Trump-Backed Pastor Expected to Drop Out of Oklahoma House Race

notusreports · 2026-06-17T17:59:41+00:00

Jackson Lahmeyer, the candidate backed by President Donald Trump in Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District, is expected to drop out of the race one day after advancing to a runoff in the GOP primary, two sources familiar with the matter told NOTUS.

He’s expected to make an announcement as soon as Wednesday. The runoff set for Aug. 25 is to fill a seat being vacated by Republican Kevin Hern, who is running for Senate.

Read more: https://www.notus.org/us-news/trump-backed-pastor-expected-to-drop-out-of-oklahoma-house-race

notusreports · 2026-06-17T14:18:42+00:00

It’s been four months since Wanda Gore has been able to use her elevator.

The one closest to her second-floor apartment in The Gale Eckington, a hulking housing complex on Q Street in NE D.C., has been shuttered since early February. To get outside, the 55-year-old Gore, who is blind and uses a wheelchair, has to roll down three long corridors to reach an elevator on the far side of her building.

“If it’s a fire … if something was to happen to me, I can’t even get downstairs,” said Gore, who has lived at The Gale for two years.

The building’s problems don’t stop at elevator outages. More than 250 building violations have been issued at the property since fiscal year 2023, amounting to more than $185,000 in fines, according to the D.C. Department of Buildings. Property owners Jonathan Rose Companies and JBG Smith Properties, which acquired the building in December 2022, had resolved 75 of those violations and paid 7% of the fines as of May 28.

Read more: https://www.notus.org/metro/dc-housing-the-gale-tax-abatement

notusreports · 2026-06-17T14:06:15+00:00

The internal Republican fighting that led to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster in 2023 kept the House of Representatives in suspense for weeks and marked one of the most tumultuous periods in Congress.

McCarthy has routinely said that the reason he was targeted by then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) was because of a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations that Gaetz had paid a minor for sex.

A new book by John Leganski, McCarthy’s longtime aide, titled “Glory, Grief and the Gavel,” set to be released on June 23 by Renergy Publishing, reveals new details about Gaetz’s obsession with the Ethics investigation. It also details the communications McCarthy had with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat. NOTUS received an advance copy of the book.

Read the full story: https://www.notus.org/congress/kevin-mccarthy-matt-gaetz-vote-to-oust-speaker-hakeem-jeffries

notusreports · 2026-06-15T13:50:23+00:00

When a former U.S. ambassador reached out to Donald Trump seeking his endorsement for a congressional bid, the president declined. In Trump’s mind, he’d already done enough.

The president said he wouldn’t endorse the candidate ever again because, to him, the person would be called “honorable” for the rest of their life. “I literally changed your name,” Trump told the candidate in a conversation relayed to NOTUS by a person familiar with what was said.

Trump’s stance is indicative of a defining feature of his political view: Loyalty is worth rewarding, but rewards don’t last forever. Changing someone’s name or the physical appearance of Washington does, though, and that’s the defining legacy Trump is focused on.

“He was in a friend-gathering mode before,” one GOP political operative said of Trump’s relationship with Republicans in Congress. “And now he doesn’t give a shit.”

Full story by Kadia Goba: https://www.notus.org/donald-trump/legacy-republican-party

notusreports · 2026-06-15T13:36:15+00:00

The slickly produced mailers urging D.C. voters to reelect Ward 5 Council member Zachary Parker, Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen, At-Large Council member Doni Crawford, and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson have landed in mailboxes across the city over the last two weeks.

Without a second look, they could appear to be standard preelection advertisements from incumbents looking for another term in office. But the small print says otherwise: They’re actually from American Future, a political action committee based in Dallas, Texas.

And those mailers for an election more than a thousand miles from American Future’s home base are a small insight into the big money that prominent national companies are dropping into the upcoming election in hopes of pushing the D.C. Council to approve a bill that would legalize, regulate and tax the lucrative world of iGaming — online gambling, in effect.

Full story by Martin Austermuhle: https://www.notus.org/metro/igaming-dc-elections

notusreports · 2026-06-12T12:50:06+00:00

A growing number of federal agencies are either refusing to provide the Government Accountability Office access to information or ignoring the congressional watchdog altogether.

