Musk’s DOGE minions are already annoying federal employees

Posted on by Oliver Willis

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, created by Donald Trump, is now interviewing federal workers at multiple agencies as part of the group’s stated plans to cut government spending.

The Washington Post reports that representatives from DOGE have spoken to employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS, the Treasury Department, and at the Department of Homeland Security.

Musk was named as the cochair of DOGE along with failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The advisory committee has no legal authority within the U.S. government and despite its name is not an actual department, as that is a status that can only be conferred via a congressional vote. DOGE can merely make recommendations to the government, like any other group of citizens.

Musk was awarded with the DOGE leadership position by Trump after he donated at least $250 million to political groups designed to win the election for the Republican nominee.

“Send Him Back”

During the presidential campaign, Musk said a commission like DOGE would be able to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. But in a recent podcast interview with disgraced political strategist Mark Penn, Musk already began to tamp down expectations.

“I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 [trillion],” Musk said.

Recent political activity by Musk is perhaps an early warning sign of how DOGE will operate once Trump is in office.

In December, Musk used his account on social media site X to agitate against a bipartisan spending agreement in Congress. Musk spread numerous falsehoods about the bill, leading to Republican leaders pulling the legislation. Failure to pass the bill could have led to a government shutdown and triggered billions in lost productivity as has been the case in previous shutdowns. Ultimately a new bill passed, without funds for programs like pediatric cancer research.

Despite these disruptive actions, another Republican leader has adopted a DOGE-style program. Recently elected New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced that she would create a “Commission on Government Efficiency.” COGE will operate outside of the state government and purportedly offer up recommendations to cut spending.

Musk has said that government spending must be curbed, even if middle income people experience “hardship” when services are curtailed. At the same time, Republicans are pursuing legislation that would include continued tax cuts for billionaires like Musk (he is the richest person in the world).

DOGE interfering in federal work is part of the strategy to get a pro-Musk agenda in play, even if it means disruption and problems for everyone else.

Campaign Action

Another ‘perfect’ call: Trump rings up Alito amid impending court battle

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has disclosed that he had a private phone call with Donald Trump just hours before Trump petitioned the court to block his criminal sentence in his hush money case. The call raises new questions about the independence of the court and the court’s role in putting Trump above the law.

Alito claims that the call between him and Trump was about recommending one of his former law clerks for a job in the upcoming administration.

“William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position,” Alito told ABC News.

But after the two conservative leaders spoke, Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency request with the court to prevent New York from handing down a criminal sentence for him on Friday. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records when he tried to cover up payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Trump was trying to cover up details of his affair with Daniels, preventing them from being disclosed to the public while he was running for president in 2016.

Stormy Daniels

“We did not discuss the emergency application he filed today, and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed,” Alito told ABC. He also told the outlet that he and Trump did not discuss current or possible Supreme Court cases.

But there is no independent confirmation of what was said in the phone call, nor has a recording been provided and the discussion has raised concerns about the court and corruption.

“No person, no matter who they are, should engage in out-of-court communication with a judge or justice who’s considering that person’s case,” Gabe Roth, executive director of the group Fix the Court, said in a statement. Roth also described the Trump-Alito call as an “unmistakable breach of protocol.”

Trump and Alito are ideologically aligned on conservative issues. Alito was part of the 6-3 majority on the court that overturned the federal right to an abortion in the landmark case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Trump appointed three of the justices who voted along with Alito—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Trump has also praised the court for their decision despite the devastating effect it has had on millions of Americans.

In his personal life, an upside-down U.S. flag (a sign of distress) was flown over Alito’s house while President Joe Biden was in office, echoing other anti-Biden conservatives. The Alito family also hung an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at their beach house, a symbol used by conservative “Stop the Seal” election conspiracy theorists.

Trump has a history of exerting corrupt political influence in private phone calls.

His first impeachment came about because Trump tried to pressure Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to implicate Trump’s political rivals (especially President Joe Biden) in corruption allegations. Similarly, after he lost the 2020 election to Biden, Trump used a phone call as part of his pressure campaign to get Georgia election officials to throw out votes for Biden so he would win the race.

The Trump-Alito call comes just a few months after the conservative majority on the Supreme Court (including Alito) voted to put Trump above the law with a presidential immunity ruling, blocking him from being charged with criminal actions undertaken while he was in office.

The public has continued to express a lack of confidence in the conservative-led court. In an aggregate of opinion polls on the matter, the court only has the approval of 40% of the public while 50.3% disapprove of the body.

