RealClearInvestigations Picks of the Week

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week
April 19 to April 25

RCI Podcasts & Videos

On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak RealClearPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree and her new book (co-authored with Jed McFatter) “Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All.”  

On The Miller Report: Real Clear Journalism, Maggie Miller speaks with Ben Weingarten about his recent RCI article on how the U.S. vets tourists and immigrants who want to enter the country.

Featured Investigation:

Playing Cops: Criminals Pretending To Be Police Is a National Problem

Amalia Wompa reports for RealClearInvestigations that criminals dressed as police officers are robbing, threatening, and assaulting victims across the country. The article examines the rising tide of law enforcement impersonation, its victims, and the legislative response.

• In 2025, 1,474 suspects were arrested in New York City for impersonating a police officer or public servant – a 50 percent increase from the prior year. A Brooklyn bodega robbery in which four armed men in NYPD uniforms zip-tied workers and stole cash exemplifies the trend.
• The FBI has issued national warnings about criminals posing as ICE agents to carry out robberies, kidnappings, and sexual assaults. And the FTC reported $3.5 billion in losses from roughly one million imposter scams in 2025.
• Impersonators target vulnerable populations – immigrants, women, the elderly, and minors – using fake uniforms, police lights, and sirens freely available online without verification, including through retired police vehicle auctions.
• The crisis is eroding public trust in real law enforcement. In one Texas case, a homeowner shot and killed an actual officer believing him to be an intruder. A Georgia woman purchased a firearm after being threatened by a fake cop who had targeted multiple women.
• Legislatures are responding. Minnesota is weighing penalties of up to 10 years for repeat offenders, prompted by the murder of former state House Speaker Melissa Hortman by a man driving an SUV equipped with police lights. Florida, New York, and California have each enacted or proposed new laws stiffening penalties.
• Impersonating a police officer is a felony in most states, though five states treat it as a misdemeanor for a first offense. Advocates are pushing for stronger penalties and greater public awareness.

Waste of the Day

by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books

Podcast Episode Gets $60K, RCI

IRS Stocks Up On Weapons, RCI

Texas Taxes Fund Lobbyists, RCI

PepsiCo’s Greek Yogurt, RCI

Record No-Bid Contract in DC, RCI

Trump 2.0 and the Beltway

Did FBI Agent Involved in Trump Lawfare Commit Crime?, Federalist

How Algorithms Corrupted 2020 Census, Chronicles

Eric Swalwell Thought He Was Untouchable – Until He Wasn’t, Politico

Where's the Counterterrorism Czar's Plan?, ProPublica

Investors Lost Billions on Trump’s Memecoin, Ars Technica

MAGA's Bikini Queen Exposed as Med Student's AI Fraud, Daily Mail

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

Southern Poverty Law Center's Off-Shore Riches 

Washington Free Beacon

The Southern Poverty Legal Center became a big news story this week after a federal grand jury indicted the organization on a range of charges stemming from its payment of some $3 million from 2014 to 2023 to members of the KKK, Aryan Nations, National Alliance, and other "violent extremist" groups who allegedly served as informants. Those payments have renewed scrutiny of the SPLC’s finances – while the charity reportedly takes in and spends about $129 million, its total assets are almost $800 million.

[SPLC] relies heavily on foreign investments. The group's non-U.S. equity holdings exceeded its domestic holdings every year since 2016, according to the figures reported in its annual financial audits. The SPLC was able to afford such payments thanks in part to its offshore assets, which skyrocketed over that decade, growing from $44 million in non-U.S. equity holdings in its fiscal year ending October 2013 to $130 million, according to its most recent financial audit covering the year ending October 2024. … Those holdings appear to be concentrated in the Caribbean. The SPLC reported owning accounts in the Cayman Islands and disclosed making a combined $57 million in "investments" in Central America and the Caribbean in its two most recent Form 990 tax filings. … "Its balance sheet long ago revealed the SPLC had ceased to be a charity and become a venture capital firm," Scott Walter, the president of the Capital Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, told the Washington Free Beacon. "The indictment reinforces that fact by revealing the SPLC operates like a centimillionaire who simultaneously invests in a drug to treat diabetes and a firm producing high fructose corn syrup."

