The FBI has warned California law enforcement that Iran could retaliate against American strikes by launching drones on the West Coast of the United States, including locations in California, ABC News reported.
The outlet said it had reviewed an alert showing the warning from recent days.
“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran,” according to the alert late February.
"We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack,” the alert stated.
Iran has launched multiple retaliatory drone strikes at locations across the Middle East following the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that began 12 days ago.
A man in Florida who allegedly threatened President Donald Trump, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was indicted this month, NBC News reported Wednesday.
Diego Villavicencio now faces a four-count indictment, which was filed last week in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida Tallahassee Division. The indictment alleges that Villavicencio threatened Swalwell and wrote "I’ll kill you and your family and you won’t do anything about it" and also threatened an unnamed person and wrote that they would "be shot and killed September 23."
Villavicencio allegedly also threatened Trump and wrote the following: “I’ll be driving there to take a couple of shots at trump and some other corrupt plutocrats.”
Swalwell, a current 2026 candidate for California governor and vocal critic of the president, has confirmed that an unnamed member of Congress cited in the indictment was him, according to NBC News. Swalwell was an impeachment manager in Trump's second impeachment trial and has been the target of multiple threats. Swalwell also said that Attorney General Pam Bondi had "refused" to prosecute threats against him and discussed it with her during her testimony to congressional leaders.
“The aim of this threat was to silence me,” Swalwell told NBC News. “Political violence has never been the answer. And it never will be. My family and I are grateful to the Department of Justice for their attention to this violent threat.”
Powell appeared to be another unnamed person in the criminal complaint. An FBI affidavit revealed that one of the posts had read "Jerome is next." That threat, which came before the Sept. 23 Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce 2025 Economic Outlook Luncheon where Powell was a speaker, was reported to the FBI by a senior agent.
Villavicencio was arrested last month. His trial is scheduled for May.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) had an angry confrontation with an NBC film crew after he changed course on his support for the filibuster to attempt to push through a voting bill backed by President Donald Trump.
In a Wednesday op-ed for the New York Post, Cornyn admitted that he had changed his mind on the filibuster as he was hoping for an endorsement from the president in his tight Senate race.
"For many years, I believed that if the US Senate scrapped the filibuster, Texas and our nation would stand to lose more than we would gain," the Texas Republican wrote. "Today, Democrats are weaponizing the Senate's rules to block the SAVE America Act, defund the Department of Homeland Security, and hurt the American people — all to spite President Donald Trump."
"The president has made the SAVE America Act his 'number one priority,' and he is right," the senator added. "After careful consideration, I support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats' obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president's desk for his signature."
Later on Wednesday, NBC News confronted Cornyn about why he had changed his position.
"You previously said that nuking the filibuster would be taking a wrecking ball to Senate rules," an NBC reporter noted. "Is that no longer true?"
"Um, I said I'd be open to reforms," Cornyn insisted.
"What would you say to those who say you just changed your mind to win the president's endorsement?" the reporter asked.
"I'd say, uh, that's not true," the Republican stated, adding, "I think we're through. Go ahead. Go away."
The interview ended with Cornyn placing his hand over the NBC camera to obstruct its view.
The Republican candidate for governor of New York was scheduled to speak at an event headlined by far-right extremists and rioters convicted over the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a Raw Storyinvestigation.
Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive running against incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, was featured on promotional materials for a January event associated with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser.
🇺🇸 Stay Awake America National Tour THIS WEEKEND 🇺🇸 Mission: Unite, engage, activate local action for national impact!
Join 17+ nationally recognized experts in health, civics, faith, education, and more, including Bruce Blakeman, Treniss Evans, Dr. Judy Mikovits, Amir… pic.twitter.com/M4thJBBUjy — The America First Warehouse (@americafirstwh) January 7, 2026
The Stay Awake America event took place at the Trump-themed America First Warehouse in Ronkonkoma on Long Island from Jan. 10-11, though ultimately Blakeman did not attend, said Teresa Helfrich, director of operations for the America First Warehouse.
“He didn't end up showing up,” Helfrich said.
“Apparently, he was really busy, but unfortunately, he did not come, and people were a bit disappointed, but we tried our best.”