As Trump heads into the presidency with the court on his side, those trends are unlikely to improve.

Thank you to the Daily Kos community who continues to fight so hard with Daily Kos. Your reader support means everything. We will continue to have you covered and keep you informed, so please donate just $3 to help support the work we do.

Fox News host’s description of Jan. 6 rioters will make your blood boil

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy described the insurrectionists who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as “political dissidents” during a rant about federal law enforcement on Friday.

Mediamatters Content

Campos-Duffy, who is perhaps best known for appearing on MTV’s “The Real World” in the 1990s, made her claim during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“We have an FBI, a DOD, and a Homeland Security that has given us zero confidence. They've said nothing with a border open and terrorists flowing over the borders. They've been directing agents to go after political dissidents from J6, from January 6, instead of going after terrorists,” Duffy said while commenting on the New Orleans attacker who was reported to be inspired by ISIS.

Campos-Duffy’s sympathetic description of the insurrections echoes that of Donald Trump, who has floated the idea of pardoning them and has referred to the armed attack as a “day of love.”

In reality, the attackers violently forced their way into the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from fulfilling one of its longest-running and most important functions: certifying the presidential election results.

At least seven people died as a result of the Jan. 6 attack, a direct contradiction to the casual language that Campos-Duffy used to describe the rioters. More than 1,200 people have been arrested and charged in connection with the insurrection, with some charges including sedition against the United States. In fact, Trump was also charged—and even impeached—for his role in inciting the attack.

Campos-Duffy’s underlying argument that the U.S. government fails to go after terrorists is also faulty. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. military executed a drone strike in 2022 that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, who, alongside Osama bin Laden, led the terrorist group Al Qaeda and assisted in the planning of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The drone strike was a continuation of policy from Trump’s predecessor President Barack Obama, who ordered the operation that successfully killed bin Laden in 2011.

Looks like the latest Fox News rant was just that—a rant.

Campaign Action

Trump’s team has this ironic request of Cabinet nominees

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s pick for chief of staff, issued a memo Sunday to Trump’s Cabinet nominees ordering them to stop making social media posts without approval ahead of the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings.

“All intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel,” the memo said, according to the New York Post.

Wiles also noted, “I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself.”

The missive comes after the spectacular flame out of former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general and the ongoing controversies of several other nominees, including Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz, and Tulsi Gabbard.

Gaetz’s nomination was withdrawn after the resurfacing of sordid allegations of illicit drug use and sexual behavior, including sending money to multiple women via PayPal and Venmo. Gaetz’s activity on social media was a key part of the controversy, as the House Ethics Committee's report notes.

“From 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use,” the report states.

Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, has been accused of financial mismanagement, sexual assault, and public drunkenness. In response to reporting on these allegations, Hegseth has taken to social media to complain about “anti-Christian bigotry” in the media, the “lying press”, and the “Left Wing hack group” ProPublica.

Anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has also made strange social media posts. He recently posted a meme on X characterizing the medical industry as “financially dependent on you being sick,” as well as a video of himself with CGI-generated electric eyes and a link to his merchandise site.

An anonymous source with the Trump transition team claimed that the order to stop social media posts is not related to the recent online infighting between Trump megadonor Elon Musk and anti-immigration MAGA supporters. But the timing of the edict, coming directly from Trump’s right-hand woman, is extremely convenient.

Musk recently went on a posting frenzy, calling MAGA fans “upside-down and backwards” in their understanding of immigration issues, while telling one person to “take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face.”

The controversy generated international headlines, and Trump was dragged into commenting on the discussion—a less-than-ideal situation as he prepares for his inauguration.

Trump of all people telling others to be more mindful about social media posts is an ironic development. Trump made a name for himself as a political figure largely due to constantly posting inflammatory messages online. Most notoriously, he called on his supporters to protest the results of the 2020 election after losing to President Joe Biden.

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” he wrote.

In the aftermath of his post, more than a thousand were arrested (including Trump), several related deaths occurred, and Trump was impeached for a second time.

But, hey, Trump’s Cabinet nominees won’t be posting on social media for a little while.

Campaign Action

Liz Cheney fires back after House GOP calls for her to be investigated

Posted on by Oliver Willis

House Republicans on Tuesday released a report recommending that former Rep. Liz Cheney face criminal charges for her role in the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee.

