>>24517874 Luna: After 3/4 of Congress voted to block the release of the congressional slush fund files pre-dating 2017 (2017 - current is online), I and House Oversight voted to subpoena the recordsPN

The "congressional slush fund"—officially a taxpayer-funded account under the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995—is primarily used to settle workplace disputes and lawsuits against congressional offices, including claims of sexual harassment, discrimination, and wrongful termination.Since 1997, it has paid over $17–18 million for 264–291+ casesinvolving staff, Capitol Police, and lawmakers.

Key Aspects of the Congressional Settlement Fund:

Purpose: Settling claims (discrimination, harassment, pay/leave issues) to prevent litigation.

Controversy: Critics call it a "slush fund" because payments are made with taxpayer money, often under non-disclosure agreements, allowing lawmakers to hide misconduct.

Reforms: Following intense scrutiny, 2018 legislation requires members of Congress to reimburse the Treasury for sexual harassment settlements, and it removed the mandatory counseling and "cooling-off" periods for victims.

Transparency Issues: While some details are disclosed, thespecific names of lawmakers and victims in many cases have remained hidden.

Other "Slush Fund" Accusations

Office Accounts: Some members have used their own office budgets (Members' Representational Allowances) to reach secret, private settlements with staff, separate from the main congressional fund.

Executive Branch: Critics sometimes label certain executive branch funding, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or specific DOJ settlements, as "slush funds" that allow spending without direct congressional approval

Members of Congress Will No Longer Have Secret Slush Fund to Pay Sexual Abuse Settlements

(BTW the Congress use the slush funds not only for sexual abuse etc. A lot of those people are gamblers too. Remember almost every congressman and senator visited Ukraine many times to collect the money Zelensky promised them. Lindsey Graham flew and stayed there numerous times. Think about this, those who went to Ukraine were being giving money by Zelensky from the Bidan Admin.So we the citizen’s money, was used, paying the blackmail money to our lawmakers, it happens all the time!)

Charlotte HaysDecember 13, 2018

Good News, Mr. or Ms. Taxpayer: You’ll no longer be on the hook for secret settlements when a Member of Congress can’t be bothered to refrain from sexual sexual harassment.

House and Senate negotiators have reached agreement to end a secret slush fund used to pay victims of sexual misconduct by our esteemed elected officials.

The New York Post reports: Instead (of secret, taxpayer funded settlements], members of congress would be required to pay out of their own pockets settlements stemming from their bad behavior and those awards would be made public.

Records show that nearly $300,000 in taxpayer dollars were spent between 2003 and 2007 to settle 13 claims of sexual harassment or sex discrimination against members of Congress or their offices.

The compromise legislation, which is expected to pass both the House and Senate in the coming days, would eliminate the mandatory counseling and cooling off periods that made victims wait months before moving forward with a complaint.

Employees would have a dedicated advocate in filling harassment claims. And Congress would regularly survey employees to measure confidentially incidents of sexual harassment and discrimination.

Good riddance to a perk that allowed elected officials to get by with offenses that would have doomed anyone else and, adding insult to injury, send the bill to the taxpayer.

https://www.independentwomen.com/2018/12/13/members-of-congress-will-no-longer-have-secret-slush-fund-to-pay-sexual-abuse-settlements/

Apparently None of this in the article happened, Congress has many ways to steal from the citizens.

Remember the woman that fled to Russia because Bidan raped and harassed her. She’s still there because she fears for her life

Weekly Columns and Op-Eds

COLUMN: End Justice Department Settlement Slush Fund

October 30, 2017

The purpose of any legal settlement is to right a wrong against victims, not to enrich political allies of any presidential administration, Democrat or Republican. Under U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, it was no secret that President Obama's Department of Justice steered settlements involving large companies to either supersede Congress' appropriations authority or to support third-party liberal activist groups that were not parties to the case at hand.Billions of dollars in settlements have been used as a Justice Department "slush fund" in the form of civil penalties or forced "donations."

Congress has sole constitutional authority to appropriate federal funds, so in cases where Congress has refused to provide funding, settlement funds directed by the executive branch to third parties violate the principle of separation of powers. A clear example of executive overreach at the expense of legislative powers is the settlement with Volkswagen over its falsifying of vehicles' diesel emissions. The Obama administration required the company to pay $2.0 billion of the $14.7 billion settlement in civil penalties toward electric vehicle infrastructure that Congress has refused to fund. The correct recipient of settlement funds in cases involving a harm against the American public is the taxpayer, so the U.S. Department of Treasury should be the destination for settlement penalties—not programs or infrastructure for which elected representatives in Congress have not appropriated federal funds.

