Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, who briefly served as national security adviser under former President Donald Trump, signaled he’s not in contention to be Trump’s running-mate in the 2024 presidential election.
“Hope not, I’m spending time with my grandchildren,” Flynn posted Thursday morning on X, in a reply to a Raw Story post.
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Flynn’s response was prompted by a Raw Story article about a filing with the Federal Election Commission — confirmed to be fictitious — that indicated Donald Trump has selected Flynn as his vice presidential running mate. Trump campaign treasurer Bradley Crate told Raw Story the filing was a “fraud.”
Flynn is not generally believed to be among the people under serious consideration to serve as Trump’s running mate and vice president.
That list includes Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
But among some of the more extreme elements of Trump’s MAGA base, Flynn’s loyalty to Trump and military background — coupled with his experience as a target of federal prosecution — make him an appealing potential running mate for Trump, who is himself mired in multiple criminal and civil legal proceedings.
Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO who has been working alongside Flynn since the 2020 election, wrote on X earlier this month: “The only way Trump wins is if he makes Flynn his VP candidate. Flynn knows how to spring Trump from prison.”
Byrne said he respected half of those thought to be under serious consideration for the role, but added, “Trump’s going to be sitting in jail. The world is at war and we need a General.”
Trump and Flynn have remained in touch since Trump left the White House on Jan. 20, 2021, particularly when Trump has faced some of his most serious legal peril.
Flynn was on a “Pastors for Trump National Prayer Call” in March 2023, shortly before Trump was indicted in Manhattan for falsifying business records related to the Stormy Daniels hush-money affair.
Earlier this year, a jury found Trump guilty of all 34 charges in the case, and he is scheduled for sentencing on July 11 — four days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Also in March 2023, Trump called into a ReAwaken America Tour stop at the Trump National Doral resort in Miami and told Flynn: “You have to stay healthy because we’re bringing you back.”
Search returns describe the gun-rights behemoth in various ways.
“Gun rights advocacy group,” Wikipedia reads.
“An American nonprofit organization which advocates for gun rights,” writes the Library of Congress.
“The largest and most powerful gun rights organization in the United States” that “lobbies against gun control legislation and financially backs lawmakers who have historically not supported increased regulations,” USA Today reports.
None of them refer to the NRA as a “human rights” organization.
There, prominently placed in the upper right corner of the search page, is a “knowledge panel” — a Google-generated box containing descriptive and statistical information about the NRA.
"Human rights group” is listed immediately below the NRA’s name and next to the organization’s logo.
Google describes the National Rifle Association as a "human rights group" in a "knowledge panel" is displays for the pro-gun organization. Source: Google
Google spokesperson Colette Garcia declined to answer specific questions, including why Google lists the NRA as a "human rights group” and whether Google, institutionally, considers the NRA to be a "human rights group.” She also did not say whether Google has a corporate position on whether gun rights, in general, are human rights.
Instead, she emailed links to two Google primers on “knowledge panels,” including a 2020 blog item that explains how Google’s “knowledge graph” — a system that “understands facts and information about entities from materials shared across the web, as well as from open source and licensed databases” — populates knowledge panels on notable groups such as the NRA.
Google’s blog item notes that “inaccuracies in the knowledge graph can occasionally happen” and invites feedback from users who may consider something amiss.
“We analyze feedback like this to understand how any actual inaccuracies got past our systems, so that we can make improvements generally across the knowledge graph overall,” Google’s blog item reads. “We also remove inaccurate facts that come to our attention for violating our policies, especially prioritizing issues relating to public interest topics such as civic, medical, scientific, and historical issues or where there’s a risk of serious and immediate harm.”
Informed by Raw Story about Google’s knowledge panel for the NRA, representatives for two gun control organizations expressed dismay.
“In no world should the NRA be listed here as a human rights group. In fact, I’d argue they are in direct competition with the work actual human rights organizations are doing to protect the lives of our children and communities,” said Kris Brown, president of Brady, a nonprofit group that advocates against gun violence. “Given the NRA is directly responsible for so many unnecessary deaths, one option might be to list them as a ‘Mass Shooter Defense Fund’ or perhaps, ‘Pro-death advocates.’”
Protesters gather on Dec. 14, 2017, outside of the National Rifle Association headquarters in Fairfax, Va., for a vigil in remembrance of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn. Nicole Glass Photography / Shutterstock
Max Steele, a spokesperson for Everytown for Gun Safety, another anti-gun violence organization, accused the NRA of playing “a leading role in building an America where gun violence kills tens of thousands of people a year and is the number one cause of death for children and teens.
Calling the NRA a “human rights” group “is enough to make North Korean propagandists blush,” Steele added.
The NRA, which says it has about 5 million members, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The NRA self-identifies in variety of ways: “America's longest-standing civil rights organization,” “foremost defender of Second Amendment rights,” “premier firearms education organization,” “major political force,” winner of “big battles for your gun rights.”
While the NRA occasionally has argued that “self-defense is a basic human right,” such as in a statement from 2008, it does not overtly advertise itself as a human rights group.
The NRA remains a force in American politics. In May, it endorsed former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, and Trump personally accepted the nomination.
“Gun owners must vote,” Trump told NRA members at the organization's annual convention in Dallas. “We want a landslide.”
U.S. Surgeon General Vivak Murthy on Tuesday declared gun violence a public health emergency. He advocated for a suite of new gun laws and restrictions directly opposed to the NRA’s pro-gun agenda, including a ban on automatic rifles, universal background checks for people seeking to buy guns and tighter regulations for the gun manufacturing industry.
In the United States, deaths by firearms have risen sharply during the past decade, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data compiled by nonpartisan research organization USA Facts.
Children are among those most adversely affected, with gun deaths rising 50 percent between 2019 and 2021, the Pew Research Center reported.
WASHINGTON — If Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) is on a mission from God, as he maintains, someone might want to tell God already.
Since Virginia voters cast their Republican primary ballots on June 18, the two-term incumbent who chairs the far-right Freedom Caucus has been trailing his opponent, state Sen. John McGuire, by upward of 300 votes out of just over 62,000 ballots cast.
Good’s demanding a recount. He’s also trying to pray away “the forces of evil” conspiring against him.
“I think it’s owed to the 31,000 people in the district who voted for me, and there's those true conservatives in Virginia and across the country that are outraged at the forces of evil that tried to influence this race — that did influence this race — and we owe it to them to make sure that it's right,” Good told Raw Story after voting in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
By “forces of evil,” Good doesn’t mean former President Donald Trump or even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) — both of whom backed McGuire.
To Good, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is evil incarnate. That feeling has seemed mutual since Good and seven other House Republicans ingloriously, if historically, ousted McCarthy last year.
Good is a graduate of and former fundraiser for Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. Arguably, his biggest critic contends he’s blinded by his own light.
“He can't win a real primary, because he's insane,” former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), who Good defeated in 2020, told Raw Story. “There's no such thing as ‘forces of evil.’ Listen, stupidity and evil look very similar. And I think that's where he gets confused, because he's stupid.”
As is easily surmised, Riggleman — an ex-intelligence official who worked as a data analyst for the select Jan. 6 committee — is no fan of Good.
Good ended Riggleman’s time in Congress in part because he made an issue out of Riggleman officiating a same-sex marriage for a former staffer the year earlier. Good and officials in Virginia’s Republican Party also forced an in-person convention — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic — of the party faithful, instead of conducting a Republican congressional primary.
Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA). JLauer/Shutterstock
In the wake of this year’s primary, Good is calling for changes to the rules. He’s especially bemoaning the commonwealth's open primary system that allows independents and Democrats to vote in GOP primaries (as well as allowing Republicans to weigh in on Democratic ones.)
“That absolutely should be changed. We should have party registration in VIrginia. We should have closed primaries, or we need to go back to conventions and not allow Democrats to choose our nominee in primaries,” Good said. “There’s no question we would have won a convention.”
Good contends he won the hearts and minds of his party.
“I know we got the majority of Republican votes. The other side had to reach out and did reach out to Democrats crossover votes. It's an unfortunate reality in Virginia that our system allows Democrats to vote in Republican primaries, and we are certain that there were certainly more than 300 or 400 people who voted in this election for my opponent,” Good said.
A request for comment from the campaign of McGuire, a former Navy SEAL, wasn’t returned.
