US Politics

Questions abound as Trump raises – and hoards – huge sums of 2024 cash Without any declared candidacy, and with little spent on Republican candidates, the purpose of Trump’s war chest remains opaque Donald Trump’s ferocious money-raising machine, powered in equal measure by grassroots giving and large individual and corporate donations, has never really stopped turning – and it is currently raising huge sums of cash.Bannon’s escape plan: how the Trump strategist is trying to dodge prisonRead moreAs of this month, Trump has $123m saved in his Save America political fund, more than the Republican and Democratic national committees combined, and 12 times as much as the fund – Pac for the Future – for the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.And all of that has been raised while Trump’s own ambitions remain unclear. Though his grip on the Republican party remains tight – and he has waged an endorsement war against his opponents – the big question over whether Trump will run again for the White House remains unanswered.Without any declared candidacy, his war chest’s purpose and thus also that of its master, is unclear – and deliberately so.Trump cannot easily spend the money on himself should he decide to run in 2024. Save America is registered as a leadership pac, or political action committee, not a campaign tool himself for himself. Yet Trump is not yet spending much, according to its “leadership” purpose of supporting Republican candidates going into this year’s hotly contested midterm elections.Despite Trump’s more than 120 Republican endorsements, and even as Democrats pour money into the effort to retain control of Congress, the massive accumulation of cash under his control raises the question: what is it for?Trump has not stopped raising money since he left office, either through thousands of small donations raised at Trump rallies or online, or via the big donor money-machine that Democrats cannot match – being schmoozed by Trump himself on the golf course and in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago.Since Trump founded Save America in November 2020, the group has raised $124m – the largest war chest ever built by an ex-president – but spent only about $14m, or around 11%.In contrast, the main fund for supporting Senate Republican candidates has spent about 80% of the $135m it raised since the start of 2021, while its main fund for congressional candidates has spent half of the $162m it has raised in the same period.The question of Trump’s pac money is beginning to vex strategists on both sides of the political divide. It could be a fund designed to ensure the loyalty of Republican allies forming a new power base within the party, or he may have other designs – namely securing his own path forwards by securing the political future of loyalists.“It’s consistent with Trump’s political priorities – Trump first above everything else – and makes him well positioned for a presidential run in 2024,” said the Democratic consultant Carly Cooperman.“It’s possible he decides to make a big splash in competitive races as we get closer to the midterm elections, but above all, Trump’s immense popularity and ability to raise large sums of money makes him even more powerful in the Republican party,” Cooperman added.According to FEC financial disclosures, Save America spent more than $3m on events through February, $2m on consulting services, including to law firms representing witnesses sought by committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, including the Trump aide Dan Scavino and Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich.It also spent $300,000 on ads, $200,000 in contributions to Republican congressional candidates, and at least $170,000 at hotels owned by Trump for lodging, meals and the renting of hotel facilities.Budowich, communications director for both Save America and Trump, told Reuters that the former president was supporting candidates through direct contributions, rallies and joint fundraisers – in other words, efforts that bind candidates to the former president.“Save America will not be telegraphing specific tactics or expenditures through the press,” Budowich told the news agency. “Every dollar raised will go to ensuring President Trump’s “America first” agenda is advanced through his endorsed candidates and causes.”“There is a lot of leeway to how the funds are spent,” says Michael Beckel of Issue One, a non-partisan group that advocates for campaign finance reform. “While he remains an unofficial candidate he can build his brand, draw further attention to himself by hosting large rallies, ostensibly to support other candidates in other states, but every rally has the upside of helping to boost his visibility and brand.”Trump is certainly on the move, holding rallies across the US with the usual aim of endorsing local supportive politicians. In some ways, it’s a substitute for social media blackout, in another it’s Trump connecting with his base in the way that has served him in the past.Earlier this month, he held a rally in South Carolina in support of Russell Fry, a state representative he endorsed to challenge the incumbent Republican congressman Tom Rice.Fry spoke briefly, before handing the podium back to Trump who continued for 20 minutes. “In 2024 we are going to take back that beautiful White House. I wonder who will do that. I wonder, I wonder,” Trump teased.But the consequences from straying from Trump’s agenda are also apparent. Last week, the former president withdrew his endorsement of Mo Brooks for “going woke” after the Alabama Senate candidate expressed doubt that the 2020 presidential election was a fraud.