A winery co-owned by the husband of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was shuttered amid fraud claims, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said.
Comer said over the weekend that the winery had been selling empty barrels to investors under the guise of "wine to be aged."
"I can tell you from our initial investigation of Omar and her financial disclosure form that there are multiple fronts where you could get a search warrant issued," Comer told Trey Gowdy on Fox News' "Sunday Night in America."
"First of all, not only was there a huge discrepancy in the financial disclosure form, there was the winery that was the big base of her $25 million listing on her financial disclosure form. That winery has, according to the press, been shut down because of fraud."
ILHAN OMAR’S EMBATTLED HUSBAND APPEARS AT SCENE OF HSI RAID IN MIDST OF CRIMINAL FRAUD INVESTIGATION
The winery, co-owned by the congresswoman's husband, Tim Mynett, shut down in April this year amid congressional scrutiny over Omar's finances.
His and his business partner's lawyers told the Minnesota Reformer, "Any suggestion that Will or Tim deliberately defrauded investors or otherwise consciously conspired to rip people off would be false and defamatory."
The revelation is not new, but it's one of several details that have resurfaced in recent days amid a federal probe into Omar's citizenship in the U.S.
Federal law enforcement executed a search warrant at her D.C. home earlier this month. The operation was linked to allegations that she and her father misrepresented the congresswoman's age to more easily obtain American citizenship.
REP ILHAN OMAR'S IMMIGRATION HISTORY FACES NEW SCRUTINY AS FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS SUBPOENA RELATIVES
Omar's critics, like House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., have called for the progressive Democrat to be deported if the allegations were proved true.
She and her allies have denied wrongdoing and attacked the investigation as a partisan hit job against one of President Donald Trump's most vocal opponents.
But it's not the first time Omar has faced accusations of impropriety as a member of Congress.
The House Oversight Committee had earlier probed Omar's finances after her public disclosures showed a rapid, and at the time unexplained, increase in her net worth. Omar previously chalked up the discrepancy to an accidental accounting error.
Comer zeroed in on the winery in a February letter sent just weeks before the business closed down.
He wrote to Mynett that Omar's 2023 financial disclosure forms "lists a stake in your winery eStCru worth between $15,001 and $50,000." The following year, her financial disclosure form listed a stake in eStCru "worth between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000."
TRUMP RALLY CROWD CHANTS 'DEPORT' AS PRESIDENT RIPS ILHAN OMAR AFTER FEDERAL RAID
"There are serious public concerns about how your businesses increased so dramatically in value only a year after reporting very limited assets," the letter said.
Omar told The Wall Street Journal in mid-April that she and her husband have less than $100,000 combined.
The winery, eStCru, was based in California and was founded in 2020 by Mynett and a business partner. The industry outlet Wine Business named it one of its "Hot Brands of 2022."
When asked about the probe, a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee pointed out to Fox News Digital that Comer had referred the case of Omar's finances to the House Ethics Committee for review.
"Regarding the investigation into her spouse, the House Oversight Committee referred the matter months ago to the House Ethics Committee and encouraged it to do its job and review the concerning allegations," the spokesperson said.
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The bipartisan panel is tasked with investigating accusations of impropriety by lawmakers and recommending punishments if those probes turn up wrongdoing. It has not yet taken up Omar's case.
Fox News Digital reached out to Rose Lake Capital, another venture by Mynett and his business partner, for comment on Comer's remarks.
This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 18 episode of “Connect with Jacob Soboroff.”
According to a new Fox News poll, government corruption has now edged out inflation as voters’ top concern: 60% say they’re “extremely concerned” about the issue, compared with 58% who say the same about inflation.
America’s worry about government corruption shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been following this administration. And millions of Americans are still struggling to pay for the basics while the scandals keep raining down at our collective expense. At this rate, it feels like we’re seeing a new scandal or two every week.
Case in point: Last week federal agents carried out a raid of Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home at 6 a.m., taking with them boxes marked “Seized Property Evidence.” They also took her phone and passport.
You don’t need an actual conviction; you just need the performance: the raid, the headlines, the harassment of anyone who speaks out.
The search warrant listed potential violations involving immigration fraud, false statements in immigration proceedings, and conspiracy; but it didn’t identify any alleged crimes that appear to relate to Omar’s financial disclosures. Three people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that the investigation centers around claims that Omar or her late father may have lied on decades-old immigration paperwork to secure legal status. Omar became a naturalized citizen in 2000, when she was 17 — nearly three decades ago.
According to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the probe who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, the goal is to build a case to revoke the congresswoman’s citizenship and eventually deport her.
This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has tried to make her citizenship an issue. The Post reports that in 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term, immigration officials examined many of these same questions, including Omar’s birth date and her father’s military record in Somalia. At the time, officials found insufficient evidence of wrongdoing to warrant a full investigation.
The Wall Street Journal reported the Biden administration also looked into a similar tip but did not move forward because it lacked evidence.
Former immigration officials say it’s highly unusual for an investigation like this to involve a search warrant, particularly when the government already has the immigration records.
So why raid her home? Like so much else with this administration, the spectacle and the intimidation appear to be the point. Not to mention the fact that we are about three weeks out from an election, and Omar is on the ballot.
On Friday, Omar’s lawyers blasted the raid in a letter to prosecutors, writing, “This vindictive, retributive, and politically motivated criminal investigation into one of the President’s chief congressional critics violates Representative Omar’s constitutional rights and threatens the separation of powers.” They say the search deviated from the specific procedures mandated by the judge who approved the warrant and violated specific restrictions meant to protect Omar’s legislative work.
According to her attorneys, agents were required to give them a copy of the warrant and to contact the House of Representatives’ own lawyers before conducting the search. They say agents did neither. The letter also states that Omar was prevented from contacting her lawyers for more than an hour after the search began.
A Justice Department spokesperson disputed the lawyers’ claim and said the letter was “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies.”
In a statement on X, Omar said she would “not be silenced.” Adding, “This is just the latest escalation in [Trump’s] campaign of political intimidation.”
