The lead prosecutor for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “hush money” case against former President Donald Trump received thousands of dollars from the Democratic National Committee in 2018, Federal Election Commission records show.
Matthew Colangelo, who was President Joe Biden’s acting associate attorney general and spent two years in the current president’s Justice Department, joined
the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as senior counsel in December 2022.
The lawyer received $12,000 from the Democratic National Committee for “political consulting” in two payments of $6,000 on Jan. 31, 2018, FEC records show
.
Fox News Digital first reported
the payments to Colangelo from the DNC.
Reports say Matthew Colangelo received $12,000 from the DNC for “political consulting” in 2018.
Colangelo delivered the opening statement for the prosecution in the Trump hush money case.
Yet Trump can’t talk about this due to his unconstitutional gag order.
Trump is not supposed to speak about Colangelo because Judge Juan Merchan imposed a gag order that prevents the former president from speaking about prosecutors on the case besides Bragg.
Colangelo was appointed in 2022, while Bragg was still investigating
Trump in relation to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her silent regarding an alleged affair. Colangelo delivered opening statements for the prosecution in April, arguing
that Trump falsified business documents about the payment as part of a broader initiative to “corrupt the 2016 election.”
“It was election fraud, pure and simple,” Colangelo said
.
Trump consistently has characterized the case as “election interference,” referring to
it as a “Biden witch hunt” and the “Biden case
.”
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent
a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding Colangelo, requesting documents and communications from his tenure at the Justice Department. Jordan demanded personnel files pertaining to Colangelo’s
hiring, employment, and termination there, as well as records and correspondences related to Trump or his organization.
“Bragg is engaged in one such politicized prosecution, which is being led in part by Matthew B. Colangelo, a former senior Justice Department official,” Jordan wrote. “Accordingly, given the perception that the Justice Department is assisting in Bragg’s politicized prosecution, we write to request information and documents related to Mr. Colangelo’s employment.”
While at the New York State Attorney General’s Office before Biden became president, Colangelo led the probe into the Trump Foundation, which resulted in its dissolution. He also led the investigation that eventually became Trump’s civil fraud case, according
to The New York Times.
Neither Bragg nor the Democratic National Committee immediately responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Columbia University
caved to the mob and let the unruly anti-Israel radicals on campus win.
Last week, Columbia President Minouche Shafik finally allowed the NYPD to clear the campus grounds of protesters after a group of them violently took over and occupied a building called Hamilton Hall.
“We have decided to make the centerpiece of our commencement activities our class days and school-level ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, rather than the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15,” the school website explained.
Columbia University, already in a state of lockdown, cited “safety concerns” as the reason for the decision.
“Holding a large commencement ceremony on our campus presented security concerns that unfortunately proved insurmountable,” a Columbia spokesman said in a written statement
. “Like our students, we are deeply disappointed with this outcome.”
Instead of a campuswide commencement, the school will hold small, private ceremonies.
Some Columbia students are rightfully unhappy.
One Jewish undergraduate interviewed by the New York Post
called it another example of “cowardice from an administration that’s been spineless” throughout the ordeal.
This is a rather pathetic end to a monthlong fiasco at the school. Large portions of Columbia’s 2024 graduating class also are likely to have missed their high school graduations due to COVID-19 lockdowns.
Another student interviewed by the New York Post, Ari Rosen, who is graduating from Columbia’s dental school, spoke about his disappointment.
“I lost my [undergraduate] graduation four years ago because of COVID, but then I told myself at least I’ll be able to graduate from dental school at Columbia,” he said.
Rosen noted how it would have been nice to be rewarded in public for eight years of hard work.
“Now to wake up to this news is really unexpected,” Rosen said of the canceled public ceremony. “This wasn’t just four years of hard work. This was eight years, undergraduate and dental school. I worked really hard for this.”
It’s certainly possible that Columbia had serious security challenges, but it seems rather feeble that a school sitting on over $13 billion in endowments couldn’t have figured out how to make this work.
Actual leadership would have looked something like this:
It’s sad and pathetic that Columbia University canceled their university-wide commencement because of the out-of-control pro-Hamas protests.
Last week, I directed Florida’s Colleges and Universities to ensure commencements were not canceled or disrupted. Our students deserve… https://t.co/xqkwh1c2eD
Instead, the message sent by canceling commencement is that the mob gets its way in the end—at least when it acts on behalf of an ideology favored by the regime.
That’s what our institutions signaled after the Black Lives Matter riots, when cities decided to defund police departments.
