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    Bondi assigns prosecutor to lead investigation into Trump adversaries over Epstein ties – live updates

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    Attorney general Pam Bondi announced today that she has assigned Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, to lead the investigation into Donald Trump’s political adversaries and their ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Earlier, Trump called the latest release of emails that renewed focus on the president’s relationship with the late sex-offender a “hoax”, and directed the justice department to launch a probe into former president Bill Clinton, Democratic donor and entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, and former treasury secretary Larry Summers (who served under Clinton). “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the president wrote on Truth Social earlier.Bondi described Clayton, who previously served as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first administration, as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country”. She added: “As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”Donald Trump announced on Friday that he is “withdrawing the nomination of Donald Korb” to be the Internal Revenue Service’s top lawyer, days before Korb was expected to be confirmed by the Senate.The president cited no reason for suddenly abandoning Korb in a brief post on his social media platform, but the reversal came just 24 hours after Laura Loomer, a far-right podcaster who holds unusual sway over Trump’s personnel decisions, posted a thread on X attacking Korb for supposedly “supporting Democrats and anti-Trump RINOs” and demanded that his nomination “should immediately be revoked.”Loomer, a racist conspiracy theorist whose closeness to Trump alarmed some of his allies in the run-up to the 2024 election, immediately took credit, telling her 1.8 million followers on X (a website she was banned from before it was bought by Elon Musk) that Korb was “Loomered”.As the author and double Pulitzer winner James Risen wrote in an assessment of Loomer’s informal role earlier this year, after she met with Trump in the Oval Office and handed him a list of people on the staff of the national security council that she believed were not loyal enough to Trump, leading to six of them being fired:
    Loomer’s power in the Trump administration is ill-defined. Her many critics say she has just been taking credit for moves that Trump was already planning. But Trump himself has said he takes her seriously, so it may be more accurate to describe her as Trump’s de facto national security adviser.
    My colleague, Lucy Campbell, notes that today’s decision to investigate several of the president’s political adversaries represents an apparent departure from a July memo issued by the justice department and the FBI, which stated officials had found nothing in the Epstein files that warranted the opening of further inquiries.Investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties”, the memo said.

    Donald Trump directed the justice department to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with several prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton, former treasury secretary Larry Summers, and donor and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman. The president’s move, to focus on his rivals’ affiliations and relationships with Epstein, is seemingly his latest effort to distance himself from the renewed focus on his own relationship with the disgraced financier following the latest tranche of documents released by the House oversight committee. Trump went on to claim, baselessly, that the release of emails where Epstein said that the president “spent hours” at the late sex-offenders house, and that he “knew about the girls” was just “another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats”.

    In response, attorney general Pam Bondi announced today that she has assigned Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, to lead the investigation at the behest of the president. Bondi described Clayton, who previously served as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first administration, as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country”.

    Donald Trump has agreed to slash US tariffs on Switzerland to 15% as part of a new trade pact, lowering duties that strained economic ties and hit Swiss exporters. The two countries have signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding”, the Swiss government announced, following bilateral talks in Washington and intense lobbying by Swiss firms. In return, Switzerland will reduce tariffs “on a range of US products”, the statement said. “In addition to all industrial products, fish and seafood, this includes agricultural products from the US that Switzerland considers non-sensitive.”

