Vice President Kamala Harris’ senior campaign spokesperson, Ian Sams, remained silent when pressed on whether he still believes in his previous sharp critiques of Harris campaign surrogate, Liz Cheney, who Sams described in 2013 as a ‘warlord’ and blamed in 2019 for ‘lead[ing] us into Iraq.’ 

‘Liz Cheney helped lead us into Iraq from a special State Department Middle East post her dad’s administration created for her,’ Sams criticized Cheney on Twitter, now X, in 2019.

‘Liz Cheney brings the crazy today,’ he said in a separate 2013 social media post, which linked to a Wall Street Journal op-ed that Cheney wrote at the time. Meanwhile, that same year, Sams shared an article from Salon.com, which referred to Cheney as an ‘aspiring warlord.’

Fox News Digital uncovered several social media posts by Sams critiquing Cheney, who, in more recent days, has praised the former GOP Wyoming congresswoman following her endorsement of his boss.

Just over the weekend, Sams touted the fact that Cheney would be stumping for Harris in the battleground state of Wisconsin. A few days before that, he was defending Cheney from attacks by former President Donald Trump. 

‘Congresswoman Cheney is a patriot,’ Sams told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell last month. ‘I think, in the last five years, we’ve seen over-and-over again, her put country over party. Or as John McCain would say, ‘To put country first.” 

Sams added during the interview that he thinks Harris ‘really respects … true conservatives,’ like Cheney.

Besides praising the congresswoman and her endorsement of Harris, Sams has also highlighted the fact that Harris was endorsed by a large cohort of former President George W. Bush officials, including those who worked on national security. It was Bush’s administration that invaded Iraq in 2003.

Fox News Digital reached out to Cheney for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

‘A broken clock is right twice a day, and a Kamala Harris spokesman is right once in his life,’ the Trump campaign said in a statement Monday, highlighting Sams’ 2019 post about Cheney ‘lead[ing] us into Iraq from a special State Department Middle East post’ that he claimed Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, created for her. 

However, despite Sams’ claim that Cheney’s father ‘created’ a state department position exclusively for her, the position existed before she was ever hired.

‘Ian Sams wrote the truth about Kamala Harris’ surrogate (and likely future Defense Secretary),’ the Trump campaign statement concluded.

Former President Donald Trump is assailing former Rep. Liz Cheney on social media as she campaigns alongside Vice President Kamala Harris.

‘Arab Voters are very upset that Comrade Kamala Harris, the Worst Vice President in the History of the United States and a Low IQ individual, is campaigning with ‘dumb as a rock’ War Hawk, Liz Cheney, who, like her father, the man that pushed Bush to ridiculously go to War in the Middle East, also wants to go to War with every Muslim Country known to mankind,’ Trump declared in a Truth Social post on Monday.

Cheney’s father, Dick Cheney, served as vice president alongside President George W. Bush from early 2001 through early 2009.

Trump also called her ‘Crazed Warhawk Liz Cheney’ in a post on Tuesday, while he called her ‘a low IQ War Hawk’ in a post earlier this month.

Trump and Liz Cheney have a substantial history of vociferously opposing each other.

Cheney was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Later that year, she was ousted from her role as House Republican conference chair.

Cheney was one of the two House Republicans to serve on the House Select Committee formed to investigate the Jan. 6 episode.

Trump-backed candidate Harriet Hageman ousted Cheney in the 2022 Republican primary for Wyoming’s at-large U.S. House seat. 

Cheney, who identifies as ‘a Reagan conservative,’ has suggested that Harris will defend the U.S. Constitution

Cheney is also supporting some other Democrats during the 2024 election cycle, including Rep. Colin Allred of Texas, who is challenging incumbent GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in the Lone Star State’s U.S. Senate contest.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has quietly donated a ‘very substantial’ amount of his own money directly to a PAC that is canvassing Hispanic voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Fox News has learned.

Musk donated to a PAC called The Hispanic Voters Alliance, which is canvassing voters in Arizona, California and Oregon to help Republicans up and down ballot. 

