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Retribution is at the center of Donald Trump’s third presidential election campaign.

“I am your warrior,” Trump proclaimed earlier this year. “I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Trump’s loyal surrogates have duly embraced the project — perhaps no one more zealously than Ivan Raiklin, a retired Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency employee, who bills himself as the former and would-be president’s “future secretary of retribution.”

Raiklin is seeking to enlist so-called “constitutional” sheriffs in rural, conservative counties across the country to detain Trump’s political enemies. Or, as he says, carry out “live-streamed swatting raids” against individuals on his “Deep State target list.”

“This is a deadly serious report,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Raw Story. “A retired U.S. military officer has drawn up a ‘Deep State target list’ of public officials he considers traitors, along with our family members and staff. His hit list is a vigilante death warrant for hundreds of Americans and a clear and present danger to the survival of American democracy and freedom."

READ: Trump's far-right army is threatening bloodshed — believe them

Raskin called on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to “denounce this dangerous plot and to repudiate threats of, and planning for, political violence from any quarter. Bipartisan opposition to vigilante violence and assassination plots is essential for American government to continue.”

The list Raiklin has been circulating since January is extensive.

It includes numerous Democratic and Republican elected officials; FBI and intelligence officials; members of the House Select January 6 Committee; U.S. Capitol Police officers and civilian employees; witnesses in Trump’s two impeachment trials and the Jan. 6 committee hearings; and journalists from publications ranging from CNN and the Washington Post to Reuters and Raw Story — all considered political enemies of Trump.

Julie Farnam, a former U.S. Capitol Police employee named on the list who as assistant director of intelligence and interagency coordination warned about the potential for violence in advance of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, said she would not be intimidated by the list.

“Any hit list is designed to impart the silence and fear of those named on it,” Farnam told Raw Story. “But silence is victory for those who write such lists. Conversely, speaking the truth without fear will always be the undoing of those who seek to intimidate and spread hate in our world. I can never be silenced.”

In addition to Farnam, the list includes nine current or former U.S. Capitol Police employees. The agency declined to comment for this story.

Raw Story is not publishing the full list given the potential risk posed to people unaware that they’re on it.

One individual named on the list who spoke on condition of anonymity noted that Raiklin is associated with retired Lt. General Michael Flynn.

“And Trump himself has repeated on dozens of occasions calls for revenge, retribution and retaliation,” the person told Raw Story. “This is another example of that broader phenomenon of revenge against political enemies that animates the former president and his entire movement, and for that reason should concern us all.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to emails requesting comment for this story.

‘Attack on our democracy’

The accusations of “treason” and other imagined offenses leveled by Raiklin against these individuals are typically based on fanciful legal theories and outlandish factual claims, if anything at all.

For example: Raiklin, in a podcast, suggested without evidence that the unidentified person responsible for setting pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee on Jan. 6, 2021, was “a subordinate-surrogate of the Capitol Police Board,” which oversees the Capitol Police.

But Raiklin is nothing if not self-assured that the “evidence” he’s gathering on anti-Trump “deep state” plotters is real. So real, it seems, that Raiklin claims the material — fully revealed — would establish probable cause for county sheriffs across the nation to issue arrest warrants for various high-ranking officials who have, in one way or another, run afoul of Trump.

Under Raiklin’s objectively bizarre plan, the sympathetic sheriffs would deputize some 75,000 military veterans — veterans he claims have been pushed out of service because they refused to comply with COVID-19 vaccine mandates — to carry out the arrests.

Raiklin has gone so far as to pitch his plan to a group of far-right sheriffs who met in Las Vegas in April.

Public records requests filed by Raw Story with dozens of county sheriff offices reveal that word of Raiklin’s efforts has reached the email inboxes of sheriffs from Wisconsin to Oklahoma.

But Raiklin’s effort to enlist these sheriffs appears to be foundering: Not one has openly signed on, and even some who are sympathetic to his cause publicly warn that his plan violates due process.

Undaunted, Raiklin has attempted to build relationships with conservative members of Congress, and aides to two Republican lawmakers who chair influential House committees confirmed to Raw Story that they are familiar with him.

An overriding reason for why Raiklin hasn’t been entirely marginalized or relegated by fellow conservatives to the realm of kooks and gadflies?

Raiklin uses the kind of hyperbolic language that Trump himself uses — and that Trump’s base eats up.

He gives federal agencies and media outlets Trump-like nicknames such as “FB-Lie,” “Faux-litico” and “National Poison Radio.”

“My nickname is the Deep State marauder, aka the mauler,” Raiklin told a group of election deniers in New Jersey earlier this year. “And I like using ice picks instead of poking the bear.”

In a video posted in May to X, which now accrued more than 10 million views, Raiklin said, “Expect to see live-streamed swatting raids of every single individual on that Deep State target list, because the precedence has already been set.”

Notwithstanding Raiklin’s claim that his plan would be “legal, moral and ethical,” swatting — the false reporting of an emergency to garner a response from law enforcement for the purpose of harassing a target — is illegal.

Raiklin has nevertheless promoted the idea in podcast interviews, multiple posts on X, a press conference and conversations with prominent far-right extremists.

In recent days, Raiklin’s rhetoric has escalated beyond setting out future hypothetical scenarios for retribution.

He mocked one former federal employee blocking him on X while suggesting that the targeted individual “wants me to speak to him in person” and asking him for his “preferred punishment for committing treason.”

And during a podcast, he claimed to be surveilling a U.S. Capitol Police employee, whom he mentioned by name, “both physically and digitally.”

Experts worry that provocative rhetoric from figures such as Raiklin could impose a climate of fear on civil servants simply trying to do their jobs. Even worse, Raiklin’s rhetoric could inspire violence against them.

“The idea that you would target anyone that was there on the basis of allegiance to the rule of law and the Constitution is really scary,” Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told Raw Story.

Stier’s organization promotes professional, merit-based civil service as a pillar of good governance — a notion that he said is being increasingly challenged.

“This represents, in my view, an attack on our democracy,” Stier said. “We have a rule of law. If any civil servants are violating the law, there are mechanisms in place to hold them accountable. Vigilantism is not the way to have a society function.”

Raiklin responded to a phone call requesting comment by posting a recording of the voicemail on his X account on Tuesday, while commenting: “Looks like Elements of the Deep State Target List have asked @jordangreennc of Raw Sewage to try to find out more about my list….”

Later, he acknowledged a set of written questions submitted by Raw Story but didn't answer them, while accusing Raw Story and "domestic terrorist leftists" of hounding him.

"Look at my entire Deep State target list," Raiklin said. "That is the beginning. This is the scratching of the surface of who is going to be criminalized for their treason, okay?"

One prominent media organization named on Raiklin’s “target” list expressed concern for its journalists, five of whom also appear on the list by name.

“The conspiracy theories underpinning this list are baseless, and the calls for targeted harassment are dangerous,” Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the New York Times, told Raw Story. “The Times reporters on the list are simply professional journalists doing their jobs. Swatting is a criminal offense, and in the event of any instances directed at our employees, the Times will work with law enforcement to prosecute those responsible.”

Said Raw Story Publisher Roxanne Cooper: “Purposefully threatening and endangering the safety of working journalists is both reprehensible and illegal, and the American public should reject and denounce anyone who engages in such behavior.”

CNN, Reuters, the Atlantic and American Oversight declined to comment on Raiklin. Emails to the Washington Post, Politico, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC, whose journalists are also named on the list, went unreturned.

Who is Ivan Raiklin?

As the 2020 election approached, conspiracy minded Trump supporters with active Twitter accounts were in abundance. Most never broke through the incessant MAGA noise, or merely added another note to its election denialism dissonance.

Raiklin was different.

He was a seasoned veteran with a background in military intelligence who wound up playing a small but significant role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election in Trump’s name.

Following a distinguished career in the U.S. Armed Forces in which he served as a military attaché to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and foreign affairs specialist assigned to the Ukraine Crisis Team, Raiklin left the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2017 to run for U.S. Senate in Virginia, according to the Washington Post.

At the time, Raiklin’s candidacy in 2018 provided little indication of the MAGA loyalist relishing the destruction of Trump’s enemies that he would become.

If anything, Raiklin fashioned himself as a force of apolitical positivity.

“The reason I’m running is that we’ve had such a negative political atmosphere the past couple years,” Raiklin told the Courier in Iowa. “I want to inject a ‘positive disruption’ in the political conversation. Being a veteran of 20 years, I’m pretty much a political agnostic.”

But Raiklin didn’t get far: He failed to garner a sufficient number of signatures to make it onto the Republican primary ballot. And when he sued the Virginia GOP and the state Department of Elections, claiming that he was unfairly excluded, a federal judge tossed out the suit.

Following his disappointing foray into electoral politics, Raiklin began his turn toward Trump’s MAGA movement.

In 2019, he appeared at a QAnon-themed fundraiser for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, whom Raiklin met in 2010. (Flynn and Raiklin have become close in recent years, with Raiklin urging Trump to select Flynn as his vice presidential running mate and Flynn featuring Raiklin in his current speaking tour.)

Roughly a week after the 2020 election, when major media outlets had called the election for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, Raiklin went on Alex Jones’ conspiracy theory show InfoWars and confidently predicted that Trump would ultimately obtain the necessary number of electoral votes to secure reelection.

“I absolutely guarantee it,” he said. “One hundred percent. Unequivocally. Full stop. There is no possibility that he does not reach 270.”

It's a classic example of how Trump’s followers often act on Trump’s wishes or anticipate his desires without receiving specific directives.

For months, Trump had been saying that the only way he’d lose the election is if Democrats stole it through fraud. Now, Trump had lost, and Raiklin was arguing that Trump was winning, against all evidence.

Raiklin, in essence, operates as an agent of Trumpism independent of Trump.

And as the 2024 election nears, the same dynamic is apparent: Trump articulates the broad themes, and his supporters scramble to put them into practice.

“Stand back and stand by” set the stage for the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021, and now, “I am your retribution” serves as a solicitation to supporters such as Raiklin to put together specific plans for retribution against Trump’s political enemies.

‘Operation Pence Card’

Raiklin’s primary contribution to the effort to overturn the 2020 election is a memo he drafted for the benefit of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Entitled “Operation Pence Card,” it proffered a novel legal argument that Vice President Mike Pence held the authority to set aside electoral votes from states narrowly carried by Biden.

The plan is widely associated with attorney John Eastman, who now faces charges of racketeering and conspiracy in Georgia, and with conspiracy, fraud and forgery in Arizona.

But Raiklin actually tweeted out his plan one day before Eastman drafted his now-infamous stop-the-steal memo. And Raiklin wielded enough influence that Trump himself, on Dec. 23, 2020, retweeted Raiklin’s “Operation Pence Card” tweet to his tens of millions of followers.

Around the same time, Raiklin dined with then-Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who attended a meeting at the White House along with other House Republicans to discuss plans to object on Jan. 6 to the congressional certification of the presidential election — the final, generally ceremonial step before a presidential inauguration.

On Jan. 4, 2021, Raiklin had told Jerome Corsi, a longtime conspiracy theorist, that with regard to Trump supporters descending on Washington, D.C. en masse: “I am not calling for any violence, but at the same time, I can’t stop people from committing it.”

Raiklin was present at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 when a pro-Trump mob breached Congress’ defenses and temporarily stopped lawmakers’ electoral vote certification. Raiklin has not been charged with any crime related to the attack.

Following the Jan. 6 attack, the Army Reserve opened an investigation into whether Raiklin violated its rules against partisan political activity, but by early 2022, the service had cleared him of wrongdoing.

Raiklin has said the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Homeland Security have also investigated him, but those investigations likewise concluded without formal accusations of wrongdoing against Raiklin.

“So what does that trigger me to do?” Raiklin said during a presentation to a group of election deniers in New Jersey in February. “It weaponizes me against them. And so, since they haven’t found anything, and you’re investigating me, sir, I have the capability and capacity to start digging into you, your family, your friends, your associates — every single thing that you do in your life.”

Whitewashing the crimes of violent J6 rioters

While avoiding prosecution himself, Raiklin has eagerly taken up the cause of defendants who claim they were wrongfully prosecuted for their role in the Jan. 6 attack.

In June, Raiklin held a press conference in Detroit to promote his “live-streamed swatting raids” scheme. He did so alongside Treniss Jewell Evans III, who served a 20-day prison sentence for illegally entering the Capitol. Also speaking at the press conference: Sarah McAbee, the wife of a former sheriff’s deputy who is currently serving a 70-month sentence for assaulting a Washington, D.C., metropolitan police officer.

Ronald Colton McAbee, Sarah McAbee’s husband, wore patches with the word “SHERIFF” and the emblem of the anti-government Three Percenter movement on his clothing while taking part in an hours-long battle at the mouth of the Lower West Terrace Tunnel on Jan. 6.

A GiveSendGo campaign to support his wife applauds McAbee for answering “the call to stand up for our nation,” but following his conviction the Department of Justice described him as witnessing rioters knock an officer defending the U.S. Capitol to the ground. McAbee’s response was the opposite of rendering aid, according to the government.

After the officer was kicked and stripped of his baton by rioters, the government contends that “McAbee stepped into the archway, grabbed the officer’s leg, and pulled him further toward the crowd. When a second MPD officer stepped off the police line to assist the downed officer, McAbee stood up, yelled at the officer who had stepped out to assist, and then swung his arms and hands towards the officer’s head and torso. McAbee made contact with the officer and was wearing the reinforced gloves at the time of the assault.”

In the run-up to Jan. 6, Raiklin had baselessly ascribed the legitimate election of Joe Biden to “domestic fraud” committed by people “potentially under foreign actors’ payroll.” Now, at the press conference in Detroit in June 2024, Raiklin was inverting the violent crimes committed by Trump supporters to portray them, not the officers defending the Capitol, as the victims.

“You need to know who is coming after us,” Raiklin said, naming two people who are part of the U.S. Capitol security apparatus. Without presenting any evidence, Raiklin accused one of the men of “weaponizing and working with the DOJ… to criminalize against Sarah’s husband.”

Cultivating relationships with House Republicans

All the while, Raiklin is forging ties with Republican lawmakers who are sympathetic to the Jan. 6 rioters.

While leveling outlandish charges of criminal misconduct at federal civil servants, Raiklin has become a familiar presence at congressional committee hearings controlled by Republican lawmakers eager to downplay the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, or, alternately, shift blame to Democrats for the violence.

Raiklin has sat in the gallery behind the witnesses in at least five House committee hearings over the past year.

Among them: the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), the House Oversight and Accountability Committee chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).

“I don’t just sit back behind the witnesses when I’m in the House,” Raiklin said on a podcast in May. “For 15 months, I’ve been grinding day in and day out talking to dozens of members of Congress giving ideas on what needs to be done.”

On another podcast, Raiklin said: “The only person that understands this is a guy by the name of Barry Loudermilk…. Why? Well, because he’s doing the right thing. And I get an opportunity to explain this to him and his staff regularly.”

Nick Petromelis, an aide to Loudermilk, told Raw Story he, Petromelis, is “familiar” with Raiklin.

Loudermilk ignored a request from the now-defunct House Select January 6 Committee to explain a tour he gave to constituents on the eve of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. His committee deposed Farnam, the former U.S. Capitol Police intelligence leader who is on Raiklin’s target list, last month.

Austin Hacker, an aide to Comer, likewise said he, Hacker, was aware that Raiklin had attended House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearings.

Despite promising in late May that he would find out whether Comer had personally spoken to Raiklin, Hacker stopped responding to follow-up messages from Raw Story.

Raiklin said on a podcast in May that he has sent his “Deep State target list” to Comer, Jordan and the Administration Oversight Subcommittee chaired by Loudermilk.

Hacker told Raw Story that Comer, his boss, does not have the “target list” document. Aides to Jordan and the House Administration Oversight Committee did not respond to emails from Raw Story seeking confirmation that they received copies of the list.

None of the three House members responded to requests for comment about whether they support Raiklin’s antics.

Raiklin has singled out other members of Congress for praise. Of Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who filed legislation to hold U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland in “inherent contempt,” Raiklin said she “has exhibited the maximum courage that her position allows.”

Luna’s legislation would hold the attorney general in “inherent contempt” for refusing demands to turn over audio of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview with Biden, related to Biden’s retention of classified documents in the garage of his Delaware home. “Inherent contempt” is a tool that would allow the House sergeant-at-arms to take Garland into custody and compel him to sit for a congressional proceeding. Raiklin told one podcaster that he “saw” Luna at a congressional hearing in May.

Luna’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

‘Go to the maximum level’

While cultivating ties with members of Congress, Raiklin has been lobbying sheriffs — with mixed results — to join his effort.

To reach potentially sympathetic sheriffs, Raiklin has focused on an organization called the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association.

Under the leadership of Richard Mack, a former sheriff from Arizona, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association has promoted the controversial view that county sheriffs are the highest law in the land and are within their rights to ignore any federal and state laws that they deem to be unconstitutional.

But Mack told Raw Story he has severed ties with Raiklin since talking with him in early June, and that he disapproves of Raiklin’s rhetoric.

During the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association’s annual convention during April in Las Vegas, Raiklin asked a panel of sheriffs if they would “be willing to go to the maximum level to create consequences for these federal actors” whom he claimed had committed “seditious conspiracy.”

The response was less than promising.

Still, the potential for violence should not be discounted, according to Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights and someone who has been monitoring the far right for more than three decades.

