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‘Where Did All the Money Go?’: Trump DNI Pick Tulsi Gabbard Has Multiple PACs, Report Says
Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, would, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate, oversee the entire U.S. Intelligence Community, encompassing all 18 agencies. Like many of Trump’s nominees, Gabbard, a controversial former Democratic Congresswoman and failed presidential candidate turned ultra-MAGA Republican who, as Mother Jones reports, has numerous political action committees (PACs).
“It’s uncommon for a politician to have three or four separate PACs, though they can be used for different purposes,” political scientist and campaign finance expert Sarah Bryner told Mother Jones. “The most common number is one. Generally the more you have is because of obfuscation. It confuses people.”
Mother Jones’s D.C. Bureau Chief David Corn, writes: “If Gabbard reaches a Senate confirmation hearing, there will be much for the senators to grill her on, especially her sympathetic views regarding Putin and Russia and her support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, as well as her efforts to help Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who each exposed top-secret information that caused damage for the intelligence community.”
“A key question will be whether someone as excessively partisan as Gabbard can be a fair-minded and even-handed overseer of the intelligence agencies, the intelligence they produce, and the covert actions they mount. Senate Intelligence Committee investigators should be sure to examine the network of organizations she has built and the flow of money in and out of her nonprofit. There are few jobs in the federal government as important as managing the sprawling US intelligence community. With no direct intelligence experience, Gabbard deserves scrutiny of all matters that can shed light on her fitness for this post,” Corn warns.
READ MORE: ‘Much Like the 11th Century’: Trump Defense Pick Called for American ‘Crusade’
Former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton called Gabbard “the worst cabinet-level appointment in history,” and told CNN (video below) it is “an absolute necessity” Gabbard and all of Trump’s nominees have a full FBI background check.
According to Mother Jones, Gabbard’s PACs include Defend Freedom, Inc., which is “is one of a network of organizations Gabbard has assembled in recent years.”
Gabbard also has a Super PAC called For Love of Country, Inc., which “described itself as ‘Tulsi’s vehicle for messaging in the 2024 election, including a national ad campaign to communicate with middle-of-the-road voters, disenfranchised Democrats, and undecided Independents.’ It claimed, ‘For Love of Country PAC will use traditional and disruptive methods to blend the tried-and-true approach with innovation to reach otherwise unlikely voting demographics.'”
“It looks as if this PAC funded by pro-Trump Republican money-bags mostly existed to cover the costs of Gabbard’s political team,” Corn writes.
There is another PAC, Our Freedom, Our Future, and still another, Team Tulsi, along with a nonprofit, We Must Protect.
“Tens of thousands of people,” Mother Jones reports, contributed to Gabbard’s Defend Freedom PAC. “Through mid-October it raised $1.9 million, including a $16,552 transfer from another Gabbard PAC called Team Tulsi.”
But, out of “all the money it pulled in, Defend Freedom, Inc. devoted only $20,000 to contributions for a small number of candidates, all far-right MAGA-ish Republicans: US Senate candidates Kari Lake and Tim Sheehy, and US House contenders Joe Kent, Brian Jack, and Mayra Flores. (Before running for a congressional seat in 2022, Flores published social media posts promoting QAnon.) Where did all the money go?”
“Gabbard’s outfit spent $1.3 million on operating expenses—at least $1 million on fundraising and direct mail, according to its filings with the Federal Election Commission. Like many PACs, it acted mainly as a money-churning machine that generated donations that mostly profited vendors and consultants.”
READ MORE: ‘Declaration of War on Expertise’: Experts Explain Danger of Trump ‘MAGA Zealot’ Nominees
Corn also reports that Gabbard’s For Love of Country PAC “banked hefty checks from several big-money Republican funders. The biggest amount came from a donor named David Flory, who sent Gabbard’s PAC a whopping $100,000. On the PAC’s FEC filing, it neglected to note—as it is compelled to do—Flory’s occupation and employer.
Corn details how he tried to track down more information about the donation and the donor.
“Asked about the $100,000 contribution to Gabbard’s PAC and the address tied to it, [Flory] said, ‘Doesn’t sound familiar,’ and he tried to end the conversation. Pressed as to whether he had made a donation to Gabbard, he said, ‘I’m not interested in talking to you about it.’ Sounding irritated, he addressed his wife, ‘Julie, don’t take these calls. Just hang up on them.’ He then left the call.”
On social media, Corn adds: “An investigation of Tulsi Gabbard’s PACs shows much of the funds raised have gone to fundraising & to pay her advisers, not the stated mission of the PACs. Plus, she won’t reveal the donors to a charity she runs. All this needs vetting.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
It is an absolute necessity that Tulsi Gabbard & other top-level appointees have a full FBI background investigation. This isn’t discriminatory against Tulsi Gabbard; everyone should have a full background check, especially the nominee for Director of National Intelligence. pic.twitter.com/qS4Opg9amQ
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) November 25, 2024
READ MORE: ‘One of the Smallest Margins Since the 19th Century’: NYT Crushes Trump’s ‘Landslide’ Claim
Image via Shutterstock
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
