Elections and Campaign Finance
FEC outlines 2026 federal reporting requirements
The Federal Election Commission published its annual guidance on reports due in 2026.
Key points:
- All federal committees must file a 2025 Year-End report covering activity through Dec. 31, 2025, due Jan. 31, 2026.
- Committees that receive or expect to receive contributions or make expenditures aggregating more than $50,000 in a calendar year must file all reports electronically under mandatory e-filing rules.
- Electronically filed reports must be received and validated by the FEC by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the filing deadline. Electronic filers who submit paper reports, or whose electronic reports fail validation by the deadline, will be treated as non-filers and may face enforcement, including administrative fines.
- The article reiterates treasurers’ responsibility for timely, accurate filing; explains options and deadlines for quarterly vs. monthly filing schedules for candidate, party, and PAC committees; and details special reporting for independent expenditures, electioneering communications, and lobbyist bundling.
Source: Federal Election Commission, “Reports due in 2026” (Jan. 2, 2026).
Federal Law Enforcement and Program-Integrity Actions
Trump administration details multi-agency crackdown on alleged Minnesota fraud
A White House article described a coordinated federal response to what it calls a “fraud epidemic” involving Minnesota social-service and benefit programs, especially in and around Minneapolis–St. Paul.
According to the administration’s account:
- Justice Department (DOJ) investigations focused on programs including Feeding Our Future, Housing Stabilization Services, Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention, and Evergreen Recovery.
- DOJ has charged 98 defendants in Minnesota fraud-related cases; the article states 85 are of Somali descent.
- 64 defendants have been convicted to date.
- DOJ reports issuing more than 1,750 subpoenas, executing over 130 search warrants, and conducting more than 1,000 witness interviews in these matters.
- FBI is investigating dozens of Minnesota health care and home care providers for alleged fraud, using forensic accountants and data-analytics teams, and examining possible links to elected officials and to terrorist financing.
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS), via Homeland Security Investigations, has deployed “hundreds” of officers in Minnesota and is conducting door-to-door investigations of suspected fraud sites.
- DHS says it has arrested more than 1,000 “criminal illegal aliens” in recent weeks in related enforcement operations.
- Under Operation Twin Shield, DHS reports more than 1,300 fraud findings from site visits in Minneapolis and St. Paul and is reviewing cases for additional immigration actions, including potential refugee-status reviews and denaturalization.
- Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has frozen childcare payments and begun requiring justifications, receipts, or photo evidence for all childcare-related payments nationwide, and is enforcing longstanding federal rules requiring sponsors of certain immigrants to repay Medicaid costs incurred by those immigrants. HHS is also investigating alleged fraud in Minnesota’s Head Start programs.
- Small Business Administration (SBA) has halted all annual grant-program payments to Minnesota and suspended 6,900 state borrowers linked to about $400 million in suspected fraudulent activity, barring those individuals from future SBA loan programs.
- Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has sent a team to Minnesota to investigate possible public housing assistance fraud.
- Department of Labor (DOL) is conducting a targeted review of Minnesota’s Unemployment Insurance program.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has directed Minnesota to recertify Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients to verify eligibility, a step the state is reported to be contesting in court.
The White House frames these moves as part of a broader, ongoing effort to investigate and prosecute complex fraud schemes and recover federal funds.
Source: White House, “Here’s What the Trump Administration Is Doing to Crush Minnesota’s Fraud Epidemic” (Jan. 2, 2026).
ICE highlights New Year arrests of noncitizens with serious criminal convictions
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced a series of arrests on Dec. 31, 2025, and Jan. 1, 2026, of noncitizens with prior serious criminal convictions in multiple states.
ICE reported arrests including:
- Individuals from Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, the Philippines and other countries convicted of offenses such as aggravated sexual assault of a child, indecent liberties with a child, murder, attempted murder, robbery with a firearm, fraud, grand theft, identity fraud, and drug offenses.
The agency characterized the operation as part of a continuing focus on removing “worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens” from U.S. communities.
Source: DHS / ICE press release, “ICE Rings in 2026 With More Arrests of Worst of Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens Including Pedophiles, Murderers, and Fraudsters” (Jan. 2, 2026).
