Tag: conflict of interest

Government Official Behind Nation’s ‘AI Arms Race’ Poised to Profit From Personal Investments in AI Companies

The Trump administration has likened the need to build out the nation’s artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure to the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort that produced the world’s first atomic bomb.

The White House’s point person on the effort, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, has spoken of the “AI arms race” with China as an existential issue for the nation.

“AI is manufacturing intelligence, and, if we don’t manufacture more intelligence than our adversaries, it affects every job, every company and every industry,” he said during his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing in January 2025.

But advancing the administration’s AI objectives also could benefit Burgum’s own finances.

Much of his wealth is held in Arthur Ventures, an investment firm he co-founded, according to his 2026 financial disclosure form, which has not been previously reported.

Between $18.1 million and $64.4 million of those investments are in AI companies, according to an analysis of the companies’ marketing materials shared with ProPublica by public lands advocacy group Save Our Parks. (Government financial disclosure forms allow filers to report wide ranges instead of the specific value of their investments.)

Burgum made his fortune 25 years ago when he sold a software company to Microsoft and has remained heavily invested in technology. In the year before joining the administration, when he was North Dakota’s governor, he made between $2.1 million and $11 million in capital gains from AI-related investments, Save Our Parks’ analysis showed.

In 2025, he sold millions of dollars of stocks and equity in AI companies, bringing in capital gains worth between $2.5 million and $15.1 million.

In the ethics agreement Burgum signed as part of his Senate confirmation, he agreed to resign from his positions at Arthur but not give up his financial interests there.

“Secretary Burgum has met his federal ethics and financial disclosure obligations,” a U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) spokesperson told ProPublica in a statement.

“Any suggestion that his office decisions are driven by personal investments are false and completely unsupported.”

Officials across the Trump administration also stand to profit from the White House’s support for AI and data centers.

For example, 380 of President Donald Trump’s political appointees or their spouses hold stocks or have other financial connections to Nvidia, which has become the world’s most valuable company thanks to the data center boom.

More than 320 have ties to Alphabet, Google’s parent company, which plans to spend at least $195 billion this year building data centers and AI-related technology.

And more than 240 are invested in or otherwise have financial ties to Meta platforms, which is developing a “fleet” of data centers. This is according to an analysis of records added last week to the Trump Team Financials database developed by ProPublica to make accessible the financial disclosures of administration officials.

Federal officials’ activities are governed by a criminal statute that sets a high burden of proof for potential wrongdoing — for example, approving permits for a company in which they are substantially invested, multiple ethics professors and lawyers told ProPublica. They said that Burgum’s investments appear to be acceptable under this law.

But ethics rules that do not carry criminal penalties also apply, explained Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group.

These rules, she said, “instruct officials not to work on anything that would create the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

She said this would include Burgum’s support for data centers on federal land while holding investments in AI.

Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and President George W. Bush’s chief ethics lawyer, agreed that Burgum should avoid making decisions benefiting an industry in which he is heavily invested.

“I, as the ethics lawyer, would insist he stay away from it,” Painter said. “In the Bush administration, the answer would’ve been ‘he has to recuse,’ I can guarantee you that.”

A review of recent DOI secretaries’ financial holdings suggests it’s common to have some potential conflicts, but Trump’s appointees are more heavily invested in the industries they oversee than their predecessors.

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Knives Out: Hegseth’s Wife Reportedly Paid By Trump-Connected Firm That Also Worked For Lockheed

Jennifer Hegseth, the wife of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, was paid last year by Watchtower Strategy, a Trump-connected Washington consulting firm that counted Lockheed Martin as a client the same year, according to Hegseth’s annual financial disclosure report, as Politico‘s Daniel Lippman first reported on Wednesday.

The disclosure lists her consulting work for the firm but not how much she was paid, according to Politico. Jennifer Hegseth, a former longtime Fox News producer, is the daughter of a late Lockheed Martin executive.

Watchtower was founded in January 2025 and sells strategic advice, advocacy and communications work. Its roster includes former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican operatives Jeff Miller, Arthur Schwartz, Dan Conston and Brian O. Walsh. Lockheed was a Watchtower client last year, according to POLITICO Influence; asked whether it still is, a Lockheed spokesperson didn’t answer directly, saying only that the company routinely works with a number of firms.

