The pro-Donald Trump legal group, America First Legal (AFL), has taken over the Maricopa County Recorder's office, and it's illegal, one Arizona reporter Brahm Resnik wrote, citing a new court case.

County Recorder Justin Heap hired American First Legal to counsel them in a lawsuit, court documents show. County Attorney Rachel Mitchell sued over the matter and revealed a slew of concerning details in the process.

Mitchell asked for a temporary restraining order and injunction at the Superior Court of the State of Arizona in and for the County of Maricopa, but the court ruled that she lacked standing.

However, a new filing alleges that the "AFL has abused that limited ruling and used it as a launching pad for [an] unprecedented power grab. In the past three-and-a-half weeks alone, AFL, a partisan non-profit organization funded by private donors, and the Recorder have: 1. Proclaimed that AFL will serve as the Recorder's counsel on 'all' matters 'covering the administration of early voting or any election statute that contains the phrase "recorder or other officer in charge of elections," based on self-declared global conflict of interest with the County Attorney.'"

The suit also claims that the AFL has "instructed County elections staff to disregard legal advice from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office (MCAO) about voter instructions at polling locations."

The AFL allegedly told staff they couldn't seek any legal advice from the county attorney and tried to prevent the county attorney from attending a Board of Supervisors executive session about the election, the suit says.

AFL then "threatened to pursue criminal charges against the Board for establishing drop boxes — forcing Attorney General Kris Mayes to write a letter to AFL warning it against making 'unfounded threats of criminal liability.'" The pro-Trump legal group then allegedly sent a letter to the Board threatening to sue them under a criminal statute and demanding public records.

Mitchell's filing makes it clear that AFL was never hired to provide "in-house" counsel for the Recorder's office.

The filing goes on to allege that the AFL is "acting as de facto deputy county attorneys is ultra vires and illegal. The Recorder lacks any explicit or implicit statutory authority to hire outside counsel — let alone a partisan organization — to serve as in-house counsel on 'all' matters under his 'purview.'"

The uploaded filing only contains excerpts from the full document and doesn't cite any specifics about dates for hearings or details about where the case stands.

President Donald Trump has fired Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi, but that does not mean his draconian anti-immigrant agenda will wind down. According to a recent report, the architect of that agenda remains as entrenched in power as ever.

"Far from acknowledging defeat, Mr. Miller appears to have simply adjusted his strategy in an effort to minimize political fallout," wrote Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Hamed Aleaziz, Christopher Flavelle, Emily Cochrane and Glenn Thrush of The New York Times in a Sunday report.

The report elaborated that, even as Trump’s “crackdown” has become unpopular in pretty much every American political group outside of the president’s own base, Miller has adjusted to the challenges by treating it as a personal test rather than a sign he should reevaluate his course.

"Mr. Miller, one of the most influential presidential advisers in recent memory and an unabashed champion of Mr. Trump's hard-line immigrant crackdown is at a crossroads,” the Times elaborated. Because of his performance up to this point, “he faces questions about how aggressively he can continue to drive the deportation campaign, and how much appetite his party and the country have for tactics that proved successful in helping to boost arrests of immigrants but reignited a polarizing debate."

Overall the report observed that “rather than Mr. Miller seeing his power recede, he has moved to apply it in other ways, seeking policies that would pressure undocumented immigrants to leave on their own.” As a result “Mr. Miller's influence has also extended beyond Washington."

Like many other figures in Trump’s orbit, Miller is widely considered to be extremely racist. Last month New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote that by ending public education funding for undocumented children in red states, Trump is deliberately attempting to keep underprivileged racial minorities less educated than theirs. For this reason, Bouie argued that the administration's efforts to repeal civil rights protections and other legislation from that era must be understood in an explicitly white supremacist context.

“Both Miller and the MAGA right are engaged in the same kind of work as their political forebears,” Bouie wrote. “It is no wonder, then, that they want to gut the 14th Amendment, which was revitalized by the struggles of Black Americans and other groups throughout the 20th century. Theirs is a project of subordination at home and abroad; of the re-inscription of caste and the recreation of tiered citizenship based on race and nationality. And now, as then, the 14th Amendment stands in the way.”

