You were always going to pay for Donald Trump’s ballroom.
He told you private donors would cover it. Then the Washington Post got hold of the contract: a secret, no-bid deal worth up to $500 million, run through a government office that is exempt from getting multiple estimates, with taxpayers covering half. He knew every line of that when he made the promise.
That same day, a financial disclosure he is required by law to file told the rest of it. Just from the crypto ventures whose rules he oversees, he made more than three million dollars a day last year. Add it up and it clears $1.2 billion. He still decided the bill was yours.
He even made a show of donating his $400,000 presidential salary to help fix up the White House. Crypto earns that back for him before three in the morning, every single day.
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Justice Gorsuch warns the ruling lets presidents weaponize agencies against disfavored businesses, citing the FCC chairman's threat over Jimmy Kimmel.
Today’s GovBrief News
Iran says it is prepared to resume the war if the U.S. breaks their two-week-old ceasefire, days after both traded fresh strikes.
Source: CBS News
June 30, 2026
The Trump administration freezes federal funding for New York's Medicaid fraud unit over too few convictions, the second such suspension this year and part of a campaign focused largely on Democratic-led states.
Source: The Associated Press
June 30, 2026
A reversal of decades of wildfire science draws scrutiny after three federal firefighters die in Colorado under Trump's new full-suppression policy and untested fire agency.
Source: The Independent
June 30, 2026
The Commerce Department lifts export controls on Anthropic's Fable 5 AI model, restoring public access 18 days after officials pulled the Mythos-class system over a security flaw.
Source: Axios
June 30, 2026
A federal judge blocks Hegseth's rule requiring press escorts inside the Pentagon, ruling the policy retaliatory and its security rationale "facially dubious," another First Amendment loss for the Defense Department.
Source: Deadline
June 30, 2026
A federal judge dismisses the Justice Department's suit demanding New Hampshire's full voter registration database, another court rejection of the administration's roll-collection campaign.
Source: WMUR Manchester
June 30, 2026
A federal judge in Iowa holds an ICE officer in contempt for "astonishing" defiance of a court order, as a second judge warns the agency against treating detainees as "bargaining chips."
Source: The Iowa Capital Dispatch
June 30, 2026
The Supreme Court rules 6-3 that states may bar transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports, upholding West Virginia and Idaho laws over Title IX and equal-protection challenges.
Source: Jurist
June 30, 2026
The Supreme Court rules 6-3 that Trump's order ending birthright citizenship violates the 14th Amendment, holding that children born on U.S. soil to undocumented or temporary residents are citizens.
Source: SOTUS blog
June 30, 2026
The Supreme Court strikes down federal limits on coordinated spending between parties and their candidates in a 6-3 ruling, months before the midterms, in a case Vance launched as a 2022 Senate candidate.
Source: Courthouse News Service
June 30, 2026
The Justice Department sues Rhode Island and Massachusetts over tuition breaks for noncitizen students, bringing to twelve the states it accuses of discriminating against U.S. citizens.
Source: The Rhode Island Current
June 30, 2026
House Republicans cancel votes and leave early for July Fourth recess after roughly a dozen hardliners sink the floor schedule over Trump's stalled SAVE Act voting restrictions.
Source: USA Today
June 30, 2026
Representative Tom Kean returns to the House floor after a nearly four-month absence, revealing he was hospitalized for depression, as Democrats say he owed constituents an earlier explanation.
Source: The Citizen New Jersey
June 30, 2026
Washington's July Fourth fireworks will start as late as 11 p.m. and run 40 minutes for the nation's 250th, after Trump speaks at 9 and bills the event as a rally.
Source: UPI
June 30, 2026
Trump secretly awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million for his White House ballroom, routing it through an office exempt from competitive bidding, the Washington Post reports.
Source: The Washington Post [gift link]
June 30, 2026
Trump took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto ventures last year, a federal ethics filing shows, locking in profits as ordinary investors lost most of what they paid.
Source: The Associated Press
June 30, 2026
New York City will open a $1,000 college savings account for every public school kindergartner, the largest universal program of its kind in the country.
Source: The New York Daily News
June 30, 2026
A federal judge blocks a Trump rule that would strip student loan forgiveness from public service workers whose employers the administration deems to have a "substantial illegal purpose."
Source: The Guardian
June 30, 2026