And that’s what colleges and universities are signaling now when they allow out-of-control protesters to take over their campuses and make demands. Some schools are locking down, some are canceling graduation ceremonies, and some are making specific policy changes to appease protesters
.
The activists squawk and stamp their feet and institutions give them what they want.
As I’ve written before and will surely write again
, these incidents should show the American people that we need to have a serious rethink about the function and efficacy of higher education in our country.
The nation pours billions of dollars into the higher education industry, and that may grow to trillions if President Joe Biden’s mass student-loan bailout comes to pass.
What we are getting in return is universities of declining merit that have become hotbeds of antisemitism and anti-Americanism
. Universities such as Columbia and many others have fully revealed what they are in recent months. At the very least, it’s time that we put down our foot as a society and end the gravy train that’s funding this nonsense
.
As the veepstakes speculation grows, Donald Trump
—Republicans’ presumptive nominee for president for the third straight time—has had plenty to say about the group of contenders for the second spot on the ticket.
Axios reported
over the weekend on an audio recording obtained from a gathering at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in which the former president comments on numerous contenders for his choice to be vice president.
Those possible Trump choices include three fellow Floridians who are in Congress: Sen. Marco Rubio and Reps. Byron Donalds and Michael Waltz. Trump also talked about two former 2024 primary opponents
, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
The names of three more senators also were in the mix: Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Mike Lee
of Utah, and JD Vance of Ohio. And Trump commented on the often-mentioned chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, Elise Stefanik of New York.
North Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican who made the news last week for telling a story in her new memoir about shooting and killing a 14-month-old farm dog
, was among those that Trump commented on. (For her part, Noem said the dog posed a danger to her family and other animals after killing chickens.)
“Somebody that I love,” Trump says of Noem in the audio recording released by Axios. “She’s been with me, a supporter of mine, and I’ve been a supporter of hers for a long time.”
Axios reported that Trump’s “most prominent surrogates” went to Mar-a-Lago on Saturday to “audition for vice president.” At a private luncheon, Trump commented on the potential running mates, the outlet said.
In the recording,Trump doesn’t seem to resent any former opponents in the 2024 Republican primaries who reportedly have been in the running for his nod to be vice president. (However, he doesn’t mention Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, who didn’t drop out until March 6.)
As for North Dakota’s Burgum, governor of a state
next door to Noem’s, Trump says: “I didn’t know this: He was a supporter of my two campaigns. He’s a very rich man.”
In a press release Monday, BetOnline
announced that it was updating its betting odds after the Mar-a-Lago meeting, giving Scott and Burgum the best odds at 4-1. Vance, once seen as a longshot, rose to 5-1. Rubio is 8-1.
Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a Democrat in Congress who became an independent after leaving office, is at 9-1. Gabbard’s name, however, doesn’t come up in the Trump audio leaked to Axios.
Interestingly, none of the possible contenders mentioned by Trump were from battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin.
Trump notes that Vance
wasn’t always on board, according to the audio, but calls the junior senator from Ohio “great,” Axios reported.
“He wasn’t a supporter of mine at the very beginning [and] was saying things like ‘the guy’s a total disaster’… Anyways, I got to know him a little bit,” Trump says of Vance. “As a non-politician, he’s become one of the great senators.”
In the 2016 Republican primary cycle, Trump mocked Florida’s Rubio
as “Little Marco.” Rubio at one point referred to Trump’s small hands.
In the audio, Trump only says of Rubio: “His name is coming up a lot for vice president.”
Significant news coverage has shown Trump gainingsupportamongblackmen
. Beyond Scott of South Carolina, Trump mentions two other possible black running mates in the audio recording.
Of Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas, Trump says: “Another friend of mine … makes the best commercials … beautiful family.”
Of a potential choice that would create a team of Donalds, Trump says of Donalds, the Florida congressman
: “Somebody who’s created something very special politically. … I like diversity. Diversité, as you would say. I like diversité. [Donors] worth millions of dollars … all want a piece of Byron.”
There has also been plenty of speculation about Trump picking a woman to close the gender gap.
Regarding Blackburn of Tennessee, Trump says “she was like the Energizer Bunny” in 2018, when she successfully campaigned to leave the House for the Senate. “She would go from stop to stop to stop.”
Of Stefanik
, Trump says in the audio: “A very smart person. She was in upstate New York when I met her. … little did we realize she would be such a big factor.”
Trump is a former resident of New York City, where he built much of his real estate empire. He is now a resident of Florida.
There is some debate about whether the 12th Amendment
allows a president and vice president to be from the same state, and that debate could come into play if Trump wanted to select Stefanik, Rubio, Donalds, or Waltz.
