Party nominees for four statewide judicial posts, including one on the Supreme Court, will be settled in Tuesday’s primary election in Pennsylvania.

Democrats currently hold a 4-2 majority on the state’s highest court, which is playing a prominent role in settling disputes over voting rights, abortion rights and gun rights in the presidential battleground state.

Competing on the Republican ticket are Carolyn Carluccio, a Montgomery County judge; and Patricia McCullough, a judge on the Commonwealth Court, a statewide appellate court that handles cases involving government agencies or challenges to state laws.

On the campaign trail, McCullough has repeatedly boasted of being the ‘only judge in 2020 in the presidential election in the entire country’ to order a halt to her state’s election certification.

McCullough was ruling in a Republican-backed post-election legal challenge that sought to throw out 2.5 million mail-in ballots — most cast by Democrats — and tilt victory to Trump in the presidential battleground state. The state’s high court quickly overturned McCullough’s order.

McCullough, of Allegheny County, also ran for state Supreme Court in 2021 and lost in the primary. The state party is endorsing Carluccio and party allies have reported spending nearly $1 million to help her beat McCullough.

Running on the Democratic ticket are Dan McCaffery of Philadelphia and Deborah Kunselman of Beaver County. Both of them currently sit on the state Superior Court, a statewide appellate body that handles appeals from county courts in criminal and civil cases.

The high court seat is open following the death last year of Max Baer, who was chief justice.

The court has handled a number of hot-button issues over the past few years. It is currently examining a challenge to a state law that restricts the use of public funds to help women get an abortion, as well as Philadelphia’s challenge to a state law that bars it and other municipalities from restricting the sale and possession of guns.

In recent years, justices rejected a request to invalidate the state’s death penalty law and upheld the constitutionality of the state’s expansive mail-in voting law.

The court also turned away challenges to the 2020 presidential election from Republicans who wanted to keep Donald Trump in power, and ruled on a variety of lawsuits filed over gray areas in the mail-in voting law.

In one 2020 election case, the court ordered counties to count mail-in ballots that arrived up to three days after polls closed, citing delays in mail service caused by disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ruling spurred an outcry among Republicans, who challenged the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The nation’s highest court ultimately declined to take the case. Still, the ballots — nearly 10,000 of them — were never tabulated or added to vote counts in federal elections because the election was certified while their fate remained in legal limbo. State elections officials said the votes weren’t enough to change the results of a federal election.

Five candidates are running for two open seats on the Superior Court, from which one judge retired and where another will reach the mandatory retirement age of 75 later this year.

On the Democratic ticket are Jill Beck, Pat Dugan and Timika Lane. Dugan is president judge of the Philadelphia Municipal Court, Lane is a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge and Beck, of Pittsburgh, is a lawyer in private practice who has clerked on the state Superior and Supreme courts.

Both Beck and Lane ran for an open seat on the Superior Court in 2021 but lost — Beck in the primary and Lane in the general election.

On Republican ballots will be Harry Smail, a Westmoreland County judge, and Marie Battista, a Clarion County lawyer.

Battista is a former county prosecutor who ran unsuccessfully for Clarion County district attorney in 2019.

For Commonwealth Court, one seat is open after Republican judge Kevin Brobson was elected to the state Supreme Court in 2021.

On Democratic ballots is Matt Wolf, a Philadelphia Municipal Court judge, and Bryan Neft, a trial lawyer from Pittsburgh.

On Republican ballots are Megan Martin, who spent more than a decade as parliamentarian of the state Senate, and Joshua Prince, a Berks County lawyer best known for taking on gun rights cases.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman outlined examples of ‘scary AI’ to Fox News Digital after he served as a witness for a Senate subcommittee hearing on potential regulations on artificial intelligence.

‘Sure,’ Altman said when asked by Fox News Digital to provide an example of ‘scary AI.’ ‘An AI that could design novel biological pathogens. An AI that could hack into computer systems. I think these are all scary.’

‘These systems can become quite powerful, which is why I was happy to be here today and why I think this is so important.’

Altman appeared before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law on Tuesday morning to speak with lawmakers about how to best regulate the technology. Altman’s OpenAI is the artificial intelligence lab behind ChatGPT, which was released last year.

