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South Carolina Republicans file for special primary to fill Graham seat

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South Carolina Republican Senate candidates have until midday Tuesday to file for the special primary election for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R) seat. Candidates have had since July 21 to file for the Aug. 11 special primary election. Ten Republicans had officially filed as of Monday. Filing ends at 12 p.m. EDT. Early voting…

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New Don Lemon court filing alleges federal officer lied to the judge

Alternet.org

3 hours ago

New Don Lemon court filing alleges federal officer lied to the judge

A new court filing from ex-CNN host Don Lemon was filed Wednesday, alleging that a Department of Homeland Security officer lied under oath in a statement to the judge in his case. Lemon is included with several other journalists charged by the Department of Justice, which claims that Lemon and other reporters were protesting when they were filming at a Minnesota church where one of the pastors was coordinating with immigration agents. National security expert Marcy Wheeler noted that this is the second time the Justice Department has asked Judge Douglas Minko to accept a complaint from an ICE agent who watched the video of the church broadcast and testified to what was in it. According to Lemon's filing, the agent made false claims about the journalists joining in the chanting from protesters. "That sworn allegation about Mr. Lemon was false," the filing states. "The government did not produce the draft complaint affidavit until July 17, 2026. At the July 24 hearing, the government explained that it submitted the affidavit to the Court in late January, but the Court did not sign it. The government then 'took Chief Judge Schiltz's advice' and obtained a grand jury indictment on January 29, 2026. Thus, only two days before securing the indictment, the government submitted a complaint affidavit falsely alleging that Mr. Lemon and the other journalists joined in the chanting. The timing strongly suggests that the government presented the same false account of the journalists' conduct to the grand jury."On Friday, in a rare move, Judge Minko ordered that the Justice Department turn over all testimony and evidence presented to the grand jury at the time. Their specific request is to find whether this sworn statement and any others were used to secure a grand jury indictment.The proceedings for a grand jury are typically kept secret, but in recent events, judges have allowed that information to be released to the defense in trial courts. In a recent Chicago case, the Justice Department was found to have misled the grand jurors and even dismissed jurors that they felt wouldn't give them the indictment they sought. That case involved six political leaders and activists protesting outside of an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. The charges have been dropped and the accused have asked for a special counsel to investigate the incident. Judge Minko said that he wanted to examine the information himself first. However, Matthew Ebert, who represents freelance journalist Georga Fort, said that the government has made false claims about his client already, including in sworn affidavits, Minneapolis Public Radio reported last week. “The presumption of regularity has collapsed,” Ebert said.Justice Department prosecutor Neville Hedley told the judge that no false information in earlier documents made it into the indictment. That doesn't indicate whether the information was revealed to the grand jury to obtain the indictment, however. “These were not material falsehoods," Hedley said. “This was a mistake, this was a miscommunication.”The affidavit signed by DHS-ICE Special Agent Timothy Gerber reads, "Broadcast video obtained from Cities church also shows ARMSTRONG, ALLEN, LEMON, RICHARDSON, KELLY, FORT, LUNDY, CREWS chanting with agitators and obstructing parishioners' path of travel."Hedley didn't indicate what was "miscommunicated" in the claim. Lemon and his attorneys have alleged that the case against him and the journalists is "weak."

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Republican goes to war against judge Trump singled out for impeachment

Alternet.org

3 hours ago

Republican goes to war against judge Trump singled out for impeachment

After President Donald Trump singled him out for possible impeachment, a Republican lawmaker is officially going to war against Judge James Boasberg with a new bill inspired by GOP grievances against him, per a report from Bloomberg.Boasberg is a Washington D.C., federal district judge appointed by former President Barack Obama, who first drew the ire of MAGA Republicans in 2025 when he ruled against Trump's attempt to use the Alien Enemies Act as a means to carry out his mass deportation agenda. Those same Republicans later accused him, with no evidence, that he had forced his way onto a case against the Trump administration for its use of the Signal messaging app for military communications, despite the court's repeated insistence that he had been randomly assigned to the case per its standard policy.In light of his frequent rulings against the administration, Trump has called for Boasberg to be impeached, which prompted pushback from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Numerous other Republicans began to echo those calls, including Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, who also this week unveiled a new proposed bill, the BOASBERG Act, that would target the unfounded allegations against the judge."A Republican senator has introduced legislation that would require random case assignment in federal district courts," Bloomberg's report explained, adding later, "If passed, Schmitt’s legislation would also require district courts to publicly share their practices when it comes to the assignment of civil cases, or to say why cases can’t be randomly assigned. Anyone who attempted to 'manipulate or evade the randomized case assignment system' would face penalties, according to the bill. District judges would also be removed from a case if the Supreme Court vacates, reverses, or stays their rulings. Appeals court judges would also lose their case assignments if the Supreme Court vacated or reversed a judgment that affirmed a lower court ruling."The report continued: "Under the bill, federal appeals courts would also be subject to random assignment procedures when it comes to creating the three-judge panels that hear cases, and cases could only be reassigned in limited circumstances. Judges would also be randomly assigned when it comes to the rare three-judge courts stood up to weigh challenges to district maps. And both district and appeals courts would have to share statistics annually on judicial assignments and reassignments."“The BOASBERG Act prevents Judges from forcing their way onto cases and is an important piece of court transparency legislation that will help restore the American people’s confidence in our judiciary,” Schmitt said in a statement about the new proposal.Bloomberg also noted a segment of Schmitt's proposal, which said that it was not meant "to prevent district courts from assigning cases filed within a division to 1 or more judges." The outlet interpreted this as an effort not to target the practice of "judge shopping," wherein litigants find a way to file their suits in smaller districts where they are "all but guaranteed" to land a judge friendly to their cause, which conservatives have been accused of doing frequently in recent years.

