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‘I’m not greedy’: January 6 rioters and Trump allies eye $1.8 billion ‘weaponization’ fund

2026-05-20T22:02:15.066Z / Reuters

Former national chairman of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, holds a megaphone following a march from The Ellipse to the U.S. Capitol in memory of those who died on, or in the aftermath, of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on the fifth anniversary of the attack in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 6, 2026. REUTERS/Leah… Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tabRead more

• Summary

• Capitol riot defendants and Trump allies seek compensation from new fund
• Democrats and some Republicans question fund’s legality and IRS audit ban
• Some Democrats, including James Comey, consider applying for compensation

WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) – (This story contains strong language in paragraph 3)

Since President Donald Trump’s administration announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund for Americans deemed to be victims of political “weaponization,” ​January 6 Capitol riot defendants and other Trump allies have scrambled to figure out how to get their share.

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Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader sentenced ‌to 22 years for seditious conspiracy over the January 6, 2021 riot, said he planned to apply to the fund, assuming he could get between $2 and $5 million.

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“I’m not greedy,” Tarrio said. “But my life was all fucked up because of this.”

Trump pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 defendants last year. Some have now begun to calculate the cost of their prosecution, jail time and businesses lost in the hope of compensation for ​what they regard as abuses by the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden.

Peter Ticktin, an attorney representing more than 400 January 6 defendants, said the fund ​may not be enough.

“People lost multi-million dollar businesses while they were locked up,” he said. “I don’t think the DOJ is ready for us ⁠yet.”

Trump also suggested the fund may be too small. “You’re talking about peanuts,” he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. “It destroyed the lives of many, many people.”

Democrats and some Republicans ​have questioned the legality of the fund, as well as a part of the settlement “forever barring” the IRS from auditing past tax claims by Trump, his relatives and his businesses.

Two police ​officers who defended the U.S. Capitol from Trump supporters on January 6, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to halt the compensation fund, which they described as a “taxpayer-funded slush fund” for Trump followers who engaged in violence.

U.S. acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers on Tuesday that even people who assaulted police on January 6 would not be barred from receiving money.

Tarrio, for his part, thinks those who assaulted police should get their ​share.

“The Justice Department overprosecuted for political gain,” he said. “So everyone deserves to get money.”

In a

Wednesday letter, opens new tab
, Democratic Representatives Jamie Raskin and Richard E. Neal asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, ​Blanche and IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, who negotiated the settlement, whether individual awards would be capped and what reports would be made public.

“Never in American history has a President pursued corruption this brazenly or ‌on such ⁠a colossal scale,” they wrote.

Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said on Wednesday he would try to block the fund through spending-bill amendments, though he acknowledged the issue might have to be resolved separately.

Ticktin, the January 6 lawyer, said he plans to file hundreds of claims once the Justice Department creates the application process and the attorney general appoints the five-member commission overseeing the fund. He said he suggested the idea to Trump, his high school classmate, in a March email, but doesn’t know if that had any impact on the creation ​of the fund.

Some January 6 defendants praised the ​Justice Department for adopting terms they ⁠have long used — including “lawfare,” “weaponization” and “victims” — and cast the fund as payback for years of injustice.

“Now liberals wanna cry about righting the wrong, too bad,” wrote Jennie Carso-Heinl, who pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, on X. “Justice is coming.”

At least one Trump ally ​has already made a formal request: Michael Caputo, a former administration official, asked Blanche for $2.7 million in “restitution” over investigations by the Biden ​administration and special counsel ⁠Robert Mueller.

Some Democrats have floated applying too, arguing that Trump’s Justice Department has pursued flimsy political cases against them. Blanche told lawmakers Tuesday the fund could pay members of both parties.

Former FBI Director James Comey, twice indicted since Trump began his second term, said on CNN that he has considered applying.

“It’s to compensate people who’ve been targeted by the Justice Department for, they say, ⁠personal, political or ​ideological reasons,” Comey said. “So I’m guessing I’ll be in line.”

For some Trump supporters, though, the fund may not ​go far enough.

Barry Ramey, a Proud Boys affiliate convicted of attacking police officers, said he is unsure whether to apply because taking money could jeopardize his claim against the Bureau of Prisons.

“My commitment to justice is not ​about the money,” he said. “I want to show they acted illegally.”

But if he could secure $2 million, he said, he might reconsider.

Reporting by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Editing by Michael Learmonth and Alistair Bell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Fox News Poll: 30% think recent Trump assassination attempt was staged

May 20, 2026 6:00pm EDT / Fox News

A slim majority believes shooting at White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was real

By Dana Blanton, Fox News

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6394604592112
The WHCA Dinner shooting was clearly attempted murder, criminal defense attorney says

Criminal defense attorney Joshua Ritter discusses the state of the evidence in WHCA Dinner shooting on ‘The Story.’

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Three in 10 voters believe the recent assassination attempt against President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was staged, according to a Fox News national survey.

Thirty percent say the shooting was fabricated, including 13% of voters who think it was “definitely” staged.That said, a narrow 52% majority believes the attack was real, with nearly one-third saying it “definitely” happened (31%).

One in five is unsure whether it was real or fake (18%).

