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Following the Supreme Court’s historic decision on former President Trump’s immunity claim in the federal election interference case, the matter has been officially returned for a trial.

This is standard court procedure. A month after the Supreme Court’s July 1 decision, the case has been formally remanded to the appeals court, which will then return it to Judge Tanya Chutkan.

‘ORDERED, on the court’s own motion, that this case be remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion,’ the Aug. 2 filing reads.

In the coming days, Judge Chutkan is expected to establish a schedule for the parties to discuss the application of the SCOTUS ruling in the ongoing prosecution. Open court hearings are anticipated, after which the judge will determine the extent to which the Special Counsel’s evidence can be used in the trial.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office, but not for unofficial acts.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court sent the matter back down to a lower court, as the justices did not apply the ruling to whether or not former President Trump is immune from prosecution regarding actions related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The ruling came shortly after a New York jury found Trump guilty on all counts of falsifying business records in the first degree stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation. 

Special Counsel Jack Smith charged the former president with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Those charges stemmed from Smith’s investigation into whether Trump was involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and any alleged interference in the 2020 election result.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges last summer.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment. 

This is a developing story.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report. 

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The former campaign manager for former President Obama, David Plouffe, has joined Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, and the newly minted Democratic nominee has retained the entire leadership team of President Biden’s re-election effort. 

Harris on Friday secured the Democratic presidential nomination, weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago begins on Aug. 19. 

The vice president’s campaign, now in full swing, will include the members of President Biden’s suspended re-election campaign and a number of experienced Democratic operatives who will aid in her effort to beat former President Trump in November. 

Jen O’Malley Dillon, who worked as Biden’s campaign chair, has agreed to stay in the top role, reporting directly to Harris. Dillon is expected to run the campaign from the original Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.

Julie Chávez Rodriguez will remain campaign manager, with Rob Flaherty continuing his role as deputy campaign manager. Quentin Fulks will continue his role as principal deputy campaign manager, and Michael Tyler is continuing his role as communications director. 

Harris’ campaign has also brought on Liz Allen, who will serve as chief of staff for Harris’ yet-to-be-named running mate, and Megan Rooney as head speechwriter. 

Brian Fallon, who was previously the director of public affairs for Obama’s Justice Department, a top aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 national press secretary, will also join the Harris campaign as a senior adviser for communications. 

Plouffe, Obama’s former campaign manager, will serve as the senior adviser on the ‘Path to 270’ and the strategy moving forward. Plouffe will suspend his consulting work for TikTok and his podcast while advising the campaign, according to a source. 

Jen Palmieri, who ran communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and served as Obama’s White House communications director, will also join the Harris campaign as an adviser for second gentleman Doug Emhoff. 

Other senior-level consultants joining the team include Mitch Stewart, who will serve as a senior adviser for battleground states, and Terrance Woodbury, who will watch polling. 

The top consultants are not expected to work out of Wilmington. 

David Binder is also expected to take a leading role in polling and research with the existing team. 

The Harris campaign has also added a new paid media strategy and will continue its work with Blue Sky, Conexion and Truxton and expects to work with GMMB. Fulks is expected to oversee that program. 

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge came onboard as a campaign co-chair and will expand her role to include outreach and strategy, while her co-chair, Rep. Cedric Richmond, will continue his work as a longtime adviser to Harris. 

Sources close to the campaign said the team is in place to ‘scale and manage what is coming’ in terms of the intensity of the volume and work that comes with a general election season. 

Sources said the moves also reflect an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ approach to the final stretch before the November election. They said the Democratic Party is ‘united.’ 

The built-out team was named after Harris secured the nomination Friday. 

‘I am so proud to confirm that Vice President Harris has earned more than a majority of votes from all convention delegates and will be the nominee of the Democratic Party following the close of voting on Monday,’ DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement.

Harris, on a call Friday with supporters, said, ‘I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States.’

She emphasized that ‘the tireless work of our delegates, our state leaders and staff has been pivotal in making this moment possible.’

The news came amid a virtual roll call for the nomination, which the DNC kicked off Thursday and lasts through Monday.

And while the nomination of Harris was never in doubt, the vice president was the only candidate to qualify for the presidential nomination roll call. It marks a historic milestone in the nation’s history with Harris becoming the first woman of color to lead a major political party’s national ticket.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. 

