $604 per household, according to an analysis of federal and AAA data by congressional Democratic staff on the Joint Economic Committee.

“When the war ends, oil prices — and likely energy stocks — should fall,” Raymond James’ Molchanov told CNBC. “But when that happens is ultimately a political decision.”

Udai & Kusai

Companies Backed by Trump Sons Have Scored Over $6 Billion in Pentagon Contracts: Analysis

“Let’s call this what it is: blatant corruption and an abuse of power.”

An analysis published on Wednesday by ABC News estimated that companies backed financially by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have so far scored more than $6 billion in contracts from the US Department of Defense.

As ABC documented, many of the investments into the defense firms come through 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm founded by pro-Trump donors in 2023 that brought Trump Jr. in as a partner in 2024.

The most recent example came earlier this week, when President Donald Trump announced a multibillion-dollar funding agreement with AI defense firm Anduril Industries, more than a year after 1789 Capital claimed a $2.5 billion stake in the company.

The ABC report also pointed to Florida-based drone parts manufacturer Unusual Machines securing a deal to supply motors for the US Army last year, mere months after the company named Trump Jr. as an adviser.

Drone company Powerus, which lists both Trump sons as investors, won a purchase order from the US Air Force earlier this year for an undisclosed amount.

Neither Unusual Machines nor Powerus had previously received government contracts prior to getting investments from the Trump brothers.

Vulcan Elements, a rare earths magnet startup that has received funding from 1789 Capital, last year received a $620 million loan from the Pentagon.

Foundation Future Industries, a robotics startup that named Eric Trump as its chief strategy adviser, was awarded a $24 million Pentagon contract in April. Shortly after the deal was announced, the Trump son boasted to Fox Business that it would help the US “win” the race with China to build battle-ready robots.

A spokesperson for the Trump brothers told ABC that they “are experienced business leaders who have built and invested in businesses across a wide range of industries for decades, long before their father first ran for public office.”

“Their investment decisions are based solely on their independent business judgment and personal convictions,” the spokesperson said, “and they do not seek to influence, direct, or participate in any government decision, procurement, award, regulatory action, or other governmental process. Attempts to portray their ordinary investment activities as improper are a deliberate distortion of the facts.”

Critics of the Trump family, however, were quick to accuse the two Trump brothers of engaging in unprecedented corruption.

“Donald Trump and his sons have raked in BILLIONS while Americans struggle to make ends meet,” wrote the social media account for Democrats in the US House of Representatives. “Let’s call this what it is: blatant corruption and an abuse of power.”

Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, said congressional Democrats should use the power of the purse to defund the Trump family’s self-dealing.

“Corruption of this kind is why the Democrats need to freeze or cut back US defense spending if they take control of Congress,” O’Brien wrote in a social media post. “If you actually care about US security, funding this is destructive.”

Mark Jacob, former metro editor at the Chicago Tribune, wrote that Pentagon contracts for the Trump-linked firms were “not a coincidence” but “deep corruption that never would have been tolerated before a convicted felon took over the White House.”

Sarah Longwell, a former Republican pollster who left the party over its embrace of Trump, said the deals show that “the president of the United States and his family are insanely, unprecedentedly corrupt.”

Rich

89% of Americans - all Americans polled - believe corruption is widespread in the government.

Sarah Matthews

Today's Trump Scam Explained

Rich

It's Always A Grift

"I don't care if it's not reasonable. That's what I want, and if you don't give it to me, I'm gonna set fire to the couch."

Government by tantrum.

Buying Influence

As long as practically all Republicans (and too many Democrats) are willing to sit on their asses and either take the money, or just watch the parade go by, this kind of obvious corruption will continue.

FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval for Billion-Dollar Deals

Expensive Gifts:

Despite regulating broadcast media, FCC commissioners have accepted pricey tickets to the Kennedy Center honors gala from CBS or its parent company, now Paramount.

Conflict of Interest:

Ethics experts say that by accepting the gifts, FCC commissioners are compromising the agency’s impartiality and should avoid acting on Paramount’s pending merger.