FOX NEWS POLL: VOTERS SEE AI AS A RISK TO PRIVACY AND PAYCHECKS

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The alleged gunman behind the April 25 attack, Cole Tomas Allen, has pleaded not guilty to the four felony charges filed against him by the Justice Department. The incident marked the third attempt on Trump’s life, following two separate assassination attempts in 2024.

Public attitudes surrounding the attack suggest the erosion of a shared reality may have reached a critical tipping point. Most notably, the partisan divide on the attack’s authenticity is stark. The survey finds almost half of Democrats (49%) and voters who backed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024 (48%) believe the shooting was staged, while just 10% of Republicans say the same.

Meanwhile, 79% of Republicans believe the event was real, as do 77% of 2024 Trump voters. That number climbs to 87% among Republicans who identify as MAGA supporters. By comparison, just 31% of Democrats agree the attack was real.

Views among independents are mixed: 41% say it was real and 34% believe it was staged.

Uncertainty about whether the incident was real or not is highest among independents, with one quarter unsure (25%), followed by 2 in 10 Democrats (21%), and 1 in 10 Republicans (11%).

FOX NEWS POLL: 56% DOUBT WHITE HOUSE’S COMPETENCE AT MANAGING GOVERNMENT

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Republicans under age 45 are more than five times as likely as older Republicans to think the shooting was staged (22% vs. 4%).

Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts Fox News polls with Democrat Chris Anderson, stresses that the assassination attempt was undoubtedly real, warning that a growing denial of facts threatens the political process.

“When partisan polarization and political cynicism prevent us from agreeing on a common and obvious set of facts, it undercuts our ability to diagnose problems and develop policy solutions,” Shaw says. “This is especially troubling given that younger voters are among the most cynical about our politics and institutions.”

“These findings show what happens when public skepticism becomes embedded in the political culture,” adds Anderson. “When people are told that every major event could be manipulated or manufactured, disbelief itself becomes the default reaction.”

Voters under age 35 are nearly twice as likely as those ages 65 and over to think the shooting was fabricated (38% vs. 20%), as seniors are among those most likely to say it was real (65%).

There’s also a gender gap, as more women (35%) than men (25%) consider it staged.

More than 6 in 10 White evangelical Christians believe the shooting happened, while 2 in 10 don’t.

CLICK HERE FORCROSSTABSANDTOPLINE**

Conducted May 15-18, 2026, under the direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News survey includes interviews with a sample of 1,002 registered voters randomly selected from a national voter file. Respondents spoke with live interviewers on landlines (109) and cellphones (635) or completed the survey online after receiving a text (258). Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of ±3 percentage points. Sampling error for results among subgroups is higher. In addition to sampling error, question wording and order can influence results. Weights are generally applied to age, race, education, and area variables to ensure the demographics are representative of the registered voter population. Sources for developing weight targets include the most recent American Community Survey, Fox News Voter Analysis, and voter file data.

Fox News’ Victoria Balara contributed to this report.

As head of the polling unit, Dana Blanton runs the Fox News Poll and oversees the Fox News Voter Analysis election survey.

‘This is long overdue’: Jan. 6 rioters and election deniers celebrate Trump’s $1.8 billion compensation fund

2026-05-20T20:00:37.968Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/20/politics/trump-fund-january-6-election-deniers-want-money

Supporters of President Donald Trump who tried to overturn the 2020 election are among those eager to potentially cash in from the $1.8 billion compensation fund for people the Trump administration believes were victims of government “weaponization and lawfare.”

In interviews with CNN, convicted US Capitol rioters from January 6, 2021, fake electors and prominent election deniers said they’re hoping to tap the massive fund, which they think is long overdue.

“I can’t even find a job answering the phone at a motorcycle dealership,” said convicted January 6 rioter Dominic Box, who spent 1.5 years in jail awaiting trial and was later pardoned by Trump. “I can’t find a way to support myself right now. I lost my career. I look forward to financial compensation. I need it. This will be a welcome relief.”

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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told CNN he believes his company lost $400 million due to what he views as government weaponization in the aftermath of the 2020 election. He was perhaps the loudest promoter of baseless voter-fraud claims – drawing boycotts from businesses, defamation lawsuits and even FBI scrutiny.

“I would say we were the number-one company in the world hurt by our own government,” said Lindell.

A lawyer for One America News, the pro-Trump channel that promoted false 2020 vote-rigging claims, also confirmed to CNN that the company is “seriously considering pursuing rights under this fund.” OAN was later dropped by most large cable providers and also settled multiple 2020-related defamation lawsuits.

Top Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, have dodged questions over whether people convicted of January 6-related crimes, including people who assaulted police, should be awarded any of the funds.

“Anybody can apply,” Blanche told lawmakers during a budget hearing Tuesday, noting that even people who stormed the Capitol can submit claims that will be reviewed by a five-member commission that he’ll appoint.

The fund is open to a much broader swath of Trump allies, far beyond the 2020 election. Potential recipients could include people who were scrutinized during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Trump administration officials who were entangled in Trump-Ukraine impeachment in 2019, and others.

The first known potential claimant, Trump adviser Michael Caputo, was investigated by Mueller in part because of his connections to Russian officials. He was never charged and is seeking $2.7 million in restitution because, he said, the probes cost him and his family, financially and beyond.

Former FBI Director James Comey joked on CNN that he may also have a claim to file, given that the Trump administration tried and failed in prosecuting him for allegedly lying to Congress and now filed new charges alleging that a picture of seashells on the beach spelling out “86 47” constituted a threat against Trump.