Fox News has also learned that the latest FEC filings for The Hispanic Voters Alliance will be released to the public on Thursday and will reveal the extent of Musk’s financial support. Musk’s donation to the PAC came from Musk directly and not through one of his PACs or organizations. The PAC has used the money in recent weeks to get out the Hispanic vote for Republicans. 

The PAC is associated with Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas. Gonzales hosted Musk during the billionaire’s visit to the Texas border in Eagle Pass, Texas, last year.

Musk has already made waves on the Pennsylvania campaign trail in support for former President Donald Trump’s re-election, including offering $1 million a day to swing-state voters who sign his political action committee’s petition backing the Constitution.

Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are neck and neck in a recent USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, with Trump at 44% and Harris at 45%. Harris, however, appeared to be losing ground among Latino and Black voters. 

The new poll found Latino voters now back Trump by 49% to 38%. Black voters prefer Harris by 72% to 17%, but that 55-point edge is significantly less than the advantage Democrats traditionally enjoy. 

Trump has made inroads among Black and Latino voters in the 2024 race by courting men, as he campaigns on the economy and crime. 

Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

Top Judiciary Republicans are accusing a controversial Biden-Harris administration official of violating the Hatch Act by touring the country with Democratic politicians ahead of the pivotal November elections.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, claimed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan could be guilty of engaging in partisan political activity in her official capacity, which is prohibited under the Hatch Act. 

‘According to recent reports, you appeared at a series of events in Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin and Arizona with several candidates for elected office. Media accounts described your tour as a ‘campaign gauntlet’ with the timing of your events ‘so near the election… hard to ignore,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent on Monday to the chair.

‘These campaign-style events create the appearance that you are using your official position to advocate for the election of certain Democrat candidates.’

The Biden-Harris FTC chair has become a fan favorite among the more progressive contingent of the Democratic Party. However, she has also become a point of contention among the coalition trying to elect Vice President Kamala Harris. While some politicians are staunch supporters of Khan and her actions against Big Tech and other industries to prevent supposedly anticompetitive behavior, a number of Harris’ wealthy donors have pushed for her removal, putting the vice president in the middle. 

Khan has been hyper-vigilant of business moves, not hesitating to take on players in the tech, health care and grocery industries. In fact, Jordan has characterized her wielding of the FTC against businesses as harassment regarding her actions against X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk. 

Earlier this month, she joined Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, as well as Texas labor leaders and workers, for a discussion on worker freedom. 

During the same week, she was a guest in Illinois at a ‘fireside chat’ with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., where they discussed grocery prices and health care, among other topics. 

Khan also made an apparent surprise visit to the swing state of Wisconsin, where she spoke to residents about the potential sale of a county-owned nursing home. 

‘We’ve been watching with some alarm as more and more mergers and consolidation mean that fewer and fewer players are coming to control important parts of the health care system,’ she told Wisconsinites during the visit. 

However, this wasn’t the only swing state the chair stopped in. She also joined Rep. Ruben Gallego in Pheonix, Arizona, to discuss rising rent prices. Gallego is notably in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country. 

While all the events were billed as official business and not campaign functions, the timing, locations, topics and people involved caught the attention of both Jordan and Lee. With less than two months until the general election, the official events with Khan deserved scrutiny, according to the lawmakers. 

The Republicans said, ‘This concern is particularly significant given your history of ignoring agency ethics advice concerning the appearance of partiality along with your subsequent dishonest testimony on the subject, and the numerous complaints from FTC staff that your mismanagement has made you the bottleneck that has prevented the FTC from successfully protecting consumers and bringing successful cases.’

Jordan and Lee further requested Khan to provide all communications regarding the scheduling of the various events, as well as the funding for travel and accommodations. They also asked that she produce documents and communications regarding any guidance she was given by the FTC’s Designates Agency Ethics Official on doing public events with candidates. 

The FTC declined to comment when reached by Fox News Digital. 

The FBI is investigating the leak of classified documents which included top secret U.S. intelligence on Israel’s planned attack on Iran, Fox News Digital confirmed. 

‘The FBI is investigating the alleged leak of classified documents and working closely with our partners in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community,’ the bureau said in a statement. ‘As this is an ongoing investigation, we have no further comment.’ 