This is the authoritarian playbook at work. You don’t need an actual conviction; you just need the performance of the raid, the headlines, the harassment of anyone who speaks out. The investigations and the headlines become a substitute for due process. The spectacle itself sends a message: guilty until proven innocent.
If they can do this to Omar, the administration can do it to anyone. Omar is a sitting member of Congress. She has lawyers, a national platform and constitutional protections for her legislative work. If a sitting lawmaker can have her passport seized over paperwork dating back to her teenage years, what chance does a naturalized nurse in Minneapolis have? Or a cab driver in Chicago?
As The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg wrote, Trump’s government “is tacitly declaring the citizenship of all foreign-born people provisional.”
And Omar may not be the last; Tennessee Republican Rep. Andy Ogles has already asked the Justice Department to review the naturalization documents of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Look at the calendar. The raid on Omar’s home comes just over three weeks before the midterms. Historically, the Justice Department has treated searches involving political candidates and their associates as precisely the kind of step to avoid in the 60 days before an election. Omar’s lawyers say this search violated that policy. The department claims prosecutors cleared it through an internal review.
On the same day as the raid on Omar’s home, Trump mentioned her name at a rally in Ohio while his supporters chanted “deport.” Earlier that day, he claimed he had “nothing to do” with the search.
On the one hand, voters told Fox News their biggest concern is government corruption. On the other, this is an administration that wants you to worry about decades-old paperwork about a teenager’s age.
It appears the Trump White House response to growing concerns about corruption is to engage in more of it.
Allison Detzel contributed.
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The telephone conversation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, 20 October, has exposed an increasingly uncomfortable contradiction in American policy towards Russia. While President Donald Trump is easing economic pressure on Moscow and attempting to restrain Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, senior members of his administration are having to address the consequences for Ukraine’s defence.
Zelenskyy raised three immediate concerns: the availability of Patriot interceptor missiles, interruptions to American early-warning intelligence concerning Russian ballistic attacks, and restrictions affecting Starlink and Starshield satellite communications. He described the discussion as constructive, expressing appreciation for Rubio’s willingness to help.
The significance lies less in the diplomatic language than in the circumstances surrounding the call. Washington is attempting to obtain concessions from Moscow while several of its own decisions have weakened confidence in the security arrangements on which Kyiv depends. Rubio’s involvement suggests that these difficulties cannot simply be left unresolved while Trump’s envoys pursue another round of negotiations.
Trump’s recent decisions concerning Russian energy exports have brought an existing disagreement over Ukraine into American domestic politics.
The administration has facilitated Russian diesel exports and waived new sanctions under the Graham Act, legislation intended to increase pressure on Russia and its principal energy customers. Rubio has said the president will use a 60-day period to assess the economic consequences of implementing the measures.
For Trump, the immediate attraction is apparent. Rising fuel prices have become a political liability ahead of the 3 November congressional midterm elections. Increasing supplies on international markets offers the administration a potential means of relieving pressure on American consumers.
The difficulty is that concessions to Vladimir Putin carry their own electoral consequences. Moscow remains deeply unpopular among substantial sections of the American political establishment, including Republicans who regard support for Ukraine as a matter of American strategic interest.
That opposition is no longer confined to public criticism. Republican senators have joined Democrats in challenging decisions affecting Ukraine’s military capabilities, creating an additional problem for an administration already facing a difficult electoral environment.
Trump can justify Russian energy concessions as an attempt to protect American consumers. Explaining why Ukraine should simultaneously experience interruptions to critical defence systems is considerably more difficult.
Rubio’s position within the administration is particularly important. As both Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, he occupies two offices central to the formulation and execution of American foreign policy.
His conversation with Zelenskyy took place during a diplomatic tour of Uzbekistan and India, demonstrating that the deterioration in relations with Kyiv required attention even while the administration was pursuing other international priorities.
It would be premature to interpret Rubio’s intervention as evidence of an independent foreign policy. There is no indication that he is acting against Trump’s instructions. The more plausible interpretation is that the administration recognises a need to contain the consequences of its recent decisions without requiring the president publicly to reverse his position.
The controversy surrounding Starshield is particularly revealing. Reuters reported that instructions to restrict the satellite service used by Ukrainian forces originated inside the White House. The officials cited did not identify who authorised the order, while the administration has denied Trump’s personal involvement.
Separately, Zelenskyy has reported failures to receive advance warnings of Russian ballistic attacks. The cause of those interruptions remains disputed.
These developments have already attracted congressional scrutiny. Republican Senator Thom Tillis and Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen led a bipartisan request for an investigation, warning that failures in communications and intelligence-sharing may have endangered American personnel in Ukraine.
Congress cannot directly manage the administration’s foreign policy. Nevertheless, its powers over expenditure, legislation and oversight make sustained opposition politically consequential, particularly when members of the president’s own party are involved.
The immediate requirements in Kyiv are considerably more specific than the objectives being discussed in Washington’s diplomatic negotiations.
Ukraine needs reliable satellite communications, uninterrupted intelligence concerning incoming missiles and sufficient Patriot interceptors to defend its cities and critical infrastructure. Delays in any of these areas have consequences that cannot be addressed through declarations about a future peace settlement.
The shortage of Patriot missiles is particularly serious. Zelenskyy has complained that American authorisation is delaying deliveries under arrangements financed by European governments. Washington’s commitments elsewhere, including the Middle East, add further pressure to American air-defence inventories.
Meanwhile, preparations for new negotiations in Oslo involving American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner continue. The involvement of European leaders may broaden the diplomatic discussion, but it does not resolve the central obstacle: Putin has offered no convincing indication that he is prepared to end the invasion on terms acceptable to Ukraine.
Proposals concerning Ukrainian elections, NATO membership or alternative negotiating arrangements remain subordinate to that problem. Without a ceasefire that can be enforced, even an agreement on the political framework for peace would leave fundamental questions of security unanswered.
Trump retains substantial authority over American sanctions, military assistance and diplomatic engagement. Yet his ability to offer Moscow meaningful concessions is constrained by several factors beyond his immediate control.
Congress can challenge further attempts to weaken sanctions or restrict assistance. European governments maintain their own sanctions regimes and are not obliged to follow Washington’s approach. Ukraine retains considerable military capacity, including the ability to attack Russian energy facilities that contribute to financing the war.
