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  "textContent": "Good Thursday morning. I’m **Isaac Saul** , your resident sleep-deprived NBA fan still buzzing from the New York Knicks’ historic, miraculous, unfathomable comeback in the NBA Finals last night. I tried hard to tune into my _Suspension of the Rules_ co-host Kmele Foster’s CNN appearance, but the game kept dragging me back in until the Knicks completed the greatest comeback in Finals history, overcoming a 29-point deficit. I was still buzzing this morning until my haircut, when a barber asked me if I wanted to “clean up” my eyebrows — the second time that’s happened. Consider my buzz killed. They sure know how to poke a guy’s insecurities.\n\nSpeaking of insecurity, questioning the results of an election has apparently become an American pastime. Today we’re covering the **claims of fraud in California** , a **new State Department program** for visa interviews, and **the story we chose _not_ to cover** this week. It’s a rambunctious, **fact-filled, 15-minute read**. Once this newsletter goes out, I’m off to West Virginia with the Tangle team for our live event on Sunday. Tickets are still available here — join us!\n\n### The latest Suspension of the Rules.\n\nThis week’s episode is a “review of all the things we said last week” special, with updates on the mayoral race in Los Angeles, the screwworm cases in Texas, and the NBA Finals in New York. Plus, Isaac and Kmele debate whether AI slop should be banned for political ads. Check it out here!\n\n### Quick hits.\n\n  1. BREAKING: Multiple floors and corridors at the Pentagon have been locked down and some staff have been evacuated after officials detected an air quality issue that is under investigation. (The lockdown)\n  2. President Donald Trump said the U.S. military will continue attacking Iran after an initial round of strikes on Wednesday. The president also shared that the military has been covertly assisting ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, claiming it had facilitated 100 million barrels of oil through the strait. (The latest) Separately, U.S. Central Command said the military struck a Palau-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman that it said failed to comply with orders. Three Indian sailors from the ship were killed. (The incident)\n  3. In a 198–218 vote, the House voted down a short-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on Friday. Democrats opposed the extension in protest of President Trump naming Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. (The vote)\n  4. The Florida Supreme Court voted 6–1 to decline to grant a temporary injunction that would have prevented the state from using a new congressional map designed to net Republicans four additional seats in the U.S. House. (The ruling)\n  5. President Trump said he is not planning to reauthorize the United States–Mexico–Canada trade agreement ahead of a July 1 deadline to extend the deal. (The comments)\n  6. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, telling lawmakers that he made a “grave error in judgement” meeting Epstein but was not involved in any criminal activity. (The testimony)\n\n\n\nfrom today's partner\n\n****Still Guessing What to Trade?****\n\nBetween Fed decisions, earnings surprises, and geopolitical headlines, does it feel impossible to know what (and when) to trade? The rollercoaster can be a much smoother ride. What if you could identify high-probability trades in seconds with artificial intelligence and plan your entire trading day in as little as 15 minutes?\n\nNo more emotional decisions. No more stress. Just clear direction on what to trade — and just a few clicks to boost your day-trading and swing-trading confidence. When you know ****what's likely to happen 1–3 days in advance**** , you remove the anxiety and start trading with conviction.\n\nThe markets may be unpredictable, but your strategy doesn't have to be.\n\n****Free Live Training from VantagePoint:**** Learn this secret AI strategy at no cost to see how traders are achieving wins daily.\n\n\n                            Join Free Training\n                        \n\n### Today’s topic.\n\nThe California election fraud claims. On Tuesday, June 2, California held its primary elections, including closely watched races for governor and Los Angeles mayor. In the mayoral primary, Mayor Karen Bass (D) and City Councilmember Nithya Raman (D) advanced to the general election, while first-time candidate Spencer Pratt (I) finished third. Pratt had been in second place the day after the primary, but Raman overtook him as mail-in ballots came in after Election Day, leading some Republicans to claim the results were fraudulent.\n\n**Back up:** Los Angeles has a nonpartisan primary in which all mayoral candidates are listed on a single primary ballot, regardless of party, and if no candidate receives 50% of the primary vote, then the top two vote-getters advance to the general election. California allows all voters to participate in its elections by mail, and all mail-in ballots are valid if postmarked by Election Day and delivered to county election offices within seven days of the election. Due to this system, some races can take weeks to determine a winner.