FIRST ON FOX: Environmental groups that have been vocal against climate change were silent when asked about Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign dropping nearly $7 million on private jet flights since July.

Harris spent nearly $4 million on private flights in just six weeks starting in July, after calling on Americans to change their habits to curb climate change, a previous Fox News Digital review found.

The latest review of new filings with the Federal Election Commission reveals that Harris spent an additional $3.1 million on private planes in September alone. 

Fox News Digital asked environmental groups, several which have protested private jet use, about Harris’ private flights but did not receive a response from any of them. The groups included Sunrise Movement, the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, Earth Island Institute, Earth Justice, Environmental Defense Fund, Naturefriends International and International Union for Conservation of Nature.

HARRIS TOUTS OIL PRODUCTION DURING 2024 RUN AFTER SAYING COMPANIES NEED TO ‘PAY THE PRICE’ FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

Members of the Sunrise Movement held a protest at East Hampton Airport in 2023 to prevent planes from taking off and landing in opposition to private air travel.

Greenpeace has also slammed those who engage in the upscale form of travel.

“The super rich proudly accelerate the #ClimateCrisis, showing off their planet-wrecking lifestyle. Let’s stop this reckless behavior,” Greenpeace writes on their website. “Private jets are the epitome of social and climate injustice: a supremely privileged minority flying like there’s no tomorrow without any restriction.”

Harris used two different companies for her private flights in September: the Private Jet Services Group (PJS) and Advanced Aviation Team.

PJS offers a range of services from a light jet for groups of up to seven passengers traveling up to 535 miles per hour, or an airliner that accommodates 150 to 350 passengers.

The PJS website claims the group is America’s first carbon-neutral private aviation company.

HARRIS WON’T SUPPORT EXPANDING FOSSIL FUEL DRILLING, CAMPAIGN SAYS

“PJS has implemented a reforestation program to sequester 100% of the carbon emissions released by our clients’ flights. The PJS Carbon Neutrality Pledge establishes Private Jet Services as America’s First Carbon Neutral Private Aviation Company,” the website reads.

Harris also used Advanced Aviation, which offers aircraft ranging from eight-seater turboprop jets for trips of up to three hours to 18-seater ultra long-range jets.

When asked whether the campaign weighs the private jet carbon footprint before taking the flights, the Harris campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital by press time.

The National Library of Medicine reports that private aviation is “the most energy-intense form of air travel” and that fuel use per passenger varies, “but [is] estimated to be on the order of 10 to 20 times higher than the average fuel use per passenger hour for a commercial flight.”

Harris has previously called climate change an “existential threat” and said that human habits contribute to the issue.

“There’s no question we have to be practical. But being practical also recognizes that climate change is an existential threat to us as human beings,” Harris told CNN in 2019. “Being practical recognizes that greenhouse gas emissions are threatening our air and threatening the planet and that it is well within our capacity as human beings to change our behaviors in a way that we can reduce its effects. That’s practical.”

The 2024 presidential campaign is not the first time Harris has used private jets to hit the campaign trail. In 2019, Harris’ campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on flights chartered by Air Partner Inc., which bills itself as a “World-class” private aircraft charter company that offers “over 7,000 private jets.”

“We can give you access to every type of private jet, from very light to global cabin jets,” the website reads. “You have the freedom to choose the most suitable aircraft for your journey, whether you’re flying for business or leisure.”

The FBI is investigating the leak of classified documents which included top secret U.S. intelligence on Israel’s planned attack on Iran, Fox News Digital confirmed. 

“The FBI is investigating the alleged leak of classified documents and working closely with our partners in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community,” the bureau said in a statement. “As this is an ongoing investigation, we have no further comment.” 

The Department of Defense has already confirmed it is investigating the unauthorized release.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that he did not have information on whether the unauthorized release was a result of a hack or an employee leak. 

US INVESTIGATING RELEASE OF CLASSIFIED DOCS ON ISRAEL’S PLANNED STRIKE ON IRAN

“We’re not exactly sure how these documents found their way into the public domain. I know the Department of Defense is investigating this,” Kirby said. “I’m just not able to answer your question whether it was a leak or a hack. At this point, we’ll let the investigation pursue its logical course.” 