The interim report comes from the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, who previously compared the 2019 impeachment of Donald Trump to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The report alleges that the Jan. 6 committee was a “political weapon” against Trump and accuses Cheney of witness tampering. Loudermilk’s allegation revolves around the actions of former Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified before the committee. Hutchinson said in her testimony that Trump was unconcerned that his supporters were carrying weapons on Jan. 6 and that he wanted to go to the Capitol on the day of the attack.

In the report, texts were revealed between Hutchinson and former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin purportedly discussing a change of lawyers after her Trump-connected lawyer Stefan Passantino was accused of telling Hutchinson to omit damaging details about Trump’s behavior. The Loudermilk report alleges that through her relationship with Griffin, which she used as an intermediary, and her direct contact with Hutchinson, Cheney crossed a legal line.

Trump praised the report on his Truth Social account writing, “Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee.” He added, “Thank you to Congressman Barry Loudermilk on a job well done.”

Rep. Barry Loudermilk,

“Chairman Loudermilk’s ‘Interim Report’ intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did,” Cheney said in a statement.

The Jan. 6 committee that investigated the attack released a report in December 2022 recommending several criminal charges against Trump for his actions. Trump was charged with election subversion, but special counsel Jack Smith dropped the case after Trump won the election.

The report comes less than two months after Cheney endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president and campaigned alongside her, citing the threat Trump represents to democracy. Recently, Sen. Bernie Sanders said President Joe Biden should consider a preemptive pardon of officials like Cheney involved in the Jan. 6 committee after Trump called for them to be jailed.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy criticized the Loudermilk report in a social media post, noting that with the nomination of Kash Patel to lead the FBI, Republicans are pursuing legal retribution against Trump detractors.

“Who will stand in the way of Cheney and others being put in jail? Not DOJ. Kash Patel was chosen to lead the FBI BECAUSE he wants to prosecute Trump's opponents,” Murphy wrote.

Patel is a longtime Trump fan who has previously said the legal system should be used to attack the press for reporting on Trump scandals.

At the same time the House report was released, Trump filed suit against pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register for releasing a poll showing him losing to Harris in Iowa. On multiple fronts, Trump is targeting people who dare to say anything negative about him.

GOP congressman runs to Newsmax with threats after Hunter Biden pardon

Posted on by Oliver Willis

As the pearl-clutching continues over President Joe Biden’s Sunday pardon of his son Hunter, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on Monday that he hopes to work with Donald Trump’s incoming Department of Justice to initiate new investigations into the Biden family and Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Appearing on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Comer was asked how Biden’s decision to pardon his son would affect his future plans.

“I look forward to talking to Attorney General Bondi about this,” the Kentucky Republican said, referencing Trump attorney general nominee Pam Bondi, who still has to be confirmed by the Senate.

Without evidence, Comer went on to allege that the Biden White House is continuing to obstruct investigations into the Biden family. Comer accused Biden, as he has multiple times over the years, of engaging in a “money laundering scheme” with “the money from our adversaries from around the world.”

YouTube Video

Since Republicans took control of the House after the 2022 midterm elections, Comer has focused much of the Oversight Committee’s time and resources on investigating Biden and his family. That effort even involved committee member Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene displaying photos of Hunter Biden’s genitals during a committee hearing.

Before he was ousted in October 2023, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy signed off on an impeachment inquiry into the president. But ultimately, the Comer-led effort sputtered and failed in August, with no articles of impeachment filed despite years of innuendo and threatening rhetoric.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee noted in a fact sheet that despite the rhetoric about obstruction from Comer and other Republicans, the committee had received over 14,000 pages of bank records pertaining to the Biden family.

“Not a single transaction shows any wrongdoing by the President,” Democrats noted.

At the same time, reporting alongside the Comer probe showed that Comer himself engaged in ethically dubious financial transactions that echoed his accusations against the Bidens.

RELATED STORY: GOP congressman caught again doing same thing he accuses Biden of

And yet, Comer told Newsmax host Rob Schmitt that Sunday’s pardon of Hunter Biden was “the biggest public corruption scandal ever.”

Despite the chairman’s complaints about Biden’s son, Republicans were not as disturbed by Trump appointing his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner to senior government roles–even when they couldn’t pass a standard security clearance.

The party also turned a blind eye to the massive influx of foreign dollars that was spent at Trump’s hotels and other properties while he was empowered to make decisions affecting those governments as president.

According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), more than $13.6 million found its way into Trump’s hands just via this pathway.

