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(WASHINGTON) — A former executive has claimed to the government that Donald Trump’s eponymous media company — which sources say is under federal investigation — committed “fraudulent misrepresentations” regarding possible mergers with two other firms as it sought to raise money.

The complaint from Will Wilkerson, a former executive at Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), alleges federal securities law violations were committed by TMTG and several company officials, as well as Benessere Capital Acquisition Corporation (BENE) and Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC).

BENE and DWAC had been considered or are being used as investor vehicles to potentially take TMTG public, a move which would also ensure a reported $1 billion in further financing from other investors, should the deal close.

Wilkerson’s complaint, filed in August and obtained this weekend by ABC News, alleges “fraudulent misrepresentations concerning the attempted mergers between these companies [Trump’s firm, BENE and DWAC] in violation of federal securities laws.”

More specifically, Wilkerson claims in his complaint that DWAC and Trump’s media company “had substantive communications” about merging before DWAC was a public company itself, violating regulations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The SEC and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York are investigating Trump’s company, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Both agencies declined to comment to ABC News.

Neither of the SPACs named in the complaint immediately responded to requests for comment.

In a statement, TMTG’s legal team touted the company’s work so far — such as its launch on multiple platforms and its millions of users — while pushing back on what it described as “knowingly false and defamatory statements” in a Washington Post article on Saturday in which Wilkerson spoke about his whistleblower complaint and his time as a TMTG executive.

Wilkerson was fired last week as senior vice president of operations after the Post sent questions to Trump based on his account, the paper reported.

DWAC first acknowledged in December that the SEC was probing its merger with TMTG and was seeking related documents.

DWAC also indicated in June that it was aware of a federal grand jury investigation in the Southern District of New York.

The whistleblower complaint states that DWAC was substituted as the SPAC to merge with Trump’s company, TMTG, because a deal with BENE “could not sufficiently capitalize TMTG at a valuation that was acceptable to President Trump” and others involved.

BENE’s CEO would have also made “less money” than if the CEO used his other, newer SPAC, according to the complaint.

“For these reasons, the parties agreed to substitute BENE for DWAC” in a merger, the whistleblower complaint reads.

Wilkerson’s complaint was first reported last week by The Miami Herald. TMTG launched last year and is the umbrella company for Truth Social, the platform Trump uses since being banned by most major social media websites in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Wilkerson also claimed to The Post in its Saturday report that TMTG co-founder Andy Litinsky was booted from the board because he would not hand over shares of the company to the former president’s wife, former first lady Melania Trump, when Donald Trump asked him to do so.

The Post published a copy of an email that Wilkerson shared with them, apparently sent by Litinsky in March, in which Litinsky refers to Donald Trump’s alleged demand that he transfer his shares and his belief that being removed from the board was retaliation against him.

The Post reported that it was not known whether Litinsky ultimately relinquished his shares.

Speaking with the Post, Wilkerson attacked the leadership of TMTG CEO Devin Nunes, a former California lawmaker.

In its statement, TMTG defended Nunes, saying he was hired by Donald Trump “to create a culture of compliance and build a world-class team to lead Truth Social.”

The Post’s story was “rife with knowingly false and defamatory statements and other concocted psychodramas,” the company said. “We will consider republication of such statements to be legally-actionable evidence of reckless disregard for the truth.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Barack Obama, still one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, is set to hit the campaign trail in the final stretch to the midterm elections.

Democrats hope to sway enough voters to avoid losing control of Congress — despite major political headwinds like high inflation.

Here is where Obama is scheduled to appear in the next few weeks:

Atlanta with Abrams, Warnock

Obama will appear in Atlanta on Oct. 28, visiting a state that could decide which party controls the Senate and is also hosting a competitive gubernatorial election.

He will rally for freshman Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is running for a full term of his own after winning a special election last year, and Stacey Abrams, the prominent voting rights activist and former lawmaker again trying to unseat Republican Gov. Brain Kemp after he narrowly beat her in 2018.