Riggleman dismissed Good’s griping.
“‘Forces of evil’ — so you're telling me that a primary that's actually fair, rather than a convention where they could limit the number of voters to beat me means that the people are the forces of evil?” Riggleman said. “That's somebody who's mentally unstable.”
Riggleman added: “Yes, he said he could win in a convention. Because the convention is anti-American. A convention is for those who can't win a primary, which we just saw with Bob Good.”
The Virginia Board of Elections has yet to call the race, even as the chair of Virginia’s Republican Party, Richard Anderson, congratulated McGuire for winning earlier this week.
Good currently trails by 0.6 percentage points,, which means he can call for a recount according to state law, though he’s got to come up with a way to pay for it.
Regardless, he says he’s all in.
“There's some things that are concerning and that need to be reviewed, and we're going to do that. And I'm not going to be particular about that process,” Good said. “I’d rather be 300 votes ahead than 300 votes behind.”
But he’s currently behind: Something for which Good blames McCarthy.
“It’s money that was wasted. It should have been spent in November to defeat Democrats. It's a race that never should have happened,” Good said. “It was a challenge based on lies by a dishonest opponent and funded by the former speaker whose mission in life seems to be to get revenge on those he holds responsible for him not being speaker.”
But Good says it’s not about payback.
“I'm not really concerned about that. We're just gonna do our best to win this recount,” Good said.
To Riggleman, there’s no pleasure watching these two Republicans digitally knife each other over his former seat.
“McGuire’s crazier than Bob Good. Think about that,” Riggleman said. “You're seeing a fight of crazy against crazy. Nobody's the good guy. No, nobody’s the good guy here. This is just people who want power and payback. It has nothing to do with the American people. It's about their own personal self-aggrandizement and power trips.”
Riggleman, in noting he wasn’t conservative enough for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, mused that Good — one of the nation’s most conservative lawmakers — might also not be conservative enough.
“That's what's crazy about this election,” Riggleman said. “I think Bob represents Christian nationalism. He represents a decision making methodology that's not based in facts; it's based in fantasy. And I think that really is a lure to a lot of GOP voters, that there's this good against evil battle going on out there and they're on the good side, regardless of facts.”
A new political committee registered with the Federal Election Commission indicates Donald Trump will name his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, as his vice presidential running-mate.
But the committee, “Donald J. Trump and Michael Flynn for President 2024 Inc.”, is bogus, the Trump campaign confirmed to Raw Story.
“It’s fraud,” Bradley T. Crate, the Trump campaign treasurer, told Raw Story.
The filing, submitted to the FEC on Tuesday, lists Crate, who is legitimately the treasurer of the Trump’s principal campaign committee, as treasurer of the bogus Trump/Flynn committee.
Besides being false, the filing also contains a sloppy error: It lists Crate, not Trump, as the candidate for president.
Judith Ingram, a spokesperson for the Federal Election Commission, declined to comment.
Plague of fake political committees
It takes little time and effort to create a federal political committee, at least on paper.
But once done, a federal record is automatically generated and posted publicly to FEC.gov, the agency's website.
But the committee was a fraud, and Pence's representatives scrambled to correct the record and debunk several premature media reports that Pence, who ultimately would run for president months later, had entered the race.
A parade of other bogus filings have also served to cause confusion, and sometimes, even threatening situations, such as when people have used FEC documents to launch racist screeds or doxx their enemies.
The FEC notes that "knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation to a federal government agency" is a violation of federal law, and the FEC is "authorized to report apparent violations to the appropriate law enforcement agencies."
But the FEC, an independent, bipartisan civil regulatory agency that only has the power to seek civil penalties against suspected bad actors, rarely asks the Department of Justice to pursue such matters.
Violations typically result in no more than a sternly worded letter from the FEC.
Flynn in the spotlight
A retired lieutenant general who briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser, Flynn remains a galvanizing figure among more extreme elements of Trump’s base.
During the 2016 campaign, Flynn led supporters in chanting, “Lock her up,” directed at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Flynn’s stint as national security adviser under Trump proved short lived, and he eventually pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn received a pardon from Trump after the 2020 election, and Flynn emerged as a leading figure in the effort to overturn the election, including meeting with Trump at the White House in December 2020 and urging him to seize voting machines and re-run the election.
Flynn spent the months of April and May promoting a documentary movie that portrays him as a victim of political persecution, and has continued to play a role as a kind of surrogate for the former president, who has faced his own legal challenges, in amplifying grievances against a so-called “Deep State.”
Since receiving the presidential pardon in November 2020, Flynn has not avoided controversy, including his association with a volunteer security team that has been accused of detaining a Washington state woman based on a manufactured claim that her life was in danger from a mysterious global ballot trafficking group, as exclusively reported by Raw Story.
Among Flynn’s supporters, the retired lieutenant general’s name is frequently mentioned as a good pick for vice president during a second Trump term.
Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army Special Forces officer, has participated as a presenter in the Flynn movie tour. In a post on X yesterday, Raiklin touted Flynn as a strong 2024 vice presidential possibility, noting how Flynn has long remained “loyal” to Trump.
Raiklin set up an X poll asking who Trump should choose as his running mate in 2024.. One commenter responded with a fake cover of Time magazine showing Flynn standing alongside Trump, with the inscription: “Trump/Flynn: Patriots the Deep State fear most.”
Patrick Byrne, a close associate, recently predicted on X that "in two weeks Trump is going to be either in jail or under house arrest" and that "his VP needs to be a General." He linked to Flynn's social media profile.
Trump hasn’t exactly dampened Flynn-for-vice-president enthusiasm as he continues to mull a new running mate after splitting with former Vice President Mike Pence.
In March 2023, the former president called into a “ReAwaken America Tour” stop at the Trump National Doral resort in Miami and told Flynn: “You just have to stay healthy because we’re bringing you back. We’re going to bring you back.”
Other potential Trump vice presidential short-listers include Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
In a fundraising message to supporters Wednesday, Trump wrote that he has "narrowed down the field to just the strongest contenders, but I need to hear from [you] before I make my official decision."
Greene called Washington, D.C., a “crime ridden hell hole” and an “embarrassment” in a November 2022 tweet.
Fast forward to today, and Greene now owns a condo within the District of Columbia, valued between $500,001 and $1 million, according to her 2023 annual financial report filed on May 15 and recently made public.
Greene’s congressional spokesperson, Nick Dyer, acknowledged Raw Story’s questions about Greene’s condo purchase and previous comments about Washington, D.C., but declined to answer them.
Greene’s D.C. hating also involved her calling for the revocation of Home Rule, which allows D.C. residents control of their local affairs through the election of the Council of the District of Columbia, which is composed of a chairperson and 12 members overseeing the legislative branch of local government.
One D.C. councilmember urged Greene to educate herself.
“There is far more to D.C. than the federal enclave, and as a part-time resident and now property owner, I’d encourage Rep. Greene to learn more,” Christina Henderson, an at-large councilmember for the Council of the District of Columbia, told Raw Story.
“Often the uninformed use the revocation of Home Rule as a talking point without realizing the day-to-day implications for the 700,000 residents who live here,” Henderson continued. “Luckily for the congresswoman, there is an excellent exhibit about the history of Home Rule in the District and its importance on display now at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Library card not required.”
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser declined to comment on Greene’s new home purchase. Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau was unavailable for comment, and all remaining members of the Council of the District of Columbia did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment by the time of publication.
It’s unclear where, precisely, Greene’s condo is located within the District of Columbia.
It’s not uncommon for members of Congress, particularly those who don't permanently live within driving distance of Washington, D.C., to buy or rent property in or around the district.
Some members of Congress room with each other while working at the Capitol, and a few have been known to sleep in their offices.
Money moves
Greene maintains a permanent residence in Rome, Ga. in her congressional district, where she used campaign funds to install a $65,000 fence because of security concerns.
A recent divorcee, Greene has made a number of financial moves since splitting with husband Perry Greene.
Greene’s annual financial disclosure, required of all members of Congress, shows various other investments including a dependent child’s individual retirement account stocks in companies such as Caterpillar, Johnson & Johnson, Tesla. She also reported stock in Walt Disney Co. — a company Greene previously accused of sexualizing children, Business Insider reported.
