Thursday, August 06, 2026

The Snapshot

Thursday, August 6, 2026.  New Mexico is being stalled and ignored in their request to the US Justice Dept for information regarding Jeffrey Epstein, non-journalism major Bari Weiss continues to show off her lack of journalistic training and knowledge,  Hegseth face multiple scandals, and much more. 






Chump's a mess, as Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes in the video above.  And not very in touch with reality.  Iraq?  AL JAZEERA reports:

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi is facing a mounting political and security crisis as a September 30 deadline to restrict all weapons to state control approaches.

While a number of armed groups, such as Saraya al-Salam, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib al-Imam Ali, have agreed to integrate into the state’s armed forces, the defiant stance of some powerful Shia paramilitaries threatens to derail the initiative.
Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-aligned Iraqi paramilitary group and one of the country’s most heavily armed factions, has explicitly rejected the government’s mandate, pledging instead to retain what it calls “resistance weapons” and further develop its arsenal.

Similarly, the influential Harakat al-Nujaba has said the government’s push to confiscate arms should target illegal weapons causing chaos, not those held by fighters who “defended Iraq, its holy sites, and its people during the most difficult circumstances”.


The militias are not going to be turned out by Ali al-Zaidi.  Before the US troops left, the Shi'ite militias were already present and were already disobeying the rules and laws (you couldn't, for example, be a militia with a military wing and also be a political party elected to Parliament).  A few prime minister candidates did make claims to the effect that they would end the militias but none of them did.  The militias are too much a part of Iraq now.  They were folded into the government forces many, many years ago.

If Chump and his administration thought Ali would be able to address this -- and apparently they did think that -- then they know nothing of Iraq's recent history.  



Let's move over to the US miliary and the fact that they killed some people.  No, not over in Iran, here in the United States.  Joe Wilkins (FUTURISM) notes:

New bombshell reporting by Wired reveals an incident in which the testing of an experimental GPS jammer resulted in a medical plane crashing into the side of a mountain.

The horrifying incident happened in May, the publication reports, when a small twin-engine medevac aircraft carrying two pilots and two medical workers departed from Roswell, New Mexico. Heading West for the small mountain village of Ruidoso, the crew became the victim of an electronic warfare exercise being conducted at the nearby White Sands Missile Range, a test which rendered their navigational system inoperable.
Due to a combination of low visibility and an air-traffic control that was stretched far beyond capacity — at least three other planes reported navigation disruptions due to the GPS jamming — the pilots failed to register a mountainous formation between their plane and the landing strip.

As airline pilot and aviation crash analyst Juan Browne told Wired, the visual effect of that approach would have been stupefying. “When those lights go out, man, you know you are in big trouble,” Browne explained.

Unfortunately, the disoriented crew ran straight into the side of a mountain they likely never saw, resulting in the loss of every life on board. It’s the first known instance where military GPS jamming played a role in downing a civilian plane in US airspace. Reported incidents of GPS jamming within the continental US have skyrocketed in recent years. According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the number of GPS interference events went from four in 2020 to 50 in 2024, and 40 across 2025.


Jeff Wise reported on this at WIRED July 30th.  Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense.  This is on him.  And he should have announced it when it happened  Instead, he thought he could lie and not say anything.  He thought he could lie to the American people.  He thought he could cover this up.  Hegseth is not fit to be Secretary of Defense.  This was clear when JD Vance had to provide the tie splitting vote to get him confirmed.  He wasn't qualified for the post in any manner, shape or form.  He'd never run a big agency or organization.  His money problems as the head of DoD?  Reflect his mad spending as the head of two different charity organizations.  And his non-stop lies?  That's what the country has learned to expect from FOX "NEWS" TV personalities. 

There should be a Congressional investigation into this.  

And, it goes without saying, apologies to the family members of the deceased.  But Hegseth will probably attempt to play this off as not his fault and not anything that the country needs to be concerned about.




Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) reports on some reactions to WIRED's story:

Outraged is mounting over a new report revealing U.S. military testing in New Mexico may have played a role in a fatal plane crash.

