RealClearInvestigations Articles

Topline: If the federal government wants to address homelessness, Rodeo Drive might not be the best place to start. That hasn’t stopped Beverly Hills — with no qualified low-income areas — and nearby Santa Fe Springs from receiving Community and Development Block Grants for years to fund homelessness services and job creation. City officials knew their neighborhoods were too wealthy for the grants back in 2012. They left the money untouched for years before eventually selling $206,426 in grant funds to other cities. The money would be worth $298,000 today. That’s...

Topline: More than 18,000 Arizona families used school vouchers to make an "unallowable” purchase in 2025, costing the state at least $10.3 million for banned items like condoms, Broadway tickets and wedding gifts, according to records obtained by the KPNX news station in Phoenix. Key facts: KPNX found that parents used school vouchers to buy $350,000 worth of tickets to live performances like Disney On Ice, The Lion King, Wicked and pop concerts. Some individual tickets cost $1,000. Families also spent $77,551 on rideshare services like Uber and Lyft. One family used $6,000 to send...

Topline: It takes less time to put a man on the moon than to build an outdoor bathroom in New York City, according to former NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. The nonprofit newsroom The City spoke with Benepe as part of an investigation into a $3.5 million restroom in Fort Washington Park proposed in 2022. The project is still in the planning phase four years later because of red tape and bureaucratic mess.  Key facts: The bathroom will be built over a large septic tank instead of connecting to city sewer lines, which planning documents said would allow it to be built “more...

Topline: The federal government spent $8.4 million on purchases that included golf carts in fiscal year 2025, according to spending records obtained by Open the Books. Key facts: Of that, the Department of Defense spent $4.5 million, more than half of the government-wide total. Veterans Affairs spent $3 million, Homeland Security spent $435,615, the Department of Agriculture spent $269,152 and the Department of the Interior spent $171,203. Federal records typically don’t say what items were used for, and it’s possible some of the golf carts were used for transportation and not on...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week March 15 to March 21 RCI Podcast On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak with Nancy Rommelmann about her new article detailing how one man became a scapegoat for the MeToo era.   Featured Investigation: FBI Misled Court To Spy on Second Trump Campaign Adviser Paul Sperry reports for RealClearInvestigations that wiretapping of advisers from Donald Trump’s first campaign was more extensive than previously known. Newly declassified FBI documents...

Topline: Faith Family Academy, a taxpayer-funded charter school district in North Texas, was nearly shut down by the state following three consecutive years of poor student performance. Yet each year, its superintendent was paid between $500,000 and $900,000, according to records obtained by Open the Books. Key facts: Mollie Purcell took over in 2012 as superintendent of Faith Family Academy, which has 3,000 students across two campuses in Oak Cliff and Waxahachie.  Purcell made $720,991 in 2023, including a bonus of $414,496, according to payroll records. The same year, the state-run...

Topline: In 2012, artificial intelligence researchers funded by the federal government were not concerned whether their technology could interpret data or streamline workflows. They wanted to know if AI could navigate the high school dating scene. The University of California, Santa Cruz, used part of a $516,000 National Science Foundation grant to create “Prom Week,” a video game that simulated teenagers trying to get a date to the school dance. The grant would be worth $740,000 today. That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S....

Carter Page wasn’t the only adviser from Trump’s first campaign wiretapped by the FBI. Walid Phares was electronically monitored for a 12-month period between 2017 and 2018, according to the Washington-based FBI agent who was assigned to investigate him as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia collusion probe. As in Page’s case, the bureau withheld evidence exonerating Phares from the court to secure surveillance authorization, according to newly declassified FBI documents. “I had no idea any of this was happening,” Phares told...

Topline: The General Services Administration spent $133 million hiring consultants to study its own buildings, but nobody is keeping track of what the studies found or checking if they are reliable, according to a March 6 report from the GSA inspector general. Key facts: The money was paid from 2019 to 2024 by the GSA’s Public Buildings Service, which constructs and maintains federal buildings around the country. Consultants help determine which buildings need repairs and set construction plans and budgets. Using the study results, the GSA decides how to spend its Federal Buildings...

