Trump Is Keeping Money From Venezuelan Oil Sale in Offshore Account

President Trump is keeping proceeds from the first sale of Venezuelan oil in an offshore bank account based in Qatar, according to reporting from Semafor. The sale was worth $500 million.

This unprecedented move is yet another middle finger to Venezuelan sovereignty and once again raises questions about the president’s cozy relationship with the Qatari government.

“There is no basis in law for a president to set up an offshore account that he controls so that he can sell assets seized by the American military,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren told Semafor. “That is precisely a move that a corrupt politician would be attracted to.”

That seems to be exactly what Trump is doing. Trump has vowed to “indefinitely” control Venezuela’s oil, claiming the proceeds will be given back to the U.S. and Venezuela.

Still, it remains unclear just how that money held in Qatar will benefit the Venezuelan people the administration claims to care about.

President Donlad Trump threatened Thursday to send the U.S. military into Minnesota, following the state’s second shooting involving a federal officer in as many weeks.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Protests in Minneapolis escalated Wednesday night after a federal agent shot and injured a Venezuelan immigrant fleeing from a traffic stop. The Department of Homeland Security claimed that the man and two others attacked a federal agent with a snow shovel and a broom handle, causing the officer to fear for his life. This claim has not been independently verified.

At least 200 protesters gathered near the apparent scene, launching fireworks at police officers, who deployed gas in order to disperse the crowd, but it didn’t work, The New York Times reported. Heavily armed Border Patrol agents arrived but were beaten back by protesters wielding snowballs, and unleashed a chemical gas on the crowd before they went. Shortly after, ICE agents arrived in an unmarked vehicle and sprayed chemicals in the protesters’ faces. One protester fired several fireworks toward the agents’ vehicle as they departed.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed on X Wednesday that the so-called “Minnesota Insurrection” was the “direct result of a FAILED governor and a TERRIBLE mayor encouraging violence against law enforcement.” Addressing Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Blanche wrote that he was “focused on stopping YOU from your terrorism by whatever means necessary. This is not a threat. It’s a promise.”

This latest shooting comes just one week after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, a mother of three, sparking widespread outrage at the killing of an American citizen. The Trump administration claimed that Good had been attempting to ram federal agents in an act of so-called “domestic terror,” but video evidence suggests otherwise. Trump most recently claimed her death was the result of being “disrespectful” of law enforcement.

It seems that the Trump administration has been actively provoking unrest in Minnesota, deploying an additional 1,000 federal immigration officers after Good’s death, targeting the states with racist smears about Somali immigrants, and suspending funding to childcare programs. In recent weeks, some have speculated that invoking the Insurrection Act was Trump’s plan all along, as part of a master plan to seize control—and even suspend elections.

This story has been updated.

ICE has shot another person in Minneapolis, raising tensions in an already inflamed atmosphere.

The Department of Homeland Security said that an ICE officer shot a Venezuelan man in north Minneapolis Wednesday night after he attacked agents during a traffic stop. Following the shooting, a crowd of protesters gathered, setting off fireworks and throwing snowballs at federal agents. Law enforcement responded with chemical irritants, and Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told people to “leave immediately.”

The shooting took place about 4.5 miles away from where Renee Good was shot last week, according to a DHS statement. DHS said that they tried to stop the undocumented man, only for him to drive away and then take off on foot after crashing into a car. DHS claims that when they reached the person, two other people from a nearby apartment arrived and attacked an ICE agent.

“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said. According to the city of Minneapolis, the Venezuelan man escaped with non-life-threatening injuries and was hospitalized.

The Trump administration seems to be bent on making the situation worse in Minneapolis. More agents are being sent to the city, even as many of them are miserable and feel the government is making things worse. Agents are reportedly going door to door looking for Asian immigrants, federal prosecutors are quitting rather than follow the administration’s orders, and even podcaster Joe Rogan has turned on the White House over ICE’s violence.

President Trump claims that a “DAY OF RECKONING” is coming for Minnesota. He may be right, but not in the way he thinks. The backlash is only growing larger.

The brutality Americans are witnessing from Immigration and Customs Enforcement is just the tip of the iceberg: The agency is reportedly running nearly two dozen secret operations to spy on all of us.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported Wednesday that he’d received a “sensitive” 15-page government document outlining 21 “major” ICE operations leaked by a concerned Border Patrol official. These operations, many of which had previously gone unreported, have resulted in 6,852 apprehensions since June, according to the document.

One document outlined a program called Operation Abracadabra, which is the process of interviewing 100 percent of detainees in order to identify follow-on targets, such as stash houses, in order to “target transnational criminal corporations.”

A leaked slide explained Operation Abracadabra’s purpose as “tying every individual who crosses the border illegally to a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a Transnational Criminal Organization, and/or utilizing the intelligence to develop targets.”

Another program was Operation Benchwarmer, a plan to use plainclothes agents “embedded in transport vans, sally ports, processing areas, and detention cells” to secretly spy on immigrants who have been detained. That operation already includes 2,000 “intelligence assets” across the country.

Another “secret” program Klippenstein mentioned was Operation Tidal Wave, a state-wide operation in Florida that led to the arrests of 1,120 people, only 63 percent of whom had a criminal record. Another, Operation Fleur De Lis, could potentially refer to an operation in Louisiana where the Department of Homeland Security deployed CBP agents in November. The goal of another operation, called “Dust Off,” was less clear.

President Trump once again appeared to doze off on camera during a milk legislation signing ceremony on Wednesday afternoon.

The president’s eyes were completely shut at multiple points of the ceremony. He can be seen looking drowsily on as Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins drones on about milk, while flanked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Housing Secretary Ben Carson.

This would mark at least the third time since December that Trump has seemed to doze off during a televised event, although it may have been his first on-camera nap of the new year.

After he woke up, Trump signed legislation allowing public schools to serve whole and 2 percent milk, reversing an Obama-era policy that limited schools to fat-free or low-fat options.

He then went on to clarify how to spell “whole milk.” “It’s actually a legal definition—‘whole milk.’ And it’s whole with a w, for those of you that have a problem.”