Wednesday, July 01, 2026
The Snapshot
Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Chump's grift brings in over two billion dollas for himself, the wr in Irn continues, Chump's state fair continues to be n embarrassment, Clarence Thomas attacks trns people, and much more.
On opening night, Trump told another truly Trumpian whopper, claiming the fair drew 45,000 people.
He also said everybody stayed until the end of his speech and “loved
hearing about a truly successful America,” even as photographs showed
dozens of attendees walking out while he was still talking.
Jane
Doe 4 alleges she was abused and trafficked by Epstein, and that the
disgraced financier took her to New York or New Jersey and introduced
her to Trump when she was about 13 years old in 1984. The White House
has described the allegations as “total baselessness,” a view it says is
supported by the fact that the Biden administration was aware of the
claims but did “nothing with them.”
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes how Chump has enriched himself while being president. Ben Protess, Andrea Fuller, Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany (NEW YORK TIMES) report:
President Trump reaped a stunning windfall in his first year back in the White House, including about $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses, a new filing shows.
All told, the president pulled in at least $2.2 billion, a figure that includes other parts of his vast holdings, such as his real estate assets. That compares to a minimum of $622 million his enterprises pulled in for all of 2024, before he returned to the presidency.
One of his biggest hauls in 2025 came when an investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates bought nearly half of the Trump family’s main crypto company, World Liberty Financial, a transaction that blurred the line between foreign policy and private enterprise.
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s wife owned a profitable radio station. George W. Bush was on the board of an oil company while his father was in the White House. And Hunter Biden was paid by a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was vice president.
But never before in American history has there been anything like Donald J. Trump, a president who in his first year back in office has collected about $1.4 billion in new revenues from cryptocurrency businesses that directly benefited from his actions as president, a financial disclosure report made public on Tuesday shows.
Overall, Mr. Trump’s revenue in 2025 jumped to at least $2.2 billion, compared with a minimum of $622 million in 2024 before he returned to office.
“It is completely unprecedented,” said Megan Gorman, a tax attorney and the author of a recent book, “All the Presidents’ Money,” that studied the history of presidential wealth dating back 250 years.
Generally, throughout history, Ms. Gorman and other historians said, American presidents have taken actions to try to separate themselves from corporate entanglements that might create conflicts.
“Public office, if anything, was a source of debt, not a source of revenue,” said Lindsay M. Chervinsky, a historian and the executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon.
Mr. Trump and his family have done the opposite, creating new business ventures that are profiting from actions Mr. Trump has taken since he returned to the White House.
Those include the pardon Mr. Trump issued in October to Changpeng Zhao, the richest man in crypto, who founded the company Binance, which has been a critical business partner to the Trump family’s own crypto venture. They also include legislation that Mr. Trump signed last July to promote a form of cryptocurrency called stablecoins, four months after his family-backed firm introduced its own stablecoin.
Let's move over to the ongoing war in Iran. Brandon Weichert (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) notes:
The
Strait of Hormuz is without a doubt one of the world’s most important
waterways. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s oil flows through there,
another nearly 20 percent of the world’s natural gas, one-third of the
world’s agricultural goods, and countless critical industrial inputs
that make the modern world work every day.
Since
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
started their regime change war of choice against the Islamic Republic
of Iran, the Strait has been closed. Each day–every hour–that the Strait
remains obstructed due to the war, the world comes closer to economic
ruin.
There have, throughout the more than 120-day war, been instances where the Iranians allowed ships to pass through the Strait.
The
United States and Iran have attempted to create some off-ramps to the
war in the form of temporary ceasefires. But those ceasefires have been
fleeting.
Because of the
untenable nature of those ceasefires, the Iranians have generally kept
the flow of ships and their goods tamped down well below the prewar
average of trade through the Strait.
Contrary to what many believe,
this reality does not harm the Iranians as much as it hurts the United
States and the rest of the world. After all, Iran is one of the most
heavily sanctioned countries in the world. Due to this, the Iranians
have been made to become increasingly self-reliant–and to establish
alternative modes of trade (via Chinese-run Belt-and-Road railways and
Russian routes in the Caspian Sea).