National Security and Foreign Investment Controls
Presidential order requires Chinese-controlled firm to divest EMCORE digital chip assets
President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing HieFo Corporation, a Delaware company controlled by a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, to divest all interests and rights in certain EMCORE Corporation assets.
Key elements:
- The order concerns EMCORE’s “digital chips and related wafer design, fabrication, and processing business,” including a semiconductor manufacturing facility (the EMCORE Digital Chips Business), which HieFo acquired on Apr. 30, 2024.
- Citing Section 721 of the Defense Production Act (the CFIUS statute), the President states there is “credible evidence” that HieFo might act in ways that threaten U.S. national security and that other laws do not provide sufficient authority to mitigate the risk.
- The transaction is prohibited, and HieFo’s ownership of any interest or rights in the EMCORE assets—directly or through affiliates—is barred.
Divestment and compliance timeline:
- HieFo must divest all interests and rights in the EMCORE assets within 180 days of the order, unless the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) extends the deadline.
- Within 7 days, HieFo must implement CFIUS-directed measures and controls to prevent unauthorized or foreign access to the EMCORE assets and to related nonpublic technical information, IT systems, and facilities.
- Until CFIUS confirms divestment is complete, HieFo is restricted from restructuring, relocating, or transferring EMCORE assets in ways that would impede compliance and must seek CFIUS non-objection before selling to any third party.
- HieFo must provide weekly certifications to CFIUS describing compliance and progress toward divestment, and following divestment must certify that all relevant intellectual property has been destroyed or transferred.
- CFIUS is authorized to conduct audits, site access, and records inspections; it must complete post-divestment verification within 90 days of receiving HieFo’s divestment certification and then notify HieFo in writing when divestment is deemed complete.
Source: White House, “Regarding the Acquisition of Certain Assets of Emcore Corporation by Hiefo Corporation” (executive order, Jan. 2, 2026).
Treasury explains CFIUS review and national-security concerns in EMCORE case
The Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, issued a parallel statement on the President’s divestment order.
According to Treasury:
- CFIUS reviewed and investigated the EMCORE–HieFo transaction under Section 721 and identified national security risks from potential access to EMCORE’s intellectual property, proprietary know-how and expertise, and from the potential diversion of indium phosphide chip supply away from the United States.
- To address these risks, the order requires HieFo to divest all interests and rights in the EMCORE Digital Chips Business.
- Treasury notes that HieFo did not file the transaction with CFIUS when it was completed; the case was opened after CFIUS’s “non-notified” team identified and investigated the deal.
- The statement emphasizes that CFIUS decisions are taken case by case and are intended to protect U.S. national security while maintaining an open investment policy.
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Statement on the President’s Decision Ordering the Divestment of Interests in Certain Assets of EMCORE Corporation by HieFo Corporation” (Jan. 2, 2026).
Housing and Financial Regulation
FHA reports strong capital position and high share of first-time buyers in FY 2025
HUD’s Federal Housing Administration released its Fiscal Year 2025 report on the Mutual Mortgage Insurance (MMI) Fund and associated Single Family mortgage insurance programs.
Highlights:
- FHA supported home purchases or refinances for more than 876,000 borrowers in FY 2025.
- As of Sept. 30, 2025, FHA insured about 8.1 million active single-family forward mortgages with over $1.6 trillion in unpaid principal, and more than 681,000 Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (reverse mortgages) with a combined maximum claim amount of over $64.3 billion.
- First-time homebuyers accounted for more than 83% of FHA forward mortgage purchase endorsements, consistent with FHA’s historical role in first-time homebuyer financing.
- The overall MMI Fund capital ratio was 11.47%, more than five times the statutory minimum of 2.0%.
- The forward mortgage portfolio had a stand-alone capital ratio of 10.95%, slightly higher than FY 2024.
- The HECM portfolio capital ratio was 24.06%, a modest decline from FY 2024.
- MMI Fund capital stood at $188.9 billion, up $16.1 billion from the previous year; over $100 billion of this total is held in cash or cash-equivalents.
- Independent actuary IT Data Consulting conducted actuarial reviews of the forward and HECM portfolios and concluded the estimates used to calculate the capital ratio are reasonable.