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Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday officially clinched her party’s 2024 presidential nomination, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced that the vice president had secured the votes of a majority of pledged delegates to the Democrats’ upcoming national convention.

‘I am so proud to confirm that Vice President Harris has earned more than a majority of votes from all convention delegates and will be the nominee of the Democratic Party following the close of voting on Monday,’ DNC chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement.

Harris, on a call Friday with supporters, said, ‘I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States.’

She emphasized that ‘the tireless work of our delegates, our state leaders and staff has been pivotal in making this moment possible.’

The news came amid a virtual roll call for the nomination, which the DNC kicked off on Thursday and will last through Monday.

And while the nomination of Harris was never in doubt, the vice president was the only candidate to qualify for the presidential nomination roll call. It marks an historic milestone in the nation’s history, as Harris becomes the first woman of color to lead a major political party’s national ticket.

While the official nomination vote by the delegates is being held remotely, the DNC said a ceremonial roll call will be held at the Democratic National Convention, which is set to kick off Aug. 19 in Chicago.

Harris’ clinching of the nomination comes less than two weeks after President Biden’s blockbuster announcement that he was ending his 2024 re-election campaign against former President Trump, the GOP’s nominee.

Biden’s stunning news came amid mounting pressure from within the Democratic Party for him to drop out after a disastrous performance in last month’s first presidential debate with Trump. The 81-year-old Biden’s halting and stumbling delivery fueled questions about his physical and mental abilities to serve another four years in the White House.

But Biden’s immediate backing of Harris ignited a surge of endorsements for the vice president by Democratic governors, senators, House members and other party leaders. Within 36 hours, Harris announced that she had locked up her party’s nomination by landing the verbal backing of a majority of the nearly 4,000 convention delegates.

With Harris’ nomination now cleared of any doubt, speculation has soared in the past week and a half over whom the vice president will choose as her running mate. The Harris campaign announced that the vice president and her soon-to-be-named running mate will embark on a swing through all seven key battleground states starting Tuesday in Pennsylvania.

After the presidential nomination virtual roll call concludes at 6 p.m. ET on Monday, DNC rules allow for Harris to place the name of her running mate into nomination. 

According to the DNC, the convention chair would then declare that candidate to be the party’s vice presidential nominee.

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A new poll revealed that Vice President Kamala Harris’ pool of potential running mates remains widely unknown to the public.

A new AP-NORC survey asked Americans their opinions of three candidates being considered as Harris’ potential running mate: Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Pa., and Gov. Andy Beshear, D-Ky.

There was one candidate leading in favorability among the survey’s Democratic respondents.

Kelly was found to have the highest favorability rate among those in the candidate pool, with about 45% of Democratic respondents having a favorable opinion of the senator.

About four in 10 Democratic respondents said that they still do not know Kelly well enough as a candidate to form an opinion.

According to the poll, about one quarter of Democratic respondents said they view Shapiro positively, while 16% have a negative view of him. 

Still, the Pennsylvania governor remains unfamiliar to most respondents. 

About 60% of respondents said they do not have enough information to form an opinion on Shaprio, with 57% of Democrats saying they do not know him well enough to say whether they favor him as a candidate.

The majority of adults, 74%, said they also do not know enough about Beshear to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion. 

Politico recently reported that Harris’ vetting team met privately with both Shapiro and Kelly, but the vice president has yet to make a formal announcement on her running mate.

Harris will hold the first campaign event with her vice presidential pick on Tuesday in Philadelphia, but is expected to announce her running mate in the days beforehand.

The poll was conducted from July 25 to 29 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

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The American health care system is broken. Conflicts of interest dominate the structure, killing any chance we have for a healthier nation. Patients pay more and stay sick. Politicians argue and nothing changes.

But this problem presents a unique opportunity for our fractured society: as ‘Fox and Friends Weekend’ co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy said last week, better health outcomes may be the most unifying issue of our time.

In 2019, to no great fanfare, the Trump administration made vital adjustments to set the stage for transforming today’s chronic disease system that keeps patients sick to a true health system that makes people well. 

Under the leadership of Seema Verma, then director of our nation’s Medicaid and Medicare systems, we developed crucial infrastructure to demonstrate the transformative potential of integrated health care systems. Simply put, four new Medicare billing codes were added to fund chronic care management and continuous remote disease monitoring.

With this, we set a course to address more than 75% of the nation’s $4 trillion in annual health care costs: chronic disease management. Before we could implement this simple bipartisan reform, the coronavirus pandemic seized the world. Priorities changed quickly.