    The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a rare condemnation of president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and advocated for “meaningful immigration reform”. In a special message, the first of its kind in 12 years, the bishops said that “we are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools.” In response, White House border czar, Tom Homan, hit back. “The Catholic church is wrong, I’m sorry. I’m a lifelong Catholic,” he said. “I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic church in my opinion.”
    Attorney general Pam Bondi announced today that she has assigned Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, to lead the investigation into Donald Trump’s political adversaries and their ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Earlier, Trump called the latest release of emails that renewed focus on the president’s relationship with the late sex-offender a “hoax”, and directed the justice department to launch a probe into former president Bill Clinton, Democratic donor and entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, and former treasury secretary Larry Summers (who served under Clinton). “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the president wrote on Truth Social earlier.Bondi described Clayton, who previously served as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first administration, as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country”. She added: “As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, has responded to Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the ongoing Epstein investigation – which included the release of three emails this week where Epstein said that the president “knew about the girls” and “spent hours” at his home – is a “hoax” and “Russia scam”.“Our Oversight investigation has Donald Trump panicked and desperate,” Garcia said. “He is trying to deflect from serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”He added:
    The President has not explained why he won’t release the files to the American people. Or why sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a cushy low-security prison after her interview with Trump’s former personal lawyer.
    Jenna Norton, a program director at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said that she was put on non-disciplinary administrative leave for “speaking up in my personal capacity” about the “harms that I have been witnessing” inside the agency. In a video posted to TikTok on Thursday, Norton said that being put on leave was “designed to scare and silence me. It was designed to scare and silence my colleagues, and it was designed to scare and silence everyone.”According to Stat News, Norton was also one of the organizers of the “Bethesda Declaration” letter signed by hundreds of NIH staffers, calling on director Jay Bhattacharya to listen to their concerns about the direction of the agency.Given that the president has no public events or meetings scheduled today, a White House official tells the press pool that Donald Trump “held calls with Thailand and Cambodia in an effort to mediate the most recent conflict” and “engaged with Malaysia as well to help end the violence”.Federal immigration agents will conduct their next major operation in Charlotte, according to the county’s sheriff.In a statement on Thursday, Garry McFadden confirmed that his office was “contacted by two separate federal officials confirming that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel will be arriving in the Charlotte area as early as this Saturday or the beginning of next week”.The sheriff added: “At this time, specific details regarding the federal operation have not been disclosed and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) has not been requested to assist with or participate in any enforcement actions.”In an interview with NPR this week, McFadden said “we cannot control what is going to go on. We just have to better understand it and be prepared to respond and react.”Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, has hit back against the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, after they issued a rare condemnation of the administration’s immigration agenda.“Secure borders save lives, and I wish the Catholic church would understand that,” Homan said, speaking to reporters outside the White House today. “So the Catholic church is wrong, I’m sorry. I’m a lifelong Catholic … I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic church in my opinion.”The border czar declined to comment on whether options for land strikes in Venezuela had been presented to Trump, or whether ICE agents would soon be conducting their next major operation in Charlotte, North Carolina.Further to my last post on the announcement of a framework agreement, the White House has said in a statement that the US, Switzerland and Liechtenstein aim to conclude negotiations to finalize their trade deal by the first quarter of 2026.Of the $200bn pledged Swiss investments in the United States, at least $67bn will come in 2026, it said, adding that the investments will target a range of sectors including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, aerospace and gold manufacturing.Earlier we reported that US trade representative Jamieson Greer said that the US has “essentially reached a deal with Switzerland”, after the country was hit with a 39% tariff on Swiss exports to the US.My colleague Callum Jones reports that Donald Trump has agreed to slash US tariffs on Switzerland to 15% as part of a new trade pact, lowering duties that strained economic ties and hit Swiss exporters.The two countries have signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding”, the Swiss government announced, following bilateral talks in Washington and intense lobbying by Swiss firms.The Trump administration agreed to limit US tariffs on Switzerland and Liechtenstein “to a maximum of 15%” under the deal, according to a statement from the Swiss government.This brings US tariffs on Switzerland in line with those on the European Union – allowing Swiss exporters the same treatment as rivals in neighboring countries.In return, Switzerland will reduce tariffs “on a range of US products”, the statement said. “In addition to all industrial products, fish and seafood, this includes agricultural products from the US that Switzerland considers non-sensitive.”Swiss officials also committed to granting a series of quotas for US goods that can be exported to Switzerland on a duty-free basis, including 500 tonnes of beef, 1,000 tonnes of bison meat and 1,500 tonnes of poultry.“The date for implementing these market access concessions will be coordinated with the US to ensure that customs duties are reduced at the same time,” the statement said.A series of exchanges between child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary, showing a relationship as confidantes emerged among the emails released by Republican legislators this week.The exchanges, from 2013 to early 2019, showed the two men sharing personal – and sometimes unseemly – views about politics and relationships.“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,” Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”At the time, Harvard was wrestling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position in a scandal after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ In [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”After the Wall Street Journal revealed a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers told the paper that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.In the massive trove of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate released by Republican lawmakers this week are documents that show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.Trump wrote on Truth Social today that he would be asking the DOJ and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and business leaders.In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’ contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”Summers reiterated his regret to the Harvard Crimson on Wednesday. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”The only remaining criminal case against Donald Trump has been revived after the head of Georgia’s prosecutor’s council appointed himself to replace Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, who was removed from the election interference case in September.Pete Skandalakis, a Republican and the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, the state body that provides legal training and is often charged to mitigate prosecutorial conflicts, wrote in a statement on Friday that he would be taking over for Willis.A grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to accuse them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 loss to Joe Biden in Georgia. The alleged scheme included Trump’s call to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, urging him to help find enough votes to beat Biden.The case remains the only criminal prosecution of Trump remaining, but it has been on life support after Willis was disqualified by the Georgia supreme court, which ruled that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, revealed in dramatic court filings in January 2024, created an impermissible appearance of a conflict of interest.Four people have pleaded guilty. Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty. While president, Trump is protected from state-level prosecutions, but the other 14 remaining defendants are still subject to prosecution.“The filing of this appointment reflects my inability to secure another conflict prosecutor to assume responsibility for this case,” Skandalakis said. “Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment.”Trump’s move, to focus on his rivals’ affiliations and relationships with Epstein, is seemingly his latest effort to distance himself from the renewed focus on his own relationship with the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019, and the extent to which he was aware of his conduct.The president continued to post on Truth Social today, notably saying that he will direct attorney general Pam Bondi and the FBI to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s “involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, JPMorganChase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him”.Trump went on to claim, baselessly, that this is “another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats”.Flight logs state that former president Bill Clinton travelled on Epstein’s private jet several times. According to several emails from Epstein, released by the House oversight committee, Clinton never visited his private island. Meanwhile, Reid Hoffman – the longtime Democratic donor and venture capitalist – has said he engaged with Epstein in a fundraising capacity for the Massachussets Institute of Technology. Larry Summers, former treasury secretary under Clinton, was a friend of Epstein’s and several emails between the two appear in the committee’s most recent release.In the tranche of documents published this week, Epstein said that Donald Trump “spent hours” at Epstein’s home with one of his victims in an email to co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. The president has maintained the correspondence released by House Democrats was part of the ongoing “hoax” around Epstein, and simply a deflection from their performance during the government shutdown.Several Republican senators have expressed disapproval about a provision tucked into the stopgap spending bill passed this week, which would allow lawmakers to sue the federal government because their phone records were subpoenaed in 2023 by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.“There needs to be accountability for the Biden DOJ’s outrageous abuse of the separation of powers, but the right way to do that is through public hearings, tough oversight, including of the complicit telecomm companies, and prosecution where warranted,” said senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, one of the eight lawmakers whose phone data the FBI sought and obtained.For his part, House speaker Mike Johnson has pledged to repeal the provision next week, and many House Republicans are incensed about the language in the bill.“Interesting seeing my colleagues express outrage over this provision yet still vote for it when they could have been strong and not let the Senate jam the House,” said GOP member Greg Steube, who represents the Florida suncoast. “There was no reason this needed to be in the bill to reopen the government. The Senate used a crisis to pass an unethical provision and now the House is complicit.”Donald Trump has claimed on social media that Democratic lawmakers are doing “everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again”. This comes after emails released this week by the House oversight committee seem to suggest that the president may have known about Jeffrey Epstein’s conduct.In his post on Truth Social a short while ago, Trump added that the latest batch of documents are being used to “deflect” from Democrats’ “bad policies and losses, specially the SHUTDOWN EMBARRASSMENT, where there party is in total disarray and has no idea what to do”.The president has yet to address the emails, or the wider record release, which included more than 20,000 pages. On Thursday, he took no questions from reporters at an executive order signing in the East Room. He has, however, been resolute about his stance online. White House officials have recapitulated his claims that the new information is merely a distraction.“Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish,” Trump wrote on Friday. “Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem! Ask Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, and Larry Summers about Epstein, they know all about him, don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”Americans should “raise hell” to protect US national parks through the “nightmare” of Donald Trump’s presidency, according to a former National Park Service director, amid alarm over the impact of the federal government shutdown.Jonathan Jarvis claimed the agency is now in the hands of a “bunch of ideologues” who would have no issue watching it “go down in flames” – and see parks from Yellowstone to Yosemite as potential “cash cows”, ripe for privatization.Jarvis, who led the NPS from 2009 to 2017, faced intense scrutiny, a five-hour grilling in Congress and calls for his resignation after closing all 401 national park sites during a previous shutdown, in October 2013.He was certain, despite the backlash, that it was the right thing to do: keeping them open with a skeleton staff would have put parks and their visitors at risk, his team concluded.Over the past month, hundreds of NPS veterans including Jarvis, 72, have watched aghast as most of the agency’s workers were furloughed during the longest shutdown in US history – while the Trump administration kept all national parks open.There have been consequences.A fire at Joshua Tree national park burned through about 72 acres. Yosemite faced a wave of illegal Base jumping. Yellowstone grappled with bear jams.Vandalism included graffiti in Arches national park. A stone wall at Gettysburg national military park was damaged. Trash started to gather at various sites.Thousands of NPS workers are typically around to guide visitors safely through parks, point them in the right direction, swiftly rescue them from danger, keep traffic moving, monitor wildlife and protect the landscape.“You take all of that away – all of those employees – you basically are, on one hand, creating unsafe conditions for the visitor,” Jarvis said, adding: “And you’re putting basically these irreplaceable resources at risk.” More