Miller is so influential, he is even believed to have been responsible for the Trump administration’s decision to reverse its previous withdrawal of political lawsuits against progressive law firms and lawyers. His America First Legal has also targeted law firms and corporations for diversity initiatives.

The surprising decision by the Trump administration to reverse course and continue battling progressive law firms and lawyers has been attributed to the ire of Donald Trump and his senior advisor, Stephen Miller.

But given that Trump is somewhat preoccupied by a certain Middle East conflict, a CNN story and speculation attributed to “a source familiar with the situation" hint that Miller’s fingerprints appear to be likely the ones gripping the renewed legal throttle.

Miller’s America First Legal has previously targeted law firms and corporations for diversity initiatives and challenged Biden-era policies to pressure compliance with conservative goals.

Thus, The Wall Street Journal story that the Trump administration was abandoning its defense of the president’s executive orders sanctioning several law firms and individuals indicates at the least some Justice Department missed communications.

Trump’s executive orders would have prevented firms and individual lawyers from entering federal buildings, eliminated federal contracts with the firms and their clients, and removed any security clearances.

Law firms Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, and Susman Godfrey were among those affected. Chilled by those lawsuits, several other large law firms cut deals with the president, providing more than $1 billion in pro bono work on causes Trump favored.

Trump cited the sanctioned parties for their connections to his political rivals. He also noted their diversity initiatives and pro bono work for immigrants, transgender rights and voting protections in his executive orders.

Now, the administration’s bite at the legal apple continues.

Late Thursday morning, December 18, the news broke that federal Judge Trevor McFadden —an appointee of President Donald Trump — had rejected a lawsuit brought by major Trump allies: the America First Legal Foundation, a far-right MAGA legal group.

According to Politico's Josh Gerstein, America First Legal was "trying to demand records" using the Freedom of Information Act. But Gerstein notes that McFadden, in his America First Legal Foundation v. John G. Roberts ruling, "says Congress 'excused' itself [and] judiciary."

McFadden, in a 21-page court document, wrote, "The Freedom of Information Act announced a policy of broad disclosure of government documents. Broad disclosure, however, does not mean unlimited disclosure. While FOIA promises access to many Executive Branch records, Congress excused itself and the courts from FOIA’s reach. In 2024, America First Legal Foundation ('America First') requested various documents from the Judicial Conference of the United States and Administrative Office of the United States under FOIA. Both entities rejected the request on the basis that they are part of the Judiciary, so FOIA does not apply to them. America First disagreed."

The Trump-appointed federal judge continued, "Taking a narrower view of FOIA's court-documents carve out, America First sees the Judicial Conference and Administrative Office as agencies subject to FOIA. So America First sued and asks the Court to compel the heads of the Judicial Conference and Administrative Office to comply with its FOIA request. See Am. Compl., ECF No. 2."

McFadden noted that the "defendants moved to dismiss America First's Complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim."

The judge wrote, "Under Rule 12(b)(1), this Court presumes it lacks subject matter jurisdiction. See Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994). Federal courts have limited jurisdiction and 'possess only that power authorized by Constitution and statute.' Id. And when a defendant brings a challenge under Rule 12(b)(1), the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing that the court has jurisdiction. See id."

WASHINGTON — A slew of conservative groups will lead a new coalition to spur civics education and push the subject in a more patriotic direction, the U.S. Education Department announced last month, raising alarms for some traditional civics and education groups that were not included in the initiative.

The America First Policy Institute, a think tank with close ties to the president, is organizing and coordinating the America 250 Civics Education Coalition made up of more than 40 national and state-based groups, including prominent conservative advocacy organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA.

The vast majority of the groups in the coalition promote a vision of U.S. identity that downplays historical wrongs associated with race and gender and projects the country as an exceptional force for good. Many are well-known conservative groups that have promoted President Donald Trump’s political agenda.

