Controversy-plagued Graham Platner looks to advance in Maine Democratic Senate primary
David Smith
Greetings from Bangor, Maine, where voters are going to the polls for primary elections that include a crucial Senate race involving the scandal-haunted Graham Platner.
The oysterman and Marine veteran’s string of controversies, ranging from alleged “toxic” behaviour towards women to a tattoo recognised as a Nazi symbol, have plunged Democrats into debates about double standards, purity tests and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
There was a final twist yesterday when Genevieve McDonald, a former political director of Platner’s campaign, published a column denouncing Platner as unfit for office.
“Graham Platner is not someone who would be good for Maine or for the country,” McDonald wrote in the Washington Post. “He exhibits a pattern of dishonest behavior that is impossible to ignore.
“Despite being exposed by a series of scandals beginning last October, he kept assuring voters and the Democratic Party that there were no more skeletons in his closet. Then more emerged - the latest, in recent days, have involved former girlfriends’ serious accusations of physical mistreatment.”
Even so, all the signs on the ground are that most Democratic voters are sticking with Platner. At a campaign event on Sunday, a supporter presented him with a hand-drawn card that included the message “we’ve got your back”.
Polls close at 8pm ET.
Scandal-haunted Graham Platner speaks at a campaign event on Sunday in Portland, Maine. Photograph: Robert F Bukaty/AP
There is a trickle of voters at the Cross Insurance Center building, located near a giant, colourful statue of lumberjack Paul Bunyan. Here, I found a split among female voters over Graham Platner in the Democratic primary for the US Senate.
“I like him,” said Jesenia Soler, 39, who describes herself as a transformational self-love practitioner. “He’s very for the people. That he wants to make it more for people instead of corporations is the biggest thing for me.”
Asked about Platner’s various controversies, Soler said: “For me it’s like everyone has shit that they’ve done. It’s human. No one’s perfect. The Nazi tattoo: I know he was a Marine and you don’t know everything you tattoo on yourself at the time and then you find out and like, ‘Oh, shit!’ and then there’s regret.
“The issues with the women: well, that’s between him and the women. It’s not my job to judge someone on what they’ve done as long as they’ve changed and moved forward and not kept on the same pattern. That’s the important thing.”
The pragmatic calculus is shared by Kylie Thorwardson, a 23-year-old clinical intern, who acknowledged: “I am concerned. I very much believe women and also realising that this is very convenient timing for things to come out and holding him accountable if anything does come to play. He doesn’t have my vote for life for sure.”
But Thorwardson is impressed by Platner’s outsider status and progressive agenda. “Mainers struggle day to day,” she continued. “There is such a high financial disparity and that is concerning. I do think we need higher taxes. If you’re driving around here, you know the roads aren’t great. We need new blood.”
But Jackie Farrell, an 81-year-old retiree who formerly worked for Catholic charities, voted for Janet Mills, whose campaign is inactive but who remains on the ballot. Asked what troubles her about Platner, she replied with a laugh: “That he’s a Nazi – hello? And the girlfriends. I’m a woman so I understand that part of it.”
For Farrell, whose political memory stretches back to lining up on the street to wave at President Dwight Eisenhower when she was in second grade, the current landscape is a cause for sorrow. “It makes me cry,” she admitted, tearing up. “But you know, there’s always something bad about everyone.”
While the deadline to renew section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) is fast approaching, it does not mean that the surveillance program itself will go dark.
In March, the Fisa court issued a yearlong certification authorizing section 702 collection through approximately March 2027, even if the law lapses.
House speaker Mike Johnson is meeting with Donald Trump this morning as mounting Democratic outrage over Trump’s appointment of Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence endangers the renewal of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), which is due to expire next week.
“I’m going to go have a private conversation with him and his team on a number of topics,” Johnson told The Hill as he left the US Capitol.
House majority leader Steve Scalise separately told reporters at the GOP leaders’ conference that Johnson is at the White House to discuss the path to reauthorizing the powerful surveillance program.
“It’s too critical for our national security that that program not go dark on Friday night,” Scalise said, adding that criticisms of Pulte should play out during the confirmation process, otherwise: “You’re really going to jeopardize the security of America over a personality issue.”
