2024 Elections

Thomas Crooks was spotted ripping anti-Donald Trump signs from cars at a political event three days before attempting to assassinate the presidential candidate in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, the father of a former classmate told the FBI.

Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper after the 20-year-old fired eight shots at the former and future president from a nearby rooftop at a campaign rally, elevating Trump to a near mythic status days before he accepted the Republican Party nomination for president. Corey Comperatore, a rally attendee, was killed in the shooting, and two others were seriously injured.

Three days before the Butler rally, one of Crooks’ former high school classmates and his father encountered Crooks near an event center. After dropping his son off for work at the venue, the father told FBI task force officers he saw a young man “who he was 99% sure to be Thomas Crooks” in a parking lot removing “signs” from cars. ...

The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon has become the latest symbol of the Trump administration's chaotic approach to election investigations after sending a records demand to the wrong office in her attempt to investigate Detroit's 2024 election results.

According to Talking Points Memo, the controversial Dhillon demanded that Wayne County's clerk provide records from the 2024 election, claiming the DOJ intended to investigate supposed fraud. However, she made a fundamental error: in Michigan, cities and townships run elections — not county clerks.

Local officials were "bemused" by the basic misunderstanding, the report notes, with Michael Siegrist, head of the association of Wayne County Clerks, ridiculing the bungled demand for information....

Billionaire Elon Musk’s relocation from California to Texas was accompanied by his creation of a shadowy and complex network of companies he controls, making it difficult to follow the money as he continues to mix personal with professional expenditures.

According to a New York Times investigation, Musk's "secretive network" of more than 90 Texas-based companies enabled him to conceal the extent of his financial support for Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. That support subsequently granted Musk a position in the Oval Office as a presidential adviser.

At least 37 of these companies serve Musk's personal needs, including property management, aircraft maintenance, and land acquisition. The Times notes that the distinction between personal and business expenditures remains deliberately ambiguous.

Musk employed private companies to finance his political activities in ways that circumvented standard disclosure requirements. The Times reported: "Tapping these companies to cover the expenses of a super PAC is highly unusual, campaign finance experts said, and ended up obscuring how money was being spent because they are not subject to the disclosure requirements of super PACs."

Musk primarily uses limited liability companies (LLCs), which provide both legal protection and reduced public accountability.

In 2024, Musk established two companies—United States of America Inc. and Group America LLC—and utilized Europa 100 LLC, an existing company previously used for personal expenses like nanny payments, along with his family office, Excession. Together, these entities provided nearly $80 million in services to America PAC, his political action committee supporting Trump's reelection. Rather than America PAC itself absorbing these costs, the companies took responsibility for expenses, a practice campaign finance experts characterized as highly irregular.

Brendan Fischer, director at Campaign Legal Center, confirmed the arrangement was legally permissible but effectively obscured the destination of tens of millions of dollars.

Europa 100 also compensated America PAC's treasurer, Chris Young, with a salary potentially reaching $1 million, according to campaign finance filings, though his specific role at the company remained unclear. Young also participated in a retirement plan through Excession.

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Political strategist Lucy Caldwell clashed with conservative pundit Caroline Downey after she described former Vice President Kamala Harris as "vapid."

During a Sunday panel segment on Fox News, Caldwell revealed that she was "not happy" that corporations like ABC News and Meta decided to cave to President Donald Trump by settling lawsuits.

Downey responded by pointing to a CBS 60 Minutes interview that was allegedly edited in a way that helped Harris during the election. ...

MAGAland voters who are now unhappy with Donald Trump's appointees running roughshod over the government with billionaire Elon Musk and his DOGE workers doing the most damage, got no sympathy from MSNBC's Michael Steele on Saturday morning.

From his perch on "The Weekend," the former head of the Republican National Committee noted that the plans found within the controversial far-right Project 2025 document are being enacted and those who thought before the election that it would never happen are now getting a rude awakening.

