Right-Wing Influencers Charged With Voter Fraud

Two conservative influencers tried so hard to find voter fraud in Minnesota that they’re now being charged with identity theft.

Cam Higby and James O’Keefe were charged with felony counts of identity theft and unlawful voting by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office after they put on disguises and tried to vote during state primaries in August. The pair used hidden cameras to try to make the claim that voting laws in Minnesota are weak. Both are due in court in November, The Minnesota Star Tribune reports.

Higby wore a black abaya covering his face, while O’Keefe wore a white thobe and kufi. Both admitted they were trying to pose as Muslims, in a video posted to social media in August, using fake foreign accents. In a press conference Wednesday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the pair’s political views and their offensive disguises weren’t even the main issue.

“It is not against the law to be performative, it is not against the law to be offensive, it is not against the law to say the things they said standing outside the polling place,” Moriarty said. “We can’t let people’s political bent or what they’re here to do affect our decisions in deciding whether to issue felony charges. We take that very seriously. None of that played a role. The fundamental issue here is you cannot go into a polling place and misidentify yourself and use other people’s identity and say that to our election judges when you apply for a ballot, whether or not you intend to vote.”

The pair didn’t cast any votes, and left one polling place after being asked for identification, the newspaper reports, citing charging documents. O’Keefe and Higby allegedly violated the state’s unlawful voting act, which states that “no individual shall intentionally misrepresent the individuals’ identity in applying for a ballot.” The men are also accused of committing identity theft because O’Keefe “used multiple identities that are not his own with the intent to commit and aid in the commission of an unlawful activity.”

O’Keefe has a history of misrepresenting himself in sting videos, pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges of entering federal property under false pretenses in 2010 for posing as a telephone repairman at the office of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu in Louisiana. His former organization, Project Veritas, was involved in election conspiracies in 2020.

Senator Roger Marshall made a conveniently timed stock purchase in 2018—but his position on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, or HELP, Committee could juice the deal even more.

Eight years ago on November 8, when he was still a representative, Marshall purchased 1,250 shares of Ionics Life Sciences, a privately held medical research company based in Ireland. Marshall invested $250,000 at $200 per share, according to Irish documentation obtained by Popular Info’s Judd Legum.

A week later, the FDA approved an application by Ionics’s wholly owned subsidiary Genzada Pharmaceuticals USA, allowing it to begin clinical trials on a radical cancer treatment.

Yet in apparent violation of the STOCK Act, Marshall did not disclose his Ionics stock purchase within 45 days. Instead, he reported the transaction on August 28, 2019—some 240 days late, Legum reported. Marshall misrepresented the day that he purchased Ionics stock, signaling on his disclosure form that he invested in the company on October 1, 2018, rather than November 8.

He also mixed up Ionics’s location, writing on the form that the company was based in Sterling, Kansas, (where Genzada is located) rather than Dublin.

But there were minimal repercussions. And by 2020, the lawmaker’s investment was worth roughly $500,000.

Neither Marshall’s office nor his Senate reelection campaign responded to Legum’s request for comment regarding his investments.

In 2021, shortly after being inaugurated as senator, Marshall joined the Senate HELP Committee, a congressional regulatory body that oversees the FDA. Since then, Marshall has sponsored legislation that could benefit Genzada and, ultimately, his own pockets. That has included bills that would exclude small pharmaceutical companies from pricing their drugs in accordance with federal regulations, and legislative amendments that he’s claimed could benefit emerging cancer drugs, according to Legum.

In the past, Marshall has heralded his role as a sort of revisionary peacemaker with the FDA, reviewing complaints from pharmaceutical companies before attempting to lobby the agency.

“The people that struggle to get their drugs approved blow up my office, but then I dig down with the FDA,” Marshall said during a Senate HELP hearing on April 16.

It isn’t the first time that Marshall has utilized the power of his office to benefit his wallet. The American Prospect reported last week that Marshall previously introduced legislation that could benefit Nueterra Capital, a venture capital firm that Marshall’s family has invested in. It remains to be seen if Marshall will continue to do the same for Ionics and Genzada.

Renowned labor activist and United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta has died at 96. Her decades of union organizing changed the lives of thousands of primarily Latino farm workers. 

“We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96,” her family wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “As you can imagine, this is an incredibly difficult time for us, and we ask for privacy as we grieve this incredible loss to our family. We know that many of you around the world share in our mourning, and we will be following up on plans to recognize and celebrate her incredible life and legacy.”

