Luke Goldstein
@lukewgoldstein.bsky.social
Reporter at the Lever. Lgoldstein at levernews dot com
🚨INVESTIGATION: A criminal trial involving Marco Rubio is exposing a foreign influence scheme & the Trump figures who profited off shaping U.S.-Venezuela policy, according to court documents reviewed by @levernews.com. @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social's story here: www.levernews.com/the-miami-tr...
How this will affect #USDA employees already facing massive staff cutbacks and relocations is one part of this story. What do farmers think of Palantir and the company's potential access to their on-farm info? Thanks for reporting @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social www.levernews.com/palantir-jus...
Palantir Just Got Millions To Assign Cubicles
The Trump-linked spy firm could be paid millions to help the Department of Agriculture with “employee seat assignments” and “space utilization.”
levernews.com
ICE is moving fast to expand detention capacity, including converting warehouses into new mega facilities. Behind the scenes, a small group of politically connected real estate brokers is making millions. @katyaschwenk.bsky.social and @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social ⬇️ www.youtube.com/shorts/dO5aF...
Who’s Profiting From ICE’s Expansion?
YouTube video by The Lever
youtube.com
Jeffrey Epstein's Pension Destruction Engine – Athene PRTs still going thanks to Trump's DOL commonsense401kproject.com/2026/02/25/j... @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social @katyaschwenk.bsky.social
Jeffrey Epstein’s Pension Destruction Engine -Athene -Creating a new class of victims – over 200,000 pensioners
Jeffrey Epstein didn’t just sit in a conference room with Leon Black and Marc Rowan. But in the newest batch of Epstein files, he discussed tax strategy and business architecture with them around t…
commonsense401kproject.com
🚨 NEW: The Lever reporter @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social on @npr.org to explain how private equity is pricing families out of youth sports. Parents are being barred from recording their own children’s games and forced to take out subscriptions to access footage. www.npr.org/2025/11/25/n...
When private equity invests in youth sports facilities
NPR's Juana Summers speaks with Luke Goldstein of The Lever, who wrote about the rise of private equity control of youth hockey facilities.
npr.org
If you have stomach issues or diarrhea in the near future blame the senators who slipped these provisions into the funding bill to reopen the government. www.levernews.com/shutdown-dea...
Shutdown Deal Kills Food Safety Rules
After lobbyists spent big on the Trump administration and Democratic defectors, the government funding bill cut food-contamination rules and limited ultraprocessed-food research.
levernews.com
2) Employers are trying to TRAP (Training Repayment Agreement Provision) employees by making them pay for any training they received if the employee leaves their job early. @jacobinmag.bsky.social @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social jacobin.com/2025/08/corp...
Corporations Want to Prevent Workers From Leaving Their Jobs
As regulators crack down on noncompete agreements that bar workers from finding better jobs, employees across the country are increasingly bound by a new form of “stay-or-pay” contract that indebts them to their bosses.
jacobin.com
The Lever's @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social and @freddy-brewster.bsky.social are out with a devastating piece on the ways the crypto industry is absolutely pulling the strings of pro-crypto Democrats. Trump's corruption? Who cares. Financial stability? Fuck it. They want a payoff. Now.
The FTC now has 3 cases open to lift regulatory restrictions put on oil executives for illegal coordination and colluding with OPEC. This comes after the oil/gas industry + those very executives contributed millions to Trump PACs and petitioned for regulatory relief
They Inflated Your Gas Prices — Now Trump Wants To Let Them Off The Hook
Awash in industry donations, Trump is poised to exonerate fossil fuel executives accused of colluding to increase oil prices.
levernews.com
Texas lawmakers are now trying to change their state laws to empower Elon Musk to sue you into the ground and bankrupt you and your family if you criticize him. The group spearheading the lobbying campaign for the legislation is bankrolled by...Elon Musk.
The Texas-Sized Plan To Shut You Up
A corporate-led attack on free speech in Texas is making odd bedfellows and tearing the state’s GOP apart.
levernews.com
For more on the backstory, read @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social's previous reporting on Sheffield in @prospect.org.
The Mega-Donor Who Colluded With OPEC
Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield was banned from ExxonMobil’s board after a merger for conspiring to keep gas prices high.
prospect.org
🚨THIS JUST HAPPENED: Last year, two oil CEOs were busted for conspiring with foreign governments to raise Americans' gas prices. Then the pair of oil CEOs funneled cash to Trump's political machine. Now Trump's regulators are ending their punishment. www.levernews.com/they-inflate...
They Inflated Your Gas Prices — Now Trump Wants To Let Them Off The Hook
Awash in industry donations, Trump is poised to exonerate fossil fuel executives accused of colluding to increase oil prices.
levernews.com
The Khan-led FTC showed that U.S. fossil fuel execs conspired w/ OPEC to limit global oil supply, so they could raise prices & boost profits. Biden did not use this scandal—Trump mega-donors making your life more expensive!—to his full advantage. Dems now have a second chance.
The Lever@levernews.com · last yr.🚨THIS JUST HAPPENED: Last year, two oil CEOs were busted for conspiring with foreign governments to raise Americans' gas prices. Then the pair of oil CEOs funneled cash to Trump's political machine. Now Trump's regulators are ending their punishment. www.levernews.com/they-inflate...
Trump’s pick for retirement czar is an avid blogger…(if that weren’t bad enough) he specifically blogs about his disdain for pensioners who, in his view, are bullying Wall St with “frivolous” lawsuits for looting their nest eggs. He happens to run a company profiting from said looting.
