Notorious MAGA Fraudsters Back at It Again With New Scam

Two election fraudsters and MAGA conspiracy theorists, Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, have been using fake names to run a start-up that promised to integrate A.I. into lobbying, according to a Politico report published Sunday.

LobbyMatic was founded in 2022 by right-wing agitator Wohl (using the alias “Jay Klein”) and his D.C. lobbyist buddy Burkman (under the name “Bill Sanders”), according to four former employees who spoke anonymously with Politico, to prevent retaliation.

Ahead of the 2020 general election, Wohl and Burkman organized a campaign of robocalls to predominantly Black neighborhoods across several states, urging residents not to attempt mail-in voting. The messages, which claimed that mail-in voting could lead to compromised personal data, mentioned Wohl and Burkman by name, making them easy to identify—and convict of telecom fraud.

The Federal Communications Commission fined the duo $5 million, and a judge in Ohio ordered them to spend 500 hours registering people to vote. In 2023, a New York federal judge found Wohl and Burkman guilty of violating the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act, and in April, New York Attorney General Letitia James reached a settlement with the pair, ordering them to pay “up to $1.25 million.”

Perhaps the two fraudsters learned not to put their names on their schemes—and apparently cooked up totally new identities to start their newest venture. Still, Wohl and Burkman had difficulty keeping their new identities straight. Three former employees told Politico that there were several instances in which people, including Burkman, referred to “Jay Klein” as Jacob.

At LobbyMatic, things were not going particularly well. Former employees said that the company repeatedly missed payroll, and although its website listed job openings, Wohl said that they were not hiring.

Instead of hiring real workers, Wohl appeared to have invented a female vice president named “Pat Smith.” Wohl apparently told three employees that she didn’t exist and that it was best to use a good-looking blonde woman when trying to make introductions.

Additionally, the company, which was not officially registered in Virginia, lacked occupancy and renovation permits for its office, according to Politico.

“Jay/Jacob was out of touch with reality,” one former employee told Politico. “Working for them you knew you were never getting the full story and were often left trying to find the truth. If I had to sum up my work experience for them, I would describe them as living with their head in the clouds and in a false reality.”

That employee told Politico that they once accompanied “Sanders” to a house in Arlington, Virginia, which was actually owned by Burkman. The house’s front steps were the site of some of Wohl and Burkman’s infamous press conferences, where they elevated their outlandish conspiracy theories and smear campaigns, including but not limited to claims that Pete Buttigieg and Robert Mueller had committed sexual assault and that Senator Elizabeth Warren was having an affair with a Marine.

The employee who went to Burkman’s house told Politico that they’d grown suspicious that something was amiss after hearing Wohl referred to as Jacob and after witnessing him express reservations about obtaining business licenses. The employee eventually took a photo of their employer and did a quick reverse image search, which confirmed Wohl’s true identity.

Former employees were able to identify “Sanders” as being the same man who appeared in a 2022 Netflix crime docuseries using his real name, Burkman.

According to former employees, LobbyMatic had three brand-name clients: Toyota, drug company Lantheus, and Boundary Stone Partners, a consulting firm. Representatives from Toyota and Lantheus said they’d signed up for the company’s three-month free trial, which had since expired. Jeff Navin, a co-founder of Boundary Stone Partners, told Politico the company had tried out LobbyMatic’s service and “quickly determined the tool did not work and terminated our contract two months ago.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to drop out of the presidential race and not only endorse Donald Trump but join his transition team came after weeks of secret discussions and meetings—and one stunning phone call.

Only hours after a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at a Pennsylvania rally in July, health care entrepreneur Calley Means, who had advised Kennedy in the past, asked him over the phone to consider joining the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign, possibly as his running mate. Kennedy initially declined but then agreed to speak to Trump, setting in motion weeks of back-and-forth, culminating in Kennedy joining the Trump campaign, according to a report from The New York Times.

The two would join forces thanks to efforts from Trump’s co-campaign manager Susie Wiles and Kennedy’s campaign manager, Amaryllis Fox, his daughter-in-law. Also playing major roles were Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., as well as Omeed Malik, a businessman and donor who supported both candidates.