“It is certainly not out of the realm of possibility to see them using the office of the sheriff and posses they wish to create to start rounding up political opponents,” Burgart told Raw Story. “Right now, in the far right, the promotion of post-election violence and bloody political retribution has become disturbingly commonplace. In that context, the results of the election are almost an afterthought — only important in determining whether their murderous rage will have state sanction.”

While the far-right’s willingness to escalate may increase as the election approaches, at the time of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention in April, the two elected sheriffs on the panel were taking a cautious approach.

Sheriff Bob Songer from Klickitat County in Washington state told Raiklin that much as he might want to help, he doubted many prosecutors would be willing to press charges.

Sheriff Dar Leaf from Barry County in Michigan, put it more forcefully.

“We’re not going to be able to just go out and arrest,” he said. “We’ve got to do a grand jury indictment, just like the Constitution says.”

Leaf’s far-right credentials would seem to make him a prime candidate for Raiklin’s project. He gained national notoriety in 2020 when he suggested that members of an anti-government militia accused of attempting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer might have been trying to carry out a citizen’s arrest.

Leaf has falsely claimed that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and a lawyer representing Leaf reportedly sought evidence from an ad hoc group organized by lawyer Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn in December 2020 that could be used to justify “issuing probable cause warrants to sequester Dominion voting machines.”

But if Raiklin and his allies were discouraged by Leaf’s response at the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention, they haven’t given any indication of it.

During a podcast appearance with Mark Finchem, a former Arizona state representative who took part in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, Raiklin said he was certain that the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association could help “identify which county sheriffs would be clamoring, clamoring to prosecute these scum.”

“I know one,” Finchem replied. “Dar Leaf in Barry County, Michigan.”

Reached by Raw Story earlier this month, Leaf said that despite fielding a question from him at the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention, he doesn’t know who Raiklin is.

Leaf reiterated his rejection of Raiklin’s plan by expressing an aversion to politically motivated prosecutions.

Furthermore, Leaf warned that if indictments were obtained through grand juries “stacked” with Trump supporters, any criminal activity uncovered through depositions would be thrown out “because we started out breaking the law.”

Among dozens of other sheriff’s offices across the country contacted for this story, two in Wisconsin — Burnett County and Polk County — confirmed receiving an email with the subject heading: “Ivan Raiklin Requests Deputization of 80K Veterans” that linked to Raiklin’s video and encouraged them to get in contact.

“Please Watch this viral video that has garnered 9.8M views in 5 days,” it reads. “Important you understand. Remember your Oath.”

Raiklin’s name landed in one other sheriff’s inbox through a subscription to the “General Flynn Newsletter,” which is promoting the documentary about the former national security adviser.

The email, received by Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado in Oklahoma, describes Raiklin as a member of a team “hand-selected” by Flynn to provide event attendees “with an informative and unforgettable experience.”

The email describes the “General Flynn was Framed Evidence Wall,” a visual prop that Raiklin uses prior to each film screening that presents “an exhaustive timeline and link analysis of all the major political and government officials at the most senior levels that weaponized against General Flynn to prevent him from exposing their corruption.”

During his months-long campaign, Raiklin has continuously referenced Mack and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association in an effort to build credibility for his plan.

During his press conference with Treniss Evans in Detroit, Raiklin mentioned that the previous evening he’d “had a very long conversation with a guy by the name of Sheriff Mack” on the topic of “vetting and communicating with sheriffs.”

On a livestream of the press conference, Raiklin displayed a photo of the two men huddling over a laptop, suggesting a collaborative effort.

In a recent interview, Mack told Raw Story at the time that he had been “getting all sorts of calls” about Raiklin.

But since that meeting, Mack said he has soured on Raiklin’s plan.

“I’m afraid I don’t approve of some of his language, the hyperbole, the rhetoric,” Mack said.

For the same reason, Mack said, he resigned from the Oath Keepers. Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right group that recruited from the ranks of retired law enforcement and military veterans, is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence for seditious conspiracy at a federal prison in Cumberland, Md.

“It’s not where CSPOA can go,” Mack said, adding that he and Raiklin “are not working together at all.”

Since early June, Mack said that the two men have not spoken or exchanged any emails.

“Quite frankly, he talks about that list of 350 people — I’m sure they can afford lawyers,” Mack said. “It reeks of lawsuits, and it doesn’t follow due process.”

During his press conference with Evans, Raiklin said the two men are planning to attend the Sheriffs Association of Texas’ annual conference in Fort Worth, Texas, this month and pitch their plan.

“I would say that my inbox has been interesting lately with the amount of sheriffs that have an interest in seeing Texas uphold the United States Constitution, and preserve the way of life that we’ve come to expect as constitutionally guaranteed,” Evans said during the press conference.

But Mack said Raiklin’s score is currently 0.

“I know a lot of sheriffs, especially in Texas,” Mack told Raw Story. “I do not believe he has a single sheriff aligned with him. He’s never been able to give me a name.”

‘It’s so easy to learn where they live’

While cultivating relationships with members of Congress, lobbying sheriffs and recruiting volunteers to join posses tasked with detaining political enemies, Raiklin has also forged relationships with other extremists, seeming to cast about for a legal rationale in support of his scheme.

Over the past six months, Raiklin has appeared on at least three podcasts with Dr. Pete Chambers, who helped organize a “Take Our Border Back” convoy earlier this year to support Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s defiance of the federal government.

Like Raiklin, Chambers is a retired lieutenant colonel who formerly served in the Army Special Forces. Following his retirement from the military and later, in 2022, from the National Guard, Chambers joined the “sovereign citizen” group Republic of Texas, whose members shot a man and took him hostage in 1997.

Chambers said when he watched Raiklin’s viral video outlining his plan to carry out “live-streamed swatting raids” against his “Deep State target list,” he recalled that he said to himself: “Ivan, you’ve just kicked open the door, and we’re going to have to back your play. And we can. And we’ve got the receipts to do it.”

During the conversation between the two men, Chambers referenced something called “the doctrine of lesser magistrates.” Although the term is rooted in the 16th century Protestant Reformation in Europe, it was more recently popularized by Matthew Trewhella, a Wisconsin pastor who has advocated killing abortion doctors.

Michael Flynn has recommended Trewhella’s 2013 book, The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates: A Proper Resistance to Tyranny and a Repudiation of Unlimited Obedience to Civil Government, as “a masterful blueprint showing Americans how to successfully resist tyranny.”

Trewhella’s book also received a plug at the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention where Raiklin attempted to sell the sheriffs on his “live-streamed swatting raids” plan.

Chambers seemed to acknowledge the improvisational nature of applying a 16th century religious doctrine to an ideological battle with Trump’s political adversaries in the United States of America in 2024.

“We’re building a plane and flying it here, I would say,” he said. “However, it is legal, moral and ethical…. If we can get together and develop the alliances of these sheriffs, then we decrease the space that these people can then maneuver.”

‘Gonna face those guns’

Next week, barring something cataclysmic, Trump will officially become the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee.

Trump will become the nominee despite being convicted of 34 felonies in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case in Manhattan, and he still faces dozens of additional federal and state charges despite a recent Supreme Court ruling that granted Trump — and any future president — immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” they took as president.

Trump is as defiant as ever.

“I did nothing wrong. We’d have a system that was rigged and disgusting. I did nothing wrong,” Trump said June 27 in his debate against Biden.

On a parallel track, Raiklin’s embrace of lawlessness appears to be growing stronger.

In June, Raiklin published a 76-minute video of himself speaking with Cliven Bundy, a 78-year-old Nevada rancher who is perhaps the ultimate icon of the far-right anti-government movement. In 2014, Bundy’s refusal to pay grazing fees to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management led to an armed standoff between the FBI and militia members, along with other supporters, including Richard Mack from the CSPOA.

Raiklin flattered Bundy during the exchange as “quite the legend,” while describing the federal government as “the most corrupt institution on the planet.” The two men agreed that “the militia” — a term used to describe armed citizens — “puts a check on the federal government.”

The rhetoric used by the two men became increasingly confrontational, with Bundy accusing the federal government of plotting to kill Americans. Cliven Bundy noted that his son, Ryan Bundy, was wounded, and a friend, LaVoy Finicum, was killed during a traffic stop during the Malheur National Forest occupation in Oregon in 2016.

“They don’t have those bullets to fight our enemy across the border,” Bundy charged. “They’ve got those bullets to kill us in America.”

Raiklin then quoted the Bible to suggest the proper response was “an eye for an eye.”

Bundy lamented that sheriffs across the country did not heed his call in 2014 for them to disarm federal agents in their jurisdictions.

“I said, ‘If you don’t disarm them, one of these days you’re going to face those guns,’” Bundy recounted.

“Now, we’re getting closer,” he quickly added. “Gonna face those guns.”

Raiklin, in response, appeared to advocate for doxing federal agents.

“Oh yeah, we’re not only going to do that,” he said. “Again, they’re going to experience the most peaceful, legal and moral, ethical and patriotic endeavor they’ve ever experienced in their life. Every one of them. Because we have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people that will facilitate them experiencing that.

“Because it’s so easy to learn where they live,” Raiklin continued. “Each one. Where their homes are. Who they’re related to. Where they frequent. What kinds of vehicles they own. What kinds of devices they own and that they emit GPS geo-tracking data. Which social media apps they use. We monitor all their communications.”

Seismologists report that the chunks of granite falling from the Mount Rushmore National Memorial come from the laughter of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt after they read a recent email blast from the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Donald Trump is “the greatest president in American history,” the NRSC’s fundraising missive declared.

The group, whose purpose is electing Republicans to the Senate, isn’t known for having a staff of eminent historians. But that didn’t stop the NRSC from making the claim about Trump in an email urging people to sign an online birthday card for the former president and current putative Republican president nominee. Trump turned 78 on Friday.

The idea of Trump’s presidential preeminence runs counter to historians’ verdicts.

The C-SPAN Presidential Historians Survey of 2021 placed Trump at No. 41 out of 44, not including Biden.

The Presidential Greatness Project had Trump dead last this year.

The Siena College Research Institute put Trump 43rd out of 45 in 2022.

Raw Story asked Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), chairman of the NRSC, if he ranks Trump, now a twice-impeached convicted felon who couldn’t win re-election and inspired an insurrection, as the greatest president in American history.

Rachel Dumke, press secretary for Daines, demurred: “This is the senator’s official office, and since this is an unofficial matter, you’ll need to reach out to the NRSC.”

Raw Story asked the NRSC to explain its reasoning for ranking Trump ahead of all other presidents, including Republicans such as Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln. The NRSC did not respond.

Even Trump himself — during the dawn of MAGA, at least — indicated Lincoln stands above all other presidents.

“You can’t out-top Abraham Lincoln,” Trump told the Washington Post in 2016.

“With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” Trump said in 2017.

C-SPAN’s presidential ranking survey has used the same criteria since 2000 for assessing presidencies: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision and setting an agenda, pursued equal justice for all and performance within the context of times.

Said Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute, when its rankings were announced: “The scholars that participate in this study have changed over 40 years but the top five — FDR, Abe, Washington, Teddy and Jefferson — remain carved in granite year after year.”

Trump frequently refers to President Joe Biden on the campaign trail as “the worst president in history.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the same thing recently.

The Presidential Greatness Project, which had Trump last, put Biden at No. 14, which project directors Justin Vaughn of Coastal Carolina University and Brandon Rottinghaus of the University of Houston attribute in part to the dim view academics take on Trump.

“Trump’s radical departure from political, institutional and legal norms has affected knowledgeable assessments not just of him but also of Biden and several other presidents,” Vaughn and Rottinghaus wrote.

Rottinghaus declined to tell Raw Story whether any plausible argument exists to place Trump at No. 1, as the NRSC did.

But he and Vaughn did note that Trump even ranked below presidents James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, the mid-19th century flameouts who bookended Lincoln’s presidency.

Their assessment of Buchanan and Johnson: “Historically calamitous.”

At the start of a video blaming Democrats for a laundry list of problems, a narrator says in an ominous baritone, “Do they know what they have done?”

Moments later, a free-for-all of migrants are shown charging at the U.S. border from Tijuana, Mexico — part of a tribute to “tireless conservative warrior” Ken Paxton, the embattled attorney general of Texas. The video debuted last month at the Texas GOP Convention and Paxton posted it on social media.

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It turns out, however, according to a Raw Story analysis, that the news footage used to show a “dangerous open border,” as the video called it, was actually from November 2018 — during the middle of Republican Donald Trump’s presidency.

That’s not the only misleading part of the two-minute, 37-second video, which uses a montage of images to evoke fear and blame, all in the name of Paxton, who survived 16 articles of impeachment last year. The Dallas Morning News said the Paxton video resembled "a trailer for an action-hero movie."

But the stock images used in the video — including a sad boy staring forlornly out a window — did not depict Texans, or even Americans.

Instead, they came from companies or artists representing a veritable United Nations of foreign countries.

The sad boy and the dejected face of a young girl? Switzerland.

Stacks of $100 bills? Spain.

A person representing the “liberal establishment” who’s putting $100 bills into an envelope? Ukraine.

The silhouette of a man walking onto a stage? Russia.

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

In the video, Paxton, who in March struck a deal that ended a federal criminal securities fraud case against him, is called “America’s most conservative attorney general” and “somebody who has been brave and strong.” Paxton spent part of April in New York attending the trial of former president Donald Trump, who was found guilty of 34 felony fraud counts.

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The video charges that the “liberal establishment” wanted to eliminate Paxton because it “resents who they cannot control. They hatched a secret and shameful plan to overturn an election and take out our conservative champion.”

Actually, 70 percent of his fellow Republicans in the Republican-controlled state House voted to impeach Paxton on charges of bribery and corruption in trying to help a wealthy political donor.

The impeachment trial, which ended with the Republican-controlled Texas Senate acquitting Paxton, included testimony from a staff member that Paxton’s extramarital affair could make him vulnerable to bribery.

Among the people who listened to the testimony and adjudicated the case: Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton. They are still married. They were shown in a photo at the GOP Convention holding hands and waving to the crowd.

When it was his turn to speak, Paxton claimed migration was part of a plan to "steal another election."

He said, falsely, “The Biden Administration wants the illegals here to vote.”

INDIANAPOLIS — A Green Party presidential candidate made a $300 payment to the First Church of Cannabis and, understandably, the Federal Election Commission is skeptical.

A Raw Story review of public records shows the FEC sent Jill Stein for President 2024 a letter questioning the legitimacy of the transaction and soliciting an explanation.

Jason Call, a spokesman for Stein’s campaign, told Raw Story that the payment to the Church of Cannabis was for rental of the building for a campaign event during the eclipse.

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Bill Levin, a 68-year-old former punk rock promoter and leader of the church — title: "grand poohbah" — said he told the Stein campaign that an event on the day of the eclipse might be, well, eclipsed by the rare event of the moon obscuring the sun in the middle of the afternoon.

"The campaign came here with three, four, five people," Levin said in an interview with Raw Story. "A bunch of people, maybe 25, heard Jill Stein was going to be here. The campaign people said, 'Jill's going to give a speech after the elipse.' As soon as the eclipse was over, everyone left. She sat and talked to the five people and me. My wife might have come in and out."

Stein was the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2012 and 2016 and is a leading contender to become the party’s presidential standard bearer during its national convention in July. If nominated, she would join Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West among independent and minor-party candidates running alongside President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Stein's 2024 campaign platform calls for fully legalizing cannabis "for recreational and medicinal use with similar restrictions to alcohol" and "federal legalization and funding of cannabis medicinal research"

Stein’s political finances have previously come under federal scrutiny. Following her 2016 run, her campaign failed for years to pay numerous election law violation fines.

Stein’s 2016 campaign, which many Democrats credit for hurting Hillary Clinton in her race against Donald Trump, also came under fire for using much of the millions of dollars it raised for recount efforts to instead pay staff salaries, bonuses and Stein’s legal defense.

Stein became a subject of a U.S. Senate investigation into Russian election influence following a dinner she had in 2015 with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which Trump acolyte Michael Flynn also attended. (Stein maintains that she is “not a Russian spy.”)

Grassroots

The First Church of Cannabis’ connection to Stein is hardly its first foray into politics.

The church grew out of former vice president and then-governor of Indiana Mike Pence’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, which religious conservatives celebrated but which critics said would, for example, allow businesses to discriminate against gay people.

Levin saw an opening for his twist on the law.

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Government could not infringe on Individuals and companies practicing religion without a compelling reason. And even then, the government had to find the least restrictive way to enforce the law.

In 2015, the Internal Revenue Service officially recognized the First Church of Cannabis as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.

The first service was the day RFRA became law, and it was a spectacle that attracted a heavy police presence, not to mention that of local churches, neighbors, curious onlookers, and national and international media.

Even without cannabis — officially, at least — the show went on.

And it was a show. A band played songs such as Rick James’ “Mary Jane” and Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” There was dancing and balloons batted in the pews of the former Christian church. People gave testaments to the healing power of cannabis. Ministers of Love, Music, and Education were introduced. There was a comedian.

The Congregants recite the “Diety Dozen,” a stoners’ version of the Ten Commandments, which includes “Don’t be an a–hole” and “Laugh often, share humor.”

“I’m not a criminal,” Levin said of his legal wranglings. “I’m a religious figure.”

What do Trump University and Trump Taj Mahal have in common — other than being among the failed businesses of former president Donald Trump?

They still have unclaimed assets in New York and New Jersey, according to online public databases.

That’s just for starters.

