CAPITAL ONE BANK SAYS IT CLOSED TRUMP ACCOUNTS AFTER MONEY-LAUNDERING REVIEW. Capital One Financial hit back on a lawsuit over its decision to close the Trump Organization’s bank accounts in 2021, stating that it did so after a review by anti-money-laundering experts, Reuters reported in The Guardian (8/1).
The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money-laundering concerns to Donald Trump’s family business. Capital One is seeking to dismiss the Trump lawsuit by casting doubt on claims of illegally debanking – or denying services on religious or political grounds – the Trump Organization.
The Trump Organization and Capital One did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Capital One has never accused the Trump Organization of money laundering. But the July 31 filing argues that “documents and Plaintiffs’ own allegations make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) reasons.
“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance.”
Capital One gave notice of its plans to close more than 300 Trump-affiliated bank accounts in March 2021, The Hill reported (8/3).
Roughly two months before it closed the Trump Organization’s affiliated accounts, Capital One received a $390,000 penalty from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — issued after the bank admitted to failing to implement an effective anti-money laundering program.
The Trump Organization and Eric Trump, the president’s son, filed a lawsuit in March 2025 in a Florida federal court, alleging the accounts were closed because of Capital One’s “woke” beliefs and its desire to benefit from the political mood after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
Capital One said in its July 31 filing that the Trump Organization’s allegations of political pretext were “misguided” and “based on cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of documents submitted to the court.
“The transaction patterns identified by Capital One are among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance,” the filing said.
Since the start of Trump’s second term, his administration has put pressure on some large banks, echoing conservative complaints that the institutions are deliberately targeting the political right. Trump signed an executive order in August 2025 barring discriminatory debanking.
In January, Trump filed a suit against JPMorgan Chase on the same grounds, underscoring the fraught policy environment Wall Street is navigating during the president’s second term. In 2019, during his first term, Trump sued Capital One and Deutsche Bank in an attempt to prevent them from sharing financial records with Congress as part of an investigation led by Democratic lawmakers.
Anti-money-laundering professionals at Deutsche Bank reportedly flagged a set of transactions, but executives ignored them; Deutsche Bank denied the report at the time.
The case centers on roughly 385 accounts tied to the Trump Organization, Eric Trump and a collection of affiliated businesses — including a winery, a bottled-water company and a golf course developer — that banked with Capital One for more than a decade before the accounts were shut down in mid-2021, Willem Marx reported at National Public Radio (8/2).
In an amended complaint filed earlier in July, the Trump-affiliated companies insisted the closures had nothing to do with financial crime or money-laundering, but everything to do with politics.
The Trump Organization alleges Capital One moved to distance itself from Donald Trump after the Capitol riot and that the bank’s cited anti-money-laundering rationale was invented after the fact to cover for that decision.
Capital One has flatly denied those assertions, with its lawyers arguing in the new filing that the Trump’s theory rests on “cherry-picked quotations unsupported by the full context” of the bank’s own records, and that nothing in the complaint shows the anti-money-laundering explanation was a cover story.
The bank’s lawyers also noted that it kept its reasoning for the closures confidential at the time: it “never publicized the termination decision nor its confidential internal process giving rise to the closure,” and gave the Trump companies months — plus several extensions — to move their money elsewhere, which they did.
Large sections of the Trump-linked amended complaint from July remain blacked out under a court-approved sealing order, including an entire portion titled “January 6, 2021: The Political Trigger.”
‘MEDICARE FOR ALL’ NEEDED TO KEEP MATERNITY UNITS OPEN IN MAINE. Democratic US Senate candidate Troy Jackson on Aug. 7 was among the Maine leaders expressing anger over the decision by MaineHealth, the state’s largest nonprofit healthcare system, to close a labor and delivery unit that’s crucial to families in three counties after local residents organized a monthslong grassroots effort to keep the department open, Julia Conley noted at CommonDreams.org (8/7).