Helfrich said she was under the impression Blakeman was unable to attend because he was preparing for his inauguration the following day, for his second term as county executive.
In a statement to Raw Story, Blakeman attempted to distance himself from the event.
“Kathy Hochul told 5.4 million Republicans to leave New York,” Blakeman said through a campaign spokesperson, referring to 2022 remarks in which the governor named GOP figures including Trump, rather than every Republican in the state.
“Now she’s inventing distractions about events I never attended and people I’ve never spoken to because she can’t defend her tax hikes and soaring utility bills. She’s so bothered by her record she’s becoming delusional. I’m trying to make New York affordable.”
A poster for the event circulated by the America First Warehouse and Stay Awake America organizer prominently featured Blakeman as a speaker.
Flynn shared an X post promoting the event, which referenced Blakeman.
Long Island will be the focus on January 10–11 as the Stay Awake America Tour comes to the America First Warehouse in Ronkonkoma. This two-day gathering brings together powerful speakers, live music from the Caspar McCloud Band, and a special tribute honoring Tina Peters. It is a… pic.twitter.com/aRkvt5D0Cw — General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) January 2, 2026
Also featured were Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia leader whose 18-year sentence for sedition was commuted by President Trump; Treniss Jewell Evans III, who pleaded guilty to entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; and Ivan Raiklin, a Flynn associate who campaigns to punish Trump’s enemies.
The event was advertised as a tribute to Tina Peters, a Colorado county clerk sentenced to nine years in prison for her role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election. Trump is pressuring Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to grant Peters clemency.
Blakeman did recently speak at the Queens Village Republican Club’s Lincoln Dinner, on March 1. That event honored John Eastman, a now-disbarred attorney who advised Trump and played a central role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, Politico reported.
In a statement, Blakeman denied knowing “who John Eastman is or what he stands for.”
Jacob Neiheisel, an associate professor of political science at the University of Buffalo, told Raw Story “association means a lot in politics,” and candidates make calculations about the costs and benefits of being linked with individuals or groups.
“You can distance yourself quite a bit. Trump's been effective at it,” Neiheisel said.
“It works for Trump. It can work for other people.”
Amy Young, director and organizer of Stay Awake America, did not respond to requests for comment.
The January event at which he was advertised to speak promised more than 17 “nationally known expert speakers in health, civics, faith, education, threat of Islam in America and child sex trafficking.”
Being associated with far-right figures doesn’t help Blakeman’s chances of winning in the blue state, Neiheisel said, adding that Republican gubernatorial candidates in New York “have to at least outwardly appear centrist to the bulk of voters, but that's not where the energy in the party is. The energy is typically on the far right.”
But such associations do “make you viable for other positions elsewhere, and put you on the radar of other people in the party, particularly if MAGA is able to continue beyond Trump,” Neiheisel said.
“I think that this also might be a play [by Blakeman] to stay relevant and stay in some of those circles even after he loses.”
Trump endorsed Blakeman in December after Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), dropped out of the Republican primary.
Larry Levy, a former political journalist and associate vice president and executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said “at some point, Blakeman will have to pivot to the middle — there just aren’t enough Republican voters in the state for him to win without a goodly number of moderate independents and soft Democrats — and Gen. Flynn certainly wouldn’t help him build bridges to them."
Flynn was briefly national security adviser to Trump in his first term before being fired for lying about contacts with Russian officials.
The Stay Awake America Tour is inspired and endorsed by Flynn and grew out of an earlier roadshow, the ReAwaken America Tour, that prominently featured his work as a far-right campaigner and promoted conspiracy theories and Christian nationalism.
On a recent podcast, Young said the tour came about as a result of a conversation between Flynn and Caspar McCloud, an English musician who performs at the events, about the need to mobilize support for Trump.
‘Secretary of Retribution’
Rhodes, whose name was originally listed at the bottom of the January event poster but whose photo is the first featured for a Stay Awake America event on March 20, founded the Oath Keepers, an anti-government group that recruited military veterans and retired law enforcement during the Obama administration.
