Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to controversial political operativesthrough their charity, according to documents reviewed by The Post.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been spending big on high level Democrat party aligned sources, according to public records, including hiring a ‘disinformation expert’ who worked at a company involved in every high-profile US election since the 90s.
The move could further widen the divide between Harry and his family, after brother Prince William recently met with President Donald Trump. King Charles is also said by the British press to have maintained a good relationship with Trump since he was last in office in 2020 and the president has expressed his support for both.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle doled out tens of thousands to progressive media companies at the same time that they hired a Democratic operative who worked to target critical stories about the party during the last presidential campaign.Invictus Games Foundation via Getty Images
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the recent Invictus games in Vancouver, Canada./ SplashNews.com
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The Archewell Foundation, the California-based non-profit started by Harry and Meghan in 2020, doled out $146,500 to Jiore Craig in 2023, an independent media strategist who has been called the Democrats’ “go-to” for “countering disinformation,” according to a report.
The group also donated $25,000 to the Marcy Lab School in Brooklyn, where Craig joined the board in 2024, public records show, and in 2022 Craig also took in $120,000 from Archewell, per the federal filings.
Craig, 33, previously worked at Washington DC research firm Greenberg, Quinlan and Rosner. Regarded an expert on elections, Craig worked her way up to being Senior Director of Digital Strategy by 2016 and then became Vice President of the company between 2018 and 2021.
The firm’s website boasts of how it helped Bill Clinton become President in 1992 and then “helped our clients campaign, win, govern and win again.”
Jiore Craig worked at Washington DC research firm Greenberg, Quinlan and Rosner where she worked her way up to being Vice President between 2018 and 2021.ISD
Beth Herlihy, a former aide to Britain’s royal family, was paid more than $155,000 for “strategic support” by Prince Harry and Meghan’s California charity./ SplashNews.com
One of company’s digital strategies during the last election cycle was to counter narratives about Joe Biden’s age and negative comments about his family, according to reports.
Craig boasts about what she can bring to projects online, saying she “designed and deployed Smart Social Listening – strategies for political candidates, public officials, community leaders, and corporate leaders to stay on offense,” on her LinkedIn profile.
Archewell also gave $90,000 to Markup News Inc., a New York-based non-profit also funded by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and controversial billionaire and Democratic mega-donor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
The charity’s funding of progressive Democratic causes has raised eyebrows. Nile Gardiner, a fellow at conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, has called for Archewell’s donations to be scrutinized by Congress.
“Harry and Meghan still retain royal titles and should not be engaging in any way in political activity,” said Gardiner. “It’s actually outrageous.”
Archewell’s biggest donation — $250,000 — was to the Women’s Wellness Space, a Pennsylvania-based charity set up by Ashley Biden, daughter of former President Biden, in 2023. The charity’s mission is to help women impacted by trauma, according to reports. It opened its doors in 2024.
Billionaire Democratic donor George Soros was among the donors to Markup News, a nonprofit newsroom which Meghan and Harry also contributed to.AFP via Getty Images
Archewell also doled out $155,050 to Herlihy Loughran, a firm run by two former Buckingham Palace aides, Beth Herlihy and Clara Loughran, also for “programmatic strategic services.”
A spokesperson for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex told The Post: “It’s important to note The Duke and Duchess did not endorse any candidate in the [2024 presidential] election, and to suggest they’re trying to curry favor with the Democratic Party — simply because a donation went to Ashley Biden’s nonpartisan nonprofit focused on women’s mental health, or because they hired a consultant specializing in digital safety — is misguided.
“The Duke and Duchess are committed to investing in people and initiatives that truly make a difference.”
Meghan’s political aspirations have long been rumored, with her and Harry flying to New York to meet prominent Democrats including Governor Kathy Hochul and then-mayor Bill DeBlasio in 2021.
She and Harry also had a “secret summit” video call with California gov. Gavin Newsom the same year, according to reports.
Members of the monarchy in Britain have long practiced political neutrality and generally avoid showing favor to any politician or party publicly.
Meanwhile, President Trump has been dismissive of both Harry and Meghan, recently saying he wouldn’t look into claims Harry lied on his application to live in the US.
“I’ll leave him alone. He’s got enough problems with his wife. She’s terrible,” he recently told The Post.
