The Ancient Mediterranean in Greater Washington

Traveling to Italy will soon include a new entry system for non EU visitors. Instead of passport stamps, travelers will have fingerprints and a facial scan taken at the border. The system is already being introduced across parts of Europe and will continue rolling out through 2026. Officials say it will improve security and track entry and exit more accurately. Travelers may experience longer wait times at airports during the early stages as the system is introduced. 🇮🇹✈️

UMD Student Testifies at Hearing on Campus Antisemitism Gabi Stern was disappointed when the University of Maryland student government voted to pass a boycott, divestment and sanctions resolution on Yom Kippur in October.

Martha Graham's Radical Retellings of Greek Myth - The Center for Hellenic Studies On Tuesday, March 31, 2026 at 6:30 p.m., Nina Papathanasopoulou (CYA Athens) examines American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham’s radical reception of the women of Greek tragedy.

2026 Victor Shargai Leadership Award and Helen Hayes Awards Nominations Join us on February 23, 2026 for an exciting evening celebrating outstanding achievements and contributions to the Washington, DC-area theatre industry. This event is being graciously hosted by Theatre Washington partner Studio Theatre (1501 14th St NW) and will begin with the announcement of nomina...

The Contrarian

With special guest co-authors Richard Painter and Virginia Canter

Dear Contrarians, Donald Trump’s shenanigans this week were so outrageous that reinforcements were in order to push back! So, I invited George W. Bush White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter and Clinton White House ethics lawyer Virginia Canter to join me—the Obama White House ethics lawyer—to write about Trump’s misconduct.

The president‘s outrageous request for $230 million from the federal government is not only an abusive attempt to raid the coffers of the Treasury, but it’s also an apparent violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause—a constitutional provision that expressly prohibits the president from taking any emolument from the United States other than his statutory salary. And, unlike the Foreign Emoluments clause, the domestic clause is applicable solely to the president of the United States, and Congress has no power to waive it. We should know: The three of us served as ethics officials to President Barack Obama, President George W. Bush, and President Bill Clinton and brought suit against Trump in his first term for violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

The weight of history shows that the term “emolument” is expansive and covers any form of profit, advantage, or benefit. So when the president seeks compensation from the Department of Justice based on spurious claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act, he is really seeking compensation from the government in excess of his salary. And he is doing so using his subordinates to award him a profit, advantage, or benefit in violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause.

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s cases were supported by the evidence but were not decided on the merits one way or another because Trump won the 2024 election. The Justice Department will not try a criminal case against a sitting president. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2017-2019 investigation did not result in criminal charges being brought for the same reason stated in Part II of Mueller’s report—again, the Justice Department will not indict a sitting president. Finally, the FBI search of Trump’s Florida estate for classified documents was pursuant to a valid search warrant signed by a judge. None of this justifies a $230 million payment from the Treasury to Trump.

Indeed, many presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden, have been subjected to special counsel investigations. Not one of them sought or received reimbursement of legal costs from the government. Trump is the only president to be indicted after leaving office, but there are very few cases in which more ordinary defendants acquitted in criminal cases received compensation from the government. And, again, Trump was never acquitted or adjudicated guilty of the charges against him because there was no trial. Finally, ex*****on of a lawful search warrant almost never leads to compensation unless federal agents cause bodily injury or serious damage to property. That did not occur at Trump’s Florida residence. Trump seeking compensation for the investigations is nothing more than an attempt to squeeze hundreds of millions of dollars from the American taxpayer.

By filing a claim with the Justice Department, Trump is now seeking approval from the very same lawyers he appointed to their positions, some of whom also previously defended him, including serving as his personal lawyer in these same matters. If Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche fail to recuse themselves from this matter, they open themselves up to potential violations of government ethics rules and their professional ethical obligations. Bondi challenged Smith’s Special Counsel appointment in an amicus brief, arguing it was unconstitutional. Blanche represented Trump in the same matter.

Justice Department lawyers are covered by important government ethics rules and legal ethics rules that bar their participation in the decision-making process in a particular matter in which their impartiality would be questioned and from using public office for the private gain of any private person.

Bondi and Blanche also signed ethics agreements promising to recuse themselves from any specific party matter involving a former firm or former private-sector client for one year from the date they last provided them legal services.

They, like all government officials, are required under federal regulations to recuse themselves for the duration of their government service from any matter in which their impartiality would be questioned. There is no way that any of these officials could operate in a neutral, unbiased way toward the president, as is required by the ethics laws. The officials who personally represented the president are also generally prohibited by Bar rules from engaging in the same or similar matters that they worked on while in the private sector.