The Trump-Kennedy partnership couldn’t have come together without conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, though, whom Means reached out to right after his call to Kennedy. Carlson was enthusiastic, and connected Trump and Kennedy in a group text. Trump would speak on the phone with Kennedy for a half an hour after being examined at a hospital that night.

“I would love you to do something,” Trump said in the conversation, which was later leaked. “I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re going to win.”

But a partnership still wasn’t a done deal after that conversation, with Kennedy still considering the idea. He received pushback from his wife, Cheryl Hines, a Democrat who was very critical of Trump, as well as advisers who warned him that Trump couldn’t be trusted. Kennedy then met with Trump in Milwaukee as the Republican National Convention was being held, and Kennedy began to push for a specific position if Trump was elected: secretary of health and human services.

The next day, however, Kennedy’s son, Bobby Kennedy III, posted video to X of his father’s initial phone conversation with Trump the night he was shot, alarming staffers in the Trump campaign, who now saw Kennedy as unable to be trusted. While Kennedy quickly apologized, discussions between the two camps came to a halt.

When the convention ended, though, President Biden dropped out of the race and Democrats rallied behind Vice President Kamala Harris, surprising Trump. Kennedy apologized again, and two weeks later, he and Trump were talking. They met on August 12 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, with Wiles, Fox, Trump Jr., and Malik present, and hashed out their alliance.

Last week, Trump named Kennedy to his transition team, giving him a part not just in selecting staffers for a possible presidency but also in crafting policy. The infamous anti-vaccine pseudoscience peddler will seemingly be an integral part of Trump’s White House if he wins in November. Time will tell if this will be an asset or liability to Trump in the election, but having a brain worm–addled animal carcass enthusiast on board certainly won’t make the convicted felon seem any less weird.

The value of X, formerly known as Twitter, has tanked since Elon Musk’s 2022 takeover—and investors are not happy.

The billionaire purchased the social media behemoth for $44 billion, with the help of massive bank loans. But after Musk introduced his radical changes to the site—which included laying off 75 percent of its employees, crippling the site’s verification system, and changing the algorithm to promote more advertisements, irrelevant content, and antisemitism—interest in the company has plummeted. In the CEO’s own words, the company has lost 90 percent of its value since Musk bought it out.

“Elon’s done a tremendous amount of wealth destruction since he’s purchased Twitter,” longtime Tesla bull Ross Gerber told The Washington Post. Gerber reportedly has invested less than $1 million in the company but now considers the stake worthless.

“For the people who put capital into [Elon] for any amount,” Gerber told the Post, “trying to explain to people how he lost” so much money “is not a fun conversation.”

Gerber has also given Musk a six-month deadline to fix Tesla’s stock performance, or else he intends to exit his position. Gerber told Business Insider Sunday that he receives daily calls from clients asking him to pull out from the electric vehicle company, in which he holds $60 million shares, citing Musk’s erratic behavior on social media.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder, remains one of the platform’s largest investors. But even Dorsey has lost an estimated $720 million, according to the Post. Last year, Dorsey posted on the Twitter competitor BlueSky that he didn’t believe Musk should have purchased the site.

“It all went south,” Dorsey said, referring to the acquisition.

But not all of Musk’s investors are upset. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who has invested the most in X after Musk himself, with nearly $2 billion rolled into the company, told the Post that he’s still very happy with his investment and felt that there was “no devaluation whatsoever.”

“When you evaluate X, you have to evaluate their ownership in xAI of 25 percent,” Alwaleed said, noting that a renewed focus for the company needs to involve bringing back major advertisers to the platform. “Clearly, the game right now is monetization, having advertisers coming to X.”

Unfortunately for Alwaleed, advertisers have made it clear that they can’t exit the platform fast enough. In response, Musk sued a group of advertisers last month to essentially bully them back onto X, a surefire way to make business connections.

Elon Musk says he “can’t wait” to take on a role in Donald Trump’s administration.

For the past several months, Trump’s team has been plotting the creation of a “government efficiency commission” to help him audit and cut government programs, should he return to the White House, according to The Washington Post. Musk has been floated as one of the top business leaders who could join the commission.

