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Beyond evangelicals, Trump and his allies courted smaller faith groups, from the Amish to ChabadNewly Appointed CIO Minister Threatens Rival Zanu PF faction

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Americans still dreaming of a really big Christmas present can keep that dream alive during Friday’s Mega Millions drawing for a jackpot worth an estimated $1.15 billion. Friday’s jackpot will potentially be the fifth largest in the game’s history. Mega Millions tickets are $2 a piece. But the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350, and the odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are 1 in 24, according to lottery officials. Tickets for the game are sold in 45 states, along with Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Here is a look at the largest U.S. jackpots won and the states where the winning tickets were sold: 1. $2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 7, 2022 (one ticket, from California) 2. $1.765 billion, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023 (one ticket, from California) 3. $1.602 billion, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023 (one ticket, from Florida) 4. $1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016 (three tickets, from California, Florida, Tennessee) 5. $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018 (one ticket, from South Carolina) 6. $1.348 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023 (one ticket, from Maine) 7. $1.337 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022 (one ticket, from Illinois) 8. $1.326 billion, Powerball, April 7, 2024 (one ticket, Oregon) 9. $1.13 billion, Mega Millions, March 26, 2024 (one ticket, from New Jersey) 10. $1.08 billion, Powerball, July 19, 2023 (one ticket, from California) The Associated PressAuthored by Jeff Carlson & Hans Mahncke via Truth Over News , Last week we wrote about the central role Obama played in establishing the Russiagate Hoax. This week we’re going to take a closer look at why Obama was so involved. What drove him to push a hoax that had been ostensibly put into place by the Clinton campaign? Many are aware of Biden’s entanglements in Ukraine but most are unaware of Obama’s implicit involvement . For some time now it's been our working theory that Russiagate originated, at least in part, as the result of what Joe Biden was doing in Ukraine - and as a result of Obama’s knowledge of Biden’s actions. Recall that Biden’s involvement in Ukraine traces back to at least early 2014 when he was pulled into the U.S. overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically-held elections by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs in the Obama State Department. In November 2013, Ukraine’s president Yanukovych turned down a U.S.-backed trade deal with the European Union in favor of an emergency bailout from Russia, a decision which was understandable from Ukraine’s perspective but one which Nuland and her state department colleagues found deeply upsetting. When the European Union pursued a diplomatic route at resolving the impasse by proposing a power sharing agreement, Nuland was quick to veto the idea, telling Pyatt in a leaked phone call, “[expletive] the EU.” During that same call , Nuland discussed her plans for the ouster of Yanukovych and the installation of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister. Towards the end of their conversation, Nuland noted that Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan had informed her that “you need Biden,” and she concluded by telling Pyatt that “Biden’s willing.” Biden was effectively appointed as the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine in February 2014. On Feb. 22, 2014, just as Nuland had planned, Yanukovych was removed as president of Ukraine and, three days later, Yatsenyuk, the candidate favored by Nuland, was installed as prime minister. In other words, the U.S. government had effectively enabled a coup that ousted a democratically elected leader and replaced him with their own candidate. The US-led ouster of Yanukovich also had other internal repercussions, most notably the outbreak of an eight-year civil war between western Ukraine and the Russian-speaking Donbass region of Ukraine. The idea that any of this could have been done without the direct approval from Obama, is of course, ridiculous. One of the members of Yanukovych’s government who lost his position in government as a result of the coup was Mykola Zlochevsky, the Oligarch owner of Burisma Energy. He had first served as minister of ecology and natural resources and later as deputy secretary for economic and social security. During his tenure in government, Zlochevsky’s companies, particularly Burisma, reportedly received an unusually large number of permits to extract oil and gas. In April 2014, UK prosecutors seized $23.5 million in assets owned by Zlochevsky that were held at a London bank, alleging that Zlochevsky had engaged in criminal conduct in Ukraine. It was at this same time that Burisma appointed Biden’s son, Hunter, and his close associate, Devin Archer to its board of directors. On April 21, 2014, Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine, offering not only his political support, but also $50 million in aid for Ukraine’s shaky new government. During Joe’s Ukraine visit, on April 22, it was announced that Archer had suddenly joined the board of Burisma. Hunter had also joined Burisma’s board that same month , but curiously Burisma didn’t announce Hunter’s appointment until May 12, 2014—after his father’s visit to Ukraine had concluded. Many have portrayed Hunter’s involvement as little more than a means for the Biden family to extract hefty board fees from Burisma for association with the Biden name. While there is likely a large amount of truth to this, we also suspect something