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      Trump accused of caving to big business after deal to cut Swiss tariffs to 15%

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      Donald Trump agreed to cut US tariffs on Switzerland from 39% to 15% as part of a new trade pact, lowering duties that strained economic ties and hit Swiss exporters.The two countries have signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding”, the Swiss government announced, following bilateral talks in Washington and intense lobbying by Swiss firms.Critics seized on the announcement as evidence that the White House had put corporate interests ahead of those of struggling Americans, as inflation continues to increase the cost of living nationwide.“While prices for American families are going way up because of Trump’s chaotic tariffs, it’s the billionaires and giant corporations cozying up to Trump that get relief,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said.Leading Swiss executives met Trump at the White House earlier this month. Rolex, the luxury Swiss watchmaker, also invited the president and a string of his officials to the US Open tennis final in September.Upon arrival, Trump “did ask in jest whether he would have been invited had it not been for the tariffs”, Jean-Frédéric Dufour, the Rolex CEO, later disclosed. This was “a moment that brought a round of laughter all around”, he added.Dufour denied that Rolex had engaged in “any negotiation” with the US over tariffs. The White House dismissed Warren’s criticism as “asinine conspiracy theories”.Trump was gifted a golden table clock by Rolex, which was later spotted on his desk in the Oval Office. Another firm is said to have donated an engraved gold bar.The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, also confirmed the breakthrough on Friday, telling CNBC, the financial news network, that both sides had “essentially reached a deal”.The Trump administration agreed to limit US tariffs on Switzerland and Liechtenstein “to a maximum of 15%” under the deal, according to a statement from the Swiss government.This brings US tariffs on Switzerland in line with those on the European Union – allowing Swiss exporters the same treatment as rivals in neighboring countries.In return, Switzerland will reduce tariffs “on a range of US products”, the statement said. “In addition to all industrial products, fish and seafood, this includes agricultural products from the US that Switzerland considers non-sensitive.”Swiss officials also committed to granting a series of quotas for US goods that can be exported to Switzerland on a duty-free basis, including 500 tonnes of beef, 1,000 tonnes of bison meat and 1,500 tonnes of poultry.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The date for implementing these market access concessions will be coordinated with the US to ensure that customs duties are reduced at the same time,” the statement said.This is the latest “framework” trade deal to be struck by Trump and his administration. Unlike formal free trade agreements, which are substantial and can take years to negotiate, these pacts have typically been narrow in focus and light on detail.The precise timing of the implementation, and when the new tariffs and quotas will be enforced, has yet to be finalized.“They’re going to send a lot of manufacturing here to the United States – pharmaceuticals, gold smelting, railway equipment,” Greer claimed on CNBC, “so we’re really excited about that deal and what it means for American manufacturing.”The Swiss government said companies in the country were “planning to make direct investments” in the US worth $200bn “by the end of 2028”. More