ChatGPT is a chatbot that is able to mimic human conversation when given prompts by human users. People around the globe soon rushed to use the chatbot after its November release, launching ChatGPT as the fastest-growing user base with 100 million monthly active users in January. The release of the tech was quickly followed by other companies in Silicon Valley launching a race to build comparable or more powerful systems. 

With the proliferation of the tech and other artificial intelligence platforms, critics, as well as some fellow tech leaders and experts, have sounded the alarm on potential threats posed by artificial intelligence, including bias, misinformation and even the destruction of society. 

Altman said during the Senate hearing that his greatest fear as OpenAI develops artificial intelligence is that it causes major harmful disruptions for people. 

‘My worst fears are that we cause significant — we, the field, the technology industry — cause significant harm to the world,’ Altman said. ‘I think that could happen in a lot of different ways. It’s why we started the company.’

‘It think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong, and we want to be vocal about that,’ he added. ‘We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.’

Altman said during the hearing that he welcomes government regulations and working with U.S. leaders on how to craft such rules.

‘As this technology advances, we understand that people are anxious about how it could change the way we live. We are too,’ he said. ‘But we believe that we can and must work together to identify and manage the potential downsides so that we can all enjoy the tremendous upsides. It is essential that powerful AI is developed with democratic values in mind. And this means that U.S. leadership is critical.’

‘We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,’ Altman added. 

Fox News Digital’s Pete Kasperowicz contributed to this article. 

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A House Democrat faced backlash online for dismissing the testimony of a reporter who has covered multiple Antifa riots, including the riots surrounding the Kyle Rittenhouse murder acquittal.

Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., took shots at Townhall senior writer Julio Rosas during Tuesday’s House Homeland Security Committee hearing on left-wing violence in an attempt to discredit him and former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Scott Erickson as witnesses.

Goldman attacked committee witnesses, accusing Erickson of trying to ‘gaslight’ Congress about left-wing violence in America ‘as if Antifa, which Mr. Rosas, apparently the expert now in organized terrorist activity, has overruled the FBI director who says… there’s a headline that says ‘Antifa is an ideology, not an organization.’’

‘No, no, no, let’s not listen to the FBI director,’ Goldman continued condescendingly. ‘Let’s listen to — sorry, what’s your title? — senior writer at Townhall, who is going to tell us that the FBI director is wrong.’

After his tirade, one of the witnesses asked if they could respond, to which Goldman shook his head and answered, ‘There’s no question.’

When pressed on it, Goldman said, ‘No you cannot, I didn’t ask a question.’

Rosas blasted Goldman later in the hearing, quipping it is ‘funny to be lectured by an heir to the Levi Strauss Corporation.’

‘And, honestly, that’s probably why he doesn’t consider property damage to be that big of a deal because, not only does he have that, but he also has what some people would describe [as] an impossibly good stock portfolio,’ Rosas said.

Goldman’s office did not respond to Fox News Digitals’ request for comment.

Rosas also posted a tweet addressing Goldman’s attack, writing, ‘As you can see in the beginning, [Goldman] was too much of a coward to be in the hearing room for my response to his baseless attack.’

‘And yes, I know more about Antifa than the discredited FBI director,’ Rosas said.

Rosas has reported on several riots in America involving the far-left militant group Antifa, including the Rittenhouse trial that saw an acquittal.

The Townhall writer also wrote an entire book on the 2020 George Floyd riots titled ‘Fiery but Mostly Peaceful: The 2020 Riots and the Gaslighting of America.’

Users online dogpiled Goldman after his attack on Rosas, with State Freedom Caucus Network communications director Greg Price writing, ‘Look at the disrespect Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) shows to [Rosas] as a witness, somebody who was on the ground at violent protests from Charlottesville to Kenosha, and wouldn’t even let him respond.’

‘What an absolute punk,’ Price said, sharing a video of the attack.

Fellow conservative journalist Matthew Foldi of the Spectator wrote, ‘Dan Goldman is literally attacking a Latinx journalist.’

‘This is a racist attack against the First Amendment,’ Foldi quipped.

‘The level of liberal arrogance here is just nauseating,’ MRC NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck wrote. ‘Goldman, one of the richest members of Congress who made a name for himself on MSNBC (the network where Minneapolis was not ‘generally speaking unruly’), thinks he can lecture [Rosas].’