bigger may have been at play—the effective capture of Ukraine’s natural gas assets. In a June 23, 2014 proposal from Boies Schiller, the law firm that employed Hunter, Burisma was provided with what Boies Schiller termed a “Strategic Outline for Legal Defense Plan.” Their proposal stated that they wanted to “Insulate Burisma from politically motivated disruptions in operations , including legal challenges to licenses, now and in the future.” The proposal from Boies Schiller was referring to the natural gas licenses that had been illegally accumulated by Zlochevsky during his time in the Ukrainian government. As part of this strategy, Boies wanted to “Meet with the U.S. officials in Washington, DC who are leading U.S. policy related to Ukraine to brief them on who Burisma is, its significance to the future of Ukraine, and the Investigation in order to seek their advice and assistance.” The proposal noted that “we are starting the process of creating an echo-chamber of U.S. officials discussing Burisma between and amongst themselves and encouraging each other to meet with Burisma.” Boies disclosed in their proposal that they had already spoken to a number of congressional members and their staff, including Senator Chris Murphy and his chief of staff. Amos Hochstein, Obama’s U.S. Special Envoy for International Energy , was also mentioned in the Boies proposal - which focused on establishing a meeting between Hochstein and Burisma’s CFO Vadym Pozharskyi in the coming month of July 2014. It appears that meeting never happened - although Hochstein did meet with Burisma lobbyist David Leiter and Boies law partner Heather King. Meanwhile, efforts by Hunter continued. In a November 2014 email, Hunter told his long-time money-man Eric Schwerin to "Pls send D Amos' contact info... Amos is 'Acting Special Envoy, Bureau of energy Resources' at State." What is clear from these documents is that Hunter and Archer were working to bring in high-level political support for Burisma from members of Congress and officials in the Obama administration at a time when it was very clear that Burisma was run by a corrupt Ukrainian Oligarch. And all of that support appeared to be centering around protecting the natural gas assets of Burisma. We’ve written a number of times on Joe Biden’s efforts to get Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin removed so we won’t rehash that entire story here. But it’s worth noting that it may have been around the sequence of events leading to Shokin’s firing that Obama may have become alarmed. The level of involvement from Obama officials would only accelerate in 2015 after the Bidens were further pulled into the legal entanglements of Burisma , which was under ongoing investigations into the theft of Ukraine’s natural gas assets. After receiving a new demand for help in ending the investigations into Burisma from Zlochevsky on November 2, 2015, Hunter immediately reached out to the previously-mentioned Hochstein. Hunter would meet in-person with Hochstein four days later, on November 6, 2015. Hochstein later reluctantly (and evasively) told congressional investigators that Hunter “wanted to know my views on Burisma and Zlochevsky.” Hochstein, who was Obama’s U.S. Special Envoy for International Energy at the time, privately expressed his concerns about Hunter’s role at Burisma to Joe Biden in October 2015 and again during a flight to Ukraine on December 7, 2015. We’ve mentioned Hochstein a number of times for a reason. Hochstein had been appointed by Obama to “help Ukraine, and other European countries, find new supplies of natural gas after Russia invaded” Crimea in 2014 . Hochstein “also worked on energy issues related to sanctions on Iran and Russia” and “worked closely with officials at the White House's National Security Council and government agencies.” Hochstein was Obama’s point man on the energy situation in Ukraine. If Hochstein knew everything the Biden’s were doing, so did Obama. More proof of this comes from a series of meetings between prosecutors from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and officials from Obama’s National Security Council, the FBI, the State Department, and the DOJ that took place in January 2016. The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington later “confirmed the Obama administration requested the meetings.” Present at these January 2016 meetings was Andrii Telizhenko, then an employee at the Ukrainian embassy. According to Telizhenko, a recurring theme at these meetings was “how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united.” Additionally, Telizhenko was told that U.S. officials “had an interest in reviving a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions.” The focus of US officials was almost certainly Trump’s future Campaign Manager Paul Manafort. We know that “Agents interviewed Manafort in 2014 about whether he received undeclared payments” and “whether he engaged in improper foreign lobbying in Ukraine.” According to Telizhenko “DOJ officials asked investigators from Ukraine’s NABU if they could help locate new evidence about the Party of Regions’ payments and its dealings with Americans.” Trump’s soon-to-be campaign manager, Paul Manafort, would later be implicated in the Party of Regions payments, leading to his ultimate removal from the Trump Campaign. In January 2016, right at the time of the NABU’s meeting with Obama’s officials, Alexandra Chalupa, who had been investigating Manafort’s work in Ukraine, informed an unknown senior DNC official that she believed there was a Russian connection with the Trump campaign. This theme would be picked up by the Clinton campaign and the Intelligence Community in the summer of 2016 . Chalupa also told the official to expect Manafort’s involvement in the Trump campaign. How Chalupa knew this in advance has never been fully explained. NABU was established in October 2014 with