Donald Trump told a North Carolina campaign rally that Marines poisoned at Camp Lejeune will have their claims settled only if Republicans keep Congress.
Julio Herrera Velutini had pleaded his bribery charges down to a misdemeanor, and he wanted even that gone. His daughter donated $3.5 million to a Trump super PAC. A lawyer from Trump’s personal legal team pushed for clemency, and the pardon still didn’t come. Then the family gave Habba the job. She started on January 1, and weeks later Trump fully pardoned him.
For more than three decades, the Marine Corps piped toxic water into the homes where Marines raised their children. Hundreds of thousands of claims still sit unsettled. “If we don’t win, there’s no money,” he said Tuesday, as the military he commands fights a war in Iran.
At the same rally, he touted a $1.5 billion Pentagon loan to a North Carolina chipmaker, and that deal doesn’t hinge on the vote. Only the service members, their loved ones and the civilian workers who drank the water at Lejeune have to wait for the election returns to learn their fate.
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Trump names himself sole judge of a $25 million fraud tip program paying 1% commissions, with the first $10,000 reportedly going to a conservative YouTuber.
Today’s GovBrief News
US repositions troops at Middle East bases as it did before the Iran war began, 13 days before the midterms, a source tells ABC News.
Source: ABC News
October 21, 2026Details
New Mexico Attorney General Torrez sues Epstein’s longtime lawyer and accountant, now his estate’s executors, alleging they helped enable and hide his sex trafficking.
Source: Source New Mexico
October 21, 2026Details
Trump signs law making Arizona's Chiricahua the 64th national park, the first since 2020, though the Interior Department won't say if staff or money follow.
Source: USA Today
October 21, 2026Details
Judge bars Homeland Security Department agents from questioning likely citizens in nine states’ voter-fraud sweeps until polls close Nov. 3, finding union intimidation.
Source: Courthouse News Service
October 21, 2026Details
Maricopa County’s election center locks down for 30 minutes over suspicious activity nearby, days after a white-powder letter reached Arizona’s secretary of state.
Source: The Arizona Mirror
October 21, 2026Details
North Carolina mail ballot rejections rise to 3.1% under a Republican-led elections board rule tossing unsealed inner envelopes, after a judge declined to block it.
Source: The New York Times [gift link]
October 21, 2026Details
Wisconsin GOP governor nominee Rep. Tiffany says Zuckerberg’s election grants were one reason he backed overturning Trump’s 2020 loss, and vows to certify 2028.
Source: WMTV Madison
October 21, 2026Details
FCC Chair Carr warns broadcasters that airing “fake polls” could violate FCC rules, as Trump demanded in August, after a pollster admitted fabricating data.
Source: Ars Technica
October 21, 2026Details
Justice Department watchdog won’t investigate prosecutors who falsely charged Olympian Hearn with Reflecting Pool vandalism, passing it to the attorney general’s own ethics office.
Source: CBS News
October 21, 2026Details
Trump tells North Carolina rally Camp Lejeune contaminated-water victims will be paid only if Republicans keep Congress: “If we don’t win, there’s no money.”
Source: NC Newsline
October 21, 2026Details
New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion, cut from a $219 billion calculation, for misleading Facebook users for 11 years about their data.
Source: The Santa Fe New Mexican
October 21, 2026Details
Supreme Court blocks Trump from cutting off hormone therapy for transgender federal prisoners, after letting him ban transgender troops.
Source: CNN
October 21, 2026Details
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to resume Texas’ Big Bend border wall construction, saying the pause costs $460,000 daily, after a judge refused Tuesday.
Source: The Texas Standard
October 21, 2026Details
Trump administration drops appeals of rulings striking its plan to cut off loan forgiveness for workers at groups aiding undocumented immigrants and transgender youth.
Source: The Associated Press
October 21, 2026Details
Trump administration swaps career officials for political appointees on the federal planning commission set to vote Nov. 5 on his 250-foot arch.
Source: The Washington Post [gift link]
October 21, 2026Details
White House Counsel Scharf demands Politico retract stories on Chief of Staff Wiles and apologize to Trump by Thursday or face legal action.
Source: Axios
October 21, 2026Details
Santa Barbara County, California, opens a 14-bed sobering center beside 12 beds of interim housing for people with mental illness and addiction.
Source: KEYT Santa Barbara
October 21, 2026Details
Democratic leaders Schumer and Jeffries sue to block federal voter-fraud probes in California and Nevada, calling them a pretext to seize control of the midterms.
Source: The Los Angeles Times
October 21, 2026Details