\n\nRoughly 48 hours after polls closed, Pratt still led Raman, but the city councilmember began gradually gaining as mail-in ballots were counted. On Sunday, Raman surpassed Pratt, and major news outlets called the race for her the next day. Her lead over the former reality television star has since grown to approximately 3.5% with over 95% of the votes counted.\n\nProminent Republicans in California and nationally have cast doubt on the result, alleging election fraud or dysfunction within the state’s vote-counting system. President Donald Trump has been among the most vocal critics, posting on Truth Social, “Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!”\n\nHouse Speaker Mike Johnson (R) told reporters that the result “stinks to high heaven,” though he clarified he was not claiming the election was “rigged.” Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, appealed to Californians to share evidence of potential election fraud with his office, later suggesting that “people will be charged.” Pratt, meanwhile, has not explicitly rejected the result, but he implied in a post on X that there may have been foul play linked to the city’s homeless population.\n\nCalifornia Attorney General Rob Bonta and other officials have pushed back on the fraud claims, saying the state’s tabulation process is transparent and the state’s primaries were conducted legally. “[Trump’s claims are] truly embarrassing, unhinged, wild-eyed, dangerous, reckless, desperate,” Bonta said. Other state lawmakers acknowledged frustration with the election system, but said the counting delays were not evidence of fraud.\n\nToday, we’ll explore views from the left, right and California writers on these fraud claims, followed by Executive Editor Isaac Saul’s take.\n\n### What the left is saying.\n\n  * **Many on the left say Pratt’s supporters were duped and are now seeking out conspiracies for answers.**\n  * **Others suggest California’s delayed results damage trust in elections.**\n\n\n\n**In Slate, Alex Kirshner said Pratt is** “careening headlong into conspiracy land.”\n\n“If you spent time on Elon Musk’s algorithmic For You feed on X in recent weeks, you may have gotten the impression that Pratt was riding a tidal wave of support to the mayorship… Though things looked good for him as the count got going on Tuesday night and on Wednesday, Pratt always had a long way to go,” Kirshner wrote. “It wasn’t even a bad showing for a MAGA-coded conservative in a deep-blue city in what looks like a blue wave year nationally. Pratt could’ve hung his hat on that. Pratt and his supporters have chosen a different path. Instead of resolving to build on a decent performance, they’ve ridden a collective delusion… to declare the election was stolen.”\n\n“Because it is hard to come to grips with getting duped by one’s own ideological bubble, these election deniers have shifted to criticizing California’s lengthy vote-counting process. The common claim is that voting by mail allows Democrats to ‘find the votes’ until they’ve achieved their desired result,” Kirshner said. “The vote-counting process that governs California elections is transparent to anyone who wants to understand it. It’s also born from a desire on the state’s part to collect as many people’s lawful votes as possible… I don’t enjoy waiting for important information, but I like that California wants people to vote.”\n\n**The New York Times editorial board argued** “California’s excuses are damaging faith in government.”\n\n“There is no good reason that California takes so long to count votes. Most democracies around the world count votes quickly. So do most other large U.S. states, including Texas, Florida, Michigan and Virginia. Until the past decade, California itself counted votes quickly,” the board wrote. “It makes the state government look incompetent. It fails to increase voter turnout. It creates needless uncertainty about results (as has been the case with several races this year). It confuses ordinary voters and serves the interest of conspiracists, including President Trump, who spread lies about election fraud that is in fact virtually nonexistent.”\n\n“In November, Americans may spend days waiting to know who has won control of Congress while California and possibly Arizona, Nevada and Washington State take their time,” the board said. “The solution can start with Congress establishing a national deadline of Election Day for the arrival of mail-in ballots, as 35 states already require. If that sounds strict, remember that a deadline is unavoidable.”\n\n### What the right is saying.\n\n  * **Most on the right acknowledge the lack of evidence of fraud but argue California’s voting system is ripe for abuse.**\n  * **Others say the flaws in the system seem designed to fuel conspiracies.**\n\n\n\n**The Washington Examiner editorial board said** “California elections have no integrity.”