Mixing Business and Pleasure:

After voting for a Paramount merger, Commissioner Olivia Trusty took tickets worth over $12,000. FCC Chair Brendan Carr has accepted tickets worth at least $63,000.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

The rich and famous who filed into the Kennedy Center’s opera house in December were there to enjoy one of the nation’s most exclusive celebrations of the performing arts: the center’s annual honors gala.

The black-tie event, hosted by President Donald Trump, prioritized tickets to people who donated more than $75,000 to the center. This year, it feted Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone, the legendary glam rock band Kiss and the Grammy Award-winning disco pioneer Gloria Gaynor.

Among the attendees that evening were two lower-profile government officials whose regulatory decisions had been crucial to the future of the gala’s broadcast sponsor, CBS, and its parent company, Paramount.

Five months earlier, Federal Communications Commissioner Olivia Trusty cast a decisive vote approving Paramount’s historic $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Now, the commissioner and a guest enjoyed the star-studded celebration thanks to tickets gifted to her by Paramount worth more than $12,000, according to ethics disclosure records obtained by ProPublica.

The other commissioner who approved the merger watched from a prized perch. FCC Chair Brendan Carr and his wife sat in a private skybox with Paramount CEO David Ellison and other executives from Paramount and CBS. Such seats sold for $125,000 a ticket, according to Kennedy Center guidelines.

It’s unclear if Paramount gifted Carr the premium seats because the FCC has yet to make public his financial disclosure for last year.

However, past disclosures show Carr and Trusty are among seven FCC commissioners who have accepted Kennedy gala tickets from CBS or its parent company over the last decade. Ethics experts told ProPublica this poses a blatant conflict of interest since the commission regulates the network. Carr’s previous financial statements show he has accepted tickets at least seven times since his 2017 appointment, totaling over $63,000 in gifts.

Last December’s ceremony attended by Trusty and Carr took place as Paramount was launching a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, a move that would later result in a merger agreement that requires FCC approval.

Federal ethics rules ban employees from taking gifts from any entity that does business with, is regulated by or seeks official action from their agency.

Four ethics experts told ProPublica that by accepting the premium tickets Trusty and Carr compromised the FCC’s impartiality and should not take part in any upcoming decision on the merger.

“There’s no way that any top federal regulator should ever, ever accept a gift from a regulated company with interests their work will foreseeably affect,” said Walter Shaub, who led the federal Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017. “The appearance of taking gifts like that is terrible. What’s at stake is nothing less than the public’s trust in government.”

Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department, and Securities and Exchange Commission during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said the commissioners who accepted tickets cannot participate in this matter without damaging the integrity of the government’s decision-making process.

“This is shocking. Pretty disturbing, that’s what I would say. I just don’t understand what they were thinking,” said Canter, who now works as chief counsel for ethics and corruption at the nonpartisan government watchdog group Democracy Defenders Fund.

The FCC’s review of the merger is one of the final hurdles facing a historic $110 billion consolidation of two of the five largest film studios in Hollywood. The deal would unite Paramount Skydance with Warner Bros., bringing under the control of one company Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming services; CBS and CNN; and scores of other major broadcast channels, cable networks, and digital platforms.

The new megacorporation, which could reshape how millions will access news, movies, sports and video games, faces fierce opposition from inside and outside Hollywood. More than 5,000 actors, producers and entertainment workers — including stars such as Robert De Niro, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix and Glenn Close — signed an open letter decrying how the consolidation would eliminate jobs and compromise “the integrity, independence, and diversity of our industry.”

On Monday, California, New York and 10 other Democratic states filed a lawsuit seeking to block the merger under federal and state anti-monopoly laws.

American and international regulators are evaluating the deal for its potential national security implications and impacts to consumers worldwide. Last week, the British government signaled it planned to investigate whether the new entertainment titan that would emerge from the union would unfairly stifle competition. The FCC’s ongoing review includes examining the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds backing the deal, including from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The FCC usually has five commissioners — all appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve five-year terms — but the agency currently has only three. Any vote by the full commission would likely be decided by Republicans Carr and Trusty over Democrat Anna Gomez. Gomez was not at the December 2025 show but has accepted tickets from Paramount in the past. Because the FCC requires a three-commissioner quorum for a vote, any recusal could leave the panel unable to decide on the merger. Carr could decide to ask staff to approve the deal rather than bring it to a commission vote, but the ethics experts said he should recuse himself from any decisions affecting the Paramount merger.

