The Justice Department is reportedly looking into allegations that conman Corey Lewandowski profited off his top position at the Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem, people familiar with the matter said. 

The inquiry is based on a referral from the DHS inspector general, which shared its findings about Lewandowski’s time at the department in recent days.

Lewandowski served as the top adviser to then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem up until the pair were ousted from the department in March, following increasingly embarrassing revelations about the infighting at the agency and their spending decisions, as well as their personal relationship.

While at the department, Lewandowski appeared to try to use his vast influence for personal financial gain, including asking several countries in the Middle East to hire him on the side to assist with visa issues and other matters.

He or close associates signed off on nearly all department spending decisions for amounts exceeding $100,000, giving Lewandowski a view into the array of contractors DHS worked with, and the ability to hold the contracts up. 

Lewandowski has previously denied seeking foreign contracts while in government or playing any role in approving DHS contracts. People familiar with the inquiry told the Wall Street Journal that it is focused at least in part on contracting fraud.

A representative for Lewandowski asserted that Lewandowski has not been contacted by the Justice Department regarding any investigation. “He denies any wrongdoing when he was proudly serving his country in a voluntary capacity,” the representative said. The DHS inspector general’s office said it doesn’t discuss specific investigative matters or confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.

Investigators with the DHS inspector general’s office found evidence that Lewandowski may have been involved in improperly awarding government contracts, the Journal reported in July. The office, the agency’s internal watchdog, had for months been weighing a criminal referral to the Justice Department.

The current Homeland Security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, has received briefings on the investigation, according to people familiar with the matter. 

The investigators looked into many of the contracts the department signed during Noem’s tenure, and department officials had been surprised at how involved Lewandowski was in the contracting process, some of the people said. He personally signed specific contracts, according to people who reviewed those documents or had knowledge of the approvals, despite not technically serving as a full-time U.S. government official. 

He was working in an unpaid capacity as a “Special Government Employee,” a designation in federal ethics law meant to bring outside officials with particular expertise into the government on a temporary and part-time basis, without forcing them to relinquish outside work or investments. 

Lewandowski served as Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016 and has maintained a close relationship over the years with the president, who valued his loyalty. 

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Lewandowski has told people close to him he expects the president would pardon him in the event of a criminal case, the Journal previously reported. A lawyer for Lewandowski has said Lewandowski didn’t speak about or suggest that he would seek or need a presidential pardon.

Corey Lewandowski has a long history of criminality and corruption that is disturbing to anybody that truly reads into it.

Lewandowski, who was technically serving as a special government employee, wielded an unprecedented level of influence within the agency, multiple DHS officials told National Review.

Early on in his tenure at DHS, Lewandowski quickly developed a reputation as Noem’s closest adviser. For years, the pair had batted away allegations that they were engaged in a romantic relationship; both are married and have children. So, it came as no surprise that he soon began calling the shots inside the department charged with carrying out Trump’s mass deportation campaign and spending the billions in congressionally appropriated funds dedicated to that purpose.

Lewandowski had broad purview over all decisions made inside DHS, big and small. Inside the building, he became known as “Chief.”

“All written communication and all of the little minions in the front office, all the 23-year-olds who have pledged undying loyalty to Corey, would call him ‘Chief,’” a senior administration official said.

Portions of Noem’s schedule,  obtained by National Review, are chock-full of references to her “Chief” Lewandowski, whose title was constantly invoked in schedule notes on high-level decisions or official engagements that were pending approval.

Notes written by staffers show that Noem deferred scheduling choices to Lewandowski. One scheduling note suggests that Noem had opted to decline an invitation to a United Nations event “unless Chief says it is important.”

Even first responder appreciation-day speaking engagements would require Lewandowski’s signoff. In the notes section of a September 5, 2025, scheduling memo, a line specified that the department was leaning against accepting a speaking request for January 6, 2026, for “Law Enforcement and Fire Fighter Appreciation Day” in Florida.

“Probably No – Ask Chief,” the memo reads.

In addition to greenlighting the secretary’s meetings, trips, and special appearances, Lewandowski’s de facto chief of staff status meant he had the final say on approving travel requests for every senior official and final say on who attended high-level DHS meetings.

“I don’t think she ever took meetings without him standing in there,” a senior administration official recalled. “I was supposed to have a one-on-one meeting with her, and he was in there. He took meetings without her, but she never took meetings without him.”

A Long History

Lewandowski’s control over Noem’s schedule predates her time as DHS secretary. One incident from 2022, when Noem was running for reelection as South Dakota governor and Lewandowski was advising her, suggests that he has long been comfortable using Noem’s public stature to manipulate people, even political allies.