Nor can the American president compel Putin to accept a settlement. If Russia calculates that continuing military operations offers greater advantages than negotiations, additional concessions from Washington may encourage Moscow to prolong the conflict rather than end it.
Rubio’s conversation with Zelenskyy therefore suggests that the administration is being forced to confront the practical consequences of its policy. An American president may seek improved relations with Moscow, but the institutional interests of the United States do not necessarily change with his personal diplomatic priorities.
For Kyiv, the question is whether those interests will translate into the continued supply of weapons, intelligence and communications support. Russia’s attacks will continue irrespective of the timetable established for American diplomatic initiatives.
Last week, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin came to the University of Chicago to send a message to young conservatives: stay out of government, or else.
The visit came with little attention initially. Senator Slotkin chose her words carefully. She talked about fighting for the middle class, criticized President Trump’s economic policies and kept her name in the running for president in 2028.
But, buried between her typical politician-speak, she made a clear threat towards young conservatives. Asked whether she wanted to impeach the president, she pivoted and spoke of effectiveness. She thought the 67-vote threshold for conviction in the Senate was too hard to meet, so instead the best course of action would be to go after the people around the president. That way, young people who may be interested in working in the Trump administration would say, "Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, so let me avoid participating in that."
MIKE DAVIS: SEN SLOTKIN REVEALS HER INSIDIOUS SCHEME TO TARGET YOUNG CONSERVATIVES
That threat felt personal to me. When I was in high school, I served as a United States Senate page. For those unfamiliar with the program, it selects 30 juniors from across the country to spend a semester going to school and working in the Senate. I did my math homework on the Senate floor when Congress was out of session and ran around delivering messages and papers during session. I made many of my closest friends during that program, few of whom share my viewpoints on politics. And I gained a deep respect for the body I worked for.
When I completed the program, my friends and family asked me whether I felt more optimistic or pessimistic about our government. The news coming out of Washington was so bad, they just assumed it would be pessimistic; they were interested in stories about senators yelling at one another and fighting to the death in meaningless partisan battles.
But I came out of that program more optimistic than ever. Top of the list of reasons was that no matter their political allegiance, senators encouraged us — a group of impressionable high schoolers — to go into politics and make our voices heard. I was excited about the prospect that I could really make a difference in the future of our country.
Hearing Senator Slotkin’s comments, I am left wondering whether that impression was incorrect.
But I choose to believe that the United States Senate can still be the world’s greatest deliberative body and that young people can, in fact, have a say in our shared future. Senator Slotkin’s remarks should be an exception to how the Senate operates, not the rule.
Thankfully, her threat could not have come at a more prescient time. The midterms are only two weeks away. Senator Slotkin’s words are not empty; they are a game plan for what Democrats will do if they retake power in Congress this November. Unfortunately, running that game plan will come at the expense of young men and women interested in serving their country. More still, in that very same discussion, Senator Slotkin left the door open to running for president in 2028. It is far from inconceivable that two years from now, we’ll be welcoming President-elect Slotkin into the Oval Office.
That is why it is more important than ever that young conservatives speak out and show up. It doesn’t matter whether you have a Ph.D. from Harvard or dropped out of high school — your voice matters in this country. If you love our country and have the capacity to serve in government, I encourage you to do so.
I recognize that that is not an easy ask. If Senator Slotkin is serious — and there is little reason to think she is not — serving your country will come at a great personal cost. Some very powerful people will seek to make you a pariah, as the host remarked to Senator Slotkin during her interview. And during the Biden administration, Democrats in the White House and Congress did so to many young conservatives. And one cannot forget Charlie Kirk’s assassination last September at the hands of a radical gunman.
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But the hardest fights are also the most important ones to win. Should our government fall into the hands of those who seek power for revenge and target the weak, our fates will be at the will of tyrants.
Preventing such a future requires the involvement of young people. John Adams once remarked to a crowd of young patriots in Philadelphia, "America and the world will look to our youth as one of our firmest bulwarks." 250 years after our nation’s founding, Adams’s words ring more true than ever before.
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So, do not cower in the face of Senator Slotkin’s threats. In fact, take her threats as a reason to serve our country. I sincerely believe that the fate of our Republic depends on it.
The U.S. Supreme Court's 2026–2027 term just got a whole lot boozier. On Monday, the justices agreed to hear arguments later this year or next in the case of Department of Justice v. McNutt. At issue is whether the 1868 federal ban on distilling liquor at home is unconstitutional because it exceeds the lawful regulatory power of the federal government. If any modern Supreme Court case ever deserved its own drinking game, this one is it.
In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit found the federal ban on home distilling to be unconstitutional because Congress lacked the proper authority to issue such a ban in the first place. It was not a legitimate exercise of the congressional authority "To Lay and collect Taxes," the appellate court reasoned, because "the purpose of a tax is to raise revenue for the government;" yet this law "amount[s] to an anti-revenue provision" that only "prevents distilled spirits from coming into existence." And if it does not exist, of course, the government cannot tax it.
The 5th Circuit also denied that the federal ban on home distilling could be saved by the government's appeal to the Necessary and Proper Clause, which says that Congress has the authority "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
But the federal ban on home distilling cannot be "necessary" to the execution of the enumerated taxing power, the 5th Circuit argued, because the provisions of federal law at issue "tax nothing, and are distinct from the regulation of distilling alcoholic products that is permitted by federal tax law."
Nor did the 5th Circuit find the ban to be "proper." "By purporting to ban activity without a plain connection to the exercise of Congress's taxation power," it held, "Congress has essentially—and 'improperly'—invaded the reserved police and regulatory power of the states."
The Trump administration lost this case at the 5th Circuit and has now successfully urged the justices to hear its appeal. In its petition seeking review, the Trump administration faulted the 5th Circuit for its overeagerness to "second-guess" the "legislative judgment" of Congress. Instead, the Trump administration argued, the federal judiciary owes a great deal more deference to the federal government's regulatory priorities in a case like this. "A law is necessary and proper if it is 'convenient' or 'useful' for carrying an enumerated power into effect, and 'plainly adapted' to that legitimate end," the Justice Department's brief argued. "That is the case here."
