Congressman Abraham Hamadeh (R-AZ-08) pointed out this week the accuracy of his anticipation that Arizona Democrats would file a lawsuit seeking to block President Trump’s Executive Order 14248, entitled Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections. Hamadeh described the Democrats as “the beneficiaries of Arizona’s broken election system,”
Reacting to the announcement from Arizona Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Hamadeh’s office stated that they “and their ilk across the country will go to any lengths to keep our elections processes broken.” His office also noted that the Congressman alongside his co-sponsor Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (R+NY-24), who chairs the Congressional Election Integrity Caucus, have introduced legislation to support and codify the President’s election integrity agenda.
President Trump's Preserving & Protecting the Integrity of American Elections Executive Order takes historic steps to keep noncitizens from voting in elections, eliminate voter fraud, & repeal Biden's corrupt EO 14019!@RepAbeHamadeh & I introduced legislation to enshrine this…
Congresswoman Tenney posted on X, “President Trump’s Preserving & Protecting the Integrity of American Elections Executive Order takes historic steps to keep noncitizens from voting in elections, eliminate voter fraud, & repeal Biden’s corrupt EO 14019! @RepAbeHamadeh & I introduced legislation to enshrine this EO into law to ensure our elections remain free, fair, & honest.”
“The American people deserve better. They deserve to know that their legally cast ballot is counted and accounted for. I am disappointed, but obviously not surprised that Mayes and Fontes seek to thwart the implementation of commonsense safeguards of democracy,” concluded Congressman Hamadeh. “As a trusted advisor once said to me, ‘election integrity never disenfranchised a single soul, but a single act of election fraud disenfranchises us all.’”
The proposed bill, H.R. 2499, would codify Trump’s EO 14248 by ordering states to require proof of citizenship in the form of government-issued ID on voter registration forms, ordering the Departments of State and Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to provide federal database access to states for determining voter eligibility, and requiring a single Election Day deadline for vote tabulation. Each measure will carry the threat of withdrawn federal funding in the event of non-compliance. In a press release, Rep. Hamadeh stated, “In Arizona, we have seen what the mismanagement of voter rolls, failed election infrastructure, and corrupt courts can do to destroy voter confidence and faith in our system overall. We are taking swift action to rebuild citizens’ trust in our elections through comprehensive and meaningful election integrity legislation.”
News broke last week that the Biden Department of Energy (DOE), led by former Secretary Jennifer Granholm, was so dedicated to the Biden White House’s efforts to damage the dynamic U.S. LNG export industry that it resorted to covering up a 2023 DOE study which found that growth in exports provide net benefits to the environment and economy.
“The Energy Department has learned that former Secretary Granholm and the Biden White House intentionally buried a lot of data and released a skewed study to discredit the benefits of American LNG,” one DOE source told Nick Pope of the Daily Caller News Foundation.. “[T]he administration intentionally deceived the American public to advance an agenda that harmed American energy security, the environment and American lives.”
And “deceived” is the best word to describe what happened here. When the White House issued an order signed by the administration’s very busy autopen to invoke what was supposed to be a temporary “pause” in permitting of LNG infrastructure, it was done at the behest of far-left climate czar John Podesta, with Granholm’s full buy-in. As I’ve cataloged here in past stories, this cynical “pause” was based on the flimsiest possible rationale, and the “science” supposedly underlying it was easily debunked and fell completely apart over time.
But the ploy moved ahead anyway, with Granholm and her DOE staff ordered to conduct their own study related to the advisability of allowing further growth of the domestic LNG industry. We know now that study already existed but hadn’t reached the hoped-for conclusions.
The two unfounded fears at hand were concerns that rising exports of U.S. LNG would a) cause domestic prices to rise for consumers, and b) would result in higher emissions than alternative energy sources. As the Wall Street Journal notes, a draft of that 2023 study “shows that increased U.S. LNG exports would have negligible effects on domestic prices while modestly reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The latter is largely because U.S. LNG exports would displace coal in power production and gas exports from other countries such as Russia.”
