The Dictatorship

For Reid Hoffman and E. Jean Carroll, Trump’s DOJ looks like the Department of Payback

Published

1 month ago

May 30, 2026

May. 29, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT

The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Illinois has been in the news a lot lately — and for some disturbing reasons.

The Justice Department has reportedly opened an inquiry into a Chicago-based nonprofit backed by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and is considering possible charges of money laundering. According to The New York Times, the inquiry is focused, at least for now, on Hoffman’s nonprofit, American Future Republic, which helped fund certain legal expenses in E. Jean Carroll’s civil cases against President Donald Trump. The U.S. attorney’s office has said it has not opened a criminal investigation into Carrollthe New York writer who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s, although the reporting makes clear that prosecutors are examining the accuracy of statements made during the civil litigation about outside funding.

At this point, even if Carroll is not formally the subject of the investigation, the criminal inquiry looks less like an ordinary money-laundering or perjury investigation than an effort to use federal prosecutorial power to revisit a credibility fight Trump already lost in court.

The lead prosecutor for these investigations is Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros. His office made headlines recently over its prosecution of protesters who came to be known as the “Broadview Six.” The cases collapsed amid extraordinary revelations about prosecutors’ conduct before the grand jury.

At this point, even if Carroll is not formally the subject of the investigation, the criminal inquiry looks less like an ordinary money-laundering or perjury investigation than an effort to use federal prosecutorial power to revisit a credibility fight Trump already lost in court.

The office first downgraded from felony charges to misdemeanors and also reduced the number of defendants; last week it dismissed charges against the remaining individuals indicted last October after protesting outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Illinois. Boutros said in court proceedings that prosecutors’ conduct during the grand jury process led to the dismissal.

The conduct was stunning: Prosecutors reportedly interacted with grand jurors outside normal proceedings, improperly vouched for witnesses, and even removed or sidelined grand jurors viewed as skeptical of the government’s case. At one point, the judge, who noted the conduct was redacted from grand jury transcripts she was shownremarked that she had never seen such conduct before.

For any U.S. attorney’s office — and especially for one with Chicago’s history and reputation — this was a major institutional embarrassment.

Boutros’ office could be on the verge of another high-profile debacle, even if Carroll is not currently a formal target of the inquiry and the focus remains on American Future Republic.

To be clear, a false statement under oath can matter. But the particulars here make a potential case against Carroll look exceptionally thin — and proving she knowingly lied under oath would be particularly tough.

Carroll testified in 2022 that no one else was paying her legal fees. Her lawyers later disclosed that some expenses were funded by American Future Republic. The funding issue came out before trial, and Trump’s lawyers seized on it. The trial judge barred Trump’s team from introducing that evidence, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit later upheld that ruling. The appellate court noted that Carroll had plausibly represented that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding and that there was no evidence she personally secured the funding, interacted with the funder or even knew the funder’s political position.

Simply put, this was not hidden fraud discovered after the fact.

In 2023, a New York City jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after finding Trump liable for sexually abusing her in a department store in 1996 and for later defaming her. In 2024, another jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages. The president has denied wrongdoing and appealed the awards.

Simply put, this was not hidden fraud discovered after the fact; it was disclosed before trial, litigated before the trial court and addressed by the 2nd Circuit.

Ordinarily, federal prosecutors do not convert into criminal investigations collateral credibility fights from civil litigation, especially ones already known to the trial and appellate courts. Then again, the DOJ is not typically led by a lawyer who previously was the president’s personal attorney.

Legally, the Carroll and Broadview Six cases are unrelated. But they point in the same institutional direction: federal prosecutorial power being used not simply to enforce law but to relitigate political conflict through the criminal process.

The broader pattern is hard to ignore because the targets are not random. Consider: James Comey, the former FBI director whom Trump fired and has long blamed for the Russia investigation, has been indicted twice by Trump’s DOJ. Letitia James, the New York attorney general who won the civil fraud case against Trump, was indicted on mortgage-related charges. After that case was dismissedthe DOJ tried — and failed — to secure a new indictment. John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser turned public critic, had his home and office searched by the FBIand he was later indicted under the Espionage Act.

There are more: Sen. Adam Schiff, one of Trump’s central impeachment adversaries, became the subject of a DOJ mortgage-fraud inquiry. Another prominent Trump critic, former Rep. Eric Swalwell, was referred to the DOJ over mortgage and tax allegations. Lisa Cook is facing a DOJ mortgage-fraud probe as Trump tries to remove her from the Federal Reserveand the Fed received grand jury subpoenas amid an investigation of its then-chairman, Jerome Powellafter Trump publicly attacked the Fed’s renovation project and repeatedly criticized Powell over interest rates.

