ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

MAGA Senate Campaign Leader Accused of Sickening Sex Crime

Another member of Georgia Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins’ team has been arrested, The Swamp reveals.

Donald Trump wants to crush The Swamp. The leaks, the sneaks, and the secrets are all there. Our writers, David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, Sarah Ewall-Wice, and Laura Esposito are sifting through the ooze so you don’t have to. Don’t miss out.

Did someone forward it to you? Sign up here to stay up to date with the n-ooze.

Melting down in The Swamp today are: Melania Trump, Jon Ossoff, Paolo Zampolli, Bart Hutchins, Sean Hannity, Donald Trump, Andre Lamar Stafford, Jose Andres, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Ainsley Earhardt, Scott Colom, Tom Bonier, Marco Rubio, and Mike Collins.

MAGA Georgia Senate ‘Convoy Captain’ Is Latest to Fall

As Trump-endorsed Mike Collins makes his last-ditch effort to unseat Democratic senator Jon Ossoff in Georgia, his campaign’s associates are also hard at work. Hard at work fighting abhorrent criminal allegations against them, that is.

Collins’ campaign leader—or “convoy captain”—in Cobb County, Andre Lamar Stafford, was arrested after he allegedly drove up to a bus stop just before 8.30 am on Friday, Oct. 15, in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna. He stopped his car where an underage schoolgirl was standing, told her she was pretty, and then promptly exposed himself, his arrest warrant alleged. He was tracked by a Flock camera and picked out of a lineup by his alleged victim, whose age has not been disclosed. Stafford was accused of public indecency and child molestation and initially denied bond. Stafford, 26, claims he is innocent. However, the Cobb County arrest warrant stated that Collins’ “convoy captain” represented a “danger to a person or community.” He was later released. Oh, and did we mention that Stafford is running for a seat in the Georgia state house? So far, he’s not letting a little arrest warrant interrupt his campaign and plans to remain in his race, where he wants to oust Democrat Gabriel Sanchez.

The Collins campaign issued a statement that bravely came out against child molestation: “Mr. Stafford has volunteered on many campaigns across the state this year, including ours,” Collins said. “The charges are sickening, and if they’re true then he belongs on a list and behind bars.”

The Swamp has exposed a series of questionable characters serving as “convoy captains,” the name Collins is giving to appointed campaign leaders in counties across Georgia. The list includes B.B. Langham, a campaign leader in Richmond County, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to felony cruelty to children, along with charges of family violence and sexual battery—stemming from an incident involving his own (minor) stepdaughter. Joey Jackson, convoy captain for Jenkins County, was charged with cruelty to children. Gordon Austin, Carroll County’s captain, lost his dentist’s license after pleading guilty to fraud. And, of course, who could forget the “convoy captains” with ties to the Ku Klux Klan? That distinction belongs to Joshua Mote (Hall County) and Michael Boggus (Banks County).

Collins campaign manager Meyer Siegfried has previously told The Swamp that they were unaware of the captains’ criminal backgrounds, emphasizing that they are unpaid volunteers. “Their conduct does not represent Mike Collins or the more than 800 Georgians who volunteered because they want Mike Collins to deliver a more prosperous, safer, and more affordable Georgia,” Siegfried said.

If Georgians want a safer Peach State, The Swamp suggests they could start by rounding up Collins’ campaigners.

Melania’s Matchmaker Finds Peace in Milan:

Paolo Zampolli, the man often credited with introducing Donald Trump to Melania, is apparently finding Washington a little too tribal these days. Two weeks after being ousted from the Trump administration, the former Italian modeling agent has retreated to Milan, posting a picture of himself in front of the city’s Duomo cathedral with a message about the virtues of getting along. “All quiet on the Milan front. Peace returns to the Duomo. May dialogue always prevail over division,” Zampolli wrote. “Happy to be back!!!”

The former special envoy was dismissed from the administration after finding himself on the losing side of an ugly feud with Marco Rubio’s State Department Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau. Perhaps a little Italian serenity will help Zampolli recover from his D.C. woes. Milan, after all, is where Zampolli first entered the modeling industry, which led him to recruit a young, Slovenian-born Melania Knauss. This move set in motion a chain of events that led to her becoming the first lady.