In a separate thread on X, Data Republican notes that one of the SPLC’s alleged informants was involved in the planning of the 2017 Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Va., which became a touchstone for the left’s argument that America was facing an existential threat from white supremacy. Joe Biden, for example, said the march, which included many Neo-Nazi’s and other racists, inspired him to run for the presidency. He was not alone. Data Republican notes:

Charlottesville became the single most consequential founding event in modern American political infrastructure. Every one of these organizations says... in their own words.... that they exist or were transformed because of August 12, 2017.

Her post details how various big money groups – including the Anti-Defamation League, the Soros Fund and Ford Foundation, along with the Democratic party and the legacy media – used the march to raise money and call for action. The grand jury indictment suggests the SPLC, at least, was funding the extremism it was raising money to combat.

How Gavin Newsom Subsidized Migrants 

City Journal

While Texas and Arizona took concerted action to limit the flow of people illegally crossing the southern border during the Biden administration, this article by the City Journal’s Christopher F. Rufo and RealClearPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree, reports that California welcomed them.  

In this City Journal investigation, we have traced the money and can reveal that Governor Gavin Newsom has granted approximately $1 billion to an army of nonprofits that has encouraged unchecked numbers of migrants to enter the country, fought deportation orders in the courts, and led street protests against ICE. These groups often operate under the guise of “humanitarianism” or “immigration justice,” but many, as we have uncovered, are in fact left-wing activist groups that use propaganda, lawfare, and street protests to transform America’s demographics and build political power for California Democrats—all on the public dime. … The expenditures have been enormous. According to our review of state funding records, since Newsom took office, California has granted massive contracts for migrant-related services: more than $250 million to Catholic Charities; $85 million to Jewish Family Services; $12 million to Centro Legal de la Raza; $23 million to the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area; and more.

This article reports that the money not only flowed to groups serving illegal immigrants once in the states but also to at least one group, Al Otro Lado, that helps migrants enter the United States – hence the group’s name, “to the other side.” Since the beginning of Newsom’s term, he has granted more than $100 million to nonprofits that fight deportation orders – sometimes even for clients with criminal convictions.

In a separate article, the Washington Free Beacon reports that the New York Times placed Newsom’s memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry,” on its coveted Best Sellers list even as it acknowledged that Newsom used campaign-funded "bulk sales" to sell tens of thousands of copies that made it seem popular. At the time the book appeared on the list, nearly three-fourths of the copies sold – 67,000 of 91,000, or 73.6 percent – came from Newsom's PAC. This article reports the Times has cited such sales to disqualify Republican politicians from its list – including Ted Cruz’s 2015 book “A Time for Truth.”

Iowa's Public Schools Losing School Choice Competition 

Cory Turner, NPR

As in many other Republican-controlled states, Iowa's leaders have embraced school choice, creating and expanding alternatives to public schools. It has also added a new wrinkle, offering any child in the state roughly $8,000 to help pay for private school. This article, which focuses on Cedar Rapids, reports that many parents are opting to use these alternatives to traditional public schools.

This year, more than 4,000 students living in Cedar Rapids are not using its public schools. Instead, they're choosing alternatives like commuting to other public school districts through the state's open enrollment policy, enrolling in that brand new charter school or using Iowa's new Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) to attend a private school. Today, the district serves just over 14,000 students – a number that has been slowly declining for a decade. This year, though, the losses accelerated. … [One issue is discipline] Last school year, the district recorded nearly 4,000 incidents that led to a suspension or expulsion. That's a lot of disruption, considering this punishment is meant to be reserved for the most severe behavior. 

This detailed article examines many other factors impacting enrollment numbers and choices in Cedar Rapids. It also reports that “the share of students with a special education plan, known as an I.E.P., is more than four times higher in the city's public schools than it is in Xavier's schools. With competition from these choice programs, Cedar Rapids' public schools aren't just losing students who can leave, they're becoming a refuge for those who can't.”

Many Opioid Victims Will Be Shut Out of Purdue’s

$7.4B Bankruptcy Settlement — ProPublica

ProPublica/Philadelphia Inquirer

Purdue Pharma contributed mightily to the opioid crisis by falsely marketing Oxycontin as a non-addictive pain reliever. But in the years since this dishonesty was revealed, Purdue has been almost singularly blamed for the death and destroyed lives caused by its drugs while the doctors who prescribed the medicine, the pharmacists who filled the prescriptions and the patients who took the drugs have been largely let off the hook. This article continues the effort to focus blame on Purdue in its reporting on a massive new settlement for victims.