“Defund them,” wrote attorney and political consultant Briahna Joy Gray Tuesday in a social media post on X, referring to the U.S. military.
The fatal flight ended on May 14 when a civilian plane on a medical transport mission crashed into the side of a mountain after the pilots became "disoriented," Wired reported last week.

While the cause of the crash has yet to be officially determined, Wired's aviation reporter Jeff Wise noted testing at the White Sands Missile Range may have played a role in the incident.

“While the crash was the first fatal accident in the US known to be linked to electronic warfare, there’s no reason to think it will be the last," Wise wrote.

Christopher Hale, a Democratic political operative and former congressional candidate, laid the blame for the accident squarely on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him of being responsible for “killing everyone on board” the aircraft.



Moving over to the late Jeffrey Estein whose decades long friendship with Donald Chump has earned him protection even in death.  Alexandra Miller (SCRIPP NEWS) reports:

Scripps News has learned the New Mexico Department of Justice has filed a 40-page lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice, accusing the agency of failing to comply with repeated records requests related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The state is seeking documents tied to investigations into Epstein, his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, his Zorro Ranch in New Mexico and any alleged co-conspirators.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he has made repeated requests for the records since taking over the investigation earlier this year.

The U.S. Department of Justice has argued Torrez's requests are overly broad and has cited privacy concerns and ongoing investigations as reasons for withholding the records. The New Mexico Department of Justice disputes those claims, arguing Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has made clear the department is not conducting any active investigations into the matter.


So grasp that Todd Blanche thinks he deserves to be confirmed as Attorney General yet as acting Attorney General, he's unwilling to comply with requests from the New Mexico Dept of Justice.  Grasp that the message New Mexico is being given includes that they can't honor the requests because of "ongoing investigations."  Ongoing investigations?  Blanche and Ka$h Patel have both claimed that there is nothing more that the Justice Dept can do. But they're denying records to New Mexico on the grounds of "ongoing investigations." 

Todd Blanche, when making an effort (what he considers an effort) to garner support for becoming AG, will not supply New Mexico with the needed documents. 



Staying with the topic of Chump's friend Jeffrey Epstein, Alyssa Ray (THE WRAP) reports 

CBS News pushed back after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) released a report suggesting the network "suppressed" a "60 Minutes" segment about Jeffrey Epstein, calling the claim "categorically false."

"We are proud of our aggressive and extensive reporting on the Epstein scandal," a spokesperson for CBS said in a statement to media. "That reporting continues. We air pieces when they are ready, and suggesting that an interview is being 'suppressed' for any reason is categorically false."

Bari Weiss.  Stupid, transphobic Bari Weiss.  Stupid, transphobic, opinion columnist Bari Weiss.  No one's suggesting "an interview" has been suppressed.  We're suggesting an investigative report has been suppressed.  Because it has been.  


On March 26, 2026, Senator Wyden sat for a taped interview at a Senate Finance
Committee hearing room with former 60 minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. The interview
was part of a broader segment being prepared by 60 minutes regarding the conduct of Wall Street
banks and the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands with regard to Jeffrey Epstein and his
associates. Over the course of the interview Senator Wyden answered questions related to his
multi-year investigation into transactions financing Epstein’s sex trafficking operation and
potential consequences for banks over potentially willful violations of federal anti-money
laundering laws.
However, shortly after the taping of the interview with Senator Wyden, CBS News
Leadership led by Bari Weiss made the decision to fire Sharyn Alfonsi.218 As a result, the
interview with Senator Wyden will not be aired and it is unclear whether Bari Weiss and CBS
News Leadership will allow the broader segment to ever be aired. 

Again, were a real journalist overseeing this -- not columnist Bari Weiss who holds a history degree and has no real training in journalism -- it would have been grasped that a news segment would be more than just an interview with one person.  Sharyn Alfonsi is an investigative journalist and she interviewed Wyden at the end of March and worked on the segment beyond the interview with Wyden.  