An energy secretary and climate advisor interested in seeking truth based on science would have made that 2023 study public, and the “pause” would have been a short-lived, temporary thing. Instead, the Biden officials decided to try to bury this inconvenient truth, causing the “pause” to endure right through the final day of the Biden regime with a clear intention of turning it into permanent policy had Kamala Harris and her “summer of joy” campaign managed to prevail on Nov. 5.
Fortunately for the country, voters chose more wisely, and President Trump included ending this deceitful “pause” exercise as part of his Day One agenda. No autopen was involved.
So, the thing is resolved in favor of truth and common sense now, but it is important to understand exactly what was at stake here, exactly how important an industry these Biden officials were trying to freeze in place.
In an interview on Fox News Monday, current Energy Secretary Chris Wright did just that, pointing out that, fifteen years ago, America was “the largest importer of natural gas in the world. Today, we’re the largest exporter.”
He went onto add that, “the Biden administration put a pause on LNG exports 14 months ago, January of 2024, sending a message to the world that maybe the US isn’t going to continue to grow our exports. Think of the extra leverage that gives Russia, the extra fear that gives the Europeans or the Asians that are dying for more American energy.”
Then, Wright supplied the kicker: “They did this in spite of their own study that showed increasing LNG exports would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and have a negligible impact on price.” It was an effort, Wright concludes, to kill what he says is “America’s greatest energy advantage.”
This incident is a stain on the Biden administration and its senior leaders. The stain becomes more indelible when we remember that, when asked by Speaker Mike Johnson why he had signed that order, Joe Biden himself had no memory of doing so, telling Johnson, “I didn’t do that.”
Sadly, we know now there’s a good chance Mr. Biden was telling the speaker the truth. But someone did it, and it’s a travesty.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
In 2022, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club crafted the blueprint to stop illegals from voting in our elections, authoring landmark legislation that was signed into law, becoming the first state in the nation requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote with HB2492. Now, states around the country are taking notice and adopting our model, and just last week President Trump signed an Executive Order to do it nationally. Arizona was just the tip of the spear, and the dominoes are finally beginning to fall.
As of this week, two states require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Arizona was the first with HB2492. Earlier this year, Wyoming became the second. And now, the Texas Senate is considering a bill that is nearly identical to the Arizona Model, which would make them the third.
Arizona has long been at the forefront of this issue. In 2004, Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 200 to require proof of citizenship to vote. After nearly a decade of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed us to only implement the requirement on our own voter registration form but prevented us from requiring it on the federal form. The result over the decade following the decision was the complete proliferation of the “Federal Only Voting” list, amounting to tens of thousands of potential noncitizens registering and voting in our elections…
Founder and former CEO of the Phoenix-based Nikola Motor Company, Trevor Milton, was granted a full-unconditional pardon by President Donald Trump on Friday as confirmed by the White House. Milton was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office – Southern District of New York (SDNY), the same office which led the infamous pre-election prosecution of the President.
In a press release issued Friday, Milton, who was convicted of fraud and sentenced to four years in prison in December 2023, referenced a vow from Trump during his second inaugural address to “end the political weaponization of the Justice Department.”
Milton said in an Instagram post, “Today I was issued a full and unconditional pardon by Donald Trump himself. He called me personally to tell me.”
He also said in a statement, “This pardon is not just about me—it’s about every American who has been railroaded by the government, and unfortunately, that’s a lot of people.
“It is no wonder why trust and confidence in the Justice Department has eroded to nothing. I wish judges would stop believing whatever the prosecutors feed them so Americans could trust the justice system again. Until that happens, our justice system will continue to erode until there is nothing left.
“The 90+% conviction rate in New York is appalling and is a result of prosecutors getting whatever they want and putting innocent people in prison. I saw firsthand the tactics they use to achieve those guaranteed convictions. I am incredibly grateful to President Trump for his courage in standing up for what is right and for granting me this sacred pardon of innocence.”
Milton also shared the news in a video post to X calling it “the best day I’ve had in five years.”
