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Trump Touts ‘Major’ Prisoner Swap Between Ukraine And Russia

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Kremlin.ru, via Wikimedia Commons

President Trump is on the verge of a huge accomplishment…

President Donald Trump announced on Friday morning that Ukraine and Russia were completing a “major” prisoner exchange as the United States continues its push for peace between the two warring countries.

The deal, which was agreed to last week, swaps 1,000 prisoners each between Ukraine and Russia, making it the largest prisoner exchange of the war, The New York Times reported. Trump congratulated the countries on the agreement and hinted that it “could lead to something big.”

“A major prisoners swap was just completed between Russia and Ukraine. It will go into effect shortly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social early Friday morning. “Congratulations to both sides on this negotiation. This could lead to something big???”

Earlier this week, Trump said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to begin ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine, adding that the talks could be held at the Vatican. Trump made the announcement after a two-hour phone call with the Russian despot.

“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump said on Monday. “The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.”

During recent talks in Turkey, Ukraine and Russia agreed to the prisoner swap, but Russian officials reportedly said they would not agree to a ceasefire unless Ukraine withdraws from four regions in eastern Ukraine that Russian forces took over in 2022.

“The agreement to release 1,000 of our people from Russian captivity became perhaps the only tangible result of the meeting in Turkey,” Zelensky said following the meeting. “We are working to ensure this result is delivered.”

Peace talks between the countries, however, have hit multiple roadblocks, and the Trump administration has suggested that it is willing to walk away from further negotiations if Ukraine and Russia don’t make progress soon.

Harvard Sues Trump Admin. Over Foreign Student Ban

PaWikiCom, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration over its decision to terminate the university’s student visa program. 

Harvard said the policy will affect more than 7,000 visa holders and is a “blatant violation of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause, and the Administrative Procedure Act,” per its court filing.

On Thursday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ordered Harvard to be taken off the Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification. The order effectively bans Harvard from enrolling international students and forces current ones, who make up roughly a quarter of the school’s student population, to transfer. 

DHS moved to terminate the program after Harvard allegedly failed to provide it with the extensive behavioral records of student visa holders the department requested. DHS offered Harvard 72 hours on Thursday to come into compliance with the request. 

As of now, Harvard may no longer enroll foreign students in the 2025–2026 school year, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status to reside in the U.S. before the next academic year begins. International students made up 27 percent of Harvard’s student body in the 2024-2025 academic year. 

The records requested include any footage of protest activity involving students on visas and the disciplinary records of all students on visas in the last five years. 

Requested records also include footage or documentation of illegal, dangerous or violent activity by student visa holders, any records of threats or the deprivation of rights of other students or university personnel.

Harvard President Alan Gerber announced the suit in a letter to the Harvard community.

“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the complaint reads. 

The administration has launched a multi-front pressure campaign against the school for refusing to bow to its demands for changes to its admissions and hiring policies, as well as getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and a stronger stance against antisemitism.  

Last month, the school sued the administration for freezing more than $2 billion in federal funding unless it complies with various demands. 

House Conservative Explains Why Big Beautiful Bill Was Big Ugly Spending Spree

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A leading House conservative and member of the Budget Committee used his time in a committee hearing on the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” spending package to explain that the bill does little to reform spending and the supposed spending cuts are pushed to future years, giving future congresses and the next president time to repeal them.

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy explained that while the bill does deliver tax relief it dramatically increases budget deficits by putting off spending reform:

“I appreciate my friend from Texas, the chairman, and you know, my Democratic colleagues keep telling things that are not true. The vast majority of Americans will get tax benefits under this bill. It’s just simply false to say that that’s not true. Hardworking Americans who will benefit from the standard deduction increase, hardworking Americans who will benefit from child tax credits and lower tax rates—stop saying things that aren’t true. Those things are true. The fact is, we have money in here for the border to undo the damage of Joe Biden. We have more money in here for defense to undo the damage of Joe Biden, but we also address Medicaid and Medicaid spending goes up. Stop lying. Medicaid spending goes up. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are profoundly unserious when it comes to being real about what’s happening with the numbers. I applaud Chairman Arrington. I applaud my colleagues on this side of the aisle for taking a step forward in dealing with the spending problem in this town.