“I’m angry,” said Jackson, the former state Senate president who officially became the Democratic candidate in July. “This marks the 12th labor and delivery ward we’ve lost in this state since 2015.”
With rural hospitals across Maine expected to continue closing—partially due to nearly $3 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade, which were included in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, along with tax cuts for the wealthy—Jackson repeated his call for a government-funded universal healthcare system.
“It’s past time that we fix our broken, profit-centered healthcare system that leaves many of us struggling to get care, and most of us struggling to pay for it when we do,” said Jackson. “We must pass Medicare for All.”
MaineHealth’s Board of Trustees voted Aug. 6 in favor of closing the labor and delivery unit at Lincoln Hospital on the health network’s Miles Campus in the coastal town of Damariscotta. The decision leaves Lincoln, Waldo and Sagadahoc counties without any labor and delivery units, and leaves half of the state’s 34 hospitals without birthing wards.
The hospital system said it had reached the decision because it cannot “continue providing safe, reliable care for every mother and every baby, every day and every night,” according to CEO Andrew Mueller.
Labor and delivery “requires highly specialized teams that are available around the clock and prepared to respond immediately to routine deliveries and unexpected emergencies,” said Mueller. “We concluded that we could no longer consistently ensure that level of staffing and clinical coverage at Lincoln Hospital over the long term.”
Cindy Wade, president of Lincoln Hospital, told community members ahead of the vote that the potential closure was “not driven by finance,” while acknowledging that staffing is a problem for the facility.
The day before the decision was announced, a woman named Corinna Stum, who had been set to deliver her baby at Miles in January—a month after the unit is set to close—filed a lawsuit in an effort to stop the closure. Stum requested an emergency injunction while the court determines whether MaineHealth violated its obligation to serve the public and be transparent in its review process
A grassroots organization called Miles Delivers Action Coalition, started by three women from the area, has held rallies alongside Jackson, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Hannah Pingree, and other local leaders, as well as working with clinicians to determine how the Miles Campus could deliver sustainable care for parents and babies and finding obstetricians who would be willing to work at the hospital.
‘HAS TRUMP INVASION OF GREELAND BEGUN?’ EXPERTS FEARFUL AS MAGA-LINKED OIL COMPANY PREPARES UNAUTHORIZED DRILLING. After appearing to back off earlier this year, President Donald Trump this week renewed his threats to seize Greenland. An Aug. 8 report that a Texas oil company with ties to Trump had begun preparing to drill in the Arctic territory without permission has raised fresh concerns that his push for control of the island may already be moving beyond rhetoric, Stephen Prager noted at CommonDreams (8/8).
As The Guardian reported, Greenland’s government issued a “strong warning” after learning that a Texas oil company called Greenland Energy had begun making unauthorized preparations for oil extraction in Jameson Land, a remote area of eastern Greenland, including bringing drilling materials ashore.
The company, founded last year, has claimed that Jameson Land may contain $1 trillion worth of crude oil, and announced plans to drill two wells there—a project that requires approval from Greenland’s government.
The company also has ties to several Trump allies and associates. According to The Guardian, Greenland Energy has retained Phil McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, a prominent right-wing former chat show host who served on Trump’s religious freedom commission, to make a documentary series that will “capture the mission of these modern-day wildcatters.”
It has also appointed as a director a US Navy veteran who is working on Golden Dome, the missile defense plan for which Trump says controlling Greenland is “vital.”
Larry Swets, Greenland Energy’s chair and a big shareholder, appears to enjoy access to Trump’s circle. He has said the oil project is “not related to American annexation.”
A Greenland Energy representative falsely claimed in June that the company had permission to place equipment on Jameson Land, before later saying there had been confusion.
But the following month, residents saw a barge arrive with drilling equipment. A Danish outlet confirmed that the delivery was intended for Greenland Energy.
