The Dictatorship
The Trump administration won’t tell a federal court that the ‘slush fund’ is dead
Last Friday afternoon, the Justice Department submitted a much-anticipated filing in an ongoing case over President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund. The judge gave the administration a choice: If the fund is dead, as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an appearance before a congressional subcommittee, the DOJ could file sworn declarations from officials to that effect.
But if those officials — Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who signed the settlement agreement creating the fund — declined to swear the fund would never exist, Judge Leonie Brinkema vowed to issue a scheduling order, as federal judges do to advance any ongoing case.
In other words, Brinkema wanted officials to swear the fund was dead and never coming back — or the case would continue.
Friday’s filing made clear there would be no declarations. Instead, the DOJ insisted any sworn statements from Blanche and team were unnecessary because, before Congress, in court filings and in open court, the Trump administration has repeatedly said it would not move forward with the fund.
The DOJ also made another, more provocative argument: By requesting declarations from two Cabinet members and a presidential appointee, Brinkema overstepped her authority. In keeping with separation of powers principles, it argued, neither she nor any other district judge can compel testimony from executive branch officials.
What’s curious about that argument is that it belies the DOJ’s own conduct in recent cases.
Specifically, since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, district court judges have directed high-ranking officials to submit sworn declarations — and gotten them.
Notably, in late 2025, the administration submitted sworn declarations in the battle over Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport more than 100 alleged members of Tren de Aragua and place them in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.
In that case, Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered that a plane full of alleged Tren de Aragua members could not take off, but that flight nonetheless left for El Salvador.
Months later, as Boasberg explored whether to hold any lawyers or administration officials in contempt, he directed the Trump administration to submit declarations from all officials involved in the decision to transfer detainees to El Salvador on March 15 and 16, 2025.
In response, Boasberg received declarations not only from then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noemwho acknowledged the decision was hers, but also from Joseph Mazzaraa senior Homeland Security lawyer, and then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanchewhich revealed they provided her with unspecified legal advice in connection with her decision.
When the DOJ filed those declarations in court, it argued that Boasberg had no legal basis to require Noem, Mazzara or Blanche “to provide live testimony” because “[c]ompelling senior Executive Branch officials to testify in court encroaches on the separation of powers.”
But the DOJ did not object to providing sworn, written declarations itself, as it has now.
Blanche is also not the only DOJ official who was ordered to provide a declaration and complied. Jay Clayton, the current acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, was directed last year by Judge Paul Engelmayer to submit a sworn declaration about efforts to ensure that victim-identifying information was redacted from documents reviewed by his office and released by the DOJ in connection with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Again, without complaint, on Jan. 30, 2026, Clayton did just that.
And more recently, in connection with his order that the Kennedy Center remove Trump’s name from any physical signage and its website, Judge Christopher Cooper also directed Trump and other defendants to file “a sworn declaration from a responsible official of the Kennedy Center certifying [their] compliance.” The CEO and executive director of the Kennedy Center, Charles Matthew Flocathen declared, under penalty of perjurythat the Kennedy Center fully complied with the order on June 13, just days before Blanche, Bessent and Woodward refused to provide any sworn declarations of their own.
That begs the question: Is “separation of powers” the DOJ’s real objection to providing the declarations Brinkema requested in order to satisfy herself that the “anti-weaponization” fund is officially over?
Or is that argument concealing the administration’s hope — or even intent — to keep the door open on the fund?
In addition to requesting declarations from Blanche, Bessent and Woodward as a condition of dismissing the lawsuit, Brinkema also mandated that the DOJ file a status report “confirm[ing] that no payments have been made from the Anti-Weaponization Fund, and that no funding has been transferred to an account for the Anti-Weaponization Fund, or if it has, that that transfer has been reversed.”
