On Monday, the House Select Committee investigating the events surrounding the January 6th, 2021 Capitol riot voted to recommend the Department of Justice criminally prosecute former President Donald Trump.
The committee voted 9-0.
According to Fox News, the first referral recommended by the committee is for Trump’s obstruction an official proceeding of Congress. The committee will also refer Trump to DOJ for conspiracy to defraud the federal government, making a false statement and inciting, assisting, or aiding and comforting an insurrection.
In what is expected to be its final meeting on Monday, the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6 said it will formally ask the DOJ to pursue charges after a nearly 18-month probe into the former president’s involvement in the activities that lead to the Capitol breach on January 6, 2021.
The committee’s unprecedented criminal referral holds no official legal weight, and a final determination in whether to pursue the charges will be up to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department.
At Monday’s meeting, the committee’s members, seven Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans, each presented a portion of their findings against Trump before taking the vote to issue criminal referrals.
The committee will also refer four Republican members of Congress to the House Committee on Ethics for defying the committee’s subpoenas. One of the Republicans who defied their subpoena was then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, (R-Calif.)
The committee also subpoenaed:
Jim Jordan, R-Ohio
Mo Brooks, R-Ala.
Scott Perry, R-Pa.
Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.
This Hollywood-backed committee continues to waste resources and taxpayer money to produce the most biased congressional "investigation" in this nation's history.
According to The Hill, It’s unclear if the Ethics panel will launch an investigation based on the select committee’s new recommendations. Unlike most other standing committees, membership on the Ethics panel is evenly divided between the parties. And the committee strives — at least rhetorically — to avoid the divisive partisan politicking that practically defines some of the other panels.
Yet with just weeks left in the 117th Congress, there’s a small and closing window for the committee to launch any new probes while Democrats are still in the House majority. And it’s unlikely that a GOP-led Ethics Committee would take the remarkable step of investigating the role of sitting Republicans in an event as polarizing as the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Leonard Leo, a billionaire activist often credited as the architect of the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court, has announced a $1 billion investment aimed at countering what he calls “liberal dominance” in corporate America, the media and entertainment sectors.
In a rare interview with the Financial Times, Leo detailed his plans through his nonprofit group, the Marble Freedom Trust, which will focus its resources on the private sector. “We need to crush liberal dominance where it’s most insidious,” Leo said, explaining that the initiative will build talent and capital pipelines in industries where he believes left-wing extremism is most pervasive.
Leo also emphasized targeting companies and financial institutions that he claims are influenced by “woke” ideology. “Expect us to increase support for organizations that call out companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus spread by regulators and NGOs,” he said, vowing that these entities would face consequences for prioritizing “extreme left-wing ideology” over consumers:
Leo has spent more than two decades at the influential Federalist Society, guiding conservative judges into the federal courts and the Supreme Court itself. In 2018, conservative justice Clarence Thomas joked that Leo was the third most important person in the world.
Leo’s efforts culminated under Trump’s presidency, when three Federalist Society-backed judges were appointed to give conservatives on the Supreme Court a 6-3 supermajority, and profound influence over US law. The court has since then ruled to overturn the right to an abortion, among other long-sought rightwing causes.
In 2020, after Trump lost the election, Leo stepped back from running the daily operations of the Federalist Society, while remaining its co-chair.
The following year, Leo founded Marble, with a $1.6bn donation from electronic device manufacturing mogul Barre Seid, to be a counterweight to what he said was “dark money” of the left. He spent about $600mn in its first three years, according to public financial disclosures.
During the interview, Leo identified several potential targets for his campaign, including banks, China-friendly corporations and companies that have institutionalized diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) frameworks, as well as those adhering to environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing principles.
He added that his goal is to find “very leveraged, impactful ways of reintroducing limited constitutional government and a civil society premised on freedom, personal responsibility and the virtues of Western civilization.”
Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News.
Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine answering questions from the press. As states across the country begin to reopen and nearly half are seeing COVID-19 cases rise, Governor Tom Wolf announced Friday that Pennsylvania is not one of them. ...Today at a daily COVID briefing with Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, he noted another milestone: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention proprietary data for states indicates that we are one of just three states that has had a downward trajectory of COVID- 19 cases for more than 42 days. The other two states are Montana and Hawaii. JUNE 17, 2020 - HARRISBURG, PA.
ANALYSIS– This should be one of the biggest stories in America. The bloated, overreaching, over-powerful, over-taxing federal government gave nearly half a TRILLION of our tax dollars for so-called ‘COVID-19 relief’ to grifters, scammers and fraudsters.
