Trump Rewards MAGA Loyalist Rep by Pardoning Her Husband

Donald Trump has pardoned another criminal tied to his administration.

The president wiped the criminal slate Monday of Bob Harshbarger, who pleaded guilty in 2013 to health care fraud and the distribution of unauthorized Chinese drugs. Harshbarger is married to one of Trump’s congressional allies, Tennessee MAGA Representative Diana Harshbarger.

The pardon was not announced, but rather appeared on the White House website Monday.

An unidentified White House official told The New York Times that Bob Harshbarger was not granted the pardon because of his last name or for his affiliations. But Trump has been very vocal with his praise for Diana Harshbarger, endorsing the Tennessee lawmaker as an “unapologetic conservative Trump Republican.”

Trump’s use of the presidential pardon to free his friends and associates is “unprecedented” and “damaging to the rule of law,” according to at least one former Justice Department pardon attorney.

Liz Oyer told The Bulwark’s podcast Monday that she was “gobsmacked” by Trump’s recent choices on whom to pardon, including crypto billionaire and Binance exchange co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who was sentenced to four months in prison last year on charges related to money laundering.

Zhao and Trump’s family are financially tied. The presidential family’s main crypto company, World Liberty Financial, has generated some $4.5 billion since the 2024 election thanks in large part to a partnership with PancakeSwap, an online exchange platform administered by Binance, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.

Last month, Trump publicly played dumb about Zhao, claiming he couldn’t recall the name of the person he had pardoned the day before.

“So that was truly stunning, and then even more stunning to hear the president claim on national television that he doesn’t know who this is,” Oyer said. “It was just a very bizarre moment.”

Another recent controversial pick, according to Oyer, was former Republican Representative George Santos, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for a litany of crimes before his detention was commuted by Trump for no clear reason other than the prolific fraudster’s undying loyalty to the president.

“Trump pardons a lot of people in whom he sees something of himself,” Oyer told The Bulwark.

Oyer also blasted Ed Martin, her successor as the DOJ’s pardon attorney, as someone “who does not even seem to have a basic understanding of how the Constitution works, how pardon power works, how federal law works, how the Justice Department works.”

Martin “is not a serious lawyer,” Oyer said.

The president issued a tsunami of pardons Friday for his alleged co-conspirators in the Georgia election interference case, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Boris Epshteyn, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, and 72 others tied to the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

Martin shared details of the pardon on his personal X account Sunday night, replying to a post he made in May that read: “No MAGA left behind.”

It’s unclear, however, exactly how impactful Trump’s pardons will be for the presidential election conspiracy cronies, none of whom were charged with federal crimes.

Amid Donald Trump’s pardons of his fellow Republicans and corrupt business figures, one child sex predator has gotten a clean slate.

Andrew Taake, who was serving time for taking part in the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, benefited from Trump’s broad pardons in two ways thanks to an unusual deal first reported by The Daily Beast.

Taake was convicted of attacking a police officer at the Capitol with bear spray and a whip during the riots. He had also previously been charged in Harris County, Texas, with sending explicit photos and messages to someone who he thought was a 15-year-old girl, and he was out on bond when he took part in the riots. The “girl” on the Plenty of Fish dating site Taake was communicating with was an undercover police officer, and he didn’t stop messaging her after learning her age.

But thanks to the time he served for January 6 before Trump’s pardon, most of which was in pretrial detention, Taake accrued about three years and seven months of “credit,” for his earlier sex crimes, according to Harris County court documents. Taake was only sentenced for his crimes at the Capitol last summer, and thanks to Trump’s blanket pardon, was released from the federal ADX Florence supermax prison in January just months into his six-year term.

Taake was held in pretrial detention between his arrest and sentencing because of how violent his crimes were. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols called his part in the Capitol insurrection “the farthest thing from First Amendment expression.” In his sentencing memorandum last year, prosecutors said Taake “has not exhibited an ounce of remorse for his actions, nor accepted responsibility—going so far as to deny responsibility even after his guilty plea.”

