Sotomayor Rips Lawyer Who Claims Elon Musk’s DOGE Job Wasn’t Shady

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor torched a lawyer Tuesday for suggesting that Elon Musk didn’t buy his way into the White House.

While hearing oral arguments in a case on campaign finance law, Sotomayor warned that if the Supreme Court removed the limits on coordinated expenditures, then there would be “no control” over how much one donor could give to a presidential campaign—opening the door for blatant corruption.

“So, with all respect your honor, I don’t have a problem with the various statistics you just cited in the absence of any evidence or any suggestion it was tied to quid pro quo corruption,” replied Noel Francisco, the attorney for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“You mean to suggest that the fact that one major donor to the current president—the most major donor to the current president—got a very lucrative job immediately upon election from the new administration does not give the appearance of quid pro quo?” Sotomayor pressed. She was clearly referring to Elon Musk, who was appointed as head of the Department of Government Efficiency after donating a whopping $288 million to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

Prior to bringing up Musk, Sotomayor also cited Hillary Clinton’s 2016 joint victory fund with the DNC, “which allowed a single donor to give up to $356,000” just to show it wasn’t a solely Trumpian problem.

Francisco tried to dismiss Sotomayor, saying that Musk’s meager salary was not “an effective quid pro quo bribery, which may be why nobody has even remotely suggested that.”

Actually, a lot of people have suggested that—and it has nothing to do with his salary as a special government employee. It’s no secret that Musk used his time as DOGE czar working to dismantle the very agencies that regulate his companies, clearing the way for the richest man in the world to amass even more money.

Musk also used his proximity to Donald Trump to boost his many businesses in foreign countries. In some cases, the administration even pressured foreign governments into approving his products. Not to mention that Musk was the biggest individual winner when Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs, sending Tesla stock shooting up 23 percent.

Just because their plan didn’t work perfectly—and Musk ended up losing twice as much as he cut in government spending—doesn’t mean it wasn’t still corrupt.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is taking aim at the Trump administration’s violent and excessive immigration actions.

On Tuesday, Pritzker signed a bill that makes it easier for Illinois residents to sue federal immigration agents for up to $10,000 if they believe their rights have been violated, and also restricts those agents from enforcement outside courthouses. The bill also requires hospitals to safeguard patient access, and prohibits schools from disclosing the immigration status of students, employees, and contractors unless required by law.

Democratic lawmakers passed the bill in October in the midst of Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s attempt to crack down on illegal immigration in the Chicago area. The initiative was met with protests and a violent crackdown from federal agents including ICE and Border Patrol.

“Residents should be able to go to court, take their kid to day care and have access to the university they attend without fear they will be kidnapped off the street,” said state Representative Lilian Jiménez, who represents parts of Chicago, in a statement at the time.

Pritzker has sharply criticized President Trump and his federal actions in Illinois. Last month, he called out Border Patrol agents for mocking a neighborhood they had tear-gassed while staging a photo op in front of the Chicago art installation The Bean.

“Making fun of our neighborhoods and communities is disgusting,” Pritzker posted online at the time. “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.”

Pritzker again called out the Trump administration after signing the bill on Tuesday.

“After what our communities have experienced, we understood that our response needed to be deep and comprehensive to counter the Trump administration’s depravity,” Pritzker said.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division are pretending to care about prisoners’ human rights in an apparent effort to get conspiracy theorist, former state official, and convicted 2020 election fraudster Tina Peters out of a Colorado jail.

“Under my direction, @CivilRights has opened an investigation into the entire Colorado prison system following multiple reports of unconstitutional and legally insufficient carceral conditions. Prisoners have civil rights,” Dhillon wrote Tuesday afternoon.

Dhillion’s letter is addressed to Colorado Governor Jared Polis, and accuses the Colorado prison system of “failing to provide adequate medical care and safe sanitary physical conditions of confinement,” and will determine if the state violates prisoners’ rights by “housing biological males in units designated for females.”

On Monday, a federal judge refused to release Peters, who is Trump’s only 2020 ally still behind bars. Trump can’t just pardon her like he’s done with virtually everyone else who’s committed felonies in his name, since she is being held on state charges, not federal—so instead, the administration has to use this “prisoners’ rights” loophole.

Those on both the left and the right acknowledged that Dhillon’s move is part of a larger plan to free the woman who committed seven felonies in Colorado for Trump.