The Oath Keepers, alongside the Proud Boys, provided the engine for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Rhodes was freed from prison after Trump’s second inauguration but did not receive a pardon.
Raiklin, then an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, promoted the so-called “Pence Card” argument, holding that Vice President Mike Pence possessed the authority to set aside the results of the 2020 election.
The expectation that Pence would comply inflamed Trump’s supporters and helped fuel the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, when the former vice president refused to bend to pressure.
As Trump mounted his 2024 election bid, Raiklin launched a campaign as self-appointed “secretary of retribution,” featuring veiled threats of violence against perceived enemies.
Retired Lt. Col. Ivan Raiklin and self-styled "secretary of retribution" Ivan Raiklin at the Republican National Convention (Jordan Green/Raw Story)
Evans pleaded guilty to entering the Capitol and drinking Fireball whisky in a congressional conference room.
During the 2024 campaign, he joined Raiklin for a press conference, calling for “live-streamed swatting raids” against Trump’s enemies.
Raiklin met with law enforcement officials in Texas to detail his plans for recruiting sheriffs to arrest Trump’s enemies, Raw Story reported.
As Nassau county executive, Blakeman has hired armed citizens as special deputy sheriffs — what critics have called an unlawful personal militia, the New York Timesreported.
In January, Rhodes and Raiklin held a press conference at the White House calling on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop Democrats winning the 2026 midterm elections and retaking Congress.
Raiklin has worked closely with Flynn, serving on the board of America’s Future, an organization led by Flynn and his sister. Raiklin took part in a 2024 tour to promote a documentary about Flynn.
Trump supporters storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/TNS
Helfrich told Raw Story the America First Warehouse supports those who participated in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and she said she believes “the real insurrection happened on November 3 of 2020 when the deep state and the powers that be tried to overthrow a US presidential election.”
“We are 100 percent behind our fellow Patriot brothers and sisters who took a First Amendment stand that day to let Congress know that they didn't want a stolen election to be certified,” she said.
“We are extremely supportive advocates of the J6 community, and we do not see them as felons. We see them as politically persecuted patriots.”
Conspiracy theories
Stay Awake America’s “sizzle reel” to promote upcoming events features Cathy O’Brien, a conspiracy theorist who claims to be the victim of government mind control, and Judy Mikovits, a controversial virologist who equates vaccination with "extermination and sterilization.”
Mikovits was billed on the event where Blakeman was scheduled to appear.
Flynn appeared in the promotional video encouraging people to participate in the Stay Awake America movement.
Helfrich told Raw Story, “We love the people at the Stay Awake American tour,” and the warehouse has “the same mission.”
“The reason why we love their work is because we do believe that there's a lot that America is facing right now,” Helfrich said.
“Obviously, all of us are big President Trump supporters, and we love what he's doing, but he's only in office for another three years, and we do believe, a lot of us, that the country needs to stay awake and keep fighting beyond this term.”
Young’s X posts promoting the Stay Awake America tour frequently include the phrase “blitz 2026 midterms.”
Young frequently reshares posts from X accounts that promote the QAnon conspiracy theory, including one that in January revived the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which falsely claimed that Democrats ran a child sex trafficking operation in the basement of a DC pizzeria.
Q the Plan video 2018 then Out of Shadows film & Fall of the Cabal series exposed everything. This was & is the wake up call. 🎥🎞️☎️ Stay Awake America ⚔️🇺🇸 the battles have just begun. Unite, Engage and activate local action for national impact. This is how we Take Back our… https://t.co/PvLG8jgyHd — 4everYoung (@4everAYoung17) February 2, 2026
Young shares QAnon beliefs with staff at the America First Warehouse, the Trump-themed event space in Ronkonkoma.
Speaking in January on the podcast she co-hosts at the America First Warehouse, Helfrich said she decided to go to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 after a friend admonished her: “Where we go one, we go all.” Helfrich said she and her co-host, “Angie the Patriette,” have that QAnon slogan “tattooed on our bodies.”
Young has also re-shared posts on X that promote election denialism, celebrate Russian President Vladimir Putin, and push Islamophobia and antisemitism.
