Shining a Light

November 5th, 2026. Incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin, a Democrat of Maryland, posted today, House Democrats are in the fight to bring government back from the brink of authoritarianism. We will shine a light on President Trump's quid pro quo, coin-operated, pay-to-play corruption. And renew American government as an instrument for the common good. Raskin told MSNOW that he intends to subpoena the law firms that struck deals with Trump to learn more about alleged coercion from Trump. He also said he intends to investigate Attorney General Todd Blanch for his refusal to produce documents required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act and for the Department of Justice's persecution of those Trump considers enemies, including James Cumberbatch. Letitia James, Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly, Maggie Goodlander, and Jason Crow. Raskin also told Greg Sargent of the New Republic that the Judiciary Committee will work with Democratic appropriators to defund Trump's corrupt prosecutions. We have the power of the purse, Raskin told Sargent. We will be working closely with our Appropriations Committee partners to make sure that we're doing everything we can to cut off money that is being used, for political harassment and persecution. Representative Robert Garcia, a Democrat of California, is in line to chair the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Yesterday, he told reporters the committee would focus on four major areas. The first is the Trump crime family. Garcia noted that a Russian oligarch paid for Don Jr.'s wedding party, the Saudis invested $2 billion in Jared Kushner's business, and Eric Trump is on the board of companies that are getting Pentagon contracts. Trump himself has pocketed billions from crypto schemes. The other three areas on which the committee will focus are the Department of Homeland Security and the abuses of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, corporate corruption, and those associated with sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Eamon Javers of CNBC reported today that Senator Ron Wyden's Finance Committee statement, which was written by former U.S. Secretary of State Paul Mnuchin, was the first to address the issue. Mnuchin, who is the executive director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said yesterday that the Senate would focus on the conduct of high-ranking executives and their handling of the bank's relationship with the disgraced financier. Yesterday, the Senate posted new job listings, including one for an attorney to lead the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's work on government ethics and anti-corruption legislation, and to participate in the Senate's investigation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's work on government ethics and anti-corruption legislation, in the committee's oversight and investigations work. Gabe Kaminsky of CBS News reported today that Democrats plan to investigate the finances behind Trump's presidential library. Last March, Trump said he doesn't believe in building libraries or museums, and that the building is most likely going to be a hotel. Nonetheless, Trump's foundation, which is run by Trump's son Eric and son-in-law Michael Boulos, told the IRS, it was building a library. The foundation says it will raise $950 million by the end of 2027. Money has poured into the foundation from companies Trump sued and that have settled based on promises to contribute to the fund. People eager to avoid Trump's wrath have also contributed. A former advisor told Kaminsky, the library is one of the last few places he can squeeze people for money. Meanwhile, Trump appears to be acting, as President Abraham Lincoln once said of Major General William S. Rosecrans, confused and stunned, like a duck hit on the head. He has remained largely quiet about the election, but is continuing to talk about his projects in Washington, D.C. Apparently, afraid those projects will now come to a halt, he wanted his triumphal arch approved today so work could start immediately. Tonight, his hand-picked commission voted as Trump wanted, agreeing to approve the arch. But just before midnight, Judge Tanya Chutkan stopped construction for 14 days. This afternoon, in his first action after the election, Trump issued an executive order designating the Oval Office and Cabinet Room of the White House a national landmark and federal landmark to prevent future presidents from altering them. He told reporters he wanted to make it impossible for anybody to ever destroy this incredible space. Although the nation's founders envisioned the executive mansion it wouldn't officially be called the White House until 1901 as a modest space that demonstrated the president was not a king, Trump has splashed so much gold frippery around the place former President Barack Obama joked during the campaign, that it looked like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory. While the president focuses on his legacy, the rest of MAGA appears to be panicking. The right wing is trying to blame Tuesday's wipeout on the Iran war or on Vice President J.D. Vance's negotiation of the disastrous Memorandum of Understanding that last June turned the conflict from an up-front clash into a simmering conflict. But polls before the election showed that although the American people were upset about many things, at the top of their complaints about the Trump administration was corruption. Fittingly, the value of Trump's social media company and his meme coin plummeted yesterday after the results of the election became clear. Annie Massa of Bloomberg noted that the dramatic drops suggest that investors may be anxious about the impact of the Trump administration. may be anxious about the implications of the election for