Washington

Fifty years ago, baseball was back in Washington, D.C. — until it wasn’t

Published

2 years ago

January 31, 2024

Fifty years ago, baseball was back in Washington, D.C. — until it wasn’t

A half-century ago, the San Diego Padres were so close to relocating to the nation’s capital that longtime Washington Post sports columnist Shirley Povich sent a two-word telegram to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, a D.C. native who had championed a new team for his hometown: “MAZEL TOV.”

The traditional Jewish congratulations came after National League owners approved the team’s move to Washington in December 1973, Kuhn recalled in his autobiography.

Earlier that year, Joseph B. Danzansky, president of the Giant supermarket chain, had signed a deal with the troubled owner of the Padres to purchase the team for $12 million and place it in the nation’s capital to replace the Washington Senators, who had relocated to Texas the previous season.

But a lawsuit by the city of San Diego, followed by McDonald’s chairman Ray Kroc swooping in to buy the team and keep it in Southern California, wound up sinking the D.C. effort. The conclusion came Jan. 31, 1974 — 50 years ago Wednesday — when NL owners unanimously approved the sale of the team to Kroc.

“So Ray Kroc got the Padres as spring training approached and Washington’s window of hope closed again,” Kuhn recalled in his memoir. “There would be only robins and Redskins at RFK Stadium.”

It represented a stunning switcheroo, coming less than two months after the mazel tov-inducing vote approved the team’s relocation to D.C. And it set up decades of heartbreak for Washington baseball fans, who lived with fleeting hope and constant uncertainty for more than 30 years before the arrival of the Washington Nationals in 2005 finally ended the city’s baseball drought.

Congressional pressure for a Washington team

The saga really started at the end of the 1971 season, when Senators owner Bob Short got permission to move the team to Texas, where they would become the Rangers in 1972. That angered many members of Congress, and they began agitating for a new team in the nation’s capital.

At baseball’s December 1971 winter meetings in Phoenix, four members of Congress presented a petition signed by 238 members — more than half of the House’s 435 — calling on MLB to reestablish baseball in Washington. The top of the petition listed several House heavyweights, including Speaker Carl Albert (D-Okla.), Minority Leader Gerald Ford (R-Mich.), Judiciary Committee Chairman Emanuel Celler (D-N.Y.) and Rep. B.F. Sisk (D-Calif.), chairman of the “D.C. Baseball Steering Committee,” according to a Chicago Tribune story at the time.

Celler, a colorful longtime Brooklyn lawmaker, had been furious when the Dodgers left his home borough for Los Angeles in 1958. At the 1971 winter meetings, he delivered a letter to MLB in his typically brash style, criticizing the owners “who in the name of the public interest successfully maintain their blanket exemption from our antitrust laws, occasionally exhibit precious little concern for the community welfare.”

Celler also referenced the NFL’s New York Giants’ announcement earlier that year that they would be leaving Yankee Stadium for New Jersey.

“The recent exit of the baseball Senators from the nation’s capital — and indeed that of the football Giants from New York City, where they have prospered for years — is symptomatic of a long‐standing pattern,” Celler wrote.

Sisk was even more blunt: “We want a team by next year if possible and we must have one by 1973,” he said, according to the New York Times. Kuhn, the baseball commissioner, said the owners “heard the message” and that he would name a blue-ribbon panel to get a team back in D.C.

“The choices seem to be that baseball could expand again or could move some troubled franchise to Washington from perhaps Cleveland, Oakland or San Diego,” the Times wrote in what almost turned out to be a prophetic line.

Eighteen months later, in late May 1973, came the news that a group led by Danzansky had a deal to buy the Padres and move them to D.C., contingent on the team terminating its lease with city-owned San Diego Stadium and on the approval of NL owners. Two years earlier, Danzansky had tried to buy the Senators and keep them in Washington, but he couldn’t meet Short’s asking price of $12 million (about $90 million today). This time, his group came up with that figure for the Padres that, improbably, was $2 million more than George Steinbrenner and fellow investors had paid for the New York Yankees in January 1973. The plan was for the Padres to relocate in time for the 1974 season.

