Latest news with #transAmericans
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
'The Beyoncé of our city.' Friends mourn Laura Schueler as police investigate her death
Friends and family are mourning the death of Laura Schueler, a 47-year-old woman found shot and killed the morning of Saturday June 7, in Evanston. Schueler's death is part of a larger trend of violence agains trans and gender-nonconforming Americans that has between 12 and 59 people killed every year since 2013. Last year, the majority of trans people killed in the United States were Black transgender women, according to data from the Human Rights Campaign. Jonathan Cunningham, the public information officer for the Cincinnati Police Department, said that police are investigating but have not yet made an arrest in connection with Schueler's death. When asked whether it would be investigated as a hate crime, Cunningham said the investigation was too early to address motive. 'I'm just heartbroken," said De'Whitney "Tiger" Hankins, Schueler's close friend of over 30 years, during an interview. 'She was one of a kind.' Facebook posts and conversations with friends reveal a vibrant member of Cincinnati's queer community who was beloved for her style and generosity. 'Laura was the Beyoncé of our city," said Tyson Carter, another close friend. "She knew how to dress. She was respected. You put out the red carpet when you see Miss Laura.' Carter said he regarded Schueler as an older sister and recalled how she'd call to check on him every day when she knew he was struggling with his mental health. 'She kept me under her wing,' said Carter. 'She was there for me, no matter what.' Schueler loved spending time in nature as much as she loved fashion, said Hankins. She was fiercely loyal to her friends, often taking on their issues as her own. 'She would be like, 'Hold on, I'm on my way,'" remembered Carter. "'Whatever happened to you, I'm on my way.'' At least 365 trans and gender non-conforming people in the United States have been killed in the past 12 years, according to data collected by the Human Rights Campaign, though the true number is likely to be higher due to underreporting. Black trans women take the brunt of the violence: 75% of identified victims between 2013 and 2023 were trans women of color, and 62% of all known victims were Black trans women. Violence is the main reason behind the high death rate of trans Americans of color, said Karen Harmon, a member of the Greater Cincinnati Human Rights Campaign's board of governors, among others. "They're murdered at an extremely high rate, or they're left without employment or housing," said Harmon. She also pointed to discriminatory policies from the state and federal government as a reason why the lives of trans people have become "extremely difficult." "Especially now in this climate, people need to know her name," Harmon said. "They need to hear her story." This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: 'The Beyonce of our city.' Friends mourn Laura Schueler
The Independent
02-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Trump will unfreeze Maine funding after trans athlete lawsuit: ‘We took him to court and we won'
Donald Trump 's administration will unfreeze federal funding for Maine's child nutrition programs following a legal battle between the state and the president over transgender athletes. The administration agreed that it will not interfere with the state's access to Department of Agriculture funding, and in turn, the state will drop its lawsuit against the agency. The settlement does not constitute an admission of guilt from either party. In remarks on Friday, Maine's Democratic Governor Janet Mills hailed the settlement as a 'victory' for its state after a 'blatantly illegal' threat to block critical funding for school food programs. 'It's good to feel a victory like this,' she said. 'We took him to court and we won.' The legal battle was sparked after a confrontational meeting at the White House, where the president told Mills to comply with an executive order banning transgender women and girls from women's sports. 'Are you not going to comply with it?' Trump asked Mills. 'I'm complying with state and federal laws,' she replied. 'We are federal law,' Trump said. 'You better do it. You better do it, because you're not going to get federal funding … Your population doesn't want men in women's sports.' 'We'll see you in court,' Mills replied. 'Good. I'll see you in court. I'll look forward to that. That should be a real easy one,' Trump said. 'And enjoy your life after, governor, because I don't think you'll be in elected politics.' In the ensuing lawsuit, Attorney General Pam Bondi accused the state of violating Title IX, the 1972 civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. Maine violated the law by 'discriminating against women by failing to protect women in women's sports,' according to Bondi's lawsuit. 'By prioritizing gender identity over biological reality, Maine's policies deprive girl athletes of fair competition, deny them equal athletic opportunities, and expose them to heightened risks of physical injury and psychological harm,' the lawsuit stated. In February, Trump signed an executive order to end the 'dangerous and unfair participation of men in women's sports' by directing federal law enforcement agencies to take 'immediate action' against schools and associations that 'deny women single-sex sports and single-sex locker rooms,' according to a summary from the White House. During a signing ceremony surrounded by young girls, Trump claimed that the 'radical left' had 'waged an all-out campaign to erase the very concept of biological sex and replace it with a militant transgender ideology.' The order followed a sweeping executive order impacting virtually every aspect of public life for trans Americans by erasing 'gender' as a concept across federal agencies and effectively denying the existence of transgender, intersex and nonbinary people. Separate executive orders have targeted access to gender-affirming healthcare for trans people under 19 and have sought to ban trans service members from the U.S. military. The lawsuit followed a letter to the state from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on April 2, which Mills likened to a 'ransom note' written by a child in her remarks on Friday. 'A demand letter that was outrageous at the time and remains outrageous today,' she said Friday. On April 11, District Judge John Woodcock Jr. ordered the USDA to immediately unfreeze any withheld federal funding to the state. 'It's unfortunate that my office had to resort to federal court just to get USDA to comply with the law and its own regulations,' Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said in a statement. 'But we are pleased that the lawsuit has now been resolved and that Maine will continue to receive funds as directed by Congress to feed children and vulnerable adults.'