Of Waltz
, Trump says in the recording: “A man that knows more about the military. When I want to know about the military, I call him.”
Lee is a one-time critic of Trump who supported Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the 2016 presidential primaries for the GOP nomination, when Lee also sported more hair.
In the audio, Lee gains some praise from the former president, who says of him: “I love your haircut” before adding: “And he’s a good man too.”
The Trump campaign didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment for this report.
Americans are watching as hordes of anti-American and anti-Israel activists have seized
public spaces, occupied
university buildings, denied access to reporters
, and clashed
with police and counterprotesters (all while demanding free food
).
Reporter grills Columbia student after she demands the university help feed protestors occupying Hamilton Hall:
“It seems like you’re saying, ‘we want to be revolutionaries, we want to take over this building, now would you please bring us some food’.” pic.twitter.com/vNczSAM4T1
The latest wave of often anti-Western and antisemitic
protests is more intense than the initial wave of activity during the fall
in part because warm spring weather attracts bored
students looking for excitement.
However, the root cause is the culture of leftist radicalism that grips educational institutions across the country.
It’s vital for taxpayers to know that the federal government feeds
that radicalism with billions of dollars in direct and indirect subsidies every year, much of which is wrongly labeled as promoting “science.”
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Led by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA., House Republicans are shining a spotlight
on wayward universities, including with hearings and investigations by several committees.
House Science Committee Chairman Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., noted
that the National Science Foundation provides significant financial support for research activity. Federal rules require that schools receiving research grants must protect students from harassment and intimidation, such as what is being done today by masked ideological mobs.
“It’s time we review whether universities that allow the harassment, assault, or intimidation of their Jewish students are in compliance with their federal obligations. We’ll be looking to conduct oversight on this issue very soon.” – @housescience
Chairman @RepFrankLucas
. pic.twitter.com/LMDqtP3WnW
The scale of federal grants for scientific research is enormous—tens of billions of dollars per year. In addition, schools receive massive and excessive add-ons for “indirect
” (overhead) costs.
Coupled with federally supported student loans
that inflate tuition prices, colleges and universities have a taxpayer-funded financial cushion.
This enables schools to hire legions of diversity bureaucrats
and host academically dubious race- and gender-studies departments whose central purpose is indoctrinating students in support of radical ideologies
.
Federal funding provides more than mere passive support to leftism.
Agencies such as the National Science Foundation readily approve grants that openly seek to inject critical theory
and similar far-left concepts into a variety of subjects. The goal is to bend academic disciplines to the whims of grievance-based identity politics. Examples include:
A $343,000 grant
to Colorado State University for “multiculturally inclusive” chemistry based on a fact-free claim that racial minorities are “excluded” from chemistry.
A $1.5 million grant
to the University of South Florida to combat “anti-black racism” in engineering, based on the assumption that teaching must adhere to extreme “anti-racist” ideology to avoid being racist.
A $299,000 grant
to the American Geophysical Union to train scientists to be “justice-centered.” This training calls for scientists to water down their work by embracing “other ways of knowing.”
A $250,000 grant
to Occidental College for teaching children that difficulty they have learning science and math subjects is due to “structural racism.”
Encouraging teachers and students to view the world primarily through the lens of identity politics and racial grievance is a recipe for exactly the sort of discord that is playing out at prominent universities.
Many members of Congress have issued statements condemning disorder and antisemitic incidents on campuses. Unfortunately, few legislators have shown an interest in addressing the roots of the problem by stopping the flow of tax dollars in support of radical leftists.
Every year, Congress funds federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation. Through the “power of the purse
,” legislation can directly reduce or eliminate support to specific agencies and programs. In addition, Congress can block funding for certain types of activities.
Over the next several months, Congress will debate how to fund the federal government in fiscal 2025. At a time when Americans struggle with elevated inflation due to excessive deficit spending
, there is an urgent need to find savings.
Legislators can lower inflation and defang campus radicals at the same time by cutting off federal grants and subsidies for academic institutions captured by the Left.
The alternative—maintaining or increasing funding levels—guarantees more academic insanity for years to come.
In his flattest brainwave yet, President Joe Biden
hopes to import refugees from the Gaza
Strip. This rotten idea
should be blasted with a drone.
After reviewing internal federal documents, CBS News’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez reported April 30 that Biden wants “refugee status” for certain Gazans. This designation “offers beneficiaries permanent residency, resettlement benefits like housing assistance, and a path to American citizenship
.”
What could go wrong?
Plenty.
Biden’s proposed immigrants could be Hamas terrorists. Chances are, they at least would be Hamas supporters.
