Contrarians, we have grown all too accustomed to the staggering scale of corruption oozing from every corner of this administration. But with your support, we’ve also helped to build a pro-democracy coalition that has successfully fought back — including major pushback just this week, thanks to your paid subscriptions.
We began the week by fighting Donald Trump’s efforts to corrupt the very foundation of our democracy: voting. We filed a brief in the First Circuit to support the injunction blocking Trump’s illegal plan to restrict mail-in voting through the U.S. Postal Service and to protect voters from yet another attempt to undermine access to the ballot. As Trump works to erode confidence in our elections, we are fighting alongside wonderful partners across the ecosystem to ensure that mail-in voting remains free and fair.
I vote by mail. I trust my ballot will count, and you should trust yours. With your help, we and our partners have filed briefs in all 13 mail-in voting proceedings with one simple message: Trump’s outrageous executive order attempting to rewrite the rules of how we vote cannot be implemented this close to an election.
Now comes the big test at the Supreme Court, where we also filed a brief in the mail-in voting case this week. Remember that the justices’ August order lifted an earlier block on procedural grounds and expressly left open whether Trump’s nutty USPS order is lawful. Judge Indira Talwani answered that question: of course it is not. The Constitution gives the president no power to control one form of voting through manipulating the Postal Service. The president’s USPS rule is also impossible to administer at this late date; it’s too late to do things like print new envelopes with special barcodes. We told all that to the Supreme Court and urged it to leave the injunction alone. I am hopeful. Either way, we will keep litigating, communicating, and mobilizing on behalf of voters until every ballot this cycle is freely, fairly, and safely cast, counted, and certified.
This week also brought new revelations about financial corruption scandals involving the president and members of his inner circle. The Wall Street Journal published a blistering report on longtime Trump lackey Corey Lewandowski’s alleged cartoonish abuse of power while serving as a special government employee at the Department of Homeland Security. Lewandowski allegedly told foreign governments to “hire me on the side,” pressured companies with billions of dollars in federal contracts at stake, and retaliated against businesses with which he held personal grievances. This is a new low, even for Trump’s cronies. The American people deserve a full investigation.
Then we learned about Trump’s cash payments of $45,000 to several of his favorite female staffers, including the infamous “human printer” Natalie Harp. If there is one thing I know as a former White House ethics czar, it’s that this kind of gift-giving won’t fly under federal law: 18 U.S.C. § 209 prohibits executive branch employees from receiving salary contributions or supplementation from any source other than the United States. As I said on MS NOW, had I gone into the Oval Office and asked President Barack Obama if he’d like to distribute $45,000 gifts to some of his closest aides, he would have thrown me out.
That’s the whole point of the statute. Public servants answer to the public, not to a private paymaster.
Yesterday, I joined several former White House ethics officials and anti-corruption experts in calling for an immediate investigation into these troubling cash payments and whether they violate a core federal ethics statute. At Democracy Defenders Action, we’ve been tracking this administration’s corrupt dealings, and with your help, we’ll continue to do so.
As the election approaches, Trump’s attempts to sway voters have reached new levels of desperation. At the first-ever Republican Midterm Convention, a rather embarrassing affair with a lot of empty seats, Trump repeatedly pleaded with voters to “pretend, please, I’m on the ballot.” On top of that, he rolled out his latest fantastical promise: If Republicans win both chambers of Congress, he’ll send $5,000 to every American adult. This stunt got pushback from even Laura Ingraham, one of Trump’s most loyal acolytes. For good reason: Vote-buying by another name is still vote-buying and it is illegal.
Attorney General Todd Blanche also took the stage at this bizarre event, a move former AG Eric Holder aptly called “unprecedented” and “disgraceful.” Blanche’s DOJ posted that he was appearing at the event in his “personal capacity,” whatever that means for the nation’s top law enforcement official. This should come as no surprise. Blanche has long been putting on a show for an audience of one — his former client.
Cabinet officials reach for the same “personal capacity” fig leaf when they campaign on the government’s dime. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy grabbed it last month at a MAGA Inc. event in Michigan. We filed a Hatch Act complaint after Duffy touted DOT policy while actively promoting Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers. As my colleague Virginia Canter, our chief counsel and director of ethics and anti-corruption at Democracy Defenders Fund, explained, “The Hatch Act is clear: cabinet members are not permitted to use their official position or authority of office to push a partisan political agenda.” Duffy can’t engage in electioneering with his Cabinet title. Congress settled that in 1939. We called on the Office of Special Counsel to investigate.
And lastly, as you Contrarians know, we at DDF remain steadfast in our quest to uncover the truth about this administration’s Epstein cover-up. This week, we sent the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General a letter with more files that we were able to pry loose. The FBI recently released two tranches of documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that we filed last year. These disclosures support what we’ve been saying all along: The DOJ has failed to meet its obligations under the Epstein Files Transparency Act and has aggressively shielded the names of high-ranking officials identified in the files. We submitted these records to the DOJ watchdog to ensure they have this damning evidence as its audit continues. DOJ has released 3.5 million of the 6 million pages it says it reviewed. It still owes the American people the rest, and we will keep pushing until they get it.
These are among the more than 300 legal cases and matters your paid subscriptions support at Democracy Defenders Fund and Action. Those subscriptions also fund the award-winning journalism at The Contrarian, the best of which from this week you’ll find below.
September 11, 2001: 25 Years Later
Reflecting on a Chaotic, Scary Day 25 Years Later
Frederic J. Frommer gave us a D.C. reporter’s perspective on that tragic morning. “For a while, I could see smoke still rising from the Pentagon from my apartment.”
Max Stier marked this year’s anniversary with a lesson hard-earned in the past two and a half decades: “our government is only as capable as the professionals doing the work” to keep us safe.
The War on Terror Is (Still) Threatening Democracy
Laleh Ispahani reflected on how the Trump administration has seized on reactionary post-9/11 policies. “Tools built in a moment of fear can outlast the fear that built them — that they can be trained on new ‘targets,’ and that new technologies can make them more powerful. What can turn them back is when people decide a neighbor’s problem is their own.”
The Danger of Preparing for the Last Surprise
Brian O’Neill cautioned against using the lessons of one catastrophe, even one as seismic as 9/11, to define how we see the next. “ September 11 was more than a terrorist attack. It was a strategic surprise…[and] strategic surprise rarely returns on the same path or bearing the same signposts.”
25 Year Later, We Still Haven’t Dealt with the Continuity Gaps in Our Government
Norm Ornstein went deep on his work preparing the federal government for the aftermath of crisis — and asks what it will take to actually implement what experts know. “The current Republican Congress [is] a model of fecklessness and abdication of fundamental responsibility.”
Labor Love
Michael Podhorzer offered some tough love on Democrats’ need to build a coalition that deserves the support of working people. “The most important reason Democrats stopped being the party of the working class is because Democrats stopped treating working class voters as partners, and started treating them as consumers.”
Working-Class Americans Want Representation, Too
April Ryan shone a light on the lack of labor representation in elected office and how defeating Trump means making those voices heard. “The employment and affordability crises are not footnotes but a significant fact… created by an administration that acts without regard for the middle and working classes.”
‘The Economy Is Doing Well, Except for Most of the People in It’
On the podcast this week, economics columnist Kyla Scanlon joined Jared Bernstein to break down the current state of the “vibecession” and answer the eternal question: Will gas prices ever go down?
Road to the Midterms
Sanity in Missouri and Trump’s Cheesy Convention
In the first week of her Daily Jolt mid-day updates, Jen Rubin wrote on the Supreme Court’s unexpectedly correct decision to reject a MAGA redistricting map in Missouri and the GOP’s convention exposing how toxic Trump’s aura has become even to his own party.
The Media’s Good at Being Wrong. Don’t Listen to Predictions About the Midterms.
Josh Levs wrote on the media’s trope-heavy election coverage — “Democrats are in disarray”; “Americans would never vote for this Republican” — and how our best bet for midterm sanity is to take every prediction with a healthy dose of salt.
How Pastor Adam Hamilton Plans to Restore Faith in Government
Jen Rubin spoke with Kansas’s Democratic Senate nominee, Adam Hamilton, on persuading his state to send their first Democrat to the Senate in 94 years. “We can’t solve health care, we can’t solve the national debt, we can’t solve Social Security unless Republicans and Democrats are willing to work together.”
Fighting Back
A New Kind of No Kings Day: October 17th Is a Day of Action
Ezra Levin of Indivisible spoke to Tim Dickinson about the next No Kings Day action, which instead of taking to the streets will take voters to the midterm polls, with thousands of Vote Early events kicking off across the country. “This is a pro-democracy mobilization.”
The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement
This week, we saw Americans protesting to tax the rich, take down Tesla, support labor unions, protect Haitian immigrants, and more actions for democracy from coast to coast. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.
Join No Kings 4: The Early Vote
This week’s Contrarian Calls to Action went deeper on No Kings 4 and other ways you can protect voting rights, including National Voter Registration Day, how to help voters get IDs, Dial for Democracy, how to turn the South blue, and much more. Check out the list, and check back every week for an update!
Culture, Cartoons, & Fun Stuff
This week, our cartoonists took on revisionist history (While You Were Out, RJ Matson; The Heroes of 9/11, Michael de Adder), bad legacies (Arc De Capitulation; Bombardier, Nick Anderson), and worse neighbors (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).
Before Astroturfing for Paramount, Did This Firm Flack for Flock?
Rachel Antell wrote on the astroturfing site Neighbors for Strong Communities (NSC), which evidence suggests has been replacing negative feedback in community polls on Flock and the Paramount merger. “The truth definitely matters to the people who get these texts or use the website, and the truth about NSC is what we are seeking.”
This Fall at the Movies, It’s Time to Eat the Rich
Meredith Blake wrote on the crop of films this fall — with titles like “The Uprising,” “Musk,” and “The Social Reckoning” — that center growing anger at our billionaire ruling class. “Do movies still have the power to shift public opinion?”
The corruption is what’s going to get him. The Trumpers my husband works with are starting to get p.o’d.
The Contrarians do not get deflected by the next problematic action of the administration, they just add another case to their pursuit of political malpractice. You are heroes of the pro-democracy movement.