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In 2006, I was a young staffer on Capitol Hill watching the Iraq War unravel in real time.

The costs were mounting, the justifications were shifting, and back home, the Abramoff and DeLay scandals were exposing a web of corruption so brazen it was impossible to ignore. The country felt the rot before the politicians admitted it. We wanted change.

We got it — in waves.

The 2006 midterms swept in a new majority. 2008 brought a “transformational” presidency. Two years later, the Tea Party. Then the backlash to the backlash. For two decades, we have been sprinting from one “most important election of our lifetime” to the next, yet the ground beneath our feet feels less stable than ever.

The Exhaustion of the Tribe

What we’re living through in 2026 feels familiar, but the scale has changed. The speed is faster; the stakes feel higher. If you talk to people outside the Beltway, they aren’t just angry — they’re worn out. They’ve tuned out not because they’ve stopped caring, but because caring at a national level has become a high-cost, low-reward endeavor that yields nothing but vitriol, anger, and/or stress.

We have mistaken the “echo” for the “source.”

This was the haunting observation made by former Senator Ben Sasse on 60 Minutes last night. Sasse, facing a terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, spoke with the clarity of a man who no longer has time for the performance of politics.

“I think our national political dysfunction is an echo of larger problems,” Sasse said. “I think your fundamental political community is your neighborhood, and your city hall... Right now we are sacrificing a lot of our national politics to weird folks who want their main community to be their political tribe at a federal level.”

The Fork in the Road

Sasse’s point is the “Culture First” manifesto: When our local communities — our “thick” relationships in churches, Rotary clubs, and neighborhoods — become thin, we try to fill that void with the “thin” community of national partisan identity. But it is a hunger that politics can never satisfy.

As we look toward the 2026 elections, we face a genuine fork in the road:

There’s the Path of the Quick Fix… The demand for a “strong hand” and simple answers. This is the old temptation to use federal power to bypass the messiness of persuasion.

And then there’s the Path of Civic Infrastructure… The “slower, harder” work of rebuilding shared norms and local connection.

The Framers designed our system with “friction” for a reason. They knew that massive change without broad consent doesn’t lead to progress; it leads to collapse or tyranny. But that friction only works if the culture understands why it’s there. If we don’t trust our neighbor, we won’t trust the system that requires us to compromise with them.

The Long Arc of Renewal

What does it mean for culture to lead politics? It means acknowledging that before the right laws can pass, the right values have to take root. Before coalitions form in legislatures, they have to form at the school board and the community center.

Politics is downstream from culture — not the other way around.

As Sasse put it, “Unless people know the thickness of their local community, it’s hard to make sense of what national politics are for.”

This is why Bright America exists. We aren’t focused on the next 24-hour news cycle; we are focused on the “longer arc.” We are looking for the leaders who refuse to trade one form of dysfunction for another — those who see the U.S. Constitution not as a weapon for their tribe, but as the architecture of a free society.

Renewal is possible. The country has lost, and found again, its footing before. But it has never happened from the top down. It starts with the slow work. It starts with the person next door.

“Knock, knock,” a wave, a smile — it’s where we begin

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We are currently witnessing what might be the most audacious raid on the American Treasury in the history of the Republic. With all the calamities pouring forth from the White House, no one would blame the American people from being unaware of a dangerous case moving quietly through the legal system: Trump v. Internal Revenue Service.

President Donald Trump is currently suing the very government he leads for a staggering $10 billion in damages. To put that number in perspective, that is more than 80% of the entire annual budget for the IRS. And I’m about to explain how he’s turning the public Treasury into a personal ATM.

The “Self-Settlement” Absurdity

The core of this outrage is a conflict of interest so blatant it feels like a fever dream. The President has sued an agency he oversees, which is defended by a Justice Department (DOJ) filled with his own appointees. Trump himself didn’t even try to hide the game, recently telling reporters:

“I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself.”

Under current norms, the President effectively controls both the plaintiff and the defendant in this litigation. This creates a “collusive litigation” environment where the public’s treasury is left entirely undefended. Justice Department lawyers are currently “struggling” (according to NY Times interviews) to decide how to respond, caught between their duty to the public and a White House executive order that binds them to the President’s own interpretation of the law.

The Secret “Voluntary Dismissal” Loophole

What makes this situation worse is the possibility of a “ghost” settlement — a massive payout that happens entirely behind closed doors. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41, a plaintiff can voluntarily dismiss a case at any time before the defendant files a formal answer.

Because the DOJ has repeatedly requested extensions to “engage in discussions designed to resolve this matter,” they have not yet filed a formal defense. If Trump has his government cut a check to himself in a private settlement, the only thing the public might ever see on the court docket is a simple notice of voluntary dismissal. The case would vanish, the legal questions would never be answered by a judge (who would surely throw the case out), and the money would simply disappear from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund.

Payouts in the Dark

You might think $10 billion would be hard to hide, but the technical mechanics of the Treasury’s payment systems are shockingly ill-equipped for this level of “shakedown.” The Treasury’s Secure Payment System actually has a 10-digit limit for single payments, capping them at $99,999,999.99. For a $10 billion heist, the administration would have to break the payout into dozens of separate hundred-million-dollar chunks just to get the system to accept it.

These payments are not reported instantaneously, meaning the money could be long gone before a single taxpayer realizes the vault has been emptied.

The Emerging “MAGA Grift”

This isn’t a one-off event, but a pattern. We’ve already seen the DOJ settle a lawsuit from Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, for $1.2 million after he sued on the grounds of “malicious prosecution”. Lawmakers are now warning of an “emerging MAGA grift” where allies of the President sue the government as a plaintiff, and then dismiss their case after Trump administration lawyers offer a big settlement in lieu of a trial (where a judge, jury, or public could hear the feeble arguments).

Trump has suggested he would donate any winnings to charity, but critics note that even if he did, it would still be the American taxpayer — not the President — forced to fund his personal philanthropy. And Trump does have a long history of giving away other people’s money rather than his own, then taking the credit.

The Fight Back: Stopping the Plunder

The good news is that the alarm bells are ringing. A coalition of lawmakers is moving to install the guardrails our system clearly lacks.

But, none of us should be naive. The likelihood that any of these pass, much less get signed by Trump into law while he’s in office, is practically zero — but that’s not the point. Our members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, need to hear that we’re upset about this, so that pressure bubbles up to the White House that this thievery is not worth the political cost.

Here’s what we should be encouraging our elected leaders, friends, and family to support:

• The Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act: Introduced by Senators Warren and Schumer alongside Representatives Raskin and Min, this bill would flatly prohibit any sitting President, Vice President, or their families from collecting settlement payments from the federal government.

• The Corruption Clawback Act: This legislation, already introduced by Senator Schiff, would create a mechanism to forcibly retrieve funds that have already been siphoned off through these abusive claims.

• The Stop Presidential Embezzlement Act: Senator Ron Wyden has proposed taxing any damages a President receives from the government at 100%, effectively negating the profit motive for suing the public.

We are now waiting for a “notice of voluntary dismissal” to hit the docket. That’s our first clue the worst case scenario has occured, and the check has likely already cleared.

We must demand that the DOJ zealously defend the public interest and that Congress passes these protections immediately. The integrity of our judicial process depends on whether the Presidency is a public service or a private business opportunity.

Do you think the Department of Justice should be allowed to settle a lawsuit with the President in secret?

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A fundamental American right is being tested. While exercising their First Amendment rights to observe and film federal law enforcement, peaceful protesters and observers have faced a disturbing reality: violent retaliation, intimidation, and arrests at the hands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents.

It’s happened across the country, but some of the most disturbing evidence came during ICE’s intense focus on Minneapolis.

At Bright America, we believe that the rule of law is only meaningful when it applies equally to everyone — especially those who wield the most power in our government. That is why we are proud to highlight the latest work of our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC), fueled in part by the Bright America movement, as they take the fight for our constitutional rights to the courts.

The Case: Tincher v. Noem

CLC has stepped into the active case of Tincher v. Noem. This lawsuit, filed on behalf of Minnesotans who were targeted by federal agents, seeks to halt what can only be described as a dangerous “illegal power grab”.

The core of the issue is simple: documenting government officials as they perform their duties lies at the very heart of the First Amendment. When federal agents use force to silence those watching them, they aren’t just breaking the law; they are undermining the foundation of our democracy.

Help Defend Our Freedoms

A Coalition of Expertise

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of this fight is who has stepped up to join it. CLC filed an amicus brief supported by 39 former career civil servants from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). These aren’t political operatives — they are professionals who served in the DOJ’s Special Litigation Section under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

These experts, who spent their careers eliminating patterns of illegal conduct by law enforcement, are sounding the alarm. They argue that federal agents in Minnesota are engaging in the exact same unconstitutional policing that the DOJ has condemned in the past.