\n\n“What was a 40,000-vote Pratt lead on Wednesday morning turned into a 3,000 Raman advantage by Sunday night. And by Monday night, Raman’s lead expanded to over 20,000 votes, ending Pratt’s campaign,” the board wrote. “It is not normal… California is a unique global outlier in its inability to deliver fast and fair election results, and it is not a matter of incompetence. The state has specifically designed its voting system to both take nearly forever to count votes and make it easier at every step of the way for bad actors to influence vote totals.”\n\n“California Democrats argue with a straight face that their permissive voting system of no photo identification, mass ballot mailings, partisan ballot collection, weak signature verification, and endless ballot reception are needed to maximize voter ‘access’ to the ballot box. But all their system really does is enable bad actors and sow chaos and commit fraud,” the board said. “Elections must not merely produce winners. They must also engender public confidence that the result reflects lawful votes cast by eligible voters on time.”\n\n**In National Review, Jeffrey Blehar suggested** “the real scandal is what’s legal.”\n\n“The fact that mail-in ballots have shifted the outcome — Pratt was in second place early on Election Day — has led inevitably to charges of voter fraud. How could this ever happen absent cheating? Very easily,” Blehar wrote. “Pratt didn’t lose because of fraud, and he didn’t lose because there was a ‘conspiracy’ to exclude him from the November ballot in favor of Left and Lefter… The vast majority of primary voters in L.A. were never even _considering_ Pratt as an option; they were vacillating between different shades of deep blue.”\n\n“In California, the real scandal is what’s legal: with a universal mail-in ballot option, a seemingly endless window for ballot-counting, and legal mechanisms for unions and organizers to harvest (and later ‘cure’) ballots, California’s system is a black box to everyone except well-informed organizers and jaded electoral analysts — almost as if it were intentionally designed to fuel paranoia,” Blehar said. “People are right to be angry about California’s election system. It is rotten to its core and has reduced California politics to a mere test of activist strength between warring factions of the Democratic Party.”\n\n### What California writers are saying.\n\n  * **Some California writers argue Pratt lost because he was a bad candidate, not due to fraud.**\n  * **Others say reports of illegal election practices must be investigated.**\n\n\n\n**The Los Angeles Daily News editorial board wrote** “Raman v. Bass sends MAGA into Conspiracy Land.”\n\n“How can American democracy remain healthy if conservatives and Republicans won’t accept the results when their candidates lose — even candidates who never had a realistic chance of winning?” the board asked. “We can walk through the rebuttal, not that it will matter to these folks. His popularity on X aside, Pratt was never a serious candidate in the real world… He touted Trumpian rhetoric in a city that voted overwhelmingly against Trump.”\n\n“Yes, California officials helped create this mess by creating a vote-by-mail system with lax deadlines that allow ballots that were mailed on Election Day to be counted a full week later… We like mail-in voting, but there’s no reason state officials can’t re-jigger the deadlines so votes are counted in a timely manner,” the board wrote. “The Los Angeles election and reaction to it actually spotlights the failure of Republicans. Instead of grooming a knowledgeable, reform-minded candidate who had a real chance, they opted for a TV villain who imitated an unpopular president.”\n\n**In The California Post, Joel Pollak said** “[the] DOJ must protect right to vote in LA against alleged Skid Row tricks.”\n\n“Videos of homeless people on LA’s Skid Row who appear to say that they were paid to vote are the latest reason for the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to intervene immediately to protect the right to vote in LA,” Pollak wrote. “[The right to vote] belongs to everyone — homeless people, too. But if homeless people are exploited by party operatives who — in theory — register them to vote just to get ahold of [and] ‘harvest’ their mail-in ballots; or if the homeless are exploited by organizers who pay them to register, and possibly to vote, then everyone’s vote is being diluted by unfair, and possibly illegal, tricks.”\n\n“It is illegal to pay people to vote — and illegal to pay them to register. One paid signature collector was convicted earlier this year of paying homeless people to register to vote, using her own home address,” Pollak said. “The videos, many of which were shared widely on social media, need to be investigated by federal authorities. And the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division needs to intervene — to protect the homeless from being abused, and to protect the rights of other voters.”