Erik Olvera, a family spokesperson, confirmed that she died of cancer.

Huerta’s “¡Sí, se puede!” slogan, translating to “Yes, We Can!”, became a common rallying cry and was adopted by President Barack Obama. She co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with César Chávez in 1962, after which the group transformed into United Farm Workers. Huerta notably accused Chávez earlier this year of sexually assaulting her, alongside two other women. The allegations rocked the labor organizing space and community.  

“Dolores Huerta has passed away from cancer at 96. She was a founder of what became the United Farm Workers and an inspiration for generations of organizers,” California Representative Ro Khanna wrote online. “Her courageous leadership in civil disobedience set an invaluable example in nonviolence. Dolores’s memory will live on.”

“Devastated! We lost our hero! She was so powerful till the end! I interviewed her twice, blown away by the tenacity she still possessed,” actor Rosie Perez wrote. “Saw her everywhere still standing up for people! I’m filled with gratitude to have known her, yet so so sad she is gone! RIP dear Dolores.”

This story has been updated.

Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy was warned against producing a distasteful ad against his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton. He charged forward anyway.

Republicans on and off Ramaswamy’s team argued that the message, which featured Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur, would likely backfire by making him seem cruel and callous while framing Acton as the comparatively sympathetic and rational choice to median voters. And that’s exactly what happened when local journalist D.J. Byrnes leaked the spot last week.

Now members of Ramaswamy’s campaign team are reportedly on the verge of quitting, outraged by Ramaswamy’s blind decision and the predictable public blowback, according to Zeteo.

Ramaswamy arranged the cameo despite the fact that Acton had not spoken to her mother since she was 12 years old, and that Arthur abandoned her two children to skip town with her husband, who was indicted for allegedly raping Acton when she was a young girl.

In the ad, Arthur accuses her daughter of being a “liar” and declares that Acton “needs help.”

“It’s siding with the rapist protector mom,” a Donald Trump adviser with early knowledge of the clip told Zeteo. “This was never a good idea.”

Several figures across the national Republican spectrum condemned the anti-Acton political promo, telling Zeteo that the entire arrangement was a “disastrous, self-inflicted wound.”

Yet the fallout has extended far beyond Ramaswamy’s campaign, potentially endangering politicians even tangentially affiliated with the biotech billionaire. Robert McColley, the Ohio GOP’s lieutenant governor candidate, also “expressed reservations” about the advertisement, two sources told Zeteo, but is “now forced to publicly defend it on the campaign trail.”

The ad spot was created by the Ohio-based firm Strategy Group, which previously made headlines for secretly raking in taxpayer money via an unprecedented $220 million Department of Homeland Security ad campaign arranged by ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

A Brazilian judge has ordered an investigation into a donor network co-founded by Vice President JD Vance, saying it may have aided right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro in Brazil’s presidential election.

The Washington Post reports that Brazil Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino has ordered Brazilian federal police to investigate the contacts between Vance’s Rockbridge Network and any Brazilian political operatives or companies. It’s illegal in Brazil for political candidates to accept assistance or aid from overseas.

Dino wrote the investigation was “necessary to verify if there was the effective furnishment of resources—including human resources—services, or other measurable economic advantages, identifying its origin, its destination and its eventual use in the campaign.”

Vance has spoken at Rockbridge events within the last year. The donor organization denied any contacts with Brazilian officials, and Vance’s office declined to comment to the Post. Rockbridge received multiple complaints during Brazil’s elections.

The Workers’ Party led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro, filed one with the country’s Supreme Court, while Renan Santos, a right-wing presidential candidate who was eliminated in the first round of voting, went to the country’s Supreme Electoral Court. Santos said that Brazilians who claimed to represent Rockbridge had spoken with Bolsonaro campaign officials about providing support.

An unnamed source said they also reached out to Santos offering campaign help. Rockbridge denied any connections with the Brazilians claiming to represent it.

“The Brazilians made false representations about their relationship with Rockbridge and created documents representing or referencing Rockbridge without Rockbridge’s knowledge or consent,” the network said in a statement Tuesday.

Bolsonaro is under investigation for fraud and money laundering in Brazil, and has fled to the U.S. after the State Department reportedly granted him and his family visas. He left before Brazilian police could seize his passport, as the country’s Supreme Court had ordered. If Vance’s group was helping Bolsonaro, that would only add to his charges, and show how far the Trump administration is willing to interfere in other countries’ elections even as it fearmongers about the same happening in the U.S.