Why This Matters

Presidential orders to enforce immigration policies do not grant federal agents a “blank check” to ignore the Constitution. Whether an officer is a local beat cop or a federal agent, they must be held to the same constitutional standards.

If we allow federal agencies to operate without constitutional restraint, we set a precedent where our rights to peaceful assembly and free speech become “conditional” rather than fundamental.

Bright America stands with CLC because we believe constitutional protections must be more than theoretical ideals — they must be enforceable guarantees. By supporting this litigation, we are ensuring that the government remains accountable to the people it serves.

Anything else would be un-American.

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Over the weekend, Donald Trump shared an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus. The backlash from his own religious allies was so swift that he did something we rarely see: he deleted the post.

While the incident was mocked as another “Trump being Trump” moment, it highlights the profound absurdity of our current political era. We are witnessing an administration consumed by petty grievances and the construction of a bizarre personal mythology. But this relentless circus distracts the public from a far more severe structural danger: When an executive operates under the delusion of a divine mandate, earthly constraints disappear.

Trump himself has signaled this intent to move beyond the law. He once claimed that his own morals were the only thing that could truly constrain him on the world stage—suggesting that statutes, treaties, and constitutional boundaries are secondary to his personal whims.

“My own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me.”

DONALD TRUMP

An executive branch functioning without boundaries inevitably breeds systemic corruption. The Founders anticipated leaders driven by unbounded ego; they did not trust the “internal morals” of any one man to protect the people. Instead, they built a strict framework of checks and balances to contain them, designing a system where “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

For the past year, we have relied almost entirely on the courts to maintain those boundaries. Thanks to the incredible work of our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center, there have been the critical legal challenges necessary for the judiciary to play an indispensable role in preserving the rule of law. Federal judges have consistently blocked unprecedented executive overreach and demanded basic institutional accountability. They have forced this administration to operate, however begrudgingly, within the confines of the law.

Help Us Push Back in the Courts

However, the courts cannot safeguard the republic in isolation. The Founders never intended for the judiciary to serve as the sole bulwark against executive abuse.

Congress must reclaim its rightful constitutional authority. For years, the legislative branch has abdicated its role as a co-equal power, with lawmakers trading rigorous oversight for partisan convenience. Congress (regardless of party) has surrendered its institutional prerogatives over decades, especially when the President is from the same party. They have invited the exact corruption the Constitution was written to prevent.

We need a fundamental shake-up. We need leaders with real courage to utilize legislative power as a firm check against the presidency. I am proud to see serious candidates stepping into the arena to challenge this complacency. People like my friend Olivia Troye understand these stakes; they recognize the urgent necessity for principled adults to LEAD beyond a press conference, and finally take action.

Restoring the balance of power requires the voting public to demand it. We cannot expect a broken institution to fix itself without external pressure.

Until Congress seats leadership willing to exercise its constitutional mandate, we must fight on the terrain we possess. This means pursuing accountability through the legal system and supporting organizations like the Campaign Legal Center as they enforce (and reconstruct) robust guardrails against corruption.

The American republic requires constant maintenance. We protect the Constitution not by placing our faith in the “morals” of a leader, but by defending the institutions designed to uphold the law.

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During President Donald Trump’s second term in office, his administration has consistently sought to unconstitutionally extend executive branch power in ways that dictate who can vote in our elections and how elections are administered. The president’s latest bid for control over our elections has produced yet another illegal executive order. This time, the main target is one the president is fond of blaming for electoral results he does not like: voting by mail.

The executive order was signed on March 31. Less than 48 hours later, Campaign Legal Center, alongside Democracy Defenders Fund, filed a lawsuit to block it on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens, Secure Families Initiative and Arizona Students’ Association. There’s a very simple reason why we were able to take legal action so quickly — it is based on the same faulty grounds as last year’s executive order on elections.

We challenged that order in court, because it illegally claimed a role for the executive branch in our elections where none exists in the Constitution or current law. Multiple federal courts have blocked the first executive order, and we fully expect the same to happen with this one.

Support this Critical Work

So, what does this new order purport to do? In short, it seeks to impose a series of new requirements for mail-in voting; create a national federal database of “verified” eligible voters based on faulty information; and restrict the ability of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to send mail-in ballots to voters not on that list. It also threatens to punish states that fail to comply with the order by withholding federal funding and prosecuting state and local election officials for failure to comply.

Implementing this executive order would have clear ramifications for voters and our democracy. States would face immense pressure to use inaccurate information to administer voting by mail — improperly disenfranchising voters in the process — and USPS could become a tool for denying untold numbers of Americans access to a safe and reliable method of voting.

But the Constitution allocates the power to run our elections only to the states and gives Congress the backup power to pass laws regulating the “time, place and manner” of federal elections. There is no role in the Constitution for the president to overrule the states or Congress concerning election procedures.

On occasion, Congress has used its authority to provide specific federal agencies and departments with limited roles in elections. Examples include the Federal Election Commission (created in 1974), which enforces campaign finance laws, and the Election Assistance Commission (2002), which is primarily tasked with providing support to states for election administration.

Notably, Congress created these agencies to be independent from the White House, but the Trump administration is testing the idea that such agencies should even exist. An executive order issued last year claims control over these agencies’ regulatory powers, and in a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, the president asserts total authority to fire the heads of independent agencies.

That separation of powers is even more pronounced when it comes to the USPS — only Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate the U.S. mail. The president cannot order USPS to take actions such as limiting the delivery of mail ballots, which would be contrary to its universal service mandate or the governing procedures established for it by Congress.

It is difficult to look at this administration’s actions and believe that the goal is anything other than dictating who can vote in our elections to assist candidates of the president’s own party. The stated reasons for this are grounded in discredited falsehoods about fraudulent voting. Fortunately, the prospects of defeating these actions are good, because the law is firmly on the side of those, like Campaign Legal Center, who know that the president and his allies in the administration do not have the authority to meddle with our elections.

Looking for more in-depth insights on issues critical to our democracy? Consider subscribing to the “From the Desk of Trevor Potter” newsletter, written by Campaign Legal Center’s founder and president, Trevor Potter. Get expert analysis and learn more about Campaign Legal Center’s efforts to protect and strengthen democracy for all Americans by subscribing via email or on LinkedIn.

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If you feel like we’ve been here before, it’s because we have.

In March 2025, the Trump administration attempted to illegally rewrite the rules of our federal elections through an executive order, and our movement’s strategic litigation partner — Campaign Legal Center (CLC) — swiftly defeated it in court.

Fast forward to March 31, 2026, and the administration is doubling down on the same absurdity. Despite the clear constitutional boundaries established by our movement’s previous victory, the President has issued yet another executive order (EO) designed to strip millions of Americans of their fundamental freedom to vote. Thankfully, CLC is back in court to stop this lawlessness once again.

The Anatomy of Absurd Overreach

This latest directive isn’t just a policy change; it’s an attempt to manufacture a national election system that the President has no legal authority to create. The order relies on three “lawless” pillars that ignore the separation of powers:

1) The “Verified” Database Trap. The President is ordering the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to compile a list of “confirmed” U.S. citizens to be sent to states. The absurdity? This database relies on stale and faulty data that has been repeatedly proven incomplete and unreliable. Using this “verification” to restrict voting only serves to disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans.

2) Weaponizing the Post Office. In a move that ignores the Constitution entirely, the EO directs the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to only deliver mail-in ballots to individuals on a newly created federal list. The Constitution grants Congress—not the President—the exclusive power to make laws governing the delivery of mail. The President has zero authority to issue these demands to the USPS, which is meant to serve the public, not political interests.

3) Bullying Election Officials. The order goes so far as to direct the U.S. Attorney General to investigate and prosecute hard-working local election officials who do not use this new, faulty federal list. It is a blatant attempt to exert executive control over a process that the Constitution explicitly gives to the states and Congress.

Why We’ll Stop Him in Court (Again)

The law hasn’t changed since the last time the administration tried this. The President is attempting to unconstitutionally shape the electorate to his will and sow doubt in the security of our elections.

CLC has filed a lawsuit to prevent this illegal order from taking effect, reminding the courts of three simple truths:

1) The President has no constitutional authority over our elections.

2) The President cannot dictate operations to the independent USPS.

3) Forcing states to preserve election materials for five years — when federal law only requires 22 months — is a direct violation of existing statute.

Help Us Fuel This Vital Work!