But, more important, the president’s actions now more than ever present an impossible choice for Justice Department officials who are being asked to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to the president for immensely specious claims under an implied coercion that arises from fear of removal. Their legal and ethical obligation instead is to uphold the rule of law and to avoid aiding and abetting any scheme in which the government pays anyone, including the president, money it does not owe. If Bondi and Blanche sit by and permit the abuse of the department’s authorities and assist in facilitating such payments, they will have failed their obligations to uphold the Constitution, to represent the interests of the government, and to ensure that their subordinates follow the law.

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Contrarians, just Norm here: Your paid subscriptions help fund the litigation and investigation that pushes back on all of the Trump corruption—from his contemplated $230 million cash grab to his foreign-funded crypto billions and from his golden Qatari plane to his Marie Antoinette ballroom subsidized by corporate influence seekers. If you’re not a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one. You help us fight for American democracy—and support the vital daily journalism in The Contrarian that helps explain these issues and so much more.

This week at The Contrarian, we welcomed political writer and editor Tim Dickinson, who joined us from Rolling Stone and who helped us cover No Kings Day. We also featured so much more. See for yourself:

Eyes on the courts

The 7th Circuit rejects lies about Chicago

Jen Rubin wrote on the unanimous 7th Circuit opinion that underscored the utter lack of legal basis for Trump’s National Guard deployment in Chicago and what we can expect as the administration appeals to the Supreme Court. “If the MAGA justices again undo lower courts’ fact-finding and allow Trump to invade U.S. cities, they effectively will have given Trump wide berth to lie.”

Don’t lump Bolton charges in with flimsy cases against Comey and James

Barbara McQuade broke down the Bolton indictment, a case with more merit than the average Trump vendetta but that is no less compromised by the administration’s abuse of justice. “The shame of Trump’s vengeance crusade is that even when prosecutors bring important cases, the public might doubt their legitimacy.”

A Potential Rights Sunset on the Horizon: Rick Hasen on Louisiana’s Redistricting Supreme Court Case

Professor Rick Hasen offered an insightful dissection of the Supreme Court case that could slash fair representation in Louisiana communities, benefiting Republicans like Speaker Mike Johnson. His full interview is on Substack.

Trump is suing...the government? Andrew Weissmann on the DOJ suit & Comey Case

Andrew Weissmann discussed the shameful absurdity of Trump demanding that the DOJ pay him $230 million. “You have the president saying, ‘I want $230 million’ and you had 7 million people just this past weekend protesting for no kings.”

Extremism & criminalization of dissent

The ‘antifa’ fiction

Jeff Nesbit wrote on Trump’s efforts to weaponize the state against a phantom menace, chilling the very concept of protest in America. Moreover, Trump is obscuring the actual most persistent and lethal domestic terror threat in the United States: white supremacist groups.

The extremism permissive structure that led to the Young Republicans’ chat

Shalise Manza Young unpacked JD Vance’s staunch support of the vile rhetoric revealed in a recently leaked group chat of influential young Republicans. “According to the vice president, as long as you’re white, all manner of violent, racist, homophobic, antisemitic, white supremacist talk is no big deal.”

Radicalism Among White Christian Nationalists: Robert P. Jones on the latest PRRI Survey

Robert P. Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) joined Jen Rubin to break down the findings of PRRI’s latest American Values Report, which finds that white evangelicals continue to retreat from the center to embrace more radical positions. “Today, it is actually hard as a pollster to write a question on immigration that is too harsh or too cruel for evangelicals to support.”

ICE is Nothing More than a Gang: Arne Duncan on ICE Disruptions in Chicago

In a special episode of The Tea, April Ryan was joined by non-profit leader and former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to discuss the state of play in Chicago, where ICE raids are becoming increasingly hostile. “This is not a drill, this is reality.”

After No Kings

The Contrarian covers the Democracy Movement

Last weekend you marched and danced, made signs and costumes, chanted and most importantly, showed up. This week we posted coverage of some of the millions of you who came out to No Kings Day nationwide. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at [email protected]. And check out Gabriel Lezra’s essential 15 More Ways You Can Fight for Democracy.

No Kings gives us hope in saving American democracy

Tom Malinowski put the No Kings protest into perspective as a heartening sign that though new threats to our democracy emerge every day, we haven’t lost it yet—a truth that must spur us on to the hard work ahead. “We can still use democracy to save it.”