The Department of Defense has already confirmed it is investigating the unauthorized release.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that he did not have information on whether the unauthorized release was a result of a hack or an employee leak. 

‘We’re not exactly sure how these documents found their way into the public domain. I know the Department of Defense is investigating this,’ Kirby said. ‘I’m just not able to answer your question whether it was a leak or a hack. At this point, we’ll let the investigation pursue its logical course.’ 

‘We’re deeply concerned, and the president remains deeply concerned about any leakage of classified information into the public domain,’ Kirby said. ‘That is not supposed to happen. And it’s unacceptable when it does.’ 

Kirby said he did not have any indication that additional classified documents would find their way into the public domain and that the U.S. has been in communication with Israeli counterparts about the disclosure.

‘I’ll let the Israelis speak to if, what, how and when they decide to take additional military action in response to Iran’s Oct. 1st attack,’ Kirby said. ‘That’s really for them to speak to.’ 

The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted to the Telegram messaging app last week. 

The documents were attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and noted that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were sharable within the ‘Five Eyes,’ which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

An anonymous Republican senator has reportedly expressed concern about 91-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassely, R-Iowa, reclaiming his position as chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee should the GOP take control of the upper chamber.

Whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins in November, the next Senate Judiciary Committee Chair could oversee several Supreme Court nominations and other judicial picks.

The unnamed GOP senator, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke to Punchbowl News on condition of anonymity, questioning Grassley’s ability to strongly combat against the committee’s highest ranking Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, as well as a White House led by Harris. 

‘Chuck is extremely sharp. A lot of it is just his disposition — he’s not a knife fighter. He’s just too genteel for that,’ the senator said. ‘I’ve watched Durbin operate, and he is good at his job. He will not hesitate.’

Though several senators and aides reportedly doubt Grassley’s ability as a ‘fighter’ to take on likely attacks on future Trump Supreme Court nominations, Punchbowl News said their concern was not the same as what the Sen.Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., faced. She stepped down as the committee’s top Democrat in 2020. 

Progressives shredded Feinstein’s handling of the nominations of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and the senator also faced questions about her mental fitness. 

Another GOP senator told Punchbowl News that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alitonext year, and Democrats have worried about Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s health.

The stakes are going to be high,’ that senator told Punchbowl News. 

Those who defend Grassley note how the nonagenarian guided prior Trump Supreme Court nominations through their Senate confirmation hearings despite intense backlash from Democrats and other groups. 

They also credit the eight-term senator for the current Supreme Court conservative majority, as Grassley and other GOP senators in 2016 decided to forgo the hearings needed to advance Merrick Garland’s nomination to the high court. That effort, however, was largely led by then-Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

‘No one is better prepared to lead the Senate Judiciary Committee than Senator Grassley,’ Clare Slattery, a spokesperson for Grassley, told Fox News Digital. ‘He has a proven track record of success, having confirmed an historic number of constitutionally-sound judges, and he continues to set the gold standard for congressional oversight and investigations.’

‘Simply put, nobody outworks Chuck Grassley,’ she said. ‘Senator Grassley looks forward to continuing to deliver on his rock solid conservative record as Judiciary Chairman in the next Republican Senate Majority.’

‘Even at age 91,Grassley runs circles around his colleagues,’ Mike DavisGrassley’s former chief counsel for nominations, told Punchbowl News. ‘It is wishful thinking if people think he’s not going to be the next Republican chair of Senate Judiciary. Trump will be very happy it’s Grassley because Grassley has proven he’s very effective for Trump.’

‘Would any other senator have been able to do what Grassley did?’ Michael Zona, a former top Grassley aide, said to Punchbowl News. ‘Has anyone had more success in confirming judges than Grassley? Who else has demonstrated they won’t buckle under political pressure more than Grassley?’

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the current ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is second in seniority to Grassley, who right now is the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. 

Graham, who some conservatives fear as a potential chair of the Judiciary Committee given his record of voting for Democrat judicial picks, told Punchbowl News on Monday he holds ‘all the confidence in the world in Sen. Grassley’s ability to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee.’