The coalition lacks many of the more traditional civics education groups who say their nonpartisanship is a fundamental element of civics education, leading to concerns from those groups.

“Our organization serves students in every state and over 80% of counties,” said Shawn Healy, the chief policy and advocacy officer at iCivics, a group that promotes public support for civics education. “You can’t do that if your curriculum is shaded red or blue — it has to be fiercely nonpartisan.”

The coalition will have nothing to do with school curricula, a department official said last month, acknowledging that the agency legally cannot dictate what schools teach. And it will not receive any federal funding from the department, the official added.

But the agency has taken other steps that appear designed to steer curricula in a more partisan direction.

The same day the coalition launched, the department announced it would be prioritizing “patriotic education” when it comes to discretionary grants. The agency said patriotic education “presents American history in a way that is accurate, honest, and inspiring.”

Earlier in September, the department said it would invest more than $160 million in American history and civics grants — a $137 million increase in the funds Congress previously approved.

Civics as cultural battleground

Civics — a branch of social studies that focuses on rights and obligations of citizenship and the basic mechanics of government — has been a bipartisan priority, though it’s become a hot-button issue within education culture wars regarding how and what is taught as America grapples with its complicated history.

Many on the political right, including Trump, have long bristled at how that history is taught. Going back to his first presidency, Trump has sought to exert control over the subject.

After retaking office in January, he reestablished the 1776 Commission — an advisory committee meant “to promote patriotic education.”

“Despite the virtues and accomplishments of this Nation, many students are now taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but rather villains,” notes the executive order first establishing the commission during his first term.

The commission released a 41-page report in January 2021 that drew criticism from historians and educators, including the American Historical Association.

In a statement signed by 47 other organizations, the association wrote that the report makes “an apparent attempt to reject recent efforts to understand the multiple ways the institution of slavery shaped our nation’s history.”

Trump formed the commission after The New York Times published the 1619 Project, which aimed to “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.”

Heritage Foundation, Turning Point USA sign up

In its September announcement, the department said the coalition “is dedicated to renewing patriotism, strengthening civic knowledge, and advancing a shared understanding of America’s founding principles in schools across the nation.”

The coalition will include more than 100 events and programs across the country over the next year as part of the administration’s celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary.

The coalition is set to feature a 50-state “Trail to Independence Tour,” a “Fundamental Liberties College Speaker Series” as well as “Patriotic K-12 Teacher Summits and Toolboxes” aimed at supporting “patriotic teaching nationwide.”

The America 250 Civics Education Coalition includes right-wing organizations like the Heritage Foundation — the architect of the sweeping conservative policy agenda known as Project 2025 — as is America First Legal, a conservative advocacy group founded by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff.

Turning Point USA, co-founded by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in September, is also part of the initiative. PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that has drawn questions among researchers and scholars regarding the accuracy of its content, was also listed as a member of the coalition.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon was the chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute between her roles in the first and second Trump administrations. She had to sign an ethics waiver to participate in the coalition, according to the department official, who did not provide further details on what exactly this entailed.

‘News to us’

While conservative political organizations were made part of the coalition, leading civics education groups were not even aware of it before its public launch.

“Certainly, it was news to us about this coalition being formed,” Healy, of iCivics, said.

Healy added that his group encourages the America 250 Civics Education Coalition “to be more pluralistic in orientation” and that the organization is “eager” to have a conversation with the coalition about what they’re doing.

iCivics, a nonpartisan organization founded in 2009 by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, launched CivxNow. The latter group describes itself as the country’s “largest cross-partisan coalition working to prioritize civic education in the United States.”

CivxNow’s nearly 400 members comprise a broad swath of mainstream civics education groups.

“It’s our fundamental belief, both as an organization and as a coalition, that civic education has to be fiercely nonpartisan and nonideological,” Healy said.

But only one group — Constituting America — is a member of both CivxNow and the America 250 Civics Education Coalition.

Momentum for civics

iCivics and others in the civics education field said the added attention the initiative brings to the subject will be positive.