“We’re deeply concerned, and the president remains deeply concerned about any leakage of classified information into the public domain,” Kirby said. “That is not supposed to happen. And it’s unacceptable when it does.” 

Kirby said he did not have any indication that additional classified documents would find their way into the public domain and that the U.S. has been in communication with Israeli counterparts about the disclosure.

IDF SAYS ‘MISSION IS NOT OVER’ UNTIL HOSTAGES ARE RETURNED: ‘WE WILL NOT REST’ 

“I’ll let the Israelis speak to if, what, how and when they decide to take additional military action in response to Iran’s Oct. 1st attack,” Kirby said. “That’s really for them to speak to.” 

The documents, which are marked top secret, were posted to the Telegram messaging app last week. 

The documents were attributed to the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency and noted that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” which are the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Early in-person and mail-in ballots have begun pouring in across the country, and the tally in each state reveals mounting voter enthusiasm. 

Recent polling suggests a razor-thin margin in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, and the results are expected to come down to each candidate’s performance in seven swing states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and North Carolina. 

States have long allowed at least some Americans to vote early, like members of the military and people with illnesses unable to get to the polls. Many states expanded eligibility in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WHAT ARE ELECTION BETTING ODDS? EXPERT EXPLAINS WHY TRUMP IS CURRENT FAVORITE

In the last presidential election, mail ballots tended to skew Democratic. In 2020, 60% of Democrats reported voting by mail, compared to 32% of Republicans, according to a 2021 study from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.

As of Monday evening, more than 15 million ballots have been cast nationwide.

Here is a breakdown of where early ballots have been cast, either by mail or in person, in the seven battleground states, according to The Associated Press.

Over the past two decades, the prevalence of early voting has skyrocketed. While early ballots demonstrate voter enthusiasm, they do not reliably determine which candidate is winning the race, because fewer voters are expected to cast early votes than in the previous presidential election. 

In 2020, the Fox News Voter Analysis found that 71% of voters cast their ballots before Election Day, with 30% voting early in-person and 41% voting by mail. This time, polls suggest that around four in 10 voters will show up before Nov. 5, according to Gallup polling. 

DOJ DEPLOYS DISTRICT ELECTIONS OFFICERS TO HANDLE ‘THREATS AND INTIMIDATION’

Democrats and Republicans are expected to be less divided on early voting this cycle. Four years ago, Democrats won the total early vote by 11 points. However, two things have changed: first, with the COVID-19 pandemic no longer front-of-mind, many voters will be more willing to show up on Election Day. Second, unlike in 2020, Trump and the GOP are no longer discouraging their voters from casting an early ballot. The upshot should be a smaller partisan gap once the votes are counted.

Some states also offer breakdowns of their early ballots – for example, by party affiliation, race, or age. Comparing these results to other elections might give the impression that one candidate or party is now doing better than the other.

Additionally, while early vote data shows the party registration of some voters, it does not reveal how they voted. States do not release actual vote counts until election night. The vote data that some states are releasing now shows the party affiliation of voters who have requested or returned a ballot. However, that is not the same as their actual vote. For example, a voter may have registered as a Democrat decades ago, but chose to vote for Trump this year. Many voters are not registered to either party, making their vote even more of a mystery.

A New York House Republican is accusing a Democrat colleague of refusing to let him cosponsor a pro-contraception bill which is now leaving him open to attack ads by his election opponent. 

Rep. Marc Molinaro, R-N.Y., took to X on Monday to share emails from his staff written to Rep. Kathy Manning, D-N.C., where they asked for him in June to be added as a co-sponsor to the Right to Contraception Act, a bill she introduced which would establish protections for an individual’s right to access birth control and protect health care providers’ ability to provide contraception.

Molinaro, a Freshman House member, says that his Democratic opponent in the hotly contested New York 19th District race, Josh Riley, is blasting him for not being a co-sponsor, despite his requests to co-sponsor the bill.