Now Taake walks free, not just for his violent actions for Trump in D.C. but also for being a convicted child sex predator. One wonders if Trump knows about Taake or how he feels about him, considering that the president was found liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll two years ago, and has numerous other sexual assault allegations against him.

Americans have lost so much faith in their government that they trust Congress less than they trust Immigration and Customs Enforcement—an organization already hated by the majority of the country.

New polling from the Institute for Global Affairs, a nonprofit at the Eurasia Group, raised the question: “For each group, how much do you trust that they act in the best interest of average Americans?”

Overall, Americans trusted the military at a 49 percent “net trust percentage.” They trust ICE at a negative 11 percent rate, and Congress ranks lowest at negative 32 percent.

The party breakdown for the answer is also revealing. Democrats have a negative 67 percent view of ICE, while Republicans have a 61 percent favorability of the agency. Independents were at negative 23.

This comes as the oldest Congress in history leads the country through an affordability crisis that has seen countless Americans, young and old, feel like they have no chance at achieving a better quality of life than their parents.

These numbers are particularly alarming given just how immensely unpopular ICE is, as federal agents descend upon communities and literally pull families apart to meet deportation quotas.

Read the full report from the Institute for Global Affairs here.

A group of Border Patrol agents decided to play tourists in Chicago and mock a neighborhood they hit with tear gas, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is not having it.

Pritzker called out the federal agents on X for posing for a photo early Monday morning in front of The Bean, an art installation in the Windy City’s Millenium Park, and shouting, “Everyone say, ‘Little Village!’” The agents were referring to a Mexican-American neighborhood six miles away that federal immigration authorities have repeatedly targeted in raids.

Over the weekend, the agents used tear gas on one of Little Village’s streets, following an earlier tear-gassing incident in late October, despite a court order against using excessive force. Their bosses in the Department of Homeland Security claim the agents were shot at, although none of them were injured. The alderman who represents the area, Mike Rodriguez, said he was nearby and never heard any shots fired.

“It was a reign of terror,” Rodriguez said. Pritzker concurred.

“Making fun of our neighborhoods and communities is disgusting,” Pritzker posted Monday afternoon, linking to an article from local news outlet Block Club Chicago about the callous photo op. “Greg Bovino and his masked agents are not here to make Chicago safer. As children are tear gassed and U.S. citizens detained, they are posing for photo ops and producing reality TV moments.”

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, whose tactics have drawn criticism and judicial rebukes, was at the front of the group on Monday morning with some guard dogs, and told his fellow agents to “mask up” because the media was present. Bovino didn’t seem to care that the media heard his agents mocking Little Village, or joking about their heavy-handed tactics. As Pritzker said, these agents only care about themselves.

President Donald Trump’s administration is desperately hoping that the Supreme Court will give it a free pass on funding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Benefits for this month.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer on Monday reiterated the Trump administration’s intention to ask the Supreme Court to intervene over District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s order requiring the government to pay full SNAP benefits for November.

After the Department of Justice leapt to challenge McConnell’s order last week, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an administrative stay order Friday in order to give the court of appeals enough time to weigh in. On Sunday, the U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the administration’s motion to stay while it appealed the decision, triggering a 48-hour deadline on Jackson’s administrative stay. Her stay gave the government until Tuesday night to pay for SNAP in full, unless the Supreme Court decided to grant a longer stay.

In the filing Monday, Sauer said that the government intended to file a supplemental brief that afternoon, and he included “developments” to their application to the highest court in the land. He pointed to a federal judge in Boston who blocked a Department of Agriculture memo Sunday that ordered states to “immediately undo” steps to issue full benefits, though he did not say whether the government intended to challenge that order.

He also noted that the government shutdown, which had precipitated the funding lapse in the first place, might soon be coming to an end after a group of mostly Democratic lawmakers dropped their demand for Obamacare tax credits Sunday evening, in what some are calling a major betrayal to their party and the American people.

It was only a week ago Trump claimed it would be an “honor” to fund SNAP, should a court order him to do so. And it was the president’s own blatant unwillingness to follow through on that offer that signaled an “intent to defy” the judge’s order, prompting McConnell to demand the government pay up immediately.