‘He messed with the wrong guy,’ Houck wrote.

Other users online blasted Goldman for the attack, with Townhall video journalist Kevin McMahon quipping if ‘there was ever a time to blindly trust the FBI Director as a credible source, it’s certainly not right now.’

Goldman appears to have an aversion to allowing committee testifiers to respond to his assertions.

Last month, Goldman was shouted down by the mother of a New York City murder victim during a House Judiciary Committee field hearing, who warned the lawmaker not to ‘insult’ her ‘intelligence.’

The mother, Madeline Brame, was one of many witnesses to testify before the committee during Monday’s hearing highlighting the crime problem in Manhattan. Goldman attempted to use the time granted to him to question Brame to instead criticize the hearing itself, arguing it was a ‘coverup’ for Republicans attempting to defend former President Donald Trump.

Goldman, who served as impeachment counsel during Trump’s first impeachment, sought to explain his view of the situation to Brame after other Democrats had stated that Republicans were using the witnesses as ‘props’ to defend Trump.

‘We’re not insulting you. Your experiences are devastating, but the problem is, is that this is a charade to cover up for an abuse of power. [Republicans] are going around incessantly, outside of this hearing, about Donald Trump, and the purpose of this hearing is to cover up for what they know to be an inappropriate investigation [into District Attorney Alvin Bragg],’ Goldman said.

‘Can I respond to you, please?’ Brame asked as Goldman attempted to move on.

‘Not right now, because I only have 20 seconds, I’m sorry. But I, I do–’ Goldman said.

‘Don’t insult my intelligence,’ Brame interjected as Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, attempted to maintain order. ‘You’re trying to insult me like I’m not aware of what’s going on here. I’m fully aware of what’s going on here, OK? That’s why I walked away from the plantation of the Democratic Party.’

Brame had testified earlier about Bragg’s mishandling of her son’s murder case. Her son, Army Sgt. Hason Correa, was beaten and stabbed nine times by multiple people in 2018. The prosecution for the cases dragged on for more than four years, and Bragg ultimately removed the indictments against two of the suspects in favor of lesser charges. Two others ended up receiving life sentences.

Brame argued that Bragg’s office has only served to escalate the city’s crime problem, showing no ‘measurable results’ in lowering the city’s violent crime rate.

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed reporting.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said people should not try to ‘anthropomorphize’ artificial intelligence and should discuss the powerful tech systems in the context of it being a ‘tool’ and not a ‘creature.’

‘I think there’s a huge amount of speculation on that question,’ Altman told reporters Tuesday on Capitol Hill when asked how quickly AI could become ‘self-aware’ if Congress does not regulate the technology. 

The line of questioning had echoes of the ‘Terminator’ film series, in which AI brings about the apocalypse on the day it becomes ‘self-aware.’

‘I think it’s very important that we keep talking about this as a tool, not a creature, because it’s so tempting to anthropomorphize it,’ he added. ‘I totally understand where the anxiety comes from. I think it’s the wrong frame … the wrong way to think about it.’

Altman appeared before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law Tuesday morning to discuss potential avenues on how to regulate artificial intelligence and acknowledging threats the powerful technology could pose to the world. 

‘As this technology advances, we understand that people are anxious about how it could change the way we live, Altman told the lawmakers. ‘We are too. But we believe that we can and must work together to identify and manage the potential downsides so that we can all enjoy the tremendous upsides.

‘We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models.’ 

OpenAI is the artificial intelligence lab that released the wildly popular chatbot, ChatGPT, last year. The chatbot is able to mimic human conversation after it is given prompts by human users. Following the release of the technology, other companies in Silicon Valley and across the world launched a race to build more powerful artificial intelligence systems.

Altman added Tuesday that his greatest fear amid his company’s work is that the technology could cause major harmful disruptions for people.

‘My worst fears are that we cause significant — we, the field, the technology industry — cause significant harm to the world,’ Altman said. ‘I think that could happen in a lot of different ways. It’s why we started the company.’

‘It think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong, and we want to be vocal about that,’ he added. ‘We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.’

Following the hearing, Altman provided two examples to Fox News Digital of ‘scary AI,’ noting that the technology ‘can become quite powerful.’

‘An AI that could design novel biological pathogens,’ he said of ‘scary AI’ examples. ‘An AI that could hack into computer systems. I think these are all scary.’