‘MISLEADING’ DEM CONTRACEPTION BILL FAILS KEY VOTE AS GOP SLAMS BROAD PROPOSAL

“I was the first Republican to support the Right to Contraception Act. Shame on @KathyManningNC who DENIED my MANY requests to cosponsor just so @JoshRileyUE could spin more lies in his desperate campaign built on lies. #ANewLow,” Molinaro wrote. Molinaro’s staff emailed Manning on June 5 and on June 13 asking for him to be added as a cosponsor, per the screenshots. 

Manning fired back and asked Molinaro if he would sign a discharge petition launched in June which would try to force a vote on her bill. The petition would force a vote on the bill if 218 House members sign on.

“Hey Marc, does this mean you’ll sign the petition to bring my Right to Contraception Act up for a vote? Or do you not want the bill to make it to the House Floor?” Manning wrote. 

The discharge petition was launched June 4, one day before the first email from Molinaro’s staff to Manning’s, per Axios. At the time, Molinaro expressed openness to signing the petition but has not since signed on, according to the publication. 

“How disgusting and short-sighted. LAWS are made by welcoming Republican AND Democrat support,” Molinaro shot back.

REP. MOLINARO: PRESIDENT CONTINUES TO IGNORE THIS NATIONAL SECURITY CRISIS

Molinaro’s office directed Fox News Digital to his posts on X when seeking further comment. Manning’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In June, the Senate voted 51-39 against moving the legislation forward. The bill needed to garner 60 votes in order to move forward in the upper chamber. The bill’s language says it “sets out statutory protections for an individual’s right to access and a health care provider’s right to provide contraception and related information.” 

Molinaro said Monday he supports a woman’s right to an abortion and opposes a national ban on abortion.

“My position is this,” Molinaro said in a meeting with the Cortland Standard editorial board, the publication reports.  

“I believe the decision to have an abortion should be the woman’s and her physician’s.”

Riley has accused Molinaro of voting “13 times to restrict access to abortion.”

“The 13 votes are a lie, just a lie. They were procedural votes,” Molinaro told the Cortland Standard. “I led the bipartisan commission to fund the expansion of access to women’s healthcare,” he said.

Molinaro told the outlet that half the votes were bills where the language was inserted into bills on a different topic. The other half, he said, is to maintain the existing standard of access, which is that federal money does not fund abortions.

Meanwhile, Molinaro became one of the first GOP members of Congress to support the Access to Family Building Act. Democrats introduced the legislation defending in vitro fertilization treatment and holding frozen embryos to the same legal standard as children under state law. 

Former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft described himself as “a conservative” while declaring his plan to vote for incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in the Buckeye State’s 2024 U.S. Senate race.

Taft, who served as governor from early 1999 through early 2007, is the great-grandson of the late President William Howard Taft, who, years after his presidency, went on to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court, making history as the only person ever to serve in both of those prestigious positions.

“I have always run for office under the banner of the Republican Party, am a conservative and usually vote a straight Republican ticket. Although still a Republican, I will be making an exception this year in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race by supporting Sherrod Brown,” Taft wrote in a piece posted by the Dayton Daily News.

PRO-CRYPTO SUPER PAC BECOMES LARGEST SPENDER IN OHIO SENATE RACE

“In doing so, I will be joining most voters who make judgments about candidates based not just on party affiliation but, often more importantly, on the candidate and his or her character, experience and expertise,” he continued.

Taft noted that he does not agree with Brown on all policy issues, but believes “Ohioans very much need a highly effective, experienced advocate in the U.S. Senate – someone who is squarely focused on both Ohio’s and America’s needs. This is the kind of leader Sherrod Brown has been.”

Brown, who has served in the Senate since 2007, is facing a challenge from Republican candidate Bernie Moreno. 

VULNERABLE DEM SENATOR TIED TO ‘RADICAL GROUPS’ WORKING TO CLOSE MASSIVE POWER PLANT IN SWING STATE

Brown acknowledged the endorsement on social media, noting, “Bob Taft is the only guy to beat me in an election. Despite our political differences, I’m grateful to have his support in this race.”

Taft defeated Brown in the 1990 Ohio secretary of state contest.