Late Monday night, the DOJ filed that report. Signed by Andrew Block, a senior counsel to Woodward, the report states that “[f]or the avoidance of doubt,” the defendants in the litigation — the DOJ; the Treasury Department; the “anti weaponization” fund; and Blanche, Bessent, and Woodward – “reconfirm that they are complying with this Court’s orders” and that no money has come into or out of the “anti-weaponization” fund.
But Block’s saying, in a court filing, that no money has yet changed hands only underscores what Blanche, Bessent and Woodward will not: that the fund has no future.
Lisa Rubin is MS NOW’s senior legal reporter and a former litigator.
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Eight protesters accused by the Justice Department of having ties to antifawere sentenced Tuesday to decades in federal prison over a shooting outside a Texas immigration detention center that wounded a police officer. Prosecutors have called the shooting an act of terrorism.
One of the defendants, a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist convicted of opening fire during the July 4 demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas, was sentenced to 100 years in prison, the maximum punishment.
The lengthy sentences were condemned by family members and supporters in a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. Hope Song, whose son Benjamin Songreceived the heftiest sentence, disputed prosecutors’ claims that her son shot the officer and said he didn’t intend to hurt anyone.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, one of two judges overseeing the proceedings, said what happened wasn’t a protest but “an assault on democracy.”
“The need to deter this type of conduct is high,” O’Connor said.
The seven other protesters received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years.
Prosecutors said the eight are members of antifa, a decentralized anti-fascist organization and a targetof the Trump administration. Antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.
President Donald Trump last fall signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, even though there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations.
The defendants deny any affiliation with antifa and maintain they attended the demonstration in support of detained immigrants.
Prosecutor Frank Gatto urged the judge to impose stiff penalties.
“People with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison,” Gatto said. “They believe violence is justified.”
Phillip Hayes, Song’s attorney, said outside the courthouse that he takes issue with the idea that the protesters are extremists.
“This is a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a really big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard,” Hayes said. “It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.”
Prosecutors said in court that Song had yelled “get to the rifles” and opened fire, striking a police officer who had just pulled up to the center.
Hayes argued that Song’s shots were “suppressive fire” and that a ricochet bullet hit the officer after he arrived on the scene and “aggressively” pulled out his firearm. He said his client will appeal the 100-year sentence.
“Song, aside from this day, has had an impeccable life. A former Marine. A good student,” Hayes said. “He had a lot of good qualities that were just ignored. The judge went ahead and gave as much as he could.”
Other defendants and their family members pleaded for leniency in court.
Autumn Hill said the gathering “seemed more like a party to me than anything else” and that she and others who participated “didn’t expect or want any violence or destruction of property to occur.”
Amber Lowrey told the judge that her sister, Savanna Batten, is a compassionate person with dreams of opening a bakery. She said Batten’s activism started with animal rights and evolved into anti-war and human rights advocacy.
“She’s the best person I know,” Lowrey said.
Hill and Batten both received 50-year sentences.
Other defendants previously pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than take their case to trial.
Critics warn the case could have a wide-reaching impact on protests given that organizations operating within the U.S. are supposed to be protected by First Amendment free-speech rights.
Last week, federal prosecutors charged 15 peoplewith impeding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdownin Minnesota. They claimed the demonstrators were members of antifa who conspired against the federal government to block arrests and deportations by setting up blockades around government buildings and throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles, among other actions.
The Dictatorship
Tulsi Gabbard and Senate GOP face difficult new questions over influence of her ‘guru’
About a month into Donald Trump’s second term, Senate Republicans weighed whether to confirm one of the president’s worst nominees. Indeed, the list of reasons to reject Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence was not short.
The former congresswoman lacked the requisite experience in intelligence matters. She had an indefensible habit of echoing Russian propaganda. She struggled to explain her record of defending Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime. Senators heard from former national security officials who issued unsubtle warnings about elevating Gabbard to an important and influential position.
But in case that weren’t quite enough, let’s also not overlook the fact that Gabbard was a member of a secretive Hare Krishna offshoot religious sect that is considered by many of its former members to be an abusive cult.
