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      Ghislaine Maxwell interviewed again by deputy US attorney general

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      The deputy US attorney general, Todd Blanche, held a second in-person meeting on Friday with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and longtime associate of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Blanche had confirmed the two met behind closed doors in Tallahassee, Florida, on Thursday, at the federal prosecutor’s office within the federal courthouse in the state capital, and they met again on Friday.Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Markus, on Friday afternoon said Blanche had finished his questioning for the day, NBC News first reported.Markus told reporters as he left the courthouse in downtown Tallahassee: “We started this morning right around 9 o’clock, and went to now lunchtime, and we’re finished after all day, yesterday and today. Ghislaine answered every single question asked of her over the last day and a half. She answered those questions honestly, truthfully, to the best of her ability. She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question.”He added: “They asked about every single, every possible thing you could imagine. Everything.”The justice department has not said whether Blanche intends to question Maxwell further. Markus said he did not know whether the discussions would have any impact on her case. He had previously said Thursday’s meeting was “very productive”.Blanche had announced earlier in the week that he had contacted Maxwell’s lawyers to see if she might have “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims”.Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Tallahassee, after a jury convicted her of sex trafficking in 2021.An uproar continues to engulf Donald Trump and calls have intensified for his administration to release all details of the federal investigation into Epstein, while questions remain about whether Maxwell has any fresh light to shed on her former boyfriend’s crimes.Meanwhile, the US supreme court is due to wade into the controversy and decide whether to hear a bid by Maxwell to overturn her criminal conviction.Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a jail cell in New York while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Trump, dogged by questions about his ties to Epstein, headed to Scotland on Friday for a trip that will mix golf with politics mostly out of public view. Protests await the president in the UK over his extreme agenda while scandal nips at his heels in the US.Further talking to reporters after Friday’s meeting, Markus said: “We don’t know how it’s going to play out. We just know that this was the first opportunity she’s ever been given to answer questions about what happened, and so the truth will come out about what happened with Mr Epstein. And she’s the person who’s answering those questions.”Prosecutors and the judge who oversaw Maxwell’s 2021 trial have said that she made multiple false statements under oath and failed to take responsibility for her actions. She was convicted for sex trafficking and other crimes, and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.“People have questioned her honesty, which I think is just wrong,” Markus said.Asked if Maxwell had received an offer of clemency from the government, Markus said no offer had been made.Although the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, earlier this year had promised to release additional materials related to possible Epstein clients, the justice department reversed course this month and issued a memo concluding there was no basis to continue investigating and there was no evidence of a client list or blackmail.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSince then, the department has sought permission to unseal grand jury transcripts from its prior investigations into Epstein and Maxwell.On Wednesday, US district judge Robin Rosenberg denied one of those requests.Trump’s name, along with many other high-profile individuals, appeared multiple times on flight logs for Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s, while several media outlets have this month reported previously unpublicized and friendly communications from the US president to the high-profile financier.Meanwhile, the supreme court justices, now on their summer recess, are expected in late September to consider whether to take up the appeal by Maxwell against her conviction in 2021 by a jury in New York for helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls.Maxwell’s lawyers have told the supreme court that her conviction was invalid because a non-prosecution and plea agreement that federal prosecutors had made with Epstein in Florida in 2007 also shielded his associates and should have barred her criminal prosecution in New York. Her lawyers have a Monday deadline for filing their final written brief in their appeal to the court.Some legal experts see merit in Maxwell’s claim, noting that it touches on an unsettled matter of US law that has divided some of the nation’s regional federal appeals courts.Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said there was a chance that the supreme court would take up the case, and noted the disagreement among appeals courts. Such a split among circuit courts can be a factor when the nation’s top judicial body considers whether or not to hear a case.“The question of whether a plea agreement from one US attorney’s office binds other federal prosecution as a whole is a serious issue that has split the circuits,” Epner said.While uncommon, “there have been several cases presenting the issue over the years”, Epner added.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting More

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      US justice department officials interview Ghislaine Maxwell

