My friend Jamie Raskin is one of the most careful and principled people in Congress. So when he says the director of the FBI may be running a taxpayer funded slush fund, I pay attention.
Here is what he found.
Kash Patel directed more than $1 million in bonus payments to a small circle of agents in his inner circle and on his security detail.
Some were getting nearly $8,000 every two weeks on top of salaries that were already maxed out at the federal ceiling. A number of them collected close to $40,000 over consecutive pay periods.
The payments came so fast that the FBI’s bonus reserve accounts ran dry and some checks bounced.
So who got the money?
Agents on Patel’s so-called "director’s advisory team."
That is the unit created in 2025 and described internally as a payback squad, built to dig up dirt on the law enforcement officials who investigated Trump and his allies.
Raskin has given Patel until June 29 to account for every payment, every recipient, and any internal review of whether this was even legal.
Patel should answer for all of it.
https://t.co/HZPeRJ2Kqg
While President Donald Trump is grasping for a way out of his war in Iran, his State Department is weighing whether to deport one of the conflict’s loudest opponents.
Marco Rubio’s State Department has quietly been investigating whether it can deport Trita Parsi—Iran-born, Sweden-raised, and green-card holder—who has been fiercely critical of the war with Iran.
Read more: https://t.co/MpGh9OoVuD
BREAKING:
Israeli settlers are burning Taybeh in occupied Palestine.
A village that has stood for thousands of years.
A place where Jesus once walked.
Home to the oldest living Christian community in the world.
And not a peep from Western mainstream media.
The West Bank is literally worse than the Jim Crow South at its peak. Constant mob ethnic violence, targeting the indigenous Muslim and Christian communities. No accountability; pogroms are legal and facilitated by the Israeli state.
This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it.
More than half the donors to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom just won over $50 billion in new federal contracts in six months.
And here’s the part that should make your blood boil.
Sixteen of these 27 donors were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, securities charges. Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence.
The White House won’t even release the full donor list. They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive. A federal judge already ruled ballroom construction has to stop until Congress authorizes it.
Government is supposed to serve the people, not auction itself off to the highest bidder. When access goes to whoever pays the most, working families always end up paying the price.
We either end the corruption, or the corruption will end us.
https://t.co/4MGFzSseFl
@cryingchuck@nickgerli1 "It is the 70s and early 80s all over again NYC residents do not feel safe"
Lowest number of homicides in city history, following Largest decline in more than a decade, and extending the post pandemic trend.
@TheBananaTreePr@AustinJustice Mayor Koch had, in fact, not figured all this out.
And I'm fact, it's been on a steep decline every since, contrary to your assertion that "they decided to use criminals to break down society."
@TheBananaTreePr@AustinJustice Right. You're only making me point stronger.
NYC saw a devastating rise in homicides under his watch, with the inflection point starting in 1990 under his successor mayor Dinkins.