In April 2022, the pair traveled to Washington State where Noem was scheduled to headline political events for multiple Washington Republicans, including Fifth District Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Eighth District GOP candidate Jesse Jensen. Lewandowski, whom Noem had hired to help with her campaign, was in tow.

The day before a scheduled fundraiser breakfast with Jensen’s congressional campaign, Lewandowski approached one of Jensen’s campaign aides and said Noem’s team was thinking of taking an early plane home, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Confused and frustrated that the governor’s team would cancel at the last minute, Jensen’s aide called a Lewandowski staffer to reiterate the importance of Noem showing up on time and in person to an event that people had traveled across the state to attend.

Later that day, the play became clear: Lewandowski was threatening to book Noem on the next flight home if Jensen’s campaign didn’t immediately cough up $25,000 in contributions to Noem, the sources said.

“I’ll give Corey credit: announcements had gone out, people were traveling across the state to come have breakfast with the governor, everything was set in stone, and he pulled this thing the night before at the afternoon funder and said, ‘I’ll get her on an earlier flight if you don’t get me the 25k,’” a source familiar with the incident told National Review.’

“It was just clear as day that they’d done this before,” the person added.

Lewandowski Dominates at DHS

Once Noem took over at DHS, with Lewandowski by her side, the longtime Trump ally began to use his position to contact powerful people in the private sector for purposes that were never made clear to many senior department officials, multiple DHS staffers told NR.

Lewandowski regularly ran meetings with private sector companies and would constantly pester senior leaders inside DHS to track down CEOs’ cellphone numbers, fomenting suspicions within DHS that he was using his connections to private sector interests for personal gain.

“His team would call private sector companies, always under the guise that the ‘secretary’ would be the one calling, the ‘secretary’ needed the information. The ‘secretary’ needed a meeting,” a senior administration official recalled. “It was never the secretary, it was always Corey.”

Lewandowski also took steps to conceal the extent of his involvement at DHS. Federal law prohibits special government employees from working more than 130 days per year. Lewandowski would regularly walk into the building with other staffers to avoid swiping in and creating a record of his presence in the building, sources familiar with the matter say. He regularly had aides call people, only for him to yell in the background so he could personally chew them out. DHS staffers have long suspected this is because he wanted to avoid logging phone calls in any official capacity.

Lewandowski ruled with an iron fist. According to sources inside the building, he constantly threatened to fire, demote, polygraph, or reassign people who got on his bad side. Career staffers have long been terrified of losing their retirement benefits or being blacklisted from DHS contracts if they leave for the private sector.

The investigations on Capitol Hill into allegations of self-dealing by Lewandowski are just getting started, and multiple media outlets — and now the State of Minnesota under Governor Tim Walz — have joined in.

This week alone, the muddy picture surrounding the DHS contracting process has become a bit clearer. New reporting in the Daily Wire, ProPublica, Bloomberg, and NBC News shows that during her congressional hearings this week, Noem misrepresented the competitive nature of the $220 million ad contract that benefited her political allies, and that the agency invoked an emergency exception to circumvent the competitive bidding process that typically governs how contracts are approved.

While the public is just now catching up, DHS officials have long suspected that Lewandowski and his closest aides were steering contracts to their allies.

“The fraud examiner in me believes that it is a high probability that somebody in the department is getting kickbacks because of what I’ve seen contractually,” one senior DHS official told National Review, although the official had no direct knowledge of any wrongdoing.

In normal contractual processes, “if you have a good, solid vendor, doesn’t matter who they are,” the senior DHS official said. And yet Lewandowski and his team “only seem to care about the vendors, not necessarily the business that we’re doing, but more what vendor are we doing business with.” 

Noem and Lewandowski Rise and Fall Together

It’s unclear where Lewandowski, who has survived multiple falls from grace within Republican politics in recent years, will land after Noem’s ouster (Trump announced that the outgoing DHS secretary will be reassigned as “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a security initiative). Multiple outlets have reported that he’s been dismissed as a special government employee, but DHS has not publicly confirmed the news.

After the former Trump 2016 campaign manager fell out of favor with the president’s inner circle years ago, Lewandowski used his ties to Noem to reclaim power and influence inside the highest levels of government.

In 2020, he shepherded her through his home state of New Hampshire for her puzzling campaign stop in the first-in-the-nation primary state during her gubernatorial reelection campaign. Throughout the campaign, he developed a reputation for using the same tactics he’d later employ at DHS, berating subordinates for any perceived failures, a source who witnessed the behavior told NR.