Watchtower says she was hired for her TV contacts, not her husband’s job. A spokesperson said she helped the firm navigate conservative TV media and “has not interfaced with any clients nor does she provide any advice to Watchtower on defense matters.” The firm declined to say whether she still works there.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the Hegseths are “in full compliance with all ethics laws and regulations.” Jennifer Hegseth didn’t respond to Politico’s request for comment. She has been an unusually visible Pentagon spouse, and accompanied her husband to meetings with Republican senators during his confirmation fight.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who sat on the House Armed Services Committee and was Trump’s first pick for attorney general in 2024, wasn’t buying it.

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Justice Canada commits $752,000 to Atira, the non-profit in BC Housing’s conflict-of-interest audit

The Department of Justice Canada has committed $752,000 to Atira Women’s Resource Society, the Vancouver non-profit whose chief executive was married to the head of BC Housing when a 2023 forensic investigation found a conflict of interest, Rebel News can reveal.

The contribution appears in the federal government’s proactive disclosure of grants and contributions, published by Justice Canada under its Youth Justice Fund, dated July 15 and running to March 31, 2029. No other outlet has reported it.

The record, titled “Restorative Justice Pathways for Youth”, says the project “adapts Atira’s Early Resolution Program (ERP) into a dedicated youth-focused stream designed to serve Indigenous, Black, and racialized young women (ages 12-17) who are currently involved in the criminal justice system”.

Atira is not an ordinary recipient. On May 8, 2023, the B.C. government released an Ernst & Young forensic investigation of BC Housing, the provincial housing agency. The release states: “A new forensic investigation of BC Housing tabled in the legislature has found mismanagement related to a conflict of interest between the former CEO of BC Housing and his spouse, the CEO of Atira Women’s Resource Society.” The investigation “found no evidence of public funds being dispersed outside of their intended purpose”, but BC Housing responded by “restricting any new funding to AWRS and ADS until the operational review is complete”.

The Tyee reported that Atira’s BC Housing funding rose from $17 million in 2016 to $74 million in 2022, and that former BC Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay “has been married to Janice Abbott, Atira’s CEO, since 2010”. Abbott “resigned effective immediately” a week after the audit, the Globe and Mail reported.

Ottawa kept funding Atira. Women and Gender Equality Canada holds a $1.5 million agreement with Atira begun in July 2024, and Justice Canada agreed to a $250,000 contribution in December 2024. The Atira agreement is one of 16 Youth Justice Fund contributions dated July 15 in the disclosure, worth $8.9 million together.

The fund is the responsibility of Justice Minister Sean Fraser. The deputy minister, Marie-Josée Hogue, a former Quebec Court of Appeal judge, was appointed on February 2. The record does not say who signed the agreement. No political donations by Fraser or Hogue were found in a web search of the Elections Canada contributions database, and none is alleged.

British Columbia announced in 2023 that it was restricting new money to Atira. Ottawa has now committed another $752,000.

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Supreme Court Justice Who Extended Polling in Brazil Election Was Lula’s Personal Lawyer

Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Justice Cristiano Zanin, the judge who issued the sudden ruling on Sunday extending the voting times during the presidential runoff election, was socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s personal lawyer during his corruption trial – in which Lula was found guilty.

President Lula was reelected for a fourth four-year term on Sunday, narrowly defeating conservative Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Lula’s surprise victory marked the first time in roughly four decades that a Brazilian candidate who lost in the first round of the election managed to ultimately win in the runoff. Lula lost against Bolsonaro in the October 4 first round of the election — however, the conservative Senator was not able to cross the 50-percent vote threshold to win in the first round.

Sunday’s election was largely marked by an unprecedented ruling issued by Justice Zanin extending the voting time by an additional two hours, leading to some voting stations closing at 7:00 p.m. (local time) rather than at 5:00 p.m. as the nation’s electoral regulations state.

Brazil’s top election authority, the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), took note of the ruling and extended the voting hours for an additional two hours, while accordingly delaying the vote tallying process until after 7:00 p.m. Local outlets, however, pointed out that Zanin reportedly ruled that only polling stations that had not already closed by the time of the ruling were to remain open for the extra two hours.

