Good day all. We have been seeing what amounts to an all out war between the Trump Administration and a number of Democrat controlled states over both legal and illegal aliens who were not qualified to receive CDL’s. (Commercial Drivers License)
These people, because they are either not properly trained or flat out unqualified, have been causing a number of fatal accidents. This has led the Trump Administration to start cracking down and hard on some states, such as Kalifornistan and Illinois. Now new information has come out that the Secretary of State for Illinois has received some $300,000 dollars in campaign donations from the trucking industry. Here are the details from Just the News:
The Illinois official whose agency issued potentially thousands of illegal licenses to truckers, received more than $300,000 in donations from the trucking industry in recent years. The Illinois Secretary of State, Alexi Giannoulias, is in a standoff with the Trump Transportation Department over its review of the state’s commercial drivers licenses (CDLs) which found that 1-in-5 licenses issued by Giannoulias’ office were done so illegally.
1 in 5 licenses being issued illegally is not a small mistake. If it had been something like 1 in 500, that could be chalked up to mistakes. No, his has the aroma of bribes to me.
Giannoulias, a Democrat who is reportedly considering a run for Chicago mayor, is facing scrutiny over his office’s role in issuing those licenses from the Trump administration after a series of high profile big rig crashes across the country that exposed issues in how states issue non-domiciled CDLs to foreign citizens, or in some cases, to illegal immigrants.
Now I looked up the meaning of non-domiciled CDL. This is what the Duck Duck Go AI came back with.
A non-domiciled CDL is a commercial driver’s license issued to individuals who are not residents of the state that issued the license, typically for foreign nationals or those from states that cannot issue CDLs.
I also looked up what states can’t or don’t issue Commercial Drivers Licenses. I couldn’t find any. There were a few that don’t issue licenses to people who don’t live in the state, but those were rare. What it looks like is that states such as Illinois are issuing non-domiciled CDL’s without actually checking the qualifications of the applicants, like being able to speak and read english.
In Illinois, the U.S. Transportation Department found the Secretary of State’s Office, through the Director of Driver Services, issued illegal CDLs, in some cases, to individuals who have failed to provide evidence of lawful presence, let alone proficiency in managing big rigs.
The Angry Brother and I believe the Angry Nephew have CDL’s although neither one drives Big Rigs. I know that the Angry Brother had to pass a competency test in order to get his license. What this sounds like to me is that either the Secretary of State or someone in his offices was ignoring laws and common sense. You don’t do that for just political purposes. Someone’s palm must have been greased.
In response to the audit, the Transportation Department threatened to yank federal highway funding from Illinois if it does not pause issuing non-domiciled CDLs, identify all issued licenses that do not comply with the law, and conduct an internal audit of how it awards such licenses.
I have the feeling that Giannoulias has no intention of doing any of the things the DOT has told him need to be done.
Giannoulias has positioned himself as a defender of the state’s trucking and logistics industries, arguing the federal demands are damaging the state’s economy, its truckers, farmers, and others involved in the logistics sector.
“A strong economy depends on strong logistics,” he said in a statement shared with Just the News earlier this week. “If trucks don’t move, supply chains fail, prices rise, and families feel it in their pocketbooks. We can see the actions by the Trump administration taking their toll on our truckers and our farmers, both of whom are essential to Illinois’ economy.”
The issue here is with drivers who should not be allowed behind the wheel of a big rig. What is being uncovered is how many of these unqualified drivers there are, how really incompetent they are and just how low their actual paychecks are.
From what I’ve been told by people who know these things, the various trucking companies are hiring these people intentionally and with the full knowledge that they are either illegal aliens or flat out unqualified. They do this because they know they can get away with paying them far less then American and qualified legal resident aliens. If these drivers kill a few people in accidents, oh well.
His office also insists that the Illinois Secretary of State has followed all federal guidelines on CDL licenses and suspended issuing them last fall in response to the new rules from the Trump administration, Just the News previously reported.
Apparently not or the DOT wouldn’t be coming after them.
Giannoulias has also received more than $300,000 in donations from those associated with the trucking and logistics industries in the state from 2021 to 2025, according to state campaign finance records reviewed by Just the News.
I’m sure those donations were perfectly legal and above board and complied with all state and federal laws.
Just the News identified donors in this time period that are associated with transportation companies, semi-truck vendors, and truck driving schools and compiled their donations. The donations may raise additional questions for the Secretary of State in light of his agency’s failure to halt issuing CDLs to illegal, non-domiciled persons during those same years, as the Transportation Department found.
Granted, the optics of these donations don’t look good for Giannoulias. He might be complete innocent and that this was just the usual bribes donations you expect to see from an industry sector that is trying to buy influence seeking to help an honest and hardworking politician.
The Just the News story then lists the accidents caused by illegal and unqualified CDL holders and it’s not pretty. One that affects Illinois was an illegal who plowed into a car, killing the driver.
The issue came home to Illinois last October, when an illegal immigrant, Borko Stankovic, who was driving under a suspended Illinois CDL previously issued to a family member, swerved into opposing traffic at high speed and slammed into a Subaru sedan, killing the driver.
Though the license was expired in his case and not even being used by the correct individual, the incident was part of a growing pattern of accidents across the United States involving illegal immigrants granted or using expired CDL’s, prompting the Transportation Department’s review.
I’m sure this is being investigated, but I would like to know who’s license he had and how he got it. I would have thought that having your license suspended would require you to turn it in and then reapply once the suspension conditions were lifted. Did this criminal steal the license? Did someone give it to him? If the latter, then someone else needs to go to jail too.
The Transportation Department’s audits in other states also uncovered what it says is “systemic non-compliance in issuing non-domiciled CDLs.” In California, the department’s audit found that “more than 25% of non-domiciled CDLs reviewed were improperly issued.” In New York State, it found that more than half of non-domiciled CDLs were issued in violation of federal law. In Colorado, the fraction was 22%.
These numbers aren’t errors. They look like a complete disregard for the law by these states. I know that FBI Director Patel has a lot on his plate right now, but I think the time has come to start looking into criminal charges for bureaucrats and elected officials who allowed this to happen. One of the things they can look at is that $300K “Donation” to Giannoulias.
Thatisall
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