One post from QAnon promoter Liz Crokin that Young re-shared less than a week before the Ronkonkoma event insinuates that illegal tunnels discovered underneath the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn link Jews to child exploitation.
The tunnels were reportedly built by a radical offshoot of the Hasidic Jewish movement seeking to expand the site. There is no evidence of human trafficking at the site.
A war Donald Trump started, allegedly to distract from the ongoing release of Jeffrey Epstein's files, could deal his administration a harsher blow according to Jimmy Kimmel.
The talk show host believes the war with Iran is a distraction tactic utilized by the president to reduce focus on the release of convicted sex offender Epstein's files. Being named or pictured in the files is not an indication of wrongdoing, and many of those identified in the files or in previous releases related to Epstein have expressly denied any wrongdoing.
Trump's name appears frequently in the files, with Kimmel dubbing it the Trump-Epstein files. In the opening monologue of his show, the talk show veteran suggested the president had caused a bigger problem for himself than the Epstein files would have been by launching into a war with Iran.
He said, "He's going to make a huge mess and then walk away like it's the toilet in the Lincoln bathroom. Trump claims we are way ahead of schedule on the war. He's got a schedule, which means it should be over just around the time we see his taxes and the rest of the Trump-Epstein files.
"Ironically, this war he launched to distract us from those could turn out to be more damaging to him than the Trump-Epstein files themselves. They're saying this could be worse, and that would mean he would have to come up with another distraction from the war."
Kimmel went on to give Trump a new distraction tactic, joking that to distract from the war with Iran and the economic consequences, the president could release the remaining Epstein files.
Kimmel added, "If you do need that [distraction] Mr. President, I got a good one. You know what would distract us from the war? Release the unreleased Trump-Epstein files. That would be a shiny object we could gather around."
President Donald Trumpsaid the US Navy chose to sink an Iranian frigate, killing more than 100 sailors last week, because it was “more fun” than capturing the vessel, even though the ship posed no threat.
Though death tolls vary, Iran’s state media organization, the Islamic Republic News Organization, reported on Sunday that 104 crew members were killed in the attack and that 32 others were injured when a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian warship IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean on March 4 as it departed from the Milan Peace 2026 naval drills hosted in India.
The Dena was more than 2,000 miles away from the Persian Gulf when it was attacked, far from the hostilities unleashed last weekend when the US and Israel launched a war against Iran. Contradicting US claims, Iranian and Indian officials have said it was not armed.
In what political commentator Adam Schwarz described as “the most blasé admission of a war crime by a US president in history,” Trump on Monday casually recounted the US Navy’s decision to attack the ship before a gathering of Republicans at a Congressional Institute event, a GOP-aligned nonprofit retreat organizer. He suggested that the Navy blew the boat up not to neutralize a threat, but purely for its own sake.
After making the exaggerated boast that Iran’s navy is “gone” following aggressive US bombing, Trump said at first he “got a little upset” with the military brass who ordered the sinking of the Dena, which he said they described as a “top-of-the-line” vessel.
Trump said he asked: “Why don’t we just capture the ship? We could have used it. Why did we sink them?”
He said that an unspecified official told him, “It’s more fun to sink them.”
As the crowd laughed, Trump went on, chuckling himself: “They like sinking them better. They say it’s safer to sink them. I guess it’s probably true.”
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, described the ship as operating in a purely “ceremonial” role and said it was “unloaded” and “unarmed” at the time of the attack last week.
Rahul Bedi, an independent defense analyst in India, told the Associated Press that while the ship may have used some limited non-offensive ammunition during naval exercises, drill protocol requires “the participating platforms to be unarmed.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has claimed the vessel was a “predator ship,” while the US Indo-Pacific Command has said claims that the ship was unarmed are “false.” However, it has provided no evidence that it posed a threat at the time of the attack.
The attack itself was likely legal under the rules of naval warfare, even if the ship was unarmed, though its ethical and tactical justification has been called into question.
“A military ship might be a lawful target,” Phyllis Bennis, the co-director of the Institute for Policy Studies’ New Internationalism Project told Common Dreams. “But firing on any ship—any people, anywhere—for ‘fun’ represents the kind of immoral depravity that this White House is infamous for.”
