Meet the DC Bigwigs Literally Profiting of Trump’s Deportations

Palantir, the Peter Thiel–founded software and technology company that has played a central role in helping ICE round up and deport as many migrants as possible,¹ is becoming one of the hottest and most lucrative stock picks among members of the 119th Congress.

Since President Donald Trump assumed office in January, seven members of Congress have traded the stock, according to the most recent financial disclosures. In that same time, Palantir’s value has skyrocketed, rising from $73 per share on Trump’s first full day in office to around $140 today.

The members of Congress who have traded Palantir stock in the last few months are:

• Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)²

• Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas)³

• Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.)

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)

• Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.)

• Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.)

• Rep. Jefferson Shreve (R-Ind.)⁴

Beyond the halls of Congress, a new report published Tuesday by the Project on Government Oversight revealed that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller owns a large portfolio that includes as much as $250,000 worth of Palantir stock. That means the official directly behind the mass deportation effort is profiting from the very company being boosted by those efforts.

These types of financial entanglements have caused major headaches for past White Houses—think back to Dick Cheney’s financial holdings in Haliburton during the Iraq war. But what’s notable about the Palantir stock holdings is just how widespread it is. In addition to Miller, a dozen more White House officials and appointees are cashing in on the administration’s partnership with Palantir, according to the POGO report.

Ethics experts say Miller’s deep involvement in ICE’s efforts and his financial stake in Palantir raises conflict of interest concerns.

Palantir has attracted controversy in recent months, in part due to bipartisan anxiety about the privacy impacts from its widespread access to government databases and former employees who have decried its work with ICE.

ICE and Palantir’s yearslong relationship continues to deepen, with the technology company recently receiving a lucrative ICE contract without any competition. It’s the type of arrangement that may not bother Republicans in Congress. But it’s one that seems ripe for Democrats to look into should they retake power. That may make for some interesting oversight hearings. But it could also make for some discomfort for those Democrats who traded the stock.

A Republic, if you can extend it another 90 days

Donald Trump’s repeated refusal to enforce legislation passed by Congress, signed by his predecessor, and affirmed by the Supreme Court is one of the single clearest examples of his disregard for the rule of law to date.⁵ His latest delay—a further 90-day extension of his last order to allow TikTok to remain in operation with its current ownership—came last Thursday. That extension, like the prior one, is a direct contravention of the law.

Does Congress still see itself as an independent branch of government? The important thing is not whether you personally like TikTok or agree with the idea that it should be banned. At issue is how the rule of law is supposed to work, if it still does. The president is ignoring both Congress and the courts and elevating his own word to the status of the law. Lawmakers’ collective reaction is basically “Yeah, so? We don’t wanna be the one pissing off the youths!” No one has any interest in doing something about, or even making a peep about, the illegality of Trump’s TikTok recalcitrance.

“I don’t know,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) when I asked for his perspective on the supposed legal basis for repeatedly extending a pause on enforcing the law. “The goal should be that the Trump administration figures out how to get TikTok to basically sell out.”

When I asked if it bothered him that the administration continues to put off enforcement, he said, “No, it bothers me that they [TikTok] haven’t got it sold.” (At this point, TikTok might be wondering if they even need to try to sell.)

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) similarly expressed continued support for the sale of TikTok. “I can’t wait for the day that the Chinese Communists don’t have access to our information,” he said. “I think [a sale will] happen.” But that sale can wait, apparently, at least for another 90 days.

Perhaps the most telling response came from Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who said, “I think there’s bigger fish to fry right now.”

See, Daines has other priorities, and these 90-day pauses are making it possible for him to think about those instead of this. But the thing is, he used to think about TikTok all the time. When Joe Biden was still in the White House, Daines was kept in a state of alarm over the app, which he characterized as “a threat to our national security.”

In June 2022, he co-wrote a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew excoriating the company for prohibiting Russia-based users from seeing non-Russian footage and perspectives related to the war in Ukraine.⁶

“Alarmingly, recent reports indicate TikTok’s non-enforcement of its own purported moderation policies has allowed Russian state media to flood the platform with dangerous pro-war propaganda,” Daines wrote alongside several colleagues. “No company should find itself in the position of amplifying the Kremlin’s lies, which fuel public support for Russia’s war of choice in Ukraine.”

Now, for Daines, those Kremlin lies can fester another 90 days. That fish ain’t worth frying any more.

The apathy towards the president’s improvisational flouting of the law is emblematic of the new era of Congress. This is the era of the permanent partisan yawn; lawmakers have shown zero interest in asserting their constitutionally mandated power against the executive—“ambition . . . made to counteract ambition,” as Federalist 51 has it—because they can hardly be bothered to think about it. We’ll check back in another three months.