The experts warned the commissioners’ gifts might become central in legal challenges and said the Justice Department should investigate potential violations of federal rules or laws.

Neither Carr nor Trusty responded to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Gomez said in a statement that she followed agency advice when she attended the event in 2023 and 2024. Her statement did not elaborate or otherwise address why taking gifts from Paramount did not pose a conflict of interest.

An FCC spokesperson said agency ethics officers have for years cleared commissioner appearances, finding it consistent with ethics law.

“FCC Chairs and officials have attended the same event, in the same ways, consistently from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration to the Obama Administration,” the FCC said in a statement. “There has been no change in recent years.”

Shaub called the justification outrageous.

“It’s no excuse to say that you took the gift because everyone else was doing it or that your agency has had a bad habit of indulging in gift taking for a long time,” Shaub said. “That kind of explanation doesn’t work for school children, and it sure as hell doesn’t work for government officials who are supposed to have better judgment than a fifth grader.”

Despite their oversight role, FCC members have long enjoyed a night out at the Kennedy Center courtesy of CBS or its parent company. Seven of the 10 commissioners who served since 2016 accepted tickets worth more than $260,000, according to a ProPublica analysis of ethics disclosures.

Carr’s predecessor, Jessica Rosenworcel, who was appointed FCC chair by President Joe Biden and stepped down in January 2025, attended regularly.

Rosenworcel and several other former commissioners who accepted the tickets did not respond to requests for comment. The one commissioner who didn’t accept a single gift, Nathan Simington, said he received the Kennedy Center invites from CBS and Paramount but turned them down because it “wasn’t my cup of tea.”

A review of 10 years of disclosures shows commissioners accepted paid trips from various sponsors to appear at banquets and speak at conferences. Some of those gifts came from other media companies regulated by the FCC. NBCUniversal, ABC-Disney and Fox News, for instance, paid for commissioners to attend White House Correspondents’ Association dinners, records show. The total value of the combined gifts topped $308,000. But the vast majority came from CBS and its parent company.

Melissa Zukerman, Paramount’s chief communications officer, said it was a decades-long “CBS practice to invite government officials from both parties” to the Kennedy Center show. She didn’t address why the practice continued after new ownership took over last year, the purpose of the gifts or whether the tickets posed a conflict of interest.

Carr, who joined the FCC as a staffer in 2012 and rose to become the agency’s general counsel, was appointed to serve as a commissioner by Trump during his first term. Since then, Carr has accepted tickets annually, except when the 2020 event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to his public disclosures.

Carr did not respond to an email request from ProPublica for his latest ethics report, which would indicate whether Paramount also paid for him to attend last December’s gala. The FCC referred us to the Office of Government Ethics, which told us that the FCC had not yet provided the disclosure. The FCC did not respond to our subsequent requests for the record.

A 2009 Office of Government Ethics memo gave federal employees the right to attend Kennedy Center events but explicitly said officials cannot accept free attendance “offered by persons other than the Kennedy Center and its trustees, officers and employees.” In 2016, the ethics office tightened its gift requirements, warning officials to avoid any appearance “of loss of impartiality.”

There is an exemption to the gift rules that allows free entry to gatherings that are widely attended and paid for by third parties, but only if certain conditions are met.

The event must “further agency programs or operations,” and the agency’s interest in an official attending must outweigh “concern that the employee may be, or may appear to be, improperly influenced in the performance of official duties,” according to the federal rules.

As an example, the Office of Government Ethics said an industry-wide seminar attended by more than 100 people could be allowed if the employee’s participation would be in the agency’s interest. But those attending should “represent a range of persons interested in a given matter” and the event must provide a “structured opportunity” to exchange ideas and views among invitees.

The office clarified in a 2007 memo that performing arts presentations would not count even if they, like the honors gala, have a reception before or afterward at which officials can mingle with other attendees.

