All Hell Breaks Loose As Jamie Raskin Launches Brutal Attack On Trump’s “Pro-Fraud” Administration

This is, alas, the most pro-fraud administration in American history. So we learned just before coming down to the floor that votes have been canceled for tomorrow suddenly. No public explanation has been offered by the speaker, but they're certainly saying in the cloak rooms that the last-minute cancellation of one of only three eight-hour days, we were scheduled to work this week, was due to Congressman Massie's filing of a detailed and compelling impeachment resolution against Secretary Pete Hegseth. And he introduced the resolution asserting that there were multiple high crimes and misdemeanors that have been committed by Secretary Hegseth, including violations of the War Powers Act, ignoring laws requiring the minimization of civilian casualties, engaging in extrajudicial killings, violating the speech rights of members of the armed services, and more. And at least Republican Thomas Massie's suggestion is that they were unwilling to confront his impeachment resolution and there was such division on that side of the aisle that they decided simply to call it quits after only two full days of work. This to be followed, of course, by two months of us being away from Washington. At least some explanation should be offered to us for why yet another day of work has been canceled. But in any event, as a gesture of good faith and mercy for our colleagues, a political party whose members are fleeing the nation's capital like residents of South Vietnam on the roof of the embassy in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, I will rise in tepid support of this bill codifying simply codifying the National Fraud Enforcement Division which the Department of Justice has already established by regulation and of course the criminal division of Department of Justice has had a fraud section for more than 70 years now so this is hardly some kind of great breakthrough in law enforcement or criminal justice but it is perhaps the least offensive piece of legislative flotsam and jetsam that has washed ashore in the last 48 hours of republican chaos and retreat here in the House of Representatives an initial version of the bill actually required the division to do something to quote investigate prosecute and remedy fraud but they took that out it seems our colleagues decided even that modest demand for action went too far and so it was dropped and no wonder they got cold feet this is alas the most pro-fraud administration in American history. Nothing comes close. When this 34 felony count president took office, and that's felony count of fraud, he immediately fired and demoted 20 inspectors general who had rooted out billions of dollars in waste, corruption, fraud, and abuse. He dismantled and gutted the parts of the federal government most seriously engaged in investigating and prosecuting fraud. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has saved American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars from fraud. The 40-lawyer public integrity section of the Department of Justice, which was reduced to two lawyers. And the well-regarded tax division at the Department of Justice, which was completely wiped out by the administration. They have eliminated expert FBI squads like CR-15 that handled complex corruption investigations around the country. Amazingly, President Trump halted all enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act upon taking office. They said that they were not going to enforce it anymore. As the Wall Street Journal has reported, the Department of Justice is pulling back not just on prosecuting fraud, but corporate crime of all kinds. In the first six months after taking office, The Trump DOJ dropped over 23,000 criminal investigations, including one in Tennessee into criminal fraud at a national hospital chain and one of the largest Medicaid managed care companies. Another, an investigation into a Virginia nursing home with a documented record of fraud and patient abuse. Probes of criminal fraud involving several New Jersey labor unions, including one opened after a top official of a union was accused of embezzling the members' money and an investigation into a cryptocurrency company suspected of cheating thousands of investors. And it's not just the DOJ. At the SEC, enforcement actions in 2025 hit a 20-year low and corporate disgorgement plummeted by a whopping 98 percent. Following a wave of political donations to the president's inaugural committees, the SEC closed or dismissed high-profile fraud and registration investigations into numerous crypto platforms like Coinbase, Gemini, Binance, and Kraken. Every administration chooses its priorities. This is the first one that has made not prosecuting white-collar fraudsters, corporate crooks, corrupt politicians, and international tax cheats and narco-traffickers a number one priority. And let me give you an example of the kind of people benefiting from the pro-corruption policies of the administration. After a lengthy investigation, the Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and other executives from the Adani Group were indicted in 2024 after a years-long investigation for perpetrating a $265 million bribery scheme and a multi-billion fraud scheme against U.S. investors, as well as obstructing investigations by the FBI, the SEC, and a federal grand jury. The investigation was led in part by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Unit that Trump, of course, dissolved upon taking office. Then Adani started flattering the president on Twitter and promised big investments. Suddenly, DOJ dropped the entire indictment. And for those fraudsters who have already been convicted, they have nothing to fear themselves. And they were convicted, I should say, by a Department of Justice that once believed in the rule of law. Why have they nothing to fear? Because this president has a pardon waiting for you if the price is right. For the low, low price of just a few hundred thousand dollars, or maybe three million if your crime was really bad, or you don't know anybody in the Trump circle so well, you can get a presidential pardon, and you can get all the fines