On the House floor last week, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), whose committee has conducted a longstanding investigation into the Justice Department's slush fund, cited newly-uncovered evidence that demonstrates how Obama Justice Department officials blocked settlement payouts to conservatives. In a July 2014 email related to a settlement with Citibank, a senior Justice Department official explicitly advised that a recipient of settlement funds—a legal group that provides "conservative property-rights legal services"—was a cause of "concern." In legal-speak, that means that the conservative group should not be awarded with settlement funds.

That concern on the part of the Justice Departmentdid not apply to political allies of the Obama Administration, including the National Urban League and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. The Justice Departmentdirected hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement funds to these and other activist organizations that were not parties to litigation and not harmed.

Last week, I voted to support Chairman Goodlatte's legislation, H.R. 732, Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2017,to permanently bar federal agencies from requiring defendants to donate money to outside groups as part of settlement agreements. The legislationalso requires that settlement money goes either directly to victims or to the U.S. Department of Treasury.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced earlier this year that the Justice Department would prohibit use of third party settlements, but this legislation would make that prohibition permanent regardless of any administration's affiliation. It is time to stop the executive branch's overreach and abuse of settlements.

(Will Scott Bessent find all the money stolen or giving away by Obama Admin, and claw it all back?)

https://newhouse.house.gov/media-center/weekly-column-and-op-ed/column-end-justice-department-settlement-slush-fund

Citizen Free Press

@CitizenFreePres

Virginia votes tomorrow on new congressional map.

From Reverend Jordan Wells

10:39 AM · Apr 20, 2026

7,198

Citizens of VA crush their effort to steal the midterm. Go out in droves to say no on changing the mapif they get away with it, no state is fair in elections.

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/2046237291618664795?s=20

Catholic father whose home was raided at gunpoint wins 7-figure settlement from U.S. government

Pro-lifers call the win “a huge victory for all Americans who want our right to speak our minds peacefully in a law-abiding way without fear of our own government!

Nearly four years after Catholic father of seven and pro-life activist Mark Houck was arrested at gunpoint, he and his wife won a settlement of more than $1 million from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The Houck home, located in rural eastern Pennsylvania, was raided by 20 armed federal agents in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 23, 2022. Houck was arrested in front of his family and interrogated for six hours.

Houck and his wife, Ryan-Marie, sued the DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in November 2023 after Houck was acquitted in January of that same year of the incident that prompted the raid.

While praying at a Planned Parenthood facility in October 2021, Houck had defended his 12-year-old son during an altercation with an aggressive, elderly Planned Parenthood volunteer.

Upon his arrest, Houck was charged with alleged violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 federal law that protects access to abortion services and places of worship. If convicted, Houck faced up to 11 years in federal prison and up to $350,000 in fines. Under the Biden administration, many pro-life activists were charged with violating the FACE Act in what the Justice Department now claims was a weaponization of the law.

In the lawsuit, the Houcks alleged that they and their children suffered post-traumatic stress, economic loss, and loss of reputation after the event. They also said their children suffered from intense anxiety, constant fear of losing their parents, and inability to sleep, and that the stress from the trial led Ryan-Marie to have three miscarriages and receive an infertility diagnosis.

‘Huge victory for free speech'

Two organizations involved in the case are celebrating the victory as a win for the pro-life movement and for freedom of speech.

40 Days for Life President Shawn Carney called the win a “huge legal victory for free speech, not just for pro-life Americans,” in a video statement.

“Itʼs a huge victory for all Americans who want our right to speak our minds peacefully in a law-abiding way without fear of our own government,” Carney said.

Peter Breen, Thomas More Society executive vice president and head of litigation, said the organization was “thrilled with the outcome.”

“The Biden Department of Justice’s intimidation against pro-life people and people of faith has been put in its place,” Breen said.

“We took on Goliath — the full might of the United States government — and won,” Breen said. “The jury saw through and rejected the prosecution’s discriminatory case, which was harassment from Day 1. This is a win for Mark and the entire pro-life movement.”

Carney said the victory was a “long shot.”

“They have a 98% conviction rate at the DOJ, so heʼs part of the 2% that got acquitted,” Carney said. “And then to go on offense and to say, weʼre not going to stand for this from our government, and to sue them, and for them to settle and win is a huge, huge victory.”

Carney said that, as pro-lifers, “we got so much persecution from the DOJ under Biden, and President Trump has corrected that.”

“It has been absolutely night and day. Under Biden, at one point, we were getting one to two inquiries from the FBI per week at different 40 Days for Life locations,” Carney said. “This is absolutely ridiculous, and that has stopped, and we have been victorious in our lawsuit against the DOJ.”

“So, be not afraid, go out, peacefully pray to end abortion,” Carney Concluded.

https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/catholic-father-whose-home-was-raided-at-gunpoint-wins-seven-figure-settlement-from-u-s

U.S. Central Command

@CENTCOM

U.S. Marines depart amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA 7) by helicopter and transit over the Arabian Sea to board and seize M/V Touska. The Marines rappelled onto the Iranian-flagged vessel, April 19, after guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance (DDG 111) disabled Touska’s propulsion when the commercial ship failed to comply with repeated warnings from U.S. forces over a six-hour period.

