Congress

Adam Schiff forms legal defense fund

Published

1 year ago

August 19, 2025

California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, a longtime adversary of President Donald Trump, has formed a legal defense fund, amid the Justice Department probe into his finances.

Schiff, who led the first impeachment effort in the House against Trump and aided the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, has become a frequent target of the president in his second term. Earlier this summer, Trump alleged in a post on Truth Social that the California Democrat “engaged in a sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud” — an allegation Schiff vehemently denies.

“It’s clear that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies will continue weaponizing the justice process to attack Senator Schiff for holding this corrupt administration accountable,” Marisol Samayoa, a spokesperson for Schiff, said in a statement. “This fund will ensure he can fight back against these baseless smears while continuing to do his job.”

Trump specifically alleges that Schiff illicitly claimed his primary residence was Maryland for financial benefit, and his administration has tapped Ed Martin — now pardon attorney and director of DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group — to oversee the matter.

Just a few months ago, Schiff vowed he would place a hold on Martin’s nomination to be U.S. Attorney in D.C., an effort to slow his confirmation prospects. Martin ultimately failed to gain enough support among the Senate GOP to secure his confirmation after Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he would oppose Martin over his past defense of Jan. 6 rioters and his comments about the attack. Trump ultimately selected him for another post at the Department of Justice.

Schiff’s attorney, Preet Bharara — who has had his own confrontations with Trump as the top federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York — has argued that Martin’s involvement into the Schiff probe represents “the very definition of weaponization of the justice process.”

FBI Director Kash Patel, who was once a House Intelligence Committee staffer working to undermine the investigation into election interference, has also released materials that suggests the California Democrat supported leaking information during his time on the House Intelligence Committee to damage the president’s reputation. A spokesperson for Schiff has called the allegation “absolutely and categorically false” and “the latest in a series of defamatory attacks from the President and his allies.”

The acrimony between Schiff and Trump dates back to Trump’s first term, when Schiff, then among former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top allies in the House, served as the top prosecutor in the president’s first impeachment trial. The case centered around allegations of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” though the GOP-controlled Senate eventually acquitted Trump. Schiff parlayed the celebrity brought on by that trial into a successful Senate campaign in California.

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to criticize Schiff.

“They got this phony investigation going on, ‘Russia Russia Russia,” he said at a press conference ahead of his Alaska meeting with Vladimir Putin last week. ”Totally phony, created by Adam Schiff, Shifty Schiff and Hillary Clinton and the whole group of ‘em. And it made it very dangerous for our country.”

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

11 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

11 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

16 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday released text of legislation intended to ban the use of Flock surveillance cameras and other license plate readers.

Flock has faced severe public backlash against the surveillance technology following reports that police officers misused the technology to track women, and it has the largest network of license plate readers across the U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) hosted a hearing last month probing its potential misuses, although the company’s CEO Garrett Langley did not appear.

The latest bill, unveiled Friday and named the Ban Flock Act, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from the technology and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use automated license plate readers.

“At a time of growing concern about the unchecked power of artificial intelligence, Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” Sanders, who has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI technology, said in a statement. “We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly condemned the surveillance capabilities of the technology and said the bill would “enforce our constitutional right to privacy and protect Americans from both corporate and government surveillance.”

“No one should have this unchecked surveillance power at their fingertips,” Merkley added.

Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches.

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.