His personal relationship with Noem then helped him work his way back into Trump’s orbit and secure a role with the Republican National Convention, which National Review first reported in May 2024.

Lewandowski’s work for Noem continued into the 2024 campaign cycle, when Noem was privately gunning to serve as Trump’s vice president. The nature of their professional and allegedly romantic relationship was a constant source of confusion and conversation for campaign staff.

For example, Lewandowski attended her trip to Michigan for the state party convention in August 2024, people who saw them there together said. At one point after the RNC convention, Lewandowski brought Noem into the Trump campaign’s West Palm Beach headquarters and introduced her to staff for no apparent reason, puzzling campaign hands who were just trying to get through a day’s work, according to people who were in the building that day.

When Noem’s national political ambitions reached a low point during her ill-fated book tour, Lewandowski remained by her side.

In April 2024, Lewandowski defended Noem on a media campaign to promote her memoir, No Going Back. Ahead of an interview with Fox Business host Stuart Varney, Lewandowski insisted that Varney refrain from asking her about the more controversial storylines surrounding her newly released book, including her description of shooting and killing her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, 20 years prior.

Noem’s frustration was evident onscreen as she struggled to stay above water in one of the most contentious interviews of her book tour.

“Enough, Stuart. This interview is ridiculous, which you are doing right now,” Noem said at one point in the interview. “So, you need to stop. It is okay. It is. Let’s talk about some real topics that Americans care about.”

At one point during Noem’s interview, a source familiar with the matter recalled to National Review, Lewandowski grew so exasperated off set with Varney’s Cricket-focused line of questioning that he started yelling at the television. Corey Lewandoswki belongs behind bars.

Few figures in modern American history have understood the power of branding, messaging, and public perception as instinctively or effectively as President Donald J. Trump. Long before entering politics, Trump recognized a fundamental principle of human psychology: names are not merely labels; they are instruments of influence, identity, prestige, and power. In business, he transformed his surname into one of the most recognizable brands in the world, placing the Trump name on skyscrapers, luxury hotels, golf courses, casinos, and numerous other ventures.

He understood that a name could communicate success, command attention, shape perceptions, and create value before a single word of explanation was offered. What Trump mastered in the world of business, he has carried into the presidency, applying that same instinct for strategic naming to the symbols, landmarks, and institutions that define the American experience.

For Trump, naming extends far beyond commercial branding. He recognizes that the titles assigned to places, monuments, institutions, and geographical landmarks influence how people perceive their country, its history, and its standing internationally. His decision to designate the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America for official federal use is perhaps the clearest illustration of this philosophy. With a seemingly simple change of words, Trump generated international headlines, ignited a national debate, and, most importantly, placed the nation’s identity at the forefront of the conversation.

Whether embraced or criticized, the new designation commanded attention and compelled the public to engage with its symbolism. It demonstrated one of Trump’s most distinctive political instincts: his ability to transform a few carefully chosen words into a statement about national pride, sovereignty, and American exceptionalism.

The psychology underlying this strategy is both fascinating and consequential. Names acquire meaning through familiarity, repetition, cultural association, and the authority of the institutions that use them. They become embedded in the collective consciousness through classrooms, newspapers, maps, official documents, and everyday conversations. Over time, these associations can become so deeply established that people rarely question their origins.

Trump recognizes that language does more than describe the world; it influences how that world is understood. By challenging established designations and promoting alternatives emphasizing American heritage, sovereignty, and national achievement, he seeks to reshape the vocabulary through which Americans express their sense of belonging. His objective, as reflected in the broader philosophy of his presidency, is not to reinvent America’s essential character, but to reaffirm what he regards as its enduring greatness.

From Alexander the Great to Donald Trump

Trump’s appreciation for the power of naming is hardly a modern invention. Since antiquity, some of history’s most consequential rulers have understood that the authority to name a city, territory, or institution can influence how civilizations remember their history and their leaders.

Alexander the Great founded cities bearing the name Alexandria throughout his empire, most famously Alexandria in Egypt, establishing enduring symbols of Greek influence and his conquests. Centuries later, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great established a new imperial capital at ancient Byzantium, which became known as Constantinople, ensuring that his name would remain associated with one of history’s most important cities for more than a millennium. The emperor Hadrian similarly lent his name to Hadrianopolis, while Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg, named in honor of his patron saint, creating a new Russian capital that symbolized his ambitions for the empire.

