Washington
Trump orders DOJ to investigate Democrats’ top fundraising platform
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has ordered the Justice Department to investigate the Democratic Party’s top fundraising platform, the latest example of Trump using the tools of the government to go after his political opponents.
Trump, in an executive order signed Thursday, directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate allegations that Republicans have raised that ActBlue allows illegal campaign donations.
Democrats, who had anticipated they would be targeted, condemned the move Thursday and ActBlue called it an “oppressive use of power” by the White House.
“The Trump Administration’s and GOP’s targeting of ActBlue is part of their brazen attack on democracy in America. Today’s escalation by the White House is blatantly unlawful and needs to be seen for what it is: Donald Trump’s latest front in his campaign to stamp out all political, electoral and ideological opposition,” ActBlue said in a statement.
ActBlue said it would pursue “all legal avenues to protect and defend itself.”
“ActBlue will continue its mission and work undeterred and uninterrupted, providing a safe, secure fundraising platform for the millions of grassroots donors who rely on us.”
Trump’s order directs Bondi, in consultation with the Treasury Department, to investigate allegations that online fundraising platforms, and specifically ActBlue, have been used by some to “make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees.”
The findings of the investigation will be reported back with 180 days, according to the order.
Since taking office, Trump has sought to use the powers of the government to retaliate against his opponents, including ordering security clearances to be stripped and punishing law firms linked to prosecutors who have investigated him or who have ties to his adversaries.
ActBlue, which Democratic campaigns have used for two decades, had helped power an outpouring of small-dollar donations to candidates and causes. It was so successful that Republicans eventually created a counterpart, WinRed — which Trump did not target in the order.
Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley applauded the investigation, saying in a statement, “The Democrats’ Dark Money scam has gone on long enough.”
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand and Democratic Governors Association Chair Laura Kelly denounced the executive order in a joint statement.
“Donald Trump’s memorandum targeting ActBlue is designed to undermine democratic participation — and it’s no wonder why,” the statement said. “He knows Americans are already fed up with his chaotic agenda that is driving the economy off a cliff, so he’s trying to block lawful grassroots donations from supporters giving just $5 or $10 to candidates who oppose him while further empowering the corrupt billionaires who already control his administration.”
New York
Private equity exec raped and tortured women at his apartment, prosecutors say
NEW YORK (AP) — A private equity executive turned his New York City apartment into a torture chamber of “grotesque sexual violence,” Manhattan prosecutors said Thursday. He is accused of raping six women over five months in a depraved rampage in which he allegedly punched, waterboarded and shocked victims with a cattle prod and kept recordings of the assaults as trophies.
Ryan Hemphill, who remains jailed after his arrest last month, pleaded not guilty to a 116-count indictment charging him with predatory sexual assault and other crimes dating to last October. The 43-year-old, who is also a lawyer, threatened to have victims arrested or disappeared in a bid to keep them silent, prosecutors said.
“The defendant told these survivors that he was untouchable,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said. “The indictment makes clear that he was wrong.”
Hemphill sat quietly in a khaki jail suit, his cuffed hands clutching a cross behind his back, as a prosecutor described his alleged crimes in gruesome detail.
If convicted, Hemphill could spend the rest of his life in prison. He was previously acquitted in 2015 of choking and holding a knife to his ex-girlfriend’s throat after testifying that he enjoyed strangling her during sex.
“We have reason to believe these six victims are only the tip of the iceberg,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Mirah Curzer told Judge Ann E. Scherzer.
Hemphill’s apartment, near the Empire State Building, was outfitted with numerous surveillance cameras, and investigators have recovered images showing dozens, if not hundreds, of other women, many of them naked and blindfolded, Curzer said.
Investigators also found hundreds of bullets and high-capacity magazines, and a large amount of drugs, including heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, and fentanyl, prosecutors said.
Hemphill met the six women through websites, including some that specialize in “sugar daddy” arrangements for women seeking wealthy romantic partners, Curzer said.
He told the women he was into role play and dominance and offered them large sums of money in exchange for sex and companionship, though he ended up not paying some of the women or giving them fake cash instead, Curzer said.
As Hemphill got to know the women, he convinced them to confide their past sexual traumas, which he then deliberately reenacted as he assaulted them, Curzer said. He took advantage of some victims’ inexperience, the prosecutor said, or crossed boundaries that victims had clearly articulated.
