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Mast demands VA fire staffers over Vance, Walz medical record breach, FBI probe possible foreign interference

Mast demands VA fire staffers over Vance, Walz medical record breach, FBI probe possible foreign interference

FIRST ON FOX – Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., is demanding that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) immediately fire the at least a dozen employees who reportedly improperly accessed the medical records of vice presidential candidates Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz this summer. Mast, chairman of Veterans For Trump, penned a letter urging VA Secretary Denis McDonough for a “swift response and action to prevent such egregious violations of privacy within the VA from occurring again.” The Florida Republican is also calling for the FBI to get involved to investigate the possibility of foreign election interference.  “I urge you to buck the employee union of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and immediately fire the employees who were caught snooping into the private medical records of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz – who are both running to be vice president. VA employees know this is not permitted,” Mast wrote in a letter first obtained by Fox News Digital. “As a combat-injured veteran, I rely on the VA for my medical care. This isn’t just a legal misstep; it’s a breach that undermines veterans’ confidence in the VA and raises serious questions about the professionalism of VA personnel.”  The Washington Post first reported Monday that at least 12 VA employees within the agency’s health administration were under criminal investigation after VA investigators discovered they improperly accessed the medical records of Vance and Walz. VA Inspector General Michael Missal’s office reportedly informed both candidates’ campaigns and shared evidence with federal prosecutors related to several of the health system employees, including a physician and a contractor who “spent extended time” viewing the files of former President Trump and Vice President Harris’ running mates.  VA EMPLOYEES IMPROPERLY ACCESSED JD VANCE, TIM WALZ’S MEDICAL RECORDS, PROMPTING CRIMINAL PROBE: REPORT  “Dismissing these employees and referring them to the Justice Department for prosecution, provided there is evidence that laws were broken, is the first step the VA must take to restore credibility,” Mast wrote. “Furthermore, I urge you to fully brief Congress on how this violation of privacy transpired and implement new guidelines to prevent such acts from occurring in the future.”  Mast, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, implored McDonough to coordinate with the FBI.  The letter comes a week after Trump’s campaign said he was briefed on “real and specific threats” from Iran to assassinate the Republican presidential nominee.  “Given the recent foreign meddling in our elections – like Iran’s assassination plots against President Trump – I also request your department coordinate with the FBI to ensure Senator Vance and Governor Walz’s medical information was neither shared with foreign operatives nor accessed on their behalf,” Mast, who served in the U.S. Army for 12 years and lost both legs to catastrophic injuries endured while working as a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan, wrote. “Safeguarding sensitive information about our public officials is critical to national security and the integrity of our democracy.”  TRUMP REACTS TO ASSASSINATION PLOTS WITH BIG WARNING TO IRAN Last month, experts from the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a summary of the current threat environment citing how the “big three foreign influence actors, Russia, Iran, and China are all trying by some measure to exacerbate divisions in U.S. society for their own benefit, and see election periods as moments of vulnerability.”   “Like Russia, Iran has a multi-pronged approach that looks to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process. Tehran has also sought cyber access to individuals with direct ties to the presidential campaigns of both political parties, while elements have also denigrated the former president,” they said. “Iran has a suite of tools at its disposal, as demonstrated in recent reports outlining Iran’s cyber operations, including the hack-and-leak operation against the former president’s campaign. Iran is also conducting covert social media operations using fake personas, and is using AI to help publish inauthentic news articles.”  Fox News Digital reached out to the VA and the FBI regarding Mast’s letter.  Regarding the Post’s reporting on Monday, VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said in a statement that the agency “reported to law enforcement allegations that VA personnel may have improperly accessed Veteran records” and takes “the privacy of the Veterans we serve very seriously and have strict policies in place to protect their records.”  “Any attempt to improperly access Veteran records by VA personnel is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Hayes wrote.  The potential motive for accessing the medical records is under investigation, and investigators are still trying to determine if Vance and Walz’s information was shared as a result of the breaches, the Post reported.  The VA employees under investigation, including the physician and contractor, accessed the medical records using their VA computers and did so mostly from their government offices, sources told the newspaper. Some of the staffers in question reportedly told investigators they were simply curious to see the files of Vance and Walz given both candidates have defended their military records on the campaign trail.  The Department of Justice declined to comment about the report. The breach reportedly did not include access to any disability compensation, which has more security protocols than health information. 