But Comer isn’t calling on Bondi and Trump’s Department of Justice to address those concerns. Not yet, anyway—if ever.

Campaign Action

Kash Patel’s qualifications to run FBI include writing Trump fan fiction

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Donald Trump proposed on Saturday that current FBI Director Christopher Wray be replaced by pro-Trump loyalist and conspiracy theorist Kash Patel. Wray was appointed by Trump in 2017 and is slated to serve a 10-year term which would end in 2027. Replacing him ahead of time would require Wray to voluntarily retire or for Trump to fire him once he becomes president.

Some Republicans have already expressed skepticism about replacing Wray. South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said on ABC’s “This Week” that he had not heard complaints about Wray’s leadership of the law enforcement agency.

“The message, and one that I feel very strongly about, is that there is a constitutional separation. The Founding Fathers did that for a reason,” Rounds told the network.

Even though Wray was originally Trump’s pick, Trump has frequently complained that the FBI director has followed the law and authorized investigations into criminal behavior by Trump, his team, and pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Patel is a Trump devotee who previously worked as a DOJ prosecutor, exaggerating his role by claiming to be the “lead prosecutor” on the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Patel was actually a junior staffer on the team. He went on to work as an aide for former Rep. Devin Nunes, who now heads Trump Media & Technology Group.

In his role with Nunes, Patel fed Trump backchannel information on Ukraine that contributed to Trump’s plot to push that nation to help him smear his political opponents. Trump’s first impeachment was over his misuse of office in this effort. Trump rewarded Patel with jobs in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and in the Pentagon.

During this time, Patel authored a memo arguing that it was disloyal for then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper to oppose a request by Trump to deploy military troops against American citizens protesting police violence against Black people.

After Trump lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Patel pushed lies about the election being stolen and argued that reporters debunking Trump’s election lies should be targeted by the government.

“Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections—we’re going to come after you,” Patel said in an interview last year with Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser.

Patel has authored three children’s books that are pro-Trump fan fiction.

“The Plot Against the King” is described by the publisher as a “fantastical retelling of Hillary’s horrible plot against Trump” and features a character named “Kash the Distinguished Discoverer” defending King Donald Trump.

The second book, “The Plot Against the King: 2,000 Mules,” is a fictionalized version of pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked lies about the 2020 election being stolen. The blurb details a “terrible scheme to elect Sleepy Joe instead of King Donald on Choosing Day.”

In “The Plot Against the King 3: The Return of the King,” the story is about the “Journey of the MAGA King as he returns to take down Comma-la-la-la and reclaim his throne.”

These books are authored by the person who Trump wants to lead the premier law enforcement agency in the United States, responsible for the safety and security of hundreds of millions of people.

Campaign Action

 

Thought Gaetz was a bad attorney general pick? Get a load of Pam Bondi

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Donald Trump has chosen to nominate former Florida Attorney General and Fox News guest host Pam Bondi to serve as his attorney general. Trump made the decision after his first choice, sex trafficking investigation subject Matt Gaetz, decided to drop out.

Bondi fits right in with Trump ideologically. During her time serving in Florida, Bondi focused on attacking the Affordable Care Act, which Trump has long pushed to repeal.

In 2012, she worked with other Republican attorneys general on a lawsuit meant to undo the law, which has extended health care coverage to millions of Americans. Bondi clearly relished her role as the public face of the suit and a 2012 Tampa Bay Times story quoted Bondi asking her team to take photos of her in front of the Supreme Court following a news conference there.

The case failed and the law has remained in place—with coverage expanded by the Biden/Harris administration.

Bondi was also part of a 2018 lawsuit that sought to strike down provisions in the law that require insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions. That effort also ultimately failed.

Like so many others in the Trump orbit, Bondi is a frequent part of the rotation of guests and guest hosts on Fox News.

In her appearances on the network the lawyer distinguished herself by referring to Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse as merely a “little boy out there trying to protect his community,” and by calling for schools to follow the post-9/11 airport security model in response to school shootings, as opposed to gun regulation.

Trump enlisted Bondi to argue his case on the Senate floor when he was impeached for using the presidency to solicit political favors from Ukraine, and she was one of the public faces of Trump’s efforts to promote election lies following his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

“We’ve won Pennsylvania,” Bondi claimed at the time—and in a Fox News appearance came up with a story about “fake ballots” purportedly being counted in the state. Trump lost Pennsylvania to Biden by over 80,000 votes.