Just after midnight on Tuesday, Musk giddily posted, “I can’t wait. There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go.”

The idea of Musk joining Trump’s administration was also a topic of discussion during the former president and the X CEO’s multi-hour “interview” in August, after which Musk posted that he’s “willing to serve.” Meanwhile, Musk continues to help raise millions for his pro-Trump America PAC.

Unfortunately for Musk, just last week it seemed that Trump was trying to push him out of any position in his Cabinet.

“He wants to be involved. Now, look, he’s running big businesses and all that, so, he can’t really—I don’t think he’d be [free] for the Cabinet,” said Trump in an interview on The Shawn Ryan Show last week. “I’d put him in the Cabinet, absolutely, but I don’t know how he could do that with all the things he’s got going,” he continued.

Over the weekend, Trump also appeared to make fun of the fellow billionaire, impersonating him at the Moms for Liberty summit in Washington, D.C.

J.D. Vance gave heavy praise to a 2017 Heritage Foundation report that suggested restricting reproductive rights and called hunger a “great motivation” for Americans to work.

Vance wrote the report’s introduction, and was even the keynote speaker when it was publicly released just months after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, according to The New York Times. At the time, Vance hadn’t yet entered politics, and was known as the author of the bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy.

The Index of Culture and Opportunity report consists of 29 essays from people from across the conservative movement, including commentators, members of the clergy, policy experts, and local community leaders. In addition to saying there’s an upside to people going hungry, the essays opposed fertility treatments including in vitro fertilization, calling them harmful to women. The writers also praised state-level laws restricting abortion and hoped the procedure would be “unthinkable” one day in America.

The report seems like a preview of the Republican policies that have been pushed in the years since, with essays calling for women to be pregnant at younger ages and extolling heterosexual couples as “ideal” for raising children. When asked, a spokesperson for the Trump-Vance campaign said Vance didn’t edit the essays or have “any input on the commentary.”

But in his introduction to the report, Vance tied economic distress with what he viewed as cultural decline, arguing that Americans needed a return to conservative values along with practical solutions like education and policy changes to fix their lives.

“Culture, in other words, must serve as the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one, and proper conversation about culture will never be used as a weapon against those whom Christ described as ‘the least of these,’” he wrote in the Index of Culture and Opportunity report. “It will be a needed antidote to a simplistic political discourse.”

Since Trump named him as his running mate, Vance has taken a lot of heat for his past comments, many of which had to do with his views on family life. He’s faced heavy criticism for attacking people without children, not just from politicians but from celebrities. This latest revelation is a reminder of his ties to the conservative Heritage Foundation, which was behind the infamous Project 2025 manifesto that Vance and Trump have unsuccessfully tried to distance themselves from. At this point, Republicans have to be wondering if Vance’s efforts in the conservative movement, considered an asset to the GOP, will hurt their chances in November.

It seems that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s pro–Donald Trump spoiler campaign isn’t going too well.

The failed independent presidential candidate has begun desperately attempting to scrape his name off the ballot in battleground states where his presence might give Kamala Harris a boost—but to no avail. While Kennedy once struggled to get on the ballot in several states, now he can’t seem to find his way off.

Kennedy is suing North Carolina’s State Board of Elections, after it declined to remove his name from the state’s ballot because 1.7 million ballots had already been printed and 67 of the state’s 100 counties have already received their ballots.

To pause or disrupt ballot printing could interfere with the distribution of absentee ballots, according to the board’s executive director, Karen Brinson Bell. Printing new ballots could cost in the high six-figure range and take nearly two weeks, said Bell.

Last week, the board voted 3–2 along partisan lines to keep Kennedy’s name on the ballot. In response, a lawsuit has been filed on Kennedy’s behalf demanding that he be removed.

“By refusing to acknowledge Kennedy’s statutory rights and entitlements, defendants have irreparably harmed him,” said the lawsuit, which was filed in Wake County Superior Court late last month. “Even worse, by forcing Kennedy to remain on the ballot against his will, defendants are compelling speech in violation of (the Constitution).”

The suit argues that “practicality” is not a valid legal standard by which the board can deny Kennedy’s request.