These codes, and the work that went into establishing them, are still the foundation of fundamental reform. The next administration, Republican or Democrat, must follow through on that work to transform structural health care problems. This will cut costs while improving the health of our nation.

Our problems are driven by the conflict of interest between health care providers and insurers. Providers are incentivized to maximize patient visits and treatments; insurers strive to minimize payouts. This misalignment plagues our nation with fragmented care, higher costs and poor patient outcomes. 

Indeed, this conflict kills. 

To address this, we must integrate health care services with insurance functions under a unified model. Integrated and aligned, health care providers and insurers work together to improve patient health outcomes.

By also leveraging advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and ‘internet of things’ (IoT), we will create continuous and proactive engagement with patients, particularly those with chronic conditions. This model provides personalized care and early interventions, reducing the need for costly emergency treatments and hospitalizations.

The primary focus of this model is patient well-being and improved outcomes. AI monitoring helps predict health issues and enables timely interventions which prevent complications and greatly enhance patient outcomes. Importantly, effective chronic disease management also reduces overall costs to the health care system.

Continuous monitoring and data analytics allow for better risk assessment and management. Insurers can dynamically adjust premiums based on real-time health data, rewarding patients for healthy behaviors and adherence to treatment plans. This incentivizes patients to take better care of their health and reduces the financial risk for insurers by minimizing high-cost claims.

The integration also leads to significant cost savings by reducing administrative overhead and eliminating redundant processes. With a unified system, there is a seamless flow of information between patients, health care providers and insurers. This brings better resource utilization and operational efficiency while improving workflows that highlight prevention. 

The savings can be reinvested into patient care and technology advancements. This will further improve the system and our nation’s health. 

For health care providers already integrated, like University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente, the model improves crucial metrics for success: more consistent patient engagement and better health outcomes. 

Providers will be able to prioritize their time to those who will benefit the most while doctors supervise AI-driven routine interactions. Meanwhile, much healthier patients will enjoy personalized care and lower insurance premiums.

Technology advancements are key to addressing ongoing health care structural problems. AI and IoT devices monitor patient health in real-time, detecting potential health issues early and facilitating timely interventions. For instance, AI can help assess and identify patients at high risk of developing chronic conditions, prompting preventive measures to avert serious health problems. 

By understanding and engaging patient behaviors, we can encourage adherence to treatment plans and healthy lifestyle choices. To reduce the frequency and severity of claims, chronic disease patients can be urged toward more healthy behavior – ‘no more sweets today’ texts can save lives.

The integrated model has far-reaching implications for both the health care and insurance sectors. It challenges the traditional silos and fosters a collaborative approach to health care delivery and insurance management. By aligning the goals of both sectors, the model ensures financial incentives are directed toward maintaining and improving patient health, not just managing illness.

This shift toward a proactive, patient-centered approach is particularly transformative for managing chronic diseases, which are major cost drivers in the health care system. With the continuous engagement and personalized care Director Verma envisioned in 2019, patients with chronic conditions can achieve better health outcomes. This saves money and lives.

The future of health care is clear and bipartisan: an integrated system focused on improved health outcomes. Building on the infrastructure we established in 2019, this model leverages advanced technologies and a unified approach to healthcare and insurance, promising sustainable and scalable improvements – and better care for all.

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A pair of Black female activists, who have met with Vice President Harris several times and previously vowed to get ‘real serious’ about helping her become the next president, could alienate some of the ‘White women for Kamala’ supporters with their past rhetoric as they mobilize ahead of November’s election.

Cora Masters Barry, an appointee of Democrat D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and longtime civil rights activist, and Melanie Campbell, who leads the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, have visited the White House more than 50 times combined during the Biden administration, including nearly a dozen visits with Harris or her staff, a Fox News Digital review found.

Weeks before President Biden and Harris were sworn into office in 2021, Barry and Campbell participated in a public Zoom call in which they made controversial statements about Trump supporters and attacked White voters, specifically White women, which could cause some internal clashes as different coalitions mobilize to try to get Harris into the White House.

Approximately 164,000 White women hopped on a Zoom call last week, which was organized by Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts and other female celebrities. The call, titled ‘White Women: Answer the Call,’ reportedly raised millions of dollars for Harris’ campaign and could be a major fundraising force over the next few months. 

