Letters from an American - Attempting to Establish an Authoritarian Government

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

September 14, 2026News broke about a Russian oligarch spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding, The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security released a report detailing violations of standards at the now-closed detention camp in the Florida Everglades, But it has been suggested that the conditions were even worse than reported and that the report is part of a cover up, A whistleblower has alleged that inspectors under the direction of top Homeland Security leadership may have broken state laws in their zeal to find noncitizens on voter rolls, These actions all add up to an attempt to establish an authoritarian government, Stocks in AI companies and companies that produce chips fell after warnings about AI, Trump posted frantically on social media, Oil executives are warning that the US and the world are in for a fuel crisis, The Supreme Court refused to allow Trump to put his new orders for the USPS to screen mail-in ballots in place.Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

September 14th, 2026. This morning, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Joshua Kaplan, and Alex Majerski of ProPublica broke the news that Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the wedding of Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Anderson in May. Kremlin attended the wedding, along with a large group of Russians, whose presence, the journalists' note, puzzled the other guests. This news reveals an extraordinary development, the journalists wrote, a member of Putin's circle financially supporting the president's son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family. Frank Montoya Jr., a retired FBI official who worked in senior counterintelligence roles, told the reporters, if I'm paying for your wedding,

at some point you're going to owe me something. This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story. A spokesperson for Don Jr. told Edith Olmsted of the New Republic that Don and Kremlev met a couple of years ago and that Kremlin is a personal friend, not someone he has a business relationship with. Batina Trump posted to social media that Kremlin hadn't actually attended their wedding, but very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us after our wedding. It was an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend and something for which we were and remain incredibly grateful. Friendship doesn't require a political motive, she wrote. Generosity doesn't automatically come with an agenda, and sometimes a wedding gift is simply a wedding

gift. The names of both Bettina Trump and Don Jr. were at the bottom of her statement. Later in the day, news broke that the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security had released a report detailing how the now-closed detention camp in the Florida Everglades, offensively dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, violated the standards of immigration and customs enforcement, or ICE. The report said, the center failed in six categories, medical care, food service, personal hygiene, recreation, environmental health and safety, and special management units. People were crammed into overcrowded cells they couldn't leave as often as required, were allowed showers only three times a week,

and had little access to medical care, lawyers, clean water, or safe food. Some people were locked in tiny individual metal cages with about 18 square feet of floor space for up to two hours, some of which were outdoors. The staff told those from the Inspector General's office that people asked to stay in the enclosures, which they called calming areas, where detainees could reflect on their behavior choices, manage their emotions, reduce stress, and practice self-directed behavior. though the inspectors found at least one instance in which the cages may have been used as a disciplinary tool. The report says such confinement was unprecedented and highly unconventional. Confining individuals in small metal enclosures for any reason presents significant risks to detainee health and well-being,

the inspector general wrote. Jillian Brockle of the American prospect suggested that the Inspector General's report is likely part of a cover-up. She noted that eight months ago, Amnesty International reported that the outdoor cages were too small for someone to stand up, that they had no awning and that people were chained to them. The Amnesty International report also said time in the cages could be longer than two hours. Then Nick Koresanidi and Hamid Aliaziz reported in the New York Times on another whistleblower, this one alleging that in their zeal to find non-citizens on voter rolls, inspectors under the direction of top Homeland Security leaders may have broken state laws.

The Department of Homeland Security launched the unlawful voter initiative last month, deploying hundreds of agents to look through voter rolls to try to find evidence, of voter fraud. The whistleblower says inspectors have about 12 minutes per case to determine a voter's citizenship status and voting history, and it appears they have been posing as those individual voters by using birth dates or partial social security numbers they gleaned from both internal and external sources to find wrongdoing. Some states require users to declare they are the individual voters whose records they are seeking. Corrissanidi and Aliaziz note that the Office of the Chief Counsel at DHS

