Six percent of all registered voters in Texas, more than 1.2 million people, currently have suspended voter registrations. Many of them have no idea. This is happening in a state handing its voter rolls over to the Trump administration, three months before a Senate race where the Democrat is currently leading the sitting Republican Attorney General.

More than 1.2 million Texas voters, roughly 6 percent of the state’s 18 million registered voters, currently have suspended voter registrations heading into November’s midterms, and many of them likely don’t know it.

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What “Suspense” Means, and Why It Matters

A suspended registration doesn’t outright cancel someone’s right to vote. It typically means the county doesn’t have a current address on file, usually because a mailed voter registration card or jury summons came back undeliverable. Suspended voters can still cast a ballot, but it comes with extra friction: if a voter shows up on Election Day still on the suspense list, they have to fill out a “statement of residence” form, and if they’ve moved to a new county, they’ll either have to vote in their old one or be handed a provisional ballot instead of a regular one.

That’s friction that falls disproportionately on people who’ve moved recently, renters, students, and lower-income voters most likely to relocate between election cycles, exactly the groups most likely to get quietly filtered out of a process most Americans assume is automatic.

The Numbers, County by County

The suspensions aren’t evenly spread across the state. Local totals cited by the Dallas Morning News include more than 129,000 suspended voters in Dallas County alone, more than 73,000 in Tarrant County, and nearly 56,000 each in Collin and Denton counties. These are some of the state’s largest and most politically competitive counties, exactly where a close statewide race could be decided by turnout at the margins.

To be fair to the state’s side of this: a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State’s office told Fox 26 that this number “isn’t atypical” ahead of an election, given how large the state’s voter rolls are, and voters remain on the suspense list for up to four years, or two full election cycles, before being removed from the rolls entirely.

The Deadline Is October 5, and Time Is Already Short

Voters have until October 5 to fix their registration and get off the suspense list before Election Day. They can check their status and update their address directly through the Texas Secretary of State’s website, at a county election office, or by mail, and will need a current driver’s license or ID, Social Security number, and their Voter Unique Identifier Number from their registration card.

The problem is straightforward: with a number this large, the message that action is even needed may simply never reach many of the 1.2 million people affected in time, especially anyone who hasn’t actually moved and is on the list purely because of a clerical mail issue outside their control.

Why the Timing Couldn’t Be Worse

This isn’t landing in a low-stakes cycle. Texas’s Senate race is currently a toss-up, with Democratic state Senator James Talarico holding a narrow polling edge over Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. In a race that close, a suspended-registration problem affecting over a million people isn’t a footnote. It’s the kind of number that can single-handedly decide who represents Texas in the Senate for the next six years.

The timing carries an added layer of concern given that Texas is currently cooperating with the Trump administration’s push to gain access to state voter rolls nationwide, a federal effort that has raised its own separate questions about voter privacy and the potential for political interference in how states manage their registration lists.

The Bottom Line

More than 1.2 million Texans currently have suspended voter registrations heading into a Senate race that could come down to a razor-thin margin, and many of them have no idea their status has changed. The state says the number is routine. Whether that’s true or not, the deadline to fix it is October 5, and the affected voters skew toward exactly the populations, renters, movers, and lower-income residents, who are least likely to hear about the problem before it’s too late to matter.

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Michael Fultz was Brevard County’s Deputy of the Year in 2025. The same day he received that award, his ex-girlfriend filed a complaint that triggered an internal investigation. What investigators found: a Nazi salute photo, racial slurs in text messages, and confirmed proof that Fultz used a taxpayer-funded surveillance system to track her movements after denying he’d done it.

Brevard County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Fultz resigned from the force after an internal investigation detailed allegations of sexual misconduct, racism, and abuse, including his use of Flock automated license plate readers to stalk his ex-girlfriend.

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How the Investigation Started

Fultz was hired by Brevard County in 2024 and named the department’s Deputy of the Year in 2025. On the same day as that award ceremony, his ex-girlfriend sent the sheriff’s office a formal letter of complaint detailing a long list of concerns about his behavior. That letter was enough to trigger a full internal investigation, one that ultimately ran 43 pages and uncovered far more than the initial complaint likely anticipated.

The Flock Stalking Investigation

The investigation’s central finding involved Fultz’s misuse of Flock, a license-plate-reading surveillance system used by law enforcement nationwide. Investigators found that Fultz had used Flock to track his ex-girlfriend’s vehicle and had bragged to her about doing it.

When questioned directly, Fultz told investigators he remembered the conversation with his ex but denied checking her vehicle registration to spy on her or out of revenge. Investigators didn’t take his word for it. They audited the actual Flock logs and confirmed that Fultz had, in fact, tracked her movements. When running a Flock search, users are required to log a reason for the query. Fultz’s justification for searching his ex’s plate: simply “investigation.”

Investigators also determined Fultz had accessed Flock while off-duty, using his agency-issued cellphone rather than his laptop. Fultz offered a shifting set of explanations, at one point suggesting he might have just been demonstrating how the system worked to her, and separately claiming he already had her location through Snapchat, so tracking her through Flock “wouldn’t have benefitted him.” Investigators’ own data contradicted the underlying denial regardless of his explanation for it.

What Else the Investigation Found

Fultz’s misuse of Flock was just one part of a far broader set of findings. According to the investigation, Fultz had posed for photos giving a Nazi salute after shaving his mustache to resemble Adolf Hitler. His ex-girlfriend also provided photographic evidence of Fultz holding a firearm, identified in the investigation as an agency-issued Walther, to her head and inserting it into her mouth during a sexual encounter. She told investigators the act was consensual at the time but that she came to see it as inappropriate for a sheriff’s deputy. The investigation notes that the encounter occurred after Fultz had shot and killed a knife-wielding man who charged him in April 2025, an incident Brevard County confirmed separately at the time.

The investigation also documented Fultz’s frequent use of racial slurs in text messages with his ex, which he attributed to growing up in a foster home with Black parents and siblings, telling investigators the language “became normal to use,” and separately citing the card game Cards Against Humanity as a source of what he called “edgy humor.”

Beyond that, investigators found Fultz had been pulled over for speeding on his motorcycle and covering his license plate on at least four separate occasions, including one stop clocked at 111 mph, and that he walked away from each stop after identifying himself as law enforcement. After being directly ordered to keep his motorcycle’s plate visible, investigators say he drove out of the sheriff’s office parking lot without a plate attached within 30 minutes, an incident captured on video. Fultz told investigators the speeding and plate-covering were for content on his motorcycle-themed social media accounts, and that he sometimes used AI to generate images for those posts.

He Was Allowed to Resign

Despite the scope of the findings, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office allowed Fultz to resign rather than face formal termination. The investigation’s own conclusion states plainly: “Although termination is warranted for your egregious misconduct, due to the fact you are no longer employed by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, this Administrative Investigation is closed and referred to file.” In practice, resigning let the case close without the formal record a termination would have created.

The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office provided a copy of the investigation but did not respond to a request for comment on the findings.

Part of a National Pattern of Flock Abuse by Police

Fultz’s case adds to a growing list of law enforcement officers losing their jobs, and sometimes facing arrest, for misusing Flock’s surveillance capabilities. An officer in South Carolina was arrested this July after misusing the system. The town of Greer, South Carolina, suspended its entire Flock contract after discovering two of its own officers had used it to stalk their exes. Another South Carolina officer was fired after an audit found she’d used Flock 166 separate times to track an ex-partner.

What sets Fultz apart, notably, is that he actually told the woman he was surveilling that he was using the system to do it. Investigators note that most victims of this kind of law enforcement stalking don’t discover it’s happening until it’s gone on for months or years.

A deputy honored as his department’s best of the year was, by his own department’s investigation, using government surveillance tools to track an ex-partner, posing for Nazi salute photos, and using his service weapon in ways his own internal report described as inappropriate for law enforcement. He wasn’t fired for any of it. He was allowed to walk away, and the case was quietly closed.

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A former staffer for Rep. Mike Collins posted a swastika made out of a gay slur and shared an AI-generated image of himself in Ku Klux Klan robes. Jon Ossoff responded within hours: “Yet another connection between Congressman Mike Collins and white nationalism, between Congressman Collins and neo-Nazi ideology... Yet another week, yet another scandal.”

A former staffer for Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), who is challenging Sen. Jon Ossoff in November’s critical Senate race, shared images in June and July on his X account of a swastika and one that depicts himself in Ku Klux Klan robes.

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Ossoff’s Response, Same Day

Ossoff addressed the story directly the morning it broke. “What did we learn this morning in the Washington Post?” he said, pointing to the newspaper’s reporting. “Yet another connection between Congressman Mike Collins and white nationalism, between Congressman Collins and neo-Nazi ideology... Disgraceful and disqualifying. Yet another week, yet another scandal for” Collins’s campaign.

That’s Ossoff reacting to this specific story, within hours of it publishing, and folding it directly into the broader case he’s been building against Collins for months.

The former intern, 24-year-old Preston Parra, who describes himself as a “twink fascist,” told the Washington Post the KKK image was made using Elon Musk’s Grok AI tool and insisted his posts were “satirical.” In July, he posted another image that arranged a slang term for young, slim gay men into the shape of a swastika, an especially loaded juxtaposition given that gay men were among those tortured and killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Parra denied being a white supremacist, but he also posted “white power” in June and July, and made his views fairly explicit when he told the Post: “I do think that the white race contributes more to the world.” On his own consulting website, Parra quoted Collins praising the quality of his work product, saying, “You can grade it by the amount of people that are watching it and pushing it back out.” Parra also separately posted his support for Collins’s campaign, writing, “let’s get that man elected.”