Source: HUD press release, “HUD’s Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Fulfilled Core Mission in Fiscal Year 2025” (HUD No. 25-153, dated late 2025 and highlighted Jan. 2, 2026).
SEC announces departure of Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw
The Securities and Exchange Commission released a brief statement noting that Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw has departed the agency.
- The statement credits Crenshaw with more than a decade of service at the SEC and describes her as a consistent advocate for the agency’s investor-protection and market-integrity mission.
- No successor was named in the statement; further appointment or designation will follow established nomination and confirmation processes.
Source: SEC, “Statement on Departure of Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw” (Jan. 2, 2026).
Labor and Economic Adjustment
DOL grant supports workers laid off from Massachusetts tool manufacturer
The Department of Labor announced a National Dislocated Worker Grant to assist workers affected by layoffs at The L.S. Starrett Co., a precision measuring tool manufacturer based in Athol, Massachusetts.
- DOL awarded $551,195 to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
- The grant responds to the June 30, 2025 layoff of 78 manufacturing workers at L.S. Starrett, which the department says significantly disrupted the rural labor market in northern Massachusetts.
- Administered by DOL’s Employment and Training Administration under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the grant will fund retraining and skills-development services for dislocated workers in Franklin and Worcester counties.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, “US Department of Labor awards over $550K to help workers affected by layoffs at northern Massachusetts tool manufacturer” (Jan. 2, 2026).
Health Policy
White House promotes nationwide rural health care funding tied to tax legislation
A White House article highlighted what it describes as “historic” rural health care investments being rolled out under the Trump administration’s Working Families Tax Cuts legislation.
Key elements:
- The administration says a new federal initiative is directing $50 billion in “rural health transformation” awards to all 50 states, aimed at strengthening health care access in rural areas.
- The article lists approximate first-year award amounts for each state (generally in the range of about $150 million to over $270 million) and cites local and regional news coverage describing promised uses of the funds, such as supporting rural hospitals and clinics, bolstering workforces, and expanding services.
- The funding is framed as part of a longer-term, multi-year program expected to channel substantial federal health-care resources into rural communities.
Source: White House, “Trump Administration’s Historic Rural Health Care Investments Hailed Nationwide” (Jan. 2, 2026).
Defense and Military Readiness
Exercise Pale Serpent tests East Africa medical and evacuation readiness
The Department of War (Defense) reported on Exercise Pale Serpent, a joint training event held in Djibouti from Dec. 26–29, 2025, involving airmen of the 449th Air Expeditionary Group and Army, Marine Corps, and Navy elements.
- At Chabelley Airfield, medical personnel from the 776th Expeditionary Air Base Squadron and partner teams conducted mass-casualty scenarios, practicing triage, trauma care, and patient stabilization in conditions designed to simulate limited space, equipment, and staffing.
- In parallel at Camp Lemonnier, the 10th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Flight trained on moving patients from forward medical facilities to higher levels of care, including use of a critical care air transport team composed of a physician, critical care nurse, and respiratory therapist.
- Commanders said the exercise strengthens U.S. Africa Command’s ability to respond to regional emergencies and tests multi-service coordination, communication, and rapid decision-making under stress.
Source: U.S. Department of War, “449th AEG Airmen Test Readiness During Exercise Pale Serpent” (news story dated Jan. 2, 2026).
Defense contracts announced Jan. 2, 2026
The Department of War reported the following notable contract action:
- BL Harbert International LLC (Birmingham, Alabama) received a $171.5 million firm-fixed-price contract to convert existing administrative space in Huntsville, Alabama, into a data center, laboratories, and updated administrative space.
- The total cumulative face value of the contract is $194.9 million.
- Work is expected to be completed by Apr. 21, 2028, funded from FY 2024–2026 military construction and RDT&E defense-wide accounts.
- Affirmative Solutions LLC (Cheyenne, Wyoming), a service-disabled veteran-owned small business, was added as an awardee—up to $49.5 million—to an existing multiple-award Defense Logistics Agency contract for medical and surgical supplies under the DLA Electronic Catalog.
Source: U.S. Department of War, “Contracts for Jan. 2, 2026.”