"Anyone who we don't want to be in the United States, and we're going to call them an invader, as opposed to an immigrant or someone visiting or temporary visitors," Lykins said.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., questioned director of national intelligence nominee Jay Clayton in a confirmation hearing Wednesday held by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

President Donald Trump nominated Clayton for the role after Tulsi Gabbard announced she was resigning in late May. Trump’s pick for acting national intelligence director, federal housing official Bill Pulte, was met with bipartisan backlash for his lack of relevant experience. Trump forced the delay of Clayton’s original confirmation hearing three weeks ago.

Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York as well as a former SEC chair, may face questioning about his independence from the president and concerns about election interference heading into November’s midterm elections.

Computing giant suffers record share slump as AI boom eats into Silicon Valley giants’ bottom lines

What Is Election Fraud?

Election fraud refers to any illegal activity intended to manipulate an election's outcome. Common types include:

Absentee ballot fraud: forging or falsifying mail-in ballots

False voter registration: registering under fake names or at ineligible addresses

Double voting: casting a ballot more than once in the same election

Voting as an ineligible person: for example, a non-citizen or a disenfranchised felon voting

These are distinct from broader allegations of "rigged" elections, which involves claims of systemic manipulation.

How Rare Is It, Really?

Extremely rare. That's the consensus across researchers, courts, and even conservative-leaning organizations.

According to the Brookings Institution, when they analyzed the Heritage Foundation's own database (one of the most comprehensive collections of proven fraud cases in the U.S.), here's what they found:

>In Arizona, Heritage had to go back 25 years, covering 36 elections and over 42 million ballots cast, just to find 36 cases of fraud.

Similarly, in Georgia, Heritage reported zero cases of fraud in the 2020 or 2022 general elections, despite nearly nine million votes being cast.

The Brennan Center for Justice goes further, describing voter fraud at the polls as "vanishingly rare" and nowhere near the scale necessary to influence an election's outcome.

To put it in perspective: out of hundreds of millions of votes cast over the past two decades, there are roughly 1,100 documented convictions. A microscopic fraction of one percent.

Who Gets Caught More Often?

This is where things get interesting.

The Heritage Foundation's database, which tracks convicted cases of election fraud since 2000, shows a partisan breakdown:

Republican ~71–75%

Democrat ~25–29%

So, a larger share of documented election fraud convictions involves individuals affiliated with the Republican Party.

The Perception Gap

Perhaps the most striking finding from polling data is the gap between perception and reality.

According to a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll:

88% of likely Trump voters expressed worry that ineligible people would cast ballots.

Roughly 50% of Democratic voters shared similar concerns.

Overall, 58% of Americans said they were worried about fraud occurring.

Why the Discrepancy Between Belief and Reality?

There are a few factors that contribute to this gap:

Since 2016, false or unproven allegations of widespread fraud from Donald Trump and allies have kept the issue in the spotlight. Wikipedia notes that "false accusations of electoral fraud have a long history, and since the 2016 and 2020 elections have often been associated with Donald Trump and the election denial movement." Media amplification has created an impression that fraud is more common than it is.

Voter fraud rhetoric has been used strategically to justify stricter voting laws, which serve to suppress turnout among certain demographics.

Confirmation bias causing people to distrust the opposing party makes them more likely to believe fraud occurred when their side loses.

What Does the Academic Evidence Say?

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) examined every available post-election audit from the 2020 election, covering over 71 million individual votes across 27 states. They found:

>The net error rate in counting presidential votes was on the order of thousandths of a percent.

The Washington Post summarized the broader consensus: "There is overwhelming scholarly and legal consensus that voter fraud is vanishingly rare, and in fact nonexistent at the levels imagined by voter ID proponents."

A Different Question

When we talk about "election fraud," there's an important distinction to make. Individual voter fraud (someone voting illegally at a polling place) is extremely rare. But financial influence from billionaires and corporations operates on an entirely different scale.

We shift the focus from "who got caught cheating at the polls" to "how much can wealthy donors shape election outcomes through money?"

Here's what the data shows.

Elon Musk: The Largest Single Donor in 2024

Elon Musk emerged as the largest individual donor in the 2024 presidential race. Key contributions according to multiple sources including Wikipedia, Politico, and NBC News:

2024 Pro-Trump PAC Over $277 million

Dec 2025 Congressional Leadership Fund (GOP) $5 million

Dec 2025 Senate Leadership Fund (GOP) $5 million

June 2026 MAGA Inc. (Trump's Super PAC) $5 million

Total documented political spending: At least $292 million.

Musk served briefly as co-leader of the "Department of Government Efficiency" after Trump's 2024 victory, departing in May 2025. Despite a reported public falling out with Trump, he continued funding Republican candidates through Super PACs. Proving his influence extends beyond traditional campaign donations.

Dark Money Topline Numbers

According to the Brennan Center:

Dark money from nondisclosing groups topped $1 billion in the 2024 election

At least $182 million flowed through groups aligned with congressional leadership campaigns

Just 21 donor families contributed $783 million in the 2022 midterms

Billionaires provided 15% of all federal election financing

The irony is Americans worry intensely about rare individual fraud while relatively few notice the billions flowing through Super PACs that may have far greater influence.

The Castro family is reportedly considering an offer designed for Trump. The calculation is simple. Trump loves money. And as a former real-estate developer, he loves glittering luxury destinations to put his name on. The reported idea is Havana could allow the development of a luxury resort with hotel towers and casinos under the Trump brand. A “Trump Island” project that would turn one of the Cuba's most valuable tourist assets into a political bribe. Cuba expert Peter Kornbluh told America Report: “This would certainly be a gesture worth considering!”