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A federal judge has imposed a preliminary injunction on the Biden administration’s ‘parole with conditions’ policy – dealing yet another blow to the policy which saw illegal migrants being released into the U.S. interior without a court date in an attempt to reduce overcrowding at Border Patrol facilities.

Judge T. Kent Wetherell had imposed a two-week temporary restraining order on the ‘parole with conditions’ policy on Thursday, after he accepted arguments from the state of Florida that the policy – outlined in a May 10 memo – was materially identical to a ‘Parole + ATD’ policy that he had blocked in March.

The two-week restraining order, which the White House decried as ‘sabotage,’ came hours before the end of the Title 42 public health order, and gave the court time to weigh arguments about whether a longer-term preliminary injunction could be imposed.

Wetherell found, in an order on Tuesday, that ‘Florida is entitled to a preliminary injunction prohibiting DHS from ‘paroling’ aliens into the country under the Parole with Conditions policy.’

He said that the order is in the public interest as it would ‘promote respect for the rule of law by not allowing DHS to achieve what amounts to an end-run around this Court’s decision in Florida through the adoption of a functionally identical policy to the Parole + ATD invalidated in that case.’ He also found that the injunction is necessary to prevent harm to Florida, which had argued it would be negatively affected by a mass release of migrants – some of whom would travel to Florida.

He granted the injunction and ordered both parties to file a status report in two weeks explaining how they intend to proceed with the case, pending resolution of an expected appeal by DHS.

The Department of Homeland Security had argued that the court does not have the authority to enjoin the policy, and had warned about chaotic scenes and overcrowding at the border if the administration was not allowed to use the policy to reduce overcrowding.

The policy, outlined in a Border Patrol memo, outlined how migrants can be allowed into the country on parole – a process typically reserved for ‘urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit’ – if Customs and Border Protection (CBP) faces overcrowding. Migrants released under the policy are required to make an appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or request a Notice to Appear by mail. The use of parole had been authorized if a sector capacity goes above 125%, if agents apprehend 7,000 a day over 72 hours or if average time in custody goes above 60 hours.

It had been adopted in a May 10 memo just as authorities were seeing over 10,000 migrants a day ahead of the ending of the Title 42 public health order. Numbers have dropped since the ending of the order, which allowed for the rapid expulsion of migrants due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, who brought the suit, said in a statement on Tuesday that the case ‘continues to prove what Florida has been arguing all along, that Biden willfully and intentionally destroyed our public safety immigration structures ahead of the expiration of Title 42, and now the federal government is allowing the crush of immigrants attempting to enter the country unlawfully to flood across our border.’

‘I am grateful that this judge is taking swift action to prevent the federal government from violating immigration law and mass-releasing illegal immigrants into the interior of the country,’ she said.

The Biden administration had said in a filing on Monday that it had released over 6,000 migrants into the interior on Thursday before the order went into effect, and an additional 2,500+ on Friday who had completed the parole process before the order went into effect. However, it has firmly denied claims that it is engaged in the ‘mass release’ of migrants.

DHS had said it would comply with the ruling but, called it harmful and warned that it would ‘result in unsafe overcrowding at CBP facilities and undercut our ability to efficiently process and remove migrants, and risks creating dangerous conditions for Border Patrol agents and migrants.’

‘The fact remains that when overcrowding has occurred in Border Patrol facilities, Republican and Democratic Administrations alike have used this parole authority to protect the safety and security of migrants and the workforce,’ a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statement said on Friday. ‘Individuals apprehended by CBP are thoroughly vetted against all national security and public safety systems, regardless of how they are processed.’

Fox News’ Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
 

Democrats’ narrow majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is on the line Tuesday with two special elections that will determine which party controls the chamber.

One of those contests is expected to swing Republicans’ way, but the other in Delaware County, in the Philadelphia suburbs, will be more competitive. It’s the second time this year that Democrats have sweated the outcome of House special elections, and they hope to be just as lucky as before.

The stakes are high: A Democratic victory in Delaware County would give first-term Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro at least one chamber to aid his agenda going into the final month of budget negotiations. The results could also affect a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion rights that legislative Republicans are one House vote away from putting before voters as a referendum.