12:36 AM · Apr 20, 2026

1M

https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/2046085543348293851?s=20

UAE asks US about a wartime financial lifeline

Story by David S. Cloud, Alexander Saeedy, Nick Timiraos. ==1/2=+

WASHINGTON—The United Arab Emirates has opened talks with the U.S. about obtaining a financial backstop in case the Iran war plunges the oil-rich Persian Gulf state into a deeper crisis, U.S. officials said.

U.A.E. Central Bank Gov. Khaled Mohamed Balama raised the idea of a currency-swap line with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Treasury and Federal Reserve officials in meetings in Washington last week, the officials said. The Emiratis emphasized that they had so far avoided the worst economic effects of the conflict but might still need a financial lifeline, the officials said.

The talkshighlighted the U.A.E.’s concern that the war could inflict major damage on its economy and its position as a global financial hub, depleting its foreign reserves and scaring away investorswho once saw it as a stable and secure place for their money. The conflict has damaged Emirati oil-and-gas infrastructure and shut off their ability to sell oil using tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, depriving it of a key source of dollar revenues.

Emirati officials haven’t made a formal request for a swap line, which would give the U.A.E. central bank inexpensive access to dollarsto support its currency or shore up its foreign reserves in case of a liquidity crisis. In talks with the U.S. in recent days, they have portrayed the proposal as preliminary and precautionary, the U.S. officials said.

But they have also argued that it was President Trump’s decision to attack Iran that entangled their country in a destructive conflict whose effects may not be over, some of the officials said=. Emirati officials told the U.S. officials that if the U.A.E. runs short of dollars==, it may be forced to use Chinese yuan or other countries’ currencies for oil sales and other transactions, some of the officials said.

In that scenario is an implicit threat to the U.S. dollar, which reigns supreme among global currencies partially because of its near-exclusive use in oil transactions.

The U.A.E. Central Bank didn’t respond to requests for comment. A Fed spokesperson declined to comment.

Swap lines are typically administered by the Fed, but its 12-person policy committee, the Federal Open Market Committee, is unlikely to approve one for U.A.E., some of the officials said.

It usually reserves them for relieving severe funding-market pressures that could spill back into the U.S. economy. It has standing arrangements with central banks in the U.K., Canada, Japan, Switzerland and the European Union. During periods of acute stress, most recently in 2020, it extended swap lines to nine other central banks, including in Mexico, South Korea and Brazil. The U.A.E. has fewer ties to U.S. markets than traditional swap recipients.

The Treasury Department has recently provided alternative swap arrangements without the Fed. The department signed off on a $20 billion swap for Argentina through the Exchange Stabilization Fund last year.

Before a cease-fire tookeffect on April 17, Iran targeted the U.A.E. especially hard, firing over 2,800 drones and missiles, according to the U.A.E.’s Ministry of Defense, although most were shot down.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/uae-asks-us-about-a-wartime-financial-lifeline/ar-AA21gBXO

>>24519339

2/2

The Emirati dirham is pegged to the dollar and backed by foreign-currency reserves of $270 billion, but the war has put it under pressures from capital-flight risks, stock-market volatility and other disruptions, analysts said.

The credit-rating firm S&P Globalsaid in a March 6 report that the U.A.E.’s “substantial fiscal, economic, external, and policy flexibility will act as an effective buffer” against the war’s economic effects. But it warned that “the potential for prolonged disruption” to its oil exports and damage to infrastructure “add clear risk to our expectations.”

The U.A.E. has threatened to freeze billions of dollars of Iranian assets held in the Gulf state, The Wall Street Journal has reported, a move that could sever one of Tehran’s most important economic lifelines.But such a move would also upend lucrative trade and banking ties with Tehran and damage the U.A.E.’s ability to attractand retain capital from other politically charged sources, such as Russia.

The war also has driven the Emiratis closer to the U.S. and, at least for now, to abandon the notion that forging diplomatic and financial ties to Iran would help insulate it from the region’s conflicts.

Treasury officials invited Gulf countries on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washingtonlast week to outline their needs for repairing infrastructure and rebuilding their economies, promising to put them at the front of the line if assistance is needed.

The Fed used swap lines heavily used during the 2008 financial crisis, buying the currency of other borrowing central banks with dollars and later selling it back. It also used swap lines to support foreign central banks after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Countries that don’t have a swap line with the Fed can still exchange their holdings of Treasury bonds for dollars through a program administered by the New York Fed.

Gulf countries have also raised billions of dollars in debt from investors over the past week, highlighting their push to have cash on hand as they face what the International Energy Agency has called “the most severe oil-supply shock in history.”

