Author: FOX24 US

FOX 24 US The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) put out a new opinion earlier this week arguing that President Donald Trump can assert executive privilege over communications with advisors even if they do not work at the White House or within the government at all. Experts tell TPM that the legal opinion is likely an effort from the Trump administration and his DOJ to preemptively interfere with congressional investigations that Democrats plan to launch if they manage to take control of one or both chambers after the 2026 midterms. “The legal opinion has more holes in it…

FOX 24 US Federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security sent undercover agents to observe a climate group and into churches, and obtained financial records for labor unions, as they sought to crack down on mass protests in Minneapolis following the Trump administration’s surge of federal officers into the city, attorneys alleged in a new filing. The effort began in earnest four days after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. On Jan. 28, Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s investigative arm, started what it called “Operation Puppet Master,” the filing says. That investigation was targeted at “an organized network of…

FOX 24 US Alabama federal prosecutors on Wednesday unveiled charges against Heidi Beirich, a prominent critic of violent far-right extremist groups like the KKK, Proud Boys, and others. Per an indictment returned on Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Montgomery, Beirich faces a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a charge of conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and a charge of conspiracy to commit concealment of money laundering. Beirich formerly worked as Chief Financial Officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and ran the group’s Intelligence Project. She’s long been an outspoken critic…

FOX 24 US Top congressional Democrats on Tuesday pushed back on a new memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) arguing that President Donald Trump can assert executive privilege over communications with advisors even if they do not work at the White House or within the government at all. “Executive privilege can apply to presidential communications with private advisers so long as the communications relate to official presidential decisionmaking, involve or reflect communications with the President or his direct advisers, and are confidential,” the OLC opinion, published on Monday, reads. During the first Trump administration and into…

FOX 24 US Now-failed Minnesota gubernatorial candidate and prolific 2020 election denier Mike Lindell lost his bid for Minnesota governor on Tuesday night to the state’s Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who received 44.7% of the vote. Predictably, however, Lindell now has some questions about the results of his primary loss, and what he claims could be “anomalies” in the results.  During an interview on Tuesday night on LindellTV, a reporter asked Lindell if he would concede if the AP called the race for Demuth.  “Why would I listen to AP?” he responded. “There’s 265,000 votes left to count. I’m…

FOX 24 US Pillow magnate and election denier Mike Lindell lost a high-stakes Minnesota GOP gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, despite receiving an endorsement from President Donald Trump last month. He also lost the Minnesota Republican Party’s endorsement in the race in June to former health care executive and army veteran, Kendall Qualls. Despite the state Republican Party’s backing of another candidate, Lindell remained in the race, confident he would win the primary, and polls over the past week even indicated he had a shot. He told TPM in June that his focus was on “campaigning against Amy Klobuchar, and these…

FOX 24 US The Trump administration is planning to dramatically reshape the data the Census Bureau collects, setting the stage for an audacious effort to curtail crucial information used in voting rights complaints and revive a right-wing effort, pursued in Trump’s first term, to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count used to determine how many members of Congress represent each state in Congress.  TPM has obtained a draft of a notice of proposed rulemaking from the Census Bureau that is being circulated within the administration. The proposed rule, under consideration by the Department of Commerce, attempts two things: to exclude…

FOX 24 US Facing little opposition, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), an established election denier who voted against certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in two key states, is expected to easily secure the Republican nomination for governor in Wisconsin during Tuesday’s primary election. Tiffany is one of many election deniers on the ballot running as a Republican in the primaries this year. After receiving President Donald Trump’s endorsement earlier this year, he is expected to win the nomination in the Wisconsin primary.  “I endorsed Tom for Congress early and strong, and he won, BIG. Likewise, he has always been at…

FOX 24 US In the last 48 hours, President Donald Trump has revived two issues on which the Supreme Court ruled against him at the end of this term: restricting birthright citizenship and firing Federal Reserve governors. On Thursday, he issued two executive orders to limit the reach of the 14th Amendment’s promise that everyone born on American soil is conferred automatic citizenship. On its last day of the term, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s previous attempt to deny citizenship to the children of people illegally or temporarily in the United States. The categories of people Trump would exclude from…

FOX 24 US On top of the fact that the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a deep dive into the jobs report published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday morning revealed some jobs statistics reached their worst levels in 10 years. But if you ask Kevin Hassett, White House chief economist and director of the National Economic Council, everything is awesome.  In addition to the July losses, the report also came with downward revisions for the two months prior; May payroll employment was revised down by 66,000 jobs and June saw a 37,000 downward revision, for a…