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
BREAKING: Trump Justice Department asks Supreme Court to reinstate trans military ban blocked by courts
President Donald Trump's administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to reinstate his sweeping ban on transgender military service—just two days after Justice Department attorneys faced sharp skepticism from a federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. In an emergency filing, the DOJ asked the court to lift a nationwide injunction issued by Washington state U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle in Shilling v. United States. Settle blocked the enforcement of Trump's January executive order banning transgender people's service. He ruled that the policy likely violates the Fifth Amendment's equal protection guarantee and called it 'dramatic and facially unfair,' citing a lack of evidence that transgender troops harm military readiness. The filing argues the policy is legally indistinguishable from a 2018 'Mattis policy,' which the high court previously allowed to take effect. Related: DOJ appeals block on Pentagon's transgender military ban The DOJ says courts should give broad leeway to military decisions and claims the policy only needs to be 'rational'—meaning it just has to make some sense, even if it's flawed or controversial. That legal test, rational-basis review, is the most forgiving standard in constitutional law. The government claims that allowing transgender people with gender dysphoria to serve would impact military effectiveness and increase health care costs. 'The Department has found the current policy to be inconsistent with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service,' the DOJ wrote, warning the injunction could undermine national security. Related: Trump's DOJ struggles defending trans military ban during D.C. appeals court hearing Lower court judges have said that the government is misinterpreting its reports and that the government spends far more on erectile dysfunction medications annually than it has for gender-affirming care in ten years. Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings told The Advocate that the organization will challenge the DOJ's Supreme Court claim. 'Lambda Legal will shortly file a response asking the Supreme Court to uphold our victory and allow patriotic trans Americans to continue to serve our country,' Jennings said. The named lead plaintiff in the case now before the high court is Commander Emily Shilling, a transgender woman and decorated Navy officer who has served more than two decades, including 60 combat missions. Her case represents a group of active-duty transgender service members and a transgender man seeking to enlist, all of whom face discharge or denial of service under Trump's order. 'This is just pure bigotry. Plain and simple," Jennings said. "Bigotry is not rational. It's irrational, and what the Trump administration is doing is irrational because trans service members like Commander Shilling, who we're representing, who has flown over 60 combat missions for this country, serve with distinction and honor. There's no reason for this ban beyond bigotry.' Jennings noted that Lambda Legal is committed to the long haul. 'We don't file a case unless we plan to stick with it to the end,' he said. 'We will stay with the suit for a decade if we have to. We've done that before.' He added that the plaintiffs are ordinary Americans who stepped up because of injustice. 'They're not trying to be heroes. They're just trying to live their lives—and serve their country,' he said. 'They often get enormous hate mail and harassment, but they do it not just for themselves but for the whole community.' And in a final note, Jennings pointed to the irony of Trump—who dodged the draft—trying to purge volunteers from the armed forces. 'We don't have a draft anymore. Everybody in our military volunteered,' Jennings said. 'Who's the real patriot here? The man who dodged the draft, or the trans woman who flew over 60 combat missions?'The filing follows a rough showing for the government in Talbott v. United States on Tuesday, a parallel case in which a D.C. Circuit panel questioned the administration's legal rationale. DOJ attorney Jason Manion admitted under oath that he could not answer how the policy would be implemented or enforced or whether similar automatic discharges existed for any other condition. 'You can serve as a transgender person as long as you don't serve as a transgender person?' Judge Cornelia Pillard asked, summarizing the policy's contradictions. Related: Appeals court denies Trump DOJ's request to halt injunction on trans military ban — for now Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which, along with GLAD Law, is representing the Talbott plaintiffs, told The Advocate that he wasn't surprised by the government's move. "We expected the government would ask the Supreme Court for an emergency stay as the administration has been doing that routinely, in the hope that the Supreme Court will override lower court decisions enjoining blatantly unconstitutional actions," Minter said. "The Talbott service members will urge the court to reject this request. There is no basis for a stay, so we are hopeful the court will deny it and allow the normal judicial process to continue." The government's Supreme Court request follows the Ninth Circuit's upholding a similar injunction in Shilling. Both cases challenge Executive Order 14183, which claims that transgender identity is incompatible with military service. D.C. District Judge Ana Reyes, who issued the Talbott injunction, described the ban as 'soaked in animus and dripping with pretext.' Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jewish Americans feel echoes of history in transgender passport restrictions