Protecting the Future of Our Democracy

Voting by mail expands access to the ballot and strengthens our democracy. Attempting to limit that access through “stale data” and “illegal demands” is an abuse of power that we cannot allow to become the new normal.

Our movement beat the last illegal anti-voter executive order in court, and we have the army of lawyers to do it again. The Constitution is clear on the limits of executive power, and no matter what the President claims, he cannot override the law of the land.

“Campaign Legal Center won’t let that happen — join us today to protect the freedom to vote for millions of Americans.”

Do you think these repeated attempts at election overreach are a strategy to normalize executive control, or are they simply a reaction to previous legal defeats?

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In America, we the voters pick our leaders.

And yet, this simple idea that has guided our democracy for centuries, is now being flipped on its head (yet again) by President Trump and his enablers. Earlier this week, the President signed an Executive Order that represents a blatant, unconstitutional attempt to seize control of our elections before the first ballots are even cast. This isn’t just another policy debate; it is a coordinated power grab by an administration that’s become so unpopular it already knows what will happen if it’s left to the will of the people.

The motive behind this move is transparent: MAGA is losing. Instead of trying to earn our votes, the Trump administration is trying to change who gets to vote and how those votes are counted so they can declare themselves the winners. A healthy political party tries to court your vote, but an authoritarian administration tries to keep you from voting at all.

By attempting to dictate election rules from the Oval Office — an area where the President has zero legal or constitutional authority — they are trying to control the outcome of the election to keep maintain one-party rule at any cost.

The President has already tried a federal takeover of our elections by executive order, and our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC) defeated it in court. Trump then tried to get Congress to pass his executive order into law, but that path is blocked by the filibuster. So now he’s back for a third try, with anexecutive order that once again attempts to bypass the states and Congress by creating a federal “state citizenship list” to determine who is eligible to vote. It even goes as far as trying to weaponize the U.S. Postal Service by ordering them to stop delivering mail-in ballots for anyone not on this new, error-prone federal list.

Help Hand Him ANOTHER Defeat

This is flatly illegal.

The Constitution gives the power to run elections to the states and Congress, not the executive branch. This is just another trick in the book to try and silence the voices of “we the people.”

The Trump Administration is not acting alone; they have a growing number of accomplices helping to execute these rules in real-time. We are seeing a governing strategy that connects voter intimidation to assaults in our streets. From sending masked militia to terrorize neighborhoods to using federal power to retaliate against those who speak out, the message is clear: stay silent or pay the price. They are targeting Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, and immigrant communities the hardest, hoping that fear will follow people from their neighborhoods to the ballot box.

There is also a staggering level of hypocrisy at play. Just last week, President Trump, his wife, and his son all voted by mail in a Florida special election. If voting by mail works for the President and his family, it must work for every eligible American. The claim that these moves are about “election integrity” is a lie used to justify barriers that silence voters. Our elections are already transparent and accurate; the only real threat to them is an administration that lies about the results.

The gravity of this situation is real, but our response is our power. Our movement exists to meet this exact moment. An army of lawyers at Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is mobilizing to respond to assaults on our elections and across the country we’re pushing back against these unlawful acts. We have reason to be hopeful because we keep winning in court. Judges have already stopped previous attempts by this administration to take over elections, and we are confident they will do so again.

Our country is strongest when we refuse to be intimidated and show up to make our voices heard. We will decide our future, we will choose our leaders, and we will ensure that liberty and justice are for all, with no exceptions. Tell the Trump regime: Hands off our vote!

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In a healthy democracy, the government’s job is to make sure every eligible citizen can cast a ballot. But lately, we’ve seen a troubling trend: states using “faulty data” to quietly remove thousands of eligible Americans from the voter rolls.

This week, we are celebrating the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), our strategic litigation partner, for continuing to take a stand. They’ve just filed two major lawsuits in Texas and Ohio to stop illegal voter purges that specifically target naturalized citizens.

Here is what’s happening on the ground and why it’s a victory for fairness and the rule of law.

1) The Texas Case: Fighting “Faulty Data”

In Texas, the Secretary of State recently directed counties to use the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) system to flag voters for removal.

However, the SAVE system was never designed to manage voter rolls. It often contains “stale” data — meaning a person might be listed as a non-citizen because they were one five years ago, even though they have since naturalized and become eligible U.S. citizens.

So this movement is standing up and suing to stop Texas from using this unreliable data to purge voters without proper investigation. As CLC puts it: “Every American citizen, regardless of where they are born, should have the freedom to vote.”

2) The Ohio Case: Protecting the “Quiet Period”

In Ohio, a new law (SB 293) requires monthly “citizenship checks” and mandates that registrations be canceled — sometimes without any prior notice to the voter.

The problem with that is federal law (the National Voter Registration Act) mandates a 90-day “Quiet Period” before an election. This exists so that states don’t accidentally purge eligible voters right before an election when it’s too late for the voter to fix the mistake. Ohio’s law ignores this protection, allowing purges right up to Election Day.

And that’s why this movement is suing to ensure that naturalized citizens aren’t treated as “second-class voters” who have to jump through extra hoops just to stay registered.

This matters, even if you aren’t a naturalized citizen

These lawsuits aren’t just about legal technicalities; they are about belonging and the rule of law.

When a person goes through the long, rigorous process of becoming a U.S. citizen, one of the greatest rewards is the right to vote. To have that right threatened by a clerical error or a “glitchy” database is a betrayal of the American promise.

By fighting these purges, CLC is ensuring that our voter rolls stay accurate without sacrificing the rights of our neighbors. It’s a reminder that democracy is a “constant vigil” —and today, the law is on the side of the voter.

How You Can Help

• Check Your Status: Even if you’ve voted for years, it’s always a good idea to verify your registration.

• Support the Work: Donate today to help fund these cases and other litigation like them.

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BY TREVOR POTTER

When the story of Donald Trump’s second presidential term is told in full, a rampant culture of corruption fostered by the president and his administration will surely be one of the central themes. In this moment, the task of capturing the scale and impact of the administration’s failure to uphold laws and standards governing ethical conduct falls to civil society.

An exhaustive effort to track, document and expose (often through legal action) blatant examples of self-dealing and pay-to-play corruption has led the attorneys and researchers here at Campaign Legal Center (CLC) to conclude that our government is experiencing its worst ethics crisis since the days of Watergate.

We do this work with the full knowledge that officials in this administration are unlikely to hold wrongdoers accountable, especially those within the president’s inner circle. However, we believe building a record of corruption and exposing betrayals of public trust is vital to address the dramatic democratic backsliding occurring during the second Trump term. While stories like the Qatari government gifting a luxury jet to the president manage to break through a crowded news cycle, there are many others that go virtually unnoticed by the vast majority of Americans.

Rising corruption is one of the warning signs of a failing democracy, and ours is certainly under threat. Shining a light on corrupt acts and demanding accountability is key to confronting this problem by ensuring that the public, including elected officials, understands what is happening within the government. This work is also crucial for building support to advance systemic reforms in the future.

Corruption on a colossal scale

Campaign Legal Center’s Trump Corrupt Transactions Tracker, which we launched last November and are updating regularly, currently features more than three dozen egregious instances of the Trump administration abusing executive branch power by doling out favorable treatment to those who financially support the president’s personal or political interests.

One item from the tracker that stands out as a multi-dimensional example of corruption is the case of a Venezuelan-Italian billionaire. Facing criminal bribery charges, Julio Herrera Velutini received an incredibly lenient plea deal last year from federal prosecutors and was pardoned by President Trump in January 2026 — after his daughter reportedly contributed $3.5 million to MAGA Inc., a Trump-supporting super PAC.

Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Velutini of illegally funneling his own money to the Trump-supporting super PAC through his daughter. This classic “straw donor” scheme concealed his identity as the true contributor and allowed foreign money to influence the election — which federal law expressly prohibits. It’s one of dozens of ethics and campaign finance complaints filed by Campaign Legal Center since Trump returned to office.

Abuse of the presidential pardon power is one of six corruption categories covered by the CLC tracker. The others involve cabinet or senior executive branch appointments, ambassadorships, dropped cases and investigations, perks and promises for corporations and favors for foreign governments.

The most recent updates and additions include:

• Timothy J. Leiweke, whose company Oak View Group donated $250,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund. Leiweke was indicted last July for conspiring to rig the bidding process for a multi-use arena at a public university in Texas. He received a pardon five months later in December, after his attorney played a round of golf with President Trump.

• In January, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dismissed its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange platform Gemini Trust. Gemini’s founders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who are reportedly “among the president’s closest allies in the crypto industry,” contributed more than $2.5 million in support of his 2024 campaign. They more recently donated funds for the construction of the White House ballroom and backed a crypto firm co-founded by Eric Trump, the president’s second son.

