DOGE Loses Shady Battle to Take Over $500 Million Nonprofit Building

A federal judge on Monday struck down the Department of Government Efficiency’s takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace, saying that DOGE’s actions two months ago were “unlawful” and “null and void.”

In March, Elon Musk’s DOGE used law enforcement and private security to take over the USIP and its Washington, D.C., headquarters despite the fact that the think tank, created by Congress during the Reagan administration, is an independent nonprofit not controlled by the federal government. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell pointed out these issues in her ruling.

“The removal of USIP’s president, his replacement by officials affiliated with DOGE, the termination of nearly all of USIP’s staff, and the transfer of USIP property to the General Services Administration” were “effectuated by illegitimately installed leaders who lacked legal authority to take these actions, which must therefore be declared null and void,” Howell wrote.

The institute was shuttered without the authorization or consultation of Congress, “rushed through action” with “blunt force, backed up by law enforcement officers from three separate local and federal agencies” to carry out President Trump’s executive order, the ruling states.

Why did DOGE so blatantly target an organization that isn’t part of the executive branch and only receives congressional funding to prevent outside influence? The answer lies in the valuable real estate of USIP’s headquarters: a $500 million building in a prime location between the Potomac River and the National Mall.

DOGE installed its staffer, Nate Cavanaugh, as acting president of the USIP, and he was ordered to transfer the USIP building to the government’s General Services Administration in late March. Russell Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget and an author of Project 2025, also sought to have the building transferred at no cost. Now those plans have been blocked, and the public is wondering what DOGE and Project 2025’s intentions were for that building.

More than 50 of the 240 Venezuelan men that President Trump deported to the CECOT megaprison in El Salvador came to the United States legally, poking yet another hole in the Trump administration’s narrative that these are all dangerous Tren de Aragua gang members. 

“Cato published my review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison,” wrote David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.”

Two dozen of the men were parolees who came in at normal ports of entry, 21 came through CPB One appointments, four were granted refugee status by the U.S. government, and one had a tourist visa, according to Cato’s review. The Trump administration still had them all deported on the grounds that they were gang members who had illegally infiltrated our precious country. He even went so far as to invoke the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798.  

“Well this is a time of war. Because Biden allowed millions of people, many of them criminals, many of them at the highest level.… Other nations emptied their jails into the United States, it’s an invasion,” Trump said at the time of the deportations. “These are criminals, many many criminals … murderers, drug dealers at the highest level, drug lords. People from mental institutions. That’s an invasion.”

We now know this is completely false. 

“DHS continues to slander & lie about [the migrants], calling them all ‘illegal aliens.’ When confronted with the lies, DHS lies more. For instance, it says Ricardo ‘entered illegally at a port of entry via the CBP One.’ It literally just describes a legal entry as ‘illegal,’” Bier wrote. “We found DHS labeling LEGAL immigrants gang members for tattoos: roses, clocks, playing cards covering up a scar from a childhood accident, a Puerto Rican song lyric, the Real Madrid logo, a callout to Call Of Duty videogame, many crowns w/ loved ones’ names like these on Andry [José Hernández Romero].” 

As Bier noted, the Trump administration could care less about the innocence of these men or about the authority of the Supreme Court to stop his deportation crackdown. Anyone getting in his way is simply a leftist, activist judge who is “sabotaging democracy.” The administration continues to spin tall tales of criminality while fathers, sons, brothers, and innocent men rot in a Salvadoran gulag.

The Trump administration is planning to pay the family of January 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt $5 million to settle a lawsuit.

The Washington Post reports that the family of Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol police officer while trying to climb through a broken glass panel of the barricaded Speaker’s Lobby doors inside the Capitol, reached a settlement with the Department of Justice earlier this month. The terms of the settlement had not been disclosed until two unnamed sources spoke with the Post Monday.

The settlement reverses a 2021 DOJ finding that Babbitt’s civil rights were not violated and it was reasonable for the officer who shot her to believe he was acting in self-defense or in defense of members of Congress.

U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd was also cleared by a Capitol Police investigation, which found that his actions “potentially saved members and staff from serious injury and possible death from a large crowd of rioters who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol and to the House Chamber where members and staff were steps away.”

One-third of the settlement will go toward the Babbitt family’s lawyers, which include the right-wing legal group Judicial Watch and Richard Driscoll, an attorney in Alexandria, Virginia. Conservatives, led by Trump, have tried to rewrite the narrative of January 6, 2021, minimizing the violence of the rioters, who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and paint them as victims who were unfairly punished by the justice system for supporting Trump.

