Tea at Trianon: Vance Anti-Fraud Effort Adds Major Enforcer

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, April 2, 2026

Vance Anti-Fraud Effort Adds Major Enforcer

From AMAC:

The Senate confirmed an experienced federal prosecutor, Colin McDonald, Tuesday afternoon to act as the Justice Department’s anti-fraud division lead. In a party-line vote, McDonald was confirmed 52-47 to be the first assistant attorney general for national fraud enforcement at the DOJ. McDonald will work with Vice President JD Vance, whom President Donald Trump named the White House “fraud czar” to lead a new task force to eliminate fraud. Trump created the new DOJ division to “catch and stop FRAUDSTERS that have been STEALING from the American People,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“Colin is an experienced, skilled, and tough prosecutor who will continue doing incredible work to root out fraud across America,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote, congratulating McDonald on his confirmation. “President Trump made an outstanding choice.” McDonald has served as a top aide to the second in command at the DOJ for the past year. Prior to coming to Washington, he served as a federal prosecutor. (Read more.)