Bari is an untrained idiot.  It's not as if she went to journalism school and then attempted to be that (bad) columnist for THE NEW YORK TIMES.  She didn't study journalism.  She studied history.  She doesn't know what she's doing and that's why the ratings have tanked for CBS NEWS since she took over.  She's uneducated and she's unqualified.  







Wyden, a ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, released the report on August 4. 

The committee said it concerned “years of complicity by top officials at multiple Wall Street Banks” and alleged that Epstein was able to move large sums of money while banks delayed reporting suspicious activity. Newsweek could not independently verify the claims made in the report.

“I said from the start that if you want to get to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein cover-up, you had to follow the money,” Wyden said in a statement after the report’s release. 

“My small team of investigators did what Trump’s attorney general and Treasury secretary said was impossible: they connected the dots and found evidence of multiple crimes related to Epstein’s associates.”

He wrote in the report: “Wall Street banks looked the other way as Epstein withdrew millions of dollars in cash with no clear business purpose and was party to thousands of suspicious wire transfers worth more than $1 billion.”

One of the most striking claims involves Deutsche Bank. 

Wyden’s Senate report alleged that the bank failed to promptly report more than $250 million in suspicious Epstein-related transactions. 

Bank of America was also cited with over roughly $170 million in alleged transactions linked to another billionaire, while JPMorgan Chase was also mentioned in the report.









The transactions in question reportedly total more than $420 million and involve exchanges with disgraced investor Leon Black, as well as payments to individuals in Russia and Eastern Europe. While representatives for the banks and Black have maintained that they did not facilitate wrongdoing or were engaged in legitimate business, the Senate report argues that these institutions effectively turned a blind eye to obvious warning signs.

The fallout from the report extends beyond Wall Street, raising questions about transparency at the highest levels of government and media. Wyden has pointed to roadblocks in obtaining Treasury files and alleged that a recent media merger played a role in suppressing a broadcast interview about his findings.



By the way, Chris Wallace weighed in on the proposed PARAMOUNT and WARNER BROS merger and, no surprise, he's for it.  (No surprise because he's a ghoul and because he works for PARAMOUNT.)  He writes:

Over my 55 years in the news business, I have built a reputation for being fair, for playing it straight. Here's some straight talk. I have problems with some of the journalism at CBS News. Just as I had problems with some of the journalism at Fox and CNN when I worked at both of those news operations.  But I don't believe government - either at the federal or state level, whether it is controlled by Republicans or Democrats - should use its powers to determine who owns a news platform or to control how that outlet reports the news. 

No one with true news knowledge has ever seen you as fair or as someone who played it straight.  Nor did anyone see your father as such and you're worse than your sexist father was -- and I'm not just referring to his Barbra Streisand interview, we can go back, we can all the way back to when he was forced to work with  Jacqueline Susann and his snippy nonsense that he pulled then. It's amazing, however, that he wants to write about TV news while noting (a) that the lawsuits he's addressing don't bring up the issue of TV news and insisting that thanks to YOUTUBE, et al, TV news doesn't matter anymore.  No, Chris Wallace, you're what no longer matters.  And people reading headlines on YOUTUBE or anywhere and yacking about the news aren't doing news.

I've never mistaken what I do here as news unless I'm covering a Congressional hearing I attended.  

Amy Goodman does not do a news program.  She does a public affairs program.  And that's what most of the YOUTUBE videos qualify as.  So, no, it's not news.  

(B) WARNER BROS shouldn't be sold off right now.  That's because it was purchased in 2022.  And a few of us were loudly opposed to that takeover merger (in Congress, Joaquin Castro was the loudest voice and the sanest).  But the Chris Wallaces of the world were all for it.  And what happened?  The sleaze bags who took over shelved three films because they figured that could get more money ripping off the insurance companies.  They cancelled a ton of shows.  They took their cheap ass 'reality' and 'lifestyle' programs and tried to pimp them and multiply them.  We don't need another merger. 

And we certainly don't need PARAMOUNT's just greenlit again CLUELESS TV show where non-actress Alicia Silverstone will return as Cher 30 years later with her life turned into a tizzy when her own daughter -- should be granddaughter, it's 30 years later -- enters high school.  That's the kind of 'brave' and 'new' and 'innovative' programming that we can expect from PARAMOUNT and they'll quickly move that same brave and innovative programming to WARNER BROS if they get approval for the merger. 