Pennsylvania survey finds Harris leading Trump narrowly, identifies her ‘biggest weakness,’ pollster says

Pennsylvania survey finds Harris leading Trump narrowly, identifies her ‘biggest weakness,’ pollster says

Pennsylvania remains one of the tightest contests in the nation as November’s presidential election approaches.  Vice President Kamala Harris remains ahead of former President Donald Trump by a razor-thin margin, according to new data from AARP.  Harris maintains 49% of likely voters, while Trump maintains approximately 47%, according to the survey. Three percent reported being undecided.   FOX NEWS POLL: HARRIS, TRUMP LOCKED IN TIGHT RACE IN BATTLEGROUND PENNSYLVANIA The AARP poll was conducted by landline, cell phone and text-to-web by a bipartisan team from Sept. 17 to Sept. 24.  Harris’ weakest point is with senior citizens, AARP’s response data shows. Seniors aged 65 years and older broke for Trump by seven points, according to the data.  ROLLING STONES TOUR SPONSORED BY AARP AS 80-YEAR-OLD ROCKER MICK JAGGER SET TO HIT THE ROAD It is a major shift after Trump was trailing previous Democratic candidate President Biden by one point before he dropped out and Harris became the party’s nominee. The AARP survey found that 50% of likely voters approve of Trump’s performance as president from 2016 to 2020. About 49% disapprove of his job performance in the Oval Office. Approximately 45% approve of Harris’ performance as vice president, while 52% disapprove. The AARP survey spoke with 1,398 likely voters in Pennsylvania and has an overall margin of error of four percentage points.  An over-sample of 470 likely voters within the state who are 50 years old and up was included in the data with a margin of error of three and half percentage points.

NRA targets Sen Sherrod Brown in 7-figure ad buy in Ohio: ‘Vote like your life depends on it’

NRA targets Sen Sherrod Brown in 7-figure ad buy in Ohio: ‘Vote like your life depends on it’

FIRST ON FOX: The National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) political action committee is stepping into Ohio’s U.S. Senate race with a seven-figure ad campaign targeting Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, who has an F rating from the NRA on Second Amendment advocacy. The 30-second TV ad, airing on cable networks from Oct. 1 until the election, urges voters to “Vote like your life depends on it” and positions Brown’s conservative opponent, Bernie Moreno, as a strong advocate for the Second Amendment. The ad, which is part of a larger media blitz that includes digital ads, texting, direct mail and door-to-door canvassing, also slams “soft-on-crime politicians” like Brown for allegedly not defending gun owners’ rights, “even putting anti-gun judges on the bench.” NRA BETS BIG ON MONTANA IN GUN RIGHTS PUSH AS TESTER TEETERS IN SENATE RACE “Sen. Brown has failed us,” the ad’s narrator says. “This November, gun owners must act to preserve their rights,” said NRA-PVF Chair Randy Kozuch in a statement. “Soft-on-crime politicians like Sherrod Brown have made everyday life more dangerous for American communities but failed to protect gun owners and their right to defend themselves.” Moreno and Brown are in a neck and neck battle for a crucial Senate seat as most polls indicate that their race falls within the margin of error. Brown has also earned himself a progressive reputation among some critics. MCCORMICK SAYS ‘PEOPLE ARE RECOGNIZING’ IMPORTANCE OF 2024 ELECTION AS PENNSYLVANIA SENATE POLLS TIGHTEN He has been criticized for supporting the Biden administration’s policies nearly 100% of the time, according to the Voteview database maintained by UCLA political scientists, but has bucked the administration on certain issues related to climate change. But his critics say he is more in line with the progressive “Green New Deal” than he is the oil and gas industry in Ohio. Ohio is the second state the NRA-PVF has targeted this election cycle. Last month, the gun group went live on Montana’s airwaves with a massive push against vulnerable Democrat Sen. Jon Tester. Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood and Julia Johnson contributed to this report.