Parra downplayed any responsibility Collins might bear, telling reporters, “What, is there supposed to be some kind of CIA background check?” Collins’s campaign did not answer the Post’s detailed questions about Parra, instead issuing a statement calling antisemitism “abhorrent” and pivoting to accuse Ossoff, who is Jewish, of failing to sufficiently condemn antisemitism on the left.

This Is the Third Incident, Not the First

Georgia Republicans are increasingly saying this is becoming a pattern rather than a series of coincidences. Just weeks earlier, CNN’s KFile reported extensively on Collins’s son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, married to Collins’s daughter Summer. CNN found Scheer had built a social media following promoting White nationalist ideology, sharing antisemitic conspiracy theories, and circulating Nazi imagery, including polling his followers on a video titled “why Gen-Z doesn’t hate Hitler.” Scheer has appeared in family photos on Collins’s own campaign website, attended Collins’s Senate primary victory party, and voter records show him registered at a Collins-owned property adjacent to the congressman’s own estate.

When CNN pressed Collins on the relationship at a press conference in late July, he abruptly ended the event rather than answer, saying only, “You know, we’ve fully addressed that,” before cutting the press conference short: “Listen, thank you. I appreciate y’all’s time.”

Separately, ex-aide William Paul, son of Sen. Rand Paul, hurled antisemitic insults at Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) at a bar in May, and Collins also replaced his chief of staff, Kip Talley, in July after Slate reported Talley had participated in a group chat that included white supremacists Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer.

Ossoff Has Been Building This Case for Weeks

Today’s comment wasn’t a one-off. After CNN’s Scheer reporting, Ossoff said Collins was “unfit for any office,” calling him “a known bigot and antisemite” and adding, “This is a man who represents a dark past that Georgia has moved on through and beyond.”

At a rally in Atlanta, Ossoff went further: “Mike Collins needs to release every email, every text, every call, every single communication between those white supremacists and himself or his chief of staff or anyone in his office.” He described Collins as “a known bigot under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars, surrounded by neo-Nazis and white nationalists, widely known for his poor character and low integrity.”

Earlier this month, Ossoff held a virtual press conference specifically demanding Collins answer whether his business had paid Scheer for work: “It’s been more than a month since CNN reported that Congressman Mike Collins has had a neo-Nazi propagandist producing vile neo-Nazi propaganda from Mike Collins’ home.”

Republicans Are Starting to Break Ranks Too

One Georgia conservative, quoted by Raw Story, said flatly: “We do not need a senator that thinks he’s a media influencer on X and has no integrity.” Atlanta radio host Shelley Wynter announced he’s endorsing Ossoff instead, citing “the meanness and mean-spiritedness” of Collins’s campaign. Several Georgia Republicans told the Washington Post they increasingly see a pattern they fear could cost the party the race.

Collins also remains under a House Ethics Committee review over alleged misuse of government funds, which a watchdog report has recommended pursuing via subpoena. Collins has dismissed that probe as a “nothingburger.”

Why This Race Matters So Much

Collins is running against Ossoff in a contest widely seen as pivotal to Senate control, where Republicans currently hold a narrow 53-47 edge. Collins won the GOP nomination with Trump’s endorsement, and Georgia is now one of a small handful of states that could determine which party controls the chamber next year.

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Jamey Noel led Governor Eric Holcomb’s campaign, chaired his reelection bid, and got a personal invitation to Trump’s inauguration from Mike Pence. He also spent years looting millions from the fire department and EMS agency he ran, buying vintage cars, personal jets, and vacations with taxpayer money meant for first responders. He just got 15 years, and he’ll likely only serve about nine and a half of them.

Former Clark County Sheriff and longtime Republican operative Jamey Noel was sentenced to 15 years in prison on October 14, 2024, after a judge accepted guilty pleas to more than a dozen felony charges in a case Indiana State Police called the largest in the agency’s history.

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What He Actually Did

Noel was originally charged with 31 felonies for allegedly misusing money from the Utica Volunteer Firefighters Association and New Chapel EMS, both agencies he personally oversaw. He pleaded guilty to 27 of those charges back in August, and agreed at sentencing to plead to charges of theft, money laundering, corrupt business influence, official misconduct, obstruction of justice, and tax evasion. Four additional charges of ghost employment were dropped as part of the plea deal.

State prosecutors, working off a long-term Indiana State Police investigation, alleged Noel used millions of taxpayer dollars from the two agencies to fund a personal lifestyle: cars, planes, vacations, clothing, and other luxury purchases. Public funds were also allegedly used to cover his college tuition and child support payments. Investigators confiscated at least 40 vehicles from his personal classic car collection, including two 1970 Plymouth Superbirds, a 1959 Corvette, and 1966 and 1968 Chargers. Noel also admitted to tasking county employees with maintaining that same car collection on the public’s dime.

Court documents further show at least $33,000 in public funds went toward political donations to various Republican candidates and campaigns between 2020 and 2023, meaning stolen taxpayer money helped fund the very party apparatus that had championed him.

The People He Betrayed Told the Court Directly

Special Judge Larry Medlock accepted Noel’s plea following two hours of victim testimony, with 21 statements given in open court, including from law enforcement officers who’d worked with or under Noel, and from Hoosiers whose lives had been upended by his conduct.

Roger Montgomery Jr., a first responder who worked under Noel from 2005 to 2011, didn’t hold back: “As firefighters, first responders and public servants, we take a higher oath. We are held to a higher standard of integrity.” Montgomery said firefighters and paramedics lacked proper equipment under Noel’s command, while emergency personnel were sometimes pulled off duty to drive Noel’s personal “limousines,” at times leaving just one firefighter on call and “putting citizens’ lives in jeopardy.” He added that non-emergency transfers were routinely prioritized over 911 calls because they netted more Medicare and Medicaid money.

“Jamey Noel has betrayed the trust of the public, and any first responder, or anyone else that’s ever worn a badge and taken that oath,” Montgomery said. “He did so knowingly and willingly for personal gain, and that personal gain was put ahead of patients and the lives of the people that worked for him.”

Judge Medlock was similarly blunt from the bench: “You’ve tarnished the badge and failed everyone in law enforcement.” He said he would have preferred a harsher sentence, but worried it could open the door to a successful appeal.

The Sentence and the Money Owed

Noel begins a 15-year sentence, with three years suspended to probation. He’ll get credit for time served starting June 8, and under Indiana law could shave time off with good behavior, likely landing him at roughly nine and a half years actually behind bars.

The plea deal also requires Noel to repay more than $3.1 million in public funds: $2,870,924 to the Utica Volunteer Firefighters Association, $61,190 to the Clark County Sheriff’s Department, $173,155 to the Indiana Department of Revenue, and $35,245 to the Indiana State Police. Medlock additionally imposed a $270,000 fine, tacking on $10,000 for each guilty count.

Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter, who addressed the court directly, said he’d had conversations with Noel about money management as far back as 2015, but that Noel was chasing “power, control and money” rather than public trust. “Politics should never be the number one priority,” Carter said, “but it was for Jamey.”

His Family Faces Charges Too

Noel’s wife, Misty, who has since filed for divorce, and his daughter, Kasey, separately face their own charges of theft and tax evasion. Both have pleaded not guilty, and their trial date, originally set for late October, has been pushed back with no new date announced.

This Isn’t the End of His Legal Trouble

Noel still faces multiple ongoing civil cases, including two brought by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita seeking repayment to the state agencies Noel took from. In one filing, Rokita said Noel should be required to reimburse the Clark County jail commissary fund more than $900,000 for “funds misappropriated, diverted, or misapplied,” a figure drawn from a State Board of Accounts audit. Rokita also sought a restraining order blocking Noel from selling off real estate, stocks, vehicles, firearms, and jewelry while those cases proceed. A May court ruling has already barred the Noel family from selling any assets.

Separately, Noel faces a lawsuit from the children of his deceased brother, Leon, alleging he stole from their inheritance while managing their father’s estate. It also remains unclear whether Noel will still qualify for a public pension; state officials say his time with state police could make him eligible for retirement benefits, though Carter noted Noel had previously received only a “separation benefit” for failing to meet the agency’s pension requirements.

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Rodney Creech was accused in a state investigation of climbing into bed with his own minor daughter while erect and wearing only his underwear. Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman once called for his resignation. Nine months later, Huffman reinstated him, signed his endorsement letter, and Republican primary voters just handed him another term as their nominee.

State Rep. Rodney Creech (R-West Alexandria) won the Republican primary for Ohio House District 40 on May 5, defeating former state Rep. J. Todd Smith roughly nine months after a state criminal investigation into allegations he climbed into bed with his minor daughter while erect and wearing only his underwear.

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What the Investigation Found

Creech took 6,712 votes to Smith’s 4,796, a 58.32% to 41.68% margin, according to unofficial results from the Ohio Secretary of State. Smith, a Farmersville pastor, had held the seat from 2018 until Creech unseated him in the 2020 primary.