Meanwhile, ironically, it is the Americans and their allies globally who are disproportionately suffering through the lockdown.
[. . .]
Even if we do somehow succeed
in maintaining the MoU ceasefire, there will be serious second-order
inflationary effects. Whereas before the war began, roughly 120 to 140
ships passed through the Strait per day, little more than 100 have been
allowed to pass since the MoU was signed a week ago. There has simply
been too much time that has been allowed to pass since the volume of the
flow of goods was far greater than what it is now.
In other
words, inflation is coming. And with inflation will necessarily come
increased interest rates. That will, in turn, lead to a deteriorating
economic situation. If we’re lucky and the ceasefire holds beyond what
it has so far, the Iranians might let more ships out, and we can
ameliorate this crisis over time.
At this rate, though, it
does look as though the US president cannot accept the conditions of a
longer-term ceasefire with Iran, and Iran fully understands how
vulnerable the Americans are to the disruptions occurring in the Strait.
Fear
of a big energy market disruption, when daily oil demand increasingly
exceeds available supply, was a main reason Trump surrendered to Iran in
the first place. At the G7 summit on June 17, Trump said, “We run out
of reserves at about four weeks.” That would put the deadline in
mid-July.
Maybe it’s more like August or
September, but whatever the deadline, big economic problems will come if
oil reserves run out and ships from the Gulf aren’t on the way bringing
more. The markets did react positively when shipping began to pick up
after the MOU, with oil futures dropping to around pre-war levels. But
that won’t last if conditions stagnate or worsen.
Either
way, Trump messed up this war so badly that the U.S. aim now is just to
get back to something like the pre-war status quo. And at this point,
even that looks unachievable.
And INDIA TODAY adds:
Oman has proposed a joint mechanism with Iran to collect fees from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, opening a new chapter in negotiations over one of the world's most strategically important waterways.
According to The New York Times report, Oman submitted a formal proposal
to the US and other Western partners outlining a framework under which
Iran and Oman would jointly collect payments from ships using the Strait
of Hormuz.
Before the conflict, commercial vessels
transited the strait without paying any charges. That changed after
Iran effectively blockaded the route during the war, sending crude oil
prices sharply higher and disrupting global shipping.
Since
then, Iranian officials have repeatedly signalled that they intend to
introduce a payment mechanism for ships using the passage.
Diplomatic
sources cited in the report say Oman's proposal attempts to create a
structured arrangement rather than allowing unilateral Iranian action.
Sasha Rogelberg (FORTUNE) explains the impact this is having on Americans:
A
summer travel paradox has emerged: Even though international flights
use considerably more jet fuel than domestic travel, the cost to fly
within the U.S. has skyrocketed at rates far beyond that of flying
abroad.
According to data from airfare search
engine Skiplagged, domestic flight price growth has increased 23.2% from
March 2025 to this month, while international flight costs have
increased 11.5% in the same time period. This summer marks the highest
domestic passenger prices for the season since 2022.
Compared
to international flights, which consume 15,000 to 30,000 gallons of
fuel—about 1,500 to 3,000 per hour as a result of larger aircraft and
long-haul routes—domestic flights use about 1,800 to 2,7000 gallons per
trip, or about 750 to 900 gallons per hour.
Jet
fuel costs nearly doubled during the Iran war, with supplies dwindling
in some parts of the world as a result of halted traffic at the Strait
of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which 20% of global oil usually flows.
Rising fuel costs caused panic in the airline industry: Willie Walsh,
the outgoing director general of the International Air Transport
Association (IATA), warned this month the global airline industry’s
profits would be cut in half as a result of tepid demand, culminating in
the worst financial year for aviation since the pandemic.
The
anxieties, however, did not meaningfully materialize. Instead, the
rising airfare costs indicate high demand for summer travel, combined
with airlines successfully making a series of moves that effectively
protected them from supply chain uncertainty from the war, such as
leaning into premiumization and slashing certain routes.