The president has in effect legitimized the rioters’ actions by issuing blanket pardons for everyone involved in the insurrection, including violent participants and hate group members such as the Proud Boys. He has also taken steps to punish prosecutors and federal law enforcement officers involved in investigating and bringing cases against the rioters.

The settlement with Babbitt’s family will appease Trump’s die-hard supporters who would be willing to commit violence on his behalf, and is an attempt to rewrite history by painting Babbitt as a victim and martyr rather than one of the many criminals on that day four years ago. It also sends the message that violence committed in Trump’s name won’t lead to punishment but to rewards.

Donald Trump offered his old pal Russian President Vladimir Putin an economic lifeline out of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Monday, while Moscow once again refused to agree to a ceasefire.

The U.S. president wrote on Truth Social that a two-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin had gone “very well” and signaled an emerging economic alliance between Russia and the United States.

“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of,” Trump wrote. “The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later.”

“Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree. There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED,” Trump wrote.

The U.S. president added that Ukraine could also get in on the action “in the process of rebuilding its Country.”

Notably, Russia is not subject to Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariff policy. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that Moscow had been spared from Trump’s tariffs because U.S. sanctions already “preclude any meaningful trade,” but the two countries conduct billions in trade every year.

After the conversation, Putin signaled that his government was prepared to work with Ukrainian officials on a “memorandum regarding a potential future peace treaty,” but he still hadn’t budged on requests for a ceasefire and still demanded that Ukraine address the “root causes” that led to Russia’s invasion, according the Kyiv Independent.

Putin and Trump’s nonstatements don’t indicate any seismic shift in negotiations, as Russia has attempted to prolong peace talks for months.

Just last week, Russian officials seemed far from ready to make nice, after Putin bailed on talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Istanbul, as did Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who called the jilted wartime president “pathetic.”

During a meeting in Istanbul, both sides agreed to a prisoner swap, but one Ukrainian official said it was “unacceptable” that Russian officials continued to demand that Ukraine withdraw its troops from large swaths of its own territory to secure a ceasefire.

After getting off the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump told the world that Putin would “immediately” start negotiating a ceasefire with Ukraine. Putin told a completely different story.

“The U.S. president expressed his position regarding a cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire, and also acknowledged that Russia likewise favors a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. We simply need to identify the most effective paths toward peace,” Putin said after the meeting, refusing to publicly commit to a ceasefire.

“We agreed with the U.S. president that Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum concerning a possible future peace treaty. This would outline several provisions, including a framework for resolution, the timeline for potentially concluding a peace agreement, and other relevant details, such as the possibility of a temporary ceasefire if corresponding agreements are reached.”

“At the same time, I want to emphasize that, overall, Russia’s position is clear,” Putin said after the call. “Our main objective is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis.”

From Trump’s angle, this looks like a kumbaya moment attached to a lavish deal.

“There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after the call. “Likewise, Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on Trade, in the process of rebuilding its Country. Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately.”

Trump has given the Kremlin a financial out, allowing it to back Ukraine further into a corner with no commitment to any sort of deal—or even negotiations for a deal—and no accountability. And while these ceasefire talks fall flat, the Kremlin launched its largest drone attack on Ukraine to date, killing 11 people over the weekend.

Putin’s statement does not instill confidence in a Russian ceasefire. So much for ending the war on day one.

Walmart may be wading through dangerous waters with Donald Trump’s administration after announcing that the president’s tariffs would likely lead to price increases for consumers.

During CNBC’s Squawk Box Monday, co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty about the president’s recent outrage at Walmart. The mega retail chain’s CFO warned last week that consumers might start to see higher prices on products as soon as June.

“In the short term, if Walmart decides that they have to raise prices, do you think that that’s un-American, effectively?” Sorkin asked.

“I think Walmart’s gonna have to make some decisions; Walmart has the broadest base of American clients there is. I think they’re gonna be very careful about how they do this. I know that they’ve received some criticism from the president. I think they need to think hard,” Hagerty replied.

Walmart’s CFO had explained that Walmart imports a third of its merchandise and food from other countries, with China being the largest supplier, followed by Mexico, Canada, India, and Vietnam, making it vulnerable to supply chain disruptions sparked by Trump’s sweeping reciprocal tariff policy. He also said that it wouldn’t be easy to adapt to changes in demand sparked by fluctuations in pricing.

Trump had hit back at the retail corporation in an angry post on Truth Social Saturday. “Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,” he wrote.

