RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week

RealClearInvestigations'

Picks of the Week

January 4 to January 10

Featured Investigation:

One Fell Swoop: Lawsuit Eyes

Death Blow to Racial Preferences

While the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in 2023, Ben Weingarten reports for RealClearInvestigations that a new legal challenge aims to build on that and other rulings to completely eliminate race-based preferences embedded across federal contracting and grant programs.

• Although the Supreme Court barred racial preferences in college admissions in SFFA v. Harvard, similar race-based frameworks persist throughout the federal government, particularly in contracting programs administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA).
• The lawsuit Revier v. Loeffler targets SBA regulations that presume certain racial groups to be “socially disadvantaged,” a designation that unlocks access to tens of billions of dollars in no-bid or limited-competition contracts and has been adopted across at least 20 federal agencies.
• Under the Biden administration, awards to “Small Disadvantaged Businesses” expanded significantly, reaching roughly $78 billion in 2024, or 12% of all federal contract dollars—well above the 5% goal set by Congress.
• Critics argue the SBA’s 8(a) program relies on unconstitutional racial presumptions and has become vulnerable to fraud, citing multiple investigations, guilty pleas, and recent high-profile suspensions of contractors accused of abuse.
• Supporters counter that the program is rooted in congressional intent to address systemic racial disadvantage, helps diversify the supply chain, and creates jobs and economic growth, with misconduct representing isolated cases.
• The plaintiffs, including a white-owned software firm and Young America’s Foundation, claim the regulations excluded them from federal investment, fellowship, and grant opportunities solely based on race, violating constitutional guarantees of equal protection.
• Recent district court rulings in Tennessee, Texas, and Kentucky have already curtailed similar race-based presumptions, strengthening the plaintiffs’ case.
• If successful, Revier v. Loeffler could dismantle race-based presumptions not only at the SBA but across the federal government, setting up a major confrontation over the future of affirmative action beyond higher education.

Waste of the Day

by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books

Federal Loans Had Potential Conflicts, RCI

Grants for Winter Heating Bills Are Missing, RCI

Report Finds $1.6T in Wasteful Spending, RCI

Throwback Thursday - Fire Department Puppet Shows, RCI

Can You Hear Me Now? No., RCI

Trump 2.0 and the Beltway

To Get to Maduro, Trump Went Through Puerto Rico, Politico

Trump Was Skeptical of Ousting Maduro – Until He Wasn’t, WSJ

How Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Could Change the World., Politico

Fear Grips Caracas as Wave of Repression Is Unleashed, Washington Post

Who Supported Rent-a-Mob Protests for Maduro?, PJ Media

Mysterious Gambler Won $400K on Maduro's Removal, NBC News

Trump to Crack Down on Defense Firms Over Exec Pay, Guardian

Trump Moves to Ban Big Investors from Buying Some Homes, Wall Street Journal

White House Re-Litigates Jan. 6 with Webpage Baling Democrats, Axios

Biden’s Pension Largest for Any President in History, New York Post

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Who Is "David" in Viral Minnesota Somali Fraud Video? 

Jacqueline Sweet, Intercept

In his viral video alleging fraud at Somali-owned day care centers in Minneapolis, Nick Shirley was accompanied by an older man named David. Drawing on clues in the video – including the obscured tag on David’s shirt and photos that suggest connections to a roofing company – this article identified Shirley’s compatriot (since confirmed) as David Hoch, a lobbyist and one-time candidate for Minnesota attorney general. The article picks up on other clues in the 42-minute video to report that David probably received state-funding figures for specific centers from a Republican staffer named Joe Marble.

Printouts Hoch carries throughout the video show a December 3 email to Hoch’s Hotmail from a Minnesota state House address for Marble. The subject line says “mako childcare,” referring to one of the closed day cares the pair visit in the video. … “I have some contacts in the Capitol going back many, many years and so the data I am getting is 100 percent accurate coming directly from research done by people at the state capitol,” Hoch says in the video.

This article reports that accounts bearing Hoch’s name have a long online history posting about the Somali community in Minnesota. A TikTok and a recently deleted Instagram account posted almost exclusively on the subject. “EVERY Somali in MN is engaged in fraud. ALL of them,” Hoch posted on the now-deleted Instagram account. In November, he posted, “Even the Blacks have had enough of the demon Muslims.”

In a separate article, NBC News reports that Shirley’s work has inspired a bevy of citizen journalists around the country to investigate state-subsidized child care centers, especially those run by local people of Somali descent. “In the days since Christmas, conservative content creators have been showing up at day care centers from Ohio to Washington state, recording videos of themselves trying to interview employees and expressing suspicion over whether the centers are legitimate businesses. … Many of the people making the videos are affiliated with small conservative websites or have ties to political groups. The clips have been posted to X, where some have racked up millions of views and praise from viewers, with help from a network of prominent right-wing influencers on the platform who share and reuse the content.”