A Raw Story analysis showed Trump, the putative 2024 Republican presidential nominee, having unclaimed assets in at least 16 states plus the District of Columbia. In Florida alone, the state’s chief financial officer earlier this month informed Trump that he has $54,000 in unclaimed property.

This might not seem like much relative to Trump’s wealth. But Trump is leaving money on the table — potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars or more — while running up staggering legal expenses to defend himself against 88 felony counts across four criminal trials.

Donors are meanwhile contributing millions of dollars to pay Trump’s legal bills. Trump also trails substantially in fundraising for his presidential campaign against President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

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A conservative count from online records showed at least 137 instances in New York of Trump having unclaimed property — for his current and former businesses as well as himself, individually.

That includes four potential claims for the defunct Trump University, which paid a $25 million settlement in 2018 to students who said they were defrauded. The unclaimed money comes from companies such as eBay for “undelivered goods/services” and Amazon for “outstanding checks issued to vendors.”

Trump University, the defunct education company that paid out a massive settlement to students who accused it of fraud, has failed to claim money that's owed to it. (Source: Office of the New York State Comptroller)

In New Jersey, Trump has at least 40 instances of unclaimed property.

That includes the Trump Taj Mahal hotel and casino, which closed in 2016 after Trump proclaimed it the “eighth wonder of the world” when it opened in 1990. It sold for pennies on the dollar, but it still has money to its name at the New Jersey Treasury.

There are at least 10 instances of unclaimed property for Trump Taj Mahal. New Jersey does not list the source or reason for the unclaimed money.

New York and New Jersey do not publicly disclose the value of unclaimed property until a request for payment has been approved.

Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Among the lost assets Donald Trump has failed to recoup in New Jersey: money owed to the defunct Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J. (Source: New Jersey Unclaimed Property Administration)

As an individual, Trump has an unspecified amount of money to claim from NBC Universal Media LLC for “wages/payroll/salaries.” NBC televised the Apprentice, the reality show that starred Trump.

Almost all of Trump’s unclaimed money across the country is for one of his former or current businesses or political campaigns, including Trump Corporation, Trump for President, Trump International Hotels, Trump Marks Fine Foods, Trump Model Management, Trump National Golf Club, Trump Organization and Trump SoHo Hotel.

Trump Marks Mattress has money available from Tempur Sealy International for “outstanding checks issued to vendors.”

Trump’s available money in New York and New Jersey is likely substantially higher than other states where Trump has had businesses or campaigns, and where Trump has far fewer potential claims.

In Washington, D.C., a listing for “D Trump” — address: “The White House” — indicates unclaimed property worth “under $50” that’s tied to Amazon.com. It’s one of more than a dozen listings that appeared tied to the former president, including three items of unclaimed property from the former Trump International Hotel DC, each worth “over $50.”

ALSO READ: 8 ways Trump doesn’t become president

Trump has a total of at least $2,914 in unclaimed property across Connecticut, Virginia, California, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina and Texas. As some of those states list values of unclaimed property in broad ranges, the dollar figure is likely much higher.

Meanwhile in Illinois, Trump International Hotel has three potential claims for “over $100” and two for “under $100.”

In Nevada, the Trump campaign and exploratory committee have four potential claims of “under $500.” The Trump Organization has at least six unclaimed cashiers checks from 2013 — five worth “under $1,000” and one worth “$1,000 and above.”

In Massachusetts, the Trump for President campaign has failed to recoup “vendor checks” reported to the state by the city of Doral, Mass.

In Colorado, Donald Trump for President could make a claim on “over $250” in abandoned assets — the reason unstated.

In Pennsylvania, the Trump for President campaign is due two refunds or rebates from Comcast, both under $100.

States promote their unclaimed property databases, but Trump, who’s on trial for allegedly falsifying business records in New York, has other things on his mind.

“Every day New York State returns $1.5 million to those who file claims here,” it says on the state’s database page. “Is any yours?”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has requested an extension to disclose her personal finances — and do so well after her competitive June 25 primary election.

Boebert, one of the U.S. House’s most high-profile members, was supposed to disclose details about her 2023 finances on Wednesday, including assets, income, debt, royalties and business agreements, such as book deals.

Boebert’s 2023 financial report also could shed light on terms of her messy divorce that was finalized in October.

But the Clerk of the House of Representatives accepted Boebert’s extension request and set a new filing deadline of August 13. Such extensions are granted routinely, but it leaves Colorado primary voters with an incomplete record of Boebert’s sources of income.

Boebert — who attended former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial Thursday in Manhattan with other federal lawmakers — is favored to win a plurality in a crowded field that includes Logan County Commissioner and former state senator Jerry Sonnenberg and conservative media personality Deborah Flora.

Boebert moved to Colorado’s 4th Congressional District last year after facing a potentially tough reelection campaign against a strong Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, in the 3rd District.

A victory in the Republican primary in Colorado’s deeply conservative 4th Congressional District is considered almost tantamount to winning the general election.

The never-ending drama involving Boebert and her performative politics are such that her high school in Rifle, Colo., does nothing to draw attention to its most famous alumna.

Just last month, Boebert’s oldest son, who faces felony charges involving identity theft, told a judge he couldn’t afford a lawyer. Boebert did not attend the court proceeding. And a report surfaced that Boebert appeared so drunk at a fundraiser in New York that servers cut her off.

Ethics experts called her 2022 financial report into question because it didn’t include income from her autobiographical book, which published that year. She did not, however, definitively violate congressional ethics rules.

Are you a lobbyist itching for a fishing trip with Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), the top Republican on the powerful Senate Finance Committee?

How about skiing and face time with Crapo?

For years, Crapo has brazenly given donors to his political action committee a veritable menu for the access that their money can buy.

READ: Here are 17 worthless things Trump will give you for your money

This year, according to a flier obtained by Raw Story, $5,000 given to the Crapo Victory Committee buys donors one of the following:

• Annual Ski Fest at Sun Valley, Idaho (last February).
• Fishing on the Chesapeake at Solomons Island, Md., in June.
• 25th Annual Hook ‘n Bullet at Sun Valley, Idaho, in August.
• 12th Annual Greenbrier Resort Retreat at White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., in November.

What the committee calls the “Max Out Benefits Package” — a reference to donations reaching the legal limits — also includes the Holiday Potato Fest Reception in Washington, D.C, in December and a “donor or industry event.”

In case that’s not enough flexibility, there is another option for donors of $5,000. They can get a “DC Luncheon” in addition to the Potato Fest and donor or industry event.

Crapo, 72, who was elected to his fourth term in the senate in 2022, used to be even more aggressive in marketing his “Max Out Package.” He had gold, silver, and bronze levels of donating, all of which included “quarterly virtual calls or briefings” and a “reception or Zoom” with the senator, Business Insider reported..

Crapo’s office did not immediately respond to Raw Story’s questions.

In a 2019 article in the Idaho Statesman, former Illinois Lt. Gov. and former Boise State University President Bob Kustra criticized Crapo’s fundraising methods.

“The issue here is not whether a law was violated, but how the influence of campaign contributions from special interests affects the behavior of our elected officials when performing their official duties,” Kustra wrote. “Money might not always talk, but, at the very least, it whispers in cases like this, and aids and abets the interests of those who have the most cash to supply.”

The Crapo Victory Committee raises money for his election committee, Mike Crapo for U.S. Senate, and the Freedom Fund, a leadership PAC that Crapo operates.

While Crapo aggressively courts contributions from corporate PACs, some members of Congress, from both parties, have sworn off that particular kind of cash.

Election law limits individuals from contributing more than $3,300 per election to candidate committees and $5,000 per year to PACs.

PACs may contribute up to $5,000 per election to candidate committees and $5,000 per year to other PACs.

Crapo appears to have been successful in encouraging donors to “max out.”

His campaign committee reported $2.3 million in cash on hand at the end of March.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is back playing the stock market after an extended absence — and she just purchased stock in two companies whose business dealings potentially conflict with her congressional committee assignments.

In a public filing released today and reviewed by Raw Story, Greene reported buying up to $15,000 Qualcomm, a federal defense contractor. Greene serves on the Homeland Security Committee and the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement.

She also reported an investment of up to $15,000 in technology giant Microsoft. Greene serves on the Government Oversight and Accountability Committee and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation.

Greene also reported buying up to $15,000 each in Home Depot, Goldman Sachs, Hershey, Berkshire Hathaway and Tractor Supply Company stock. She also purchased up to $500,000 worth of U.S. Treasury bills — short-term investments that mature between four and 52 weeks.

Greene’s office did not immediately answer Raw Story’s request for comment.

Family stocks that Greene disclosed made an 18.6 percent return on stocks in 2023, as estimated by Unusual Whales. That was above average and in the middle of members of Congress who traded stocks. Asked on Fox News about the trades, she said an account for her son must have made the trades, a claim widely mocked on social media.

Notably, Greene’s new investments do not include Trump Media & Technology Group, whose stock has tanked since it came on the market.

In October 2021, Greene became the first member of Congress to personally invest in Digital World Acquisition Corp, which in March merged with Trump Media to form the publicly traded Trump Media & Technology Group, which trades on the NASDAQ market under the ticker symbol “DJT” for “Donald John Trump.”

In 2021, Greene reported that she and her then-husband Perry Greene purchased between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of Digital World Acquisition Corp.

Greene has not reported that she sold the stock. She was divorced in December 2022. It appears the Digital World Acquisition Corp. shares — along with the shares of many other stocks — went to her ex-husband.

Greene’s husband frequently bought stocks in companies that openly supported social efforts that the congresswoman opposed, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and LTBTQ+ rights, Business Insider reported.

Greene had personally stopped trading stocks since 2023, according to financial disclosures filed with Congress.

Unusual Whales, which tracks the stock trades of members of Congress, warned in a 2023 report that stock trading by members of Congress poses risks: “It is important to remember that many of these stocks these members are trading are also legislated by their very committees. In no surprise, these conflicts do not stop members from trading those very stocks, like members of the Armed Services trading war stocks, and others.”

Unusual Whales noted in the report how Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) reacted when asked about his highly successful trades in 2021.

“His exact words were that without trading, ‘You have no way to better yourself’ as a congressperson,’” the report said.

Raw Story has reported that 42 members of Congress — Greene is not among them — have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 during the current congressional session because they’ve improperly disclosed personal financial trades.

Bipartisan efforts to ban stock trading among members of Congress have so far proved unsuccessful.

A Donald Trump-nominated Federal Election Commission leader wants to make it easier for political donors to hide their identities — a major impediment to post-Watergate interpretations of political transparency that allow anyone to see where politicians are getting their money.

The proposed directive, titled “Requests to Withhold, Redact, or Modify Identifying Information,” was submitted today by Commissioner Allen J. Dickerson for possible consideration at the commission’s public May 16 meeting. Raw Story obtained a copy.

Dickerson’s memorandum says that the Federal Election Campaign Act’s disclosure requirements “are not absolute” and subject to exceptions.

“Where a person or group can show ‘a reasonable probability’ that compelled disclosure ‘will subject them to threats, harassment, or reprisals from either Government officials or private parties,’ they must be excused from disclosing the information that will put them at risk,“ Dickerson’s memorandum says.

READ: Here are 17 worthless things Trump will give you for your money

The memorandum notes the FEC has granted “several” private requests to redact information in the past.

“But many individuals may not have been intrepid or connected enough to file a request,” the letter says. “Given the importance of the rights involved, the country’s charged political atmosphere, and basic principles of fairness, the Commission has an obligation to adopt a formal process providing for ‘a fair consideration’ of particular contributors’ situations,” the letter says.

Stuart McPhail, director of campaign finance litigation at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, criticized the potential change.

“The proposal contravenes the FEC's purpose: to guard Americans' trust in elections by ensuring transparency into who is funding them," McPhail said. "It would open to the biggest donors and most powerful parties a protection previously afforded to only minor parties lacking any power.

"The Constitution however does not permit the FEC to censor Americans' right to that information, even if a tiny minority regrettably abuses that information to engage in unlawful harassment. There are laws against threats and intimidation, as even Justice Scalia recognized. The solution isn't censorship.“

The proposal says its directive would serve as a “stopgap measure” until the FEC can “begin the process of drafting and adopting a regulation that will bring its procedures into compliance with the Constitution and relevant case law.”

The proposal would create a “standardized form whereby an individual contributor, or an organization acting on behalf of one or more of its contributors, may seek relief from the reporting requirements of the Act,” Dickerson wrote.

The proposal further limits transparency regarding applications to the FEC — a six-member, bipartisan regulatory body where no more than three members may come from one political party — to keep information hidden.

The FEC is charged with regulating and enforcing the nation’s campaign finance laws and can issue civil penalties to those who violate them. FEC commissioners, however, are often at philosophical odds amid high-profile cases and often deadlock or otherwise fail to find common ground.

“In all cases, regardless of outcome, the applications submitted pursuant to this Directive shall be kept confidential and shall not be placed on the public record,” it says.

Trump nominated Dickerson to the FEC in 2020, and the U.S. Senate confirmed him in December of that year. Dickerson served as FEC chairman — a one-year, rotating posting — in 2022.

Prior to joining the FEC, Dickerson worked as legal director for the Institute for Free Speech, a nonprofit think tank that advocates against most campaign finance regulations.

In 2023, Dickerson advocated making it more difficult for the FEC to investigate alleged campaign finance violations, The Intercept reported.

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Kristi Noem’s new book, in which the South Dakota governor and Donald Trump vice presidential aspirant describes why she killed her 14-month-old dog, has sparked widespread outrage.

But to the California Republican Party, reading about how Noem shot Cricket — her family’s wirehair pointer — is a perk.

The book, No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, is included with every purchase of a ticket for a lunch banquet May 18 in Burlingame, Calif., during the California GOP Convention.

The prices: $400 for preferred seating, $300 for general admission, and $575 for a photo with Noem and a general admission ticket. Just want the photo and no grub? That’s $350.

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People attending can hear Noem speak, eat lunch and go home to read about the dog she “hated.”

The California GOP did not immediately answer Raw Story’s question about whether it is reconsidering the book as a perk for the lunch.

Noem personally stands to profit the from bulk purchase of her book by Republican political committees. The National Republican Congressional Committee, for one, purchased a bulk delivery of Noem's previous book and offered it as a donation incentive, Forbes' Zach Everson reported in 2022.

In excerpts published by The Guardian, Noem casts the story as an example of her willingness to take on tasks, including the “difficult, messy and ugly” ones.

She called the dog “untrainable” and “dangerous,” describing a scene where the dog escaped Noem’s truck and killed chickens.

Noem took the dog to a gravel pit to rid herself of Cricket.

“It was not a pleasant job,” she writes, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The “job” of killing animals wasn’t over. She also shot and killed a “nasty and mean” goat, needing two shots to finish because the goat jumped.

“I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here,” Noem writes.

Or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing, suggested Bill Kristol, political commentator and frequent critic of Trump’s Republican party.

“Knowing Donald Trump fears and hates dogs, Kristi Noem revs up her VP campaign by writing about killing her own dog,” Kristol posted on X.

Another post did a twist on the Jimi Hendrix song, “Hey Joe.”

After a musical note emoji, it said, “Hey Noem … I heard you shot your Puppy down.” Sam Stein of Politico and MSNBC wrote, “We've gone a long way from Mitt Romney pleading with people that he did not mistreat Seamus by putting that dog on his car's roof to Kristi Noem eagerly writing about how she killed her dog in a gravel pit.”

Romney, a current U.S. senator from Utah and 2012 Republican presidential candidate, was assailed for putting his Irish setter Seamus in a dog carrier on top of a car for a 12-hour vacation ride in 1983.

A Washington Post story included a photo of people carrying signs saying, “Dogs Against Romney” and “I Ride Inside!”

The signs also publicized a website, dogsagainstromney.com, which now goes to a site that reviews dog products.

President Joe Biden has had his own dog-related problems, as family dog Commander, a German shepherd, bit numerous U.S. Secret Service personnel, according to internal documents obtained by CNN and USA Today.

Biden most certainly did not kill Commander in a gravel pit; the presidential pooch is now living with other Biden family members outside the White House, according to first lady Jill Biden’s communications director, Elizabeth Alexander.

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During the 2024 presidential campaign, Mike Pence preached from the gospel of fiscal responsibility and proposed a Constitutional amendment to limit federal spending.

“Federal spending growth is out of control and shows no signs of slowing down,” Pence's campaign website said. “Our runaway spending spree is driving inflation, making us dependent on our adversaries, and threatening our national security. It is time for a Constitutional Amendment to tie the hands of profligate politicians in Washington once and for all.”

But is Pence himself poised to join an all-star team of former presidential candidates who’ve stiffed their campaign consultants and vendors?

ALSO READ: The Supreme Court’s farce — and Mike Johnson’s absurd demand

The former vice president’s campaign owes more than $1.36 million from his run for the Republican nomination, according to this month’s filing with the Federal Election Commission. Pence's committee doesn't have nearly enough cash on hand to pay those debts — less than $600,000.

Pence’s campaign, which fizzed in October amid the Republican primary season strength of former running mate Donald Trump, has debts that include:

• $452,173 to Homegrown Strategies of Oconomowoc, Wis., for text messaging and lists of voters
• $398,227 to The Lukens Company of Arlington, Va., for printing and postage
• $278,859 to HSP Direct of Ashburn, Va., for direct mail printing and consulting.

