Missouri Republican candidate allegedly tried to plant drugs on primary opponent: Investigators
Thomas Ross booking photo. (Joplin Municipal Jail)
(NEW YORK) — A Republican candidate for a Missouri State House seat was hit with a federal charge after he allegedly tried to plant drugs on his primary opponent, federal prosecutors alleged.
Thomas Christopher Ross, who won the Republican primary last month for Missouri House District 161 in Joplin, was charged Wednesday with conspiring to distribute a controlled substance after authorities discovered the alleged plot to plant cocaine and Adderall in the car of Louise Secker, who faced Ross in the Republican primary.
Ross’ campaign manager contacted the police in July after the candidate allegedly gave him the drugs and instructed him to plant them on Secker, the criminal complaint released Thursday said.
The unidentified campaign manager brought a bag of cocaine and an Adderall pill to the police, who confirmed they were real after tests, according to the criminal complaint.
“[The campaign manager] advised at the time that Ross was believed to have a prescription for Adderall, which was where he believed the capsule originated,” the complaint said.
The campaign manager showed law enforcement alleged text messages between himself and Ross, 37, where the candidate allegedly discussed the plot, with references going as far back as May, according to the complaint.
“I was hoping we could make it happen before THIS Thursday…which would be extreme egg on the face given Thursdays nights event [sic],” the alleged May 31 text from Ross read, according to the criminal complaint.
The police called in the FBI to help with the investigation and the bureau provided the campaign manager with a covert recorder that was used on July 31 to document a meeting between him and Ross, the complaint said.
During the meeting, the campaign manager told Ross that he still had the drugs and asked the candidate if he still wanted him to “try” and plant the drugs on Secker, according to the complaint.
Ross allegedly agreed and told the campaign manager that he could “call in an anonymous tip that Secker had drugs in her car,” the complaint said.
“[I]f you can pull it off…pull it off,” Ross allegedly told the campaign manager, according to the criminal complaint.
Ross defeated Secker in the primary four days later by only 33 votes, and was set to face off against Democratic candidate Aaron Metzger in the general election.
“Thank you again for your faith, your support, and your vote. I am truly grateful, and I will work every day to be a representative you can be proud of,” Ross, a married father of two, said in a social media post after his victory.
He was held at Joplin Municipal Jail, according to jail records. Ross has not entered a plea and a preliminary and detention hearing is scheduled for Sept. 9, according to court documents.
His public defender didn’t immediately return messages for comment. Ross’ campaign didn’t immediately return messages.
Missouri Republican Party Chairman Peter Kinder released a statement Wednesday after the charges were revealed and called on Ross to drop out of the race.
“The people of Southwest Missouri deserve nothing less than leadership they can trust,” he said in a statement.
Secker and Metzger did not immediately return messages for comment.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche on ABC’s “This Week.” (ABC News)
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday addressed the Trump administration’s decision to ban three mainstream news outlets from accessing the White House, saying that President Donald Trump had not “denied access” to the organizations and asserting that it is a “privilege … not a right” to be at the White House.
“The president hasn’t denied access. That’s not the right way to describe it. This is — what the president has said is that he is sick and tired of certain media outlets just refusing to report accurate news,” Blanche said in an exclusive interview with “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “There’s still obviously litigation going on, but the important thing, Martha, is to know that … being in the White House is a privilege. It’s not a right.”
In the early hours Thursday, Judge Timothy Kelly issued a temporary restraining order that required the White House to temporarily restore credentials of journalists working for CNN, MS NOW and Politico. Kelly said in his ruling that he believed the outlets cleared the “high bar” required to grant a TRO.
Journalists were allowed back onto the White House grounds later Thursday and primary television pool coverage resumed Friday for the final day of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s official state visit. But on Saturday, there was no TV pool coverage for the president’s trip to a football game in Tennessee; CNN was scheduled to be network covering the president that day, but they said their access to Air Force One was blocked.
Blanche said it wasn’t unusual for a news outlet to not be allowed onto the president’s plane.
“The White House routinely decides who can go on Air Force One. This wasn’t a a one-time denial of CNN. There’s all kinds of times when certain reporters are not flying or are flying,” according to Blanche, who added, “it’s not unusual, and as a matter of fact, it’s common every time the president travels that he and his team decide which reporters get to travel with the president.”