OHIO GOP SENATE CHALLENGER REACTS TO POLLS SHOWING DEAD HEAT IN CRITICAL SENATE RACE: ‘RADICAL LIBERAL’

Currently, Ohio’s other U.S. Senator, J.D. Vance, is former President Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate in the 2024 presidential contest.

An anonymous Republican senator has reportedly expressed concern about 91-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassely, R-Iowa, reclaiming his position as chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee should the GOP take control of the upper chamber.

Whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins in November, the next Senate Judiciary Committee Chair could oversee several Supreme Court nominations and other judicial picks.

The unnamed GOP senator, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke to Punchbowl News on condition of anonymity, questioning Grassley’s ability to strongly combat against the committee’s highest ranking Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, as well as a White House led by Harris. 

“Chuck is extremely sharp. A lot of it is just his disposition — he’s not a knife fighter. He’s just too genteel for that,” the senator said. “I’ve watched Durbin operate, and he is good at his job. He will not hesitate.”

TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: GRASSLEY DEMANDS SECRET SERVICE ANSWER EXPLOSIVE CLAIMS IN BODYCAM FOOTAGE

Though several senators and aides reportedly doubt Grassley’s ability as a “fighter” to take on likely attacks on future Trump Supreme Court nominations, Punchbowl News said their concern was not the same as what the Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., faced. She stepped down as the committee’s top Democrat in 2020. 

Progressives shredded Feinstein’s handling of the nominations of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and the senator also faced questions about her mental fitness. 

Another GOP senator told Punchbowl News that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito possibly could retire next year, and Democrats have worried about Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s health.

“The stakes are going to be high,” that senator told Punchbowl News. 

Those who defend Grassley note how the nonagenarian guided prior Trump Supreme Court nominations through their Senate confirmation hearings despite intense backlash from Democrats and other groups. 

They also credit the eight-term senator for the current Supreme Court conservative majority, as Grassley and other GOP senators in 2016 decided to forgo the hearings needed to advance Merrick Garland’s nomination to the high court. That effort, however, was largely led by then-Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“No one is better prepared to lead the Senate Judiciary Committee than Senator Grassley,” Clare Slattery, a spokesperson for Grassley, told Fox News Digital. “He has a proven track record of success, having confirmed an historic number of constitutionally-sound judges, and he continues to set the gold standard for congressional oversight and investigations.”

“Simply put, nobody outworks Chuck Grassley,” she said. “Senator Grassley looks forward to continuing to deliver on his rock solid conservative record as Judiciary Chairman in the next Republican Senate Majority.”

SQUAD MEMBER CALLS FOR ‘RADICALLY’ CHANGING THE SUPREME COURT: ‘SCOTUS REFORM IS ON THE BALLOT IN NOVEMBER’

“Even at age 91, Grassley runs circles around his colleagues,” Mike Davis, Grassley’s former chief counsel for nominations, told Punchbowl News. “It is wishful thinking if people think he’s not going to be the next Republican chair of Senate Judiciary. Trump will be very happy it’s Grassley because Grassley has proven he’s very effective for Trump.”

“Would any other senator have been able to do what Grassley did?” Michael Zona, a former top Grassley aide, said to Punchbowl News. “Has anyone had more success in confirming judges than Grassley? Who else has demonstrated they won’t buckle under political pressure more than Grassley?”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the current ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is second in seniority to Grassley, who right now is the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. 

Graham, who some conservatives fear as a potential chair of the Judiciary Committee given his record of voting for Democrat judicial picks, told Punchbowl News on Monday he holds “all the confidence in the world in Sen. Grassley’s ability to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Election night is two weeks away. As Vice President Harris and former President Trump dash to the finish line, this week’s forecast looks at their outreach efforts and the latest evidence of a smaller divide between national and state polling. 

Plus, rankings changes in six competitive House districts.

Last week’s Power Rankings showed that both parties’ coalitions have changed meaningfully since 2020.

For Democrats, the chief concern is that Harris still has fewer Black voters in her corner than President Biden.

To help fix that problem, the campaign dispatched its strongest surrogate, former President Obama, to Arizona and Nevada, and Harris spent an hour with Charlamagne Tha God to talk about policy, race, and religion.

