House Republicans are demanding answers about massive fraud in a Biden-Harris immigration program.
The scandal could further complicate the Harris campaign's already outlandish efforts to paint Harris as tough on the border.
Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee are demanding documents about the administration's decision to pause the CHNV program, which allowed 30,000 migrants per month into the United States from Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
An internal report obtained by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) found massive fraud by the program's sponsors.
The Biden-Harris administration had long touted the program as a "safe" and "orderly" way for migrants to claim asylum without crossing the border illegally.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have been admitted through the program, which Republicans have long criticized as unlawful and a ploy to improve optics at the southern border.
An internal investigation by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) found that sponsors used the same 100 physical addresses for 19,000 forms.
Many sponsors used fake zip codes and Social Security numbers, including numbers belonging to dead people.
"Out of an abundance of caution, DHS has temporarily paused the issuance of advanced travel authorizations for new beneficiaries while it undertakes a review of supporter applications,” a spokesperson told the New York Post.
Reps. Mark Green (R-TN), Clay Higgins (R-LA), and Dan Bishop (R-NC) want to know exactly when the program was suspended, what the current backlog of applications looks like, and what internal process the Department was using to catch fraudulent applications.
The Homeland Security Committee is demanding documents after Department representatives failed to answer "even basic questions" at an August 5 briefing.
"The internal investigation also purportedly reveals that 2,839 sponsor forms contained non-existent zip codes and 4,590 forms were filled out with Alien file numbers that had never been issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)," they wrote.
House Republicans are ramping up investigations into Kamala Harris' role overseeing immigration, a top issue in the upcoming presidential election in which Harris is the Democratic candidate.
With help from sympathetic media, Harris has been posing as tough on the border, despite record illegal crossings under the current administration.
A number of violent criminals, including murderers and rapists, have been identified as beneficiaries of the Biden administration's mass parole policies.
After three years on the bench, it's becoming clear that Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett is much more moderate than many anticipated.
In her first two years on the court, Barrett voted with the right over 70% of the time. But by her third year, she was voting with conservatives 56% of the time, Newsweek reported.
Barrett showcased her independence particularly during the court's most recent term, which involved explosive controversies about Donald Trump, presidential power and January 6th.
Barrett has sided with the conservative wing on some pivotal rulings, particularly the Dobbs ruling that ended Roe v. Wade. But she has often beat to her own drum, leaving many court watchers surprised.
In oral arguments during Trump's presidential immunity case, Barrett suggested that Special Counsel Jack Smith could continue prosecuting Trump by separating "official acts" from the indictment.
When the court rendered its opinion, Barrett disagreed with the majority's view that "official acts" cannot be used as evidence.
"She wants to be the swing vote," Alison LaCroix, a law professor at the University of Chicago, told Newsweek. "And that might lead her to issue opinions that seem to be more moderate than the conservative majority."
Barrett has also differed with conservatives on the use of history and tradition as interpretative tools. Conservatives have emphasized that methodology in Second Amendment cases.
"Evidence of 'tradition' unmoored from original meaning is not binding law," she wrote in a Second Amendment case this year. "Historical regulations reveal a principle, not a mold."
Republicans rushed to confirm Barrett prior to the 2020 election after the surprise death of liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg. At the time, liberals portrayed Barrett as a dangerous ideologue.
But the most extreme predictions about Barrett's appointment have not come to fruition. Barrett's move to the middle has won praise from the left, but it likely to cause disappointment among those who hoped she would be a more reliable conservative voice.
President Biden, who has pushed for sweeping Supreme Court reform, brought up Barrett's "outrageous" appointment recently, accusing Republicans of a brazen power grab.
Biden noted that Republicans blocked Merrick Garland when Barack Obama nominated him in 2016, with Republicans arguing at the time that it was an election year. Four years later, Republicans confirmed Barrett over howls of protest.
Looking back, some are probably wondering - what was all the fuss about?
A top Republican has accused the Biden administration of shrugging off an assassination attempt against Donald Trump, and emboldening Iran to kill him in the process.
Florida congressman Michael Waltz said the White House is sending a message that there are "no consequences" for targeting Trump, who recently survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
A Pakistani man was recently charged in New York in an unrelated Iranian plot to kill Trump, whose name wasn't mentioned in the Justice Department's indictment.
“The Department of Justice, when they unveiled the indictment, didn’t even name Trump as the target. They tried to soft-pedal it and just say, oh, it was a politician. So this wasn’t an isolated incident in Butler, Pa," Waltz told Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures.
Trump angered the Iranian regime by ordering the assassination of its top general Qassem Soleimani in 2020. While Trump held Iran "accountable," Waltz said, Biden and Kamala Harris have taken a softer approach.