The new D.C. team was to play at federally owned RFK Stadium under favorable lease terms — 10 cents for every customer up to 1 million and 30 cents over that threshold, the Times reported.

The team didn’t have a new name lined up for its new city, although fans did get a sneak peek at the road uniform, which minor league pitcher Dave Freisleben modeled in a photo. Freisleben, who would make his MLB debut in 1974, sported a baby-blue 1970s-style jersey with the word “Washington” across the chest and a white baseball cap featuring a “W” that had a red star protruding from the top.

“Baseball’s Back! San Diego Padres Play Here in ’74,” blared a May 28, 1973, front-page headline in The Post, above the fold and just below a story about the spiraling Watergate scandal.

The Padres had a losing tradition that would have fit in with Washington’s. Since their birth as an expansion franchise in 1969, they had come in last place in the NL West every season, never finishing with a winning percentage above .400. They had averaged barely 7,000 fans per game in their first four years, even worse than the paltry crowds the Senators drew in their final season in D.C. (around 8,000 per game).

“There are some who will scoff that no treasure was snatched from San Diego in preparing Washington for its reentry into major league baseball in 1974,” Povich wrote. “But for two brooding, silent summers, Washington baseball fans have been deprived of most of the sights and all the sounds of the game while lesser cities could give out with whoops. At this point, the caliber of the Padres, which can be subject to change, is less important than their presence in the city.”

Danzansky told Channel 5′s Maury Povich — Shirley Povich’s son — that his prospects for team manager included “Frank Robinson at the head of my list,” which would have made him the majors’ first Black manager. Robinson would go on to break that barrier with the Cleveland Indians, who named him player-manager for the 1975 season. Thirty years later, Robinson would become the first manager of the Washington Nationals.

“I’m very flattered [Danzansky] feels that way,” Robinson told The Post at the time, adding he wasn’t deterred by the Padres’ losing track record. “I don’t shy away from tough situations. The Padres are a young expansion team, and it’s only fair to give them five to eight years to become a good club.”

And the team did have some exciting young players, such as rookie outfielder Dave Winfield. After the 1973 season, they traded for veteran superstar Willie McCovey.

Kevin Dowd, a longtime Washington baseball fan, recalled that when the Senators left town, he was optimistic the city would soon land a new team.

“A year or two went by, I was getting impatient, but here come the Padres, and Danzansky had a deal in place,” he said in a recent interview. “When that happened, I was saying: ‘Take it to the bank. It’s done.’ ”

Dowd, who was 29 at the time, had already planned to attend a bunch of games in 1974. “I was single, and that was a good date. It was cheap,” he said, recalling attending Senators games at RFK for $1.50 and paying the same price for a beer. “So you could have a nice date for 10 bucks.”

As the Padres wrapped up what appeared to be a lame-duck season in San Diego, which ended with an NL-worst 60-102 record, President Richard M. Nixon, a California native and huge baseball fan, cheered the team’s expected move. After the Senators left town, Nixon had strategized with D.C. Mayor Walter E. Washington on finding a replacement team, a White House tape recording shows.

“I just want to cast my own vote in favor of returning major-league baseball to the Nation’s Capital,” the president wrote to NL President Chub Feeney in September 1973. “You can be sure all of us in the Washington metropolitan area would enthusiastically welcome a National League team.”

On Dec. 6, 1973, the NL owners conditionally approved the team’s move to Washington. That same day, Congress deliberated Nixon’s choice of Ford as his new vice president, following the resignation of Spiro Agnew. Sisk, the congressional D.C. baseball booster, broke into the floor debate to announce the Padres news.

“Mr. Sisk and Representative Frank Horton, Republican of Upstate New York, who together had led a Congressional effort to secure a new baseball franchise for Washington, paid tribute to Mr. Ford, a onetime football star and still a sports enthusiast, for his support of their effort,” the Times reported. Ford was sworn in as the new vice president later that day after winning congressional confirmation.

The Post reported that Washington would open the 1974 season at RFK Stadium for a 2:30 p.m. game against the Philadelphia Phillies, a day before the rest of MLB’s teams started their season. That winter, Topps printed a 1974 set of baseball cards of 15 San Diego players with “Washington Nat’l Lea.” printed on them.