The Vice President also went head-to-head with Fox News’ Bret Baier, part of an effort by her campaign to frame the candidate as tough and pragmatic. It was Harris’ highest-profile interview yet, but it will take another week before the effects show up in polls.

Meanwhile, Trump’s coalition has fewer women than in the last election, so the former President participated in a town hall with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner and an all-female audience.

Trump also continues to search for young and working-class voters. His appearance at a local McDonald’s in Pennsylvania produced some compelling imagery and was designed to paint Trump as an energetic and likable candidate.

FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: HARRIS LOSES HER LEAD AND A NEW ELECTORATE EMERGES

Right-wing voters with reservations about Trump could also make the difference on election night. 

That is why Harris spent the beginning of the week with Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney, who urged conservatives to vote for the Democratic ticket this year. It also explains why there are rumblings about Nikki Haley joining Trump on the campaign trail.

Two polls of the national popular vote released last week show a uniquely tight race. Suffolk has Harris one point ahead of Trump at 50% to 49%; the Fox News Poll has Trump up by two, with the former president at 50% and Harris at 48%.

Results like that should make this Trump’s race to lose. 

In 2020, Biden won the national vote by 4.5 points (51%-47%). That translated to very thin margins of victory in the battleground states. The president won Georgia, for example, by 0.2 points, and his largest victory in any battleground was by 2.8 points in Michigan.

Close national polls should therefore put Trump in the lead in the battlegrounds. But the statewide polls are close too.

A new set of polls show Harris ahead by 2-4 points in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia, a tied race in Nevada, and Trump ahead by 3 in Arizona and North Carolina (Washington Post/Schar).

The Power Rankings call all those states toss-ups.

Last week, the same Fox poll that put Trump ahead by two points nationally had Harris up six points among voters who live in the battleground states (52%-46%, with a 6.5-point subgroup margin of error).

Trump’s advantage primarily came from a larger share in counties he won by more than 10 points in 2020 (64-35%) than Harris had in counties Biden won by more than 10 points (58-39%).

A TRUMP MYSTERY MAKES ELECTION OUTCOME EVEN MURKIER

The results suggest that Trump could be banking “inefficient vote.” In other words, while the former president is performing better nationally than he was four years ago, the gains are concentrated in places he is already winning, like Florida, or rural counties.

While Harris may have lost some ground in safe Democratic states like New York, she remains competitive in the battlegrounds that decide the presidential election.

Other polls have raised the same question, but the most compelling evidence comes from the midterms.

Republicans received about 3 million more votes than Democrats in the national House vote (Cook), but eked out a balance of power win, with 222 seats to Democrats’ 213.

Put another way, the GOP banked a lot of votes in areas where it didn’t need them, and just enough in the battleground House races that would give them victory (a problem that has plagued the Democrats in the national vote for years).

The polls are all within the margin of error, and this is just one theory about the direction of the race. But on election night, a Trump blowout in Florida or a narrower spread in Virginia may not mean the race is over.

The House is still a toss-up, with 208 seats in the Republican columns, 205 for the Democrats, and 22 districts that could go either way.

In today’s forecast, six races move to new categories:

First, New York’s 17th district, in the Hudson Valley, is home to one of the most competitive races on the map. Incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Lawler has a strong bipartisan brand in a centrist district. While Democratic challenger and former Rep. Mondaire Jones has tried to head in the same direction, he’s still dogged by his previous support for defunding the police and a spat with the Working Families Party (Jones will not appear on the ballot under that party’s name, though the party is now telling voters to support him anyway). This race moves from Toss Up to Lean R.

New York’s 1st district, home to both the Hamptons and rural farmland on Long Island, remains a competitive race between Republican Rep. Nick LaLota and the Democrat, former CNN anchor John Avlon. But the majority of this district’s voters backed Trump in 2020 and 2016, and Avlon has faced questions over the extent of his residency in the district. The race moves from Lean R to Likely R.