Camins Bretts, who is 61 and lives in Seattle, has crossed the Canada-United States border many times for work, family and romantic partners. But because he's a transgender man, at least half a dozen of those trips ended in him being detained by U.S. border officials. At various points Bretts has been pulled aside and questioned for traveling with identity documents that list him as male, as well as papers that identified him as female. Because of his gender expression, he has frequently been accused of lying about who he is. To find a solution, Bretts applied for a passport with an 'X' gender marker on January 22. He was denied. By that time, the Trump administration had begun blocking new passports for trans Americans. All of this feels familiar to Bretts. It reminds him of how Jewish people were kept from accessing legitimate travel documents when Nazi Germany was in power — leaving Jews across multiple countries unable to flee rising violence. It reminds him of what happened to his family. He's not alone. As the Trump administration targets marginalized groups, including migrants and trans people, LGBTQ+ Jewish people told The 19th that they increasingly feel that history is in danger of repeating itself. As the Nazis invaded the Baltic states in the 1940s, scores of Bretts' relatives died in Lithuania. Their travel documents identified them as Jews, so they were barred from leaving the country to escape violence. Their rights were curtailed. The people who would have been Bretts' great-aunts and great-uncles disappeared, with no records of their death or last known locations. He assumes they were killed in anti-Jewish raids, or pogroms, carried out by locals. Bretts sees his new passport as an invitation for abuse. Just as his family was forced to use documentation that exposed them to violence, he and other trans Americans are carrying documentation that exposes them to abuse when they travel, he said. Preventing trans Americans from accessing accurate passports is just one more way to make life intolerable — and it's intentional, Bretts said. The confusion that trans people now face when they travel, and the decisions they have to make, are designed to frighten and destabilize them, he said. 'It's the same story, in miniature, of what happened to my family. They had the wrong thing stamped on their identity documents,' he said. 'I'm not expecting what's going on in the U.S. to get to the point of, you know, impromptu death squads … but nonetheless, I, like many other people with non-matching identity documents, am now stuck.' For over 30 years, Bretts has lived publicly as a man. Now he has been given a passport that says he's a woman. Although it's a valid American passport, Bretts knows from experience that U.S. border officials often poorly handle inconsistencies between someone's gender and their paperwork. He's already canceled three trips and sought legal advice on whether he should leave the state, let alone the country. The answer he's gotten so far is to stay put. Due to the Trump administration's new policies, transgender Americans across the country now hold passports that out them as being trans and leave them at risk of being harassed if they use these for travel. Their passports are labeled with a gender marker that is at odds with how these travelers look and, in many cases, how they are classified on their other identity documents. Federal agencies are carrying out executive orders from President Donald Trump that all share a common goal: removing transgender and nonbinary people from public life wherever possible. That includes restricting access to accurate federal identity documents. The State Department is no longer issuing U.S. passports with 'X' gender markers, and applications from Americans seeking to update their passports with a new gender marker are being denied. In some cases, trans people have tried to renew expired passports that were already aligned with their gender identity only to receive passports that list their birth sex. Kris Haas and Jordan Gregor have also been feeling on edge, though it's not just because of how the Trump administration has targeted transgender Americans. As a lesbian, Jewish couple, they feel their religion is being used as an excuse to target vulnerable people, like the foreign college students who are being detained and deported by the federal government for their pro-Palestinian advocacy or sympathy while living legally in the United States. Trump has accused these students of engaging in 'pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity.' Haas, who is nonbinary, said they are frightened of what they see as parallels between Adolf Hitler's actions and rhetoric in the 1920s and 1930s and those of the current U.S. president. They listed examples: In his rise to power, Hitler contested election results, railed against the failings of representational democracy and relied on emotion rather than logic when giving speeches. Then, there's Elon Musk, the billionaire who has spearheaded an effort to purge the federal government through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). At President Trump's inauguration celebration in Washington, D.C., Musk made a gesture that many people, including neo-Nazis, interpreted as a Nazi salute. He has denied that it was his intention. 