Hemphill is accused of tricking victims into ingesting substances that rendered them unable to fight back, using handcuffs and other restraints on them, wrapping their heads and faces with duct tape, slapping and punching them, and torturing them with a cattle prod and shock collar.
Hemphill kept one victim shackled to a bed for hours while she begged him to let her go, Curzer said.
Hemphill’s alleged conduct is “truly shocking to the conscience,” and he “has made clear that he has no regard for the law or the courts,” Curzer said.
To keep women quiet, Hemphill boasted about connections to law enforcement and organized crime, prosecutors said, and claimed that because the women had accepted offers of money, it was them who would be arrested.
Hemphill is charged with bribing a witness and, according to prosecutors, drew up a contract in which he agreed to pay a woman $2,000 in exchange for dropping a complaint she filed with police.
He is also accused of forcing some victims to record videos in which they stated that they had consented to being abused.
“The power imbalance in his predatory acts could not be more clear,” Bragg told reporters. “He wielded his law degree and money as both sword and shield, coercing and silencing survivors.”
The arraignment happened down the hall from disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial.
Scherzer ordered Hemphill to remain jailed without bail after prosecutors raised concerns that his predicament, combined with his wealth and connections — including a history of philanthropy and family real estate holdings — could give him the means and incentive to flee the country.
Hemphill’s lawyer, a public defender assigned to represent him at least through his arraignment, had urged Scherzer to move him to a rehabilitation facility to deal with substance abuse issues.
Scherzer ruled that, given the fact pattern laid out by prosecutors, “including efforts to dissuade by force and threats to witnesses from testifying against him,” jailing him was the only way to ensure Hemphill would return to court.
Hemphill’s alleged behavior, the judge said, “shows his extent to which he’s willing to go to protect himself from facing these charges.”
Nevada
Trump pardons politician who paid for cosmetic surgery with funds to honor a slain officer
LAS VEGAS (AP) — President Donald Trump has pardoned a Nevada Republican politician who was awaiting sentencing on federal charges that she used money meant for a statue honoring a slain police officer for personal costs, including plastic surgery.
Michele Fiore, a former Las Vegas city councilwoman and state lawmaker who ran unsuccessfully in 2022 for state treasurer, was found guilty in October of six counts of federal wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was out of custody ahead of her sentencing, which had been scheduled for next month.
In a lengthy statement Thursday on Facebook, the loyal Trump supporter expressed gratitude to the president while also accusing the U.S. government and “select media outlets” of a broad, decade-long conspiracy to “target and dismantle” her life.
The White House confirmed Fiore had been pardoned but did not comment on the president’s decision.
The pardon, issued Wednesday, comes less than a week after Fiore lost a bid for a new trial. She had been facing the possibility of decades in prison.
Federal prosecutors said at trial that Fiore, 54, had raised more than $70,000 for the statue of a Las Vegas police officer who was fatally shot in 2014 in the line of duty, but had instead spent some of it on cosmetic surgery, rent and her daughter’s wedding.
“Michele Fiore used a tragedy to line her pockets,” federal prosecutor Dahoud Askar said.
FBI agents in 2021 subpoenaed records and searched Fiore’s home in Las Vegas in connection with her campaign spending.
In a statement, Nevada Democratic Party Executive Director Hilary Barrett called the pardon “reckless” and a “slap in the face” to law enforcement officers.
Fiore, who does not have a law degree, was appointed as a judge in deep-red Nye County in 2022 shortly after she lost her campaign for state treasurer.
She was elected last June to complete the unexpired term of a judge who died but had been suspended without pay amid her legal troubles. Pahrump is an hour’s drive west of Las Vegas.
In her statement Thursday, Fiore also said she plans to return to the bench next week.
Nye County said it is awaiting an update on Fiore’s current suspension from the state Commission on Judicial Discipline, which told The Associated Press in an email that it was aware that Fiore had been pardoned but that it didn’t have further comment on her situation.
AP also sent an email seeking comment from Fiore’s lawyer.
Fiore served in the state Legislature from 2012 to 2016. She was a Las Vegas councilwoman from 2017 to 2022.
While serving as a state lawmaker, Fiore gained national attention for her support of rancher Cliven Bundy and his family during armed standoffs between militiamen and federal law enforcement officers in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014 and Malheur, Oregon, in 2016.
