>This is not a R v D battle. Edition
TYB
Republican Candidate for Governor asks President Trump to Send National Guard to Lewiston
Jon FetherstonBy Jon FetherstonOctober 24, 2025Updated:October 24, 2025No Comments2 Mins Read
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Standing in downtown Lewiston on a rainy night this week, Republican candidate for Governor Robert “Bobby” Charles issued a direct plea to President Donald Trump, on social media, to take action to address what he described as a growing public safety and drug crisis in Androscoggin County.
Charles said he submitted a request two weeks ago to Gov. Janet Mills, asking her to seek a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area designation for the region. That designation would open federal funding for both drug enforcement and treatment.
He said he also asked the governor to mobilize the National Guard under Title 32, but said she did not act.
“I’m asking you, please, President Trump, use your powers under Title 10, your National Guard mobilization powers and your ability to make Androscoggin County a high intensity drug trafficking area,” Charles said.
Charles, who is running for governor, said the state must be made safe again and that the effort should begin in places like Lewiston and Androscoggin County. “Please, Mr. President, help us. We depend on you. We believe in you and we need you,” he said.
During the George W. Bush administration, Charles served as assistant secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, and as a staffer on Capitol Hill helped craft the legislation that allows states to designate high intensity drug trafficking areas.
Charles said he has also directly appealed to the White House and made personal contact with personnel inside the administration.
“Fear has won out for the moment, but we can overcome it with hope, belief and hard work,” Charles said to the Maine Wire. If elected governor, he pledged to create deterrents to help all towns and “get foreign drug traffickers out of Maine.
“With deterrents in place and with supporting the police, these bad people will go somewhere else,” he said.
The Maine Wire reached out to Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline for a comment. Mayor Sheline did not respond prior to publication.
https://www.themainewire.com/2025/10/republican-candidate-for-governor-asks-president-trump-to-send-national-guard-to-lewiston/
>https://x.com/NavalInstitute/status/1982039452458397863
>another somali nest
>https://www.themainewire.com/2025/03/former-bonny-eagle-high-school-student-accused-of-raping-15-year-old-in-school-bathroom/
Somali-American Received Millions in U.S. Taxpayer Dollars, MaineCare Funding While Claiming to Bankroll Jubaland Militia
Edward Tomic and Steve Robinson contributed to this report
Maine Wire StaffBy Maine Wire StaffMarch 21, 2025Updated:March 21,
Somali-American Abdullahi Ali has had a prolific life since arriving in Lewiston, Maine as a refugee in 2009.
Ali has become a U.S. citizen,started a nonprofitto help fellow immigrants, started several businesses, includinga multi-million dollar MaineCare-funded migrant services agency, and even — according to an interview he gave to Kenyan media — managed__ to raise money in the U.S. to buy weapons, munitions, and supplies for a paramilitary force he had hoped to lead__ as president of Jubaland, Somalia.
But his knack for running a celebrated migrant agency out of Portland didn’t translate into electoral success last November when he failed to win the convoluted and disputed presidential race in Jubaland.
In an an interview with Kenyan media, Ali had previously boasted of his efforts to raise funds for para-military forces in Somalia, forces he hoped would back his claim to power should he win the presidential election.
“When I was in the U.S., I contributed to the financial support for the Jubaland-Somali army. To help the troops buy weapons, bullets and food,” said Ali.
“I helped pay my share of the fund,” he said.
At the same time Ali was helping finance arms deals in Somalia, he was also serving as the executive director and nominal head ofGateway Community Services, LLC and Gateway Community Services, Maine.
Ali’s taxpayer funding, political connections, and boasts about funding Somali arms deals raise questions about whether U.S. taxpayer dollars were involved in paying for paramilitary activities aimed at influencing Somali elections, as well as whether Ali acted as an unregistered foreign agent while receiving millions in taxpayer dollars.
According to records obtained via the Freedom of Access Act, Gateway Community Services, LLC received$28.8 million in payments via MaineCare, Maine’s version of Medicaid,from 2019 through 2024, including $4.1 million last year, while Ali was running for office with his militia in Somalia.
In April 2020, the LLC received $693,382 in taxpayer dollars under the Paycheck Protection Program, funding that allegedly backstopped 127 full-time jobs.