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      Bondi announces investigation into Epstein ties to Trump’s Democratic adversaries

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      Attorney general Pam Bondi announced on Friday afternoon that she had assigned Jay Clayton, the interim US attorney for the southern district of New York, to lead the investigation into Donald Trump’s political adversaries and their ties to Jeffrey Epstein, hours after the president directed her to do so.“Jay Clayton is one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country, and I’ve asked him to take the lead,” Bondi said of the lawyer, who also served as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first administration. “As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”The move represents an apparent departure from a July memo issued by the justice department and the FBI that stated officials had found nothing in the Epstein files that warranted the opening of further inquiries. Investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties”, the memo said.It comes as Trump has cranked up his intense pressure campaign on congressional Republicans to oppose the full release of the justice department’s files related to Epstein, before a crucial and long-awaited House vote on the matter next week that many Republicans are expected to support.The bombshell release on Wednesday of scores of Epstein’s emails has shone a spotlight on the president’s long history of involvement with the notorious sex trafficker, including revelations that he knew more about Epstein’s conduct than he has previously let on.On Friday morning, Trump declared that he would ask the Department of Justice to investigate Epstein’s ties with Democrats, not Republicans, singling out Bill Clinton, Larry Summers and Reid Hoffman. Trump also paradoxically referred to the “Epstein hoax” and called it a “scam”.It is expected that dozens of Republicans will vote next week for Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna’s discharge petition, which demands the Department of Justice release all of its investigative files on Epstein within 30 days.The legislation had stalled because the House speaker, Mike Johnson, a Republican, had refused for almost two months during the government shutdown to swear in the new Democratic representative Adelita Grijalva, who would become the deciding 218th vote. After the shutdown ended, Johnson could delay no longer, and Grijalva was sworn in on Wednesday. The vote is now likely to happen early next week.Many House Republicans have constituents who say they want greater transparency about the Epstein affair. Representatives Don Bacon of Nebraska, Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania have indicated they would vote to release the files.The Trump administration has put heavy pressure on key Republicans to oppose the legislation. The New York Times reported that top officials summoned Lauren Boebert – one of four Republicans in the House who have signed the petition – to a meeting in the White House Situation Room with Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel to discuss her demand to release the files. Trump had also telephoned her early on Tuesday morning, a day before Grijalva was due to be sworn in and provide the crucial final signature.Trump also contacted Nancy Mace, another member of the Republican caucus in the House who has signed the petition, but the two did not connect. Mace instead reportedly wrote the president a long explanation of her own personal experience as a survivor of sexual abuse and rape, and why it was impossible for her to change her position on the matter. She wrote on X that “the Epstein petition is deeply personal”.Those failed lobbying attempts from the White House came as Democrats on the House oversight committee released three damning new emails that suggest Trump knew about Epstein’s conduct, including one in which the convicted paedophile said “of course [Trump] knew about the girls”. Another email described Trump as a “dog that hasn’t barked” and said he had “spent hours” with one victim at Epstein’s house.The president’s team struck back, saying those documents had been cherrypicked, and Republican representatives followed up by releasing a much bigger trove of more than 20,000 files.Among them were documents that revealed that Epstein’s staff kept him apprised of Trump’sair travel as it related to his own transportation – and that the late sex trafficker kept up with news about his former friend years after their relationship soured.But even if the bill passes the House, it still needs to get through the Senate and be signed by Trump. Senate leaders have shown no indication they will bring it up for a vote, and Trump – who had long promised the release of the files on the campaign trail – has decried the effort as a “Democrat hoax”.The justice department earlier this year announced it would release no further details about the case, prompting public demand for files related to the investigation into Epstein’s activities to be made public. More

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      Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers’s exchanges depict relationship as confidants, emails reveal

