Washington, D.C. — The Trump administration is using federal power to punish critics and enrich itself, sometimes in the same week. ICE has repurposed its own internal-affairs office to track down Americans who criticize the agency online. The president made more than $1 billion in crypto income last year while some of his investors lost everything. And House Democrats say donors to the nation’s 250th anniversary organization were tricked into funding Trump’s partisan self-celebration instead.
ICE’s Internal Watchdog Is Hunting Down Online Critics
ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility exists to investigate the agency’s own misconduct. Instead, Wired and the Washington Post report it has opened more than 130 cases against ordinary Americans for criticizing the agency online. David Streever had Homeland Security agents show up at his home, track his family’s vacation in Europe, and follow him to a New York hotel, all over a single email he sent five months earlier condemning the agency’s killing of Alex Pretti. A social worker in Portland, Maine, was told she was now considered a “domestic terrorist” simply for watching ICE agents work. A Philadelphia-area retiree who emailed an ICE attorney urging “common sense and decency” in a deportation case had his Google account subpoenaed within hours, then federal agents showed up at his door. None of these incidents come close to threats against ICE, but the administration is using them as an excuse to silence dissent.
Trump Made $1 Billion on Crypto While His Supporters Lost Everything
Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure shows he earned more than $1 billion from crypto ventures last year. On the flip side, nearly a million people who bought his memecoin lost a combined $3.8 billion, following a pattern present across his whole portfolio of ventures: Trump Media, World Liberty, his memecoin, Melania’s memecoin, and American Bitcoin have all cratered, wiping out an estimated $7 billion from the investors who bought in. While those people pick up the pieces and try to rebuild their lives, the Trump family is cashing out, getting even richer off their biggest supporters’ financial ruin. One Washington State truck driver who put his life savings into Trump Media said he’s now broke. A military spouse who invested $98,000 in American Bitcoin has watched it shrink to $9,000. The biggest buyers get black-tie dinners and access to Trump, and everybody else gets screwed.
House Democrats: Freedom 250 Misled Donors to Bankroll Trump’s Partisan Self-Celebration
A new report from House Natural Resources Committee Democrats alleges some donors who intended to give to the bipartisan America250 commission were instead handed wire instructions that routed their money to Freedom 250, the rival group set up by the Trump administration, a switch that may amount to wire fraud. The report also alleges corporate donors were pressured to pull their commitments from America250 and redirect the money to Freedom 250, causing enough confusion that some executives couldn’t tell the two groups apart. Freedom 250’s publicly named sponsors include defense contractors, oil companies, and tech firms with business before the administration, and its CEO reportedly traveled to Davos to personally solicit foreign donations. Meanwhile, America250 only received $25 million of the $100 million it says it was promised.
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