Bennis added that “failing to do everything possible to rescue those aboard is certainly a war crime,” as the Second Geneva Convention requires militaries to take all possible measures to search for and collect the shipwrecked, wounded, and sick.
The Dena’s 32 survivors, as well as dozens of dead bodies, had to be pulled from the water by a Sri Lankan joint rescue operation following a distress call. The survivors were quickly rushed to a local hospital in Galle City.
Hegseth has previously come under fire for reportedly ordering a second strike on shipwrecked sailors who survived the bombing of an alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean.
Many have described that attack on September 2 as an exceptionally blatant war crime in a broadly illegal campaign that has extrajudicially killed at least 156 people.
In carrying out its war against Iran, Hegseth has emphasized that the US would not abide by what he called “stupid rules of engagement.”
Thousands of civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, and residential areas, have reportedly been attacked by US and Israeli strikes, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.
As of Monday, Iranian Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian said at least 1,255 people have been killed, including 200 children and 11 healthcareworkers.
Though it may have still technically been legal, journalist Mark Ames, the co-host of the geopolitics podcast Radio War Nerd, argued that attacking a ship that posed no threat shows that Trump is “cowardly scum” who “gets his kicks killing those who can’t fight back.”
“The ship was unarmed. That’s why Trump and Hegseth chose to murder them,” Ames wrote on social media. “Tormenting those who can’t fight back is its own sadistic pleasure.”
Bennis added that even if attacking the ship itself was lawful in a vacuum, it took place before a backdrop of brazen “illegality.”
“This entire shocking episode represents a clear US violation of what the Nuremberg trials identified as the ‘supreme international crime’: the crime of aggression,” she said. “The US had no legal right to go to war against Iran. The [United Nations] Security Council had not authorized the use of force, and there was no ‘armed attack’ from Iran against the US that required immediate self-defense.
“Without either of those, the UN Charter is very clear that no country may attack another country,” she continued. “To do so, as the Nuremberg judges found, constitutes the crime of aggression—the ultimate crime.”
NOTE: This piece has been updated following publication to include additional comments.
President Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk, the widow of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, to be one of 16 people to sit on the Air Force Academy's Board of Visitors.
As a board member, Erika Kirk will make recommendations to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about potential changes at the Air Force Academy. Her husband also served on the board before being assassinated.
"It's imperative that these cadets know that we are the greatest nation ever," Charlie Kirk said during an August board meeting before his death.
A spokesperson for TPUSA told The Denver Gazette that Erika Kirk was not available for comment.
The Gazette noted that the "board did not announce her appointment. But her name now appears on the list of members."
Erika Kirk also took over as CEO of TPUSA following her husband's killing.
A growing problem caused by the strikes on Iran should have been noted before military action was taken, a Nobel Prize winner has claimed.
Paul Krugman suggested the impact of Donald Trump's bombing in the country should have factored into the decision-making, but it does not appear to have had much effect on the choices made by the administration. The economist believes that, had cooler heads prevailed, then the government would have at least prepared for the aftershock of an economic crisis which shows no signs of stopping.
Writing in his Substack, Krugman suggested the Trump admin should have been aware that oil prices would surge following the first strike. He wrote, "The people who decided to begin this war should have seen this coming. All the evidence, however, suggests that they didn’t."
Krugman pointed to Trump's economic gamble as a reason for the worsening oil prices. He added, "Although we import some oil, mainly from Canada and Mexico, while exporting even more oil, mainly from Texas, we buy hardly any oil from the Persian Gulf.
"Yet the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused U.S. prices of oil products to soar. Self-sufficiency in oil has done nothing at all to insulate the U.S. economy from Middle East chaos.
"Now, we should have expected that. Oil is traded on world markets, so the price is more or less the same everywhere. The two most widely watched barometers of oil prices are the West Texas Intermediate price in the United States and Brent crude in Europe.
"America exports more oil than it imports, while Europe is a massive net importer. Yet the two prices have moved in tandem over the years."
While some may be surprised by the price hike, the economist believes there is no insulation that would have prevented the US from being affected by the Strait of Hormuz closure, or the strikes on Iran.