Trump has repeatedly blamed the funding lapse on the shutdown, but with an end to the shutdown now on the horizon, it seems clear that Trump simply doesn’t want people to be able to buy food.

The Oath Keepers are coming back better than ever, according to the group’s founder.

Stewart Rhodes revealed to The Gateway Pundit Sunday that he’s “relaunching” and “rebuilding” the white supremacist organization that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

“They tried to take us out after January 6 but what man means for evil, God will use for good,” Rhodes told the podcast. “I came out stronger after it, and so my goal is to rebuild the organization stronger than ever because it’s an essential mission. Absolutely.”

Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for helping to orchestrate an insurrection designed to keep Joe Biden from taking office after he won the 2020 presidential election. Rhodes was also the first individual that Donald Trump pardoned when he returned to office on January 20, 2025.

The 60-year-old also signaled to Trump that the Oath Keepers were still “ready to serve” as his personal militia, just as they had done during the insurrection, encouraging the president to “order us all to come together in our counties under his command.”

“And one other thing I want to say is that President Trump, as commander in chief, always has absolute authority to call all of us up as the militia because every one of us—in federal statues defining the militia, it’s every able-bodied male from age 17-45. And for us veterans, it goes up to age 64 because of our prior training and experience,” Rhodes said.

The National Guard is part of that militia, according to the far-right leader, justifying Trump’s decision to send troops to U.S. cities.

Referring to the Insurrection Act, Rhodes argued that Trump can call upon a citizens’ militia for any one of three reasons: “to repel invasions, to suppress insurrections, and to execute the laws of the union.”

“And right now, we see all three of those in play,” Rhodes said.

This new chapter of the Oath Keepers will maintain the original organization’s mission—to “protect people against radical antifa and other leftist violence in the streets,” according to Rhodes—but will be built to outlast its creator.

“So we want to make sure it’s got resilience and redundancy built in that it can drive on strong,” Rhodes told the podcast. “I mean, I have to make sure that if I’m ever taken out again or if I’m or when I’m taken out again, that the organization can drive on without me. That’s not what happened last time.”

Senator Mark Kelly offered a meandering nonanswer about struggling Americans rather than state how he truly feels about Senator Chuck Schumer’s flailing leadership following the party’s unity fracturing on the government shutdown.

Kelly appeared on MSNBC on Monday morning after seven Democrats and one independent abruptly folded on the party’s demand for a guaranteed extension of Obamacare subsidies.

“Do you support Chuck Schumer to lead Senate Democrats going forward?” Chris Jansing asked Kelly.

“So Chris, again. We found ourselves in a situation I don’t think the Senate has found itself in before. I think under any president, Democrat or Republican, they’re gonna care about the American people’s health care, and care if they’re gonna be able to put food on the table, and try to bring down costs, not do the opposite,” Kelly said, completely ignoring Jansing’s very direct question. “So when I hear folks say things like that, I understand their frustration. But I also hope they understand that we all need to be on the same team here. And what matters at this point is restoring these tax credits—if we can do it—in December. And we’re gonna work really really hard, and we’re gonna focus on getting the Republican votes necessary to do that.”

He then pivoted to the importance of Democrats winning the midterm elections in 2026 in order to stand up to President Trump. Jansing jumped back in.

“I will note, senator, that given two opportunities you did not voice your unequivocal support for Chuck Schumer, but his job at least for the moment is not over.”

“Chris, I will say: Chuck Schumer and the leadership of the Senate are dealing with an incredibly complex situation where … it’s hard to find a way out,” Kelly replied. “But I am gonna continue to fight for my constituents and the American people to just make life affordable for them.”

“Well that’s exactly what people are calling on the Democrats to do.”

Kelly both talked around the original question and made a claim about securing Republican votes on extending health care subsidies—with zero confirmation that any Republicans will vote “yes,” or if there will be any vote in the House at all.

Donald Trump isn’t content with shaking down U.S. news outlets. Now, he’s set his sights on the BBC.

Trump is threatening the British taxpayer–funded outlet with a $1 billion lawsuit, claiming that it tried to “interfere in the presidential election” by editing one of his January 6 speeches in a broadcast one day before the 2024 vote. After the editing revelations, two of the corporation’s leaders, Director General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness, resigned Sunday, which Trump bragged about on Truth Social.