Blanche claimed the three news outlets that were subject to the White House ban “refuse to report anything accurately,” which he said presented a “national security problem.”
“When you have complete misinformation coming out of the White House that affects our relationship with our foreign partners, that affects our relationship with our foreign enemies — and so this is just not about the fact that they’re refusing to report accurate news. It’s all about the information that the American people have a right to hear coming out of of our what should be respected media outlets.”
Judge Kelly, however, was skeptical in his TRO ruling that national security was the true reason for the ban.
“For one thing, nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns. Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House — instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting,” Kelly wrote.
Hours after announcing the ban on social media, Trump was asked in the Oval Office if there was any “particular reason or particular story” that prompted it.
“No, no. It’s — it’s really just cumulative stories over the last two years. You get sick of it,” the president said.
On “This Week,” Blanche said he wouldn’t “get into what the judge says” because the litigation is ongoing, but added “our position has been clear from the beginning. What they say is exactly the issue when it comes to national security.”
When Raddatz pressed Blanche to provide specific examples of stories with which the White House has taken issue, Blanche declined to do so.
Artificial intelligence ‘vital to our national security’
On the issue of artificial intelligence, the attorney general echoed the president’s position on the technology, describing it as “so important and vital to our national security interests and to the success of this country that the United States lead in this space.”
Trump has said it’s critical that the U.S. continues to dominate the AI space, citing competition with China specifically.
“Whoever wins AI, WINS! We are leading now over China, and everyone else, and I’m going to keep it that way! I’m not going to stifle Growth, of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution, or the Internet, itself,” he posted on social media Monday.
Some AI company leaders are calling for an industry-wide slowdown amid growing concerns about how the rapid pace of development. Multiple incidents of AI agents acting autonomously have come to light in recent months, including instances where AI agents infiltrated outside companies without the agents’ parent companies’ awareness as it happened.
Last week, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that OpenAI agent “infiltrated” a government public health website earlier this summer. This weekend, OpenAI confirmed that its models interacted with U.S. government websites in unexpected ways, behavior the company discovered amid an ongoing review into its AI agents’ behaviors.
Blanche acknowledged that “there’s going to be adjustments that have to be made” around AI as the industry continues to develop, but he argued the companies themselves already have the ability to “adjust the technology” as needed.
“In the meantime, the answer is not to just try to all of a sudden try to regulate this in a way that will make us second or third place in the world as far as being being the leaders in this space,” Blanche said.
During his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York Tuesday, Trump said of AI, “We’re going to watch it closely through the Department of Justice.”
Asked what that meant, Blanche said, “What it means is that we have a ton of laws — criminal laws, civil laws — that are already in place and on the books that allow us to charge individuals, to charge companies in the right circumstances when there’s crimes committed, and so the answer isn’t always more laws, more laws, more laws.”
“When there are crimes committed, we have a lot of tools already, and the federal Title 18 gives us a lot of a lot of ways to go after criminals and bad actors in the AI space and other spaces,” Blanche continued. “So when the president talks about about the fact that the Department of Justice and the FBI and [Homeland Security Investigations], they can go and arrest bad actors in this space, that’s what he means, and it’s true, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sept. 15, 2026, in Washington, DC. The committee held the oversight hearing to examine the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — FBI Director Kash Patel is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning for an oversight hearing, the first time Patel is testifying since he clashed with lawmakers over reports of job performance issues more than four months ago.
The hearing comes after the committee’s top Democrat called on Patel to be replaced following a report published in The Atlantic in May that alleged Patel had “bouts of excessive drinking” and job performance issues.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Patel lacks “the experience, judgment, and temperament to lead the FBI” and should be “replaced immediately.” Durbin reiterated those comments in his opening statements on Tuesday morning.
The report in The Atlantic was a focus of several lawmakers’ questions when Patel last testified on Capitol Hill in May with several heated exchanges over Patel’s drinking habits and job performance.
Patel said earlier this year that he’s “never been intoxicated on the job,” following the report. Patel sued The Atlantic over the article, demanding $250 million in damages.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Patel is expected to tout decreased crime nationwide, according to a source familiar with his testimony. President Donald Trump has frequently promoted a decrease in crime, saying on Friday that crime is “under control.”
