A foreign oil giant was under fire from the Trump White House for buying Russian oil. Then it poured nine figures into a troubled refinery startup tied to Donald Trump Jr. Not long after, the pressure from the Trump Administration vanished. Donald Trump sold it as a win for America. But the real winner was his family. This is pay to play at the highest levels of government. Welcome to Episode 19 of the Corruption Chronicles.

This month is Gun Violence Awareness Month, and the numbers tell a story we cannot keep accepting. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens in this country. Not car accidents. Not illness. Guns.      We say we want safer schools, safer communities, and a better future for our kids. None of that is possible if we keep treating gun violence as inevitable.      This month, we honor the victims of gun violence and stand with the survivors and families who have lost someone they love. Every one of these stories represents a life that mattered and a family that has forever been changed as a result.      We cannot bring back what these families have lost, but we can make sure fewer families have to feel this loss and that gun violence isn’t a reality of everyday life. That work starts with all of us.

I know many of you are scared about Trump’s repeated attempts to undermine our elections and your voting rights. Here is some good news:    A federal judge just blocked Trump's extremely flawed national citizenship database — the one his Administration built by illegally combining your Social Security records and immigration data without telling you, that could flag perfectly eligible American citizens for removal, and that he is trying to force states to use.     The judge found it violated three separate federal laws and said the Administration “knowingly trampled” on Americans’ privacy and their right to vote. She called the Administration’s defense “borders on the absurd.”    Donald Trump does not get to decide who votes in this country. He's going to keep trying, but we are going to keep stopping him. npr.org/2026/06/22/nx-s1-586…

Donald Trump just showed the country exactly where housing ranks on his priority list: nowhere. A once-in-a-generation bipartisan housing bill was ready for his signature. It would help lower costs, build more homes, and take on big investors buying up neighborhoods. Then Trump blew it up over a voter suppression bill that isn’t going anywhere. I care about housing costs, Mr. President. So do the families in Southern California and across the country getting crushed by rent and mortgage payments. We’re going to get this done with or without you.

Trump, the only president in American history to be impeached twice, is working on a plan with his allies to erase those impeachments from the record. Not appeal them. Not contest them. Erase them, as if they never happened. Let’s be clear: the Constitution doesn’t let anyone “un-impeach” themselves after committing a grave offense against their country. There is no process for it, because no one who wrote the Constitution ever imagined a president would try. Trump has tried to overturn his criminal conviction. He has tried to reverse his civil judgments. Now he wants to erase his impeachments too. Every part of the record that makes him look bad, he wants gone, because it’s an embarrassment, and he knows it.      History does not work that way, and neither does the Constitution. This is a non-starter, and I am doing everything in my power to make sure it never sees the light of day. wsj.com/politics/elections/t…

JD Vance just told you everything you need to know. He thinks Watergate wouldn't have taken down a president today. He sees a parallel between what happened to Nixon and what's happening now, and he's proud of it. JD Vance is dead wrong if he thinks a faster news cycle buys him immunity — especially for an Administration that, by his own admission, may be doing things that make Watergate look minor. And when Democrats have the gavels again, every document, every corrupt act, every quid pro quo, and every conflict of interest that this Administration thought they buried will see the light of day.

I think Eisenhower and Reagan would be appalled by what the Trump Administration is doing. This nation had a Department of War once, but after World War II, we built something better. A unified force, land and sea and air under one roof, and we called it what it actually was: the Department of Defense. Renaming it now doesn’t make us stronger. It makes us spend a huge amount of money on new branding while our service members go without the housing, resources, and equipment they need to be the best fighting force in the world. We can build the force. Or we can relabel things. I know which one Eisenhower would have chosen.

Federal prosecutors had a strong criminal case against Senator Jim Justice’s coal companies for thousands of alleged violations, including dumping arsenic into drinking water. Then Trump's DOJ shut it down.   The order came from Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s own former personal attorney, who Trump now wants running the entire Justice Department.   A 24-year federal prosecutor said he had never seen a case shut down that way. Ever.   You cannot be the people’s lawyer and the president’s lawyer at the same time. Trump is trying to make an “untouchables list” at the Department of Justice, and Todd Blanche is helping him do it.

Only Pete Hegseth could look at 80 years of military public health policy and decide he knew better. In April, he made the flu shot optional for troops, scrapping a requirement that has been in place since 1945. Two months later, a flu outbreak hit Air Force recruits at Lackland Air Force Base. At least 222 recruits have been infected, four have been hospitalized, and one has passed away. This never should have happened. There was no reason to gamble with the health of new recruits, and the military has already had to reverse course and reinstate the flu shot requirement for basic trainees. Hegseth is not fit to lead our military, and he keeps finding new ways to prove it. nytimes.com/2026/06/18/us/fl…

Kristi Noem spent more than $700 million of your money buying warehouses to detain immigrants. Now ICE is planning to sell or give away most of them. This was a signature initiative of the Trump deportation agenda, and it is collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence. Someone call DOGE and tell them to get to work. They were too busy cutting cancer research to notice this actual waste. nytimes.com/2026/06/18/us/po…

You’re going to want to read this. Let’s talk about kratom. Yeah, the dangerous stuff you can find at gas stations that hits the same brain receptors as opioids. It’s been linked to liver toxicity, seizures, and thousands of deaths. Put simply, it’s really dangerous. Markwayne Mullin, the Secretary of Homeland Security, holds up to $1 million in a kratom company founded by a convicted felon who stole $10 million, went to prison, got out, and got into the kratom business. When Mullin was a senator, he pushed the FDA on kratom's behalf, urging the agency to scrub safety warnings from its website. Then, after Trump nominated him to lead DHS, the Justice Department dropped its lawsuit against the company he holds investments in, and he STILL hasn’t divested. You can draw your own conclusions, but this stinks of corruption to me. nytimes.com/2026/06/15/us/po…

It’s time we bring some common-sense reform to the Supreme Court. When Supreme Court Justices serve for life, they become the most powerful people in America with the least amount of accountability. That is not how a democracy is supposed to work. The Supreme Court is the only institution in our entire federal government with no enforceable code of ethics. Nearly 80% of voters want that fixed. I’ve introduced an amendment to withhold the Court’s funding until it does. And here’s the deeper problem: one president can reshape American law for an entire generation simply because of who happens to retire on their watch. That is not a fair system. That’s why I’ve cosponsored legislation to create 18-year term limits with a new appointment every two years, so that each president gets a say. The highest court in the land should answer to the American people. Right now, it doesn’t. I’m working every single day to change that.