Interference

• The State Department ordered the expulsion of 15 Venezuelan embassy staff on April 8, 2026, accusing them of meddling in US elections via disinformation campaigns. • Evidence includes $2 million in funding traced to Caracas for bot networks amplifying anti-US narratives on social media. • This diplomatic rupture heightens bilateral tensions, affecting oil imports from Venezuela that supply 10% of US refinery needs.

US vice-president has repeatedly endorsed Viktor Orbán ahead of key election on SundayUS vice-president JD Vance continues his stay in Budapest, where he is expected to address the conservative Mathias Corvinus Collegium this morning on the back of his yesterday’s “not-at-all endorsement” of the embattled prime minister Viktor Orbán, five days out from the key election on Sunday.His comments yesterday caused quite a stir after he repeatedly blasted the European Union for allegedly interfering with the vote, before repeatedly endorsing Orbán, openly campaigning for him and thus effectively interfering with the election on his own. Continue reading...

US vice-president rails against ‘bureaucrats in Brussels’ interfering in Sunday’s vote as he arrives in BudapestJD Vance has railed against the EU, accusing it of blatantly interfering in Hungary’s upcoming elections, even as the US vice-president said he had travelled to Budapest to “help” Viktor Orbán win Sunday’s vote.Speaking to reporters shortly after landing in Budapest on Tuesday, Vance’s tone was combative as he alleged that the EU was responsible for “one of the worst examples of foreign election interference” he had ever seen. Continue reading...

Tina Peters, an election denier, was found guilty in 2024 of allowing unauthorized access to county’s voting equipmentA Colorado appeals court on Thursday ordered the resentencing of a former Colorado election official who was found guilty of allowing unauthorized access to her county’s voting equipment, the latest development in a closely watched case that has attracted considerable attention from Donald Trump and other election deniers.Tina Peters, the former clerk in Mesa county in western Colorado was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2024 after a jury found her guilty on three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with the secretary of state. Peters was the county clerk in 2020 and later allowed an unauthorized person to access the county’s Dominion voting machines. Sensitive information from the machines later wound up on the internet. Continue reading...

Ministers will publish review by Philip Rycroft, which will make recommendations relevant to all the political parties, todayGood morning. In December the government announced that Philip Rycroft, a former permanent secretary at the Brexit department, will lead a review into foreign financial interference into UK politics. The review is being published today, and it will include recommendations that we’re told the government will implement as a priority.The review will make recommendations relevant to all the political parties, but no one in government is trying very hard to pretend that one party in particular isn’t the main focus. Rycroft was hired for the job soon after Nathan Gill, the former Reform UK leader in Wales, was sentenced to 10 and a half years in jail for taking bribes to spout pro-Russian propaganda. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, dismissed Gill as a one-off bad apple, but other Brexit party MEPs gave pro-Russian speeches similar to Gill’s. Reform UK is the Brexit party under a new name. Continue reading...

Minister says the change is needed to protect the corporation from repeated ‘culture war’ attacksThe government is to put the BBC’s charter on a permanent footing for the first time, after the corporation said the change was needed to protect it from political interference.In a significant change to the governance of the BBC, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said she wanted to grant the corporation’s demand for a permanent charter. She said she wanted to protect it from repeated “culture war” attacks. Continue reading...