Greene reported annual distribution income between $1 million and $5 million from her family’s construction company, Taylor Commercial, Inc., which is valued between $5 million and $25 million, according to the financial disclosure.
Last month, Greene reported a stock purchase of up to $15,000 in Qualcomm, a federal defensecontractor, while serving on the House Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement, Raw Story reported.
She also reported an investment up to $15,000 in Microsoft while serving on the House Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation.
Other investments reported in May include purchases up to $15,000 each in Home Depot, Goldman Sachs, Hershey, Berkshire Hathaway and Tractor Supply Company, along with purchasing up to $500,000 in U.S. Treasury bills.
Donald Trump is delaying disclosing his personal finances for a second time this year, meaning Americans will be denied the latest details about the former president's ever-shifting personal finances before he debates President Joe Biden later this week.
Trump's lawyer, Scott Gast, requested a second, 45-day extension for filing his public financial disclosure report, a requirement for all presidential candidates.
"While President Trump has made diligent efforts to prepare his report, due to the complexity of his financial holdings, President Trump needs additional time to complete the report," wrote Gast, of Compass Legal Group, on Tuesday.
Update: 10:55 p.m. ET: "An extension was requested and granted because President Trump's successful businesses, in contrast to the Biden Crime Family, requires additional time to ensure complete compliance," Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, told Raw Story via email.
Last year, the Federal Election Commission denied Trump's continued requests to delay filing his public financial disclosure, which is intended to provide the public with transparency about the personal finances of executive branch leaders and candidates in order to reveal any potential conflicts of interest.
Trump's financial situation is markedly different from last year in that he has since been found liable for defamation and sexual abuse of writer E. Jean Carroll, requiring him to pay $83.3 million in damages.
In April, Trump also posted $175 million in bond for his liability in a New York civil fraud case that required him to pay more than $450 million in damages, stemming from the Trump Organization's systemic fraud in terms of property valuations and tax breaks.
Trump became the first-ever current or former president convicted of a felony, when a jury found him guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election.
Trump and President Joe Biden, the presumptive Republican and Democratic party nominees, are scheduled to conduct their first 2024 campaign debate on CNN on Thursday.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is raising alarms over the quality of staffers the Republican Party is vetting in preparation for a second Donald Trump administration.
“He's just going to have a bunch of creepy weirdos working in the White House that are intent on destroying government from the inside and pursuing their super creepy, weird political agendas,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Raw Story.
Murphy’s not alone. In response to the far-right Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — a sweeping blueprint for a future Republican president to upend the federal workforce as we know it — a handful of House Democrats have formed a working group to combat the sweeping changes for which conservatives are calling.
“I'm not worried about Project 2025. I'm worried about Donald Trump being the president of the United States,” Murphy said. “It’s gonna be a disaster, and Project 2025 is part of the book of evidence.”
Besides policy proposals, Project 2025 also includes a long list of conservatives eager to join a second Trump administration in order to unwind the federal government from within.
In his first administration, some conservatives within his cabinet stood up to Trump — from then-Vice President Mike Pence to former Attorney General Bill Barr.
Democrats such as Murphy are worried that many of those principled conservative voices have been ostracized by Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
“So he's not gonna have anybody to protect the country, and the White House is just going to have a bunch of really off-the-wall radicals working for him,” Murphy said.
Democrats need to wake up, Murphy says. He’s predicting a second Trump administration would be marked by the political vengeance and retribution Trump is promising on the campaign trail.
“One of the first things he would do is clear out anybody who stands in the way of his desire to persecute political opponents,” Murphy said. “So if he wins, it's very possible this could become a banana republic within weeks. So like, I think everyone is vastly under estimating how serious this is going to get very quickly.”
Biden and Trump are scheduled to square off Thursday in their first presidential debate.
The debate comes two weeks ahead of Trump’s scheduled sentencing after a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and three weeks ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump is slated to officially become the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominee.
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer seems to have overcome a major roadblock in his own party who’s holding up legislation designed to protect children from online harm.
“The majority leader and I have exchanged new text that looks like an improvement to me,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) exclusively told Raw Story at the U.S. Capitol. “I need to make sure that it protects LGBTQ teens, and, at this point, it looks like we're moving in the right direction.”
While some GOP dissension remains, Wyden’s support is seen as a huge step forward, because he’s had a hold on the broadly bipartisan measure for months now.
Since February, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has enjoyed the support of a rare, filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate, yet it’s gone nowhere, in part, because of opposition from progressives such as Wyden.
The Oregon Democrat — who chairs the Senate Finance Committee — has been the leading voice in the Senate pushing a more law enforcement-centric response to online harms facing children, which is the centerpiece of the Invest in Child Safety Act that allocates $5 billion to help law enforcement officials combat online threats facing the nation’s children.
KOSA, on the other hand, attempts to put the burden for protecting children on tech companies by limiting things like infinite scrolling, auto play and other subliminal features that keep young and old alike glued to our screens.
What’s changed?
People are regularly talking about online harms lurking in the digital shadows, for one.
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, for another, turned heads all week after penning an op-ed for the New York Times calling on Congress to slap warning labels on the social media apps America’s children love most — from TikTok to YouTube.
Long road to protecting kids online
An earlier draft of KOSA was panned widely for erecting a new duty of care — a legal obligation — on state attorneys general that many outside groups feared would allow Republican AGs to target vulnerable communities, such as LGBTQ teens.
In KOSA, that duty of care now rests with the Federal Trade Commission, not partisan state AGs.
But Wyden wants to go further. And Schumer seems to agree.
“After weeks of work, we have made real progress in removing objections to this bill,” Leader Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon.
Back in 1996, Wyden was a lead author of the Communications Decency Act, which is now infamous for its Section 230 that acts as the shield protecting social media companies from being sued for content people post on their sites.
While the new KOSA bill text is still a work in progress, it makes “changes to better protect users’ speech as opposed to harmful platform design,” according to Wyden and his team.
In other words, Wyden doesn’t want KOSA to trump Section 230 and its digital speech protections.
“Part of what I've tried to do in tech policy is to be fair to everybody. There are serious issues here,” Wyden said. “My wife and I are older parents. We have twins that are 16. We have a little one that's 11. And it's my job to be fair to everyone. And it’s certainly important to be fair to minorities, you know, LGBTQ teens is an example.”
It’s still unclear if these new tweaks go far enough to win over groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future, which have opposed KOSA.
Those groups have remained opposed to the measure even after its lead authors — Sen. Richard Bluemnthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) — unveiled an updated version at the start of this year that attempted to address their censorship concerns.
“After pushing and cajoling, we are much closer to ultimate success,” Blumenthal told Schumer in a colloquy on the Senate floor Thursday. “This bill, which has nearly 70 cosponsors, is a set of safeguards and accountability measures to protect kids from the clear and horrific harms created by social media and other online platforms.”
While Schumer won over Wyden from his progressive left flank, there’s still opposition from his conservative right flank on the other side of the proverbial aisle.
“Sadly, objectors remain. I hope that progress can continue over the coming days,” Schumer said. “If the objectors refuse to come to a resolution, we must pursue a different legislative path to get this done.”
‘Let people sue’
The surgeon general’s calls for new social media warning labels is being embraced by lawmakers across the political spectrum.
But critics say the warning label proposal and Wyden’s tweaks to KOSA still fall short.
Republican senator Josh Hawley. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP)
“Good,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story just off the Senate floor Thursday. “Yeah, good. You know what would be even better though? I mean, the warning label’s fine, but let people sue. You want to change the behavior of these companies, let parents sue them. That would drive change.”
The rank-and-file in both parties are itching to deliver online protections for the nation’s children during the current congressional session.
“Watching governors act in California, New York and Utah, it's clear that this is a priority issue for parents, and I just don't think we're doing our job if we don't act on online safety bills by the end of the year,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Raw Story.
While red and blue states alike have acted to protect children online, the broadly bipartisan measures have all withered on the vine in the U.S. Capitol in recent years.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) says he hopes Congress can piggyback on the surgeon general’s new social media warning for the nation’s kids.
“It's a good vehicle for us to take up this issue. The announcement of the surgeon general makes it timely,” Durbin told Raw Story.
“Do you think because there’s so much broad, bipartisan support we might see this before the election?” Raw Story asked of the filibuster-proof support in the Senate for KOSA.