The through line is unmistakable: federal investigative power being steered again and again toward people who have investigated Trump, sued him, impeached him, contradicted him, restrained him or became symbols of opposition to him.

Patrick Fitzgerald, the former U.S. attorney in Chicago, once embodied a very different prosecutorial culture in the office that’s leading the investigation into American Future Republic. He once told the media about his job: “One day I read that I was a Republican hack. Another day I read that I was a Democratic hack. And the only thing I did between those two nights was sleep.”

That was the old ideal of federal prosecution: Both sides might accuse you of bias, but neither side could plausibly claim you were using the machinery of federal law enforcement as a political instrument.

Today, Fitzgerald — who prosecuted Republicans and Democrats and was respected precisely because he seemed fundamentally indifferent to partisan outcome — represents Comey against the federal government. In seeking the dismissal of Comey’s indictment, Fitzgerald and co-counsel wrote that “President Trump ordered the Department of Justice to prosecute Mr. Comey because of personal spite” and that the indictment arose from “multiple glaring constitutional violations and an egregious abuse of power by the federal government.”

All of these prosecutions suggest the culture Fitzgerald represented — restraint, proportionality, respect for the grand jury, reluctance to turn marginal civil-litigation disputes into criminal cases — is no longer guaranteed, even in the offices most famous for it.

Duncan Levin is a criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor who serves as a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and is a frequent contributor to MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Could feds’ changes put more people with disabilities in institutions?

Published

6 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Could feds’ changes put more people with disabilities in institutions?

WASHINGTON (AP) — For decades, disabled people have fought for their rights to go to school and live alongside peers without disabilities — rights that some fear could be losing ground under the Trump administration.

Last month, the Department of Education announced it would shift oversight of special education to the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose comments on the limits of disabilities such as autism have drawn sharp rebukes from advocates and lawmakers.

Meanwhile, after a White House push to police homelessnessthe Department of Justice released guidance that lowered the barrier to institutionalizing any person with a disability.

Taken together, the actions signal a worrying return to a reality where people with disabilities are pushed to the margins of society, advocates said.

“It’s a direct, frontal assault on the rights of people with disabilities to live their lives the way that people who are nondisabled live their lives,” said Selene Almazan, legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. “I can’t imagine that as a country, that would be something that we would agree we should go back to.”

Whitman Althaus, 12, who has autism and a neurological disorder called apraxia, poses for a portrait at his home Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Luckey, Ohio. (AP Photo/Nic Antaya)

The move away from confining people with disabilities

Since the 1960s, legislation and court decisions have expanded supports and protections for people with disabilities to go to school with nondisabled peers and to live and work in their communities. Before that, people with mental illnesses or developmental and intellectual disabilities were largely confined to institutions.

Advocates have pushed back on what is known as the “medical model,” where an individual’s disability is viewed as a defect to be cured. Instead, under a “social model” of disability, differences can be accommodated and supported, as people with and without disabilities learn and work alongside each other.

Families and advocates have warned that moving special education to a health department marks a return to the medical model. They also have been angered by Kennedy’s attempts to link vaccines to autismgoing against decades of research that show no such link, and his framing of autism as a debilitating disease.

Kennedy’s comments last year, where he said children with autism would never write a poempay taxes or hold a job, raised questions about how he would oversee an agency meant to help students develop those skills. Kennedy later said he was referring to people with ” severe autism ″ or those who are nonverbal.

“Many of the things he said autistic people will never do, (special education) is in charge of making sure students with disabilities have the opportunity to do,” said Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “Will he execute that faithfully, or does he consider disabled students a lost cause until we find some medical cure?”

The Supreme Court weighs in on disabilities

In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that segregating disabled people who are otherwise able to live in their community with proper supports was a form of discrimination. The Olmstead v. L.C. decision led to requirements that government agencies provide disability services in the most integrated setting possible — in mainstream schools, homes and workplaces.

But in a memo issued in June, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel upended that guidance. It argued that neither the Americans with Disabilities Act nor Section 504, two major disability rights laws, requires states to provide services in the most mainstream setting. While the memo does not change the law, it signals how federal agencies may interpret and enforce civil rights issues related to the topic. It could embolden states or school districts to decline to support people with disabilities in mainstream environments.