Following the delivery, Greenland’s government said on July 30 that the company “did not have the necessary approvals from the mineral resources authority” and would receive a warning that “all future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority—before they are carried out.”
Two days later, Trump posted an ominous digitally altered image to Truth Social depicting himself as a giant looming over a Greenlandic town, captioned “Hello, Greenland!”
A day earlier, Trump had appeared on the right-wing network Real America’s Voice, where host Steve Gruber reminded him that he had predicted Greenland would be under US control by the time he leaves office in 2029.
“You’ll be right,” Trump replied. “Greenland is important. Not from their standpoint, from our standpoint. You should make that bet.”
As part of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland is covered by NATO’s Article 5 collective-defense clause, which obligates member nations to defend one another from armed attack. But NATO has no precedent for how Article 5 would apply if one member—the US—attacked another.
“Let nobody think Trump has given up on taking Greenland,” said John O’Brennan, professor of European politics at Maynooth University in Ireland. He warned, “Europe—you are about to be seriously tested.”
EX-TRUMP LAWYER SAYS ‘WE’RE SCREWED’ IF TRUMP PRESSURES NEW AG BLANCHE TO SUBVERT ELECTIONS. One of the many questions swirling around new US Attorney General Todd Blanche is whether he’d go along with President Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the result of another election, Stephen Prager noted at CommonDreams (8/9).
In 2020, when Trump attempted to overturn his loss to former President Joe Biden, his attempts to claim the result was marred by systemic fraud were met with resistance from then-Attorney General William Barr.
But under Blanche, who served for two years as Trump’s personal defense attorney, things may be very different.
That’s according to another of Trump’s former lawyers, Ty Cobb, who served as White House special counsel for nearly a year during Trump’s first term, as he came under investigation by then-special counsel Robert Mueller over his campaign’s alleged coordination with the Russian government.
Cobb, who has been an outspoken critic of both Trump and his appointment of Blanche, appeared for an interview released Aug. 8 on Zeteo’s “Mehdi Unfiltered.” Host Mehdi Hasan asked Cobb, “Come 2028, does American democracy survive Donald Trump?”
“I’m not sure they survive it in 2026,” Cobb responded.
Noting Barr’s resistance to Trump in 2020, Hasan asked: “If the midterms don’t go Trump’s way this fall, is there any world in which Todd Blanche stands up to Trump if he’s asked to find some fake evidence of voter fraud, or are we screwed now?”
“We’re screwed,” Cobb said bluntly.
“Great,” Hasan said. “That’s what I suspected.”
Trump has, on multiple occasions, floated the idea of canceling the midterm elections outright and has enacted measures aimed at blocking mail-in voting and seizing voter information from states. He has also said he wants Republicans to “nationalize” elections in Democratic-leaning locales.
Cobb noted that Blanche “has already echoed [former Trump chief strategist] Steve Bannon’s view that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] should be on the street during the election,” adding, “I think we’ll almost certainly see that.”
Hasan pointed out that the administration has routinely ignored court orders, especially with regard to its immigration enforcement. Cobb predicted that “the level of noncompliance” so far “is nothing compared to what we’re about to see.”
OCEAN TEMPERATURES PUSHED TO HOTTEST ON RECORD IN JULY. Average global ocean surface temperature was the hottest ever recorded in July, fueled in part by uniquely intense, fossil fuel-driven El Niño conditions that have wreaked deadly havoc around the world this summer, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams (8/10).
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said Monday that last month—which ranked as the second warmest July on record—“saw exceptionally high temperatures for the month across a large portion of the tropical Pacific, an area where El Niño conditions are present and forecast to further strengthen in the coming months.” Average global sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were 20.96°C last month, surpassing the July 2023 record of 20.89°C.
“Around Europe, SSTs reached record highs for July along the Atlantic coast and western Mediterranean, associated with widespread strong or severe marine heatwave conditions,” C3S said.