Trump orders DOJ to investigate Democrats’ top fundraising platform
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has ordered the Justice Department to investigate the Democratic Party’s top fundraising platform, the latest example of Trump using the tools of the government to go after his political opponents.
Trump, in an executive order signed Thursday, directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate allegations that Republicans have raised that ActBlue allows illegal campaign donations.
Democrats, who had anticipated they would be targeted, condemned the move Thursday and ActBlue called it an “oppressive use of power” by the White House.
“The Trump Administration’s and GOP’s targeting of ActBlue is part of their brazen attack on democracy in America. Today’s escalation by the White House is blatantly unlawful and needs to be seen for what it is: Donald Trump’s latest front in his campaign to stamp out all political, electoral and ideological opposition,” ActBlue said in a statement.
ActBlue said it would pursue “all legal avenues to protect and defend itself.”
“ActBlue will continue its mission and work undeterred and uninterrupted, providing a safe, secure fundraising platform for the millions of grassroots donors who rely on us.”
Trump’s order directs Bondi, in consultation with the Treasury Department, to investigate allegations that online fundraising platforms, and specifically ActBlue, have been used by some to “make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees.”
The findings of the investigation will be reported back with 180 days, according to the order.
Since taking office, Trump has sought to use the powers of the government to retaliate against his opponents, including ordering security clearances to be stripped and punishing law firms linked to prosecutors who have investigated him or who have ties to his adversaries.
ActBlue, which Democratic campaigns have used for two decades, had helped power an outpouring of small-dollar donations to candidates and causes. It was so successful that Republicans eventually created a counterpart, WinRed — which Trump did not target in the order.
Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley applauded the investigation, saying in a statement, “The Democrats’ Dark Money scam has gone on long enough.”
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand and Democratic Governors Association Chair Laura Kelly denounced the executive order in a joint statement.
“Donald Trump’s memorandum targeting ActBlue is designed to undermine democratic participation — and it’s no wonder why,” the statement said. “He knows Americans are already fed up with his chaotic agenda that is driving the economy off a cliff, so he’s trying to block lawful grassroots donations from supporters giving just $5 or $10 to candidates who oppose him while further empowering the corrupt billionaires who already control his administration.”
New York
Private equity exec raped and tortured women at his apartment, prosecutors say
NEW YORK (AP) — A private equity executive turned his New York City apartment into a torture chamber of “grotesque sexual violence,” Manhattan prosecutors said Thursday. He is accused of raping six women over five months in a depraved rampage in which he allegedly punched, waterboarded and shocked victims with a cattle prod and kept recordings of the assaults as trophies.
Ryan Hemphill, who remains jailed after his arrest last month, pleaded not guilty to a 116-count indictment charging him with predatory sexual assault and other crimes dating to last October. The 43-year-old, who is also a lawyer, threatened to have victims arrested or disappeared in a bid to keep them silent, prosecutors said.
“The defendant told these survivors that he was untouchable,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said. “The indictment makes clear that he was wrong.”
Hemphill sat quietly in a khaki jail suit, his cuffed hands clutching a cross behind his back, as a prosecutor described his alleged crimes in gruesome detail.
If convicted, Hemphill could spend the rest of his life in prison. He was previously acquitted in 2015 of choking and holding a knife to his ex-girlfriend’s throat after testifying that he enjoyed strangling her during sex.
“We have reason to believe these six victims are only the tip of the iceberg,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Mirah Curzer told Judge Ann E. Scherzer.
Hemphill’s apartment, near the Empire State Building, was outfitted with numerous surveillance cameras, and investigators have recovered images showing dozens, if not hundreds, of other women, many of them naked and blindfolded, Curzer said.
Investigators also found hundreds of bullets and high-capacity magazines, and a large amount of drugs, including heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, and fentanyl, prosecutors said.
Hemphill met the six women through websites, including some that specialize in “sugar daddy” arrangements for women seeking wealthy romantic partners, Curzer said.
He told the women he was into role play and dominance and offered them large sums of money in exchange for sex and companionship, though he ended up not paying some of the women or giving them fake cash instead, Curzer said.
As Hemphill got to know the women, he convinced them to confide their past sexual traumas, which he then deliberately reenacted as he assaulted them, Curzer said. He took advantage of some victims’ inexperience, the prosecutor said, or crossed boundaries that victims had clearly articulated.