The order stems from a request issued by the Lula campaign, who requested the extension on grounds that an alleged bus shortage led to transportation issues that prevented voters from reaching their corresponding voting station. The affected areas, according to the request, were all in northeastern Brazil — an area widely considered to be a strong bastion of support for Lula and his far-left Workers’ Party (PT). The Brazilian outlet Poder 360 published a copy of Zanin’s ruling, which states that the STF became aware of the request at “4:32:49 p.m.” just minutes before the stablished 5:00 p.m. voting station closing time.

As Breitbart News noted on Sunday, critics of Zanin’s unprecedented ruling altering the closing hours of polling places allege that the Justice’s court order has “marred” the runoff election. The controversy and criticism over the ruling have been further fueled by the fact that Zanin was President Lula’s defense attorney during the trial of the socialist president that was part of the massive Operação Lava Jato (“Operation Car Wash”) corruption investigation.

As part of the broader Operation Car Wash investigation, Lula was ultimately charged, convicted, and sentenced in 2019 to roughly 20 years in prison on charges of misusing public funds during his first two presidential terms (2003-2010). However, in a highly controversial decision, the STF overturned his conviction on procedural grounds, allowing Lula to be released from prison. The Supreme Court’s ruling, however, did not present any new information or evidence that could exonerate Lula of the crimes he was convicted for.

The ruling nevertheless allowed Lula to run for president again in 2022, narrowly defeating then-incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence on dubious “crimes against democracy” charges.

President Lula began his third term on January 1, 2023. Months later, in June 2023, Lula nominated Zanin to the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF), presenting him as a replacement for former Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, who retired from the court earlier that year. Zanin was sworn in as an STF Justice just two months later, in August 2023.

Former Justice Lewandowski would go on to serve as Lula’s Justice Minister between February 2024 and January 2026 — himself replacing communist (Lula’s own descriptor) former Justice Minister Flávio Dino, who was also appointed to the STF by Lula in February 2024. Both Zanin and Dino were among the STF Justices who voted alongside “anti-fake news crusader” Justice Alexandre de Moraes to convict Jair Bolsonaro of “crimes against democracy” in 2025.

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Secret Service Deputy Director Quits Amid Questions Over Ties To Drone-Defense Maker Fortem

Deputy Director Matt Quinn announced his resignation from the Secret Service in an internal agency email Friday amid questions about his conflicts of interest over the agency’s counter-drone technology.

Quinn served 23 years as a Secret Service agent before retiring in 2021. He then went to work at drone-manufacturer Fortem Technologies, which sells the DroneHunter product, as a senior vice president for three years before returning to the agency last year to serve as deputy director. His last day will be Nov. 7.

As RealClearPolitics first reported, Quinn was criticized by several current and former Secret Service agents for admitting during a mostly softball Sunday CBS News “60 Minutes” interview that the Secret Service was not prepared for an attack by a drone swarm.

The piece featured a DroneHunter demonstration without mentioning several technical problems the platform has experienced. RealClearPolitics over the last 48 hours submitted detailed questions to the Secret Service about some of the statements made during the “60 Minutes” interview about the drone technology, its effectiveness, whether the DroneHunter’s purchases were competitively bid, and the agency’s track record in taking out drones.

The “60 Minutes” report did not mention Quinn’s prior work for Fortem. The Secret Service did not respond to RCP’s questions.

Even before Quinn’s announced departure, several Secret Service sources were questioning a report in a recent CBS “60 Minutes” segment that the agency used electronic jamming equipment to take down a drone at the Army-Navy game in Baltimore last December. The game was attended by the president and several members of Congress.

The sources suggest that the Secret Service is not providing the proper context about the downed drone, while raising concerns that it was most likely a friendly-fire incident.

CBS News correspondent Norah O’Donnell sat down with Secret Service Director Sean Curran and Quinn in a joint interview that aired Sunday night, Oct. 11. The three discussed this year’s surge in threats to President Trump and his Cabinet and how the agency is trying to adapt to dangers posed by autonomous attack drones, not just lone gunmen.

The 13-minute report features scenes of Curran and Quinn at the agency’s Rowley Training Center demonstrating counter-drone systems. The segment featured drone-fighting technology, including the DroneHunter, a weapon that uses AI and radar to disable what O’Donnell referred to as “enemy drones.” When it’s working properly, the DroneHunter captures targeted unmanned aerial vehicles in a net.

