JUST IN: Rogue Judge Blocking Trump Agenda Has Chilling Link To USAID

Calls are growing for a federal judge who blocked part of President Donald Trump’s agenda to rescind his ruling after his spouse was found to have personally benefitted from some of the programs the president has been trying to shutter.

News of the curious connection came out last week after U.S. District Judge John Bates paused President Trump’s scrubbing of government-run websites promoting gender ideology, an overhaul that comes as part of his effort to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. The executive order targeting “gender ideology extremism” was in the crosshairs of Bates, who wrote that the government would be unable to provide a remedy to affected individuals “during an appointment time to a patient who cannot return in the future.”

Bates’ ruling is among more than a dozen that have stymied President Trump’s early efforts to scuttle large swaths of the federal bureaucracy. The decisions, in turn, have sparked widespread calls by Republicans to limit the power of district judges to implement nationwide injunctions.

At the same time, the connections of judges like Bates to the agencies under review are being investigated. One outlet discovered that Bates’ wife, Carol Rhees, is the founder of a nonprofit that receives direct funds from USAID to deliver relief efforts to children in Ethiopia. The organization Hope for Children in Ethiopia “received hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants,” according to the Western Journal.

Elon Musk, who is heading up President Trump’s cost-saving efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency, quickly noticed and elevated the news report.

“No kidding. Yet another corrupt judge,” he wrote on X.

By Monday morning, Musk’s post had garnered over 61,000 reposts, making it one of the largest discussion points on the platform.

Judge Bates is not the only arbiter who has provoked MAGA wrath after an anti-Trump ruling. Last week, conservative activist Laura Loomer accused U.S. District Judge John McConnell, Jr. of a “conflict of interest” given that his adult daughter works at the U.S. Department of Education, a behemoth agency that Trump and Musk have targeted for dismantlement.

The case should have prompted McConnell to recuse himself over a conflict of interest, Loomer argued on X.

“On May 3rd, 2024, Judge John ‘Jack’ McConnell tagged himself at the White House during the Biden Admin where his daughter Catherine McConnell, who was appointed by Joe Biden to the Department of Education, spoke to Joe Biden’s Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, & Economic Opportunity for Hispanics,” the influencer wrote.

McConnell wrote in his latest order, “The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country.”

Musk has been public about his fury with Judges Bates, McConnell, and others who have delayed his work at DOGE. “There needs to be an immediate wave of judicial impeachments, not just one,” he wrote in response to his original post.