The allegations against Creech date back to 2023. State investigative records describe the accuser only as “a minor female relative,” but Creech has since referred to her as his daughter in a public Facebook exchange responding to her allegations directly. She accused him of climbing into bed and under the covers with her while erect and wearing only his underwear, according to Bureau of Criminal Investigation documents obtained by the Statehouse News Bureau. Text messages showed her complaining that Creech had been rubbing her legs and grabbing her waist, and that she was “put to tears” by how uncomfortable he made her feel.

Creech told investigators he had gotten into bed with her in his underwear but denied any sexual element to the allegations, including that he’d touched her inappropriately more than once.

A Case That Never Got the Investigation It Should Have

The case was first reported to the Preble County Sheriff’s Department in July 2023, but no investigation was launched at that time. Both the Preble County sheriff, a personal friend of Creech’s, and the county prosecutor recused themselves from the matter due to their personal relationships with him. The state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation didn’t actually begin its own investigation until November 2023, four months after the initial report.

Clark County Prosecutor Daniel Driscoll, brought in as a special prosecutor once BCI got involved, wrote in October 2024 that Creech’s “behavior during the time of the investigation was concerning and suspicious,” but concluded that “the evidence falls short of the threshold needed for prosecution.” No charges were ever filed. Creech has publicly called the allegations “demonstrably false.”

State Rep. Phil Plummer (R-Butler Township), one of Creech’s fellow Republican House members, told BCI investigators that comments Creech made about the allegations were “disgusting, uncalled for, and appalling,” according to records reported by the Dayton Daily News.

Stripped of Power, Then Quietly Restored

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) stripped Creech of all four of his committee assignments, including his chairmanship of the House Agriculture Committee, in May 2025, and asked him to resign. Creech refused.

Then, in February 2026, Huffman reversed course entirely. He reinstated Creech to his committees and personally signed a letter requesting the Ohio Republican Party’s endorsement for his re-election. The party gave it to him.

Creech responded to his daughter’s allegations on his official Facebook page by labeling her statements “textbook parental alienation,” a framework that researchers, child welfare advocates, and the United Nations have identified as pseudoscience frequently deployed in family courts specifically to discredit children who report abuse.

The Bill He’s Cosponsoring Would Enshrine That Defense Into Law

Creech is a close legislative ally of state Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), who was also on Tuesday’s primary ballot in Ohio House District 88. The two are cosponsors of House Bill 249, the “Indecent Exposure Modernization Act,” which the Ohio House passed 63-30 in March.

During committee testimony on that bill, Planned Parenthood of Ohio’s Danielle Firsich directly called out the pairing: “You have a man who was just put back on his committees, who was accused of sexual misconduct with a minor, who is a sponsor on this bill.”

Click and Creech are also both tied to House Bill 693, the “Affirming Families First Act,” which would write a formal statutory definition of “parental alienation” into Ohio law, the exact same framework Creech invoked publicly to dismiss his own daughter’s allegations.

Both men were also quietly removed from Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s official endorsements page in April. Click was restored within hours of TiffinOhio.net reporting on the change. Creech’s name was not restored. Both men had also appeared together on a March endorsement graphic from U.S. Senate candidate Jon Husted’s campaign, where Click serves as Sandusky County campaign chair.

What Happens Next

Creech now advances to the November 3 general election, where he’ll face Democratic candidate Timothy Hornbacker and Libertarian Joshua A. Umbaugh. If he wins in November, it will be his final term in the Ohio House under the state’s term limits, having first been elected in 2020 to what was then District 43.

A state lawmaker accused by his own daughter of climbing into bed with her while erect, whose own special prosecutor called his behavior “concerning and suspicious,” was stripped of his committee posts by his own party’s House Speaker, only to be quietly reinstated nine months later and handed the party’s formal endorsement. Republican primary voters in Ohio House District 40 just renominated him by a nearly 17-point margin.

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GEO Group runs more ICE detention beds than any company in America. Every time it lands a massive new government contract, a check to Trump’s super PAC seems to follow. Every time federal law blocks the company itself from donating, a subsidiary with no contracts steps in to write the check instead. This has now happened enough times that it’s not a pattern anymore. It’s a business model.

GEO Group contributed $1.4 million to MAGA Inc., the super PAC supporting President Trump, just weeks after the private prison and immigration detention giant secured two massive new federal contracts worth more than $160 million a year.

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The Money Follows the Contracts

The timing here isn’t subtle. GEO donated $1 million on July 16, three days after the company announced a five-year contract with ICE worth $85 million a year to run a 1,188-bed detention center in Hudson, Colorado. Two weeks later, GEO donated another $413,000 on July 31, two days after signing a second five-year ICE contract worth $80 million a year for a 1,320-bed facility in Winton, North Carolina. Combined, those two contracts alone are worth roughly $165 million a year to the company.

The money came from GEO Reentry Services, a GEO Group subsidiary that officially provides transitional services like substance abuse classes and job-readiness training to formerly incarcerated people, and that, unlike its parent company, doesn’t hold federal contracts directly. That distinction matters, because federal law bars companies with active government contracts from donating to super PACs. GEO’s actual detention contracts are held by the parent company. The subsidiary writing the checks is not, on paper, a federal contractor at all.

This Isn’t a One-Time Donation

This is far from an isolated payment. According to the Project on Government Oversight, GEO Reentry Services made multiple $1 million contributions to MAGA Inc. in recent months alone: one in October 2025, one in March 2026, and another in April 2026. That March donation carries its own uncomfortable timing. PunchUp and Migrant Insider reported that the $1 million payment was logged by MAGA Inc. on March 9, the exact same day The Washington Post revealed that GEO’s parent company had just been frozen out of $426 million in new ICE contracts. GEO has not received any new contracts since that freeze, even as DHS officials were privately pressuring the company to cut prices on its existing contracts by 15%.

Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts didn’t hold back when asked about that donation, telling PunchUp and Migrant Insider the Trump administration is “the most corrupt administration in history” and that it “makes Richard Nixon look like a Boy Scout.” Rep. Robert Garcia of California, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, confirmed his panel is actively investigating DHS contracting practices under former Secretary Kristi Noem and aide Corey Lewandowski.

The Money Doesn’t Stop at MAGA Inc.

GEO’s political spending extends well beyond Trump’s super PAC. According to the Project on Government Oversight, the company also made a $250,000 “dark money” donation last year to a group aligned with Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs a key congressional committee overseeing ICE, the very agency GEO depends on for its contracts. That donation came shortly after passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a law that nearly triples ICE’s budget and funds a doubling of immigrant detention space, a move experts say is likely to significantly boost GEO’s revenue for years to come.

Across 2025 alone, GEO’s subsidiaries and its PAC gave a combined $4,425,400 in political contributions, according to the company’s own political activity and lobbying disclosures cited by POGO. GEO Group and its rival CoreCivic each also donated $500,000 to Trump’s 2025 inaugural committee, while GEO’s founder and CEO each personally gave the maximum allowed contribution to Trump’s joint fundraising committee, according to OpenSecrets.

What GEO Gets in Return

The scale of what’s flowing back to GEO dwarfs what it’s spending on political donations. CNN’s analysis found GEO Group received more than $800 million from ICE alone in fiscal year 2025, and nearly $600 million so far in fiscal year 2026, making it one of the agency’s top contractors under the current administration. OpenSecrets found GEO holding more than $1 billion in total obligated ICE contracts in just the first five months of fiscal 2026, tied for the largest share of any single ICE contractor in the country. The company reported $2.6 billion in total revenue in 2025, up 6% from the year before, growth that tracks directly with the expansion of ICE’s detention system under Trump.

One GEO subsidiary even holds a “skip tracing” contract worth up to $121 million to help locate immigrants for ICE to arrest, on top of its detention business.

The Bottom Line

Every time GEO Group has needed to write a big check to Trump’s political operation, it’s found a subsidiary that federal contractor donation limits don’t technically apply to. Every time GEO has landed a massive new federal contract, or lost one, a seven-figure donation has followed within days. GEO Group did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the pattern. Whether that’s coordinated influence-buying or a remarkable coincidence repeated at least five separate times since 2025 is a question congressional Democrats say they’re now actively investigating.

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Jake Lang beat Capitol police officers with a baseball bat on January 6. Trump pardoned him anyway. Since then, he’s racked up arrest after arrest: terroristic threats in Dallas, threatening a Capitol officer with public execution, and now, driving a vehicle onto a sidewalk toward a crowd outside Minneapolis City Hall. This is what a presidential pardon bought the public.

Far-right activist Jake Lang and members of his group were arrested for rioting Saturday after driving two vehicles onto a sidewalk toward a crowd gathered outside Minneapolis City Hall, according to the Minneapolis Police Department.

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Minneapolis City Hall

According to police, just before noon on August 22, Lang and his group arrived at Minneapolis City Hall in two vehicles. Both vehicles then drove onto the sidewalk outside City Hall, toward a group of people gathered there. Minneapolis police officers moved in to get the vehicles off the sidewalk. Police say both Lang’s group and counter-protesters deployed mace during the confrontation, though no Minneapolis police officers used mace themselves.

Officers eventually caught up with the vehicles at two separate locations, one near Washington Avenue and Interstate 35W, the other in Bloomington near Lindau Lane and IKEA Way. All occupants of the vehicles, including Lang, were arrested on probable cause of riot, and both vehicles were impounded. Four additional arrests were made at city hall itself, where police say an officer was assaulted and taken to the hospital before being released. Police haven’t said how many people were arrested in total, or whether Lang remains in custody.