The White House has already acted on a similar philosophy. Last year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on homelessness that endorsed civil commitment, where a court orders individuals into involuntary hospitalization or treatment programs. Trump directed HHS to reduce barriers to institutionalizing people with mental illnesses.

In its memo, the Justice Department acknowledged its interpretation of the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision is “out of step” with the common understanding. If a state starts to provide services in institutional settings, legal challenges likely would follow, the department said.

The Republican administration’s steps fit a worldview in which the government has no obligation to support people with disabilities, said Claudia Center, legal director at Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

“It’s dark, and it’s awful,” Center said. “And I think it’s contrary to the majority view in our country. … It’s out of touch with where our society is.”

The application that Whitman Althaus, 12, who has autism and a neurological disorder called apraxia, uses to communicate is seen on a phone Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Luckey, Ohio. (AP Photo/Nic Antaya)

Families say their kids thrive in mainstream classes

The moves have created a deep sense of uncertainty for students with disabilities.

Lindsey Althaus says home and community-based services in northwest Ohio have been instrumental to her family. Her 12-year-old son, Whitman, has autism and a neurological disorder called apraxia, in which the brain struggles to tell muscles how to move to form words or perform other motor skills. For some of his school career, with proper support services, Whitman was able to spend much of his school day in a classroom that included kids without disabilities.

Through a Medicaid waiver program, Althaus pays her mother to care for Whitman in her absence. That allows him to spend time out in the community with his grandmother while Althaus and her husband are working or away with their daughter.

Under the Justice Department’s new interpretation of Olmsted, states would have fewer obligations to fund and support those programs. Kennedy, in testimony to lawmakers on Capitol Hill earlier this year, criticized similar programs as subject to fraud.

“We want to be able to have him in the community,” said Althaus, who works as a disability rights advocate. “It’s just starting to feel like Whitman’s not going to be welcome anymore. We’re going back to this: You’re either perfect, or you’re not in the light.”

For many students with disabilities, schools are where they receive the majority of support services and where they are integrated among their peers. Before Magda Nakassis’s 8-year-old son, who is autistic and nonverbal, started public school in Maryland, his preschool experience had largely been defined by being kicked out of things, she said.

In school, Nakassis said, she found teachers and staff members who understood her son’s needs and told her to stop apologizing for them. A program at his school called Fantastic Friends teaches mainstream fifth graders about autism and they spend recesses with children in the autism program. Every year, Nakassis said, there is a waitlist to be a Fantastic Friend.

Nakassis said that it has been difficult to see the ways autism in particular has become politicized. Every child is entitled to a public education in this country, Nakassis said, and special education is a response to the fact that some children have differences that require additional support.

Regardless of his diagnosis, his right to an education is not a medical issue, she said, but rather a question of equity and access in a society that often pushes disabled people to the margins.

“There are lots of kids like him out there, and I sometimes wonder, ‘what did we use to do?’” Nakassis said. “I can’t believe it was better.”

___

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The Dictatorship

Trump filing shows he took in about $1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year

Published

14 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump filing shows he took in about $1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Tuesday shows, locking in profits while his investors were socked with losses.

Mere startups when he took the oath of office, the new ventures have now eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took him decades to accumulate. Fueling their rise were billionaire investors and Trump’s own move to quash a federal crackdown on the industry.

Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products, including “governance tokens,” according to the required annual disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics. It also showed another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.

Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales.

Trump also took in millions last year from selling Trump-branded Bibles, sneakers and other small items in another unprecedented move for the presidency. The sale of Trump-branded watches alone brought in $4.7 million.

The 927-page disclosure form paints a stark, if incomplete picture of the massive growth of the president’s wealth since taking office last January through a web of business interests — many of which have benefited from the policy moves of Trump’s own government. Trump has insisted that his sons direct his finances but the arrangement rejects the conflict of interest protections that his recent predecessors in office had instituted.

Forbes estimates Trump’s net worth at $6 billion, up from $2.3 billion in 2024.

The Trump business is growing abroad

The rise of crypto relative to Trump’s property is especially noteworthy because he first rode to office boasting of his property wins. It’s also remarkable because that mainstay business also boomed last year. Trump took in tens of millions in fees from a flurry of new hotel, resort and condo deals overseas that amounts to the biggest property expansion ever in the century since the family business was founded.

Many of those countries were negotiating with the U.S. over tariffs, military aid and other important matters while the family business was striking the deals.