“It’s to compensate people who’ve been targeted by the Justice Department for, they say personal, political, or ideological reasons,” Comey told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “So, I’m guessing I’ll be in line. I hope I’ll be ahead of those who savagely beat police officers and sacked the Capitol.”

The largest group of potential “victims” are the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

They all already received clemency from Trump, in the form of mass pardons and commutations, which freed hundreds of convicts from prison and ended pending prosecutions. But the new Trump fund delivers on a key goal that many in the January 6 community have clamored for: Restitution.

“This is long overdue,” Box said. “It’s not okay for hardworking, average Americans to be chewed up and destroyed as a collective boogeyman.”

Box was convicted in 2024 on all charges, including felonies, but he wasn’t accused of violence at the Capitol. After Trump granted mass pardons in 2025, the Justice Department dismissed Box’s case, before sentencing.

Box, a college graduate who lives in Georgia, said he worked as a car salesman before January 6 but struggled to find work after the insurrection.

“The car market exploded during Covid,” Box said. “Because of my inability to work in a forward-facing role, I wasn’t able to acquire any of that income. I knew guys who typically made $40,000 a year, and then got $150,000 to $200,000.”

One of the most recognizable faces from January 6 says he isn’t planning on tapping the fund.

Jacob Chansley, better known as the “QAnon Shaman,” told CNN this week he hopes to be compensated through a $40 trillion lawsuit he brought against Trump, alleging all kinds of government conspiracies. A judge dismissed the case last year. But Chansley, who is representing himself, re-filed the longshot case.

Chansley told CNN last year that he had broken with Trump over the president’s handling of the scandal surrounding sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Two attorneys who represented members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were charged and convicted of conspiring to change the 2020 election results told CNN they would look into whether their clients might apply for the funds.

One attorney told CNN their client, a member of the Oath Keepers who infamously moved into the Capitol in a “stack formation” while dressed in camo and paramilitary garb, was “never the same” after the January 6 investigations and cases, struggling to find work and rebuild their life.

The pro-Trump “fake electors” from 2020 also stand to benefit from the fund, especially because most of them became entangled in legal cases.

These were 84 Republicans who signed certificates in seven key states like Georgia and Michigan, falsely proclaiming Trump won their state. This was part of a larger plot, overseen by the Trump campaign, to overturn Joe Biden’s victory while Congress certified the results on January 6, 2021.

Democratic prosecutors in Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada ended up charging some or all of the fake electors from their states. Most of those cases were ultimately dismissed or were stalled by appeals.

“Reading the announcement was an emotional relief,” Meshawn Maddock, one of the Republican electors from Michigan, told CNN. “I was debanked. I faced the real possibility of prison time. The trauma to my three kids and the thought of being separated from my grandchildren – it took a lot out of us.”

A judge dropped the charges against Maddock and the other Michigan fake electors last year, due to insufficient evidence of intent to break the law.

But a civil case against the GOP slate is ongoing, and legal fees are piling up. Kevin Kijewski, an attorney for fake elector Clifford Frost, said some of the 16 defendants have spent up to $300,000, and they deserve compensation.

“This commission is a good idea,” Kijewski said. “Cliff paid a price personally, professionally and financially. His realtor business still hasn’t recovered since all this happened. Personal relationships were destroyed. The dismissal of criminal charges doesn’t pay back the legal fees and undo the damage.”

Another Michigan elector, John Haggard, 84, was in the hospital for heart surgery on the day the charges were dropped in September. He attended the court hearing over Zoom, from his hospital bed, connected to machines, Kijewski said. Haggard died hours later.

“This cost him his peace of mind, his money, and to some extent, his life,” Kijewski said.

Other prominent 2020 election deniers could qualify for payments.

Lindell, the beleaguered MyPillow CEO, said the fund was Trump’s way of “looking out for these people that were attacked.”

After Trump lost the 2020 election, Lindell was one of the loudest voices promoting false claims about voting machines rigging the results. This led to several defamation lawsuits, including one where Lindell was ordered to pay $2.3 million in damages to an ex-Dominion Voting Systems executive. Lawsuits filed by Dominion and another company, Smartmatic, are ongoing.

Lindell’s pursuit of election conspiracy theories after 2020 also led major retailers to pull his pillows from their shelves, it also prompted scrutiny from law enforcement – in 2022, Lindell’s phone was seized by the FBI.

Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters could also benefit from the new DOJ fund, and her plight even received a shout-out from the Whtie House.

Peters, 70, is in state prison for her role in a criminal conspiracy with some of Lindell’s associates to breach her county’s voting systems in 2021, in hopes of proving that the 2020 election was rigged. But she’ll be released early next month, after receiving a controversial commutation last week from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, which swiftly drew bipartisan condemnation.

Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday at a press conference that he thinks Peters is an “innocent grandmother” who got a “completely disproportionate” sentence, and therefore, it’s “reasonable for her to get some compensation.”

One of Peters’ lawyers, John Case, told CNN the DOJ fund was “great news” but it’s still unclear how claims will be processed.

Her team has argued for years that she was victimized by overzealous prosecutors and biased judges. Case noted that one of her criminal convictions, in a separate contempt case, was already overturned by an appeals court in 2024.

