Former Gov. Bill Richardson’s name removed from UNMH building amid Epstein file questions
By KOB February 12, 2026
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Former Gov. Bill Richardson’s name has been removed from a UNM Hospital building amid questions about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
UNM officials confirmed the decision to rename the building was made in 2026 when the hospital opened the new critical care tower. Communications Director Chris Ramirez said the change aimed to simplify building names and assist patients.
When asked if Richardson’s relationship with Epstein influenced the decision, Ramirez said he didn’t have an answer and couldn’t specify when the name was officially removed.
On Capitol Hill, the House Judiciary Committee questioned Attorney General Pam Bondi about handling the Epstein files. Meanwhile, New Mexico lawmakers are pursuing their own investigations.
State Rep. Andrea Romero is advocating for a truth commission to investigate Epstein’s activities at Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County.
“We know that Jeffrey Epstein had friends in very, very high political places in New Mexico,” said Romero. “This is about justice. This is about the pursuit of the ability of survivors to have their place of justice in our state and to make sure it never happens again.”
Truth commission proposal
The proposal will be debated on the state House floor this Friday. If approved, the commission could subpoena individuals to testify about events at Zorro Ranch.
Local radio host Eddy Aragon received an anonymous email alleging two girls were killed and buried at Zorro Ranch on Epstein’s orders. The email claims video evidence exists and requests payment in Bitcoin.
State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard has asked the state Department of Justice to investigate the allegations, as Epstein leased state land around the ranch. The attorney general’s office is working to verify the email’s claims.
Epstein Files, invoice for sulfuric acid:
Read
Epstein Bought 330 Gallons of Sulfuric Acid on Same Day FBI Launched Trafficking Investigation
Newly released Justice Department documents are raising disturbing new questions about Jeffrey Epstein, as records have revealed a large sulfuric acid purchase for his private island on the very same day that the FBI launched its federal trafficking investigation into the convicted child predator.
According to receipts and internal emails contained within millions of files released on January 30, Epstein arranged for six 55-gallon drums, roughly 330 gallons, of sulfuric acid to be delivered to Little St. James, his private island in the Caribbean also known as “Pedophile Island.”
The chemical purchase, totaling $4,373, occurred on June 12, 2018, coinciding with the launch of the federal probe into his trafficking operation.
Signs are emerging of Epstein’s plan to build a ‘super race’
Epstein’s goal was to have 20 women at a time impregnated at the property. The idea was reportedly inspired by the Repository for Germinal Choice, a now-defunct sperm bank envisioned to populate the human gene pool with DNA of Nobel Laureates.
Baby Ranch’
According to two award-winning scientists and an adviser to large companies, Epstein planned to use his 33,000-square-foot compound, known as Zorro Ranch, outside Santa Fe, as a base to carry out this plan, NYT reported. Epstein shared his ideas over dinner and other social gatherings between 2001 and 2006.
The adviser said he was told about Epstein’s transhumanist idea but also by at least one prominent member of the business community.
Modern-day eugenics
Epstein’s plan was rooted in transhumanism, a belief system that promotes the use of technology and engineering of genetic blueprint to enhance human capabilities.
Critics view transhumanism as a modern-day version of eugenics – the discredited field of improving the human race through controlled breeding, which was used by the Nazis to justify genocide.
A professor emeritus of law at Harvard recalled a conversation he had with Epstein over lunch, where the latter steered the talk toward the question of how humans could be improved genetically.
In 2011, a charity established by Epstein gave $20,000 to the World Transhumanist Association, which now operates under the name Humanity Plus.
Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, and geneticist George M Church were among the names mentioned in the Epstein Files, the archive of 3 million documents revolving around the financier’s criminal activities.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, in the acknowledgments section of his book “The Quark and the Jaguar,” thanked Epstein for his financial support.
Scientists gathered at dinner parties at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion, where ideas were debated over expensive wines, the NYT reported. He hosted buffet lunches at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, which he had helped start with a $6.5 million donation.
The vicous and sustained campaign mounted against Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, by Israel and the U.S. now includes the German, Italian, French, Austrian and Czech foreign ministers demanding her resignation. This campaign is part of an effort by industrial nations to at once sustain the genocide in Gaza — nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the sham ceasefire took effect — and silence all those who demand the international community abide by the rule of law.
The latest assault on Francesca, part of a concerted effort to discredit international bodies such as the U.N., is based on a deliberately truncated video of a talk Francesca gave in Doha on February 7 that distorts and misconstrues her words. But truth, of course, is irrelevant. The goal is to silence her and all who stand up for Palestinian rights.