History of Arrest

Lang, born Edward Jacob Lang, was one of the more than 1,500 January 6 defendants Trump pardoned on his first day back in office in January 2025. Before that pardon, Lang had spent roughly four years in pretrial detention on 11 federal counts connected to the Capitol riot, including allegations that he assaulted officers with a baseball bat and a riot shield during the battle at the Capitol’s lower west tunnel. A Trump-appointed judge had kept Lang detained specifically because of what the judge called the “very strong” evidence against him and his “overt expressions of willingness to use violence in the future.” He was never convicted. His trial never happened. The pardon simply erased the case.

Freedom didn’t slow him down. In March 2026, Lang was charged in D.C. Superior Court after telling Metropolitan Police Cmdr. Jason Bagshaw, the same officer who faced down the mob at the Capitol on January 6, that he should be “put down like a dead dog” and “hung” in front of the Capitol. Prosecutors say Lang told Bagshaw that “public execution is the only solution for animals like you,” and that he should be dragged “out by his ankles” and thrown “in the Potomac.”

Three months later, in June 2026, Lang was arrested in Dallas on a state charge of making terroristic threats, after he was photographed outside the Collin County courthouse repeatedly during the murder trial of teenager Karmelo Anthony. Anthony’s family told CBS News that Lang had allegedly threatened to shoot Anthony in the head if he wasn’t convicted. Anthony was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to 35 years. His father said the family continued receiving racially charged death threats even after the verdict.

A Pattern of Harassment

Outside the courtroom appearances, watchdog groups have tracked a broader pattern. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism documented at least 19 public acts of hate against Muslims, Jews, and LGBTQ+ people by Lang over the past year alone, including burning Qurans, harassing Muslims in public, displaying racist banners, and burning Pride flags, describing it as a “crusade” that’s taken him to Michigan, Texas, California, and now Minnesota.

Lang has also turned his post-pardon platform into a political one. According to Wikipedia’s sourced summary of his activities, he is currently a Republican candidate in the 2026 U.S. Senate special election in Florida, and he was issued a summons for failing to appear at a March 2026 hearing tied to the Bagshaw threat case.

Minneapolis police say more details will come from a press conference with Mayor Jacob Frey and department officials.

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A Freehold Township High School teacher who ran on the Republican ballot for Englishtown Borough Council last year has now been criminally charged in four separate New Jersey municipalities with sexually assaulting a student. Court documents allege the conduct began with a kiss after school and escalated over seven months into more than 30 sexual encounters, including one in which the student says she repeatedly resisted before he forced himself on her.

Jesse Heubel, 37, of Englishtown, a teacher at Freehold Township High School, was criminally charged on July 14, 2026, following an investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Bureau. The case has since been picked up by outlets across the region, all citing the same set of charges and the same underlying investigation.

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The Charges

Heubel faces nine total charges spread across four municipalities: five counts of second-degree sexual assault and four counts of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, broken down by jurisdiction as follows:

• Freehold Township: one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, two counts of second-degree sexual assault

• Englishtown: one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, one count of second-degree sexual assault

• Manalapan Township: one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, one count of second-degree sexual assault

• Red Bank: one count of second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, one count of second-degree sexual assault

One of the five sexual assault counts stems specifically from an allegation of force or coercion, separate from the other four counts. Under New Jersey law, each second-degree charge carries a potential sentence of five to ten years in prison.

What Court Documents Allege

According to an affidavit obtained by reporters, the student, who was at least 16 but under 18 at the time, told police her relationship with Heubel began at Freehold Township High School shortly after Thanksgiving 2025, when he kissed her in a classroom after school. Court documents say he continued kissing her on a few more occasions at school between December 2025 and February 2026.

The conduct is alleged to have escalated in February 2026 to sexual penetration inside the school’s drama classroom. From there, prosecutors allege the encounters continued at locations across Monmouth County, including classrooms, vehicles, and parking lots in Freehold Township, Englishtown, Manalapan, and Red Bank, with one encounter allegedly occurring in a vehicle at a Red Bank YMCA parking lot following an awards ceremony at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in May.

In total, authorities allege the sexual activity occurred more than 30 times between late November 2025 and July 2026. The student told investigators that during one encounter in June, she repeatedly resisted before Heubel forced sexual intercourse, an allegation that resulted in the additional charge of sexual assault by force or coercion. The final alleged act of sexual penetration is said to have occurred July 8, 2026, inside the student’s vehicle at a park in Englishtown.

How the Case Came to Light

The case became public after Heubel’s wife discovered explicit text messages on his phone on July 11 and contacted Manalapan police. She then recorded a conversation in which Heubel admitted to having sex with the student “a few times,” according to court documents, and turned the recording over to investigators.

Heubel drove more than 500 miles back to New Jersey and surrendered to authorities on July 12 after learning he was under investigation.

Who Heubel Is in the Community

Beyond his role as a technology teacher, Heubel has taught since at least 2015 and worked as an award-winning varsity wrestling coach who also helped with the school’s theater program, earning a 2026 Basie Awards nomination for Outstanding Set Design of a Play months before his arrest. He had also been hired as an assistant wrestling coach at Old Bridge High School, and volunteered this past summer to lead a free wrestling camp for local teenagers.

He was also involved in local politics. Heubel was one of several names on the Republican ballot for Englishtown Borough Council in the June 2025 primary, campaigning for public office in the same community where part of the alleged conduct is said to have taken place.

Case Status

At a July 22 detention hearing, Superior Court Judge Marc Lemieux ruled Heubel would remain jailed, finding that his release could put the student, his wife, and Heubel himself at risk. The judge cited a record of Heubel expressing thoughts of self-harm if he were caught. Assistant Prosecutor Sevan Biramian described the allegations as a months-long pattern in which Heubel used his position as a teacher to gain the student’s trust.

Immediately after his arrest, Heubel was removed from all duties and banned from school property, Freehold Regional High School District Superintendent Nicole Hazel said in a statement to the school community: “The safety and welfare of our students remain our highest priority. We will continue to take all appropriate measures to protect them.”

Heubel’s attorney, Jonathan F. Marshall, has said the firm is investigating the allegations and noted that “actual facts in cases such as these tend to be much more complex than they initially appear.”

The Prosecutor’s Office is asking anyone with information about Heubel’s activities to come forward. Tips can be directed to MCPO Detective Julio Casso at 732-431-7160, ext. 2220, or Freehold Township Police Department Detective Tyler Whelan at 732-462-7908.

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Douglas Lamar Neighbors Jr. was the Republican nominee to be the next coroner of Elmore County, Alabama. He was also, according to court filings, quietly stealing from a volunteer fire department for nearly a decade while serving as its treasurer.

He was arrested in June. He dropped out of the race the same day.

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What He’s Accused Of

Neighbors was arrested on June 25 on a charge of aggravated theft by deception. Court records show that between January 2017 and May 2026, he was accused of stealing more than $250,000 from the Red Hill Volunteer Fire Department by writing checks to himself and making ATM withdrawals. Neighbors served as the department’s secretary/treasurer the entire time.

Nine years. Quarter of a million dollars. Written checks and ATM withdrawals from the funds of a volunteer fire department, the kind of organization that runs on donations, small budgets, and community trust.

He was held on a $6,000 bond.

How It Came to Light

The thefts only came to an end because members of the fire department itself grew suspicious and reported it. VFD members reported their suspicions to the State Fire Marshal’s Office, which set the investigation and eventual arrest in motion.

The Red Hill Volunteer Fire Department released a statement acknowledging the situation: “The Red Hill Volunteer Fire Department recently became aware of concerns involving the mishandling of department funds by a member of the department.”

He Was Already the Republican Nominee

Neighbors was not a fringe candidate. He was the sole qualifier from the Republican Party for Elmore County coroner, meaning he had already secured the nomination unopposed before any of this became public.

Elmore County Republican Party chair Debbie Williams confirmed that Neighbors would not be the coroner, even though he had been the sole qualifier from the Republican Party, and noted there is no Democratic opposition in the race. “He has resigned from the party and taken his name off the ballot,” Williams said. “We have been in contact with the state party about it. We have several people who are interested.”

What Happens Now

With Neighbors out, the Elmore County Republican Party has had to scramble to find a replacement nominee before the November general election. The party extended its application deadline for interested candidates to July 12 and formed a subcommittee to review applicants and interview candidates, before making a recommendation to the full executive committee for a vote. Since coroner is a county office, the state party said the entire replacement process would be handled locally, with a decision needed by August 24 to make the November ballot. There will be no special primary.

The Elmore County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the case is being handled through the Alabama State Bureau of Investigation.

The Bottom Line

A man who was on track to become Elmore County’s next coroner, an office responsible for investigating deaths and serving the public in one of its most sensitive roles, is instead accused of stealing a quarter of a million dollars from a volunteer fire department over nine years. He only stopped running for office because his own alleged victims caught him and reported it to state investigators.

His party is now left searching for a replacement nominee less than four months before the election, with no serious opposition on the ballot to hold accountable whoever they choose next.