The No Kings rally was a good start, but a protest isn’t going to save America

Carron J. Phillips warned against self-congratulation after last weekend. “The ‘No Kings’ protests will be remembered as a waste of time unless some actionable offenses take place, and soon. What’s the next move? Is there a plan for the midterm elections? Are candidates being prepped for 2028? What do we do until then?”

The big ugly ballroom

The grotesque metaphor of Trump tearing apart the figurative seat of American democracy

“For all the grotesque, lawless, self-aggrandizing actions Donald Trump has taken since his second inauguration,” wrote Shalise Manza-Young, the demolition of the East Wing still managed to shock with its horrifying haphazardness. “The poisonous icing on a rotting cake.”

Tearing down the People’s House for a pay-to-play palace

Jeff Nesbit saw in Trump’s calamitous new pet project “the physical manifestation of this administration’s core tenets: blatant disregard for process, the transformation of public office into private profit, and the replacement of a national symbol with a tacky, monarchical reflection of one man’s ego.”

The Ballroom and the Bubbles

Meghan Houser wrote on the hollow synergy between the ballroom and its craven funders: titans of tech and finance enriching themselves, and the president, on market bubbles with a future that looks much like the East Wing.

Culture, cartoons & fun stuff

America needs to see ‘Ask E. Jean,’ but may not get the chance

Meredith Blake highlighted a moving, funny documentary that chronicles E. Jean Carroll’s legal battles against Donald Trump—and is struggling to find anyone in Hollywood with the courage to distribute it. “Ask E. Jean does not paint Carroll as a victim, but rather as a larger-than-life personality whose indomitable spirit served her well both as a trailblazing writer and as one of Trump’s greatest adversaries.”

Our cartoonists this week homed in on Trump’s latest kingly exploits, from a fetid flyover (Trump’s fly-by, Nick Anderson; Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling), to palace (de)construction (Donald’s magical kingdom, RJ Matson), to good ol’ extortion (Spreading the good news, Michael de Adder; Lip service, Nick Anderson), to playing well with other tyrants (On the ropes, Michael de Adder).

The ‘wettest, weirdest and wildest’ baseball game that won the World Series

Fred Frommer writes on the game by which a hundred years ago, the Pirates stunned the Senators in the Fall Classic.

Healthy-Adjacent No-Cook Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

Emily Beyda gave us a history of trick-or-treating and a great snack or quick sweet-tooth satisfaction for dark times and spooky season.

Contrarian Pet of the Week

And last but never least we have Birdie, the 3-year-old “failed” foster cat who comes to us from our newest Contrarian, Tim Dickinson. Welcome, Tim and Birdie!

***

There you go, Contrarians—another great week of holding Trump to account in print and in the courts of law. With all of you on the case, democracy is well-represented. Have a great weekend and see you at 9:15 am ET Monday for Coffee with the Contrarians. Warmly, Norm

The RFK Human Rights Center has selected the latest recipient of its 2025 Ripple of Hope Award: Stephen Colbert.

“Humor can be a catalyst for change, and Stephen Colbert stands as a shining example of how speaking truth to power, boldly, wisely, and with heart, can ignite change and send ripples of hope far beyond the stage,” nonprofit president Kerry Kennedy said in a Wednesday statement.

Howard is aware of the arrest of a student departing the U Street corridor late last night. University officials have been in touch with the mayor’s office and the Metropolitan Police Department to gather additional information. We have also contacted the family of the detained student and are reaching out to other students involved. We realize that this situation, as well as the heightened federal law enforcement presence across Washington, D.C., has created both concern and anxiety among many students and their families. We want to reemphasize that the safety of our community is our top priority, both on and off campus.

Read the full community message here: https://thedig.howard.edu/announcements/letter-howard-community-regarding-u-street-incident

Pleased to see my colleague’s work cited: The earliest Black elites were defined not just by wealth, but also by education, tightly knit social networks and respectability, said Carla Peterson, professor emerita at the University of Maryland and the author of “Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City.”

Respectability, Dr. Peterson added, “was the outward manifestation of inner ‘character’ and rooted in bourgeois values of hard work and moral uprightness.”

The Complexities of Portraying the Black Elite, From ‘The Gilded Age’ to Ralph Lauren Recent portrayals of the Black elite have shown the complexities that can come with representing class.

The New England Commission of Higher Education — which accredits more than 200 colleges, primarily in the Northeast — is one of several major institutional accreditors that are reconsidering if and how members should demonstrate how they’re meeting diversity goals.

The commission’s members were concerned about potential conflicts between the accreditor’s standards and declarations from the federal government that DEI measures are illegal, said Lawrence M. Schall, president of the commission.