“It’s
kind of a glass half full kind of scenario, where I think the outcome
was not as bad as many predicted,” Christopher Anderson, a Cornell
University professor of services management who studies the airline
industry, told Fortune. “Because it wasn’t as bad, and the capacity is
not there…we’re seeing elevated prices.”
The
resilience is good news for the airline industry—but the pattern of
increased prices ahead of a busy summer travel season also exposes the
large portion of the American population who is now facing high travel
costs, even to fly within the country. It’s yet another example of the
K-shaped economy in action, where the wealthy can splurge on expensive
airfare while most other households weigh tough travel decisions.
“Here
in the U.S., we have a very bifurcated economy,” Anderson said. “And a
lot of this turmoil that we’re seeing is the effects more on one segment
of that economy than the other.”
While Chump's corruption brought him 2.2 billion last year, Aimee Picchi (CBS NEWS) notes the average worker is doing worse in 2026 than they did in 2025:
Meanwhile Chump's American state fair remains a failure. John Casey (DAILY BEAST) notes:
A
110-foot Ferris wheel is the centerpiece of the Great American State
Fair currently come to town in our nation’s capital, which is not a
state the last time I checked. It is the brainchild of Freedom 250, an
organization overseeing—or, rather, botching—the president’s $60 million
marquee celebration of America’s 250th birthday.
On opening day, the Ferris wheel
stalled. It lurched. It stopped. It started. Then stopped again.
Freedom 250’s spokesperson Julia Friedland called it a “power hiccup.”
She didn’t know how right she was.
You could not have planned this level of epic and symbolic failure if you tried.
Independent estimates placed opening night attendance at somewhere just north of 1,000, and days later, even the most frothy MAGA-loyal coverage from the scene couldn’t obscure the fact that crowds simply have not materialized.
When
critical coverage rolled in, Trump did what Trump does: He woke up at
6:27 a.m. (likely, earlier still; it’ll surely take some time to massage
those bruised sausage fingers into a state ready to rage-tweet) and
fired off a Truth Social meltdown.
“Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building
and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it?” he wrote, before questioning, in full caps, whether Obama or Biden could have pulled it off.
The answer, Donald, is that they probably could have kept the lights on.
Because,
you see, there has been dairy drama. On the fair’s first full operating
day, its food hall lost power. Must have been another hiccup? Vendors
stood in the dark. The entire ice cream supply melted.
Would this have been an issue with raw milk? Raw milk from Melania the
cow, perhaps? Well, it was MAHA day at the fair yesterday, so maybe RFK
found out.
Workers
were still waiting for a replacement shipment of the sweet treat the
following morning. This is not a minor logistical calamity since ice
cream, along with butter sculptures and dunk tanks, is at the heart of
state fairs nationwide. Has anyone signed up for the Natalie Harp butter sculpture contest? And has anyone confirmed what hours the Don Jr. dunk tank will be operating?
Donald Chump and Jeffrey Epstein were best buddies from the late 80s going forward. They were two of a kind. Which is why Ewan Palmer's reporting for THE DAILY BEAST isn't surprising:
A
woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump when she
was 13 years old has gone into hiding over fears of retaliation.
A family member of the woman, identified only as Jane Doe 4, told The Guardian that she is “staying off the grid” and away from the Trump administration amid the fallout from allegations that resurfaced in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
A
federal judge has put the Justice Department on a deadline in the
latest fight over the Epstein files, ordering the agency to release
unredacted records tied to FBI interviews with a woman who accused
Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was 13, or explain why
the documents should remain withheld.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with investigative journalist Katie Phang, who sued acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and accused him of violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act by failing to publish all government-held documents related to Jeffrey Epstein and by improperly redacting released material.
The order gives the DOJ until July 2 to comply.
Sullivan’s
decision covers FBI notes from interviews with a South Carolina woman
who said Epstein introduced her to Trump in 1984, when she was about 13,
and that Trump forced her to perform a sexual act. Trump has denied the allegation, and the White House has denied the woman’s story.
The
woman’s claims surfaced in documents released as part of the DOJ’s
Epstein files disclosure, including redacted FBI interview summaries,
but dozens of pages related to the interviews have reportedly not yet
been released.
