Law and Order for Some
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They don't make Washington scandals like they used to. Consider the tale of Representative Wilbur Mills and Fanne Foxe. In October 1974, Mills, a powerful Arkansas Democrat who led the Ways and Means Committee, was pulled over in D.C. while driving with his lights off. Foxe, a stripper, leapt out of the car and into the Tidal Basin, the shallow reservoir next to the Jefferson Memorial; she had to be fished out by police. The two had apparently had a physical altercation—they had bruises and scratches—though neither was charged. Mills was initially able to weather the next few weeks and win reelection in November, but after showing up drunk at a Foxe performance later that month, he was forced to relinquish his leadership of Ways and Means and didn't seek reelection.
Now consider the circumstances in which another Representative Mills finds himself. The similarities are striking; the differences are alarming.
Last Wednesday, police responded to a call about an alleged assault at an apartment in D.C., where Cory Mills, a Florida Republican and strong Donald Trump ally, resides. A police report obtained by News4, a local NBC affiliate, stated that a 27-year-old woman there had what appeared to be 'fresh' bruises. The report described her as Mills's 'significant other,' though he is married and the 27-year-old is not his wife. She also allegedly, according to the document, 'let officers hear [Mills] instruct her to lie about the origin of her bruises.' Mills denies any wrongdoing and told Politico yesterday, 'Both myself and the other individual said that what they're claiming took place never took place and that's been reported multiple times.'
Things got stranger: The woman recanted her story and now says there was no physical abuse. D.C. police provided the media with a second report saying officers responded but there was no probable cause for arrest, and then a third report saying police are investigating the incident. They are also, according to News4, investigating their own handling of the matter. Police sent a warrant to the local prosecutor's office, but it has not been signed—in effect, a refusal to take up the case.
Because Washington, D.C., is not a state, it doesn't have a typical local district attorney. Instead, it has a federal prosecutor, a position currently filled by the Missouri attorney and failed Republican congressional candidate Ed Martin. After the 2020 elections, Martin was deeply involved in Stop the Steal efforts, and after the January 6 riot, he represented defendants and sat on the board of a group that raised money for the families of people imprisoned for their roles. Trump appointed him acting U.S. attorney at the start of his term, and has since nominated him to fill the role permanently.
In an X post yesterday, Martin described the staff of the U.S. Attorney's Office as 'President Trumps' lawyers.' This is not, in fact, the statutory role of U.S. Attorney's Offices—they serve the federal government, not the person of the president—but Martin very clearly approaches the job that way.
After taking over the U.S. Attorney's Office in January, he fired attorneys who were involved in January 6 cases—line prosecutors who were simply doing their jobs by bringing cases about overt crimes—and launched an internal investigation into January 6 prosecutions. He has boasted about standing up against the Associated Press, which he said refuses 'to put America first' by not adopting Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the 'Gulf of America.'
Even while doing his best to support people involved in an actual violent assault on the Capitol, Martin has been sending letters to Democratic members of Congress threatening to investigate them for the standard, though overheated, language they've used in reference to Elon Musk and Supreme Court justices. Yet somehow, Martin's office apparently doesn't have any interest in pursuing a fairly straightforward assault allegation, including claims of inducing an alleged victim to lie.
Why not? The U.S. Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to questions about why the warrant wasn't signed. But investigating a Republican member of the House would make life more difficult for the president and his allies on Capitol Hill. Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to ram a politically volatile spending bill through with his minuscule House majority. Some members have already indicated that they may vote against the bill because of proposed cuts to Medicaid. Losing Mills for any reason would make the task harder. Republicans have already paused the confirmation of Representative Elise Stefanik to be the ambassador to the United Nations in order to maintain their numbers.
This delicate moment also shows why, without action from prosecutors, Mills may not go anywhere. So lurid a story used to be a death knell for a career, but politicians have learned that they can gut out most sex scandals if they are sufficiently shameless. President Bill Clinton pioneered the path, Senator David Vitter and Governor Mark Sanford perfected it, and Trump represents its apotheosis. Wilbur Mills was forced to step down by fellow Democrats—not only because of the scandal but because it was politically expedient: A younger, more liberal group of Democrats was tired of conservative southerners blocking their priorities. Political expedience is also why Republicans are less likely to push Cory Mills out anytime soon.
Trump often speaks about 'law and order,' but he's also made very clear that this means law and order only for some—those who disagree with him, or those whom he finds obnoxious. Those who are on his side receive leniency, even if they have committed a violent assault against the Capitol. The U.S. Attorney's Office ignoring this case while harassing Democratic members of Congress is one very pure expression of this impulse. Meanwhile, Trump is interested in seizing greater control of Washington's governance. 'I think we should take over Washington, D.C.—make it safe,' he said last week. For whom?
Related:
Trump signals he might ignore the courts.
It's not amateur hour anymore.
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'It's a psyop': Inside Elon Musk's empty ultimatum
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Elon Musk thinks Democrats should love DOGE.