“Mo Brooks of Alabama made a horrible mistake recently when he went ‘woke’ and stated, referring to the 2020 presidential election scam, ‘Put that behind you, put that behind you,’” Trump said, as he withdrew his endorsement.But Trump’s enduring influence efforts are not limited to rallies or building his power base. Last Tuesday, Axios reported that Donald Trump Jr is planning to launch a mobile news app after the bumpy launch of Truth Social, a Trump-aligned social media network “that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology”.The aggregator site comes with high ambitions to compete with Apple and Google’s news aggregators, and to supplant the Drudge Report that has lost traffic and influence since founder Matt Drudge undercut the White House message on Covid deaths at the peak of the pandemic.A spokesman said that the news site, MxM (short for “Minute by Minute”), will carry the tag “mainstream news without the mainstream bias” and would carry news “from a variety of publishers across the ideological spectrum”.With about 12 employees, an ideologically copacetic news site, could be a useful too. But it is still Trump’s money that is the focus of interest when it comes to his future ambitions.Under election finance laws, should Trump decide to run in 2024, he would have to start a new campaign fund. His previous pac committee, Donald J Trump for President (since renamed The Make America Great Again Pac) still has more than $6m in it, after raising $13m in 2021.“The life of a political action committee after a candidate leaves office can morph to supporting other candidates,” explained Beckel. “The bulk of the money Trump has been raising is for Save America, but he also has a conduit vehicle so a donor can write one check and it’s split between buckets according to political contribution limits.”But how Trump will spend the money remains an open question, Beckel says. “He could shape the 2022 midterms or other future elections significantly if he decides to unleash it. One can predict from how other former president or politicians have spent their money, but Donald Trump is not a conventional politician.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

US congressman Jeff Fortenberry resigns after conviction for lying to FBINebraska Republican Jeff Fortenberry stepped down after concerted pressure from both Washington and his own state The Nebraska congressman Jeff Fortenberry has resigned from office after a California jury convicted him of lying to federal authorities about an illegal campaign donation from a foreign national.In a letter to the House on Saturday, nine-term Republican Fortenberry said he was resigning from Congress, effective 31 March.“It has been my honor to serve with you in the United States House of Representatives,” he said in the letter. “Due to the difficulties of my current circumstances, I can no longer effectively serve.”US congressman convicted of lying to FBI in campaign funds caseRead moreFortenberry’s announcement followed concerted pressure from political leaders in Nebraska and Washington for him to step down. House speaker Nancy Pelosi and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy on Friday urged Fortenberry to resign.Nebraska’s Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, said Fortenberry should “do the right thing for his constituents” and leave the office he has held since 2005.Fortenberry was indicted in October after authorities said he lied to FBI agents in two separate interviews about his knowledge of an illegal $30,000 contribution to his campaign from a foreign billionaire. Fortenberry was interviewed at his home in Lincoln, and then again with his lawyers present in Washington DC.At trial, prosecutors presented recorded phone conversations in which Fortenberry was repeatedly warned that the contributions came from Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian billionaire of Lebanese descent. The donations were funnelled through three strawmen at a 2016 fundraiser in Los Angeles.According to court documents reviewed by the Washington Post, Chagoury was accused of making illicit campaign contributions worth up to $180,000 to four American political candidates, including Fortenberry.One of Chagoury’s associates gave $30,000 to “an individual at a restaurant in Los Angeles, who, along with others, later made campaign contributions” to Fortenberry’s re-election campaign, according to officials.Chagoury had connections to Defense of Christians, a nonprofit that combated the persecution of Christians and other minorities in the Middle East, court documents revealed. He attempted to funnel money to “politicians from less-populous states because the contribution would be more noticeable to the politician and thereby would promote increased donor access,” said federal prosecutors.Fortenberry’s sentencing is set for 28 June, with each count carrying up to five years of federal prison time. Fortenberry has said that he would immediately appeal.The timing of Fortenberry’s resignation is expected to trigger a special election. Governors aren’t able to appoint a person to the seat.Under Nebraska state law, the governor has to schedule a special election within 90 days once a congressional seat becomes vacant. Each political party gets to pick a nominee who will run to serve the remainder of the congressional member’s term.Fortenberry’s resignation letter opened with a poem, Do It Anyway, which is associated with fellow Catholic Mother Teresa. One line says: “What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway.”TopicsUS politicsNebraskanewsReuse this content More