A property in the United Arab Emirates generated $10.4 million for the Trump business last year. One in Saudi Arabia being built by a real estate developer close to the ruling family sent the president’s company $9 million. And one in Bucharest, Romania, and another in Qatar sent him $5 million each.

One of his prominent domestic properties, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, notched big growth last year, too.

Sign up for Morning Wire: Our flagship newsletter breaks down the biggest headlines of the day.

Trump took in $77 million from the property, a 50% jump from the year earlier when he was just another citizen, as heads of state and business people flocked to it in his new term.

The disclosure report doesn’t give profit figures, just revenue, so it’s impossible to know how much he is earning.

Trump is now the billion-dollar crypto man

Trump said Wednesday that most of his gains last year came from the stock market and he’s just riding along with everyone else.

“We’re all profiting,” he said. “I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”

But crypto was clearly the big revenue generator last year in part due his own moves since taking office — pushing policies friendly to the industry and reversing a Biden administration regulatory crackdown.

The regulators are still worried. Before Trump’s World Liberty began selling “governance tokens,” they issued warnings about this new kind of crypto asset, saying that unlike stocks, the tokens offer no ownership stake in the issuing company, just voting power on certain corporate policies, and are difficult to value.

Buyers pounced anyway, including a Chinese billionaire who spent $75 million on the tokens and $200 million on the souvenir coins. In February last year, a federal lawsuit charging him with duping investors was paused before being settled for a $10 million fine.

The billionaire, Justin Sun, has repeatedly denied his spending on Trump businesses had anything to do with his federal case, while World Liberty has dismissed the notion of a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, investors have seen the value of their Trump-tied holdings drop significantly.

The price of World Liberty tokens has fallen 80% since they started trading in September. And the Trump souvenir coins that spiked to more than $74 in the days after launching in January 2025 now sell for $1.68.

The White House says Trump only acts in the public interest

The White House has repeatedly said Trump put his business in a trust managed by his sons and is not involved in its decisions and that there are no ethics issues to discuss.

“Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people.”

The Trump umbrella company, the Trump Organization, has said its deals overseas were with private companies, not with governments.

Still, it is difficult to know what is truly private in countries ruled by authoritarians, royal families and one-party governments.

For a new Trump resort in Vietnam, the report shows Trump took in $5 million last year after the ruling Communist Party sent its deputy prime minister to sign off on the deal and, according to The New York Times, pushed farmers off the land to make way for the construction.

Whether the deals played any role in changing U.S. policies in ways these countries sought is nearly impossible to know, but the countries did get what they wanted.

Vietnam got tariff relief. Qatar got access to advanced U.S. technology previously off limits, and Saudi Arabia got U.S. fighter jets it had coveted for years.

___

AP White House reporter Josh Boak contributed from Washington.

The Dictatorship

‘REGIME CHANGE’ sold 300,000 copies…

Published

14 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

It turns out readers still want to learn more about President Donald Trump after all.

“Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” the l atest book on the Trump presidencywritten by political journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, has sold more than 300,000 copies in its opening week, according to publisher Simon & Schuster.

They’re the kind of sales that numerous works about Trump reached during his first term, but had been rare during his second term. Publishers had speculated that the public had tired of Trump books, believing there was little left to know.

The total figures include preorders, print book sales, ebooks, and e-audiobooks and orders that have yet to be fulfilled because of demand, the publishing house said. Simon & Schuster said the book is into its third hard copy printing, with 200,000 copies on order, after it sold out quickly in bookstores and on Amazon. It’s the best first-week clip of any hardcover nonfiction book in 2026.

The book covers the first 14 months of Trump’s second presidency and takes readers inside the West Wing, White House residence and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, aboard Air Force One and on foreign trips with the president.

Trump, who has a long history with Haberman from her days covering him as a New York City business and society figure, has trashed the book as “mostly made up.” Haberman and Swan are now New York Times reporters.

Their manuscript depicts meticulous details of Trump’s military decisions, how he’s wielded the power of the Justice Department against his political opponents, his conversations with other power players, and the time and attention he’s devoted to remaking the aesthetics and structure of the White House.

The book spells out a thesis that Trump himself believes: Had he not lost the 2020 election, he would not be as powerful in his second term as he is now — emboldening him to trample norms, dismantle established institutions and push the limits of presidential power.

Haberman and Swan have been featured regularly across news talk shows promoting the book and sharing details of their reporting, including a sit-down with Trump in which he boasted about being compared to some of history’s great villains.

Sean Manning, vice president and publisher at Simon & Schuster, said the book “has entered the national conversation” and will hold up as “a work of historic importance.”