In that race, Democrat Heather Boyd, a former congressional and state legislative aide, is competing against Republican Katie Ford, a military veteran, school volunteer and behavioral therapist. The seat opened up in March after the resignation of Democratic Rep. Mike Zabel, who was accused by a labor lobbyist of sexual harassment.

Zabel flipped what had been a reliably Republican district when he was elected in 2018, thanks in part to a voting pattern shift in recent years toward Democrats in Delaware County and the other Philadelphia ring counties of Bucks, Chester and Montgomery. The district gave its vote by comfortable margins last year to Zabel as well as Shapiro and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman.

Boyd reported raising more than $1.3 million, including more than $1 million in in-kind advertising from the House Democrats’ campaign arm and the Democratic Party. Ford reported raising about $146,000, more than half of which came from the House Republicans’ campaign arm. Shapiro cut an ad for Boyd that focused on the abortion issue and this week President Joe Biden endorsed her, which is unusual in a state legislative contest.

In the second House special election Tuesday in central Pennsylvania, candidates will be competing to succeed Republican Lynda Schlegel Culver, who resigned after winning a special election in January to fill a state Senate vacancy. The district consists of Montour County and parts of Northumberland County.

Democrats took control of the chamber in November for the first time in 12 years and then had to sweep three special elections earlier this year to hold on to their edge. With the two vacancies, the House’s breakdown currently sits at 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans.

Control of Pennsylvania’s House remains a key prize ahead of the 2024 presidential election, which could hinge on the Keystone State. Although the state will remain under divided partisan control, with a Democratic governor and a Republican-majority Senate, a GOP-led House could give Republicans more leverage in battles over voting procedures and even decide who the electors are in the presidential contest.

Underscoring those stakes, Biden on Monday called Boyd ‘an experienced public servant who will protect a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, stand up for common sense gun safety laws and expand access to voting rights.’

In the Delaware County race, Boyd has emphasized protection of abortion rights, drawing a contrast with Ford, who is personally against abortion but says she does not want to change existing state law. Ford has also said she will vote against her fellow Republicans if they continue to advance the constitutional amendment that says the Pennsylvania Constitution does not guarantee any rights relating to abortion or public funding of abortions.

Ford has criticized Boyd, who has been a leading Democratic Party official in Delaware County, for not responding more forcefully when she learned about the allegations against Zabel. Boyd said she respected the lobbyist’s request for confidentiality about her claim that Zabel caressed her leg while they discussed legislation outside the Capitol in 2018 and did not stop when she moved away from him.

‘Common sense says that if someone comes to you and says that they’re being sexually harassed, you do something about it,’ Ford said during a televised debate. ‘You don’t just let it go.’ Boyd responded that she did not endorse or support Zabel after hearing of the lobbyist’s account, and says she tried unsuccessfully to find someone to run against Zabel.

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has won the state’s Republican gubernatorial primary and will face incumbent Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in the November general election.

Cameron, a rising star in the party, came out on top in a crowded field of 12 Republican candidates that included former U.N. Ambassador Kelly Craft and Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles.

His campaign had the backing of former President Donald Trump in a contentious race that served as a proxy fight between the Republican presidential front-runner and a number of other Republican heavyweights, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who both backed Craft.

Craft also had the high-profile endorsements of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., while Quarles had the commanding support of Kentucky farmers.

Cameron will now face what is expected to be tough fight against Beshear, who polls say is one of the most popular governors in the country despite being one of the nation’s few Democratic governors of a red state.

The race is widely expected to be a bellwether for the 2024 presidential and congressional elections as Republicans hope to capitalize on the unpopularity of President Biden and his fellow Democrats.

The super-PAC supporting Trump’s third run for the presidency released a statement once the race was called for Cameron trumpeting his win as proof of the former president’s continued hold over the GOP.

‘President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. The results in Kentucky’s Republican gubernatorial primary tonight reaffirm that. Republican voters stand with President Trump, not Ron DeSantis,’ Make America Great Again, Inc. spokesman Alex Pfeiffer said in a statement. 

‘It’s time to unite around Donald Trump. Voters know that President Trump has their interests in mind when he endorses a candidate, not the interests of the consultant class,’ he added.