U.S.-based Jewish organizations are working to get out the vote among Americans living in Israel ahead of the November election, which comes weeks after the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. 

Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, said his organization has coordinated with the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and partnered with Yeshiva University, a private Orthodox Jewish university in New York, on outreach instructing young Americans taking their gap years in Israel on how to request their absentee ballots and vote from abroad.

‘First of all, it’s important, from our point of view, for every American citizen, no matter where they are, to hopefully participate in the election,’ Diament told Fox News Digital. ‘You know, this past year has obviously been a very intense, serious and historic year in terms of what’s going on in Israel as it continues to battle against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran itself. We have friends and family who are there, whose lives are really on the line. And so it’s really important for Americans there who have the right to vote to, again, participate, because the United States is Israel’s most important ally.’

He estimated that there are a few thousand Jewish Americans currently in Israel taking their gap year, typically done between high school and college. His own son is one of those students this year.

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (or Orthodox Union), which represents more than 1,000 Orthodox Jewish synagogues around the U.S. as well as several hundred Jewish K-12 schools, also works on educational resources targeting another demographic – the few hundred thousand Jewish American immigrants who permanently relocated to Israel – so they, too, can participate in the 2024 election. 

The deadline to request absentee ballots is approaching for several battleground states. Of the about 420,000 Jewish Pennsylvanians, Diament said that some studying or living in Israel ‘could have an impact on the vote’ in their communities around Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and even Scranton.

‘Joe Biden won Pennsylvania in the last election by an 80,000 vote margin,’ Diament said. ‘So, you know, a shift in the American Jewish vote in Pennsylvania by, you know, several thousand or 10,000 or more votes could be very, very significant in this election.’ 

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in January urged Americans living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to check their voter registration to provide for enough time to participate in the upcoming 2024 federal elections. As the U.S. does not offer in-person voting at embassies or consulates abroad, U.S. citizens are encouraged to vote by absentee ballot if they cannot meet their state’s in-person voting requirements. 

At the time, the embassy noted how ‘many U.S. federal elections for the House of Representatives and Senate have been decided by a margin smaller than the number of ballots cast by absentee voters.’ 

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem said all states are required to count every absentee ballot ‘that is valid and reaches local election officials by the absentee ballot receipt deadline.’

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told Fox News Digital that U.S. citizens living outside the United States can register to vote and vote absentee while living overseas. Students living overseas for an extended period during an election season need to vote absentee and complete a Federal Post Card Application at FVAP.gov to request an absentee ballot, the spokesperson said, adding that voting residency will continue to be the student’s last legal residence prior to leaving the U.S. to study abroad.

The State Department spokesperson said U.S. citizens voting from overseas should check FVAP.gov for their state’s deadlines and more information about how to return their ballot.

‘An American living abroad can most easily request an absentee ballot either through the team that we have set up at our center in Jerusalem or, again, they could go to the U.S. embassy or consulate in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv,’ Diament said. ‘And as long as you show your ID and you get your absentee ballot appropriately, then you just need to send it in a timely way. It’s really not that complicated.’ 

Jeremy Kazzaz, executive director of the Beacon Coalition, a nonprofit focused on getting out the Jewish vote locally on the ground in Pittsburgh, said U.S. citizens, whether traveling out of state or abroad during an election season, should send their absentee ballots as soon as possible to be included in initial counts.

‘The mail system gets bogged down around election time because it’s not just all the ballots that are going through the mail, but it is the 5 billion pieces of political mail that everybody is getting on a day-to-day basis,’ Kazzaz told Fox News Digital. ‘And then you add to that the chaos and disruptions of multiple hurricanes going through the Eastern Seaboard at this time. And so the best practice is to do all of this as early as humanly possible.’

While Diament said it is confidential which candidates who members of the Orthodox Union support, he pointed to polling done by Israeli outlets and pollsters on the ground among Israelis and Americans as signaling a shift toward Republican Donald Trump, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

‘You know, frankly, that is not matched in the American Jewish population as a whole. The American Jewish population, by and large, is pretty liberal. And so, traditionally, the Democrat wins a majority, sometimes a very, very large majority. But we’ve done polling and others have done polling this year among American Jews here in the United States,’ Diament said. ‘What we’ve seen, at least so far, is that while Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate is ahead among the American Jewish vote in general, she’s not ahead by as large a margin as the Democratic candidate, you know, has been traditionally.’

