December 08, 2025 · View in browser

The Trump administration has argued that Fed board member Lisa Cook may have committed mortgage fraud by declaring more than one primary residence on her loans. We found Trump once did the very thing he called “deceitful and potentially criminal.”

In 2015, when he was still a Republican representative from Wisconsin, Sean Duffy detailed the history of America’s creation in an assertive legal brief. The brief framed the country’s founding in reaction to the absolute power of the English crown. Duffy invoked the Magna Carta and the Founding Fathers as he made the case for the separation of powers, ProPublica’s Jake Pearson reported. The brief went on to cite James Madison’s account of the Constitutional Convention, where there was “unanimous agreement that Congress, not the President, should control the purse.”

But Duffy, now the Transportation Secretary, is far away from this position on presidential power, Pearson’s reporting shows. As the president has issued a whopping 214 executive orders between Jan. 20 and Nov. 20, Duffy has cited some of those directives as he has withheld congressionally approved transportation funds.

In response to questions, a Department of Transportation spokesperson asked for a copy of Duffy’s brief. But after ProPublica provided it, the spokesperson stopped responding. A message sent to a number listed for Duffy hasn’t been returned.

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