SmartNews

Kimberly Guilfoyle's final days as President Donald Trump's ambassador to Greece played out under the gaze of a very familiar face.

Visitors to Jefferson House, the ambassador's residence in Athens that she decorated with large self-portraits, saw Guilfoyle peering past them at a television set on mute that was airing coverage of her growing political troubles, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The report came hours after the White House announced it was asking her to step down.

The ouster followed a string of Journal investigations. The first, published late last month, found Guilfoyle had been promoting a Greek construction company while working closely with its top lobbyist. A second revealed text messages in which she asked Trump donor Eric Deters for $100,000 ahead of her confirmation hearing last year. A third, published Saturday, detailed private jet flights and stays at luxury European hotels provided by shipping magnate Nikolas Tsakos....

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal to overturn hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal sanctions against lawyers who represented failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and made baseless claims about election fraud in her bid to upend how Arizona conducts elections.

The high court released a list of cases it will hear and those it declined to, with the petition from Lake’s former lawyers among those that were refused. No explanation was given for why it will not be considered.

In 2022, Lake and then-Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem filed a lawsuit against the Maricopa and Pima county boards of supervisors aimed at preventing them from using electronic tabulators to count votes during that year’s midterm elections....

A federal judge turned to a Dr. Seuss classic as she slammed the brakes on a Trump administration project in Washington.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday granted an emergency temporary restraining order barring the National Park Service from cutting down any more trees at East Potomac Golf Course. Quoting the plaintiffs' warning that "destroyed trees cannot be replaced," Reyes added in a footnote, "Just ask the Lorax."

Reyes had previously invoked the orange-haired, tree-loving Lorax during a September hearing for the same lawsuit to stop the Trump administration's plans for the golf course, saying, "I am not the Lorax, I do not speak for the trees."...

MS NOW's Jen Psaki was left flabbergasted by the debut of President Donald Trump's new White House press secretary, conspiracy theorist Katie Zacharia.

Psaki, herself a former press secretary for the Biden administration, kicked off her segment with a brief grading of Zacharia's first performance. "I am just going to start tonight by saying something that I never thought I would ever say: Karoline Leavitt, wherever you are out there, I miss you," she said.

Psaki played a clip of Zacharia opening up her first press briefing....

A mysterious right-wing political action committee has spent nearly $400,000 promoting a socialist running for the US Senate in Ohio, raising questions about an apparent effort to siphon progressive votes from Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown in a key midterm contest, according to reports published Monday.

The Columbus Dispatch and Cleveland.com are among the media outlets reporting that the newly formed Enough Promises Ohio PAC has financed mailers urging voters to support Greg Levy, an independent candidate affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), whose working-class platform includes implementing a $30 hourly minimum wage, ending the “US war machine” and “war on Black America,” and working to “save the planet from capitalism.”

The mailers were not produced by Levy’s campaign. Federal campaign finance filings trace the spending to a printing vendor with connections to President Donald Trump’s political network. Seven Farms shares a business address with Whistlestop Strategies, a direct mail operation associated with Big Dog Strategies, a Republican consulting firm that has worked with Republican candidates and has ties to MAGA Inc., Trump’s principal super political action committee (PAC)....

Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) lost his cool at his congressional debate on Tuesday, as his constituents laughed at his excuse for why gas prices have spiked so heavily since the start of the year.

The debate between Harris, a far-right MAGA lawmaker who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, and Democratic challenger Dan Schwartz, was clipped by the liberal group American Bridge.

"The fact is that diesel prices have gone up, there's no question about it," said Harris. "Why has it gone up? Because the Democrats and environmental regulations have not—"...

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.”...

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....

Former MLB superstar Roger Clemens fact-checked President Donald Trump during his Texas rally Wednesday night.

Trump traveled to San Antonio, Texas, to stump for Republicans like Tano Tijerina in his race against Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), whom Trump attacked for what he considered to be a "disloyal act" by not becoming a Republican after Trump pardoned him. At the rally, Trump invited Clemens on stage to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, because Clemens had not yet been elected to the Hall of Fame.

In typical Trump fashion, the president also rattled off a fact about Clemens that the former big league pitcher was quick to correct. ...