1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

ProPublica reported on Alicia Jackson, who runs ARPA-H, a health research agency with a billion and a half dollar budget that hands out grants. Trump put her there last October. Before that she founded a company called Evernow, which sells menopause treatment online. In November she stood at the HHS podium and endorsed the government’s decision to remove safety warnings from hormone therapy. “The science is clear. Hormone therapy is safe and effective.” Her own disclosures show she held up to 300,000 dollars of Evernow stock at the time. Months later, Evernow announced a nationwide expansion. It gets worse. Her husband holds up to 25 million dollars in Palantir. Palantir had a 19 million dollar contract with her agency when she walked in the door. In June, her agency extended it for another year. A former White House ethics lawyer told ProPublica the podium moment alone put her “within the zone of a potential violation.” As of this week, HHS has put her on leave. Here’s what I want you to take from this. It’s not just Trump and his cabinet that are making boatloads of cash. Alicia Jackson isn’t a household name. She’s a mid-level appointee running an agency most people couldn’t pick out of a lineup. If this is what’s happening there, imagine what’s happening at the hundred other agencies nobody’s looking at. It’s gotten so bad it doesn’t even feel like anyone is trying to hide it anymore. Jon Ossoff said it best last night: “Never before has so little effort been made to cover up so much corruption.” This is what a banana republic looks like. Corruption isn’t the exception anymore. It’s the rule.