The Associated Press called the race.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Federal prosecutors are dropping corruption charges against Andrew Gillum — the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nominee who narrowly lost to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — after a jury acquitted him on one count and hung on remaining charges that he pocketed campaign cash and illegally receiving gifts, including theater tickets to ‘Hamilton.’ 

Prosecutors initially said they would retry Gillum after a jury acquitted him on one count of lying to the FBI but failed to reach a verdict on 17 counts of wire fraud and a wire fraud conspiracy count at the conclusion of his May 4 trial. However, on Monday, the prosecution filed a one-paragraph motion that asked a judge to dismiss the remaining charges against Gillum and his co-defendant, Sharon Lettman-HIcks.

Gillum’s defense attorneys said now their client can ‘resume his life and public service.’ 

‘Andrew Gillum had the courage to stand up and say ‘I am innocent.’ And that is finally being recognized. We want to thank the hard working jury who did their job and explained to the government why it should drop the case,’ Gillum’s attorney David O. Markus told the Associated Press in a statement. 

U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor, a Trump appointee who presided over the trial, did not issue an immediate ruling Monday on the prosecutions’ motion. 

Gillum, 43, is the former mayor of Tallahassee and was once a rising star within the Democratic Party. He came within 34,000 votes of defeating DeSantis in the 2018 gubernatorial election, which triggered an automatic recount under state law. 

Gillum’s troubles expanded beyond the alleged charges as, in 2020, Gillum was found in a Miami Beach hotel room with someone who had apparently overdosed on drugs.

Police said Gillum was too inebriated to talk about what happened when they arrived on the scene. While no one was ever charged with any crime involving the incident, Gillum withdrew from public life for months.

He also sought treatment for alcohol abuse and depression.

Prosecutors had claimed Gillum committed fraud because he was struggling financially after quitting his $120,000-a-year job with the progressive People for the American Way group when he decided to run for governor. Lettman-Hicks, a longtime political adviser to Gillum and former executive with the group, was accused of conspiring with Gillum to divert the contributions to his personal accounts. Jurors also deadlocked on those counts.

The jury found Gillum not guilty of charges that he lied about his interactions with undercover FBI agents posing as developers who paid for a 2016 trip he and his brother took to New York, which included a ticket to the hit Broadway show ‘Hamilton.’ Gillum contended his brother provided the ticket.

Gillum’s defense team had argued that the charges were politically motivated.

Fox News’ Lawrence Richards and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday waded into a major political contest beyond his expected entry into the 2024 presidential election as he threw the weight of his growing popularity behind former U.N. Ambassador Kelly Craft in the contentious race to try and unseat a red-state Democratic governor.

‘Hello, this is Governor Ron DeSantis, coming to you from the free state of Florida. You’ve had a woke, liberal governor who’s put a radical agenda ahead of Kentuckians. The stakes couldn’t be higher. I know what it takes to stand up for what’s right, and Kelly Craft’s got it. She’s proven it,’ DeSantis said in a recorded statement shared with Fox News Digital. 

‘I’m strongly encouraging you to go out and vote for my friend, Kelly Craft. Kelly shares the same vision we do in Florida. She will stand up to the left as they try to indoctrinate our children with their woke ideology. Kelly will fight against crazy ESG policies that are trying to end the coal industry in Kentucky. And Kelly’s going to do everything in her power to end the fentanyl crisis that is hurting Kentucky families,’ he said.

‘When you vote tomorrow, Tuesday, May 16th, vote for my friend, Kelly Craft, and get Kentucky on the path to becoming a free state like Florida,’ he added.

In a statement, Craft said she was ‘honored and grateful’ to have DeSantis’ support, and praised his leadership of Florida.

‘He sets the example for Republican leaders around the nation because he delivers bold, conservative results. Kentucky needs to look more like Florida instead of California, and I look forward to ushering in a new generation of conservative leadership as Governor of Kentucky,’ she said.

DeSantis’ last minute endorsement of Craft ahead of Tuesday’s up-in-the-air Republican primary pits him squarely against former President Donald Trump, who is putting the power of his own endorsement to the test for the first time since the failure of a number of his endorsed candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.

Trump backed Craft’s opponent, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, early on in the race, but stuck with his choice upon Craft’s entry despite her service first as his ambassador to Canada, and then his U.N. ambassador after the resignation of now-Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley.