The director will tout the increase in violent crime arrests, which are up 90%, arresting violent gang members are up 31% and he is expected to say it is the “most prolific run of crime reduction in history,” according to a source.
The FBI saysviolent crime is down 9.3% from 2024 to 2025.
Patel is also expected to discuss the FBI’s efforts to thwart major terrorist incidents and highlight information sharing among law enforcement partners, according to a source familiar with his testimony.
He is expected to talk about how he has made the FBI more nimble as director, accelerating the reduction of bureaucracy of the agency.
Patel’s time at the helm of the FBI has been marked by several controversies, which lawmakers may question him about. Earlier this year, Patel joined in on Team USA hockey’s locker room celebrations in Italy shortly after the team won the gold medal, which drew scrutiny about his use of FBI resources to attend. He was also grilled during a House hearing late last year about his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Jay Clayton testifies during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill May 8, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as director of national intelligence, faced repeated questions from Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday about whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election — with Clayton saying Biden was certified as president, but stopped short of saying he won legitimately.
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the committee, asked whether Clayton denied that Biden won the 2020 election.
“I’m not an election denier,” Clayton said. “Joe Biden was certified as the president of the United States.
Independent Sen. Angus King later asked Clayton pointedly: “Who won the 2020 election?”
Clayton danced around the answer multiple times — refusing to say outright that Biden won, while reiterating that he believes Biden was certified.
“He went through our processes, and Joe Biden became the president of the United States,” Clayton said.
King responded that “saying Joe Biden was certified is not an answer.”
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff later said Clayton wasn’t being “honest or forthright” in his responses about Biden’s 2020 election victory.
“You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election. But you ask to lead America’s intelligence community,” Ossoff said. “Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question? To have to indulge the president’s delusions? We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to the question. Why can you not give it?”
Both Republicans and Democrats asked Clayton if he were involved in any way with Trump’s primetime address on Thursday that the president said will be a “very big announcement” that will touch on “free and fair elections.” The announcement is based on information he recently received from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence related to the 2020 election, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Clayton said he is “not involved in that,” affirming that doing so would violate that understanding that he would take no actions that would presume his confirmation as DNI.
Clayton did say that he thought there was room to improve elections and that he would like to work with the committee to do that.
Questions about subpoenas to journalists
Clayton also faced questions about the subpoenas he issued to several journalists at the New York Times last week after the news outlet reported on security concerns involving Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One.
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden questioned Clayton about the subpoenas he issued — as U.S. attorney in Manhattan — to the journalists, asking when he was directed to issue the subpoenas and who asked him to do so.
Clayton responded that the subpoenas are in connection with an “ongoing national security investigation” and reiterated that he respects the First Amendment and the role of the press. But he did not directly answer Wyden’s question.
“Those subpoenas are in connection with an ongoing national security investigation. I’m happy to talk to you and this committee about our approach to the First Amendment and our efforts in all cases to limit to the greatest extent possible, any intrusion into the operation of the free press,” Clayton said.
Clayton later added that he consulted with career prosecutors in his office before making the decision to issue the subpoeanas. He added that he is confident that the procedures in place to protect the First Amendment and journalists were followed.
Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said the committee was “deeply concerned” with how the process played out, that it “doesn’t sound like the proper independent legal process that we would normally expect for issuance of a subpoena.”
Clayton said that while he understood her concerns, “I want to tell you, I am comfortable with where we are, and I’m comfortable with how we are proceeding from here.”
In a statement on Saturday, a Justice Department spokeswoman said that “reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”
Clayton, prior to his role as the U.S. attorney, was also the former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Apart from the national security cases he oversaw while serving as U.S. attorney, Clayton also lacks experience in intelligence-gathering and national security matters.
Clayton spent the bulk of his career as a corporate attorney, and prior to his appointment as U.S. attorney last year, lacked meaningful experience in criminal matters.
Clayton will replace the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Trump loyalist Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. Clayton’s hearing came weeks after the president abruptly canceled his previously scheduled confirmation hearing.
Asked about why his hearing was postponed, Clayton said he was “not going to get into private conversations.”
Pulte has been serving as the acting director since June 19. The former DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, announced her intention to resign from the role in May, citing a desire to step away from public service to support her husband following his cancer diagnosis. Gabbard ultimately left the role on June 18, days earlier than planned.
The committee is expected to vote on Clayton’s nomination to be the next DNI some time next week.