“He held them accountable. And you overlay that with, how has Biden and Harris treated Iran? Well, Iran knows that they’re sympathizers,” he argued.
The Iranian threats have continued, with reports that Trump's presidential campaign was breached by Iranian hackers.
"These plots from Iran are ongoing. And when Biden says nothing, Harris says nothing, the DOJ tries to bury it, what message does Iran get? They get that we can keep trying to take Trump out and have no consequences,” Waltz said.
“They tried to hack his campaign or did hack his campaign this week. They’re trying to kill him. And we know from the intelligence community Iran doesn’t want Trump back,” he added.
During a wide-ranging discussion with Elon Musk on X, Trump talked about the assassination attempt in Butler and the importance of having a strong president who is feared by America's enemies.
"Iran had no money for Hamas, no money for Hezbollah and no money for any instruments of terror," Trump said of his administration's aggressive sanctions on Iran.
The FBI is investigating the hacking of Trump's campaign, as well as the assassination attempt in Butler.
The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, shot at Trump from a rooftop from less than 200 yards away. The bullet grazed Trump's ear as he turned his head.
Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) does not believe Joe Biden wrote his defiant letter demanding that Democrats rally behind him, saying, it "didn't sound like Joe."
In that letter, Biden said he was "firmly committed" to running for re-election as panic spread through his party following his disastrous June debate with Donald Trump.
Biden sent the letter to his Democratic colleagues on July 8 in an attempt to quell growing dissent within the party.
That same day, Biden called in to Morning Joe and declared, "I'm not going anywhere" as he took a swipe at Democratic "elites" whom he accused of disenfranchising primary voters - an argument since adopted by Republicans who say Biden was overthrown in a "coup."
Many see Pelosi and Barack Obama as the key players in the pressure campaign to get Biden to drop out.
Two days after Biden sent his letter, Pelosi went on Morning Joe and urged Biden to make a decision - even though he had made it clear he intended to keep running. Her comments were seen as giving cover to other Democrats to question Biden.
In an interview with the New York Times, Pelosi made clear how little she thought of Biden's initial decision to keep running.
“I didn’t accept the letter as anything but a letter,” Pelosi said. "It didn’t sound like Joe Biden to me. It really didn’t,” she said.
Explaining her thought process through those three chaotic weeks, Pelosi said she was laser-focused on beating Donald Trump.
“I wanted to see a campaign that could win. Because I had made a decision that I stayed in Congress to defeat what’s-his-name, because I think he is a danger to our country,” Pelosi said.
Less than two weeks after Biden's fiery letter, he called it quits in another letter, shared online. Biden did not publicly address his decision to drop out until three days later, in an Oval Office speech that was vague about his motivations.
In an CBS interview that aired Sunday, Biden suggested that Pelosi had pushed him out to rescue the party's down ballot prospects.
“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,” he said.
"And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic — you’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something] … and I thought it’d be a real distraction."
The U.S. Secret Service, once a highly respected federal law enforcement agency, is not doing so well on the PR front these days.
Just a few weeks after the agency was dragged for nearly allowing former President Donald Trump to be assassinated by a 20-year-old weirdo with a rifle at a Pennsylvania rally, the agency was once again humiliated for its actions during a Kamala Harris event.
News broke last week regarding an Atlanta fundraiser put on by Harris's campaign, during which the Secret Service reportedly took over a local salon owner's business and allowed people to use the restroom without authorization, while duct-taping the video cameras.
The salon owner reported that someone from the agency in charge of securing the business left the doors unlocked and the tape hanging off the cameras after they departed the area, Fox News reported.
It was reported that the salon owner said the agency picked the lock of her business before turning it into a VIP bathroom area, and covering the cameras to hide the evidence.
The U.S. Secret Service is apologizing to a Massachusetts salon owner after an agent covered her security camera with duct tape and broke into her salon by picking the lock so that its bathroom could be used by various people for a two-hour period.
After the two-hour period,… pic.twitter.com/s4qSFtebn0
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 11, 2024
While the agency initially apologized for the incident, it later hinted that it might not have been responsible. USSS spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie said as much in a statement.
"The U.S. Secret Service works closely with our partners in the business community to carry out our protective and investigative missions," McKenzie said.
She added, "We hold these relationships in the highest regard and our personnel would not enter, or instruct our partners to enter, a business without the owner’s permission."
The spokesperson failed to name who was responsible for the situation, which was caught on camera.
The owner of the Salon described the mess that she walked into after the alleged incident took place.
Fox News reported:
Powers told Business Insider that "several people" who were "in and out for about an hour-and-a-half – just using my bathroom, the alarms going off, using my counter, with no permission."