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      The Jeffrey Epstein files scandal swirling around Donald Trump and his administration continued to escalate on Thursday as officials from the Department of Justice met with the late sex offender’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, whose lawyer said she “answered every question … honestly and to the best of her ability”.Todd Blanche, the US deputy attorney general, arrived on Thursday morning at the office of the US attorney in Tallahassee, Florida, ABC News reported. The state prosecutor’s office is based in the federal courthouse in the Florida capital and Maxwell’s lawyers were also seen entering the building.Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other crimes at a federal prison in Florida, after being convicted in New York in late 2021.On Thursday afternoon, Maxwell’s attorney David Markus said his team had a “very productive day”with Blanche, who will meet with Maxwell again Friday, Reuters reported.“[Blanche] took a full day and asked a lot of questions,” Markus said. “Miss Maxwell answered every single question. She never stopped. She never invoked a privilege. She never declined to answer. She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.”The meeting comes amid growing political and public pressure on the Trump administration to release more details about the Epstein investigation – something that Trump and members of his administration had promised.Mark Epstein, the brother of the disgraced financier, told the Guardian in an interview that if he had the opportunity he would ask Maxwell “what she and Jeffrey might have known what the dirt was on Donald Trump”.View image in fullscreen“Because Jeffrey said, he said he had dirt on Trump,” Mark Epstein said. “I don’t know what it was, but years ago he said he had dirt on Trump.”He added that he wasn’t “particularly worried” for Maxwell, adding: “There’s a lot of people on this planet.”Maxwell’s brother Ian Maxwell, meanwhile, told the New York Post that his sister had been preparing “new evidence” before her meeting with justice department officials.“She will be putting before [a] court material new evidence that was not available to the defense at her 2021 trial, which would have had a significant impact on its outcome,” her brother told the outlet in an email.Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in New York in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, which he denied, relating to accusations that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls”. He had previously been officially declared a sex offender in Florida but re-emerged as a significant figure in US business and political circles in the years that followed, having struck a deal over the earlier criminal charges.The renewed focus on Trump’s past association with Epstein comes after the justice department announced earlier this month that it would not be releasing any more documents from the most recent Epstein investigation – despite earlier pledges by the US president and the US attorney general, Pam Bondi.The justice department’s announcement drew criticism and backlash from both sides of the party political aisle, including from some Trump supporters and conservative commentators, who accused the administration of engaging in a cover-up.For years, the Epstein case has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories, partly due to Epstein’s ties to high-profile figures. Epstein’s death, which was officially ruled a suicide, has also fueled many conspiracy theories.On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was informed by Bondi in May that his name appears multiple times in the justice department files related to Epstein.The report also said that Trump was told that many other high-profile individuals were named in the files, and that the department did not plan to release any additional documents related to the investigation.Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, denied the claims in the Journal report and dismissed the story.In an emailed statement this week, Cheung said that “the fact is that the President kicked him [Epstein] out of his club for being a creep”.Meanwhile, the House oversight committee voted 8-2 on Wednesday to subpoena the justice department for the Epstein files, with three Republicans joining all Democrats in the vote.The committee also subpoenaed Maxwell to testify before committee officials on 11 August.Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, questioned whether Maxwell could be trusted.And Dan Goldman, a Democratic New York representative, said in a post on X on Tuesday: “Ghislaine is looking for a pardon, and who would be better to give it to her than a co-conspirator now in the Oval Office.”Edward Helmore contributed reporting More

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      Why Trump’s political playbook is failing in the Epstein case | Jan-Werner Müller