The president advised Walmart, which had made more money than it expected, to “EAT THE TARIFFS” and not increase prices on consumer goods. CNBC reported that Walmart had beat earnings estimates but fallen short on sales.

“I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!” the president warned.

On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked whether Trump’s “Eat the tariffs” line meant that he wanted American companies to be “less profitable.” Bessent confirmed that Walmart CEO Doug McMillon had told him the company planned to “eat some of the tariffs.” The rest would likely still fall on consumers.

Last week, the White House announced that it had negotiated a lowered tariff rate of 30 percent on Chinese imports to the U.S. for the next 90 days.

The president’s tariffs on China appear to have backfired.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that U.S. tariffs on China would temporarily decrease to 30 percent from 145 percent for the next 90 days. The suspension followed a meeting in Geneva where Bessent and other U.S. officials met with their Chinese counterparts and temporarily put aside some of their differences. In exchange, China said it would lower its import tariff on American products to 10 percent from 125 percent. Both nations agreed to maintain a reciprocal tariff rate of 10 percent.

But countries “from Seoul to Brussels” have taken notice of the exchange, observing that tougher tactics against Trump appear to be the best recourse against the punishing tariffs, Bloomberg reported Sunday.

“This shifts the negotiating dynamic,” Stephen Olson, a former U.S. trade negotiator, told Bloomberg. “Many countries will look at the outcome of the Geneva negotiations and conclude that Trump has begun to realize that he has overplayed his hand.”

The Trump administration is running out of time to secure what it had promised would be “90 deals in 90 days” on U.S. trade—and other foreign leaders are realizing that they have better cards than they originally thought, leading them to play the waiting game rather than participate in a frenzied lineup for potential trade relief from Washington.

South Korea’s leading presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung has indicated that there’s no need to rush negotiations with U.S. trade officials. Japan’s Trade Minister Yoji Muto skipped a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in South Korea last week.

“We will keep time limits in mind during negotiations, but we have no intention of compromising our national interests by becoming overly fixated on them,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in Parliament Monday.

And some nations could be banking on the fact that the U.S. will be the first to feel the sting of Trump’s tariffs, forcing a policy change from within.

“The economic pain is more immediate and broad-based in the U.S., and this deal can be seen as the Trump administration acknowledging that,” Robert Subbaraman, head of global markets research at Nomura Holdings Inc, told Bloomberg.

Senator Rick Scott thinks that people who won’t work are choosing not to have health care.

The Florida Republican made the outrageous statement in an interview on Fox and Friends Monday morning, responding to Charles Hurt’s leading question about “one of the sticking points” of the GOP’s budget bill being “about paying able-bodied 30-year-old men without dependents welfare with no work requirement.”

“Why do some of your colleagues have a problem with that?” Hurt asked Scott. The Florida senator then responded with his pronouncement.

“If you don’t want to work, you’re the one that decided you don’t want health care. That’s number one. Number two: Medicaid is supposed to be for children that don’t have health care and people with chronic illness,” Scott said.

Scott’s perception of Medicaid is horrible. It fails to take into account people whose illnesses prevent them from working, those whose jobs don’t offer health insurance, or those who want to work but can’t get jobs for multiple reasons, such as serving as a caregiver or having a criminal record.

And aside from that, Scott’s own background betrays his massive hypocrisy. Before he entered politics, Scott was the head of Columbia/HCA, one of the country’s biggest for-profit hospital chains, which was found responsible for the largest Medicare and Medicaid fraud case in the country’s history, receiving $1.7 billion in fines. The company “systemically defrauded” federal health care programs while paying kickbacks to its physicians.

Scott knows quite well that the real waste and fraud in health care is from companies like his own, which made him one of the wealthiest people in Congress. He has never faced consequences for his role in the fraud, serving as Florida’s governor and later a senator. Perhaps, though, he should keep his mouth shut when it comes to attacking people who depend on the government health care service.

The White House has officially opened its doors to a website accused of spreading Russian propaganda.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt welcomed Zero Hedge’s Liam Cosgrove to the new media seat Monday—who predictably proceeded to relay conspiracy theories when given an opportunity to ask the first question at the morning press briefing.

Zero Hedge is a financial blog started under a pen name by Bulgarian-born former investment banker Daniel Ivandjiiski, and has been accused by U.S. intelligence officials of publishing articles crafted by Moscow-controlled media. The site has also spread conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, and circulated fake quotes from politicians. The site amassed a large alt-right (now mainstream) audience, including racists, antisemites, and conspiracy theorists. Now it’s being granted an even larger platform and preferential treatment from the White House.