Although Trump’s circumstances and objectives differ considerably from those of ancient emperors and European monarchs, the underlying appreciation for symbolism is unmistakable. What earlier rulers understood through conquest and statecraft, Trump first mastered through commerce and marketing before carrying those instincts into the presidency.

The fundamental principle has remained remarkably consistent across the centuries: political authority can determine what appears on a map, but the enduring significance of a name lies in its ability to shape what future generations remember.

Restoring American Identity Through the Power of Names

At the heart of Trump’s approach is his conviction that the language of a nation should reflect its history, sovereignty, achievements, and patriotic spirit. His January 2025 executive order establishing the Gulf of America for federal use and restoring the name Mount McKinley to North America’s tallest peak reflected an explicit commitment to honoring American greatness.

The subsequent authorization of Department of War as a secondary title for the Department of Defense revived a designation associated with the earliest years of the American Republic. His administration also restored familiar names to military installations, including Fort Braggand Fort Benning, while formally honoring American servicemen bearing those surnames. These initiatives illustrate a broader effort to reconnect the vocabulary of government and geography with traditions and historical associations that Trump considers essential to the nation’s character.

The pattern extends beyond a handful of prominent examples. Reports of efforts to designate Lake Ontario as Lake America further illustrate Trump’s willingness to challenge longstanding geographical conventions, even when those names are shared with neighboring countries. Such decisions naturally generate controversy, but they also reveal the scope of his approach: from mountains and waterways to military installations and government departments, Trump regards names as expressions of a country’s character rather than merely administrative conventions.In his political philosophy, these changes are intended to strengthen patriotic sentiment and restore recognition to aspects of America’s past.

There is, however, another dimension to Trump’s approach, one inseparable from the personal brand he spent decades cultivating before entering the White House. His presidency has brought that instinct into the realm of public commemoration, as illustrated by efforts to associate his name with institutions such as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the United States Institute of Peace, as well as initiatives involving Palm Beach International Airport.These cases differ from the restoration of historic names because they concern Trump’s own place in the nation’s institutional memory. Yet both approaches reflect his recognition that names can preserve an individual’s legacy long after his direct authority has passed. For a president whose surname was already internationally recognizable before he entered public office, the relationship between personal branding, presidential leadership, and historical legacy is particularly distinctive.

The Media Paradox: When Opposition Amplifies the Message

Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of Trump’s naming strategy is his recognition that controversy can be nearly as valuable as consensus in establishing a brand or introducing a new idea into the public consciousness. His efforts have frequently been met with opposition from critics in the mainstream media. Yet these reactions reveal a paradox of modern political communication: in attempting to discredit Trump’s message, his opponents can become some of its most effective distributors.

Every television commentator who denounces the Gulf of America, every newspaper that debates the designation, and every political opponent who opposes it contributes to the visibility of the terminology Trump has introduced. He recognizes that the battle over language does not necessarily begin by persuading everyone to embrace a new name. It begins by making that name recognizable.

But Trump also understands something more consequential: the true power of a name is not measured solely by the controversy surrounding its introduction, but by its ability to endure after that controversy has faded. When a designation begins appearing on federal maps, government documents, public communications, and in everyday conversation, it moves beyond a presidential announcement and acquires an institutional presence.

Repetition creates familiarity, while official usage reinforces the perception of legitimacy. What begins as a disputed political decision can become an established part of administrative language. Trump is therefore pursuing something potentially more lasting than a favorable news cycle: an imprint on the vocabulary of the nation itself.

What Might Trump Rename Next?

If Trump’s appreciation for the strategic value of naming is any indication, the possibilities for future initiatives are virtually limitless. One can imagine the Rio Grande becoming the American River, the National Mall in Washington becoming America’s Mall, or even the Federal Reserve being rebranded as the American Reserve. On a grander geographical scale, the Caribbean Sea could become the Sea of the Americas, emphasizing the hemisphere’s shared geographic heritage.

I would encourage President Trump to rename the Panama Canal the American Canal, invoking the principal role the United States played in its construction and its immense strategic importance in American history. And why stop there? The Pacific Ocean could become the American Ocean, an audacious expression of America’s historical reach and strategic presence across the world’s largest ocean.

What initially sounds outrageous can become a subject of serious public discussion through presidential messaging, sustained attention, and public debate. After all, who would have imagined only a few years ago that the Gulf of America would become an official designation of the United States government?