Mayukh Saha (HEARTY SOUL) notes a recent witness who appeared before the House Oversight Committee:
Lesley
Groff’s name appears more than 160,000 times in the Epstein files
released by the Justice Department. For comparison, most people who
crossed Epstein’s social orbit show up in tens of thousands of mentions,
if at all. Groff shows up everywhere because for 18 years, she was
everywhere. She booked the calls, scheduled the massages, and kept the
calendar of one of the most prolific sex offenders in modern American
history.
On June 9,
2026, that woman sat down for a transcribed interview behind closed
doors before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant said she personally arranged
multiple phone calls between the disgraced financier and Donald Trump in
the years before he became president. According to a transcript
released by the House Oversight Committee,
Groff told lawmakers she set up phone calls between her boss and
President Donald Trump several times a year for at least a decade.
The
Epstein Trump secretary connection raised immediate questions on
Capitol Hill – and put a specific, calendar-level detail onto a
relationship the White House has consistently described as brief and
long-dead.
Groff, who worked for
Epstein in New York for more than 18 years, was previously described by
her boss as an “extension of my brain.” She appeared voluntarily for the
June 9 interview, which was not under oath and not recorded. It marked
the first time she faced questions since speaking to the FBI in New York
in 2021, two years after Epstein’s death.
The Supreme Court revealed decisions yesterday and on Monday. Of the really bad ones, one of the worst is the attack on transgender people. At THE CUT, Becky Pepper-Jackson tells her story:
I
first realized my participation in athletics as a trans girl was a
question when I was going into sixth grade, at 11 years old. I was
getting ready to sign up for my first season of track when my mom told
me a West Virginia bill could mean I wouldn’t be allowed to play. I’m
from a family of runners, but in junior high, my track coach encouraged
me to try shot put and discus. She brought me over to the practice area
and everybody was just super-friendly. It felt like a really nice
community.
It’s very hard to learn that some people think it’s
wrong for you to do the things you love. When the legislation passed, I
instantly wanted to know what I could do. I wanted to keep playing, so
it was a relief when we decided to take legal action. Now, I’ve been a
part of this case for five years, and there have been some definite lows
and highs. Ahead of my seventh-grade season, the initial injunction
that let me play was dissolved by a district court. At that time, track
was starting in two weeks. I was worried. I couldn’t miss tryouts, or I
wouldn’t be on the team. Luckily, an emergency appeal was granted. When I
found out, my mom and I hugged, and I gave my three dogs some love. We
celebrated with mint chocolate-chip ice cream and rainbow sprinkles. I
was ecstatic because I knew I could play with my friends again.
The
2024 Harrison County Middle School Championship was also a tough
moment. Some girls from another school protested my participation in the
event by scratching, or refusing to throw the shot put. It felt weird
to know that people I’ve never met, who are my age, are protesting me
when all I’m trying to do is have fun with my teammates — to be a kid
like them. It feels targeted, because it is. My teammates were what
helped me that day. They wanted to make sure it didn’t get to my head
and affect my throwing or affect me on a deeper level. Everybody is
really supportive; we want to see each other succeed. All the throwers
stay close. At practice, we share tips. On the bus, we’ll double up in
the seats. We’ll try to keep each other’s spirits up and beat the
nerves. We talk and talk to take our minds off of the competition.
Yesterday's ruling attacks her rights. And Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY notes
that (In)Justice Clarence Thomas howled one filthy attack on trans
people after another in his concurrence and that Thomas was being
(rightly) called out:
According to Balls & Strikes Editor in Chief Jay Willis, Thomas' comments are reprehensible.
The
legal analyst wrote on Bluesky, “Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion
in the trans sports ban case in West Virginia contains some of the
ugliest transphobic stuff I have ever seen in a legal opinion.
Straight-up gleeful. Vile man.”
“Thomas simply
couldn't join the opinion, this corrupt, misanthropic bigot had to throw
in his two cents and put his bigotry into the record,” New York Times
columnist Jamelle Bouie concurred.