\n\n### My take.\n\n**Reminder: “My take” is a section where we give ourselves space to share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or** leave a comment**.**\n\n  * **I’ve learned that election fraud claims tend to take certain shapes.**\n  * **The accusations in California fit those types, but they are also somehow totally undefined.**\n  * **This all injects more doubt into California’s frustrating system, which does need to be reformed.**\n\n\n\n**Executive Editor Isaac Saul:** In my (now vast) experience reporting on and investigating all manner of election fraud claims, I’ve learned that the allegations often take a few shapes:\n\n1) The “statistical analysis” that alleges some observed vote tallies should be impossible without fraud, though they are actually explainable or totally concocted. 2) Misleading claims drawn from misinterpretations. And 3) An assumed sophistication of the people committing the alleged fraud, even though they don’t do very obvious things to advance their own interests that sophisticated people would do.\n\nIn 2020, the explanation of how the election was stolen shifted constantly. First it was machines flipping votes, then it was Georgia election workers changing them, then it was “illegal immigrants” voting, then it was a network of ballot harvesting, then it was social media collusion, then it was foreign actors, and on and on and on. That was annoying because the goalposts moved constantly, but at least the claims were tangible and I could look into them. The California allegations are frustrating because there is no central story — nothing specific is being alleged.\n\nI’ve mostly read a lot of angst from people upset that “their guy” was winning and then lost. Nobody has really said exactly _what_ fraud had occurred, just that it had. And yet, paradoxically, the claims have hit on all three of the classic election fraud types.\n\nFirst, I’ve seen a number of “statistical” claims of impossibility about what happened in California. One of the worst offenders was a Washington Times opinion piece by columnist Kelly Sadler, which opens by claiming “ChatGPT could not find one example in American history of a third-place candidate surging days after an election to overtake second place.”\n\nDespite ChatGPT’s authoritative response, candidates running in second and third place have, in fact, swapped positions after mail-in counting began, just in California. In one recent example, during the 2018 midterms, Republican incumbent David Valadao looked like he would win before Democratic challenger TJ Cox prevailed as mail-in ballots came in. Predominantly Republican in-person votes coming in first and being overtaken by predominantly Democratic mail-in votes happens so frequently it even has a name: “the red mirage.” Accusing Democrats of mail-in ballot fraud because they have electoral advantages as counting goes on is akin to accusing Republicans of Election Day fraud because they have electoral advantages early on; the pattern’s existence is proof of exactly nothing.\n\nSadler’s piece goes on: “The left is telling us that Democrats vote late by mail, which is certainly true, but it does not explain why Ms. Raman — who is relatively unknown — received a disproportionate share of the late mail-in votes while Ms. Bass’ numbers remained relatively unchanged.”\n\nBy itself, the red mirage “doesn’t explain” why one Democrat’s share of mail-in votes would be larger than another’s, but that doesn’t mean it’s inexplicable — or even novel. Since Raman is more popular among progressive voters than Bass, the incumbent mayor herself was also a victim of “the blue shift” toward a candidate to her left. This, too, has happened before. In 2024, for example, California Democrats Evan Low and Joe Simitian were effectively tied for second place before Low advanced as late ballots came in. Low and Simitian are both Democrats, but the late-arriving ballots favored the more progressive Low.\n\nThe truly anomalous aspect of the Los Angeles primary is that a Republican-aligned candidate was as relevant as Pratt became, which made the disparity between how and when voters cast their ballots far more noticeable. Nothing about this is a “statistical impossibility” — all these ingredients are common in California’s elections, even if seeing them at the same time is rare (Republicans didn’t seem to think the 2022 House races they won in California were fraudulent, even though those ballots also took forever to count).\n\nI’ve also seen a slew of misleading claims of the second type: misinterpreted or misreported events. The claim that Pratt received zero of 24,000 votes in a batch of ballots went viral online, and I heard it repeated by many bad-faith or ill-informed actors. Sadler repeated it, too: “In one of the ballot drops late on election night, Mr. Pratt received zero of 24,000 votes,” she wrote. “SuperGrok estimates place those odds at less than 1 in trillions.” Sadler’s absorption of an untrue, viral claim is shaking hands with her AI-assisted claims of statistical impossibility.