A state appeals court recently upheld Peters’ felony convictions in the election-breach case. But the panel threw out her sentence and ordered a re-hearing, finding that the trial judge improperly based part of Peters’ punishment on her protected speech promoting 2020 election conspiracies.

To those who oppose clemency and possible compensation for Peters, Case asked, “If a judge said you were going to prison for nine years, because of words you used to criticize the government, would you think that’s fair?”

It’s possible that pro-Trump news outlets that paid millions of dollars in 2020-related legal settlements could now seek reimbursement from the DOJ.

Chris Babcock, a lawyer for OAN, told CNN the company “is seriously considering pursuing rights under this fund and will make a decision shortly about whether to file a claim.”

OAN settled lawsuits with Dominion and Smartmatic for unclosed amounts. The cases stemmed from OAN promoting egregious lies about voting machines flipping millions of ballots from Trump to Biden in 2020.

Spokespeople for Fox News and Newsmax did not answer CNN’s questions about whether they would utilize the DOJ fund.

Fox News paid $787 million to settle a 2020-related defamation lawsuit from Dominion. Newsmax paid about $107 million to settle lawsuits from Dominion and Smartmatic.

Mojtaba Khamenei using ‘bin Laden template’ to survive, learned from Abbottabad: analyst

2026-05-20 5:01pm EDT / Fox News

His father Ali Khamenei was killed in a targeted U.S.-Israeli airstrike in Tehran during Operation Fury in February

By Emma Bussey, Fox News

Ayatollah’s threat to US in question amid lack of public appearances

Fox News correspondent Bryan Llenas joins ‘America Reports’ from Tel Aviv to break down a warning allegedly written by Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei regarding the U.S. blockade in the Strait of Hormuz and President Donald Trump’s reaction.

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4 min

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has spent nearly three months in hiding as tensions with the U.S. escalate — a disappearance that counterterrorism analysts say mirrors the final years of al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.

The comparison comes amid a critical standoff between Washington and Tehran that prompted President Donald Trump to pause a planned strike on May 19. On Wednesday, Trump told reporters he was in “no hurry.”

Khamenei, meanwhile, appeared to share three posts on his official X account on May 18 but remains out of public view.

“For the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic, the United States has done to Tehran what it spent two decades doing to al-Qaeda and ISIS,” counterterrorism expert Dr. Omar Mohammed told Fox News Digital.

THE MISSING MULLAH: IRAN’S ‘SUPREME LEADER’ A NO-SHOW FOR NEGOTIATIONS, THEN HID AS US POUNDED NUKE SITES

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is shown in a portrait image.(Fox News)

“The U.S. has driven its leader into the same kind of operational invisibility that bin Laden lived in for 10 years in Abbottabad,” he added.

“Both Mojtaba Khamenei and bin Laden inherited their status on the back of an American operation, and both responded the same way: by ceasing to exist publicly,” Mohammed said before adding that bin Laden “stopped releasing dated videos around 2007 and confined himself to audio messages carried by hand.”

Bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in the late 1980s and masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.

After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden evaded capture for a decade by hiding inside a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

To avoid Western electronic surveillance, he severed his digital footprint and relied exclusively on a network of physical couriers, said Mohammed, an expert with the Antisemitism Research Initiative at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

U.S. intelligence eventually tracked one of those couriers to the compound, culminating in the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed the al Qaeda leader.

OPERATION EPIC FURY: HOW AMERICA’S AIR POWER IS CRUSHING IRAN’S TERROR REGIME

Portrait of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed in 2011 in a daring SEAL Team 6 raid in Pakistan.(Photo by Stephane Ruet/Sygma via Getty Images)

“Bin Laden survived with no cables out of the Abbottabad compound. Communications were carried by hand by two trusted couriers, the Kuwaiti brothers,” Mohammed said.

“Bin Laden stayed hidden for the rest of his life because the moment he surfaced was the moment he died. Mojtaba’s incentives point the same way. Mojtaba Khamenei won’t emerge,” he said.

“The Abbottabad lesson, which Tehran will have studied closely, is that the safest hiding place is not a cave in Tora Bora but a walled compound in a garrison town,” Mohammed added, recalling how U.S. forces targeted bin Laden in the cave complex before he escaped.

Bin Laden also lived roughly a mile from Pakistan’s top military academy, hiding in plain sight behind high concrete walls and barbed wire, Mohammed noted.

“The logical Iranian equivalents are hardened sites under or alongside IRGC facilities,” Mohammed added, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and possible locations where Khamenei could be.

As previously reported by Fox News Digital, one of Khamenei’s few recent communications was an X post declaring a “holy war,” framing the geopolitical clash as a mandatory religious obligation.

INSIDE IRAN’S RULING IDEOLOGY: HOW A ‘HOLY MISSION’ AND MESSIANIC DOCTRINE FUEL REGIME EXTREMISM

President Donald Trump said, “I got him before he got me” after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top leaders were killed in an Israeli strike in Tehran during the U.S.-Israeli military offensive called Operation Epic Fury.(Majid Saeedi/Getty Images; Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“This is a religious leader calling for sacred war against America and the Jews from an undisclosed location because his enemies have publicly vowed to kill him on sight,” Mohammed said, describing the narrative as “the bin Laden template, almost line for line.”

Mohammed also suggested Khamenei’s retreat into the shadows marks a watershed moment for Washington and the future of the Iranian regime.