Democrats have cast the Trump administration’s ouster of eight senior FBI leaders as a “purge” and act of “retribution” from a weaponized Justice Department, some likening it to President Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.”
But former colleagues of the terminated “G-men” say this narrative is backward. FBI officials, past and present, have marshaled significant evidence via whistleblower complaints and testimony indicating that several terminated leaders routinely used their offices for partisan purposes.
These include allegations that at least two of the fired officials, Jeffrey Veltri and Dena Perkins, manipulated the security clearance review process to personally and professionally punish conservatives, COVID-19 vaccine skeptics, and Jan. 6 whistleblowers who reported suspected bureau malfeasance, and retaliated against those who came to the whistleblowers’ defense.
A third, Timothy Dunham, is also alleged to have improperly suspended security clearances.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) read numerous accounts of alleged misconduct perpetrated by these and other officials into the record this morning as the committee considered the nomination of Kash Patel for FBI Director.
One subordinate of the three terminated individuals, a former supervisory special agent in the Security Division, “SecD,” from which Veltri and Perkins hailed, and whom Dunham oversaw, told the committee:
I witnessed abuses committed against multiple employees by FBI senior leaders, particularly by Jeff Veltri and Dena Perkins. I also saw SecD retaliate against five of its own employees for protesting these unlawful practices. Because I spoke out against these abuses, Perkins and Timothy Dunham suspended my security clearance, costing me my job and continuing employment, totaling approximately $700,000 in lost wages and retirement benefits.
Another former FBI official, Marcus Allen, told the committee that Veltri and Perkins “caused the suspension of my security clearance because I questioned whether the FBI Director was truthful to Congress and whether the FBI was obeying the law and Constitution in the January 6, 2021 investigations.” What followed left “financial and emotional damage to me and my family will never be completely restored.”
A third, Special Agent Garret O’Boyle, who has been indefinitely suspended without pay for well over two years in alleged retaliation for whistleblowing, told the committee that Veltri, Perkins, Dunham, “and other leadership up to Christopher Wray, are responsible for what happened to me and my family.”
“Ensuring that they no longer work at the FBI is not retribution; it’s responsible leadership.”
Patel has been nominated to replace Wray, who came under fire from Republicans who believed the bureau targeted Trump supporters, parents, pro-life activists, and others. The Republican allegations informed President Trump’s first-day executive order, “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” and his Jan. 31 directive terminating eight high-level figures – including those overseeing branches from counterterrorism to criminal investigations and the heads of the bureau’s Miami and Washington field offices. The memo also called for a review of the work of all FBI personnel pertaining to Jan. 6, numbering 5,000 in all, for misconduct.
While no findings have been issued regarding that larger probe, the Jan. 31 memo, drafted by Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Emil Bove, suggests a legitimate rationale for terminating the FBI leaders. It notes that the bureau and they themselves were complicit in malfeasance pertaining to the Jan. 6 investigation, the weaponization of security clearances, and resisting Justice Department directives. Consequently, Bove wrote, the DOJ did not trust them “to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”
The Justice Department did not respond to RealClearInvestigations’ inquiries in connection with this story, and RCI was unable to reach Veltri, Perkins, Dunham, or the five other terminated officials.
Democrats have assailed the firings.A letter signed by all 10 Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats stated, “Our alarm has only grown in the past two weeks as this purge of experienced career prosecutors and agents has expanded … We can only assume these decisions are intended to prevent the Department from investigating national security and public corruption, while also serving as political retribution against the President’s perceived enemies and stoking fear among the dedicated and talented workforce in our nation’s premier law enforcement agency.”
Sen. Mark Warner, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, added: “These are people who have served our country, protected Americans and put criminals behind bars. Now they have been pushed out simply for doing their jobs.”
A central complaint of the whistleblowers is that, consistent with the Bove memo, FBI officials weaponized security clearances. Specifically, they allege that the bureau’s Security Division has baselessly suspended and/or revoked security clearances in retaliation against those who have made protected disclosures. As maintaining a security clearance is an essential condition of employment, the suspension of one’s clearance typically triggers an indefinite employment suspension without pay. The suspended are also barred from seeking outside employment or accepting gifts. The associated probes can last months and even years, with the targeted waiting first for their cases to be fully investigated and adjudicated, and then sometimes waiting still longer during an appeals process.