Trump heads to Georgia in high-stakes bid to shape Republican primariesEx-president plans rally after endorsing candidates seeking to replace leaders who rejected his election lie Donald Trump’s continuing effort to bend national Republican candidates to his will and the party to do his bidding faces a test in the key state of Georgia on Saturday as the former president holds a score-settling rally there in support of candidates who could boost any future re-election agenda.Trump’s presence in the state comes 18 months after he pressured Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, a conversation that is now the subject of a grand jury investigation in Atlanta.The loss, which made Trump the first Republican presidential candidate to lose the state in 28 years, continues to rankle the former president, and he has endorsed the state congressman Jody Hice in his challenge to Raffensperger. He also backed other candidates in the state against establishment Republicans, including David Perdue against the sitting governor, Brian Kemp.It follows a similar pattern in other states where Trump has held or plans to hold rallies as a way of showing support for Republican candidates who have offered him their fealty.Republicans’ midterms pitch: never mind the policy, here’s the culture warRead moreSaturday’s rally in Commerce, 70 miles north-east of Atlanta and one of the most conservative parts of the state, is expected to feature Herschel Walker, a former football player running for the US Senate; Perdue; and the congressional candidate Vernon Jones, a former Democratic state representative who began calling himself the “Black Donald Trump” after switching parties.But Trump is playing a high-stakes game and his candidates’ success in Georgia’s May primaries is far from guaranteed.Walker is slightly ahead of the Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in RealClearPolitics polling averages, but Jones, who dropped a bid for the governorship in February, faces a crowded Republican field for the conservative 10th congressional district, which covers part of east Georgia.Trump’s pick for governor, Perdue, faces an even more complex struggle. He has struggled to raise campaign money and trails incumbent Brian Kemp by 11 points, according to a Fox News poll.Perdue has toed Trump’s false line of a “stolen” 2020 election and begun claiming that his defeat to the Democratic senator Jon Ossoff, to whom he conceded in January, was also problematic. “Most people in Georgia know that something untoward happened in November 2020,” he told the talk radio host Bryan Pritchard. “I’ll just say it, Bryan. In my election and the president’s election, they were stolen. The evidence is compelling now.”‘Arsonists with keys to the firehouse’: once-obscure state races fuel fears for US democracyRead moreThe Perdue-Kemp contest represents a personal grudge for Trump, which flared after Kemp after refused to support his bid overturn Georgia’s 2020 election result.Trump has also sought to undermine the governor by backing Patrick Witt, who supported Trump’s election challenge, against John King, who is Georgia’s first Latino statewide constitutional officer and a Kemp loyalist. Witt is running against King in the Republican primary for state insurance commissioner. But the larger question is how far Trump’s influence extends in shaping Georgia’s Republican politics. To some, the former president’s endorsement power is diminishing in the state.“He will not be a help to Trump-endorsed candidates when he comes on Saturday,” the conservative commentator Martha Zoller told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week. “He will be negative and backward looking – and that’s not what voters want.”Some Republican pollsters said that while Trump’s endorsement was coveted, he had diluted his influence by reaching far down the ballot or supporting late-entry candidates with little public recognition or campaign apparatus.TopicsDonald TrumpUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

Republicans’ midterms pitch: never mind the policy, here’s the culture war Abortion bans, anti-LGBTQ laws, book bans – the party sees hot button issues as a tried and test path to victory. Democrats ignore it at their peril, experts say“Sue-thy-neighbour” laws that ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy in Texas and now Idaho. A “don’t say gay” bill censoring discussion of sexual orientation in schools in Florida. A ban on Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust, by a school board in Tennessee.America’s national government might be under Democratic control but its red states are on the march with sweeping laws targeting abortion, LGBTQ+ people and the teaching of race in schools that threaten to turn back the clock to an era when a citizen’s rights depended on where they lived.Republicans to field more than 100 far-right candidates this yearRead moreThe offensive on cultural hot button issues also appears calculated to ensure that November’s midterm elections will be contested on a playing field of rightwing outrage. Democrats argue that Republicans resort to such territory in lieu of policy substance.