He said in the video, in part, “It’s pretty hard for me to talk about, but probably the best day I’ve had in five years. I just got a call from the President of the United States on my phone, and he signed my full and unconditional pardon of innocence. I am free. The prosecutors can no longer hurt me. They can’t destroy my family. They can’t rip everything away from me. They can’t ruin my life. I get to be with my wife now. I get to be with my family. It is done. It’s over. I am now officially pardoned by the President of the United States 45, 47, an amazing man that cared enough to call me personally to tell me how much of an injustice this all was, done by the same offices that harassed and prosecuted him. And I’m now officially 100% pardoned.”
When questioned on the pardon by reporters at the White House, President Trump replied that the pardon of Milton was “highly recommended, highly recommended by many people,” according to Fox News. The president characterized Milton’s prosecution by the SDNY as politically motivated due to the billionaire’s high profile and early support of Trump’s campaign.
“Again I don’t know him, they say it was very unfair, and they say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president.
“He supported Trump. He liked Trump. I didn’t know him, but he liked him. It was in Utah, and they went after him. They went after his family. They went after his businesses, and he was, I believe, exonerated, and then they went after him again, and they brought him this time into Manhattan, and he had nothing to do with Manhattan, and they got him. And I said that’s unfair. There are many people like that. They support Trump, and they went after him.”
He continued, “You don’t realize, this is a vicious group of people that were in this office before us. This is a vicious group. They’re violent. What they would… what they were doing to people, and you could go story after hundreds and even thousands of stories. And they went after this man. And when I heard about it I said, ‘Nope, not gonna happen.’ They persecuted. They destroyed five years of his life. He fought for five years of his life, and he did nothing wrong, and he’s a good person. And basically, I had these fantastic recommendations about him from people that you know very well. All top of the line people. They thought it was a horrible thing. There were… there were many such cases by the way many such cases.”
As reported by Reuters, federal prosecutors alleged that Milton misled Nikola investors claiming that the firm had constructed a truck from the “ground up,” and had developed its own batteries, despite buying them and allegedly misled them about the capabilities of the company’s “Nikola One” EV Semi-truck.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes announced in a social media post on Wednesday that he will not be running to replace the late Democrat Congressman Raúl Grijalva in the 7th Congressional District. Instead Fontes will seek to defend his seat as Arizona’s top election official in the 2026 mid-term election.
In his remarks, posted to X, Fontes referred to a “rising tide of fascism sweeping this nation,” as his primary motivation for the decision. Fontes cited President Donald Trump’s Executive Order “Preserving And Protecting The Integrity Of American Elections,” and claimed that through this action the “president is laying the groundwork to cancel elections in 2026.”
Fontes gave no explanation or description of how requiring voter identification, preventing non-citizens from voting, cooperation between the state and federal governments to maintain voter roll integrity, requiring states only count ballots received on or by election day, and improving the security of voting systems could possibly accomplish this end.
Fontes wrote:
“I have considered the pros and cons of running for congress. It is clear to me that our party must fight harder and stand up to the rising tide of fascism sweeping this nation.
“With this week’s executive order from the Trump Administration, I firmly believe the president is laying the groundwork to cancel elections in 2026.
“After careful thought and reflection, I have decided that for family, for country, and for democracy, I will continue to defend America as Arizona’s secretary of state.”
As reported by KJZZ, Fontes claimed that the Executive Order, “is in my view an attempt to erode confidence so much that he [Trump] will be able to declare some kind of emergency or something and potentially just cancel the elections in 2026. I don’t think that is beyond what this administration is capable of.”
In a subsequent interview with Scripps, Fontes proceeded to double-down, telling Elizabeth Landers that were DOGE to come for any of Arizona’s voter rolls or information, as required under the Executive Order, he “would tell them to go to hell.”
He also announced that a formal campaign announcement for Secretary of State will be forthcoming.
Several commenters to Fontes’ post on X disagreed with his characterization of his decision, instead positing that the late-Rep. Grijalva’s daughter Adelita Grijalva is the likely frontrunner.
Former Arizona State Representative Daniel Hernandez Jr. has already announced his candidacy for the seat as well with at least seven statements of interest filed for the race so far.