But I have to now admonish my colleagues on this side of the aisle: this bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits. The fact of the matter is, on the spending, what we’re dealing with here is tax cuts and spending a massive front-loaded deficit increase. That’s the truth. That’s the truth. Deficits will go up in the first half of the 10-year budget window. And we all know it’s true, and we shouldn’t do that. We shouldn’t say that we’re doing something we’re not doing.

The fact of the matter is, this bill has back-loaded savings and front-loaded spending, nowhere near the Senate Budget top line, by the way. The Senate Budget top line of six and a half trillion dollars, which, by the way, is what we were pre-COVID, inflation-adjusted, on interest, on Medicare and Social Security. And if we would reform Medicaid, we could actually get to the core of the problem, but we refuse to do it. And I’m not going to sit here and say that everything is hunky-dory when this is the Budget Committee. This is the Budget Committee. We are supposed to do something to actually result in balanced budgets, but we’re not doing it. Look at what happens under deficits… Only in Washington are we expected to bet on the come that in five years, everything will work, then we will solve the problem.

We have got to change the direction of this town, and to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: yes, that means touching Medicaid. It went from $400 billion in 2019 to $600 billion this year. It’ll be over a trillion in the 2030s. We are making promises that we cannot keep. We do need to reform it. We need to stop giving seven times as much money to the able-bodied over the vulnerable. Why are we sticking it to the vulnerable population, the disabled and the sick, to give money to single able-bodied male adults? We shouldn’t do that. We should reform it. But guess what? That message needs to be delivered to my colleagues on this side of the aisle too.

We are writing checks we cannot cash, and our children are going to pay the price. So I am a no on this bill unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday. We’re having conversations as we speak, but something needs to change, or you’re not going to get my support.”

Judge Blocks Trump Order To Shutter Dept. Of Education

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Just in…

A district judge on Thursday blocked President Trump’s executive order calling for the closure of the Department of Education — as well as against the reduction in force that laid off half of the agency’s workers.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun’s order blocks the Trump administration from carrying out the mass-firing at the DOE announced in March and orders that any employees who were already fired be reinstated.

The ruling is a blow to Trump’s efforts to eliminate the department and the quick actions taken by Education Secretary Linda McMahon to make that campaign pledge a reality.  

The plaintiffs “have provided an in-depth look into how the massive reduction in staff has made it effectively impossible for the Department to carry out its statutorily mandated functions,” District Judge Myong Joun said.  

“Defendants do acknowledge, as they must, that the Department cannot be shut down without Congress’s approval, yet they simultaneously claim that their legislative goals (obtaining Congressional approval to shut down the Department) are distinct from their administrative goals (improving efficiency). There is nothing in the record to support these contradictory positions,” his ruling continues.

Read:

The ruling comes just a day after another federal judge blocked Trump’s administration from firing two Democrat members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton found that allowing unilateral firings would prevent the board from carrying out its purpose.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Trump, Officials Condemn Murder Of Israeli Staffers In D.C.

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    Police image via Pixabay free images

    The brazen murder of a young Jewish couple in Washington, D.C. has stunned the world.

    The victims, Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, were fatally shot outside of the Capital Jewish Museum by a male suspect who shouted “free Palestine” before opening fire.

    Milgrim and Lischinsky — who were a couple on the verge of engagement, according to police — were gunned down after the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) annual Young Diplomats Reception. Lischinsky was preparing to return to Israel to spend the Jewish holiday of Shavuot with his family prior to being killed.

    Trump administration officials were quick to denounce Wednesday evening’s shooting in Washington, which left two Israeli Embassy staffers dead outside of a museum.

    President Trump condemned the killings in a post on his Truth Social platform early Thursday.

    “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA,” he wrote. “Condolences to the families of the victims.”

    Trump’s comment was later echoed by several Cabinet members and Jewish organizations across the country. 

    Attorney General Pam Bondi said she was on the scene hours after the crime took place and is praying for the family of victims. 