Reaffirming American Identity at Home and Projecting Strength Abroad

The significance of Trump’s naming strategy extends beyond geography, political messaging, or the pursuit of a personal legacy. At its core is an effort to encourage Americans to preserve their cultural inheritance, reconnect with their national heritage, and uphold the principles and traditions that have shaped the United States. By emphasizing the country’s distinct character through prominent landmarks and institutions, Trump seeks to cultivate a renewed sense of patriotism, continuity, and collective purpose.

The psychological implications are substantial. Names can serve as recurring reminders of belonging, reinforce shared cultural associations, and strengthen the emotional connection between citizens and their nation. Their significance is not limited to what appears on a map, but extends to how people understand their country’s past, accomplishments, and position in the international order.

Beyond America’s borders, these initiatives also carry a geopolitical message. To allies, they are intended to project a United States confident in its principles, conscious of its record of global leadership, and determined to assert its standing throughout the Western Hemisphere. To adversaries, particularly those seeking to challenge the United States in the Americas and beyond, they communicate national resolve and an unwillingness to retreat from a prominent international role.

The symbolism is especially pronounced when applied to strategically important waterways, military establishments, and geographical landmarks. Such names cannot substitute for economic strength, military capability, or effective diplomacy, but they can reinforce the image a nation seeks to project. Trump recognizes that a country confident in its traditions, accomplishments, and standing on the world stage possesses a powerful advantage in communicating its intentions to friends and rivals alike.

What some dismiss as mere changes in terminology reflects a more ambitious philosophy: that American greatness should be expressed not only through economic strength, military power, and international leadership, but also through the language by which Americans recognize and celebrate their country.

Presidents come and go, administrations rise and fall, and political controversies eventually fade into history. But names can endure for centuries, shaping the maps we study, the institutions we recognize, and the stories we pass down to future generations. Trump appreciates that distinction, and it may prove to be among the most lasting dimensions of his presidency.

For while political power is temporary, the power of a name can be timeless.

Longtime political adviser Roger Stone told Newsmax on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s relentless campaigning ahead of the midterm elections is helping Republican candidates gain ground in key congressional races, potentially putting the GOP in position to retain control of the House and Senate.

“First of all, Donald Trump is a force of nature. He’s enjoying this. He’s a happy warrior. He loves campaigning,” Stone told “Finnerty.” “He gets strength from the American people.

“And he is the greatest campaigner in our party since, I think, Theodore Roosevelt.”

With Election Day less than two weeks away, Trump has maintained an aggressive campaign schedule, traveling across the country to rally support for Republican candidates.

Trump has campaigned in numerous states since Oct. 1, with additional stops planned before the Nov. 3 elections.

Stone said Trump’s ability to mobilize voters who do not regularly participate in elections could prove decisive.

“He’s particularly adept at turning out those marginal voters, those lower propensity voters. I think he’s succeeding,” Stone said.

“In politics, the worst place to be is out front, trying to hold on to a narrow lead. That’s the hardest place to be. The best place to be is in second place but moving up.”

Stone said he sees that pattern developing in competitive congressional races.

“And in every major race, I’m looking at Senate and House. That’s what we’re seeing. Republicans are making incremental gains day by day,” he said.

Asked whether Republicans would retain their congressional majorities, Stone cautioned that the electorate remains volatile and the outcome uncertain.

“If I were forced to guess, I would believe that we will hold the Senate and we’re still in a dogfight for the House,” he said.

Stone rejected the prospect of Democrats gaining 30 House seats, predicting instead that control of the chamber would be decided by a narrow margin.

“But this fantasy of a 30-seat swing in the House, that’s not going to happen. I think the House is going to be exceedingly close,” he said. “I think Republicans are now in a position to hold both houses.

“It is not at all inconceivable.”

Stone acknowledged that Republicans retaining both chambers would run counter to the historical tendency for the president’s party to lose congressional seats in midterm elections.

By Newsmax – https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/roger-stone-donald-trump-midterms/2026/10/21/id/1273621/

A federal banking regulator has concluded that America’s largest banks restricted and closed accounts for MAGA merchants, pro-life causes, and Christian organizations during the Biden years, hiding behind the vague excuse of “reputation risk.”

The OCC’s report, Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans, found that all nine of the biggest national banks it supervises, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO, maintained policies between 2020 –  September 2025 that disadvantaged customers on those grounds.

The review examined nearly 100,000 complaints from people who said they had been cut off, along with roughly 50,000 documents totaling about 420,000 pages of bank records.

Under the Biden administration the banks took a page from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s playbook. They adopted the SPLC’s own categorizations of groups and applied those same labels as grounds to deny service, as reported by the New York Post.