“There’s no serious agenda on the Republican side,” said Donna Brazile, a former acting chairperson of the Democratic National Committee. “It’s the same choir that had the same anthem from the 60s through the last election cycle. Without an agenda, without a leader, without a way forward, you have to rely on the old hits. It’s no longer on vinyl; it’s digital.”Although President Donald Trump lost the White House and Republicans lost both chambers of Congress in 2020, Trumpism is thriving in the 30 states where Republicans have legislative control. Under Trump’s continued influence, they are exploiting wedge issues as never before.Last year seven states imposed new restrictions on abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, the biggest such wave of legislation since the supreme court’s landmark Roe v Wade decision in 1973.A law in Texas bans abortion after a doctor detects an embryonic heartbeat – usually around six weeks – and allows private citizens to sue clinics, doctors and anyone else accused of helping provide such abortions in the state. In the month after it took effect the number of abortions reported in Texas fell by 60%, with many women travelling to neighbouring states.Deep red Idaho this week passed a similar measure, a six-week restriction again relying on private citizens to enforce the law. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “We’re right back in the Soviet era with neighbours and family members snitching on neighbours and family members. That’s unbelievable.”Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee are considering similar proposals, while earlier this month Florida’s Republican-led legislature sent a 15-week abortion ban to Governor Ron DeSantis for signature.Republican state legislatures have also launched what the Human Rights Campaign, America’s biggest LGBTQ advocacy group, describes as the worst attack on LGBTQ+ rights in decades. A record of more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced this year, it says, with 130-plus specifically targeting transgender people.The HRC describes the legislation as part of a coordinated effort by powerful interests promoted by rightwing entities such as the Heritage Foundation. “These groups peddle in fear and pit people against each other to marginalize and punish LGBTQ+ people – and especially transgender children.”Among the most egregious examples is Florida legislation dubbed “don’t say gay” that would bar instruction on “sexual orientation or gender identity” in schools from kindergarten through grade 3. Its dog-whistling impulse was evident when Christina Pushaw, press secretary for DeSantis, tweeted: “The bill that liberals inaccurately call ‘don’t say gay’ would be more accurately described as an anti-grooming bill.”Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, said: “We’re looking at one of the worst legislative sessions for LGBTQ issues ever in terms of volume of bills introduced.”“Almost all of them are targeting transgender youth, whether that’s through bans on trans students being able to play school sports consistent with their gender identity, bans on trans youth being able to access gender-affirming medical care, bans on trans students being able to use the correct restroom in school.”Oakley added: “The ‘don’t say gay or trans’ bill lives at the intersection of this huge effort to attack LGBTQ but particularly trans youth and the movement that we’ve seen resurrected in the recent years that’s about surveilling teachers and censoring curriculum, whether that’s talking about critical race theory, about what’s in the sex ed class or about banning books.”In Tennessee, the McMinn county school board removed Maus, a Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its curriculum because of “inappropriate language” and an illustration of a nude woman (actually a cartoon mouse). The state’s governor, Bill Lee, then proposed a law for closer scrutiny of school libraries so students consume “age appropriate” content.Tennessee also banned the teaching of a critical race theory (CRT), an academic discipline that examines how racism becomes embedded in legal systems but has been caricatured by Republicans as a divisive anti-white ideology.Eight other Republican-led states – Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Arizona and North Dakota – had also passed legislation against the teaching of CRT as of last November, according to the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, with nearly 20 states introducing or planning to introduce similar legislation.Brookings also noted that the conservative Fox News channel had mentioned “critical race theory” 1,300 times in less than four months. CRT was a frequently cited bogeyman at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, which was themed “Awake not woke” – a sure sign of its potential to energise and rile up the base for electoral purposes.Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at Brookings and former Bill Clinton administration official, said: “There were some very good things about the old Republican party. Now it’s a party of racists and homophobes and people pursuing bizarre cultural things. It’s just crazy.