    “I am on the scene of the horrible shooting outside the Washington, DC Capital Jewish Museum with @USAttyPirro. Praying for the victims of this violence as we work to learn more,” Bondi wrote on X. 

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he spoke with Bondi, also weighed in on the shooting, adding that he was “outraged” by the deaths.

    “We are witness to the terrible cost of the antisemitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “Blood libels against Israel have a cost in blood and must be fought to the utmost.”

    House Passes Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ By One Vote

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    Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    House Republicans succeeded in pushing through President Donald Trump’s sprawling fiscal package on Thursday, which passed by the narrowest of possible margins – one vote.

    The 215–214 vote followed a turbulent 48 hours that saw late-night committee sessions, procedural skirmishes, and lobbying by House Speaker Mike Johnson to get Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” over the line.

    In the end, just two Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Warren Davidson (Ohio) — opposed the legislation. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) voted “present.”

    Republicans on the House floor erupted in cheers and applause when Johnson slammed the gavel just before 7 a.m. to close the successful vote.

    The bill — titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” adopting Trump’s slogan for the measure — extends the tax cuts enacted by the president in 2017; boosts funding for border, deportation, and national defense priorities; imposes reforms, like beefed-up work requirements, on Medicaid that are projected to result in millions of low-income individuals losing health insurance; rolls back green energy tax incentives; and increases the debt limit by $4 trillion, among many other provisions.

    It also does away with taxes on tips and overtime — two of Trump’s campaign promises — among other provisions.

    Its passage marks a massive victory for Johnson, who successfully cajoled scores of Republican holdouts — from hardline conservatives to vulnerable moderates — to support the bill before his self-imposed Memorial Day deadline, muscling it through his razor-thin majority.

    “This is a big day,” Johnson said at a press conference surrounded by GOP leadership after the vote. “We said on the House floor, it’s finally morning in America again.”

    “Today the House has passed generational, truly nation-shaping legislation to reduce spending and permanently lower taxes for families and job creators, secure the border, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength and make government work more efficiently and effectively for all Americans,” he added.

    Report: Trump Administration Secures Release Of US Veteran Held In Venezuela

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    President Donald J. Trump is presented with a 10th Combat Aviation Brigade challenge coin following an air assault and gun rain demonstration at Fort Drum, New York, on August 13. The demonstration was part of President Trump's visit to the 10th Mountain Division (LI) to sign the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019, which increases the Army's authorized active-duty end strength by 4,000 enabling us to field critical capabilities in support of the National Defense Strategy. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Thomas Scaggs) 180813-A-TZ475-010

    An American patriot is coming home…

    The family of a U.S. Air Force veteran who was wrongfully detained in Venezuela since November 2024, on Tuesday, said he was released.

    St. Clair served four tours in Afghanistan. He was honorably discharged in 2019, however struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression while trying to reenter civilian life. He sought treatment in South America, and was arrested by Venezuelan authorities on the border of Venezuela and Columbia in October.

    “This news came suddenly, and we are still processing it—but we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude,” said Scott and Patti St. Clair, Joseph’s parents.

    The details surrounding St. Clair’s release were not disclosed.

    The family also thanked President Donald Trump, as well as his administration, for securing St. Clair’s release. Trump, Ambassador Ric Grenell, Adam Boehler and Sebastian Gorka, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, had worked to secure Joseph’s release.

    “We remain in prayer and solidarity with the families of those who are still being held,” the St. Clairs added per Fox News. “We will never stop loving and supporting them as they continue their fight to be reunited with their loved ones.”

    “Joe St. Clair is back in America,” Grenell posted to social media along with photos of himself and the Air Force veteran. “I met Venezuelan officials in a neutral country today to negotiate an America First strategy. This is only possible because @realDonaldTrump puts Americans first.”

    In February, St. Clair’s father got a call from the Colombian consulate telling him neighboring Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s regime had his son hostage.

    St. Clair is the seventh American to be released from Venezuela since January. Six others were released from the South American nation on Jan.31, 2025, after Grenell met with Maduro.

    Nine other Americans remain in Venezuelan custody. St. Clair and eight of the remaining prisoners were declared wrongfully detained by the U.S. State Department on March 3. The ninth is expected to be designated wrongfully detained soon, WSJ reports.