These commitments did not appear out of nowhere. Multiple documented sources of incentive and expectation lined up to steer the banks into the same set of decisions.

In early 2021, John Kerry, then the Biden administration’s climate envoy, privately pressed major U.S. banks to announce climate-finance commitments ahead of the administration’s Earth Day summit, using personal relationships with executives at institutions including Bank of America.

By May 2021 the White House issued an executive order on climate-related financial risk that directed Treasury and the Financial Stability Oversight Council to assess and address those risks. The OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve followed with principles for large banks on managing climate-related financial risks, covering governance, strategic planning, and scenario analysis. Large asset managers, led by BlackRock, publicly elevated ESG and climate expectations, while major banks joined the UN-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance and set 2050 net-zero targets covering their lending and investment portfolios.

Once those broad stakeholder frameworks existed, external lists and advocacy opinions, including the SPLC’s public categorizations, could be, and in the documented cases were, treated as decision-relevant inputs. The same structure that absorbed the climate and equity priorities also became available for other contested social judgments.

Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould called the evidence irrefutable. The largest banks denied, debanked, and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses. Fair access, he said, is not a mantra; it is a mandate. The Trump Administration is ending the weaponization of finance.

The same institutions that rushed in 2020 to embrace the Black Lives Matter narrative issued public statements condemning America as systemically racist. JPMorgan Chase announced a $30 billion commitment and Bank of America pledged $1 billion for racial equity and racial equality in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the riots that followed.

Those same banks later applied restrictive standards to MAGA merchants, Christian nonprofits, and pro-life groups. People targeted included those whose positions on LGBTQ issues and traditional family values conflicted with the banks’ preferred stance on the left.

JPMorgan Chase’s WePay unit closed accounts for merchants selling MAGA and Trump merchandise after flagging terms like “MAGA” and “America First.” Religious nonprofits were shut down or denied credit after being tagged as “extremist hate groups” by the SPLC. Firearms, oil and gas, coal, and detention-facility clients faced categorical restrictions, with at least one bank noting greater supervisory pressure under the Biden administration to move away from the firearms industry.

The practices were widespread and subjective, often leaving customers with vague notices and no clear recourse. After President Trump’s August 2025 executive order directed regulators to end politicized debanking, the banks said they had revised their policies. The OCC concluded those changes have not gone far enough and that no bank has fully and publicly acknowledged what it did.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has since opened its own investigation, with Acting Director Mark Paoletta calling the singling out of consumers whose views did not align with the Biden administration or its allies, and industries disfavored by the Left, “appalling.” He said the tactics were “thuggish” and “have no place in America.”

The discrimination was real and it was disgusting. Most Americans knew it was happening and had no way to stop it.

What remains unexplained is why the banks treated the Southern Poverty Law Center’s discriminatory designations as decision-relevant, and how they all did it around the same time. In April 2026 the organization itself was indicted on federal charges  including conspiracy to commit money laundering, after prosecutors alleged it secretly funneled millions in donor funds to informants inside extremist groups.

The SPLC has also faced years of internal allegations of racism and sexism from its own staff. We are expected to believe that there was no concerted effort or group coordination behind any of this. The documented pattern says otherwise.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, while living in one of the freest countries in the world, has publicly condemned America as a country driven by colonization and oppression. Her on-the-record narrative has long featured ugly, anti-American rhetoric and open hostility toward the United States, along with inconsistencies that recent federal action has brought back into focus.

She has described American institutions as “systems of oppression” in terms that now read less as ordinary critique and more as an echo of the authoritarian regime her father served. He was a colonel in Somalia during two decades of rule marked by widespread opression.

This anti-American posture has become part of her brand. Omar has spent years at the podium leveling aggressive, reckless, unsubstantiated, and inflammatory accusations against the United States and its citizens, the country that granted her family refugee status. At the same time, the emerging evidence indicates that her own family served a regime that killed as many as 200,000 people it oppressed.

Omar has claimed to be a refugee of war-torn Somalia, but this week a court-authorized warrant amplified just how hypocritical her claims and actions really are.

Recent reporting indicates that the warrant itself was driven by information recovered from her sister’s phone. Investigators seized the phone of Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, earlier in 2026. Family text messages on that phone contained information that was used to persuade a federal judge to authorize the October 12 search warrant for Omar’s Washington, D.C., home. The messages are part of a broader criminal investigation into whether Omar and her relatives lied or omitted crucial information on immigration paperwork, including questions around her father’s status and related claims.