At one point, Quinn, who concedes during the interview that the agency doesn’t have the capability to stop a swarm of drones, narrates as a DroneHunter hexacopter captures an unmanned aerial vehicle in a training demonstration.

“Whoa,” O’Donnell remarks while watching the capture starting to take place.

“What you see is the drone hanging from the drone hunter,” Quinn explains. “So, the bad guy drone is now captured. It’s gonna take it to a predetermined safe area.”

Near the end of the segment, O’Donnell states without citing a source: “60 Minutes has learned the Secret Service took down a drone using electronic jamming equipment at the Army-Navy game in Baltimore last December where the president and members of Congress were in attendance.”

It was just one line in the segment, and there was no explanation of whether the drone posed a genuine threat to Trump and everyone else gathered in the stadium for the annual military academy football rivalry. The report also didn’t indicate whether the drone was associated with a foreign actor or was simply a hobbyist’s drone that posed no threat at all.

Active and retired Secret Service agents are now calling on agency leaders to explain more fully what happened. Their biggest question is whether it was a case of friendly fire. Instead of intercepting an alien drone that may or may not have posed a threat, a Secret Service officer or agent used a handheld drone-jamming gun to disable and take out one of its own surveillance drones monitoring the stadium, the sources tell RealClearPolitics.

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Nearly 40% of FDA Advisory Meetings Included Patient Representatives With Ties to Pharma

Nearly 40% of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee meetings held between 2013 and 2022 included patient or consumer representatives affiliated with organizations funded by pharmaceutical companies, according to a study published this month in Health Affairs Scholar.

FDA advisory committees assess the safety and effectiveness of drugs, including vaccines, and make recommendations on whether the FDA should approve them.

Researchers Genevieve Kanter, Ph.D., and Toni Mankowitz of the University of Southern California found that 38% of the meetings included representatives of industry-funded advocacy organizations.

In 11% of meetings, representatives attended on behalf of organizations funded in part by the manufacturer whose drug the FDA was evaluating.

“These prevalence rates show that these organizational relationships extend beyond isolated cases and signal a broader problem warranting FDA policy attention,” the researchers wrote.

According to the FDA website, the agency has about 50 technical and scientific advisory committees and panels. Members include “science-oriented” professionals, including doctors, researchers, biologists, chemists, statisticians and others, selected for their expertise on a specific committee’s function and topic area.

In addition, the website states, “each committee typically includes a consumer representative and an industry representative and, based on the meeting topic, a patient representative who provides the patient or caregiver experience for a particular disease, condition, or medical product.”

According to the study, which focused only on potential conflicts of interest among consumer and patient representatives:

“Although the FDA has enacted policies to curb conflicts of interest common among its scientific members, it has paid less attention to potential conflicts arising from patient and consumer representatives who have ties to organizations financially supported by pharmaceutical companies.”

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Carney’s little conflict of interest

Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing conflict-of-interest allegations over his $2-billion heat pump rebate program, following revelations about past investments in manufacturers that could benefit from the subsidies.

Conservative MPs have questioned whether his former ties to Brookfield and related businesses create a conflict, much like other government initiatives launched since Carney took office. The available disclosures on the matter do not technically establish that Carney designed the program to benefit those companies, but the connection seems obvious to critics.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing conflict-of-interest allegations over his $2-billion heat pump rebate program after ethics filings revealed past investments in manufacturers that could benefit from the taxpayer-funded subsidies.

“How is that not corrupt?” Conservative MP John Brassard, chair of the Commons ethics committee, demanded in the House of Commons on Thursday.

“The conflict of interest is so blatantly obvious, but what’s surprising is the Prime Minister’s not even hiding it anymore,” Brassard said.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also accused Carney of directing taxpayer money toward Brookfield-connected businesses while speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill before question period.

“The Prime Minister just finished announcing he’s going to take $2 billion out of the pockets of Canadians and give it to companies like those owned by Brookfield,” Poilievre said.

He argued Canadians should decide for themselves whether to purchase heat pumps rather than have Ottawa redistribute their money.

