Raw Story

Democrats are investigating if Elon Musk' SpaceX is benefiting from his position at DOGE.

Axios exclusively reported Monday that Reps Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA) wrote to NASA's Chief Legal Officer, Iris Lan, about how NASA is ensuring Musk isn't exploiting the agency to enrich himself.

The letter comes after the Washington Post reported last month that Musk and his companies received $38 Billion in government contracts, loans and subsidies, with $15 billion being paid to SpaceX by NASA.

SpaceX declined to comment to the Washington Post and Axios.

The Congress members are asking NASA to outline steps being taken to prevent Musk from accessing crucial information which could give the billionaire an advantage.

Since President Trump took office SpaceX is slated to receive $525 Million in funding — despite numerous safety violations from the Federal Aviation Authority.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration made an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, asking the justices to strike down a lower court’s order that immigration officials return a Maryland man erroneously deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that, despite an error in deporting Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, the lower court does not have the jurisdiction to order the Trump administration to return someone who the administration argues is no longer in U.S. custody.

The appeal to the high court came within minutes of an appeals court panel unanimously upholding the order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who set a deadline of midnight Monday for the administration to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

Despite being granted legal protection from deportation by a judge in 2019, immigration officials detained Abrego Garcia and sent him on a March 15 deportation flight to El Salvador, where he was incarcerated at the notorious prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

‘The government screwed up’

A panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was a major misstep.

“The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process,” two judges on the panel, Robert B. King and Stephanie D. Thacker, wrote.

King was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and Thacker was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

“The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable,” they wrote.

J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his option that “[t]here is no question that the government screwed up here.”

He noted that President Donald Trump’s administration has not made an effort to rectify its mistake.

“The facts of this case thus present the potential for a disturbing loophole: namely that the government could whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking its Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done. It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone,” Wilkinson said.

Order to return

On Friday, Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia.

The Department of Justice quickly appealed the decision and Xinis issued a scathing 22-page order Sunday that cited records and official statements from Trump officials saying the administration has the power to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

“Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT,” she wrote. “That silence is telling. As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador—let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”

Abrego Garcia was on one of three deportation flights to CECOT on March 15. Two flights contained 238 Venezuelans who were deported under a wartime law that is currently being challenged in another court case.

Xinis slammed the Trump administration for arguing that she had no jurisdiction to order Abrego Garcia’s return.

“For the following reasons, their jurisdictional arguments fail as a matter of law,” she said. “Further, to avoid clear irreparable harm, and because equity and justice compels it, the Court grants the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted: to order that Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.”

She noted that the two countries have an agreement to house more than 250 deported men at CECOT.

The U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men at the prison. Trump is scheduled to meet with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14.

In response to the district court’s order to return Abrego Garcia, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, posted a GIF of a confused cartoon bunny on social media.

Attorney placed on leave

The Department of Justice attorney who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, Erez Reuveni, was placed on indefinite administrative leave over the weekend.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a Fox News interview Sunday that Reuveni was placed on leave because he did not “vigorously” defend the administration.

Reuveni, a veteran government attorney, has argued for the DOJ over the course of four administrations.

During Friday’s hearing he was candid that the Trump administration had provided him little information on why Abrego Garcia could not be returned to the U.S. and that “the government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”

An internal investigation has revealed how a reporter wound up becoming looped into a group chat involving high-level Trump administration officials discussing plans for a military operation hours before it was launched.

National security adviser Mike Waltz inadvertently added The Atlantic's editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who later reported on the surprise invitation that made him privy to the top-secret war plans, and three sources briefed on the matter told The Guardian how the journalist was mistakenly added to the discussion carried out on the third-party Signal messaging app.

"According to three people briefed on the internal investigation, Goldberg had emailed the campaign about a story that criticized Trump for his attitude towards wounded service members," the publication reported. "To push back against the story, the campaign enlisted the help of Waltz, their national security surrogate."

A “forensic review” conducted by the White House information technology office then found that Goldberg's email was then forwarded to Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes, who then copied and pasted the contents of the email, including the journalist's signature block with his phone number, into a text message he sent to Waltz.

"Waltz did not ultimately call Goldberg, the people said, but in an extraordinary twist, inadvertently ended up saving Goldberg’s number in his iPhone – under the contact card for Hughes, now the spokesperson for the national security council," The Guardian reported.

The White House claims the editor's number was saved by mistake during a “contact suggestion update” by Waltz’s iPhone, with one source saying his phone adds an unknown number to an existing contact it detects could be related, and Waltz himself claims Goldberg's number was somehow "sucked" into his device.

"The mistake went unnoticed until last month when Waltz sought to add Hughes to the Signal group chat – but ended up adding Goldberg’s number to the 13 March message chain named 'Houthi PC small group,' where several top U.S. officials discussed plans for strikes against the Houthis," The Guardian reported.

Waltz has survived calls for his firing over his use of Signal because the White House had authorized use of the non-secure platform, which automatically deletes messages after they've been read, because the administration, like its predecessor, had not developed an alternative platform to text in real time across multiple agencies, two sources said.

"As a temporary solution, the Trump White House told officials to use Signal as they had done during the transition instead of regular text-message chains," The Guardian reported.