Preparing for a new day

What we are witnessing is an unconscionable rejection of post-Watergate anti-corruption reforms. Following that scandal, members of Congress realized they needed to pass new laws and create new oversight structures within the government to prevent corruption in the future and hold government officials accountable for their actions.

Campaign Legal Center is working to formulate the next generation of anti-corruption laws with the same core purpose of the Watergate reforms — restoring public trust in government institutions. By exposing weaknesses in existing laws and practices, the Trump administration is showing us exactly where our anti-corruption guardrails are most in need of repair or replacement:

• Ethics enforcement in the executive branch requires a major overhaul. Campaign Legal Center is calling on a future Congress to create an independent executive branch ethics body to centralize enforcement authorities currently distributed among several different executive branch offices and agencies.

• We need permanent rules to stop the revolving door in Washington that moves lobbyists into top government posts overseeing their former clients. Today, such rules are determined by each incoming administration, and even those are often ignored.

• On the issue of pardons, future presidents should commit to awarding clemency based on recommendations from career staff in the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Congress should enact legislation requiring detailed explanations for every pardon; mandating disclosure of gifts or political contributions received from pardon recipients; and tightening the disclosure rules around private lobbying for clemency.

• To reduce the corrupting influence of dark money in our elections, Congress should enact the DISCLOSE Act, which would require the kind of transparency around election spending that voters deserve. When billionaires and major corporations are allowed to influence elections in secret, it is nearly impossible to “follow the money” and expose a corrupt pay-to-play bargain. The Federal Election Commission, tasked with enforcing campaign finance laws — in no small part for the purpose of preventing corruption — is also in need of structural repairs.

Our nation’s history includes notable examples of government reformers rising up to meet the moment following periods of scandal and corruption. Aside from the post-Watergate period, one can think about the progressive era that followed the Gilded Age and the successful push for campaign finance reform in the early 2000’s, an effort that I was fortunate to be a part of. The lesson, in my view, is that reformers need to be ready when opportunities arise. It’s a lesson that we at Campaign Legal Center are taking very seriously as the current corruption crisis unfolds.

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Cynicism is the easiest thing in the world to sell. It’s loud, it’s cheap, and it’s remarkably addictive. If you spend twenty minutes on a digital feed or watching a cable news broadcast, you’ll be convinced that the American project is a rusted-out machine held together by nothing but spite.

But there is a secret (well, perhaps not a secret to all, but something that’s easy to forget) the loudest voices don’t want you to know: The engine of America doesn’t make that much noise.

If you step away from the screen and look at your own town — the club meeting, the community garden, the local business owner sponsoring a Little League team — you aren’t seeing “politics” as defined by Washington. You are seeing the actual machinery of a republic in motion. As important as protest is, it’s not how most people show up in every day life to make a difference.

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The Muscle of Association

Two centuries ago, Alexis de Tocqueville traveled across this young wilderness and was baffled by what he saw. In Europe, if a tree fell across a road, people waited for the Crown to move it. In America, neighbors simply grabbed their saws and got to work.

Tocqueville called this “the art of association.” He realized that our strength didn’t come from a powerful central government, but from civic muscle. Like any muscle, if you stop using it, it atrophies. When we outsource our civic responsibility to talking heads, we shouldn’t be surprised when our communities feel weaker than they once were.

The Quiet Work of Governing

During my time in the halls of Congress, I saw a reality that doesn’t make the news. Behind the viral clips and the partisan shouting, there is a “quiet legislature” that still functions.

Every day, lawmakers work across the aisle to update the boundaries of a national park, streamline agency tools to reduce waste, or advocate for the unique needs of their home districts. It is the fundamental work of keeping a continent-sized nation functioning.

The problem today isn’t that this work has stopped; it’s that our current incentive structure rewards the loudest voices and ignores the steady hands. A thriving republic requires us to get back to rewarding the builders.

Strengthening the Foundation

At Bright America, we aren’t just talking about these ideas — we are building the spaces where they can flourish again.

Through our Communities for the Constitution events, we are bringing people into a room to organize around shared goals rather than shared grievances. Our focus is clear:

• Strengthening the Rule of Law: Ensuring our local systems are fair, transparent, and grounded in constitutional principles.

• Forceful Engagement: Not with partisan vitriol, but with our democracy’s institutions — holding them accountable and making them work for the people again.

• Civic Courage: Enlisting others in the community to stand up for what is right, even when it isn’t popular.

We’re scaling these events nationwide over the next year because a republic cannot be saved from the top down. It has to be strengthened from the porch up.

What’s your next move?

It’s ok to be outraged by what’s happening — but outrage isn’t enough. Our nation needs enough people willing to make a commitment to a brighter future, to be part of a community for the constitution. Tell us how you’re ready to flex your civic muscle this year.

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If you were relying on President Trump and his allies for information about the state of our nation’s elections, you might understandably believe there are millions of foreigners illegally voting in American elections. And such massive fraud — if you’d been convinced it was happening by your leaders and favorite media influencers — might understandably justify all sorts unconstitutional remedies.

Fortunately (for all Americans) that just isn’t true or possible.

And yet, the President is demanding passage of the SAVE Act — a complete overhaul of how we handle elections in America. While it is often discussed as a “security” bill, its actual mechanics would build a massive paperwork wall between everyday citizens and the ballot box.

Here is a deep dive into what this bill actually does and why it’s causing so much concern.

What exactly is the SAVE Act?

The core goal of the SAVE Act is to require every person to provide “documentary proof of citizenship” just to register to vote for federal elections. In the past, you could usually register by checking a box swearing you are a citizen and providing a driver’s license number, which is tied on the back end to Social Security data, not to mention many other metrics that have allowed our state and local election officials to conduct quality control list maintenance for decades.. Under this act, that system is gone.

Instead, you would be forced to show a U.S. passport or an original birth certificate. If you don’t have those, you’d have to find other highly specific government documents that many Americans don’t have readily available.

The bill also moves the goalposts for how you register. It would require you to present these documents in person. This would effectively kill the convenience of registering by mail and would completely upend the online registration systems that millions of Americans use today.

A New Set of Hurdles

The SAVE Act doesn’t just ask for ID; it asks for ID that many people simply do not have.

• The Passport Problem: Studies show that fewer than half of U.S. citizens actually hold a passport.

• The “REAL ID” Trap: You might think your modern “REAL ID” driver’s license — the one with the star on it that required you to jump through so many hoops — would work. It won’t. Most REAL IDs are issued based on “lawful presence” (like a green card), not necessarily citizenship, so they lack the specific markers this law requires.

• The Name Change Nightmare: This bill hits married women especially hard. If a woman changed her name after marriage, her birth certificate won’t match her current legal name. Nearly 69 million married women could face new barriers because their documents don’t match perfectly.

• Moving Hurdles: If you move to a new state, you can’t just update your registration easily as you can today. You’d have to “chase down” certified records from your old state to prove who you are all over again.

Help us Defend our Sacred Voting Rights

Who is impacted?

While the President claims this law will uncover massive Democratic fraud and purge millions of ineligible voters from the rolls, the data shows that Republican voters would face some of the biggest hurdles.

The states where President Trump performed best in 2024 actually have the lowest number of citizens with valid passports. In West Virginia, for instance, 78% of citizens lack a passport, and in Mississippi, that number is 77%. Key GOP voting blocs — like rural Americans, the working class, and those living in “Evangelical hubs” — are among the least likely to have the paperwork this bill demands.

Nationalizing the Voter Rolls

There is also a second version of this plan called the SAVE America Act. This version goes even further by trying to “nationalize” our elections, which the President is demanding despite elections being managed at the state level since our founding. Having election administration decentralized, as it is today, is actually one of the reasons it is so difficult to pull-off impactful fraud.

The bill would force every state to submit its entire voter registration list to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The federal government would then run these names through a database called SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements).

The problem? This database wasn’t built for elections, and it’s often wrong. When Texas tried using it, the system flagged over 2,700 people as noncitizens. Later investigations found many of those people had already proven their citizenship to the state — the federal data was simply “faulty or incomplete”. This can lead to voter purges, where eligible voters are kicked off the rolls without any notice.

Prison Time for Election Workers

One of the most intense parts of the SAVE Act is how it treats the people who run our elections. Under this law, an election official could be sent to prison for up to five years if they make a mistake and register someone who doesn’t have every single “burdensome” document required — even when that person is a confirmed U.S. citizen. Critics argue this will make it even harder to find people willing to work at the polls, as they’d be terrified of making a simple paperwork error and ending up behind bars.

Is there a real problem to solve?