But San Diego officials soon made it clear they wouldn’t give up their lousy baseball team without a fight.

“We’ll see them in court,” warned San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson, a Republican and future California governor, at a news conference the same day of the NL owners’ vote.

“The U.S. Congress, as watchdog of the public purse, has decided that subsidizing the piracy of the San Diego Padres is an urgent national priority, warranting the expenditure of federal taxpayers’ funds,” he added.

Wishful thinking for D.C.

The next week, San Diego followed through on its threat, filing an antitrust lawsuit against the NL, alleging a conspiracy dating from 1971 to yank the Padres from the city and move them to Washington. The other defendants were each of the league’s 12 teams; Padres owner C. Arnholt Smith; and Sisk.

Among the alleged co-conspirators: Vice President Ford, Albert (the House speaker), Celler, Rep. Peter Rodino (D-N.J.) and Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D); as well as the American League.

Looking to get out from the San Diego lawsuit, Smith tried to find another buyer. That’s when Kroc, who had failed in his attempt to buy his hometown Chicago Cubs, reached out. In January 1974, he came to an agreement to buy the Padres and keep them in San Diego.

“That was almost, but not quite as big, a betrayal as Bob Short,” said Dowd, the longtime D.C. baseball fan.

After the NL approved the sale to Kroc, Danzansky sent a telegram to the league asking owners to consider D.C. as the first city to get an expansion team and said he had several encouraging comments from owners.

“There has been some indication that there is a definite feeling among the owners that we are going to be favored,” he said.

But that proved to be wishful thinking. MLB expanded in 1977, 1993 and 1998 but bypassed Washington each time. Instead, D.C. had to turn to relocation again when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington in 2005.

Meanwhile, the Padres finished last again in Kroc’s first year, 1974. At the Padres’ home opener, which they dropped, 9-5, in the midst of a six-game losing streak to start the season, Kroc went into the press box and told the crowd on the public address mic: “I suffer with you. I’ve never seen such stupid ball-playing in my life.”

Kuhn recalled ordering Kroc to apologize and soon met with him on Kroc’s yacht in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“I knew right away we had another fascinating egocentric in the world of baseball,” he wrote.

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Washington

Washington Lands QB From Stanford

Published

1 day ago

January 26, 2026

Press Room

On Monday, On3 Sports insider, Hayes Fawcett, was first to report that former Stanford quarterback Elijah Brown transferred to Washington, officially ending his tenure on The Farm. This comes nearly two weeks after Brown entered the transfer portal, and he will head to Seattle with three years of eligibility remaining.

Brown will presumably to be the backup to Demond Williams at Washington. Williams, who signed a $4 million deal to play for the Huskies at the end of the season, initially entered the transfer portal himself on Jan. 8.

But after backlash and threatened legal action by the university, he ultimately decided to stay with the program for the ’26 season. As a result, Brown will likely use this season to continue to develop and compete for the starting job in 2027 after Williams’ presumed departure for the NFL.

A former four-star recruit, Brown started for parts of two seasons at Stanford, playing in three games with one start as a true freshman, which was limited due to an early season injury.

As a redshirt freshman in 2025, Brown played in six games with three starts, finishing the season with 829 pass yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions. His best game of the season came against North Carolina on Nov. 8, where he threw for 284 yards, one touchdown and one interception in a 20-15 loss.

A star at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California, Brown started all four of his years at the school and became only the fourth player in school history to earn the starting quarterback job as a freshman.

In his sophomore season, after throwing for 2,581 yards and 30 touchdowns, Brown led Mater Dei to a perfect 12-0 record and the CIF Open Division Title. As a junior, Brown once again shined for Mater Dei, throwing for 2,785 yards, 31 touchdowns and four interceptions as the program went 12-1.

After another dominant season that saw Brown throw for over 2,900 yards and nearly 40 touchdowns while winning another state title, he committed to Stanford over offers from several other big name schools including Alabama, UCLA, Arizona, Georgia and Michigan. After signing with the Cardinal, he became the highest rated quarterback to commit to the school since Tanner McKee in 2018.

But Brown’s college career has been far from what was expected. After a promising college debut against Cal Poly in his true freshman season, Brown injured his hand and missed basically the whole season, playing in only two other games where he struggled.