Montana GOP Senate candidate Sheehy says he was in Afghanistan while Jon Tester was ‘eating lobbyist steak’

Montana GOP Senate candidate Sheehy says he was in Afghanistan while Jon Tester was ‘eating lobbyist steak’

Montana U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy, a Republican, ripped his opponent, incumbent Democrat Sen. Jon Tester, for his ties to lobbyists during a debate on Monday. Tester is seeking to hold onto his Senate seat to continue representing the red state of Montana in a race that could determine which party controls the upper chamber of Congress, and recent polling shows that Sheehy is leading just weeks before Election Day. During the debate on Monday, Sheehy knocked his Democrat opponent for his relationship with lobbyists in Washington, D.C. “Sen. Tester knows all about backroom meetings, he’s been taking them for 20 years … While I was fighting in Afghanistan, he was eating lobbyist steak in D.C.,” said Sheehy, a former U.S. Navy SEAL. ‘WHOEVER GETS ELECTED’: VULNERABLE DEM TESTER DIGS IN HEELS ON NOT ENDORSING HARRIS Lobbyists have donated more heavily to Tester during this election cycle than to any other member of Congress, according to the non-partisan group OpenSecrets. Tester is the last remaining Democrat to hold high office in Montana, where Republicans, including former President Trump, supported Sheehy’s campaign with the hope that he could defeat the vulnerable Democrat and help the GOP win back control of the Senate. Republicans need to gain only two seats in next month’s election to win the Senate majority. GOP West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is considered a lock in his state’s Senate race against Democrat Glenn Elliott, meaning the Senate majority could run through Montana. Trump won Montana by about 17 percentage points in 2020 and, given that the state is overwhelmingly Republican, Sheehy has often sought to tie Tester to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as the Republican candidate looks to take advantage of public dissatisfaction over the administration’s struggles to address the influx of illegal immigration at the Southern Border. JON TESTER CASTS DOUBT ON UNFAVORABLE POLL IN MONTANA SENATE RACE: ‘GIVE ME A BREAK’ “Democrats on the Hill refused to hold the administration accountable for the largest mass migration in the history of this country,” Sheehy said. Tester, however, has declined to endorse Harris and has attempted to distance himself from her on the campaign trail, and he skipped the Democratic National Convention in August, when she was named the party’s nominee for president after Biden dropped out. The Democrat has also criticized some of the administration’s policy decisions. This includes his opposition to the move for tighter pollution rules for coal plants and his calls for more to be done on immigration. “Look, I’ll be the first person to tell you that President Biden has not done a good job on the southern border,” Tester said Monday. Sheehy and Tester also addressed abortion, in which the Democrat said he wants to reinstate Roe v. Wade after the landmark ruling was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago, returning the power to make laws regarding abortion back to the states. The Republican acknowledged that remarks he made last year about Native Americans were “insensitive,” but refused his opponent’s request to apologize. Sheehy had told a group of laughing supporters about bonding “with all the Indians … while they’re drunk at 8 a.m.,” while working cattle at a ranch on the Crow Indian Reservation. “Yeah, insensitive,” Sheehy said. “I come from the military as many of our tribal members do. You know, we make insensitive jokes and probably off-color jokes sometimes.” Tester pressed his opponent, “Tim, the statement you made degrades Native Americans across this country. You’re a big guy, just apologize.” “Will you apologize for opening the border?” Sheehy shot back. The Associated Press contributed to this report.