President Donald Trump stormed out of a taped interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after being pressed on his controversial “weaponization” fund and on evidence of his persistent claims of election fraud.

Trump sat with NBC’s Kristen Welker for a taped interview on a Wisconsin farm that touched on the Iran war, potential interest rate hikes, and the $1.776 billion “weaponization” fund that could financially compensate convicted violent rioters who attacked police officers on Jan. 6, 2021. Thousands of people stormed the Capitol that day, attempting to disrupt the certification of former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

The president said he would like to see the weaponization fund proceed despite setbacks that prompted acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to say it was permanently halted.

“If it was up to me, I’d pay them the kind of money that they deserve,” Trump said of the fund. “People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed. Many suicides, think of it.” The president has repeatedly made such claims without providing evidence.

The fund was established after a settlement in which Trump ended his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax information in 2019 and 2020, in exchange for the so-called weaponization fund, intended to compensate people who claim they were victims of “lawfare.”

“I think the weaponization fund is a great idea,” he said. “If they get it approved, that’s great; if they don’t get it approved, I’d be disappointed.”

The settlement also stipulates Trump, his family members, and related business entities are forever protected from tax audits and enforcement actions in connection with tax returns filed before the out-of-court settlement.

But it is the weaponization fund that has drawn the most controversy. The fund quickly became a lightning rod on Capitol Hill, with many Republicans bucking the White House and opposing the fund. The fund was blocked in court last month.

Trump suggested Jan. 6 rioters were ushered into the Capitol by the FBI, a claim that he did not provide evidence for and which has been widely refuted by video of rioters beating Capitol Police officers who were trying to defend the building.

Pressed by NBC for evidence on those claims, Trump shifted to claims of election fraud, which he has long claimed but has been unable to prove in a court of law.

“The election was rigged, it was a dirty election and it’s happening again right now in California,” he said, referring to primaries for mayoral and…

President Donald Trump’s recently dismissed $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service should be reopened so the judge who oversaw it can investigate “whether a fraud occurred,” 35 former federal judges argued Wednesday.

Trump, his two eldest sons and the Trump Organization on May 18 abruptly dropped their case against the IRS and the Treasury Department, which was based on leaks of their tax information by an ex-IRS employee in 2019 and 2020.

Federal Judge Kathleen Williams of Miami District Court accordingly ordered the case dismissed with prejudice, while noting that the move cancels an upcoming deadline related to her efforts to scrutinize the matter.

She also noted in her ruling that the plaintiffs made no reference to a settlement and that the defendants did not submit any settlement documents.

The same day, the Department of Justice announced that as part of a settlement agreement in the case, the U.S. attorney general will establish a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

One day later, the DOJ revealed an addendum to the settlement that effectively shielded the plaintiffs and certain affiliates from any IRS enforcement regarding their past tax returns.

“The Court was deceived,” the ex-judges wrote in a court filing Wednesday afternoon.

“Despite Plaintiffs not having mentioned any settlement in their Notice, the [DOJ] publicly announced a ‘settlement’ of this action shortly after Plaintiffs filed their dismissal,” they wrote.

That settlement “raises profound questions about the parties’ candor toward the Court and manipulation of the judicial system, which threatens to undermine confidence in the administration of justice,” they argued.

Among the retired judges who joined the filing is J. Michael Luttig, who had testified before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The ex-judges seek to “raise a challenge of fraud” through Rule 60 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which they say allows Williams to reopen the case. As an alternative, they urged Williams to reopen the proceeding on her own.

In either case, they want the court to “set aside the judgment in this lawsuit,” allowing it to “resume its inquiry into whether there is an actual underlying case or controversy, or whether, to the contrary, this ‘case’ that the parties purport to have ‘settled’ is itself a fraud on the Court.”

The judges asserted that the settlement is a “product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the Court.” But Williams does not need to immediately agree in order to set aside her dismissal, they argued.