He
elaborated, “… also this is a great example of how Clarence Thomas's
self-satisfaction cannot hide the fact that he is not that bright. ‘man
and woman,’ ‘boy and girl’ are social terms that categorize gender
presentation, not descriptions of ‘biological’ sex. nor are they binary!
this guy has spent the last 30 years of his life huffing his own farts
and being surrounded by people who tell him that his farts smell like
chanel #5 and it shows.”
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state bans on transgender girls and women competing in girls’ and women’s school sports, delivering a major victory to Republican-led states and a devastating defeat to trans students who had asked the justices to let them participate in public school life as themselves.
In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court ruled that Idaho and West Virginia’s laws do not violate the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX. The cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., centered on two transgender students: Lindsay Hecox, who sought to run track and cross country at Boise State University, and Becky Pepper-Jackson, a West Virginia girl who wanted to compete on girls’ teams at school.
For years, conservative lawmakers have positioned transgender girls’
participation in sports as an emergency, even as the number of students
affected remains small. But the legal campaign was never only about who
gets to run a race or join a team. It was about whether transgender
people can be carved out of public life by category.
The majority rejected arguments that the laws discriminate against transgender students, relying on the court’s recent decision in United States v. Skrmetti to say the bans classify students by sex, not by gender identity or transgender status. Writing for the majority, Kavanaugh said the court would not require states or schools to make athlete-by-athlete determinations about whether a transgender girl who has taken puberty blockers or hormones has retained any athletic advantage.
“Particularly in the sports context, determining the effects of the puberty blockers and hormones taken by transgender athletes — and then comparing each of those transgender athletes’ abilities to those of other individual biological males and individual biological females in the relevant sport — would be an almost impossible task for a judge to perform on an equitable basis,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Let's
note the sexism that's been involved in this issue from day one.
"Protect girls and women!" From? Males? No. That's not it at all.
Read the decisions from the Court which reflect the narrow and perverse
stance of transphobes. A trans girl born male is the transgressor. And
that's because society disowns and attacks males who do not live up to
the notion of manly. There's no concern about protecting those born
girls who are trans boys. No where in the ruling am I seeing anything
about that. 'It's unfair!' I hear that from transphobes -- unfair for
girls to compete against trans girls. But no where in the verdicts did I
see anything about trans boys -- born female -- being not allowed to
compete on boys teams.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
As part of Trump Admin’s push to shut down the Department of Education, Trump is illegally kicking out special education programs, civil rights enforcement from Department
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee; Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations; and Bernie Sanders, Ranking Member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, led the entire Senate Democratic Caucus in demanding the Trump administration put students first, follow the law, and immediately reverse course on transferring special education programs and civil rights enforcement out of the Department of Education (ED). These latest moves are part of the Trump administration’s explicit effort to dismantle ED, threatening key funding, support and services for students, schools, and families nationwide.
“The administration’s latest attempts to dismantle the Department of Education through the four Interagency Agreements (IAA) announced June 16, 2026 are outrageous and put the educational outcomes of students and their rights in the classroom at risk,” wrote the senators in a letter to Education Secretary McMahon.
On June 16, 2026, the Trump administration announced four Interagency Agreements (IAA) that would illegally move the administration of special education programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and vocational rehabilitation programs authorized under the Rehabilitation Act from the ED to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). They also transfer fundamental civil rights enforcement responsibility away from ED to the Department of Justice (DOJ). In their letter to ED Secretary Linda McMahon, Senators Murray, Baldwin, and Sanders demand that the Trump administration follow the law in which Congress authorized these programs to be carried out by ED, including most recently in annual bipartisan funding legislation for Fiscal Year 2026.
Despite announcing this illegal transfer of programs, this Administration has refused to provide information regarding what office within HHS will carry out special education programs, leaving teachers, students, and families with even greater uncertainty about where to turn to ensure their rights are protected. Burying special education programs in a sprawling HHS with significant other responsibilities, instead of at a Department of Education a fraction of the size solely focused on education, will jeopardize outcomes for students with disabilities.