Francesca was placed by the Trump administration on the Office of Foreign Assets Control list of the U.S. Treasury Department — normally used to sanction those accused of money laundering or being involved with terrorist organizations — six days after the release of her report, “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide,” which documented the global corporations that make billions of dollars from the genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestinians.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control list — weaponized by the Trump administration to persecute Francesca and in violation of the diplomatic immunity granted to U.N. officials — bans her from entering the U.S. It prohibits any financial institution from having her as a client. A bank engages in financial transactions with Francesca is banned from operating in dollars, faces multimillion-dollar fines and is blocked from international payment systems. This has cut her off from global banking, leaving her unable to use credit cards or book a hotel in her name. Her assets in the U.S. are frozen. It has seen her medical insurance refuse to reimburse her for medical expenses. It has resulted in institutions, including U.S. universities, human rights groups and NGOs that once collaborated with her severing ties, fearing onerous U.S. penalties. The sanctions followed those imposed in February and June of last year on The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan along with two judges for issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
By making Francesca, who receives frequent death threats, the lightening rod, these governments seek to deflect attention from the ongoing slaughter and humanitarian disaster in Gaza. They seek to mask Israel’s system of apartheid and unlawful occupation of historic Palestine. They seek to hide, most of all, their complicity with their continuing weapons shipments that fuel Israel’s genocide.
The pace of the genocide has slowed, but it has not stopped. Israel has seized 60 percent of Gaza and blocks most humanitarian aid, including fuel, food and medicine. At the same time, Israel is accelerating its seizure of the occupied West Bank, where more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed and tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes since October 2023.
The campaign against Francesca presages a terrifying world where Western industrial nations exploit and prey upon the weak, where the law is whatever powerful nations say it is, where those who dare to speak the truth and stand up for the rule of law are relentlessly persecuted, where genocide is another tool in the arsenal to crush the aspirations and rights of the vulnerable. This is a fight we must win. If we lose, if we let voices like Francesca’s be silenced, we will usher in an age of blood and terror.
Google plans for sprawling data centre campus on designated wildlife site
Thursday 14th August 2025
Plans from tech giant Google to build a huge new data centre campus on a designated Local Wildlife Site in South Essex have been challenged by the wildlife charity Buglife. A letter to Google UK highlights concerns that the proposed Thurrock Data Centre would lead to the loss of over half of the Arena Essex Local Wildlife Site- home to a nationally important population of invertebrates.
This unique wildlife has been shaped by a complex history of quarrying, landfill and motor sports. Separated from the Lakeside Retail Park by the traffic-filled A13, it was once home to the Arena Essex Raceway until it closed its doors to stock cars and speedway bikes in 2018. However, it has long been recognised that nature has found a home in its mosaic of brownfield features, calcareous grassland, flowery Thames Terrace Grassland, bare ground, scrub and young woodland. Its nationally important invertebrate assemblage includes the Brown-banded Carder Bee (Bombus humilis), Five-banded Weevil-wasp (Cerceris quinquefasciata) and the Dingy Skipper butterfly (Erynnis tages) – with many more to be found – while rare plants such as Endangered Broad-leaved Cudweed (Filago pyramidata) and birds such as Red Listed Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) can also be found across its 52 hectares.
Jamie Robins, Buglife Programmes Manager, says, “Arena Essex is a really unique place for nature in Thurrock. This is simply the wrong place for Google to think of building a data centre campus. If Google is going to live up to its sustainability claims, it shouldn’t even consider bulldozing a Local Wildlife Site. Against the background of a nature emergency, with our insects in steep decline, we have to protect our best remaining habitats – and for powerful companies to make better decisions.”
Google’s plans to raze the site and create a data centre campus are at odds with the claims and commitments in its 2025 Sustainability Report. The report claims that Google is “Cultivating nature on our campuses” and “rebuilding nature in the very places it’s been paved over”. It boasts that “As of the end of 2024, we created or restored approximately 74 acres of habitat” on Google’s campuses. Meanwhile, the Thurrock Data Centre would undo this work and destroy 32 acres of wildlife-rich habitat – motivating over 2,500 supporters to already sign a petition calling on Google to withdraw its plans.
The loss of the Arena Essex site would be yet another devastating blow for Thurrock’s wildlife, which has already seen the loss of multiple designated Local Wildlife Sites to development in recent years, with further threats on the horizon from the Tilbury 3 proposals to expand the Port of Tilbury and the now approved Lower Thames Crossing which cuts across the borough.
Buglife – The Invertebrate Conservation Trust is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England at Allia Future Business Centre, London Road, Peterborough PE2 8AN. Registered charity no. 1092293 Scottish charity no. SC040004 Company no. 4132695
One of the leading figures behind Donald Trump’s MAGA movement discussed opposition strategies with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein against Pope Francis.
Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser to President Trump, told Epstein that he wished to “take down” the leader of the Catholic Church.
In June 2019, Bannon wrote to Epstein: “Will take down Francis. The Clintons, Xi, Francis, EU – come on brother.”
DOJ
This exchange came years after Epstein served a light sentence for his 2008 conviction for child sex offenses in Florida, and just days before Epstein would be arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in New York.
In the text exchange, Bannon references the book “In the Closet of the Vatican,” which exposed much of the secrecy and hypocrisy at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
The book created much controversy as the author, French journalist Frédéric Martel, asserted that more than 80% of the clergy at the Vatican are gay.
Another text exchange from April 2019 shows Epstein emailing himself “in the closet of the vatican.” He then sent Bannon an article titled “Pope Francis or Steve Bannon? Catholics must choose”
Bannon responded: “easy choice.”
It remains unclear how serious Bannon was about his proposal to “take out” the leader of the largest religion in the world. Epstein, for his part, does not directly respond to Bannon’s threat and asks him an unrelated question about the famous professor Noam Chomsky.
