|
|
Fourteen days. That is the gap between the president buying up to $5 million in stock in the company that makes America’s Tasers… and his own immigration agency posting a $220 million contract that experts say only that company can fill. Federal financial disclosures filed in May show that on February 10, an account in Trump’s name purchased between $1 million and $5 million in shares of Axon Enterprise. Axon makes roughly 90% of the Tasers used by U.S. law enforcement. On February 24, Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a notice seeking 17,800 new Tasers… enough to more than quadruple ICE’s current inventory of 4,300 devices. The ICE notice does not name Axon. But it specifies a 45-foot range, 10 individually targeted probes, and an upgrade to the “T10”… all features that three policing experts and procurement reviewers told reporters match only Axon’s Taser 10. The contract would run five years at $220 million. The White House says Trump’s assets sit in a trust managed by his children. A spokesperson called it a “tired narrative.” But here is the context. Axon already holds a $370 million Department of Homeland Security contract for body cameras. It spent $2.4 million lobbying Congress in 2025… its highest total in 24 years. And it just hired a longtime Palantir executive to run its federal sales team. ICE detention has grown from 37,000 people at the end of 2024 to over 60,000 in April 2026. A larger detention system means a larger market for Tasers. Axon stock jumped 5.6% the day the disclosure was reported. The contract has not been awarded. There is no evidence Trump had knowledge of the procurement. But a former acting chief of staff at ICE put it simply: “It is not smart to buy stock in a company that was impacted by the decisions you would be making at the agency.” |
|
|
|
BREAKING 20 Lobby Groups Led by the Chamber of Commerce Are Fighting to Kill the Defense Buyback Ban |
|
Congress tried to do something rare this week… restrict how defense contractors spend taxpayer money. Twenty business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Aerospace Industries Association, and Business Roundtable, sent a letter to the House Rules Committee demanding it block the proposal. The amendment, offered by Reps. Chris Deluzio and John Garamendi, would ban certain defense contractors from buying back their own stock while holding Pentagon contracts. A stronger version already passed the Senate Armed Services Committee 18–9. That version, backed by Elizabeth Warren, Josh Hawley, and Mike Lee, also bars dividends unless the Defense Secretary grants a waiver tied to performance. Here is why the lobby is panicking. Since 2020, the five largest defense contractors have poured more than $100 billion into stock buybacks and dividends… more than twice what they invested in building new factories and production capacity. During that same period, the Government Accountability Office found that major weapons programs were delayed by an average of 18 months per year, and cost overruns climbed by $49 billion. The lobby letter called the ban “an unprecedented expansion of the federal government’s role in restricting lawful corporate governance.” Deluzio responded: “It’s ridiculous that consolidated defense giants expect the Congress to put war profiteering ahead of investing public money in our actual defense.” Senator Warren added: “There’s never a similar kind of lobbying power to protect the U.S. taxpayer.” |
|
EXPOSED |
|
|
A Trump-Appointed Justice Just Warned That Agencies Can Now Be Weaponized — and the FCC Already Started |
|
|
Justice Neil Gorsuch voted with the majority on Monday to let the president fire independent agency heads. Then he wrote a concurrence warning about exactly what that power enables. He pointed to one example by name… the chairman of the FCC. Gorsuch cited FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s public criticism of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel last September. After Kimmel mocked conservatives on-air, Carr warned that broadcasters could face “additional work” from the FCC if they did not “find ways to take action.” ABC suspended Kimmel for a week. The FCC later opened a license review of ABC’s parent company, Disney… one day after Trump criticized the host on social media. Gorsuch wrote: “A business out of favor with the party in control of the White House might be able to stave off an FCC investigation, but can it survive a subsequent FTC ruling declaring unlawful one of its long-standing trade practices?” He warned that after Monday’s decision, “presidents will now enjoy waxing authority over all these areas and more.” Carr responded on Tuesday. He did not back down. “If there is nothing you can do to put your license in jeopardy,” he said, “then it’s not a license, it’s property.” Gorsuch concluded with a line that reads like a warning label for the ruling he just signed: “It may be true that after today there is no more ‘fourth branch’ of government. But the fourth branch’s powers still exist; they have just been reassigned to the President.” |
|
|
|
DEVELOPING More Than 50 Members of Congress Own Stock in the Defense Contractors They Fund |
|
The president is not the only one trading defense stocks. A legislative analysis found that more than 50 members of Congress own shares in defense contractors… while sitting on committees that approve their budgets, vote on their contracts, and shape the wars that drive their revenue. In the last three years, the six largest defense contractors… Lockheed Martin, RTX, Honeywell, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman… took $380 billion in taxpayer money and earned $85 billion in profits. Those same six companies spent a combined $263 million on lobbying and donated over $48 million to political candidates across the last two election cycles. Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduced the No Congress Trading in Defense Stocks Act to ban members and their families from holding shares in weapons manufacturers. “Members of Congress should not be able to use their positions of power to get rich from defense contractors while voting to pass more funding to bomb people,” Tlaib said. The bill has 11 cosponsors. The House has 435 members. Public Citizen summed it up: “Ensuring that Pentagon contractor CEOs get their big annual payouts has become an unspoken part of the job description for members of Congress.” |
|
|||
|
|
They rely on the shadows. |
|
P.S. Reply with one word: the government agency, corporation, or institution you trust the least. |
|
The Seventh Floor Your Radar Inside the Deep State |