Montana
Secretary of state sought to sway Cascade County election administrator vote
Maxine Speier With Montana news, I’m Maxine Speier. Last month, Cascade County commissioners capped a tumultuous year of election discord when they hired a new nonpartisan election administrator. But according to new reporting from online publication The Electric, Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen emailed commissioners before they made their choice and advised them against hiring two of the four candidates for the job.
Reporter for The Electric, Jenn Rowell, joined MTPR’s Austin Amestoy to share more about the email and the response from the county’s commissioners.
Austin Amestoy Jenn, thanks so much for being on today.
Jenn Rowell Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me.
Austin Amestoy So, Jenn, tell us a little bit more about this email that Secretary of State Jacobsen sent to Cascade County’s commissioners. That’s Jim Larson, Joe Briggs, and Rae Grulkowski. When did she send this email and what exactly did it say?
Jenn Rowell She sent an email to the county commissioners on February 14th. So the day before they were scheduled to meet and make a selection for their new hire, she asked them not to hire Rina Moore, who was the former clerk and recorder in the county or anyone from her administration, which was one other candidate for the job. And she said that doing so would undermine the will of the voters, among other reasons. But she did not specify what those reasons were.
Austin Amestoy Interesting. And I want to remind listeners here, catch them up on the background of this story. Rina Fontana Moore was the former Democratic election administrator in Cascade County, back when that job was still held by an elected official. She was narrowly defeated by a Republican in 2022, and now Secretary of State Jacobsen apparently advised Cascade County commissioners to not hire her for the new nonpartisan election administrator job. Jen, how did commissioners react to getting that email? I assume you checked in with them?
Jenn Rowell I did. I called Jim Larson and Joe Briggs. I had sent an email to Rae and Sandra and didn’t hear back from them, but Jim and Joe were both, they told me they were surprised. Jim Larson said shocked was the word he used, to get that email.
Austin Amestoy Yeah. Did they say if the Secretary of State’s email swayed their final decision at all?
Jenn Rowell Right. They I asked both of them that and they said that it did not impact their decision. They use, like a scoring matrix when they do their interviews. And Terry scored highest. They told me that it didn’t factor into their decision making.
Austin Amestoy And that’s, Terry Thompson, the new election administrator, the former head of the Great Falls Realtors Organization. Jenn, did you get a sense for how common it is for Jacobsen or really any secretary of state, for that matter, to weigh in on the hiring process for county election administrators?
Jenn Rowell I called a few people that kind of worked in that realm longer than I had, or covered politics, or had had this job before, and asked them if they’d ever heard of that. And everyone gave me the impression that that was not something that had happened before, or at least not that they had heard of. I also called Yellowstone County because they had in fall of 2020, their hired election administrator had resigned. So they also had to appoint a new or hire a new person. So I called and asked them if the Secretary of State had offered thoughts during that process, and they said no.
Austin Amestoy Once again, reporter for The Electric, Jenn Rowell sharing her reporting with us. Jenn, thank you so much.
Jenn Rowell Yeah, of course.
Update: In a statement, Secretary of State spokesperson Richie Melby said Jacobsen was “focused on working with Cascade County’s new election administrator” and did not clarify if Jacobsen sent the email in her official role as secretary of state.
WASHINGTON ― Montana Republican Senate nominee Kurt Alme, who previously served as his state’s U.S. attorney, cut a plea deal in 2020 that allowed a tribal police officer who sexually abused a 6-year-old girl to serve less than a year in prison and avoid being registered as a sex offender.
Alme, who has President Donald Trump’s backing in his bid for Senate, served as Montana’s U.S. attorney in two stints. Trump appointed him both times; Alme served in the role from September 2017 through December 2020, and then again from March 2025 through March 2026.
Alme oversaw the case of Mychal Thomas Damon, who was indicted in June 2019 by a grand jury on one count of abusive sexual contact with an individual under 12, which carries a maximum punishment of a lifetime in prison, a $250,000 fine and no less than five years to a lifetime of supervised release. The average sentence for this crime is less severe, but still significant: 62 months in prison, no fine and 143 months of supervised release, based on an analysis of 2025 data provided by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Damon, 28, had admitted he touched the 6-year-old’s genitals. But in February 2020, Alme’s office filed a plea deal in his case that reduced his charge to felony child abuse.