This case may lead to an interesting divide among the Supreme Court's more conservative members. In United States v. Comstock (2010), a 7–2 Supreme Court embraced the Necessary and Proper Clause as sufficient constitutional grounding for the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which had empowered federal officials to order the indefinite civil commitment of "sexually dangerous" individuals who had already finished serving their prison sentences. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the majority opinion in that case, while Justice Samuel Alito voted in concurrence. In other words, they both endorsed a broad view of congressional power under the Necessary and Proper Clause. By contrast, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, voted in dissent. The Comstock ruling, Thomas protested, "comes perilously close to transforming the Necessary and Proper Clause into a basis for the federal police power that 'we always have rejected.'"
Are we about to see a similar Alito-Thomas split over the proper reach of federal power in this case? And what about Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh? Will one or more of them play the Scalia part and similarly reject the Trump administration's broad reading of the Necessary and Proper Clause?
Stay tuned.
The post Trump Administration Urges SCOTUS To Uphold Federal Ban on Distilling Liquor at Home appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Republican lawmakers are frustrated that President Donald Trump has paused new sanctions on Russia’s economy, all but ignoring a measure he signed into law just a month ago.
What’s less clear is what exactly they plan to do about it.
Trump paused the sanctions by executive order Friday, and the backlash grew as lawmakers questioned why Ukraine’s access to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service was disrupted.
Few Republicans have been as forceful, or as specific, as Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., who vowed Monday that Congress would punish the administration. He spoke to MS NOW after joining a bipartisan call between lawmakers and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“There have not been sufficient answers forthcoming from the administration,” Fitzpatrick said Monday. “And you better well damn believe that we’re going to demand them. We’re going to demand accountability. And these are not just words; they’re not just hearings. We’re going to take budgetary action — punitive budgetary action — until we get to the truth, until this is fixed.”
Fitzpatrick said the administration wouldn’t get a pass on the satellite disruptions, either. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Saturday that the U.S. government had nothing to do with the problems affecting Starlink, SpaceX’s commercial service, and that Ukraine did not have access to Starshield, the company’s military-controlled counterpart. Democratic lawmakers have sought more information on whether the disruption originated with the U.S. government or with SpaceX.
“It’s not enough to say you had nothing to do with it,” Fitzpatrick said. “You need to tell us who did, right? So if he’s saying he had nothing to do with it, he’s the president. He can find out who did.”
Rubio also said that, to his knowledge, Starlink was working. But Zelenskyy told a bipartisan group of lawmakers on a video call Monday that the service remains degraded, according to a joint statement from Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C. Zelenskyy “also reported disruptions to U.S. intelligence sharing concerning early warning of Russian ballistic missile launches,” the senators said.
“This is wildly unacceptable, and it’s not going to stand,” Fitzpatrick said. “There’s going to be consequences to this. And by the way, it’s not just Starshield. It’s the diesel deal. It’s the lifting of sanctions. It’s all of this stuff.”
Making good on those threats will require help from other lawmakers. An opening for “punitive budgetary action” could come during the lame-duck session, when Congress faces a Dec. 11 government funding deadline and aims to pass the annual defense authorization bill. But no specific plan has taken shape.
Other Republicans have objected to both the sanctions pause and the Starlink disruptions, but few have threatened consequences.
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that “there needs to be an investigation” by Congress into Starlink disruptions. But he stopped short of threatening to hold up the rest of Trump’s legislative agenda during the lame-duck session, saying there was no need for brinksmanship.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., a member of Senate Republican leadership, told reporters Monday that she disagreed with the decision to waive the sanctions. Lawmakers had “waited for a while” to set the sanctions deadline at a time Trump preferred, she said, only for him to ignore the law.
“We had timed this to when the president and the White House felt it was a good time to move forward with this so the work could be effective,” Capito said. “That’s why I think I was extremely surprised when he did it.”
But Capito didn’t commit to any specific response. Asked about a possible investigation into the Starlink disruptions, she cited Rubio’s assertion that the problems had been resolved and said the relevant information would “all come out.”
Pressed on whether Congress should take further action on the sanctions, she pointed to the upcoming election.
“It’s going to be difficult to say anything in the next two weeks that’s going to make any kind of difference,” she said.
Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Texas, also disagreed with the waiver but said he would defer to the president.
“I personally am not for that, but, you know, he’s in discussions at a much higher level than I am,” Goldman told reporters. “But no, I certainly would be in favor of keeping those sanctions on Russia until the war is over.”
Asked whether any committees should investigate the Starlink disruption, Goldman said, “Oh, I’m not going to tell any chairman how to run the committee.”
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., criticized Trump’s decision at a discussion hosted by the Edward M. Kennedy Institute on Monday, but she didn’t call for Congress to act.
“I want to see us use the economic firepower that we have,” Britt said. “I want to see that peace through strength. I believe that Russia is at the weakest point that they have been in this war. I believe we are at that moment where, if we are able to utilize those tools, we can drive Putin to the table, driving him to the table, ending this war.”
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, led a delegation of lawmakers to meet with Zelenskyy in Ukraine last week. In a statement Sunday, he said Zelenskyy would be willing to halt strikes on Russian petroleum infrastructure in exchange for U.S. targeting assistance to counter Russian missiles.
Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., pointed out that her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, negotiated the sanctions bill before his death in July. She said she wanted the sanctions to stay in place and planned to talk to Trump when he visits South Carolina on the campaign trail.
“The president and I share the same goal, which is to end the war, get gas and diesel prices down, and the sanctions bill is one of the tools he can use to do that,” Graham told reporters on Saturday. “It’s up to him whether or not he chooses to use it.”
The post ‘Wildly unacceptable’: Trump’s moves on Russia are testing GOP patience appeared first on MS NOW.
Envelopes containing powder come weeks before midterms as federal agents try to identify who is behind campaign
More than three dozen members of US Congress have had their offices targeted with envelopes containing white powder, less than three weeks before the 3 November midterms, as federal agents try to identify who is behind the campaign.
The latest is the Virginia Democrat Suhas Subramanyam, whose Leesburg district office was evacuated on Monday after an envelope containing a suspicious substance arrived. He said the office was cleared quickly, adding that “acts of political intimidation have no place in our country”.