“I certainly hope so,” Durbin replied. “I'd move on this topic as quickly as possible. American families really care.”
Still, Republicans like Hawley are dubious that Democratic leaders like Durbin and Schumer care.
“The corporations don't want it — tech companies don't want it,” Hawley told Raw Story just feet away from the Senate floor. “So as I've said before, you know, just post the ‘owned by big tech’ sign right there on the Senate doors, because that's the truth. They don't want us to move.”
“Listen, we voted out — unanimously — out of this Judiciary Committee a bill to stop child pornography. And Durbin and I are the co-sponsors — it’s ‘Durbin-Hawley,’ you know. Unanimous support,” Hawley complained of his bipartisan measure to end Section 230 protections specifically for child pornography — a measure that’s never the Senate floor.
For now, even as generative artificial intelligence (AI) continues remaking the internet as we knew it, the Senate continues to work at Senate speed.
“We've exchanged new text,” Wyden told Raw Story. “And I believe we're making some progress.”
Marine Corps veteran and avowed neo-Nazi Jordan Duncan plans to plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to manufacture firearms, Raw Story has learned.
Raymond Tarlton, Duncan’s lawyer, told Raw Story his client anticipates entering a guilty plea during a hearing scheduled in federal court in Wilmington, N.C., on June 24.
Federal prosecutors filed a superseding charge of conspiracy to illegally manufacture firearms — specifically, a rifle with a barrel less than 16 inches long — against Duncan earlier this month. The charge overrode an earlier indictment with more extensive charges, including one related to an alleged scheme to sabotage electrical substations as part of an alleged plot to launch a race war.
LinkedIn photo of Jordan Duncan, a Marine Corps veteran whom the government alleges had classified military materials on his hard drive.
Duncan had been the last remaining holdout among five co-defendants, the rest of whom had already reached plea deals with the government.
Liam Montgomery Collins, the alleged ringleader of the neo-Nazi terror cell known as “BSN,” entered a guilty plea of conspiracy to illegally manufacture a firearm last October. Co-defendants Justin Hermanson and Joseph Maurino earlier pleaded guilty to the same charge.
Only one of the co-defendants, a former porn actor named Paul Kryscuk, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to damage an energy facility.
The government alleges that Collins wrote on Iron March — an online forum for Nazis that was active from 2011 to 2017 — that he was recruiting for “a modern-day SS,” alluding to the paramilitary organization responsible for security surveillance and state terrorism in Nazi Germany.
Collins recruited Duncan, who trained as a Russian linguist and specialized in intelligence and communications during his Marine Corps service, to join BSN while the two were stationed at Camp Lejeune, according to Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent John Christopher Little. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is the law enforcement arm for the Navy and Marine Corps.
Collins wrote on Iron March that he was “looking for an intelligence/comm guy for his group,” Little testified during Duncan’s detention hearing.
While Collins completed his military service obligation at Camp Lejeune in late 2020, Duncan joined Kryscuk in Idaho, where the group had held a paramilitary training and hoped to establish a base of operations. While staying with Kryscuk, Duncan worked for a Navy contractor outside of Boise.
When the FBI arrested Duncan in October 2020, they found classified Defense Department materials on his external hard drive, as reported by Raw Story.
A federal magistrate also noted during Duncan’s detention hearing that authorities found a fake ID and a Defense Department passport in Duncan’s possession at the time of his arrest.
Court filings by the government disclosed that the FBI investigated Duncan for potentially mishandling classified materials, but the probe did not result in additional criminal charges. Prosecutors had agreed to exclude any mention of Duncan’s possession of classified documents were his case to go to trial.
Raw Story is suing the Department of Defense and the Navy for access to records about the classified materials investigation.
Tarlton declined to comment on what sentence Duncan, his client, might face. But a court filing indicates that Collins, who pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy to manufacture firearms charge, faces a statutory maximum of 10 years in prison.
Collins, Kryscuk and Hermanson are scheduled to be sentenced on July 23. It remains unclear when Maurino is scheduled for sentencing, and his lawyer, Damon Cheston, declined comment when reached by Raw Story.
Last summer, Judge Richard E. Myers II issued an order that tightly controls how Duncan, Collins and their lawyers may share the classified materials — identified by the marking “FOUO,” or “For Official Use Only” — that were found on Duncan’s hard drive at the time of his arrest.
Look at her 2020 congressional campaign ad where she fires a semi-automatic rifle into targets symbolizing Democratic policy concerns such as climate change and gun control.
“She comes across sometimes like a girl version of Yosemite Sam, just kind of ‘pew, pew, pew, pew,’” said Wendy Davis, a former city commissioner for Rome, Ga., who ran and lost in the 2022 Democratic primary for the 14th District seat. “Not just because of her seemed love of guns, but just that firing off at the slightest thing.”
But the MTG that Americans see on the national stage isn’t always the same fiery character in person. Sometimes she is, but other times she’s “very nice” and asks “politely worded questions,” her constituents tell Raw Story.
MTG in the wild
Raw Story traveled to Greene’s 14th Congressional District to speak with some of her constituents, both Republicans and Democrats, who’ve had an opportunity to see her in-person.
Together, they paint a picture of what the headline-grabbing congresswoman is really like off camera when engaging with her community.
Mary Bramblett, a member of the Floyd County Republican Women, recalled once seeing Greene while Christmas shopping at a local Hobby Lobby with her cousin. Bramblett’s cousin wanted a photo, so they followed Greene around the store, which “she didn’t seem to mind at all,” Bramblett said.
Bramblett also heard Greene speak in-person at a meeting for the Floyd County Republican Women.
“Her speeches, you know how she can become so, well, like Trump? She’s so down to earth … she was great,” Bramblett said. “Very passionate, even the day she spoke to us, she was just so passionate about everything wanting to be more perfect, which is what she said.”
Maggie Combs, another member of the Floyd County Republican Women, said of meeting Greene at the party event, “She's a very nice person. Very, very out front, and that's what matters.”
Nedra Manners, the owner of Yellow Door Antiques and Art and a member of the Floyd County Democratic Party, said she met Greene at a fundraiser in September 2020. Manners described Greene as “fine in person” and “real nice.”
Nedra Manners at her shop, Yellow Door Antiques and Art. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
But Greene did question the decision to move the fundraiser from its usual spot on a popular pedestrian bridge to a hotel courtyard where more social distancing was possible during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Manners said.
“It was smaller, but tables were spread around, and everybody felt real comfortable out there,” Manners said. “So, I was introduced to her, and we had this magazine that showed the event on the bridge, and her question was, ‘why didn't y'all have it out there this year?’ Because she didn't get it.”
Davis was in the same room as Greene when they both were supervising vote recounts for their respective parties in 2020.
Wendy Davis in Rome, Ga (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
“She has this capacity to be this flame throwing ‘la, la, la,’ loud, loud, loud, angry, mad, ‘everybody else is bad’ energy when she's trying to be in front of a camera,” Davis said. “When she's in smaller spaces, she's smaller. She's more like a regular person.”
Davis said Greene would make comments on camera about how “this election was probably stolen,” but then “she comes inside, and she's just asking legitimate, nicely, politely worded questions, and just watching, right, not making a spectacle of herself.”
Added Davis: “Why do you have to be two different things? Just be who you are.”
Kelly Thurman, an employee with the Murray County Sheriff’s Office, and his wife, Michelle Thurman, a dental assistant and office manager, said Greene frequently visits Murray County in Greene’s sprawling district.
“She believes in values that a lot of small town people have, I guess, and so that's one reason everybody likes her,” Michlle Thurman said. “She likes to stand behind the people themselves. A lot of people don't want to stand behind the people, just the politics. But she's definitely for the people.”
One of the values that Greene best represents in the community is her belief in “gun laws and the right for us to carry,” Michelle Thurman said.
Kelly Thurman (far left) and Michelle Thurman (far right) at a campaign event for Murray County Sheriff Jimmy Davenport. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Lamar Wadsworth, chair of the Polk County Democratic Party, said he saw Greene from a distance in the parking lot of a local grocery during her first campaign. He said she spoke from the back of a pickup truck to about 10 people.