“They’re a bankrupt party and yet they manage to do well on these kinds of issues because people get emotional about them and don’t really understand or in fact care about the economic issues. Democrats have been tone deaf thinking that the economic issues will always trump the cultural issues. They don’t.”For Republicans, this week’s Senate judiciary committee hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson seemed to be as much as about campaigning for the 2022 midterms, which will decide control of the House of Representatives and Senate, as the first Black woman nominated to the supreme court.Dwelling on CRT, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas held up the book Antiracist Baby by Ibram X Kendi and demanded: “Do you agree… that babies are racist?” Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee asked: “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” Jackson replied: “I can’t … I’m not a biologist.”Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser to the anti-Trump group Lincoln Project, said: “The Scotus [supreme court] nomination hearings this week were a window into the Republican party’s strategy going into midterms and 2024. They have no policy agenda. They are strictly focused on culture war wedge issues because they’ve had success energising their base with them and the people who are leading the charge are fundamentally unserious people.“Senator Mitch McConnell has already said that he’s not releasing a policy agenda. There’s a reason for that. Culture war politics can work and Democrats run the risk of underestimating how powerful and energising this tactic of politicking can be. They underestimate it at their own peril.”What links many hot button issues is children. Whether unborn or at school, they are portrayed by Republicans as vulnerable to sinister forces aligned with Democrats and leftwing militants. Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia, set up a tip line so parents could send “reports and observations” about perceived objectionable conduct by teachers and school staff.The appeal to parental instincts rather than to policy judgments was accelerated by frustrations over mask mandates and school closures during the coronavirus pandemic.Setmayer, a political commentator and former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, said: “Some of the issues speak to the fundamental desire to protect your children. There’s a reason why Republicans for decades have always included getting involved at the school board level as part of their grassroots playbook.“Any time you frame a political issue around children, you can activate voters who may not have been activated before because they want to make sure that their children are safe. It becomes a more righteous issue; it’s not just about them in their minds.”Not all Republicans are on board. This week Indiana’s governor, Eric Holcomb, and Governor Spencer Cox of Utah vetoed legislation that would bar transgender girls from taking part in girls’ sports at school. But such voices remain in the minority, with the Trump-dominated party only likely to become more aggressive on hot button issues as the polls draw closer.Monika McDermott, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York, said: “At this point Democrats are in some ways dismissing it as well as though they think people will see through it and I think that’s a big mistake.“They need to fight this head on, counter these arguments, make things clear, try to redefine things like so-called critical race theory and explain the reasons why they support teaching this kind of historical perspective in schools and why it’s necessary, and why abortion has been legal for so long and what’s happening to it now.”She added: “They need to do the same kind of call to arms that Republicans are doing but on the liberal side, and I don’t see them doing that at this point. I see them resting on their laurels to a certain extent, targeting specific districts. It’s all about strategy but they’re not getting at the heart of the matter.”TopicsUS politicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022DemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

Maryland judge rules Democratic-drawn electoral map is unconstitutionalLegislature was accused of gerrymandering after substituting its own new district maps for ones drafted by outside commission A Maryland judge ruled on Friday that the state’s new congressional map is unconstitutional, the first map by a Democratic-controlled state legislature to be struck down by a court this redistricting cycle.So far courts have intervened to block maps they found to be GOP gerrymanders in North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania, infuriating Republicans and leading conservatives to push for the US supreme court to limit the power of state courts to overturn maps drawn by state legislatures.US state legislatures threaten citizens’ rights. We ignore them at our perilRead moreJudge Lynne Battaglia issued the ruling after a trial last week in which Republican lawmakers contended that Maryland’s congressional map approved by the general assembly in December violates the constitution by drawing districts that favor Democrats, who control the legislature.