and restitution payments wiped out that you still owe to the victims and the taxpayers. President Trump's indiscriminate pardoning of not just convicted cop assaulters right here in this building from January 6, 2021, but convicted white-collar fraudsters has allowed white-collar criminals to hold on to, check this one out over 1.7 billion dollars that they owed legally owed to the employees consumers investors and taxpayers that they had built through their various fraudulent schemes take another example this guy is Trevor Milton the disgraced former CEO of Nikola who preyed on vulnerable retail investors including people who had turned to trading in the market after losing income during COVID-19. Milton repeatedly claimed that his company had built a prototype of a hydrogen-powered semi-truck that fully functions and works, which is really incredible, he advertised. Well, that was a total lie. His product did not work. A video he put on Twitter of his truck driving down the street on a flat road, in fact, turned out to be a truck that was towed to the top of the hill, at which point the driver released the brakes and the truck rolled down the hill. That was how they got their truck to apparently work so they could advertise it and bilk money out of the investors. Well, after years-long investigation, the Department of Justice prosecuted him and convicted him before a jury of his peers. He was sentenced to four years in prison for his fraud, stealing people's money. And prosecutors insisted that he pay back the defrauded investors nearly $700 million in restitution he'd stolen from them. In many cases, his victims had lost their entire retirement savings. But before restitution could be paid or even ordered, Milton got a surprise pardon from President Trump. Well, how did that happen? Well, it was classic Pardons, Inc., the name of the report we have describing dozens of cases like this, the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. And what happens in Pardons, Inc., the new cash for clemency racket? Well, in the weeks before the 2024 election, Milton and his wife donated over $1.8 million to political committees supporting the campaign of Donald Trump, including $920,000 reported to the Trump 47 Committee in October of 2024 and $750,000, three quarters of a million in September 2024 to the Maha Alliance super PAC affiliated with the now Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Milton also shrewdly hired two attorneys with direct ties to the president, Brad Bondi, the brother of the disgraced former Attorney General, Pam Bondi, forced out by Trump after she brought embarrassment to the administration, and Mark Mukasey, longtime attorney for both Eric Trump and the Trump Organization in March of 2025 two weeks after prosecutors filed their 695.2 million dollar restitution calculation and report the president called Milton personally to inform him of a full and unconditional pardon and his decision moreover to wipe out any obligation he had to repay his victims a direct transfer of money from the victims of white collar fraud back to the criminal himself. President Trump even invoked the $750,000 contribution to RFK, his pal in the cabinet now telling Milton to call Bobby and thank him too. Now, fresh off of his pardon, Milton is back at it. He has joined an exclusive group of post-pardon businessmen, seemingly empowered, even sainted by Trump's pardon and favor. Quote, I walk into meetings now and I'll get high fives from the wealthiest people in the world, he said. They're like welcome to the club. You can withstand the fire. We can trust you now. His new venture, CyberJet, which he claims will transform flying, is seeking to raise a billion dollars from investors. Americans, beware. Another pardoned Trump criminal on the loose today, like Andrew Paul Johnson. You remember him, the insurrectionist who stormed the Capitol who Trump pardoned without looking at any of the specifics of his case and went back out and just two months later went and sexually assaulted two 12-year-olds, one boy and one girl, and then tried to bribe them into silence, saying he was going to get his payoff from, well, you remember Attorney General Todd Blanche's plan for the $1.776 billion political slush fund to pay off the insurrectionists. He said, I'll give you guys that money. Luckily, the children told their families, the families told the police, and Andrew Paul Johnson was just prosecuted and convicted and sentenced to jail for life. And yet the lives of those two 12-year-olds are irrevocably altered by the fact that Donald Trump let him out of prison, let Andrew Paul Johnson walk free to go and commit another crime. Dozens and dozens of people like that, home invasion, domestic violence, sexual assault, threatening the life of an FBI agent, all of them just let free en masse as Donald Trump dismantled the U.S. Department of Justice office and instead made this an operation out of his back pocket in the White House. We are seeing unprecedented graft, corruption and fraud go unpunished in this administration and criminals being let free. But if the majority thinks it important to freeze in place the name of the National Fraud Enforcement Division, great. Maybe we can use that to actually go after all of the fraud and corruption that we're seeing in this administration. I reserve. Gentleman reserves, a gentleman from New Jersey recognized. Madam Speaker, just a few thoughts to you. I enjoy the gentleman on the other side of the aisle. He is a very able speaker. He's articulate and he's eloquent, but he's losing the point here. And I say this because we are here to focus on a piece of legislation. I have the honor of being on the Judiciary Committee, and often it occurs there, too, where we get into a political diatribe, a political discussion. This today, right now, the conversation we are having here in this formal sense on the House of the floor of the United States government, this conversation is about a piece of legislation. It's about a piece of legislation that we want to be enacted into law. It's not a partisan initiative, it's a permanent non-partisan commitment that we do something better because the people who are listening here, Madam