Kennedy’s inability to slink out of the race in key battleground states has the potential to hurt the Trump campaign. Kennedy even said that his own campaign’s polling showed that it would “likely hand the election over to the Democrats” if he remained on the ballot in certain states. As the race between Harris and Trump narrows, the likelihood of his spoiling Trump’s chances too only increases.

In North Carolina, Trump has retained a one-point lead, but a new report last week found that Harris had shored up support among Democratic and independent voters, gaining 13 points with each group. As a result, the Cook Political Report updated the race from a “leaning Republican” rating to a “toss-up.”

Kennedy’s requests to be removed from the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin have also been denied. Election officials in Michigan said that minor parties were unable to withdraw from the ballot, while officials in Wisconsin said that anyone who filed nomination papers and qualified to appear on the ballot could not decline the nomination.

In the less than two weeks since Kennedy announced he was suspending his campaign to throw his weight behind Trump, the whale-decapitator has made clear that he intends to stay on the ballot in some states but not others. He has successfully removed himself from the ballot in other battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona.

A top volunteer is no longer with Donald Trump’s campaign over fears that the former president is wasting resources in a nonnegotiable state.

Tom Mountain, a former vice chair of Trump’s effort in Massachusetts, will reportedly “no longer have any involvement” in helping the Republican presidential nominee, according to The Boston Globe. At issue was an alarm-raising email that Mountain sent out on Sunday, notifying fellow Trump volunteers that “the campaign has determined that New Hampshire is no longer a battleground state” and that staff should redirect campaign efforts in Pennsylvania.

According to Mountain, Trump was “sure to lose by an even higher margin” in New Hampshire than in the previous two election cycles, citing “campaign data/research.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire by a hair in 2016, clinching a minuscule margin of 0.37 percent with 2,736 votes.

The messaging was a near complete reversal for the Trump campaign, which had high ambitions of claiming the Granite State when President Joe Biden was still the Democratic presidential nominee.

Officials with the Trump campaign didn’t give the warning much merit and were quick to attack Mountain’s position in the campaign. In an interview with the Globe, Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said that to describe Mountain as a “leading volunteer” would be a “massive overstatement of his involvement.”

“This isn’t true,” Hughes said in reference to Mountain’s email. “President Trump’s campaign maintains an on-the-ground presence in New Hampshire, including staff and offices, while Kamala Harris is parachuting in because she knows that the Granite State is in play. We look forward to building on the momentum that we have grown since the primary and sending New Hampshire’s four electoral votes to President Trump’s column on November 5.”

Donald Trump is claiming he had “every right” to interfere in the 2020 election.

During an interview Sunday on Fox News’s Life, Liberty & Levin, Trump seemingly defended his right to illegally interfere with the 2020 election—while also claiming he did not do it, when asked about the Justice Department’s plans to “keep smearing” him.

“It’s so crazy that my poll numbers go up. Who ever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election—where you have every right to do it—you get indicted, and your poll numbers go up?” Trump said. “When people get indicted, your poll numbers go down!”

Trump is facing charges in Washington, D.C., for alleged election interference, as well as a separate slate of charges in Georgia for election interference.

Last week, special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment against Trump in his federal election interference case. While the indictment did not drop any of the four original charges against Trump, it did remove some of the specific allegations and emphasize how Trump’s actions fell outside of the bounds of “official conduct,” in an effort to adhere to the Supreme Court’s new definition of presidential immunity.

Trump responded by going on a disturbing social media rant about how he plans to jail and even kill his enemies.

Kamala Harris made her Middle East policy abundantly clear during her first big media interview on Thursday: America will continue to arm Israel, unconditionally.

In the much-hyped interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, and Tim Walz by her side, Harris was asked how she’d differentiate her stance on Israel from President Joe Biden’s.

“Would you do anything differently, for example, would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel? That’s what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do,” asked Bash.

“Let me be very clear. I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not going to change,” replied Harris. “As I said then [on October 7], I say today Israel has a right to defend itself … and how it does so matters.”

Harris went on to clarify that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed” by Israel, but still refused to commit to changing U.S. policy on Israel.