Other documents show that Gateway, while it wasbeing run by Ali and Assistant Executive Director Rep. Deqa Dhalac (D-South Portland),owed a debt to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services of nearly $800,000 due to improper payments the company received under MaineCare. According to a March 2022 letter to Ali, a sample audit of reimbursement claims Gateway filed with MaineCare found a 36 percent error rate, resulting in Gateway receiving an estimated $903,938.95 in improperly paid taxpayer dollars.
It’s unclear from the letter whether that debt was ever settled.
According to public tax records, Gateway Community Services (the nonprofit, rather than the similarly named for-profit LLC) earned just over $1.5 million in revenue in fiscal year 2023, with $1.3 million of that revenue being from government grants. That represented a significant increase in taxpayer funding for the non-profit, which received just $135,561 in 2019 and $488,531 in 2020, according to tax documents.
>Somali-American Received Millions in U.S. Taxpayer Dollars, MaineCare Funding While Claiming to Bankroll Jubaland Militia
>JFC get rid of every single somalian this is insane
Ali, in his role as executive director of the nonprofit arm of Gateway, took compensation of $12,825.
State Rep. Dhalac, a member of the State Legislature’s powerful appropriations committee, served as assistant executive director at Gatewayat the same time DHHS’ Program Integrity unit was attempting to recoup nearly $800k in improperly billed claims. According to financial disclosures Dhalac has filed with the Maine Ethics Commission, she listed her employer as “Gateway Community Services” in 2021, 2022, and 2023. However, her 2024 disclosure lists only “Cross Cultural Community Services,” an entity from which she reported self-employment income in the three years she served as assistant executive director at Gateway.
The non-profit arm of Gateway has also come under legal and media scrutiny in recent years. According to a Jan. 2022 report from the Portland Press Herald, Abdullahi and Gateway were implicated in a federal investigation into wage fixing among migrant-run health care agencies, though Abdullahi denied any knowledge of the conspiracy.
According to one of the defendants in that case, Ali, who was never named as a defendant and was never indicted, was the person who drafted the agreement. When the Press Herald reported questioned Ali about this, the reporter said he hung up the phone.
Although Dhalac appears to no longer work for Ali at Gateway, the pair appear to remain close.Both Dhalac and Ali accompanied Office of New Americans Director Tarlan Ahmadov on a controversial junket to Azerbaijan, paid for by the government of Azerbaijan.
Neither Dhalac nor Ali have responded to inquiries about the trip to Azerbaijan.
Ali and Dhalac have also ignored questioned about whether U.S. tax dollars were used to finance Ali’s support for Somali arms, munitions, and para-military troops.
A search of U.S. Justice Department records for the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) does not show any indication that Ali ever registered as a foreign agent during the time when he claimed to have raised money in the U.S. for the benefit of Somali para-military groups.
When the Maine Wire began making inquiries to Ali about Gateway Community Services and his claim to have funded arms deals in Somalia,Ali deleted his personal Facebook page and his LinkedIn account.
However, his “Dr. Abdullahi Ali for President, Jubaland State, Somalia” Facebook page remains active and continues to document his international exploits, including his March 8 visit to the Saudi embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and his Jan. 16 meeting with the Pakistani Ambassador to Ethiopia, Atif Sharif.
Jubaland’s November 2024 Election
Despite his success moving from refugee to successful owner of a multi-million dollar social services agency, Abdullahi Ali proved a poor candidate for office in Jubaland. In Nov. 2024, he lost the election, though the results have been disputed by various parties, including Ali.
Jubaland is a semi-autonomous state located in southern Somali, and the Jubaland-Somali Army that Ali has helped fund from within the U.S. often works in coordination with the Somali National Army (SNA) to defend the region from Islamic terrorist groups like Al-Shabaab.
However, tensions often arise between the central Somali government in Mogadishu and the government of Jubaland over how power should be delegated between the two levels of the federal system, especially when it comes to control over the lucrative port city of Kismayo, where Ali was born. The federal government has also clashed with state governments over plans to move to more democratic “one person, one vote” systems as opposed to the current system where only clan elders vote and winning candidates must fund militias in order to claim victory.
Leadership in Mogadishu has also questioned the legitimacy of Jubaland’s current president, Ahmed Mohamed Madobe, who has been in power since 2013, the year Jubaland was formed. Madobe was supposed to be term-limited out last year, hence Ali’s campaign for office. But the incumbent candidate re-wrote the constitution to allow him to remain in office, leading to Jubaland holding two separate presidential elections, with the national government questioning the legitimacy of each.