Rome and the Vatican were once a very important priority for Bannon. In 2014, the former Trump advisor established a Rome bureau while running the right-wing outlet Breitbart News. He also wanted to set up a “gladiator school” for Judeo-Christian political training near the city—those plans were blocked by the Italian government in 2021. Bannon was furious.
The Daily Beast reached out to a representative of Bannon for comment.
The Daily Beast
Bannon has been all over the DOJ’s latest tranche of Epstein files it released earlier this month. Between mirror selfies and lewd text messages, the pair exchanged regarding one of Trump’s assistants, more details about their relationship have been uncovered.
These particular exchanges between Bannon and Epstein were made during a period of heightened scrutiny on the Catholic Church as sexual abuse scandals plagued the Vatican.
Pope Francis’ world view was also oftentimes at odds with the Trump administration’s agenda, as the pontiff advocated for migrants and was a strong critic of nationalism.
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said of Trump in 2016.
The champagne was flowing as hedge fund executive Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah hosted a reception during the Cannes Film Festival last May to promote “Clinton Cash,” a film by their political adviser Stephen K. Bannon and the production company they co-founded, Glittering Steel.
The Mercers, Republican mega-donors who had spent millions on the failed presidential bid of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, and Bannon, then executive chairman of Breitbart News Network, were still weeks from formally aligning with Donald Trump’s campaign. But the festivities that balmy evening aboard the Sea Owl, the Mercers’ luxurious yacht, marked the growing influence of their financial and political partnership in shaping the 2016 campaign — and in encouraging the populist surge now reverberating around the world.
The Mercers’ approach is far different from that of other big donors. While better-known players such as the Koch brothers on the right and George Soros on the left focus on mobilizing activists and voters, the Mercers have exerted pressure on the political system by helping erect an alternative media ecosystem, whose storylines dominated the 2016 race.
Their alliance with Bannon provided fuel for the narrative that drove Trump’s victory: that dangerous immigrants are ruining the country and corrupt power brokers are sabotaging Washington.
….. He was Trump’s single biggest donor. Mercer started backing Ted Cruz, but when he fell out of the presidential race he threw his money – $13.5m of it – behind the Trump campaign.
It’s money he’s made as a result of his career as a brilliant but reclusive computer scientist. He started his career at IBM, where he made what the Association for Computational Linguistics called “revolutionary” breakthroughs in language processing – a science that went on to be key in developing today’s AI – and later became joint CEO of Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund that makes its money by using algorithms to model and trade on the financial markets.
One of its funds, Medallion, which manages only its employees’ money, is the most successful in the world – generating $55bn so far. And since 2010, Mercer has donated $45m to different political campaigns – all Republican – and another $50m to non-profits – all rightwing, ultra-conservative. This is a billionaire who is, as billionaires are wont, trying to reshape the world according to his personal beliefs.
Donald Trump’s presidential campaigned received $13.5m from Robert Mercer. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images
Robert Mercer very rarely speaks in public and never to journalists, so to gauge his beliefs you have to look at where he channels his money: a series of yachts, all called Sea Owl; a $2.9m model train set; climate change denial (he funds a climate change denial thinktank, the Heartland Institute); and what is maybe the ultimate rich man’s plaything – the disruption of the mainstream media. In this he is helped by his close associate Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign manager and now chief strategist. The money he gives to the Media Research Center, with its mission of correcting “liberal bias” is just one of his media plays. There are other bigger, and even more deliberate strategies, and shining brightly, the star at the centre of the Mercer media galaxy, is Breitbart.
It was $10m of Mercer’s money that enabled Bannon to fund Breitbart – a rightwing news site, set up with the express intention of being a Huffington Post for the right. It has launched the careers of Milo Yiannopoulos and his like, regularly hosts antisemitic and Islamophobic views, and is currently being boycotted by more than 1,000 brands after an activist campaign. It has been phenomenally successful: the 29th most popular site in America with 2bn page views a year. It’s bigger than its inspiration, the Huffington Post, bigger, even, than PornHub. It’s the biggest political site on Facebook. The biggest on Twitter.
Prominent rightwing journalist Andrew Breitbart, who founded the site but died in 2012, told Bannon that they had “to take back the culture”. And, arguably, they have, though American culture is only the start of it. In 2014, Bannon launched Breitbart London, telling the New York Times it was specifically timed ahead of the UK’s forthcoming election. It was, he said, the latest front “in our current cultural and political war”. France and Germany are next.
A determined plutocrat and a brilliant media strategist can, and have, found a way to mould journalism to their own ends
But there was another reason why I recognised Robert Mercer’s name: because of his connection to Cambridge Analytica, a small data analytics company. He is reported to have a $10m stake in the company, which was spun out of a bigger British company called SCL Group. It specialises in “election management strategies” and “messaging and information operations”, refined over 25 years in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. In military circles this is known as “psyops” – psychological operations. (Mass propaganda that works by acting on people’s emotions.)