“I don't know what attracts people to her except Trumpianity is the dominant religion here, and she’s wholeheartedly in the Trump cult. I don't really remember anything standing out. There’s simply nothing about her that qualifies her,” Wadsworth said. “A lot of people who are just decent people are fed up with her antics. You know, her behavior would get her suspended in middle school.”
Garry Baldwin (left) and Lamar Wadsworth (right), members of the Polk County Democratic Party, at a McDonald's in Rockmart, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Numerous other constituents in Greene’s district previously told Raw Story they’ve never had a chance to meet her and find her presence in the district to be lacking, particularly as her district office is not publicly listed and only available to visit by appointment.
Greene’s spokesperson, Nick Dyer, did not respond to Raw Story’s interview request.
The scene is straight from a discount bin spy novel.
A black SUV arrived at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to collect Sabrina Keliikoa, a QAnon adherent and supervisor at the facility’s FedEx air freight terminal.
Keliikoa was scared out of her wits.
She did not want to go.
But late on this Friday night in early December 2020, Keliikoa felt as if she had no choice: A retired Michigan State Police officer nicknamed “Yoda” had just warned that her life was in danger.
Keliikoa called in another employee to finish her shift. She entered the vehicle driven by a Marine Corps veteran who had provided security for American diplomats in Iraq. They arrived at a hotel where the driver checked her in. There, Keliikoa stayed for the next two days. A rotating set of “guards” occupied the adjacent room in shifts.
What was possibly happening here?
As Keliikoa would later testify in legal deposition, a video of whichRaw Story recently reviewed, a man entered her hotel room and asked her to write an affidavit about election ballots she’d seen — and considered suspicious — at the FedEx facility shortly after the 2020 election.
The man was part of a secretive team of Donald Trump supporters, operating without legal authority but under the leadership of former Trump national security adviser and retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, that aimed to obtain information they believed could be used in lawsuits to change the outcome of the election in Trump’s favor.
More generally, they hoped to undermine public confidence that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election.
Keliikoa described the experience as being “detained” and complained she became a “pawn” of people determined to use her.
“So, I got a phone call that said somebody is coming in from another state with illegal ballots, and they were going to be looking for me, and they were going to try to kill me,” Keliikoa testified. “And I started crying because this turned into the biggest s---show when it shouldn’t have been.”
The escapade showcases the absurd lengths Flynn and his team went to concoct evidence that Trump had the 2020 presidential election “stolen” from him.
These and other baseless allegations of election fraud would instill fury in Trump’s supporters, who by the thousands attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while attempting to prevent Congress from certifying the election.
These new revelations about Keliikoa’s ordeal also come at a time when Trump, who is expected to again be the Republican nominee for president, relentlessly claims that the multiple criminal prosecutions against him constitute an effort “to rig the presidential election of 2024.”
Trump’s script is familiar and predictable: He similarly made repeated claims well in advance of the 2020 election that the vote would be rigged. It’s an all-but-foregone conclusion that if Trump loses the 2024 election, he will exclaim, as he did then, that he actually won, and that Democrats, communists, the “deep state” and other perceived bogeymen stole it from him.
And if history is a guide, high-profile Trump surrogates can again be expected to again chase phantom evidence and spin wild tales in service of Trump’s I-can’t-lose approach to campaigning.
‘A plane full of ballots’
Until now, Keliikoa — the woman who held the information so feverishly sought by Trump’s supporters following the 2020 election — was known only as “the Seattle whistleblower.”
Keliikoa’s deposition, taken in March, fills in details about the “stop the steal” escapade and are being reported for the first time by Raw Story.
The seeds of Keliikoa's ordeal began germinating in November 2020. An array of high-profile Trump supporters had initiated a frenzied effort to collect affidavits that they hoped would bolster claims of election fraud, which pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell detailed in a series of lawsuits.
The goal: overturn the presidential election results in tightly contested states such as Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, and more generally, to undermine confidence in the election.
With his charisma and the respect he commanded as a retired lieutenant general, Michael Flynn, who had briefly served as Trump's national security advisor, quickly emerged as a de facto leader among the group of “stop the steal” operatives surrounding Powell.
The 2020 election was “the greatest fraud that our country has ever experienced in our history,” Flynn told far-right broadcaster Brannon Howse during an interview aired on Nov. 28, 2020. “I’m right in the middle of it right now, and I will tell you that, first of all, the president has clear paths to victory.”
Flynn had reason to feel emboldened. Three days earlier, then-President Trump granted Flynn a full pardon, wiping away his guilty plea to charges of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn began to speak at rallies and make media appearances on Trump’s behalf.
Flynn’s interview with Howse was his first interview of any sort since receiving Trump’s pardon. The key to exposing the election fraud, Flynn told the podcaster, was channeling the perceived power of hundreds of Trump supporters who believed they witnessed voting fraud or election irregularities.
“I mean hundreds and hundreds of Americans around the country, not just the swing states, but many, many other states that are coming forward with their stories and putting them down in affidavits,” he said at the time.
Four days later, Powell addressed a “Stop the Steal” rally in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta. There, she angrily told the crowd that there had been “flagrant election fraud,” and said her team had “evidence” of all manner of ballot fraud, including “a plane full of ballots that came in.”
Burk was a former school board member and law school student in Arizona who suffers from a medical condition known as pulmonary arterial hypertension.
A man in Burk’s lung condition support group told her about a woman in Seattle who allegedly had information about illegal ballots. That woman was Keliikoa, and Burk’s lung condition buddy arranged to put the two women in touch.
But Burk first attempted to report Keliikoa's information to the FBI and then relayed it to Arizona state Rep. Kelly Townsend, a leading figure in the pro-Trump stop-the-steal effort. The supposed intel eventually filtered up to Sidney Powell’s legal team.
Burk and Keliikoa kept in touch by phone for the next month, but Keliikoa would later say she wouldn’t characterize their relationship as a friendship. Keliikoa didn’t want to give up her anonymity. Burk felt caught in a bind; she didn’t want to associate her own name with information she didn’t know firsthand, but she was feeling pressure from Townsend and others to persuade Keliikoa to come forward.
Sabrina Keliikoa as seen during a legal deposition on March 22, 2024. (Source: Deposition video via Staci Burk)
“I’ve been working on her coming forward for over a month,” Burk told Carissa Keshel, Powell’s assistant, in a Dec. 1, 2020, text message reviewed by Raw Story. “I almost facilitated a call with you, but she just got to work. She will likely let me do a conference call with anyone. But she’s still afraid to come forward.”
“What can we do to make her feel more comfortable?” Keshel asked Burk. “We can facilitate security.”
Attempting to find a way to obtain the information while preserving Keliikoa’s desired anonymity, Keshel suggested that Keliikoa forward her ballot intel to Burk, who, in turn, could include it in her own legal declaration. (Burk never fulfilled the request to provide such a statement.)
“Ok I just spoke with General Flynn,” Keshel told Burk. “He says if nothing else, if she can get us as much evidence as possible: pictures, facts. If she can send that to us (or you) and if she can even just write an email. Then you can do another declaration to cover for that. I hope that makes sense.”
What happened next demonstrates the effort by Flynn, Powell and a gaggle of pro-Trump activists to obtain affidavits supporting claims of election fraud was carefully orchestrated. It stands in stark contrast to the picture painted by Flynn — one of ordinary citizens organically and voluntarily coming forward to tell their stories out of a sense of patriotic duty.
Like Keliikoa, Burk found herself in the middle of conspiratorial talk surrounding supposed illegal ballots transported on planes and various security concerns.
Also — not insignificantly — if Powell's team was going to get access to Keliikoa, they would have to go through Burk, who was the only one who knew Keliikoa’s name or how to get in touch with her.
Flynn’s security team finds the ‘Seattle whistleblower’
On the morning of Dec. 4, 2020, Keshel texted Burk to tell her that she thought they had Burk’s “security issue all ironed out.”
Keshel then texted a photo of a man she identified as “Yoda” and a link to the website for 1st Amendment Praetorian, a volunteer security group linked to Flynn.
“Yoda” was Geoffrey Flohr, the retired Michigan State Police officer.
“Gen Flynn and his brother arranged the security for you, so I trust them,” Keshel told Burk in a text message.
“Yoda” arrived at Burk’s home in Florence, Ariz., later that day.