However, the unearthed comments from the two activists could cause some internal tension for the Harris campaign as they look to mobilize different voting blocs and have called for ‘Unity.’

‘If you claim to stand for unity, you need to do more than just use the word,’ Harris recently said.

‘We have to change our strategy. We got to get our people. We have to get our – they got their people. They got all the trailer parks all covered,’ Barry said during the Zoom. ‘All them people up in West Virginia and the hills, they’re covered. They got them all the way there to Wall Street.’

‘[Trump] did that, and we’re sitting here talking about the White women. F— the white women– excuse me – forget the White women. They’re going to do what the White men tell them to do,’ Barry continued, eliciting laughter and clapping from Campbell.

‘What they tell themselves,’ Campbell interjected.

‘They be smiling in their faces, they want to stay in charge,’ Barry continued, with Campbell reacting affirmatively in the background. ‘I don’t care nothing about them, we got to do what we got to do.’

Barry went on to say that the Black community has to ‘get real serious about organizing to elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States’ and that she doesn’t ‘want no women’s parade.’

‘If they have another Women’s March – I’ll go over there and blow it up,’ Barry said.

Barry also attacked supporters of then-President Trump, comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan by saying, ‘I’m not saying everyone who voted for Trump is wearing a white sheet, but they got one in their closet, and it comes out when we start messing with the economic value or the balance of power.’

Barry went on to say at the time that, should Biden win the 2020 election, her group has ‘got to start organizing to make sure that the next president of the United States is a Black woman.’

‘And that’s not going to happen if we don’t reach all of our Black people, because they’re the ones who are going to put her in there,’ Barry added. ‘Those White folks ain’t going to put her in there.’

During the same Zoom call, Campbell was also critical of White women who have cast their votes for Trump, saying ‘race’ and ‘White privilege’ were driving factors and that she didn’t understand how they could support someone who ‘disrespects you as a woman.’

‘Am I surprised? No. Am I frustrated? Yeah – determined that we have to still find a way to get up and deal with it,’ Campbell said. ‘What I’m not interested in doing is what I did, Cora, in 2016 is have these fruitless conversations with my White girlfriends who want to tell me we need to sit down and have a conversation. No we don’t. You need to go talk to your sister. You need to go talk to your cousin.’

‘I have no interest in understanding why White folks do what they do. They do what they do because they doing what they do if I was them. They’re fighting to stay in charge and in control. That’s what they’re doing. I ain’t mad at them. What I am is mad at us,’ Barry added, referring to the Black community.

Near the end of the Zoom call, Barry said it is a ‘perfect time’ to mobilize Black voters and push their agenda ‘because there’s a lot of White guilt money out there.’

‘I’m gonna take it- put it in my community and radicalize my people so they can come for your job. I’m saying it’s time to act,’ she continued.

In addition to Barry’s comments about White women, Fox News Digital previously reported on Barry lavishly praising notorious antisemite Louis Farrakhan in 2022 at a private event honoring her late husband, former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.

During Barry’s remarks at the private ceremony, she praised Farrakhan, who has espoused antisemitic rhetoric for decades, including calling Jews ‘wicked’ and comparing them to termites. Barry referred to Farrakhan as a ‘friend’ and ‘member of the family’ while also telling him ‘I love you more than words will ever say.’

‘Minister Farrakhan, we love you more than you love us. You just don’t know it,’ she added.

Farrakhan in turn praised Barry, saying, ‘Praise God for this woman. She is a treasure. A real treasure.’

A spokesperson for both Barry and Campbell defended the comment about White women, previously telling Fox News Digital that the comment was in reference to how White women are not as reliable Democrat voters and that the vice president was not part of the conversation.

Barry, Campbell and the Harris campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report.

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Just a week after President Biden abandoned his re-election campaign – and his vice president quickly sewed up the support of the Democratic delegates – a series of polls are beginning to measure the impact of the attempted assassination of former President Trump, the Republican convention – and the impact of the substitution of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.

The polls suggest the vice president is in a closer contest with Trump than Biden was. Indeed, according to the Real Clear Politics average, Harris has cut Trump’s lead almost in half from 3.1 points when Biden dropped out (47.9 Trump to 44.8 Biden) to 1.7 today (47.9 Trump to 46.2 Harris).

In recent months, I’ve urged folks to focus primarily on Trump’s share in the polls – rather than the difference between the candidates. The mantra has been ‘Trump will get his number.’ His larger-than-life political persona is such that each voter has already decided what they think of him (positive or negative). Barring a seismic political event, it’s hard to see what would make anyone change their mind about him.