With co-host Symone Sanders Townsend pointing out that many Americans are just now finding out how dependent they are on federal employees and government policies that impact their daily lives, Steele stepped in.

ALSO READ: Elon Musk's DOGE boys think this is a video game as Trump plots his 2nd coup

"It hurts, it hurts a lot of people, it hurts a lot of families," he offered." And you know, I know from some folks in MAGAland that I've talked to who are now sitting there going, 'Well, I didn't think, I didn't think that it would go here. I didn't think it would be like this.'"

"And I was like, 'I don't know what to tell you, boo!'" he continued while laughing and then adding, "The man told you this! What you want to do? What do you think being a dictator for one day meant?"

"Let's go back, I don't know, five years, six years," he later added. "Donald Trump has always told you what he wants to do, and he tells you because he doesn't think you can stop him. And so it was very important to understand what leveling up Project 2025 was all about."

"Keep in mind they backtracked on Project 2025 because they got called out on it," he continued. "If no one had focused on a 900-page policy paper, trust me, right now you'd be going, everybody would be going, 'Where? What Project? 2025?' But you knew. You knew, you had it."

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Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are feeling the wrath of constituents as their phone lines light up with complaints, worries and confusion over Elon Musk's efforts to gut government programs and fire longtime civil servants.

According to a report from the Washington Post, phone lines are jammed and there is no room in voicemail systems for voters to leave messages leading one lawmaker to admit, "It is a deluge on DOGE."

Musk is causing no small amount of grief for House and Senate members with his announcements on X about which departments he will be targeting next as Donald Trump gives him free rein to create chaos.

ALSO READ: 'Making America less safe': Democrats warn of disaster as Trump purges the CIA

"Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the Senate’s phones were receiving 1,600 calls each minute, compared with the usual 40 calls per minute," the Post is reporting. "Many of the calls she’s been receiving are from people concerned about U.S. DOGE Service employees having broad access to government systems and sensitive information. The callers are asking whether their information is compromised and about why there isn’t more transparency about what is happening, she said."

Murkowski is particularly vulnerable because her state employs a larger than-normal number of federal workers.

“Truly our office has gotten more phone calls on Elon Musk and what the heck he’s doing mucking around in federal government than I think anything we’ve gotten in years," Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) complained. "People are really angry.”

Sen. Angus King (I-ME) told reporters, "We can hardly answer the phones fast enough. It’s a combination of fear, confusion and heartbreak, because of the importance of some of these programs.”

"Lawmakers, including Republicans, have asked for clarity from the White House about the scope of Musk’s team’s access to data, including classified and personal information, this week. Some also expressed confusion about what is going on," the report states with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) confessing, "A lot of people think that Elon Musk is off the chain and causing all kinds of havoc."

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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) suggested over the weekend that a Trump administration official may have quietly contacted a federal appeals judge to stall a contempt inquiry, and the legal analyst interviewing him declared that if so, “people are going to jail.”

In a clip flagged by political video aggregator Acyn Torabi from the Legal AF podcast, Whitehouse laid out a hypothetical involving D.C. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee.

“If some MAGA official communicated to Judge Rao or her chambers and that resulted in the administrative stay that held the door open and kept the facts from the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation and stalled investigation into misconduct by the DOJ,” Whitehouse began, “ask any judge how big a deal that is.”...

President Donald Trump cut off reporters and walked away after they repeatedly demanded evidence for his claim of widespread mail-in voting fraud in California.

Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House on Monday as he prepared to board Marine One for campaign events.

The midterm elections are less than a month away, on Nov. 3....

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) bragged about a road salt win at a Maine Senate debate, and her challenger's comeback had observers cheering.

On Tuesday, Collins faced Democratic challenger Troy Jackson in a debate weeks before the midterms. Asked what she would do about President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada, Collins pointed to a specific victory.

"I was successful at getting road salt removed from the tariff list," Collins said. Jackson responded by pouncing on the answer....