"And then when they were done using the bathroom for two hours, they left, and left my building completely unlocked, and did not take the tape off the camera," she added.
Though the owner didn't go into detail, she reported that the agency contacted her in the wake of the reports about the break-in.
The agency can't afford many more hits on the PR front, as it already has a massive black eye.
Prior to President Joe Biden being pushed out of the 2024 presidential election in the wake of his embarrassing debate performance against Donald Trump, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was rumored to have been at the forefront of pushing the elderly president out of the race.
Reports said that she was making phone calls to top Democrats in an effort to rally the troops in getting behind the coup, but she later denied the reports.
Townhall reported that Pelosi did recently admit that she's not a fan of Biden's "political operation," and suggested that she wasn't convinced that they could pull off a win in November.
Her admission came during an interview with The New Yorker, which was published this week.
The former speaker must have taken a lot of heat behind the scenes from the White House and Biden's operatives, because she made sure to stress that she wasn't making phone calls in the lead-up to Biden's ouster from the race.
"I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation,” Pelosi said.
She added, "They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen. The President has to make the decision for that to happen. People were calling. I never called one person. I kept true to my word."
"Any conversation I had, it was just going to be with him. I never made one call. They said I was burning up the lines, I was talking to Chuck [Schumer]. I didn’t talk to Chuck at all," Pelosi continued.
The former speaker doubled down in insisting that she never called anyone about the situation, though reports suggested otherwise.
"I never called one person, but people were calling me saying that there was a challenge there. So there had to be a change in the leadership of the campaign, or what would come next," Pelosi said.
Many believe Pelosi is making up stories as she goes. The bombshell admission that she's not a fan of Biden's political operation wildly differs from remarks she made last week.
Last week, Pelosi had the audacity to suggest that Biden should be the next face on Mt. Rushmore, which triggered an avalanche of mockery.
"Such a consequential president of the United States, a Mount Rushmore kind of president of the United States," Pelosi said during an CBS interview.
There's no telling what she'll say next. Like with most Democrats, it usually depends on the audience.
Kamala Harris is facing backlash from the left after chastising pro-Palestine activists at a rally in Michigan.
The incident is a reminder of the divisions lingering within the Democratic party, which has mostly united behind Harris and her new presidential campaign.
“Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide. We won’t vote for genocide," the activists chanted.
At first, Harris told the hecklers, "I am here because we believe in democracy; everyone’s voice matters, but I am speaking now."
Eventually, Harris snapped and said, “You know what, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking!”
Harris' reaction was covered positively by many media outlets supporting her campaign, including the New York Times.
But some on the left took offense to Harris' dismissive response. Former Bernie Sanders adviser Nina Turner said Harris was turning away people she needs to win.
"People are in a lot of pain, they want the death and destruction in Gaza to end, death and destruction our government is funding,” Turner wrote. “This response is inappropriate and lacks empathy," Turner said.
Harris' reaction threatens to open a divide over Israel and blunt the "momentum" of her sheltered campaign, which has so far faced virtually no scrutiny.
While most Democrats are swept up in Harris hype, she has yet to commit to a clear policy agenda or sit down for a single unscripted interview.
She has retracted many of her formerly leftist positions to appeal to swing voters, prompting accusations from Republicans that she is a "chameleon" who can't be trusted.
Uncommitted, which organized anti-Biden boycotts during the primary, met with Harris in Michigan on Wednesday and claimed she was open to an arms embargo against Israel. But her campaign clarified Thursday that she is opposed to an embargo.
At the peak of the "uncommitted" campaign, more than 100,000 Democrats voted against Biden in Michigan's primary. Michigan has a large Arab population and is expected to again play a crucial role in the presidential race.
It remains to be seen if Harris - who never received a single primary vote - can simply scold dissent away. But for now, she has mostly unified the Democratic party and the media behind her as she prepares for a coronation in Chicago on August 19.
Kamala Harris' campaign quietly changed the biography for running mate Tim Walz after he was caught lying about his military rank.
The website no longer describes Walz as a "retired command sergeant major" after the Minnesota National Guard confirmed he retired as a master sergeant.
Since tapping the little-known Minnesota governor to be her running mate, Harris has highlighted Walz's military background to appeal to voters in the Rust Belt and to buttress her push for gun control. But Walz is facing damaging accusations of lying about his service to advance his political career.
In resurfaced comments from his 2018 run for governor, Walz claimed to have carried weapons "in war," despite never actually going to a conflict zone. The Harris campaign shared a clip of the comments on social media.
The Harris campaign scrambled to defend Walz's comments, stating, “In his 24 years of service, the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times."
In addition to lying about serving in combat, Walz appears to have misrepresented his rank at retirement.