Cambridge Analytica worked for the Trump campaign and, so I’d read, the Leave campaign. When Mercer supported Cruz, Cambridge Analytica worked with Cruz. When Robert Mercer started supporting Trump, Cambridge Analytica came too. And where Mercer’s money is, Steve Bannon is usually close by: it was reported that until recently he had a seat on the board.
Last December, I wrote about Cambridge Analytica in a piece about how Google’s search results on certain subjects were being dominated by rightwing and extremist sites. Jonathan Albright, a professor of communications at Elon University, North Carolina, who had mapped the news ecosystem and found millions of links between rightwing sites “strangling” the mainstream media, told me that trackers from sites like Breitbart could also be used by companies like Cambridge Analytica to follow people around the web and then, via Facebook, target them with ads.
===========
Facebook was the key to the entire campaign, Wigmore explained. A Facebook ‘like’, he said, was their most “potent weapon”. “Because using artificial intelligence, as we did, tells you all sorts of things about that individual and how to convince them with what sort of advert. And you knew there would also be other people in their network who liked what they liked, so you could spread. And then you follow them. The computer never stops learning and it never stops monitoring.”
“Climate Change Denialism is Now Official US Policy”
On Thursday, February 12, 2026, the Trump administration made one of the most consequential moves on climate policy in U.S. history: EPA finalized a rule rescinding the 2009 greenhouse-gas “Endangerment Finding” as it applies to motor vehicles and engines—and eliminated federal greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles and engines (model years 2012–2027 and beyond).
The White House framed it as a consumer-affordability and anti-red-tape action—Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called it the “largest deregulatory action,” with EPA claiming $1.3 trillion in savings. Climate change activists decried it as a brazen and willfully foolish attempt to gut the legal foundation of federal climate regulation, and an unlawful, science-denying giveaway to polluters that will worsen pollution and public-health harms.
But even before the ink dries, the likely practical consequence—apart from untold damage to the atmosphere— is already coming into focus: a long legal war and a messy regulatory landscape where states—especially California and allied states—try to fill the vacuum while automakers and suppliers brace for uncertainty.
What EPA actually did
EPA’s final rule does two headline things:
Rescinds the 2009 “Endangerment Finding” for greenhouse gases as a prerequisite for regulating emissions from new motor vehicles and engines under Clean Air Act §202(a). EPA’s position is blunt: without that finding, EPA lacks statutory authority under §202(a) to set GHG standards for new vehicles.
Eliminates federal GHG standards for vehicles/engines for model years 2012–2027 and beyond, per EPA’s announcement. EPA also highlighted the removal of related compliance architecture, including items like off-cycle credits and the start-stop credit regime it singled out in public messaging.
This isn’t a narrow adjustment of target numbers. It’s an attack on the legal foundation that made federal vehicle climate regulation possible in the first place—as radical as the RFK public-health rewrite where the point isn’t reform, it’s demolition—scrapping the scientific predicate so the entire regulatory structure can’t stand.
Why this move matters even beyond tailpipes
The Endangerment Finding has functioned for more than a decade as the keystone supporting federal greenhouse-gas regulation across multiple sectors. That’s why the administration’s opponents are treating this not as “an emissions rollback,” but as a direct attempt to defang the Clean Air Act’s climate reach—and why litigation is essentially guaranteed.
EPA itself previewed the legal posture: the agency explicitly tied its reasoning to recent Supreme Court administrative-law decisions, signaling it expects the fight to be decided as much by doctrine as by science.
The administration’s argument: costs, choice, and “unachievable” rules
In making the announcement, Trump framed it as follows:
This rollback will reduce compliance costs (EPA’s claim: $1.3 trillion).
It will reduce the cost of vehicles for consumers (Trump cited a several-thousand-dollar figure in public remarks, as reported).
Prior rules were “unachievable” given market demand for EVs, as some industry-adjacent coverage and statements have echoed.
That’s the sales pitch: less federal constraint, more consumer choice, lower prices.
The predictable consequence: regulatory fragmentation
Here’s the part that matters for industry planning and for the politics of what comes next: vacuum creates leverage.
Legal experts and major outlets are converging on the same forecast: if federal standards are removed (or tied up in court), the U.S. moves toward a patchwork where manufacturers face:
State-by-state regulatory fights
Multi-year litigation
Conflicting timelines and compliance expectations, especially for companies selling nationwide and globally
Reuters put it plainly: without a consistent federal policy, companies may have to navigate differing state and regional emissions rules, and lawsuits are likely.
Reactions: fury on the left, cheers on the right, and a lot of nervousness
California and climate-state coalitions: lawsuit posture, immediately
California is already positioned as the spear tip—CalMatters reported the state is preparing to sue and exploring how to press its own standards in the vacuum.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken the fight international, calling the rollback a “Code Red” for climate leadership and emphasizing that California intends to keep driving policy and investment regardless of Washington.
A coalition response from the U.S. Climate Alliance (co-chaired by Newsom and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers) also slammed EPA’s move.
Environmental and public-health advocates: “this is the legal foundation”
Environmental groups and climate policy organizations framed the decision as a direct assault on the basis for climate regulation—less a regulatory tweak than a structural dismantling.
Automakers and business: mixed public posture, shared private problem—uncertainty
Industry reaction is split in a way that tells you where the real pressure points are:
Some corners of the car-and-aftermarket world openly celebrated the rollback as a win against what they call federal and state “EV mandates.”