Today's News
In a joint letter, 21 civil-service employees resigned rather than implement directives from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. They formerly worked for the United States Digital Service and were being integrated into DOGE.
House Speaker Mike Johnson will attempt to pass Donald Trump's budget-plan bill this week, which would include $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts. Some House Republicans are reportedly hesitant about the cuts, which would affect federal spending on Medicaid.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate, announced his entry into the 2026 Ohio governor race.
Evening Read
The Internet's Favorite Sex Researcher
By Helen Lewis
Over the course of 2024, Aella cried on 71 different days, showered on 24, and took ketamine on 14. We know this because she meticulously gathers and posts information about people's personal, emotional, and sexual lives—including her own. The crying number was unusually high, she says, because of a bad breakup. For many fans, the more boggling statistic was that last year, she had sex on only 41 days, but on one of those days, she had sex with nearly 40 people. We'll come back to that.
Read the full article.
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Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.
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The Democratic Party has never been more unpopular — yet no Democrat seems to understand why. Some say they're not fighting President Donald Trump hard enough. Others say they aren't messaging their agenda well enough. In reality, they're fighting too hard for an agenda that Americans reject, with a central demand of welfare for all. Thirty-two years after President Bill Clinton promised to 'end welfare as we know it,' no idea unifies the Democratic Party more than the belief that welfare should be never-ending. This vision of government dependency spurred their most notable policies of recent years, and explains their intransigent opposition to Republican reforms. While some Democrats show an increasing willingness to compromise on other leftist priorities, such as biological men in women's sports, the party brooks no dissent on welfare — even though Americans want to fix the system's many failures. Consider the ongoing federal budget battle. House Republicans have put together a reconciliation bill that would slow the rate of Medicaid growth — from a projected 59.6% increase to 40% — over the next decade. Democrats oppose even that, including GOP attempts to end waste, fraud and abuse. Yet the latest federal data show that 22% of Medicaid payments and 12% of food-stamp payments went to ineligible recipients. More than 70% of likely voters want to protect taxpayers from fraud and abuse, polls show, yet Democrats essentially deny there's a problem that needs to be solved. In fact, when the Trump administration proposed a rule in March to end $11 billion in improper ObamaCare subsidies — aiming solely to curtail fraud — Democrats immediately opposed it. Democrats are just as adamant when it comes to work requirements for welfare recipients. My organization, the Foundation for Government Accountability, recently found that six in 10 able-bodied adults on Medicaid don't work at all, hoovering up resources that would benefit the truly vulnerable. When voters in purple Wisconsin were asked two years ago if welfare recipients should work as a condition of receiving benefits, nearly 80% said yes — but national Democrats now say no. They also reject Republican attempts to block Medicaid payments for illegal immigrants, which would save billions of dollars over the next decade. More than 70% of voters don't want illegal immigrants to receive government benefits, yet Democrats bizarrely disagree. But it's not just Congress; Democrats are striking the same strange tune in state capitols. Over the past 10 years, virtually all Republican-led states have taken steps to purge waste, fraud and abuse from welfare programs. By contrast, Democrat-run states have expanded illegal immigrants' access to Medicaid and pushed able-bodied adults onto welfare programs. In recent months, Democratic governors in Kansas and Arizona have vetoed Republican bills that would ban food-stamp purchases of soda and junk food — a reform that could lower state and federal Medicaid spending and encourage healthier choices. Democrats have a long history of supporting restrictions on consumers' options, but as soon as welfare enters the picture, they oppose it. Apparently limiting freedom is fine by them, but limiting federal welfare is unthinkable. The left's unwillingness to support even modest welfare reforms reflects the reality that government dependency is the biggest thing Democrats now offer Americans — even beyond limitless immigration and the Green New Deal. The Affordable Care Act, the central achievement of Barack Obama's presidency, dramatically expanded Medicaid while creating a new welfare system for the individual health-insurance market. Joe Biden enacted a work-destroying child tax credit and sought perpetual expansions of Medicaid and food stamps under the guise of pandemic relief. A slew of Biden regulations made it easier for people to abuse the taxpayer's generosity, from Medicaid to food stamps to free school lunches for rich kids. Democrats' end goal is clear: Get every American on the dole. Yet insisting that government dependency is always the answer means Democrats can't publicly admit that seemingly infinite welfare has any shortcomings. In fact, the left's agenda of welfare-for-all is profoundly harmful, and voters know it. Democrats have built a welfare system that taxpayers can't afford while pushing millions of people out of the workforce — a dual assault on the economic growth. They've left fewer resources for disabled children and the elderly by prioritizing able-bodied adults and illegal immigrants. And they're corrupting the foundational American belief that welfare is temporary assistance whose recipients should work to get back on their feet. No wonder Democrats are so unpopular: They're fleecing taxpayers, crippling the economy, hurting the truly needy and giving handouts to those who don't deserve them — none of which has Americans' support. The first Democrat who wakes up on welfare will be the hero their party desperately needs. Hayden Dublois is data and analytics director at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