"Some people have been shocked at the way U.S. gasoline, diesel and heating oil prices have soared over the past few days," Krugman wrote, "But they shouldn’t have been surprised.
"In the 1970s the U.S. imposed price controls on domestically produced oil and partially insulated consumers from global oil shocks. Over time, however, these price controls led to shortages — the infamous gasoline lines.
"When price controls were lifted, they were replaced by a windfall profits tax intended to capture part of the gains experienced by oil companies. This tax was repealed after prices plunged in the mid-1980s.
"Whatever you think of these past policies, however, they took place in a political environment in which corporations and moneyed interests in general had far less power than they do now.
"It’s almost inconceivable that 1970s-type price controls or excess profits taxes would be imposed today. So US prices of gasoline and other oil products reflect world crude prices, and the fact that America produces a lot of oil doesn’t matter at all."
Supreme Court justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Brett Kavanaugh sparred publicly on Monday over how the court has repeatedly stepped in to aid policies pushed by President Donald Trump.
The rare exchange occurred during a joint appearance at a federal courthouse event in Washington, D.C., where the two justices discussed the court’s growing use of emergency rulings – often referred to as the “shadow docket,” according to NBC News.
Jackson, who has frequently dissented in such cases, sharply criticized the high court’s increased willingness to intervene early in legal challenges involving the Trump administration.
“I just feel like this uptick in the court's willingness to get involved ... is a real unfortunate problem," Jackson said.
The court’s conservative majority has repeatedly used emergency orders to block lower court rulings that halted parts of Trump’s agenda, including moves allowing the administration to fire thousands of federal workers, assert control over previously independent agencies, and implement elements of the MAGA administration’s immigration policies.
Jackson warned Monday that the court’s practice could also inadvertently signal to lower courts how the Supreme Court might ultimately rule, creating “a warped kind of proceeding,” according to NBC News.
“It's not serving the court or this country well,” the Biden appointee said. Her line drew applause from a packed audience, which included "more than a few" lower court justices, the Wall Street Journal's James Romoser reported.
Kavanaugh defended the court’s actions, arguing that justices must respond when the government files emergency applications.
“None of us enjoy this,” he said, adding that similar requests were made by prior administrations, including during the Biden era.
The public back-and-forth on Monday marked a rare moment between the two sitting justices.
“The justices have aired their disagreements in written opinions, but this was a rare example of two justices entering into a public debate about internal court business,” NBC News reported.
JUST NOW: In joint appearance at D.C. federal courthouse, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson spar over the emergency docket. Even as they touted civility and bonhomie, things got a bit heated as they discussed why emergency appeals are now so central to the court's work. — James Romoser (@jamesromoser) March 9, 2026
A British journalist who had investigated Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell for years revealed that she had been tracked down by a supposed private investigator while in public, bribed with drugs and cash and then sexually assaulted, The Guardian exclusively reported Monday.
That journalist was Lucia Osborne-Crowley, who in 2024 published “The Lasting Harm,” a behind-the-scenes account of Maxwell’s 2021 trial on sex-trafficking charges, including exclusive interviews with alleged victims of Epstein and Maxwell.
It was in September of 2022, Osborne-Crowley told The Guardian, that she flew to Miami, Florida to meet with and interview Carolyn Andriano, a victim whose testimony helped secure Maxwell’s conviction.
The two met at a restaurant in West Palm Beach, during which Andriano told Osborne-Crowley that she had recently been visited by a supposed private investigator appearing to be in his 60s who “had heard she was talking to someone about a book,” The Guardian reported.
After the meeting, it was then that Osborne-Crowley was approached by a stranger in the restaurant, whom she described as a man in his 60s.
“What was she writing, he wanted to know,” The Guardian reported. “He offered her drugs, cash and a meeting with one of Epstein’s pilots, then put his hands under her skirt. When the manager asked him to leave, he waited in the car park; Osborne-Crowley had to escape through a staff exit.”
The bizarre encounter bears hallmarks of other stories shared by those either investigating or alleged victims of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation, with 28 alleged Epstein survivors having signed onto a statement that they had all received death threats. Prominent Epstein investigator Julie K. Brown appeared to have also been monitored amid her investigations into Epstein.
