Political polls trump

Former President Donald Trump on Monday claimed that the FBI “stole” his “passports” in last week’s raid on his private residence at Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

“In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else,” he said via Truth Social. “This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!”

The passports were not independently itemized on the FBI’s property receipt of the 28 inventory items federal agents seized.

The warrant, which Attorney General Merrick Garland says he approved and was signed by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, did not state that they could take Trump’s passport. Typically, the government needs a separate court order to seize someone’s passport, even temporarily.

A new ranked-choice voting system in Alaska is adding intrigue to a primary battle that features longtime Senator Lisa Murkowski facing off Tuesday against Donald Trump -backed Kelly Tshibaka.

Murkowski, 65, a senator since 2002 and the second-highest-ranking Republican female senator after Maine’s Susan Collins, faces her strongest challenge yet. Tshibaka, former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner, has raised only about one-third what Murkowski has raised, but it’s possible both women will be on the ballot in November.

Alaska’s new voting system puts all statewide candidates on the same primary ballot, regardless of party affiliation. Then, the top four candidates advance to the general election, which means multiple Republicans could be on the general election ballot.

Alaska voters will rank their top four candidates in each race. Unless one candidate garners over 50 percent of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the least support is eliminated from contention and voters’ second choices are taken into account. The process continues in the same manner if another round does not result in a candidate hitting the 50 percent threshold.

Since Republicans, Democrats and independents will all have a say in the primary, it is widely believed that either Murkowski or Tshibaka will come out victorious of the four candidates.

Polling of 1,201 likely Alaska voters conducted by Alaska Survey Research between July 2 and July 5 showed Murkowski winning after round three—even after losing the first two rounds to her Trump-endorsed opponent.

The survey also showed Murkowski with a 42.5 percent favorability rating compared to Tshibaka’s 32 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percent.

Murkowski has been a target of Trump since she voted to impeach him for his role in the January 6 insurrection. She is the only Republican senator who voted to impeach Trump to have an election in 2022.

In a July 9 rally for Tshibaka and House candidate and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in Anchorage, Trump didn’t forget.

“She voted to impeach me,” Trump said , according to the Associated Press . “And I did more for this state than any president in history. And that piece of,” he said, pausing to mouth the word “garbage” to the crowd, “voted to impeach me!”

When Tshibaka filed to run for office, she said Murkowski “has forgotten us because she cares more about being popular with her friends in Washington, D.C.” Along with calling out Murkowski’s support for “leftist judge” (now U.S. Supreme Court Justice) Ketanji Brown Jackson, Tshibaka also said Murkowski didn’t support Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett , even though Murkowski voted to confirm Barrett.

Tshibaka’s campaign website describes her as a “pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment” conservative. Along with supporting reproductive rights, Murkowski has voted with President Joe Biden 69.4 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Representative Liz Cheney , another prominent Republican who has attacked Trump for his role in the January 6, 2001, Capitol riot, among other aspects of his presidency, is expected to lose handily in her Wyoming primary. Cheney is vice chairwoman of the House select Jan. 6 committee.

Newsweek reached out to the campaigns of Murkowski and Tshibaka for comment.

Donald Trump hosted the Prime Minister of Japan at his $200,000 membership Florida golf resort this weekend, raising serious ethics questions.

While Trump insisted he was to pay Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s hotel bill at his Mar-a-Lago resort to avoid profiting from the visit, it’s likely the business will still benefit from its close association with the presidency.

Trump has repeatedly referred to the exclusive hotel and golf club complex as the ‘Winter White House’ – and has spent already spent two weekends there in his first month in office.

As long as Trump or his business does not accept any payment from the Japanese government, he is not in direct breach of the US constitution.

But in a week which saw Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway hawk daughter Ivanka Trump’s clothing line standing in front of the official White House seal, it’s led many to question whether the huge global publicity the visit will give Mar-A-Lago had anything to do with the decision to host Prime Minister Shinzo there.

Washington University’s Kathleen Clark told NPR on Friday: “Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago establishment is a commercial establishment, and he has a financial interest in promoting that business.

“The fact that everybody in the world, every media organization in the world is going to mention Mar-a-Lago because the Japanese prime minister is there with the president.”