But Reuters noted that some major automakers have historically preferred keeping the Endangerment Finding—not because they love regulation, but because a single federal baseline offers predictability and reduces the risk of a fifty-state compliance maze.
International-facing companies are also signaling continuity: Volkswagen, for example, said its transformation commitments remain unchanged—because global markets, investors, and foreign regulations don’t pause when Washington changes course.
This is the under-discussed point: even in a deregulatory moment, multinational manufacturers still live inside European, Asian, and investor-driven expectations. Federal rollback does not repeal global competition.
What happens next
Three tracks begin immediately:
Court fights (states + environmental groups vs. EPA), likely seeking to stay the rule and attack the agency’s legal logic.
State regulatory acceleration, with California and aligned states attempting to preserve aggressive emissions trajectories by any available pathway.
Corporate planning under uncertainty, where automakers hedge: continue EV/efficiency investments for global competitiveness, while lobbying hard for a stable U.S. framework—one way or another.
The administration can call this “deregulation.” The near-term reality looks more like regulatory relocation: from Washington rulemaking to state capitols and federal courtrooms.
Measles cases across Europe and Central Asia declined by 75 per cent in 2025 compared to 2024, according to preliminary data released on Wednesday by the World Health Organization (WHO), which warned of remaining outbreak risks.
“While cases have reduced, the conditions that led to the resurgence of this deadly disease in recent years remain and must be addressed,” said Regina De Dominicis, the UN Children Fund (UNICEF) regional director for Europe and Central Asia.
Fifty-three countries in Europe and Central Asia reported 33,998 measles cases in 2025, down from 127,412 in 2024.
The overall decreasing trend in cases reflects both outbreak response measures and the gradual decline in the number of people susceptible to measles infection as the virus made its way through under-vaccinated communities, according to UN agencies.
Tackling deadly misinformation
However, many cases could have been prevented with higher routine vaccination coverage at community level and more timely response to outbreaks, UN agencies said.
“Until all children are reached with vaccination, and hesitancy fuelled by the spread of misinformation is addressed, children will remain at risk of death or serious illness from measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases,” she warned
Documents show USAID funds redirected for Vought’s security detail
USAID will cease to exist in September after Trump ordered it shuttered
WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (Reuters) – The White House budget office is using millions of dollars from the former U.S. foreign aid agency to pay for the security detail of Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s budget chief and an architect of the government overhaul that has cut thousands of federal jobs, according to three documents seen by Reuters.
The White House Office of Management and Budget, which Vought leads, is allocating $15 million of what remains of USAID operating expenses to cover the costs of his protection by the U.S. Marshals Service through the end of 2026, the documents showed.
Reminder:
What You Should Know About Russ Vought, Trump’s Shadow President
Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fire civil servants, freeze government programs and dismantle entire agencies. Here are some key things to know about the D.C. insider who wants to take a hatchet to the federal government.
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
On the second day of the federal government shutdown, President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video set to the classic song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult. The star of that video, which quickly went viral, was Russell Vought, the president’s top budget adviser. More than that, Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fire civil servants, freeze government programs and dismantle entire agencies, and he’s a big reason the second Trump administration has been more effective at accomplishing its goals than the first. In the video shared by Trump, Vought appeared as the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper of Washington, D.C.
Vought’s title is director of the Office of Management and Budget. The OMB directorship is one of the most powerful jobs in Washington, and Vought has used his position to wage a quiet war to change the shape of the entire U.S. government. In Vought’s hands, OMB has acted as a choke point for the funding that Congress approves and agencies rely on to run the government. While he tends to operate behind the scenes as much as possible, his influence in Trump’s second administration is so pronounced that people have described him as akin to a shadow president.
Here are some of the key things you should know about Vought. Read ProPublica’s full investigation here. (Vought declined to be interviewed for the article. A spokesperson for him at OMB would not comment on the record in response to a detailed list of questions.)
2019
In 2019, after the Trump White House pressured Ukraine’s government to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, it asked Vought, then acting director, to freeze $214 million in congressionally approved security assistance for Ukraine. He obliged.
This impoundment, later deemed illegal by the Government Accountability Office, would trigger congressional investigations and, ultimately, Trump’s first impeachment. During that process, Vought refused to cooperate with investigators, calling the probe a “sham process that is designed to relitigate the last election.”
After the attempt to freeze the Ukraine funds ultimately failed, Vought and Mark Paoletta, an attorney and close ally of Vought’s, spent the years between Trump’s presidencies developing a legal argument that not only are such impoundments legal, but there is a long history of presidents using the power. (Legal experts have disputed Vought’s version of that history.)
2021
In 2021, Vought launched the Center for Renewing America, a think tank devoted to keeping the MAGA movement alive and preparing for a second Trump presidency. According to previously unreported recordings obtained by ProPublica, Vought accepted an assignment from Trump to come up with a way for conservatives to counter Black Lives Matter. He popularized the concept of “woke and weaponized” government — a phrase embraced by GOP politicians and activists to disparagingly label policies, people and even agencies that didn’t fit with the MAGA agenda.