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      The problem with a successful playbook is that you eventually keep doing the same thing mechanically. Fresh from intimidating ABC and CBS with meritless lawsuits, Donald Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal reporters who broke the story of a lewd birthday message for Jeffrey Epstein. But, unlike with the frivolous allegations against the big broadcasters, there’s clearly a fact of the matter here: an authentic letter either exists or it does not; and there is plenty to be revealed in the process of finding out. Trump’s time-proven move – whatever happens, just counter-attack – is likely to keep the very story he wants to kill alive. Meanwhile, the other elements of his playbook – deny, deflect, distract – only work if journalists and Democrats play along. They, not the seemingly all-important Trump base, are the actors to watch.We still debate whether Trumpism is a substantial ideology or not; what we are missing is that Trumpism, for sure, is a set of tactics for exploiting weaknesses in the US political, legal and media systems. Some of these tactics were inherited from his mentor Roy Cohn and many are now being adopted by Trump’s followers – one must never admit guilt; one must always swing back; and one must reject, or ideally entirely bury, defeats (such as Trump’s case against Bob Woodward and Woodward’s publisher being dismissed recently).But there is also a less obvious element, and it has to do with managing political time (a challenge for all politicians, come to think of it). The point is not just seizing opportunities or exploiting opponents’ weaknesses in a timely manner; rather, it is about the art of speeding things up or slowing them down to one’s advantage. Think of how we appear to have become inured to Trump doing and saying things that would have ended previous presidencies (OK, previous presidents did not have AI-generated images of themselves as kings or popes available, but still).One reason is this: an administration that faces one or two big scandals in a four-year period may well be damaged beyond repair; one that produces three very big scandals a day seems to have nothing to worry about since no one can keep up. It is difficult to stick with one story, as the newest outrage already appears so much bigger (the Qatar plane scandal can feel like it happened years ago). To be sure, not all scandals are consciously produced, but there is little doubt that Trump’s posting an AI-generated clip of Barack Obama being arrested in the White House and identifying Obama as a “ringleader” of election fraud are meant to distract – which is not to deny that they would justify impeachment.While the frequency of scandals is maximized to game the news cycle, the legal system is used to slow things down. Releasing the grand jury testimonies in the Epstein case will take time, if the request is not rejected altogether by courts (as has already happened in Florida). Even if they are released, they are unlikely to contain anything relevant about Trump. The calculation is that, a few weeks from now, the files will be forgotten.None of this is to suggest Trump is a master Machiavellian who can manipulate Americans (or even just his base) at will. His approach partly works because institutional and cultural contexts have changed: news cycles are shorter, as are attention spans. His behavior has become progressively normalized – and generalized: shamelessness once unique to him is now in the manual of required GOP conduct (just think of blatant lies about Medicaid). Most important, a free press sticking relentlessly with scandals and ignoring intimidation can no longer be taken for granted; broadcasters in particular have become vulnerable to parent companies putting profits before everything else. Democrats, understandably not wanting to look like they mainly focus on the sordid details of the Epstein story, are tempted to move on and deal with the vaunted “kitchen-table issues”. But it should give them pause that the story is apparently so scary for the other side that Republicans would rather shut down the House than deal with it in any shape or form.Are they right to panic? For sure, Trump made a mistake with his social media post urging followers to move on, which was the equivalent of “don’t think of an elephant” (while also providing further evidence for the Streisand effect: censorship generates the very attention meant to be avoided). Trump lobbying Murdoch to kill the story will give pause to all still naive enough to think of Republicans as free speech defenders. By now, the fact that releasing only the grand jury testimony is relatively meaningless has sunk in and – never mind the base – what political scientists call “low-information voters” will be left with a lasting impression of a Trump-Epstein connection or at least a chaotic administration. In the lawsuit, Trump has to prove “actual malice” on the part of the newspaper – a difficult hurdle to jump. Unlike with the Russia investigation, Trump himself is the instigator of a lengthy process overshadowing his presidency; unlike with the many investigations between his presidential terms, when his lawyers outran the clock, time is not really on his side. In fact, he might be lucky if the case is dismissed on a technicality – he apparently failed to comply with a Florida law that requires giving defendants five days’ notice.

      Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University More

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      US judge rejects Trump administration’s bid to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts

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      A US federal judge on Wednesday denied a justice department request to unseal grand jury transcripts related to a criminal investigation of the late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein in south Florida from the mid-2000s.The move is the first ruling in a series of attempts to release more information on the case by Donald Trump’s administration, which has been mired in a scandal in recent weeks, after the justice department announced it would not be releasing any additional files related to the Epstein case – despite earlier promises from the president and the the US attorney general, Pam Bondi.The justice department’s memo sparked renewed focus on and scrutiny of Trump’s past ties to Epstein and drew backlash from some Trump supporters and conservative commentators.On Friday, the justice department filed a motion asking the court to unseal the grand jury transcripts related to the federal investigations into Epstein in 2005 and 2007, according to court documents.But on Wednesday, US district judge Robin Rosenberg ruled that the department’s request in Florida did not fall into any of the exceptions to rules requiring grand jury material be kept secret.Rosenberg wrote that the court’s “hands are tied” and said the government had not requested the grand jury’s findings for use in a judicial proceeding, pointing out that district courts in the US are largely prohibited from unsealing grand jury testimony except in very narrow circumstances.“Eleventh circuit law does not permit this court to grant the government’s request,” Rosenberg wrote. “The court’s hands are tied – a point that the Government concedes.”The justice department still has pending requests to unseal transcripts in Manhattan federal court related to a later indictment brought against Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 shortly after his arrest while awaiting trial, and his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. More

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      Obama’s office issues rare rebuke to Trump’s ‘ridiculous’ allegations about 2016 election – live

