Politics
Trump is having a bad week. Will it matter in the election?
Former President Trump’s tough week showed as well as any to date why he is facing a new and unprecedented reality as a presidential candidate — as he ping-ponged among a dizzying array of court appearances, judicial rulings, competing allegations and subsequent grievances.
By Thursday, he was complaining about the overlap in his busy legal schedule, railing that Judge Juan M. Merchan, who is presiding over his hush-money case in New York, wouldn’t let him leave that trial to attend a Supreme Court hearing in Washington, D.C., over whether he can face criminal prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election. That decision also could affect Trump’s classified-documents case in Florida.
“I should be there!” Trump fumed about the Supreme Court. “He wouldn’t allow it to happen. He puts himself above the Supreme Court.”
Most of the week, Trump sat in Merchan’s Manhattan courtroom as former National Enquirer Publisher David Pecker testified. Pecker, a key witness in the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, helped prosecutors outline the alleged conspiracy that involved using the tabloid to kill negative stories about Trump and covering up payments during the 2016 campaign.
A trial break Wednesday might have offered a reprieve for Trump. Instead, it was full of more action against the former president. Trump was identified as a co-conspirator in two states: Michigan, during a pretrial hearing involving a group of “fake electors” who were charged as part of an election subversion scheme; and Arizona, where some of Trump’s closest allies were charged in yet another plot to overturn the election using fake electors.
That indictment hit close to Trump because it included Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who became Trump’s political fixer and confidant.
It didn’t end there. By the time Trump got back to court on Thursday, prosecutors alleged that his attempts to spin perceptions about his Manhattan case — including calling Pecker “a nice guy” — violated the gag order because he was trying to sway a potentially harmful witness.
To cap it off, a federal judge in New York rejected Trump’s attempt to throw out an $83.3-million civil defamation judgment for E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist who accused Trump of raping her in a department store in the 1990s. A jury ruled Trump defamed Carroll by denying her sexual-abuse allegations.
Will it matter in the election? Trump appeared unharmed during the presidential primary, with many Republican voters either dismissing the charges as a distraction or agreeing with Trump that he was being persecuted for upending the establishment.
In interviews last week with voters in Arizona, a key swing state, one supporter dismissed the fury around Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, as overblown. Other supporters and potential supporters said their concerns about the economy and immigration and frustration with President Biden were more important than anything else.
But a poll released Wednesday had some data that might concern Trump’s campaign. Six in 10 voters said the charges in the Manhattan case — considered the weakest of the four indictments against the former president — were either very serious or somewhat serious, according to a Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters.
Just under half of those polled said Trump did something illegal, while more than a quarter said it was unethical but not illegal.
Most voters said a conviction would not influence their vote. But a sizable minority — including 5% of Trump voters — said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if he is found guilty.
That may not seem like much, and some of those voters could change their minds. But in an election that both sides expect to be close, even a relatively small number of lost votes could matter.
“Any slice of 2% to 3% of people who will be persuaded matters,” said David Paleologos, a pollster and director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston.
There’s also an opportunity cost, as Trump is losing time to get out in front of swing-state voters.
“The only way a week like this is reversed is if he has a positive outcome in one of his trials,” Paleologos said.
For Trump, a positive result could include not only an outright win but also a ruling by the Supreme Court that delays one or more of his trials until after the election, allowing him to further scuttle or quash the proceedings if he becomes president again.
“It’s one thing to be tied up in court a week and then win,” Paleologos said. “And it’s another to have lost all of that time and lose.”
The military judge in the U.S.S. Cole bombing case on Monday reset the start of jury selection to Oct. 19, more than 26 years after the suicide bombing in a port in the Middle East killed 17 U.S. sailors and wounded dozens of others.
Col. Matthew Fitzgerald, an Army judge, said that government agencies were unlikely to process classified evidence in time for what was to be a June 1 start date for the national security trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
A Saudi citizen, Abd-al Rahim al-Nashiri is accused of orchestrating the attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer off Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000 as an acolyte of Osama bin Laden. The death penalty case has been shadowed by the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of torture on the defendant.
Judges at the U.S. naval station in Cuba have set and then abandoned about 10 earlier trial start dates. Pretrial litigation has gone on so long, since Mr. Nashiri was charged in 2011, that three previous judges and all of the initial defense and prosecution lawyers retired from the case or left it for personal or professional reasons.
