FOIAengine: Wall Street Journal Seeking SEC Emails and Texts Involving the Trump-Affiliated Venture Capital Firm
The Wall Street Journal is pressing the Securities and Exchange Commission for records involving Trump-affiliated 1789 Capital – a timely request after a previously unreported regulatory filing with the SEC last Friday showed the once-struggling MAGA venture firm quickly amassed over $861 million in assets from a handful of investors after Donald Trump returned to the White House.
The Journal’s request under the Freedom of Information Act, one of 390 media requests logged in PoliScio Analytics’ competitive-intelligence database FOIAengine during the past month, came from its New York-based investigative reporter Rebecca Ballhaus.
The reporter’s broad FOIA request to the SEC sought “any records involving 1789 Capital, including any emails and text messages to or from 1789 Capital domains and any records that mention 1789 Capital.”
The Journal’s request aims straight at the intersection of Wall Street, politics, and regulation: who at the SEC is watching the Trump family’s financial dealings; what questions the regulators may have asked; and whether the agency’s internal correspondence signals heightened sensitivity around possible White House conflicts. As money and influence move quickly into markets reflecting Trump’s personal views and favoring his family’s financial interests, FOIA requests may reveal a financial regulator’s paper trail.
Ballhaus’ work focuses on politics and government and includes investigations into conflicts of interest across the federal government; harassment and abuse at federal agencies; and the role of high-dollar donors in politics. Ballhaus was part of the Journal’s investigative teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2019 for revealing Donald Trump’s central role in a series of payoffs made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal during his presidential campaign, and in 2023 for a series revealing that thousands of senior federal employees owned stock in companies their agencies oversaw. (For more on the latter, see our story, “In the Wall Street Journal’s Crosshairs.”)
The SEC’s logs don’t reveal whether or how it responded to Ballhaus’ request, or what documents the agency might turn over.
FOIA requests to the federal government can be an important early warning of bad publicity, litigation to come, or uncertainties to be hedged and gamed out. In this case, the FOIA request from a multi-Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter on the Journal’s staff reflects a potential new line of inquiry for the newspaper’s coverage of President Trump and members of his family and inner circle – and a possible escalation of the tension between the president and one of his principal media foils. In late July, Trump sued the Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for at least $10 billion in damages over the newspaper’s report that Trump sent a sexually suggestive letter with a nude drawing to Jeffrey Epstein.
1789 Capital was launched in 2023 by Trump supporters Omeed Malik and Chris Buskirk as a vehicle for investing in “America First” companies, emphasizing U.S.-based industries and operations. A SPAC registered later that year by Malik and Buskirk made clear their intention to invest in companies bringing back production to the U.S. (known as “deglobalization”) and industries “impaired” by the environmental, social and corporate-governance (ESG) standards that conservatives have railed against.
The Journal’s previous coverage of 1789 Capital was focused on the venture-capital firm’s rocky start – including investment losses and Malik’s dispute with his previous employer, Bank of America, after he was fired from his BofA executive position following allegations of sexual harassment. Malik denied the allegations and later received a reported $10 million-plus settlement from BofA after filing a $100 million defamation claim against the bank.
In its February 2023 initial filing with the SEC, 1789 said it had raised just $10 million – an initial stake reportedly matching Malik’s BofA settlement. 1789’s filing listed a target of eventually raising $100 million over multiple years. Still, as recently as last November, the Journal called the MAGA-focused movement espousing conservative values “a financial movement that hasn’t taken off.”
But 1789’s picture brightened in November after Trump won the 2024 presidential election. Later that month, Donald Trump, Jr. joined 1789 as a partner. He is referred to in the company’s latest regulatory filing by the shorthand descriptor “DTJ.”
Based on the regulatory filing that was just made public by the SEC, DTJ’s arrival had a transformative effect, with 1789’s assets under management closing in on a billion dollars – a more than eight-fold increase from 1789’s original target.
1789’s initial SEC Form ADV, a required filing that landed on the SEC’s website right before the long Labor Day weekend, shows the MAGA venture capital firm with $861,247,283 in assets under management across 16 accounts. Recent media reports describe a fast-growing portfolio that spans prediction markets (Polymarket); pharma-tech (BlinkRx); rare earth (Vulcan Elements); and defense/space manufacturing (including Firehawk Aerospace and Axiom Space).
“It’s time to invest in companies that don’t hate you,” Trump Jr. said in a 2023 social-media post, promoting ideological investing.
Last weeks’ regulatory filing notes that Trump Jr. is currently appealing a New York court’s order “enjoin[ing] DTJ from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of two years, and order[ing] DTJ to pay disgorgement in the amount of $4,013,024 plus pre-judgment interest in the amount of $646,152.” The civil fraud case was brought by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, against various players in the Trump organization. “Pursuant to an order from an appeals court,” the firm’s SEC filing went on, “enforcement of those orders and judgment is currently stayed pending the outcome of a pending appeal.”
To see all the requests mentioned in this article, log in or sign up to become a FOIAengine user.
Next: Other news media FOIA requests focused on enforcement flashpoints, consumer protection, and senior-official communications.
FOIAengine is the only source for the most comprehensive, fully searchable archive of FOIA requests across over 40 federal departments and agencies. FOIAengine has more robust functionality and searching capabilities and standardizes data from different agencies to make it easier to work with. Learn more about FOIAengine here. Sign up here to become a trial user of FOIAengine.
PoliScio now offers everyone free daily FOIAengine Email Alerts when a new FOIA request matches one of your personal keywords. Sign up here to create your account and identify your keywords.
FOIAengine access now is available for all professional members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of journalism. IRE is the world’s oldest and largest association of investigative journalists. PoliScio Analytics is proud to be partnering with IRE to provide this valuable content to investigative reporters worldwide.
John A. Jenkins, co-creator of FOIAengine, is a Washington journalist and publisher whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and elsewhere. He is a four-time recipient of the American Bar Association’s Gavel Award Certificate of Merit for his legal reporting and analysis. His most recent book is The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist. His next book, Summer of ’71, about events before Watergate, will be published in May 2026. Jenkins founded Law Street Media in 2013. Prior to that, he was President of CQ Press, the textbook and reference publishing enterprise of Congressional Quarterly. FOIAengine is a product of PoliScio Analytics (PoliScio.com), a new venture specializing in U.S. political and governmental research, co-founded by Jenkins and Washington lawyer Randy Miller. Learn more about FOIAengine here. To review FOIA requests mentioned in this article, subscribe to FOIAengine.
Write to John A. Jenkins at Jjenkins@LawStreetMedia.com.