The Trump administration has put intense pressure on both accreditors and their member colleges, including the New England commission in particular. In a June letter, the Departments of Health and Human Services and Education told the accreditor that it had found Harvard in violation of civil-rights law, and that action may be required because the university “may no longer meet” accreditation standards. (The commission has acknowledged to the departments that it received that notice, Schall said, and explained its process for responding to the issue.)

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice directed federally funded institutions to abandon any effort to rectify racial disparities in academic outcomes. The new guidance also suggested that efforts to target student recruitment in historically underserved communities could be using geography as an illegal proxy for race.

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“What we heard from institutions is that they felt they would be put in an untenable position,” Schall said, especially the U.S. military academies that are accredited by the commission and bound by law to follow the president’s executive orders.

The commission’s members include the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the U.S. Naval War College, as well as the Ivy League’s Yale University, which is facing heightened scrutiny over allegations that it is violating civil-rights laws.

The Details

The New England commission’s current standards include references to diversity, equity, and inclusion under five of the nine major areas it measures, including organization and governance, students, and institutional resources.

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Under the guidelines for serving students, for example, the standard states: “The institution addresses its own goals for the achievement of diversity, equity, and inclusion among its students and provides a safe environment that fosters the intellectual and personal development of its students.”

The suggested changes would require the college to respond to “the needs of its student population,” provide “support services,” and make “provisions for responding to them including strategies for having all students feel welcomed, supported, and included in the community.”

In the current framework, the commission doesn’t actually require its members to pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion, Schall emphasized. But if colleges do have that goal, the standard frames how they should present it during the accreditation process.

“If you have goals around diversity, equity, inclusion, we would like to know what they are and be updated on the progress you’re making to meet them,” Schall said in an interview, “but we don’t require any school to have a DEI plan.”

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Overall, the draft changes articulate a more streamlined approach, Schall said, that provides colleges more flexibility in meeting the accreditor’s requirements. For example, the updated standard for “students” incorporates requirements for academic and co-curricular programs, as it relates to the student experience.

The commission’s leadership will now give its members several weeks to provide feedback on the changes, which will be considered for approval at the commission’s December meeting.

If approved, the new standards would go into effect in July 2026.

The Backdrop

Accreditors — which gatekeep colleges’ access to federal financial aid — have been in President Trump’s crosshairs since the 2024 presidential campaign, when then-candidate Trump vowed to “fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics.”

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In April, Trump signed an executive order that aimed to force accreditors to remove any requirements related to DEI, as well as to make it easier for new such organizations to be approved by the federal government and for colleges to switch accreditors.

More recently, as was the case for the New England commission, the Education Department has sought to use accreditation as a tool to force some colleges to comply with the administration’s conservative goals and definitions of civil-rights laws.

In June, the department sent notice to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education that Columbia University had violated accreditation standards because it had not adequately responded to antisemitic behavior during protests against the war in Gaza. As a result, the department argued, Columbia was in violation of Title VI, which bars discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, including shared Jewish ancestry.

The Stakes

Two other major accrediting agencies have also sought to minimize potential conflicts over standards that include DEI.

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Late last year, the Higher Learning Commission, which accredits some 950 colleges across 19 states, approved new standards that excised the terms “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” from its standards.

In May, the WASC Senior College and University Commission, which accredits colleges mostly in California and Hawaii, announced that it was enacting a temporary “stay” on requirements that reference diversity efforts.

The moves are, in part, meant to assure state lawmakers that accreditors are not compelling members to break state laws that bar DEI programs. The Higher Learning Commission, for example, is working with potential new member institutions in Florida and North Carolina, which have such laws.

Conflicts with state laws aren’t an issue for colleges from the New England Commission’s historical region. But colleges from anywhere in the country can now apply to be members, Schall said. The commission now has member colleges from the Republican-controlled states of Florida, Georgia, and Missouri.

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Schall said the removal of DEI language could also shield the commission from punitive action by the Trump administration.

The commission is scheduled to go before a federal advisory committee in October that will issue a recommendation to the Education Secretary on whether it is meeting federal regulations to remain in its gatekeeping role.

“Would a secondary consequence of this be, somehow to avoid some attack on us?” he said. “Based on what we’ve seen, they seem quite free to come after the accreditors with a lot of information that’s not quite accurate.”

Under Pressure From Trump, the Accreditor Overseeing Harvard Proposes Nixing DEI Standards The New England Commission of Higher Education, which accredits more than 200 colleges, was specifically targeted by the administration.