“If you’re watching television and the words ‘woke and weaponized’ come out of a politician’s mouth, you can know that this is coming … from the strategies we’re putting out,” Vought boasted in a recording obtained by ProPublica.
When Vought’s think tank released a federal budget blueprint in 2022, calling for $9 trillion in cuts over 10 years, the word “woke” appeared 77 times across its 103 pages.
2025
Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and the world’s wealthiest person, may have grabbed the headlines as his Department of Government Efficiency took a chainsaw to budgets and staffing. But court records, interviews and other accounts from people close to Vought show that DOGE’s efforts were guided, more than previously known, by the OMB director.
“I can’t imagine that the DOGE team knew to target all these little parts of the government without Russ pointing them there,” a former OMB branch chief told ProPublica.
In May, an official with Citizens for Renewing America, a group founded by Vought, credited Vought with steering DOGE’s cuts. “DOGE is underneath the OMB,” the official said, according to a video of her remarks. “Honestly, a lot of what Elon began pinpointing … was at the direction of Russ.”
An administration official who has worked with Vought and Musk told ProPublica that DOGE showed Vought that it was possible to ignore legal challenges and take dramatic action. “He has the benefit of Elon softening everyone up,” the official said. “Elon terrified the shit out of people. He broke the status quo.”
OCT 1 shutdown was an opportunity:
Vought has frozen $26 billion in federal funding for infrastructure and clean energy projects in blue states in the days after the federal government shut down on Oct. 1. The government has also followed through on Vought’s earlier threat to fire a massive number of civil servants if the shutdown were not averted.
“We work for the president of the United States,” a senior agency official who regularly deals with the OMB told ProPublica. But right now, he added, “it feels like we work for Russ Vought. He has centralized decision-making power to an extent that he is the commander in chief.”
Grim Reaper achievements by cutting USAID (1 percent of US budget):
Recent estimates suggest that cuts to USAID funding have resulted in over 762,000 deaths, including more than 500,000 children, due to reduced support for global health programs. Projections indicate that if these cuts continue, more than 14 million additional deaths could occur by 2030. University of California University of Minnesota
The US acting alone has reached the limits of its power and may already have lost its role as global leader, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, warned Donald Trump at the opening of the Munich Security Conference.
Merz also disclosed he had held initial talks with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, over the possibility of joining France’s nuclear umbrella, underlining his call for Europe to develop a stronger self-standing security strategy.
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Merz drew most applause from an audience brimming with hostility toward US unilateralism when he directly criticised the current American administration, saying: “The culture war of the Maga movement is not ours. Freedom of speech ends here with us when that speech is directed against human dignity and the basic law. We do not believe in tariffs and protectionism, but in free trade. We stand by climate agreements and the World Health Organization.”
“In the age of great powers, our freedom is no longer a given. It is threatened,” he said, adding that “firmness and willpower will be needed to assert this freedom”. Challenging Trump’s unilateral style, Merz added: “Autocracies may have followers, democracies have partners and allies.”
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Describing the Munich conference as a seismograph for the state of US-European relations, he said the Ukraine war “had forced Europe to return from a vacation from world history. Together we have entered an era that is once again marked by power and big-power politics.”
Emails reveal a convicted sex trafficker brokering meetings between Trump’s biggest tech backer and Russian state officials — while Thiel shaped the incoming government
On October 3, 2016, Jeffrey Epstein’s assistant Lesley Groff sent him a scheduling email. Subject line: “Churkin? Thiel?”
“Do you wish me to coordinate with Churkin and Thiel appointments for tomorrow?”
Vitaly Churkin was Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Peter Thiel was Donald Trump’s most prominent Silicon Valley backer — Palantir co-founder, Facebook board member, RNC keynote speaker, $1.25 million Trump donor. The email does not state whether Churkin and Thiel were meeting each other or meeting Epstein separately. But it places both names on Epstein’s calendar within the same 24-hour window, five weeks before Election Day.
The Department of Justice emails spanning 2013 to 2016 expose what can be called the Epstein-Thiel node: a pattern in which a convicted sex trafficker brokered introductions between one of America’s most powerful tech billionaires and Russian state-linked figures — while investing $40 million in Thiel’s venture fund through a shell company that moved over a billion dollars in suspicious transactions, including transfers to sanctioned Russian banks.
Reid Hoffman, who introduced Thiel to Epstein — describing him as “mostly fun, very interesting guy, you may find him perverse” — hosted a dinner at Baumé in Palo Alto on August 2, 2015. The guest list: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein called the evening “wild.” He and Musk had exchanged at least 16 emails in 2012-2013, including plans to visit Epstein’s island and a SpaceX tour where Epstein arrived with “3 girls” whose passports were sent to Musk in advance. After the dinner, Epstein’s assistant emailed Zuckerberg’s chief of staff with Epstein’s contact details — per “Mark’s request.”
What follows is an evidentiary map: who Epstein was introducing to Thiel, how he described them, and what money was moving through his structures while those introductions were happening.
I. The FSB graduate: Sergey Belyakov
The earliest Thiel-Epstein emails center on a man whose biography reads like a Russian intelligence career track.