The campaign reported chipping away at the debt, with a $15,000 payment to Homegrown Strategies; $25,000 to The Lukens Company; and $25,000 to HSP Direct.

The campaign listed $2,500 for moving from its headquarters in Carmel, Ind., among the expenses it recently paid.

The Pence campaign’s treasurer, Michele Reisner, did not immediately respond to Raw Story’s questions about if, when, and how the debts would be repaid.

Candidates have no legal responsibility or personal liability for these campaign debts when their campaigns spend beyond their means. But they can provide personal funds to their committees or raise money from donors to pay campaign creditors, who are otherwise often left to write off unpaid bills by defunct political campaign committees that hired them.

Pence did not go into politics as a wealthy man. As a congressional candidate in 1990, he once used political donations to pay his mortgage, personal credit card bill, and car payments. It was legal at the time, but it turned voters against him.

After serving as vice president, though, Pence became wealthy through speaking engagements and writing a book. In his federal personal financial disclosure, submitted last year after he declared his presidential run, Pence reported making more than $7 million since 2022.

The Pence campaign’s seven-figure debt still doesn’t come close to the debt of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his Newt 2012 presidential campaign. Gingrich remains the the king of campaign debt among former presidential candidates at $4.6 million, according to a filing this month with federal regulators.

After some early success, Gingrich withdrew from the presidential race in May 2012 with a mountain of unpaid bills.

Newt 2012 isn’t making much progress on repaying the debt. Ten years ago, the campaign owed $4.7 million, according to FEC records.

Rick Santorum for President 2016 reported $531,296 in debt in its FEC filing this month. The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania ran for the Republican presidential nomination again in 2016, dropping out early that year. Santorum's 2012 presidential campaign committee also owes creditors more than $452,000 as of this month.

Democrats have had presidential campaign debt trouble, too.

It took Hillary Clinton more than five years to pay off her presidential campaign debt incurred during her run in 2008. At one point, her campaign debt exceeded $20 million. But Clinton got fundraising help from President Barack Obama, and her campaign rented supporters’ personal information to third parties in a successful bid to settle her bills, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader and MSNBC personality, isn’t so lucky.

Sharpton’s 2004 presidential campaign still owes creditors hundreds of thousands of dollars — including more than $21,000 to the U.S. Treasury. Sharpton’s old campaign stopped filing mandatory quarterly statements with the FEC last year, prompting a warning from the federal campaign finance regulator.

The other end of the spectrum for failed presidential candidates is Nikki Haley, the last challenger to Donald Trump for this year’s Republican nomination before dropping out last month.

Haley reported $7.8 million of cash on hand, which can be used in a 2028 presidential bid.

She had no debt.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is spreading the propaganda of American adversaries on social media, knowing those countries will amplify her messages for impact they wouldn’t otherwise have, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s former assistant director for counterintelligence.

In Monday’s debut of The Defiant Podcast with Brooklyn Dad Defiant, shared in advance with Raw Story, Frank Figliuzzi tells host Majid Padellan, “What we’ve caught Russia and China doing … is they’ll take a statement from Marjorie Taylor Green — or someone like her, someone who doesn’t deserve a particular amount of attention — and then those foreign intelligence services amplify it across social media.

“So she has immediate amplifying support out there. She knows when she spouts something ridiculous there’s going to be foreign adversaries who blow up her message so we can’t avoid it.”

Greene’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Raw Story.

READ: A criminologist explains why Trump’s Manhattan trial is the biggest threat to his freedom

In the podcast, Figliuzzi, who works for NBC News, emphasized China’s role in spreading misinformation and disinformation.

“We focus almost exclusively on Russia at our own peril,” Figliuzzi said. “Because recent reporting, including from my outfit, NBC News, has pointed out that the Chinese are already at it — already fully engaged in attempting to mess with our next election. It’s chaos they want to sew.”

Padellan said Figliuzzi described the situation by using a phrase he coined: “spamoflage,” a cross between spam and camouflage.

“He said they’ll create a clone of, say, CNN’s website and post information that’s kind of true but kind of not true,” Padellan said. “He said by the time people figure out it’s a bogus site, it’s already done its damage.”

Figliuzzi told Padellan that China wants Trump to win.

“Because he is more easy to manipulate, he’s more susceptible to influence,” Padellan said.

Padellan is a staunch progressive and social media influencer who has 1.3 million followers on X, formerly Twitter. In 2021, the New York Post attacked him for taking money from a pro-Democrat political action committee, Really American, in 2020. FEC records show the total was $59,088.

Padellan responded that he was always open about the affiliation. He did design and social media work for the organization. FEC records show no payments since then to Padellan.

He said his motivation is his five children, three adults and two teenagers.

“I feel a very strong sense of responsibility about the kind of world I’m passing on to them,” Padellan said. “This is personal. I have skin in the game. I feel like it’s my civic duty to do everything possible to illuminate the truth, to make sure I do what I can to cut through the (bs).”

NOW READ: 15 worthless things Trump will give you for your money

RIFLE, Colo. — An archway sign on a street leading to Rifle High School says it’s the “Home of the Bears.” Before Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) dropped out around 2003, it was also her home.

But you’d never know it.

Nothing at the school notes that a sitting member of Congress, then named Lauren Roberts, is a former student. Boebert has never given a commencement address or spoken to a class.

From vaping and groping her date in a Denver theater to seemingly incessant family drama to her brand of fire-breathing performative MAGA politics, Boebert, to many, isn’t the type of person to brag about — even as she’s become one of the most recognizable lawmakers in America.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Leave the drama to them:’ Mother of Lauren Boebert’s grandson speaks out

And that’s not to mention her carpetbagging, moving from Colorado’s 3rd congressional district in the western part of the state, where Rifle High School is located, to the deeply conservative 4th district in the east. She faces a primary election June 25.

To ask why Rifle High School doesn’t call attention to Boebert, its most famous former student, Raw Story reached out to school district superintendent Heather Grumley, Rifle High School principal Kyle Mickelson, and each member of the school board — Tony May, Britton Fletchall, Cassie Haskell, Fathom Jensen, and Chance Jenkins.

None of those people in positions of authority responded, leaving it to communication director Theresa Hamilton, who confirmed that the district has done nothing to acknowledge its most famous former student.

She gave a perfunctory answer when asked how the district regards Boebert.

“I think that we are proud of all of our graduates,” she said.

Reminded that Boebert is not a graduate, Hamilton said the district is proud of all of its students.

Boebert did not respond to Raw Story’s interview request.

In interviews leading up to her first term in Congress in 2021 and in her 2022 book “My American Life,” Boebert has given conflicting accounts of her high school years, including when she dropped out, the reason she dropped out, and how she felt about being a student.

Before reaching high school age, Boebert’s family moved three hours west from Denver to Rifle. Boebert said in her book, “I liked my new school and teachers, and I was eager to get involved in cheerleading.”

Later in the book, she says, “By the time I was a senior, at age eighteen, I didn’t care about a diploma, and I had zero interest in going to college.”

It's unclear, however, how long Boebert was a high school senior, if at all.

Boebert appears among Class of 2005 portraits and photos of the cheerleading team in the 2001-02 and 2002-03 Rifle High School yearbooks. But she doesn’t appear at all in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 yearbooks.

Boebert’s first child, Tyler, was born in March 2005, meaning she got pregnant at age 17 around what would have been the end of her junior year of high school.

In a 2020 interview with the Durango Herald, Boebert explained dropping out by saying, “I was a brand-new mom, and I had to make hard decisions on successfully raising my child, or getting to high school biology class. And I chose to take care of my child. … I was a great student. I had great grades. I loved being there, but I was starting my family and had different priorities.”

In her book, however, Boebert writes that a job at McDonald’s is why she dropped out of high school. She said she was offered a manager job that paid $40,000 a year.

“The choice between a high school geography class and a high-paying job, one of that would put food on the table, was an easy one,” she wrote. “I dropped out of high school and took the job.”

Later in the book, she writes, “Yes, I regrettably dropped out of high school—to work and help Mom put food on the table—but it doesn’t alter my opinion that American children should receive the highest quality education available anywhere in the world.”

Boebert says in the book that four months after she met her ex-husband, Jayson, she went to Las Vegas to get married but was told she had to be 17. She turned 17 in December of what would have been her junior year of high school.

Raw Story reached out to 34 people who were Rifle students at the same time as Boebert. Three responded.

“I'm sorry, I have nothing positive to say about Lauren then,” one said. Told that any comments, positive or negative, would be of interest, the person declined an interview.

Another expressed willingness to do an interview and then didn’t respond to follow-up emails. Still another person said she didn’t personally know Boebert in high school and declined to comment.

RELATED ARTICLE: Racism, arrests, extreme MAGA love: Meet Lauren Boebert’s primary opponents

From Facebook and Instagram posts by Boebert, it appears that at least two of her sons attended school within the Rifle public school district. When investigating the case that led to Tyler Boebert’s arrest in late February on seven charges, including two felonies, related to thefts in Rifle, police asked Mickelson, the Rifle High School principal, to help identify alleged accomplices.

Boebert offers little detail in her book about Rifle High School other than enthusiasm for classmates with a car who could take her off campus for lunch at McDonald’s rather than a high school cafeteria.

She writes that her mother was “devastated” that she dropped out.

“She, too, was a high school dropout and didn’t want me to repeat her mistakes,” Boebert explained. “She did everything she could to emphasize the importance of education as I grew up, and she felt like she failed.”

Boebert has said she earned a General Equivalency Diploma (GED), noting it in a social media post in which she insulted the intelligence and eloquence of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Boebert wrote, “Whoever paid for her education wasted their money.”

Among Americans frustrated with the status quo, campaign stickers and t-shirts advocate for another viable presidential candidate who isn’t President Joe Biden, the Democrat, or former president Donald Trump, the Republican.

Polls have shown the sentiment has some support in the electorate, and independent presidential candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, have generated some interest.

But one upstart candidate — name: “Literally Anybody Else” — doesn’t have federal election regulators laughing.

The Federal Election Commission sent a strongly worded letter this week to the new candidate’s campaign, called the “Committee to Elect Literally Anybody Else.” The FEC’s missive reads: “It has come to the attention of the Federal Election Commission that you may have failed to include the true, correct, or complete committee information” in the application.

ALSO READ: Letter carriers face bullets and beatings while postal service sidelines police

It also warned that “knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation to a federal government agency, including the Federal Election Commission, is punishable … The Commission may report apparent violations to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.”

A response from “Literally Anybody Else” is due to the FEC by April 23.

The webpage for “Literally Anybody Else” states that “America should not be stuck choosing between the ‘King of Debt’ (his self-declaration) and an 81-year old.”

ALSO READ: A neuroscientist reveals how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different

Neither the FEC application nor background on the web domain lists the name of an actual person connected to the “Literally anybody Else” committee.

But the committee lists a post office box in North Richland Hills, Texas — near Fort Worth — and there is a phone number and email address. Raw Story did not immediately receive a response to its inquiry.

The FEC receives numerous bogus campaign committee and candidate filings.

While such phony filings could violate federal campaign laws, the FEC almost never pursues the matters beyond issuing warnings and taking administrative action to bury the frivolous filings in an online database not easily accessed by the public.

On Halloween, Derrick Evans posted on social media a picture of himself in an orange prison jumpsuit and his wife in a police uniform.

“As a J6 Political Prisoner,” Evans wrote, “this is still my favorite Halloween costume.”

In January, he posted a photo of an ID badge and wrote, “Found this today: It's my Prison ID from when they held me hostage as a January 6th Political Prisoner.”

Evans, an admitted felon and Donald Trump acolyte, who spent three months in federal prison, now wants to get back to the Capitol — but this time, as an elected lawmaker.

ALSO READ: Racism, arrests, extreme MAGA love: Meet Lauren Boebert’s primary opponents

Evans is running for the Republican nomination in West Virginia’s 1st Congressional District — an overwhelmingly conservative area where the Republican nominee is all but assured to win.

He is running from the right of incumbent Rep. Carol Miller, a Republican who Evans dismissed in a recent social media post as “worse than a RINO,” the political slur for “Republican in name only.”

Added Evans: “She is an undocumented Democrat.”

This week, Evans touted an endorsement from presidentially pardoned Trump operative Roger Stone, who said, “Derrick did time in prison and even in solitary confinement for standing with President Trump and protesting Joe Biden's stolen election.”

Facebook post by Derrick Evans. (Facebook screen grab)

Evans also has endorsements from Trump loyalists Michael Flynn, the retired general, and Mike Lindell, the bombastic pillow peddler.

Neither Evans nor Miller responded to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Evans has embraced January 6 as his primary brand. But he sprinkles racism and Christian Nationalism into his public missives, as well.

A recent post by Evans on X invoked the racist “replacement theory” that non-white immigrants are part of a plot to replace white political and social power.

Another, seemingly random post, said, “Put Aunt Jemima back on the syrup bottle,” a reference to the Quaker Oats company changing the name and label of its famous brand by eliminating the racist caricature of a Black woman.

ALSO READ: Letter carriers face bullets and beatings while postal service sidelines police

He has also posted of the former first lady, “Who thinks Michelle Obama is really a man?”

In a recent post, Evans complained that “Christian tax dollars” were being used to paint rainbow sidewalks, and another post said, simply, “You can follow the science. I’m going to continue following Jesus.”

Go to Evans’ website and you’ll find a page that might cause you to believe the site is hacked.

“J6 PRISONER running for U.S. CONGRESS,” it says under a photo of a man in a gray hoodie leaving a building and looking down. “Standing U.S. Legislator Arrested and Imprisoned. MEET DERRICK EVANS.”

But it isn’t a hack. It’s Evans’ sales pitch.

A fundraising page on Evans’ campaign website says, “When I take my seat in Congress, we will turn the tables and the hunters will become the hunted. Mark my words, they fear Patriots like President Trump and myself. Bogus charges are all they have left.”

‘The revolution has started!’

Evans, a member of West Virginia’s House of Delegates before resigning after his arrest, has amassed a large social media following.

He admitted in court documents that he posted inflammatory messages on social media promoting Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021. They included an image that said, “A STORM IS COMING … AND THERE IS NOTHING THE LEFT CAN DO TO STOP IT!” Another said, “FIGHT FOR TRUMP - JANUARY 6 - We’re Comin’!”

Derrick Evans at the January 6 insurrection as shown in a court document.

Evans took a chartered bus to Washington, D.C. He skipped Trump’s speech because of the long lines and went straight to the Capitol. He saw the crowd grow, overwhelm police and breach the entryway. Evans was close behind.

On Facebook, Evans live streamed — and later tried to delete — video of the insurrection, peppered with his own giddy commentary as he entered the Capitol: “Patriots ain’t gonna stand down to tyranny anymore! Patriots ain’t gonna stand down for stolen elections anymore!”

At one point, Evans is shown shouting to police officers. He turns the camera to himself, wearing a helmet, and says, “Let’s go! We took it over. We took it over!”

ALSO READ: Inside the neo-Nazi hate network grooming children for a race war

After a loud bang from the direction of the Rotunda doors, an unidentified person says, “It’s time to leave.”

“No it ain’t!” Evans says. “The Doors are open! The Doors are open! It’s no time to leave! We haven’t done nothing yet! … On the back side of the Capitol! American Patriots have took a stand! We’re at the Doors, knocking and pounding on the doors. We’ve taken over the balconies, on top of vehicles!”

He exults, “Guys, oh my gosh, I can’t even explain what is happening right now, how

amazing this is to see in person. I am in awe. The revolution has started. The revolution has started!”

Evans would become much less enthusiastic when he stood charged with federal felonies that were reduced to a single count as part of a plea bargain.

A low profile?

Before his sentencing on June 22, 2022, numerous letters of support from family and friends extolled Evans’ good deeds. He had no criminal record before the insurrection.

Evans said in a statement three days after being arrested, “I take full responsibility for my actions, and deeply regret any hurt, pain or embarrassment I may have caused my family, friends, constituents and fellow West Virginians.”

He presented himself to the court as contrite. In a memo for the judge to consider before sentencing, even prosecutors said Evans had cooperated, been remorseful and “kept a low profile.”

“This distinguishes Evans from some rioters with significant public profiles who have used their platforms after January 6 to brag about their conduct or to continue to promote the myth that the presidential election was stolen, justifying the incursion into the Capitol,” prosecutors wrote.

Evans, 38, and his wife have four young children. Before Evans became prisoner No. 24839-509, his lawyer filed letters of support for the judge to consider at sentencing. One was from a Facebook follower named Kimberly D. Maynard, who was obviously impressed with Evans’ post-arrest, pre-sentencing persona.

The judge sentenced Evans to three months in federal prison — well below the maximum five years — and a $2,000 fine.

But Evans’ “low profile” became a return to politics with a coarse, loud and proud defense of his actions on January 6 and everything MAGA.

He has claimed that because he refused to get the COVID vaccine upon entering the minimum-security prison he was placed in solitary confinement for eight days. Asked to verify the former inmate’s account, a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson declined to comment.

Evans is also speaking volumes about how he was actually right on January 6, and that President Joe Biden committed “theft of the Nov. 3, 2020, U.S. presidential election.”

Instead of letters, Evans’ supporters are now sending money. His campaign had raised nearly $300,000 as of Dec. 31, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission, with most of that coming from small-dollar donors who gave $200 or less.

Miller’s campaign has raised about $580,000 this election cycle — almost all of it from large-dollar donors and political action committees, FEC filings indicate.

The Republican primary between Evans and Miller is scheduled for May 14.