Warnock is running neck-and-neck with former football star Herschel Walker, though he has a narrow edge in the most recent surveys, according to FiveThirtyEight, including in those taken since Walker, a staunch abortion opponent, denied a report that he paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009.

Abrams, for her part, is widely viewed as the underdog to Kemp though she is seeking to mobilize voters.

Democrats are hoping to keep their momentum going in the Peach State after a banner year in 2020, when President Joe Biden narrowly won the state and Warnock and Jon Ossoff ended up eking out a pair of Senate wins — the first such victories for Democrats there in decades.

Detroit with Whitmer

Obama will rally in Detroit on Oct. 29, appearing with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other Democrats.

Whitmer is running for reelection against conservative commentator Tudor Dixon.

The governor, who has focused her campaign messaging around a blend of pocketbook and social issues, is widely viewed as the favorite and leads Dixon in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. A win there would offer a promising sign for Democrats in a tight presidential swing state.

“The event will focus on the stakes of the race as access to abortion, voting rights and public education are at risk in Michigan,” Obama’s office said in a statement.

Milwaukee with Evers, Barnes

Obama will also rally in Milwaukee on Oct. 29 with Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, who is up for reelection, and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is running to oust Republican Sen. Ron Johnson,

State Attorney General Josh Kaul, Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Rep. Gwen Moore will also attend.

Wisconsin is a crucial state for Democrats this year, with Johnson as one of the most vulnerable Republican senators up for reelection.

Barnes has begun narrowly trailing Johnson in voter surveys after facing an avalanche of attack ads painting him as soft on crime, while Evers is locked in a close race with businessman Tim Michels.

Flipping Johnson’s seat would ease Democrats’ path to keeping Senate control, where they hold a bare majority, while the victor in the gubernatorial race could help decide key policies on issues like abortion access and voting rights in a state where Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature.

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(WASHINGTON) — With year-over-year inflation barely easing in the latest Consumer Price Index report despite sharp increases in interest rates meant to cool the economy, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday that a recession is “possible but not inevitable.”

Buttigieg was asked in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” if the threat of recession worried him.

“Look, it’s possible but not inevitable. … A part of why we do see a lot of pressure on prices is that while the demand has come back, Americans have more income because Americans have jobs in this almost historically low level of unemployment,” Buttigieg told anchor George Stephanopoulos, adding that it’s “been hard for the supply side to keep up.”

“That’s a big part of what we’re working on — on the infrastructure side — dealing with some of the bottlenecks we have, dealing with some of the constraints that we have in transportation infrastructure that’s needed to be upgraded for decades,” Buttigieg said, referring to a supply-chain crunch exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Joe Biden said last week that he believed an economic downturn was unlikely but conceded there could be a “very slight recession.” His comments came after Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase CEO, warned a recession is likely within six to nine months because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and historically high inflation and the rising interest rates to combat those prices.

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates five times so far this year and is expected to again next month.

Stephanopoulos pressed Buttigieg on what more Biden could do about rising prices after the president said he would soon be announcing more steps to tackle inflation and, particularly, the cost of gas.

Buttigieg emphasized that he didn’t want to “get ahead of the president,” but he highlighted how Biden had ordered the release of fuel from the country’s strategic petroleum reserve and waived a requirement on ethanol blending for gas stations.

“This is part of a bigger focus that the president has sustained throughout this year on fighting inflation and creating more of that breathing room for American families,” Buttigieg said.

While gas prices have fallen sharply from a summer high — now averaging about $3.90, down from $5.02 in mid-June — they are 20 cents higher than they were just a month ago, according to AAA. Buttigieg laid some of the blame with oil companies, who have defended themselves from criticism of excessive profits.

The economic headwinds could cost Democrats their slim congressional majorities this November.

Stephanopoulos asked Buttigieg how the party should address high inflation with just 23 days until the midterm elections. Polls show it is a major factor in Biden’s low approval rating, with voters giving Republicans the advantage on handling the economy — and Republicans have, in turn, made the state of the economy central to their campaign messaging.

