Rudy Giuliani

CIA Director John Ratcliffe lent credence to President Donald Trump’s wild claims about Venezuelan election manipulation during his national address last week, hinting at plans for federal intervention in the midterm elections.

Ratcliffe’s statement, posted on X as Trump was winding up his speech on Thursday, cited intelligence “showing that Venezuela’s government had developed capabilities to manipulate electronic voting systems, raising serious concerns for U.S. election security.”

Trump’s statement on the subject raised concerns about “whether it could actually be possible to electronically manipulate vote totals or cheat on these terrible machines,” before citing declassified documents showing intelligence obtained by the CIA about the Venezuelan government’s handling of elections, and arguing that the “intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to ensure that our own system can never, ever be hacked or compromised, like it was in the past.”...

When President Donald Trump gives a televised address Thursday night in which he is expected to claim that the Chinese government interfered in the 2020 election, CIA Director John Ratcliffe is expected to be standing at his side.

Details of the speech teased to major news outlets include some variation on shopworn claims that election deniers have long promoted about supposed manipulation of voting machines and foreign meddling, with CBS News citing unnamed “sources familiar with the matter” as saying the speech will “touch on previously unreported alleged Chinese meddling in U.S. elections,” including that “Beijing compromised U.S. voter data.”

These extraordinary claims lay at the heart of a feverish effort by Trump’s allies to overturn the 2020 election, and addressing such findings would have fallen directly under the responsibility of Ratcliffe, who was then serving as director of national intelligence....

Donald Trump at just after midnight on Sunday morning released onto Truth Social a screed in which he claimed the "Biden FBI" placed "274" agents in the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump himself was still president.

The president took his social media site in the dead of night to write, "THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6," at a time when it would have been Trump's FBI as the then-president was contesting valid election results.

He added, "If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed big apologies."...

Rudy Giuliani has reportedly reached a "global settlement" in his fight with two women he defamed with election interference claims

Legal analyst Andrew Torrez, a lawyer and podcast host, posted a screenshot of a letter Thursday to Judge Lewis Liman stating that Giuliani had reached the "global settlement" with Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

Rudy Giuliani did not show up for court on Thursday, instead posting a photo of a dog at Mar-a-Lago in Florida....

Rudy Giuliani has been found in contempt of court again, but this time, the judge is using a different tactic.

Thus far, Judge Beryl Howell has not held Giuliani accountable for contempt, but those days are ending. Giuliani appeared before the court on Friday, and the judge mandated that he sign a sworn declaration saying evidence at a 2023 defamation trial refuted his claims about Freeman and Moss. If he doesn't sign the paper, he'll be issued a $200 fee for each day he refuses or ultimately jailed.

It's the first time Giuliani has been threatened with jail time for contempt. ...

Rudy Giuliani has been held in contempt of court a second time, NBC News reported.

The ruling, which came after a tense hearing on Friday, is the latest in the former New York City mayor and Donald Trump ally's saga with Atlanta poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who won a $148 million default judgment against him over his defamatory allegations they tampered with ballots in the 2020 election in Georgia.

Giuliani, who lacks the financial resources to pay this judgment in full and faces the potential seizure of many of his assets, was already held in contempt of court once over failure to properly follow instructions during the discovery process of the suit....

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....