'We know where this train continues to,' Haas said. 'We need to stop it now.' Robbie Medwed isn't trans, but he has watched the Trump administration's escalating attacks on transgender Americans with growing fear of what comes next. He sees many similarities between this administration and the authoritarian playbook that Hitler used to come into power — especially in the focus on trans people, a sliver of the country's population. For Medwed, a gay and cisgender Jewish man, the parallels between political conservative calls to 'eradicate transgenderism' and the rhetoric that fueled laws outlawing Judaism are clear. 'I think there's a very obvious effort right now to target, other and remove trans people — at the very least, from public life, and at the very worst, prohibiting trans existence,' he said. And although transgender people are an easy target, since many people still have no idea what being transgender means, Medwed doubts they'll be the last target. And that feeling, too, comes from family experience. Medwed's grandparents were Holocaust survivors. As he grew up, his parents and grandparents shared a common refrain, a frequent reminder for their family: 'Every good Jew has a passport. Every great Jew has two.' Growing up, Medwed thought this was a joke. Now, that often-repeated saying from his childhood has started echoing in his ears again. As he watches trans Americans being denied passports that accurately reflect who they are, he has gotten nervous about the possibility of his own documentation being taken away. He renewed his passport in February. 'I absolutely think that Trump has been using what I call Hitler's playbook,' he said. 'I don't think we're at 1939 or 1940. I think we're at 1933, at the very beginning of all the laws coming to place that were set into motion to start to other and outlaw Jews and Judaism. We're not there yet, but I absolutely think we are on the way.' These parallels have been on Rabbi Micah Buck-Yael's mind for years. In 2023, when states faced a significant onslaught of anti-trans bills, they watched as access to gender-affirming care and discrimination protections for trans people in Missouri came under attack. As a transgender rabbi, they were shaken; they considered moving their family out of the state. In an op-ed written in 2023, the rabbi detailed how they struggled with the decision: 'It's deeply frightening and personal. Every trans person I know is asking themselves the same questions that I am: Should I leave now? If not now, when? And how will I know?' He continued: 'I keep thinking about my mother and her parents who, as persecuted Jews, fled Egypt in the 1950s. I remember my grandmother Juliette telling me about the nights they spent by the radio, listening to the news and deciding when or whether to flee.' Ultimately, they decided to stay in Missouri. That's where their community is. Now, as more trans Americans wonder if they should leave the country, he is reflecting once again on how Jewish transgender people are grappling with deep-seated, intergenerational trauma as they weigh the same questions that their ancestors did. 'Not having access to a passport, not being able to renew a passport, lands as particularly terrifying for people who carry that story,' he told The 19th. Although Medwed sees the United States moving in a dangerous direction, he doesn't think it's too late to change that trajectory. Other cisgender people, and anyone else with the safety and privilege to be loud in opposition to hateful policies, need to step up, he said. 'I think it's our responsibility to step in front sometimes and do the loud yelling because we're not going to be in danger in the same way. Don't talk over people, but have those conversations where others aren't able to,' he said. The post Jewish Americans feel echoes of history in transgender passport restrictions appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Shockingly Lawless Second Term