The big question is whether we actually need these strict new rules. Most evidence suggests our current systems already work quite well. For example:

• Utah recently audited its list of 2 million voters and found only one confirmed noncitizen (who’d never even voted).

• Georgia did a similar audit of 8.2 million voters and found only 20 people who lacked proof of citizenship.

Existing laws already make it illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. Most experts argue that instead of a federal takeover, we should be investing in modernizing the systems we already have — like better data sharing between state agencies — rather than building new barriers that stop millions of legal Americans from voting.

When someone registers to vote in America today, states don’t just take their word that they’re qualified to vote. Their Social Security number gets checked against federal citizenship records. If they registered at the DMV — which most people do — the state already knows whether they hold a non-citizen license. And every registrant signs a legal declaration under penalty of perjury. Lying on that form isn’t a parking ticket. It’s a felony. For a non-citizen, it’s also a one-way ticket to deportation.

The system isn’t perfect, but it’s working. Documented cases of non-citizens casting ballots are vanishingly rare — not because we’re not looking, but because the incentives and the architecture both push hard against it.

Adding another lock to a door that isn’t being broken down doesn’t make the house safer. It just makes it harder for the people who live there to get in.

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American democracy is facing a multi-front battle — among them, rampant corruption at the highest levels of government. And while this movement is primarily focused on ensuring free and fair midterm elections and preventing authoritarianism from taking hold, there’s always time to address a brazen abuse of public trust. In this case, it’s what appears to be misuse of government aircraft by FBI Director Kash Patel.

Late last week, our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a formal complaint with the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG). Our movement’s demand is clear: a comprehensive investigation into whether Director Patel violated federal travel regulations and standards of conduct by failing to reimburse the government for at least 10 trips that appear to be purely personal.

Hold the Corrupt Accountable

The “Personal” Itinerary

Under federal law, FBI Directors are “required use” travelers, which means they must use government aircraft for all travel due to security and communication needs. However, they are legally mandated to reimburse the taxpayers for any travel expenses not related to official duties. According to CLC, Patel’s travel history since being sworn in in February 2025 suggests a pattern of treating the federal fleet like a private jet taxi service:

• The Milan “Gold Medal” Trip: In February 2026, Patel flew to Italy using government aircraft to attend the Winter Olympics. While the FBI claimed the trip was professional, Patel had publicly expressed his personal intent to watch the U.S. men’s hockey team as early as July 2025. His official schedule in Milan included only a 20-minute security briefing, leaving him ample time to celebrate in the locker room, where he was filmed drinking and spraying beer with the athletes.

• The “Boondoggle Ranch”: During a government shutdown in October 2025, Patel used a government jet to visit a luxury hunting resort in Texas owned by a prominent Republican donor. No official purpose for this visit has been provided.

• The Wrestling Tournament: Patel flew to State College, PA, to attend a “Real American Freestyle” wrestling tournament where his girlfriend performed. Records show the jet landed at 5:40 PM and departed just over two hours later for Nashville.

• The Scotland Swing: In August 2025, Patel utilized government resources to shuttle himself and friends to the Carnegie Club, an exclusive golf resort in Inverness, Scotland, involving extensive and expensive security preparations.

• The Nashville Shuttle: Patel’s girlfriend confirmed that he has used a government jet to visit her in Nashville at least five times. While the personal nature of these trips is undisputed, the question remains whether Patel actually reimbursed the government.

A History of Accountability: The Sessions Precedent

Patel’s behavior doesn’t just look bad, it’s potentially a violation of his duty to “protect and conserve Government property”. CLC’s complaint highlights a historical parallel that reaches back to 1993., when FBI Director William Sessions was fired by President Clinton. A DOJ investigation found he used the FBI plane for personal trips and then “sought to characterize these trips as ‘official’ to avoid reimbursing the government.”

By comparing Patel’s travel to past directors, the scale of the potential abuse becomes even more apparent. For instance, from 2007 to 2011, Director Robert Mueller took only seven wholly personal flights in four years; Patel is accused of taking at least 10 (and potentially up to 20) in less than one year.

Why Ethics Matter for Democracy

Ethics laws serve as a critical guardrail for our democratic institutions. When high-ranking officials evade accountability, it erodes public trust and signals that those in power are above the law. Our movement refuses to allow that to be true. Together, we’ll ensure the government is accountable to the people it serves, not the personal whims of those in charge. It may not happen as immediately as we’d all hope, but the day will come. It must.

If you’re anything like me, when election season rolls around, and you’re inundated with just a ridiculous volume of mail, TV, and digital ads, you start wonder — who’s paying for all this #!%@?

So often (and seemingly more often with every passing year), the name on the screen isn’t just a candidates, but something like “Americans for a Better Future” or “Bright America” (kidding). It sounds nice, but it tells you absolutely nothing about whose money is behind the message.

This is what people call “dark money”. It is money used to influence our elections by groups — mostly 501(c)(4) nonprofits and shell companies — that don’t have to tell the public where their cash comes from. In the last election, this reached a level that should worry every voter.

A Record-Breaking Problem

In the 2024 federal elections, dark money groups spent a record $1.9 billion. To put that in perspective, that is nearly double the $1 billion spent in 2020. Since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, these groups have poured over $4.3 billion into our elections.

Wealthy special interests use these groups to spend huge amounts of money in secret. They often do this by giving money to “social welfare” nonprofits, which are not required to disclose their donors. Then, those orgs hand the cash over to super PACs, who DO have to disclose their donors… but the donor it discloses is the name of the group with anonymous donors (e.g. “Americans for a Better Future”), rather than the real-life people who actually put up the money.

In 2024 alone, these “shadow” groups gave $1.3 billion to super PACs. This makes it almost impossible for a regular voter to trace the money back to the original source.

The “80% Issue”

Even though the government hasn’t fixed this yet, the American people are very clear about what they want. A nationwide survey found that 83% of likely voters support requiring public disclosure of contributions to organizations that spend money on elections.

Nearly everyone across the political spectrum agrees:

Whether you look at men (87%), women (80%), people over age 50 (86%), or those under 50 (80%), the support for knowing who is paying for political ads is overwhelming.

Why Transparency Matters

When money is secret, it opens the door for corruption and “pay-to-play” politics. We’ve seen several examples where the system is being abused:

• Shadow Groups: A group called “45Committee” spent $38 million in 2016 to help elect Donald Trump but allegedly refused to register as a political committee to keep its donors’ names secret.

• Foreign Influence: One foreign billionaire allegedly used his daughter as a “straw donor” to funnel $3.5 million to a super PAC while he was seeking a presidential pardon. As a foreign national, he was legally banned from donating himself.

• Buying Access: Major political donors are being rewarded with high-level government jobs in the Cabinet or as ambassadors. Some experts warn this allows wealthy interests to protect their own financial goals at the expense of regular people.

The Breakdown of Enforcement

Right now, the agencies that are supposed to watch over our elections — the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — are doing almost nothing to stop this. The FEC requires a majority vote to act, but it routinely “deadlocks,” meaning it fails to even investigate when groups clearly break the rules.

At the same time, the IRS has been “paralyzed” by budget cuts and a culture of fear after past political scandals. Congress even passes a “rider” every year that prevents the IRS from making new rules to stop nonprofits from acting as secret political funnels.

The Watchdog Fighting Back

Since the government isn’t acting, our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is stepping up. Among their critical roles in pushing back on abuses of power, CLC uses the law to fight for your right to know. They go to court to force secret money groups to reveal their donors and help write the laws that would end dark money for good. They are on the front lines making sure our democracy isn’t for sale. We’re proud to fuel their work — will you join us?

Support this Critical Work

What Can We Do?

The solution is a bill called the DISCLOSE Act. This law would:

1. Follow the Money: Require any group spending money on politics to list the names of anyone who gives them more than $10,000.

2. Trace the Source: Create a “trace back” system to find the original person who gave the money, even if it passed through many different groups.

3. Name the Donors: Require political ads to list the group’s top three donors right on the screen so you know exactly who is talking to you.

Call your member of Congress and U.S. Senators and remind them this is one of the most popular bills they’ll ever vote for!

This is a issue in both of our major political parties’ funding ecosystems — and rather than race each other to a solution, our leaders have raced themselves to the bottom. Voters have a right to know who is trying to influence their vote and their government. It is time for Congress to listen to the 80%+ of Americans who want to bring our elections out of the shadows. We all deserve the light.

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I spent eighteen years on Capitol Hill. I served as chief of staff to a congressman most would call a “hawk.” He took hard votes — even unpopular ones — and had strong opinions in support of America’s role in the world through diplomacy and, yes, through the use of force. I say that because what happened last Friday should alarm every American who believes in constitutional government, regardless of where they fall on the question of Iran.

One thing I can count on from Bright America readers, the next paragraph won’t come as a shock: On February 28, the United States and Israel launched a joint military campaign against Iran. The operation killed Supreme Leader Khamenei, struck military and nuclear infrastructure across the country, and triggered retaliatory attacks on American bases throughout the Persian Gulf. As of this writing, Iranian missiles and drones have hit targets in Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. The President has said this campaign could last four to five weeks. He has signaled it could go longer.

Congress did not authorize any of it.

The Gang of Eight received a phone call from Secretary Rubio shortly before the bombs fell. Rank-and-file members of both parties have said publicly that they were given little information about the operation’s objectives, legal rationale, or endgame. This is not a partisan complaint. Republican Lisa Murkowski has questioned whether last summer’s nuclear strikes even accomplished their stated goals. Members of the President’s own party are raising constitutional objections.

These are not fringe voices.

Allow me be direct about something. I believe the President must have the authority to defend the homeland. When American lives face an imminent threat, a commander-in-chief cannot convene a committee. The Founders understood this. The executive power to repel sudden attacks exists for a reason, and I will always defend it.

But that is not what happened here. This was not a defensive strike against an imminent attack. This was a planned, weeks-long military campaign, coordinated with a foreign partner, targeting a sovereign nation’s leadership and infrastructure. That is the definition of war.

And the Constitution is unambiguous about who authorizes war. Article I, Section 8 assigns that power to Congress. Not as a suggestion. Not as a courtesy. As a structural requirement of self-government.

The question is: Why has Congress been unable or unwilling to assert that authority? The honest answer is that this did not start last Friday. Congress has been ceding war powers to the executive branch for decades, across administrations of both parties. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed three days after September 11, has been stretched to justify operations in countries and against adversaries that did not exist when it was written.

Presidents of both parties have exploited that ambiguity. And Congress has let them.

This administration has now launched three major unauthorized military operations: the capture of Venezuela’s president, strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last summer, and the current campaign. Each time, lawmakers complained. Each time, they failed to act. The War Powers Act provides a mechanism to force votes on unauthorized hostilities.

It has been invoked repeatedly, yet has not once succeeded in stopping this administration from doing what it intended to do. That pattern should concern every voter in this country, and not only because of Iran.

When Congress stops functioning as a co-equal branch of government, the people it represents lose their voice in the most consequential decisions a nation can make.

Sending Americans into combat is the gravest action a government can take. The Founders required congressional authorization precisely because they believed that decision should reflect the will of the people, expressed through their elected representatives. When that process breaks down, when a president can wage war without a vote, the connection between citizens and their government frays at its most critical point.

This is not abstract. If you are a parent with a child in the military, your representative in Congress should have a say in whether that child goes to war. If you are a taxpayer, you are funding operations that no one you elected has voted to approve. If you are a veteran, you served under an oath to the Constitution that includes Article I. Every one of those people deserves a Congress that takes its responsibilities as seriously as they take theirs.

Beyond the question of how our long-term security fundamentally changes after this attack, the clear and present danger is the fate of a country whose citizens have lost all faith that their representatives possess any real power. A weak Congress does not just fail to check the executive. It hollows out the public’s faith in self-government itself. People stop calling their representatives because they believe it will not matter. They stop voting because the big decisions happen without their input. That erosion of civic trust is more corrosive to national strength than any foreign adversary. We cannot win a war by committee. No serious person argues otherwise.

But a democracy that wages war without the consent of its people is weaker for it, not stronger. Congressional authorization is the mechanism through which the public signals that it stands behind the sacrifices being asked of its soldiers, its treasury, and its standing in the world. Without that signal, military action rests on the authority of one person. History offers no shortage of examples for how that ends.

The votes next week will matter. Not because they will likely succeed in halting operations, but because they will force every member of Congress to answer a straightforward question: Do you believe the Constitution means what it says?

That question belongs to all of us. Call your representative. Ask them where they stand. Their answer will tell you whether you still have one.

Find candidates at every level who understand that holding office means asserting the authority the Constitution grants, not surrendering it. The strongest check on executive overreach is not a law or a procedural vote. It is an engaged citizenry that refuses to accept representatives who will not represent them.

Kyrsten Sinema, the former U.S. Senator for Arizona, left the Senate in January 2025 with $4.2 million in her campaign account. Donors gave that money to support her candidacy, and federal law lays out a few options for how she can spend leftover funds (besides return it to donors): 1) wind down the campaign office, 2) donate to other candidates, or 3) give it to charity. Sounds fair, enough, right? After all, the funds contributed to politicians is not THEIR money.

Who would think they could bankroll their post-political life with campaign cash? Oh wait.

That’s exactly what appears to have happened with Sinema — though she certainly wouldn’t be the first or only one to abuse the system. This week, our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed an FEC complaint alleging Sinema converted more than $700,000 in campaign funds to personal expenses in the twelve months after she left office. Beyond spending lavishly on airfare, car services, luxury international resorts, music festivals, and Michelin-starred restaurants, her campaign [without a campaign] committee also paid six former staffers a combined $379,398 — some of whom had already taken private sector jobs. All while Sinema was working at a lobbying firm.

Help Us Hold the Powerful Accountable

All told, $3 million of her remaining funds went to create the Spark Center for Innovation Learning at Arizona State. Which is fine. The rest? Not fine.

CLC has been tracking campaign fund abuse since 2018. The pattern isn’t unique to one party. Republican and Democratic former officeholders have both treated leftover campaign accounts like personal slush funds — cell phone bills, family salaries, computers, travel, years after leaving office. A Tampa Bay Times investigation found hundreds of thousands in dubious spending across 102 former campaign committees (and there are many thousands of such committees).

Congress saw this coming. In 1989, lawmakers repealed a grandfather clause that let sitting members pocket leftover cash. The FEC followed with regulations in 1995 covering any present or former candidate. The law exists. Enforcement is another story.

CLC picks its targets based on evidence, not party. In this case, Sinema is a former Democrat turned Independent, but CLC calls out Republicans and Democrats doing the same thing. And while some may think such work seems small given the unprecedented corruption swirling through the Executive Branch (which this movement is helping to illuminate and tackle, too), we MUST hold to account anyone abusing the power and privilege entrusted to them. Because all too often, corruption starts small before it snowballs.

Campaign donations belong to the democratic process. Not to the person whose name was on the yard sign. When a former senator is spending donor money at Michelin-starred restaurants after leaving office, something is broken.

The FEC has the complaint now, and key vacancies are being filled that will give the commission the quorum necessary to take up the matter. There will be two Democratic and two Republican commissioners, which often leads to deadlock and nothing getting done (regardless of which party controls the Administration). What’s unique here is Sinema is an Independent, and without partisan protection, perhaps we’ll finally get a precedent that scares more politicians into compliance.

Regardless, the filing creates a public record, puts future officeholders on notice, and reinforces a standard that shouldn’t need reinforcing: The money isn’t theirs; they aren’t entitled to live the high life off it.

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In 2018, Utah voters made a clear demand — they passed Proposition 4, a statewide ballot initiative that banned partisan gerrymandering and created an independent redistricting commission. The goal was simple: Voters wanted fair, simple maps.

But the Utah Legislature decided the voters were wrong.

In a bold twist, lawmakers repealed the citizen initiative, threw out the nonpartisan maps, and then drew their own lines to crack open Salt Lake County and dilute minority viewpoints. These legislators locked in safe districts for themselves for the next decade — but to do so, they had to erase the rules the voters of Utah had legally enacted.

You can imagine this didn’t sit well with our movement.

Once elections are over, a lot of politicians expect most citizens to tune out, and the rest to simply accept defeat. But they underestimated the movement holding them accountable. Campaign Legal Center (CLC), our strategic litigation partner, stepped in. CLC filed a landmark lawsuit on behalf of its clients — League of Women Voters of Utah v. Utah State Legislature — who represent Utah voters fighting to reclaim their constitutional right to reform their government.

What followed was a masterclass in legislative arrogance.

Last August, a state court ruled that the legislature’s repeal was unconstitutional (Victory #1!) and reinstated the anti-gerrymandering law passed by citizens. The legislature refused to concede. Lawmakers immediately passed a new gerrymandered map and a companion bill designed to bypass the court ruling.

The court blocked that attempt too, thanks to brilliant legal work by CLC. The judge tossed the rigged map and implemented a fair alternative drawn entirely without partisan data. (Victory #2!)