The coalition “provides an opportunity for everyone interested in civic education and patriotic education to do something right now,” said Donna Phillips, the president and CEO of the nonpartisan Center for Civic Education, pointing to “decades where there hasn’t been enough, or any, attention to civic education.”

Phillips, whose organization is a member of CivxNow, said she hopes “the civic education field more widely can benefit from the momentum behind the need for this and that we can all find a place within this momentum and this moment.”

Hans Zeiger, president of the nonpartisan Jack Miller Center, described the administration’s initiative as the “latest development in what we take to be a growing movement for civics in the country.”

Zeiger, whose organization aims to empower college professors to work on civics education and is a member of CivxNow, said his group is “very interested in growing the national civics movement, and glad that there are people all across the political spectrum getting involved in the push for civic education.”

“It is always a good thing to have national dialogue on civics education,” the National Council for the Social Studies said in a statement.

The council, part of CivxNow, added that they “strive for balanced conversations that will continue to elevate high quality social studies standards.”

Teachers unions criticize coalition

The two major teachers unions, which are politically aligned with Democrats, blasted the coalition as unserious, and noted the lack of traditional civics groups.

“We have decades of research on what works in civic education,” Mary Kusler, senior director at the National Education Association’s Center for Advocacy, said in a statement to States Newsroom. “The proposal they are peddling lacks the rigor and respect our students deserve — which is evident by the lack of any respected civics or civil rights organizations as signers.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement the 250th anniversary of the nation should have been “an opportunity for parents, teachers, historians and students to learn, celebrate, critique and think critically about our democracy.”

“Instead, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the America 250 Civics Education Coalition rushed to create programming based on a single Trump-approved, ideological narrative, excluding the very people who know our history best: civics teachers and historians,” she said.

Donald Trump commands the U.S. less like a president and more like Julius Caesar, one conservative legal scholar wrote for The Atlantic, with his unhinged leadership being the result of a decades-long plot by the right that has backfired severely and threatens to fully erode Democracy.

Gregg Nunziata is the executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law and previously worked as legal counsel for Senate Republicans. On Monday, he published an extensive new piece for The Atlantic, decrying Trump's new brand of "American Caesarism in nearly full bloom," emulating the rule of the Roman emperor who destroyed the republic by "claiming to speak for the people even as he disregarded laws and norms to govern by caprice."

"Despite ambitions to fundamentally change the course of the country, this administration has no real legislative agenda," Nunziata wrote. "Instead, the president governs by executive orders, emergency decrees, and extortionate transactions, using his power to reward his friends and punish his enemies. He’s launched foreign military adventures and full-blown wars seemingly based on personal whim, and has made the military a political prop and a tool for domestic law enforcement."

He added: "With Congress sidelined and the courts reluctant to check Donald Trump’s excesses, America has been left with what some legal scholars have described as an 'executive unbound' — and with a president who threatens to supplant the republic in all but name."

This dangerous new status quo, Nunziata argued, "did not emerge overnight" with Trump's arrival in politics. Rather, it was enacted "over the course of decades," with conservative legal minds acting as "key proponents of a vision of politics centered on one commanding figure—a vision that is now destabilizing our country." Based on his own history in the Republican legal movement, he concluded that "conservatives must reckon with our role in bringing the nation to its current breaking point, and work to reestablish the checks and balances that we helped erode."

"If America is to preserve its liberty, conservative legal scholars and judges will need to adjust to a new reality and revisit doctrines that no longer serve to protect the constitutional structure," Nunziata explained. "Some conservatives have already begun moving in this direction. In its recent rulings ending deference to the administrative state, the Court explicitly abandoned the stance of an earlier generation of conservatives. The lawsuit challenging Trump’s tariffs was brought by veterans of the conservative and right-of-center legal movements, who argued that the president had exceeded his authority. These are promising developments — but we need to go further."

Nunziata further urged that "Congress must rediscover its role" within the federal government to better position itself to provide a check against Trumpian abuses of Executive Branch power. "Legislation to rein in our 'unbound' executive," he added, "should be a priority."