There were less than four days to go until Donald Trump was sworn into office for a second time. In those final days of the presidential transition, Trump and his team were busy finalizing their blitz of executive actions, which included a widespread crackdown on civil rights, trans Americans, and diversity programs. Trump's government-in-waiting was putting the finishing touches on plans for a startlingly nativist propaganda campaign, which would soon feature an 'ASMR' video of officials preparing to fly migrants to camps at Guantánamo Bay. Trump had preemptively allocated an astounding amount of power to the world's richest man, Elon Musk, giving him near free rein to desecrate the federal workforce. And the president-elect was giddy about one of his more depraved opening acts still to come: the mass pardons and commutations for his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Amid all of this, the incoming president had something else on his mind: his meme coin. The Friday night before his inauguration, Trump announced he was launching his own cryptocurrency called 'Trump Meme' — a purely speculative asset, comparable to a digital baseball card, with no inherent value or use. The price of $TRUMP quickly blew up, surging from around $6 to $74, generating billions of dollars on paper for the Trump family. The launch was so successful that First Lady Melania Trump quickly raced her own meme coin out the door, too, less than 24 hours before Trump's inauguration — a move that caused $TRUMP to begin crashing. By late February, the coin was trading at around $13. The earliest investors likely made huge profits; hundreds of thousands of suckers appear to have lost big. The Trump family will make a killing no matter what: By early February, his family and their partners had made nearly $100 million on trading fees. In the final days of the transition and even during his early presidency, Trump privately encouraged close allies — in big business and on Capitol Hill — to buy his meme coin, according to a source familiar with the matter and one Republican lawmaker. He'd even do this over dinner. 'You should really get in on it,' Trump would bluntly recommend. 'Of course he did,' the GOP lawmaker recounts. 'He told the whole country to do it [via an X post], so why wouldn't he tell the people he knows? There's nothing wrong with that.' The lawmaker refused to say whether they invested — though if they bought any Trump coin more than an hour or two after it launched, they would have lost big. The meme coin was a blatant cash grab, to the point that one of Trump's former White House communications directors denounced it as 'Idi Amin-level corruption.' It wasn't even the Trump family's first foray into crypto — during the 2024 campaign, his family announced the creation of their own cryptocurrency platform, World Liberty Financial. As he promised on the campaign trail, Trump has worked aggressively to push the crypto industry's interests in Washington and ensure the incredibly risky assets operate with little regulation, signing an executive order to promote crypto, announcing a 'crypto strategic reserve,' and naming an industry ally to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. At the end of February, Trump's SEC moved to throw out its prosecution of Justin Sun — who had been charged with marketing unregistered crypto securities and manipulating the market for a crypto token — after Sun's investments in World Liberty Financial reportedly netted the Trump family $56 million in fees. The crypto caper is a perfect encapsulation of the bold-faced graft at the heart of the new Trump presidency: Uber-wealthy elites are poised to cash in, while ordinary people get hosed. And public policy will be designed to encourage this exact outcome. 'Compared to other major corruption scandals since the 1870s, this administration is shaping up to be the most corrupt of them all, because never before has a president been willing and able to blatantly use the office to make massive personal profit,' says Kedric Payne, the Campaign Legal Center's general counsel and senior director for ethics. 'Compared to his first term, he's more strategic and more prepared to engage in corruption — and he's taken big steps to wipe out any possible enforcement against his actions. An example of this is his financial interest in crypto, while at the same time shaping the policy to allow that very industry to flourish.' Payne adds: 'The blatant nature of this is genuinely new, which I think a lot of people have trouble wrapping their heads around. Normal corruption involves lobbyists providing gifts and perks and campaign contributions to lawmakers in hopes they will receive beneficial legislation. These are acts that directly benefit Trump's bottom line.' (The Trump administration did not respond to requests for comment.) 'This administration is shaping up to be the most corrupt of them all.' Kedric Payne WHILE STILL IN its infancy, Trump's second administration has been a shocking expression of corruption, lawlessness, and cruelty, with an even higher level of chaos than Americans had grown to expect from the former game-show host. It's clear now his critics were correct about what a Trump win would mean; if anything, many of them undersold the threat he would pose. At the center of the horror show is Elon Musk, who spent $290 million boosting Trump and Republicans in the last election cycle. In return, Musk was put in charge of Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Trump and Musk have used this not-so-legitimate office to blitz through constitutional checks and balances and long-standing federal laws in order to consolidate and expand presidential power, so they can dismantle whole agencies and purge the workforce to make it more MAGA. With Musk and his team of young far-right helpers at DOGE leading the way, the Trump administration has moved to fire tens of thousands of federal employees with no basis at all — ranging from the vast majority of workers at the U.S. Agency for International