If that doesn’t cause national outrage, nothing will.
They used to say sarcastically, ‘a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.’
Well, this is $400 billion worth of real money, and the monstrosity we call the federal government literally gave it away to criminals.
Often the fraud involved identity theft and crooks overseas. Sadly, some of those criminals might also be your next-door neighbors, family, or friends.
Everyone, it seems, ‘wanted in’ on an easy payday.
And the government gave it all to them in about three years. Fortune reported:
An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represents a jarring 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID-relief aid.
That number is certain to grow as investigators dig deeper into thousands of potential schemes.
There are myriad reasons for the staggering loss. Investigators and outside experts say the government, in seeking to quickly spend trillions in relief aid, conducted too little oversight during the pandemic’s early stages and instituted too few restrictions on applicants. In short, they say, the grift was just way too easy.
“Here was this sort of endless pot of money that anyone could access,” said Dan Fruchter, chief of the fraud and white-collar crime unit at the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Washington. “Folks kind of fooled themselves into thinking that it was a socially acceptable thing to do, even though it wasn’t legal.”
It was theft. Some big; some small. But together it equaled a mass of scams so large it is unprecedented in U.S. history.
And it all occurred when America was being devastated with overrun hospitals, school closures, closed businesses, and many others who really needed help.
This is what happens when a giant faceless government bureaucracy is enabled by politicians from both parties (but generally more so from the Democrats) and detached from reality, taken from the people, and then decide who to give it to afterward.
As Fortune notes: “Too much government money, Republicans argue, breeds fraud, waste, and inflation.” And it does.
But it also shows the state of American society where almost everyone wants something for nothing and is willing to scam and steal to get it.
And in this case, both sides are to blame for the massive spending and waste.
At the height of the pandemic, President Donald Trump approved emergency aid measures totaling $3.2 trillion, according to figures from the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, and reported by Fortune.
And then came Joe Biden with his 2021 ‘American Rescue Plan’ spending another $1.9 trillion.
The committee’s most recent accounting shows that about a fifth of the $5.2 trillion (over $1 TRILLION) has yet to be fully paid out.
Perhaps they should put that on hold until they can figure out what fraudsters they will be giving it out to, and also recover the $400 billion already wasted.
At least Republicans and Democrats have agreed on one way to fix it.
They are giving the government more time to catch fraudsters with legislation passed in August To increase the statute of limitations from five to 10 years on crimes involving the two major programs managed by the Small Business Administration.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer attend medal ceremony via Wikimedia Commons
Donald Trump has reignited his feud with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) once again calling for Republicans to oust him from the leadership position.
In a statement Wednesday, Trump described the Kentucky Republican as a “pawn” for Democrats and insisted Republicans should choose another lawmaker to lead.
“Mitch McConnell is not an Opposition Leader, he is a pawn for the Democrats to get whatever they want,” Trump said in his statement. “He is afraid of them, and will not do what has to be done. A new Republican Leader in the Senate should be picked immediately!”
The two Republicans previously enjoyed a friendly and professional relationship for much of Trump’s time in the White House however, the two broke ties after McConnell infamously turned on Trump following the Jan. 6th Capitol riot. Since then Trump has repeatedly attacked the Senator and called for his immediate ouster.
Trump’s most recent attack on McConnell follows comments last week made by the Senate Minority Leader regarding the “quality” of some Republican Senate candidates- many of whom were personally chosen and endorsed by the former president.
“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” McConnell said.
In Wednesday’s statement, Trump accused McConnell of giving the “Radical Left the Trillions and Trillions of Dollars that they constantly DEMAND” and faulted him for failing to stop passage of the landmark tax, climate and healthcare law known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday accused President Trump of deploying National Guard troops to the Democrat cities of Chicago and Portland based on fixations that stem in part from his being mentally impaired.
“This is a man who’s suffering dementia,” Pritzker said in a telephone interview with the Tribune. “This is a man who has something stuck in his head. He can’t get it out of his head. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t know anything that’s up to date. It’s just something in the recesses of his brain that is effectuating to have him call out these cities.
“And then, unfortunately, he has the power of the military, the power of the federal government to do his bidding, and that’s what he’s doing.”
During the interview, Pritzker — who has been one of Trump’s harshest critics and is a potential 2028 presidential Democrat candidate — said the courts will play an integral role in challenging Trump’s efforts in Illinois and across the nation.
“We’re not going to go to war between the state of Illinois and the federal government, not taking up arms against the federal government,” Pritzker said. “But we are monitoring everything they’re doing, and using that monitoring to win in court.”