Abu Dhabi, the U.A.E.’s capital and the richest of the seven emirates that make up the country, raised around $4 billion from investors in private-placement transactionsarranged by banks including Goldman Sachs earlier this month, people familiar with the matter said. The emirate borrowed at a premium to avoid a drawn-out fundraising process, they said.

Bahrain also set up a roughly $5 billion swapline with the U.A.E. earlier this month to help improve financial stability, the countries’ central banks said.

Finance ministers and central bankers in Washington for the IMF and World Bank meetings saidthey didn’t expect an easy or swift recovery for the region.

“The basic logistics of scheduling tankers and bringing them back after the chaos we have seen,that will take possibly to the end of June,” said Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Saudi Arabia’s finance minister, during a panel on Thursday.

“Anyone who’s counting for a quick recovery, even if there is a total end of hostilities, will need to recalculate that.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/uae-asks-us-about-a-wartime-financial-lifeline/ar-AA21gBXO

POLITICSApril 18, 2026

Spanberger Signs Unconstitutional Bill to Strip Confederacy-Linked Groups of Tax Exempt Status 1/2

There has been growing criticism (and falling poll numbers) of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger after she ran as a moderate and then immediately veered to the far left after her election. Once in power, Spanberger and the Democrats unleashed a slew of tax increases, moved to eliminate all but one Republican district in the purple state, passed an array of anti-gun laws, and enacted other controversial measures==.

One of these measures is aclearly unconstitutional effort to strip pro-Confederate groups of their tax exemption.

This week, Spanberger signed HB167, the law that eliminated the tax exemption for various confederacy-linked groups, including the Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the General Organization of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial, Incorporated, the Virginia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the J.E.B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust, Inc.

Notably, as soon as they came into power, Democrats also passed House Bill 1377 to move against the Virginia Military Institute, including appointing a task force that could effectively close the historic school. Many Democrats have previoulsy sought to close VMI despite its unique and inspiring history in training some of our most famous military leaders, including General George Marshall. Liberals want to close the school due to its history from the Civil War.

Spanberger recently expressed support for the effort but returned the bill with suggestions to use the board of directors to carry out the review.

Spanberger’s substitute eliminates that task force entirely and instead directs VMI’s own board of visitors to carry out the review.

The board would be empowered to carry out a fairly hostile and open-ended agenda, including to “distance [VMI] from the Lost Cause narrative, foster an inclusive environment, and address any other concerns.” Spanberger hasappointed 27 new board members, including former Gov. Ralph Northam, who is viewed as hostile to VMI.

The New York Times explained that the Democrats wanted to “distance Virginia from its Confederate past.” However, they also want to use a content-based law to discriminate against groups with which they disagree. The law clearly violates the First Amendment, but neither Spanberger nor the Virginia Democrats appear to care.

In Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155 (2015), the Court struck down a signage regulation because”restrictions … that apply to any given sign [depend] entirely on the communicative content of the sign.” Likewise, Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of the N.Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U.S. 105, 116 (1991), the Court stressed that the government’s ability to impose content-based burdens on speech raises the specter that the government may effectively drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the marketplace.

From taxes to trademarks, content-based discrimination runs afoul of our free speech values. In Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218 (2017), the Court cited Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes decision in United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U. S. 644, 655 (1929), that “the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.'”

Over 30 years ago, I wrote about the collision between anti-discrimination laws and the free exercise of religion. I have been critical of the use of the tax code to effectively punish organizations that do not comport with the IRS’s view of good public policy.

https://jonathanturley.org/2026/04/18/spanberger-signs-unconstitutional-bill-to-strip-confederacy-linked-groups-of-tax-exempt-status/

>>24519387

2/2

That prior work was critical of the 1982 decisioninvolving Bob Jones University, in which the Supreme Court upheld the denial of tax-exempt status. In the case of Bob Jones, the university was engaged in reprehensible racial discrimination. However, I wrote how the actual standard is far more vague and could potentially be used more broadly.

Virginia is an example of precisely that problem in the use of tax exemptions to engage in viewpoint discrimination.

I have opposed such moves with a variety of organizations with which I have long-standing objections. That includes the Administration’s threat to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status.

Tax exemption should not be a status bestowed upon those adhering to the demands of whatever party is in power. Free speech and associational rights are fostered by granting this status.

Virginia will now spend additional money to defend this unconstitutional action and fight for the right to discriminate against those who have opposing views in the state.

https://jonathanturley.org/2026/04/18/spanberger-signs-unconstitutional-bill-to-strip-confederacy-linked-groups-of-tax-exempt-status/

Voters of every state when the democrats and especially if they tell you they were in the CIA, never believe a fucking word they say.The left will never abide by the constitution and they never care about their constituents. It’s all about lies and Power to destroy the states!