The most recent reauthorization of IDEA passed by Congress reiterates that the responsibility for administering the law is clearly vested with ED, along with various duties vested in the Secretary of Education, including allotting funds to States and carrying out oversight among other activities. However, the law does not contain any provisions that would permit ED to offload its responsibilities for special education or vocational rehabilitation programs to another agency.
“Special education and vocational rehabilitation are education programs. Any attempt to move these programs to HHS would fundamentally alter the purposes of these services, upending fifty years of work that took place at the federal, state, and local level to improve educational and employment outcomes for people with disabilities,” wrote the senators. “It appears the administration values its backward goal of dismantling ED over the faithful execution of the law and improving opportunities and outcomes for children, youth, and students with disabilities.”
These transfers come as the administration has successfully worked to undermine core functions and statutory responsibilities of ED, following sweeping and unlawful firings, workforce reductions, and reorganization last year that have already undermined the very goals of the Education Department. At the same time, ED moved almost all programs supporting elementary and secondary education to multiple agencies with limited capacity and expertise administering similar programs. Wasting time and resources to scatter education programs all over the federal government does nothing to help children and families while only making it more complicated for states and school districts to administer important federal funding. Further, isolating special education programs away from all other federal K-12 programs risks isolating students with disabilities themselves.
Meanwhile, the transfer of the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) out of ED also comes as the Trump Administration has failed to uphold the federal government’s obligations to protect students from unlawful discrimination. In 2025, ED’s OCR reached the fewest resolution agreements in over 12 years and failed to reach a single resolution agreement related to sexual harassment, sexual violence, racial harassment, discriminatory school discipline, or the seclusion and restraint of children with disabilities, with over 12,000 pending cases that were under investigation by OCR at the start of this Administration.
Despite this backlog, the administration is attempting to illegally transfer OCR’s functions to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division (CRT), which has lost an estimated 75% of its civil rights staff attorneys since January 2025, making it wholly unequipped to handle the over 23,000 complaints OCR receives and evaluates annually. The Senators also raised concerns that while OCR is currently required to evaluate every single complaint it receives, DOJ CRT can pick and choose the cases it takes to court. Under this IAA, students whose complaints are not prioritized by DOJ CRT may never see their rights vindicated.
The senators reiterated that Congress appropriates annual funding to ED to help States and local educational agencies carry out programs and ensure children, youth, students, and families are served in accordance with federal law. The annual bipartisan appropriation bills approved by Congress do not provide affirmative authority to ED to transfer special education funding or vocational rehabilitation services to HHS, nor ED’s civil rights enforcement responsibilities to DOJ CRT.
“We have a simple demand: follow our nation’s education and appropriations laws as Congress wrote them to protect students’ most basic right to a quality education. More than 80 education, disability, parent, and civil rights groups have vocally opposed the recent IAAs and other departmental changes. We call on this administration to immediately cease implementing these IAAs, fully implement IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act as Congressionally directed, and take immediate action to strengthen civil rights enforcement—instead of burying students’ cases behind more bureaucracy. Our students and their families deserve nothing less,” concluded the senators.
This letter was led by Senators Murray, Baldwin, and Sanders and co-signed by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Angus King (I-ME), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Chris Coons (D-DE), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Mark Warner (D-VA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Peter Welch (D-VT), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Tina Smith (D-MN), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), John Fetterman (D-PA), Gary Peters (D-MI), and Michael Bennet (D-CO).
The full letter is available HERE and below:
Dear Secretary McMahon:
The administration’s latest attempts to dismantle the Department of Education (“ED”) through the four Interagency Agreements (IAA) announced June 16, 2026 are outrageous and put the educational outcomes of students and their rights in the classroom at risk. These actions illegally move the administration of special education programs authorized under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), vocational rehabilitation programs authorized under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation Act), and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) from ED to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). They also transfer fundamental civil rights enforcement responsibility away from ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division (DOJ CRT). Congress authorized these programs to be carried out by ED, and Congress annually appropriates funding to ED to carry out these authorized programs, including most recently in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. The administration’s actions fly in the face of what Congress has required, directly undermine every child’s right to a quality public education in this country, and must be immediately reversed.