Let's turn to Prissy Hegseth, our Secretary of Defense.  Joe Sommerlad (INDEPENDENT) reports:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s nominee for Army chief of staff could struggle to win confirmation because Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee oppose his candidacy, according to a report.

Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who commanded the famed 82nd Airborne Division, has served in the role in an acting capacity since Hegseth controversially fired the popular Gen. Randy George in April.
Hegseth had wanted to nominate LaNeve in May, The Wall Street Journal reports, but was informed at the time by the committee’s chairman, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, that his man did not have the votes to win out.

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and her GOP colleagues are reportedly concerned that LaNeve has only been a four-star general for six months, whereas most chiefs of staff have typically served at least 18 months at that rank before assuming the top role, the WSJ said.


The Republican Party’s confidence in United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appears to be waning, amid growing frustrations over the war with Iran dragging on with no end in sight.

“I don’t have any confidence in him anymore. I think he’s all over the place,” Senator Thom Tillis said of Hegseth in an interview with US newspaper The Hill last week. “I think he’s got a massive insecurity complex, he has a lack of experience in large organisations, he m
Tillis spoke of a growing crisis of confidence in Hegseth’s leadership within the Senate, as the US and Iran appear no closer to a lasting peace deal despite the soaring costs of the war that the US and Israel launched on Iran on February 28.

“I have heard out of the Pentagon that there’s a loss of confidence – within the Pentagon,” the senator said. “And of course then everyone here on [Capitol Hill] hears those same concerns.”
icromanages too much.”


That's far from Hegseth's only problem.  Will Neal (DAILY BEAST) notes:

Sailors fighting President Donald Trump’s war with Iran are washing in moldy showers and rationing meals in the ninth month of a mission that shows zero signs of ending.

The USS Abraham Lincoln sailed out of San Diego in November on a deployment supposed to last seven months. Trump, 80, launched his air campaign against Iran in February. The carrier has been in the fight ever since, and its 5,000-plus sailors and Marines still have no homecoming date. The president said the conflict would last a “few weeks.” It’s been five months.
Bonnie York, whose stepson is aboard the Lincoln, told MS NOW she had been told a doctor or therapist on the ship warned the crew needed to reach port before people started “losing their minds.” She voted for Trump—and partly because he promised not to start any new wars. She no longer believes the country is safer for it. “You’ve essentially stranded them out there,” she said of the crew.
Relatives of the crew told the network they fear the exhaustion on board will get someone killed. A dozen spoke to the outlet about the conditions, and most asked not to be named, fearing retaliation against their relatives on the vessel.
Brett Snow, a Navy veteran with a son on the ship, said the grind has produced a situation “ripe for accidents.” Even in peacetime, he said, a carrier is one of the most hazardous places to work.

Apparently Hegseth has not only never been stationed on a naval carrier, he also doesn't have a mind capable of learning what it entails. 





Then there's wife number three, his current wife.  Lesley Abravanel (OK) notes: 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing sharp public backlash after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday, August 3, appointing Hegseth's third wife, Jennifer Rauchet, as the chairwoman of the newly created Presidential Military Spouse Commission.

Critics have labeled the appointment a "scam" and an act of favoritism, citing Rauchet's lack of formal government credentials and her history of controversial involvement in Pentagon operations.

The Presidential Military Spouse Commission is a newly formed White House panel consisting of more than 20 military spouses.
It is tasked with advising the commander-in-chief on critical quality-of-life issues impacting military families, including employment stability for military spouses facing high unemployment rates, healthcare access and child care availability, housing security and education during frequent relocations.
Critics argue that appointing the Defense Secretary's spouse to lead an advisory council on military affairs bypasses highly qualified, independent advocates with deeper backgrounds in the military community.




The Trump administration has detained dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops, an Associated Press investigation has revealed, as it rolls back immigration protections for military families in pursuit of its mass deportation agenda.

