Donald Trump is apparently so proud of the ballroom he’s building at the White House that he doesn’t want anyone to see the construction in progress. 

On Thursday, the Secret Service closed off access to the Ellipse park, where journalists were taking pictures and video of the demolition of the White House’s East Wing. Both CNN and Reuters photojournalists had to leave the area, according to CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

Images of the ongoing destruction of a major section of the White House seem to have caused enough of a backlash that Trump is trying to keep the public from seeing them. It’s easy to see why: Trump previously claimed that the ballroom would result in no demolition of any part of the White House, and ignored the normal legal process for making any changes to the building. 

a live look this morning at the demolished East Wing of the White House pic.twitter.com/qSswoRt2ki

The ballroom itself is going to be a garish 90,000-square-foot construction full of Trump’s trademark gold decor. Gone will be a guest entrance as well as offices for the first lady’s staff and other White House employees. A majority of Americans are opposed to the demolition, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has called the backlash “fake outrage.” She  claims that Trump is doing what other presidents have only dreamed of, saying “he was reelected back to this people’s house because he’s good at building things.” 

While Trump claims that the ballroom construction isn’t being paid for by taxpayer funds, that’s not reassuring: $300 million in donations is coming from the president’s wealthy friends, allies, and corporations looking to curry favor with his administration. That money could be considered a bribe. 

Now the Trump administration is attempting to hide the probably illegal destruction and construction from news coverage, and while that won’t make the story and images disappear, nothing will or likely can be done now that a big chunk of the White House is gone. Future occupants of the Oval Office will now inherit a big ballroom that nobody asked for. 

Donald Trump just pardoned a crypto criminal who’s making the president’s family richer, according to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report Thursday.

After months of lobbying the Trump administration, the president signed a presidential pardon Wednesday for Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former chief executive of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

“The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over,” announced White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. But is another war on American customers just beginning?

Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 for failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program at Binance, earning him a four-month prison sentence. Binance Holdings Limited agreed to pay the United States $4 billion to resolve an investigation into violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act, failure to register as a money-transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Why would Trump pardon Zhao? Likely because he helped line the Trump family’s pockets through his support of World Liberty Financial, or WLFI, the decentralized finance platform that is majority-owned by a Trump business entity.

Binance has repeatedly boosted and incentivized the use of USD1, WLFI’s stable coin, which is a cryptocurrency that maintains a value of $1. Binance provided WLFI its first significant boon in May when the platform accepted a shady $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi–based MGX made in Trump’s stable coin. The announcement followed an April meeting between Zachary Witkoff, son of special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, who is a “promoter” of WLFI, and Zhao in Abu Dhabi where they discussed USD1.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that representatives from the president’s family met with Zhao to discuss a potential stake in Binance.US, the company’s American arm, which has been heavily restricted due to regulatory issues. The company had first reached out to the president’s allies last year, looking to strike a deal to bring the exiled firm back to the United States.

New York City’s second mayoral debate did not pan out well for disgraced ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo, least of all when one of his accusers emerged from the crowd to prompt a question.

Charlotte Bennett was the second of 13 women to accuse Cuomo of sexually harassing them during his time in office. Bennett worked as an executive assistant and health policy adviser in the Cuomo administration, but left after the governor asked several unwelcome questions about her sex life and if she “had ever been with an older man.”

Bennett sued Cuomo in 2022 but eventually dropped the case. In April, she agreed to receive a settlement claim tied to separate litigation regarding Cuomo’s alleged harassment. But Cuomo has since said that he would sue Bennett for defamation, effectively silencing her during the mayoral race.

Bennett was apparently invited to the debate hall Wednesday night by Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and her presence forced one of Cuomo’s most contemptible scandals to center stage.

“You sought to access her........

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