The Justice Department is supposed to enforce the law, not help the president's biggest donor break it. Right now it is doing the second thing.
In June 2026, the DOJ asked a federal court to throw out a Clean Air Act lawsuit against xAI, the company owned by Elon Musk. The suit, brought by the NAACP and local residents, says xAI is running dozens of gas turbines at a data center near Southaven, Mississippi without the permits the law requires, next to homes, schools, and churches in a mostly Black community. Instead of telling the company to follow the same permitting rules every other plant follows, the DOJ told the court the lawsuit threatens national security and should be dismissed.
That argument should worry anyone, whatever their politics. If "national security" lets one company skip the Clean Air Act, it can be used to exempt any company from any law. And it is hard to ignore who benefits. Elon Musk was the single largest donor backing the president in 2024, spending more than $250 million, and his companies hold billions of dollars in federal contracts.
The people who live near that plant did not get a national security exemption from breathing the air. They just get the pollution.
I am asking you to publicly oppose the DOJ's motion to dismiss this case, and to demand the department explain in writing the legal basis for treating a private data center as exempt from the Clean Air Act. Congress should hold an oversight hearing on whether the administration is using national security claims to do favors for political donors.
No company should get to break clean air laws because the administration says so. Please say that, on the record.