    Musk Signals Plan To Be Less Involved In Future Political Campaigns

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    Elon Musk is backing away from politics…

    Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, said this week that he will dial back his spending on future political campaigns.

    Asked about his plans for political contributions at Bloomberg’s Qatar Economic Forum, Musk said over video that he’s “going to do a lot less in the future.” Musk spent nearly $240 million through his political action committee, America PAC, helping Trump and Republicans in the 2024 election cycle. His comments on Tuesday, however, indicate that he won’t be as aggressive in pushing Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.

    “I think I’ve done enough,” Musk said, adding, “If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I do not currently see a reason.”

    Watch:

    Along with his major donations to the Republican effort last election cycle, Musk was also a major fixture on the campaign trail, appearing multiple times alongside Trump. After Trump took office in January, Musk led the effort, alongside the Department of Government Efficiency project, to find waste and fraud within the federal government.

    After joining Trump in the White House, Musk got behind the conservative candidate in the closely watched Wisconsin Supreme Court election, saying the race could affect the “entire destiny” of humanity. Musk’s America PAC spent millions of dollars on race, but conservative candidate Brad Schimel lost to liberal candidate Susan Crawford by 10 percentage points, and the liberals maintained a majority on the court.

    Musk, who was regularly seen with the president during the Trump administration’s first 100 days, has taken a step back from overseeing Trump’s DOGE initiative.

    “I’ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla…” Musk said last month.

    The Tesla CEO added in his interview on Tuesday that he is committed to leading the electric car company for at least the next five years, saying that he wants “sufficient voting control” to keep Tesla from falling into the hands of activist investors.

    “It’s not a money thing,” Musk said. “It’s a reasonable control thing over the future of the company.”

    Musk’s shift back to focusing on Tesla comes after the company saw a drop in revenue and net income over the first quarter of 2025. 

    After Musk became a senior adviser to Trump and pushed for major government spending cuts, Tesla has been targeted by leftist activists who have set fires to and vandalized vehicles and threatened Tesla dealerships.

    “Firing bullets into showrooms and burning down cars is unacceptable. Those people will go to prison, and the people that funded them and organized them will also go to prison. Don’t worry, we’re coming for you,” Musk said on Tuesday’s video call to the applause of the crowd.

    America Ascendant: The Golden Age Nobody Saw Coming

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    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    It is not hyperbole to speak of a golden age. The phrase has been cheapened by pundits and prematurely invoked by partisans, but now it fits. Something has shifted in the tectonic plates of American politics, culture, and global influence. And unlike prior inflection points, this one is not merely symbolic. It is empirical. Measurable. Concrete. We are not gazing at a mirage, but witnessing a renaissance. The agent of this change is President Donald J. Trump.

    In 2019, the New York Times launched the 1619 Project with a simple proposition: that the true founding of America occurred not with the Declaration of Independence, but with the arrival of the first African slaves. What followed was a coordinated attempt to reframe the country as irredeemably racist, its history irreparably stained. Under the Biden administration, this view metastasized. Patriotic symbols were treated as threats. The FBI circulated training documents labeling common American flags as markers of “domestic extremism.” Catholics were surveilled, not for terrorism, but for attending Latin Mass. And over 800 January 6 defendants were held for years, many for crimes more symbolic than violent. Meanwhile, across the country, statues of Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson were torn down by mobs or removed by local governments in the dead of night. Schools named after America’s founders were renamed for lesser figures more palatable to progressive tastes. Military bases, long-standing monuments to American history, were stripped of their names and given bland, ideologically approved replacements. The point was not justice. It was deterrence. It was ideological conformity enforced by state power.

    Then Trump returned.

    His re-election, certified on January 6, 2025, and his inauguration on January 20, marked not merely the return of a man, but the restoration of a nation. Within 100 days, Trump had secured the border, reversing years of open-border chaos. Migration flows dropped to levels unseen since the early 1990s. His decisive action became a global model. From England to Romania, political movements took note. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK surged. The AfD in Germany crept into double digits. Marine Le Pen’s party is now the frontrunner in France. Elites sneered, but voters saw results.