WINDSOR, Colo. — The crowded field for the Republican congressional nomination in Colorado’s 4th District offers voters candidate resumes replete with racism, arrest records and, for at least one hopeful, a devotion to Donald Trump that seemingly eclipses Trump’s love for himself.

And that’s without even considering the non-stop drama and in-your-face partisan politics of the race’s best-known candidate: the recently transplanted Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who currently represents a district on the other side of the state.

Amid political peril and a messy divorce, Boebert moving from western Colorado to jumpstart her political career and restart her life has brought national attention to the state’s staunchly conservative eastern flank.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Leave the drama to them:’ Mother of Lauren Boebert’s grandson speaks out

It’s also introduced even more drama to an already chaotic primary. During a debate in January, for example, six of the nine candidates present raised their hand when asked if they had ever been arrested by law enforcement. (Boebert is among the field’s arrestees.)

None of the candidates who provided contact information on their website returned Raw Story’s request for comment.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who currently represents the district, announced earlier this week that he's resigning by the end of next week.

This means that this race will get complicated quickly, first entailing a vacancy election to quickly fill the rest of Buck's term, and then, a separate 2024 primary and general election. Colorado's governor sets the date for the vacancy election, but, according to state law, it can't be within 90 days of a general election.

Here’s a rundown of the colorful cast of non-Boebert candidates running in the June 25 Republican primary ahead of the November 5 general election, when the GOP winner will face one of several Democrats running:

Mike Lynch: ‘I have a gun’

Lynch was arrested for drunk driving in September 2022 — allegedly going 90 mph and carrying a gun — but he chose not to disclose the incident before being elected Republican leader of the state’s House of Representatives.

He pleaded guilty to driving while ability impaired, a lesser charge, and received 18 months of probation.

The incident did not come to light until this year, after Lynch announced he was running for Congress. Soon after, he stepped down from his leadership position in the Colorado House.

After being pulled over, Lynch got out of the car while still carrying a gun. According to the Denver Post, the arrest report said the officer asked Lynch about a knife he had in a pocket.

Lynch reached for his other pocket and said, “I have a gun in this pocket, too.”

“You have a gun? Stop that,” said the patrolman, who grabbed Lynch’s hand. “We’re not going to reach for guns when we’re out here …”

The Denver Post posted an editorial titled, “We’ve lost confidence in Rep. Mike Lynch too.”

“Across America, we have seen the bar of expectations lowering for public leaders,” the editorial said. “It’s not too much to ask that elected officials follow the very laws they are charged with writing and enforcing.”

Richard Holtorf: racist rhetoric

In 2021, Holtorf referred to a colleague as “Buckwheat” on the floor of the state House of Representatives — an apparent reference to the mischief-making Black character from “The Little Rascals” films.

Holtorf defending the term as being “endearing.”

At a congressional primary debate in January, Holtorf, a member of the state House of Representatives, made this racist comment:

“For all of those fighting age, Middle Eastern males who have come to this country, they need to be immediately deported back to the Middle East — those terrorist countries. Full stop!”

Far from walking it back later, he included it in a video montage of his debate comments.

In 2022, Holtorf voted in favor of a resolution supporting a debunked conspiracy theory involving the 2020 election. The resolution named Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems and said its voting systems “are built in China, using Chinese labor” and “are not secure in any national security sense of the word.”

Earlier this year, Holtorf, a staunch anti-abortion legislator, said he once paid for a girlfriend’s abortion and that it allowed her to “live her best life.” He later issued long statements walking back what he said.

Holtorf said he’s been arrested twice for fighting “because somebody needed a little attitude adjustment.”

“I told my dad both times that I was winning until the cops showed up,” he added.

Trent Leisy: a Trump fetish

On social media, Leisy is about as Trump-y as it gets. But he didn't get Trump's endorsement --- Boebert did --- and earlier this week he filed to run for a state House seat instead. Before then, Leisy went full MAGA in his campaign for congress.

“The worst attack on American soil happened via voting machines on November 3rd, 2020,” he posted, making no mention of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, or the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

A post on Facebook, showed Leisy next to Trump while wearing a t-shirt with Trump’s image above the words, “SEXIEST MAN ALIVE.” Leisy sells the merchandise.

“I not only endorse President Trump, but love him as well!” Leisy writes in the post.

Leisy’s love for, and dedication to Trump extends to his … snowmen.

On his personal and campaign Facebook pages, Leisy refers to Trump repeatedly as “Rightful President Trump.”

Leisy posted last November that if he’s elected to Congress he would “introduce legislation to financially compensate each of the families of the J6 prisoners harmed by the Police State.”

While running for a school board position in 2021, the Greeley Tribune reported that Leisy pleaded guilty to harassment in 2017 after being charged with a misdemeanor count of knowingly and recklessly causing bodily injury against a child. He was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation.

Now a councilman in Weld County, Leisy called for members of the Colorado Supreme Court to be charged with treason for removing Donald Trump from the state’s ballot based on the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on insurrectionists holding federal office. (The Supreme Court recently overturned the Colorado court’s ruling.)

Peter Yu: no Asian racism?

The businessman said during his U.S. Senate campaign in 2021, referring to the Stop Asian Hate movement: “The racism thing? It’s a lie.”

Amid criticism, Yu partially walked back the statement.

Floyd Trujillo: drill, doggy, drill

A veteran of the oil and gas industry, Trujillo writes books about the virtue and importance of fossil fuels.

“The ABCs of Fossil Fuels” introduces children to a dog named Dexter, who “shows us the benefits of oil and gas and how different life would be without them.”

“I’m sickened by the Biden Administration’s war on energy,” Trujillo says on his campaign website. “... I was proud to serve as President Trump’s Hispanic Co-Chair in Colorado and will provide the reinforcements he needs in Washington on Day One.”

Deborah Flora: mother knows best

A filmmaker, syndicated radio host and activist, Flora founded Parents United America, a group opposing what it sees as grave threats to parental authority in American society.

“We will not allow any institution, elected official, administrator, or cultural trend to push us out of our rightful role as THE parents to OUR children,” it says on the Parents United America website.

Flora opposes teachers unions and is an advocate for tax money going to private schools.

She has said “we are at a crossroads between Marxism and freedom.”

Chris Phelen: Boebert basher

A former congressional aide, Phelen did not respond to Raw Story’s request for details about his arrest, which he disclosed at the debate by raising his hand.

Phelen ripped Boebert during a debate last month.

“Are you sick and tired of people that are coming to Congress just to get more social media hits?” Chris Phelen reportedly asked the crowd.

“I am — and that’s what I think that someone up on this stage is doing.”

Jerry Sonnenberg: fast company

Sonnenberg, who won a straw poll after the first debate of the primary and is seen as a top contender to win, said he was arrested at age 19 when he was speeding and spent the night in jail because he didn’t have the money to bail himself out.

A former member of the state House and Senate, Sonnenberg isn’t a flame-thrower. In this group, he comes off as the adult in the room.

“I'm not going to bash any of them," he said of his opponents after the first debate.

In a Washington Post story, Sonnenberg said, “I liken myself to a workhorse rather than a show horse.”

Nikki Haley dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination Wednesday. On the same day, regulators from the Federal Election Commission sent the former South Carolina governor’s campaign a 69-page letter.

Its message: You have more work to do.

The letter to Haley’s campaign flagged what a Raw Story analysis showed was contributions from 188 individuals that the FEC says exceeded federal limits. Together, those people contributed almost $1 million to Haley’s now-defunct campaign.

Individuals are allowed to give a maximum of $3,300 per election to a federal-level candidate. This limit also applies to people who make multiple small donations to a candidate instead of a single large one.

“If any apparently excessive contribution in question was incompletely or incorrectly disclosed, you must amend your original report with clarifying Information,” the FEC wrote to Haley, who only defeated presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in two nominating contests — Vermont and the District of Columbia.

Haley’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Raw Story.

ALSO READ: A criminologist explains why so many American don't care about Trump's crimes

Accepting some level of excessive contributions — and having the FEC call them into question — isn’t unusual for a big-dollar presidential campaign, be it Republican or Democrat.

But the campaigns do have to correct the problems, often by issuing refunds or by the donor redesignating excess donations for a later campaign — for example, the general election instead of the primary, which doesn’t apply to Haley.

A person identified in the FEC document as Mrs. Rhoda R. Barnhart of West Branch, Iowa, made 91 contributions to Haley’s campaign in less than a year.

Her first listed donation? Thirty-five cents. But added up, the dozens of donations exceeded federal limits, the FEC contends.

Charles Fisher of Cardiff, Calif., made 201 donations to Haley in less than a year, ranging from $2 to $633 — and also exceeded federal limits, according to the FEC.

Even though Haley has suspended her presidential campaign, her presidential campaign committee will technically live on until she settles her outstanding financial issues and obligations.

This process can take months, years and, in rare cases, decades.

Just ask Democrat Hillary Clinton, who spent five years attempting to settle debts from her 2008 presidential run and finally closed down her presidential campaign committee in 2013 — just in time to launch another campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.

Or ask Republican Newt Gingrich, whose 2012 presidential campaign committee still exists a dozen years hence.

Why? Because the Newt 2012 presidential committee remains more than $4.63 million in debt, owing money to dozens of creditors. Until those debts are settled, federal regulators won’t let the committee shut down and finally go away.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is getting questions from the Federal Election Commission again — this time about a new political action committee she created after paying a fine for election law violations and closing down another PAC.

The new “MTG for Georgia Leadership Committee,” launched less than a month ago, received a letter this week from federal regulators flagging it for a frequently abused aspect of campaign law.

A tenet of law related to leadership PACs is that they can’t use the politician’s name. That’s to prevent confusion by donors about how their money will be spent.

RELATED ARTICLE: Marjorie Taylor Greene personally fined for election violation: docs

The FEC letter asks MTG for Georgia Leadership Committee if it’s actually raising money for Greene’s campaign.

If so, “you must amend your Statement of Organization to change the name of your political committee so that it does not include the candidate's name and/or provide further clarification regarding the nature of your committee,” the FEC wrote.

Greene’s new organization registered as a “leadership PAC,” which is intended for federal officeholders and candidates to raise money to give to the campaigns of other federal politicians — and in the process, nurture friendships that might be politically useful.

Greene’s new leadership PAC did not immediately respond to emails from Raw Story for comment.

Last December, Greene agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for improperly sharing an ad produced by the Stop Socialism Now PAC on her campaign social media accounts in December 2020.

RELATED ARTICLE: Marjorie Taylor Greene broke an election law. Her donors — not MTG — paid the fine.

Greene admitted to personally violating the law by soliciting funds for an entity that is not subject to the regulations imposed on federal candidates, who may not accept donations exceeding $5,000. The PAC supported Republican candidates in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff election in early 2021.

Greene also appeared in the ad, which was released in December 2020 and supported Republican Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

But Greene’s campaign donors — not Greene herself — ultimately footed the bill, according to an image of the payment check that Raw Story obtained from the FEC.

The check for the full $12,000 comes from Greene for Congress Inc., the congresswoman’s donor-fueled campaign committee.

RIFLE, Colo. — In March of last year, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) announced to the nation she would become a 36-year-old grandmother and her 17-year-old son, Tyler Boebert, would become a father.

In October, Boebert paraded around the U.S. Capitol with her new grandson.

Both times, it received national attention, like much of what Boebert seeks out with her performative, flame-throwing MAGA politics.

The baby’s mother, however, hasn’t been heard from publicly — until now.

Naomi Rocha acknowledged to Raw Story that she’s raising her son — Boebert’s grandson, Josiah Boebert — in the midst of a political maelstrom.

Rocha said her son is doing well, “definitely starting to grow a lot and getting a lot smarter, which is scary” and that she’s “managing pretty good.”

“My son never leaves my side unless I’m at work or he’s with Tyler,” Rocha said.

That is, except for what Rocha said was “a few times (Lauren Boebert) took him to D.C.”

Seeing her son at the U.S. Capitol, Rocha said, “was shocking because I didn’t know he was going to be on the House floor.”

Asked if she has any political leanings, Rocha said, “Honestly, I truly don’t.”

Rocha is not Boebert’s “daughter-in-law,” as she has never been married to Tyler Boebert and she has split with the baby’s father.

“We are not together,” Rocha said. “We were for a year and a half.”

While no longer a couple, Rocha and Tyler Boebert share parenting time.

“We do 50-50,” she said. “As of right now, no courts are involved.”

Rocha said she and her son live with her parents after they stayed for about a year with Tyler Boebert and his parents.

‘Lauren and Jayson’s drama’

Late last year, Lauren Boebert switched the congressional district in which she’d run during 2024, moving from the western part of Colorado hours away in hopes of representing the eastern part of the state.

Her prime motivation: pursue an even more conservative constituency and salvage her flagging political career, which has endured a series of high-profile controversies and scandals.

Rocha said Boebert’s decision to switch districts has complicated her parenting arrangement.

“It did,” she said. “Her switching districts means more distance. We meet halfway.”

Rocha said her relationship with Lauren Boebert, who herself recently split with husband Jayson Boebert, is “pretty good.”

“There are a few ups and downs. Just mainly Lauren and Jayson’s drama,” Rocha said.

Lauren Boebert's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Lauren and Jayson Boebert have indeed supplied drama.

They divorced in October. Lauren Boebert brought her grandson to the hearing.

At the time, the Vail Daily reported, “The public portion of the dissolution of marriage hearing was over in minutes, but that came after nearly 40 minutes of negotiations behind closed doors when shouting between the Boeberts, and a baby crying, could be heard through the locked door of the courtroom.”

Asked about the impact of the Boebert family drama on her relationship with Tyler, Rocha said that was “a little bit of it.”

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In an alleged incident during early January, Jayson Boebert was charged with misdemeanor obstructing a police officer and two petty offenses of disorderly conduct during an argument with Lauren Boebert at a restaurant in Silt, Colo.

On Jan. 9, Tyler Boebert called 911 on his father after an alleged fight and argument after 1 a.m. Jayson was charged with possessing a gun while under the influence of alcohol, misdemeanor harassment, and misdemeanor assault.

The police report is partially redacted, but it alleged that Jayson, under the influence of alcohol during an argument, shoved Tyler to the ground and pushed his thumb into his son’s mouth, inflicting pain by trying to pull a tooth out. The report further alleges that Jayson grabbed a rifle when he saw Tyler calling 911 — then left the house.

Rocha has had to deal with all of this as a teenager. She revealed her age — 17 years old — in response to a question during the interview.

A day after the interview with Rocha, Tyler Boebert left a voicemail asking about Raw Story’s “intentions.” He did not agree to speak on the record, but in a subsequent conversation, he agreed to consider questions sent by email. He did not immediately respond to those questions.

Culture warrior

The youngest grandmother in Congress and only one of a handful of millennial lawmakers, Lauren Boebert has spoken out against sex education in public schools.

“They have comprehensive sex ed,” she said. “They’re teaching kids how to have and enjoy sex and even same-sex sex. How to pleasure themselves. This is not something elementary students should learn, nor any student in a public school. These are things we need to go after and cut their funding.”

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Boebert is a culture warrior but said she “fell short of my values” in September after being kicked out of the musical “Beetlejuice” for vaping, recording the performance and singing. Security video showed her groping with her date.

Boebert faces a tough Republican primary campaign in her new district with a crowded field of candidates. The primary is June 25.

As for Rocha, she shoulders a lot of responsibility. In addition to being a mom, “I work. I do GED classes,” she said.

She added that she hopes to work in a medical field.

Asked how she handles the seemingly non-stop drama swirling around the Boebert family,” Rocha acknowledged that “there are some times I do lose my cool.”

But she added: “I try not to read everything in the media and leave the drama to them.”

A University of South Carolina alumnus and donor said he would still keep his upcoming meeting about funding an endowment for the school’s Honors College.

But the donor was furious and appalled at the school for introducing former President Donald Trump on the field at halftime of last November’s football game against Clemson. Dressed in a blue suit and striped tie, Trump smiled, clapped and waved to the crowd, which showered him with a mixture of cheers and jeers.

“Give me a reason to believe in USC again,” the email to Athletics Director Ray Tanner said. “Give me a reason to consider establishing an endowment. Because at this moment I’m questioning the leadership of the athletic department and the university, and wondering if my money is better off being spent elsewhere, where truth, morality, and human decency matter.”

He continued, “We can’t wait around and hope Trump will fade away and cause no more damage. He has proven time and time again that there is no limit to how far he will go to advance his evil interests — and make no mistake, he is evil.”

Injecting a political spectacle, especially a Trump spectacle, into a revered rivalry game dating to 1896 prompted impassioned messages from a variety of school stakeholders and concerned citizens, according to emails obtained by Raw Story from the University of South Carolina and the South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster's office. Raw Story obtained the emails via the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act.

The extent to which donors followed through on their threats is unclear. But the division was a harbinger of political turbulence in the lead-up to Saturday’s South Carolina Republican presidential primary.

Polls show Trump with a commanding lead over his last remaining Republican challenger, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

But Haley has announced she will remain in the race regardless of the South Carolina primary result — a decision fueled in part by anti-Trump sentiment among a minority of Republicans who don’t believe the former president is fit to serve.

'Shame'

A South Carolina alumna’s email to Tanner exemplifies that sentiment.

The alumna said she and her husband changed their plans to travel from Texas to Columbia, S.C., for the rivalry football game, calling it “sullied” and Trump’s on-field presence “a huge slap in the face, especially to your female students, staff and alumna.”