Desperate to keep their safe districts, lawmakers appealed to the Utah Supreme Court, where CLC again vigorously fought for voters. And last week, the Supreme Court dismissed the lawmakers’ appeal. (Victory #3!)

Allies of the legislature even tried a backdoor play in federal court. They relied on the extreme “independent state legislature” theory, which the U.S. Supreme Court resoundingly rejected years ago. On Monday, a federal court shut down this final desperate attempt, and the clock ran out for the 2026 election. (Victory #4!)

For the first time in decades, Utah will hold a congressional election under a fair map — but not without a Herculean effort by CLC, which Bright America helped fuel through the collective financial and moral support of our members and readers.

Help Fuel High-Stakes Litigation

This victory defends the core premise of a republic: Voters choose their politicians; politicians do not choose their voters. This case helps build legal precedent and puts other state legislatures on notice that they can’t ignore laws just because it was the citizens that made them.

Complex, multi-year litigation requires serious funding. State legislatures use endless taxpayer money to defend rigged systems, while everyday citizens lack the resources to fight back alone. Such injustice can feel insurmountable, but our movement is lucky to have its own superheroes — they just so happen be exceptionally talented lawyers.

And that’s exactly what we need when politicians anywhere try to crush the public: someone to stop them.

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The American constitutional order rests on a premise so foundational it rarely gets articulated: Citizens must be capable of making informed decisions (or at least, enough of us must be). While it wouldn’t be realistic to expect any of us to be perfectly informed or all-knowing, we have — until now — been operating in a public square where debate, however contentious, is conducted between real people with real convictions.

That premise is breaking.

Researchers at Indiana University, NYU, and Norway’s BI Business School have documented what many suspected but few could prove: coordinated swarms of AI-generated accounts, posing as ordinary Americans, can measurably shift the political beliefs of real people on social media. I wish I could tell you this was just happening at the margins, in edge cases. However, what was revealed in controlled experiments is that these artificial agents — thousands of them — held coherent conversations, adapted their arguments, targeted persuadable users, and moved opinion in statistically significant ways.

This is not a partisan issue. Treating it as one is a failure of seriousness.

Foreign adversaries — Russia, China, and Iran to name a few — have deployed bot networks against American political discourse for over a decade. What has changed is the technology. The bots of 2016 were typically crude, repetitive, and detectable. The agents being built now carry on extended conversations without breaking character. They learn, pivot, and are — to a degree that should alarm anyone who cares about national sovereignty — indistinguishable from your neighbor.

Informed Consent Is the Whole Game

Strip away the partisan noise and the constitutional logic is simple. Democratic self-governance requires — at its best — that citizens form genuine preferences, debate them honestly, and express them through free and fair elections. Manufactured consensus is the negation of that entire enterprise. When you cannot distinguish authentic public sentiment from a coordinated artificial campaign, accountability collapses. The signal drowns in noise.

This is not a “tech problem.” It is a sovereignty problem, with a constitutional dimension that progressives, moderates, and conservatives alike ought to recognize without much prompting.

The founders understood that a republic’s greatest vulnerability was not a foreign army — it was the corruption of civic deliberation from within. They built institutions, a free press, separation of powers, and independent courts — among other things — to prevent any single actor from seizing control of the information environment. AI bot swarms represent a new mechanism for precisely that kind of seizure, now available not just to governments but to any well-funded political operation.

What the Research Shows

The group sounding the loudest alarm is the furthest things from a collection of partisan activists: It is an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists, AI researchers, cybersecurity experts, psychologists, and journalists. Their conclusion: We are moving from an era of individual bad actors posting disinformation to an era of coordinated artificial swarms reshaping public opinion at industrial scale.

Wired reports that, by expert consensus, these systems are likely to become a decisive factor in the 2028 presidential race. The timeline is shorter than it sounds.

Add to that the problem is compounding: The researchers tracking this threat have lost access to the data they need. X, formerly Twitter, shut down the platform API that allowed independent researchers to monitor bot activity. Meta restricts similar access. We are fighting an adversary whose movements we can no longer track, at the precise moment the threat is accelerating. The platforms hosting this manipulation have made themselves opaque to oversight.

Action Is Happening — Just Not Enough of It

Some states are responding. Massachusetts passed two bills this month to regulate AI use in elections. Vermont now requires disclosure labels on AI-manipulated political content in campaigns, though research suggests that labels alone do little if voters cannot distinguish authentic from artificial in the first place.

But the federal response has been close to nonexistent.

This is the gap that deserves attention. Disclosure requirements are a start and restoring independent researcher access to platform data is not a radical demand, which really is the minimum condition for understanding a threat that is, by expert consensus, growing faster than any existing countermeasure.

What Voters Should Demand

If you believe in national security, foreign manipulation of American political opinion is an attack. If you believe in free markets, manufactured consensus distorts consumer and civic behavior alike, corrupting the information that markets and democracies both require to function. If you believe in the Constitution, you believe in a real public square — not a simulated one.

Supporting transparency requirements for AI-generated political content is not censorship. Demanding that platforms restore independent research access is not government overreach. These are the baseline conditions for a legitimate information environment, the kind the founders assumed would exist and built an entire system of government around.

Our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center has been fighting for exactly this kind of disclosure requirement — demanding that AI-generated political content be labeled before it reaches voters. The question is whether the political will exists to follow the evidence and address the threat.

What the Founders Actually Feared

John Adams wrote that the Constitution was designed “only for a moral and religious people.” The broader point was that republican government requires citizens capable of self-governance, citizens who can reason, debate, and form honest judgments. The institutions were built for humans.

AI bot swarms are not a metaphor. They are literal armies of artificial agents designed to impersonate human deliberation and subvert it from the inside. The founders clashed with each other, in letters and pamphlets and convention halls, with a combativeness that modern politics has rarely matched. What they never contemplated was that one side of any debate could be manufactured wholesale, by a server farm, at a cost that keeps dropping.

We should fight to keep the public square real. Not for political convenience, and not for partisan advantage, but for the sake of a republic that functions as something more than a stage set.

The machinery is real. The stakes are real. The only thing we cannot afford is to pretend otherwise.

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For too long, the presidential pardon power has drifted from its constitutional purpose as an instrument of mercy to a tool of political convenience and personal protection. It is a flaw in our system that has allowed presidents of both parties to place their associates, family members, and political allies above the law.

But there is a bright spot on the horizon. In a rare and welcome display of bipartisan leadership, Republican Rep. Don Bacon has joined with Democratic Rep. Johnny Olszewski to introduce H.J. Res. 135, a constitutional amendment designed to restore checks and balances to this abused authority.

This isn’t about one president or one party. It is about fixing a systemic vulnerability that has eroded public trust in our justice system.

An Equal Opportunity Abuse of Power

To understand why the Pardon Integrity Act is necessary, we must acknowledge that the abuse of the pardon power is a bipartisan failure.

• The Trump Era: We have seen the power used to shield political allies and associates, with controversial clemency granted to figures like Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, raising serious questions about the use of public office for personal political gain.

• The Biden Era: Trust was similarly damaged when President Biden issued a pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, in 2024 (followed by pardons for the president’s siblings). These actions, protecting family members from federal felony charges, struck many as deeply personal and inappropriate, reinforcing the cynical view that there is a different set of rules for the powerful.

• Historical Context: The pattern extends back decades, including Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose ex-wife was a major donor.

When presidents use this power to benefit themselves, their families, or their co-conspirators, they are not dispensing justice; they are obstructing it.

The Solution: Congressional Review

The proposed amendment introduced by Reps. Olszewski and Bacon offers a sensible, structural fix. It does not strip the President of the power to pardon, but it subjects that power to transparency and congressional oversight.

Here is how it works, according to the text of the resolution:

1. Immediate Transparency: The President must notify the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate within 3 days of granting a reprieve or pardon. If they fail to do so, the pardon has “no force or effect”.

2. The Waiting Period: A pardon does not become effective immediately. It only takes effect 90 days after Congress is notified. This prevents “midnight pardons” issued as a president is leaving office to avoid scrutiny.

3. Congressional Check: During that window, Congress can introduce a bill to nullify the pardon. If 20 Representatives or 5 Senators sign such a bill, it must be voted on.

4. The Veto: To actually overturn a pardon, Congress must pass the nullification bill by a two-thirds vote of both Houses.

This high threshold — two-thirds of both chambers — ensures that Congress cannot use this power for petty partisan squabbles. It would require a broad, bipartisan consensus that a specific pardon is an egregious abuse of power.

Why This Restores Trust

The bipartisan support for this measure highlights a critical principle: Accountability is conservative, liberal, and essential. Bacon has previously voiced concerns when crimes or pardons lack transparency, noting that when the system cannot identify or check specific crimes, “that is a problem”.

