This is the Standing Record for July 15, 2026. We recorded 4 events from July 14, 2026 that erode our democratic ideals and added 55 more from earlier dates — 356 so far this month, bringing the total archive to 906. If you saw something happen — yesterday, or any other day — that belongs here, send it to our tip line.

Events From Yesterday

Trump extended federal National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C. through January 2029

On July 14, 2026, the Trump administration extended the federalized National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C. through Inauguration Day in January 2029, the Pentagon confirmed. The deployment, begun in August 2025 under a since-lapsed “crime emergency,” had recently doubled to nearly 5,000 troops and now ranks as the longest such domestic deployment in U.S. history.

Trump ordered a fourth day of Iran strikes as CENTCOM reinstated the Strait of Hormuz blockade, again defying the war-powers resolution

On July 14, 2026, U.S. forces struck Iranian targets for a fourth consecutive day and U.S. Central Command reinstated a naval blockade on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, backed by more than 20 Navy warships. President Trump the same day dropped a 20 percent cargo toll he had imposed on Hormuz shipping a day earlier, saying Gulf-state leaders had offered to invest in the United States instead. The strikes and blockade continued a campaign Congress had directed the administration to end through a bicameral War Powers Resolution passed in June 2026, without new congressional authorization.

Trump personally received $2 million from a South Korean company facing a U.S. trade investigation

A financial disclosure that President Trump filed in late June 2026, reported by the New York Times on July 14, showed he was personally paid $2 million by South Korea’s Base Group, an aluminum company whose affiliate Korea Aluminum was found by the U.S. Commerce Department in 2023 to have skirted trade duties on Chinese-made aluminum. The payment was listed as a nonrefundable development fee tied to a letter of intent, which the Trump Organization said related to an unannounced golf project. The arrangement gave the president a direct personal financial tie to a foreign business subject to his own administration’s trade enforcement.

American Oversight records showed Deputy AG Blanche personally directed the DOJ’s ‘Weaponization Working Group’

On July 14, 2026, the watchdog group American Oversight published records — first reported by the New York Times — showing that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche personally oversaw the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group,” convening recurring meetings in his conference room and assigning senior officials from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General to politically charged investigations. Calendar entries and emails tied those assignments to inquiries involving former Special Counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, January 6 prosecutions, and the 2020 election. The disclosure was released on the eve of Blanche’s Senate confirmation hearing to become Attorney General.

Filling out the archive

We’re steadily backfilling the archive — working backward through the record so the timeline is complete, not just current. If you know of something from months or years back that belongs here, send it to our tip line.