They went to New Orleans instead and vowed to “never attend another game.”

“Let me be perfectly clear: Trump's attendance at the game isn't the problem,” she wrote. “It's that you insulted half of your fan base by letting him walk onto the field. I hope your Republican donors can fill the gap left by Democrats who, like me, are for the first time ashamed to be Gamecocks.”

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Trump had his turn upstaging Haley in her home state. As for university President Michael Amiridis and Tanner, they received emails expressing outrage at the situation.

“It was a dark day as far as I'm concerned,” said an email from a 62-year-old fan who said she has attended games since she was 15. “I'm glad I took a stand and didn't attend. I have zero pride in USC right now and it is something that will be difficult to forget.”

One fan had the same reaction to Trump’s appearance at the South Carolina game as someone who emailed the University of Iowa about Trump’s appearance at the Iowa-Iowa State rivalry football game two months earlier.

“Did Trump grab any cheerleaders?” said an email from an alumnus in Lexington, Ky. “Shame on the University.”

The University of Iowa, in contrast to the University of South Carolina, did not allow Trump on its football field when Trump attended a game last year. The University of Iowa also went out of its way to say that the former president’s presence did not indicate an endorsement.

University of South Carolina Assistant Vice President Jeff Stensland told Raw Story that the school does not invite political candidates to games, noting that Trump attended at the governor’s invitation.

“Former President Donald Trump was a guest of Gov. Henry McMaster, the state’s top elected leader,” Stensland said. “Because this game was the ‘Palmetto Bowl’ featuring South Carolina’s two largest colleges, USC planned to recognize the governor on the field during the contest. The governor chose to have the former president join him on the field.”

Stensland did not address whether the university made any effort to discourage the governor from bringing Trump onto the field.

Neither Trump’s campaign nor McMaster’s office responded to Raw Story’s requests for comment.

The emails obtained by Raw Story showed that the University of South Carolina recognized the potential for Trump-related controversy, and it gathered top leadership to discuss how to craft a message to the public.

An agenda for a leadership meeting the week of the game referred to Trump by his initials, “DJT.”

The agenda offered possible approaches for handling Trump’s appearance, such as “DJT attending as a guest of Governor” and extending him “every courtesy as you would a guest in your home” and “Southern hospitality regardless of your political persuasion.”

But it didn’t work out that way.

‘Don't gaslight me’

Some of the criticism articulated in documents obtained by Raw Story centered around a post on the University of South Carolina athletic department’s official account on X, formerly Twitter.

The account featured a photo of Trump and the governor on the field. It said, “Welcome South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster and his guest, former president Donald Trump, to Williams-Brice Stadium.” The post also used a hand emoji connoting something cool, plus university-specific hashtags.

A University of South Carolina class of 2004 alumnus wrote that it “ crossed a line that should be sacred in educational and athletic institutions.”

Another alum wrote, “The Gamecocks Athletics social media essentially promoted a political campaign of a person whose values and character are the complete opposite of the university’s I graduated from. I say this sincerely as someone who can accept political differences, but this is an entirely different situation. Morality matters.”

Even Trump’s introduction when taking the field appears to have been influenced by his staff.

The emails obtained by Raw Story include a reference to the script used to introduce Trump and McMaster as coming “from Campaign staff.”

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It said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please direct your attention to the 25 yard line to welcome Governor Henry McMaster and the 45th President of the United States, President Donald J Trump.”

The university responded to the angry emails with a canned response: “The University of South Carolina has not invited any active candidates for office to its events, including football games. We do welcome, however, all visitors invited by our fans and supporters who attend those events.”

That prompted indignation and mockery.

“Don't gaslight me,” said an email from an alumnus. “I saw what you did with Trump. It was shameful.”

The alumnus and donor with the endowment conversation wrote, “To suggest that USC merely welcomed a ‘visitor’ invited by a ‘fan’ to ‘attend’ is frankly insulting.”

“ Oh, wonderful!” the 2004 alumnus said. “I must have missed the memo about the new ‘Bring a Guest onto the Field’ policy at halftime. It's quite a progressive move, really. Next time, I'll be sure to extend an invitation to my choice of high-profile guests.”

As for the football game itself, Clemson defeated South Carolina, 16-7.

Backlash directed at the governor

McMaster’s office also received dozens of complaints between Nov. 14 through Dec. 9 about Trump’s presence at the game, according to documents Raw Story obtained through a South Carolina Freedom of Information Act request.

Many of the letters came before the game, asking the governor to reconsider the invite.

“Please, please rescind your offer to Trump to attend the Carolina-Clemson football game this Saturday,” one letter from a Columbia, S.C., resident said. “Let the game be about the rivalry between the two South Carolina teams and not about him. It will be a logistical nightmare and people just want to enjoy the game, not politics.”

Another plea to uninvite Trump read:

“Please do not invite former president Trump to Carolina Clemson game Saturday,” said a Lugoff, S.C., resident. “This would be a huge disruption to students and fans and take away from the excitement of the day. This event should not be turned into a political rally. The traffic hassle, road closures and general disruption would not be appreciated by fans, alumni and students.”

Just one letter of 36 obtained by Raw Story was complimentary. It came from a man who identified himself as Kai Kroeger, the All-American punter for the University of South Carolina football team. He asked to meet McMaster and Trump.

“I have a great deal of respect for you both, and I am grateful to be living and playing in the great state of South Carolina,” Kroeger wrote. “Please let me know if this is a possibility and thank you for your support of our program!”

Kroeger could not immediately be reached for comment.

Others worried about the message Trump’s visit would send to students.

“You are not setting a good example, especially when my 17-year-old asks why OUR Governor, invited a known sexual predator to our beloved Carolina-Clemson match!” said a resident of Mt. Pleasant, S.C. “Thanks for making South Carolina look like a bunch of backwards idiots!”

‘Leftover Confederacy’

Courts have found Trump civilly liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll, ordering him to pay more that $88 million combined in damages.

A judge also ordered Trump to pay $355 million for his liability in a New York business fraud case.

Trump also faces 91 felony charges across four criminal cases, including two cases involving his alleged efforts to overturn 2020 election results.

Trump’s legal turmoil factored into some of the angry messages the University of South Carolina received. The governor’s office received a card with an image of a forest that said “Thinking of You” in curly script surrounded by two hearts — which the author drew an X through.

The handwritten letter in cursive script blasted McMaster for turning the game into “a political rally” and questioned why the governor supported Trump over his gubernatorial predecessor, Haley.

“There are hundreds of inmates in S.C. jails who have more morality and fewer charges against them than Trump,” the letter said. “You seem to live in a world of the leftover Confederacy.”

“If I understand correctly, you initiated the visit of former President Donald Trump to the Carolina-Clemson game. If this is true, can you explain the invitation in light of the insurrection on January 6th after the former president lost the election?” wrote a South Carolina resident and alumnus of the university. “I realize I am in the minority in our state, but I refuse to forget the former president's actions while in office and after the people of our nation voted him out of office.”

Another alumnus wrote, “I'd like you to know the embarrassment felt by bringing Donald Trump to last week's football game … I can't imagine why you would recognize any individual facing criminal indictments. I'm sure you are aware that the state of Colorado recently ruled that Mr. Trump had engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021. It was a terrible look for our university and state.”

A resident of Adams Run, S.C., wrote: “Once again you have reinforced your inability to govern anything except maybe your hair … My only wish is that in addition to the booing he received is that paper cups had been thrown at both of you — hopefully with the beer still in them. You are an embarrassment to SC. You literally make me want to vomit.”

Taxpayer toll for the spectacle

Other letters expressed concerns about the toll increased security and traffic for a former president to visit the game would take on taxpayers and local resources.

A resident of Conway, S.C., wrote to the governor’s office calling McMaster a “fraud and liar” who should be investigated for the misuse of taxpayer money.

“McMasters disgusting tramping of the POS trump at Saturdays Football game was a violation of the use of State owned higher education property and money,” the resident wrote. “He deceived the people by turning a highly anticipated game into a political rally. I TURNED IT OFF AT HALF TIME IN TOTAL DISGUST.”

One former South Carolina voter who said he “voted solid GOP in NC for decades” said Trump’s visit was “ruining the game” and bemoaned his inability to “unload my tickets but no one wants them even at face value — because of Trump.”

“He will screw up the traffic, and logistics for those going to the game,” the Fayetteville, N.C., resident wrote.

Trump’s appearance cost upward of $17,000 in additional security costs, according to records from the University of South Carolina’s Athletic Department received by the South Carolina Daily Gazette. The university has yet to fulfill Raw Story’s similar Freedom of Information Act request from Jan. 25.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, South Carolina Department of Public Safety and City of Columbia, S.C., said they did not have documents responsive to Raw Story's Freedom of Information Act requests.

Trump has a long history racking up security costs in small towns where he campaigns, failing to pay nearly $2 million in public safety-related municipal bills through 2020, according to an Business Insider tally.

A year-long series of investigations by Raw Story found that eight of Trump’s 2024 campaign visits cost local taxpayers at least $100,000 in total — expenses that the Trump campaign refuses to pay and which local municipalities end up covering.

Haley’s campaign paid numerous security bills, according to her most recent Federal Election Commission financial disclosure report.

In response to a Raw Story investigation, Haley in October called on Trump to pay his security bills.

Trump has continued to visit South Carolina ahead of the state’s Republican primary election on Saturday, polling at 58 percent versus Haley’s 35 percent, according to The Hill.

Trump is scheduled to rally today at another South Carolina college — The Citadel — which has recently sought to deflect questions about an honorary degree it bestowed upon former Trump lawyer and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who faces criminal charges in Georgia and a slew of other legal troubles.

It’s hard to imagine anything wearing down the bravado of Donald Trump, but will his legal troubles play poorly in a general election, leading him to lose again in November 2024?

Or might the current Republican front runner go out a different way?

At present, Trump stands accused of 91 charges in four felony cases, testing his political death-defying ability.

So far, the primary campaign has been a display of Trump’s political impunity, with the former president having dispatched all major challengers, except for Nikki Haley, who’s running 32 points behind him in South Carolina, her home state. That’s the next primary, on Feb. 24.

“He is a tank. He is a boulder. I don't think there is literally anything that can happen to this man that would make him lose because he has such a chokehold on the Republican Party,” said Amani Wells-Onyioha, operations director at Democratic political firm Sole Strategies.

But others still consider him vulnerable to defeat — just not exactly in the way you might think.

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“There's a very real possibility that he gets convicted of one of these and is looking at prison time,” said Nicholas Creel, assistant professor of business law at Georgia College and State University. “When we get to the hypothetical point of him needing to take office, we've got to figure out now, is he actually above the law. The Supreme Court will have to step in.

“There is a very, very real possibility that a Supreme Court majority — probably a five-four ruling — could say you still have to face the music, Mr. President, and if we enter political paralysis, that's because we have chosen that you would be the president in prison,” Creel continued.

Here are 11 other scenarios where Trump fails for a second straight time to get back to the White House — without losing the 2024 general election:

Trump loses the Republican primary on votes

This is highly unlikely, but not impossible.

Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institution, author of “Primary Politics: Everything you need to know about how America nominates its presidential candidates,” notes that even on delegate-rich Super Tuesday, March 5, only two states (Alaska and Colorado) award delegates proportionate to the vote.

The other 13 states and a territory use a different system, which favors Trump.

“The remaining states use some sort of winner take all or winner take most system,” she wrote. “For instance, in delegate rich California, if a candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, they get all the delegates. If not, the delegates are awarded proportionally. In a two-person race Trump is likely to win many delegates.”

Then what is Haley doing?

Republican presidential candidate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, during a campaign event at the Franklin VFW on Jan. 22, 2024, in Franklin, New Hampshire. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

“In the months before the convention Trump may be convicted of one or more crimes,” she wrote. “It’s hard to predict how his loyal base will react. So far Trump’s indictments have only made them more loyal and there’s no reason to believe that convictions would change their minds. Nonetheless a conviction would certainly play into Haley’s critique of him as the chaos candidate. And she may be thinking she’d be the last person standing.”

Or she’s laying the groundwork for a run in 2028.

Trump loses the GOP nomination in a floor fight

Republicans are saying there’s no chance of this, according to NBC News. Morton Blackwell, a member of the Republican National Committee’s convention rules committee since 1988, said convention rules can be changed but it won’t happen — “absent a cement truck coming around the corner and killing the nominee.”

But James Long, professor of political science at the University of Washington, has said Trump supporters might have to ask themselves some tough questions amid the various indictments and Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior.

“Everyone saying they’re going to support Trump is going to have to face the reality that this is going to get worse and worse for him, and they’re going to have to think about whether or not he’s a credible winner in the (general) election,” Long said. “And they’re going to have to decide if they care more about him as a person, or they care more about winning.”

A recent CNN poll, however, showed Trump ahead of President Joe Biden by four percentage points.

Trump flees the country

As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote, Trump “is one of the most recognized figures in the world. He would have to go to Mars to live incognito. It is facially absurd.”

As outlandish as it may sound, Trump could theoretically find refuge from legal threats in a country that’s not so friendly to the United States — but potentially friendly to Trump.

Think Russia. China. Saudi Arabia. Even — dare one say it — North Korea. Unlike most people in legal peril, Trump has massive amounts of money and the physical means — specifically, his own “Trump Force One” Boeing 757 — to get to a place beyond the reach of special counsel Jack Smith, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis or the U.S. justice system, writ large.

Trump ally Tucker Carlson, it’s worth noting, was welcomed by Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin at a time when the Russian government has for months detained two American journalists — the Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich and Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva. News organizations and press freedom advocates have roundly condemned the detentions as unjust, with the Wall Street Journal saying that Russia has arbitrarily and wrongfully detained” Gershkovich “for doing his job as a journalist.”

And in addition to the Russias and Chinas of the world, there are dozens of other nations that don’t have extradition treaties with the United States, which makes it extremely difficult for the U.S. law enforcement officials to spirit a wanted man into custody and back to American soil.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) looks at then-President Donald Trump during the welcoming ceremony prior to the G20 Summit's Plenary Meeting on November 30, 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

Of course, such a drastic move by Trump would all but guarantee that he could never again return to the United States as a free man.

But Trump has well-established business ties in numerous foreign countries and could ostensibly live like a fugitive king in a welcoming nation.

And in October 2020, days before the election he wouldn’t win, Trump himself floated the idea of becoming an ex-pat: “Could you imagine if I lose? I’m not going to feel so good. Maybe I’ll have to leave the country, I don’t know.”

Said Wells-Onyioha: “If he doesn't want to face charges, I can see him attempting to flee. Trump genuinely feels like the rules don't apply to him, so I think that there's nothing that he won't do. I don't think he wants to face any accountability or any repercussions for any of the things that he's done thus far, so I can see him trying to flee.”

In actuality, it’s much more likely that Trump’s legal team will just try to delay the court proceedings as long as possible, John Geer, dean of the college of arts and science and professor of political science and public policy and education at Vanderbilt University, has said.

“(Trump) can tie the legal system up for a long time, so that’s what I suspect he'll end up doing,” Geer said.

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Last month, Trump was hit with an $83.3 million verdict by a jury that found Trump liable for defaming a woman — for a second time — about what a previous jury determined was sexual assault.

Trump faces a potentially much larger verdict for what a judge has ruled was fraud involving his business interests in New York. The judge has delayed a verdict on damages after a report that a Trump finance executive planned to plead guilty to perjury.

Trump is scheduled to go on trial March 25 in New York on charges that he falsified financial records to hide payments — prior to being elected President in 2016 — to porn performer Stormy Daniels for staying quiet about an alleged affair.

A March 4 trial date on federal election subversion charges against Trump was delayed for courts to consider Trump’s claim of presidential immunity. A federal appeals court unanimously found no such privilege. The next step is the Supreme Court, which could choose not to take the case and let the appeals court ruling stand.

The start date is uncertain for Trump’s federal trial on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left the White House. The judge set a trial date for May but has suggested she might move that back as Trump’s lawyers say they need more time to review “voluminous” evidence.

A Georgia election interference case against Trump is delayed by allegations that the Fulton County District Attorney had a relationship that created a conflict of interest. A hearing is scheduled Feb. 15 on Trump’s motion to dismiss the case over the relationship and alleged financial improprieties.

Trump falls gravely ill or dies of natural causes

When Americans discuss age and the presidency, it’s usually about President Joe Biden, the nation’s first octogenarian commander-in-chief who will be 82 years old on Inauguration Day 2025.

But Trump, 77, is not a young man, either.

Trump turns 78 in June. If elected president this year, Trump would become the oldest president in history at the time he took office, surpassing Biden.

The average age of death for a man who’s served as president of the United States is about 72 years old, according to Statista, and only 12 out of the 45 U.S. presidents have lived to celebrate their 80th birthday.

So while the topic itself is grim, even uncouth, the odds of Trump falling gravely ill or dying before Election Day 2024 are not insignificant.

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What would happen next upon either scenario would largely be a function of the point in time Trump stopped running.

Kamarck has written that state election officials are allowed to adjust filing deadlines for new candidates if the frontrunner dies or is incapacitated. For some of the states that haven’t yet conducted their nominating contests, they could also move back their primaries.

If Trump couldn’t continue after winning enough primary votes to become the presumptive 2024 presidential nominee, the nation would almost certainly gird for a brokered Republican National Convention, which is scheduled for mid-July in Milwaukee, Wis.