    At home, Trump wielded his mandate like a scalpel. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, began a forensic audit of the administrative state. Within weeks, billions in funding were clawed back from useless programs and slush funds hidden in alphabet agencies. USAID, long a globalist piggy bank, is being dismantled. The FBI, purged of its partisan leadership, is now focused on actual crime. DEI offices, once metastasizing across government and corporate America like ideological tumors, were defunded. Wokeness, once a cultural juggernaut, is now a punchline.

    The military, gutted by social engineering and recruitment failures under Biden, is now over capacity. Credit belongs not only to President Trump’s message of strength and national pride, but also to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who moved swiftly to eliminate identity-based promotions and reinstate merit as the lodestar of advancement. Hegseth’s decision to end the inclusion of transgender individuals in combat roles and restore a focus on unit cohesion and battlefield readiness was met with predictable outrage from progressive quarters, but it worked. Military service is now admired again. Recruiters have lines out the door. The stars and stripes, once seen as fraught, are fashionable again. The American flag, once viewed with suspicion on elite campuses, is now trending in TikTok videos of patriotic Gen Z influencers. Coolness, that elusive cultural currency, has shifted.

    Internationally, Trump has turned the tide. China is back at the negotiating table, offering market access in exchange for tariff relief. For the first time in decades, Beijing blinked. Iran, isolated and bleeding economically, has returned to disarmament talks. The Abraham Accords have expanded to include Oman and Tunisia. Just today, Trump announced a new trade deal with the United Kingdom that will open British markets to American farmers, slash tariffs, and generate billions in revenue. It is the first of more than a dozen similar deals being negotiated with U.S. trading partners, all aimed at restoring prosperity and security to the American heartland. American prestige, once bartered away for UN resolutions and climate pledges, has been restored. Even the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church’s College of Cardinals seems to have acknowledged this new moral order.

    On May 8, 2025, for the first time in 2,000 years of Catholic history, an American was elected pope. The symbolism is staggering. For a Church whose demographic heart now beats in the Western Hemisphere, the election of an American Pontiff signals a new center of gravity. It is not just Rome that looks to America. It is the world.

    America’s 250th anniversary is now on the horizon. The semiquincentennial of 1776 looms not as a melancholy remembrance of faded glory, but as a celebration of resurgence. The events planned for 2026 reflect this. Trump has ordered a return to original principles: liberty, individual rights, national pride. Not apologies. Not guilt. Not equivocations. But more than that, he intends to use the anniversary as a global advertisement. A demonstration of American resolve. A reminder to our enemies that this is a nation of strength, unity, and enduring purpose. And a signal to our allies that America, once written off as declining or distracted, is once again the anchor of the free world. A nation built on the proposition that all men are created equal should not teach its children that they are born guilty because of their skin or their flag. Trump understands this, and his policies reflect it.

    Consider economics. In just over three months, Trump has attracted over $8 trillion in foreign investment back to American shores, revitalizing the heartland. Factories are reopening in Ohio, chip manufacturers are building plants in Texas, and manufacturing is surging with new, higher-paying jobs for American workers. Trump’s commitment to the American farmer is unwavering, with policies boosting agriculture, creating robust farming jobs, and safeguarding rural communities. AI and crypto, once fields dominated by offshore interests and regulatory chaos, are now firmly within American jurisdiction. His administration is protecting America’s supply chains from global threats, ensuring self-reliance in critical industries. Trump’s policy is clear: innovation without apology, regulation with reason, and a fierce dedication to bringing back manufacturing, mining, drilling, and farming. He is not afraid of technology or competition but is resolute against decay, acting decisively to secure prosperity for American workers and farmers.

    And yet, symbols matter. Culture matters. Which is why the upcoming twin spectacles of the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympics cannot be dismissed as fluff. Trump’s personal involvement in securing these events was not mere vanity. It was strategy. It was signal. During his first term, Trump courted FIFA President Gianni Infantino with unusual persistence. Infantino credited Trump’s enthusiasm as pivotal to the U.S. winning the bid. “You are part of the FIFA team now,” he said in the Oval Office. That statement, once treated as flattery, now seems prophetic.