The process can be so onerous that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has noted that it can be leveraged to encourage disfavored employees to resign rather than fight a lengthy and costly battle.
While the FBI has denied claims that the Security Division has abused this power in recent years, Horowitz detailed misconduct in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last September. His team had seen evidence indicating that the division had used the investigation and adjudication process to punish whistleblowers.
One whose case Horowitz highlighted involved Marcus Allen, a decorated Marine Corps veteran and award-winning FBI Staff Operations Specialist. Veltri and Perkins allegedly played an integral role in targeting him.
Allen’s duties included supporting the Charlotte, N.C. field office’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in ongoing investigations and intelligence requests pertaining to Jan. 6. This included gathering and sharing relevant open-source information. In September 2021, Allen reported to his supervisors that various news outlets, including RealClearInvestigations, RealClearPolitics, and the New York Times, had reported that confidential FBI informants were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and a “significant counter-story” had formed.
Allen told his colleagues, “There is a good possibility the DC elements of our organization are not being forthright about the events of the day or the influence of government assets.” Minutes later, he forwarded his colleagues an email with a link to a video contrasting the Times’ report with then-FBI Director Wray’s testimony in March 2021 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggesting Wray may not have provided the whole truth about the FBI’s links to Jan. 6.
Suspended Without Pay 27 Months
This would set off a chain of events that would leave Allen suspended and without pay for 27 months – forced, along with his wife, to take early withdrawals from their retirement accounts to make ends meet.
Charlotte field office personnel forwarded Allen’s emails to the FBI’s Office of General Counsel, which passed them to Veltri – then-head of the Security Division section responsible for all personnel investigations.
Rather than first passing concerns to the division’s referral evaluation unit, as is customary, Veltri instigated an immediate investigation on the grounds of Allen’s potential lack of allegiance to the U.S. A successor would call this an “abortion of the process.”
Days later, Veltri received an email from the Charlotte field office, which expressed “added concerns” regarding Allen. Delivered on behalf of that office’s head, then-Special Agent in Charge Robert Wells, one of the eight FBI officials the Trump administration would terminate, it noted that Allen was one of two employees not to attest to his COVID-19 vaccination status, even though President Biden had made vaccination mandatory for all federal employees.
Veltri’s then-Assistant Section Chief Perkins used the email as justification to instruct the FBI’s Insider Threat Office to open an assessment into Allen.
That office would review Allen’s communications and conclude he harbored “hostile views towards the FBI and current administration.” To justify this characterization, it stated that Allen had sent “links from questionable sources,” including RealClearPolitics. It surmised Allen was trafficking in “extremist propaganda” and that he “may pose an insider threat to the FBI.”
Yet a subsequent probe of Allen’s communications by the FBI would find “no information validating” the basis for an investigation into Allen. Interviews with four Charlotte field office officials indicated they lacked evidence that he was disloyal, sympathized with Jan. 6 rioters, or was otherwise ill-equipped to handle his duties.
Despite the misgivings of the investigator and his supervisors on the case, IG Horowitz found that security division management – which included Veltri and Perkins – insisted that Allen’s security clearance be suspended pending investigation.
A January 2022 memorandum did just that, claiming on the basis of his emails and refusal to comply with the vaccine mandate that Allen “promoted unreliable information which indicates support for the events of January 6th” and “espoused conspiratorial views.”
According to the D.C.-based watchdog group that helped represent Allen, Empower Oversight, the agent was in limbo for 27 months while his case was investigated, adjudicated, and appealed.
When interviewed by the security division in connection with his case – some four months after his clearance and pay had been suspended – Allen, a self-described “faithful Catholic," indicated that “the Holy Spirit compelled him” to make the disclosure that would land him in hot water.
Veltri would allegedly deride Allen for that remark, suggesting, according to another division official represented by Empower Oversight, that he “was delusional for referring to his religious belief … for disclosing wrongdoing.”
Even though, as his counsel has detailed, all line-level employees who reviewed the Allen case believed he should retain his clearance, the bureau revoked his clearance under pressure from management, purportedly including Veltri.
Three individuals within the division responsible for processing Allen’s case would be reassigned in retaliation for disclosing misconduct in the division’s targeting of him.
It was not until May 2024 – after Horowitz’s office had initiated a reprisal investigation – that Allen reached a settlement with the Justice Department, agreeing to resign in exchange for full back pay and reinstatement of his security clearance.