The governor’s comments came as National Guard troops from Texas were assembling at a U.S. Army Reserve training center in far southwest suburban Elwood and Trump’s administration was moving forward with deploying 300 members of the Illinois National Guard for at least 60 days over the vocal and legal objections of Pritzker and other local elected leaders.
The Trump administration has said the troops are needed to protect federal agents and facilities involved in its ongoing deportation surge and has sought to do much the same in Portland, Oregon, though those efforts have been stymied so far by temporary court rulings.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, the president reiterated that he was considering employing the two-century-old Insurrection Act to get around legal court orders that would deny him the ability to deploy National Guard troops to cities such as Chicago and Portland over governors’ objections.
“It’s been invoked before,” Trump said of the law, which the Brennan Center for Justice said has been used 30 times, starting with President George Washington, to quell the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.
The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was by President George H.W. Bush during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, with the support of California Gov. Pete Wilson. It also was used in Chicago in 1968 by President Lyndon Johnson to curb rioting over the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with the backing of Mayor Richard J. Daley and acting Gov. Samuel Shapiro.
As Pritzker has sought to counter Trump on nearly every front, he has joined California Gov. Gavin Newsom in threatening to leave the bipartisan National Governors Association because the organization hasn’t spoken out against Trump’s National Guard mobilizations.
The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
President Donald Trump is reportedly considering a pardon of Sean “Diddy” Combs after he was found guilty of prostitution charges earlier this month.
A jury found Combs guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. More importantly, he was found not guilty of the most serious charges of racketeering, conspiracy, and sex trafficking. Due to the fact that he likely avoided a lengthy prison sentence, the verdict was considered a major win for the defense.
Now, Combs’ team reportedly wants the president to do away with those lesser charges, as well. According to a Tuesday report from Deadline, sources from within the administration said Trump has given serious thought to pardoning the music mogul.
The report continued:
Nearly two months after Trump publicly entertained the notion of a Diddy pardon in an Oval Office gaggle, a comprehensive get out of jail card for Combs is being “seriously considered,” an administration source tells Deadline.
Additionally, as several associates of the much-accused and currently incarcerated “All About the Benjamins” performer have been pitching the White House, other insiders confirm the topic has leveled up from “just another Trump weave to an actionable event” since Combs was found partially guilty in the his NYC sex-trafficking trial earlier this month. Of course, as a number of parties attest, this being the roller coaster of Trumpworld, any decision on a Combs pardon is in flux until POTUS actually puts his signature on paper.
As the report stated, the idea of Trump pardoning Combs is not a new one. Back in May, fellow music executive Suge Knight predicted that the president would lend Combs a hand in the event that he was convicted.
On Friday, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance revealed Donald Trump would more than likely appoint a Democrat to his Cabinet if he’s elected to the White House this November.
“We actually got a lot of great Democratic support, we just got RFK [Jr.], of course, Tulsi Gabbard, who endorsed the president in just the last couple of days,” Vance said Friday during an interview on “Fox and Friends,” referring to recent endorsements from Kennedy and Gabbard, the former House member from Hawaii who left the Democratic Party in 2022.
Vance’s comments came shortly after Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said during her first sit-down interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday that she would look to appoint a Republican to a Cabinet position if she wins the election.
“I think it’s important to have people at the table — when some of the most important decisions are being made — that have different views, different experiences,” Harris said, while not naming a specific individual. “And I think it would be to the benefit of the American public to have a member of my Cabinet who was a Republican.”
Vance, who Trump tapped to be his running mate in mid-July, argued Trump appeals to a variety of voters, even if they do not agree on all of his policy proposals.
“If you look at the Trump movement in 2024, it’s actually the common sense big tent movement in American politics,” Vance said. “We don’t agree on everything. Of course, not everybody who votes for Donald Trump is going to agree with every policy issue, but we agree on the basics.”
“We agree that American energy prices should be lower. We agree that we should be making more of our own stuff in the United States of America,” he continued. “We agree that we should close down the border and stop the flow of illegal drugs and trafficking into our country. It’s just the basic common sense stuff.”
By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America - Thomas Homan, CC BY-SA 2.0,
MINNEAPOLIS — Border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday that the Trump administration will conclude Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis and the Twin Cities area, saying the large-scale federal immigration enforcement effort achieved its objectives and made the region safer.
Speaking at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Fort Snelling, Homan said the stepped-up ICE operation would be scaled back after weeks of heightened federal presence and cooperation with state and local law enforcement. “I have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude,” Homan told reporters.