assistance from the US government - led by a big push from vice-president Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland . In January 2016, NABU director Artem Sytnyk announced that his bureau was close to signing a Memorandum of cooperation with the FBI and by February 9th, the FBI had had a permanent representative onsite at the NABU offices . One week after the first FBI representative was installed at NABU, on February 18, 2016 - while Joe Biden was actively pushing for Shokin’s removal - authorities in Latvia flagged a series of ‘suspicious’ financial transactions linked to Hunter Biden, Devon Archer and two other unknown individuals involved with Burisma. It was later reported that “a series of loan payments totaling about $16.6 million that were routed from companies in Belize and the United Kingdom to Burisma through Ukraine’s PrivatBank between 2012 and 2015.” Latvian officials claimed that a portion of these funds were transferred to Hunter, Devon and the two unnamed individuals - one of whom was a US citizen. Despite requests for assistance, a Latvian official said his government received no criminal evidence from Ukraine and thus took no further action on the investigation. It seems implausible to us that the FBI, with its active presence within Ukraine’s anti-corruption offices, was not aware of these transactions - along with everything else the Bidens were doing. From the perspective of Obama and Biden, this situation with Latvian authorities needed to be fully contained before it exploded. Indeed, Shokin later said that it was this information that “made it impossible” to shut down his investigation of Burisma. Once Biden succeeded in getting Shokin officially fired on March 29, 2016, there was a new focus and a new directive for Biden —finding the proper replacement for Shokin. Despite Shokin's removal, the Burisma investigation was still technically open. Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko appointed Yuriy Sevruk as Shokin's replacement the same day as Shokin's firing. At this same time, Blue Star (hired by Burisma at Hunter's urging) began vetting Sevruk. It appears that Blue Star decided that Sevruk wasn’t the right person to wrap up all the investigations into Burisma. We know this because on May 12, 2016, Former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko was suddenly appointed as Ukraine’s new prosecutor general - replacing Sevruk. The day after Lutsenko was appointed, Biden finally freed up the $1 billion funding to Ukraine that had been originally slated for November 2014 during a call with Poroshenko. This unexplained delay in funding is important because the Obama White House had been deeply involved in the funding of Ukraine from the very start. It seems totally implausible that Biden could simply delay $1 billion in funding that had been approved by Obama’s White House six months earlier without Obama’s sign off. On May 27, 2016, there was another call between Biden and Poroshenko (Hunter was inexplicably cc'd on the scheduling email). Three days later , on May 30, 2016, Lutsenko fired Sevruk. There was now an entirely new team at the prosecutor's office. Not so coincidentally, it was on this same day that groundwork for attacks on the Trump campaign really began. Fusion GPS’s Nellie Ohr, wife of DOJ official Bruce Ohr, sent an email to Bruce and three other DOJ officials disclosing the existence of the Ukraine Black Box that was later used to target Paul Manafort. No one outside of Ukraine knew of the Black Box - or Black Ledger as it was later known. Once Biden had finally sorted out the prosecutor situation in Ukraine, he needed to make sure his actions stayed hidden from public inquiry. All the more so because any serious investigation might ultimately shift towards Obama. Which made the ascending Trump Campaign a clear and present threat to Obama. Obama and Biden couldn't afford to have Trump poking around Ukraine as the new president. This helps to explain the sudden targeting of the Trump campaign in late spring 2016—just as Biden put the finishing touches on Shokin’s firing. This also explains the explosion of attacks on Trump once he became president. As we moved further into Trump’s presidency, it also explains the ferocious response from the DNC when Trump started to ask questions regarding Biden’s actions in Ukraine. If Trump was allowed to continue, he would have discovered all of the Biden misdeeds, Obama’s knowledge of everything, and perhaps other misdeeds from the others among the larger DC Establishment as well. Everything circles back to Ukraine. And Obama.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Ethics Committee on Monday accused Matt Gaetz of “regularly” paying for sex, including once with a 17-year-old girl, and purchasing and using illicit drugs as a member of Congress, as lawmakers released the conclusions of a nearly four-year investigation that helped sink his nomination for attorney general. The 37-page report by the bipartisan panel includes explicit details of sex-filled parties and vacations that Gaetz, now 42, took part in from 2017 to 2020 while the Republican represented Florida's western Panhandle. Congressional investigators concluded that Gaetz violated multiple state laws related to sexual misconduct while in office, though not federal sex trafficking laws. They also found that Gaetz “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct” the committee's work. “The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” the report said. Before the report came out, Gaetz denied any wrongdoing and criticized the committee's process. “Giving funds to someone you are dating — that they didn’t ask for — and that isn’t ‘charged’ for sex is now prostitution?!?” he posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter. “There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses.” Gaetz , who was first elected in 