Trump has frequently said that loyalty is extremely important to him, and Bondi has been an advocate for him for years.

Those ties have also led to the appearance of corruption. In 2016, Trump was forced to pay a penalty to the IRS after it was determined that he had broken tax laws by giving a political contribution to a Bondi-connected nonprofit.

Following that 2013 donation of $25,000 from Trump, Bondi decided not to investigate fraud claims against Trump University in her role as Florida attorney general. Years later, Trump paid out $25 million in settlements to students who said the organization had duped them with promises to impart the “secrets of success” in real estate.

Unlike Gaetz, Bondi may not have any ongoing sex trafficking investigations (that are publicly known at least) but she has proven herself a Trump diehard, which is his top qualification for the most important positions.

Campaign Action

Fox News hosts suggest ‘death penalty’ for Trump legal foes

Posted on by Oliver Willis

On Thursday, Fox News host Dana Perino suggested the “death penalty” as a course of action for lawyers who have gone after Donald Trump on legal grounds in the past few years.

The remark occurred during a discussion on the network’s panel show, “The Five.”

YouTube Video

Co-host Greg Gutfeld asked her if the lawyers involved in these cases require therapy following Trump’s successful campaign.

“Yes, they definitely need therapy, and maybe also the death penalty,” Perino responded. 

Gutfeld agreed, adding, “Yes, I think the death penalty.”

Perino went on to argue that she believes Trump won the race because of the cases filed against him, rejecting the notion that they were a negative to many voters.

Both pundits made their remarks using a light tone—odd for speaking about an execution—but the rhetoric reflects the fascist tone of Trump and the conservative movement. Fox frequently reflects and amplifies this world view in their consistent role throughout the years as a promoter and amplifier of Trump’s outlook.

The outcome of the legal cases that Fox derided proved in the court of law the extent of Trump’s corruption.

A New York court fined Trump $355 million after it agreed that he lied about his finances while securing loans and business deals in the state. A jury of his peers in New York found him guilty on 34 felony counts for payments made related to silencing adult film star Stormy Daniels.

While the federal cases against Trump on mishandling classified documents and attempting to subvert the 2020 election are now being wound down, he was nonetheless impeached—for a second time—for inciting the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Going forward, the feedback loop between Trump and Fox News is sure to continue—he feeds them rhetoric and attacks, they amplify those attacks and give him fodder for more fury—and casual talk about death for legal officials doing their jobs will further be normalized.

Campaign Action

Trump makes election history with these shameful firsts

Posted on by Oliver Willis

 If Vice President Kamala Harris had won the 2024 election, inauguration day in 2025 would have seen several landmark firsts in American history: the first woman, the first Black woman, and the first Asian woman—sworn in as president.

Instead, Donald Trump won, and he will be the “first” in far more embarrassing ways.

Trump will be the first president in American history who will be sworn in after having been impeached. Twice. Trump was impeached for his plot to use the powers of the presidency to pressure Ukraine into smearing President Joe Biden. Later, Trump was impeached for his role in whipping up his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump will also be the first inaugurated U.S. president with two federal indictments under his belt. He has been indicted for attempting to interfere in the electoral process in the 2020 election following his defeat against Biden. Trump was also indicted for improperly taking classified documents and keeping them at his Mar-a-Lago estate, notably in the bathroom next to the toilet.

At a more local level, Trump’s conviction in New York on 34 felony counts will go with him into the Oval Office. Trump made history when he was convicted by a jury of his peers for trying to influence the outcome of the 2016 election via hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

That presidential first will be paired with Trump’s upcoming sentencing for those convictions—the kind of thing even former President Richard Nixon did not have to contend with.

Trump will also be the first president to be found liable for sexual abuse. In 2023, a New York jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million for Trump abusing her in 1996. The jury also found that Trump had defamed Carroll in repeated public statements personally attacking her and her allegations.

There has never been a president sworn in with racketeering charges hanging over their head, but Trump has broken through that barrier. He is currently facing charges in Georgia related to his schemes to subvert the 2020 election in that state. The Georgia prosecutor who brought the case against Trump, Fani Willis, was reelected on Tuesday night.

These blots on Trump’s record were known for months and in spite of them—perhaps even because of them—Republicans chose him as their nominee and never backpedaled even as more details of his actions became public.

Now he and the party are breaking new ground ahead of his second inauguration, but it is a far cry from breaking the glass ceiling.

Campaign Action