And if Trump officially secured the GOP nomination, but couldn’t stand for election in November 2024, a select group of Republican Party bigwigs would likely convene to choose a replacement — whether that was Trump’s vice presidential running mate, or someone else.

Trump dies from assassination

Even more grim is the specter of assassination, an ever-present specter for presidents and presidential candidates alike.

Four presidents — John F. Kennedy, William McKinley, James Garfield and Abraham Lincoln — died after being shot.

Ronald Reagan, in 1981, could have been the fifth assassinated president but for the quick reactions of law enforcement and medical personnel.

Last August, while attempting to serve a warrant, FBI agents shot and killed a Utah man who had allegedly made “credible” threats against Biden.

High-profile presidential candidates also come under threat. The most notable modern example is that of Robert F. Kennedy, who died in 1968 after being shot at a campaign event. (Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is now running for president as an independent, and he has publicly stated that he believes his father’s convicted killer isn’t the man who committed the crime.)

Trump, like every past president and many presidential candidates, receives U.S. Secret Service protection and will ostensibly be entitled to such protection even if he’s convicted of a crime and sent to prison or home detention.

Trump agrees to quit the race before Election Day

Scott Galloway made this prediction on the popular podcast Pivot, which he hosts with journalist Kara Swisher:

Trump, Galloway said last year, "has a very nice life, and his life can be going back to golf and sycophants and having sex with porn stars. … Or he can live under the threat of prison. The [political] momentum he has is real leverage and power. And I think he’s going to cash that leverage and power in for a plea deal that includes no jail time.”

With Trump is facing state charges in Georgia and New York, he wouldn’t be able to escape by pardoning himself as president — something he could attempt to do for the federal-level charges he faces. Therefore, Trump’s calculus may change.

Creel noted Spiro Agnew’s resignation from the vice presidency in 1973 after facing the threat of jail for his corruption while governor of Maryland.

“One of the parts of the agreement was [to] resign, get out of politics forever, and we will not pursue this,” he said. “So with a more rational defendant, that would absolutely be something that's on the table. That's something Jack Smith would be bringing to Trump, but for one, we're not dealing with a particularly rational individual. Two, this scenario is significantly different in that we have state-level charges also facing him. And so because they can't really immunize him against that at the state level, the incentive to take that sort of a deal is greatly diminished.”

Wells-Onyioha said Trump maybe – maybe – would come to the realization that prison, and the potential life-long loss of his freedom, is a real and unpalatable possibility.

“I can see them coming up with some sort of like plea agreement, where in exchange for dropping out of the race, they will let him be on probation or something like that,” she said. “I can see that happening. But even so, I'm not even sure if he would take that deal.”

Trump is removed via the 25th Amendment

The Constitution’s 25th Amendment spells out the succession plan if a president dies or is removed from office, which means the vice president takes over.

If the vice president and his cabinet determine that the president is unable to discharge his duties as president — say, being in prison — Congress will have 48 hours to convene and 21 days to decide if the president is fit to hold office. It can remove him by a two-thirds vote.

“You can even see his cabinet exercising the 25th Amendment, saying, look, you're incapacitated. You're not capable because you're needing to go to prison or are in prison. You're not capable of fulfilling the oath of office, therefore, we're invoking [the] 25th Amendment and removing you from office that way, and so you would see whoever his vice president elect is [at] that point stepping up,” Creel said.

If Trump wins the 2024 election, the Supreme Court will ultimately need to decide if a sitting president is immune from state-level prosecution in Georgia and New York, and the Court might rule against his ability to serve as president.

Supreme Court 2022, Image via Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

“Functionally this would mean Trump is the legitimate president but would still be forced to carry out a sentence in a state prison,” Creel said. “In that scenario, it’s difficult to see how he wouldn’t be either impeached and convicted or otherwise removed via the 25th Amendment due to his ‘incapacity.’”

But with a third of the Supreme Court being Trump appointees, Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way and former mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., said he could see the Court ruling in Trump’s favor and allowing him to serve any legal consequences at a later time.

“Uncharted legal territory with stakes this high means questions like that usually get kicked up to the Supreme Court. Given that, Donald Trump appointed three members of the Supreme Court on a six-person ultra conservative majority, I think the most likely scenario is that he's allowed to stand for office, and if he wins, he could avoid or at least delay paying his debt to society,” Myrick said.

The 25th Amendment could also be used for a president’s mental competence. While Trump attacks Biden for being “cognitively impaired,” Trump is 77 years old and isn’t always sharp himself. He said last year Biden would lead the U.S. into “World War II” and, in the same speech, said he was leading former President Barack Obama in polls for the 2024 election.

Amid Trump’s continued gaffes this year, Haley has called him “confused” and has tried to use the issue to bait him into appearing with her in a debate.

Trump has the 14th Amendment applied to him

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Feb. 8 on whether the Constitution’s 14th Amendment and its “insurrectionist ban” makes Trump disqualified from holding office because of his actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

Colorado’s Supreme Court held in a 4-3 decision in December that the ban does apply to Trump.

Maine’s secretary of state came to the same conclusion, but a court has ordered that the issue be reconsidered after the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Some other states rejected legal intervention on procedural grounds.

The 14th Amendment, in part, bans anyone who “engaged in insurrection” against the United States from holding any civil, military or elected office without the approval of two-thirds of the House and Senate.

“Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6,” William Baude, a professor of law at the University of Chicago, has said.

The 14th Amendment originally intended to prevent Confederate officials from gaining power after the Civil War, but how the disqualification clause would be applied is unclear to legal experts, especially since it’s never been used in the case of a president before, FindLaw, a Reuters company, reported.

Trump is impeached for a third time, then convicted and disqualified from serving as president

If the Supreme Court does say “nobody's above the law, and that includes the president” and lets the criminal justice system do its work, Creel said, Trump could still be disqualified from the presidency via the political system.

“We have a blueprint for how to do that. Impeachment. Conviction. Removal. That's how you could do it, and so you can see him taking office and having that avenue, where he's president for a day and then they just kind of have this perfunctory removal,” Creel said.

Trump was twice impeached while in office, but was acquitted on all counts by the Senate in both cases.

Then-President Donald Trump holds a copy of The Washington Post as he speaks in the East Room of the White House one day after the U.S. Senate acquitted on two articles of impeachment, ion February 6, 2020 in Washington. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Congress could technically impeach Trump now with the goal of simply disqualifying him from running for elected office. Recall that Trump’s second impeachment trial took place several weeks after he left the White House.

But with Republicans currently controlling the House, where any impeachment proceeding would begin, such a scenario is exceedingly remote.

Trump accepts pardon promise with the understanding that he’ll quit the race

An exotic and unlikely scenario is Biden pardoning Trump with the understanding that Trump will quit the presidential race.

Biden, who has recently stepped up his criticism of Trump, has never spoken of such an idea.

A most imperfect historical parallel would be President Gerald Ford’s pardoning of President Richard Nixon after Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal. But there’s no evidence Ford’s pardon involved either an overt or secret quid pro quo, according to the National Constitution Center, and came only after Nixon had officially stepped down.

Also: Could Trump serve as president while set to serve time?

In short: yes.

There’s precedent that presidents don’t have full legal immunity — look at the 1997 Supreme Court ruling in Clinton v. Jones, Creel says — but Trump could be still allowed to serve any prison time post-presidency if convicted and sentenced for any of the 91 charges.

That would require the Supreme Court ruling that Trump couldn’t have his presidential duties interfered with by state level charges.

“We have to just set them aside to the point where he could realistically, in that scenario if that's what the Supreme Court says, be told January 20, at 12:01 p.m., 2028, report for incarceration in the state of Georgia,” Creel said. “That's an actual realistic possibility that could go his way.”

The text message seems perfectly godly.

“It’s Josh Hawley. Do you have a second to pray with me?” reads the message sent today from the first-term U.S. senator and Donald Trump loyalist.

Click on the link and it goes to “My prayer for today - January 30th, 2024.”

“... let truth and justice prevail in this land once again,” Hawley’s prayer reads.

“Bless America with Revival!” it continues.

But the Republican from Missouri, who’s up for reelection in November, has an ulterior motive: money.

In bold-faced type highlighted in yellow, Hawley then asks his backers: “Your support means the world to me, can I count on you?”

Listed are a series of suggested donations, ranging from $25 — “Help bring faith back to America” it says next to that figure — to $3,300.

Any contribution will go to Hawley’s reelection campaign, the fine print notes.

“I’m not shy about my strong faith,” Hawley writes. “I’m beyond proud to be a man of God. We need to bring FAITH back into our government and I’m hoping you’ll stand with me.”

Then he hits another hot button: “Woke liberals have already started to attack me.”

ALSO READ: Deadline demolished: Illinois congressman violates federal financial disclosure law

Hawley’s prayer is hardly the first time this campaign season that a MAGA-loving politico co-opted God in support of election goals. An extreme example came at a Donald Trump rally during October in Iowa, where pastor Joshua Graber asked God to “silence” critics of the Republican frontrunner for president and that the “horrendous actions against him and his family be exposed and struck down.”

Hawley’s Senate seat is rated “solid Republican” by the Cook Political Report.

His likely Democratic challenger, Lucas Kunce, touted a November poll from a primarily Democratic consulting firm showing him as only 4 percentage points behind Hawley — a gap within the polls margin of error. An October poll from Emerson College gave Hawley a double-digit lead.

Hawley is perhaps best known for pumping his fist in support of Jan. 6 insurrectionists and, when in potential danger from violence, running to safety.

Jared Young, an independent candidate running for Hawley’s Senate seat, wrote in the Kansas City Star that he gives Hawley a pass for running from what Young said was understandable concern.

But, Young added, “To someone like me who voted for Hawley in 2018, it is his actions in the weeks following Jan. 6 that demonstrate he is completely unfit for his office.”

He continued, “For most Americans, Jan. 6 was a shocking and disturbing day. … But it wasn’t a wake-up call for Josh Hawley. … That is not what we heard from our senator. That is not what we heard from our senator. Instead, he doubled down and leaned into his role in the events of that day, believing it would endear him to the Republican primary voters he hopes will one day choose him as their presidential nominee.”

Bikers for Trump, the group Donald Trump once bragged would get “tough” on his political enemies, is looking weak on its balance sheet.

Very.

A news Federal Election Commission filing indicates Bikers for Trump is more than $50,000 in debt with less than $2,900 in available cash, as of December 31.

What began as motorcycle riders supporting a political candidate morphed into bikers serving as a self-styled security force for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign events.

By 2017, Bikers for Trump established a federal political action committee and began raising money. Trump personally visited with Bikers for Trump as president. Chris Cox, the organization’s founder, has a photo with Trump in the Oval Office featured on his Facebook page.

But today, the Bikers for Trump website is woefully out of date, with a plea on its homepage to “draft” Trump for president in 2024. (Trump announced he was running in November 2022.)

The Bikers for Trump PAC timeline on X, formerly Twitter, hasn’t had a post since September 2022, although the Bikers for Trump page on Facebook features recent posts lauding the former president.

Cox couldn’t be reached for comment. A voicemail message left at a phone number on one of the group’s FEC filings was not immediately returned. The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to Wednesday’s FEC filing, Bikers for Trump owes $50,022 to Infocision Inc., of Akron, Ohio, a call center company with a political fundraising service.

Bikers for Trump reported $7,690 worth of income for the second half of 2023.

More than $2,000 of that came from Right Country Lists of Alexandria, Va., a company that sells access to mailing and text lists.

Just two people contributed more than $200 to Bikers for Trump during the second half of 2023, according to the organization’s financial disclosure.

Its biggest single expense during the second half of 2023: $1,600 in salary payments to Cox.

This should be a time that Widener University Commonwealth Law School would want to trumpet one of its most notable alumni.

Alina Habba, a 2010 graduate, has been representing Donald Trump — a former president of the United States who has a huge lead to become this year’s Republican presidential nominee. She’s on national television and all over social media.

But Widener Commonwealth — a little-known private institution in Harrisburg, Pa., ranked in the bottom 20 percent of law schools by U.S. News & World Report — has been all but silent.

Widener Commonwealth deans, professors and alumni contacted by Raw Story had effectively nothing to say about Habba.

There’s also no mention of Habba on the “ alumni spotlight” of Widener Commonwealth’s website, and she has not been the subject of any stories in the “alumni news” section.

The only appearance of Habba at all comes on page 35 of Volume 17, Number 2 of the Widener University School of Law Magazine, published in 2010.

There, Habba — student co-chair of the Class of 2010 gift committee — is pictured holding a basketball, part of “sports equipment and a shed to house it” that her class donated to the school.

Fast forward 13 years: Habba has been widely excoriated for incompetence and seeming ignorance about the most basic aspects of courtroom protocol and procedure.

Those shortcomings, and others, became glaringly apparent in this week’s federal case to determine damages owed to writer E. Jean Carroll for defamation by Trump, who has previously been found liable by a federal civil jury for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll.

Referring mockingly to one of the Trump’s defunct business ventures, a post on X said, “Did Alina Habba get her law degree at Trump University?”

Some others that took aim at her education:

“ Are we sure Habba went to law school?”

“ Alina Habba got her law degree from a box of Cracker Jack.”

“ Alina Habba has single-handedly devalued a law degree from Widener University.”

Habba failed to stand when addressing U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, drawing a rebuke from the judge. She talked back to the judge. She didn’t understand how to enter something into evidence. Kaplan was almost teaching her trial procedure as the case proceeded.

“The judge is spoon feeding her information the same way you would help a law student in a mock trial. Embarrassing,” said a post on X.

“Roaring with laughter at Habba’s incompetence,” another

Raw Story reached out to seven former students from Widener Commonwealth, including four who were pictured with Habba in the law school’s Fall 2010 magazine.

Two of the seven responded. One declined comment. Another who requested anonymity because of employer-client relationships, said, “She was very different in law school. If anything, she was left-leaning.”

The person continued, “If you had asked me in law school to create a list of classmates that would end up being legal counsel for the president of the United States, Alina Habba would not have been in my top 10. But then again, if you had asked me to create a list of future presidents, Donald Trump would not have been on that list either. Crazy things happen."

Raw Story also reached out to the current dean and an incoming law school dean. Neither replied. Representatives for the Trump campaign and Trump Organization also did not immediately respond to inquiries.

ALSO READ: Uncivil war: How Speaker Mike Johnson’s dream of bipartisan decency died in his hands

In 2015, Widener University School of Law split its Delaware and Harrisburg sites into separately accredited institutions under the same umbrella. Habba attended Harrisburg.

Todd J. Clark, dean of Widener University Delaware Law School, did respond to a Raw Story email but emphasized that Habba graduated from Commonwealth, not Delaware. (The schools had not yet separated when Habba attended.)

Clark noted his school’s many first-generation students and commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. He praised the “highly accomplished faculty” and the school’s “internationally renowned” Dignity Rights Institute/Clinic.

“As far as my students and alumni are concerned, I am confident they can compete with anyone in the country,” Clark wrote, “and that my faculty are the most engaged and committed in the legal academy!”

Habba is probably not helping reinforce those points.

In a podcast interview earlier this month, Habba said, “Somebody said to me, ‘Alina, would you rather be smart or pretty?’ And I said, ‘Oh, easy, pretty. You can fake being smart.'”

That fueled more derisive social media posts.

Some people predicted a Saturday Night Live sketch on Habba. Another poster on X — referring to a movie lawyer with no courtroom experience — wrote, “Habba makes My Cousin Vinny look like Clarence Darrow.”

These are not real political action committees, but they made an official application to the Federal Election Commission:

– Hey Donnie Dumbf— If Immigrants Poisoning Our Blood Why Do You Keep Breeding With Them

– 10 Stacks To The First (person) Who Hits Donald Trump with a Milkshake

– Donnie, you lost Ivanka. Who’s left?

The FEC has a file of more than 1,500 inactive applications that purport to organize a PAC or a fundraising committee for a specific candidate. Most on the list are obviously bogus, many are profane and some are in support of a celebrity — or a cartoon or fictional character — as a fake candidate.

The late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain has applications for a presidential campaign committee. So do Snoop Dogg, Dr. Pepper and Spongebob Squarepants.

READ: Trump reveals weakness every time he complains about losing

The FEC received applications for U.S. Senate campaign committees for Al Capone and Tony Soprano. There was a similar application for a U.S. House campaign committee for Anakin Skywalker.

The Federal Election Commission responds to even the obviously fake applications with a sober letter about fraudulent registrations being illegal.

"It has come to the attention of the Federal Election Commission that you may have failed to include the true, correct, or complete committee information under (federal law) when you filed FEC Form 1," the letter says.

"Knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation to a federal government agency, including the Federal Election Commission, is punishable under the provisions of (federal law). The Commission may report apparent violations to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

"If the information you submitted in FEC Form 1 is, to the best of your knowledge and belief, true, correct, and complete, please file a response to confirm this."

Trump is a frequent target of the fake political committees. There are Donald Tramp and Donald J. Drumpf applications for presidential fundraising committees. The latter is a reference to the surname of Trump’s ancestors before it was changed.

Several of the applications make statements with their names, including one that references one of Trump’s golf clubs. Doral is a … country club with bedbugs applied to become a political action committee.

We Are Going to (assault) You Every Night When You’re in the Joint Donnie is a reference to Trump facing 91 felony charges in two federal and two state court cases.

Donald Trump has been laundering money for the Russians since the 80s lists Rep. Matt Gaetz as treasurer.