Continue reading...
© Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters
© Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters
© Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters
Donald Trump’s name is not on any ballot on Nov. 3, yet much of the U.S. electorate will head to the polls with him in mind.
A national poll released Sunday, Oct. 18, and conducted Oct. 9-13, puts his approval rating at 33%, the lowest the series has recorded in either of his terms. Two in three adults disapprove of his performance, 52% strongly, and the same survey had him at 37% in both April and July.
RELATED: Trump Approval Falls to New Low of 33% Two Weeks Before Midterms
The poll also asked whether the next Congress should act as a check on the president or support his agenda. Fifty-eight percent preferred a Democratic-controlled Congress as a check on him, compared with 39% who want a Republican Congress aligned with the White House, a gap nearly twice as wide as a year ago. Neither party is calling this election a referendum, but the answer brings it close to one.
Almost six out of ten U.S. citizens want the next Congress to counterbalance Trump, a gap that has nearly doubled in one year. Graph: teleSUR
In the race for the House of Representatives, Democrats lead Republicans 52% to 44% among likely voters. Among registered voters the gap holds at eight points; in July it was three.
Other surveys tell the same story. An earlier Ipsos poll put him at 32% in September, and the Pew Research Center had him at 30% in early October. The slide deepened after February, when the war with Iran began.
Between the first bombings on Iran and the election, gasoline soared above 4 dollars and Trump’s approval rating plummeted. Graph: teleSUR
The United States and Israel began bombing Iran in February, when a gallon of regular gasoline cost an average of $2.98, according to AAA. By late March it had topped $4 for the first time since 2022, and each new round of strikes pushed it back up. On Oct. 1, the national average hit $4.41.
At those prices, filling a 15-gallon tank costs about $21 more than before the war.
With Ormuz declared closed by Iran and no oil pipelines capable of replacing it, the gallon rose 48% in the US even with record crude production. Graph: teleSUR
In February, 7 in 10 U.S. citizens considered gasoline affordable. Eight months later, the same share says the opposite.
About a fifth of the oil the world consumes passes through the Strait of Hormuz. According to the official price index for September, consumer prices rose 3.7% over the year, energy 20.4% and gasoline 34.2%, while inflation excluding food and energy stood at 2.6%. Today, 65% of U.S. citizens believe attacking Iran was a mistake.
Tehran declared the strait closed in March and has reaffirmed that stance several times since. In October, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, chief of staff of Iran’s army, told the official IRNA news agency that the waterway remains closed and that all transit must be coordinated with the armed forces, and he blamed the closure for the rise in U.S. gasoline prices.
Washington says otherwise. On Oct. 7, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that “the Straits of Hormuz are open,” that as much oil is flowing out now “as there was before this conflict began” and that Iran has “lost complete control of the straits.” Overland routes cannot replace the strait either. Before the war, the EIA estimated that the Saudi and Emirati pipelines that bypass Hormuz had only about 2.6 million barrels a day of spare capacity to divert crude, compared with the 20 million barrels a day that moved through the strait.
Ten days later, Vice President JD Vance revealed another side of the same administration. “I recognize that gas prices are too high right now,” he said Saturday night at a televised town hall. Asked why the war had not ended in a clear victory, he said that “in some ways we have won decisively,” though “the enemy gets a vote.” And he repeated that Iran, “the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world,” cannot have a nuclear weapon.
On the campaign trail, the fix being sold in Washington points elsewhere. In a poll of 1,000 likely voters taken in early October, four in five agreed that increasing U.S. energy production “can help make everyday life more affordable,” and 67% backed a proposal whose wording already promised the result, “updating federal permitting laws to reduce delays and lower costs.” It is the same reform the oil industry pitches as the key to affordability.
The government’s own energy agency supplies the missing piece. The United States has been the world’s largest crude oil producer since 2018 and is on track for a record of about 13.7 million barrels a day this year, while 84% of the crude that crossed Hormuz was bound for Asia. With output at record highs, gasoline has risen 48% since the bombing began. Crude is priced on a global market, and this year’s price spikes followed the calendar of the war, not the permitting calendar.
The price shock reached much of the world, and Latin American economies that import refined fuels absorbed it without having had any say in the decision to go to war. For those countries, the permitting fight in Washington is a distant concern; the price of their diesel depends on what happens in Hormuz. How much room Washington has to keep waging the war without congressional oversight will also be decided on Nov. 3.
For Latin American families living in the United States, the most visible face of the second term is immigration policy. At the start, half the country approved of it; now about 60% disapprove, and 56% say deportations have gone too far, eight points more than in April 2025. At the same town hall, Vance acknowledged that his rhetoric about immigrants had been “imperfect” and took the blame. “That’s on me,” he said. His goal, he insisted, is not “to dehumanize any immigrant.” “In fact, I love a number of immigrants,” he added.
The president’s approval on the economy has fallen to 28%, its lowest mark across his two presidencies. Forty-eight percent feel worse off than when Trump returned to the White House in 2025, the highest share in a series dating back to 1986, and for the first time in more than a decade, registered voters trust Democrats more to handle the economy, 40% to 33%. Before the 2022 midterms, the same series gave Republicans a double-digit edge on the issue.
That year, with Joe Biden in the White House, each party’s verdict on the economy was the mirror image of today’s, almost point for point, and independents stood at 16% in both surveys.
Democrats and Republicans reversed their judgment of the economy by changing government, meanwhile only independents stayed where they were. Graph: teleSUR
Voters who wear no team colors are moved by their wallets. In the October survey of likely voters, 37% said a candidate’s stance on affordability will decide their vote for Congress, more than double the 15% who put immigration first, an issue central to Trump’s 2024 campaign. That priority is shared by 43% of Democrats, 36% of independents and 32% of Republicans.
Among those who say they are worse off than in 2025, 78% lean toward Democrats, as do 71% of independents in that group.
Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, are now 30 to 45 years old and make up the largest adult generation in the country. In 2024 they split almost evenly on Trump; exit polls showed voters ages 30 to 44 backing Kamala Harris over him 51% to 47%.
