Breaking: Bobby Jindal Spent Hundreds Of Thousands Of Tax Dollars To Fight Gay Marriage (Exclusive)
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight same-sex marriage – and not all the bills have been paid yet.
As we are well aware, many attorneys general across the United States spent copious amounts of taxpayer money to defend state marriage bans. John Boehner spent millions at the federal level to defend DOMA. Louisiana AG Buddy Caldwell and Governor Bobby Jindal are no different.
Jindal, running for president, likes to claim he has “balanced our budget eight years in a row without raising taxes.” It’s not true.
In a time when Louisiana is fiscally broke, having to slash some higher education and hospital services, the amount of taxpayer money Bobby Jindal paid to the attorney fighting same-sex marriage rights could have been much better spent.Â
According to his bio, “Kyle Duncan was formerly general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, where he was lead counsel representing Hobby Lobby Stores in its challenge to the HHS mandate. He is now a lawyer in private practice for the firm of Duncan PLLC in Washington, D.C. Kyle was also previously solicitor general of Louisiana from 2008 to 2011, where he argued numerous appeals in state and federal courts, including the US Supreme Court. From 2004 to 2008 Duncan was an assistant professor of law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, where he taught courses on constitutional law, church-state relations, and free speech. He was assistant solicitor general in the Texas Attorney General’s Office from 1999 to 2002.”
In other words, Kyle Duncan is a high-powered and expensive lawyer charging Louisiana taxpayers at the rate of $385 an hour.
Along with colleagues, a public records request was made, and we now have contract details and the documents that break down the expenses Kyle Duncan charged Louisiana to defend the state’s unconstitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Gov. Jindal wants to run for the highest office in the country, oblivious to the mess he’s created in his own state. How can he expect the American people to put any validity to his concern for all citizens of this country, when it’s obvious that he couldn’t even serve the people of Louisiana with dignity? He knowingly spent money that the state did not have, in defense of a ban that disenfranchises his own citizens. It’s not only a blatant disregard for all taxpayers across Louisiana, including the ones he was fighting against, but also for the state fiscal crisis as a whole. Yes, I know, the expenses aren’t into the million-dollar crisis range that faces this state, but they would have been better served if put to a better use.
My husband and I were some of those taxpayers that Jindal disenfranchised. Having filed the federal lawsuit, Robicheaux et. al., challenging Louisiana’s marriage ban in July 2013, we’ve been fighting the governor and his officers for the last 24 months. We’ve been forced to file our taxes separately due to the ban that was in place and have those tax dollars used against us.
Even when the Supreme Court ruled for same-sex marriage Governor Jindal chose to go the route of grand standing for his failing political aspirations, rather than step aside and let the law of the land stand. It was not until the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded to the District Court to reverse its original ruling and instruct the state officers to comply with issuing and recognizing marriage licenses that same-sex couples were able to marry.
In my opinion, this man is not fit to continue his duties as Louisiana Governor, much less have a chance at the Oval Office.
The dust has settled in Louisiana on this matter, but the taxpayers will continue to suffer for the fiscal crisis that Jindal will leave behind. Even those of us that had our tax money spent in the fight against us.
So, how much money did Governor Jindal blow on fighting cases he had to have known he would lose, just to prop up his conservative bonafides when running for president?
$371,548.63
And that’s only through March of this year.
Below are the documents received from our the records request that show all the money Gov. Jindal spent, through March.Â
Attorney Hourly Fees – $360,456.25
Total Fees Billed – $371,548.63
See records request here or below.
Image at top by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license
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Derek Penton-Robicheaux is a native of Mississippi and a longtime resident of New Orleans.  He holds degrees in computer information systems and paramedicine.  After more than five years together, Derek and his husband, Jonathan Penton-Robicheaux, were legally married in Iowa on Sept. 23, 2012. The two were the first plaintiffs involved in the federal marriage Lawsuit in Louisiana, Robicheaux et al. v Caldwell.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