Trump’s appointment of Pulte, a close ally with no intelligence experience, to the role of DNI set off alarm bells in Washington last week, including from Republicans. John Thune, the Senate majority leader, told reporters that “we don’t need a weaponized” national intelligence director and Pulte would have “a lengthy road ahead of him” if he were nominated to take the post on a permanent basis.
Jeffrey Epstein assistant Lesley Groff testifies before House panel
Anna Betts
Lesley Groff, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime executive assistant, is testifying today before the House oversight and reform committee as lawmakers on the panel continue their investigation into the late convicted sex offender.
Groff worked for Epstein for almost 20 years, beginning in 2001 and ending in July 2019 when he was arrested.
Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House committee, told Good Morning America this week that Groff is “really central to Epstein’s organization, we want to know what she saw”.
“We have a lot of questions,” Garcia added.
Lesley Groff, longtime executive assistant to Jeffrey Epstein, arrives for a behind-closed-doors transcribed interview before the House oversight committee. Photograph: Annabelle Gordon/Reuters
Notes from a 2021 FBI interview with Groff, which was included in the millions of documents related to Epstein released by the Department of Justice earlier this year, state that she told agents that she began working for Epstein after she was contacted by a headhunter, who found her résumé and told her that there “was a job to organize one man’s life”.
The man turned out to be Epstein, and Groff told agents that she had not previously heard of him. She said that she interviewed with several people for the position, including Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. According to the FBI document, Groff said that she signed a non-disclosure agreement.
The document states that Groff told agents her responsibilities included scheduling meetings, making phone calls, coordinating with Epstein’s driver and chef and other people, and managing much of his daily schedule and appointments.
According to the FBI notes, Groff told investigators that “from the beginning, massage was a part of Epstein’s day; they were normal appointments” .
“Groff’s job was to make appointments” the FBI notes say. “To Groff, making massage appointments was just another appointment she had to make for Epstein,” adding that Epstein would call Groff “in the morning and say something like, ‘Call and see if she can do a massage at 4.’”
Representative Yassamin Ansari, another Democrat on the committee, told CNN this week ahead of her testimony that Groff “managed every aspect of Jeffrey’s life for around 18 years” and noted that Groff was mentioned in the Epstein files “more than pretty much anybody else”.
“And she was the one setting up appointments with all of these girls to provide massages to Jeffrey Epstein,” Ansari said. “I wanna know everything that she has to share.”
In recent years, Groff has faced public scrutiny after it emerged that she was among four women identified as possible “co-conspirators” and granted immunity from prosecution under Epstein’s controversial 2007 plea deal with federal prosecutors in Florida. Groff, through lawyers, has always maintained that she had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and that she never engaged in any misconduct. No criminal charges have ever been brought against her.
When asked last month about Groff’s knowledge of details surrounding Epstein’s 2008 conviction, her attorney Michael Bachner told the Guardian that “after Epstein’s arrest in 2008, he continuously lied to Lesley and other members of the staff, insisting that he had been blackmailed and set up.”
Bachner added that Epstein “angrily said that the allegations against him were simply false, and he had no idea that the ‘prostitute’ he had contact with was a minor”, adding that “in Lesley’s mind, that was the reason that he was treated so leniently by law enforcement before and after he was sentenced.”
Vance refers Minnesota governor Tim Walz and state attorney general to DOJ for fraud investigation
Speaking of JD Vance, the vice-president is pressing federal prosecutors to investigate Minnesota’s Democratic governor Tim Walz and state attorney general Keith Ellison over allegations that they failed to stop widespread social services fraud, amplifying concerns that the White House will use a new DOJ division to target political rivals.
Vance, who has been tapped to lead the Trump administration’s anti-fraud efforts, cited a letter to the justice department a report from the Republican-led House oversight committee that alleges Walz and Ellison were aware of, failed to prevent, and enabled pervasive misuse of government programs for years.
In his referral, Vance wrote that officials in Minnesota or anywhere else in the country “must be held accountable” if they facilitated fraud, prevented officials from stopping it or retaliated against whistleblowers who tried to report it.
“Minnesota state officials are not above the law,” Vance wrote in a post on X.
Democratic Minnesota officials have characterized a separate DOJ investigation involving state leaders as politically motivated.