Topline: Almost 80% of the City of Rocky Mount’s cash and investments are gone following the disastrous tenure of City Manager Keith Rogers, according to a North Carolina state audit released on March 9. Rogers’ annual salary of $225,000 made him the highest-paid employee in Rocky Mount history at the time of his resignation, according to records obtained from the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer.  Key facts: Rogers took office in March 2023 and resigned in September 2024 with no official explanation.  His resignation settlement included a payment of...

Life on Jan. 9, 2020, was interesting for Joshua Helmer. At 31, he was midway through his second year as CEO of the Erie Art Museum in Pennsylvania. He had recently secured the loan of a Chuck Close painting from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and an upcoming sale, including a painting by another famous artist, David Hockney, would help Erie generate funds to buy new works. And then it was Jan. 10. "I knew I'd never work again," Helmer said, recalling his reading of a New York Times article that ran that day.  "He Left a Museum After Women Complained; His Next Job Was Bigger," was...

Topline: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has billed taxpayers $111,000 for limousine services since 2019, according to a review of disbursement reports by The Center Square. The other 434 members of the House spent just $49,000 combined on the luxury service. Key facts: Waters’ spending includes $26,000 from July 2024 to June 2025. Her cars have been provided from Limousine House LLC since 2021, but The Center Square noted that there is little information available about the company. Its listed address is a residential apartment in Alexandria, Va., but the company does not appear in corporate...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week March 8 to March 14   RCI Podcast On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney use the new documentary on investigative reporting legend Seymour Hersh as a springboard for a wide-ranging discussion with RCI contributor Aaron Maté about the decline of skepticism and rise of propaganda in the legacy media.   Featured Investigation: The Grey Zone: When Do Protest Observers Become Lawbreaking Participants? As the Trump administration intensifies...

Topline: The Caring for Denver Foundation, tasked with running substance abuse prevention programs, is seemingly drunk on its own spending. The nonprofit spent $28,200 on its own meals and alcoholic drinks in a “disregard for fiscal accountability,” according to a new report by City Auditor Tim O’Brien. The city agency overseeing the nonprofit does not think that’s a problem. In its response to the audit, the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment wrote that city laws requiring purchases to be “reasonable” may not be “appropriate or...

When an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Good after she allegedly obstructed immigration authorities with her vehicle, disobeyed their commands, and attempted to flee – drawing fatal fire from an officer nearly struck by the vehicle – politicians and pundits decried her death as murder. They called it particularly unjust because she was not acting as a protester but a legal observer. After federal agents arrested Don Lemon for allegedly disrupting a St. Paul church service in protest of the same Twin Cities immigration enforcement surge Good had opposed....

Topline: West Virginia government officials spent $24 million in 2010 on expensive, high-capacity internet routers that could handle tens of thousands of users at once. Then, they placed them in libraries and schools that only had one computer in the entire building. That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.  Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname "Dr. No" by stopping thousands of pork-barrel...

Topline: The City of Boston’s soccer stadium renovation was supposed to cost taxpayers $50 million when it was announced in March 2024. The cost is now up to $135 million — a fact that Mayor Michelle Wu knew for a month before informing the public, according to the Boston Herald. Key facts: White Stadium has been used by student-athletes at Boston Public Schools since it was built in 1949. After the renovation, it will also house the Boston Legacy FC women’s soccer team. Wu announced the ballooning price in a Feb. 6 press conference, but a public records request filed by the...

Half a century after the book “Why Johnny Can’t Read” sounded an alarm about the rise of illiteracy in the U.S., it has only gotten worse: A quarter of all young adults, many of them high school graduates, are now functionally illiterate. Unable to read more than basic, short sentences, their prospects in today’s information economy are bleak.  Half a century ago, this book raised the alarm about illiteracy in the U.S. Amazon This crisis gave rise to a movement that embraced the science of reading and produced a surprising success story in the Deep South,...

Topline: The Congressional Budget Office’s annual 10-year economic forecast warns that, by 2030, the federal debt held by the public will be $40.3 trillion, or 108% of the country’s gross domestic product — an amount never before seen in American history. Key facts: The federal debt held by the public differs slightly from the overall federal debt because it excludes money that government agencies owe to each other. Most economists consider it a more meaningful statistic. It reached $30.2 trillion in 2025, the CBO notes. By 2036, it will be even higher: the debt held by the...