Congress
EMILY’s List-backed Denise Powell wins Dem primary for Rep. Don Bacon’s seat
Activist Denise Powell won the Democratic primary for one of Democrats’ best pickup opportunities this fall after a prolonged vote count in an Omaha-based congressional district.
The Associated Press called the race Wednesday evening. With an estimated just shy of 90 percent of votes counted, Powell led state Sen. John Cavanaugh 38.9 percent to 36.8 percent, with court clerk Crystal Rhoades a distant third.
She will face Republican Brinker Harding in November for the chance to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon in just one of three districts former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024 that is currently represented by a Republican.
Powell, who ran a PAC in Nebraska supporting women for elected office, was supported by EMILY’s List and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, whose affiliated groups combined to spend more than $1 million for her in the race. That pitted them against the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which backed Cavanaugh.
Powell also benefited from millions in outside spending — both supporting her and attacking Cavanaugh — that came from groups backed by dark money nonprofits or that showed signs characteristic of Republican meddling.
Outside groups, along with Powell and Rhoades, made the case that Cavanaugh’s candidacy could endanger Nebraska’s “blue dot” that has yielded one electoral vote for Democrats because Nebraska’s governor would get to appoint the replacement for his blue Omaha-area state legislative seat.
Money is likely to continue to flow in for the general election as the district is one of Democrats’ top targets as they look to take back the House.
A key U.S. spy law remains on track to expire at the end of the week after Speaker Mike Johnson met with President Donald Trump Tuesday about the future of a key section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Trump indicated in the private White House that he’s not inclined to appease Democrats and pave the way for a FISA extension by nominating a permanent director of national intelligence to succeed Bill Pulte, the acting director he installed last week, according to three people briefed on the conversation who were granted anonymity to describe it.
Most Democrats are refusing to move forward with any FISA extension so long as Pulte, a close political ally of the president with no national security experience, remains in the intelligence post. Some Republicans have been hoping a new Trump nomination could provide an off-ramp ahead of the quickly approaching FISA deadline.
But the people briefed on the meeting were left with the impression it didn’t go very well as Trump continues to push back on any suggestion that he needs to placate Democrats to pave the way for a FISA extension.
Johnson told reporters Tuesday the meeting went well but declined to discuss specifics. He added that “Democrats have taken a hostage” and that the Senate would need to quickly figure out a path forward.
Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime assistant Lesley Groff said in a closed-door interview Tuesday that she arranged phone calls between the late, disgraced financier and President Donald Trump, two Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee told reporters.
“I believe she referred to a time before, before Mr. Trump was president, that she did arrange for multiple phone calls between the two,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said of Groff, who worked for Epstein for around 18 years beginning in 2001.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) also said that Groff told the panel that “she arranged calls for them to connect,” referring to the president and Epstein, but that those calls were not frequent.
Groff is on Capitol Hill to speak to the Oversight committee as part of its ongoing Epstein investigation. Trump has insisted he cut off ties with Epstein years before his death and has not been charged with any misconduct, but Democrats have repeatedly questioned whether the administration has worked to cover up evidence of a continued relationship.
“Just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in a statement. “And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”
Groff was never charged with any wrongdoing, but in a class-action lawsuit against the co-executors of Epstein’s estate, she is cited as “Epstein’s secretary who made travel arrangements for the girls, tended to their living needs, and scheduled massage sessions.” She also was named as an unindicted co-conspirator as part of Epstein’s 2008 non-prosecution agreement.
A key player in Epstein’s orbit throughout his life, Groff’s name is featured prominently in the Epstein files rolled out by the Justice Department late last year, showing her on the front lines of arranging meetings on her former boss’s behalf.
But behind closed doors Tuesday, lawmakers said Tuesday that Groff sought to distance herself from Epstein’s improprieties, telling the Oversight committee she did not see Epstein engage in misconduct.
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) said in an interview that he did not believe it was “remotely plausible” for Groff to be oblivious to Epstein’s deeds.
“He was a registered sex offender, and she arranged young women for massages with a registered sex offender, and I just question whether, whether she can rightfully and truthfully maintain that she saw nothing improper,” said Lynch.
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said in an interview Monday night he was eager to “get [Groff] on the record, so that when we find out later she was lying, we can arrest her.”
An attorney for Groff did not return a request for comment.
House Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu hammered a bipartisan AI framework Tuesday, saying the proposal his colleagues introduced last week “cannot meet the enormity of the moment.”
Lieu, who is also one of three members on an AI commission convened by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, said at his weekly news conference that the regulatory blueprint championed by his fellow Californian, Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte — and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) — “was not something that would work, because there’s a lot of issues it does not cover.”
Lieu said he welcomes other House Democrats to engage on the topic, but suggested that Trahan and Obernolte had failed to win over adequate support to make their framework politically viable. Their 269-page draft bill would, among other things, override some state AI laws, drawing attacks from many House Democrats and safety advocates.
“In Congress you have to build a consensus, you actually have to get groups and members of Congress and organizations to support what you’re trying to do,” Lieu added. “The particular framework that was released last week got intense pushback from the civil rights community, the labor community, AI safety folks — and so you know, if we’re to get something done, we need to build consensus and build a coalition, and that’s the first step that needs that.”
His unsparing comments are a blow not only to efforts to find common ground on a thorny policy matter, but also expose deeper rifts among Democrats as the party has struggled to coalesce around a unified vision for how to regulate the emerging technology.
Trahan has said she jumped into AI negotiations with Republicans because she is worried about mass economic and humanitarian disruption from Anthropic’s Mythos model, necessitating quick legislative action and cross-party dealmaking. Lieu said he is well aware of the urgency to produce a framework to regulate AI, insisting his commission would roll out its own proposal by the end of the year.
“Shortly after OpenAI released ChatGPT to the world, I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that was titled, essentially, ‘AI freaks me out,’” Lieu said. “I am well aware of the urgency, many people are well aware of the urgency, so it’s not lost on the people working on this issue that we need to urgently get something done.”
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