The changes in the plea deal raised the alleged age of the victim from below 12 to below 14, stripped out the language of sexual intent and moved the offense out of the federal sex crime framework, meaning Damon would no longer be required to register as a sex offender. It jointly recommended Damon be sentenced to the time he’d already served of 324 days, and required only a sex offender evaluation. Alme’s name appears on the bottom of the document, along with a signature by his assistant U.S. attorney, Cassady Adams.
In June, Alme filed a sentencing memorandum that described Damon’s conduct, which included details of him touching the child’s vagina with skin-to-skin contact, and the adverse effect it had on her mental health. Local reporting at the time said the victim had told a therapist “Mychal touched me” and hurt her by putting his fingers in her “hoo hoo.”
Ten days later, Alme announced Damon was being sentenced to time served of 324 days and two years of supervised release. As of June 2026, Damon is not listed in the national sex offender registry or in Montana’s Sexual or Violent Offender Registry.
It’s not clear why Alme reduced the charges against Damon as significantly as he did. During part of his tenure as U.S. attorney, his office declined 64% of sexual assault cases. He conceded in a 2019 interview that this “is something that has to be worked on,” and noted that a lot of these cases are declined due to “weak or insufficient evidence.”
Asked what happened in Damon’s case, an Alme campaign spokesman on Thursday lashed out at unnamed Democrats for trying to make him look bad.
“Kurt’s liberal opponents are twisting the facts to manufacture a fake narrative that exploits crimes against women and children,” said Alme’s spokesperson. “Department of Justice policy required defendants to plead to the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence. Kurt strongly supported the Multi-Disciplinary Teams on our Native American reservations, led by his office, to support investigations of crimes against children and to support victims.”
His spokesperson also pushed back on the idea that Alme unreasonably declined a large number of sexual assault cases during his tenure as U.S. attorney.
“Kurt’s office prosecuted every viable sexual abuse felony referred to it and pursued the most serious charge readily provable from the evidence,” the spokesperson said. “Many ‘declined’ cases were to allow more appropriate tribal prosecutions ― they were not dropped. Kurt will bring his years of experience prosecuting criminals and working with the Sexual Assault Response Teams on our Native American reservations to the U.S. Senate to strengthen investigations, support victims, and better protect women and children.”
The campaign pointed HuffPost to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office that found the most common reason for U.S. attorney’s offices to decline sexual abuse cases referred in from Indian country was “weak or insufficient admissible evidence.” It also highlighted statements of support for Alme in an October 2025 press release by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), when he celebrated Alme being confirmed as U.S. attorney.
Alme is currently running for Daines’ Senate seat, and Daines went out of his way to clear the path for him. In a stunning and orchestrated maneuver, the two-term senator in March abruptly withdrew from reelection as Alme filed to run for his seat, minutes before the state’s filing period closed. Daines’ last-minute change-up was an effort to block potential Democrats or any major Republican challenger from jumping into an open Senate race.
Alme is taking on Democrat Alani Bankhead and independent candidate Seth Bodnar in the November election. Bankhead and Bodner have been duking it out for weeks, with each appealing to different factions of the Democratic party and calling on the other to drop out.
Bankhead, a retired Air Force officer, unexpectedly won the Democratic primary earlier this month, boosted by grassroots supporters and more than $2.5 million in outside money from a progressive veterans’ PAC. But Bodnar, a former University of Montana president who did not appear on the primary ballot, has bipartisan endorsements from prominent establishment figures, including former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and former Republican Gov. Marc Racicot. He’s also significantly outraised Bankhead and Alme.
This Senate seat is rated “solid Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook’s Political Report, meaning Alme is well-positioned to win the general election. But this race would be more competitive if Bodner and Alme were going head to head, without Bankhead in the running.
Where Khloe Kardashian Stands With Ex French Montana More Than 10 Years After Breakup
French Montana is done keeping up with reality TV.
In fact, he only agreed to appear on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Kourtney & Khloé Take the Hamptons over a decade ago as a favor to then-girlfriend Khloe Kardashian.
“She said to get on the show,” he exclusively told E! News at the BET Awards on June 28. “And I got on the show. Shout out to Khloe.”
The “Ever Since U Left Me” rapper, who split with Kardashian in December 2014 after eight months of dating, said the experience was “fun” because her family kept it real.
“They filmed their real life,” he continued. “And we were part of something together that one time. So it felt great. It didn’t feel like work because they film what they do everyday.”
As for his future in reality TV, the 41-year-old said those days are over, shutting down any prospective offers with a simple, “Negative.”
Although the “Unforgettable” artist—whose real name is Karim Kharbouch—may not be returning to television anytime soon, he has no problem hanging out with his ex-girlfriend these days.
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