Diament argued that rising antisemitism in the U.S. could be one contributing factor.

‘It’s a different kind of election in the wake of what’s going on over the past year for American Jews,’ Diament said. ‘We’ve seen the terrible surge in antisemitism in the aftermath of the Oct. 7th terrorist attacks. And that’s another dimension, which American Jews have to really stand up and hold government officials accountable and make sure that they are being responsive to us, to make sure we’re guaranteed our rights of freedom of religion in this country.’ 

Regarding his son and his sons’ friends taking their gap year in Israel, Diament said that ‘in some ways, they feel more comfortable and secure than some of their friends who are on some American university campuses.’ 

‘Their lives are not being threatened, obviously, the way people on the ground in Israel are by foreign militaries,’ he said. ‘But there are a lot of campuses where young American Jews are really being … psychologically threatened and personally threatened.’

Vice President Harris has raised some eyebrows over potential conflicts of interest related to the substantial support her presidential run has received from individuals and entities engaged in active business dealings before the federal government.

The Harris campaign tapped law firm Covington & Burling to help vet Harris’ potential running mates and advise the campaign’s transition team. The law firm, which also provided the Harris campaign with financial support and experienced attorneys to defend it, is currently challenging the ban on TikTok in the U.S. passed by Congress and signed by President Biden.

One significant supporter of Harris’ campaign includes Chris Larsen, angel investor and co-founder of cryptocurrency firm Ripple Labs. Larsen, who has given Harris’ campaign committees nearly $12 million, is currently in a protracted legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether its cryptocurrency, XRP, should be classified as ‘securities.’ Meanwhile, $1 million of Larsen’s money to the Harris campaign was made in the form of his XRP cryptocurrency.

These are among the handful of examples that elucidate potential conflicts of interest that legal experts say don’t necessarily amount to anything illegal, but do raise questions about Harris’ judgment. 

‘To establish a violation of law — in the main, bribery — prosecutors would really have to prove a quid pro quo,’ Andrew McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor for National Review’s online print publication, told Fox News Digital. ‘These situations are in the capacious category of arrangements that are ethically troubling, and that could be politically damaging depending on how they play out, but that are probably not legally actionable.’

Last week, attorneys from Covington & Burling and other major D.C. law firms, such as Paul, Weiss LLP, hosted a pricey Washington, D.C., fundraiser for Harris. Among the attorneys present were Weiss’ Karen Dunn, Bill Isaacson and Jeannie Rhee, who are currently defending Google in federal court against the Biden-Harris Justice Department. Additionally, the Harris camp tapped Dunn ahead of the September presidential debate to help Harris prep.

‘It’s a conflict of interest if the government is indebted to opposing counsel,’ Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, told the New York Post after it reported on the fundraiser. ‘That’s why attorneys should not be allowed to negotiate potential settlements with the Department of Justice if they served as active bundlers, including fundraiser hosts, for that administration.’

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, said fundraisers like the one held for Harris last week do ‘raise concerns about the judgment of some of the people involved,’ but Spakovsky also echoed McCarthy’s remarks that there was likely nothing legally actionable.

‘If you are helping a political figure who is the boss of a federal prosecutor who is involved in a case with you, I mean that – to me – does clearly raise a conflict of interest,’ Spakovsky argued. ‘Because if the prosecutors then go easy on your client, there’s always going to be a question of, well, ‘Did they do that because the prosecutors’ ultimate boss in the White House told them to go easy on the defense counsel’s client.’

‘It may not look good and raises concerns about the judgment of some of the people involved,’ Spakovsky concluded. ‘But I don’t see a legal problem.’  

Uber general counsel and Harris’ brother-in-law, Tony West, was also present at last week’s fundraiser, alongside Democrat bigwigs like Eric Holder, a longtime Covington & Burling partner, and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Holder and West are reportedly in the running to be in Harris’ Cabinet if she wins next month.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response by press time.