The ultimate smoking gun: Trump officials just copped to a $7.5B shakedown

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during an event at The Villages Charter School at The Villages, Florida, U.S., May 1, 2026.

Whether by intention, error or force of law, the Trump administration has owned up that Donald Trump sees himself president of MAGA, not of the nation.

A New York Times report this week disclosed a month-old court filing in which federal officials acknowledged that they cut $7.5 billion in clean energy programs selectively among states “based solely” on whether those stated had voted for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

In court answers about a lawsuit challenging the stated reasons of cuts based on “waste and fraud,” the government copped to the real reason – partisan politics. Indeed, the administration funded grants for states that had backed Trump in 2024, even though the Energy Department had recommended they be cancelled.

It may not be a specifically impeachable offence, but it certainly shows that Donald Trump is abusing his office, his oath – and weirdly even punishing the Trump voters in the states taking the cuts.

Trump certainly has been acting in a variety of ways as if he wants to target states that voted against him, but this court filing seemed a public acknowledgement that should get some serious attention.

As The Times concluded, “The admission showed how Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes.”

Trump certainly has no hesitation about collecting taxes from blue states or demanding voting rolls or demanding special treatment, just in spending the money disproportionately raised from those states.

President for Some, Not All

The White House and Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget , have remained silent about the government’s court arguments in a suit brought by the affected states. At the time of the cuts, Vought posted that “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”

Now, a government lawyer told the court that none of the cancellations were “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor.”

Apart from all else, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright repeated the waste argument in sworn congressional testimony, telling House members in June, “No decisions (about the cuts) were made on politics.”

Someone might tell Jim Jordan, chair of the Judiciary Committee, who referred former special prosecutor Jack Smith to the Justice Department for investigation of perjury for not answering a question that Jordan had never asked.

Vought is seeking to finalize rules that would make political appointees the final arbiters of how the government would award more than $1 trillion in annual grants. He wants the power to block or revoke money if states do not conform to administration priorities. The White House has also sought to layer additional restrictions on grant recipients, limiting their political activities, memberships along with vague requirements that they cannot use the money for certain purposes, including those deemed “anti-American,” reported The Times.

Rather than combatting waste, it appears Trump and his cronies are trying to take control of the United States government, using the power of the American people for their own ends, argues historian Heather Cox Richardson in Substack.

Sen. Patty Murray. D-WA., and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said that politically minded grant cuts amounted to an “outright un-American” weaponization of government.

Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker pointed out that the cancelled grants included $583 million intended for Illinois “that would have gone toward lowering energy costs, strengthening grid reliability, and creating energy jobs.” He demanded the funds be restored. “Despite what he might think, Donald Trump is not the president of MAGA,” Pritzker said in a statement, but “the president of all America.”

Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times, Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times and leadership jobs at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team part of several Pulitzers in New York.

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