\n\nThere’s one big problem, though: The claim is a willfully ignorant interpretation of an online update from The Associated Press’s election tracker. The vote tracker initially showed zero votes for Pratt in an update but roughly 24,000 votes going to Bass, Raman, and other candidates. Then, one minute later, it updated Pratt’s votes from the same batch, and in _that_ update, Bass and Raman received zero votes. The AP later explained that when the entire batch was taken together, it showed 21,870 votes for Pratt, 12,850 for Bass, and 9,521 for Raman — so, a particularly _good_ update for him. This incongruent data update also wasn’t unique. Sometimes, the AP election tracker lags as it pulls up numbers for the public; it is not simultaneously revealing every vote in a batch but updating results it gets from actual polling places. Similar discrepancies in reporting (not issues with vote counting) were central to fraud claims in 2020. They were bunk then and they’re bunk now.\n\nIn this case, Trump’s handpicked U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, whom Sadler quotes in her piece as saying California’s election system “sucks,” said himself that claims of Pratt receiving zero votes were bunk.\n\n“We reviewed official county records. The claim is false. Each candidate received votes in every update,” Essayli said. “My office will continue monitoring the election-counting process and will follow the evidence wherever it leads.”\n\nSadler somehow managed to quote Essayli criticizing California’s elections but neglected to mention him debunking her own claims of fraud.\n\nThird, and finally, I’ve seen an assumed sophistication of the people committing fraud, even though they aren’t pursuing the most advantageous outcomes they’d pursue if they were sophisticated. At root, California’s establishment Democrats are being accused of defrauding a right-leaning threat to protect their incumbent mayor. Yet, they are now under a much greater threat from a progressive member of the Democratic Socialists of America. As CNN’s Harry Enten explained, the Democratic establishment _wanted_ Pratt to win — Bass leads him by 18 points in polling, while in some polls she currently trails Raman by as many as four points. Bass backers even ran ads boosting Pratt, a kind of election chicanery I hate but that totally undermines claims she rigged the election to hurt him.\n\nAlso, is the theory that California Democrats managed to rig the Los Angeles primary but allowed Steve Hilton to advance in the gubernatorial race? Is it that Karen Bass, the same mayor supposedly too incompetent to manage America’s second largest city, is _also_ competent enough to rig an election involving millions of voters without getting caught, even while the entire process is being livestreamed? And of all the races the national Democratic machine would theoretically spend its time and money trying to rig, do you _really_ think it’d be the _mayoral_ race in _Los Angeles_? Trump has a net –55 point rating among Angelenos. The real threat to the Democratic establishment there is from the left, not the right (despite my very badly aged take that Pratt had tapped into something with this electorate).\n\nThe most frustrating thing about all of this is that voter fraud is real, and California’s elections do need reforms. Just last month, a woman agreed to plead guilty to paying people (including the homeless in Skid Row) to register to vote. For nearly 20 years, she was paid by coordinators to collect voter signatures on official petitions that qualify initiatives, which she did by paying homeless people to provide those signatures. While this isn’t proof that any fraudulent votes were cast in this election, it is an example of what election fraud looks like when it actually happens.\n\nAdditionally, California’s elections take so long to tally they seem practically designed to breed mistrust. California is massive — the most populous state by far — which means it has the most votes to count. Los Angeles County alone has more residents than _40 different states_. That size is then paired with expansive ballot-access laws. Roughly 23 million ballots were sent out to all registered voters via mail this primary, and most voters use those ballots instead of voting in person. The state also counts ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive _up to a week_ later, and _then_ it ensures voters have the opportunity to cure their ballots. All of this slows the process to a glacial pace.\n\nCalifornia Democrats now seem to be awakening to the reality that this isn’t sustainable, and they should follow through on increasing election resources to speed things up. That’s not about rewarding bad actors baselessly alleging rigged elections, it’s about addressing a genuine mistrust that has bubbled over across the state.