Since ED was established, Congress charged it with the responsibility of carrying out special education and vocational rehabilitation programs and authorized the administration of these programs under the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). Similarly, Congress assigned civil rights enforcement responsibilities to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at OCR. The Department of Education Organization Act of 1979 explicitly prohibits the Secretary from abolishing any offices established under ED and from altering any assigned delegation of functions. You have also acknowledged in congressional testimony that only Congress can determine whether to dismantle ED and its programs. Make no mistake – the IAAs rolled out by this administration dismantle ED and illegally circumvent Congress. While ED’s purported position is that these are “proofs of concept” for Congress to codify, other statements from ED and White House staff contradict the alleged “temporary” nature of these moves. Last year, the White House even claimed that ED was “abolished.” ED has not been abolished, and it is not within the administration’s authority to move the administration of these programs to any other agency. In fact, Congress affirmed on a bipartisan, bicameral basis earlier this year, “that no authorities exist for the Department of Education to transfer its fundamental responsibilities under numerous authorizing and appropriations laws, including through procuring services from other Federal agencies…” and that these agreements will “create inefficiencies, result in additional costs to the American taxpayer, and cause delays and administration challenges in Federal funding reaching States, school districts, and schools.”
Special education and vocational rehabilitation are education programs. Any attempt to move these programs to HHS would fundamentally alter the purposes of these services, upending fifty years of work that took place at the federal, state, and local level to improve educational and employment outcomes for people with disabilities. It appears the administration values its backward goal of dismantling ED over the faithful execution of the law and improving opportunities and outcomes for children, youth, and students with disabilities. This administration has refused to provide information regarding what office within HHS will carry out these weighty responsibilities under this agreement because it has not been determined. This lack of forethought demonstrates how little concern it has for students with disabilities and their learning. The administration couldn’t possibly know that this will be in the best interest of children and families because it doesn’t even know where and how these programs will be administered in the future.
The most recent reauthorization of IDEA passed by Congress, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, reiterates that the responsibility for administering the law is clearly vested with ED. The law also vests the Secretary of Education with various duties, including allotting funds to States; carrying out monitoring and oversight of States’ implementation; reviewing and approving State performance plans required under the law; subsequently reviewing and making annual determinations of State compliance under law; and furnishing technical assistance to States; among other activities. However, the law does not contain any provisions that would permit ED to offload its responsibilities to another agency.
Congress created a clear federal oversight role for ED because of our nation’s ugly history of denying children with disabilities a free appropriate public education. This critical federal enforcement has allowed ED to maintain accountability and find States in violation of IDEA, such as when Texas set an illegal cap on special education identification leading to a deliberate under-identification of children with disabilities and when New Mexico failed to maintain appropriate state special education funding. Clearly, federal oversight is a necessary component of our nation’s special education system. Without it, families and children with disabilities are left to fight alone to secure services they are entitled to when schools and states fail to meet their obligations.
Additionally, Congress authorized the Secretary of Education to carry out vocational rehabilitation programs in Titles I, III, V, and VI of the Rehabilitation Act. Congress directed the Secretary to undertake various responsibilities in administering the vocational rehabilitation programs, including awarding grants to designated State agencies; approving unified State plans; establishing performance standards and indicators required under the law; and supporting designated State agencies in the provision of preemployment transition services including highlighting best state practices and consulting with other federal agencies; among other activities. Unsurprisingly, the Rehabilitation Act does not contain any provisions that would permit ED to offload its responsibilities to another agency.
These important responsibilities support nearly ten million individuals with disabilities and their families throughout our nation. ED’s actions have already caused them significant harm and uncertainty. This arrangement is the latest callous attack on Americans with disabilities who need quality services and rely on federal support. It follows the sweeping and unlawful firing of 121 employees at OSERS during the government shutdown—an action Congress ultimately had to reverse. This administration’s workforce reductions and reorganization last year also eviscerated ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), costing taxpayers up to $38 million, as mounting backlogs in OCR’s critical work left parents of students with disabilities in the dark about the status of their civil rights complaints. At the same time, ED moved almost all programs supporting elementary and secondary education to multiple agencies with limited capacity and expertise administering similar programs, segregating these programs from those supporting our youth with disabilities and compromising decades of progress toward inclusive education. Each of these actions has undermined ED’s ability to fulfill its obligations under IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act. ED is now illegally transferring responsibilities to HHS—an agency undergoing major disruptions and whose principal subagency charged with supporting individuals with disabilities was proposed for elimination by the administration—and DOJ—an agency that this administration is weaponizing against the American people. This is in addition to the responsibilities unlawfully assigned to other agencies through interagency agreements for which this administration still has not explained full costs, potential benefits, and operational details.
