Damning Report Exposes Stephen Miller’s Shady Ties to Palantir

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller owns a massive stake in Palantir, which stands to make millions off of Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, according to the Project on Government Oversight.  

Miller’s public financial disclosure report said that the ghoulish Homeland Security adviser owns between $100,001 and $250,000 in assets at the defense company. Miller reportedly acquired the stock after Trump exited the White House in 2021, but sometime before he enacted his sprawling plan to bolster immigration enforcement. The data had been revised as recently as June 4. 

Last month, the Trump administration tapped Palantir to help build a massive system to allow federal agencies to better share their data with each other, creating a huge database that will serve as a surveillance tool for the state. Palantir has also been angling to get involved with the U.S. Navy’s efforts to fast-track warship building.

Palantir has been the highest performing company on the S&P in 2025, with its stock price surging 80 percent this year alone. 

Given Miller’s involvement in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, his financial stake in Palantir should raise significant concerns over potential conflicts of interest. Should he direct an update of DHS’s digital systems, Palantir could stand as a likely beneficiary. 

Virginia Canter, chief counsel for ethics and anti-corruption at Democracy Defenders Fund, told POGO that Miller was walking a thin line. “If he hasn’t stepped over the line, he’s just on the verge of it,” Canter said. 

“I just don’t think anybody would be comfortable with him keeping this stock,” she added. 

Trump’s immigration crackdown is already sure to line the pockets of many surveillance and private prison companies—now it might make one of his closest advisers a pretty penny, too. 

A federal judge has indefinitely blocked the Trump administration’s ban on international students at Harvard University.

“At its root, this case is about core constitutional rights that must be safeguarded: freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of speech, each of which is a pillar of a functioning democracy and an essential hedge against authoritarianism,” Judge Allison D. Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts ruled on Monday. “Here, the government’s misplaced efforts to control a reputable academic institution and squelch diverse viewpoints seemingly because they are, in some instances, opposed to this Administration’s own views, threaten these rights.”

Trump ordered a 90-day suspension on international students at Harvard, claiming that the university was refusing to share information on students that were “known threats to other students or university personnel.” The decision left the status of countless students up in the air, as the school has nearly 7,000 international students, making up about 27 percent of the school’s student body. This is another installment of Trump’s war of attrition against Harvard and foreign students whom he perceives to be “anti-American.”

The Federal Reserve is waiting to see the residual impacts of the country’s new tariff plan before reducing its key interest rate, leaving the man in charge of implementing the agenda less than happy.

“‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell, of the Fed, will be in Congress today in order to explain, among other things, why he is refusing to lower the Rate. Europe has had 10 cuts, we have had ZERO,” Trump wrote in an excoriating Truth Social post about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell Tuesday.

“No inflation, great economy—We should be at least two to three points lower,” Trump continued. “Would save the USA $800 Billion Dollars Per Year, plus. What a difference this would make. If things later change to the negative, increase the Rate.”

“I hope Congress really works this very dumb, hardheaded person, over,” he concluded. “We will be paying for his incompetence for many years to come. THE BOARD SHOULD ACTIVATE. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

But Powell fully disregarded the president’s call to reduce rates.

“For the time being, we are well positioned to wait to learn more about the likely course of the economy before considering any adjustments to our policy stance,” Powell said in prepared remarks obtained by the Associated Press.

The public back-and-forth could be the beginning of a tough couple of days for Powell on Capitol Hill, as the chairman is expected to testify before both chambers of Congress.

Leading economists outside of the Federal Reserve have similarly argued that now is not the time to cut interest rates. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic told Reuters that the country has “space and time” to figure out its ideal rates, especially since companies have already decided to increase product prices this year in reaction to hampered global supply chains.

So much for Donald Trump’s “12 Day War.” The U.S. president said Tuesday that both Israel and Iran have violated a ceasefire.

Trump was furious when speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, just hours after he’d announced an impending ceasefire that would end what he’d termed the “12 Day War.”

“Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’d never seen before. The biggest load that we’ve seen. I’m not happy with Israel. When I say, ‘OK, now you have 12 hours,’ you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on ’em,” Trump said. 

“So I’m not happy with them, I’m not happy with Iran either. But I’m really unhappy Israel is going out this morning, because the one rocket that didn’t land that was shot—perhaps by mistake—that didn’t land, I’m not happy about that.

“You know what, we basically have two countries that have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing,” Trump said. “You understand that?”

While the president had openly bragged about bringing an end to the conflict, it seems he has predictably lost control of the other parties. 

Shortly after Trump had announced the so-called ceasefire deal, he was already reduced to begging Israel to back off its military assault. 

“ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,” Trump wrote in a desperate post on Truth Social. 

“ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he insisted in a separate post.

Israel proceeded to attack a radar station near Tehran, after claiming Tehran had fired more missiles. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would restrain from any more attacks following a conversation with Trump, according to the Financial Times.  

Iran’s military denied having fired on Israel, state media reported.

The Supreme Court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to proceed Monday with deporting people to countries they aren’t from, such as South Sudan, without proper notice.

The 6–3 decision was split along ideological lines, with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson all dissenting.

“In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution,” the liberal justices wrote. “In this case, the Government took the opposite approach.”

The justices’ decision lifts a lower court order last month that required the government to give immigrants set for deportation to so-called “third countries,” or countries they have no connection to, at least 15 days’ notice to challenge the decision based on “credible fear.” Donald Trump had immediately appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, asking them to make it easier for him to deport people without proper due process. Monday’s decision by the Supreme Court is a hold on the lower court’s previous order while the case fully plays out in lower courts.

The decision focuses on a group of eight immigrant men from various countries—including Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and Mexico—who were all boarded on a deportation flight headed to South Sudan. As the case played out in the courts, the flight halted in Djibouti, where the men have been trapped since April in a temporary base made out of a shipping container, along with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents overseeing their deportation.

For now, Trump has achieved a massive victory allowing him to speed up his deportations, sending people to just about anywhere he wants.