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      A series of exchanges between child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary, showing a relationship as confidants emerged among the emails released by Republican legislators this week in the continuing political turmoil over Epstein’s connections to Donald Trump.The exchanges, from 2013 to early 2019, showed the two men sharing personal – and sometimes unseemly – views about politics and relationships.“I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,” Summers wrote to Epstein in a 2017 email. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”At the time, Harvard University was wrestling with an admissions debate after a formerly incarcerated woman’s admission to a PhD program. Summers, a former president of the university who lost his position in a scandal after making sexist comments about female academics, went on to say in the email to Epstein: “I observed that half of the IQ In [the] world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population.”Summers was once a leading light in Democratic circles – a former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, one of the primary engineers of Barack Obama’s response to the financial crisis and a stalwart in the liberal commentariat. But questions have lingered about his association with Epstein, a longtime associate of Trump. Epstein was accused of running a wide-ranging child sex trafficking operation before his death in jail in 2019 in New York City.After the Wall Street Journal revealed a previous tranche of emails between Epstein and Summers in a 2023 piece, a spokesperson for Summers told the paper that he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction”.Summers’s spokesperson has not yet responded to a request for comment from the Guardian.Democratic lawmakers released emails from the Epstein estate this week that suggest Epstein believed Trump was aware of conduct by the now-convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. In response, Republican lawmakers released a much bigger tranche of 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate.The documents show that Summers maintained congenial contact with the convicted child sex trafficker well into 2019, with the last email exchange occurring only months before Epstein’s arrest.Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he would be asking the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Summers, among other prominent Democrats and business leaders.In the emails, Summers and Epstein discuss politics – particularly Summers’s contempt for Trump – as well as the details of philanthropic social networking – and women. Summers, 70, confided in Epstein in a 2019 exchange about his romantic gestures toward an unnamed woman, and being rebuffed.“shes smart. making you pay for past errors,” Epstein wrote in an exchange on 16 March. “ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh.”Summers reiterated his regret to the Harvard Crimson on Wednesday. “I have great regrets in my life,” he wrote. “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”Summers was president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006. Epstein donated more than $9m to Harvard and its affiliated programs between 1998 and 2008, and was appointed a visiting fellow to conduct research. The university later concluded Epstein “lacked the academic qualifications visiting fellows typically possess and his application proposed a course of study Epstein was unqualified to pursue”.Harvard only stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.By then Obama’s star was rising. Summers would eventually win appointment as director of the White House national economic council (NEC) from January 2009 until November 2010.After Summers left the White House, he began asking Epstein for philanthropic advice for his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard professor pursuing a poetry project, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. Epstein and his foundations made philanthropic donations to projects connected to Summers’s wife, and the two men met a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, often for dinner.After reporting about Epstein’s donations emerged, New’s charity made a donation “in excess” of that received to anti-sex-trafficking organizations, a spokesperson told journalists in 2023. More

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      AfD hails US ban on European leftwing groups as historians fear crackdown on anti-fascists

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      Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party has welcomed the US government’s decision to classify a prominent German anti-fascist group and three other European networks as terrorist organisations, calling on Berlin and other European governments to follow the example.But historians of anti-fascism warned that at a time when far-right groups were making electoral gains across the continent, the move set a dangerous precedent that could prepare the ground for a broader crackdown on leftwing activism.The US state department announced on Thursday that the ban would apply to Germany’s Antifa Ost, an anti-fascist group whose members have been prosecuted by German authorities for attacks on far-right figures; Italy’s International Revolutionary Front, which sent explosive packages to the then president of the European Commission in 2003; and two organisations accused of planting bombs in Greece: Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense.The AfD has long called for German authorities to make a similar ruling against anti-fascist groups, even before it became the largest opposition in the German parliament earlier this year.“Antifa is a terrorist organisation, and it would be easy for the German state to take action against it, only those in power don’t want to,” said Stephan Brandner, the deputy federal spokesperson for the AfD, accusing the German state of tolerating far-left violence.The designation could result in the freezing of any assets belonging to the groups held in the US and a ban on their members entering the country.Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor who teaches a course on the history of anti-fascism, said that of the four proscribed groups, only Antifa Ost was an explicitly anti-fascist organisation.“The others are revolutionary groups,” he said. “This shows how the Trump administration is trying to lump all revolutionary and radical groups together under the label ‘antifa’. By establishing the (alleged) existence of foreign antifa groups, the Trump administration seems to be setting the stage for declaring American antifa groups (and all that they deem to be ‘antifa’) to be affiliated with these supposed foreign terrorist groups.”View image in fullscreenThe antifa movement emerged in Germany in the 1920s. But the term is extremely loose and is frequently applied to a variety of leftwing activist groups, whose common denominator is their opposition to fascism.Members of Antifa Ost are accused of attacking a neo-Nazi in Dresden as well as other acts of violence against people perceived as belonging to the far-right scene, including in Hungary, between 2018 and 2023.Six alleged members were charged in Germany in July, and its most prominent member, Maja T, who is non-binary, is being held in custody in Hungary in conditions they have described as inhumane. They face trial in January and have been told they could face up to 23 years in prison.Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence service, which has designated the AfD as a “confirmed rightwing extremist” force, has previously concluded that the antifa “movement” has neither a fixed organisational structure nor any clearly defined hierarchies.The historian Richard Rohrmoser said the name was such a broadbrush term it could be applied not just to “black-clad groups ready for violence” but also to peaceful activist groups from the Anne Frank Center to the White Rose student movement, the Christian-inspired student group that opposed the Nazis in the 1930s.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Trump is pursuing a perfidious tactic,” he told Der Spiegel. “By labelling groups as ‘antifa’, he can ban leftwing groups and demonstrations and crack down on opposition figures as soon as someone is seen wearing an antifa sweatshirt or carrying an antifa flag.” By doing so, he said, he can legitimise any action he takes against “anyone who is, in a broader sense, to his left, or opposed to him”.Italy’s Fai/Fri, or Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front, is a collection of anarchist-insurrectionist cells considered to be the most structured and well established of the European groups designated by the Trump administration. The group, which unlike other Italian anarchist movements expresses itself through violence, was founded in December 2003, when it distributed leaflets claiming responsibility for the explosion of two bins close to the home in Bologna of Romano Prodi, who at the time was president of the European Commission. A few weeks later, a parcel bomb exploded in Prodi’s hands. He was uninjured.Italy’s security services describe Fai/Fri as a “horizontal” movement made up of autonomous cells united by an insurrectionist-anarchist ideology and which uses armed direct action. Other actions include letter bomb attacks in 2010 on the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome and the 2021 kneecapping of Roberto Adinolfi, then the chief executive of the nuclear engineering company Ansaldo Nucleare.Mary Bossis, an emiritus professor of international security at the University of Piraeus in Athens, said violence was common on the edges of broad-based social movements. “But that does not mean, as in the case of antifa, that the whole movement is either violent or supportive of terrorism. In fact it is very much not the case … Standing against fascism does not make someone a terrorist.”Greek media reports described the US move as “a dangerous development” at a time when the threat from the right on both sides of the Atlantic was so visibly on the ascendant.After the dismantlement of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which rose to be Greece’s third biggest party during its near decade-long debt crisis, ultra-nationalist, far-right parties have emerged and been voted into parliament. More