Under this administration, OCR has failed to uphold the federal government’s obligations to protect students from unlawful discrimination. ED’s decision to transfer fundamental civil rights enforcement responsibilities to DOJ CRT will only make things worse. In 2025, ED’s OCR reached the fewest resolution agreements in over 12 years and failed to reach a single resolution agreement related to sexual harassment, sexual violence, racial harassment, discriminatory school discipline, or the seclusion and restraint of children with disabilities. ED has repeatedly refused to answer basic questions regarding the status of over 12,000 pending cases that were under investigation by OCR at the start of this Administration.
Instead of correcting OCR’s disastrous track record under this administration and working to rebuild OCR after taking a hatchet to it, this administration has chosen to waste taxpayer funds attempting to illegally transfer OCR’s functions to DOJ CRT. Under this administration, DOJ CRT has lost an estimated 75% of its civil rights staff attorneys since January 2025. DOJ CRT is not equipped nor designed to handle the over 23,000 complaints OCR receives and evaluates annually. While OCR is required to evaluate every single complaint it receives, DOJ CRT uses prosecutorial discretion to pick and choose the cases it takes to court. Under this IAA, students whose complaints are not prioritized by DOJ CRT may never see their rights vindicated, meaning thousands of students facing discrimination are likely to be ignored by the federal government. This is an unacceptable outcome for the millions of students and families across the country.
Congress appropriates annual funding to ED to help States and local educational agencies carry out programs and ensure children, youth, students, and families are served in accordance with federal law. The annual bipartisan appropriation bills approved by Congress do not provide affirmative authority to ED to transfer special education funding or vocational rehabilitation services to HHS, nor ED’s civil rights enforcement responsibilities to DOJ CRT. In fact, the only transfer authority provided to ED by the annual appropriations bill is the authority to transfer one percent of discretionary funds between education appropriations accounts, so long as no such appropriation is increased by more than three percent by any such transfer. Such a limited transfer within ED is not what is contemplated here. Moreover, transfers of any other type, including the type contemplated by this IAA, are prohibited by section 512 of Division B of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, which states, “None of the funds made available in this Act may be transferred to any department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States Government, except pursuant to a transfer made by, or transfer authority provided in, this Act or any other appropriation Act.”
As with the authorizing statutes, the annual appropriations process clearly requires ED to carry out both IDEA and Rehabilitation Act programs and to operate OCR at ED. ED has the expertise in working with state educational agencies, state vocational rehabilitation agencies, and local school districts in the administration of special education and vocational rehabilitation programs and for resources and oversight in complying with federal civil rights laws. Schools in local communities and state educational agencies rely on the guidance and technical expertise from the educational experts at ED to carry out these programs. Congress recognizes the expertise that specific agencies provide and deliberately decides which agency to vest authority with when passing laws. Congress was clear when it vested ED with the authority to carry out special education programs in 2004, and vocational rehabilitation programs in 2014, and did not provide any mechanism in the law for ED to transfer that authority to another agency. The June 16th IAAs fly in the face of laws enacted by Congress, annual appropriations requirements, and practice in states.
We have a simple demand: follow our nation’s education and appropriations laws as Congress wrote them to protect students’ most basic right to a quality education. More than 80 education, disability, parent, and civil rights groups have vocally opposed the recent IAAs and other departmental changes. We call on this administration to immediately cease implementing these IAAs, fully implement IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act as Congressionally directed, and take immediate action to strengthen civil rights enforcement—instead of burying students’ cases behind more bureaucracy. Our students and their families deserve nothing less.
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