Development, America's foreign aid bureau; some health care workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs; staffers who take care of our great national parks; and employees at the Federal Aviation Administration who keep the skies safe. (They also fired hundreds of staffers at the agency that manages America's nuclear weapons before attempting to hire them back.) Veterans make up 30 percent of the federal workforce — so Americans who served our country are all but assured to absorb the brunt of Trump and Musk's mass firings. Moreover, Musk and DOGE specifically sought to cancel hundreds of Veterans Affairs contracts that would eviscerate the department's ability to provide promised care and benefits; according to Washington Technology, a magazine for government contractors, most of the contracts targeted were held by service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses. 'Congress estimates 50,000 veterans will lose jobs, homes, and more,' says Michael Embrich, a former policy adviser to the secretary of Veterans Affairs, adding: 'Those who swore to defend democracy will now have their pursuit of happiness stripped by two of the richest and most powerful men ever to skirt serving in the public interest.' In a short time, the ethical quandaries of Trump's first term have begun to look comparatively small. Outside of the crypto space, there are so many different ways for businesses — or foreign interests — to put money directly in the coffers of the president and his family. During the campaign last year, Trump privately discussed jacking up the price for membership at his private Florida club and estate Mar-a-Lago, because members are 'paying to see the president.' After Trump's defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris, top CEOs and corporate executives amped up their visits to the president's Palm Beach club — with Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, suits from the pharmaceutical industry, and many others making a show of kissing the ring. Senior staff at lobbying outfits and a variety of corporate giants immediately began planning retreats, galas, and annual meetings at Mar-a-Lago and other Trump-branded golf resorts and event spaces — so they could shovel cash to Trump. One longtime D.C. lobbyist referred to these payments as 'tips' for the president. Wired separately reports Trump's Super PAC has charged $1 million per seat at Mar-a-Lago events with the president; one-on-one meetings cost $5 million. Even the first lady has been making deals — including an outlandish agreement with Amazon. The company signed a $40 million deal with Melania Trump for a documentary film that, as one Amazon source puts it, 'nobody asked for.' Other studios, to the extent they were interested, reportedly offered far lower sums. It's expected that most of the money will go directly to Melania. She personally pitched Bezos, Amazon's founder and executive chairman, about the film project, directed by disgraced filmmaker Brett Ratner, over dinner at Mar-a-Lago in December, according to The Wall Street Journal. Becoming president again has given Trump leverage to resolve his often frivolous lawsuits against Big Tech companies and large corporate-owned media outlets, and to walk away with multimillion-dollar payouts. In one case, he has already wielded the weight of the Federal Communications Commission against a media company he's suing. ABC, owned by Disney, announced in December it would pay $15 million to resolve Trump's lawsuit over George Stephanopoulos' claim that Trump had been 'found liable for rape' in civil lawsuits from E. Jean Carroll. (Trump was found liable for 'sexual abuse.') In late January, Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle Trump's lawsuit over Facebook suspending his social media accounts after he fomented the Jan. 6 riot. The Facebook and ABC payments went to Trump's new presidential library and museum slush fund. In the case of Trump's settlement with X, Musk didn't even bother with the library fund, and instead negotiated a $10 million deal with Trump that will reportedly benefit the president personally. Trump has claimed he gave Musk 'a big discount.' The $10 million deal with Trump might be smart for Musk after all, given that his relationship with the president has made him one of the world's most powerful people and put him in a position to profit off the government even more. Musk's DOGE team has demanded sweeping access across the federal government to sensitive data and systems in order to enact firings, cancel projects, and cut off payments to entities that Trump and Musk don't like. The upshot for Musk is he now has access to an unparalleled trove of data about every American as well as his competitors. The opportunities for conflicts of interest are endless, given Musk's businesses. As Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a law professor at the Stetson University College of Law, puts it, 'The number of potential conflicts of interest are legion.' The Trump White House has argued that Musk can police his own activities — and choose to excuse himself from DOGE's work overseeing certain contracts or funding if he believes it poses a conflict. Musk, for his part, has suggested that the public will hold him accountable regarding any conflict — people won't 'be shy about saying that,' he said in a press conference with Trump. 