Reopening the case “will allow the Court to commence an inquiry into whether the Court was deceived, including…

Shares of Adani Enterprises and Adani Green Energy pared early losses on Friday after the U.S. regulators sought court approval for a settlement in their civil lawsuit against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and his nephew, Sagar Adani.

Both stocks remain above their 52-week highs, according to LSEG data. Shares of Adani Enterprises are up roughly 24% this year, while Adani Green is up around 41%.

The Securities and Exchange Commission had alleged that the two men misled investors as part of a bribery and fraud scheme tied to solar contracts in India. Under the settlement, Gautam Adani will pay a $6 million penalty, while Sagar Adani will pay $12 million.

Both men have consented to “entry of the final judgment without admitting or denying the allegations made in the civil complaint,” and payment of penalties, Indian renewable energy firm Adani Green said in a filing to the Indian stock exchanges.

The company added that it is not part of these proceedings and “no charges have been brought against it.”

Shares of Adani Enterprises, the group’s flagship company, rose 1.8% and Adani Green, the company at the center of the bribery allegations, added 0.6% after recovering from early losses following news of the SEC settlement.

The SEC’s civil complaint against Gautam and Sagar Adani, along with executives at Azure Power Global, centered on allegations of bribery tied to solar energy contracts awarded by India’s government.

The U.S. Justice Department will also likely drop the criminal fraud charges against Adani, according to multiple media reports.

A New York federal court indicted Gautam Adani and seven others in November 2024 on criminal charges related to an alleged bribery and fraud scheme.

Prosecutors alleged that the defendants paid more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials, misled investors and banks to raise billions of dollars, and obstructed justice, according to court documents.

Although the alleged conduct at the center of the indictment occurred in India, the defendants were charged in the Brooklyn federal court because the fundraising efforts happened in the U.S.

The Adani Group has denied the allegations made by U.S. authorities, calling them “baseless.”

In a meeting at the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington last month, Adani’s legal team, led by Robert J. Giuffra Jr., argued that prosecutors lacked “basic evidence,” according to a report by the New York Times on Thursday.

The Indian businessman had offered to invest $10 billion in the U.S. economy and create 15,000 jobs, the report added.

Earlier this year, the SEC sought permission from U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn to serve a legal summons on Adani after India’s…

The Department of Justice on Tuesday announced a bombshell 11-count indictment accusing the Southern Poverty Law Center of secretly funding right-wing extremist groups that it claimed to be battling.

“The SPLC was not dismantling the groups,” said Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche at a press conference. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

The indictment was returned Tuesday by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Alabama, Blanche said. The SPLC, which is a non-profit civil rights group, is charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of money laundering, he said.

The SPLC earlier Tuesday in a statement said it was the subject of a criminal probe by the DOJ.

“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement reported by The Associated Press.

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The president of SantaCon was arrested on Wednesday on a federal criminal indictment accusing him of using the ticketed Christmas bar-crawl event to divert hundreds of thousands of dollars earmarked for charity to his personal use, New York federal prosecutors said.

The defendant, Stefan Pildes, claimed he did not receive any compensation from SantaCon, according to the indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

But the 50-year-old Pildes allegedly diverted funds from the event to a “slush fund” to pay for extensive renovations to a lakefront property in New Jersey, luxury vacations in Hawaii, Las Vegas, and Vail, Colorado, concert tickets, extravagant meals, and a luxury vehicle, prosecutors said.

About $124,000 of the SantaCon funds were spent toward leasing a luxury apartment in Manhattan, and another $100,000 was invested in a boutique resort in Costa Rica founded by a friend of Pildes, the indictment said.

Pildes “donated only a small fraction” of the approximately $2.7 million raised by SantaCon for his nonprofit group, Participatory Safety, to charity, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors said he “defrauded tens of thousands of individuals and small business owners who participated in” SantaCon, which annually draws about 25,000 people dressed as Santa Claus and other holiday characters to bars and restaurants in New York City. Tickets for the event cost between $10 and $20.

Pildes “promoted SantaCon as an event grounded in charitable giving, but instead of donating the millions of dollars he raised, he ran his own con game,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.