Gabbard, who wrapped up her tenure as DNI last week, has long insisted that any suggestion that she was somehow enthralled to or controlled by this sect or its leader, whom she has referred to as her “guru,” is just bigotry against her faith.
But it’s against this backdrop that The Washington Post obtained hundreds of secret memos prepared for Gabbard during her congressional tenure, which were put together by members of the alleged cult and which included thousands of pages of specific directives to her on policy and politics.
After careful analysis of thousands of these documents, which have not been independently verified by MS NOW, the Post determined that they likely came from Gabbard’s secretive guru, a man named Chris Butler.
The memos, starting in 2013, when the Hawaiian first arrived on Capitol Hill, reflect a dynamic in which Gabbard didn’t just take direction from the materials, but essentially took dictation from the alleged cult leader: Memos told Gabbard what she should do as a member of Congress, and she often did exactly that, sometimes word for word.
The Post’s Jon Swaine spent months trying to get Gabbard to respond to questions, but to no avail. Her spokeswoman reportedly encouraged Swaine to drop the story, saying, “I cannot imagine WaPo’s readers would be interested in yet another uncredible, bigoted attack on the DNI’s faith.”
On May 20, Swaine nevertheless alerted the DNI and top members of her staff to the fact that the Post was prepared to publish his reporting anyway on her association with Butler.
On May 22, Fox News reported that Gabbard was leaving the administration, ostensibly because of a health issue involving her husband.
This week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor and commented on the reporting:
There are reports that Tulsi Gabbard was receiving instructions from a so-called guru and repeating them word for word. That ought to concern all of us if it’s true. No one knows who this guru really is, what his connections are, and where the instructions came from. … We need answers.
The New York Democrat’s comments made sense, though it’s worth considering who, exactly, “we need answers” from.
It stands to reason, for example, that Gabbard has some explaining to do, but I’m also interested in the answers from those who elevated her to an influential intelligence office in the first place.
In February 2025, confronted with an avalanche of reasons to reject Gabbard’s nomination, 52 Senate Republicans — every GOP member except Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell — shrugged off every red flag and voted to confirm her as the nation’s DNI, including so-called “moderates” such as Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
The question for these 52 senators seems obvious: Do you regret that confirmation vote and now recognize it as a mistake? Or do you still think it was a good idea to put Gabbard in this influential intelligence position?
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
In the lead-up to the Iran war, President Donald Trump dismissed the possibility that Tehran would close the Strait of Hormuz despite warnings from his top military adviser, authors of a new book told MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday.
In their first televised interview about “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan said Trump also disregarded warnings from Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the potential effects on American weaponry and about casualties.
The initial closure of the strait, a narrow passageway through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, led to a spike in gas and oil prices. According to Swan, Trump thought Iran would have limited time to take action because the war would be over quickly — a claim he has made repeatedly during the nearly four-month-long war.
“He felt that this regime was a paper tiger, that this was going to be a fast war,” Swan said on “The Last Word.” “He just said he felt that that was going to be the case, that they were going to collapse very quickly.”
“It’s a form of magical thinking, actually, is what it all boils down to,” he added.
The revelation is just one of several in the book — which is based on more than 1,000 interviews — that illustrate how Trump repeatedly bases geopolitical decisions on his own whims rather than experts’ assessments.
Another example of such thinking was when Trump floated a plan to expel 2 million Palestinians from Gaza so he could turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Haberman and Swan wrote in the book that one senior aide characterized the idea as “legitimately nutso … but very on-brand.”
Haberman also spoke about “how scared” people were inside the White House ahead of last year’s so-called Liberation Daywhen Trump unveiled sweeping global tariffs. (The Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in February.)
“They were scared at how close the bond markets came to just completely melting down seven days later, which was finally what got him [Trump] off of it, but again, it was the willingness to just go straight to the brink” that was jarring, Haberman said.
Despite such fear among Trump’s staff, Haberman added, the White House makes up “a group of people who genuinely want to see him succeed.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
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