“The BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally and deceitfully editing its documentary in order to try and interfere in the Presidential Election,” a spokesperson for Trump’s outside legal team said to NBC News. “President Trump will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in lies, deception, and fake news.”

At issue is an episode of the BBC’s Panorama program, which edited together two sections of Trump’s 2021 speech, including his line to supporters to “fight like hell” but left out a part where he told them to peacefully protest. The story was picked up on by the U.K.’s right-leaning newspaper The Telegraph last week, which fueled a pressure campaign by other British right-wing media.

Trump has already gotten a $16 million settlement with CBS News over edits to an interview with Kamala Harris prior to the 2024 election, as well as an additional $16 million settlement with ABC News over the network’s George Stephanopolous using the phrase “liable for rape” to describe Trump’s E. Jean Carroll case verdict.

Perhaps the president thinks he can extort the BBC like he has extorted those outlets in the U.S. However, this lawsuit will have greater implications for U.S.-U.K. relations, as well as with how the Trump administration deals with international media. Freedom of the press applies to foreign as well as domestic journalists working in the U.S. To Trump, that seems to mean they all have to bow to him.

I’m sorry to say, but no, you’re not going to be getting that $2,000 stimulus check Donald Trump floated over the weekend. 

The president raged on Truth Social Sunday against any “FOOL” who opposed his likely unconstitutional sweeping tariff policy, promising that “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”

And on Monday, Trump wrote that the remaining money after the payments to low- and middle-income Americans would “be used to SUBSTANTIALLY PAY DOWN NATIONAL DEBT.”  

But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had already put that rumor to rest during an interview with ABC’s This Week. Just hours after Trump’s initial post, Bessent clarified that the president’s mention of a two-grand payout “could come in lots of forms.”

“It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda,” Bessent said Sunday, listing out the supposedly “substantial” various tax deductions outlined in Trump’s behemoth budget bill that passed in July, and falsely claiming that Social Security would no longer be taxed. 

Crucially, Trump’s tariffs haven’t actually collected enough money to pay for the kind of payout the president promised. The Trump administration has collected more than $220 billion in tariff revenue, but the $2,000 paid to all 163 million Americans who filed their taxes would cost roughly $326 billion, according to CNN. So that would leave -$106 billion to pay off the national debt. Great plan!

Meanwhile, the president’s tariff policy has come under scrutiny by the Supreme Court, which last week greeted arguments in its favor with intense skepticism.

The conservative Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take on a case—brought about by the Republican National Committee—that could potentially render mail-in ballots received after Election Day null and void.

Watson v. Republican National Committee sees the state of Mississippi defending its mail-in ballot law against an attack from the state party, the RNC, and the Libertarian Party of Mississippi. A favorable ruling for the RNC that comes before the 2026 midterms could have massive implications on a large swath of voters.

“With rare outliers, the states mandated that ballots must be received by election officials by election day,” the RNC argues in its challenge. “But recently, an increasing number of States—including Mississippi—have deviated from that practice by permitting at least some ballots to be received after election day.”

Fifteen states currently allow at least some mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day, although multiple swing states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—require ballots to be in before Election Day ends. Mississippi allows ballots up to five days after Election Day, as long as they were submitted on Election Day.

“Voters make that choice by casting—marking and submitting—their ballots by election day. The election has then occurred, even if election officials do not receive all ballots by that day,” Mississippi state officials wrote in their defense. “Under Mississippi law, voters cast their ballots by election day.”

This anti-mail in ballot push has clearly been influenced by the whims of President Trump.

“ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS,” he claimed on Truth Social this summer. “I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS.”

Trump, who himself has voted by mail before, has railed against mail-in ballots for years, asserting without evidence that they are less trustworthy.

“There is fraud; they found them in creeks, they found them with the name Trump in a wastepaper basket,” he said during a presidential debate with Joe Biden in 2020. “This will be a fraud like you have never seen … They’re being sold and dumped in rivers.”

Now, the court he’s shaped may once again give him exactly what he wants.