NY Health Program Lost $1.2B

to Fraud & Mismanagement

New York Post

Fraud, of course, is not just a problem in Minnesota. This article reports how one program in New York intended to alleviate the number of elderly people going to nursing homes – Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP – has cost the state’s taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars lost to waste and fraud.

In 2019, CDPAP spending was $2.5 billion, but by 2023 the program accounted for $9.1 billion of Medicaid spending in New York state [and $12 billion by 2025], with 250,000 people enrolled to receive treatment and 400,000 caregivers – “Personal Assistants” in CDPAP parlance. The state Department of Health admitted to The Post for this story that the program has led to a “fiscal crisis.” Even Gov. Kathy Hochul herself called it out, saying it was “one of the most abused programs in the history of New York,” in 2024, and adding, “something has to give.” By that time, she had made promises of reform and took action to consolidate CDPAP, but the program only expanded, now serving more than 280,000 patients – with costs continuing to climb.

Lawyer Richard Harrow, who prosecuted Medicaid fraud in New York for 27 years, and now works in Albany specializing in Medicaid fraud cases, told the Post: “If you think Minnesota is a big deal, multiply that by 10.”

DOJ Resources Devoured by Epstein Files

New York Times

From the Annals of Be Careful What You Wish For, this article reports that the calls for justice that sparked demands for the release go government files connected to Jeffrey Epstein may be blocking justice for many others as the review of millions of documents connected to the late convicted sex offender soak up vast law enforcement resources.

Nearly two-thirds of the lawyers in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan are spending all or most of their work day reviewing many of the two million documents in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation that the Justice Department must still release. … [the 125 lawyers in the Manhattan office] were among more than 400 Justice Department lawyers who had been directed to review the Epstein materials to determine what must be redacted before they are released. The release was ordered by a new law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

David Paul Horowitz, a private lawyer who teaches a workshop at Columbia Law School told the Times that having the Manhattan office divert more than half of its lawyers to work on the review, even for just weeks, “could pose a significant disruption to the office’s day-to-day work.” The office has long handled some of America’s most complex prosecutions, including those involving terrorists, international drug traffickers, corrupt politicians and financial fraudsters. Its current docket includes defendants like Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and Luigi Mangione, who faces trial in the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive in Midtown Manhattan.

Bezos' Ex-Wife Sends Millions to Terror-Tied Nonprofit Network

Washington Free Beacon

This article reports that MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, funneled millions of dollars to a left-wing nonprofit network that supports the nation's most virulent anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations, including some that are under congressional investigation for their ties to terrorist groups.

Scott recently disclosed sending at least $5 million to the Solidaire Network, which supports what it calls "the front lines of social justice movements" by offering grants to an array of left-wing groups. That includes Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the US Palestinian Community Network, and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). SJP and AMP face investigations in both the House and Senate for allegedly coordinating with the terror group Hamas to spearhead anti-Israel protests in the United States.

This article reports that Solidaire also gave $50,000 to US Palestinian Community Network, which called Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel “justified” and part of a “self-defense operation” in response to Israeli military forces and Israeli settlers. Hamas and other terrorists slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds of civilian hostages.

Final Moments of Jet that Vanished over Indian Ocean

Daily Mail

This article does not solve the mystery of why a Beijing-bound Malaysian Airlines flight crashed 12 years ago – but it will probably fill readers with fear every time they step on a plane. This long, richly illustrated piece provides a fascinating update on the slivers of evidence that have washed ashore during the years. It also shows the difficulties investigators are encountering in determining the fate of the plane that veered wildly off-course soon after take-off from Kuala Lumpur and then stopped communicating with air traffic control even as it flew for some eight hours before crashing somewhere in the Indian Ocean. The most compelling theory so far is murder/suicide.

Although Malaysian officials gave [52-year-old Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah] a clean bill of health, friends and associates have described Shah as ‘troubled and lonely’, stuck in an unhappy marriage and having affairs with flight attendants. In spite of the claims about his mental health, Zaharie was also found to have programmed a flight to the southern Indian Ocean into the flight simulator he kept at home, tracking the route taken by MH370. In that scenario, Zaharie could have locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit during a bathroom break and taken complete control. After all, that is what Andreas Lubitz, the first officer of Germanwings flight 9525 did when he deliberately crashed his Airbus A320 into the Alps in 2015 killing all 144 passengers and six crew onboard the jet. Investigators could hear the pilot desperately trying to reenter the cockpit as the jet headed towards a mountain. If Zaharie had locked out his co-pilot, he could then have, if he wanted to, suffocated the passengers by depressurising the cabin. Oxygen masks, programmed to fall automatically in such situations, would only give 15 minutes of air at such extreme altitudes. The flight deck crew have a far longer supply of oxygen, however.

Steered towards the remotest part of the Indian Ocean, this article reports, the plane either ran out of fuel and entered an uncontrolled descent – known as a ’ghost dive’ – into the sea, or he deliberately flew it into the ocean. Either way, it would have been smashed to smithereens – pieces so small that some doubt the people responsible for the new search will find anything approaching a ‘wreck’.