\n\nOf course, while President Trump has the biggest megaphone here spreading claims of fraud, he’s now being joined by Vice President JD Vance (who called the elections “shady”) and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (who said the efforts are “so diabolical and so far upstream it is impossible to prove,” which is convenient). These leaders are casting doubt on California’s results without providing an iota of proof or even a central theory as to how this fraud happened. This is new and dangerous territory. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the people claiming Pratt got robbed haven’t put forward so much as a hogwash, theoretical, thinly supported hypothesis — they’ve just said “fraud” or “shady” or “stinks to high heaven” and then carried on with no regard for the mistrust in our system they’re breeding.\n\nEveryone who knows better should call these lies out, but debunking these claims is no longer enough. California needs to take more tangible steps to speed up its process. Doubt and mistrust, however poisonous or ill founded, aren’t going anywhere; and, unfortunately, reality is no longer enough to quell those concerns.\n\n**Take the survey:** Do you think California’s system allows for fraud or should be reformed? Let us know.\n\n_Disagree? That's okay. Our opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback._\n\n### Under the radar.\n\nOn July 1, the State Department will reportedly begin offering an expedited service for visa interviews at designated U.S. embassies and consulates. Under the pilot program, which will run through the end of 2026, applicants will pay $750 (in addition to an initial $185 fee) to schedule an interview appointment for a business or tourist visa within 10 days of payment. The department has not shared the list of embassies and consulates where this service will be available, but it says it will do so before the program launches. The initiative is designed to ease delays in visa processing across the world linked to heightened reviews and stricter scrutiny of applicants, particularly in African countries. The Associated Press has the story.\n\nfrom TODAY'S PARTNER\n\n****Free Live Training: How the Wealthy Pick Stocks.****\n\nMost traders react to the market. The best investors spot opportunities before the crowd. In this free live training, see how AI helps identify high-probability stocks, sectors, and trends days in advance. Less guessing. More confidence.\n\n\n                            Reserve your spot today\n                        \n\n### The road not taken.\n\nOur number-two topic choice each day this week was providing an update on the war in Iran. Each day, some notable event took place that could have been our lede: On Monday, it would have been Israel exchanging strikes with Lebanon. On Tuesday, it would have been Trump pushing for fighting to stop and negotiators to come to the table. On Wednesday, it would have been the downing of a U.S. helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz. And today, it would have been the exchange of fire between the U.S. and Iran.\n\nSometimes, we are _less_ likely to cover a continually evolving situation as a main topic precisely because it is evolving. We are generally slower to provide major updates on stories to allow for developments and to give our analysis the benefit of some distance from the immediate news hook. Also, the topics we decided to cover this week allowed us to get into subject matter we hadn’t looked at in depth in a while: immigration, artificial intelligence, and the media itself. As we start thinking about next week, Iran is one of the topics at the top of our board.\n\n### The extras.\n\n  * **One year ago today** we covered RFK Jr. firing all the members of a vaccine panel.\n  * **The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter** was our latest video about World Cup ticket prices.\n  * **Nothing to do with politics:** Brewing a recipe for beer created by George Washington.\n  * **Our last survey:** 1,676 readers responded to our survey on partial government control of AI companies with 29% saying they oppose the idea. “Government needs to do its job and properly regulate AI companies, not turn them into state-operated businesses,” one respondent said. “I would rather have corrupt government politicians who are subject to public oversight making these decisions than continuing to rely on the good will of billionaire oligarchs,” said another.\n\n\n\n### Have a nice day.\n\n“Daraxonrasib” may be a killer word to pronounce, but as a drug, it has shown striking promise to extend the lives of pancreatic cancer patients in a new late-stage clinical trial. The therapy targets KRAS proteins present in these cancer patients, an objective that has eluded scientists for decades. Following the clinical trial — led by the drugmaker Revolution Medicines — the FDA fast-tracked daraxonrasib for review. “I’m pretty sure I would not be alive still but for this drug,” 67-year-old Rhea Caras said. “I’m living a pretty good life, and I did not expect that.” The New York Times has the story.",
  "title": "Election fraud claims in California.",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-12T15:56:21.456Z"
}