"Obvious first steps would include strengthening the enforceability of congressional subpoenas, protecting against politicized law enforcement, and limiting the president’s emergency powers and ability to profit from his service," he wrote further. "America could also recover its capacity to amend the Constitution and use that power to pare back the presidency. A prime target would be the presidential pardon, a vestige of monarchy that has become a source of scandal and corruption."

He concluded: "The conservative legal movement once transformed the national conversation about the courts. It can do the same with executive power — but only if it is willing to redirect its intellectual and advocacy efforts in that direction. If conservatives truly believe in ordered liberty, constitutional limits and the rule of law, then the task ahead is clear: We must help check Caesar. Not for the sake of any party, but for the sake of the republic."

Far-right Christian nationalists, from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to The Heritage Foundation's Kevin Roberts to Pastor Doug Wilson, are claiming that the United States was designed to be a "Christian nation." This isn't a new argument: the late Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., founder of Liberty University and the Moral Majority, claimed, during the 1980s, that the "separation of church and state" argument was designed by Satan to keep Christians from running their country.

Hegseth, Roberts and Wilson are claiming that the United States' Founding Fathers envisioned a government run by strict Christian fundamentalism. But the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution never mentions Christianity and specifically states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Liberal opponents of Christian nationalism, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and People for the American Way, argue that while the First Amendment's Establishment Clause is protective of one's right to practice Christianity, it is equally protective of other religions — or, for that matter, atheists and agnostics.

Historian/religious scholar Gregg Frazer, according to the Independent's Peter Smith, now finds himself "at the center of" the debate on Christian nationalism. And Smith, in an article published on May 3, notes that this debate is taking place ahead of the United States' 250th anniversary.

Smith quotes Frazer as saying, "Neither side really wants to hear what I say." Frazer believes that the Christian nationalist view of U.S. history is inaccurate, as the Founders didn't envision a fundamentalist theocracy but weren't anti-religion either.

"He emphasizes that most Founders were religious in some capacity," Smith explains. "This longstanding debate over the Founders' religious intentions has gained renewed intensity with the approaching 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4. Amid the 'America 250' celebrations, some Christian activists and authors are intensifying their claims that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation. This narrative finds support from the current administration, with President Donald Trump promoting 'America Prays,' culminating in a May 17 gathering on the National Mall in Washington."

Smith adds, "Cabinet officials have also issued Christian messages in their official capacities, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proclaiming that 'America was founded as a Christian nation.… in our DNA.'"

Smith cites Americans United for Separation of Church and State as an example of a group that is pushing back against Christian nationalism, saying, "Most — nearly all — serious historians agree that America was not founded as a Christian nation in any meaningful legal, philosophical or constitutional sense."

In late November in Jamnagar, India, the scions of two of the most powerful families in the world stood face-to-face. On one side was 30-year-old Anant Ambani, son of one the richest men in Asia. On the other was Donald Trump Jr. For months, the Trump administration had been on the offensive against the sprawling Ambani energy empire, placing it at the center of an escalating tariff campaign against India. But after Trump Jr. touched down, the two men toured the Ambanis’ private zoo, and at night they performed a Gujarati folk dance, grinning as they moved together to the music.

Four months later, an obscure Texas startup called America First Refining announced that it had received a nine-figure investment from the Ambanis’ company. The deal puzzled numerous energy investors familiar with the project, which aims to build the first major new oil refinery in the U.S. in about 50 years. The company is run by a serial entrepreneur with a history of bankruptcy and lawsuits alleging fraud. After more than a decade of failed attempts to raise money, blown deadlines and rebrands, it had been floundering.

America First Refining’s unexpected breakthrough came after it forged a previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr., who secretly acquired a stake in the startup, according to records and seven people familiar with the company. The new details reveal the role the president’s son has played in a theme of Trump’s second term: overseas investors with interests before the administration putting money into the Trump family’s business interests.