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A sitting GOP South Carolina city councilman and mayor pro tem has been charged with paying dozens of minors for sexually explicit material, federal prosecutors say, in a case that carries a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison if he’s convicted. What started as a single tip from a social media investigation grew into a case spanning years, dozens of accounts, and at least one alleged victim who was 12 years old.

Kevin Phillip Hedgpeth, 48, the Mayor Pro Tem and a City Council member for Hanahan, South Carolina, has been charged with possession and production of child sexual abuse material, according to a criminal complaint and arrest warrant unsealed April 14, 2026, by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina.

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How the Investigation Started

According to the charging document, authorized by U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Gordon Baker, the case began when Homeland Security Investigations identified Hedgpeth as a member of a social media forum facilitating the sale of child sexual abuse material.

That single thread, once investigators pulled it, led to a much larger case. Further investigation revealed that Hedgpeth had paid numerous minors who were separately identified as likely victims of child sex abuse in CyberTips submitted to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This wasn’t a case built on one account or one tip. It connected to a broader, existing pattern of reported exploitation that investigators were already tracking.

From December 2021 to the present, prosecutors allege Hedgpeth’s Cash App and PayPal accounts made payments to 47 separate accounts, either associated with minors or suspected of selling this kind of content. Some of the accounts he paid, according to the complaint, belonged to minors in the Charleston, South Carolina area, near where he served in local office.

Investigators also say they found material stored in an iCloud account tied to Hedgpeth’s personal email address, on his cellphone, and connected to his home address, an account they say was accessed frequently from his home internet router, tying the material directly to his residence and his own devices.

What He’s Accused of Doing

Prosecutors allege Hedgpeth used his iCloud account and social media to contact children directly, direct them to produce sexually explicit photos and videos, and pay them for the material in exchange. According to the charging documents, one alleged victim was 12 years old when the contact began, and Hedgpeth is accused of paying that child for content and separately pressuring the same child to produce material involving a 15-year-old sibling.

The complaint also alleges a pattern of deception in how contact was made and maintained: at times, prosecutors say, Hedgpeth pretended to be a minor himself while communicating with children, and at other times distributed existing child sexual abuse material to minors as a way of enticing them to produce and sell similar content back to him.

What He’s Facing

Hedgpeth faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in federal prison, a maximum of 30 years, lifetime supervision by the U.S. Probation Office, and mandatory sex offender registration if convicted.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigated the case, and it is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dean H. Secor and Elliott B. Daniels, as part of the Department of Justice’s nationwide Project Safe Childhood initiative, a program launched in 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation through coordinated federal, state, and local enforcement.

Hedgpeth has not been convicted. All charges in a federal complaint are accusations, and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Part of a Broader Pattern in South Carolina

This case is not isolated. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for South Carolina has brought several similar cases in recent months, including a former Rock Hill teacher indicted in August for possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, a former Columbia teacher indicted in July on charges of attempted production, distribution, and possession of the same, and a former Charleston County magistrate who pleaded guilty in July to possessing and distributing similar material. Hedgpeth’s case adds a sitting elected official to that list.

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Jerol Gohrick leads a district committee for the North Dakota Republican Party and founded a group called Sons of Liberty. According to court records, he pointed a rifle at two men on a work site, threatened to shoot one in the head, and told the crew he’d put them “in the ground.” This isn’t the first time he’s been accused of threatening people with force. His allies are already calling it a conspiracy.

Jerol Gohrick, the chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party’s District 2 committee, was arrested and charged with two felony counts of terrorizing after investigators say he pointed a rifle at two workers and threatened to kill them.

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What Court Records Say

According to a criminal affidavit, the Williams County Sheriff’s Department got a call about a dispute involving a firearm on May 1. A deputy responded and learned that Gohrick, 53, had arrived at a work site on his property shortly after 6:30 p.m. and became confrontational with the crew, questioning why they were using certain equipment.

Gohrick left, then came back a short time later, this time pointing a rifle at two of the workers, according to the affidavit. One worker said he hid behind a truck, fearing for his life. Another told investigators Gohrick pointed the rifle in his face and threatened to “blow his head off” if he kept taking pictures, and separately threatened to put the work crew “in the ground.”

Deputies found Gohrick on the property and took him into custody. A rifle was recovered from his truck.

Each of the two felony terrorizing counts he faces carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Bond Set, Court Dates Ahead

At a bond hearing on May 4, District Court Judge Kirsten Sjue set bail at $10,000 cash or surety. As a condition of release, Gohrick was ordered to avoid contact with the two men who say he threatened them. He’s due back in court June 3 for a preliminary hearing and arraignment.

Gohrick’s attorney, Elizabeth Ledgerwood Pendlay, said in a statement that her client is “presumed innocent” and that they intend to “properly use all available legal and constitutional process to advance a vigorous defense.”

Who Gohrick Is in North Dakota Politics

This isn’t a fringe figure with no standing in the party. Gohrick chairs the NDGOP’s District 2 committee, covering the northwest corner of the state, and founded the conservative grassroots group Sons of Liberty. He’s a leading voice in the populist faction that recently took control of party leadership positions, a faction currently locked in an open, ongoing fight with the traditionally conservative incumbents who hold every statewide office in North Dakota.

Gohrick made statewide headlines recently for backing a resolution at the party’s state convention that would have stripped party affiliation from incumbents who boycotted the convention over dissatisfaction with current leadership. He had also proposed a party rule that would fine Republicans up to $100,000 for straying from the party platform.

This isn’t the first time Gohrick has been accused of threatening people, either. Back in 2022, he threatened members of the Grand Forks City Council during a public meeting, according to reporting at the time.

The Party’s Response

North Dakota GOP Chair Matthew Simon issued a carefully neutral statement: “These allegations are serious. We believe in the rule of law and trust that the legal process will proceed fairly, transparently, and without interference.” District 2 state Rep. Donald Longmuir declined to comment.

Not everyone in Gohrick’s corner has been that measured. Sharlet Mohr, a Republican candidate for the state House in a Williston-area district, posted a profanity-laced video on Facebook claiming Gohrick’s arrest was politically motivated: “Jerol’s politically involved in our community. And you arrest him because he supposedly did something?” Bob Wheeler, a former NDGOP legislative candidate and past candidate for party chair, made his own video alleging a conspiracy behind the arrest.

Neither has offered evidence for that claim. What they’re disputing is a criminal affidavit describing a man who allegedly pointed a loaded rifle at two workers and threatened to kill them, filed by law enforcement who found the rifle exactly where witnesses said it would be.

The Bottom Line

A sitting district chair of the North Dakota Republican Party is facing two felony charges after allegedly pointing a rifle at two workers and threatening to shoot one in the head, in an incident that isn’t the first time he’s been accused of threatening people with force. He remains free on a $10,000 bond ahead of a June 3 court date, and the party’s own leadership has said only that it will “monitor” the situation, even as some of Gohrick’s political allies are already framing the criminal case against him as a political attack rather than engaging with what the affidavit actually alleges.

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Since new Trump administration policy took effect, 5.3 million Americans have been stripped of food assistance. Not because they found better jobs or moved up the income ladder, but because rules signed into law under Trump pushed them off the rolls entirely. The data is out, and it shows this wasn’t spread evenly. Some states lost more than half their recipients.

New data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that 5.3 million fewer people were receiving SNAP benefits as of April 2026 compared to September 2025, a drop that follows new federal work requirements, signed into law by President Trump, that took effect on February 1, 2026.

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The Numbers

At the end of fiscal year 2025, 42,382,439 people were enrolled in SNAP, at a total cost of roughly $95.8 billion. By April 2026, that number had fallen to 37,011,096, a decline of 5,371,343 people in about seven months under the new rules. So far in fiscal year 2026, the program has cost $51.4 billion, already on pace for a steep year-over-year drop in total spending.

That’s not a rounding error or a seasonal blip. That’s more than 5 million people who had food assistance before Trump’s work requirements took effect and didn’t have it a few months later.

Some States Got Hit Far Harder Than Others

The decline wasn’t remotely uniform. Arizona lost more than 400,000 SNAP recipients, a 54.8% drop, the steepest of any state in the country. Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana each saw declines of more than 20%.

Alaska was the only state in the entire country where SNAP enrollment didn’t fall. It actually grew, up 8.2% from April 2025 to April 2026, the sole exception to a nationwide trend that otherwise cut deep across nearly every state under the new Trump-era rules.

Where This Rule Change Came From

The new work requirements trace back to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a centerpiece of Trump’s second-term legislative agenda, which he signed into law on July 4, 2025. Under the law, most adult SNAP recipients now have to work, volunteer, or participate in job training for at least 80 hours a month, or they’re cut down to just three months of benefits within any three-year period.

The rules didn’t just tighten enforcement on an existing group. They expanded who’s covered. Work requirements previously applied to able-bodied adults ages 18 to 54 without dependents under 18. Trump’s law pushes that age range up to 64, and extends the requirement to parents whose children are as old as 13.

The law also stripped away exemptions that used to protect some of the most vulnerable people in the program: homeless individuals, veterans, and young adults aging out of foster care are no longer automatically exempt under the Trump administration’s rules. States also lost much of their ability to waive work requirements in areas where jobs simply aren’t available.

The Bigger Picture

This isn’t a small policy tweak. The Congressional Budget Office projects Trump’s law will cut $186 billion in federal SNAP spending, roughly 20% of the program, over the next ten years. Losing 5.3 million recipients in the first seven months since the rules took effect is the program moving exactly toward that target.

