Kash Patel Faces Backlash Across Party Lines Over Planned Russia Trip

FBI Director Kash Patel has come under fire from all sides for his upcoming trip to Russia in October.

Patel will likely be hosted on his trip by the FSB, the Russian security service that succeeded the Soviet Union’s KGB, Politico reported Monday. Democrats and Republicans alike were shocked by news of the trip.

“Kash Patel, the man who spent years peddling conspiracy theories to protect Trump from Russia investigation fallout, is now planning to personally fly to Russia and cozy up with the very security apparatus his own agency is supposed to be defending America against,” Occupy Democrats wrote on X. “No sitting FBI director has visited Moscow since Robert Mueller, back in 2013, before he went on to lead the very investigation into Trump-Russia collusion that Patel has spent years dismissing as a ‘hoax.’ Let that sink in.”

“Our FBI Director, who was an unregistered lobbyist for Qatar, is heading to Russia as the White House prepares to impose more sanctions on Russia, which is supplying Iran with weapons to murder U.S. soldiers,” far-right sycophant and close Trump ally Laura Loomer said. “Nothing to see here.”

“On the same day Trump imposes a 50% tariff on Canada, Kash Patel announces he’s traveling to Russia,” said Democratic Representative Andy Kim. “Trump continues to destroy our reputation abroad by treating enemies like friends and friends like enemies.”

Patel’s short time as FBI director has been mired with controversy, from his reported drinking problem to his temper tantrums, to his private jet flights with his young girlfriend on the taxpayer’s dime. While it’s not yet clear whether he plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on his trip, it’s still telling that both the right and center left are suspicious of Patel’s motives—especially given the Trump administration’s greater deference to the Kremlin.

Lindsey Graham’s little sister has officially decided to run for his empty Senate seat—much to the chagrin of MAGA world.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham Nordone to temporarily fill Graham’s vacancy last week, days after the 71-year-old lawmaker suddenly passed away from a heart issue.

“I feel like I can do it. I feel an inner peace about it. Will it be difficult? Yes, absolutely,” she told Fox News’s Sean Hannity in an interview clip shared Monday. “I’ve made a decision: I’m in.”

The younger Graham took the reins of her brother’s position with Donald Trump’s blessing, despite bringing zero legislative experience to the job. Yet her determination to fill Graham’s shoes for another six years surprised the South Carolina GOP.

“My understanding is that she told Governor McMaster that she would accept the appointment to fill the rest of the term, not to be a candidate for it,” state GOP Chair Drew McKissick told Politico last week, when Nordone first began publicly mulling running for a full term.

Her Monday decision also aggravated a number of right-wing influencers and media personalities, some of whom referred to the high-powered inheritance as moronic.

“Hard pass. Birthright senatorship is idiotic,” Sean Davis, the CEO of The Federalist, wrote on X.

“Trump continues to fill the Swamp with the worst congressional creatures, including his predictable endorsement of Darline Graham,” posted former Virginia Representative and chair of the House Freedom Caucus Bob Good. “Are there worse criteria than 1) family name, and 2) pledged unconditional and unconstitutional allegiance and obedience to the president?”

Glenn Greenwald, one of the co-founders of The Intercept, observed that “it didn’t take Lindsey Graham’s sister very long to go from ‘thank you for this placeholder appointment to honor my brother until an election can be held’ to ‘you know what? I kind of like sitting in this Senate seat. Like a lot. I think I’ll stay for life, like my brother did.’”

But Nordone does not have much time to prepare herself for what will likely be a whirlwind special election. The deadline to enter the August race is July 28. Other GOP candidates already in the mix include Representatives Russel Fry and Ralph Norman, as well as businessman Mark Lynch, who lost to Graham in the June primary. The winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews in November.

President Trump made a whopping $117 million from foreign business interests in the first year of his second term as president, a new report found.

The progressive nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, released a report Monday examining Trump’s personal financial disclosure, which he released last month. The organization found he made almost as much in 2025 from overseas ventures ($117 million) as he did during his entire first term (at least $149 million).

Trump reported a total of 28 different accounts, each with at least $50,000 in revenue, the report said, compared to just nine accounts in the last year of his first term. Trump made more than $2 billion from all of his businesses in 2025, thanks in large part to cryptocurrency, again more than the $1.7 billion he made during his first term as president.