Over the past year and a half, Trump Jr. has amassed a fortune from stakes in companies ranging from crypto startups to a drone business to a firearms retailer. Some firms tied to the president’s son have received contracts or other support from the federal government, part of what critics describe as a run of Trump family self-dealing. In December, Forbes estimated that Trump Jr.’s net worth had rocketed from roughly $50 million to $300 million since the election. But the Forbes figures were based on the investments that have been publicly disclosed. The America First Refining episode suggests there is much about the family business that remains secret.

The size of Trump Jr.’s stake in America First Refining and what he paid for it remain unclear. Top executives at the startup have also said that they speak regularly with Trump Jr., according to a person close to the company. And after the Ambani investment was announced, Trump Jr.’s personal lawyer took credit on social media for playing a part in the deal.

America First Refining has flexed its Trump Jr. connections during pitch meetings with foreign officials. Early last year, Trump Jr. joined the company’s leadership for a meeting in South Florida with potential investors from Saudi Arabia, according to two people familiar with the matter. Another foreign government official pitched on the project told ProPublica that the company’s team emphasized they had backing from the Trump family and suggested that an investment would help with White House access.

The Ambanis’ investment coincided with the family’s securing major U.S. policy wins that their company, Reliance Industries, had been lobbying for. “Reliance Goes From Trump Foe to Friend With Refinery Pledge,” ran the Bloomberg headline after the deal was announced. Reliance’s intent with the deal was to “smooth out” tensions between the U.S. and India, the outlet reported.

A Trump Jr. spokesperson said that Trump Jr. “has no operational involvement in AFR and is simply a passive minority investor in an American company that aligns with his worldview.”

“The entire premise of this story relating to Don is false,” the spokesperson said, adding, “Don does not interface with the Federal Government on behalf of any company that he invests in or advises.” ProPublica did not find evidence Trump Jr. was aware of refinery executives’ suggesting that an investment would help with White House access.

In response to detailed questions, a spokesperson for America First Refining said, “The claims in this story are false,” but declined to specify what they were referring to. The company’s CEO previously denied wrongdoing in the lawsuits against him reviewed by ProPublica, and the suits were either settled or dropped.

The Ambani family had long been cultivating its relationship with the Trumps. Reliance paid $10 million to the Trump Organization in 2024 as a “development fee” for a project in Mumbai, according to the president’s financial disclosure. (Despite the payment, Reliance has not yet announced a Trump project. Reliance told ProPublica that “the real estate project is real” and “remains under development.”) Ivanka Trump attended Anant Ambani’s wedding party in India that year, where guests were treated to a Rihanna concert. Anant’s father, Mukesh — who is worth an estimated $90 billion and lives in a 27-story home — came to Washington, D.C., for Trump’s second inauguration, posing with the president at a private reception.

https://twitter.com/RIL_Updates/status/1880980010892226707

But by the summer of 2025, the family was under attack from the White House. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Reliance had reportedly made billions in profits by purchasing vast quantities of Russian oil at a discount. In August, as Trump grew frustrated with his administration’s struggles to bring the war to an end, the president doubled his tariffs on India to 50%. The move was explicitly designed to force companies like Reliance to stop buying Russian oil. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly assailed “India’s politically connected energy titans” for “funding Putin’s war machine,” widely read as a reference to the Ambanis.

Amid this tension, Trump Jr. visited Anant Ambani on his November trip to India. At the end of the trip, Trump Jr.’s personal lawyer commented at a business conference in Miami: “I had a nice closing this morning with Don Trump Jr., who’s flying back from India today.” (The following week, the Texas startup — then called Element Fuels — filed paperwork to create America First Refining LLC. In an email, the attorney, John Willding, told ProPublica that there was “no transaction in India or with an Indian company that I was ever involved with.”)

Anant Ambani, who helps run Reliance’s energy business, personally worked on the Texas refinery deal for months before it was announced, a major Indian newspaper later reported.

As the Ambanis quietly finalized their deal with America First Refining, U.S.-Indian relations appeared to warm. In February, the Trump administration struck a trade deal with India, dramatically lowering tariffs, and also reportedly gave Reliance a license to buy Venezuelan oil. When the Iran war broke out and rocked global energy markets, the U.S. gave India a sanctions waiver to buy Russian crude. (The waiver was later expanded to all countries.)