Harris emphasized the need for a cease-fire agreement saying “we have to get it a deal done,” mentioning the Biden administration’s presence this week at negotiations in Qatar. At talks in Doha, the potential deal included a limited six-week cease-fire, prisoner release, and aid into Gaza in exchange for 33 living hostages returned to Israel. However, Hamas has not participated directly in the talks because they say the negotiations “provide cover for Israel to continue its war”—and Israel left the talks on Thursday with no final agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu said he believes Israel must keep military pressure to force a deal.

Harris has previously told Netanyahu, “It is time for this war to end,” but the Israeli prime minister has refused to accept anything but a “partial” cease-fire deal, like the one that was being negotiated in Doha.

As Bash pointed out, many Americans are looking at Harris and Biden to cease arms sales to Israel. A June CBS poll found that 61 percent of Americans oppose weapons aid to Israel, including 77 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents. Moreover, 77 percent of those under 30 oppose arming Israel in its continued assault on Gaza. Another YouGov/IMEU Policy Project poll this month found that voters in swing states are more likely to vote for a nominee who vows to withhold weapons.

CNN’s Bash continued by zeroing in on this issue, pressing the vice president in terms of how this deal would get done. “But no change in policy, in terms of arms and so forth?”

“No, we have to get a deal done,” Harris replied, shooting down the possibility of an arms embargo. “I remain committed, since I’ve been on October 8, to what we must do to work toward a two-state solution—where Israel is secure and in equal measure, the Palestinians have security and self determination and dignity.”

Former New York City mayor turned Trump fixer Rudy Giuliani may soon lose control of all his assets for his involvement in defaming two Georgia poll workers in 2020.

The defamed election workers, mother-daughter duo Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, successfully sued Giuliani last year—and asked a federal court Friday to hand over control of his assets to fulfill the judgment.

In a court filing, the pair accused Giuliani of having “spent years evading accountability for his actions” with extemporaneous litigation and unproductive bankruptcy filings.

“Now that Mr. Giuliani’s bankruptcy case has been dismissed, Plaintiffs are finally in a position to receive a measure of compensation by enforcing their judgment,” attorneys for Freeman and Moss wrote. “In this motion, Plaintiffs seek two remedies to which they are entitled under New York law: an order requiring Mr. Giuliani to turn over personal property in his possession in satisfaction of the judgment, and an order appointing Plaintiffs as receivers with the power to take possession of, and sell, both real and personal property that Mr. Giuliani does not turn over.”

Giuliani was ordered to pay nearly $150 million in damages in December to Freeman and Moss. Since then, the former Trump attorney unsuccessfully filed for bankruptcy, lost his accountant over his insurmountable debts, begged Trump for help settling his seven-figure legal fees (he refused), had his WABC radio show canceled for spewing 2020 election lies, and miserably started his own coffee brand, “Rudy Coffee,” in an effort to funnel in some extra cash.

But running out of funds didn’t hamper Giuliani’s prolific spending habits. In May, unsecured creditors for the disbarred attorney slammed Giuliani’s “extravagant lifestyle” as “gross mismanagement,” and torched him for having “accomplished almost nothing” in his bankruptcy case. That resulted in a New York judge throwing out the bankruptcy case in July, calling the former city mayor a “recalcitrant debtor.”

Giuliani is also under the gun for a lawsuit from his former legal representation, who accused him of failing to pay his bill and allegedly only dishing out $214,000 of nearly $1.6 million in legal expenses. Giuliani, meanwhile, claimed he was stiffed by his favorite client, Trump, to the tune of millions of dollars. Amazingly, Giuliani’s legal troubles don’t end there, either: The MAGA henchman is also one of 19 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case and was named in April in an Arizona indictment charging another slew of Republican officials and Trump allies for their alleged involvement in a scheme to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results.

After this story was published, Giuliani’s spokesperson reached out to The New Republic to decry the news.

“This lawsuit has always been designed to censor and bully the mayor, and to deter others from exercising their right to speak up and to speak out,” spokesman Ted Goodman said in a statement. “America is facing an existential crisis. We were once a country that put a premium on free speech and the integrity of our justice system, yet we now live in a time where the justice system has been weaponized against Mayor Giuliani and so many others for strictly partisan political purposes.”

This story has been updated.