Speaker, the people who are watching, they're getting tired of it. They're getting tired of all the money that has been wasted. And to try to pretend that just a few years ago, a couple of years ago, everything was perfect, everything was taken care of, and that there was no corruption, we know better. There has been a great deal of abuse in many of these programs in the federal government. And it's wrong. It's wrong because people work too hard and they work too much to have to put up with that. And it's wrong because it just is something that shouldn't be in modern America. It's wrong because we can do better than that. And it's finally wrong because it's hurting the very people that depend on those programs that supposedly everybody cares about so much. So when fraudsters and crooks and corrupt individuals break these systems, it hurts everyone. And it hurts especially the most vulnerable. So I take issue with that. I would love, Madam Speaker, if we could stick to this legislation and do the good work of government. It's not about Donald Trump. It's not about Pete Hegseth. It's not about Tom Massie. It's not about a political debate. This is government now, and we should stick to doing the work of government and trying to help our people. With that, Madam Speaker, I yield two minutes to the gentlelady from California, Ms. Kim. The gentlelady from California is recognized for two minutes. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I'm proud to stand today in strong support of the National Fraud Enforcement Division Act. In California, we've lost at least $180 billion to fraud across state programs. That is money meant for our seniors, veterans, families, and students in need, not criminals gaming the system. Under Vice President Vance's Anti-Fraud Task Force, we have made real progress, uncovering more than $245 billion in fraud across the nation and sending fraudsters a very clear message. Their days stealing from Americans with impunity are over. For too long, our federal response to fraud has been fragmented and disorganized with no central office leading the charge. This bill brings everything together. So we have one goal, one game plan, and one team reading from the same playbook. I've been working to better coordinate our federal response to fraud with my No More Scams Act. And I'm proud to support this ironclad effort to hold these criminals accountable. Americans work hard for every dollar they earn. The least they deserve is a government that fights just as hard to protect their taxpayer dollars. With that, thank you, and I yield back. Gentlemen, reserves? I reserve. Gentleman from Maryland is recognized. Thank you, Madam Speaker. My friend from New Jersey invoked fraudsters, crooks, and corrupt individuals. The problem is you can put whatever name you want over the door, but if the Department of Justice is not actually prosecuting these people, then we're not ferreting out the fraud. So look at some of the cases that have been dropped by the Department of Justice under the various people that have been presiding over the DOJ. Take Eric Adams. Now, he was the Democratic mayor of New York. Maybe my colleague would like to hear about this. He was indicted in September 2024 for bribery and wire fraud over luxury travel and illegal foreign campaign contributions he recruited. After President Trump took office, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Matthew Bove ordered that the case be dropped after Eric Adams aligned himself with Trump with a memo from Bove stating that the decision was made without regard to the strength of the case. You will all recall that the administration's own appointed United States attorney in New York quit along with five other lawyers in her office because they thought it was so outrageous that the Department of Justice would dismiss these charges for political reason. In fact, the grand jury had already handed down the indictment and they had to go and beg the judge to revoke the whole indictment and to quash it after it was very clear that there was probable cause that fraud had taken place. Here's another example. Tom Homan, who accepted $50,000 from an undercover FBI agent posing to buy access to government contracts in the coming Trump administration. He got that in a kava bag. $50,000. Despite knowledge of the investigation, President Trump appointed Homan to be the border czar on January 20th, 2025. and soon after Trump's second term then acting deputy AG Matthew Bove shut down the investigation we still don't know was that a $50,000 cash bribe or was he just holding the money did he declare that money on his taxes we've got no idea what happened why isn't the department of justice looking into that um case after case Justin Sun in 2023 the SEC charged Sun for fraudulently manipulating the secondary market of a cryptocurrency after the election 2024 election sun invested 75 million dollars into world liberty financial the president's uh the president's family's own crypto company um and he became one of the largest known holders of Trump's meme coin he attended a private reception and dinner with President Trump and then suddenly what do you know the SEC dropped all the charges and moved to a settlement with Sun paying a mere $10 million penalty. And on and on, case after case dropped. We've seen what they've done with respect to the Epstein file. The Department of Justice leading the cover-up, doing everything that they can to blockade the release of the materials mandated by the United States Congress in the Epstein Files Transparency Act and so the department of Justice is not acting to ferret out and prosecute fraud it is covering it up and i'm sorry you might have political sympathies with the people that they are covering up for but that's not how the rule of law works the rule of law should be objectively rendered and if people violate the law they should not be uh they should not be freed the charges should not be dropped the indictments should not be quashed or they should not be pardoned simply because they're friends with people in the right place. America sees what's going on. That's not justice. I reserve. Subscribe to One India and never miss an update. Download the One India app now.