    The 2026 World Cup will be the longest in history: 104 matches across 16 U.S. cities. It will not be a tournament. It will be a coronation. The same applies to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Trump personally engaged with the IOC before even taking office in 2016, offering federal guarantees for security and logistics. He met with IOC President Thomas Bach in 2017. The result? A winning bid. The message is clear: if America is back, it must also be seen. And what better global stage than the Olympics?

    Critics will scoff. They always do. They did in 2016. They did in 2020. They did in 2024. They were wrong every time. Trump’s critics have spent years arguing that he is a fluke, a menace, an aberration. What they have missed, and what they still refuse to see, is that Trump is not the outlier. He is the correction. He is the pendulum swinging back. And this time, it is not swinging timidly. It is swinging with force.

    What makes this era a golden age is not merely policy success or economic growth. It is coherence. It is the re-alignment of institutions with the people they purport to serve. It is the re-legitimization of patriotism. It is the death of the idea that to love one’s country is to be blind, or bigoted, or bitter. America, like Rome at its height, is asserting its identity not through conquest, but through clarity. Through excellence. Through example.

    The left has spent years insisting America was founded on sin, sustained by oppression, and systemically incapable of redemption. Trump has answered not with theory, but with action. He has rebuilt the house while others argued about whether it deserved to stand. And now, the house is full again. Full of workers. Full of industry. Full of flags. Full of hope.

    That is what a golden age looks like. And for the first time in a long time, the gold is real.

    Sponsored by the John Milton Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping independent journalists overcome formidable challenges in today’s media landscape and bring crucial stories to you.

    Retired 4-Star Navy Admiral Found Guilty In Bribery Case

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    A retired four-star admiral who once served as the Navy’s second-highest ranking officer, was convicted of bribery and other conspiracy charges on Monday. The conviction marks the most senior member of the U.S. military ever convicted of committing a federal crime while on active duty.

    Following a five-day trial, retired four-star Adm. Robert Burke, 62, was found guilty on Monday of a scheme to direct lucrative contracts to the training company Next Jump in exchange for a $500,000-a-year job after leaving the Navy, according to a news release from the Department of Justice. 

    Burke is facing up to 30 years in prison for his role in the scheme to direct contracts potentially worth millions of dollars to a New York City-based company that offered training programs to the Navy.

    Burke, who served aboard attack and ballistic missile submarines, rose through the ranks to eventually become chief of naval personnel in 2016 followed by vice chief of naval operations in June 2019. He then took command of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa and Allied Joint Forces Command in June 2020 before retiring in summer 2022.

    Yongchul “Charlie” Kim and Meghan Messenger, co-CEOs of Next Jump, allegedly participated in the scheme to get a government contract in exchange for offering Burke a position with the company.

    Kim and Messenger were each charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery, according to the case’s unsealed indictment. They face trial in August, which is when Burke will be sentenced. 

    Kim and Messenger, via their company Next Jump, provided a workforce training pilot program to a small component of the Navy from August 2018 through July 2019. However, the deal appeared to go downhill and the Navy terminated a contract with the company in late 2019 and directed it not to contact Burke.

    The Hill reports:

    But in summer 2021, Messenger and Kim met with Burke in Washington, D.C., to reestablish their company’s business relationship with the Navy. While at the meeting, the two “agreed that Burke would use his position as a Navy Admiral to steer a contract” to their firm — as well as influence other Navy officers to award another contract to the company — in exchange for his future employment there, according to the Justice Department. 

    Burke in December 2021 then ordered his staff to award a $355,000 contract to Next Jump to train personnel under Burke’s command in Italy and Spain, which the company performed in January 2022. 

    In October 2022, Burke began working at Next Jump with an annual salary of $500,000 and a grant of $100,000 in stock options. 

    Burke was accused of making several false and misleading statements to the Navy to conceal the scheme, such as implying that his discussions to join Next Jump began months after the contract was awarded.

    “When you abuse your position and betray the public trust to line your own pockets, it undermines the confidence in the government you represent,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro wrote in a post on X following the conviction.