Homan said the successful results of the mission — including arrests of individuals with criminal histories and disrupting unlawful agitator activity — warranted the drawdown. “Twin Cities and Minnesota in general are and will continue to be much safer for the communities here because of what we have accomplished under President Trump’s leadership,” he said during his third press conference since being tasked with leading the surge.
Federal officials say the initiative, which began late in 2025, has resulted in thousands of arrests of dangerous illegal aliens and public safety threats, helping stem criminal activity and bolster cooperation with local law enforcement.
Homan outlined that federal officers will either return to their home duty stations or be reassigned elsewhere once the drawdown is complete. “Law enforcement officers drawing down from this surge operation will either return to the duty stations or be assigned elsewhere.”
In recent days, Homan confirmed that 700 of nearly 3,000 federal immigration officers have already been reassigned, a move he framed as responsive to productive coordination with state officials.
The operation had drawn intense national attention and criticism after two Americans — Renée Good and Alex Pretti — were killed in separate confrontations with federal agents during enforcement actions, sparking protests and legal challenges.
Mike Lindell just scored a major legal win in his battle to expose election integrity concerns. On Wednesday, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Lindell’s favor, tossing out a $5 million arbitration ruling that sought to award a tech contestant prize money from his 2021 “Prove Mike Wrong” challenge.
In a unanimous decision, the three-judge panel said the arbitration panel overstepped its authority by rewriting clear contract terms to reward software developer Robert Zeidman. “Fair or not, agreed-to contract terms may not be modified,” wrote Judge James Loken in the ruling, reinforcing that legal agreements must be honored—not manipulated for political convenience.
Lindell called the years-long legal fight a “setup” and declared the decision as “vindication.”
“This opens a door that no man can shut. I am so excited. I mean, this is an answer to prayer,” Lindell told The Hill.
The case stemmed from Lindell’s 2021 Cyber Symposium, where he challenged the public to prove that his data—allegedly showing Chinese interference in the 2020 election—wasn’t related to the actual vote. Zeidman submitted a rebuttal, but the internal judges ruled he hadn’t met the challenge’s high bar. When Zeidman took the issue to arbitration, the panel sided with him and awarded the $5 million. Now, that ruling has been reversed by the federal court.
The appeals court made clear: the arbitration panel violated Minnesota contract law by using outside evidence to redefine what kind of data Lindell had to provide.
“The panel effectively amended the unambiguous Challenge contract,” the court said.
The ruling orders a lower court to vacate the arbitration award and halts any effort to force Lindell to pay the $5 million—another setback for those trying to financially crush voices challenging the official 2020 narrative.
While Lindell continues to face ongoing lawsuits from companies like Dominion and Smartmatic, he remains defiant. Just last month, a Colorado jury hit him with a $2.3 million judgment for alleged defamation—but Lindell isn’t backing down.
“You’re going to see the big win will be as you watch me melting down these machines and turning them into prison bars,” he declared boldly.
Minnesota Democrat Senator Tina Smith announced on Thursday she will not run for re-election when her term ends, blowing the Senate race wide open.
In a video posted on X, the 66-year-old senator said her decision is “not political” but based on a desire to “spend more time with [her] family.”
Smith has served in the Senate since 2018 after she won a special election to replace former Sen. Al Franken, who resigned following sexual misconduct allegations against him.
Watch:
I’ve decided not to run for re-election to the Senate in 2026.
This job has been the honor of a lifetime. For the rest of my term, I’ll work as hard as I can for Minnesotans and our country.
“This decision is not political,” Smith said. “It is entirely personal, but it’s not lost on me that our country is in need of strong progressive leadership, right now maybe more than ever.”
“So, there are two things on my mind about this,” she continued. “The first is that I have nearly two full years left in my Senate term, and I plan to use every single day working to represent your interests in the United States Senate. … And also, since I don’t have to worry about running a re-election campaign, I can focus entirely on this job right now.”
Smith added that Minnesota Democrats have a “deep bench of political talent.” Democrats have held both Minnesota Senate seats since 2009.
According to Cook Political Report’s first 2026 Senate forecast, Democrats are “likely” going to keep her seat, however, the party’s longtime hold on the state has shown signs of slipping in recent elections. In the 2024 presidential election, former Vice President Kamala Harris won Minnesota by just four percentage points after former President Joe Biden won the state by seven points in 2020. Smith won her 2020 re-election bid by five points.
“I always thought there would be a time that I would step aside and pass the reins for the next generation. I also never saw service in Congress as something you do your whole life,” Peters said.