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      Republicans are regimented. Democrats are undisciplined. Just look at the shutdown | Robert Reich

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      Chuck Schumer couldn’t hold his senators together at a time when their unity and toughness were essential. And at a time when they were winning: most of the public was blaming Republicans for the shutdown, and pressure was growing to reopen the government (flight delays were mounting).Does this mean Schumer should go? Yes.But the issue runs deeper. There’s a fundamental asymmetry at the heart of American politics. Democrats are undisciplined. Republicans are regimented.For as long as I remember, Democrats have danced to their own separate music while Republicans march to a single drummer.That was the story in 1994, when Democrats had control over both chambers of Congress, but Bill Clinton couldn’t get the Democratic Senate to go along with his healthcare plan, on which Clinton spent almost all his political capital.And again in 2002, when most Democratic senators voted for George W Bush’s resolution to use military force against Iraq.It happened under Joe Biden, when Democrats again controlled both chambers but Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema blocked Biden’s agenda.And now, when Senate Democrats finally have some bargaining power to force Republicans to restore expiring healthcare subsidies that could send millions of Americans’ insurance prices soaring next year, what happens? They cave.I don’t want to over-generalize. Of course, Democrats have on occasion shown discipline while Republicans have fought one another bitterly.But overall – and even before Trump – Democrats have tended to cave or come apart when the going gets tough, and Republicans have held firm.Why? Because of a psychological-structural difference between the two parties.Democrats pride themselves on having a “big tent” holding all sorts of conflicting views.Republicans pride themselves on having strong leaders.People who run for office as Democrats are, as a rule, more tolerant of dissent than are people who run for office as Republicans.Modern-day Democrats believe in diversity, E Pluribus. Republicans believe in unity, Unum.Research by the linguist George Lakoff has shown that Democrats represent the nurturing mother in our brains: accepting, embracing, empathic. Republicans represent the strict father: controlling, disciplining, limiting.This asymmetry helps explain why the Democrat’s “brand” has been weak relative to the Republican brand, why Democrats often appear spineless while Republicans appear adamant, and why the Democratic message is often unclear while the Republican message is usually sharper.Even during the shutdown, when Democrats demanded legislation that would reduce healthcare costs next year, polls showed voters still favoring Republicans on the economy and cost of living. Why? Because the Democratic message was so garbled.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionI don’t mean this as either criticism or justification of Democrats. I offer it as an explanation.As the US has grown ever more unequal and contentious, people who identify as Democrats tend to place a high value on the tenets of democracy, in my experience: equal political rights, equal opportunity and the rule of law. That’s unambiguously good.People who identify as Trump Republicans tend to place a high value on the tenets of authoritarianism: order, control and patriarchy. In fact, Trump authoritarianism is the logical endpoint of modern Republicanism.A majority of the current supreme court, composed of Republican appointees, is coming down on the side of order, control and patriarchy – which they justify under the constitutional fiction of a “unified executive” – rather than equal political rights, equal opportunity and the rule of law.None of this lets Chuck Schumer off the hook. He failed to keep Senate Democrats in line at a critical time. And none of what I’ve said exonerates the seven Senate Democrats and one independent who broke ranks to join with the Republicans.The lesson here is not that Democrats should become more authoritarian, especially now, when Trump Republicans are threatening the basic principles of American democracy.The real lesson is that when we – voters who support Democrats in Congress – want them to hang tough, we need to force them to hang tough.Republican voters can pretty much assume their senators and representatives will be unified and tough because that’s what Republicans do: they march to the same drummer (who these days sits in the Oval Office).But Democrats cannot and should not make this assumption. When we want our senators and representatives to be unified and tough, we must let them know in no uncertain terms that we expect them to be unified and tough. We must demand it.And if they’re not, we must hold them accountable.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now More

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      Trump news at a glance: president faces potentially damaging congressional vote over releasing Epstein files