His predecessor and father, Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed Feb. 28 in a targeted U.S.-Israeli airstrike in Tehran during Operation Epic Fury.

“This regime that for 47 years projected its power through a single visible Supreme Leader at the Friday prayer pulpit can no longer produce that figure on demand,” he said, calling it a “strategic milestone.”

“Predecessors killed by U.S. strikes and successors who cannot show their faces. Real power exercised by a security apparatus rather than by the nominal figurehead.”

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“Now one side is announcing operations on three continents through its president; the other is governed on paper by a man whose own population is uncertain where he is or what state he is in,” Mohammed said.

“The contrast is also about the optics of leadership during this war,” he added.

Emma Bussey is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox, she worked at The Telegraph with the U.S. overnight team, across desks including foreign, politics, news, sport and culture.

US military surveillance blimp on loan to CBP is lost at the southern border, wreckage found in Mexico

2026-05-20T20:35:59.876Z / CNN

By Davis Winkie

PUBLISHED May 20, 2026, 4:35 PM ET

This 2010 image shows a Persistent Ground Surveillance System blimp in Arizona. A similar military-owned surveillance blimp broke free from its tether on Monday evening near Laredo, Texas, and crashed in Mexico.

Tech. Sgt. Vanessa Valentine/U.S. Joint Forces Command/File

Summary

• A US military surveillance blimp, on loan to CBP, broke free from its tether near Laredo, Texas.
• The 66-foot helium-filled aircraft floated across the border and crashed in a remote area of Mexico.
• CBP operates surveillance blimps across the region. Some are equipped with high-powered cameras, and others carry radar systems that detect drones and other aircraft operated by smugglers.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

A US military-owned surveillance blimp operated by Customs and Border Protection contractors near Laredo, Texas, broke free from its tether on Monday evening and later crashed in Mexico.

The blimp did not carry a crew when in the air, and no ground personnel were injured in the incident.

The 66-foot surveillance blimp’s tether cable, which secures the balloon to the ground, became tangled with other cables amid storms on Monday, a spokesperson for Joint Task Force-Southern Border, confirmed in a statement to CNN.

That evening, a nearby airport experienced heavy thunderstorms that brought wind gusts as high as 44 miles per hour, according to National Weather Service data.

The aircraft’s operators tried to untangle the cables, the spokesperson said, but the helium-filled blimp “became untethered” and floated away. The military declined to say which specific model of balloon was lost, only describing the aircraft as a “medium aerostat.”

CBP operates surveillance blimps across the region. Some are equipped with high-powered cameras, and others carry radar systems that detect drones and other aircraft operated by smugglers.

The runaway balloon’s location was unknown until Mexico’s military discovered it “in a remote location … southwest of Laredo,” according to the spokesperson. Mexican and US troops are coordinating to recover the aerostat.

A CBP spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment.

Border Patrol began using small “tactical” blimps for surveillance in 2012, but the program has periodically run out of funding. Many of the aircraft belong to the Department of Defense, which spent more than $5 billion to develop and purchase more than 140 surveillance blimps during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, according to a Government Accountability Office report published in 2012.

CBP lost an even larger surveillance blimp in March 2025, when a 200-foot aerostat operating on South Padre Island, Texas, broke free from its tether and floated nearly 600 miles before careening into power lines near Dallas.

CPB, which oversees Border Patrol, plays a crucial role in President Donald Trump’s efforts to secure the US-Mexico border and restrict illegal immigration.

Trump’s emphasis on hardening the border has brought CBP a litany of military manpower and equipment as well, sometimes with unintended consequences.

In February, CBP’s use of a high-energy anti-drone laser system furnished by the Pentagon to shoot down balloons led the Federal Aviation Administration to suddenly shut down civilian airspace over El Paso, Texas.

_Davis Winkie’s work at CNN is supported by a partnership between_Outrider Foundation_and Journalism Funding Partners (JFP). CNN retains full editorial control of the reporting._

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More gasoline price shocks might hit US drivers this summer travel season

2026-05-20T21:35:46.594Z / Reuters

Summary

• Automobile Association expects record 39.1 million to travel by car this weekend
• Gasoline prices surge due to Iran conflict, Strait of Hormuz closure impacts supply
• Analysts warn that low inventories, refinery outages and hurricanes could push prices higher

NEW YORK, May 21 (Reuters) – As millions of travelers hit the road for the U.S. Memorial Day holiday ​weekend, high gasoline prices fueled by ongoing supply disruptions from the war with Iran are set to add financial strain for motorists, kicking ‌off what is set to become a pricier summer travel season.

U.S. retail gasoline prices have jumped more than $1.50 per gallon, or about 45%, since late February, when the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran. Prices for crude oil used to make gasoline have also surged, along with prices for many goods, as the conflict has led to the effective closure of the ​Strait of Hormuz, a key trade conduit through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil consumption flows.

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President Donald Trump is facing mounting political pressure as ​households grapple with higher energy costs. Several states are already suspending gas taxes to ease the pain at the pump, and

similar discussions
about ⁠reducing the 18.4-cent federal gasoline tax are underway.

US retail fuel prices have surged sharply

This Memorial Day weekend, a three-day weekend during which many Americans take to the road, will kick off the summer ​travel season. Even with higher gas prices, a record of 39.1 million people are expected to travel by car and 3.66 million by plane to their destinations, according ​to American Automobile Association (AAA) data.