“PLEASE focus on @realtinapeters,” one supporter wrote. “She is a victim of the system.”

“They’re going to get Tina out?” said another, attaching prayer hand emojis.

“New Trump pressure on Colorado to release election conspiracy theorist Tina Peters—who Trump can’t pardon because she’s imprisoned on state charges,” The Bulwark’s Will Sommer chimed in.

Right-wingers have been doing the “Free Tina” thing for some time now. Peters is currently serving nine years in jail for granting unauthorized access to Colorado voting machines and being charged with three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, two counts of conspiracy to commit attempting to influence a public servant, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, failing to comply with the secretary of state, obstruction, contempt of court, criminal impersonation, and identity theft.

The right, of course, views Peters as a political prisoner rather than someone who blatantly tried to use her power to swing the 2020 election in Trump’s favor. Her lawyers and MAGA-sphere supporters have alleged that her health is declining and that she was temporarily placed in solitary confinement last month.

“FREE TINA PETERS, a brave and innocent Patriot who has been tortured by Crooked Colorado politicians, including the big Mail-In Ballot supporting the governor of the State,” Trump posted on Truth Social back in August. “Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW. She did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the Election. She is an old woman, and very sick. If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!!”

Trump called to free Peters last week too.

“The SLEAZEBAG Governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, refuses to allow an elderly woman, Tina Peters, who was unfairly convicted of what the Democrats do, cheating on Elections, out of jail! She was convicted for trying to stop Democrats from stealing Colorado Votes in the Election,” he wrote. “She was preserving Election Records, which she was obligated to do under Federal Law.”

Prisoners’ rights probably are being violated in Colorado, as they are in most prisons in this country. But it’s obvious that the Trump administration is more concerned with gaming the system than it is with prison conditions of any kind.

The Trump administration has moved to strip millions of student debt holders from the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, repayment plan.

The White House proposed a joint settlement with Missouri Tuesday that will force borrowers onto other repayment plans.

“As part of the proposed joint settlement agreement, the Department will not enroll any new borrowers in the illegal SAVE Plan, deny any pending applications, and move all SAVE borrowers into legal repayment plans,” the Education Department announced in a statement.

“If the agreement is approved by the court, it will mark the definitive end of the Biden Administration’s illegal student loan bailout agenda, putting it to rest once and for all, and end the limbo that more than 7 million borrowers currently face when it comes to not being able to make payments on their federal loans.”

The Joe Biden–era income-driven loan option has been blocked since February, when the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the former president had overstepped his office’s authority when he invented the repayment alternative.

A coalition of Republican-led states argued in the lawsuit that Biden had intentionally attempted to craft the student loan relief scheme after an ultraconservative Supreme Court ruled 6–3 to shoot down his formal federal student loan forgiveness plan. That would have erased as much as $20,000 per borrower for 43 million Americans.

Since the court ruling, more than 7.6 million Americans have been placed in SAVE forbearance, the Education Department determined in July, offsetting their payments until 2028.

More than 42 million Americans—or one in six adults—currently have student loans. Their collective debt amounts to more than $1.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Donald Trump is blaming his predecessor, Joe Biden, too much, and his aides are trying to get him to stop.

Trump’s economic policies have caused food prices to go up and increased affordability issues, but the president remains in deep denial, calling affordability a Democratic hoax and “scam.” The president has chosen to respond to any bad news about the economy by complaining about a president who hasn’t been in office for almost a year, and his staff worries that this will backfire on the American people.

“Joe Biden is no longer a threat to them because he’s out of office, he’s never going to be in office again,” one adviser told CNN. “You’ve got to feel their pain. You’ve got to talk about it every day.”

But is the president willing to admit that costs have gone up for most Americans? In an interview with Politico Monday, Trump said if he were grading the economy, he would give it an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”

If that were true, why did the president announce a $12 billion bailout for farmers on Monday? Trump told those farmers that it’s because “we inherited a total mess from the Biden administration.” But the public isn’t buying explanations like that. In a poll late last month, 49 percent of respondents said the president has done more to increase prices, while only 24 percent said he’s done more to lower prices. Trump is even losing Republican allies in Congress on the economy.

To try and fix the public perception, Trump is going to be making trips around the country, beginning with a Pennsylvania swing district on Tuesday. It may not be enough, especially in the likely event that Trump finds another excuse to blame Biden on the trip. That won’t convince working people, who can see prices shooting up with their own eyes.