Andriano would ultimately die by overdose in 2023, but before her passing, provided key details in the trial against Maxwell that helped secure her 20-year prison sentence. Andriano also recounted witnessing Virginia Giuffre working for Epstein, another prominent Epstein survivor who died by suicide last year.
The main super PAC supporting Senate Republicans saw a “huge spike” in dark money contributions in 2025, a sign of the massive arsenal the GOP is building to protect its hold on Congress in November’s midterm elections, according to a new report from political reform group Issue One first reported by Raw Story.
As Democrats aim to capitalize on the growing unpopularity of President Donald Trump and his Republican party and regain control of Congress, the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund skyrocketed dark money contributions by 581 percent in 2025 compared to 2023.
Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, said: “When you see an infusion of money like this, that usually means that these big money groups want to make sure that they have all of the resources they can muster to defend seats, to defend candidates, to defend their majority.”
At the same time, Senate Democrats saw a drop in dark money donations, Issue One said.
According to Issue One's analysis of campaign finance reports, in 2025 the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund super PAC brought in $35 million from its affiliated dark money group, One Nation, representing $1 out of every $3 raised.
In 2023, that number was $5.18 million, Beckel said.
Four major super PACs increased 2025 dark money contributions by 65 percent, according to a new report. Graphic: Issue One)
This indicates “just a surge of dark money coming into the main super PAC supporting Senate Republicans at a time when, clearly, there's a lot of political winds blowing that say Democrats have a fighting chance to win the U.S. House of Representatives and maybe even pick up seats in the Senate,” Beckel said.
The four main super PACs focused on electing Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate raised a combined $71 million from dark money sources in 2025: up 65 percent on the same point in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, Issue One said.
“Both sides see this as an arms race where they don't want to put down any weapon, and when you see just huge sums of money coming in to influence elections from unknown donors, that raises serious questions about who's trying to buy access and influence in Washington,” Beckel said.
Republican and Democratic super PACs focused on the House maintained steady growth in dark money contributions, while the Senate Majority PAC, benefitting Democrats, received fewer dark money contributions in 2025, according to the report.
For every $4 raised for the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund, nearly $1 came from dark money group American Action Network, which totaled $17 million in 2025, according to Issue One.
On the Democratic side, about $1 of every $6 raised by the House Majority PAC and about $1 out of every $7 raised for Senate Majority PAC came from dark money group Majority Forward, totaling $11 million and $8 million in 2025.
“We continue to see this escalating arms race, and it's deeply concerning when you've got so much money from unknown donors coming in on both sides of the aisle,” Beckel said.
All four super PACs did not respond to Raw Story’s interview requests or declined to comment.
‘Massive war chest’
Beckel said he anticipates seeing significant amounts of dark money continuing to flow into these super PACs, especially around Senate races.
“There's going to be a huge battle over control of not just the House but the Senate, and wealthy donors who are evading the spotlight are helping Senate Republicans raise a massive war chest through their super PAC to defend those seats,” Beckel said.
Super PACs received massive dark money contributions ahead of 2024 election. Graphic: Issue One.
Among Senate seats not up for re-election this year, Democrats hold 34 and Republicans 31.
Two Democratic seats, held by Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia and in Michigan by retiring Sen. Gary Peters, and two Republican seats, held by Sen. Susan Collins in Maine and the North Carolina seat held by retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, are true toss-ups, according to the Cook Political Report.
Democrats’ narrow path to regain the Senate majority would require picking up seats in Alaska, North Carolina, Ohio and Maine, according to Cook.
During the 2023-24 election cycle, the four super PACs raised about $1 of every $5 from dark money groups. Dark money accounted for 21 percent of contributions to both parties’ Senate-focused PACs for the 2024 election, according to Issue One.
Issue One supports the DISCLOSE Act, legislation focused on increasing transparency and curbing the influence of dark money, which House and Senate Democrats reintroduced on Wednesday.
But with such a deeply divided Congress, Beckel said Issue One is focused on state-level reforms to reel in unlimited spending on elections by corporations and outside groups enabled by Citizens United.