This $7.4 billion bankruptcy plan – including $870 million that has been set aside for individual victims – will shut out tens of thousands of those who originally applied for a settlement, ProPublica and The Philadelphia Inquirer found. Fewer than half of those who filed claims against Purdue will get any kind of help under the new plan, despite the company touting it as “the only opioid settlement to date that meaningfully compensates individual victims.”

While the article focuses on Purdue, only a few short paragraphs tell readers that Purdue’s attorneys said in court that the company played no role in designing the claims process. The company said Akin, the major Washington, D.C.-based firm representing the victims and other creditors, played the key role. Akin endorsed the new bankruptcy plan despite the tighter eligibility criteria and lower survivors’ benefits. Akin refused to provide a comment for the article, which does not say how much of the $7.4 billion settlement it will receive.

Students Speeding Through Online College Degrees in Weeks 

Washington Post

From the Annals of the Decline of Higher Education, this article reports that some online programs are offering degrees at warp speed, allowing some students to earn their undergraduate degrees in a month and graduate degrees in even less time. The not entirely wrong assumption seems to be that the sheepskin is often just a piece of paper that is used to hold back qualified people who don’t possess it.

The phenomenon – sometimes referred to as degree hacking, college speed runs or hyper-accelerated degrees – has spawned a cottage industry of influencers making videos about how quickly they earned their degrees and encouraging others to follow suit. … The University of Maine’s Presque Isle campus has more than 3,000 students in its online YourPace program, according to the school. The school’s president said the program is designed to help older, nontraditional students rapidly obtain an affordable degree they may need for a raise, promotion or new job – students who don’t need the traditional longer college experience on campus that many young adults crave. … Of the nearly 300 students who earned a bachelor’s in the YourPace program in fall 2024, the vast majority finished in less than a year. More than 1 in 4 finished their entire degree course load in a single eight-week session, half the length of a traditional academic semester.

This article reports that under a system known as competency-based education, students typically must finish several assignments or pass a test to prove they learned the material, regardless of how not-so-long it takes. The growing interest in fast degrees has spawned a mini-industry of coaches offering advice on how to find a school, figure out what classes to take and speed through the programs. College Hacked offers a 50-minute coaching session for $295. Ryan Swayt, who completed his bachelor’s degree at Western Governors in nine months, offers everything from a $5 how-to-book to extensive one-on-one coaching sessions for $1,500, a program he calls Degree Hacking Academy.

Gazan Women Describe Sexual Abuse by Hamas 

Daily Mail

This article reports that some Gazan women living under Hamas rule say they were the victims of sexual abuse, sexual blackmail for aid or money and abuse by people in positions of power. Human rights organizations in Gaza have told the Daily Mail that up to 60,000 women are vulnerable, with reports also indicating a rise in child marriages and pregnancies in the war-torn region where food can be hard to come by and many women have been widowed.

A woman said: "A guy will say: 'Come, we have a relief package for you.' He represents an Islamic organisation – a movement whose name I won’t mention, but it is a political organisation. 'If you come with me and do so and so, I’ll give you so and so' – and the women, who have no life experience, end up getting exploited." She continued: "This shouldn’t be happening at all, it just shouldn’t. One charity in Gaza is unfortunately the biggest perpetrator. From its chairman all the way down to its doorman, it’s being done by all their employees and members, as though it’s an organisation set up for sexual harassment, psychological abuse, and harassing young women." … [A] Gazan man [said] one of his female neighbours was blackmailed by "one of Hamas’s charity organisations… they wanted her to wh*** herself in exchange for a food parcel, or an aid voucher, or 100 shekels." Another man, who identified as being in the Qassam Brigades, confirmed this was the case with widows. He said he had told the leadership that some Qassam members were taking advantage of the "wives of Martyrs" in a tent in the Gharabli area, which is in Deir al-Balah.

This article reports that the testimonies come amid wider allegations of sexual violence in the conflict, including accounts made by many Israeli hostages, including Arbel Yehoud, who told the Daily Mail she was raped every day during captivity while held in tents after being kidnapped from her kibbutz on October 7, 2023.