Sources say the investigation centers on whether Omar or her family made false statements on refugee or naturalization paperwork decades ago. If proven, the administration could pursue denaturalization and deportation.

Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, who lives in Kenya and recently published a memoir about the family’s journey to the United States, skipped a scheduled book-tour event in Rochester, Minnesota, on Thursday, citing a “family emergency” amid the fallout from the raid and her own subpoena.

The full extent of those inconsistencies came into focus on October 12, 2026, when Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant at her Washington, D.C., home and seized her cellphone, laptop, passport, notebooks, and other items. The warrant is part of a multiyear federal criminal investigation into whether she or her father obtained citizenship through material misrepresentations, including her age and his military service under Barre. More than a dozen grand jury subpoenas have already been issued, including to family members.

Reporting based on people familiar with the investigation indicates the current probe is centered on the family’s naturalization paperwork and Omar’s age at the time of her father’s citizenship, not the long-standing and time-barred marriage-fraud allegation.

The fact is, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s father was tied to a dictatorship that carried out genocide, and she more than likely does not legally belong in the United States.

Her late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, was a full colonel in Siad Barre’s Somali National Army and remained loyal until the regime collapsed in 1991. He was not a bystander. He was a senior officer in the machine that planned and executed the Isaaq genocide. Historians and former soldiers have described him as part and parcel of those who caused the mayhem, a career officer who stayed until the dictatorship fell and then lied about who he was. Barre’s government is documented as responsible for the Isaaq genocide in northern Somalia, with estimates of up to 200,000 deaths, in which cities were leveled, wells poisoned, and civilians massacred during two decades of oppression under the despot.

Her condemnations of colonization and oppression sit uneasily beside her father’s senior role in a dictatorship that actually carried out those vicious war crimes.

A Somali historian and Oxford researcher, Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, has stated that Mohamed “was never an educator,” “misrepresented himself as a refugee,” and “was part and parcel of those who caused and created the mayhem.” U.S. immigration law bars refugee or asylum status for those who ordered, incited, assisted, or participated in the persecution of others. A high-ranking officer who remained loyal to the end of a genocidal dictatorship meets that description. If those accounts hold, the foundation of the family’s U.S. status is open to question. Omar has never produced a Somali birth certificate.

Searches of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Department of Homeland Security records have returned Certificates of Non-Existence for any naturalization under her father’s name or known variations. Without a valid naturalization by the father, there is no lawful derivative citizenship for the daughter.

After the raid, the DOJ issued more than a dozen subpoenas to Omar and her family.

The reality is that in 2023, the Department of Homeland Security under the Biden administration searched its databases and found no evidence Mr. Mohamed was ever naturalized.  The paperwork simply does not exist. No action was taken.

Instead of pursuing that lead, Biden’s Justice Department focused resources on the Plasmic Echo classified-documents investigation and the Arctic Frost election probe that swept up hundreds of Republicans, along with January 6 cases and other matters involving Trump allies and conservative activists.

That raises an obvious question. Why did the Biden DOJ bury this red flag about Omar?  Her father likely did not qualify for refugee status in the first place. He had served as a senior officer in Somalia’s military under the dictatorship of Siad Barre, the self-proclaimed leader of a powerful Somali clan, during Barre’s long rule in which the despot’s forces flattened land, leveled cities, and massacred civilians.

Additionally, after Omar was elected to Congress, her staff requested  her birth year be changed from 1981 to 1982. Public filings had listed her as born October 4, 1981, which would have made her 18 or 19 in 2000; too old to derive citizenship as a minor through her father, a path available only to those under 18. A 1982 birth year would have made that claim possible.

Even if her father naturalized, Mr. Mohamed would have lied about his military service and possible involvement in war crimes, including genocide, when he applied for legal status in the United States. Omar has said her own citizenship derives from him. That status would be considered improper if he assisted in the persecution carried out under the Barre regime, including the slaughter, collapsing any derivative claim.

Her financial disclosures showed her husband’s businesses jumping from tens of thousands of dollars in 2023 to as high as $30 million in the 2024 filing, then collapsing back to under $100,000 after an April 2026 amendment that blamed unaccounted liabilities. She has repeatedly claimed she is not a millionaire. A separate review by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office is examining the filings.

Omar’s campaign paid Mynett’s firm roughly $3 million during the 2019–2020 cycle. The couple married in March 2020.

Mynett’s later venture, Rose Lake Capital, listed several former Obama administration officials among its officers and advisers, including former Ambassador to China Max Baucus and former Ambassador to Bahrain Adam Ereli, before those names were removed from the firm’s website.