Mr. Nashiri was captured in Dubai in October 2002. First, he spent about 1,390 days in the custody of the C.I.A., which subjected him to waterboarding, forced nudity, extreme isolation, rectal and other forms of abuse, primarily in secret prisons in Afghanistan and Thailand, according to agency and Senate reports.
The Secretive World of Guantánamo Bay
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U.S.S. Cole: The Army judge in the bombing case ordered the prosecution to do its “due diligence” in providing defense lawyers with any evidence the U.S. government might have “regarding Iran’s role” in the attack off Yemen 25 years ago. President Trump has said Iran was “probably involved.”
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Torture Ruling: A government lawyer appealed to a Pentagon review court to overturn a torture ruling in the Sept. 11 case that disqualified the use of the confessions of a man accused of conspiring in the hijacking plot that killed nearly 3,000 people.
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Cuban Deportees: The long, circuitous journey of dozens of Cuban men who were designated for deportation from the United States last year but instead taken to a prison at the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay ended when they were repatriated to Cuba.
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Guantánamo Prison Enters 25th Year: The prison has outlasted the war in Afghanistan, has employed tens of thousands of temporary troops and holds six men charged but not yet tried in death penalty cases.
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A Curious Collaboration: An unlikely collection of portraits has given the public its only glimpse inside the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay.
The Cole bombing, by two Al Qaeda recruits who blew themselves up on a small, explosives- laden skiff, was a precursor of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and Mr. Nashiri’s case is on track to become the first capital trial at Guantánamo Bay.
A judge in each case has ruled against the use of a defendant’s confessions because they were contaminated by their years in the C.I.A.’s brutal detention and interrogation program — out of reach of the courts, defense lawyers and International Red Cross.
The defendants were moved to Guantánamo in September 2006 and interrogated by federal agents to build cases against them without warnings against self-incrimination and the right to consult a lawyer.
The Cole trial is expected to last at least six months, and would start on Oct. 19 with the military shuttling 50 U.S. officers at a time there from a pool of 350 men and women to establish a jury of 12 with six alternate members. Guantánamo is so small, a 45-square-mile base with about 4,500 residents and limited guest quarters, that it would be logistically difficult to bring the entire pool down.
Last week, prosecutors in the Sept. 11 case asked a military judge to set deadlines for starting the four-man conspiracy trial in May 2027. Prosecutors had earlier proposed Jan. 11, 2027, but concluded it was not practical even before arguing for it to Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, their presiding judge.
Colonel Schrama said Monday that he would look at setting a trial schedule after he rules on some key pretrial evidentiary motions, probably over the summer, involving Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind of the plot, and two other defendants.
Both cases have dragged on so long in part because no court case in U.S. history has dealt with the volume of classified information involved in this case, which is guarding secret government activities and surveillance that started with the war against terrorism.
Some Navy shipmates who survived the Cole attack and the relatives of victims of both the Cole and Sept. 11 attacks have died waiting for the trials to begin. Family members have been traveling to the base since the arraignment in 2011 to watch pretrial proceedings.
Politics
Stacey Abrams hit with subpoena in alleged campaign finance violations saga: ‘No one is above the law’
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FIRST ON FOX: The Georgia Senate is ramping up its investigation into alleged campaign finance violations tied to Stacey Abrams’ voter outreach group, with a top lawmaker vowing to “follow the facts wherever they lead” as subpoenas have been issued to Abrams and other key figures.
The Senate Special Committee on Investigations announced Monday that Abrams, along with New Georgia Project leaders Lauren Groh-Wargo and Nsé Ufot, must appear before lawmakers at the State Capitol at 10 a.m. on Friday.
“This committee has a responsibility to follow the facts wherever they lead,” said Republican state Sen. Greg Dolezal, the committee’s vice chairman. “Georgia law requires transparency and accountability in our elections.”
The subpoenas stem from findings by the Georgia State Ethics Commission that the New Georgia Project and its affiliated Action Fund violated campaign finance laws during the 2018 election cycle.
STACEY ABRAMS-FOUNDED VOTER ACTIVIST GROUP HIT WITH MASS LAYOFFS AFTER RECORD-BREAKING ETHICS FINE
Stacey Abrams, Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia, speaks to reporters at Georgia State University in Atlanta on Nov. 7, 2022. (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)
The groups admitted to 16 violations earlier this year and agreed to pay a $300,000 fine, the largest campaign finance penalty in Georgia history.
New Georgia Project shut down and dissolved in 2025 following mounting financial and legal troubles.