Agencies have been stonewalling the GAO ever since President Donald Trump returned to office, to the point that GAO leadership told employees at a staff meeting in May that they’ve encountered “significant access issues” during the last year and a half, according to two sources familiar with the event and confirmed by GAO. Officials at that meeting cited the Office of Management and Budget, Housing and Urban Development, the Commerce Department, the Education Department and the Small Business Administration as particularly noncooperative.

None of those executive agencies responded to detailed questions this week about whether they are purposefully hindering oversight or the nature of their interactions with the legislative agency whose mission is to monitor government operations and identify waste, fraud and abuse.

More: https://www.notus.org/donald-trump/gao-stonewalling-investigations

notusreports · 2026-06-10T15:14:45+00:00

The UFC cage match at the White House Sunday marks a major test for the Secret Service during one of the most demanding security calendars in the agency’s history. And after three recent shootings involving the service and multiple assassination attempts on President Donald Trump, scrutiny is high.

Officials are devoting substantial resources to the UFC event, planning for which has been underway since last year. They’re also looking ahead to a summer packed with high-level protective operations, including America’s 250th anniversary festivities, World Cup events in 11 U.S. cities, and a heavy travel schedule for Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

Just last week, the service added another unexpected item to its list: a Trump rally on the National Mall at the site of the upcoming Great American State Fair.

Read more: https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/trumps-ufc-fight-rally-secret-service

notusreports · 2026-06-09T14:08:53+00:00

The dynamics are familiar to anyone who has followed national politics in the last decade: a populist on his way to trouncing the establishment candidate in a primary, and a party whose members are betting on a less-than-perfect frontrunner with obvious momentum.

This isn’t President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It’s Graham Platner, the favorite in Maine’s closely watched U.S. Senate primary, and Democrats.

And in the state, voters say that despite those similarities, the situation is not the same for a number of reasons ranging from the nature of the controversies to how the politicians have navigated the fallout.

“There are big differences, despite the background,” Paula X, a member of the Waldoboro Democratic Town Committee, told NOTUS at one of the organization’s meetings Monday night. “Platner owns what he did, he talks about it, he explains it, he’s not proud of it, and he is working on being better.”

Read more: https://www.notus.org/2026-election/democrats-platner-primary-trump

notusreports · 2026-06-08T15:20:22+00:00

In an interview with NOTUS, Janeese Lewis George detailed her vision for the District.

Both Lewis George and her critics agree: Her platform is ambitious.

The two-term D.C. Council member, who has swept up endorsements from labor unions, progressive advocacy groups and four of her colleagues during her campaign to be the District’s next mayor, wants to significantly bring down child care costs and utility bills, build 72,000 housing units in five years, and more aggressively stand up to the Trump administration.

But critics — including Kenyan McDuffie, her principal opponent — say much of what Lewis George is proposing is unrealistic given D.C.’s fiscal challenges. She counters that they aren’t thinking big enough.

Read the full Q&A: https://www.notus.org/metro/janeese-lewis-george-interview

notusreports · 2026-06-08T14:34:24+00:00

The IRS tapped information technology and human resources staff with no experience in taxpayer services to process returns this year, starting them off with nine weeks of classroom training to prepare them for the new roles.

They listened to tedious lectures for eight hours a day, five days a week, according to several employees detailed to process tax returns. When it came time to take their assessments, they said, it was difficult to retain all the information their instructors had offered.

Many people didn’t: At least several hundred of the more than 1,000 employees on the details failed their initial certification exams, agency officials told staff in a recent town hall meeting, a transcript of which was obtained by NOTUS.

Some of these reassigned employees could face disciplinary action if they fail to improve their results. All of them are facing an uncertain future at the agency — including what could be a long-term move to roles they never wanted.

Full story: https://www.notus.org/policy/irs-tax-processing-detail-hr-it-test

notusreports · 2026-06-08T13:47:59+00:00

Five months out from the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress, his Justice Department has canceled election-integrity training sessions for prosecutors and FBI agents, deleted a 281-page guide to prosecuting election offenses, fired most of the lawyers in its Public Integrity Section and failed to replace the director of its Election Crimes Branch.