“The limitation of the undue extension of power by any branch of government must be exercised to ensure that the will of the people is heard, no matter under which political placard those governing reside. The 2021 Congressional Plan is unconstitutional, and subverts that will of those governed,” Battaglia wrote.The judge added that she was entering a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs to reject the map and “permanently enjoining its operation, and giving the general assembly an opportunity to develop a new Congressional Plan that is constitutional”.Battaglia has a long history in Maryland’s judiciary. She served as a member of the state’s highest court from 2001 to 2016. She served as Maryland’s US attorney from 1993 to 2001. She also was chief of staff to the former Maryland senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat, from 1991 to 1993.An appeal by the state is almost certain. Raquel Coombs, a spokeswoman for the attorney general, said the office was reviewing the decision.In Maryland, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one and Democrats hold a strong majority in both chambers of the legislature, the GOP has long criticized the map as one of the most gerrymandered in the country.“Judge Battaglia’s ruling confirms what we have all known for years – Maryland is ground zero for gerrymandering, our districts and political reality reek of it, and there is abundant proof that it is occurring,” said Doug Mayer, a spokesman for Fair Maps Maryland. “Marylanders have been fighting for free and fair elections for decades and for the first time in our state’s shameful history of gerrymandering, we are at the precipice of ending it.”The ruling comes under the unusual circumstances of Maryland having a Republican governor in a redistricting year. Governor Larry Hogan, who has long sought reforms to the way the state draws political boundaries, created a separate commission to draw maps for the state’s congressional seats and state legislative districts in hopes of taking politicians out of the process of drawing districts.Hogan submitted the maps to the general assembly, but the legislature moved forward with maps approved by a separate panel that included top legislative leadership, including four Democrats and two Republicans.Hogan vetoed the map approved by the legislature in December, saying it made “a mockery of our democracy”. After the judge’s ruling, the governor called on lawmakers to approve the map submitted by the commission he supported.“I call on the general assembly to immediately pass the independent Citizens Redistricting Commission maps that were written with accountability and transparency,“ Hogan said in a statement. “This is an historic milestone in our fight to clean up the political process in our state, and ensure that the voices of the people we are elected to serve are finally heard.”If the case comes before the Maryland court of appeals, the state’s highest court, it will be considered by a panel on which all but one of the serving judges was appointed by Hogan.Chief Judge Joseph Getty last week delayed the state’s primary elections from 28 June to 19 July, as courts weigh challenges to the state’s new legislative map as well as the congressional map.At trial last week, a witness for Maryland Republicans testified that partisan considerations had taken over when Democrats drew the map. Democrats currently hold a seven-to-one advantage over the GOP in the state’s eight US House seats. The new map made the district held by lone Republican representative, Andy Harris, more competitive for a Democrat to potentially win.Sean Trende, an elections analyst at RealClearPolitics, testified as a witness for Republicans at last week’s trial that Democrats “are almost guaranteed to have seven districts and have a great shot at winning that eighth district”.The trial involved two lawsuits. One was brought by a group of Republican state lawmakers backed by Fair Maps Maryland. The other was brought by the national conservative activist group Judicial Watch.TopicsMarylandUS voting rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

US congressman convicted of lying to FBI in campaign funds caseNebraska Republican Jeff Fortenberry found guilty in case involving illegal campaign contributions from foreign billionaire A Nebraska congressman has been found guilty of three felonies for lying to the FBI about illegal campaign contributions from a foreign billionaire.A federal jury in Los Angeles convicted Jeff Fortenberry, a nine-term Republican, on Thursday of concealing information and two counts of providing false statements to authorities.Biden heads to Poland for meetings on Ukraine refugee crisis – US politics liveRead moreHe denied to federal authorities that he was aware of illegal campaign donations from Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian billionaire of Lebanese descent who disguised his identity through third-party contributions, said the US attorney’s office for the central district of California.According to court documents reviewed by the Washington Post, Chagoury was accused of making illicit campaign contributions worth up to $180,000 to four American political candidates, including Fortenberry.One of Chagoury’s associates gave $30,000 to “an individual at a restaurant in Los Angeles, who, along with others, later made campaign contributions” to Fortenberry’s re-election campaign, according to officials.Chagoury had connections to Defense of Christians, a nonprofit that combated the persecution of Christians and other minorities in the Middle East, court documents revealed. He attempted to funnel money to “politicians from less-populous states because the contribution would be more noticeable to the politician and thereby would promote increased donor access,” said federal prosecutors.Fortenberry has maintained his innocence. In a YouTube video filmed with his wife and dog, he said “a person from overseas illegally moved money to my campaign” and he “didn’t know anything about this”.