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      Donald Trump is facing the prospect of a politically damaging congressional vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files after attempts to press two female members of Congress to withdraw their backing for it appeared to have failed.The reported refusal of Lauren Boebert, a Republican representative from Colorado, and Nancy Mace, from South Carolina, to remove their names from a discharge petition to force a vote leaves Trump exposed on an issue that carries the possibility of turning segments of his Maga base against him.Boebert reportedly stood firm on supporting the petition after being invited by Trump to the White House in an effort to persuade her to withdraw her signature, according to the New York Times.Trump faces prospect of congressional vote on releasing Epstein filesThe outlet reported that the meeting happened hours after Democrats on the House of Representatives’ oversight committee released a trove of emails from the files that suggested that Trump may have known more about Epstein’s underage sex trafficking activities than he previously acknowledged.The disgraced late financier – who died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial – wrote in one email that Trump, his former close friend, “knew about the girls”.The New York Times reported that the White House sought to persuade Boebert to change her mind – enlisting Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and the FBI director, Kash Patel – before issuing “vague threats” when the tactic did not work.The paper, citing people “familiar with her thinking”, reported that the hardline approach had the counterproductive effect of persuading Boebert that there may be a conspiracy to conceal the contents of the files and caused her to dig in.Read the full storyUS justice department joins lawsuit to block California’s new electoral mapThe lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, challenges the congressional map championed by Gavin Newsom, the state’s Democratic governor, in response to a Republican gerrymander in Texas, sought by Donald Trump. The justice department’s intervention in the case sets up a high-profile showdown between the Trump administration and Newsom, one of the president’s chief antagonists and a possible 2028 contender.Read the full storyBBC apologises to Trump over edited speechHowever, the corporation has rejected his demands for compensation, after lawyers for Trump threatened to sue for $1bn (£760m) in damages unless the BBC issued a retraction, apologised and settled with him.The BBC has also agreed not to show the edition of Panorama again.Read the full storyJames Comey and Letitia James to challenge validity of Trump-era chargesJames Comey, the former FBI director, and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, will ask a federal judge on Thursday to drop the criminal charges against them, arguing that Donald Trump’s hand-picked US attorney, who obtained the indictments against them, was unlawfully appointed.The hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia in front of Judge Cameron Currie will mark the first time a judge will consider one of several efforts James and Comey have made to dismiss the indictments before trials.Read the full storyEric Swalwell under federal investigation for alleged mortgage fraudThe Democratic congressman is the latest target of Trump’s retribution campaign against his critics, the congressman confirmed on Thursday.NBC News reports that Swalwell is facing a federal criminal investigation for alleged mortgage fraud, just as three other Democratic officials have faced in recent months. The outlet says the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency sent a letter to the attorney general claiming Swalwell may have committed mortgage and tax fraud.Read the full storyTrump Organization sought to bring in nearly 200 workers on visas in 2025Donald Trump’s family business increased the pace at which it hired foreign workers on temporary visas this year, even as his administration was placing obstacles in the way of other businesses that wanted to do the same, a report published Thursday claimed.According to Forbes, which analyzed data from the US Department of Labor, the Trump Organization sought to bring in at least 184 foreign workers in 2025 for temporary positions at the US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, two golf clubs and his Virginia winery.Read the full storyDonald Trump to pardon UK billionaire and former Tottenham owner Joe LewisJoe Lewis, the British billionaire and former owner of Tottenham Hotspur FC, is to be pardoned by Donald Trump over a 2024 conviction for his part in a “brazen” insider trading scheme.Lewis, 88, was fined $5m (£3.8m) and given three years of probation by a New York judge last year but was spared jail time after pleading guilty to involvement in a plan that prosecutors said was designed to enrich his friends, lovers and employees.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The New York City mayoral election may be remembered for the remarkable win of a young democratic socialist, but it was also marked by something that is likely to permeate future elections: the use of AI-generated campaign videos.

      The US state department has announced that it will designate four European self-described anti-fascist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organisations, as the Trump administration broadens its campaign against what it portrays as an international wave of leftist violence.

      Wall Street came under pressure on Thursday, enduring its worst day in a month as a sell-off of technology stocks intensified. After an extraordinary rally around hopes for artificial intelligence that propelled global stock markets to record highs, fears that tech firms are now overvalued loom large.

      While Donald Trump’s justice department has downplayed the possibility that other men were involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of teen girls, an email released on 12 November as part of the House oversight committee’s Epstein investigation shows an exchange between the late financier and an associate where they discuss “girls” and travel.

      Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman was hospitalized on Thursday after a heart condition flare-up caused him to fall on his face outside his home.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened Wednesday, 12 November. More

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      Democrat Eric Swalwell faces federal criminal inquiry for alleged mortgage fraud

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      The Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell is the latest target of Trump’s retribution campaign against his critics, the congressman confirmed on Thursday.NBC News reports that Swalwell is facing a federal criminal investigation for alleged mortgage fraud, just as three other Democratic officials have faced in recent months. The outlet says the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency sent a letter to the attorney general claiming Swalwell may have committed mortgage and tax fraud.Swalwell said in a statement: “As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me.”The move is the latest in Trump’s ongoing retribution campaign, in which he is pushing for criminal charges against his enemies and issuing executive orders that punish those who have worked against him.Trump has gone after the New York attorney general, Leticia James, Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and Senator Adam Schiff, all with claims of mortgage fraud originating from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He posted on Truth Social a public note of pressure to the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to bring charges against his critics. James has been charged and is fighting the allegations.In separate instances, the former FBI director James Comey was indicted for allegedly making a false statement and obstructing a congressional investigation during a testimony to Congress in 2020, and former national security adviser John Bolton was charged over mishandling classified materials.“Like James Comey and John Bolton, Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook, Letitia James and the dozens more to come – I refuse to live in fear in what was once the freest country in the world,” Swalwell said. “As Mark Twain said, ‘Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.’ Mr. President, do better. Be Better.”The referral to the justice department “alleges several million dollars worth of loans and refinancing based on Swalwell declaring his primary residence as Washington” and says Swalwell should be investigated for a host of potential fraud crimes, according to NBC News. More

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      Emails reveal Jeffrey Epstein and associate discussed ‘girls’ and travel

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      While Donald Trump’s justice department has downplayed the possibility that other men were involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of teen girls, an email released on 12 November as part of the House oversight committee’s Epstein investigation shows an exchange between the late financier and an associate where they discuss “girls” and travel.Epstein sent an email asking “what is your schedule?” on 23 July 2010 to an associate. The latter responded the next morning saying: “the other girl name is [redacted].” The Guardian is withholding the associate’s name, as attempts to identify and contact him were unsuccessful.That afternoon, the associate also wrote: “Can you call me/ I am with tigrane he would like to meet you he is here with me in Ibiza/with 8 top girls he said he would like to build some thing with you/can you come to Ibiza we have a huge house or how can we orgnise this/ meeting even Jean Luc could doo a great biz also/ he has the most amizing top models on stand by I told him not to do any/deals with anybody before he meet with you.” The Guardian could not identify the figure referred to as “tigrane”.“He stoped working with IMG and Trump wi here please call me and let me/ know what is your plans/ warmest regards” the associate wrote, apparently referring to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent and friend of Epstein.Epstein wrote “i will be in paris tom000rw night” in the chain.Several hours after the email mentioning “8 top girls”, the associate wrote: “can you come to Ibiza or you can send us the ticket to come with Tigrane and five girls to Paris because they have there return ticket from Barcelona if they are living from here it will be great if you can arrenge for us tickets for Paris please let me know so we can get orgnized.”Authorities arrested Brunel in December 2020 at Charles de Gaulle airport on suspicion of crimes including alleged rape and sexual assault of minors and human trafficking of underage girls for sexual exploitation. Brunel, who was suspected of providing teenage girls to Epstein, was found dead in prison in February 2022 of an apparent suicide.The email exchange occurred almost exactly a year after Epstein was released from a Florida jail where he served a brief sentence for solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution involving a minor.Nothing in these emails suggests that Trump was present or a participant in the subject of their discussion. Trump, who had been friends with Epstein before an apparent fallout some 15 years ago, has denied wrongdoing.Trump has been saddled by his ties to Epstein for months, largely due to his justice department’s handling of its investigation.Justice department officials in July said their investigation of Epstein investigative files “did not expose any additional third-parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing” and that “this systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list’”.“There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,” the memo also claimed.The memo flew in the face of Epstein’s accusers, who have said others participated in his abuse. Trump’s political allies and supporters, many of whom believe Epstein colluded with high-profile individuals to traffic teen girls, were incensed, given that the president had promised to release the files.The president’s name does appear repeatedly in other documents released by oversight committee members on Wednesday. Oversight Democrats released email exchanges with Epstein in 2011, 2015 and 2019.In these exchanges, Epstein described Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked”. He also alleged that Trump had “spent hours” at his home with one of Epstein’s victims; Epstein also alleged that “of course” Trump “knew about the girls”.The 20,000 pages of documents released by Oversight Republicans hours later suggested Epstein kept apprised of Trump. Epstein and his pilot emailed about Trump’s air travel in relation to his own transportation; he also appeared to consume news about the president’s political challenges.These missives also showed Epstein speaking ill of Trump. Epstein wrote to former treasury secretary Larry Summers in December 2018 that “trump – borderline insane. dersh, a few feet further from the border but not by much” – an apparent reference to his one-time attorney, Alan Dershowitz.Summers said: “Will trump crack into insanity?”“This is not a new phenomenon for him. in the past he was told not to come out of his apt. thats how he got through near personal bankruptcy. is strength is remarkable. he is pounded 24/7,” Epstein said. “I hope someone close to him gets indicted, but not sure, otherwise the pressure of the unknown will force him to do crazy things.”Asked for comment on Wednesday, a White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, told the Guardian: “These emails prove literally nothing.”Earlier that day, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Democrats had “selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump”. Leavitt also said that the unnamed victim mentioned in these emails was Virginia Giuffre, whom she remarked “repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever”.“Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” Leavitt said. “These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”Asked for comment about the exchange that mention “girls”, Jackson, the White House spokeswoman, said: “These emails prove literally nothing. Liberal outlets are desperately trying to use this Democrat distraction to talk about anything other than Democrats getting utterly defeated by President Trump in the shutdown fight. We won’t be distracted, and the entire administration will continue fulfilling the promises the president was elected on, including Making America Affordable Again.”The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More