A spokesperson for Walz didn’t immediately respond to a message from the Associated Press seeking comment.
Ellison called the allegations unfounded and said there’s no evidence his office ignored wrongdoing or failed to act as required by law. He dismissed Vance’s referral as “a political stunt from an administration that uses the machinery of government to target its perceived opponents while extending leniency to those aligned with its interests”.
It is deeply troubling to see official powers and public resources diverted away from serving the people and instead aimed at pursuing political adversaries. That is not what government is for, and it diminishes public trust in our institutions.
Vance’s referral to the justice department’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division marks an escalation in the Trump administration’s stated “war on fraud” in government programs that officials have said would not be political or partisan.
The new division has drawn intense scrutiny over the potential for political influence given its close relationship with the White House, which announced its formation in January and initially said its leader would answer directly to the president instead of the typical DOJ command.
Vice-president JD Vance has added a chicken coop to his residence at the US Naval Observatory, the Daily Wire reports, along with a dozen baby chicks whose new henhouse is designed to look like the Victorian home where the second family lives.
The coop was built without taxpayer money, a person familiar with the project told the Associated Press. The residence hosted a family event over the weekend where local 4-H students taught other kids about the newly installed coup, the person said.
Vice-presidents since 1977 have lived on the grounds of the 72-acre property, with many leaving their own imprint. Joe Biden added a heritage garden, Mike Pence’s wife, Karen, contributed beehives, and Kamala Harris’ updates included pink wallpaper in the house’s library. A heated swimming pool on the property was added by Dan Quayle in 1991.
House to vote on $70bn bill to fund Trump's controversial immigration crackdown
The House is set to vote today on the GOP $70bn bill to fund Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda for the remainder of his term.
The House will first have to adopt a procedural rule for consideration of the bill during a series of votes starting at 1.30pm ET. If it is adopted, final passage would take place at a 4.30pm vote series.
It comes days after the Senate passed the legislation 52-47, following a marathon session of votes to knock down proposed amendments – including those seeking to outlaw the Trump’s administration’s “anti-weaponization” fund – as GOP leaders scrambled to prevent the derailment of the wider funding package. Only one Senate Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted against it.
Lawmakers are using budget reconciliation to pass the bill, which requires only a simple majority. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said yesterday that Democrats will be a “hard no” on the legislation.
“We believe that taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the American people, not give ICE another $70bn blank check so they can unleash brutality on American citizens and violently target law-abiding immigrant communities,” he said in a statement. “House Democrats will be a hard no on the reckless Republican budget reconciliation bill this week.”
As you will remember, Democrats have been demanding restraints and accountability measures for ICE and CBP since the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.
The funding would be used to hire and equip more immigration enforcement agents, ramp up deportations and detentions, and upgrade border security.
Graham Platner has some vocal supporters. I spoke to Tim Fullerton, a Democratic strategist born and raised in Maine who is now cofounder and chief executive of Find Out Media. Fullerton interviewed Platner on his podcast last year.
“I find him to be somebody that is willing to own up to past mistakes and acknowledges wrongdoing in his past, which is something this president [Donald Trump] has never done,” Fullerton said. “He truly cares about people and he has changed and so Mainers are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Voters in Maine have an independent streak and are frustrated with do-nothing Washington, Fullerton added, so are unlikely to heed advice from the Democratic establishment.
“The best way to make sure that a Mainer does the opposite of what you want is for somebody from outside of the state to tell them to do something. When you live in a rural state, basically at the end of the country, having somebody in DC in a suit tell you what’s best for you is never going to work particularly well, because those people have never lived the experience of Mainers.
“Graham lives in Sullivan, which is a very small place, and has worked the water, which in Maine is a very big and critical part of the economy there. People in Maine also know lots of people similar to Graham and so they are willing to hear him talk about how he has grown and understand nobody’s perfect. Mainers are not the ones that like the type of candidates that look like they have wanted to run for office since they were eight years old. We all know who those people are.”
Fullerton continued: “They like that he’s a bit gruff. He volunteered to serve his country and experienced some damage and people understand it. People up there know him, vouch for him and see him doing the work that is necessary to make up for some past wrongs.”