The Corporate Crusade Of Trump’s Top Retirement Cop
Potential pension chief Daniel Aronowitz wants to give retirement fund managers a free pass for price-gouging workers and bungling their savings — and his company stands to profit from it.
levernews.com
The CFPB continues to survive, as a second attempt to fire approx. 90% of the workers has failed. But the details of the effort is broadly applicable to DOGE's tactics, showing their contempt for and ignorance of the law, along with what it actually takes to run a federal agency.
Hatchet Job on CFPB Even Worse in the Details
Declarations in a case reveal a haphazard hobbling of the consumer protection agency.
prospect.org
Exposing the “Biden age coverup” is not Watergate despite how much the DC press corps wants to act like it is and pat themselves on the back
NEW: a hidden class of consultants are helping companies use tariffs as a pretext to impose lasting price hikes, as they did during inflation. These very practices were under scrutiny by the FTC before the Trump admin ended the probe, giving companies a “green light” to gouge
How Trump Is Helping Price Gougers Exploit His Tariffs
Emboldened by the new administration’s regulatory reprieve, “price optimization” consultants are showing corporations how to weaponize import levies to fleece consumers.
levernews.com
INVESTIGATION: Trump’s administration halted a probe of surveillance pricing — now “price optimization” consultants are helping corporations weaponize Trump’s tariffs to jack up prices on consumers. “Now is the time to take advantage,” said one consultant www.levernews.com/how-trump-is...
How Trump Is Helping Price Gougers Exploit His Tariffs
Emboldened by the new administration’s regulatory reprieve, “price optimization” consultants are showing corporations how to weaponize import levies to fleece consumers.
levernews.com
Politico ran a paid sponsorship yesterday by "Make America Affordable Again," run by Trump campaign top strategists Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio. It has nothing to do with affordability. Their sole advocacy is for "loser pays" lawsuit reform to dissuade people from suing corporations for damages
During yesterday's Facebook antitrust trial, evidence emerged showing Mark Zuckerberg admitting that Big Tech is deliberately worsening users' online experience. www.levernews.com/zuckerberg-a...
Zuckerberg Admits Enshittification Is The Point
The tech CEO just confirmed what we already know: Big Tech is deliberately worsening users’ online experience.
levernews.com
This week, Senators on the Finance Committee called for a criminal probe into a fraudulent “tribal tax credit” scheme peddled by financial advisors who Trump’s IRS pick Billy Long worked for. Those same firms just paid off Long's outstanding debt from his failed Senate bid:
Trump IRS Pick Was Just Enriched By Tax Schemers
New documents show Billy Long’s $130,000 personal debt was suddenly paid off by donors at firms policed by the tax agency he’d lead.
levernews.com
🚨BREAKING: Trump's IRS nominee Billy Long just had his personal debt paid off by donors whose firms have business before the tax agency he’d lead, according to documents reviewed by The Lever. If confirmed, Long would be able to do favors for the donors. www.levernews.com/trump-irs-pi...
Trump IRS Pick Was Just Enriched By Tax Schemers
New documents show Billy Long’s $130,000 personal debt was suddenly paid off by donors at firms policed by the tax agency he’d lead.
levernews.com
Lutnick starts out by claiming the trade war will bring back manufacturing, but there won't be jobs - just robots As @samseder.bsky.social @ddayen.bsky.social noted, he realized he made an error, and tried to pivot to claiming we'll need workers to repair the robots. www.foxnews.com/video/637101...
Howard Lutnick predicts a manufacturing ‘renaissance’ is coming | Fox News Video
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick elaborates on the Trump-led rebirth of the American economy and U.S. manufacturing on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’
foxnews.com
INVESTIGATION: Hospital chains are buying up billions of dollars of real estate, milking them for income while using charity status to avoid taxes that fund schools & emergency departments. Some are now using taxpayer-subsidized fortunes to buy elections.
Paging Dr. Land Baron
Nonprofit hospitals are building tax-exempt real estate empires — and working to crush politicians who stand in their way.
levernews.com
wow, new bombshell reporting from @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social reveals: - in 2023, Corey O'Connor strongly supported Ed Gainey's legal challenges to UPMC's property tax exemptions. - in 2025, O'Connor's mayoral campaign received $25k from the UPMC Board. - he now opposes the legal challenges. 🤔
My colleague @lukewgoldstein.bsky.social & I examined how UPMC is abusing its tax-exempt status by buying up properties, not paying taxes, & influencing the Pittsburgh mayoral election. UPMC is an exemplar of a wider issue with hundreds of nonprofit hospitals abusing their generous tax breaks.
The Lever@levernews.com · last yr.INVESTIGATION: Hospital chains are buying up billions of dollars of real estate, milking them for income while using charity status to avoid taxes that fund schools & emergency departments. Some are now using taxpayer-subsidized fortunes to buy elections.
Friendly reminder: Obama taught Republicans that controlling Big Tech is key to political power. While Obama used charm, handshakes, head nods, and backroom talks — and Trump uses threats and coercion — the implied deal is the same: pledge loyalty, and your power goes unchecked.
NEWS: Democratic lawmakers worked with lawyers for Meta, Musk & other billionaires to sculpt new legislation blocking shareholders & workers from accessing corporate records when trying to hold CEOs legally accountable. Last night, Dems passed the bill.
Meta Drags Delaware To The Bottom
Delaware just passed a bill to let executives off the hook across the country — and Meta helped write it.
levernews.com