“He took advantage of New Yorkers’ generous holiday spirit to finance his lifestyle through personal expenses, big and small,” Clayton said.

Pildes, who lives in Hewitt, N.J., is charged with one count of wire fraud. He is expected to appear on Wednesday afternoon in Manhattan federal court.

The indictment comes more than two years after an analysis by the news site Gothamist found that Participatory Safety raised “raised $1.4 million through SantaCon programming from late 2014 through the end of 2022,” but that “less than a fifth of that money has gone to registered nonprofits.”

“More than a third of the organization’s total giving during that period went to groups or individuals who appear connected to Burning Man, the annual weeklong festival in Nevada, including organizations devoted to hula hooping, dance parades, free costumes and more,” Gothamist reported.

The report said that the largest donation by Participatory Safety went to “a for-profit outfit: $66,340 to…

Reps. Ro Khanna and Tim Burchett told CNBC this week they will introduce a new bill to commission a nationwide waste, fraud and abuse probe of state-administered programs that use federal funds.

The proposed bill, which was shared exclusively with CNBC, comes after reports of state-level welfare fraud erupted several months ago, drawing harsh condemnations from Republicans and some Democrats. The fraud allegations collided with proposals from Democrats to tax the rich to pay for expanded social services, which could send trillions of new dollars into federal coffers.

Khanna, D-Calif., who is separately leading Democrats on a bill to impose a federal wealth tax, told CNBC in December he would introduce the fraud probe as soon as he found a Republican cosponsor, after some of his longtime Silicon Valley supporters threatened to revolt over his embrace of such a tax. The bill introduction with Burchett, a conservative Republican from Tennessee, appears to make good on that promise.

“As a progressive Democrat, I fundamentally believe we need to show people that their tax dollars are going to be effective, that we’re actually going to use it to get people health care and child care and education and services,” Khanna said in an interview Wednesday. “We have to show that we’re going to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, that taxpayers can trust that the money they’re giving is going to get to the working class.”

Despite saying his progressive ideals drive his push for an audit, Khanna insisted in the interview that the effort would be bipartisan and apolitical. Recent reports of alleged fraud were instrumental in kicking off the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota that resulted in the deaths of two American citizens.

“One of the things we both wanted to do was to make sure it’s not political,” Khanna said in the interview. “It will undermine our effort if this becomes a political bludgeon to go after Minnesota or my home state. There is an issue with federal programs that are high risk, and that is something that could happen in any state.”

Burchett, in an interview Wednesday, agreed that the effort is geared more toward finding fraud than scoring political points.

“We need to find out, and the way you do it is an audit,” Burchett said, noting his political differences with Khanna.

“Ro is a pretty smart guy. We don’t agree on a lot, but honesty is one of those things I think we…

Shares of Adani Group companies fell between 5 to 12% on Friday after reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to send summons to founder Gautam Adani and nephew Sagar Adani on charges of bribery and fraud.

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, chair of India’s Adani Group and one of the world’s richest people, was indicted with seven other men in New York federal court in November 2024 on charges related to a massive bribery and fraud scheme.

According to a Bloomberg report on Friday, the SEC has approached a U.S. District Judge, Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn, seeking permission to issue a legal summons to Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani and the executive director of Adani Green Energy, Sagar Adani. CNBC has reached out to Adani Group for comment.

Shares of Adani Green Energy plunged 12% while those of the flagship company Adani Enterprises fell over 8% on Friday. Shares of Adani Power dropped 5%.

The Adani Group executives are charged with misleading U.S. and international investors about their company’s compliance with anti-bribery and anti-corruption practices, as they raised more than $3 billion in capital to fund those energy contracts.

The SEC told the court it had repeatedly sought assistance from the Indian government to deliver the summons but was unsuccessful, according to the Bloomberg report.

Adani and several other defendants are accused of having paid Indian government officials more than $250 million in bribes to obtain solar energy supply contracts worth more than $2 billion in profits.