The Republican lawmakers explain in the press release that the goal of the probe is to figure out who was involved in the decision-making behind the violations, along with specifics on how the funds were managed and who was aware of the activity.
WHITE HOUSE UNLEASHES ON STACEY ABRAMS IN LATEST CLASH OVER TRUMP’S ELECTION ORDER
“The people of Georgia deserve to know who was involved, what decisions were made and how millions of dollars flowed through organizations that admitted to violating our campaign finance laws,” Dolezal said.
Georgia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones said in the release, “No one is above the law in Georgia.”
He added: “When organizations secretly spend millions to influence elections while evading disclosure requirements, it undermines confidence in our democratic process. The Senate will continue pursuing the truth and ensuring accountability, regardless of political party or influence.”
Former Georgia House Rep. Stacey Abrams attends the Fort Valley GOTV Community Fish Fry at the Agricultural Technology Conference Center in Fort Valley, Georgia, on Oct. 13, 2024. (Julia Beverly/Getty Images)
The lawmakers say that additional hearings and witness testimony are expected in the coming weeks.
“Today, the Georgia State Senate delivered a subpoena for me to testify in a partisan, performative hearing designed to intimidate and disarm voting rights advocates across Georgia and the nation,” Abrams wrote in a response to the subpoena posted on X. “Despite the hollow, cynical intent, I will indeed do so on a mutually agreeable date.”
“It is not lost on me that I am being summoned days after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted protections for minority voting power and after I testified against the unconscionable voter suppression process unfolding across several Southern states.”
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Abrams, the two-time Democratic gubernatorial nominee in battleground Georgia, ruled out another run for governor earlier this year, saying that instead she’ll focus on her work fighting what she warns is the nation’s move toward authoritarianism under President Trump.
Abrams, a former Democratic Party leader in the Georgia state legislature and a nationally known voting-rights advocate, narrowly lost to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2018 gubernatorial election. She lost her 2022 rematch with Kemp by nearly eight points.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report
Politics
Oversight chair seeks information from OpenAI’s Sam Altman about potential financial conflicts
WASHINGTON — The chair of the House Oversight Committee has sent a letter to OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman requesting information about potential conflicts of interest between Altman’s personal investments and his operation of the company.
The letter, sent Friday, comes amid a high-stakes legal battle currently playing out in an Oakland federal courtroom between onetime partners Altman and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who in 2015 co-founded the AI company best known for creating ChatGPT.
The company was first established solely as a nonprofit corporation and the letter sent to Altman by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chair of the Oversight committee, indicates that the committee is “investigating potential conflicts of interest involving capital from nonprofit corporations invested in startups and other for-profit companies.”
Comer has requested by May 22 a briefing from the company official responsible for oversight of potential conflicts involving company officers and directors, including Altman, as well as all documents related to conflict of interest policies and guidance for those executives.
While OpenAI was created as a nonprofit designed to responsibly harness the power of the emerging artificial intelligence technology, the company created a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 and three years later released ChatGPT, which jumpstarted widespread adoption of the technology.
Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, left OpenAI’s board in 2018, one year before the creation of the for-profit arm. He is arguing that Altman and another co-founder, Greg Brockman, betrayed the original mission of the nonprofit organization, driven by their desire to “cash in” on the technology.
Musk added Microsoft, a significant investor in OpenAI, to the lawsuit in 2024. OpenAI is rumored to be gearing up to go public later this year or early next, and was recently valued at $852 billion.
Musk has said that he invested $38 million in the OpenAI nonprofit, but he does not stand to benefit from a potential OpenAI public offering.
He created a rival company, xAI, in 2023 that was later folded into his company SpaceX.
In the lawsuit, Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages, for Altman to be removed from the company and for the company to be fully returned to its nonprofit status.
Musk’s complaint also alleges that Altman engaged in self-dealing by directing OpenAI to pursue deals with companies in which he also held a personal stake, including nuclear fusion power company Helion.
Comer’s letter cites reporting that Altman’s pursuit of a Helion deal, which is still ongoing, would come at a lofty valuation of the power-company, boosting the company’s worth and the value of Altman’s investment.
Altman was briefly forced to step down from leadership of OpenAI in 2023 in part due to concerns about potential conflicts between his personal investments and his operation of the company, but was soon reinstated.
While the company’s board created an audit committee to investigate the potential conflicts of Altman and other officers, the findings were never disclosed.
Comer has requested that Altman turn over all documents and communication related to that audit committee.
Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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