A YouGov poll conducted Aug. 28-31 found 27% approval and 70% disapproval in that age group, the group’s worst showing in the series. Its net rating went from minus 1 in January 2025 to minus 43 in August, a 42-point drop, compared with 30 points nationally.
The Economist makes the opposite case. It argues that millennials have turned their fortunes around and now earn more than any recent generation did at the same age, while narrowing the gap in homeownership. The magazine credits the recovery to markets rather than to a state-funded rescue. October’s polls show what that narrative leaves out.
In the House race, the Pew Research Center found voters ages 30 to 49 favoring the Democratic candidate 43% to 31%, with one in five still undecided.
October’s affordability survey, broken down by age, points in the same direction. Affordability will decide the vote of 45% of voters in their 30s and 44% of those in their 40s, above the 37% average. This is the cohort that entered the job market in the 2008 crisis, pays rent or a mortgage, raises children and fills the tank every day to get to work, and the tank is precisely where prices have climbed the most this year.
The cost of living defines the vote of almost half of voters aged 30-49, above the national average of 37%. Graph: teleSUR
The figures come from surveys with different age brackets and do not prove a single cause. Read together, though, they show the country’s largest generation turning away from Trump faster than everyone else, with the cost of living at the top of its priorities.
RELATED: U.S. Retail Sales Up in September Amid Surging Gas Prices
Among those who voted for Trump in 2024, 23% now disapprove of his performance and 38% reject his handling of inflation. Most of them still prefer Republicans for Congress, so the erosion does not take the form of a switch to the other party. What they have lost is the certainty that they will vote.
Seventy-five percent of registered Democrats say they are certain to vote, compared with 67% of Republicans. Within the Republican Party, certainty reaches 75% among supporters of the MAGA movement and falls to 57% among those who do not identify with it, and more than a quarter of the latter want Democrats to control the next Congress.
Only 39% of Republicans strongly approve of the president, down from 63% in February 2025.
How many of the 77 million people who voted for Trump in 2024 will return to the polls without his name on the ballot is a question no one can answer yet. Turnout models based on 2022 and 2024 favor Republicans; votes already cast or locked in, by contrast, favor Democrats.
The risk for Republicans is at home. Their MAGA-unaffiliated voters are the least confident of going to the polls. Graph: teleSUR
With the slim House majority Republicans are defending, losing a handful of seats would be enough to hand over control, and presidential approval is among the best predictors of midterm results. Even so, 58% of likely voters who “somewhat” disapprove of Trump still prefer the Republican in their district.
The Senate is split 53-47 in Republicans’ favor, and Democrats need a net gain of four seats to win back the majority. Of the 35 seats on the ballot, seven are rated toss-ups, and six of them — in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas — are held by Republicans. North Carolina, a Republican seat, is already rated as likely to go Democratic.
The seven states that decided the last presidential election — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — offer an early clue about 2028. Trump carried all seven in 2024, and today his net approval is negative in every one of them, between 15 and 25 points underwater among registered voters, according to the Civiqs tracker. He cannot run in 2028, and those numbers measure a president, not his successor, but they map the terrain his party will inherit.
Six of the seven open Senate races are played in Republican seats, while their approval is now negative in the seven states that gave the White House to Trump in 2024. Graph: teleSUR
On Nov. 3, Trump’s name will still be missing from the ballot. The outcome will depend less on votes that switch parties than on the votes that are never cast, among them those of a generation that split almost evenly on him two years ago and in August disapproved of him by more than two to one.
On Wednesday, Oct. 14, 20 days before the election, the new Air Force One flew low over the airport in Bullhead City, in the Arizona desert. It is the Boeing 747 that Qatar’s royal family gave Trump, now painted red, white, blue and gold. “When they give you a 747, you say two words, thank you,” he told supporters.
Arizona is one of the swing states that change hands from one presidential election to the next. Joe Biden won it in 2020 by about 10,500 votes, Trump took it back in 2024, and today his approval there is 18 points underwater. The state has no Senate race this year, but it does elect a governor and all nine of its House members. The president chose Mohave County, where he won more than 77% of the vote two years ago, with early voting already a week underway. He went looking for his base, the voters he needs at the polls, not at home.
From the plane he moved on to people who leak military information. “In my opinion, leakers should be shot,” he said, and he called the journalists covering him “almost as bad as a leaker.” He touted the ballroom he is building at the White House and the triumphal arch he plans for the capital. On Iran, whose leaders, he said, “are gone,” he let slip a confession. “I might have gone too far. I don’t know who the hell to deal with.” And he promised that once the war ends, “your gasoline is going to go down to even lower than it was before it started.”
He was addressing a country that fills its tank at wartime prices and pays rents 2.8% higher than a year ago, according to the official price index. Three days later, his vice president admitted on television what the gas pump was already saying. Trump, in Arizona, had preferred to talk about monuments.
The planned arch would stand 76 meters (250 feet) tall, about 26 meters (85 feet) taller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and would rise at the foot of the bridge leading to Arlington National Cemetery, as part of the celebrations for the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.
Napoleon commissioned the Paris arch in 1806, after his victory at Austerlitz, to honor his armies. Construction dragged on for three decades. When it was inaugurated in 1836, the emperor had been dead in exile for 15 years, and he passed beneath the arch only once, in 1840, inside the coffin that brought his remains back to France.
Social Security is racing towards insolvency because the program pays out more in benefits to retirees than it collects in taxes from working Americans.
Handing out even more generous benefits will make that situation worse. Yet that is exactly what the trustees who run Social Security are planning to do: Retirees will get a 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) next year. That increase is 0.8 percentage points higher than last year's, and it is 0.9 percentage points higher than what Social Security was expecting to pay.
The Social Security trustees are doing what the law requires during a time of high inflation. That's why Congress ought to intervene here.
It should cancel the COLA.
No, this isn't a demand that lawmakers stick it to America's retirees. It's an appeal for some fiscal common sense. There are three good reasons to cancel this year's COLA.
First: Handing out higher benefits to wealthy retirees simply doesn't make sense when Social Security is trending towards insolvency.