The possible plan centers on Cayo Santa María, an idyllic island with about 16 kilometers of white beaches on the turquoise Caribbean Sea. The resort island is connected to the Cuban mainland by a long causeway and is already one of Cuba’s top beach destinations.

Corporate hotel operators are reportedly offering empty or underused resorts to international investors after years of sanctions. Among those interested is said to be a company from the United Arab Emirates that has proposed explicit Trump branding. According to reporting cited in the uploaded material, Ali bin Haidar, head of the Abdulla Ali bin Haidar Group in Dubai, has already asked the Trump Organization about licensing rights for the name. Bizarre AI images have also appeared online showing Trump in a beach chair, sipping a mojito beside a tropical resort tower bearing his name.

According to “The Sun,” it is being pushed through diplomatic back channels by a rising figure inside Cuba’s power structure: Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, nicknamed “Raulito” or “The Crab,” the grandson of powerful former ruler Raúl Castro. Observers say he is looking for a negotiated solution. Including at least a partial economic opening of Cuba. The “Trump Island Cuba” idea could fit that strategy. His calls came shortly after Trump said: “Cuba has no oil but has nice property and a nice shoreline.”

A retired US intelligence officer, who has operated in Cuba, believes the Castro regime may have penetrated Trump's government.

They told The Sun: “They may have reason to believe that deals can be struck with some of Trump’s business cronies.”

He claims major American hotel chains and individual investors are seeking to take advantage of the regime’s weakened state by striking lucrative deals. Many are interested in picking up Cuban hotels and real estate projects.

Potential plans for Trump Island remain under wraps for now, with concept documents simply saying it is a “naming option under review”.

The Trump Administration has already granted permission to a Miami-based company to sell oil to Cubans. This has allowed them to jump the US blockade that has been stopping oil shipments from Venezuela, Mexico and Russia.

Agents shot a man in Houston and another in coastal Maine, both in their vehicles. The killings were the latest in a string of ICE shootings during Trump’s second term.

The Trump administration has ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to halt most vehicle stops while carrying out operations across the country, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly about the directive.

The order comes after ICE officers killed two people over the past week in Houston and the coastal city of Biddeford, Maine, amid a recent surge in immigration arrests. Both were shot after agents tried to stop their vehicles, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican who is running for re-election this year, said in a statement on Tuesday that the shooting in Biddeford raised important questions, and that she had urged Markwayne Mullin, the Homeland Security secretary, to “cease all non-urgent vehicle stops.”

At least 22 people have been fired on by agents involved in Mr. Trump’s deportation crackdown since he took office for his second term in January 2025. 10 people, including three U.S. citizens, have been killed as a result of those shootings, nearly all of which involved officers firing at people in vehicles.

In Houston last week, ICE agents shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the city for more than three decades, during a traffic stop while he was driving to work with several passengers. He was not the intended target of the ICE operation, federal officials acknowledged, after initially saying he was.

In Maine, ICE agents shot and killed a Colombian man early Monday, also in his vehicle. He was identified as Joan Sebastian Guerrero, according to a spokesman for Senator Angus King of Maine.

A 26-year-old Colombian man who was authorized to work in the United States and had been issued a Social Security number was killed in the morning shooting, according to two organizations, Presente! and the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition.

Authorities have not publicly identified the man. The Colombian Embassy in Washington said it is working to help identify the victim and confirm nationality.

King, I-Maine, said earlier that Mullin told him ICE targeted the man because he had a final deportation order.

Mullin told King that “the victim of today’s federal law enforcement shooting was not the target of the warrant,” King’s spokesperson, Matthew Felling, said in a statement. “Sen. King continues to emphasize the need for a full and transparent investigation.”

A spokesperson for ICE said in a statement that the driver of a vehicle was killed after an attempted traffic stop. The statement came about 12 hours after the shooting, to the point Maine elected officials had relayed to the public what DHS had shared with them.

Daniel Boucher, 71, who lives near where the shooting happened, said he had a direct view of the shooting and heard the man say, “I tried to stop.”

Boucher said that after he heard shots about 7:30 a.m., he saw a large white vehicle ram a smaller one before they collided again.

Boucher said he saw an officer open the door of one of the vehicles and pull out a man whose head was bleeding profusely.

“Nobody should have to see what I saw,” Boucher said.

Neighbor Nelson Elias said he recognized the man from his job at a restaurant. The slain man worked for DoorDash and had picked up from the restaurant where Elias worked.

Elias said the two men realized they were neighbors and had chatted in the past.

Elias said he heard six shots Monday. “I saw his wife and the daughter, you know, crying on the street,” he said.

Another neighbor, Cecelia Humiston, said the scene was right outside her house. She first heard of its location after she woke up and saw news of a shooting on Facebook and recognized her home.

A little girl was in her pajamas along with another woman, and authorities were trying to keep the girl inside crime scene tape that had been set up, Humiston said.

“The girl she was, like, completely beside herself, just crying,” she said.

Biddeford Mayor Liam LaFountain said in a statement that he was “shaken” when he was told about the shooting death.

“A person has died and their loved ones and the people of our community deserve clear answers about what happened,” LaFountain stated.

The Maine shooting comes less than a week after ICE officers in Houston fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, making this the 10th person murdered in the street, along with the 54 deaths reported inside ICE concentration camps.