It’s also worth noting what this rule change is not. It’s not a story about fraud or waste being trimmed out of the system. It’s able-bodied adults, including people over 55, parents of young teenagers, veterans, and people who were homeless or aging out of foster care, losing food assistance under the Trump administration because they didn’t meet a new 80-hour-a-month work, volunteer, or training requirement, in states and local economies where that requirement isn’t always realistic to meet.

The Bottom Line

Since the Trump administration’s new SNAP work requirements took effect in February, over five million people have lost food benefits, with states like Arizona losing more than half their enrolled population in a matter of months. This is the law working as designed. Whether it’s working as intended for the people who lost their benefits, especially veterans, older workers, and parents who no longer qualify for exemptions, is a separate question the data alone can’t answer.

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Tennessee Republicans wanted every public university in the state to build a memorial plaza to Charlie Kirk, complete with Ten Commandments plaques and a legally shaky mandate that could land the state in the same court fight it’s already lost once before. It stalled in March, not because Democrats blocked it, but because the GOP’s own committee couldn’t stomach the price tag.

A Tennessee bill that would have forced every public university in the state to construct a memorial plaza honoring conservative commentator Charlie Kirk stalled in the state House on March 4, 2026, after members of the Higher Education Subcommittee balked at its cost.

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What the Absurd Bill Required

The bill, HB 2025, filed by Republican state Rep. Monty Fritts of Kingston with a companion bill from Sen. Ferrell Haile, would have mandated a 1,600-square-foot “Charlie Kirk Memorial Courtyard for Civil Debate” on the main campus of every public university in Tennessee, 47 institutions across the University of Tennessee system, the Board of Regents system, and locally governed schools, including Middle Tennessee State, Tennessee State, and Austin Peay.

Each courtyard would have needed to be open to the public by December 31, 2026, and would have featured four plaques: the Bill of Rights, the full text of the Declaration of Rights from Article I of the Tennessee Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Ten Commandments, each carrying Kirk’s name and date of death.

The fiscal note broke the cost down by system: $11,875,000 for the Board of Regents schools, $3,750,000 for the University of Tennessee system, and $2,510,000 for locally governed institutions, a combined $18,135,000 in year one alone, plus roughly $235,000 a year after that just for maintenance. The bill did allow universities to accept private donations and grants to help cover construction, but the mandate itself came from the state.

Fritts defended the price tag with a religious framing. “In the Bible, God would often have his people stack up stones to remember where he had moved or something significant,” he said. “I think we need to do that more.”

Even Republicans Wouldn’t Sign Off

On March 4, 2026, the House Higher Education Subcommittee voted to send the bill to summer study, a move that effectively shelved it for the rest of the session without formally killing it. Its odds from there weren’t good.

What’s notable is who did the shelving. This didn’t die because Democrats blocked it. Tennessee’s legislature has a Republican supermajority, and it was pushback from inside the GOP over the bill’s roughly $18 million fiscal note that sent it to the legislative graveyard of summer study.

Democratic Rep. Ronnie Glynn of Clarksville raised a separate objection while the bill was still being debated, pointing out the state was mandating a specific, non-negotiable name for the memorial. “To force a university to say we’re going to call it by this name, it kind of goes against the freedom of speech in my opinion,” Glynn said. “If it was just called the Courtyard of Civil Debate, I could be like, ‘absolutely.’”

The Ten Commandments Requirement

Beyond the cost, the bill’s mandatory Ten Commandments plaque sat on shaky constitutional ground. The U.S. Supreme Court already struck down mandatory Ten Commandments postings in public classrooms in Stone v. Graham back in 1980, and legal observers flagged that a state-mandated religious display at public universities, not privately funded or optional, but written directly into state law, invites exactly the kind of Establishment Clause challenge that’s sunk similar measures elsewhere.

In other words, even if lawmakers had found the $18 million, the bill as written was arguably teeing up a lawsuit Tennessee has a fairly poor track record of winning.

It Wasn’t the Only Kirk Bill Moving Through the Statehouse

Fritts’s plaza bill was one of two Kirk-related bills working through the Tennessee legislature this session. The other, the “Charlie Kirk Act,” HB 1476, filed by Republican Rep. Gino Bulso of Brentwood, took a very different approach: it required universities to adopt free speech and political neutrality policies modeled on the University of Chicago’s Freedom of Expression Policy and the Kalven Report, banned retaliation against students and faculty for protected speech, banned viewpoint discrimination in inviting campus speakers, and opened up new legal grounds for any Tennessee resident to sue a university or faculty member over alleged speech violations.

Unlike the plaza bill, Bulso’s version kept moving. It passed the Republican-controlled General Assembly in April 2026 and was signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Lee shortly after. Bulso told reporters he filed it to promote “robust civil debate on our public colleges and universities” and to “honor the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk.”

Tennessee wasn’t alone in trying the plaza approach. Oklahoma state Sen. Shane Jett filed a bill requiring a Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza at every public college in that state, one version of which specified a statue of Kirk “sitting at a table with an empty seat across from him.” That bill also stalled. Georgia’s Senate passed its own Kirk-branded free speech bill, notably without a plaza mandate attached.

The Backdrop: A University That Already Paid Half a Million Dollars Over This

The plaza bill didn’t emerge in a vacuum. Weeks before it stalled, Austin Peay State University, one of the 47 schools that would have been required to build a plaza, reinstated a tenured professor it had fired over a social media post about Kirk’s killing, and paid him $500,000 to settle the resulting dispute.

Kirk was shot and killed on September 10, 2025, while speaking at Utah Valley University, and the fallout at campuses nationwide, firings, disciplinary hearings, lawsuits, has been playing out in state legislatures since. Tennessee lawmakers spent early 2026 trying to legislate free speech protections in Kirk’s name while one of their own universities had just spent half a million taxpayer dollars settling a case over what happened when a professor actually exercised that speech about him.

Tennessee Republicans tried to force every public university in the state to build a legally questionable, $18 million monument to a single political commentator, funded by taxpayers whose universities never asked for it. It took pushback from inside their own party to stop it, at least for the time being. The bill wasn’t killed outright, just deferred to summer study, where it was expected to come back up still carrying both the price tag and the constitutional problem that got it shelved in the first place.

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Jim Jordan endorsed him. Bob Latta endorsed him. Gary Click took his money and gave him some back. Now Daniel Kalmbach is facing the most serious felony charge Florida law allows short of a death sentence, accused of strangling his girlfriend, cutting her with a knife, and holding her hostage in her own relationship. None of the Republicans who built him up have said a word.

Florida prosecutors just blew the doors off the criminal case against Daniel J. Kalmbach, a Republican and former candidate for the Ohio House, replacing his original charges with a life felony kidnapping count and a first-degree aggravated battery charge alleging he cut his girlfriend with a knife. This is what the GOP’s endorsements produced.

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The Charges Got Worse, Not Better

Assistant State Attorney James P. McMillan filed the escalated charges on April 15. The case sits with Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Carmen R. Cabarga.

Count one: kidnapping with a weapon. Kidnapping alone is a first-degree felony in Florida. Add a weapon and it becomes a life felony, the harshest classification the state has short of capital murder. Prosecutors allege Kalmbach forcibly confined his girlfriend between February 21 and February 23, intending to hurt or terrorize her, using scissors and a knife.

Count two: first-degree aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, alleging he cut her hair and cut her body with a knife, leaving what prosecutors describe as permanent scarring.

These aren’t add-on charges stacked next to the originals. Prosecutors threw out his initial charges of false imprisonment and battery by strangulation entirely and replaced them with something far more serious. It’s a signal about how bad prosecutors think this case actually is.

What He’s Accused of Doing to Her

A warning: this comes directly from a sworn police affidavit and describes alleged domestic violence in graphic detail.

Miami police responded to a domestic violence call just after 1 a.m. on February 23 and found Kalmbach’s girlfriend of eight months in the lobby with visible bruising on her face. She told officers that when she tried to leave, he blocked the door and told her she wasn’t going anywhere. She said he grabbed scissors from the kitchen and cut her hair while she was on the floor. Then, in the bedroom, he allegedly grabbed her by the throat with both hands and choked her for roughly six seconds, hard enough that the affidavit itself describes it as a risk of great bodily harm.

When she managed to briefly escape toward the elevator, he allegedly followed her, physically picked her up, and carried her back into the apartment, then struck her in the head with closed fists. He reportedly told her she was “not going to leave for two days” and physically blocked the door. She eventually made it to the lobby with him and begged the front desk to call 911.

Kalmbach waived his rights and talked to police anyway. He admitted to jumping on her in bed and elbow-striking her head. He claimed he took a knife away from her after she cut his leg, then used that same knife on her hair. A domestic violence lethality screening at the scene flagged her as being in what the affidavit calls a “potential lethal situation.” This wasn’t a minor domestic dispute. Officers on scene treated it as a woman who nearly didn’t survive the night.

He Lawyered Up Fast, and Expensively

Kalmbach initially claimed indigent status and got a public defender. That lasted two weeks. He then retained Howard Srebnick and Mark A.J. Shapiro of Black Srebnick, a Miami criminal defense powerhouse whose past clients include Justin Bieber, Lil Wayne, and Helio Castroneves. Whatever financial hardship got him a free public defender apparently resolved itself quickly once the charges got serious.