In the battleground Rust Belt states, a pair of districts held by pro-Trump Republicans have become even more competitive. First, Wisconsin’s 3rd district flipped to Rep. Derrick Van Orden in the midterms by a tight margin. The incumbent’s presence at the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 riots is a theme in his opponent’s ads. This race moves from Likely R to Lean R.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s 10th district has been held by Freedom Caucus Rep. Scott Perry since 2013. Perry is the only sitting member of Congress whose cellphone was seized by the FBI in its investigation into efforts to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and that has also become a theme in television ads. It moves from Lean R to Toss Up.

Nevada’s 3rd district is still the best opportunity for Republicans to flip a seat in the Silver State, but a hotly competitive presidential race hasn’t so far translated into downballot success, particularly in the Senate race. This district almost touches Las Vegas, and includes Henderson. That’s favorable territory for Democratic Rep. Susie Lee in this Biden-majority district. She faces Republican Drew Johnson. It moves from Lean D to Likely D.

Finally, a sleeper race to watch in the northeast: Maryland’s 6th district, where Democrat April McClain Delaney faces Republican Neil Parrott. This should be safe territory for the left, but the party is investing here, and even made it part of one of its frontline programs. It moves from Solid D to Likely D.

As an anxious electorate counts down to election night, the political class is filling the void with data. Some numbers are more useful than others.

Harris dominates in fundraising and the ground game. Her campaign raised more than $1 billion this quarter and more than double what Trump raised in the last month, and Democrats have a much stronger get-out-the-vote operation. These are important advantages. In a tight race, they may get Harris over the line. On the other hand, Trump has won with deficits in both areas.

Comparing early vote figures to previous cycles is generally unhelpful. We expect fewer Americans to vote early, Democrats and Republicans are less likely to be divided on how they cast ballots, and breakdowns tell us the party registration of some voters, not how they voted.

Finally, since internal polls survey the same electorate as any other poll, they’re unlikely to produce a clearly different result. When they do, people should question whether the poll is an outlier, or whether the campaign that paid for the poll has a motive to characterize the race differently. 

Early voting is underway in every state, with more than fifteen million voters now casting a ballot.

Next week, check back for the final Power Rankings forecast.

Former President Donald Trump holds a slight lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the key swing state of Georgia, according to a new poll.

The poll, conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the University of Georgia, found Trump at 47% support in the state, compared to Harris’ 43%. A sizable 8% of respondents said they remain undecided, however.

The Georgia poll surveyed 1,000 of the state’s likely voters from Oct. 7-16. The poll advertises a margin of error of 3.1%.

The poll further found that 60% of respondents say the country is on the wrong track, and their top issues were inflation/cost of living (19%), the economy/jobs (17%), preserving democracy (17%), immigration (14%) and abortion (8%).

GEORGIA SHATTERS EARLY VOTING RECORDS AS CAMPAIGNS ENTER HOME STRETCH IN BATTLEGROUND STATE

The poll comes as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is facing pressure to release the results of a voter roll audit he announced this summer.

HARRIS INVOKES JIMMY CARTER IN BID TO GET SUPPORTERS TO VOTE EARLY

“Millions of illegal immigrants have flooded our country since 2021, and it’s well-documented that thousands of them have successfully registered to vote in multiple states. But even with early voting now underway, Georgia voters are still waiting for confirmation that non-citizens are not casting ballots in our elections,” former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who now serves as the chairwoman for the group behind the effort, Greater Georgia, said in a release obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital.

The comments come more than three months after Raffensperger announced the state was conducting a “SAVE audit” of noncitizens who may have registered to vote, which he called a “vital step in maintaining election security and integrity in Georgia.”

“We are double-checking to make sure that if any non-citizens attempt to register to vote, they will not be able to vote unless they prove that they are U.S. citizens,” Raffensberger said in a release at the time, which also warned of prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines of up to $100,000 for noncitizens who register to vote in the state.

Raffensperger told NewsNation just a few weeks later that the audit was complete, boasting that he could promise residents of the state that “only American citizens are voting.”

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Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office said that Raffensperger will hold a press conference on Wednesday to announce the results of the audit.

Fox News’ Michael Lee contributed to this report.

Vice President Harris has raised some eyebrows over potential conflicts of interest related to the substantial support her presidential run has received from individuals and entities engaged in active business dealings before the federal government.