MAGA’s Favorite Eatery Wants the Ducks to Suffer

Bart Hutchins is used to feeding Washington’s MAGA crowd (when Cheesecake Factory is over-subscribed). Now the chef behind Butterworth’s, the unofficial Trump-world eatery on Capitol Hill, is taking on a different target: a proposed foie gras ban. Hutchins, who used to head Le Mont Royal in Adams Morgan, has been one of the few D.C. chefs willing to publicly fight Initiative 86, which would ban the sale in the capital of the delicacy made from the livers of force-fed ducks and geese. With most of the capital’s culinary establishment keeping their head down for fear of protests, Hutchins has organized a four-course tasting menu to bankroll a potential legal fight over a ban. For $150 per head, diners can enjoy a feast with foie gras featured in every course: Waldorf salad with koginut squash and foie snow; soup Jean-Louis Palladin with chestnut and Asian pear; dry-aged duck with vanilla jus gras and chanterelle; and a Foie Gras Twinkie with maraschino cranberry for dessert. Either a yum or a yuck, depending on your taste…

Hutchins has even attracted an unlikely ally: celebrity chef José Andrés, who reckons there are better things to fight about, like world hunger. “I’m not as conservative as many of the MAGA customers at Butterworth’s, but nonetheless, I’m probably somewhere to the right of Jose, who is pretty far left,” Hutchins tells The Swamp. “I hope that illustrates to some extent how radical and how extreme this idea is. I interact with the activists on this campaign a lot, and I haven’t interacted with a single one who’s not a full-on vegan.” D.C.’s latest culinary battle has officially gone quackers.

Dem Takes Fights Against Trump to… a Trump Rally

If you can’t beat them, join them? That’s the approach Mississippi Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom took when Donald Trump showed up to stump for his opponent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. A president rarely shows up in Mississippi, so it was sure to draw a crowd. But the polls are tightening in the once-deep-red state, so Colom, a Mississippi district attorney, showed up outside the Trump rally where he shook hands and took selfies with rally-goers waiting in line. 2026 may be the year of ticket splitting, and Trump is not literally on the ballot, so it could help Colom in the ugly political climate for the GOP.

“I was reminded that more unites us than divides us here in Mississippi,” Colom shared afterward, echoing Barack Obama. He might have a better chance of persuading a few individual voters than his Republican opponent. After all, when Trump called Hyde-Smith up to speak beside him, she said only one sentence: “Is this not the best president in our lifetime?” That was it.

Hannity’s Full Price Mar-a-Lago Wedding Party

In a rare moment of self-awareness, Donald Trump skipped the Palm Beach wedding of Sean Hannity and Ainsley Earhardt on Saturday, fearing that his presence would turn the event into a circus. He played golf in the morning at his Trump International Golf Club, went to vote with Melania at 4 pm, and then flew to Georgia. He did, however, go to the Fox couple’s rehearsal dinner with Melania on the Friday night at Mar-a-Lago. Hannity and Earhardt chose the venue so the president could be there, but, apparently, Trump didn’t do his friend of 30 years any favors on the price. Hannity told friends the wedding couple paid “fair market value” for the venue. Next time, Hannity should get himself a Russian oligarch like Don Jr. and Bettina Anderson for their island wedding party. That guy paid for everything.

Trump’s Giveaways to Buy a Midterm Election That’s Not Free or Fair

Donald Trump has made no secret of his suspicion of America’s free and fair elections. That’s why he’s questioning their fairness, and he is happy to pay a heavy price for victory. As midterm election polling increasingly suggests a Democratic Party landslide, the president has responded by dangling his favorite thing: cold, hard cash.

He has said he will pay $5,000 to every adult U.S. citizen if the Republican Party retains control of both houses of Congress, at a potential cost of $1.35 trillion to the country. He also pledged to give $90 to over 20 million seniors to help pay Medicare premiums and $500 rebate checks to one million people toward their Affordable Care Act premiums. Then there’s the $1 million reward for anyone who comes forward with information leading to a prosecution for election fraud, either at next week’s election or on any past ballots. Throw in the $1,000 paid by the government into so-called “Trump Accounts” being set up for every baby born in America.

The president has been vague about how he plans to finance these election giveaways. But one thing is certain—it won’t come out of his own pocket. It’s simply a brazen attempt to buy America’s votes. His plan is so utterly cynical and venal that it ... just might work!

Reading the Early Voting Signs in Kansas

It’s hard to tell which way an election will go based on early voting, but early voting in Kansas suggests Democrat Adam Hamilton might just limit Senator Roger Marshall to one term. Unlike some other states, Kansas has partisan voter registration, which can help analysts figure out who exactly is showing up so far. Four years ago, in the 2022 midterms, Republicans led by three points. In 2024, Republicans in Kansas led by 15 points.

Play Video

But now, ahead of the 2026 midterms, Democrats lead by eight points in early voting. Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier was quick to emphasize that anything could happen between now and Election Day, but noted, “This type of data in Kansas does seem to confirm, at least to this point, that Democrats do have that enthusiasm advantage, and Republicans are in a position that, to some extent, Democrats found ourselves in in 2024,” he told The Swamp. “If these trends hold, Republicans will be going into election day in a deeper hole than they were in in the last couple of elections.”

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

The Swamp

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.