Canter, the former White House ethics lawyer, said it would be a “stretch” for the FCC to argue the exemptions apply to the Kennedy Center’s annual show, where famous musicians perform and celebrities laud those who are being honored. “It’s not what we would consider a widely attended gathering,” she said.

Kedric Payne, general counsel and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, noted that federal rules also require agencies to weigh the market value of the attendance, its relevance to the agency, any sensitive pending matters involving the donor and whether accepting free tickets creates an appearance of preferential treatment.

“The ethics rules are designed to prevent this exact situation,” he said, adding that it is an “obvious conflict of interest” for an official to “accept expensive gifts from anyone with decisions pending before the agency. This matters because it makes the public question whether official decisions are free from the improper influence of wealthy special interests.”

An FCC official familiar with the legal guidance given to the commissioners said they were told the event met the criteria for the “widely attended gathering” exception. (The source was not authorized to talk publicly about agency legal discussions.)

Shaub, the former Office of Government Ethics head, disagreed, saying it would be “hard to understand what compelling interest the FCC could think it had in letting its commissioners” attend the gala.

“What possible reason could have outweighed the obvious ethics concerns?” he asked.

Federal rules require written authorization for an official to accept free entry to a widely attended gathering. The FCC did not respond to our requests to provide the authorizations for the Paramount tickets or say who authorized them. Two senior ethics officials at the agency, Kathleen Fulp and Lauren Northrop, did not respond to requests for comment.

While December’s event came at a particularly sensitive time for Paramount and the FCC, it wasn’t the first.

More than a year earlier, in September 2024, Paramount had filed paperwork seeking the commission’s approval for its merger with Skydance Media. A month later, the FCC launched an investigation of CBS after a conservative group complained about a “60 Minutes” interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Trump later filed a lawsuit alleging the network deceptively edited the interview — an accusation CBS denied.

Then in November, less than two weeks after his election victory, Trump declared he would appoint Carr as FCC chair. Almost immediately, Carr accused CBS of biased election coverage and said it would be an obstacle to approving the Paramount-Skydance merger.

That December, Carr and three other commissioners — Rosenworcel, Gomez and Geoffrey Starks — accepted Kennedy Center gala tickets from Paramount worth a combined $48,156.

On Jan. 16, 2025, just days before Rosenworcel stepped down from the commission, she announced the agency was dismissing the election complaint against CBS. She and Gomez called the outcome a victory for the First Amendment.

But days later, Carr, the incoming FCC chair, reopened the investigation.

To resolve Trump’s lawsuit, CBS agreed to pay the president $16 million, a decision criticized by legal experts who decried Trump’s claims as baseless.

Two days after Trump posted on social media that he had received the settlement money, the FCC took up the Paramount-Skydance merger. To meet Carr’s demands, Paramount agreed to appoint an independent ombudsperson who would evaluate claims of bias. The company also pledged to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

By then, Starks and Simington had unexpectedly stepped down from the commission. Trusty, a Trump appointee, had been confirmed by the Senate the previous month.

Trusty and Carr voted in favor of the merger. Gomez voted against, blasting the approval for requiring “never-before-seen forms of government control over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment.”

Experts said that while Trusty had no conflict yet, Carr and Gomez did. The fact that Gomez voted against Paramount did not mean she didn’t face a conflict under the rules, Shaub said.

Federal rules only require those who accept improper gifts to make a prompt reimbursement, but Shaub and the other experts said Carr and Gomez should have abstained from the vote.

“If you repay the face value of the ticket, the gift rules don’t require you to recuse — though common sense and any kind of conscience might lead you to recuse voluntarily for the good of the country,” Shaub said. “But if you refuse to repay the donor, I don’t see how anything short of recusal could remotely remediate the problem.”

With the Paramount-Skydance merger greenlit by the FCC, Ellison, the new company’s CEO, then set his sights on acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery.

Warner at first rebuffed Paramount’s overtures and on Dec. 5 — two days before the Kennedy Center gala — accepted a bid from Netflix to buy its studio and streaming assets. Ellison responded by making numerous calls to administration officials and had a long talk with Trump, according to The Wall Street Journal.