The Harris campaign tapped law firm Covington & Burling to help vet Harris’ potential running mates and advise the campaign’s transition team. The law firm, which also provided the Harris campaign with financial support and experienced attorneys to defend it, is currently challenging the ban on TikTok in the U.S. passed by Congress and signed by President Biden.

One significant supporter of Harris’ campaign includes Chris Larsen, angel investor and co-founder of cryptocurrency firm Ripple Labs. Larsen, who has given Harris’ campaign committees nearly $12 million, is currently in a protracted legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether its cryptocurrency, XRP, should be classified as “securities.” Meanwhile, $1 million of Larsen’s money to the Harris campaign was made in the form of his XRP cryptocurrency.

These are among the handful of examples that elucidate potential conflicts of interest that legal experts say don’t necessarily amount to anything illegal, but do raise questions about Harris’ judgment. 

EPIC CLASH: PRESSED BY FOX NEWS, KAMALA HARRIS COMES OUT SWINGING

“To establish a violation of law — in the main, bribery — prosecutors would really have to prove a quid pro quo,” Andrew McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor for National Review’s online print publication, told Fox News Digital. “These situations are in the capacious category of arrangements that are ethically troubling, and that could be politically damaging depending on how they play out, but that are probably not legally actionable.”

Last week, attorneys from Covington & Burling and other major D.C. law firms, such as Paul, Weiss LLP, hosted a pricey Washington, D.C., fundraiser for Harris. Among the attorneys present were Weiss’ Karen Dunn, Bill Isaacson and Jeannie Rhee, who are currently defending Google in federal court against the Biden-Harris Justice Department. Additionally, the Harris camp tapped Dunn ahead of the September presidential debate to help Harris prep.

“It’s a conflict of interest if the government is indebted to opposing counsel,” Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, told the New York Post after it reported on the fundraiser. “That’s why attorneys should not be allowed to negotiate potential settlements with the Department of Justice if they served as active bundlers, including fundraiser hosts, for that administration.”

LAWYER DEFENDING GOOGLE IN DOJ CASE PREPPING HARRIS FOR DEBATE IS ‘CONFLICT OF INTEREST,’ JORDAN INVESTIGATES

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, said fundraisers like the one held for Harris last week do “raise concerns about the judgment of some of the people involved,” but Spakovsky also echoed McCarthy’s remarks that there was likely nothing legally actionable.

“If you are helping a political figure who is the boss of a federal prosecutor who is involved in a case with you, I mean that – to me – does clearly raise a conflict of interest,” Spakovsky argued. “Because if the prosecutors then go easy on your client, there’s always going to be a question of, well, ‘Did they do that because the prosecutors’ ultimate boss in the White House told them to go easy on the defense counsel’s client.”

“It may not look good and raises concerns about the judgment of some of the people involved,” Spakovsky concluded. “But I don’t see a legal problem.”  

Uber general counsel and Harris’ brother-in-law, Tony West, was also present at last week’s fundraiser, alongside Democrat bigwigs like Eric Holder, a longtime Covington & Burling partner, and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Holder and West are reportedly in the running to be in Harris’ Cabinet if she wins next month.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not receive a response by press time. 

U.S.-based Jewish organizations are working to get out the vote among Americans living in Israel ahead of the November election, which comes weeks after the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. 

Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, said his organization has coordinated with the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and partnered with Yeshiva University, a private Orthodox Jewish university in New York, on outreach instructing young Americans taking their gap years in Israel on how to request their absentee ballots and vote from abroad.

“First of all, it’s important, from our point of view, for every American citizen, no matter where they are, to hopefully participate in the election,” Diament told Fox News Digital. “You know, this past year has obviously been a very intense, serious and historic year in terms of what’s going on in Israel as it continues to battle against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran itself. We have friends and family who are there, whose lives are really on the line. And so it’s really important for Americans there who have the right to vote to, again, participate, because the United States is Israel’s most important ally.”

He estimated that there are a few thousand Jewish Americans currently in Israel taking their gap year, typically done between high school and college. His own son is one of those students this year.

