In Gift To Democrats, Moderate GOP Senator In Blue State To Retire
Maine moderate three-term Republican Senator Olympia Snowe has just announced she will retire at the end of her term, and not seek re-election, citing “an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.” Snowe, who has occasionally sided with Democrats over LGBT and other social issues, is in a primarily moderate to Democratic-leaning state, and given the current political, many believe the Democrats can take the seat from the GOP.
Snowe is currently an ENDA co-sponsor, and voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, after an initial “no” decision, but would not co-sponsor the Respect for Marriage Act that would repeal DOMA. Snowe was part of a failed attempt to kill the federal judgeship confirmation of Alison Nathan, a lesbian jurist whose law career at the time spanned eleven years.
Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, who first broke the news minutes ago, notes “Snowe’s retirement represents a major setback for the GOP’s efforts to regain a majority in the Senate,” and adds that “in a more neutral political environment, and in a federal race, Democrats will be heavy favorites to steal this seat from Republicans.”
In 2010, Snowe was listed as the 21st most-wealthy member of Congress.
Here is Senat0r Snowe’s complete statement:
STATEMENT OF SENATOR OLYMPIA J. SNOWE ON
RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN FOR UNITED STATES SENATE
WASHINGTON, D.C – Three-term Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) issued the following statement today with regard to her re-election campaign:
“After an extraordinary amount of reflection and consideration, I am announcing today that I will not be a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate.
“After 33 years in the Congress this was not an easy decision. My husband and I are in good health. We have laid an exceptionally strong foundation for the campaign, and I have no doubt I would have won re-election. It has been an indescribable honor and immeasurable privilege to serve the people of Maine, first in both houses of Maine’s legislature and later in both houses of Congress. To this day, I remain deeply passionate about public service, and I cherish the opportunity I have been given for nearly four decades to help improve the lives of my fellow Mainers.
“As I have long said, what motivates me is producing results for those who have entrusted me to be their voice and their champion, and I am filled with that same sense of responsibility today as I was on my first day in the Maine House of Representatives. I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.
“With my Spartan ancestry I am a fighter at heart; and I am well prepared for the electoral battle, so that is not the issue. However, what I have had to consider is how productive an additional term would be. Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term. So at this stage of my tenure in public service, I have concluded that I am not prepared to commit myself to an additional six years in the Senate, which is what a fourth term would entail.
“As I enter a new chapter, I see a vital need for the political center in order for our democracy to flourish and to find solutions that unite rather than divide us. It is time for change in the way we govern, and I believe there are unique opportunities to build support for that change from outside the United States Senate. I intend to help give voice to my fellow citizens who believe, as I do, that we must return to an era of civility in government driven by a common purpose to fulfill the promise that is unique to America.
“In the meantime, as I complete my third term, I look forward to continuing to fight for the people of Maine and the future of our nation. And I will be forever and unyieldingly grateful for the trust that the people of Maine have placed in me, and for the phenomenal friendship and assistance I have received over the years from my colleagues, my supporters, and my staff, both in Maine and in Washington.†Senator Snowe will be scheduling a news conference in Portland, Maine, in order to further discuss her decision when she returns to her home state on Friday.
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President Donald Trump is reportedly suing Rupert Murdoch and Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, over the publication of a story alleging he sent a “bawdy” birthday letter in 2003 to Jeffrey Epstein, the now-notorious convicted sex offender who died in 2019.
“Court records show that Trump filed a lawsuit alleging libel against Murdoch, the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones, and the reporters who wrote the article in federal court for the Southern District of Florida,” CNBC reported late Friday afternoon.
Trump vehemently denied the Journal’s report and publicly threatened to sue after it was published. The Journal had reported in its story that Trump had warned he would take legal action if the story ran.
“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Thursday night. “These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his a– off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJT”
READ MORE: FBI Told to Flag Mentions of Trump in Epstein Files, Dem Says in Scathing Letter to Bondi
Image via Reuters
One thousand employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation sifting through thousands of pages of the Epstein files were instructed to flag any mentions of President Donald Trump, according to Democratic U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee.
“According to information my office received,” Senator Durbin wrote in a letter (below) to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday, “you…pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel…on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline.”
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned,” Durbin charged.
The files are from the criminal investigation into the notorious Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of child sex offenses.
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In his letter, Senator Durbin also posed a series of more than a dozen questions to Bondi. Among them:
“Have you personally reviewed all files in DOJ’s possession related to Jeffrey Epstein?”
“The records DOJ released on February 27 did not include a client list. Why did you
publicly claim on February 21 that the client list was ‘sitting on my desk right now to review’?”
“Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?”
“Please list all political appointees and senior DOJ officials involved in the decision to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned.”
“What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?”
CNBC reported that “Durbin asked the Justice Department and FBI to explain what his office called ‘apparent discrepancies’ regarding handling of the Epstein files and findings from a Justice Department memo.”
In his four-page letter, Durbin also wrote, “in 2002, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Epstein, ‘I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy, He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.’ Just yesterday, it was reported that the Department previously reviewed a ‘leather-bound album’ comprised of dozens of letters from Mr. Epstein’s friends in celebration of his 50th birthday in 2003.”
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“The letters were collected by Mr. Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell and included one from President Trump that allegedly ‘contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker … and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist.'”
“Despite tens of thousands of personnel hours reviewing and re-reviewing these Epstein- related records over the course of two weeks in March, it took DOJ more than three additional months to officially find there is ‘no incriminating ‘client list,’ and the memorandum with this finding includes no mention of the whistleblower or additional documents, the existence of which you publicly claimed on February 27.”
Read a copy of Senator Durbin’s letter below or at this link.
Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino have made a mess of the Epstein files.
It’s time to clear it up once and for all for the American people. pic.twitter.com/WQw13gmf1F
— Senate Judiciary Democrats 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryDems) July 18, 2025
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Image via Reuters
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after cutting 1,300 employees last week, is now ordering diplomats to not comment on foreign elections and internal affairs—limiting official communications to congratulating the declared winner.
“Rubio has instructed U.S. diplomats not to comment on the legitimacy or fairness of foreign elections, breaking with decades of American diplomatic practice,” The Daily Beast reports. In a memo, the Secretary stated that U.S. missions will no longer issue election-related statements unless there is a “clear and compelling” foreign policy reason for doing so.
“Diplomatic personnel writing official messages are instead instructed to ask themselves: ‘Would the President say this?'”
The memo, seen by Reuters, says the messages “should be brief, focused on congratulating the winning candidate and, when appropriate, noting shared foreign policy interests.”
READ MORE: ‘He’s So Frustrated’: Johnson Defends Trump Over Explosive Epstein Birthday Letter
The memo makes clear, based on President Trump’s remarks, that the U.S. will “pursue partnerships with countries wherever our strategic interests align,” regardless of democratic values.
U.S. promotion of human rights, democracy, and press freedoms has traditionally been a “core foreign policy objective,” Reuters reported.
“Under Trump, the administration has increasingly moved away from the promotion of democracy and human rights, largely seeing it as interference in another country’s affairs.”
The Washington Post adds that for “decades, the United States has offered judgments on whether elections were conducted in a free or fair matter [sic], a judgment that can have significant impact in countries.”
“Scholars have accused the United States of democratic backsliding since Trump, who refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, returned to office this year.
President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have defended right-wing and far-right political groups, including Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which reportedly has ties to right-wing extremists.
Secretary Rubio in May ignited a “spat” with Germany’s foreign ministry when it “hit back…after he criticized the decision to classify the Alternative for Germany party as a ‘right-wing extremist’ organization,” the Associated Press reported at the time.
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Image via Reuters
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