On the night of the gala, Trump told reporters the Netflix deal “could be a problem” and that he planned to get directly involved with the regulatory approval. Inside the Kennedy Center, Carr and his wife sat with Ellison in an exclusive skybox, Bloomberg reported. (Gomez said in her statement to ProPublica that she declined Paramount’s “invitation because of serious concerns about press independence connected to conditions Paramount agreed to as part of its merger transaction before the FCC.”)

Hours after the gala ended, Paramount announced it was launching its hostile takeover bid of Warner Bros. Discovery.

About three months later, Carr publicly endorsed Paramount over Netflix on CNBC, promising swift approval.

If one or more commissioners choose to abstain from a merger vote because of ethical concerns, what would happen next is unclear. Under federal conflict of interest rules, an agency designee could theoretically permit commissioners to vote after considering several factors, including “the difficulty of reassigning the matter,” the nature of the relationship between the commissioners and Paramount, and the “effect that resolution of the matter would have upon the financial interests” of the firm.

Carr could bypass a full commission vote entirely, as he did with the recent acquisition of Tegna by Nexstar Media Group. In that case, Carr delegated authority to FCC staff to approve the takeover.

But any decision on the Paramount deal — whether by the full commission or by staff at the direction of the chair — is likely to be challenged.

Richard Painter, a former White House ethics attorney in the administration of George W. Bush, said while courts often defer to the government’s judgment, they also can become skeptical if a regulatory agency is shown to have violated ethics rules.

“A judge may very well say that the merger decision of the FCC isn’t worth jack because the process was corrupted,” he said.

What is Corruption

That Global Cabal Thing

As MAGA and QAnon and Wingnut Media spent all those years squawking about The Global Cabal Of Elites, and The Bilderbergs, and The Rothschilds, and and and - clear-headed observers had to have noticed they were building up to something nefarious.

And while I was kinda right, I was too willing to dismiss too much of it as simple demagoguery, so of course, I was not as clear-headed as I thought I was.

Well guess what. They weren't fantasizing about it, and they weren't trying to point us away from it - they were telling us what we would eventually be expected to accept, and even embrace.

Trump’s Board of Peace plans to grant itself sweeping immunity, documents show

Draft resolution seeks to shield board members and security forces from potential prosecution for work in Gaza

The UN-sanctioned Board of Peace announced by Donald Trump earlier this year to rule Gaza is planning a sweeping grant of legal immunity for itself, according to a draft of the resolution obtained by the Guardian. The draft language would also let the organization obtain public property in Gaza “free of charge”.

The four-page resolution, labeled “sensitive but unclassified”, extends broad protections to every member of the Board of Peace and its administrative affiliate, the office of the high representative (OHR), as well as to the Palestinian technocrats, international military forces and nonresident contractors lined up to perform work in Gaza. It defines legal processes from which they would have immunity as “any arrest, detention or legal proceedings in the courts or other entities in Gaza”.

It is unclear if the document is attempting to relieve the Board of Peace and its affiliates from prosecution in international courts, in addition to potential claims in Gaza.

The Board of Peace’s chair, Donald Trump, would have the right to waive someone’s legal immunity, pending majority support from his peace board, the June 2026 draft resolution states.

The seven-member “executive board” that leads the Board of Peace includes Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; special envoy Steve Witkoff; the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles; and his national security adviser, Marco Rubio. Though countries have pledged billions, most have not yet transferred funds to support its work in Gaza and no major contracts have been issued.

US President Donald Trump holds a signing founding charter at the "Board of Peace" meeting during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 22, 2026.
What is Trump’s Board of Peace and who is involved?

The Board of Peace did not answer specific questions about the draft resolution, but an official said in a statement: “There is no operative resolution or immunity framework of the kind described in your questions … Any suggestion that this process is designed to create lawlessness or impunity is wrong, misleading and gets the issue entirely backwards.”

The official added that “the suggestion that the President will have a role in establishing or waiving immunity in Gaza [is] categorically false”, and that “the Board will ensure all personnel, contractors, and participating entities follow applicable law and operate under clear rules, oversight, and accountability mechanisms”. The official did not explain what the oversight and accountability would be.

Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian diplomat serving as the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, has been meeting in Cairo this week with Palestinian administrators selected by the Board of Peace to govern Gaza. The discussions have focused on refining the framework for the group’s work in the territory, according to one person familiar with the agenda. The prospective immunity resolution titled “RESOLUTION NO 2026/3” has not been shared with the Palestinian cohort, the person said.

‘No external oversight’

Six lawyers specializing in US contracting law and international armed conflict reviewed the draft resolution for the Guardian.

If the resolution goes into force, they said, it is unclear how Board of Peace officials, soldiers, and contractors would be held accountable if there are shootings or accidents that affect Gaza residents, or even how the group might resolve routine disputes over business or land use there.

US-led reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan were often plagued by controversies of corruption or cases of civilian deaths or abuse at the hands of American contractors, including those working for Blackwater and KBR, who have since faced litigation in US courts. Any reconstruction effort in Gaza could face similar challenges.

“It looks like an attempt to exempt the board, and all of its personnel, from accountability for potential legal violations,” said Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, an expert in litigating international humanitarian law in Israeli, American and foreign courts.

Several lawyers, including Omer-Man, pointed to the specific risks associated with section 7 of the draft resolution, entitled “Third Party Liability/Claims”, which lays out a system for the Board of Peace to consider and adjudicate any claims for “property loss or damage and for personal injury, illness or death” arising from its work in Gaza.

“They are basically saying there’s no external oversight, including applicable international law regarding occupation,” said Noura Erakat, an international law professor at Rutgers University. “It’s creating a legal system unto itself.”

Contractors have also pressed for clarity about the legal protections afforded for potential work in Gaza, where the Trump-backed peace board has solicited bids for rubble removal, security work and a vast reconstruction effort envisaged there. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has described transforming the coastal territory into a site of luxury resorts, hi-tech cities and regional business hubs.

Laws governing international contractors and military forces are usually outlined in “status of forces agreements” between countries, but there is no such document for Gaza. American contractors can be subject to US law for certain crimes even if they operate overseas.

“I would think any company would want a very clear legal framework,” said Doug Brooks, president emeritus of the International Stability Operations Association. “There are liability issues any serious American company would want to be clear about.”

Israeli officials don’t want to negotiate a status of forces agreement in Gaza because Israel doesn’t want to recognize Gaza as a state, one American security contractor said.

“It’s pretty important for political and legal cover and insurance,” the contractor said. “It gives the people of Gaza clarity and comfort around how they’ll be treated and dealt with by contractors they may engage with.”

Free facilities for the Board of Peace

The final section of the Board of Peace’s draft resolution, entitled “Premises of the Board of Peace, OHR, and ISF”, says that the group “shall be provided, free of charge, public premises and facilities needed for the accomplishment of the missions in Gaza”.

Legal experts said that this singular phrase could open the door to illegal confiscation of Palestinian property. It’s not clear which group – Israel, Hamas or the Palestinian Authority – would be responsible for “providing” the Board of Peace with facilities, and under what terms.

The Board of Peace plans to build a base for an international military force, as well as logistics hubs to power its operations there, according to contractors involved in the process. The international force is intended to assist with disarming Hamas, which is a crucial step in Trump’s peace plan. Israel has refused to proceed with steps outlined by a November 2025 ceasefire agreement if Hamas continues to bear arms.

“By unilaterally declaring the power to seize Palestinian land, property and buildings for their own use without consent, compensation or readdress, the Board of Peace is taking a page out of Israel’s repressive playbook,” said Omar Shakir, executive director at Dawn, a non-profit dedicated to investigating the impacts of US foreign policy in the Middle East. “Far from signaling an end to genocide, apartheid and occupation, this document suggests entrenching some of its ugliest signature characteristics. This risks not only complicity, but direct perpetration of grave abuses.”

Several attorneys raised questions about the Board of Peace’s legal authority to assume control of public facilities and premises.

“If they don’t have a status of forces agreement with Israel, then it’s not clear what the board’s legal authority would be,” said Brad Parker, associate director of policy at the Center for Constitutional Rights. CCR attorneys have represented victims in US litigation against Blackwater and other American security contractors for alleged abuses in Iraq.