The foreign income stands out for Trump, as it undermines his America First rhetoric. But it also raises questions about foreign governments, companies, and individuals using money for influence peddling with the White House, as well as the U.S. government overall. Trump has taken in over $500 million in foreign income since 2014, and the true number could exceed $650 million, according to CREW.

That number will likely increase for the rest of Trump’s second term, as there are currently 24 Trump-branded developments in progress overseas, 13 of which began after he announced he was running for a second term in 2022. These include new developments in the United Arab Emirates, where Trump has already made several corrupt deals.

Trump and his family don’t care about any conflicts of interest in his second term, and their businesses are operating without the fear of accountability. Congress isn’t stepping in to investigate Trump’s businesses now, but that could change after November if Democrats take over. Even then, the president and his family will use every legal resource to evade scrutiny.

Former U.S. Army soldier Andrew Arrabaca is in custody after reportedly setting off fireworks and starting a fire outside of a New York federal building on Monday morning. He is said to have had anti–Immigration and Customs Enforcement material and two pellet guns on his person. 

In the incident, captured on video, a suspect poured gasoline all over a set of stairs outside 26 Federal Plaza, which houses dozens of agencies, including ICE. The suspect ran away as a large plume of flame appeared. He was quickly detained by multiple NYPD officers. One policeman and a bystander sustained minor injuries. 

Arrabaca, 43, was also accused of setting off fireworks outside the federal building. Police said he carried a hammer, knives, and a machete along with the pellet gun when he was arrested. 

FBI New York field director James Barnacle told the Associated Press that Arrabaca “came armed with bad intentions,” and is “an anti-American, anti-government extremist.”

“What occurred outside 26 Federal Plaza this morning was deeply disturbing. I’m relieved no one was seriously injured and that a suspect is in custody,” New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on X. “My team is in touch with the NYPD and we will support the federal investigation. Our administration will continue to ensure that every New Yorker is safe in their city—and hold accountable any who threaten that.”  

26 Federal Plaza houses the immigration court that has seen countless protests in President Trump’s second-term immigration crackdown. Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and state Senators Jabari Brisport, Gustavo Rivera, and Julia Salazar have all been arrested while protesting there. 

This comes after three men were killed in just seven days—either by ICE agents directly or while fleeing them. 

The 28-year-old Mexican man who was killed while running from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials last week was visiting the country on a valid tourist visa.

Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran was in a car with three other people on July 14 when ICE and Homeland Security agents pulled them over near State Road 16 in St. Augustine, Florida. Coronilla Duran fled the scene on foot and was hit by a semi-truck as he attempted to cross the highway.

His wife, Yésica Alamilla López, told reporters that Coronilla Duran had only just recently arrived in the U.S.

“He had a tourist visa and had been here in the United States for a short time—only three weeks,” she told Spectrum News after arriving at the Orlando airport from Mexico. “He had been in Florida for just two days.”

Isaret Jeffers, the founder of Orlando-based farmworkers’ advocacy group Colectivo Arbol, has been assisting Alamilla López in the wake of her husband’s death. Jeffers told the Miami Herald Monday that at the time of his death, Coronilla Duran was planning to return to Mexico within days.

“He was going to return this past Saturday. He had already bought a flight,” Jeffers told the paper. “Now, unfortunately, if he is returning, his return is different.”

Jose Rivera, a local garbage truck driver who witnessed Coronilla Duran’s demise, told the Herald that the 28-year-old slipped and fell when he reached a small piece of grass in the median of the highway. Coronilla Duran reportedly picked himself up but stumbled into the oncoming traffic.

“The traffic was coming pretty quick, and he just lost his footing and didn’t look where the traffic was coming,” Rivera said. “He kept looking back.”

Alamilla López told the Herald that she and her husband were married for 10 years and share a seven-year-old son and a seven-month-old daughter together. They also run a small business in San Luis de La Paz. She revealed to the paper that she had only come to learn of her husband’s death while watching television.

Coronilla Duran’s death is the latest in a long string of domestic bloodshed by ICE and its affiliates. Just this month, federal agents have shot and killed at least two people: Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was killed in Biddeford, Maine, and was targeted despite having a valid work permit and Social Security number, as well as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican father of three and a local small-business owner who was killed in Houston.

There have been 11 fatal shootings by ICE agents since Donald Trump returned to office and made mass deportations a cornerstone of his second-term agenda.