The former president held a tele-rally in support of Cameron earlier this week, but hasn’t opted to appear in person despite the race being widely viewed as a bellwether for Republican chances at taking back the White House and Senate in 2024.

DeSantis is the latest high-profile figure to endorse Craft following Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, officially announcing their support for her in recent days. Craft is also being backed by House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., and National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd.

Craft and Cameron are facing a crowded field of 10 other Republican candidates, including Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, who has been endorsed by a commanding portion of Kentucky’s farmers and 235 local elected officials, including one-third of all county judge executives.

The winner of Tuesday’s contest will go on to face Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in the November general election.

FIRST ON FOX: Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are launching an investigation into the Department of Homeland Security’s funding of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that work at the southern border and offer free services, including food and transport, to illegal immigrants — amid concerns taxpayer dollars are being wasted and misused.

Chairman Jim Jordan, along with Reps. Lance Gooden, R-Texas and Tom McClintock, R-Calif., have written to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seeking information, communications and documents related to federal funding awards to NGOs for food, lodging and transportation of migrants since Jan 2021. In the letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, the lawmakers note the ongoing crisis at the southern border, which is now into its third year. 

‘U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials have encountered over 5 million illegal aliens along the southwest border,’ they say. ‘Nearly 2 million of those aliens have been released into the U.S. pursuant to [DHS] policy. At the same time, over 1.5 million illegal alien ‘gotaways’ have successfully crossed the border undetected during the Biden-Harris Administration.’

The crisis has been exacerbated in recent days by the expiration of the Title 42 public health order, where agents encountered over 10,000 migrants a day across multiple days.

In anticipation of that shift, DHS announced that more funding to NGOs, including an allocation of $332 million via the Emergency Food and Shelter Program’ to ‘assist communities receiving noncitizens released from custody as they await the outcome of their immigration proceedings.’

That has exacerbated ongoing Republican concerns that the DHS to NGO pipeline is being used to funnel taxpayer money into services — including transportation — to those coming into the U.S. illegally.

‘While Americans suffer the consequences of chaos at the southwest border caused by the Biden Administration, NGOs receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars through federal grants to provide free food, lodging, and transportation for illegal aliens to be released anywhere they want in the United States,’ the lawmakers say.

The lawmakers note a recent DHS Office of Inspector General report which found that some of the $110 million from the American Rescue Plan for migrants encountered at the southern border was misspent by nonprofits. The office found that the money was not always used consistently with guidelines, that organizations did not provide required receipts and documentation and that some did not provide supporting documentation for those to whom it gave services – including those who had evaded Border Patrol.

‘NGOs simply tell DHS how many illegal aliens they encounter, and funding can be awarded without any documentation or receipts,’ Reps. Jordan, Gooden and McClintock write to Mayorkas. ‘Federal funding for migration-related NGOs at the border has increased dramatically at a time when federal resources for border security and immigration enforcement and local resources for emergency response and medical care have been strained to the breaking point.’

‘Amid this crisis, there is also an increased risk of fraud, misuse, and abuse of funds because, due to current policies, FEMA is unable to ensure that humanitarian relief funds are not being wasted,’ they say.

A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the agency ‘responds to Congressional correspondence directly via official channels, and the Department will continue to respond appropriately to Congressional oversight.’

The investigation builds on letters sent by Gooden in December, who had previewed a Republican investigation and sought the preservation of documents by the administration. 

‘Transparency and accountability are non-negotiable elements of our public institutions,’ Gooden said in a statement. ‘We owe it to the American people to ensure that their taxpayer dollars are used responsibly and effectively.’

The probe comes as Republicans in the House have been zeroing in on the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis. Republicans have alleged that the policies of the administration — including NGO funding, as well as reduced interior enforcement and a greater use of catch-and-release — have fueled the crisis.

The administration has pushed back, accusing Republicans of failing to provide adequate border funding and for not passing the sweeping immigration measure it introduced in its first days in office.

Last week, Republicans in the House passed their own border package that includes sweeping asylum reforms as well as a restart to border wall construction and an increase in Border Patrol agents to counter the migrant surge.

Meanwhile, this week the House Oversight Committee launched a separate investigation into the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) administration of the EFSP, based off reports that the money is being used by NGOs ‘to offset expenses incurred abroad in efforts to facilitate and incentivize illegal immigration to the United States.’

Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report.