Brian O’Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature, said the latest Copernicus data “is more than another climate milestone; it is a warning that the natural systems we depend on are being pushed closer to their limits.”
“Governments have become very good at documenting these records. Now they need to become much better at safeguarding the forests, wetlands, and oceans that help regulate the climate and protect communities from the impacts of warming world,” said O’Donnell. “With land and ocean temperatures across Europe breaching records, governments should be investing far more and delivering on their global commitment to protect at least 30% of land and ocean by 2030.”
The new analysis was released as western Europe and other regions faced deadly heat, wildfires, drought, and other extreme weather as the international community, including the US and other leading polluters, fails to rein in fossil fuel use—and as oil and gas giants reap record profits.
“Our leaders’ response has to be swifter and stronger than El Niño,” Anne Jellema, executive director of the environmental group 350.org, said Aug. 10. “We already know that global heating is supercharging extreme weather damage, and the public wants polluters to pay for it. With Big Oil’s earnings skyrocketing while a global food crisis looms, now is the time to act. The only way to stave off a humanitarian disaster is to make those causing it pay upfront—before even more damage is done.”
Scientists have characterized this year’s El Niño, which officially began on June 11, as historically strong and dangerous, earning it the informal “Super El Niño” label.
TRUMP INSTALLS PROJECT 25 AUTHOR AT INTERIOR IG OFFICE. The Trump administration has reportedly installed an author of the far-right Project 2025 agenda inside the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General as the watchdog is facing growing calls to investigate alleged corruption by top agency officials, Jake Johnson noted at CommonDreams (8/6).
Dennis Kirk worked in the White House budget office during Trump’s first term and co-authored a Project 2025 chapter that recommended sweeping action to “decentralize and privatize” the federal government “as much as possible.” Last year, Kirk was placed inside the office of the inspector general of the US intelligence community, drawing alarm.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement Aug. 5 that Kirk’s reported appointment to a role inside the Interior Department IG office “is a fraud on the office and a fraud on the American people.”
“Dennis Kirk is a fake and fraudulent watchdog,” said Huffman. “Everyone should have their eyes wide open. Each and every thing this political puppet does will be in service of Donald Trump. This man helped write the Project 2025 playbook for seizing control of the federal workforce. Now he sits inside the office charged with rooting out corruption at Interior, the department that manages our national parks, public lands, Tribal programs, and now, under Trump, gold-slathered statues and a botched Reflecting Pool renovation.”
The current acting head of the Interior Department’s IG office is Caryl Brzymialkiewicz, who ascended to the role after Trump fired the previous watchdog, Mark Greenblatt, in January 2025 as part of a broader purge.
Greenblatt said in a statement posted to his website that reports of Kirk’s installation at the Interior IG office “should concern anyone who values independent government oversight.”
“Placing someone with that background inside an inspector general’s office raises serious questions about the independence of one of the federal government’s most important accountability institutions,” said Greenblatt. “Unfortunately, this development does not stand alone. It follows a series of actions—including the dismissal of inspectors general, proposed budget reductions, and efforts to redefine the role of inspectors general themselves—that have steadily eroded confidence in independent oversight across the federal government.”
UNICEF SAYS 300 CHILDREN KILLED IN GAZA IN 300 DAYS OF ‘CEASEFIRE.’ “The world calls it a ceasefire, but families in Gaza are still burying their children.”
That was one United Nations spokesperson’s assessment of the ongoing US-backed Israeli assault on Gaza on Aug.6 , which marked the 300th day since a ceasefire deal was reached between Israel and Hamas—a period during which at least 300 Palestinian children have been killed, the UN reported, and Julia Conley noted at CommonDreams (8/6).
“A ceasefire that leaves an average of one child dead each and every day is failing children,” said Edouard Beigbeder, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “With hundreds more children injured, many severely, children in Gaza are still waiting for the end to the violence they were promised.”
Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNICEF, noted that in the first three days of August, at least four children were killed across Gaza, and surviving children have been left with “painfully simple” and urgent questions for Israeli officials who had agreed last October to cease hostilities, reopen border crossings, and ensure 600 aid trucks entered Gaza per day to get much-needed food and essentials to Palestinians who had been facing a near-total blockade.
Wateridge said Palestinian children need to know: “When will the killings stop? When will food and medicine reach me at the level needed? When will hospitals reopen? And when will clean water flow again?”
Reports of the mass casualties of children come as Israel and President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace raise doubts about whether Israel will accept a deal stipulating the disarmament of Hamas and Israel’s withdrawal from the exclave.
UN officials expressed hope that the next steps of the peace plan can move forward to save children and other civilians across Gaza.
“Children have heard promises before. This time, agreements must translate into action,” said Beigbeder.
LEGAL CHALLENGE PROMISED AFTER GOP-CONTROLLED FCC LIFTS TV OWNERSHIP LIMITS, ALLOWING TRUMP ALLIES TO ‘SWALLOW UP STATIONS.’ A press freedom group says it plans to take the GOP-controlled Federal Communications Commission to court after it voted along party lines on Aug. 6 to enact a rule that could allow a small number of media conglomerates to consolidate even more control over local news stations, Stephen Prager noted at CommonDreams (8/6).
In a 2-1 vote, the FCC eliminated a 22-year-old rule that prohibited a single company from owning stations that reach more than 39% of American households, replacing it with a rule allowing the FCC to make decisions on a case-by-case basis.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the move was necessary to “restore balance to the broadcast airwaves” and “allow local broadcasters to remain competitive with national ones.”
The FCC’s lone Democrat and dissenting vote, Anna Gomez, argued that the move would not benefit local broadcasters so much as it would benefit the national conglomerates seeking to buy them up.
“The large station groups positioned to grow even larger under this decision are not local broadcasters; they are national companies that own local stations and increasingly dictate what airs on them,” Gomez said. “Trading a squeeze from Big Tech for a squeeze from Big Media does nothing to protect the communities this cap was designed to serve.”
In a statement after the ruling, Reporters Without Borders said the FCC had “just abandoned one of the last significant safeguards against excessive concentration of media ownership.”
The change is a big win for media conglomerates like Nexstar Media Group, which is seeking a merger with rival TV company Tegna to reach about 80% of households nationwide. The merger was approved earlier this year by the FCC, but blocked by a federal judge.
It would also allow the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a conglomerate known for forcing “must-run” segments with right-wing talking points into local news coverage from its corporate headquarters, the ability to continue gobbling up local news stations around the country.
Free Press, a media and technology watchdog, said it planned to appeal the FCC’s decision in court, arguing that Carr had exceeded his power by overriding the 39% threshold, which was enshrined in federal law by the 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act.
“His goal is to spur more media consolidation involving companies Donald Trump views as ideological allies and corporate cronies,” said Matt Wood, the group’s vice president of policy and general counsel.
Carr, a Trump appointee, has previously sought to use the FCC to crack down on the use of the airwaves by Trump’s ideological enemies and consolidate control for his allies.
He has threatened the broadcast licenses of networks that criticize Trump, most infamously pressuring ABC to briefly pull late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air last year. Carr also used the FCC’s approval of the Paramount-Skydance merger to enforce ideological conformity at CBS News, which has dramatically altered its coverage and personnel to be more favorable to the administration.
Carr has argued that the FCC has the power to alter the consolidation cap because Congress technically directed the FCC to modify its own regulations to enact the 39% limit.
Gomez has disputed this, noting that when the FCC previously tried to move the cap, Congress “stepped in within months... and made clear the FCC did not have the authority to change it.”
“Changing this limit requires congressional action, but Carr doesn’t care,” Wood said. “He’ll do whatever it takes to clear the way for Trump-aligned billionaires to swallow up stations wherever and whenever they please.”