The UN security council authorized the Board of Peace to oversee the administration of Gaza until 31 December 2027. The UN charter affords its diplomats and organizations specific legal protections for work conducted on behalf of UN missions abroad. Language in the Board of Peace’s draft resolution appears to draw on those existing frameworks, which include protections against the arrest or detention of UN diplomats during official work, as well as the seizure of UN property. It’s unclear if the Board of Peace could draw on the UN immunities for its own protection.

The draft says that the resolution will go into force upon Mladenov’s signature. The Board of Peace did not respond to questions about what additional parties, if any, would sign its sweeping resolution.

“How valuable is this document if they are the only ones signing it?” Shakir said.

Erika

The Slush Fund

I call it that because that's what it is, though it may be more accurate to call it The Brown Shirt Fund.

And I call Trump a dirty, thieving, racist asshole because that's what he is.

He's stealing from us - directly, and out in the open. He's treating the US Treasury like it's his own piggy bank. The Treasury - you know, the place where they keep all the tax money everybody loves to bitch about having to pay.

And don't start thinking Trump won't put himself first in line to receive compensation for having been "so badly mistreated by the government."

I'll say it again:

Trump is a whiny-butt little pussy who does nothing but bitch about how unfair it is that he's expected to play by the rules like everybody else.

TRUMP IS STEALING OUR MONEY

AND PUTTING IT IN HIS OWN POCKET,

OR HANDING IT TO DIRECTLY

TO HIS CRIMINAL FRIENDS

‘They were pissed’: Republican lawmakers were ‘screaming’ at Todd Blanche during anti-weaponization fund briefing

Ted Cruz said Trump could face a “full-on revolt in the Senate” over the controversial fund

Republican senators erupted behind closed doors this week as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche tried to defend the Trump administration’s controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, according to a prominent GOP lawmaker.

It was a meeting that Sen. Ted Cruz later described on his podcast as one of the “roughest” he has witnessed during his time in Congress.

“Fiery does not begin to cut it,” Cruz said Friday on his podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz.” “My guess is there’re probably 45 senators in the room, at least half of them were blasting the attorney general, and they were pissed.”

The “anti-weaponization” fund was announced Monday after Trump agreed to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. Cruz said many GOP lawmakers argued the proposal would be politically impossible to defend because it appeared President Donald Trump had “cut a deal with himself,” NBC News reported.

“There were multiple senators yelling at the attorney general, saying this feels like self-dealing,” Cruz said. “I got to tell you, the Republican senators were pissed – people were the entire meeting. They were screaming at the acting attorney general, and he was trying to lay out the legal basis,” Cruz said. Cruz added that “the legal basis is quite sound.”

Cruz said Senate Republicans were on the verge of rebelling over the proposal. Had the Senate moved forward Thursday night with a planned series of votes on the ICE and Border Patrol funding package, he said, roughly half of the Republican caucus was prepared to join Democrats in supporting amendments to restrict the fund.

He discussed “the degree of the jailbreak of Republicans who were bolting, who were saying we’re going to vote with the Democrats.”

Cruz warned the administration could face a major showdown when lawmakers return to Washington if changes are not made to modify the fund.

“If the administration doesn’t fix this,” he said, “they’ve got a full-on revolt in the Senate.”

In response to Cruz’s comments, a White House official told The Independent they appreciated the conversation and feedback and will have additional conversations as needed. The Independent has also contacted the DOJ for comment.

Concerns about the fund have continued to spread among Republicans.

The White House “put themselves in a bad spot. It wasn’t Congress that did it. Congress has had no input. Might be part of the problem,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., criticized it as a “payout pot for punks,” pointing to the possibility that people convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot could potentially receive compensation.

Democrats have also sharply condemned the proposal. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wrote in a letter to Blanche on Wednesday that “the notion of the federal government doling out compensation to rioters” is “absurd and offensive.”

On Thursday, Reps. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., introduced bipartisan legislation that would prohibit federal funds from being used for the program.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday, making clear that he wasn’t backing down on the fund.

“I could have settled my case…for an absolute fortune,” he wrote. “Instead, I am helping others, who were so badly abused.”

The Senate is scheduled to return June 1, which is the same day Trump has said he wants to sign the ICE and Border Patrol funding bill into law.