As previously reported by Raw Story, Burk has said that “Yoda” woke her up in the middle of the night. He told her that he had reliable information that the “Seattle whistleblower” was about to be kidnapped and taken to South Korea. “Yoda” even claimed that Burk’s friend in Seattle could potentially be killed if they didn’t send a security team to protect her, Burk recalled.
Burk called Keliikoa and put her on speaker phone so “Yoda” could speak to her.
Keliikoa would later testify that she was terrified by “Yoda” telling her about threats to her safety because bad actors were supposedly attempting to prevent her from exposing massive election fraud.
Indeed, she was so terrified that she called in another employee to cover for her and complete her work for the shift.
“And then what ended up happening is continuous phone calls back and forth,” Keliikoa testified. “‘Okay, well, somebody’s gonna send somebody to pick you up and take you to a safe place.’ But my name should have never been out there, and that makes me mad.”
At Burk’s insistence, late on that Friday night in early December 2020, “Yoda” provided Burk with a resume and photo of the driver who would pick up Keliikoa at the FedEx facility at the Seattle airport.
At 11:50 p.m., Burk texted the resume to Keliikoa.
Roland Hurrington — described on his resume as a Seattle-area Marine Corps veteran “responsible for the protection of classified material, equipment and U.S. mission personnel” — arrived at the FedEx facility in the black SUV to transport Keliikoa.
Keliikoa testified that Hurrington passed through a security checkpoint at the facility. How he was able to do that remains unclear, but Keliikoa speculated that the security personnel may have let him through based on the assumption that he was a chauffeur.
The pickup took place late at night — roughly 30 minutes after “Yoda” first spoke to her, according to Burk’s account.
“And then I get detained, taken,” Keliikoa recalled in her deposition. “And I don’t know who this person is. I don’t know where I was going. I can’t believe I actually agreed to go with this person, because they could have killed me and threw me on the side of the road, and nobody would have known.”
As it turned out, there never was a plot to kill Keliikoa.
In fact, while the pro-Trump stop-the-stealers involved didn’t know or admit it at the time, their entire ballot fraud enterprise was little more than a house of cards perched on pillars of sand.
And the ground beneath them was about to start quaking.
‘He fabricated everything’
Jim Penrose, a cyber-security expert who had previously worked at the National Security Agency under President Barack Obama, would later acknowledge to Burk that he was the man who showed up at Keliikoa’s hotel room and urged her to write an affidavit. After “Yoda” tracked Keliikoa down, Penrose went to her hotel room to meet her.
Penrose has been identified by the New York Times as being one of three men who joined Flynn and Powell at the South Carolina estate of defamation attorney Lin Wood to “gather and organize election information.” One of the others was Seth Keshel, a former Army military intelligence captain who was married to Carissa Keshel.
Jim Penrose as described on the website of the Institute for World Politics in Washington, D.C. (Institute for World Politics.)
“We had a security team dispatched in Seattle,” Penrose told Burk in a phone call that she recorded on Christmas Day of 2020.
“My worst fear was that the people were moving, you know, like a team of people that might want to, you know, even kidnap your friend in Seattle,” he said. “I didn’t want to let that happen, right, because I thought it was a situation that was dangerous. And we didn’t have enough info at the time to make a better decision.”
The reason why it was necessary for Flohr to wake up Burk involved grave concerns about an Arizona-based security company called Mayhem Solutions Group.
Why would Flohr care so much about this security firm?
Penrose had told Flohr a wild story about two Mayhem Solutions Group employees he believed were planning to fly an airplane to Phoenix to Seattle and potentially “kidnap” Keliikoa and take her to South Korea because of information she might have about election fraud.
The idea that Mayhem Solutions Group would be involved in a plot to harm Sabrina Keliikoa for the purpose of preventing her from exposing anti-Trump election fraud was not only bizarre. It was based on an utter fabrication.
Owner Shawn Wilson and his employee, Kenneth Scott Koch — both far-right operatives — were prone to conspiracy theories. Koch was a member of the far-right group the Oath Keepers and an anti-COVID lockdown crusader. Koch had presented himself to Burk as a shadowy agent for a rogue government operation involved in illegal ballot trafficking.
More than two weeks before the Flynn security team was dispatched to Seattle, Koch had come to Burk’s house in Arizona to advise her on home security. During a discussion about a similar theory concerning illegal ballots being unloaded from a plane at Phoenix Sky Harbor, Koch told Burk that a group of men shown in a photo standing next to the plane were “my guys.”
Koch, who had organized an anti-lockdown group in Arizona in response to COVID-19 measures, went on to suggest to Burk that pro-Trump amateur sleuths attempting to uncover election fraud might learn about more than they bargained.
“A lot of these people want to be the center,” he said. “They wanna have the information. The problem is the information they don’t want.” For reasons that remain unclear, Penrose would hire an investigative team that included two former FBI agents to interview Koch about his claims, but not until after the madcap mission in Seattle to obtain the affidavit from Keliikoa.
“We interviewed Koch at length, and he said he fabricated everything,” Penrose told Burk during the Christmas Day phone call.
A one-time ‘hostile actor’ in Flynn’s camp
Patently ridiculous is the notion that a lie told by an anti-COVID lockdown advocate in Arizona, about illegal ballots on a plane, would trigger a weeks-long wild-goose that reached the highest levels of then-President Donald Trump’s inner sanctum, up to and including his former national security adviser.
In the end, the lead that sent Flynn’s associates to the Seattle airport under the pretext of a manufactured election crisis in December 2020 turned out to be little more than a photo of ballots and unexplained beeping from a package scanner that raised the suspicions of Keliikoa, a woman whose imagination was set alight by QAnon conspiracy theories.
One would not be faulted for thinking that nothing about this fake ballot-hunting story seems real.
Except for the fact that it is real.
It’s unclear whether Koch and his boss, Shawn Wilson, knew Flynn prior to the 2020 election. Regardless, Koch’s admitted deception hasn’t prevented Wilson from associating with the Flynn camp since that time.
The America Project, a nonprofit co-founded by Flynn, published a video in late 2023 that presented Wilson as someone who “knows more about what is going on at the border than probably anybody in America.” (Not mentioned in the interview was the fact that Wilson’s company had subcontracted with the state of Texas to operate buses transporting migrants to Democratic-run cities.)
As Election Day 2024 draws nearer, Wilson has only become more public and overt about his support for Trump.
The messaging in Wilson’s interview for Flynn’s nonprofit was a classic appeal to authoritarianism by invoking fear — part of Trump’s playbook since he launched his first presidential campaign in 2015. Wilson claimed that a military assault similar to the one launched against Israel by Hamas is imminent at the U.S southern border.
The remedy, Wilson suggested, is to ensure that Trump wins the 2024 election, adding, “I’ll be leading the charge with him right behind him.”
‘There was no goldmine’
Keliikoa confirmed her QAnon association, which inspired her ballot skepticism, during her deposition earlier this year.
She allowed that she sent Burk a link to a three-hour documentary video series Fall of the Cabal, which is described by the Anti-Defamation League as “a popular recruitment tool for QAnon followers.”
Keliikoa testified that following the November 2020 presidential election, she became suspicious because “we were moving ballots after places were called.” (That wouldn’t have been unusual, considering that the U.S. Postal Service was under a federal court order to locate and deliver mail-in ballots that hadn’t been received by Election Day.) One package that caused a scanner to triple beep — meaning “that it’s not recognized” — also concerned her.
“I believe that something looked wrong,” Keliikoa testified when asked under oath by Burk whether still believes that she witnessed election fraud at the FedEx facility in November 2020.
But Keliikoa admitted that she had nothing of value to share with the ad-hoc security team that sequestered her in a hotel in December 2020.
“They wanted to know if I knew about a plane coming in with these illegal ballots,” Keliikoa recalled. “I told them, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ That didn’t come from me. I don’t know what you’re saying.’ They were asking me if I knew about stuff that was going on outside of my workplace. I don’t. I was working. I don’t go out to other places.”
This didn’t stop Powell, who included a “Jane Doe” witness — Keliikoa presumably — on a witness list filed as part of an Arizona ballot lawsuit in support of Trump’s stop-the-steal effort. “Jane Doe,” Powell said at the time, would “testify about illegal ballots being shipped around the United States including to Arizona on or about before Nov. 3, 2020.”
No one was more disappointed by Keliikoa’s statement than Penrose.