Why would someone spend time on fake FEC applications? One aspiring presidential campaign committee addressed the issue.

The committee’s name: I Don’t Know Why I’m Doing This

NOW READ: Thief takes money from pro-Israel political action committee

Donald Trump’s list of “impressive” people on his recently released Iowa Faith Leader Coalition include several men of hate.

There’s a congressional candidate who once suggested hanging former President Barack Obama and offered conciliatory words for white supremacists and white nationalists.

Another man compared LGBTQ people to pedophiles.

And a pastor once offered a political rally prayer that asked God to “silence” Trump’s critics.

A Raw Story review of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition list, which includes more than 250 names, identified David Pautsch of Davenport, Iowa, as the person who once suggested Obama should be hanged for treason.

ALSO READ: A neuroscientist’s guide to surviving Christmas with Trump-loving relatives

Pautsch, who’s challenging Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks in a congressional primary, also encouraged people to come to the defense of former Rep. Steve King of Iowa after King told the New York Times in 2019, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”

“I thought it was an important question to ask — why are those offensive words?” Pautsch said.

Pautsch is the organizer of a longtime annual prayer breakfast, which has attracted politicians such as Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and former Louisiana governor and presidential candidate Bobby Jindal. Pautsch said the breakfast isn’t about politics or skin color.

“This is a matter of who has embraced Jesus Christ,” Pautsch told the Quad Cities Times before the 2019 prayer breakfast. “It is a simple fact that the cultures that have embraced Christ have flourished — and those that haven't are stuck in a degraded state. We are talking about a huge cultural development issue. The cultures that embrace Jesus Christ are the ones that last and are successful. Just read history. And it's a biblically established fact of history."

The Quad Cities Times reporter asked the featured guest at that year’s prayer breakfast, former Wisconsin governor and presidential candidate Scott Walker, if he believed in Christian superiority.

Walker, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2016, demurred.

"My focus at the prayer breakfast will be on how all of us are welcome at the table of God," Walker said.

ALSO READ: Trolling, erotica, vulgarity: Trump, Biden Facebook pages are unmitigated trash heaps

Pautsch’s most recent prayer breakfast featured losing Arizona gubernatorial candidate and current senatorial candidate Kari Lake. In 2021, MyPillow CEO and Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell was the featured guest.

Pautsch posted to Facebook a list of “Tips for Effective Prayer Breakfast Participation.” Among them: “Encourage every Christian to pay something” and “Collect the $50 for the Table of Eight up front.”

Pautsch said he’s challenging the Republican incumbent, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, for Congress because she’s “too often out of step with the principles of her fellow Republicans and with biblical morality.”

Neither Pautsch nor Trump’s campaign responded to requests for comment.

Joshua Graber of Vinton, Iowa, delivered the opening prayer at a Trump rally in October — asking God to “silence” Trump’s critics. Those critics include, apparently, the people who have charged the former president with 91 felonies across two federal and two state-level cases.

“We ask that those who stand against him would be put to silence, that those horrendous actions against him and his family be exposed and struck down,” said Graber, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church. “... Give us the courage to stand with President Trump in the caucuses and elections to come.”

Graber routinely rails against the federal government. But he also has personal financial ties to it: It was that government that gave him a Rural Housing Service loan, on which the government foreclosed in 2018, and it was that government to which he turned for help in a 2019 bankruptcy filing.

Graber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Yet another of Trump’s faith leaders, Rick Bick, has compared LGBTQ people to pedophiles and claims to have himself traveled to heaven.

“For people that might want to question whether there’s a heaven, there’s a heaven. I’ve been there,” Bick, of Ottumwa, Iowa, said in a 2022 video. “… It’s almost eight years ago that I had a massive heart attack, died, went to heaven and got sent back. It’s a great place.”

In a Facebook post, Bick said, “Jesus sent me back!!” Bick didn’t offer more detail.

Bick did not respond to requests for comment.

In the video, titled The Purpose of the Bible, Bick lashed out at LGBTQ people.

ALSO READ: How Republicans paved the road to Texas with misogyny

“I live in a city which is adamant about promoting the LGBTQ agenda,” he said. “That’s not how God wants us to live. We need to stand out from that. We need to do things different.”

Bick lost his bid for mayor of Ottumwa, Iowa, in 2021. During the campaign, he was asked if he would approve permits for gay pride events. Earlier in the year, Ottumwa Pride had a block party and the City Council approved a Pride Month proclamation.

Bick said he doesn’t consider the LGBTQ community as a “people group” in the same way he regards racial groups.

“If you pick this sexual group, what about the pedophile group?” Bick said. “Are you going to give them special preference — well, I won’t go any farther because I could say other things I dealt with as a minister. To me, it’s a sexual preference group; not a race or ethnicity.”

Bick also criticized Mormon theology in the video.

“Many years ago I planted a church in the oldest Mormon community in Arizona,” Bick said. “You know, there’s a lot of false doctrine there. They use words and terminology that are the same that we use, but we need to know what (they mean), because their definition of Jesus is a whole lot different than ours.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s comments about being a “dictator” and immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” — among innumerable other things that would sink the candidacy of anyone else — are actually helping the former president in Iowa. He is gaining support, according to a recent poll of Iowans likely to caucus.

Several sexually explicit images disappeared from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s campaign Facebook page following questions about them from Raw Story.

Asked by Raw Story if Greene’s staff or Facebook removed the images, Nick Dyer, Greene’s deputy chief of staff, said, “I suppose they did. Look at you! Journalism with some results!”

Facebook, and its parent company Meta, didn’t respond to continued requests for comment about the explicit images, which included depictions of sex acts and body parts.

RELATED ARTICLE: Baboons, self-owns and smut: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Facebook page is a hot mess

Raw Story reported early Wednesday that Greene, a Republican from Georgia, had failed to engage simple privacy settings that would have prevented people from posting lewd and uncomplimentary material directly to her Facebook page.

This led to posts mocking Greene as a clown, comparing her to a baboon and depicting her with Russian flags.

Greene’s office was first alerted to the problem last year. After removing some of the problematic images, others — some worse than before — have recently appeared.

Dyer reacted to Raw Story’s inquiry Tuesday by emailing, “What are you talking about?”

ALSO READ: Revealed: Marjorie Taylor Greene's post-divorce finances — from Trump to Disney

Dyer later suggested it was Facebook’s failure, not Greene’s, to police content such as pornography that goes against the social media giant’s policies.

Facebook's community standards list hate speech and adult nudity and sexual activity among its "objectionable content." The standards additionally state that the company distinguishes between public figures and private individuals in terms of bullying and harassment "because we want to allow discussion, which often includes critical commentary of people who are featured in the news or who have a large public audience."

"For public figures, we remove attacks that are severe as well as certain attacks where the public figure is directly tagged in the post or comment," the policy continues.

ALSO READ: Here's how much Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has lost investing in Trump’s Truth Social venture

Late Tuesday, Greene posted on Facebook about items for sale at her website, including $25 “Impeach Biden!” wrapping paper that depicts the president as the Grinch and $60 Christmas sweaters that say, “The Grinch Who Stole the Election — Impeach Biden.”

MANSFIELD, Ind. — The name Covered Bridge Festival evokes images of artisans selling their wares under the country sun and live music delighting passersby, all while celebrating quaint structures built more than a century ago to protect the wooden crossing from the weather.

The unsuspecting, however, encounter something much different at this west-central Indiana town, one of several sites for the decades-old event in Parke County.

MAGA.

MAGA merchandise and MAGA culture all but shouting at you in Donald Trump’s voice amid a bazaar of cheap flea market items and carnival food.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

“One for Biden, One for Harris,” says a T-shirt with a drawing of Donald Trump raising two middle fingers for the president and vice president.

Another T-shirt says “LGBT,” with a drawing of the Statue of Liberty over “L”; a gun (actually a rifle) over “G”; a beer over “B”; and You Know Who over “T.”

“Don’t Tread on Trump,” says a different take on the Gadsden Flag with a coiled rattlesnake. “Keep America Great.” The Trump flags above that tent included, “Only GOD and Trump Can Save Our Country.”

This isn’t a Trump rally.

But here in Parke County, which voted 77 percent for Trump in 2020, Trumpism now permeates what, not long ago, was a mostly apolitical event designed to herald autumn and Americana.

It’s a scene that wouldn’t look out of place in many swaths of red-state rural America, where Trump hero worship and evangelization, and the prospect of the former president’s return to power, override other, more genteel community-centric considerations.

There’s also money to be made off Trump’s followers with T-shirts such as “F– Biden and F– Everyone Who Voted For Him!”

Multiple tents at the Covered Bridge Festival's Mansfield, Ind., site sold only Trump merchandise. Mark Alesia/Raw Story

David Dixon, one of the vendors selling nothing but Trump merchandise, said he travels the country to Trump rallies and usually avoids flea markets, but the person who supplies tents for the Covered Bridge Festival urged him to come and set up shop.

While most other vendors declined comment to Raw Story, Dixon welcomed discussion about his politics and his business.

“I am a business person, but I’m extremely political,” he said. “I’m real conservative. I probably lean more Libertarian than Republican. I love seeing smaller government.”

Dixon’s Trump-y wares did not include obscene items found elsewhere at the event. He said he started selling Sarah Palin merchandise in 2008 when she was a vice presidential candidate. That proved lucrative. Business cooled off in 2012 when Dixon sold items at events for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, then the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees who lost badly to then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

ALSO READ: 'How many cheerleaders did he grope?’ Fans share outrage at Trump’s Iowa State game visit

“We actually did better with Mitt’s wife than we did with Mitt,” Dixon said. “Mitt didn’t inspire the people. Sales come when the candidate really inspires the people.”

Dixon was going to follow Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker in 2015 but switched to Trump when Walker bowed out early.

Dixon said he shows up about five days ahead of Trump’s rallies and starts with roadside sales. He sold merchandise at Trump’s speech before the January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., but said he didn’t go with the crowds to the Capitol.

At the Covered Bridge Festival, Dixon faced a lot of competition in the Trump category. He said he bought the inventory of one disappointed Trump vendor.

“People come out here and think they’re going to get rich, especially older people,” Dixon said.

David Dixon, a vendor at the Covered Bridge Festival in Parke County, Ind., travels the country selling Trump merchandise at Trump rallies. Mark Alesia/Raw Story

The Trump fervor at the Covered Bridge Festival didn’t dissipate after his loss in 2020. A seller at the 2021 event, for example, prominently displayed large flags saying, “TRUMP 2024 - F— THE NEWS” and “BIDEN IS NOT MY PRESIDENT.” (The actual flag used the full curse word.)

The same year, a vendor tent peddled T-shirts saying “Trump 2024 - The Revenge Tour” and “Trump 2024 - Because Black Rifles Matter.”

Vendors at this year’s festival that boasts, questionably, “fantastic food” and, unquestionably, “beautiful fall foliage,” also sold fear.

ALSO READ: Trump ‘stiffs law enforcement officers’: Nikki Haley

“PROTECT YOURSELF - STUN GUNS,” says a sign on one tent, which also offers free pepper spray with a sale.

Another tent flew large flags for “Concealed Weapon Purses,” with drawings of a gun and purse. One of the styles for sale has a sequined American flag.

Yet another seller offered “Native American Medicines” touted for any number of maladies including tooth aches, lupus and psoriasis.

T-shirts for sale at the October 2021 Covered Bridge Festival. Mark Alesia/Raw Story

Steffannee Werner, who runs a screen printing and embroidery business, had a tent filled with a variety of shirts for sale. Anti-Biden wares hung prominently outside, prompting people to stop for a look. Those shirts included “Dumb and Dumber” with a photo of Biden and Harris; “We the People Are Pissed Off”; and “BIDEN” as an acronym for “Brain dead, Idiot, Destroying, Entire, Nation.”

It turns out that Werner is not, as one of her T-shirts said, “Ultra Maga.” She’s about business.

“We’re apolitical,” Werner said. “We equally hate both sides. We try not to talk too much politics with customers.”

But what about the anti-Biden stuff? Among them was a parody of the Chef Boyardee pasta logo: “Chef Boyarewe Screwed” with a photo of Biden wearing a cook’s hat.

Said Werner, who offered no pro-Biden items: “We go for what people ask for.”

Former President Donald Trump was not an invited guest of Iowa State University for last month’s football game against the University of Iowa — he had a ticket — but angry fans still vented to school officials about the Trump “ circus” trampling on their beloved rivalry.

In emails to Iowa State’s president and athletic director, obtained by Raw Story through an Iowa Open Records Law request, people railed about what baggage Trump might bring to the Sept. 9 event — his 91 felony allegations; a history of not paying bills for security; violent supporters; and a civil jury having found that he sexually abused a woman.

“What message are you telling women by allowing him to be at the game?” said an email to Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen. “What message does that tell men? I am a graduate of Iowa State University and am ashamed that the spectacle of Trump in Ames not only overshadows the game, but more importantly, it normalizes his unhinged behavior.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

“My only hope,” the emailer continued, “is that the true patriots and fans vigorously boo him out of the stadium and send him back to Florida.”

Said another email, to athletic director Jamie Pollard: “Forget Republican or Democrat, how can you allow this on your campus? Great message you're sending to the young women at ISU.”

The university redacted names of the emailers. Trump’s interest in the game, of course, was that Iowa is host to the nation’s traditional first electoral test with its caucuses. His campaign did not answer Raw Story’s requests for comment.

Trump watched the game with Matt Whitaker, a former Iowa football player who served as acting attorney general during Trump’s presidency.

Trump did not appear on the field during September’s game, as he did during an Iowa-Iowa State game in 2015 while campaigning for president. But Trump’s previous on-field appearance remained on the minds of some fans, who were confused about whether the university itself sanctioned Trump’s most recent visit.

“I was appalled to learn that he had been allowed to be on the field and mingle with the cheerleaders and fans prior to the game,” one emailer wrote before this year’s game. “I often wondered how many cheerleaders he groped in the process.”

One emailer to Wintersteen understood that nothing could stop Trump from attending the game, but the person threatened to hit the university financially if school administrators did anything more than let the former president in on the basis of his ticket.

“If his presence is in any way acknowledged in the stadium by the public address announcer, I will cease all financial support of Iowa State and Iowa State athletics,” it said. “This is not a debatable issue for me. I will not support any institution that appears to support Donald Trump.”

Another email said fans of both teams just wanted to watch football without Trump’s political theater.

“Where is their voice in this?” the email said. “I don't care how many cult followers he has, or what political pressure he exerts. He betrayed his constitutional oath over and over again …”

ALSO READ: Trump ‘stiffs law enforcement officers’: Nikki Haley

Some feared the game would turn unsafe particularly for “college students, teenagers and children in attendance.”

“Followers of D. Trump who are extremists cannot control their behavior as proven by January 6, 2021,” they continued.

Another said Trump’s presence as “such a divisive political individual” would be a “recipe for trouble.”

The email said they’d be staying home with their kids.

Others expressed concern about the use of university resources and Trump’s history of not paying bills related to campaign appearances.

“Do we really have to allow DJT into the game Saturday??” an email said. “What a waste of security personnel, traffic control, etc. And the showcase game, perhaps THE showcase event in the state for the year, and it has to be denigrated to a political rally for a self-absorbed criminal??”

Said another email: “I wonder how much expense Iowa State University and the city of Ames will incur in providing security for candidates’ presence. My understanding from following political news is that Donald Trump's campaign is notorious for not paying the bills for expenses for services that local governments provide.”

‘More challenging for all of us’

Raw Story filed a public records request with the university and its police department for correspondence, bills and contracts related to school resource usage and expenses connected to Trump being at the game.

Ann Lelis, a paralegal in the Office of the General Counsel at Iowa State University, repeatedly denied the request made to the Iowa State University Police Department, claiming an exemption in the state’s public records law.

“Security-related information and records are confidential,” she wrote. “Even after the fact, providing this information would impact security going forward.”

The City of Ames, where Iowa State University is based, told Raw Story that six officers supported the Sept. 9 event, costing the department $1,234.91. The city did not provide any documents and emails related to Raw Story's public records request, citing the same exemption in the state’s public records law.

Public law enforcement records show that Iowa State University Police made 14 arrests in the stadium parking lot for alleged “criminal mischief” on the day of the game, but the arrests were “not affiliated with a political visitor or event,” Carrie Jacobs, assistant chief of police for Iowa State University, told Raw Story via email.

ALSO READ: GOP congressman — a retired Navy SEAL — uses foreign warship photo in salute to U.S. Navy

A Des Moines Register story on Trump’s attendance at the game did not mention any incidents related to politics. It said Trump was booed and some people shouted obscenities, “but he drew far more eager and excited onlookers.”

The Associated Press reported that Trump stopped by a fraternity house and tossed autographed footballs into the crowd, garnering cheers. Others made profane gestures at his motorcade, and a prop plane with a banner reading “Where’s Melania?” flew over the stadium. Inflatable Trump and Anthony Fauci costumes were seen wearing masks and holding hands in the stadium parking lot.

Other candidates for the Republican presidential nomination were at the game, too: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Iowa won the game, 20-13.

Pollard, the Iowa State athletic director, responded to emails by saying, essentially, he’d rather have all of the politicians go away.

“Please understand anyone attending our games (including politicians) have to have tickets — Donald Trump included,” he wrote. “We can't discriminate against those with legitimate tickets. Although it makes things more challenging for all of us, there is not much we can do about it other than to plan for it. We certainly wish all the candidates would stay away from this game but that is not our call to make.”