The Minnesota National Guard confirmed Wednesday that he retired as a master sergeant, not a command sergeant major, as Walz has long claimed.
The Harris campaign updated his bio after Walz's rank came under scrutiny. The website previously described him as a retired command sergeant major, but now vaguely says that he rose to that rank.
The phrasing is still ambiguous enough to suggest he retired as a command sergeant major. His bio does not mention that he retired as a master sergeant.
Walz's promotion to command sergeant major was conditional on completing additional coursework, the National Guard said. He retired in 2005 to focus on running for Congress, triggering his demotion.
At the time, his artillery unit was preparing to deploy to Iraq. Veterans who served under Walz have accused him of showing cowardice and claiming a rank he didn't earn.
"When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way,” retired command sergeant major Thomas Behrends told the New York Post Tuesday. “He ran away. It’s sad."
“He continued to say ‘retired command sergeant major’ for his political career,” he added. “When he used that … it was stolen valor.”
Donald Trump gave a sarcastic "thank you" to rival Kamala Harris after she chose a staunch progressive, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to be her running mate.
The Walz pick has widely been seen as a missed opportunity to broaden Harris' appeal to moderates. Many Republicans have expressed relief that Harris did not choose Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (D), whose state is a critical Rust Belt battleground.
Trump made his own feelings clear, writing, "THANK YOU!” on Truth Social.
Democrats have painted Walz as a moderate and "folksy," Midwestern dad, but Republicans see Walz as a gift, someone who could help them define Harris as dangerously extreme and out of touch.
In particular, Republicans have zeroed in on Walz's response to the George Floyd riots that exploded in his state in the summer of 2020. As rioters burned down Minneapolis, Walz hesitated to deploy the National Guard.
At the time, Harris supported a notorious bail fund to help the rioters. Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance labeled Harris and Walz an "interesting tag team."
"If we remember the rioting in the summer of 2020, Tim Walz was the guy who let rioters burn down Minneapolis," he said. "And then Kamala Harris was the one who bailed the rioters out of jail," he added." So there's an interesting team in that sense."
As governor, Walz has given free college, healthcare and driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. His record could complicate Harris' efforts to blunt attacks on her role as the "border czar."
“Ensuring drivers in our state are licensed and carry insurance makes the roads safer for all Minnesotans,” Walz said last year, as he signed legislation allowing illegal immigrants to get licenses.
Walz, who came up with the idea of attacking Trump and Vance as "weird," has also made Minnesota a "refuge" for children to undergo sex change surgeries.
"Tim Walz is a weird radical liberal. What could be weirder than signing a bill requiring schools to stock tampons in boys' bathrooms?" Make America Great Again PAC wrote on X. "Or weirder than signing legislation allowing minors to receive sex change operations?"
Walz has spoken favorably of socialism, saying, "one person's socialism is another person's neighborliness" during a recent "White Dudes For Harris" call.
A promising TV actor who appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Network has been charged with a shocking murder.
21-year-old Akili McDowell, of Channelview, Texas, shot another man dead at a Houston apartment block. McDowell was charged with theft and murder after the July 20 incident.
The actor, who starred in the series David Makes Man, was apparently pushing drugs at the Thorntree Apartments near Uvalde.
Neighbors told ABC13 that McDowell was “the weed man” at the apartment block where he met with his victim. An altercation occurred between McDowell and 20-year-old Cesar Peralta, who apparently wanted to purchase drugs from McDowell.
“This defendant was seen talking to the complainant. They had a fistfight. The defendant pulled out a pistol and shot him once. When the complainant went to his car, he shot him again and again," prosecutors said in court.
Witnesses say McDowell fled on foot. The victim sustained gunshot wounds and was pronounced deceased at the scene.
“Homicide investigators charged Akili McDowell (21) with murder in the shooting death of Cesar Peralta (20). McDowell was recently taken into custody and booked into the Harris County Jail," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez wrote in an update.
"The investigation is on-going and we encourage anyone with info to contact the Homicide Unit at 713-274-9100."
Somewhat ironically, McDowell's breakout role was in a drama series about a young man's struggle to leave the ghetto. McDowell was just 16 when he starred in David Makes Man, which ran for two seasons on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
He told Oprah that the show has an uplifting message: “you can be something. You don’t have to settle for what everybody may think you’re going to be. You can work to be better. And you can be better."
McDowell also had roles in Showtime’s Billions and the new movie The Waterboyz. McDowell was promoting The Waterboyz on social media even after the murder, ABC13 reported.
The disgraced actor is being held on $400,000 bond at the Harris County jail.
“This is an unfortunate situation and I am in prayer for Akili and those impacted by this tragedy,” said his manager, Jonell Whitt.