“I thought when we exfil-ed her and we got her to write her affidavit, I thought we were going to have a goldmine of information,” he later told Burk, using the spy-craft term “exfiltrate” that means to furtively remove someone from a hostile area.
“There was no goldmine,” Penrose continued. “She had a picture of two ballot bags, and I asked her: ‘Would you know if ballots came across the tarmac from that Korea Air flight?’ And the answer was, ‘I just know what comes in this bay door from the USPS and what goes out these bay doors to get loaded on FedEx planes.’ So, the answer was there was no smoking gun per se with respect to that.”
The band breaks up
These days, few of the people involved want to discuss the Seattle ballot brouhaha, now revealed as a tangle of conspiracy theories, creative fantasies and outright lies — all in service to Trump’s goal of retaining presidential power that he was about to lose.
Reached by Raw Story earlier this month, Penrose’s lawyer John S. Irving said, “We don’t have anything to add.”
Keliikoa declined to comment to Raw Story for this story.
In an email to Raw Story last week, FedEx Media Relations said, “We do not have any comment at this time.”
Hurrington, the Marine Corps veteran who drove Keliikoa in the SUV, could not be reached for comment. Flohr also could not be reached for comment.
Some of the key players involved have also split up.
Keliikoa said in her deposition that one of the men who met her at the hotel told her it would “be in my best interest not to keep in contact” with Burk because she was a “troublemaker.”
Burk told Raw Story this month that Keliikoa had previously told her that it was Penrose who called her a “troublemaker,” but during her deposition, she claimed that she didn’t remember the names of anyone at the hotel.
“That was clearly projection since he was overseeing and directing a group of heavily armed former law enforcement holding my family and me hostage using fear and deception, who then spent months continuing to use that group to manipulate and malign my character to cover for their bad behavior,” Burk told Raw Story.
Flynn and Powell are both defendants in Burk’s lawsuit, along with former Arizona state Rep. Kelly Townsend. Burk accuses the defendants of civil rights violations, false imprisonment, assault, infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy.
In a filing seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, Flynn’s lawyers wrote that Burk’s claims are “baseless” and “frivolous,” while denying that their client sent the security team to her house or that he intended that they hold her “hostage.”
But Flynn’s efforts to distance himself from Burk are belied by the fact that Flohr — aka “Yoda,” the ex-law enforcement volunteer dispatched to her home in Arizona — flanked Flynn as part of his security detail when he spoke at a pro-Trump rally in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., less than a week after he was at Burk’s house in December 2020.
Flynn is currently promoting a documentary movie that portrays him as a victim of political persecution, and Trump has hinted that he may bring his former national security adviser back to public service — and the taxpayer-funded payroll — should he win election to a second term.
Flynn did not respond to repeated requests for comment made by Raw Story through his lawyers.
Last year, Powell pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties in Georgia.
Burk is suing Koch for fraudulent misrepresentation, invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress in the Arizona state courts, separate from her federal claim against Flynn, Powell and Townsend. Representing herself, Burk deposed Keliikoa for her lawsuit against Koch. Last week, Burk filed a motion to consolidate her case against Koch with her federal lawsuit against Powell and Flynn.
Under cross-examination by Koch’s lawyer in March, Keliikoa downplayed her role in giving life to the “ballots on planes” theory.
“The only relevance I have is a lot of people got involved and it turned into, like I said before, a big s---show where a lot of people were involved that should have never even been there, that should have never been involved,” she said. “And I got thrown into the mix like everybody else. I was used as a pawn. That’s what makes me mad.”
Knowing what she knows now, Keliikoa said, she would have never agreed to write the affidavit.
“I thought people really wanted to help,” she said in her deposition. “And now I know otherwise.”
“Nobody really cares,” she added, “because everybody has their own objective.”
* * * * *
Key players
Staci Burk is a former school board member from Arizona who found herself in the middle of a conspiracy theory concerning illegal ballots and airplanes after the 2020 election.
Roland Hurrington is a Marine Corps veteran enlisted to pick up Sabrina Keliikoa at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport FedEx air freight terminal in December 2020.
Geoffrey Flohr, also known as “Yoda,” is a retired Michigan State Police officer who volunteered for the 1st Amendment Praetorian security group in late 2020 and early 2021. He used Staci Burk to track down Sabrina Keliikoa.
Michael Flynn is a retired lieutenant general who served as national security advisor for President Donald Trump before pleading guilty to lying to the FBI. Trump pardoned Flynn in November 2020, and Flynn emerged alongside Sidney Powell as a key player in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Sabrina Keliikoa is a former FedEx supervisor and QAnon adherent who claims to have been detained by a security team linked to Michael Flynn that obtained an affidavit about election ballots observed at her facility shortly around the time of the 2020 election.
Carissa Keshel was a volunteer who served as attorney Sidney Powell’s assistant in late 2020, as Flynn worked with Powell to overturn the 2020 election.
Kenneth Scott Koch is a security contractor formerly employed by Mayhem Solutions Group (now MSG Risk Management & Intelligence) who “fabricated” a story about his involvement in illegal ballot trafficking. Koch organized anti-lockdown protests in Arizona and was a member of the far-right group the Oath Keepers.
Jim Penrose is a cyber-security expert who worked for the National Security Agency under President Barack Obama. He traveled to Washington state to obtain an affidavit from Sabrina Keliikoa.
Sidney Powell is a former federal prosecutor who filed lawsuits in Arizona and other states seeking to overturn the 2020 election based on outlandish claims of voting fraud.
Kelly Townsend is a former Arizona state House member who told Staci Burk it was imperative that the “Seattle whistleblower” (now revealed to be Sabrina Keliikoa) come forward and report her suspicions about illegal ballot trafficking after the 2020 election.
Donald Trump is the former president of the United States who is again running for the presidency in 2024. Many of the actions described in this story were done in Trump’s name.
Shawn Wilson is the president of MSG Risk Management & Intelligence (formerly Mayhem Solutions Group). Jim Penrose told Staci Burk that he was initially concerned that Wilson, along with Kenneth Scott Koch, were “hostile actors” intent on harming Sabrina Keliikoa.
A Republican congressman was as much as five years late reporting his spouse’s stock trades, violating a federal financial disclosure law, according to a Raw Story review of congressional financial records.
Each stock trade was in the $1,001 to $15,000 range involving a variety of companies such as tech conglomerate Alphabet, artificial intelligence company NVIDIA, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company and media and entertainment conglomerate Walt Disney and Company.
Members of Congress are required to publicly report — within 45 days — most purchases, sales and exchanges of stocks, bonds, commodity futures, securities and cryptocurrencies as outlined by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law passed by Congress in 2012 to defend against conflicts of interest, curb insider trading and enhance public transparency.
Lawmakers only need to disclose the values of their transactions in broad ranges per the financial disclosure law.
Williams’ congressional office did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.
This isn’t the first time that Williams has apparently violated that STOCK Act.
Nonpartisan ethics group, the Campaign Legal Center, filed a complaint against Williams and six other members of Congress for failing to properly disclose their stock transactions in 2021, NPR reported. Williams’ 2021 violations involved three undisclosed 2019 stock trades for wife, Patty Williams, totaling up to $45,000.
“In the situation when we filed the complaint, it seems as though the member knew the rule, and therefore, could not say that he didn't understand the rule, and that's why we thought that there needs to be an investigation to see if this was intentional,” Kedric Payne, vice president, general counsel and senior director of ethics for the Campaign Legal Center, told Raw Story in a phone interview.
“If you fast forward now, to a few years after we filed the complaint, it seems to raise questions again, why would you not comply if you know the rule? It’s either you’re trying to hide something, or you just don't care.”
The House Committee on Ethics previously scolded, but decided not to reprimand Williams over concerns about how his auto dealership would financially benefit from an amendment he introduced in 2015, the Center for Public Integrity reported.
'Common error'
Another Republican member of Congress, Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL), was more than a year late disclosing the purchase of a U.S. Treasury I bond valued up to $15,000.
“We understand this is a common error given that U.S. Treasury Bonds are government securities and wholly distinct from private stock purchase,” Adam Pakledinaz, a spokesperson for Webster, told Raw Story via email. “As soon as the requirement was brought to Rep. Webster’s attention, we worked with the Ethics Committee to immediately file the necessary paperwork. He is in full compliance and has been told no further action is required.”