2017, spent the majority of his time in Washington enmeshed in scandals that ultimately derailed his selection by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Justice Department . Gaetz abruptly resigned from Congress last month. His political future is uncertain, although Gaetz has indicated interest in running for the open Senate seat in Florida. The committee painted a damning portrait of Gaetz's conduct, using dozens of pages of exhibits, including text messages, financial records, travel receipts, checks and online payments, to document a party and drug-fueled lifestyle. The committee said it compiled the evidence after issuing 29 subpoenas for documents and testimony and contacting more than two dozen witnesses. In addition to soliciting prostitution, the report said Gaetz “accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, in excess of permissible amounts.” That same year, investigators said, Gaetz arranged for a staffer to obtain a passport for a woman with whom he was sexually involved, falsely telling the State Department that she was his constituent. In some of the text exchanges made public, he appeared to be inviting various women to events, getaways or parties, and arranging airplane travel and lodging. At one point he asked one woman if she had a “cute black dress” to wear. There were also discussions of shipping goods. One of the exhibits was a text exchange that appeared to be between two of the women concerned about their cash flow and payments. In another, a person asked Gaetz for help to pay an educational expense. Regarding the 17-year-old girl, the report said there was no evidence Gaetz knew she was a minor when he had sex with her. The woman told the committee she did not tell Gaetz she was under 18 at the time and that he learned she was a minor more than a month after the party. But Gaetz stayed in touch with her after that and met up with her for “commercial sex” again less than six months after she turned 18, according to the committee. Florida law says it is a felony for a person 24 or older to have sex with a minor. The law does not allow a claim of ignorance or misrepresentation of a minor's age as a defense. Joel Leppard, who represents two women who told the committee that Gaetz paid them for sex, said the findings “vindicate” the accounts of his clients and “demonstrate their credibility.” “We appreciate the Committee’s commitment to transparency in releasing this comprehensive report so the truth can be known,” Leppard said in a statement. At least one Republican joined all five Democrats on the committee earlier this month in voting to release the report despite initial opposition from GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, to publishing findings about a former member of Congress. While ethics reports have previously been released after a member’s resignation, it is extremely rare. On behalf of the Republicans who voted against making the report public, the committee chairman, Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi, wrote that while the members did not challenge the findings, “we take great exception that the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards,” to drop any investigation when a person is not longer a member of the chamber. Guest added that releasing this report sets a precedent that “is a dangerous departure with potentially catastrophic consequences.” But Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey, a Democratic member of the committee, said that for transparency, it was crucial for the public and Congress as an institution to read the findings. "I think that’s important for my colleagues here in the House to know how the committee reviews certain acts," he told The Associated Press. "Some of these were obviously conduct that crossed the line, but some of them weren’t.” Mounting a last-ditch effort to halt the publication of the report, Gaetz filed a lawsuit Monday asking a federal court to intervene. He cited what he called “untruthful and defamatory information” that would “significantly damage” his “standing and reputation in the community.” Gaetz’s complaint argued that he was no longer under the committee’s jurisdiction because he had resigned from Congress. The often secretive, bipartisan committee has investigated claims against Gaetz since 2021. But its work became more urgent last month when Trump picked him shortly after the Nov. 5 election Day to be the nation's top law enforcement officer. Gaetz resigned from Congress that same day, putting him outside the purview of the committee's jurisdiction. But Democrats had pressed to make the report public even after Gaetz was no longer in the House and had withdrawn from consideration for Trump's Cabinet. A vote on the House floor this month to force the report’s release failed; all but one Republican voted against it. The committee detailed its start-and-stop investigation over the past several years, which was halted for a time as the Justice Department conducted its own inquiry of Gaetz. Federal prosecutors never brought a case against him. Lawmakers said they asked the Justice Department for information about its investigation, but the agency refused to hand over information, saying it does not disclose information about investigations that do not result in charges. The committee then subpoenaed the department for records. After a back-and-forth between department officials and the committee, the department only handed over “publicly reported information about the testimony of a deceased individual,” according to the committee's report. The report said Gaetz was “uncooperative" throughout the committee's investigation. He provided “minimal documentation” in response to the committee’s requests, it said. “He also did not agree to a voluntary interview.” ___ Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.

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