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FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — Tuesday's State Board of Elections meeting started off as normal, but it ended with arguing, screaming, cursing and people storming out after the meeting. The fighting continued as LEX 18's Political Reporter Karolina Buczek stood in the hallway, waiting for an interview after the meeting. You can hear Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes yelling in a room, as Executive Director of State Board of Elections Jared Dearing told our crew, "it's a circus and chaos." Then Grimes walked out, letting LEX 18 know she would be available for an interview outside. ... That's when...

Kentucky officials publicly released records Wednesday that show employees in the secretary of state’s office used the voter registration system to look up political rivals, state investigators and a range of political operatives. It is not clear in many instances why the office of Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes was looking up people and their personal information — political affiliation, every home address ever on file, some Social Security numbers — but it has led critics to conclude her office abused its access to the system to gain information about her political opponents and those involved in multiple investigations...

LEXINGTON— Jerry Lundergan has retained Washington, D.C. attorney Marc Elias to join his defense team. Elias is a high-profile political attorney. He served as General Counsel for Hillary for America, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. He served in the same position for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Elias has also represented the Democratic National Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Elias is also well-known for being the person who hired Fusion GPS during Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Fusion GPS then hired former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the Russian dossier that includes salacious details about President Donald Trump. Lundergan,...

FRANKFORT, KY (SPECTRUM NEWS) — After an hours long closed meeting Tuesday, the Kentucky Board of Elections announced how they would move on after a senior staffer made seriously allegations of harassment and misuse of power by Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Monday, the Executive Director of the State Board of Elections, Jared Dearing, sent a letter to board members, making several complaints about Grimes. In the letter, Dearing wrote Grimes was weakening the system of checks and balances. He sad Grimes accessed the voter registration database to check backgrounds of potential hires and for other reasons. Grimes admits...

LOUISVILLE- Republicans have called for a federal investigation into allegations that Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes misused voter data—but so far unsurprisingly— top Democrats in Kentucky are staying mum. When asked about the allegations Tuesday, Attorney General Andy Beshear said his office was looking into the claims. “Given that the allegations are very new and very fresh, I think it would be premature to comment any further but we are in possession of that letter.” he said. Mac Brown, Chair of the Republican Party of Kentucky, has called for a federal investigation into the claims as well as Dearing...

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D.) said Friday that Sen. Rand Paul (R.) "can be beaten," "just ask his neighbor." Grimes made the comment at Kentucky's Fancy Farm picnic, which serves as a start to the state's campaign season for both parties, the Associated Press reports. She said at the Democrats' traditional bean supper, "many folks think that Rand Paul can't be beat. I don't buy that. Just ask his neighbor. He can be beaten." Grimes was referring to a November attack on Paul by his neighbor that left him with five rib fractures, including three displaced fractures....

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes reportedly joked on Friday about the assault on Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., by his neighbor, saying it shows ‘he can be beaten’. Associated Press reporter Adam Beam tweeted that Democrat Grimes made the remark at a local Fancy Farm Picnic in Kentucky on Friday, which Kentucky political candidates often use as the kickoff for election campaigns. Grimes is considering running for governor in 2019. ... Grimes’ remark sparked a response from Paul's chief strategist Doug Stafford, who made a reference to Grimes’ failed 2014 Senate run, where she attempted to unseat Sen. Mitch...

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes hit the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton in Ohio on Friday, the second battleground state she’s visited in recent weeks. ... Grimes has also been a Clinton campaign surrogate in Iowa, speaking on behalf of the Democratic presidential nominee at the state’s annual Wing Ding dinner on Aug. 12. Clinton holds a wider polling margin in Ohio, where she leads Trump by nearly 5 points in a head-to-head with GOP nominee Donald Trump and by 4 percent in a four-way with Libertarian and Green Party candidates included, according to Real Clear Politics’ average...

One of the duties of the Kentucky Secretary of State is to oversee elections. So shouldn't it seem a bit strange that such a person, Alison Lundergan Grimes, acts in a blatantly unprofessional manner by publicly gloating over the loss of a candidate she opposes by mocking him? Not to MSNBC's Chris Matthews. He not only failed to question this, he happily gushed over Grimes while speculating about the next step in her political career. You can see Grimes' gloat followed by Matthews' gush in the following video.

During her three political campaigns, including an $18 million run for the U.S. Senate in 2014, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes reported paying $111,831 to Lexington companies owned by her father, former state Democratic Party chairman Jerry Lundergan, and $41,745 more in direct payments to him and other family members, for various services. One Lundergan company purchased and provided Grimes with a 45-foot tour bus she used for her Senate campaign. Another owns The Carrick House on North Limestone, where she held several major events. Grimes and Lundergan also shared Lexington attorney Robert "Coley" Stilz III, who was...

Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes is promoting the love her job in her first re-election spot of the campaign. In the 30 second ad Grimes looks directly to the camera promoting her successes in her first term in office. Grimes nonchalantly talks about her run for U.S. Senate in the ad, and the negative ads run against her in the state. “The last few years have been noisy in Kentucky,” Grimes says in the ad. “A lot of attack ads. Believe me, I know.” “But, my job as Secretary of State is to make sure your vote is...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes says she will run for statewide office this year. The former Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate said she has been encouraged to run for governor, attorney general and to seek re-election as Secretary of State. Grimes said she has not decided what she will do yet but that she will file for office before the Jan. 27 deadline. On Monday, Grimes attended the Alpha Phi Alpha Unity Breakfast in Lexington with former state Sen. Georgia Davis Powers. With a campaign photographer in tow, Grimes worked the room of about...

LOUISVILLE — There were only two things Mitch McConnell didn't want to talk about Thursday — whether he will run for re-election in 2020 and his eventual legacy. In his first one-on-one interview since his landslide re-election to a sixth term and his expected ascendance to U.S. Senate majority leader, McConnell talked at length with the Herald-Leader about how he wants to use his new role to help Kentucky, a possible run for president by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and the conventional wisdom that McConnell is unpopular. McConnell, relaxed and in a great mood in his Louisville home, wouldn't say...

Defeated Democrat declines to address her political future.Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of State, is threatening to take Rand Paul to court to block him from running both for president and reelection to the Senate in 2016. In her first television interview since Sen. Mitch McConnell routed her by 15 points last month, the Democratic Senate nominee declared that she will not be “bullied” by Paul, who is a heavy favorite to win a second Senate term if he’s allowed to stay on the ballot. “The law is clear,” Grimes told WHAS-TV in Louisville. “You can’t be on the ballot...

Once hailed in the press as the Democratic candidate in 2014’s “marquee race,” which could see the Republican Senate minority leader unceremoniously defenestrated by Kentucky’s voters. Grimes’ loss to Mitch McConnell was among the first heartbreak of election night for liberal Democrats when her race was among the earliest to be called for the Republican candidate. When all the votes were counted, Grimes lost by just over 15 points. It wasn’t even close. If you missed Kentucky’s secretary of state, she was not gone for long. Having failed in her mission to oust McConnell, the former Democratic U.S. Senate...

A record number of rogue Christian pastors are endorsing candidates from the pulpit this election cycle, using Sunday sermons to defiantly flout tax rules. Their message to the IRS: Sue me. But the tax agency is doing anything but. Although the IRS was sued itself for not enforcing the law and admitted about 100 churches may be breaking the rules, the pastors and their critics alike say the agency is looking the other way. The agency refuses to say if it is acting. At the same time, the number of pastors endorsing candidates in what they call Pulpit Freedom Sunday...

Howeird Dean-- once chair of the DNC, once Governor of Vermont, who grew up at the Maidstone Golf Club in the Hamptons, attended prep school both in the US and in the UK, went to Yale, dodged the draft-- is having a meltdown again.Once famous for melting down on the air after coming in third in the Iowa caucuses, thereby ensuring he won nothing else, Dean is complaining that Obamacare was written by a bunch of elitists who don’t understand Americans.Well, duh: They’re Democrats. “The core problem under this damn law is that it was put together by a bunch...

Radical liberal feminism — the kind that likes abortion on demand and taxpayer-funded birth control — has been rejected at the polls. Or, at least, it’s been a really rough week, or so. And I’m not just talking about the fact that Sen.-elect Cory Gardner effectively pushed back on the “war on women” narrative by defeating Colorado’s ”Mark Uterus.”The story also played out in Texas, where — writing about the race — Mollie Hemingway observed: “Wendy Davis was the face of ‘War On Women’ Politics. How’d that go?” And it played out in California, where Sandra Fluke lost a bid for...

The liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org is demanding that Democratic Kentucky Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes take down an ad that uses the term “illegal aliens.” “This latest TV ad from Alison Lundergan Grimes is deeply upsetting. Grimes seems to be forgetting that we are a nation of immigrants that has continually strived to honor all the hard-working people who aspire to the American Dream,” Ilya Sheyman, MoveOn.org’s executive director, said in a statement. “It’s deeply troubling that Grimes would stoop this low in order to try to defeat [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell, and she needs to take this offensive...

Tuesday on MSNBC's "Hardball," host Chris Matthews compared Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to Saddam Hussein by saying, "remember the picture of Saddam Hussein patting that kid's head," after running the Republican minority leaders latest ad in his reelection bid against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.