The standard fine for violating the STOCK Act is $200. Often, the fee is waived by the House Committee on Ethics and Senate Select Committee on Ethics. As for consequences for both Williams and Webster, “there’s no reason to think that there'll be anything other than a $200 late penalty at most,” Payne said.
“The rules are clear that Treasury bonds need to be reported, and it’s because voters need to know whether there are any potential conflicts of interest with the information that members of Congress are getting and the trades they’re making,” Payne said. “Treasury bonds are directly tied to … how the health of the U.S. market is seen. So if members of Congress know something about what to anticipate about the health of the US economy that’s impacting those trades, the public needs to know.”
Williams and Webster join a growing list of legislators — Republicans and Democrats alike — who have violated the STOCK Act.
Raw Story has now identified at least 48 members of the 118th Congress, including Williams and Webster, who have violated the law.
Numerous bills have been introduced over the past two congressional sessions that would at least in part ban stock trading by members of Congress and their spouses or require stricter punishments for violators.
Such bills include the Ban Conflicted Trading Act, the Ban Stock Trading for Government Officials Act, the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act, the TRUST in Congress Act and the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act.
None of these bills have yet been voted upon by either the U.S. House or Senate.
Julie Farnam, who supervised intelligence gathering for the U.S. Capitol Police at the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, has received a subpoena to appear for a deposition by a Republican-controlled House subcommittee investigating security failures that day.
“We are investigating the alleged failures within USCP IICD leading up to January 6 to assess what legislative reforms, if any, are needed,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), chair of the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee, told Farnam in a letter that she received late Friday.
The subpoena sets up a confrontation between two pivotal — if somewhat under-the-radar — figures in the Jan. 6 attack saga, which three-and-a-half years on remains an unresolved matter for many Americans.
Loudermilk personally led a tour of the U.S. House buildings complex on Jan. 5, 2021 — the day before the attack on the Capitol — involving people who traveled to Washington, D.C., to support then-President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Farnam served as assistant director of the Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division at the Capitol Police at the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
Farnam previously told Raw Story last that she believes Loudermilk is dragging her before the subcommittee as a way to deflect from his own role in the events of Jan. 6.
“I think he does have some involvement in January 6th,” she said, “and these hearings are designed to distract from the truth.”
A prescient warning
Farnam wrote an intelligence assessment on Jan. 3 that provided a prescient warning about the threat of violence by Trump supporters who were becoming increasingly unhinged due to the looming certification of the election.
“This sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent,” Farnam’s assessment warned. “Unlike previous post-election protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily counter-protestors, as they were previously, but, rather, Congress itself is the target on the 6th.”
Farnam gave a briefing to commanders, including then-Assistant Chief Yogananda Pittman, on Jan. 4, telling them, according to her recollection: “Stop the Steal has the propensity for attracting white supremacists, militia groups, groups like the Proud Boys. There are multiple social media posts saying that people are going to be coming armed, and it’s potentially a very dangerous situation.”
Farnam and others who have previously spoken to the now-disbanded House Select January 6 Committee said there were no questions after her presentation.
Sean Gallagher, now assistant chief of police for uniformed operations, told the House Select January 6 Committee that it was fair to say that Farnam’s warning did not prompt the Capitol Police to make any operational changes.
By the time thousands of pro-Trump protesters began breaching a U.S. Capitol security perimeter on Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Police were overwhelmed and unable to stop throngs of people who illegally entered the Capitol complex, and in many cases, injured law enforcement officials, terrorized members of Congress, stole government property and trashed the premises.
Despite Farnam’s efforts to warn commanders of the threat of violence on Jan. 6, the Republican-led subcommittee chaired by Loudermilk has faulted her for the security breakdown at the Capitol that day.
Capitol rioters
Capitol rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Saul Loeb for AFP)
An “initial findings” report released by Loudermilk’s subcommittee in March complained that the most alarming content was “buried” near the end of Farnam’s intelligence assessment, while blaming the intelligence division for leaving the Capitol Police leadership “uninformed and unable to properly plan.”
Meanwhile, the Republican majority has given former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who was aware of the Jan. 4 conference call but did not attend, a sympathetic hearing.
Sund testified before the subcommittee last September that “no intel agencies or units sounded the alarm.”
“We were blindsided,” he said. “Intelligence failed operations.”
Shifting blame away from Trump
The Republican majority’s favorable treatment of Sund compared to Farnam falls under a larger effort to shift blame from Trump, who summoned supporters to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 with the promise that it would be “wild.”
Republicans — some of whom have downplayed the violence at the U.S. Capitol altogether — have attempted to shift blame to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who fled the Capitol alongside other members of Congress as violent Trump supporters disrupted and delayed Congress’ certification of 2020 presidential electoral votes.
The topline of the subcommittee’s interim report accuses the House Select January 6 Committee, which Pelosi appointed, of pursuing a “pre-determined narrative that President Trump was responsible for the breach.”
Instead, the report by the Loudermilk subcommittee blames the attack on the “politicization” of the U.S. Capitol security apparatus. They accuse Pelosi of exerting political pressure on Capitol security operations through the House sergeant at arms, whose duties as chief law enforcement and protocol officer for the House include maintaining order and assessing threats.
The report also includes a section complaining that the House Select January 6 Committee “made unfounded allegations against members of Congress” and “specifically targeted Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk.”
In a public letter to Loudermilk, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) noted that video of Loudermilk’s Jan. 5, 2021, tour of the Capitol showed individuals filming hallways, staircases and security checkpoints.
Thompson noted that some of the individuals attended Trump’s stop-the-steal rally at the Ellipse the next day, including one who was captured on video noting that the Capitol was “surrounded” and that the rioters were “coming” for Pelosi and other Democratic members.
The subpoena calls for Farnam to appear for a deposition before the subcommittee at the O’Neill House Office Building on June 21.
Under the subcommittee rules, only Farnam, her lawyer, subcommittee members and their staff, and an official reporter may attend the deposition.
"Aw, such a big man @RepLoudermilk!" Farnam wrote Friday evening in a post on X. "You feel so big and strong? Remember when you were asked to speak to Congress about #J6 and were too cowardly to do so? I do. I'll show for your deposition. One of us has some balls."
Aw, such a big man @RepLoudermilk! You feel so big and strong? Remember when you were asked to speak to Congress about #J6 and were too cowardly to do so? I do. I'll show for your deposition. One of us has some balls. #january6th#insurrection#revisionisthistory — Julie Farnam (@JulieFarnam) June 14, 2024
Farnam — today a candidate in the Democratic primary for an open seat on the Arlington County Board in northern Virginia, which will be decided on June 18 — previously told Raw Story that she is concerned that by deposing her behind closed doors, the Republican majority will be able to cherry-pick her words “and construe it however they want.”
Under the subcommittee rules, the Democratic minority members may object to the selective release of testimony, transcripts or recordings. But such concerns would be resolved by a vote of the subcommittee, where Republicans hold the majority.
The rules provide members of the Republican majority and Democratic minority equal time to question Farnam.
Google describes the National Rifle Association as a "human rights group" in a "knowledge panel" is displays for the pro-gun organization. Source: Google
Protesters gather on Dec. 14, 2017, outside of the National Rifle Association headquarters in Fairfax, Va., for a vigil in remembrance of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn. Nicole Glass Photography / Shutterstock
Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA). JLauer/Shutterstock
Republican senator Josh Hawley. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP)
LinkedIn photo of Jordan Duncan, a Marine Corps veteran whom the government alleges had classified military materials on his hard drive.
Nedra Manners at her shop, Yellow Door Antiques and Art. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Wendy Davis in Rome, Ga (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Kelly Thurman (far left) and Michelle Thurman (far right) at a campaign event for Murray County Sheriff Jimmy Davenport. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Garry Baldwin (left) and Lamar Wadsworth (right), members of the Polk County Democratic Party, at a McDonald's in Rockmart, Ga. (Photo by Alexandria Jacobson/Raw Story)
Sabrina Keliikoa as seen during a legal deposition on March 22, 2024. (Source: Deposition 
Jim Penrose as described on the website of the Institute for World Politics in Washington, D.C. (Institute for World Politics.)
Capitol rioters
Capitol rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Saul Loeb for AFP)