“This is the most volatile summer at the pump in years, and the Strait of Hormuz closure is at the center of it,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, adding that Americans are going to pay billions more to get where they’re going this summer, and even after the Strait reopens. It could take a ​year or more for prices to fully recover, he added.

HIGHER COSTS, SHORTER TRIPS

Still, travelers are planning to drive fewer miles this summer, reflecting the financial strain prolonged ​high energy prices have on American motorists.

Just 56% of Americans now plan to drive more than two hours this summer, compared to 69% last year, a new GasBuddy survey shows. ‌Cost is now ⁠the dominant travel consideration, with 67% saying gas prices are directly impacting their driving plans and 36% saying rising costs are causing them to take fewer road trips, the survey shows.

Despite prices at the pump hovering at their highest level in four years, gasoline consumption remained relatively strong, analysts said, however, they warned a supply shortage could be on the horizon with summer travel season approaching.

“Gasoline storage has fallen for fourteen weeks in a row, and every week during the war in Iran, ​and we are going to stagger into ​Memorial Day weekend, the start of ⁠the summer driving season, within striking distance of the 11-year low,” said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho. “We are in big trouble as far as gasoline is concerned,” he said.

U.S. gasoline inventories fell by 1.5 million barrels last week to 214.2 ​million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.1 ​million-barrel draw.

On top of ⁠uncertainty that still looms over the Middle East, recent refinery outages, the approaching Atlantic hurricane season and tightening global inventories will add further upward pressure to fuel costs.

The national average price of gasoline is projected to be $1.48 more expensive on this Memorial Day compared to last year, GasBuddy forecast on Wednesday showed, adding that if traffic through the ⁠Strait of ​Hormuz remained restricted for much of the summer, prices could cross the $5 per gallon mark.

“We have to ​be very concerned that globally we’re drawing inventories at a terrific pace, and global demand is finding its way here not just for crude, but for refined products,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again ​Capital.

Reporting by Nicole Jao in New York; Additional reporting by Georgina McCartney in Houston; Editing by Stephen Coates

One GOP congressman is vowing to end Trump’s $1.8 billion compensation fund for allies

2026-05-20 5:18 PM ET / CNN

By Ellis Kim, Annie Grayer

Updated May 20, 2026, 5:50 PM ET

PUBLISHED May 20, 2026, 5:18 PM ET

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, in December 2025.

Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Summary

• Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said he is exploring ways to block the nearly $1.8 billion fund.
• Many congressional Republicans say they were left in the dark about the fund and are scrambling to learn its details.
• The Department of Justice says the fund will be overseen by five board members appointed by the attorney general, with one chosen after consulting Congress.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

One Republican congressman says he is exploring ways to end the Trump Justice Department’s move to establish a tax-payer fueled “anti-weaponization” fund, a move likely to draw the ire of President Donald Trump.

Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick told reporters he “100%” wants to prevent the nearly $1.8 billion fund that could compensate Trump’s allies from moving forward.

“Once we get to the bottom of the source of the funding, we’re going to put legislative text together. We got to figure out what we have jurisdiction over. That’s the first question,” he said Wednesday, later sending a letter to the Justice Department demanding answers about the fund.

Fitzpatrick, a moderate who represents a district that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, was the first in his party to publicly reject the fund outright and vow to stop it. He has recently bucked some of Trump’s other priorities – like funding for his East Wing ballroom – and provoked the president’s threat of backing a primary opponent against him.

A number of Republicans across the Capitol, however, were scrambling behind the scenes to learn more about the fund and what oversight role they can play, underscoring how lawmakers in the president’s own party are often left in the dark about key administration moves.

Related article President Donald Trump speaks to the press before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Wednesday. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Why Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund is so scandalous 6 min read

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that he expects scrutiny over the fund to occur through the appropriations process for the next fiscal year.

“My assumption is that, based on some of the blowback that’s come since this was announced, that there would be a significant amount of attention paid to it,” Thune told reporters Tuesday.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins pressed acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for more details in a Senate hearing on Tuesday, asking how much will be paid for each claim, the legal basis for those decisions and whether the information related to the claims will be publicly available.

Blanche acknowledged that the creation of the fund “is unusual” but argued that “it is not unprecedented.”

The DOJ’s announcement earlier this week outlines that the money to enact these settlements will come from a permanent appropriation already established for the department to settle cases, called the judgment fund. According to the department, the attorney general will appoint five board members to oversee the fund, one of whom will be chosen “in consultation” with congressional leadership.

But House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that “we don’t know any of the details of that settlement fund.”

A source with experience settling federal employment cases noted that the judgment fund already exists to handle such settlements, arguing that the establishment of the so-called anti-weaponization fund felt more like an overblown press release with political ramifications and saying it does not change the legal process.

Still, most Republicans are trying to learn the basics about the fund given they were not consulted ahead of time.

House Oversight Chair James Comer said he did not know anything about the fund until he read news reports about it.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, meanwhile, told CNN he was not consulted or given any heads up about the administration’s creation of this fund or how it would be used and said he was looking into whether any legislative action is required.

“I don’t know anything about it. I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know what it is legislatively. So I really don’t have anything to say,” Cole said.