In the weeks before Biden’s disastrous debate performance, some accused me of spinning for Biden. And, yes, I did think that the bulk of the undecided were traditionally Democratic voters who might not have been ready to commit to Biden (primarily due to his age and lackluster persona) – but that they’d come ‘home’ to the old man by October.

The Harris campaign has sped up that process. The polls show that many voter groups – notably young people and minorities – have ‘come home’ in July – even before the Democratic convention and her official nomination.  

Media coverage of the race has been primarily focused on the unity the Democrats (surprisingly) are showing – and how that will likely result in a particularly effective August convention.

But, I’m sorry, it hasn’t primarily recast the election.

It’s still about Trump – and whether voters want to see him return to the White House, or opt for Harris and prevent a second Trump term.

And just as before – the best way to analyze the new polls – is to look at the share of the vote that Trump seems to be winning. 

(Yes, in the current environment, I suspect folks will see me arguing ‘Just look at Trump’s number’ and think I’m spinning for Trump.)

As he has for most of the year, Trump is hovering between 45% and 50% of the vote in almost all national polls measuring his strength against a single opponent. 

If anything (though it’s not yet statistically significant) several respected recent polls have him creeping up – and show him closer to 50 than to 45. 

And remember, the Republican candidate doesn’t need to win the popular vote (which national polls measure) to carry the Electoral College. Given how the Democratic electorate tends to be concentrated in the larger coastal states and urban areas, the Republican candidate can win the 2024 election even while losing the popular vote. 

In two of the three presidential elections that Republicans won this century, they actually lost the national popular vote. In 2020, Trump got less than 47% of the popular vote – and he still came very close to capturing the Electoral College. 

The same patterns exists within the battleground states. Most likely, the Democrats need to win all three of the so-called ‘Blue Wall’ states in the ‘rust belt’ – Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Last week’s Fox News polls showed each of them as essentially toss-ups. Pennsylvania and Michigan were tied (49-49) and Wisconsin had Trump up 1 point (50-49). 

Trump arguably only needs to win one of them to prevent Harris from hitting 270 in the Electoral College.

The best sign for Harris in the current polling is that her voters appear much more enthusiastic than Biden voters had been. Indeed, the enthusiasm of her supporters is on par with the enthusiasm of Trump voters. In a very close election, with both sides fielding well-funded get-out-the-vote efforts, individual voter enthusiasm can put one candidate over the top.

But the bottom line remains: Trump still is hitting in the high 40s – and until the Democrats figure out how to get him to lose the support he currently has – he’s the advantaged candidate in this election.

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Vice President Kamala Harris raked in a staggering $310 million in fundraising in July, her campaign announced on Friday morning, in what it touted was ‘the biggest haul of the 2024 cycle.’

The fundraising by the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee was more than double the $138.7 million that Donald Trump’s campaign announced on Thursday that the former president brought in last month.

Harris has enjoyed a fundraising surge in the 12 days since President Biden, in a blockbuster announcement, ended his re-election campaign and endorsed his vice president to succeed him at the top of the Democratic Party’s ticket.

The embattled president’s immediate backing of Harris ignited a slew of endorsements for the vice president by Democratic governors, senators, House members and other party leaders. Within 36 hours, Harris announced that she had locked up her party’s nomination by landing the verbal backing of a majority of the nearly 4,000 delegates to this month’s Democratic National Convention.

The Harris campaign, in announcing their July fundraising, highlighted that more than $200 million was brought in during the first week after the vice president replaced Biden. They called it the ‘single greatest week in fundraising history’ and touted that July was the ‘best grassroots fundraising month in presidential history.’

According to the Harris campaign, two-thirds of the monthly haul came from first-time donors. And they also highlighted that they were sitting on a massive $377 million war chest as of the end of July.

The July fundraising, by what started out as the Biden campaign and quickly transformed into the Harris campaign, is up from the healthy $127 million that the Biden-Harris ticket brought in during the month of June. Nearly $40 million of that haul came at the end of the month, after Biden’s disastrous June 27th debate performance against Trump.

In a sign of support for the 81-year-old president, donors initially shelled out big bucks for Biden in the wake of the debate. 

