By Eric Bradner, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump vowed revenge when the Republican supermajority in the Indiana state Senate embarrassed him in December, voting down Trump’s demands to redraw the state’s congressional maps to help the party win two more seats.

In Tuesday’s primary, he got it.

At least five of the seven Trump-endorsed challengers defeated GOP incumbent state senators who broke with the president and voted against redistricting.

Those senators said at the time they were following the will of their constituents. But after millions of dollars in advertising and outsized attention on ordinarily low-key state legislative primary races, Tuesday served as a reminder that all politics, no matter how local, can be nationalized.

Prior to Election Day, Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith — a staunch Trump supporter who has butted heads with Republican leadership in the state Senate, where he presides, and who campaigned with the challengers — had said the pro-Trump forces winning at least three races would make a statement.

“It’s better than I expected,” Beckwith said in an interview Tuesday night, as those challengers’ wins piled up.

“It was really that battle between the old-school Republicans of the Mitch Daniels, Mike Pence, George Bush era, versus Donald Trump and the ‘America First’ era,” he said, naming two of the state’s former Republican governors, along with the 43rd president. “And Indiana — at least the Republicans — are saying, we want to be the ‘America First’ party.”

It’s still Trump’s party

If the Indiana Senate’s rejection of Trump’s push for redistricting in December revealed that his influence has limits, the outcome of Tuesday night’s primaries in the Hoosier state demonstrated that — for Republican voters — it’s still Trump’s party.

Trump endorsed challengers to seven Republican incumbents who voted against redistricting. Shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, CNN had projected five of them as winners, with one more too close to call. Only one incumbent Republican facing a Trump-backed challenger, Sen. Greg Goode of Terre Haute, was projected to win.

Sen. Spencer Deery, a West Lafayette Republican who was locked in a tight race with challenger Paula Copenhaver, said on CNN Tuesday that “the truth is I know that Trump doesn’t really have any idea who I am or any idea who my opponent is.”

Maybe so, but the president and his political allies flooded the ordinarily sleepy state legislative primaries — where the spending is typically in the tens of thousands and primary votes cast number about 10,000 to 12,000 — with millions of dollars in advertising casting the incumbents as disloyal to Trump and blaming them for voters’ various frustrations, particularly property taxes.

Trump’s approval rating has slipped nationally, and his support among independents has evaporated. But very conservative voters — those who make up his base — are still with him. And they are the voters who decide contests like state Senate primaries in deep-red Indiana. That’s a reality Deery also acknowledged.

“Trump is perhaps not as popular in my district as he once was, but he is still overwhelmingly popular,” Deery said.

Skyrocketing spending in Indiana contests

In interviews across the state, Hoosier voters described being inundated with television and digital advertising and daily mailers from candidates and the outside groups supporting them. The numbers back that up.

The political adverti

By Holmes Lybrand, CNN

(CNN) — Thirteen members of Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department have been placed on administrative leave and face possible termination following an internal investigation into allegations that crime data was manipulated to make the city appear safer.

President Donald Trump often pointed to reports of manipulated crime stats as one of the reasons he surged federal law enforcement resources to the nation’s capital last summer, including National Guard members who continue to patrol the city. He declared a “crime emergency” in the city and said in a Truth Social post last August that “D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety.”

Interim Police Chief Jeffery Carroll announced the conclusion of the internal investigation during a press conference Tuesday but declined to provide specifics about what was found.

“No one was fired,” Carroll said. “Some members were served with paperwork yesterday as it relates to being placed on administrative leave pending termination.”

Carroll added that some of the 13 officers “were already on administrative leave for other matters earlier.”

Carroll also insisted Tuesday that crime has gone down in the district.

“Let me be clear,” he said, “we have made meaningful progress over the last three years in reducing crime. Homicides, shootings and carjackings have fallen steadily since 2023.”

Carroll said the investigation was referred to the MPD by the DC US Attorney’s office earlier this year, which opened its own investigation into the crime data in the summer.

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee also opened a probe into DC’s crime stats, issuing a report late last year alleging that former DC Police Chief Pamela Smith pressured officers to manipulate crime data to create the appearance of a safer city.

After just two years as DC’s top cop, Smith resigned last December amid intense scrutiny over the crime stats, but she vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

In a fiery farewell speech, Smith said, “Let’s be really clear about one thing – never would I, never will I ever compromise my integrity for a few crime numbers.”

As the federal law enforcement surge took hold in the city last summer and Republicans cried foul over DC’s crime numbers, House Democrats fought back, issuing a rebuke of the committee’s report.

“From start to finish, it has been clear that Oversight Republicans’ failed investigation was an assault on reality at the behest of an unstable President angry at a police department for doing its job,” Democrats wrote. “The Trump Administration lied about crime in D.C. to justify illegally deploying troops and attempting to take control of MPD. Commanders uniformly testified that crime in D.C. has significantly decreased since 2023.”

Oversight Committee chair, GOP Rep. James Comer said in a statement Tuesday after the disciplinary action was announced, “Our work is not done. I expect to receive MPD’s internal report and all related documents to ensure crime data is reported accurately and that anyone responsible for manipulation is held accountable.”

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LOS ANGELES (KEYT) – On Friday, California Attorney General Bonta filed a lawsuit alleging that the Trump Administration's use of a Cold War-era law to force a restart of local oil production was unconstitutional.

On March 13, the Trump Administration announced it had ordered Sable Offshore, a Houston-based private energy company, to restart oil production, including the use of onshore pipelines shuttered since a massive oil spill from a ruptured pipeline in 2015.

Since onshore pipeline Line 901, now known as Line 324, ruptured in 2015, the pipelines and the entire oil-generating system has remained dormant and oversight of their restart has been assigned to the Office of State Fire Marshal through a federal court order.

Regardless of that federal court order, the resumption of oil production was later confirmed by Your News Channel.

According to the Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, the federal government issued the order to restart production under the authority of the Defense Production Act of 1950 and delegated to the Energy Secretary by Executive Order 13603 "National Defense Resources Preparedness".

"The Trump Administration remains committed to putting all Americans and their energy security first,"  stated Secretary Wright Friday. "Unfortunately, some state leaders have not adhered to those same principles, with potentially disastrous consequences not just for their residents, but also our national security. Today's order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness."

The Trump Administration's order to restart did not explicitly direct crude oil from the Santa Ynez Unit for exclusive military uses nor limit its destination to the nation's strategic petroleum reserve.

While the Secretary of Energy stated that state leaders were to blame for the continued closure of onshore oil pipelines, a restart of the entire system was actually subject to the conditions of a federal consent decree agreed to by the former operators of the system in federal court.

Despite that agreement in federal court that required