白宫：特朗普拟短时间内决定新对台军售

2026年5月21日 07:42 / 联合早报

美国白宫官员星期三（5月20日）告诉台湾媒体，美国总统特朗普将在相当短的时间内，针对新对台军售方案做出决定。

特朗普同日称，将与台湾总统赖清德交谈。目前特朗普政府正在考虑是否推进对台湾的140亿美元（179亿新元）军售，这项潜在交易已引发中国大陆批评。

特朗普也说：“我们很好地掌控了局势。我们和习主席举行了很棒的会晤……我们会处理台湾问题。”特朗普上周五（15日）结束对华三天国事访问。

自1979年美国与台湾断交、与中国大陆建交以后，台美领导人47年来只在2016年有过一次简短通话，时任台湾总统蔡英文在特朗普首次当选总统后致电祝贺。

有白宫官员以背景说明的方式告诉台湾《联合报》，如同特朗普所言，特朗普将在相当短的时间内，针对新的对台军售方案做出决定。

延伸阅读

美国对台军售未定 特朗普称将与赖清德交谈

白宫并说明，特朗普去年12月核准111亿美元的对台军售，符合美国自1950年以来的政策。

白宫也说，特朗普在第一任期核准的对台军售多于美国其他总统；在第二任期核准的对台军售，多过前总统拜登四年任期的总额。

DOJ veterans fear criminal probe into ex-CIA director is being stacked with Trump loyalists

2026-05-20T17:49:00-0400 / CBS News

Law enforcement veterans are expressing deep concerns that the Trump Justice Department’s criminal investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan is being systematically stacked with politically motivated personnel who are intent on a partisan indictment.

Brennan is the subject of two criminal probes being led by the Miami-area U.S. Attorney’s Office. One is weighing allegations that he lied to Congress in 2023 about the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The second is a sprawling “grand conspiracy” probe examining whether Obama- and Biden-era officials were part of a long-running conspiracy to keep President Trump out of political office.

Last month, the Justice Department abruptly removed the senior career prosecutor who was overseeing the Brennan case after she expressed concerns about the strength of the evidence and replaced her with Joseph DiGenova, a staunch Trump ally, to run both investigations.

On Tuesday, DiGenova’s wife, Victoria Toensing, a former federal prosecutor, conservative commentator and staunch Trump ally, was sworn in as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida. DiGenova declined to say whether she is working on the Brennan and grand conspiracy cases, but a source with direct knowledge confirmed she is.

Now, multiple sources are raising concerns that some of the line prosecutors and FBI agents assigned to the case may harbor underlying political motivations that could cast doubt on their ability to conduct an impartial investigation.

One of the FBI agents, for example, once sought to investigate whether Italian military satellites hacked American voting machines in the 2020 election. A second agent was involved in the recently botched criminal prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, sources told CBS News, and also lobbied senators to confirm Kash Patel to be FBI director.

Those two agents — Rose Marketos and Jack Eckenrode — both served on the Director’s Advisory Team at the FBI, which was set up by Patel and staffed by agents from around the country who support his policy goals, according to sources familiar with the matter.

A number of the agents who have participated in that group have also been assigned to work on high-profile cases involving targets identified by Mr. Trump as political adversaries.

Marketos and Eckenrode did not respond to requests for comment.

“The FBI does not comment on the contents or existence of investigations in the media, particularly those pertaining to classified information,” an FBI spokesperson said. “Moreover, any accusation of political bias is false and eerily similar to the actual conduct of former officials under the previous administration who actively participated in weaponized government for years.”

Meanwhile, one of the line prosecutors who recently joined the case, Chris DeLorenz, previously clerked for U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon as she was presiding over — and ultimately dismissed — the criminal charges against Mr. Trump related to his retention of classified records.

DeLorenz was detailed as a prosecutor to the probe despite his limited prosecutorial experience, after recently working in the deputy attorney general’s office.

CBS has reached out to DeLorenz for comment.

A federal grand jury in Ft. Pierce, Florida, where Judge Cannon is based, is now investigating the “grand conspiracy” allegations. Because she is the only U.S. District judge in Ft. Pierce, she would most likely handle any potential criminal case brought there.

“Career attorneys and agents take very seriously the power they have to charge someone with a crime. Until this administration, they were expected to drop a case when an investigation revealed no crime occurred,” said Stacey Young, a former Justice Department lawyer. Young founded and leads the nonprofit Justice Connection, which provides support for former and current career Justice Department civil servants.

“Now, if they dare to say they can’t justify bringing charges against a perceived enemy of this president, they’re pushed aside and replaced with loyalists who will contort the facts and the law to manufacture a case,” she said.

Critics of the investigation have said that it has been tainted by politics since its inception. Mr. Trump has railed against Brennan for years, calling him “crooked as hell” and suggesting he should “pay a price.” Mike Davis, a legal surrogate for Mr. Trump and one of his most pugnacious defenders, pushed relentlessly for a sweeping conspiracy case against former Obama and Biden administration officials with Brennan at its center.

The case was met with skepticism from career Justice Department lawyers from the outset. It was transferred to the Southern District of Florida after federal prosecutors in Philadelphia who were initially assigned to review the case determined there was not enough evidence to proceed, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Seasoned current and former agents and prosecutors say their concerns over the already-fraught criminal cases involving Brennan have only grown as more personnel with seemingly pro-Trump perspectives have been added to the investigative teams.