“The warning here is that money from anonymous sources continues to play a major role in our elections, and I think voters all across the political spectrum are … deeply concerned and fed up about the amount of dark money that they're seeing in elections,” Beckel said.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) admitted on Fox News Sunday night that the Republican Party was “underwater” with Americans on the issue of immigration – once one of the party’s strongest issues – but pivoted to blame Democrats for the GOP’s poor polling performance.
“How can we get the numbers switched on immigration?” asked Fox News host Trey Gowdy, a former Republican lawmaker himself. “Trump closed the border, and yet we're underwater on that issue!”
The leader of the Republican Party, President Donald Trump, has seen his support on immigration tank among voters, particularly among independent voters. According to an NBC News poll from last month, 60% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, a dramatic increase from the 49% who disapproved last June.
While the drop in support for the president on immigration has coincided with his administration’s aggressive and deadly immigration enforcement operations, Ernst instead moved to blame her Democratic colleagues.
“We are underwater on that issue, but we have to come together – both Democrats and Republicans – and find a way forward on this,” Ernst said.
“So much can be done on this if only Democrats will want to come to the table, but they've demonstrated – whether it's DHS or anything else – that they just simply despise the president so much they don't want to do the right thing for our country.”
Trump’s plummeting support on immigration was even reflected in a batch of private GOP polling data obtained by Axios in January, which revealed that 60% of independent voters disapproved of Trump’s immigration policy, polling that was conducted before the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
More than 328,000 migrants have been arrested during the second Trump administration, more than 73% of whom have no criminal record, a stark contrast to Trump’s pledge to target only the “worst of the worst.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sparked a frenzy on Sunday after making a startling admission as to President Donald Trump’s plans for the ongoing U.S.-Israel military siege on Iran.
“Mothers out there are worried that we’re going to have a draft, that they’re going to see their sons and daughters get involved in this,” said Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, speaking with Leavitt Sunday. “What do you want to say about the president’s plans for troops on the ground? As we know, it’s been largely an air campaign up until now.”
In a stunning admission, Leavitt told Bartiromo that mandatory conscription – not seen since the Vietnam War – had not been ruled out by her boss.
“It has been, and it will continue to be, and President Trump wisely does not remove options off of the table,” Leavitt said.
“I know a lot of politicians like to do that quickly, but the president, as commander in chief, wants to continue to assess the success of this military operation. It’s not part of the current plan right now, but the president, again, wisely keeps his options on the table.”
Leavitt’s remarks sent immediate shockwaves among critics, many of whom took her comments as a sign that conscription was imminent.
“Karoline Leavitt refuses to rule out INITIATING A DRAFT to send Americans to fight in Iran!” wrote the progressive political activism organization Call to Activism Sunday in a social media post on X to their more than 1.2 million followers. “Translation: they won’t even promise your kids aren’t next.”
Mats Nilsson, a geopolitical commentator and author, suggested that a draft would tank the Republican Party’s future political prospects even further, with the GOP already on track for a difficult uphill battle in the upcoming midterm elections.
“Karoline Leavitt refusing to rule out a Draft,” Nilsson wrote Sunday in a social media post on X. “Once the Congressman's and Ivy League parent's children get drafted it'll be a whole other ballgame.”
And X user “AnatolijUkraine,” a purported Ukrainian-born political commentator, bluntly called Leavitt’s admission “unbelievable.”
“They may not be saying the word ‘draft’ out loud, but when they refuse to rule out sending Americans into Iran and keep insisting every option stays on the table, the message is clear enough: your kids are part of the gamble now,” they wrote Sunday in a social media post on X.
Unbelievable.
They may not be saying the word “draft” out loud, but when they refuse to rule out sending Americans into Iran and keep insisting every option stays on the table, the message is clear enough: your kids are part of the gamble now.
Retired Lt. Col. Ivan Raiklin and self-styled "secretary of retribution" Ivan Raiklin at the Republican National Convention (Jordan Green/Raw Story) 
Trump supporters storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/TNS 
Four major super PACs increased 2025 dark money contributions by 65 percent, according to a new report. Graphic: Issue One)
Super PACs received massive dark money contributions ahead of 2024 election. Graphic: Issue One.