Horowitz’s office would issue a May 2024 memorandum providing employees claiming reprisal additional means to defend themselves against indefinite unpaid suspension in light of Allen’s tribulations.
The Case of Garret O'Boyle
In emotional testimony before Congress last fall, Allen lamented that Special Agent Garret O’Boyle was being subjected to a similarly tortuous process.
O’Boyle, a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, alleges that he was targeted by Perkins on baseless grounds – and has been suspended without pay for nearly two-and-a-half years.
Empower Oversight, which also serves as his counsel alongside several Security Division whistleblowers, has detailed that in late 2021 and early 2022, O’Boyle began making a series of protected disclosures, first internally regarding FBI COVID-19 policies that he believed were unconstitutional and unlawful, and then to Congress concerning the politicization of the FBI.
Among the congressional disclosures was his view that the bureau may have opened a politically motivated criminal investigation into conservative muckraker Project Veritas – about which the Justice Department had made false claims in court.
In May 2022, Project Veritas published an interview with a masked FBI official making similar claims.
After applying for and being accepted to a new assignment with a start date of September 2022, in August, O’Boyle sold his Kansas home and prepared to move to Virginia with his three children and his wife, who was eight months pregnant. On the first day, upon arriving at his new post, O’Boyle was accused of leaking information to the press and had his security clearance suspended. He and his family were effectively rendered homeless, since he had not closed on his new home, and was left without an income.
The Security Division investigator on O’Boyle’s case had previously told the then-Acting Section Chief Perkins that there was no evidence O’Boyle had leaked anything to the media. Rather, he had disclosed to his superiors that he believed O’Boyle may have made protected disclosures to Congress. Yet, as Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt told the House Judiciary Committee last fall, Perkins “responded that she had already briefed the FBI’s 7th floor that SA O’Boyle was a media leaker, and did not want to correct this misunderstanding.”
Evidence suggests that Veltri and Perkins discussed O’Boyle’s transfer in advance of his move, with whistleblowers inferring that a scheme was hatched to ensnare him.
Shortly after the suspension, Veltri would be made head of the FBI’s Miami field office, its fifth-largest. He would lead the investigation into the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. At the time, earlier reports resurfaced that Veltri had demonstrated an anti-Trump bias, claims the FBI batted down.
The bureau revoked O’Boyle’s security clearance in July 2024 after it became aware he had made protected disclosures to the DOJ inspector general and in advance of coming hearings where O’Boyle’s plight was likely to be exposed.
That month, O’Boyle’s legal team, which also includes the American Center for Law & Justice and Binnall Law Group, filed a “request for reconsideration” of the revocation. That entitles O’Boyle to review the evidence used to justify the revocation. O’Boyle’s team did not receive such information until six months later, on Jan. 30, 2025. The receipt of that information triggers a 30-day period with which to prepare and submit his appeal.
“The crazy Kafkaesque system puts deadlines on the employee, but the FBI has an infinity whenever it wants – zero deadlines on its responses,” Jason Foster, Empower Oversight’s Founder and Chairman, told RCI.
Perkins reportedly pushed an unnamed adjudicator who had recommended ending O’Boyle’s suspension out of his job .
According to this adjudicator’s disclosure to Congress, “Perkins has moved several other employees who report to her for recommending decisions contrary to her interests [and] bases many of her decisions on favoritism.”
She “is considered corrupt and dishonest by FBI employees,” he said.
These claims dovetail with those of a former supervisory special agent at the Security Division — the supervisor whose testimony Chairman Grassley read into the record this morning. The agent, a Democrat, is also represented by Empower Oversight.
In a July 2024 letter summarizing some of the unnamed whistleblower’s claims, Leavitt said his client had observed that:
The outcomes of clearance investigations and adjudications were often pre-determined by the Division’s acting Deputy Assistant Director [Veltri] and the acting Section Chief [Perkins] responsible for security clearance investigations and adjudications, who often overruled line staff and even dictated the wording of documents in the clearance process.
In a related letter to Horowitz and the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI official of nearly 20 years disclosed, through Empower, that during his time as a Security Division investigator under the leadership of Veltri and Perkins, it was common for investigators to ask “whether employees under investigation had vocalized support for former President Donald Trump or whether they had vocalized objection to the COVID-19 vaccine.”