But Biden’s halting and shaky debate delivery also instantly fueled questions about his physical and mental abilities to serve another four years in the White House – and spurred a rising chorus of calls from within his own party for the president to end his bid for a second term in the White House. The brief surge in fundraising didn’t last and by early July, began to significantly slow down.

Meanwhile, Trump’s July haul was an increase of over $25 million from the $112 million the former president brought in during the month of June.

The Trump campaign also reported $327 million cash-on-hand as of the end of July and said in a statement that ‘these numbers reflect continued momentum with donors at every level and provide the resources for the final 96 days until victory November 5th.’

Trump, in a social media post a couple of hours later, pointed to his fundraising and said, ‘Spectacular support from Great American Patriots who are donating to our Campaign for President of the United States.’

The Harris campaign has been spotlighting their surge in fundraising since the vice president replaced Biden at the top of the ticket.

Early last week, the Harris campaign touted that they hauled in $81 million in the 24 hours following Biden’s announcement that he was suspending his campaign.

The one-day haul easily topped the nearly $53 million Trump brought in two months ago in the first 24 hours after the former president was convicted on 34 felony counts in his criminal trial in New York City.

The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee enjoyed a fundraising lead over Trump and the Republican National Committee earlier this year. But Trump and the RNC topped Biden and the DNC $331 million to $264 million during the April-June second quarter of 2024 fundraising.

Fundraising, along with polling, is a key metric in campaign politics and a measure of a candidate’s popularity and their campaign’s strength. The money raised can be used – among other things – to hire staff, expand grassroots outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts, pay to produce and run ads on TV, radio, digital and mailers, and for candidate travel.

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For most of the past three years, Vice President Kamala Harris has been even more unpopular than her historically unpopular boss, President Biden, due largely to her responsibility as a key player in the administration’s disastrous open border policies. 

In light of Harris’ failures and unpopularity, it wouldn’t have been surprising if Biden had decided to replace her on the ticket with someone more competent.  If Biden had done that going into the Democratic convention, and Harris had claimed that she got to keep the Biden campaign’s hard-earned campaign funds, she would have been laughed out of the room.

After all, the money was all raised into the ‘Biden for President’ campaign, with Harris’ name not included in ‘paid for’ disclaimers and Harris not mentioned in the joint fundraising committee notices. Donors were not informed that the money could go to Harris, perhaps because of her unpopularity, or perhaps because it was never intended to go to her. 

Either way, if Harris couldn’t have kept Biden’s money upon being replaced on the ticket, then she also can’t keep Biden’s money when he was forced to withdraw because of infirmity.

Within hours of Biden’s announcement that he was withdrawing from competing to be his party’s nominee, the Harris team amended the Biden campaign’s Federal Election Commission (FEC) Statement of Organization to instead be for ‘Harris for President,’ with the bizarre committee e-mail address of fec@joebiden.com. 

There is no legal authority for this unprecedented maneuver of replacing one candidate’s name with another on a FEC Form 1, and FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey diplomatically noted that ‘it raised a host of open questions about whether it is legal.’

Cooksey was no doubt being circumspect because he knows that the FEC is going to need to evaluate forthcoming complaints regarding the legality of this maneuver, but the reality is that because of timing issues, the FEC is not suited to take action until it is too late. 

The Harris campaign is aware, for example, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit’s recent ruling regarding the illegal actions of Correct the Record coordinating with the Hillary Clinton for President campaign. If it has taken eight years to deal with the Clinton campaign’s illegal coordination, then the Harris team likely believes that any penalty they are sanctioned with for impermissibly using the Biden campaign’s money will be years in the future.

While the FEC usually has exclusive jurisdiction for regulating federal campaign fundraising, many state attorneys general have a consumer protection mandate that is implicated by the now Harris campaign’s deceptive fundraising practices. 

The funds in question here were raised for candidate Biden and 11 C.F.R. § 110.1(b)(3) makes clear, ‘If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded…’ 

Donors understood that the $3,300 per donor raised for Biden’s general election account would be refunded to them if Biden didn’t become his party’s nominee and make the general election. Now, Biden clearly isn’t in the general election, and instead of refunding millions of dollars of such money to donors, the Harris campaign appears to be simply taking it. 

That sounds a lot like the definition of fraud, which is in most cases a state crime within the jurisdiction of state attorneys general.

In the course of investigating Republican campaign fundraising practices in 2021, the Democrat attorneys general offices for Maryland, Connecticut, Minnesota and New York jointly explained that ‘Political donors have the right to be safe from fraud and deception.’  