Cosgrove asked two questions. The first was about whether Donald Trump planned to stop “financing foreign wars” in Ukraine and Gaza, during which Cosgrove managed to laud Trump and take a shot at Joe Biden. The second was about an old conspiracy theory resurfaced by the president himself.

“So, over the weekend, President Trump posted [on] Truth Social, a video highlighting what most people call the ‘Clinton body count,’” Cosgrove said. “Which is the strange number of suicides that seem to happen in Clinton circles—”

As Cosgrove spoke, Leavitt was visibly holding back a smile.

Cosgrove took issue with reporting from The Washington Post that Trump’s Truth Social post had amplified “false” conspiracy theories. Although it wasn’t mentioned in the video shared by the president, Cosgrove raised the apparent suicide of Mark Middleton, a former aide to President Bill Clinton who had been a point of contact between the White House and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, as his own evidence of the “Clinton body count.”

“That’s just a lead-in to my question about the most famous Clinton-related suicide, which is that of Jeffrey Epstein. There’s still a lot of questions about the Epstein files—” Cosgrove continued, asking whether the White House planned to release information that would connect Epstein’s trafficking activities to intelligence agencies, “even potentially as part of a blackmail ring with potential ties to the Israeli government.”

In a classic Leavitt nonanswer, she said that more information about Epstein would be released soon because Attorney General Pam Bondi had said she would release more information soon.

The White House opened up its briefing room to “new media” in January and has made way for a revolving door of professional journalists, podcasters, and influencers. This crowd has inevitably included several MAGA talking heads, including content creators from Breitbart, the right-wing video platform Rumble, BreakingPoints, the Daily Wire, former Newsmax host Mark Halperin, and the right-wing substack Washington Reporter.

Republicans in the House Budget Committee passed Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on their second try late Sunday, advancing his 2017 tax cuts for multimillionaires and corporations closer to the House floor.

And by Monday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was plainly lying about the impact of the forthcoming legislation.

“Is the president OK with this bill adding to the deficit?” a reporter asked.

“This bill does not add to the deficit. In fact, according to the Council of Economic Advisers, this bill will save $1.6 trillion, and the president absolutely understands and hears the concerns of fiscal conservatives and of Americans who want to get our fiscal house in order,” Leavitt responded.

“That’s what the intention of this bill is. There’s $1.6 trillion worth of savings in this bill,” she continued. “That’s the largest savings for any legislation that has ever passed Capitol Hill in our nation’s history.”

Where Leavitt acquired that number is not clear, but other, non-administration-related estimates say otherwise.

Trump’s tax cuts for corporations and multimillionaires is estimated to add trillions to the national deficit. The reconciliation bill’s final deficit price tag has yet to be determined, but last week, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released a report indicating that the proposal was expected to add somewhere between $3.8 trillion and $5.3 trillion to the national deficit over the next 10 years. As of the time of publishing, the U.S. deficit is currently at $36.8 trillion.

To offset the hike, Republicans proposed cutting $880 billion from Medicaid by way of adding work requirements and booting undocumented immigrants off the public health coverage program (undocumented immigrants are ineligible to receive Medicaid, though lifesaving care under EMTALA can be covered by emergency Medicaid).

To alleviate the whopping deficit growth, the bill also didn’t follow through on things that Trump had promised to his base, such as stripping taxes from tips, overtime pay, and Social Security benefits.

The bill initially stalled Friday due to a far-right flank in the committee that remained skeptical of adding such a significant sum to the national debt. In a statement prior to the vote, Representative Chip Roy—who voted “no” last week but flipped his vote to “present” on Sunday—said that the bill fell “profoundly short.”

Stephen Miran, the chair of the Trump administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, is possibly best known for his plan to correct the U.S. deficit by weakening the dollar—something he’s dubbed the “Mar-a-Lago Accord.” Miran, a Harvard-trained economist, has other controversial theories that have made him an outlier among his peers.

In addition to his dollar-weakening stratagem, Miran has been a vocal proponent of Trump’s tariff plan, pitting him against dozens of Nobel Prize–winning economists who have warned since Election Day that the MAGA leader’s stiff tariff increases and tax cuts would spell disaster for the average American.

Columnists have labeled Trump’s bill the second coming of Reagonomics, promising to slash taxes for the wealthy while leaving the rest of the U.S. population to scramble for the trickle-down, a wealth distribution theory that economists, think tanks, and newspapers have concluded doesn’t “hold up.”