the businesses with links to the But polls before the election showed that although the American people were upset about many things, at the top of their complaints about the Trump administration was corruption. president, which are now expected to receive fresh congressional oversight. The idea of oversight appears to be worrying people other than investors, and some appear to be thinking not of the American people, but of how to get themselves out of the range of fallout from Tuesday's losses. Today, Harmeet K. Dhillon resigned from the Department of Justice, where she dismantled the department's civil rights division, the central cause for which Congress created the department in 1870. As Perry Stein and Jeremy Roebuck of the Washington Post report, on her watch, more than half the lawyers in the division and hundreds of career staffers left. Rather than continuing the work of protecting vulnerable minorities from discrimination, she turned the department to pushing Trump's social agenda, including purging the country of woke ideology. Matt Cohen and Junior Rivas of Democracy Docket recalled that under Dillon, the administration stopped defending voter rights. Dillon also led the administration's effort to take control of states' voter rolls and push the Republicans' extraordinary mid-decade redistricting campaign. Outgoing Representative Thomas Massey, a Republican of Kentucky, posted today that when Congress returns next week, he expects to get the next week, he expects to get the necessary signatures for a discharge petition to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act 2. That measure will enable survivors to get their own records, state attorneys general to prosecute crimes, and Congress to sue the Department of Justice for keeping critical files hidden. Massey also vowed to force a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth when the House returns to work next week. And multiple Republican sources told Adam Cancrin, Sarah Farris, Zachary Cohen, and Elena Treen of CNN that they think the measure will pass. Massey added on social media that the one condition under which he won't reintroduce the articles of impeachment against Hegseth is if Hegseth resigns first. Hegseth promptly posted a video in which he sounded panicked. He appeared to be appealing to Trump. He called the impeachment articles a sham and added, just like they tried against President Trump twice. Didn't work against President Trump, and it won't work with me. The word corruption in this case is not just about laws being broken, but about the old-fashioned idea that the body politic has been corrupted, the old word for a physical disease, by money. That sort of corruption under the microscope now. Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times noted today that the only person who took a bigger hit on Tuesday than Donald Trump was billionaire Elon Musk. Musk poured almost half a billion dollars into the election in an attempt to preserve Republican control of the Senate and to guarantee that Texas stayed in the hands of Republicans. Goldberg recalls that Musk almost single-handedly funded the campaign of Republican senators in the United States. And that's not all. Hegseth is also a candidate for Democratic candidate Ken Paxton, Texas's current attorney general, whose opponent, Democrat James Tallarico, won the election. election by 12 points. She also notes that it sometimes seemed that Tallarico was running against Musk as much as he was against Paxton, at one point telling a rally, Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants our tax dollars. He wants his very own personal United States senator. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa also called attention to Musk's power in the state through his relationship to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The election made it very clear that the American people do not want the data center build-out Republicans have touted. Today, tech firms lost billions of dollars in market value as investors worried about regulation of an industry in which investment was already faltering because of concerns that the industry would not deliver the returns leaders promised. As Rachel Klune and Osmond Chia of the BBC reported, NVIDIA lost $400 billion, more than 9% from its market value. Elon Musk, SpaceX, and Tesla together lost more than $300 billion in market value. The seven tech companies called the Magnificent Seven, including Apple, NVIDIA, and Tesla, lost a trillion dollars today. The Nasdaq Composite, the index of publicly traded information technology companies, lost almost $2.5 trillion. The election saw a quiet but dramatic move to address the corruption of money in politics. On Tuesday, voters in Montana overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative to stop the flow of corporate money into political campaigns. The measure echoes a law passed in Hawaii in May, but is the first to go directly to voters. Rather than going after the political spending that the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision protected, the plan capitalizes on the fact that corporations are created by states. It simply says that the state can deny the power of corporations, trade associations, non-profits, and other artificial persons to donate to political causes. Businesses chartered in other states can't spend political money in the state. Only 34.5% of Montana voters opposed the measure. More than 65% voted yes. Eric Petri of the Brennan Center for Justice, which protects voting rights, told Mike Leonard and Jordan Fisher of Bloomberg Law. The fact that this passed with near supermajority support, in a very red state, shows how deeply upset the public is about the role of money in politics. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss. For more information, visit www.fema.gov.