Now, you have money that was raised under the Biden disclaimer being simply transferred to a different candidate without notice to or consent from donors.  That looks like fraud and deception and should be investigated.

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Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., criticized the Biden administration’s handling of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, arguing that it has fed his regime’s strongman image and emboldened him in his more authoritarian aims. 

‘In my view, it strengthened them internally, and I think gave him the boldness to say: I can get away with this now,’ Rubio argued. ‘I’ll be condemned. They’ll snap back some sanctions, people will say mean things about me, but in a few months… 2 million more people will leave Venezuela. I’ll put some people in jail and crack down on them, and the people around me and the regime will remain loyal, because I’ve proven that I can win and, I can win in negotiations.’ 

Rubio explained that he believes the root problem lies with the people President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have around them, which includes ‘people who are convinced that you can negotiate a good outcome anywhere.’

‘There are some people that you simply can’t just close because of their nature and because of their interests,’ Rubio insisted. ‘There isn’t going to be a diplomatic solution, unfortunately, in the short term… particularly when you’re dealing with authoritarians that are trying to figure out how to stay in power.’ 

Anti-government protests have continued in the days following the late July presidential election that the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council handed to the incumbent with an alleged victory margin of 51%, compared to 44% support for the opposition. 

Pre-election polling (which is illegal in the country) showed that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had double the support that Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) had. Venezuelans took to the streets in peaceful protest, but Maduro sent out police to crackdown on them and to clear the streets, leading to violent clashes and escalation. 

Maduro on Wednesday asked the country’s Supreme Court to audit the election, responding to claims that the opposition had won the election and international claims that the election was not fair and free, but many argue that PSUV has such thorough control over every part of the country’s judiciary it is ‘compromised.’ 

Ultimately, the Biden administration on Thursday declared Gonzalez the rightful winner of the election, arguing that, ‘Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election.’ 

‘The democratic opposition has published more than 80% of the tally sheets received directly from polling stations throughout Venezuela,’ U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a press release. ‘Those tally sheets indicate that Edmundo González Urrutia received the most votes in this election by an insurmountable margin.’

The U.S. State Department stressed that Maduro’s victory followed with ‘no supporting evidence’ and that the U.S. ‘consulted widely with partners and allies around the world’ and ‘none have concluded that Nicolás Maduro received the most votes this election.’ 

The U.S. helped broker the Barbados Agreement between the Venezuelan president and the opposition parties in his country last October, seeking free and fair elections in exchange for sanctions relief. Maduro immediately backtracked on the agreement by suspending primaries over alleged corruption just one month after signing the deal. 

The State Department then in April allowed the relief, known as General License 44, to expire. The license allowed Venezuela to perform transactions related to oil and gas sector operations, despite acknowledging that Maduro had delivered on ‘some of the commitments’ on the electoral roadmap. 

A National Security Council spokesperson told Fox News Digital that it is ‘inaccurate to characterize’ the Barbados Agreement as a ‘quid pro quo.’ 

‘We significantly changed the sanctions policy we inherited from the previous administration because there is no question that the previous administration’s sanctions policy was not working and led to the exodus of 8 million Venezuelans,’ the spokesperson said. 

‘In October we calibrated our sanctions policy following the Barbados Agreement to show Maduro and his representatives that things could be different, if only they followed through on their commitments — which they now are not doing, and you can anticipate swift USG [United States Government]action very soon,’ the spokesperson argued. 

Jorge Jraissati, a Venezuelan foreign policy expert and President of the Economic Inclusion Group, bemoaned that the Biden administration has ‘not done enough at all’ through an ‘erratic’ policy towards Venezuela at a time when America’s support remains essential to achieving meaningful progress.

‘It lacks strategy,’ Jraissati said. ‘It has relied on empty promises on the part of Maduro, and, as a result, the Maduro regime has been able to strengthen their position internationally, as well as their finances.’

‘To bring freedom to Venezuela, we need a real strategist in the White House,’ Jraissati added. ‘We need a foreign policy doctrine that leverages America’s mind power and its vast geoeconomic tools. We need a president that understands the national security and economic importance of Venezuela.’

‘When it comes to the American people, we need their brightest minds to join our cause,’ he urged. ‘We need the strategic mind of U.S. businessmen, new technologies built in Silicon Valley and the intellect of America’s greatest experts.’

The State Department did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

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