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Former CIA Director John Brennan accused President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans of working together to target individuals who have opposed or investigated the president, alleging a coordinated effort to damage their reputations and finances.

Speaking Thursday on MSNBC’s Deadline, Brennan sharply criticized House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, claiming the Ohio Republican has used his position to advance Trump’s interests.

“Jim Jordan is not just a craven politician who has abused the authorities of his chairmanship of the committee. He also is a complete shill for Donald Trump. And so what is happening to Jack Smith is exactly what happened to me. Both Jack and I appeared separately, voluntarily, in front of his committee. And then as a result of those appearances and our testimony, he makes referrals to the Department of Justice. He made a criminal referral on me, which is why I’m a target of several investigations out of the Southern District of Florida.”

Brennan went on to argue that the actions taken by Jordan and the Trump administration amount to a deliberate effort to intimidate critics and former government officials.

“The intention that Jim Jordan and Donald Trump are engaged in is to try to harass and harangue and to ruin, try to ruin people reputationally and financially and so on. And so it just shows that there is this collusion and conspiracy among the Republican members of Congress and the White House to go after individuals who try to uphold their responsibilities and obligations when they were government employees, but who have, you know, run afoul of Donald Trump. And so, again, this is just so ludicrous. But it’s so hard to believe that this would have ever happened previously. But again, it’s not surprising or shocking at all that this is going on right now with this administration and this Department of Justice.”

{Matzav.com}

A subcontractor that performed work on the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago has shut down its business after claiming the project left it with nearly $4 million in losses, forcing the company to lay off workers and walk away from several other construction jobs.

Mike Owen, owner of Adamson Plumbing Contractors, told Fox News that his company has ceased operations after suffering financial losses tied to its work on the presidential center. The closure resulted in the layoff of 25 union employees and the abandonment of multiple construction projects.

According to Fox News, “Before the center opened, Owen said the project had left his company with $3.9 million in losses tied to delays, rework, labor overruns, and changing project demands. He said he spent months negotiating with Lakeside Alliance, the project’s construction manager, before going public after failing to reach a resolution.”

The project has also drawn scrutiny over its finances. Previous reports noted that, despite rising costs ultimately borne by taxpayers, the Obama Presidential Center sought unpaid volunteers while planning to pay its chief executive an annual salary of $740,000.

As part of his effort to recover some of the money he says is owed, Owen’s company, operating under the name Marsh-Adamson, has filed a $1.72 million mechanic’s lien against the presidential center property.

“Laying off close to 30 people is something that no owner in our industry wants to do. It’s a hard thing to do, especially when you know you can finish them and the company can still make money. But we were put in a pretty bad corner,” he said.

The development has also faced questions over its ambitious design. According to a previous Breitbart News report, President Barack Obama repeatedly encouraged the architectural team to pursue a larger and more expansive vision for the $850 million Obama Presidential Center, a massive granite-clad complex in Chicago’s Jackson Park.

Tod Williams, one of the project’s lead architects, told The New Yorker that Obama urged the designers to “up our ante” beyond the center’s original plans. Williams said the continued push to increase the project’s scale created tension during the design process and ultimately left him feeling “uneasy.”

The center officially opened in June with President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama hosting numerous celebrities and other prominent guests. The celebration, however, came as the project continued to face allegations that several Black-owned subcontractors had not been fully paid for work they performed during construction, according to Breitbart News.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing fierce criticism from police union leaders after encouraging New Yorkers to protest Israeli Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu during his expected visit to the city for the United Nations General Assembly, with officers warning that the mayor’s rhetoric could make an already demanding security operation even more dangerous, the NY Post reports.

The backlash comes after the NYPD spent weeks managing security for a series of massive events, including the FIFA World Cup, the New York Knicks’ NBA championship celebration, Independence Day festivities, and America 250 events that drew millions of people to the city. Officers now say they are preparing for another major deployment as demonstrations are expected during Netanyahu’s visit.

“The mayor’s activist posturing puts police officers on the street in a terrible position,” NYPD Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said. “Protests during the UN General Assembly are nothing new, but when the mayor of the city is actively calling for demonstrations, violent agitators will assume they have permission to cause as much havoc as possible.

“Those same agitators know that the NYPD’s protest response is already hamstrung by the dangerous lawsuit settlement the city signed over the PBA’s opposition,” Hendry said. “The mayor’s heated rhetoric could be enough to push demonstrations over the edge into chaos.”

Mamdani has repeatedly targeted Netanyahu since launching his mayoral campaign, previously pledging to have the Israeli prime minister arrested if he entered New York in connection with a 2024 arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Earlier this week, however, the mayor acknowledged that he lacks the authority to arrest Netanyahu. Even so, he encouraged residents to exercise their right to demonstrate during the visit.

“This is a city where, if anyone feels a level of frustration or opposition, protest is something that we will always respect,” he told reporters at City Hall this week. “That New Yorkers can express themselves, whether they are in support or in opposition, no matter on whatever topic.

“And I’ve always said that when we respect our Constitution, we also respect our First Amendment.”

Police officers noted that the department had just completed an extraordinary stretch of public safety operations, with many officers working 12-hour shifts throughout the summer to secure major events that concluded without significant incident.

Now, they say, the mayor’s comments have created yet another challenge.