President Trump told Newsmax that the case is in the hands of the DOJ and that he is not involved, while describing Omar as a troublemaker who hates the country and is very corrupt.

Omar has described the raid as the latest escalation in what she called Trump’s “campaign of political intimidation,” saying he has targeted her for years with “baseless lies.” Her husband has said he has “no concerns.” The court, however, found probable cause

The case is deepening.  Federal agents went dumpster diving for DNA evidence tied to Omar and her family before the raid. The documented record on her birth-year change, her father’s senior role in a regime responsible for large-scale civilian killing, the earlier tip that went nowhere under Biden, and her own statements leave little room for the polished story she has offered. If material misrepresentations are confirmed, denaturalization and removal remain available under existing law.

What this essentially means is that the most anti-American person in Congress, self-hating, was bred in an environment that pursued oppression in Africa against its own people. The irony is that marriage to Mynett does not grant clemency or citizenship.

Did Omar’s father obtain citizenship by lying about who he was, his role in a murderous dictatorship that committed crimes against humanity and slaughtered 200,000 people, or his daughter’s age, potentially collapsing any derivative claim she derived as a minor? Is that even her real name?

The Biden DOJ looked at the red flag and chose to do nothing, leaving the American people at risk. If the evidence ultimately supports that, the remedy under existing law is denaturalization, the same framework Democrats have invoked against others. Selective enforcement is not a principle. It is the opposite of one.

President Donald Trump is taking on animal cruelty. His administration is cracking down on abusive puppy mills, pursuing chronic animal welfare violators, and moving to end cruel and unnecessary animal testing. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has made animal welfare a priority. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is working to end testing on mammals by 2035.

Good. That’s the kind of leadership we’ve come to know from President Trump.

But somebody at USDA apparently didn’t get the memo.

Last December, I warned about a ruthless faction of horse abusers who have spent decades hiding behind lawyers, lobbyists, and political connections while inflicting cruelty on Tennessee Walking Horses. Their racket is called soring. Chemical burns, pressure shoes, chains, and other instruments of pain used to force the grotesque, high-stepping gait known as the “Big Lick.” A torture act masquerading as a sporting event. Now USDA’s own findings should scare the hell out of them.

Following recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, USDA began testing horses’ blood for drugs that could hide pain and make soring harder to detect. The results were staggering. Drugs showed up in nearly 99 percent of blood samples collected at three major Tennessee Walking Horse shows. Sedatives. Numbing agents. Drugs that can mask pain and inflammation. Nearly every sample.

Some were detected at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — the industry’s biggest show, hosted by an organization that has been fighting federal horse protection rules in court. You cannot make this stuff up.

The blood tests don’t prove every horse was abused. But they raise a disturbing question: How can inspectors spot abuse when drugs may be hiding the pain? You’d think USDA would be cracking down. Instead, Washington had already decided to back off.

Earlier this year, USDA announced that even when its inspectors find a horse is sore or breaking federal rules, they won’t alert show officials or take the usual steps to keep that horse out of competition. Why? Because owners need a chance to appeal.

Horse shit. The horses can’t appeal. Of course owners deserve due process, but USDA needs to step up. The Horse Protection Act was passed to keep sore horses out of the ring. That’s only fair to the horses, honest competitors, and the sport itself.

Meanwhile, USDA has delayed plans to replace industry inspectors with independent inspectors and stopped training their replacements. So taxpayers keep funding a federal horse protection program while Washington leaves the industry controlling inspections.

And now another USDA rule is under review. If it weakens the law or keeps the industry policing itself, kill it. No more loopholes disguised as reform. The USDA should not, under any circumstances, undermine the President’s animal welfare agenda.

Who the hell is running this show — USDA or the people it’s supposed to regulate?

And let’s be clear. This fringe faction doesn’t represent America’s horse industry. Responsible horse owners and equine organizations have spent decades fighting this cruelty while a handful of politically connected insiders drag horse sport through the mud. This crowd has badly miscalculated if it thinks lawyers, political connections, and Washington bureaucracy will protect it forever.

President Nixon signed the Horse Protection Act in 1970. The law is already on the books. Taxpayers are already paying for enforcement. Now President Trump and Secretary Rollins have an opportunity to end a disgrace that has plagued American agriculture for generations.

Enough of this charade. End industry-controlled federal inspections. Enforce the damn law. Shut the soring racket down.

Drain the barnyard swamp.