Sergey Belyakov was born in Moscow in 1973, enrolled in the FSB Academy in 1993, and graduated in 1998. His career was rapid: adviser to aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element by 28, deputy minister of economic development by 39, chairman of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum Foundation by 41, adviser at the Russian Direct Investment Fund — headed by Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev — by 42. The Deripaska connection matters: this is the same oligarch to whom Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort owed millions and through whose network internal Trump polling data ultimately reached Russian intelligence.
Epstein corresponded with Belyakov from at least 2013, pitching Russia as capable of “leapfrogging the global community by reinventing the financial system of the 21st century” through cryptocurrency. By 2014, Epstein held a Russian visa that specifically named Belyakov’s ministry as sponsor. That same year Belyakov wrote: “Our meeting was really interesting for me! I do not know many people like you, who can open new horizons and prospects.”
On June 30, 2015, Epstein introduced Belyakov to Thiel: “My very good friend that I’d organizing innovation conference in Moscow — will be in Palo Alto. Any interest??” He described Belyakov as “out of the finance ministry, young 40s. very organized and can get things done.” No mention of the FSB Academy. No mention of Deripaska.
On July 6, Thiel’s executive assistant coordinated a meeting in San Francisco. The cc line included Belyakov, Thiel, Epstein, and names in Cyrillic script. Within a week, Belyakov reported that meetings with “Thiel and Pritzker” were “very helpful” and he hoped to see both “in Moscow.”
The relationship between Epstein and Belyakov was operational, not social. When Epstein needed information on a Russian woman blackmailing a “powerful biznessman in New York,” Belyakov compiled a dossier within days, reported she was in the “sex and escort” business, and recommended cutting off her U.S. visa. The exchange ran both ways: Svetlana Pozhidaeva, a graduate of MGIMO — the Foreign Ministry academy that trains Russian diplomats and intelligence agents — obtained a U.S. visa through a Belyakov recommendation letter and embedded herself in Epstein’s operation, targeting the American AI and supercomputer network.
The St. Petersburg Economic Forum that Belyakov ran was a known hotspot for Russian escort operations and intelligence-gathering through honeytrap operations. Belyakov provided operational support for Epstein’s network of models, several of whom served dual roles as intelligence assets. In February 2016, he asked Epstein to arrange a meeting with Vincenzo Iozzo, described by FBI informants as Epstein’s “personal hacker.”
An FSB graduate performing intelligence favors, requesting access to cyber capabilities, and personally introduced to Peter Thiel — thirteen months before the election.
II. The Russian Ambassador: Vitaly Churkin
Belyakov was the intelligence channel. Churkin was the diplomatic one.
Churkin was not a private businessman whose FSB connections could be explained away. He was Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations — a senior Kremlin official. He was also involved in bringing Trump to Moscow in 1987. Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse sat a few blocks from the Russian consulate.
Groff’s October 3, 2016 email is the most striking artifact in the correspondence — not because it proves coordination between Thiel and the Kremlin, but because it normalizes proximity. “Churkin? Thiel?” reads like routine calendar housekeeping.
Churkin died suddenly on February 20, 2017 — one day before his 65th birthday — of an apparent heart attack in his Manhattan office. The same month Michael Flynn was fired for lying about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.
After Churkin’s death, Epstein emailed Thiel: “My Russian ambassador friend died. Life is short, start with dessert.”
After Trump won, Belyakov emailed Epstein: “Congrats with your President.” Epstein replied: “fun.” Simultaneously, Belyakov’s RDIF boss Kirill Dmitriev texted an associate: “Putin won.”
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Goldman Sachs chief legal officer and general counsel Kathryn Ruemmler (pictured) has resigned from her position following the recent revelations over her ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Ruemmler, who joined Goldman in 2020 and was promoted to GC a year later, has faced renewed scrutiny as the extent of her relationship with the convicted sex offender was brought to light in the latest release of the Epstein files.
Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem stepped down as CEO and chairman of Dubai-based logistics giant DP World after newly released U.S. Justice Department documents revealed explicit 2015 emails he sent to Jeffrey Epstein describing a sexual relationship with a young woman; the company announced that Yuvraj Narayan will serve as CEO and Essa Kazim as chairman as leadership changes take effect.
‘I Loved the Torture Video’: The Explicit Digital Trail of Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem and Jeffrey Epstein
With details emerging of visits to Little Saint James and unredacted sexual boasts, the DP World chief remains silent
The most shocking fallout involves the prominent Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul and her husband, Terje Rød-Larsen, both lauded as architects of the Oslo peace accords. The pair are now under investigation by Norway’s financial crimes squad, Økokrim, after it was reported that Epstein left the couple’s two children $10m in a will drawn up shortly before his death by suicide in 2019. Juul resigned from her post as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq on Sunday and is being probed on suspicion of gross corruption; her husband on suspicion of complicity in gross corruption.
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And a trove of emails spanning years suggests that ThorbjørnJagland, a former prime minister, foreign minister, Nobel peace prize chair and secretary-general of the Council of Europe may have accepted luxury holidays to Epstein’s Palm Beach resort and his private Caribbean island, sought personal loans and engaged in sexual banter with Epstein. Police at Norway’s economic crimes unit are investigating Jagland on suspicion of aggravated corruption. Jagland has denied wrongdoing and through lawyers says he is “confident of the outcome” of the investigation.
