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Senate Republican vows to defy Trump appointment
TOPEKA — U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall vowed to be on the Kansas general election ballot in November and to decline administrative appointment from President Donald Trump during the next two years.
Marshall, a Kansas Republican seeking reelection to a second term in the U.S. Senate, made the declaration Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I will be on the ballot on Election Day (and) will be honored to represent the people of Kansas for the next six years going forward. It’s been the honor of my lifetime,” Marshall said before shifting the conversation to Trump’s economic performance.
“Meet the Press” host Ryan Nobles brought Marshall back to the potential he could resign from the Senate: “So, that means you’re ruling out any sort of an appointment in the Trump administration, just to button it up.”
“I am ruling out any appointment in the Trump administration at least through the next two or two or three years,” the GOP senator said. “Who knows what would happen four years from now, OK?”
Marshall’s status as a candidate in the 2026 election and as a possible Trump appointee have been the source of controversy after questions were raised about implementation of a 2025 Kansas law that guarantees a Republican would replace Marshall if he resigned. In addition, the state law says filling a U.S. Senate vacancy in Kansas because of a resignation after May 1 and before Oct. 2 in an election year would allow the replacement to avoid a Senate election for two years.
“I got so much more work to do as a United States senator,” Marshall said. “But, America is back. And I’m just proud to keep serving in this position.”
Adam Hamilton, among 11 candidates for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, has sought to propel his candidacy ahead of the Aug. 4 primary election by questioning potential reliance on the state law by the Kansas Republican Party.
“Kansans know Rev. Adam Hamilton is the best candidate to take on Roger Marshall and win,” said Tyson Brody, spokesman for the Hamilton campaign. “The Kansas GOP is so worried they’re trying to jettison Marshall, cancel the election and even talking about taking away Kansans’ right to elect senators.”
In the television interview, Nobles asked Marshall about the Save America Act advocated by Trump and passed by the U.S. House. The bill, which is tied up in the U.S. Senate, includes a provision requiring people to show a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. In addition, the legislation would require people to present a photo ID to vote.
“Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting. There’s no evidence that fraudulent votes have changed any election outcomes. Are you trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist?” Nobles asked Marshall.
“The issue right now is again that Americans don’t feel that the elections are trustworthy. No one wants their vote canceled … by an ‘illegal alien’ or by a dead person,” Marshall said.
In response, Nobles said the Heritage Foundation conducted a study that found 100 instances of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections since the 1980s. He said Trump’s claim of sweeping election fraud didn’t hold up to scrutiny.
“I guess we just look at this differently,” Marshall said. “What are Democrats running from? Why are they afraid? If what you’re saying is true, then why are you worried about this? Why not have voter ID? Why not have some type of proof of citizenship.”
In 2018, a federal judge struck down a Kansas law that required new voters to prove their citizenship. The law had prevented more than 30,000 lawful voters from registering, and then-Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is now the attorney general, failed to prove his claims of widespread voter fraud.
Trump campaign paid pollster hired by Wall Street Journal $600,000: records
A polling firm working with the Wall Street Journal has also been on the payroll of former President Donald Trump and his 2024 campaign and received more than $600,000 from his campaign, legal analyst Allison Gill first reported.
Raw Story confirmed on the Federal Elections Commission website that, since the beginning of 2023, Fabrizio Lee & Associates has pocketed huge expenditures with the largest being $208,000 for "polling expenses and the least being $2,372.98 for "polling consultant expenses: travel." There were two other expenditures over $100,000.
The website for the group openly declares its connections, boasting: "Fabrizio, Lee & Associates has worked directly on the campaigns or independent expenditure efforts that successfully elected 20 U.S. Senators and 9 Republican Governors. And we were honored to have the privilege to serve as Chief Pollsters for President Donald J. Trump’s Presidential campaigns."
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
Tony Fabrizio is a long-time Republican pollster and worked with Trump's campaign in 2016, as well as recently. But the most recent poll from the Wall Street Journal lambasting President Joe Biden for being too old to run for president was also conducted by Tony Fabrizio, in conjunction with another pollster, Michael Bocian, who works with some Democratic candidates but not the Biden campaign.
Trump is just three years younger than Biden. Several Republican members of the U.S. Senate are older than Biden.
Fabrizio also did a poll for the WSJ that concluded Latino voters have abandoned the Democratic Party. Fabrizio was also listed on the Wall Street Journal CEO Council.
A screen capture of the disbursement page is below or at the link here.
Rudy Giuliani admits investigators looking at ‘other crimes that maybe I committed’
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani suggested that there could be "other crimes" that he has not been charged with after facing a criminal indictment and a defamation case in Georgia.
On Sunday, Giuliani spoke to Newsmax host Lidia Curanaj about a case where he was found liable for defaming Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
The former mayor claimed that up to $20 million had been spent on law firms trying to bring him down.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
"So it is punishment by process," he said, arguing that attorneys were filing discovery requests to find "other crimes that maybe I committed" and "crimes that Donald Trump may have committed."
"I do not admit anything," Giuliani added, despite conceding that he had made false statements against the election workers.
Giuliani said that he was "not contesting" the claims against him.
"We want to move on to the legal aspects of the cases," he remarked. "I'm not stupid enough to think I'm going to get a fair trial in front of [the judge] and the District of Columbia."
"I'd have to be not a lawyer to think that," he concluded.
Watch the video below from Newsmax or at the link.
Fani Willis serves up strong warning to defendants demanding separate trials in Trump RICO case
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is warning all 19 defendants, including Donald Trump, in her case alleging racketeering and numerous other charges of election subversion that invoking Georgia’s “speedy trial” law but demanding to have their cases tried individually instead of en masse will bring consequences and deprive them of valuable advantages.