'The number of potential conflicts of interest are legion.' Ciara Torres-Spelliscy 'We would not let him do that segment or look in that area if we thought there was a lack of transparency or a conflict of interest,' Trump volunteered, before waving away any concerns: 'He's a successful guy. That's why we want him doing this.' Trump later publicly added one potential restriction: 'Anything to do with possibly even space, we won't let Elon partake in that,' he said. That would make sense, since Musk's company SpaceX has received billions in contracts from NASA. When it was reported in February that the Trump administration was targeting NASA for a round of painful cuts — potentially 10 percent of the space agency's workforce — the agency was abruptly let off the hook. Within hours of those reports emerging, NASA staff were told that they could take a breath: At least for the moment, those cuts were postponed, or maybe called off for good. The reason? Musk and his allies personally intervened to forestall the reported haircut, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. As he tears through the federal workforce, Musk is cashing in on new and existing contracts, including with agencies that regulate his businesses. After Musk and DOGE cut hundreds of jobs at the FAA, an agency that previously fined Musk's SpaceX for regulatory and safety violations, news outlets reported the agency was preparing to hire Starlink, owned by SpaceX, to upgrade the systems it uses to manage America's airspace. As Rolling Stone reported, before anything was official, FAA officials quietly directed staff to find tens of millions of dollars to fund a Starlink deal. 'If Musk is in charge of hiring and firing workers at the FAA, then getting a no-bid FAA contract to provide services would be an epic conflict of interest,' says Torres-Spelliscy. 'If this is the case, then he is basically paying himself with taxpayer funds through a part of the government he partially controls through his ability to fire people.' Talk of hiring Starlink has come up elsewhere. According to a source familiar with the matter, during the first few weeks of the second Trump era, DOGE personnel reached out to officials at the FBI and Justice Department — and asked if the bureau had ever thought about adopting Starlink for sensitive operations and surveillance. 'I wanted to vomit,' this source says, adding that there is no conceivable reason the FBI would need Starlink. The administration has also shielded Musk's X platform from potential oversight, pausing the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which polices big banks and other financial institutions, such as peer-to-peer payment apps. Musk is working with Visa to offer a peer-to-peer payment service called X Money Account. Other agencies scrutinizing Musk's businesses have faced steep job cuts — including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has been investigating Tesla's self-driving technology. 'To the extent that Musk is hiring and firing people all over the U.S. executive branch, he is not in arm's-length transactions with government regulators,' Torres-Spelliscy says. 'With respect to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, he would be both the regulator [NHTSA] and the regulated [Tesla].' Lawlessness is core to Musk's DOGE project and Trump's slash-and-burn agenda for his second administration. The president's mass-firing campaign and efforts to expand executive power depend on his and his cronies' willingness to ignore the Constitution, existing federal laws passed by Congress, and any expectations of transparency. Musk has not been appointed or confirmed; he is a 'special government employee,' a designation that allows him to bypass a Senate confirmation process and avoid publicly disclosing his vast financial holdings. 'Special government employees do not go around directing people in agencies and telling them what to do,' says Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as the chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. 'If you're directing people in agencies and telling them what to do, under the appointments clause of the Constitution, you need to be appointed and confirmed by the Senate.' The office Musk has led, DOGE, was created by rebranding the U.S. Digital Service — a technology unit that was housed within the president's Office of Management and Budget. Musk and Trump have attempted to bestow the office with expansive authorities never granted by Congress. (They also moved DOGE into the executive office of the president, to shield it from open-record laws.) In court, the Justice Department has claimed that 'Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself' — even as Musk publicly threatened to fire any federal employees who failed to respond to his HR emails asking them, 'What did you do last week?' Meanwhile, DOGE has worked to help the Trump administration claw back funds appropriated by Congress, including $80 million taken right out of New York City bank accounts. Those funds, meant to help the city house asylum seekers, were removed after Musk falsely claimed that DOGE had 'discovered' that disaster-relief funds were 'being spent on high-end hotels for illegals.' There's a term for this type of act: impoundment. Trump pledged to try this during the 2024 campaign. However, the Constitution does not give the president the power to impound, freeze, or refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress. 