#elizabeth-warren
5 entries with this tag
They Did It Anyway: Trump Media Launched the Truth API Exactly on Schedule on August 1 — Selling $100,000-a-Month Early Access to the President's Market-Moving Posts — Days After Senators Referred It to the SEC as Illegal Insider Trading and a Former SEC Official Called It "Misappropriated Information"
When Trump Media unveiled the Truth API — a paid feed selling banks and high-frequency traders a millisecond head start on the president's market-moving Truth Social posts for up to $100,000 a month — the objections were immediate and bipartisan in their substance. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff wrote to the SEC on July 29 calling it "an outrageous abuse of the President's office for his personal benefit that undermines everyday investors and the integrity of our markets." Rep. Ritchie Torres pressed the SEC on what he labeled the "insider trading API." Renée Jones, a former top SEC official, told NPR the arrangement appears to run afoul of insider-trading law: "If the president's Truth Social posts are being monetized, and if some people get special access to them, that's misappropriated information." None of it mattered. On August 1, 2026 — on schedule, without modification — the Truth API went live. Institutional clients now receive the president's posts before the public, and the president's company collects the fees. The launch is its own, separate scandal from the plan to launch: it is the moment the administration was told, in writing, by U.S. senators and former regulators, that a product might be criminal insider trading and monetized state power — and shipped it anyway, betting that an SEC run by Trump's own appointees will never investigate the president's own company. The going-live, over the objection, is the point.
Trump Bragged from the Oval Office That He Dropped Crypto Investigations — "You're Lucky I'm President!" — While His Financial Disclosure Shows He Made $1.4 Billion from Crypto, His Memecoin Lost Investors $3.8 Billion, He Pardoned the Binance Founder Who Pleaded Guilty to Money Laundering, and His SEC Chair Dropped Cases Against Companies That Donated to His Inauguration
President Trump told cryptocurrency figures from the Oval Office: "Every time I see a crypto guy where they dropped an investigation, I said, 'You're lucky I'm president!'" His 2025 financial disclosure, filed days earlier, shows he made $1.4 billion from crypto — $636 million from the $TRUMP memecoin and nearly $800 million from World Liberty Financial, a venture he co-founded with his sons. Meanwhile, nearly one million investors who bought the $TRUMP memecoin lost a combined $3.81 billion as the token crashed 97% from its peak. Trump profited whether the price went up or down — he collected returns whenever anyone traded the tokens, which he promoted on Truth Social. His SEC chair Paul Atkins — who holds $6 million in personal crypto assets — dropped or dismissed at least a dozen crypto enforcement cases, including meritorious litigation against Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken. Crypto-related enforcement fell 60%. Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the Binance founder who pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2023. Binance then deployed engineers to build World Liberty Financial's stablecoin and holds 86% of all USD1 tokens. Companies whose cases were dropped — Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, Robinhood, Crypto.com — had each donated at least $1 million to Trump's inauguration. At the 2025 memecoin gala dinner, 19 of the top 25 holders were likely foreign nationals. Justin Sun, a Chinese billionaire facing SEC fraud charges that were paused by the Trump administration, held the top spot. Freight Technologies bought $20 million in tokens explicitly to "advocate for fair trade." Rep. Greg Casar: "The Trump family has made over $5 BILLION in corrupt crypto deals. Now Trump is openly bragging that his government won't investigate cryptocurrency-related crimes. Corruption, plain and simple." Senator Gillibrand proposed banning elected officials from issuing memecoins. The president of the United States stood in the Oval Office and boasted about dropping investigations into the industry that made him a billionaire.