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Why Republicans Aren’t Funding the Texas Senate Race Yet

NYT > U.S. > Politics

3 hours ago

Why Republicans Aren’t Funding the Texas Senate Race Yet

The peculiar dynamic is playing out in Texas, where the fate of the Republican nominee, Ken Paxton, will help decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.

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Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in showdown with Republican lawmakers

BBC News

4 hours ago

Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in showdown with Republican lawmakers

Fauci invoked his right not to respond to questions in his opening statement, citing Senator Rand Paul's "unhinged obsession" with trying to put him "behind bars".

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Fauci Shuts Down Republicans’ COVID-19 Hearing by Pleading the Fifth

The New Republic

6 hours ago

Fauci Shuts Down Republicans’ COVID-19 Hearing by Pleading the Fifth

Anthony Fauci will not testify before Congress Wednesday.The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was subpoenaed to testify before a Republican-led Senate committee regarding his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.But he won’t—instead, Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment in his opening statements.Fauci remarked that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul—who issued the subpoena and has repeatedly called for Fauci’s arrest—has an “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution.”“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this Committee is to prompt me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said, adding that he is following his attorney’s advice by pleading the Fifth.This is a developing story.

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The Gateway Pundit

7 hours ago

MUST READ… Part 2 – Declassified Election Files: CIA Note’s Claims and Assessments Align Closely With Observed Issues in U.S. 2020 Election

In Part 1 of this series covering the declassified documents released by the Trump administration, The Gateway Pundit reviewed a CIA Note examining Venezuela’s electronic-election manipulation capabilities from 2004 through 2020. The post MUST READ… Part 2 – Declassified Election Files: CIA Note’s Claims and Assessments Align Closely With Observed Issues in U.S. 2020 Election appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Fauci Pleads the Fifth at Senate Hearing on COVID, Escalating Long-Running Clash With Republicans

TIME

7 hours ago

Fauci Pleads the Fifth at Senate Hearing on COVID, Escalating Long-Running Clash With Republicans

The hearing escalates Fauci's long-running clash with Republicans as they seek to revisit the disputed origins of the coronavirus and the U.S. pandemic response.

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Republican in-fighting explodes as Trump demands they cancel vacation

Alternet.org

8 hours ago

Republican in-fighting explodes as Trump demands they cancel vacation

Republicans in Washington are once again fighting each other, according to The Hill, as disagreements rage over President Donald Trump's new demand that they cancel their summer recess.For months, Trump has insisted that the Senate must pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that would impose strict new rules on voting and voter registration to address his long-debunked claims about widespread voter fraud. Senate GOP leaders, in response, have repeatedly stressed that the bill lacks the support in the chamber to overcome the filibuster threshold, leaving the party and the president in a stalemate.Traditionally, the Senate breaks for a summer recess at the beginning of August and does not return to Washington, D.C., for several weeks, with the departure being considered especially important during midterm election years, as it allows candidates seeking reelection to hit the campaign trail. Now, however, Trump has demanded that the Senate cancel its summer recess this year to both "debate the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act and advance a budget reconciliation package to fund the Iran war," according to a Wednesday morning report from The Hill."GOP senators are divided over whether to cut short the five-week break, which would take vulnerable Republican incumbent Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Jon Husted (Ohio) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska) away from the campaign trail," The Hill detailed. "They’re also at odds over whether to dive into what Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) warned would be a 'risky' attempt to pass a budget package that contains billions of dollars for an unpopular foreign conflict, as well as funding for farmers and election-related reforms."The report continued: "Looming over it all are the fast-approaching midterms and festering frustration among some Republicans about the curveballs being thrown by the president. Trump and his allies are pushing hard for the Senate to vote as soon as next week on a budget resolution to unlock the process to advance a $95 billion proposal drafted by the House to help cover the costs of the Iran war — even though Thune warned last week that such a proposal doesn’t have 50 Republican votes to advance in the Senate."According to sources within the party conference, Trump's demand that some or all of the August recess be cancelled to pursue these dicey and unpopular legislative proposals has "sparked a firestorm" among Republicans that could get ugly."It has the potential to blow up [the conference]," one anonymous Republican Senator told The Hill. “It’s a very divisive concept.”Other Republican senators are warning that the SAVE Act remains unlikely to pass and that cancelling the summer recess would not change that fact. In fact, the attempt "will only wind up disappointing GOP base voters when they fail to deliver" on Trump's demands.

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South Carolina Republicans file for special primary to fill Graham seat

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South Carolina Republicans file for special primary to fill Graham seat

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