The rebates, however, are intended for homeowners rather than direct corporate grants, although manufacturers and installers could benefit from increased demand.

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House Oversight Democrat in Sexual Relationship with Leftist YouTuber Tied to Influencer Program That is Under Investigation by Her Committee: Report

A House Democrat is reportedly in a sexual relationship with a liberal YouTuber at the same time her committee is investigating one of his projects.

Sources Say News’ Juliegrace Brufke, a veteran Capitol Hill reporter previously employed by Axios and The Daily Beast, reported on Thursday that 34-year-old Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) has been seeing 24-year-old Jack Cocchiarella while the House Oversight Committee is looking into Chorus’s influencer program.

The Chorus Creator Incubator Program is a leftist nonprofit initiative that pays online influencers like Cocchiarella up to $8,000 per month to spread Democratic propaganda.

Cocchiarella sits on the creative council of Chorus and is listed as a co-founder.

According to Brufke, Ansari and Cocchiarella have been together on several occasions, including at the young leftist’s 24th birthday party last Friday.

More from Brufke:

Ansari was at Cocchiarella’s residence for his 24th birthday party on Friday, according to sources in attendance, with one source describing them as having a flirtatious dynamic with the congresswoman and helping set up ahead of the gathering kicking off.

It was not a one-off, according to other sources.

The pair appeared affectionate at the MS NOW party during White House Correspondents’ Dinner weekend, according to screenshots of text messages from multiple confirmed MS NOW party attendees describing what they had witnessed. Two others confirmed they saw the pair together at the party. One source said Cocchiarella confirmed to them directly that he was involved with “a Democratic congresswoman.”

Both Ansari and Cocchiarella turned up at a MoveOn “Won’t Back Down” event in Phoenix in August. Cocchiarella has also had Ansari on his YouTube show as recently as July.

In some cases, the personal relationships of public officials are no one’s business. But when a member of Congress is DATING a person whose program is under investigation by the legislative body, this should be national news.

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Since 2025, Trump Made More Stock Trades Than All 535 Congress Members Combined

President Donald Trump made nearly 30,000 stock trades since his return to office, marking a far higher volume of trades than all 535 members of Congress combined, a new Bloomberg analysis finds.

Between his inauguration in January 2025 and the end of June, Trump and his team made nearly 28,700 trades, his financial disclosures show. That amounts to roughly 80 trades per market day for nearly a year and a half.

In that period, House lawmakers reported making 19,400 stock trades, while senators reported 2,900, for a total of 22,300 transactions. A few lawmakers were responsible for a large portion of the trades, like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), who reported 8,000 transactions in that time.

Trump’s trades have been a major boon for him, as the only modern president who’s ever disclosed trading individual stocks. Previous reports have found that Trump’s 2025 trades alone were worth as much as $1.8 billion, and his trades in the first three months of 2026 were worth as much as $750 million.

These trades have come as he’s driven policy for and outright publicized companies that he has bought stock in; a recent report by Democrats on Congress’s Joint Economic Committee found that Trump has made up to $15.5 million in profits on his oil and gas holdings as the companies’ stocks have risen due to his war on Iran.

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Florida Judge Resigns After Caught Making $30,000 in Donations to Left-Leaning Political Organizations and Candidates, Including Joe Biden

A local Florida judge resigned after she was caught making $30,000 in donations to left-leaning political organizations and candidates, including Joe Biden.

Diana Tennis served on the Ninth Circuit Court in Orange and Osceola Counties for more than a decade.

An investigation revealed that Diana Tennis broke the Florida Code of Judicial Conduct and made 900 donations to left-leaning candidates.

Judge Diana Tennis resigned four months before her term ended.

WESH 2 reported:

A local judge is resigning following an investigation that revealed she was making political contributions.

Diana Tennis has been serving the Ninth Circuit Court in Orange and Osceola counties since 2015. Tennis came under investigation last September.

The judicial qualifications commissioner found that she contributed nearly $30,000 in 900 donations to left-leaning political organizations and candidates, including Joe Biden and Sen. Bill Nelson, between 2016 and 2021.

In July, the state Supreme Court ordered a suspension, a fine and public reprimand.

Instead, Tennis resigned, meaning she won’t serve the remaining four months of her term.

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