Trump Put His Housing Official — Who Had No Security Clearance, No Intelligence Experience, and Asked If He Could Take the Presidential Daily Brief Home — in Charge of 18 Spy Agencies, Then Told Him to Mass-Fire Intelligence Workers: He's Fired 50+ Officials, Plans to Cut 300-400 from the Counterterrorism Center Built After 9/11, and Even Republicans Say "We Don't Need a Weaponized DNI"
Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte — who had no security clearance, no intelligence experience, and previously ran the Federal Housing Finance Agency where he filed criminal referrals against Trump's political enemies for alleged mortgage fraud — began mass-firing intelligence officials on July 2, sending termination notices to over 50 career intelligence professionals. Pulte has ordered staff to identify 300-400 employees for dismissal from the National Counterterrorism Center, the operations floor built after 9/11 where CIA, FBI, and ODNI personnel monitor active terrorist threats. He was appointed after Tulsi Gabbard resigned as DNI in May, citing her husband's cancer diagnosis. Trump had nominated Jay Clayton as permanent DNI but then sabotaged his own nominee's confirmation hearing, canceling it hours before it was scheduled and conditioning it on Congress passing the SAVE Act voter ID bill — which the Senate has rejected twice. This caused FISA Section 702 surveillance authority to lapse for the first time in history, as Democrats refused to reauthorize it with an unvetted acting DNI. Senator Mark Warner revealed Pulte asked to take the Presidential Daily Brief home — "the most classified information" in government — and "didn't even know" that was against the law. In his only briefing at ODNI, Pulte asked what level security clearance he had and whether he got a government plane. At FHFA, Pulte filed criminal referrals against Senator Adam Schiff, Fed Governor Lisa Cook, AG Letitia James, and Rep. Eric Swalwell — all Democrats — using Palantir AI tools to search mortgage records of Trump's perceived opponents. Trump told Pulte he could declassify "whatever" he wants. Senate Majority Leader John Thune: "We don't need a weaponized DNI. We need professionals there." A former intelligence official: "This is a fantasy. It only hurts U.S. national security, and it's helpful to Russia, China, and Iran." Another: "It would be like me taking over a hospital and firing dozens of surgeons in a matter of days." Rep. Jim Himes: "If he just starts willy-nilly firing people, it is going to increase the probability that there is a terrorist attack inside the United States." Gabbard had already cut ODNI by 30% — over 500 staffers. Pulte is cutting deeper. The agency created to prevent another 9/11 is now being dismantled by a man who didn't know he couldn't bring classified documents to his house.
Trump's Financial Disclosure: $1.4 Billion in Crypto Income in 2025 — His Meme Coin Made Him $635 Million While Retail Investors Lost $2.3 Billion — He Also Bought Private Prison Stock as ICE Detainees Doubled
Trump's 2025 financial disclosure — 927 pages, compared to Obama's 8 and Biden's 11 — reveals at least $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency income and $2.24 billion in total revenue. The breakdown: $635 million from licensing his $TRUMP meme coin, which he launched three days before inauguration and which has since crashed 97.7% (from $74.27 to $1.68), leaving over one million retail investors with $2.3 billion in combined losses. Another $526 million from World Liberty Financial token sales — the company where an Abu Dhabi royal family member secretly purchased a 49% stake for $187 million to Trump entities, then received approval for hundreds of thousands of advanced AI chips despite national security concerns. And $100+ million in bitcoin held in cold wallets — the first time a sitting president has disclosed direct crypto ownership. Forbes estimates Trump's net worth nearly tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.5 billion, driven by crypto. The same disclosure reveals Trump's investment accounts bought stock in GEO Group, the private prison company, starting 10 days after inauguration — as ICE detainees swelled from 35,000 to 70,000 and GEO reported record $254 million profits (a 700% increase). In 2021, Trump called Bitcoin "a scam." The crypto industry then became the largest corporate donor of the 2024 election at $238 million. He now calls himself the "crypto president." His SEC dropped enforcement actions against Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, and others. He disbanded the DOJ unit that investigated crypto crime. He signed crypto-friendly legislation. And he made $1.4 billion. A May 2026 poll found 62% of voters don't trust Trump to regulate crypto; even 59% of Republicans oppose officials maintaining crypto business interests while in office.
Trump Cancels His Own Signing of a Wildly Popular Bipartisan Housing Bill — Hours After the Set Was Built — to Hold It Hostage for a Voter-ID Bill That Can't Pass
On June 24, 2026, hours before a scheduled noon signing ceremony in the Capitol's Statuary Hall, Trump abruptly canceled his signing of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act — the most comprehensive housing legislation in decades — and held it hostage to his stalled SAVE America Act voter-ID bill. The housing bill had passed with crushing, veto-proof bipartisan margins: 85-5 in the Senate and 358-32 in the House. It increases housing supply, lowers costs, and caps how many single-family homes private equity can buy — exactly the affordability message both parties wanted to run on in the midterms. Trump posted that the signing was "hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency," dismissing the housing measure as "The Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren centric housing bill, which is of minor importance." A full set with podium and flags had already been assembled; House GOP leaders were literally on stage touting the bill when his post landed, and staff scrambled to pry the presidential seal off the podium while Democrats moved in to use the stage as a backdrop. This is the same SAVE Act demand for which Trump days earlier sabotaged his own DNI nominee's hearing and let FISA Section 702 lapse. The SAVE Act lacks the 60 Senate votes to pass; Thune has refused to kill the filibuster for it. Republicans called it a "shocker" and said Trump was "digging a hole." Because of the veto-proof margins, the housing bill will likely become law anyway — making the cancellation a self-inflicted political wound for nothing.