Willis’ goal is to have one trial for all 19 defendants in October.
Attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro have already requested to have their cases severed from the group. Chesebro’s trial is now scheduled for October 23, as The Messenger reports.
But The Messenger’s senior legal correspondent Adam Klasfeld adds, “Willis wants to advise all of the defendants in the Trump racketeering case that decisions by Ken Chesebro and Sidney Powell to invoke speedy trial rights come with certain consequences.”
Those consequences, based on Georgia law, according to a legal filing Klasfeld posted, include four constraints on the ability to demand discovery materials and call witnesses:
“Defendants cannot now argue that they are entitled to the State’s discovery responses ten (10) days in advance of trial.”
“Defendants cannot now argue that they are entitled to notice of the State’s similar transaction evidence ten (10) days in advance of trial.”
“Defendants are now precluded from calling any witnesses whose statements were not provided to the State at least ten (10) days in advance of trial.”
“Defendants cannot now complain that they received less than seven (7) days notice of the trial date in this case.”
Klasfeld notes, “Willis prompts the defendants to choose their paths in light of these consequences: ‘Should they refuse to waive their speedy trial demand and request a continuance, then any harm to the Defendants would be invited by the Defense and, therefore, not reversible error.'”
Over at The Messenger, Klasfeld writes that Willis’ office has asked the judge “to issue a ruling requiring ‘that the defendants personally place upon the record that this is their decision and preference to proceed in this fashion prior to the trial of the case.’”
Jared Kushner should be subpoenaed over $2 billion deal with Saudi Arabia: Jamie Raskin
Jared Kushner should be subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee over a $2 billion deal his company made with Saudi Arabia, Democrats said Thursday.
In a letter to committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky), the group's leading Democrat Jamie Raskin (Md) asked that records relating to the deal be released for scrutiny, The Messenger reported.
Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump and a senior advisor in the former president's administration, received a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is controlled by the country's government, on behalf of his company, Affinity Partners. The payment was made six months after he left the White House.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
During his tenure working for Trump, Kushner had worked on a peace deal between Israel and Palestine.
The committee has most recently been mired in an investigation into the business dealings of Hunter Biden, and if they involved his father, President Joe Biden.
Raskin and other House Democrats want to find out if “the investment was tied to Mr. Kushner’s pro-Saudi policies while in office," the letter said.
Even Comer has said in the past that Kushner's deal with the Saudis was suspect.
“I’ve been vocal that I think that what Kushner did crossed the line of ethics,” Comer said to CNN earlier this month.
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Senate Republican vows to defy Trump appointment
TOPEKA — U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall vowed to be on the Kansas general election ballot in November and to decline administrative appointment from President Donald Trump during the next two years.
Marshall, a Kansas Republican seeking reelection to a second term in the U.S. Senate, made the declaration Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I will be on the ballot on Election Day (and) will be honored to represent the people of Kansas for the next six years going forward. It’s been the honor of my lifetime,” Marshall said before shifting the conversation to Trump’s economic performance.
“Meet the Press” host Ryan Nobles brought Marshall back to the potential he could resign from the Senate: “So, that means you’re ruling out any sort of an appointment in the Trump administration, just to button it up.”
“I am ruling out any appointment in the Trump administration at least through the next two or two or three years,” the GOP senator said. “Who knows what would happen four years from now, OK?”
Marshall’s status as a candidate in the 2026 election and as a possible Trump appointee have been the source of controversy after questions were raised about implementation of a 2025 Kansas law that guarantees a Republican would replace Marshall if he resigned. In addition, the state law says filling a U.S. Senate vacancy in Kansas because of a resignation after May 1 and before Oct. 2 in an election year would allow the replacement to avoid a Senate election for two years.
“I got so much more work to do as a United States senator,” Marshall said. “But, America is back. And I’m just proud to keep serving in this position.”
Adam Hamilton, among 11 candidates for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, has sought to propel his candidacy ahead of the Aug. 4 primary election by questioning potential reliance on the state law by the Kansas Republican Party.
“Kansans know Rev. Adam Hamilton is the best candidate to take on Roger Marshall and win,” said Tyson Brody, spokesman for the Hamilton campaign. “The Kansas GOP is so worried they’re trying to jettison Marshall, cancel the election and even talking about taking away Kansans’ right to elect senators.”
In the television interview, Nobles asked Marshall about the Save America Act advocated by Trump and passed by the U.S. House. The bill, which is tied up in the U.S. Senate, includes a provision requiring people to show a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. In addition, the legislation would require people to present a photo ID to vote.
“Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting. There’s no evidence that fraudulent votes have changed any election outcomes. Are you trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist?” Nobles asked Marshall.
“The issue right now is again that Americans don’t feel that the elections are trustworthy. No one wants their vote canceled … by an ‘illegal alien’ or by a dead person,” Marshall said.
In response, Nobles said the Heritage Foundation conducted a study that found 100 instances of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections since the 1980s. He said Trump’s claim of sweeping election fraud didn’t hold up to scrutiny.
“I guess we just look at this differently,” Marshall said. “What are Democrats running from? Why are they afraid? If what you’re saying is true, then why are you worried about this? Why not have voter ID? Why not have some type of proof of citizenship.”
In 2018, a federal judge struck down a Kansas law that required new voters to prove their citizenship. The law had prevented more than 30,000 lawful voters from registering, and then-Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is now the attorney general, failed to prove his claims of widespread voter fraud.