As the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes, the announced COLA would be a $900 increase in benefits for the average retired household—but some retirees could receive as much as $3,600 more.
Paying generous benefits to wealthy households is the main reason Social Security is facing insolvency in the first place. A program originally intended to keep seniors from falling into poverty has become a huge wealth-transfer scheme that overwhelmingly benefits those who don't need the handouts. The COLA doubles down on this flaw.
Second: What about the workers who are paying for those lavish benefits? Wages have risen by 3 percent, on average, over the past year. Those pay increases have already been outpaced by inflation, which is up 3.7 percent in the past 12 months.
You'll often hear retirees talk about how they are living on a "fixed income," but the math simply doesn't bear this out. Social Security beneficiaries will get a COLA that is larger than the average pay increase for the workers who are funding the COLA. Retirees are protected from the impact of inflation while younger Americans must deal with inflation and finance that protection for the elderly. That's crazy.
Third: Cutting the COLA could kick-start a conversation about how to solve Social Security's looming insolvency. The Social Security trustees estimate that an across-the-board cut of about 22 percent will be necessary in 2032. Eliminating COLAs won't meaningfully change that arithmetic, but it would change the conversation—which has for too long been dominated by politicians promising seniors that nothing needs to change. That's wrong—and the sooner that becomes apparent, the better off the political system will be.
If eliminating the COLA is too radical a change, Congress should instead change how the trustees calculate the annual increase.
Currently, the COLA is based on one particular measure of inflation: the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, otherwise known as CPI-W. This is a relatively narrow index that reflects the spending habits of only about one-third of all Americans, as Romina Boccia points out in her newletter, The Debt Dispatch.
Instead, Boccia suggests using the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, or C-CPI-U, which covers about 93 percent of all Americans and is generally regarded as a better measure of the rising cost of living. Other parts of the federal government already use C-CPI-U to update such things as tax brackets.
If Congress simply changed how Social Security's COLA was calculated, it could close 12 percent of the program's long-term shortfall. And while some retirees would see smaller COLAs as a result, the result would more closely match those increases to inflation.
Social Security's COLA reflects many of the fundamental flaws with America's old-age entitlement program. Like Social Security as a whole, it is too generous to the rich, too costly to the taxpayers, and too unfair to younger, poorer workers.
The post 3 Reasons To Cancel This Year's 3.6% Social Security Boost appeared first on Reason Magazine.
US President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on 18 October that he did not want to “drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.” He also wrote: “Signing that document at this time will do that, and I can sign it later, or any time that I want!”
Trump was referring to sanctions and tariffs under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which he waived in an executive order on 16 October, days before the measures were due to take effect. The waiver suspends additional economic penalties intended to pressure Moscow over its war against Ukraine, while leaving earlier US sanctions in place. The decision came weeks before the 3 November midterms, in which Republicans are defending slim majorities in both chambers, and analysts said the penalties could have pushed up oil prices for Americans already paying more, largely because of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Reuters reported.
A week before the waiver, Trump had announced a deal for Russia to increase diesel supplies to global markets. The Treasury also issued a license, valid until 7 April 2027, permitting certain transactions in Russian-origin diesel.
In the Truth Social post, Trump accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of targeting Russian diesel refineries, saying the strikes were “seriously hurting the world diesel markets, including those in the United States.” Kyiv had paused its refinery strikes for three days at Washington’s request after Trump declared an energy ceasefire on 11 October, which Russia never confirmed, then resumed them. Since then, Russia has struck Ukraine’s energy sector 76 times, Zelenskyy said on 18 October.
Trump wrote that Zelenskyy “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” and that he “could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now.”
“His country is in shambles, a large portion of his land is lost, his oceans and seas are gone, and his male population is low, wounded, and/or dead,” Trump added.
He also said Russia was “doing very little, if anything, to help” Iran and that he wanted to keep it that way.
On 17 October, Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that he had not announced his final decision. “A lot of you don’t know what my decision is yet, but we’ll figure it out, and you’ll figure it out,” he said, Reuters reported.
“I think the president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyze what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the US economy,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters before departing for Uzbekistan the same day.
Zelenskyy called it a “pity” that Trump had waived sanctions under a law named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, who “really believed in Ukraine.” He said he hoped Trump would change his decisions, NBC News reported.
Discussing the diesel deal on NBC’s Meet the Press, Zelenskyy said US oil prices had risen because shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was blocked, not because of Ukraine.
On 17 October, Zelenskyy told journalists that “the decision to undo all of this, to block all of it, seems wrong to me” and that it “definitely helps only the Russians.” His remarks appeared in Ukrainian on his official Telegram channel.
“Sanctions relief will continue. I think the diesel deal and the move regarding the Lindsey Graham Act are not the end of it. Unfortunately,” Zelenskyy said.
On 19 October, Zelenskyy wrote that partners had again given no warning of Russia’s overnight ballistic attack and that blocking missiles for Ukraine’s air defense while Russia gets sanctions eased or postponed amounts to partners denying reality.
Republican Senator James Lankford defended Trump’s decision on NBC’s Meet the Press, saying the president was “choosing the American people first.”
Senator Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham’s sister, whom Trump has endorsed for a full term, said at a campaign stop on 17 October that she would “choose to keep the pressure on Russia.”
“I don’t trust Putin and I don’t trust Russia,” Darline Graham said.
She did not directly criticize Trump but said she would not have made that choice, Reuters reported.
Disapproval stood at 66%, including 52% who strongly disapprove. The rating was four percentage points lower than in July and 12 points below February 2025, when approval was 45%. It marked a lower level than at any point in his first term. Among likely voters, 38% approved and 62% disapproved.
RELATED: No Kings Rallies Push Early Voting Ahead of U.S. Midterms
Voters were concerned about the cost of living and about the president’s decision to start the war against Iran, which affected fuel prices. 71% of respondents called gasoline unaffordable, up from 28% in February before the war in Iran raised fuel costs. 72% said the country is heading in the wrong direction, an increase of five points from April.
Trump's declining approval ratings are exposing a growing divide within the Republican Party ahead of the midterm elections.
— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 19, 2026
A Fox News poll shows Trump retains 95% approval among MAGA Republicans, compared with just 47% among non-MAGA Republicans.