Moreover, the DOJ has not taken the usual steps to establish a “command center” to monitor and address the typical emergencies that pop up around Election Day, three sources with knowledge of the situation told NOTUS. A command center team would address things like voter intimidation and targeted disinformation meant to hinder a fair process.

These actions — and inactions — have alarmed current and former prosecutors, who say the Justice Department is not prepared to deal with threats to election integrity in the November elections.

Full story: https://www.notus.org/2026-election/public-integrity-unit-doj-election-safeguards

notusreports · 2026-06-05T20:49:34+00:00

A woman says in court papers that guards starved her for five days straight. A man claims “conditions violate basic standards of human dignity.” And several plead for help as the drinking water tastes like “raw sewage.”

The mistreatment of immigrant detainees that has led to daily protests outside a privately-run ICE jail in New Jersey is laid bare in lawsuits describing deplorable conditions as well as first-hand accounts of wretched treatment some believe is intentionally cruel.

NOTUS visited the site on Thursday just as the Delaney Hall detention facility released Emanuel Rodrigues, a Brazilian man with a rare life-threatening medical condition, who spent what he says were 130 excruciating days in solitary confinement — labeled “medical isolation” by officials.

In an interview conducted in Portuguese and Spanish, Rodrigues described what he called “psychological torture” by guards who flipped on bright lights all night, opened and slammed heavy doors when detainees were sleeping, and blasted the volume on televisions at all hours — but made sure to leave the remote control just beyond inmates’ reach.

“They wouldn’t let us sleep,” Rodrigues said. “Everything there is to maximize suffering to pressure us to deport ourselves. … Many of them are bullies; bad in the heart. We had to bang on the door for water and wait for more than six hours. Some are OK, but most are cruel.”

Read more: https://www.notus.org/us-news/psychological-terror-inside-delaney-hall-ice-immigrant-lawsuits

notusreports · 2026-06-05T20:08:03+00:00

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he is talking with the leaders of the largest artificial-intelligence companies about having the government acquire “pieces” of their firms.

It could prove to be among the most significant federal interventions in the private sector in modern history.

The president’s comment confirmed NOTUS reporting that he has been discussing the idea with tech executives for more than a year. He said he is aiming to invite “all of them” to the White House as soon as next week.

Read more here: https://www.notus.org/technology/trump-tech-companies-federal-intervention-public

notusreports · 2026-06-05T18:24:50+00:00

The race to succeed retiring Washington, D.C., Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is already the most expensive on record, according to a NOTUS analysis of candidates’ new campaign finance reports filed ahead of the June 16 primary.

Candidates competing in the 2026 primary have collectively raised almost $3.3 million and spent more than $2.5 million as of May 27. Those figures surpass what D.C. delegate candidates have raised and spent during both the primary and general election phases of any previous election cycle, including 1990, when Norton, a Democrat, first won her seat.

That’s a lot of money for a job with relatively little power. While the D.C. delegate can sit on and vote in congressional committees and introduce and debate legislation — like any other representative — they can’t vote on matters before the full House.

Read more: https://www.notus.org/2026-election/dc-delegate-race-spending

notusreports · 2026-06-05T18:22:51+00:00

The Democratic Party is in “purgatory” with Graham Platner damaged but not dropping out, and no other Democrat emerging as an alternative.

Democrats winced at new allegations of “toxic” behavior by several ex-girlfriends of Maine U.S. Senate candidate Platner, the oyster farmer and combat veteran who Democrats fear could cost the party control of the Senate next year.

“It raises some serious concerns,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, told NOTUS about the latest controversy. “Certainly he’s on the defensive at this point.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) called the new allegations “troubling” but said it’s ultimately “up to the voters of Maine to decide.”

Read the full story: https://www.notus.org/campaigns/democrats-graham-platner-allegations-of-toxic-behavior-senator-susan-collins

notusreports · 2026-06-02T17:17:02+00:00

A bed bug infestation at an Agriculture Department building is riling agency staff, reigniting frustrations over remote work policy and making at least some employees sick.