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research’s April 15 poll of 750 Gazans found that 59% want a postwar “return of Hamas.” Also, 71% call “correct” Hamas’ “offensive
against Israel on 7 October.” Meanwhile, 93% of Gazans “think Hamas
did not commit war crimes during the current war.”
America should spurn a population in which seven of every 10 people applaud the unprovoked massacre of 1,200 innocent Israelis, whom Hamas raped, killed, mutilated, and incinerated. Dead babies occupied ovens. Jews in ovens: Sound familiar?
Hamas assassins gunned down motorists who drove through southern Israel
. They fatally shot families as they slept. Hamas cutthroats paraglided into the Nova Festival and slaughtered 370 ravers who danced until dawn. For God’s sake, who kills music fans?
As a rescuer who encountered Nova’s dead recalled in a temporary Manhattan-based exhibition
about this atrocity: “In some cases, [Hamas] set them on fire and burned them in such a way that when we examined them, we suddenly realized what had appeared to us as one person was actually three
.”
Oct. 7 was the worst single-day orgy of Jew killing since Auschwitz. And 71% of Gazans approve.
Yet, this is Biden’s next reservoir of immigrants? Is there a bottom to this buffoon’s idiocy?
With a real per capita gross domestic product of $5,700
in 2022, per the CIA’s World Fact Book, Gaza is slightly poorer than Nicaragua
. On that metric, Gaza ranks 165th among 224 nations. (America is No. 14.) Thanks to Hamas’ monomaniacal focus on butchering Jews, rather than boosting prosperity, few Gazans offer skills that America needs.
Typical Gazans neither understand nor appreciate constitutional republicanism, the rule of law, individual liberty, or any of America’s other founding and guiding principles. Freedom House observes: “No open elections
for any office have been held in Gaza since 2006.”
Gaza’s schools teach anti-Jewish hate. Textbooks deny the 3,500-year presence
of Jews in Israel and even erase the Hebrew names
of its cities, e.g., rechristening Tel Aviv as “Tel al-Rabia.”
“Children are taught that waging jihad is a religious duty
,” the Middle East Media Research Institute reports. “The messages imparted to children are replete with [antisemitic] motifs that demonize the Jews, presenting them as the eternal enemies of the Muslims
, as subhuman ‘descendants of apes and pigs,’ and as bloodthirsty savages with whom no dialogue or reconciliation is possible.”
As antisemitism explodes from coast to coast, America should reject people who have simmered in anti-Jewish venom since kindergarten.
If Gazans seek safety—perhaps while the Israel Defense Forces get on with it, enter Rafah, and exterminate every last Hamas rat—then why not move to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, or (what a concept!) the West Bank? Why bypass those Arab destinations and, instead, jet 12 hours to America?
“We give billions of dollars to Egypt,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., noted on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday. “The IMF bails them out every other Thursday
, with our permission. President Biden needs to call Egypt and tell them to do their part.”
So far, Biden has let 9.4 million illegal aliens
break into America. These invaders are wrecking U.S. cities and states. They are swelling government budgets, exhausting municipal services, clogging public schools, and hiking crime rates. To this, the execrable Biden chants, “More! More! More!”
Even worse, Biden squanders a mind-blowing $320 million
to build a temporary Mediterranean pier to speed humanitarian aid to Gaza. That’s right: One-third of a billion dollars to invigorate the same territory that America arms Israel to pacify. How jaw-droppingly incoherent.
Oddly enough, President Franklin Roosevelt never spent $1 to erect a pier off Bremerhaven to deliver free food and blankets to dem deutschen Volk
while Allied forces bombed Adolf Hitler. Why not annihilate Hamas and then consider a mini-Marshall plan to rebuild a friendly Gaza? As usual, Biden has everything ass-backward.
To add near-injury to this insult, on April 24, terrorists fired mortar shells
at a coastal “marshaling area” for the pier’s construction. This is the ingratitude that Biden’s extravagance underwrites.
The second that first projectile landed, U.S. GIs should have flipped off Hamas, boarded their boats, and sped the hell away.
Biden does all of this to impress Muslim voters in Dearborn, Mich., and secure Michigan
’s 15 electoral votes. Period. If maintaining power and control requires that Biden wave poor, unskilled, anti-democratic antisemites into America, so be it.
Political calculations get no more mercenary.
If Biden possessed even a drop of shame, he would ditch this rotten idea and dedicate his fading faculties to securing Edan Alexander, Itay Chen, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Omer Nuetra, and Keith Siegel. These forgotten U.S. hostages
—still held by Hamas—are the only people in Gaza whom America should welcome.
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