“Italygate”

One agent who is now involved in the Brennan and grand conspiracy cases is Marketos, who previously worked on a public corruption squad in the Washington Field Office that had investigated Mr. Trump and was disbanded last year.

During recent witness interviews with former intelligence officials, Marketos asked questions about the “Clinton plan intelligence” — an apparent reference to a 2016 election conspiracy theory,claiming Hillary Clinton used allegations about Russia to distract from her own scandals, sources told CBS News. (The theory was later discredited by a Republican-appointed special counsel).

Criminal defense lawyers who have interacted with Marketos told CBS News she’s taken a secondary role in witness interviews and has largely conducted herself professionally.

During her time on the public corruption squad for the Washington field office, she told colleagues she believed Trump won the 2020 election, several sources said.

Without the knowledge of her immediate supervisor, she sought permission to travel to Rome to speak with a confidential human source who claimed that Italian military satellites had hacked into Dominion’s voting machines to flip votes against Mr. Trump, according to sources familiar with the matter and congressional testimony from that supervisor.

In the transcript of the testimony, the former supervisor said he later discovered that Justice Department officials laughed when they saw her request. He also said several of the sources providing the tip about the satellites had “partisan political ties.”

“There was a lack of investigative rigor,” the former FBI supervisor told lawmakers.

Her supervisor denied her request after discovering the former acting deputy attorney general had previously referred to the allegation as “pure insanity,” according to a transcript of the interview. He added that he shut down the investigation in around July 2021.

An internal Justice Department directory lists Marketos as being assigned to the Office of Congressional Affairs, though she hasn’t spent much — if any — time there, sources said.

CBS News could not determine how Marketos came to be assigned to the Brennan case. Typically agents are assigned cases to investigate in the regional offices where they are based. The two investigations targeting Brennan are being conducted in Florida. Marketos is based in the Washington, D.C. area.

Marketos’ involvement in the Brennan case has also attracted attention because of her recent temporary assignment with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — the agency whose core mission is integrating foreign, domestic and military U.S. intelligence in defense of American interests at home and abroad.

Since last year, the ODNI has been tasked by its director, Tulsi Gabbard, with identifying what has been called political “weaponization” or political bias in the intelligence community. The office last year referred the “grand conspiracy” case for investigation.

Marketos has primarily spent her time since last year on temporary assignment to Gabbard’s office, and she has even reached out to defense lawyers on the Brennan case from her post there, sources told CBS News.

“It is a staggering indictment of the current institutional standards that an individual who lacks the basic discernment to distinguish between a fringe conspiracy theory and a federal crime is now tasked with investigating a former CIA director,” former FBI agent James Davidson told CBS News.

Davidson is now the president of the FBI Integrity Project, a group founded by former agents who say they aim to protect the bureau’s integrity from partisan influences and other abuses.

An official from ODNI declined to answer questions about Marketos’ role, stating that she is not an employee of the office and referring CBS News to the FBI.

“As Director Gabbard has said publicly, we’ve sent multiple criminal referrals and stated that ODNI shares information as appropriate with the DOJ and FBI to support their investigations,” a Gabbard spokesperson said.

From retirement to the Comey case

Eckenrode, meanwhile, was a retired longtime agent who returned to the bureau after Patel became director. He previously served on the investigative team for former special counsel John Durham, sources said.

His involvement in the latest probes related to Russia and the 2016 election was previously reported by the New York Times.

Eckenrode publicly endorsed Patel’s nomination to lead the FBI in a letter to lawmakers, according to the Washington Examiner. In that letter, he criticized the bureau’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, writing, “Regrettably, the FBI’s conduct during Crossfire Hurricane has caused the Bureau’s reputation to plummet, and for a variety of reasons, it has not rebounded.”

Eckenrode was one of two FBI agents assigned last year to investigate whether former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress, sources told CBS News.

Before the case was dismissed on a different issue, a magistrate judge blasted the two agents and the former interim U.S. attorney, saying they had potentially committed misconduct by failing to filter evidence that was likely covered by Comey’s attorney-client privilege rights and by using stale search warrants from a prior FBI investigation that started in 2017.The Justice Department has denied any wrongdoing.

Eckenrode has been present for some witness interviews and meetings to discuss the Brennan case, several sources said, though CBS News has not determined his precise role in the probes.

He is listed in the Justice Department’s internal directory under Patel’s office, which is also a part of the bureau not typically assigned to criminal probes.

Joe DiGenova, the 2020 Trump campaign attorney who’s leading the Brennan investigations

DiGenova returns to the Justice Department more than two decades after he served as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., from 1983 to 1988.

More recently, DiGenova represented Mr. Trump’s campaign in its failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, and he has long railed against Brennan’s role in assessing that Russia tried to meddle in the 2016 election, referring to him in one interview as the “primogenitor of the entire counterintelligence investigation.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, when asked by CBS News last month whether DiGenova’s involvement in the case could raise questions about bias, replied, “He has to make sure that he is doing everything ethically. I’m sure that he would.”

On Tuesday, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jason Reding Quiñones, posted a photograph of DiGenova, Toensing and others standing outside the federal courthouse in Ft. Pierce.

DiGenova “led a productive meeting with half the team in person at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce and the other half joining by video,” Quiñones wrote. “Good things are building in SDFL.”