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Ben Rhodes

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
4502 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

Also, have a look at the federal Department of Education.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

The Trump administration can't legally shut it down without Congress allowing it to.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

But Congress has nevertheless gotten rid of basically half the people who work there and has shut down or farmed out its major programs.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

Now Trump is forcing them to give up the building that has been the Department of Education's headquarters for decades.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

just walking away from that building.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

The American public consistently says they do not want Trump to destroy the U.S.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

Department of Education, but he is destroying it anyway.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

And now, as of this week, its headquarters will be gone.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

That said, there's one federal agency that's just getting bigger and bigger under Donald Trump, and that, of course, is the sprawling, scandal-ridden Department of Homeland Security.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

Here's a heads-up about that.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

There's been quite a bit of attention recently to the fact that the FBI and DOJ have been targeting elections administrators in multiple states, most infamously the FBI raid and Fulton County, Georgia's elections office in January, where they seized hundreds of thousands of ballots from the 2020 election.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

But here's something to keep an eye on, because we are now also seeing Homeland Security being used to target elections administration.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

And this is something worth keeping an eye on.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

A couple weeks after that Fulton County raid, the White House ordered HSI, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, to start working on elections issues.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

Then The Atlantic was first to report that HSI was conducting an investigation into the 2020 elections in the state of Arizona.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

Now, just a few days ago, CBS has reported that Minnesota elections officials have received a grand jury subpoena for Minnesota voter records as part of an investigation being run in part by the Department of Homeland Security.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

CBS also reports that DOJ is close to finalizing a deal to hand over whatever voter data it manages to get from the states to the Department of Homeland Security.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

Who knows what they will do with it?

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

But if President Trump is looking for ways to use muscle, to use force, to mess with the November elections, to undermine trust, to scare people away or worse, then this might be the way he is doing it.

The Rachel Maddow Show
'Smells like corruption': Maddow points out bizarre pattern of overpayments for warehouses by DHS

It's not just the FBI they are using.