FBI searches election hub in county where Trump got indicted for racketeering
FBI carried out a search of an election hub in a Georgia county that was one of President Donald Trump's primary target for fraud claims.
Agents were seen going into the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, reported Fox News Digital.
The outlet reported that it was told the probe was related to the 2020 election.
The FBI and Department of Justice each declined to comment on the search.
The hub facility was opened in 2023 by state officials to streamline the county's election process.
Trump was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury along with 18 co-defendants in 2023 on charges related to his efforts to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden, but that case was ultimately dismissed after district attorney Fani Willis was removed over an improper relationship with a special prosecutor.
Four of Trump's alleged co-conspirators pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against him and the other defendants.
Melania furious that Minneapolis shooting eclipsed premiere of movie about her: biographer
Melania Trump told her husband to course correct in Minneapolis because she was furious Alex Pretti's shooting put the release of the documentary about her life in the shade, according to a biographer of Donald Trump.
The first lady intervened in her husband's immigration enforcement operations because she thought uproar over last weekend's ICE shooting took focus off her premiere, writer Michael Wolff told the Daily Beast.
"This was supposed to be the Melania week," he said.
The 37-year-old ICU nurse Pretti was shot as he defended a woman from ICE agents on Saturday, video and multiple reports show.
Wolff characterized Trump as responsive to spousal pressure. He said: "Donald Trump is not moved by normal political considerations, but he is moved by a p---ed-off wife. What he does not want is a p---ed-off and uncontrolled Melania."
And, according to Wolff, Melania was "truly p---ed-off" as she considered the premiere of the $75 million film, scheduled for the Kennedy Center, was eclipsed.
"You cannot alienate the first lady to the extent that she makes it an issue with the president. Almost everyone within the White House acknowledges that this is a tripwire."
By the time Trump attended Melania's premiere event Saturday evening, he had begun to "wobble" on his deportation strategy. Wolff noted: "The shooting of Alex Pretti is Saturday morning. Saturday evening is the screening of Melania, the movie. So during this period, the president, Donald Trump, begins to shift in his view of this."
On Monday, Trump removed Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino from Minneapolis, replacing him with Border Czar Tom Homan, who opposes Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Noem, who incorrectly characterized Pretti as a "domestic terrorist," met with the president for two hours Monday evening and is reportedly in precarious standing. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, criticized for calling Pretti an "assassin," was excluded from the meeting.
Melania's documentary is underperforming commercially. The film, following the first lady during the 20 days preceding Trump's second inauguration, opened in approximately 1,500 to 2,000 theaters. Social media users have highlighted numerous unsold theater seats, with examples of sparse attendance at screenings in New York and Los Angeles. The National Research Group projects the film, for which Jeff Bezos' Amazon MGM Studios invested $75 million, will generate only $5 million during its opening weekend.
Wolff is currently defending against legal threats from Melania after she threatened to sue him for $1 billion, with Wolff invoking New York state protections for reporters and free speech.
Republicans made a ‘tacit admission’ about midterms — and it could blow up in their face
A conservative columnist warned on Monday that her Republican colleagues just made a "tacit admission" about the 2026 midterms that could blow up in their face.
S.E. Cupp, a columnist for CNN, said during a segment on "The Source" with host Kaitlan Collins that Republicans have all but admitted that they don't stand a chance during the midterms with their push for mid-cycle redistricting. While those efforts seem to have paid off so far, Cupp warned that they could energize the Democratic base in a way that thwarts all the time Republicans spent trying to rig the election in their favor.
"Here's the thing that I think is important to point out if you care about democracy," Cupp said. "The republicans have done what they've done because they've been allowed to. But it's also a tacit admission that they know they cannot win without rigging it. They're out of ideas. They're not even attempting to win new voters or win back the voters that they've been losing since gaining them in 2024."
Several Republican states from Texas to Louisiana and Tennessee have adopted new election maps ahead of the midterms in an effort to preserve the Republican majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Cupp warned that voters can see through the Republicans' plans, and that may cause them to backfire in November.
"So this is the giddiness and the crowing I'm seeing from republicans about the state of the redistricting math and how it's helping Republicans," she said. "What they're not saying out loud is what I think a lot of voters can see, which is you had to rig it to make yourself competitive. And I don't even know if this will still make them competitive. They might actually be handing Democrats an advantage by really ginning up that base, firing them up to go and vote."