He pleaded not guilty and demanded a jury trial. He remains free on bond under a stay-away order, a bond that may not survive contact with charges this severe.

The Republicans Who Built His Career Haven’t Said a Word

Kalmbach lost his 2024 primary for Ohio House District 69. But he wasn’t some fringe candidate nobody in the party knew. He carried endorsements from sitting U.S. Reps. Jim Jordan and Bob Latta, and a $1,000 check from state Rep. Gary Click.

And the money didn’t stop when the campaign lost. Kalmbach donated $350 back to Click in May 2025, well after his arrest on the original charges. His father, Kalmbach Feeds CEO Paul Kalmbach Sr., gave Click $250 in 2024, on top of a 2021 donation from the company itself. This is a Republican family that has spent years financially entangled with a sitting Ohio legislator, right through the period this case has been unfolding.

There’s a job trail here too. Paul Kalmbach Sr. gave $7,500 to state Rep. Thad Claggett’s 2022 campaign, and Daniel Kalmbach was hired onto Claggett’s legislative staff less than a week later, a hire first reported by the independent newsletter The Rooster. Jordan, Latta, Click, and Claggett have all had some connection to Kalmbach’s rise. None of them have publicly addressed what he’s now charged with.

The TLDR

A Republican endorsed by two members of Congress, financially tied to a sitting state representative, and handed a legislative staff job through his father’s political donations is now facing the most serious felony Florida has short of a capital crime, accused of strangling, beating, and cutting his girlfriend with a knife. The party that helped build his career has offered nothing but silence. Kalmbach has not been convicted, and the allegations remain allegations, but the charges only moved in one direction: for the worse.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-7233, or by texting START to 88788.

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Thousands of U.S. Navy sailors have been trapped at sea for more than 250 days because of a war the Trump administration chose to fight. They’re losing dozens of pounds, going weeks without clean laundry, and eating half a cup of rice for dinner. Some have tried to jump overboard. Pete Hegseth’s response was to call it “completely misrepresented.”

The USS Abraham Lincoln left California in November on what was supposed to be a routine deployment to the South China Sea. Then the Trump administration redirected it to the Middle East ahead of US attacks on Iran in February, and the ship’s roughly 5,000 sailors have effectively been stuck there ever since.

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A War That Keeps Extending Their Sentence

The deployment was originally supposed to end in May. Instead, it’s been extended again and again, with the Iran conflict as the driving reason the Pentagon keeps giving. There is still no announced return date. The only movement reported this week is that the Navy is preparing to eventually swap in the USS George Washington, as part of a rotation that was already scheduled, not as any kind of relief tied to how badly things have deteriorated aboard the Lincoln.

That’s the trade the administration made: a longer war in the Middle East, paid for in part by sailors who didn’t get a vote on any of it and now can’t get off the ship.

What Living Through That Looks Like

The Military Times and Stars and Stripes reported this week that multiple sailors have considered jumping overboard, according to interviews with their families. CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reported that a sailor actually did go overboard earlier this month, was pulled out by helicopter, treated onboard, and then moved off the ship for further care. That’s now under investigation.

One family member told the BBC that their relative aboard the Lincoln has lost 65 pounds since the deployment started. Speaking anonymously out of fear of retaliation, they described a recent message from their loved one: “I’m dead tired. Dead.” They described nonstop noise and vibration from engines and aircraft, no real break, ever.

“It’s not a vacation. And he knows what he has to do,” the relative said. “But it’s just without a port, without stepping foot on lands, without any kind of decompression. It’s a constant vibration. Morning, noon, and night when you sleep, when you eat, when you shower. There’s never a moment of peace in your mind.”

California Congressman Mike Levin laid out the conditions bluntly: moldy showers, broken toilets, laundry backed up for weeks, long stretches with no hot water, and dinner reduced to half a cup of rice and two tortillas. No soap. No deodorant. No toothpaste. This is what an extended war footing looks like for the people actually living it, while the administration insists everything is fine.

Democrats Are Demanding Accountability

Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal sent Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth a letter listing the reported conditions: supply shortages, water contamination, plumbing failures, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns, and a mail system so broken that care packages have been lost for months. “These reports warrant immediate attention,” he wrote, “but they also raise a broader question: whether the Navy can sustain the operational tempo now being demanded of its carrier force.”

Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego went further, demanding Congress be let onto the ship to see conditions firsthand. “There is no reason to be denied access,” he wrote.

Hegseth’s answer was to dismiss the reporting outright, calling it “completely misrepresented” while speaking to reporters in Panama, and framing the sailors’ suffering as simply the cost of “austere conditions with less port calls.” A Navy official separately denied any rise in reported suicidal ideation aboard the ship and blamed supply disruptions on “combat actions,” the same war the administration chose to extend this deployment for in the first place. The White House’s response was a vague line about being “committed” to giving the military “the resources necessary.”

Notice what’s missing from any of those responses: an actual return date, or an acknowledgment that eight months at sea during a war of choice might be the actual problem.

No One in Washington Has Given These Sailors a Timeline

Congress still hasn’t been granted access to the ship despite Gallego’s request. The investigation into the sailor who went overboard is still open. And the Lincoln is still out there past the 250-day mark, with sailors and their families left to wonder how much longer a war that was supposed to be swift and decisive is going to keep them away from home.

The administration got its war with Iran. The bill for it is currently being paid by 5,000 servicemembers who can’t leave the ship.

If you or someone you know is struggling, the US Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988.

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Ken Paxton wants to be a United States Senator. He’s currently accused of protecting a child molester with a sweetheart plea deal. And now we know his campaign has been quietly cashing checks from a family whose name sits inside the Epstein files, tied to both Epstein’s plane and an FBI tip about an alleged underage girl. When reporters asked if he’d give the money back, his campaign said nothing.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Trump-endorsed Republican running for Senate, took thousands of dollars in campaign donations this spring from a member of the Jaffe family, a Texas family whose name appears twice in the Epstein files. Not once. Twice.

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Family Ties and the FBI

The Jaffe family runs Jetran, a Texas aviation company that’s spent nearly four decades acquiring and converting aircraft. Justice Department documents released as part of the Epstein files show Jetran was in talks in 2016 to buy one of Epstein’s planes, the one people called the “Lolita Express,” the plane Epstein allegedly used to fly teenage girls and trafficking victims to his properties. Emails between Epstein’s team and the Jaffes appear to place Doug Jaffe Jr. directly in those negotiations.

Then there’s Doug Jaffe III, who shows up in a different part of the files entirely: a 2020 anonymous tip to the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center alleging possible sex and drug trafficking. According to the FBI’s own call log, the tipster said that in the early 2000s, Jaffe invited them to a villa in Mexico owned by his aunt, and that while there, they saw a young girl the caller estimated to be 11 or 12 years old. Jaffe allegedly told the caller the girl was his niece, something the caller says they later learned wasn’t true. The caller also described being taken to a nightclub in Acapulco where they say underage girls were brought on stage, and said they remembered several Epstein associates listed in the villa’s guestbook.

Jaffe III and his father deny all of it. Jaffe III told MS NOW by email that he had “absolutely nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein or the Epstein files” and said he never met him. His father called the entire story “someone trying to stir up shit.” Denials are easy. The FBI call log exists whether the Jaffes like it or not, and so does the paper trail connecting their company to Epstein’s plane.

The Unfortunate Timing

This is the part Paxton’s campaign really doesn’t want you focusing on. This isn’t a donation from years ago, back when nobody had any way of knowing what the Epstein files would eventually reveal. This money moved after the files were public, after Texans had already read the allegations, after the Jaffe name was already tied to Epstein’s plane and to an FBI trafficking tip.

In April 2026, an FEC filing from what was then the Ken Paxton Victory Fund, later rebranded the Paxton Cruz Victory Fund, reported a $3,500 donation from a Doug Jaffe in West Lake Hills, Texas, at an address tied to Jaffe III.

A month later, in May 2026, a separate FEC filing from the Paxton campaign itself logged another $3,000 from an address associated with both Jaffe men.

That’s $6,500, straight into Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign, from a family whose name was already sitting in the Epstein files by the time the checks cleared.

MS NOW asked Paxton’s campaign a simple question: will you give the money back? Silence. No comment, no denial, no explanation. Just nothing.

Paxton Is Already Under Fire for Protecting a Child Molester

This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Right now, Paxton is facing a separate and completely unrelated firestorm over his office’s handling of a plea deal for Adam Hoffman, a lawyer who admitted to child molestation and walked away with just 30 days in jail and no requirement to register as a sex offender. Paxton’s office is refusing to release the records behind that deal. State Rep. James Talarico has called it exactly what it looks like: an “Epstein-style sweetheart deal.” The victim’s own family has publicly criticized how Paxton’s office handled the case.

So here’s where Paxton actually stands right now: his office is stonewalling the public on why an admitted child molester barely served a month behind bars, while his Senate campaign is simultaneously pocketing money from a family connected to Epstein’s plane and an FBI tip about a possible underage trafficking victim. That’s not bad optics. That’s a pattern.

Paxton’s Pitch Doesn’t Hold Up

Paxton wants voters to believe his campaign is about affordability, that “every Texan should be able to buy a home, raise a family, and live a healthy life without the bills burying them.” That’s rich coming from a man who has spent the better part of a decade in office fighting the exact consumer protections and regulatory guardrails that would actually make that possible. It’s the same script every time: run on affordability, govern against it, and hope voters don’t realize before it is too late.

