Trump's Handpicked Lawyer Quits in Disgust, as Cuba Invasion Looms

Trump bought $680,000 in a drug company's stock right as his government made that company rich, and his administration has quietly brought back cyanide devices to use on wild animals

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

The president’s top Treasury lawyer quit rather than distribute $1.8 billion in taxpayer money to Trump’s friends and himself. The administration is now weighing whether to open a second war, this time with Cuba. Trump bought $680,000 in stock in a drug company right as his own government handed that company a windfall. And the federal government has quietly brought back a spring-loaded cyanide device that shoots poison into the mouths of animals and occasionally children.

Before we get into it: We don’t have a network that needs White House access to survive. We don’t have a parent company doing quiet deals with the administration. We don’t have advertisers who’d rather you look away. What we have is readers. Right now, that’s the only position in American media that can’t be pressured into silence. A paid subscription to AlterNet America is a direct bet that independent journalism survives this moment. If you haven’t yet, please consider upgrading yours today.

Now, the news.

Trump’s Own Lawyer Quit Rather Than Touch the $1.8 Billion Slush Fund

The good news is that someone in the Trump administration still has a line. The bad news is that they’re now unemployed.

The Trump administration announced on Monday that it was creating what it calls an “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” a $1.776 billion pool of taxpayer money to compensate people who claim they were unfairly targeted by the Biden Justice Department.

The fund was created as part of a settlement of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. The list of potential recipients includes January 6 rioters, right-wing think tanks, and Trump’s own super PAC.

The Treasury’s top lawyer resigned just hours after the fund was announced. Brian Morrissey had been confirmed to the role only seven months earlier. The fund will now be overseen by a five-member board appointed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who answers to Trump.

Morrissey did not publicly explain his resignation. A Treasury spokesperson said he served “with both honor and integrity” and wished him well in future endeavors. For context, they said the same thing about Kristi Noem.

The Trump Administration Is Thinking About Starting a Second War

Having not yet finished one war, the Trump administration is now browsing for a second.

As the Iran conflict remains unresolved, officials have a new potential target in Cuba. Insiders confirmed to Politico that Trump and his advisors have grown frustrated that their pressure campaign, which includes an effective fuel blockade, has not forced the Cuban regime to adopt meaningful reforms. They’re now weighing what comes next.

Options reportedly on the table include a single airstrike as a warning shot or a full-scale invasion. Trump has separately floated the idea of parking an aircraft carrier offshore and seeing if Cuba surrenders.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel responded this week that any American military aggression would provoke, in his words, “a bloodbath of incalculable consequences.” Sources familiar with the discussions said this would not be Bay of Pigs 2.0, explaining that Cuban exiles have “no role here except as cheerleaders and busybodies.”

The nation’s holiday marking the end of U.S. occupation is May 20, prompting speculation that Trump could take action then. The Senate, for its part, rejected a Democratic effort to limit Trump’s ability to launch military action without Congressional authorization, 51 to 47.

Tomorrow is Cuban Independence Day. Someone should be covering it without a defense contractor’s logo at the top of the page. That someone is us, but we need your help to do it. Consider upgrading to a paid subscription today.

Trump Bought Eli Lilly Stock Then Made Eli Lilly Rich

The president bought Eli Lilly stock seven times. His government spent several months making Eli Lilly a fortune. You don’t have to be an artist to draw conclusions here.

Ethics disclosures released on May 14 show that Trump bought as much as $680,000 worth of stock in Eli Lilly, the maker of blockbuster GLP-1 obesity drugs, from January through March of this year. During that same period, his administration was advancing a Medicare pilot program that would allow patients to pay just $50 a month for those same drugs.

Eli Lilly has since been named a participating manufacturer in that program, calling it a “significant milestone.”

The first Eli Lilly stock purchase was made on January 6. The deadline for drug manufacturers to submit applications for the Medicare program was January 8.

This was not the only stock Trump was trading during this period. He also picked up shares in Microsoft, Nvidia, Boeing, Target, and Chipotle. What makes Eli Lilly different is the timeline, the scale of the government’s part, and the fact that the president controls the agencies that made those decisions.

They released the information on a Wednesday afternoon, which is when this administration drops the things it is legally required to disclose but would very much prefer you miss.

The Federal Government Brought Back Cyanide Bombs for Wildlife

The Trump administration has reinstated a spring-loaded cyanide trap for wildlife, because whatever these people are protecting, it isn’t animals.

In a recent memorandum of understanding between the Bureau of Land Management and the USDA, the Trump administration cleared the way for renewed use of the M-44 cyanide bomb on federal public lands.

The M-44 is a spring-loaded device that uses a scented bait to lure an animal, then shoots a sodium cyanide pellet into its mouth. It has been used primarily to kill coyotes and foxes, but has also poisoned and killed endangered wolves, grizzly bears, and California condors. In 2017, an Idaho boy was injured and his pet dog was killed when one was accidentally triggered near their home.

The Biden administration had discontinued M-44 use on BLM lands in 2023. The Trump administration reversed that decision quietly, and appropriations language in a House bill has since directed the USDA to fully integrate the M-44 into its wildlife management strategy.

The administration has not explained why nonlethal alternatives were not sufficient. It has not explained why a device that has injured children and killed endangered species needed to be brought back. It has not held a press conference.

The memo was signed in April. Nobody told the coyotes. Nobody told you either, but at least you can read.

No Billionaires Were Involved in the Making of This Newsletter

The business model that kept journalism independent is gone. What replaced it is billionaires, access deals, and quiet understandings about which stories don’t run. The networks are getting phone calls they don’t talk about. The newspapers have new owners who play golf with the people we’re writing about. The FCC is making examples of outlets that don’t play ball.

None of that is happening here, because we don’t have anyone to sell out to. We have readers. If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, we’re glad you’re here. But free doesn’t keep the lights on, and the lights need to stay on.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, this is the moment. Your subscription isn’t a donation. It’s the thing that makes tomorrow’s newsletter possible. Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription today.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

The Next President Could Finally Be Elected by the Popular Vote. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C. have now joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a legally creative workaround that would hand a presidential election to the popular vote winner without actually touching the Electoral College. They need 270 and currently have 222. Experts say 270 is achievable by 2028, which would be an interesting development given recent events.

NAACP urges boycott of college sports in south over voting rights. The NAACP has launched a boycott called “Out of Bounds,” urging Black athletes and fans to withhold their talent and money from public universities in states that have moved to strip Black voting power following a Supreme Court ruling that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. If it works, the SEC and ACC will have a roster problem, which is the most direct threat anyone has leveled at Republican-led Southern legislatures in years.

Minnesota becomes first state to ban prediction markets. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed the nation’s first ban on prediction markets this week, making it a crime to host or advertise platforms where people bet on elections, sports, world events, and beyond. The Trump administration immediately sued, because apparently the federal government’s position is that you should be able to bet on anything. Quick, someone check the odds.

Marine scientists discover record number of new species. Scientists discovered 1,121 new ocean species in a single year, a 54% jump from the previous record, among them a Ghost Shark older than the dinosaurs, worms living in glass castles made of crystalline silica on the ocean floor, and a brilliantly orange shrimp hiding in a cave off Marseille, which is exactly the kind of thing that makes you wish more of the news was about the ocean.