In response to ProPublica’s questions, the White House said that “there are no conflicts of interest.” Reliance did not answer ProPublica’s questions about Trump Jr.’s and Anant Ambani’s roles in the investment deal, but said in a statement that the company did not receive “any unique or preferential treatment” from the U.S. government.

“There is no connection between Reliance’s investment in AFR and any unique measures associated with general U.S. trade, tariff, sanctions or licensing outcomes,” Reliance said. “The investment was evaluated and approved on its commercial merits, strategic fit and long-term value creation potential.”

In March, President Trump personally announced Reliance’s deal with the Texas startup on Truth Social, thanking the Ambani company for its “tremendous Investment.”

After the announcement, Willding, the Trump Jr. lawyer, shared the news on LinkedIn: “Just so proud to have been part of this one.”

Willding rowed back his claim in an email to ProPublica. “I have never worked for or advised AFR and had zero involvement in their deal with Reliance Energy,” he said. “I simply saw the press release and was excited for them.” America First Refining’s spokesperson called Willding’s comment “moronic and false.”

In June 2025, Willding registered a new entity in Wyoming called TX Fuels, LLC, listing the company’s address as Trump Jr.’s mansion in Jupiter, Florida. In his email, Willding said his “only involvement in AFR was handling the legal paperwork” for the Trump Jr. LLC’s investment in the startup.

Trump Jr. first hired Willding in May 2021, according to interviews the lawyer has given. A corporate deal lawyer in Dallas, Willding has referred to himself as “outside business counsel to the Trump family” and has said he talks to Trump Jr. or Eric Trump almost daily. A former Bill Clinton and Barack Obama voter who fell hard for MAGA, the attorney has installed a portrait of President Trump over the mantel in his living room.

Willding’s practice has boomed during the second Trump administration, bringing the lawyer to Argentina, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. “Everybody in the world wants to do business with the United States right now,” Willding said at a conference in June 2025. “Every company wants to do business with the Trump family.”

There are other fingerprints of the Trump world on the refinery deal.

Howard Lutnick’s firm Cantor Fitzgerald — which his sons took over when Lutnick became Trump’s commerce secretary — is working as the financial adviser to America First Refining, including on the Ambani investment deal, Cantor Fitzgerald announced. (Cantor Fitzgerald declined to comment.)

And the Trump administration played a direct role helping America First Refining find potential foreign investors, according to public comments from the company’s CEO, John Calce. “We have received support from the White House,” he told a local news outlet. The National Energy Dominance Council, led by the interior and energy secretaries, has “helped us with, candidly, introducing us and helping us meet some of these people overseas,” Calce said on an industry podcast.

America First Refining has recently explored going public, according to three people close to the company. That could allow its current investors to start cashing out even if the refinery never gets built — a milestone many energy industry insiders still view as a long shot. Reliance made its investment in the startup at a valuation of at least $1 billion, according to America First Refining’s announcement.

Building a refinery at the Port of Brownsville on the Gulf Coast has been Calce’s mission for a decade. A former Yale offensive lineman, he started his career as a high school football coach after an unsuccessful attempt to make the NFL and now describes himself as a “lifelong entrepreneur.”

The project has been serially delayed, out of money, rebranded and trailed by angry former business partners. At one point, Calce’s companies were being sued simultaneously by eight other firms. In 2022, during bankruptcy proceedings for an earlier iteration of the project, the trustee appointed to impartially oversee the case sued Calce too. The trustee alleged that Calce and other insiders had improperly siphoned away cash and other assets. (Calce denied wrongdoing. The case was ultimately settled.)

During the Biden administration, as the company sought financial support from the Department of Energy, it pitched itself as a climate-friendly green project that would also help “people of underrepresented social demographics” in Brownsville, according to records from that period. The company failed to get enough money from outside investors, and the planned construction was delayed.