Ken Paxton is dodging questions about a sweetheart deal for a child molester and banking donations from a family tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s plane. His campaign has had every opportunity to explain itself, to give the money back, to say anything. Instead, they’ve said nothing. Texas voters deserve better than silence from a man asking them for their vote.

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For months, Ashley Hinson insisted that forcing a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files was the wrong move at the wrong time. What she didn’t say publicly was that billionaires named in those same files were cutting her campaign checks the entire time she was blocking it.

U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, the Republican nominee in Iowa’s closely watched Senate race, accepted nearly $90,000 in campaign contributions from billionaires who appear in the Jeffrey Epstein files. The finding, first reported by the Daily Beast and independently verified by Iowa Starting Line through a review of FEC donor records, includes contributions from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman, and Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan. All three of the men have connections with Jeffrey Epstein.

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The Timing Nobody in Hinson’s Campaign Wants to Talk About

Of that nearly $90,000, roughly $30,500 arrived during the exact window when Hinson was declining to sign the discharge petition filed by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the mechanism that would eventually force a House vote on releasing the Epstein files. Schwarzman personally cut Hinson a $7,000 check on September 10, just days after Massie’s petition hit the floor.

At the time, Hinson told The Gazette that Massie was going about it the wrong way, framing the petition as a gift to Democrats rather than a genuine push for transparency. That petition sat exactly one signature short of the 218 needed for nearly two months, a gap that closed only after House Speaker Mike Johnson delayed swearing in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva. The moment she was finally seated, her signature pushed the petition over the line in November.

Hinson wasn’t alone. All four of Iowa’s Republican House members, Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Zach Nunn, and Randy Feenstra, declined to sign the petition while it needed their support. Once its passage became unstoppable anyway, all four turned around and voted for the Epstein Files Transparency Act on November 18, a vote that cost them nothing once the outcome was already decided.

Iowa Starting Line reached out to Hinson’s campaign for comment on the donations and the timing. As of publication, she has not responded.

Who These Donors Actually Are

The Epstein files span more than 3 million pages, released by the Justice Department under the transparency act, and they name hundreds of individuals. For many, the mention is incidental. For others, the paper trail shows documented, ongoing contact with Epstein that continued well after his 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Hinson’s donor list includes both kinds.

Lutnick is the highest-ranking Trump administration official named in the files besides the president himself. He gave more than $12,000 to Hinson’s congressional campaigns across 2021 and 2023. For years, Lutnick maintained he’d cut off contact with Epstein back in 2005. But the files tell a different story: they show he visited Epstein’s private island in 2012, a trip Lutnick was forced to acknowledge under Senate testimony in February, where he claimed he’d brought his wife and children along. He also funneled $5 million in April to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the primary super PAC bankrolling House Republicans, just weeks before sitting for closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee about his Epstein ties.

Rowan gave $7,000 to Hinson’s Senate campaign in September. According to an analysis by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Rowan remained in contact with Epstein from 2013 through 2016, years after Epstein’s criminal conviction, in emails that discussed Epstein potentially buying Rowan’s private jet and plans to meet at Epstein’s Manhattan home. A spokesperson for Rowan told the paper he had no business or personal relationship with Epstein, and that any information exchanged was strictly tied to tax matters involving Apollo co-founder Leon Black.

Schwarzman’s connection is just slightly more obscured. He’s given Hinson’s campaigns and PACs $26,500 since 2021, and his name surfaces 23 times across the files, including one email in which Epstein calls him “terrific.” But so far the evidence is strictly limited to his mentions in the files. The same holds for three additional Hinson donors identified by the Beast: Henry Kravis, John Catsimatidis, and Howard Lorber.

Not the First Time Hinson’s Money Has Crossed Paths With a Trafficking Case

This isn’t a one-off pattern for Hinson’s fundraising operation.

Back in April, Iowa Starting Line reported that Hinson’s campaign and its affiliated committees had accepted $74,000 from John W. Childs, the private equity billionaire charged with solicitation of prostitution in a 2019 Florida investigation that authorities described at the time as a $20 million human trafficking operation. The charges against Childs were ultimately dropped after a court threw out key video evidence, and his record was later expunged. Childs has consistently denied the allegations.

Notably, at least two Republican senators who’d taken money from Childs chose to give those contributions away while his case was still active. Hinson did not.

There is a clear precedent this election cycle for candidates distancing themselves from Epstein-linked money. In Ohio’s Senate race, Sen. Jon Husted’s campaign says it donated every dollar it had received from Epstein financial client Les Wexner to an anti-human-trafficking charity, a move that came only after Democrat Sherrod Brown spent nearly $1.5 million on ads highlighting the connection.

Hinson has not said whether she intends to keep, donate, or return any of the contributions tied to donors named in the Epstein files.

A Race That Couldn’t Be Closer

This story lands in the middle of one of the tightest Senate contests in the country, at a moment when the timing could not be worse for Hinson.

A Fox News poll conducted in late June found Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek leading Hinson 50 percent to 46 percent, a gap within the margin of error. A New York Times/Siena poll from the same month found the opposite, with Hinson ahead by two points. Fox News itself rated the race a “toss-up” in July, while election forecasters at the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball still classify it as “lean Republican,” a label that grows shakier with every new story like this one.

The same Fox poll found that Iowans now view Trump unfavorably by 13 points, a stunning 19-point swing from where his numbers stood in November 2024. And the Epstein issue specifically is a political liability nationwide: an October Reuters/Ipsos survey found Americans disapprove of the administration’s handling of the Epstein files by a 57 to 19 margin, numbers that should worry any Republican candidate who spent months standing in the way of their release.

Iowa Democratic Party spokesperson Drew Myers didn’t mince words when he spoke to the Daily Beast, accusing Hinson of aligning herself with what he called the “Epstein class,” and arguing she has fought harder to keep the files sealed than she has fought for Iowans struggling with the cost of living.

The Bottom Line

Hinson spent months telling Iowans that a vote to release the Epstein files was politically motivated and poorly timed. What voters didn’t know until now is that nearly $90,000 of her campaign’s money came from men named inside those same files, with a third of it landing directly during the period she spent blocking the vote. This plainly appears to be a conflict of interest rather than a coincidence. In regards to which one it actually is, Hinson’s campaign has so far declined to answer.

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The 21-year-old son of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) was taken into custody in Garfield County over the weekend, facing felony charges tied to a nearly two-year-old investigation.

Tyler Boebert, of New Castle, Colorado, was arrested Sunday, August 9, on a warrant stemming from an investigation by the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office. The office announced the arrest publicly on Monday. He was booked, had bond set at $10,000, and was released from the Garfield County Jail the same day.

Lauren Boebert railed against deep-state pedophiles for years. Turns out, her son was the one she should have been looking at.

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The Charges

According to online court records, Boebert faces five felony counts total:

• Three counts of sexual exploitation of a child: one for inducing or enticing, one involving intent to deal in, sell, or distribute exploitative material, and one tied to video evidence

• Two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor

The two exploitation counts tied to inducement and intent are class 3 felonies. The count tied to video is a class 4 felony. The sheriff’s office has not released additional details about the underlying conduct, and the case remains under investigation.

How the Investigation Started

The case traces back to an incident dated January 1, 2024. Per an arrest affidavit later filed in the case, the investigation began after a Safe2Tell report, Colorado’s anonymous tip line for school and youth safety concerns, flagged an Instagram account allegedly posting sexually explicit videos involving teenagers.

Investigators say they also identified a separate Instagram group chat of roughly 124 users that appeared to help circulate material from that account. Boebert, who was 18 at the time of the alleged January 2024 incident, is named in connection with one piece of video material in the affidavit.

The investigation was reviewed by the 9th Judicial District Attorney’s Office before the arrest warrant was issued, a process the sheriff’s office described as a felony review.

Rep. Boebert’s Response

Lauren Boebert, who represents Colorado’s 4th Congressional District and is currently seeking reelection, issued a statement Monday:

“I love my son. We take these allegations very seriously and pray for everyone affected during this challenging time.”

This is not the first time Boebert has spoken publicly about her son’s legal troubles. After a separate 2024 arrest, she said he had been through “some very difficult, public challenges for a young man” and described the attention on him as unwanted. She added: “It breaks my heart to see my child struggling and, in this situation, especially when he has been provided multiple opportunities to get his life on track. I will never give up on him, and I will continue to be there for him.”

A Pattern of Prior Arrests

This marks at least the third time Tyler Boebert has been arrested.

• February 2024: Arrested in connection with an investigation into vehicle trespass and property theft. That case is still pending.

• July 2025: Arrested and charged with misdemeanor child abuse in an incident involving his own son. He pleaded guilty and is scheduled for sentencing next month.

• August 2026: The current charges, described above.

He also has a separate sentencing hearing scheduled for September 10, tied to the Weld County case, unrelated to the new charges.

What Happens Next

Boebert is scheduled for an August 19 bond-related court appearance connected to the new charges. It’s unclear whether he currently has an attorney representing him in this case; a lawyer who represented him previously did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The sheriff’s office says the investigation is ongoing, and prosecutors have not detailed what additional evidence, if any, will be presented as the case proceeds.

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