While Juul and Rød-Larsen have said through lawyers that they believe they will be cleared by the investigation, a vignette from 2017 illuminates the spectacular nature of the fall from grace of the pre-eminent power couple in Norwegian diplomatic circles over the past 40 years.
In April of that year, the play Osloopened on Broadway. It was a smash hit, and won a Tony award before transferring to the National Theatre in London; it was subsequently turned into a feature film. Oslo was a dramatisedsequel to the carefully crafted public nimbus surrounding Juul and Rød-Larsen. The husband and wife team made their careers in the 1990s by brokering secret negotiations between Israel and the PLO. The Norwegian commentariat had united in uncritical celebration of the resulting 1993 and 1995 Oslo accords, and of Rød-Larsen and Juul in particular. There were official hagiographies and honorary awards.
Later, there was controversy: in violation of Norwegian archival laws, the couple was accused of placing their Oslo archives at a safe distance from critical Norwegian researchers in closed Israeli archives.
But Rød-Larsen and Juul were depicted in the play as the Oslo accords’ chief protagonists, the heroic drivers of an extraordinary diplomatic achievement. The New York Times called the play a “colossus”.
At a special performance in New York in May 2017, Rød-Larsen personally came on stage on behalf of the IPI, which had sponsored the evening. In the audience was a guest of honour. The guest was Epstein, whom Rød-Larsen had brought in as a benefactor without the knowledge of the IPI’s board. Epstein’s money, we now know from the newly released emails, had paid for the event. Rød-Larsen would later describe Epstein in private texts as his “best friend”, “a great guy” and “deserving to be an angel”.
Three years later, Rød-Larsen resigned as the peace organisation’s CEOover revelations of a loan from Epstein.
Rød-Larsen is now suspected of having used his influence to help procure visas for Russian models to serve as “interns” at his publicly funded peace institute. One of them claims she was later among Epstein’s sexual abuse victims.
Bewilderingly for an erstwhile social democrat, Rød-Larsen, the emails suggest, may have made personal introductions to friends in the international power elite for Steve Bannon.
Note: Trump has a soft spot for Norwegians. He has said, since 2018:
Trump asked why there could not be some people from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, adding, “send us some nice people, do you mind?”
This is a reprise of reported comments by Trump in 2018 at that Oval Office meeting in which he had allegedly asked why there could not be more immigrants from Norway.
Oslo Accords figure deeply linked to Epstein network
Then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, then US president Bill Clinton, and then PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, at the White House in September 1993
Rabin was assassinated 2 years later:
Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, was assassinated on 4 November 1995 at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv.
Arafat’s mysterious death:
Yasser Arafat’s death on November 11, 2004
Wikipedia
Then there is a Los Angeles Talent Agency owner, Casey Wasserman and Ghislaine Maxwell, who he has known for ‘over 20 years’.
What to Know About Casey Wasserman, the CEO Named in the Epstein Files and Dropped by Clients Including Chappell Roan
Emails from Ghislaine Maxwell to Wasserman Media Group CEO Casey Wasserman surfaced in a batch of Epstein files released on Jan. 30
Prominent Hollywood and sports talent agent Casey Wasserman was named in the Epstein files released in January 2026
The documents included flirty emails between the talent agency CEO and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell
Though Wasserman denied having a relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the news prompted multiple of his clients to leave his agency
One of the 3 million Epstein files that the Department of Justice released in January 2026 included email exchanges between convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and longtime Hollywood talent agent Casey Wasserman.
Following the news, multiple of his high-profile clients — including Chappell Roan and Beach Bunny — announced that they were leaving his agency.
“I hold my teams to the highest standards and have a duty to protect them as well,” the “Pink Pony Club” singer wrote on her Instagram Stories on Feb. 9. “No artist, agent or employee should ever be expected to defend or overlook actions that conflict so deeply with our own moral values.”
Though the DOJ hasn’t accused Wasserman of any wrongdoing, one of the emails in question included an offer for a massage from Maxwell. She was arrested in 2020 for her connection to the late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019. Maxwell was later sentenced to 20 years in prison for felony sex trafficking charges.
The emails between Maxwell and Wasserman had a flirtatious tone, with the agent writing in one, “So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”
He told The New York Timesin a statement on Feb. 5 that he “deeply” regretted the correspondence and noted that it happened over 20 years ago, “long before her horrific crimes came to light.” Wasserman also claimed to have no relationship with Epstein.
So who is Casey Wasserman? Here’s everything to know about the Hollywood talent agency CEO and his connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
Wasserman is from a prominent Hollywood family
Wasserman is the grandson of Lew Wasserman, the former CEO of the Music Corporation of America (MCA). Remembered as one of the most important behind-the-scenes names in Hollywood for decades, Lew and his wife, Edie, were responsible for helping stars like Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin skyrocket to fame, per Variety.
Wasserman has run his late grandparents’ charity, the Wasserman Foundation, since Lew’s death in 2002 and Edie’s in 2011.
Casey Wasserman visits southern Israel ahead of Los Angeles Olympics
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