Clark added: “I just want to acknowledge that this is just yet another example that we don’t know whether he was motivated by his own financial interest or his concern about the American public.”

Presidents usually either host foreign leaders at the White House or at Camp David, the US government owned retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains.

Donald Trump has continued to fume about the FBI ‘s search of his home, claiming the entire country is “angry” about it.

The search warrant served on August 8 was part of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into the discovery of classified White House records recovered from the former president’s Florida home earlier this year.

The National Archives had asked the department to investigate after saying 15 boxes of records it retrieved from the estate included classified records.

FBI agents recovered 11 sets of classified records from Mar-a-Lago, including some marked top secret and “sensitive compartmented information,” according to a property receipt unsealed by the court on Friday.

The warrant cited potential violations of three federal laws , including the Espionage Act , which makes it a crime to release information that could harm national security.

But the former president— whose actions on January 6, 2021 , as a mob of his supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden ‘s 2020 election victory were laid bare in a recent hearing by the House select committee investigating the deadly attack—has decried the search of his home “as a sneak attack on democracy.”

“America has never suffered this kind of ABUSE in Law Enforcement!” Trump posted on his Truth Social website on Sunday night.

“For the FBI to RAID the home of the 45 President of the United States, or any President for that matter, is totally unheard of and unthinkable. This Break In was a sneak attack on democracy (our Republic!), and was both unannounced and done at a time when the President was not even present.”

He added that the raid was for “political, not legal reasons, and our entire Country is angry, hurt, and greatly embarrassed by it.”

However, a Rasmussen poll conducted between August 9 and 11, before the warrant for the search was unsealed, found Americans were split in opinion. About 50 percent of likely voters approved of the FBI’s actions, while 46 percent disapproved, according to the survey.

Andrew David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was among those to call out Republicans for uniting behind Trump in criticizing the FBI search.

“Stunning though not surprising Rs in House are treating DOJ/FBI lawful search at Trump’s residence as greatest threat to Republic since Pearl Harbor while dismissing illegal, violent insurrection on January 6 as just another day on the Hill by bunch of happy well-meaning patriots,” Miller tweeted last week.

In another post on Sunday, Trump said he had just left a large gathering where all people could talk about was “the complete and total stranglehold” that Democrats have over the Justice Department and FBI.

“It shouldn’t be that way,” he wrote.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said he had personally approved of the decision to seek the search warrant and that it “was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause.”

Garland also hit back at “unfounded” attacks on the professionalism of FBI agents and federal prosecutors.

“I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,” he said. “The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants.

“Every day, they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves. I am honored to work alongside them.”

In posts on Truth Social, Trump also criticized the FBI after Fox News , citing unnamed sources familiar with the investigation, reported that some of the boxes seized by agents contained documents covered by attorney-client privilege.

“By copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken,” Trump wrote. “Thank you!”

Earlier, Trump accused FBI agents of rummaging through his wife Melania’s closets during the search.

He also claimed it was carried out without witnesses, although his attorney Christina Bobb was at Mar-a-Lago during the search and signed two property receipts that listed what FBI agents had taken.

The FBI declined to comment on the matter. Newsweek has contacted Trump’s office for further comment.

Greg Gutfeld told his co-hosts Monday on FNC’s “The Five” that former President Donald Trump gets more popular as investigations target him.

Saturday on HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence would help him politically.

Maher said, “Trump did sell his soul to the devil because he is the luckiest man in the world. His fortune was finally falling. The Big Lie was finally losing momentum. DeSantis was beating him in the polls — you know who hates this more than anybody? DeSantis, ‘I had this in the bag, and now I got to run against President Martyr.’ This is saving Trump politically.”

Gutfeld said, “There is truth to what he is saying no matter how you feel about Trump, and Bill Maher can’t stand him. He’s a larger-than-life figure. And you create more status the more you target him. He understands that, and he’s like a black hole that swallows the negative energy appear. The angrier you get, the better it works. How stupid was this? It’s like found money for him here this raid. He doesn’t have to do anything. He can pull back and let this play out. He already looks like he was the victim here. Meanwhile, they are going to work around the clock trying to find stuff about him, but it’s already falling apart. I think we are seeing it fall apart.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN