Trump admin funneling millions of tax dollars to wealthy donors through vanity projects
ALSO INSIDE: Melania Trump threatens former modeling friend with defamation lawsuit over Epstein allegations
This newsletter is brought to you by Action Network Boost, a new set of features built for the most advanced digital programs.
Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.
Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.
It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.
What Happened
Estimates for President Donald Trump’s ongoing vanity projects have surpassed $1 billion, with much of that money being directly funneled to his wealthy donors through no-bid contracts and opaque tax-deductible contributions.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee and the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing Wednesday on government waste, where witnesses detailed personal and professional concerns about Trump’s costly pet projects. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), ranking member of the Oversight Committee, believes the initiatives serve two purposes: to satiate the president’s ego and provide him with a way to reward his supporters at no personal cost.
“It’s both a huge vanity project, but it’s also about corruption,” Garcia said in an interview with COURIER. “Donald Trump is destroying America’s monuments, he’s trying to destroy the White House — which he’s doing now — the Kennedy Center, putting his name on it; the reflecting pool, millions of dollars in contracts to his donors; he’s building an arch to himself. This is about Trump trying to remake DC in his own image, while giving contracts to his friends. That’s a level of corruption that has to be investigated, and has to be stopped.”
The estimated price tag of the administration’s construction projects around the nation’s capital, including those Garcia highlighted, is over $1 billion. Some, like the White House ballroom, have tripled in cost since their original estimates. Others, such as the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, have incurred additional expenses beyond original estimates due to poor craftsmanship.
Current estimates for projects the administration is planning or already carrying out include:
$600 million: Demolition of the East Wing and construction of a six-story subterranean bunker complete with a military hospital, drone defenses, and a ground-level ballroom for entertaining guests.
$257 million: Renovation of the Kennedy Center, not including associated legal costs for the illegal placement and court-ordered removal of Trump’s name from the building’s facade.
$100 million: Construction of the Triumphal Arch, a 250-foot granite structure modeled after Europe’s triumphal arches despite commemorating no specific military or national victory.
$40 million: Creation of the National Garden of American Heroes, a sculpture garden featuring statues of 250 historical figures to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary.
$16 million: Failed restoration of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The Trump administration has also deployed National Guard troops to Washington as part of its DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force, an operation that currently costs roughly $3 million per day. The total cost of the deployment, which ends in January 2029, is projected to be upwards of $3 billion.
Independent investigations have found that an overwhelming majority of the government contracts awarded for these projects have gone to people and corporations that have donated to Trump’s presidential campaigns or other initiatives. A report by the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that more than a dozen corporations that contributed to the construction of Trump’s ballroom were later awarded a combined $50 billion in government contracts. Those corporations will also be effectively reimbursed for their donations as they were funneled through nonprofit organizations and qualify as tax-deductible.
“Tens of millions were raised from companies that have business before the government,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said of the ballroom donations. “Of those donors, more than half have received new contracts or expanded the ones they have now. Pay-to-play is the MO here. These actions are a microcosm of how the president views our whole country. He expects all of us to glorify him and pay money to his friends and family whenever they ask — even while everyday Americans struggle to meet the needs of life.”
The intra-congressional meeting Democrats held was one of a growing number of “shadow hearings,” unofficial proceedings held without the support of the majority party. While they can do little to spur immediate action, Democrats hold them as a preview of how they will run the Capitol should voters give them control in the November midterm elections.
Melania Trump threatens former modeling friend with defamation lawsuit over Epstein allegations
First Lady Melania Trump on Tuesday made another defamation threat against individuals linking her and the president to Jeffrey Epstein, alleging they caused her “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” through comments made during a live YouTube interview last week.
Trump’s legal team sent a retraction demand to journalist Zev Shalev and diplomat Amanda Ungaro, who shared the letter with COURIER. In it, attorneys outline three statements made during the hourlong interview they contend are defamatory toward Mrs. Trump. The comments in question center on Ungaro’s former partner, Paolo Zampolli, a longtime friend of the Trumps who currently works in the administration and has maintained that it was he, not Epstein, who introduced the future first couple in 1998.
Ungaro and others dispute that account, claiming that Zampolli falsely took credit for introducing the couple in order to shield them from scrutiny during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. During the interview, Ungaro and Shalev also discuss how Melania has remained unusually close to Zampolli and supposedly pressured her husband into giving him a role within the administration.
The contested statements include the title of the video itself — “First Lady Spy Scandal,” even though the word “spy” is not mentioned once during the interview -— and two comments made by Shalev:
“What is she trying to hide? Why come out with a statement like that without ever needing to?” Shalev said, describing an April press conference held by Mrs. Trump. “It’s really the man that you have in common with her, which is Paolo Zampolli.”
Later in the interview, Shalev added, “Melania tried to get [Zampolli] to be an ambassador … and she went on to insist that he become a special envoy. … He brought her to the United States, he’s in constant contact with her, she’s rewarded him with this special envoy title.”
Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, reviewed the letter at COURIER’s request and said defamation threats like this are often used by powerful people to intimidate critics into silence.
“Defamation lawsuits and threats of litigation have too often been used by the powerful as a tool to stifle constitutionally protected criticism. President Trump and his allies have repeatedly employed that tactic,” Terr said in a statement. “We take no position on whether the statements challenged in this demand letter are defamatory. But it’s notable that the letter characterizes the challenged statements at a high level of generality, offering little explanation of why they’re defamatory, while baldly asserting the speakers knew they were making false statements.”
Alejandro Brito, the Florida-based attorney representing the First Lady, did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Melania has vehemently denied accusations that she was an escort, and has been aggressively litigious when confronted about her association with Zampolli and how she met her husband. Her first major lawsuits came in September 2016 against the Daily Mail and Tarpley.net, a small Maryland-based blog. The Daily Mail reported that she and Zampolli ran an escort service disguised as a modeling agency, while Tarpley alleged that Melania had worked as an escort. Two months later, she threatened to sue People magazine for publishing a firsthand account of a woman who accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in 2005, while Melania was pregnant.
Melania prevailed in her suit against the Daily Mail, securing $3 million in damages and a public apology. Tarpley settled before the case went to trial, and was ordered to issue an apology and pay a “substantial sum,” according to Politico. The defamation lawsuit against People never materialized, and the magazine never retracted its story.
Litigation largely took a pause during the four years’ between Trump’s presidencies. Melania remained noticeably silent throughout her husband’s legal battle with writer E. Jean Carroll, whom a jury determined was raped (as the term is commonly understood) and later defamed by Trump. But the legal threats ramped back up as the Department of Justice’s partial release of the Epstein Files brought renewed scrutiny on the Trumps’ history with the convicted sex trafficker.
In August 2025, the First Lady threatened to file a $1 billion defamation lawsuit against Hunter Biden over comments he made during an interview with Channel 5 reporter Andrew Callaghan. Biden repeated the claim that Epstein introduced Melania and Donald and said he believed that future releases from the Epstein Files would further implicate the president. To date, no lawsuit has been filed and Biden, who refused to apologize, publicly welcomed any legal challenge that would allow him to depose members of the Trump family.
Two months later, Mrs. Trump sent a demand letter to journalist and Epstein confidante Michael Wolff, ordering him to retract and apologize for his public statements claiming Epstein introduced Melania to Donald Trump.That dispute remains ongoing. This past Tuesday, Melania filed a motion requesting that the court sanction Wolff, accusing him of using their legal battle as a fundraising opportunity.
In addition to the retraction demand sent to Shalev and Ungaro, the First Lady’s lawyers this week sent a similar letter to blogger Anthony Andrews over a Substack post he made about President Trump. The letter to Andrews, who has less than 1,000 subscribers on the platform and has recently written about Zampolli and Ungaro, suggests the White House is willing to cast a wide net in its efforts to silence any commentary speculating on the relationship between Epstein, Zampolli, and the Trumps.
Supercharge your program with Action Network Boost
Powerful features for the most advanced digital programs, including deliverability reporting, priority support, a new way to dig deeper into your data, simplified email customization, and much, much more. Sign up and get 10% off Boost here >
It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.
US Rep. Brad Finstad, Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District
Since taking office in 2022, Rep. Finstad has:
Seen his net worth decrease from $7 million to $4 million
Sponsored 64 bills, none of which have been signed into law
Held zero in-person town halls in 2025
Voted against the expulsion of disgraced Rep. George Santos from Congress
Threatened an ethics investigation into Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) for holding town halls in his district
Signed onto a bipartisan statement condemning the politically-motivated assassination of Melissa and Mark Hortman in Minnesota
Fun Facts
One of the first bills Rep. Finstad introduced was the Audit and Return It Act, which would have created a system for the government to recover misused COVID relief funds and apply them toward reducing the federal deficit. The proposal included an audit of Paycheck Protect Program (PPP) loans, an area where Finstad has an interesting history.
Shortly after PPP loans became available, the staff at Finstad’s private company tripled from 11 to 33, qualifying the business for a $168,620 loan. The following year, his seemingly pandemic-proof business grew to 43 employees and received a second PPP loan worth $155,873. Both loans were later forgiven and since then, his company has reduced its workforce back to 11 employees.
One of Finstad’s major accomplishments in the Minnesota Legislature was securing public funding for a Major League Baseball field. The deal was largely funded by taxpayer dollars, saving Carl Pohlad, the billionaire owner of the Minnesota Twins until his death in 2009, over $350 million.
Support our journalism at COURIER
Democracy dies behind a paywall, which is why our journalism is — and always will be — free.
But to keep our commitment to the free access to information, we need support from those who have the means, believe in our mission, and support our unique model.
Supercharge your program with Action Network Boost
Powerful features for the most advanced digital programs, including deliverability reporting, priority support, a new way to dig deeper into your data, simplified email customization, and much, much more. Sign up and get 10% off Boost here >