This marks a significant departure from decades of bipartisan consensus that shielded such individuals from deportation.
More than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members have been detained since Trump took office, with at least six already deported, according to the AP’s first accounting of these cases, which the government does not track.

Currently, at least eight immediate family members of U.S. service members remain in federal immigration custody.

Experts warn that this reversal could undermine military preparedness, even as the U.S. is engaged in conflict abroad.

The policy has left military personnel without crucial emotional support and caretakers for their children, delayed deployments, and forced some to take leave.

"How can I even focus on my military career because I have to worry about how my wife is doing?" said Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, whose wife was detained in front of their 6-year-old daughter in July while he was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states it does not compile data on these cases.
[. . .]
Experts in military immigration law, including Dan Gividen, who served as ICE’s deputy chief counsel from 2016 to 2019 under Trump, describe this as a stark shift.
Gividen stated that during his tenure, immigration authorities rarely detained service members' immediate family members unless they had committed violent crimes.

"We would not place them into removal proceedings, period. That’s insane," Gividen said.

"The fact that they’re doing it now is just outrageous." Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney and retired lieutenant colonel, noted that previous administrations typically canceled past removal orders to ensure troops could focus on their duties. "If soldiers are preoccupied with detained or deported family, they're not concentrating on their job anymore," she explained.


President Donald Trump’s administration has detained dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops as it rolls back immigration protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda, an Associated Press investigation found.

More than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members have been detained since Trump took office for a second term, and at least six have been deported and one self-deported, the AP found in the first accounting of such detentions, which the government does not track. At least eight immediate family members of U.S. service members remain in federal immigration custody.
[. . .]

The Department of Homeland Security has said it does not compile data on these cases. The AP obtained information by analyzing thousands of federal court records compiled by Habeas Dockets, a project run by the Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative; by reviewing existing media coverage; and by verifying information with family members and attorneys. The actual number is likely much higher than the 52 cases AP found.


And yet as this goes public, silence from Hegseth who, as the Secretary of Defense, should have been raising this issue all along.  But the troops are just props to him. 


Staying with the topic of Chump's war on immigrants, José Olivares (GUARDIAN) reports:


One hunger striker in an immigration detention center was force-fed for almost six months.

One detained immigrant with mental health problems was about to be force-fed, until his attorney intervened and stopped the process.

And another hunger striker was almost force-fed, but gave in and broke her hunger strike as coercive procedures loomed.
These are among 10 separate cases the Guardian found, since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has attempted to subject detained hunger strikers to involuntary medical procedures, including force-feeding. Of those, ICE subjected at least three – but probably five – who were protesting against the conditions of their confinement, to the procedures. Human rights organizations have widely condemned force-feeding as torture.
Now, as ICE detains more immigrants nationwide, immigrant rights organizations and medical experts worry more people will be subjected to involuntary medical procedures.

Among the 10 cases, the Guardian can exclusively reveal, are an Afghan man who was force-fed for months in Texas, a Ukrainian man with mental health problems in detention whose looming force-feeding in Florida was stopped by his attorney, and a Saudi Arabian woman who ended up in hospital while on hunger strike in Louisiana and eventually broke her strike in Texas before she was subjected to the procedure.


ICE has targeted immigrants -- and those they suspect of being immigrants -- from the start.  Even those immigrants who went through all the hoops to come into this country have been targeted.  Billal Rahman (NEWSWEEK) notes:


A federal judge has ordered the release of a 20-year-old Tongan man who was legally admitted to the United States and found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “coerced” him into signing a document that the government later claimed waived his rights to challenge deportation.
In a 3-page order issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Noël Wise of the Northern District of California ruled that ICE coerced Cornelius Kaihau Holani, a 20-year-old citizen of New Zealand of Tongan ethnicity with no criminal record or prior immigration enforcement history, into signing a document after detaining him at Oakland International Airport and transporting him to an ICE office in San Francisco.

The ruling is a blow to the Trump administration’s deportation system, with the court finding that federal immigration officials likely violated basic due process protections.



Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Reports raise corruption concerns, question whether administration officials and their families may be exerting improper influence over DoD awards

“Our service members in harm’s way and the taxpayers footing the bill deserve to know that those dollars are being spent through a competitive process, not funneled into the bank accounts of administration cronies.”

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.); Representative Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee; Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI); and Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), in writing to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense (DoD), asking for an investigation of recent reports of $3.2 billion in government awards flowing to over a dozen companies with ties to President Trump’s sons.

“We are concerned about a growing cloud of corruption amid questions about whether the President’s family and administration officials may be abusing their positions to influence DoD awards, and the extent to which this is undermining the competitive, apolitical contracting process used to ensure that service members have the best equipment and most effective technologies and weapons systems on the market,” wrote the lawmakers.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are affiliated with two investment companies, 1789 Capital and American Ventures, which have reportedly poured money into at least 15 companies in the defense sector. New reports revealed that, after the Trump-tied firms became involved, these companies received $3.2 billion in federal awards and an additional $3.1 billion in future contract options.

“The potential for corruption is obvious,” wrote the lawmakers. 

The lawmakers requested the Inspector General determine which Pentagon awards under the Trump administration have involved companies with ties to the Trump family and other administration officials, and asked for a review of the decision-making process to determine whether DoD officials or outside entities complied with ethical guidelines.

“Your determination of whether any Trump-affiliated company may have obtained financial benefits from DoD contracts or awards is particularly important in light of President Trump’s admission that his children “have inside information” in “almost anything they do” with regard to their investment portfolios,” wrote the lawmakers.

The lawmakers also asked the DoD IG to examine the Pentagon’s existing framework for award-making to determine whether it is sufficient to prevent conflicts of interest, and whether it should be strengthened. Specifically, they requested an evaluation of several proposals in the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) meant to strengthen ethics requirements for Pentagon awards, including a provision that requires a new code of conduct for employees of the Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) and other investment arms of the Pentagon.

“Our service members in harm’s way and the taxpayers footing the bill deserve to know that those dollars are being spent through a competitive process, not funneled into the bank accounts of administration cronies,” concluded the lawmakers.

The lawmakers are escalating their oversight as reports of Trump-affiliated entities gaining huge DoD contracts grow, and the administration refuses to address concerns about self-enrichment and influence peddling at the Pentagon.

“[Previous] unsatisfactory response[s] left us with more concerns that OSC is unaware of or willfully ignoring the potential for corruption in the awards process at the expense of U.S. national security,” wrote the lawmakers.

Senator Warren has had longstanding concerns over potential conflicts of interest, revolving door abuse, and national security concerns in DoD’s acquisition process:

  • In July 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) grilled Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg and Director of OSC David Lorch on the DoD’s new initiatives to populate a new contracting office with finance, tech, and defense industry insiders — and offering them government paychecks of up to $438,000 annually.
  • In July 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg about conflicts of interest in his overseeing Golden Dome contracts going to companies tied to the private equity firm he founded, Cerberus. 
  • In June 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed DoD on the potential conflicts of interest surrounding lucrative DoD loans and deals following reporting that the White House allegedly intervened to secure an OSC loan to a Trump Jr.-backed company. 
  • In June 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pushed for a provision in the fiscal year 2027 NDAA prohibiting OSC from making equity investments in companies where the President, Vice President, Cabinet members, other executive officers with a role in investment decisions, and their families hold a stake. 
  • In March 2026, after DoD failed to provide answers to the vast majority of questions in her January letter, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed DoD and OSC on the processes in place to ensure that DoD contracts and loans are being fairly awarded to companies.
  • In January 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) raised concerns about DoD and OSC handing out loans and contracts to companies with ties to the Trump family.
  • In September 2023, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Heidi Shyu, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering at DoD, reiterating her request for increased transparency from OSC and seeking clarification on how DoD is interpreting ethics restrictions.
  • In July 2023, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) raised concerns that DoD’s OSC hired private sector individuals who appeared to have direct financial conflicts of interest with defense consultants and defense contractors. 
  • In June 2023, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) reintroduced the Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act to strengthen ethics laws in DoD contracts.  

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