The White House did not comment on the report, and sources said the investigation did not determine the extent of Waltz's relationship with Goldberg, who offered a brief comment on the topic.

“I’m not going to comment on my relationship with Mike Waltz beyond saying I do know him and have spoken to him," Goldberg said.

One of president Donald Trump's nominees has been stressing out his staffers with his peculiar and highly specific requests.

Interior secretary Doug Burgum has placed unusual demands on his employees, four sources familiar with his leadership told The Atlantic, and his chief of staff JoDee Hanson reflected his idiosyncratic preferences by directing political appointees in his office to regularly bake chocolate chip cookies for the boss and his guests using industrial ovens at department headquarters.

"Some of the concerns have been elevated to senior White House officials, according to the sources," the magazine reported. "One person familiar with the behavior described Burgum as 'Doug the diva.' Three people said the concerns have been widely discussed among lower-level staff at the Department of Interior. Two people said political appointees in Burgum’s office have been seen crying because of the demands placed on them."

At least once, a political appointee was told to make the cookies again because their batch was subpar three sources said, and four sources claim office leadership once instructed political appointees to act as servers for a multicourse meal and dispatched a U.S. Park Police helicopter for Burgum's personal transportation – all of which Trump administration officials vehemently denied.

“These pathetic smears are from unnamed cowards who don’t know Doug Burgum and are trying to stop President Trump’s Energy Dominance agenda,” said interior spokesperson Katie Martin. “Everyone knows secretary Burgum always leads with gratitude and is humbly working with president Trump.”

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Two department officials speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Atlantic the cookies were made from premade dough bought from a store and then served to guests and staff as a show of hospitality, and they claimed the helicopter was arranged by his security detial.

“He’s not demanding cookies, he’s not demanding a helicopter,” an Interior Department official said. “It is antithetical to diva behavior.”

His chief of staff has told federal workers that the tradition of staffers baking cookies began when Burgum was governor of North Dakota, according to two sources, and a White House spokesperson waved off concerns about the issue when asked to comment.

“Only The Atlantic could spin baking warm cookies for guests as a bad thing. Cold-hearted people!” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “Secretary Burgum is doing an outstanding job leading the Department of Interior.”

Interior officials also defended two other highly precise demands he makes on staffers, such as removing labels from water bottles, supposedly to avoid branding issues for social media photos, and stacking firewood in his office's fireplace.

"At times, he has instructed his staff on the finer points of arranging logs so they won’t collapse and create noise when burning during meetings," The Atlantic reported. "An Interior Department official said many people in the department—from Burgum himself to the most junior staff — have helped make fires, and that if Burgum ever offered tips, it was not intended imperiously. Burgum, who worked as a chimney sweep in college, was likely just trying to be helpful."

Newsmax host Jon Glasgow said he was shocked after the stock market's reaction to President Donald Trump's tariffs took a toll on his personal wealth.

"I looked at my 401k and gasped," Glasgow told former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) on Sunday. "I mean, do you think that a lot of Americans are gonna give the Trump administration this grace period here while they trust in his plan?"

"Well, all due respect, John, you looked at your 401(k), and you're in your 30s or maybe 40s, and your — your portfolio looks a lot different than someone who's gonna retire this year," Santorum replied. "Certainly younger folks and even folks maybe five or 10 years away from retirement have seen a dramatic hit."

"And it's going to be — it's a problem," Santorum continued. "Look, there's — there's no question Donald Trump is facing a huge problem with what's happened to the market."

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"And he's got to do some things here in the very short term to reassure the markets that this trade — this tariff policy is a policy that I would even argue that — that he's a free trader," Santorum added.

Santorum predicted the markets would "react positively" if Trump painted himself as a free trade president.

Glasgow ended the segment by calling Trump's tariff policy "the most bold move a president has ever made in the history of the United States."

Watch the video below from Newsmax.

Activists were expected to gather for at least 45 protests against President Donald Trump and DOGE administrator Elon Musk while the commander-in-chief visited three of his golf courses in the state.

The 45 protests were just some of the 1,000 nationwide demonstrations planned for Saturday against the Trump administration as a part of the "Hands Off!" movement, according to USA Today. The protests will come just days after Trump's so-called Liberation Day, when he announced tariffs on dozens of countries.

Trump was scheduled to travel to Florida on Thursday, where he will visit three golf courses he owns before returning to Washington, D.C., next week.

"Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. We are fighting back! They're taking everything they can get their hands on — our health care, our data, our jobs, our services — and daring the world to stop them. This is a crisis, and the time to act is now. On Saturday, April 5th, we're taking to the streets to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!" a statement from organizers said.

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"This mass mobilization day is our message to the world that we do not consent to the destruction of our government and our economy for the benefit of Trump and his billionaire allies. Alongside Americans across the country, we are marching, rallying, and protesting to demand a stop the chaos and build an opposition movement against the looting of our country."

Protesters expressed a "commitment to nonviolent action."

"We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values," the organizers insisted.

Trump can expect to see protestors near his Mar-a-Lago resort between 3 pm and 5 pm on Saturday.

More information was available at handsoff2025.com.