This amendment restores the pardon to its original intent: a safety valve for justice, not a loophole for corruption. If a pardon is truly just — if it is correcting a wrongful conviction or showing mercy to a repentant citizen — it will easily survive a 90-day delay and congressional review. It is only the corrupt, the personal, and the indefensible pardons that have anything to fear from this process.

By supporting the Pardon Integrity Act, we can ensure that the final word on justice belongs to the people and the Constitution, not the personal whims of any single leader.

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There is a dangerous cynicism settling deeper and deeper into the American electorate. It is the belief that corruption isn’t an aberration, but a baseline — a feature, not a bug. And when voters believe that everyone is on the take, they stop demanding better. They lower their standards. They shrug.

This exhaustion is the precise environment in which corruption thrives. And right now, the Department of Justice is providing a masterclass in how to dismantle public trust from the inside out.

The Crypto Conflict (to name just one)

The story begins with money, as it so often does. Recent investigations by our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has illuminated a brazen conflict of interest at the highest levels of our justice system. Todd Blanche, the current Deputy Attorney General and President Trump’s former personal defense attorney, appears to have been at the center of dismantling financial regulations that directly benefited his own portfolio.

While holding between $159,000 and $485,000 in cryptocurrency assets, Blanche oversaw a dramatic shift in DOJ policy regarding digital currency. Under his watch, the DOJ disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) — an elite task force specifically designed to root out money laundering and fraud in the crypto markets.

The timing was impeccable. While Blanche held these investments, the administration began dropping enforcement cases and/or investigations against major crypto players who had donated millions to the President’s inauguration and reelection efforts, including Coinbase, Gemini, and Robinhood.

This goes well beyond a “technical” ethics violation. It is the government picking winners and losers based on who pays the piper, while the referee (Blanche) holds a betting slip on the game. As CLC has pointed out in their formal complaint to the DOJ Inspector General, Blanche certified he was complying with ethics rules while actively participating in decisions that could boost the value of his own holdings.

Support Corruption Investigations

From Financial Greed to Moral Blindness

If this were only about Bitcoin, it would be bad enough. But corruption is a rot that spreads. When officials practice “willful blindness” to financial crimes because it suits their interests, they lose the moral authority — and perhaps even the inclination — to investigate darker crimes.

This is where the story takes a disturbing turn toward the Epstein files.

The same Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, has a direct intersection with the Jeffrey Epstein saga. He personally interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidante, who is currently serving 20 years for sex trafficking.

We must ask a difficult question: If the leadership of the DOJ is willing to turn a blind eye to financial malfeasance because of personal or political conflict, why should we trust them to pursue the powerful names hidden within the Epstein files?

The connection here is not conspiracy — it is culture. A culture of impunity does not distinguish between crimes. It protects the powerful, whether they are laundering money or exploiting the vulnerable. When we allow our justice system to become a concierge service for donors and friends, we dismantle the very mechanism designed to hold predators accountable. The failure to prosecute financial crimes facilitates the failure to prosecute much worse. They are two sides of the same corrupt coin.

The Cynicism Trap — and the Antidote

The tragic result of this behavior is that the American public is checking out. Recent polling data from the Searchlight Institute reveals a startling statistic: 71% of voters believe the “typical politician” is corrupt. When the public assumes corruption is inevitable, they stop punishing it at the ballot box.

But there is a silver lining — a path forward that is as popular as it is necessary.

Contrary to the narrative that Americans are hopelessly divided, there is massive, bipartisan consensus on fixing this rot. The same polling shows that “trust-boosting” reforms are wildly popular across the ideological spectrum, such as:

• 85% of voters support term limits for politicians.

• 69% support a total ban on stock trading by government officials.

The data show an anti-corruption platform is not just “good governance” — it is a political juggernaut waiting to be unleashed. Americans are starving for leaders who will treat the disease, not exploit it, and who offer solutions that aren’t only aimed at helping one side win.

A Call for Brightness

At Bright America, alongside our partners at the Campaign Legal Center, we are shining a light on these conflicts of interest and corruption not to depress you, but to arm you with information and inspiration. The normalization of corruption is a choice. We do not have to accept a Justice Department that serves the crypto lobby while ignoring the victims of predatory crimes.

The leaders who will guide us out of this dark time will be those who embrace a radical (by comparison, but not in reality), “pro-trust” agenda. They will be the ones who understand that the only way to heal a fractured nation is to prove, through action and accountability, that the law applies equally to the billionaire, the crypto-bro, and the predator alike.

The antidote to corruption isn’t cynicism. It’s sunlight. And we intend to keep the lights on.

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In Washington, the most dangerous bills often wear the most patriotic names.

Case in point: the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility” Act — or the SAVE Act. On its face, the title sounds like a common-sense housekeeping measure, a simple lock on the front door of our democracy. But if you peel back the legislative label, you won’t find a shield protecting our elections. You will find a bureaucratic weapon designed to silence millions of legitimate American voters.

The premise of the bill is that we need extreme new “documentary proof of citizenship” to register to vote. But make no mistake: this is a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist, creating a crisis that definitely will.

Sounding the alarm is the urgent work of Bright America, and our strategic litigation partner Campaign Legal Center (CLC).

The 21 Million Missing Voices

The SAVE Act would require every American to provide specific proof of citizenship — such as a passport or a birth certificate — to register to vote. A driver’s license, the gold standard of identification for decades, would no longer be enough.

Proponents will ask, “Who doesn’t have a birth certificate handy?” The answer is: 21.3 million Americans.

According to recent data, 9% of voting-age citizens do not have easy access to these specific documents. While a passport is the easiest way to prove citizenship, only about 51% of Americans actually have one. By mandating documents that half the country doesn’t carry, this bill effectively places a “passport tax” on the ballot box, converting a constitutional right into a luxury for those who can afford international travel.

The burden doesn’t fall equally. It targets young voters, the elderly, and specifically married women who have changed their names. Under this act, if your driver’s license name doesn’t match your birth certificate because you got married, you could face a bureaucratic nightmare just to prove you are who you say you are.

The Administration has already tried to do all this by executive fiat — but thanks to CLC’s lawsuit to block the President’s unconstitutional executive order (which Bright America members are proud to have fueled!), they now must try to force this through Congress.

Invest in Democracy-Saving Lawsuits

The “Smoking Gun” in the Database

Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the SAVE Act is its reliance on federal databases to “purge” voter rolls. The bill would force states to run their voter lists against the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database and Social Security Administration (SSA) records.

There is a fatal technical flaw here: these databases were never designed to be a master list of voters. In fact, the SSA did not consistently collect citizenship data for anyone born before 1981. That means millions of American citizens over the age of 45 could be flagged as “non-citizens” simply because their records pre-date modern data entry.

We don’t have to guess what happens when we rely on this kind of faulty data matching. We have proof. In a recent purge in Alabama that used similar data matching techniques, 93.8% of the voters removed were actually eligible U.S. citizens.

This isn’t a safety measure; it is a dragnet that catches legitimate voters 15 times more often than it catches anyone else.

Five Years in Prison for Your Neighbor

If the bureaucratic hurdles aren’t enough to scare you, the criminal penalties should.

Our elections are run by our friends and neighbors — people who put in long hours for little pay to make democracy work. The SAVE Act treats these civic heroes like felons.

Under this bill, an election worker who registers a voter without the specific, new “correct” documentation could face five years in prison.

Read that again. An election official could go to jail for half a decade not for letting a non-citizen vote, but for helping an American citizen register without the new, expensive paperwork. This provision seems designed to do one thing: terrorize everyday Americans out of volunteering, leaving our polling places understaffed and our democracy vulnerable.

We Already Have the Laws We Need

One tragedy of the SAVE Act is its redundancy. We already have strict laws ensuring only citizens vote. It is already a felony for a non-citizen to vote in a federal election, punishable by prison and deportation. These laws work. Non-citizen voting is vanishingly rare because the penalties are severe and the risks are high.

The SAVE Act isn’t about stopping a crime that rarely happens. It is about creating a new crime: the “crime” of being an eligible voter who doesn’t have a passport, or a poll worker who just wants to help their neighbor.

In a “Bright America,” we should be making it easier for every eligible citizen to have their say, not building walls of red tape around the ballot box. We must reject the SAVE Act and the wolf hiding beneath its patriotic wool.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that so many of our fellow Americans have been conned into believing this law is a shield, when it is actually a shackle. They have been sold a solution to a phantom problem, unaware that the 'protection' they are cheering for is designed to silence their own neighbors — and perhaps even themselves.

Tell Your Legislators to REJECT the SAVE Act

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