Veltri and Perkins allegedly would “ask in staff meetings whether employees whose clearances were under investigation had received the vaccine.”
The supervisory special agent asserted that the duo’s perspective “was that if an FBI employee fit a certain profile as a political conservative, they were viewed as security concerns and unworthy to work at the FBI.”
In April 2022, investigators overseen by Veltri and Perkins issued a questionnaire reflecting this view in connecting with a probe of a 12-year FBI veteran whose security clearance had been suspended one month prior.
Under penalty of potential disciplinary action, investigators asked co-workers of the suspended employee whether he had vocalized “support for President Trump,” “objection to COVID-19 vaccination,” or “intent to attend 01/06/2021” – a reference to the Capitol riot.
The suspension came some 15 months after the agent had self-reported, following the events of Jan. 6, that while on personal leave, he had peacefully observed activities among crowds near the Capitol. After making disclosures to Congress regarding alleged politicization and security clearance process abuses in his case and others, he would have his security clearance revoked. After appealing, with the process dragging on, the agent retired.
As for the longtime supervisory special agent who had reported on Veltri and Perkins’ misconduct, he too had his security clearance suspended. Foster told RCI that the individual who signed off on the agent’s suspension was Timothy Dunham.
Another unnamed Empower client, Foster told RCI, claims that Dunham threatened to suspend the individual’s security clearance as a means of retaliation and delayed reinstating the security clearance of another employee for over a year.
Dunham served as the executive assistant director of the FBI’s human resources branch – under which the Security Division sits – from the summer of 2023 until his termination, pursuant to the Bove memorandum.
These terminations may be only the beginning of efforts to remedy alleged malfeasance pertaining to whistleblowers. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in establishing the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group shortly after her confirmation, indicated that one of its focuses will be examining “the retaliatory targeting, and in some instances criminal prosecution, of legitimate whistleblowers.”
Results from a post-hoc exploratory subgroup analysis from the NIAGARA Phase III trial showed AstraZeneca’s IMFINZI®(durvalumab), administered perioperatively in combination with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, demonstrated improvements in event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) versus neoadjuvant chemotherapy with radical cystectomy alone in patients with or without a pathologic complete response (pCR) in muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). Patients were treated with four cycles of IMFINZI in combination with neoadjuvant chemotherapy before radical cystectomy (surgery to remove the bladder) followed by eight cycles of IMFINZI monotherapy.
These new data were presented today at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (ASCO GU) in San Francisco, California (abstract #659).
Cytokinetics (NASDAQ:CYTK) quicklyrose 7.5%amid some renewed takeover speculation.
There's some speculation that the company has had some fresh bid interest, according to traders, who cited a Betaville "uncooked" alert circulating on Friday.
Cytokinetics (NASDAQ:CYTK) was the subject of takeover speculation last year as several large pharma cos were rumored to be looking at the company.
On Thursday, Morgan Stanley upgraded Cytokinetics (CYTK) to overweight from equal weight while lowering its price target, adding that the stock's risk/reward has skewed to the upside.
Wells Fargo notes that Vera Therapeutics (VERA) shares are down about 20% today, which the firm attributes to competitor Otsuka saying they will make a prefilled syringe version of the company’s IgAN drug, Sibeprenlimab, available for commercial launch. However, the firm does not see this as a “big threat,” arguing that the pullback in Vera “makes no sense” and should be used as a buying opportunity. Wells maintains an Overweight rating and $70 price target on Vera shares.
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvedMerilog(insulin-aspart-szjj) as biosimilar to Novolog (insulin aspart) for the improvement of glycemic control in adults and pediatric patients with diabetes mellitus. Merilog, a rapid-acting human insulin analog, is the first rapid-acting insulin biosimilar product approved by the FDA. As a rapid-acting insulin, Merilog helps to lower mealtime blood sugar spikes to improve control of blood sugar in people with diabetes. The approval is for both a 3 milliliter (mL) single-patient-use prefilled pen and a 10 milliliter (mL) multiple-dose vial. The FDA granted approval of Merilog to Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC.
Merilog is the third insulin biosimilar product approved by the FDA and joins the two long-acting insulin biosimilar products approved in 2021 by the FDA. Approval of biosimilar products can increase patient access to safe and effective treatment options.