“Good policy is good politics. And we have been doing the right thing for the American people with proposals and achievements, legislatively, that are popular because they make sense,” Buttigieg said. He pointed to a bipartisan infrastructure funding bill that was signed in 2021, which has allowed for improvements to bridges, roads and airports across the country, as well as the recently enacted Infrastructure Reduction Act (IRA), which contains provisions aimed at lowering health care costs.

Buttigieg suggested that the November elections were important for making sure those policies continue: “It’s why we can’t turn back on the progress that’s been made, especially because we know there’s still a long way to go.”

He cited some conservative objections to allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, which was a major part of the IRA. GOP lawmakers have said the negotiation power is a “price control” that will hamstring pharmaceutical development.

“It’s the wrong time to do anything that would increase costs for health care or anything else for the American people,” Buttigieg said.

Stephanopoulos asked whether Biden should spend more time highlighting the White House’s other 2021 successes, like the direct COVID relief payments and a temporary expansion of the child tax credit which expired at the end of last year.

Buttigieg said “we are proud of those accomplishments,” and then noted what he believed were others, such as a funding bill for domestic manufacturing, a veterans’ health care bill and Biden’s initial COVID-19 relief bill when the economy “was at risk of going into free-fall.”

“In some ways having achieved so much legislatively makes it hard to talk about all at once because there are just so many,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The House Jan. 6 committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot would need to negotiate with former President Donald Trump if he were to offer to testify live in response to the panel’s subpoena, Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Sunday.

“I think that’s going to be a negotiation,” Kinzinger, R-Ill., a member of the committee, told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I’ll only address that when we know for sure whether or not the president has tried to push to come in and talk to us live.”

“He’s made it clear he has nothing to hide, [that’s] what he said. So he should come in on the day we asked him to come in. If he pushes off beyond that, we’ll figure out what to do next,” Kinzinger said.

He dodged Stephanopoulos’ question on whether Trump should be held in criminal contempt if he does not comply with the subpoena.

“Do you believe that the Justice Department, if the president refuses, should hold him in criminal contempt?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“That’s a bridge we cross if we have to get there,” Kinzinger said, adding, “We’re at a bit of a time limit here. And as we’re wrapping up the investigation, we’re also pursuing new leads and facts.”

Trump has not yet said if he will comply with the committee subpoena but did send the panel a 14-page screed reiterating his election fraud conspiracies.

“We made a decision in front of the American people, not behind closed doors, to begin the process of subpoenaing the former president,” Kinzinger said on “This Week.” “He’s required by law to come in. And he can ramble and push back all he wants.”

Kinzinger’s comments come after the House panel on Thursday voted to subpoena Trump — a rare but not unheard of demand of a former president — as the committee enters the final months of its investigation into the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Committee members have cast the subpoena as an effort to hear directly from Trump on what he did and did not do and what he did and did not know regarding Jan. 6.

Previous committee hearings have detailed how, according to Trump’s former aides and others, he knew there was no legal basis for his scheme to stay in power and was aware his claims of election fraud in 2020 were baseless but continued to push his supporters to march to the Capitol — even as he knew some of them were armed.

Trump has said the investigation is politically motivated and that he did nothing wrong.

The committee, which is not expected to continue into the next Congress, is in the process of formulating its final report, which will include legislative recommendations on how to stop another insurrection and ensure elections are certified at the state and federal levels.

On Sunday, Stephanopoulos pressed Kinzinger on if the committee will be making a criminal referral, which would be a notable recommendation but is not required to open a probe of Trump’s conduct. Kinzinger noted that the government is already investigating.

“It’s not a mandate, but I think … we’re certainly going to address that issue, and we’ll have more to come on that when we make that decision,” Kinzinger said.

“The Justice Department appears to be pursuing this pretty hard,” he said.

Asked about the “threat” from how widespread election denial has become in the Republican Party, despite the lack of evidence, Kinzinger, who is stepping down as a Republican lawmaker in January, said, “I don’t think this is just going to go away organically.”

The public had power to push back as well, he said: “This is going to take the American people really standing up and making the decision that truth matters.”

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