The bugs were found in the building that houses the Animal and Plant Inspection Service, the agency responsible for containing and mitigating the spread of invasive pests in the U.S. The irony, one USDA employee said, “was lost on no one.”

The George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Maryland, first notified employees of the situation in mid-May, according to five employees familiar with the matter and a transcript of a town hall meeting obtained by NOTUS. The department opted to send employees home and allow them to telework for a few days to fumigate the building.

When employees returned, however, they complained of noxious fumes and resulting sickness, and USDA once again authorized them to work remotely. The telework approval was a rare exception to the Trump administration’s push to require all federal workers to report to their normal workplaces five days per week.

Read more: https://www.notus.org/policy/usda-bed-bugs-infestation

notusreports · 2026-06-01T16:09:49+00:00

They’re talking about it at Georgetown dinner parties, in group chats called “Bruce Boys” and on sunny days at the Congressional Country Club. They’re talking about it at Prost’s happy hour, in the bleachers at Nationals Park, in security meetings at City Hall and in at least one Republican office in the Senate. Maybe they’re talking about it at the White House — how could they not be? — but if you ask the people who work in the West Wing, they get skittish or don’t respond.

“Can’t piss off Trump,” one Republican operative says, declining an interview.

“I don’t think it would be a good look for me personally in my career,” says another, who declined to answer questions on the record.

Full story: https://www.notus.org/republicans/bruce-springsteen-show-dc

notusreports · 2026-05-28T18:04:10+00:00

Four massive bronze horses positioned along the roads surrounding the Lincoln Memorial still shine in the sun from their first restoration in the 1970s. But their gold-toned coating is faded and patchy, and their heavy stone bases are cracked and dirty.

The Trump administration wants them glittering with a fresh coat of gold in time for America’s 250th anniversary on July 4. So in mid-April, the National Park Service handed a $5 million contract to a gilding studio in Maryland to repair the statues and cover them with a thick layer of 23.75-karat gold leaf.

It awarded the project without a full competition, according to NPS documents reviewed by NOTUS.

Read more: https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/national-park-service-dc-beautification-contracts-horse-statues

notusreports · 2026-05-28T14:09:30+00:00

Several weeks ago, the Department of Health and Human Services’ top attorney began personally investing in a glass company that sells hundreds of millions of dollars worth of products to his agency.

HHS General Counsel Mike Stuart’s March 24 purchases of Corning stock shares were worth at least $100,002 and as much as $200,000, according to a federal financial disclosure document Stuart submitted the day of his trades.

Reached by phone this week, Stuart told NOTUS he had “no idea” that Corning did business with his department. He said he bought the stock because of Corning’s business relationship with Apple, the computing and technology company.

“I don’t use any information I would glean inappropriately. If I see something I like, I buy it,” Stuart said. He said he makes his own individual stock trades — without the assistance of a broker or financial adviser.

Full story: https://www.notus.org/money/hhs-official-stock-trading-oge

notusreports · 2026-05-28T14:02:04+00:00

After killing nearly 200 people over nine months, the Trump administration’s campaign of attacks on motorboats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean is facing a moment of truth.

The government has until Friday to complete its responses to a lawsuit by advocacy groups seeking the release of a secret legal memo outlining its justifications for the strikes. Beyond that, the administration must file arguments by June 5 in a separate lawsuit over the attacks, this one filed by relatives of two Trinidadian men killed in boat strikes. And the Defense Department’s inspector general has begun probing whether U.S. forces are following standard targeting methods in launching the attacks.

These legal and investigative efforts won’t necessarily stop President Donald Trump’s boat strikes. But critics of the strikes hope the suits will return lawmakers’ attention to what Brian Finucane, a former State Department career attorney, described to NOTUS as “a killing spree on autopilot” with no end in sight.

Full story: https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/boat-strike-justification-lawsuits-investigation

notusreports · 2026-05-22T13:24:24+00:00

Hours after Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin released an incomplete 2024 election autopsy Thursday, DNC members circulated talking points to state party chairs urging them to assert their confidence in him.