defended the use of state databases in such a way, but also said that agents are not personally liable for conducting those searches when done as part of their official duties and properly documented. Once the agents began reviewing individuals' information, they created records of those. they claimed were unlawful voters, despite the fact that officers were concerned about the quality of the databases they were using to make such a determination. DHS itself noted that the data was flawed and warned that there will be U.S. citizens in this population and has been opaque about how

they compiled the database. According to a letter written by Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat of California, the top-ranking Democrat on the Committee on Rules and Administration, and Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat of New York, the Senate Minority Leader, to Secretary of Homeland Security Mark Wayne Mullen and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph B. Edlo. The department's training video says the database was compiled with supplemental magic. Taken together, the administration's continued. flirtation with Vladimir Putin and his associates, its use of our tax dollars to imprison immigrants in substandard conditions, and its determination to rig the 2026 election,

add up to an attempt to establish an authoritarian government. Aside from the public outrage over the day's stories, there are other signs that the administration's position is weakening. After the weekend's warnings about AI, stop. in AI companies and companies that produce chips fell today. Not only are members of the Trump family heavily invested in AI-related industries, but also it seems administration officials are counting on extraordinary AI-fueled economic growth to address the growing U.S. deficit and debt that Trump has run up. So Trump posted frantically on social media today. He began just after the stock market opened with a post pushing back on the warnings of AI leaders that AI development

needs government regulation. The only control or guardrails that AI needs is a strong and smart, high IQ president, and the USA has that in spades. He complained, there is a sick conspiracy going on against AI and data centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. Whoever wins, AI wins. We are leading China and all others and will continue to do so. Conspiracy theorists, treasonists, traders and leakers, beware. In a later post, he insisted that the only reason the AI data center outburst is happening is because the United States is leading by a lot every other country. Don't kill the golden goose. A third post said that the warnings about AI are all a hoax, no different from Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, impeachment hoax number one,

impeachment hoax number two, and all of the other hoaxes and scams that America was forced to endure through the destructionists and deviance foul play and illegal conduct. AI and data centers, he wrote, will be the greatest economic development engine in history, bigger than oil, gold, diamonds, or even the Internet. It will not be stopped by brilliantly run destructive forces during the term of President Donald J. Trump. He continued in a fourth post, The people that say AI is going to destroy the world and that data centers are bad for your neighborhood are the same people that said just a short time ago that the world would be extinguished by climate change. That hoax never worked out for them and now they're on to the next one.

These people are revolutionaries, but revolutionaries for a bad and evil cause. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency said that to unleash American energy, it is getting rid of rules that limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that use coal and natural gas. It also intends to prevent future administrations from making any such regulations. With oil executives warning that the United States and the world is in a fuel crisis, energy is clearly on Trump's mind. He tried to blame the spike in diesel prices, not on his war on Iran, which has led to the closing of the two main arteries for tankers carrying oil out of the Middle East, but on Ukraine, which has been hitting Russian oil infrastructure to hobble the sale of oil that is enabling Russia to continue its invasion. The world's diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia-Ukraine war,

not Iran, Trump posted. Minutes later, he wrote that the failing nation of Iran wants to make a deal quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the USA will choose to engage, the concept of which we are open to. Then he posted that he had just received a report that the United States is producing more exquisite and elite weapons than at any time in our history. They are being delivered on a daily basis to our forces, in the Middle East and beyond. And then, minutes later, he claimed that oil is flowing through the Hormuz Strait. The countries of the world, which have been no help to us whatsoever, should and will reimburse

the United States of America when the scam conflagration is all over. We are doing it much more for others than we are for ourselves, and we have been for generations. Then he posted, I hope everyone realizes that price increases throughout America were caused by sleepy Joe Biden and the Biden administration, not by Trump. Then, once again, he promised to give every American adult $5,000. Tonight, over public dissents from justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court, refused to allow Trump to put into place his new orders for the United States Postal Service to screen mail-in ballots. This means Trump's attempt to stop the transmission of mail-in ballots will not be in effect for the 26 midterm elections.

Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead of Massachusetts. recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.