By the company’s own estimate, building the refinery will take years and cost $3 billion to $4 billion. Even if it’s built, profitability could be hard to achieve. Many energy investors told ProPublica there’s a reason the U.S. hasn’t seen a major new refinery in decades. “Refineries cost a lot of money and essentially make pennies on the dollar,” said Ed Hirs, an energy economist in Houston. “Wall Street is not going to finance a new refinery.”

Even after the start of the second Trump administration, the company was in jeopardy, according to interviews and documents. It laid off workers last year, and, by late 2025, with delays continuing to plague the refinery, officials at the Port of Brownsville believed the project looked to be dead, according to records reviewed by ProPublica.

That has not stopped Calce and his team from making grandiose claims to the public. Earlier this year, a website went live for another Calce company called Brownsville Energy Storage Terminals. It claims to have a far-flung network of oil storage terminals in places like the Netherlands and Singapore, more than 850 employees and a C-suite of experienced energy executives. But ProPublica could find no evidence that the executives are real people or that the storage terminals actually exist. The phone numbers on the website are also currently listed online as the contacts for a Houston baklava caterer, a Dallas-area taxi service and an OB-GYN office. The numbers are dead.

America First Refining’s political ties, though, may have boosted its standing with Texas state regulators. In February, shortly before the Ambani investment became public, the company sought an extension on its permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Inside the state agency, emails obtained by ProPublica show, officials scrambled to approve the request.

“Need to get this one logged and processed asap,” wrote one official.

“You are going to have to do this one. I will explain why in person in a few,” wrote another. “You can guess if you check out the name.”

America First Refining got its approval the next day. A spokesperson for the Texas agency did not address questions about the emails. “This request was processed quickly due to the quality of information provided,” the spokesperson said.

In New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, incumbent GOP Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. now knows who he will be competing with this year in the general election: Rebecca Bennett, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who, in a Tuesday primary, defeated three other Democrats. And Never Trump conservative George Conway used the outcome to take a swipe at the "missing" Kean.

Political Polls reported the election results on X late Tuesday night, tweeting, "Former navy helicopter Bennett wins the democratic nomination in NJ-07, the most vulnerable seat for Republicans in NJ. She will run against Missing congressman Kean Jr." And Conway had a humorous response to that tweet: "Maybe she can lead a search-and-rescue mission for her opponent."

Kean, according to many reports, has been missing from Congress for months.

The 39-year-old Bennett defeated three fellow New Jersey Democrats in the primary: businessman Brian Varela, medical doctor Tina Shah and former Biden administration official Michael Roth.

Conway himself is running for office in the United States' 2026 midterms.

Although the conservative attorney, now 62, spent most of his life as a Republican and was a prominent figure in the right-wing legal movement, he became a Democrat in 2025 and is seeking the Democratic nomination for a race in New York's 12th Congressional District — where Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler isn't seeking reelection. Conway is promising to "make America boring again" if he wins the primary and the general election — an obvious swipe at President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

Despite his conservative background, Conway is a scathing critic of Trump and the MAGA movement. Conway supported Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, and he has been quite active in The Lincoln Project (a conservative anti-Trump group).

Conway attacks Trump repeatedly during his frequent appearances on MS NOW; Trump, Conway argues, is terrible for conservatism and terrible for the Republican Party. His ex-wife, GOP strategist Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway, however, was among Trump's top allies during his first administration.

Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. is the son of another well-known New Jersey Republican: Thomas Kean Sr., who served as governor of New Jersey from 1982-1990. Before that, in the early 1970s, the older Kean was speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly.

Although New Jersey is a blue state, it sometimes goes GOP in gubernatorial races. The Garden State's other Republican ex-governors include Christine Todd Whitman (who is very much a Never Trumper) and Chris Christie (who, unlike other GOP primary candidates, attacked Trump vigorously when he ran for president in 2024).

The first half of 2026 has been a chaotic time for U.S. foreign policy: new tariffs, threats to annex Greenland, the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the struggle for control of the Strait of Hormuz.