“Was he serious?” one incredulous Manhattan cop asked.

“Cops just came off a crazy six weeks between the Knicks and the World Cup working long hours every day, and now he’s going to subject them to unnecessary problems,” the cop said.

A Brooklyn police officer dismissed Mamdani as “nothing more than a cheap politician looking for cheap headlines,” adding that the mayor either knew—or should have known—that he “didn’t have the power” to arrest Netanyahu.

Another veteran officer argued that Mamdani has failed to recognize the responsibilities of his office.

“When will he realize that he is not an activist anymore?

“He should be governing the city and trying to keep the peace, instead of inciting a riot with his rhetoric,” he said. “He is basically telling the crazy people to do what they want, and there will be no repercussions. If a cop gets hurt, it will be on him, but that is the least of his worries.”

Despite their criticism of the mayor, police union leaders said the NYPD will be fully prepared to provide security when world leaders arrive for the United Nations General Assembly in September.

“Mayor Mamdani still acts like he’s leading a protest movement instead of running the largest city in America,” said Scott Munro, president of the NYPD Detectives Endowment Association.

“If Mayor Mamdani wants a reminder of how important the First Amendment is, perhaps New York’s law enforcement unions should organize a lawful demonstration outside Gracie Mansion and let him experience firsthand the consequences of encouraging mass protests without guardrails,” he added.

{Matzav.com}

Almost 150,000 vote-by-mail ballots cast in California’s June primary were rejected, marking a noticeable increase from recent elections despite the state’s continued efforts to expand mail voting and make it easier for every eligible ballot to be counted.

California has long faced criticism over its lengthy vote-counting process, which often stretches for weeks after Election Day. Over the years, state lawmakers have adopted a series of election reforms aimed at increasing voter participation, including automatically mailing ballots to every registered voter and allowing ballots to be counted if they arrive up to seven days after the election, provided they were postmarked by Election Day.

Even with that extended grace period, newly released data from the California Secretary of State’s office shows that the overwhelming reason ballots were rejected was because they arrived too late to qualify. Election experts believe many of those ballots received postmarks dated after Election Day, making them ineligible under state law. Some have suggested recent operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service may have affected when postmarks are applied.

State records show that 148,241 mail ballots were rejected in the June primary, representing 1.73% of all mail ballots submitted.

That total exceeds the June 2024 primary, when 108,982 ballots were rejected, or 1.56% of mail ballots cast. In the 2022 primary, 105,818 mail ballots were rejected, producing a rejection rate similar to that of 2024.

Late-arriving ballots accounted for 93,479 of the rejected votes in June, making lateness by far the most common reason ballots were disqualified. By comparison, approximately 70,000 ballots were rejected for lateness in the 2022 primary and roughly 76,000 in the 2024 primary, although voter turnout was lower in both of those elections.

Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the increase in late ballot rejections raises significant concerns. She suggested the rise may be tied not only to Postal Service procedures but also to a surge of voters who waited until the final days of the campaign to cast ballots in the closely watched and highly competitive race for governor.

“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander wrote in an email.

Mindy Romero, director of the nonpartisan Center for Inclusive Democracy, said rejection rates naturally fluctuate from election to election, but the growing number of ballots rejected because of lateness deserves closer examination.

The issue has also attracted attention in Washington. In January, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators sent a letter to the U.S. Postal Service expressing concern that recent mail-processing changes could affect postmark dates during an election year that will determine control of Congress.

Under updated Postal Service policies, a postmark may reflect the date a piece of mail was processed at a regional facility rather than the day it first entered the postal system. Because recent consolidations have moved processing operations farther from some communities, critics fear the changes could delay postmark dates for mailed ballots.

Similar concerns surfaced in Wisconsin this week, where Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Gov. Tony Evers urged the Postal Service to address delivery delays after hundreds of ballots arrived too late to be counted in the state’s April election. Meanwhile, a federal judge in June blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to establish a federal voter registration list and restrict eligibility for mail-in ballots.

Earlier this year, California election officials advised voters to return their mail ballots well before Election Day, warning that Postal Service changes could result in slower mail delivery.

Among California counties, Tulare County recorded the highest mail-ballot rejection rate in the June primary at 3.52%. Alpine County and Merced County followed closely, each reporting a rejection rate of 3.36%.

Lateness was not the only reason ballots were discarded. Nearly 44,000 ballots were rejected because election officials determined the voter’s signature did not match the signature on file. More than 8,300 ballots were rejected because the return envelope lacked a signature altogether.

Another 743 ballots were voided because those voters had already cast a ballot through another method. Additional rejected ballots involved missing ballots inside return envelopes or multiple ballots submitted in a single envelope.

The state’s data did not categorize rejected ballots by party affiliation.

California continues to trail many other large states in the speed of counting votes. States such as Florida and Texas typically report election results much more quickly, while California’s counting process has become one of the slowest in the nation.

Following the June primary, President Donald Trump again criticized California’s prolonged vote-counting process, renewing longstanding complaints about the state’s election system. At the same time, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into election procedures in Los Angeles County.

Despite the large number of rejected ballots, election experts say there is no evidence of widespread fraud involving mail voting. A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found that instances of mail-ballot fraud remain extremely rare, identifying roughly four cases for every 10 million mail ballots cast.