In 2025, Brown lost the starting job in training camp to Ben Gulbranson and even after replacing Gulbranson late in the season, he never was able to get Stanford’s offense to that next level. When he found success, it was typically late in games once the outcome was more or less decided.

New head coach Tavita Pritchard has a strong reputation for developing quarterbacks which could have benefitted Brown, but after Stanford signed Davis Warren from Michigan, in addition to bringing in new recruits such as Michael Mitchell Jr., the QB room got too crowded for Brown.

Now, Brown will be coached by another elite offensive mind in Jedd Fisch, a coach he hopes will bring out the best in him and have him playing like the four-star recruit he came into college as.

Our reporting showed Washington ranks last in green energy growth. Now the state is working to speed it up

Published

2 days ago

January 26, 2026

Press Room

Our reporting showed Washington ranks last in green energy growth. Now the state is working to speed it up

FILE – In this Feb. 10, 2010, file photo, power lines from Bonneville Dam head in all directions in North Bonneville, Wash. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

Don Ryan / AP

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting. Sign up for First Look to get OPB stories in your inbox six days a week.

Washington state has launched a sweeping effort to speed up construction of renewable energy projects, prompted by reporting from Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica that chronicled how the state came to rank dead last in the nation for renewable energy growth.

Washington’s Department of Commerce, which works on state energy policy, has offered up state employees to help the federal Bonneville Power Administration process its backlog of renewable energy projects — though it remains uncertain whether the agency will accept the offer.

Bonneville, which owns 75% of the Northwest’s power grid, must sign off before wind and solar developers who wish to connect to its grid can break ground.

Meanwhile, four state agencies have recommended that Washington’s Legislature provide incentives for utilities to upgrade transmission lines, plan “microgrid” energy projects that don’t need to connect to Bonneville’s power lines, and create a new state agency to plan and potentially pay for major new transmission corridors. A bill to create such an authority had a hearing on Jan 21.

The Commerce Department, the Department of Ecology, the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, and the Utilities and Transportation Commission are also meeting regularly to diagnose what’s holding up more than a dozen high-priority wind, solar, and energy storage projects that could make an outsized difference.

Joe Nguyễn, who recently stepped down as the state’s commerce director, said there’s added urgency to get the work done since OPB and ProPublica last year showed that other states like Iowa and Texas have made far more progress than Washington.

“We’re forcing these tough conversations that have never been done before,” Nguyễn, a former state senator who helped pass Washington’s law setting a deadline to go carbon-free, said during a recent public forum. He spoke at the panel just before leaving the state Commerce Department in January to take a job as head of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

“We probably have to modify some policies, we’re going to amend some things, we have to make strategic investments, but I think that’s a good thing,” Nguyễn said at the forum. “I’m not daunted by the task.”

Under Bonneville, projects face longer odds of successfully connecting to the electrical grid than anywhere else in the country, OPB and ProPublica found.

The federal agency weighs how many new transmission lines and substations will be needed to carry the added load, and it has historically been slow to pay for such upgrades, renewable energy advocates have said. Often, the burden falls on the builders of the wind and solar projects.

Washington and Oregon lawmakers failed to account for this obstacle when they required electric utilities to phase out fossil fuels. Combined with rapid growth in electricity demand from new data centers powering artificial intelligence, studies now predict rolling blackouts in the Pacific Northwest within the next five years.

Inspired by OPB and ProPublica’s reporting, the Seattle nonprofit Clean & Prosperous published a report this month identifying energy high-potential projects that could generate enough power for 7 million homes and contribute $195 billion to the state’s economy if built by 2030. Kevin Tempest, research director for Clean & Prosperous, said the fact that Washington ranked 50th nationally for green power growth was poorly understood until the recent news coverage.

“I don’t think that we were aware of just how stark it was,” said Tempest, whose group advocates for “entrepreneurial approaches” to eliminating fossil fuels and promoting economic growth. “So that really opened our eyes and, I think, accelerated a lot of conversations.”

Separately, in Oregon, Gov. Tina Kotek recently signed two executive orders intended to speed up the construction of energy projects. Kotek, too, said the news reports helped galvanize policymakers.

Nguyễn told OPB and ProPublica their reporting made him realize “the people who talk about clean energy are not actually doing it.” But now, he said, “Washington state’s desperately trying.”

‘Things that we can control’

Most of the high-priority projects identified by the state and by Clean & Prosperous are waiting for approval to connect to Bonneville’s substations and transmission lines so that developers move toward construction.

The federal agency’s review process historically has been sluggish and often puts the onus on a single energy developer to invest tens of millions of dollars in upgrades or else wait until another developer comes along to shoulder some of the cost. In addition, state officials in Oregon and Washington must also sign off on the location planned for new power lines and wind or solar farms — a process with its own bottlenecks.

“There are a myriad of reasons why projects are not happening,” Tempest said. “It’s different for each case.”

But he said across all projects, Bonneville is “a common feature for some of the new facilities not breaking ground.”

Bonneville spokesperson Kevin Wingert said in an email that the agency has implemented several reforms over the past year to enable faster connections to its grid. For example, the agency began studying clusters of projects collectively, based on their readiness, and expects its first study to be done at the end of the month.

Wingert said the agency has identified 7 gigawatts worth of projects — roughly the capacity of Grand Coulee hydroelectric dam, Washington’s largest power plant — that it says it’s on pace to have online within five years. It expects to have more than double that amount connected and energized by 2035.

In the near term, the state is focusing on grid improvements to the transmission system it can make without Bonneville, according to Casey Sixkiller, director of the Washington Department of Ecology.

He said Washington will work to help projects connect to some part of the roughly 25% of the region’s grid that is operated by investor-owned and public utilities.

“I think the point is for us in Washington, trying to find, as we wait for BPA, who’s years behind, what are the other things that we can control that we should be prioritizing and trying to move forward?” Sixkiller said.

Kurt Beckett, chair of Washington’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, which issues site permits for energy projects, said localized improvements that can be made outside of Bonneville’s grid are cheaper and will have tangible, immediate results. They also have the benefit of “buying time for the bigger, harder upgrades that Bonneville’s in charge of.”

Bonneville says it plans to spend $5 billion on nearly two dozen transmission lines and substation improvements, but many of those projects are years away with no firm deadline.

What’s within Washington’s control in the near term is to streamline state permitting of projects that have received or don’t need Bonneville’s approval.

The need was highlighted by the passage last year of President Donald Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will phase out key federal energy tax credits and set a July 4 deadline for projects to break ground. The credits cover as much as 50% of construction costs for most solar and wind farms.

More than 200 wind, solar and battery storage projects theoretically could meet the deadline “should development processes improve,” Clean & Prosperous concluded in its report. The group said it was a reference to both Bonneville’s role and the state’s.

Sixkiller said Washington leaders are prioritizing a smaller list of 19 proposed projects they think have the best chance of beating the July deadline. In some cases, the developers already have a connection agreement with Bonneville in place. In two, the projects will connect to power lines run by a utility.

An offer of help

In addition to actions taken by state agencies, Washington lawmakers are considering a bill that would ease the state’s reliance on Bonneville to build new power lines. That would come in the form of a state transmission authority — a new state agency in charge of planning transmission routes, acquiring land and working with developers to build new lines.

It could also eventually pay for projects. Washington lawmakers are calling for a report on what financing tools, such as the ability to issue bonds, the new transmission authority will need.

The bill has support from environmental groups, labor unions and energy developers. However, lobbyists for large industrial energy consumers and for Bonneville’s public utility customers opposed the bill, saying they supported the intention to build more transmission but wanted the state to focus on relaxing its permitting requirements to let utilities solve the problem.

For the time being, state officials told OPB and ProPublica they are working to shore up Bonneville’s ability to do the work that the region’s grid needs.

Beckett said he hopes the state can help Bonneville with the agency’s self-imposed goal of cutting the average time a project spends in the queue from 15 years down to five or six.

Agencies have offered Bonneville some of their staff to help its analysts complete grid connection studies, which Washington officials said makes sense because the state, in many cases, is already reviewing the same projects that are awaiting the federal agency’s permission to connect.

Bonneville hasn’t said yes yet. Wingert said Bonneville’s interconnection studies have “numerous technical and regulatory requirements” that make them “inappropriate or infeasible” for the state to conduct on BPA’s behalf.

But, he said, the agency was open to working with the state to speed projects up at some point.

“There may be opportunities to coordinate efficiencies between state policies and BPA’s interconnection processes in the future,” Wingert said.

Nguyễn said that technical requirements shouldn’t keep Bonneville from accepting the state’s help in vetting projects or analyzing their impact on the grid, and that state employees could help with the less technical aspects of the report if needed.

“If you want us to bring you lunch so your analysts can go faster, we will do it,” he said. “That’s the level of seriousness I have about getting transmission built.”

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Washington

Southwest Washington’s Gluesenkamp Perez calls for Noem to step down

Published

2 days ago

January 25, 2026

Press Room

Southwest Washington’s Gluesenkamp Perez calls for Noem to step down

U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Southwest Washington, on Saturday called for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to step down following the shooting death of a man in Minneapolis by a federal agent.

“It’s unacceptable to have another needless death in Minnesota, and it’s unacceptable to have elected officials, candidates, and administration officials continue to throw gas on this fire, or tacitly encourage assaults on law enforcement and anyone else,” Gluesenkamp Perez said. “The situation is un-American and Secretary Noem needs to step down.”

A Border Patrol agent shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a protester in Minneapolis, on Saturday.

Gluesenkamp Perez’s call that Noem step down came after Gluesenkamp Perez voted to fund DHS on Thursday amid concerns from other Democrats that the legislation did not limit President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

“When fishermen in Pacific County get in trouble out on the water, the Coast Guard makes sure they’re safe. When there’s flooding or landslides in Southwest Washington, FEMA helps our families get back on their feet. The Department of Homeland Security is extremely important to my community. I could not in good conscience vote to shut it down,” Gluesenkamp Perez said in a statement on Thursday.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen called for the impeachment of Noem, saying that she believes Noem is attempting to “mislead the American public” about the fatal shooting of Pretti.

The call from Rosen, a moderate who was part of the group that helped Republicans end the 43-day government shutdown last year, comes amid a growing fury from congressional Democrats who have also vowed to block funding for the Homeland Security Department. A House resolution to launch impeachment proceedings against Noem has the support of more than 100 Democrats, but few Senate Democrats have so far weighed in. Oregon Democratic U.S. Reps. Maxine Dexter and Suzanne Bonamici also support impeaching Noem.

“Kristi Noem has been an abject failure leading the Department of Homeland Security for the last year — and the abuses of power we’re seeing from ICE are the latest proof that she has lost control over her own department and staff,” Rosen said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Rosen said Noem’s conduct is “deeply shameful” and she “must be impeached and removed from office immediately.”

Impeachment proceedings are unlikely in the GOP-controlled Congress, but mounting Democratic outrage over the violence in the streets of Minneapolis is certain to disrupt Senate Republican leaders’ hopes this week to quickly approve a wide-ranging spending bill and avoid a partial government shutdown on Jan. 30.

And while some moderate Democrats have been wary over the last year of criticizing the Trump administration on border and immigration issues, the fatal shootings in Minneapolis of Pretti on Saturday and Renee Good on Jan. 7 have transformed the debate, even among moderates like Rosen.

Noem defends fatal shooting

The Nevada senator’s call for impeachment followed Noem’s quick defense, without a full investigation, of the fatal shooting of Pretti by a Border Patrol agent. Videos of the scene reviewed by The Associated Press appear to contradict statements by the Trump administration that the shots were fired “defensively” against Pretti as he “approached” them with a gun. Pretti was licensed to carry a concealed weapon, but he appears to be seen with only a phone in his hand in the videos.

During the scuffle, agents discovered that he was carrying a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun and opened fire with several shots, including into his back. Officials did not say if Pretti brandished the weapon.

Noem said Pretti showed up to “impede a law enforcement operation.”

“This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement,” Noem said Sunday.

In her call for Noem’s impeachment, Rosen cited other issues beyond the current ICE operations. She said Noem has also “violated the public trust by wasting millions in taxpayer dollars” on self-promotion and cited reports that the Coast Guard purchased her two luxury jets worth $172 million.

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