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The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (or Orthodox Union), which represents more than 1,000 Orthodox Jewish synagogues around the U.S. as well as several hundred Jewish K-12 schools, also works on educational resources targeting another demographic – the few hundred thousand Jewish American immigrants who permanently relocated to Israel – so they, too, can participate in the 2024 election. 

The deadline to request absentee ballots is approaching for several battleground states. Of the about 420,000 Jewish Pennsylvanians, Diament said that some studying or living in Israel “could have an impact on the vote” in their communities around Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and even Scranton.

“Joe Biden won Pennsylvania in the last election by an 80,000 vote margin,” Diament said. “So, you know, a shift in the American Jewish vote in Pennsylvania by, you know, several thousand or 10,000 or more votes could be very, very significant in this election.” 

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in January urged Americans living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to check their voter registration to provide for enough time to participate in the upcoming 2024 federal elections. As the U.S. does not offer in-person voting at embassies or consulates abroad, U.S. citizens are encouraged to vote by absentee ballot if they cannot meet their state’s in-person voting requirements. 

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At the time, the embassy noted how “many U.S. federal elections for the House of Representatives and Senate have been decided by a margin smaller than the number of ballots cast by absentee voters.” 

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem said all states are required to count every absentee ballot “that is valid and reaches local election officials by the absentee ballot receipt deadline.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told Fox News Digital that U.S. citizens living outside the United States can register to vote and vote absentee while living overseas. Students living overseas for an extended period during an election season need to vote absentee and complete a Federal Post Card Application at FVAP.gov to request an absentee ballot, the spokesperson said, adding that voting residency will continue to be the student’s last legal residence prior to leaving the U.S. to study abroad.

The State Department spokesperson said U.S. citizens voting from overseas should check FVAP.gov for their state’s deadlines and more information about how to return their ballot.

“An American living abroad can most easily request an absentee ballot either through the team that we have set up at our center in Jerusalem or, again, they could go to the U.S. embassy or consulate in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv,” Diament said. “And as long as you show your ID and you get your absentee ballot appropriately, then you just need to send it in a timely way. It’s really not that complicated.” 

Jeremy Kazzaz, executive director of the Beacon Coalition, a nonprofit focused on getting out the Jewish vote locally on the ground in Pittsburgh, said U.S. citizens, whether traveling out of state or abroad during an election season, should send their absentee ballots as soon as possible to be included in initial counts.

“The mail system gets bogged down around election time because it’s not just all the ballots that are going through the mail, but it is the 5 billion pieces of political mail that everybody is getting on a day-to-day basis,” Kazzaz told Fox News Digital. “And then you add to that the chaos and disruptions of multiple hurricanes going through the Eastern Seaboard at this time. And so the best practice is to do all of this as early as humanly possible.”

While Diament said it is confidential which candidates who members of the Orthodox Union support, he pointed to polling done by Israeli outlets and pollsters on the ground among Israelis and Americans as signaling a shift toward Republican Donald Trump, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

“You know, frankly, that is not matched in the American Jewish population as a whole. The American Jewish population, by and large, is pretty liberal. And so, traditionally, the Democrat wins a majority, sometimes a very, very large majority. But we’ve done polling and others have done polling this year among American Jews here in the United States,” Diament said. “What we’ve seen, at least so far, is that while Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate is ahead among the American Jewish vote in general, she’s not ahead by as large a margin as the Democratic candidate, you know, has been traditionally.”

Diament argued that rising antisemitism in the U.S. could be one contributing factor.

“It’s a different kind of election in the wake of what’s going on over the past year for American Jews,” Diament said. “We’ve seen the terrible surge in antisemitism in the aftermath of the Oct. 7th terrorist attacks. And that’s another dimension, which American Jews have to really stand up and hold government officials accountable and make sure that they are being responsive to us, to make sure we’re guaranteed our rights of freedom of religion in this country.” 

Regarding his son and his sons’ friends taking their gap year in Israel, Diament said that “in some ways, they feel more comfortable and secure than some of their friends who are on some American university campuses.” 

“Their lives are not being threatened, obviously, the way people on the ground in Israel are by foreign militaries,” he said. “But there are a lot of campuses where young American Jews are really being … psychologically threatened and personally threatened.”