'It's pretty clear as a textual matter, and the history is even clearer, that the president needs to defer to Congress, and cannot override Congress' specific appropriations,' says Jed Shugerman, a Boston University law professor and expert in executive power. He notes that Musk 'has deputies who are directly pushing the buttons that are blocking payments,' thanks to DOGE's unprecedented access to America's payment systems. Trump is challenging the Constitution in other ways. The president has attempted, via executive order, to end birthright citizenship — the 14th Amendment's guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States. (A judge appointed by Ronald Reagan found Trump's order 'blatantly unconstitutional.') 'He who saves his country does not violate any law.' Donald Trump Compounding the constitutional threat, Vice President J.D. Vance has suggested Trump can ignore judges' rulings, and Trump has publicly threatened to 'look at' judges who rule against DOGE's efforts to gut federal agencies and freeze their funds. 'At this point, there's enough reporting to suggest that Elon Musk is exercising invalid power that the Constitution doesn't allow,' says Shugerman. 'He should not have executive power at all if it hasn't been established by Congress,' Shugerman continues. 'The executive power he's exercising is that of a department head or principal officer, and he has not been confirmed. Elon Musk is unconstitutional.' Since the dawn of his first administration, Trump has told his followers: 'Promises made, promises kept.' One 2024 vow he's kept was his pledge to make the federal government as autocratically MAGA and cultish as possible. During the Presidents' Day weekend in mid-February, Trump screamed the quiet part out loud, writing online: 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.' In paraphrasing an apparently fake Napoleon quote, Trump effectively declared that he thinks he can break any law he wants. In a more sane time, this sort of expression from the U.S. commander in chief would be a scandal. After all, the president is — due to the American Revolution — not a king. Trump and his staff soon doubled down, outright calling him 'THE KING.' It would be easier to dismiss these words as mere trolling if Trump were not seeking to consolidate unchecked power. In his first month back in office, Trump moved to purge the FBI and Justice Department as vengeance for the criminal investigations he's faced. He's quickly turned the DOJ into a political arm of the White House and a protection racket for him, his friends, and allies — and a weapon against his enemies, real or perceived. Almost as soon as he was sworn in, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone there was a sudden, jarring information clampdown at the DOJ. Senior career officials at the Justice Department were suddenly cut out of daily conference calls and meetings to go over top-line threats or prime suspects that the feds were focusing on. Trump's political appointees repeatedly warned Justice Department career officials and attorneys that failure to comply with Trump's interpretation of the law — however illegal it may sound — is grounds for removal. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump told several confidants that his new Justice Department would not be conducting any more, in his framing, 'illegal' federal investigations of Trump's Republican pals. Already, the president and his administration are following through on that. Ed Martin, Trump's new interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has publicly pledged to 'protect DOGE,' and described his team as 'President Trump's lawyers.' More ominously, in February, his office reportedly declined to sign off on an arrest warrant for MAGA Florida Rep. Cory Mills, after he was accused of physically assaulting a 27-year-old woman. At the same time, Martin has publicly threatened to investigate Democratic lawmakers over their criticisms of Musk and the conservative Supreme Court. After Trump took office again, the Justice Department's interest in corruption-busting quickly evaporated, and the department announced it was ending its focus on foreign bribery and influence. The DOJ also moved to throw out its corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams so that he could more fully devote his 'attention and resources' to assisting Trump's immigration crackdown. The ensuing scandal triggered a wave of resignations at the Department of Justice that included prosecutors who had clerked for staunchly conservative justices. In another presidency, it would have been the defining, darkest episode. In Trump 2.0, it was another day, another week, another chance for the president and his people to practice their guiding, Sopranos-style legal principle, which is simply — in the words of one conservative attorney close to Trump and his inner sanctum — 'What are you gonna do about it?' 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