“I feel so personally betrayed … We thought we were trying to help,” Fortenberry said. His attorneys accused federal agents of setting him up.Fortenberry’s sentencing is set for 28 June. Each count carries up to five years of federal prison time, along with fines. Fortenberry said the court process had been unfair and that he would immediately appeal.“After learning of illegal contributions to his campaign, the congressman repeatedly chose to conceal the violations of federal law to protect his job, his reputation and his close associates,” said US attorney Tracy L Wilkison in a statement.“The lies in this case threatened the integrity of the American electoral system and were designed to prevent investigators from learning the true source of campaign funds.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS political financingnewsReuse this content More

Ketanji Brown Jackson hearing reveals Republicans’ racist fearsSteve PhillipsRepublicans are becoming so hysterical because people like Judge Jackson pose a revolutionary threat to the status quo “Black Girl Magic” is on full display in the supreme court confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Republicans are apoplectic. The juxtaposition of Jackson’s calm, confident, professionalism with the hostile, cynical and contemptuous questioning by senators such as Texas senator Ted Cruz is an object lesson for the entire world on the ongoing dynamics of systemic racism in the United States.Rather than do their constitutional duty of engage with a prospective supreme court justice on the pressing legal issues of the day, the Republican committee members have opted to throw racist red meat to their rabid white supporters who are gripped by fear of people of color. Cruz led the charge with his attacks on critical race theory, asking Jackson whether she agrees “that babies are racist” and trying to paint the judge as a dangerous person who would force white children to learn about racism.In so doing, Cruz was working from a tried and tired playbook that seeks to dramatize anti-racist demands in ways that fuel white fears about the consequences of Black people attaining positions of power. There is a long history in this country of the leaders of white people trying to force Black people to denounce anti-racist movements as a condition for entry into the highest precincts of power (Cruz is Latino, but his base is largely white). In 2008, the media tried to force Barack Obama to denounce his pastor Jeremiah Wright’s statements forcefully condemning white supremacy. Two decades earlier, Jesse Jackson was dogged by demands that he distance himself from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The point of said attacks is to try to weaken support for the Black person one way or another. Either they distance themselves from Black leaders and movements, thereby diminishing Black enthusiasm, or they refuse to renounce anti-racist voices, and that refusal is then used to scare white people.Cruz and his ilk gravitate to such tactics because white fears about Black people have defined politics in this country for centuries. One of the Republican questioners of Judge Jackson was South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, representative of a state that has been in the forefront of efforts to whip white people into a frenzy about the prospects of Black equality. In 1712, the South Carolina legislature passed the “Slave Laws” – legislation designed to control the behavior of “Negroes and other slaves [who] are of barbarous, wild, savage natures”. South Carolina’s leaders were so extreme in stoking white fears that the state was the first to secede from the Union and turn to violence after Abraham Lincoln’s election on an anti-slavery platform in 1860. Graham’s predecessor, Strom Thurmond, ran for president in 1948, defiantly declaring that, “there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the n—-r race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches!”Today’s Republicans are becoming so hysterical because people like Judge Jackson pose a revolutionary threat to the status quo in that they reveal the ubiquity of Black brilliance. Cruz, Graham and their fellow modern-day Confederates know instinctively that as the public sees how many amazing Black women there are, it becomes much harder to explain why most of the powerful positions in this country are still held by white men. In 233 years, there hasn’t been a single Black woman smart enough to sit on the supreme court? The notion is absurd. So, if it’s not lack of talent, then it must be something else. Like racism and sexism. Exposing this reality is very dangerous to a political party whose power rests on exploiting that racism and sexism (all the while denying it exists).The very fact that Jackson’s nomination is historic and not routine is a profound indictment of the United States of America. Hour after hour, question after question, Judge Jackson – secure in the knowledge that she is simply the latest talented Black woman and not the first – is calmly, confidently and politely taking a wrecking ball to the myth that America is a meritocracy. And the implications of that scare the Republicans to death.
Steve Phillips is the founder of Democracy in Color and author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority. He is a Guardian US columnist
TopicsKetanji Brown JacksonOpinionUS supreme courtLaw (US)US politicsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More