Source: Axios pic.twitter.com/of19EunI4p
Approval ratings traditionally serve as a key factor in anticipating midterm results in the United States, and several Republican members of Congress are struggling in districts that were once conservative strongholds.
Likely voters surveyed backed the Democratic congressional candidate over the Republican, 52% to 44%. Among all registered voters, the margin was 50% to 42%, an improvement for Democrats from July, when the gap was barely three points.
Trump has redoubled his participation in campaign events around the country to maintain control of Congress.
A sense of deja vu is likely washing over Republican lawmakers. Many of the struggles GOP candidates are facing in 2026 eerily mirror their plight in 2018. Ahead of that year’s midterms, voters were similarly unhappy with President Donald Trump and unimpressed by the massive tax cuts passed the previous year. The conditions this time around, however, are much more dire, emphasizing how few lessons Republicans learned from their last midterm defeat.
Eight years ago, GOP candidates under House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had hoped to campaign hard on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, also known as the Trump tax cuts. The $1.5 trillion bill was the biggest legislative package passed by that Congress, with the GOP trifecta having failed to repeal and replace Obamacare as promised. But voters weren’t very interested in hearing about the bill once it passed, and its popularity cratered as 2018 continued.
Many of the struggles GOP candidates are facing in 2026 eerily mirror their plight in 2018.
Things aren’t faring much better this time around. As previously mentioned, lawmakers have been having a tough time selling the megabill that Trump dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill. The White House briefed House Republicans last year on rebranding the package as the “working families tax cut.” A new poll from Politico released Wednesday confirmed that while respondents prefer the new name, taxes are near the bottom of voters’ list of top issues.
The congressional Republicans of yesteryear originally planned to follow up their tax cuts with another round in 2018. (Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who insisted that a third reconciliation bill was possible long after it seemed plausible, must relate.) Those goals swiftly fell apart in the face of a fractured caucus and no real vision for what a new middle-class tax cut would look like. By September, the GOP was far behind in the general ballot against Democrats and looking for a way to catch up.
As The Washington Post reported at the time, Trump led the way in Republicans making “a hard pivot away from economics and into nationalism, a debate with heavy racial overtones meant to energize the conservative base.” In the weeks leading up to the midterms, the president, Fox News and many GOP candidates flooded the airwaves with warnings about a caravan of migrants making its way from Central America to Mexico. But the GOP’s caravan-forward strategy didn’t work. Democrats still gained a net of 40 seats, more than a dozen more than needed to win the majority. Republicans held control of the Senate, but the odds of that happening again are less certain.
Which brings us to the biggest differences weighing down the GOP this time around, presaging what could be an even more brutal potential loss. In short, the party’s lack of interest in any policy beyond tax cuts and nationalism has caught up with it. MAGA has hollowed out the Republican Party to place Trump at its center, leaving it intensely vulnerable without his coattails support its candidates. But Trump was already a hindrance in 2018 to more moderate Republicans trying to brace themselves against the oncoming blue wave. Today, he’s an anchor dragging down everyone with an “R” next to their name, prompting the “red undertow” effect that has conservatives prepared to stay home on Election Day.
It is only right that in failing to learn from the past, Republicans seem doomed to repeat it.
The president already wasn’t very keen on selling the 2017 tax cuts to voters himself. At a May 2018 tax roundtable, Trump instead spent time talking about “China, North Korea, Syria, immigration, the mayor of Oakland, Calif., Congress’s budget deal, his own poll numbers and the media’s coverage of his presidency.” He’s grown much worse at staying on topic in the intervening years, preventing him from providing a coherent message for rank-and-file members to rally around.
A repeat of the anti-immigrant play would also likely backfire in 2026. Democrats have mobilized heavily around Trump’s detention strategy and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s tactics. Conservative voters poised to stay home are unlikely to find a sudden burst of enthusiasm, not when more pressing matters are weighing on them.
Rising prices, inflation and other economic concerns have become the focal point of this year’s midterms. There is no avoiding how much the blame for each falls at Trump’s feat, try as candidates might to split the difference. And blame for Trump’s return to the White House — a choice the GOP had every opportunity to avoid — falls at the feet of all those who backed him when his stock was higher. It is only right that in failing to learn from the past, Republicans seem doomed to repeat it.
The post The GOP’s midterm deja vu should make them very, very worried appeared first on MS NOW.
Former President Barack Obama issued a rare statement Sunday rebuking the Trump administration for targeting the president’s political enemies, namely for launching a federal investigation into Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
“It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say,” Obama said in a lengthy statement shared on social media. “But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.”
The remarks come after federal agents raided Omar’s Washington D.C., home last week, confiscating her laptop, cellphone and passport, as well as other notebooks and documents related to her and her family’s immigration.
“To understand why this is so appalling, it’s important to know the facts. Congresswoman Omar came to this country with her father when she was 12 years old,” Obama said, noting that both she and her father became naturalized citizens five years after arriving from Somalia.
In diatribes against Democrats, President Donald Trump has repeatedly singled out Omar, whom Obama described as “one of the Trump Administration’s fiercest critics.”
Trump has called Omar “garbage” and broadly condemned Somalis. Vice President JD Vance has also joined in, at one point claiming in March, without evidence, that Omar “definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America.”
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said last week that her office is investigating potential improprieties related to Omar’s financial disclosures, but the search warrant that authorized agents to seize Omar’s belongings listed potential violations related to immigration, not finances.
Lawyers for Omar have demanded the immediate return of all of her property.
Omar has not been charged with a crime and has denied wrongdoing, accusing the Trump administration of “political intimidation.”
“Federal agents have raided her home, confiscated personal records, and seized her phone — all to try and uncover a nonexistent smoking gun from 20 years ago that will somehow make their case,” Obama wrote on Sunday. “Think about that. The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president.”
The search came just weeks ahead of the pivotal midterm elections. Obama weighed in as he prepared to take his star power to Michigan next weekend to campaign for Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson.
The former president added that “the fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views. Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.”
The post ‘So appalling’: Obama rebukes Trump over Rep. Ilhan Omar investigation appeared first on MS NOW.
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