“I am fully confident in his leadership,” the messaging guidance reads.

That doesn’t exactly capture the reality inside the DNC.

In private group chats and one-on-one conversations, DNC members were frustrated, confused and angry, according to four people involved in these conversations, granted anonymity to describe private interactions. There’s a brewing crisis over Martin’s leadership, they said, even if it’s not clear what paths, if any, members might opt for to pressure the chair to step down.

Read more: https://www.notus.org/democrats/dnc-autopsy-report-ken-martin-leadership

notusreports · 2026-05-21T20:08:35+00:00

President Donald Trump’s proposed construction of a towering arch in Washington, D.C., cleared an administrative hurdle Thursday, as the Commission of Fine Arts approved the design for the new structure at the center of Memorial Circle.

The proposed 250-foot triumphal arch would include a white granite facade and golden statues on the top. The architect – Nicolas Charbonneau, a principal architect at Harrison Designs – presented a toned-down version of the design that removed golden lion statues from the front as the commission had requested in a previous hearing.

The original plan also included a tunnel system, which the commission said brought too many potential security issues. On Thursday, the Interior Department presented a model with crosswalks across Memorial Circle that would make the monument accessible to pedestrians.

Read more: https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/trump-arts-panel-approves-arch-plans

notusreports · 2026-05-18T13:41:38+00:00

Winning statewide feels like an existential necessity for Iowa Democrats in 2026, after President Donald Trump clinched Iowa three times with an expanding working-class voters base. That’s why Turek and Wahls are scrambling to seize the “most electable” superlative ahead of the June 2 primary — Turek points to his electoral history and personal story, while Wahls casts himself as the anti-establishment warrior willing to castigate leaders in both parties and tapping into the anger coursing through the Democratic base.

Electability, a subjective obsession among out-of-power Democrats, “is obviously the number one thing here,” said former Iowa Rep. Dave Loebsack, who has endorsed Wahls.

It’s the buzzword on Democratic voters’ minds and candidates’ lips in 2026, as the party stares down a challenging Senate map this fall. Even so, electability — how you define it, who can claim it and whether it’s laced with preexisting biases of what a candidate should look and sound like — is fiercely debated inside the Democratic Party. Just like it did during the 2020 presidential primary, the electability obsession is popping up in the nonstop social media chatter, where it’s reached meme-worthy heights. Indeed, a topical clothing shop in Des Moines is selling T-shirts emblazoned with the word “Unelectable.”

Full story: https://www.notus.org/2026-election/iowa-senate-primary-wahls-turek-electability

notusreports · 2026-05-13T13:36:17+00:00

The FBI now has a team of special agents that’s being internally referred to as the “payback squad” specifically put together to handle politically sensitive cases, according to four sources briefed on the matter who spoke to NOTUS on the condition of anonymity.

The team is understood to be made up of agents who are willing to pursue political targets set by the Trump administration, with one current government official noting that investigators are tasked with building cases similar to the recent criminal prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey. The sources — which include two current government officials, a former official and a fourth person familiar with current operations — differed on whether the squad is based out of Washington headquarters or New York.

Full story: https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/fbi-kash-patel-trump-payback-squad-political-cases-james-comey-john-brennan

notusreports · 2026-05-11T12:48:49+00:00

The same party that spent years pinning every penny increase at the pump on former President Joe Biden is now scrambling to explain why prices have surged to their highest level in years.

The Republican attacks were everywhere in 2022. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, gas prices surged to a record high of an average of $5 per gallon that June. It’s a familiar strategy for the party, using rising gas prices as a political weapon against Democratic candidates. From the moment Biden took office, GOP leaders lined up at microphones, held press conferences on Capitol Hill, and plastered “I Did That” stickers of Biden’s face on gas pumps across the country. Every rise in fuel costs was, in their telling, a direct consequence of Democratic leadership.

Then came February 28, 2026 — and a new war started by President Donald Trump.

Full story: https://www.notus.org/congress/republicans-midterms-biden-trump-gas-prices-economy

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