Hemphill is accused of tricking victims into ingesting substances that rendered them unable to fight back, using handcuffs and other restraints on them, wrapping their heads and faces with duct tape, slapping and punching them, and torturing them with a cattle prod and shock collar.
Hemphill kept one victim shackled to a bed for hours while she begged him to let her go, Curzer said.
Hemphill’s alleged conduct is “truly shocking to the conscience,” and he “has made clear that he has no regard for the law or the courts,” Curzer said.
To keep women quiet, Hemphill boasted about connections to law enforcement and organized crime, prosecutors said, and claimed that because the women had accepted offers of money, it was them who would be arrested.
Hemphill is charged with bribing a witness and, according to prosecutors, drew up a contract in which he agreed to pay a woman $2,000 in exchange for dropping a complaint she filed with police.
He is also accused of forcing some victims to record videos in which they stated that they had consented to being abused.
“The power imbalance in his predatory acts could not be more clear,” Bragg told reporters. “He wielded his law degree and money as both sword and shield, coercing and silencing survivors.”
The arraignment happened down the hall from disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial.
Scherzer ordered Hemphill to remain jailed without bail after prosecutors raised concerns that his predicament, combined with his wealth and connections — including a history of philanthropy and family real estate holdings — could give him the means and incentive to flee the country.
Hemphill’s lawyer, a public defender assigned to represent him at least through his arraignment, had urged Scherzer to move him to a rehabilitation facility to deal with substance abuse issues.
Scherzer ruled that, given the fact pattern laid out by prosecutors, “including efforts to dissuade by force and threats to witnesses from testifying against him,” jailing him was the only way to ensure Hemphill would return to court.
Hemphill’s alleged behavior, the judge said, “shows his extent to which he’s willing to go to protect himself from facing these charges.”
Nevada
Trump pardons politician who paid for cosmetic surgery with funds to honor a slain officer
LAS VEGAS (AP) — President Donald Trump has pardoned a Nevada Republican politician who was awaiting sentencing on federal charges that she used money meant for a statue honoring a slain police officer for personal costs, including plastic surgery.
Michele Fiore, a former Las Vegas city councilwoman and state lawmaker who ran unsuccessfully in 2022 for state treasurer, was found guilty in October of six counts of federal wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was out of custody ahead of her sentencing, which had been scheduled for next month.
In a lengthy statement Thursday on Facebook, the loyal Trump supporter expressed gratitude to the president while also accusing the U.S. government and “select media outlets” of a broad, decade-long conspiracy to “target and dismantle” her life.
The White House confirmed Fiore had been pardoned but did not comment on the president’s decision.
The pardon, issued Wednesday, comes less than a week after Fiore lost a bid for a new trial. She had been facing the possibility of decades in prison.
Federal prosecutors said at trial that Fiore, 54, had raised more than $70,000 for the statue of a Las Vegas police officer who was fatally shot in 2014 in the line of duty, but had instead spent some of it on cosmetic surgery, rent and her daughter’s wedding.
“Michele Fiore used a tragedy to line her pockets,” federal prosecutor Dahoud Askar said.
FBI agents in 2021 subpoenaed records and searched Fiore’s home in Las Vegas in connection with her campaign spending.
In a statement, Nevada Democratic Party Executive Director Hilary Barrett called the pardon “reckless” and a “slap in the face” to law enforcement officers.
Fiore, who does not have a law degree, was appointed as a judge in deep-red Nye County in 2022 shortly after she lost her campaign for state treasurer.
She was elected last June to complete the unexpired term of a judge who died but had been suspended without pay amid her legal troubles. Pahrump is an hour’s drive west of Las Vegas.
In her statement Thursday, Fiore also said she plans to return to the bench next week.
Nye County said it is awaiting an update on Fiore’s current suspension from the state Commission on Judicial Discipline, which told The Associated Press in an email that it was aware that Fiore had been pardoned but that it didn’t have further comment on her situation.
AP also sent an email seeking comment from Fiore’s lawyer.
Fiore served in the state Legislature from 2012 to 2016. She was a Las Vegas councilwoman from 2017 to 2022.
While serving as a state lawmaker, Fiore gained national attention for her support of rancher Cliven Bundy and his family during armed standoffs between militiamen and federal law enforcement officers in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014 and Malheur, Oregon, in 2016.