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      In a statement sent to reporters on Tuesday, a spokesperson for former president Barack Obama dismissed Donald Trump’s “ridiculous” accusation that Obama had committed “treason” in 2016, by directing his administration to reveal, after the 2016 election, that the Russian government had attempted to boost Trump’s candidacy.Here is the full statement from Obama’s spokesperson, Patrick Rodenbush:
      Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.
      Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.
      The statement came after Trump claimed on Tuesday that documents reviewed by his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, prove that Obama was “guilty”.But Gabbard’s accusation is based on the false claim that Obama and officials in his administration had suppressed “intelligence showing ‘Russian and criminal actors did not impact’ the 2016 presidential election via cyber-attacks on infrastructure”.Obama and his administration never made that claim. Instead they made the case that Russia had attempted to interfere in the 2016 election through a social-media influence campaign and by hacking and releasing, via Wikileaks, email from Democratic officials and Hillary Clinton’s campaign aides. That conclusion was borne out by special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report and by a bipartisan 2020 report by the Senate intelligence committee whose members included then senator Marco Rubio.Speaking in the Oval Office during a meeting with the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Trump deflected a question about Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender Trump socialized with for more than a decade, calling the uproar over Epstein “sort of a witch hunt”. He then added the baseless claim that, in 2020, Obama and those around him also “tried to rig the election, and they got caught”.“The witch hunt you should be talking about is that they caught President Obama absolutely cold”, Trump added.The senate voted 50-48 on Tuesday to proceed to debate on the nomination of Donald Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, Emil Bove, to fill a vacancy as a judge on a federal appeals court. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican to join all of the chamber’s Democratic senators in voting against Bove.There has been speculation that Trump wants his former lawyer, who is just 44, to be in place for possible consideration for a spot on the supreme court if either Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas retires soon.After Trump appointed him acting deputy attorney general, Bove ordered federal prosecutors in New York to dismiss corruption charges against the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, in return for his cooperation in immigration enforcement.Danielle Sassoon, the acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, refused and wrote to Bove that the mayor’s lawyers had “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed”.Sassoon also wrote that Bove had scolded a member of her team for taking notes at the meeting with the mayor’s legal team and ordered that the notes be confiscated.As our colleague Chris Stein reported, Bove’s nomination for the lifetime position has faced strident opposition from Democrats, after Erez Reuveni, a former justice department official who was fired from his post, alleged that during his time at the justice department, Bove told lawyers that they “would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order” blocking efforts to remove immigrants to El Salvador. In testimony before the committee last month, Bove denied the accusation, and Reuveni later provided text messages that supported his claim.Republicans announced Tuesday that the House of Representatives will call it quits a day early and head home in the face of persistent Democratic efforts to force Republicans into voting on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.The chamber was scheduled be in session through Thursday ahead of the annual five-week summer recess, but on Tuesday, the Republican majority announced that the last votes of the week would take place the following day. Democrats in turn accused the GOP of leaving town rather than dealing with the outcry over Donald Trump’s handling of the investigation into the alleged sex trafficker.“They are actually ending this week early because they’re afraid to cast votes on the Jeffrey Epstein issue,” said Ted Lieu, the vice-chair of the House Democratic caucus.Republicans downplayed the decision to cut short the workweek, while arguing that the White House has already moved to resolve questions about the case. Last week, Trump asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release grand jury testimony, although that is expected to be only a fraction of the case’s documents.“We’re going to have committee meetings through Thursday, and there’s still a lot of work being done,” said the majority leader, Steve Scalise. “The heavy work is done in committee and there is a lot of work being done this week before we head out.” He declined to answer a question about whether votes were cut short over the Epstein files.Senator Elizabeth Warren said Donald Trump’s claim that he expects to receive $20m in free advertising, public service announcements or similar programming from the new owners of CBS, “reeks of corruption”.Warren was responding to Trump’s boast that he would be paid $20m by the new owners of the network in addition to the $16m from the current owners he received on Tuesday to drop his lawsuit claiming that he had been damaged by the routine editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris last year.On Monday Warren, and fellow senators Bernie Sanders and Ron Wyden, wrote to David Ellison, whose company Skydance needs federal approval to buy CBS owner Paramount, to ask if he struck any “secret side deal” with Trump, or had played any part in the decision to cancel Trump critic Stephen Colbert’s late-night CBS show.After Trump claimed that he did make a deal with Ellison’s company before federal approval was granted, Warren asked Skydance to confirm the news in a social media post of her own.“CBS canceled Late Night with Stephen Colbert—a show they called ‘a staple of the nation’s zeitgeist’—just three days after Colbert called out Paramount for its $16 million settlement with Trump”, Warren wrote in a second post. “Was his show canceled for political reasons? Americans deserve to know.”Later on Tuesday, Congressman Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat, responded to Trump’s boast about the $20m he expects from the network’s new owner with the comment: “He’s bragging about taking bribes… In broad daylight.”In a statement sent to reporters on Tuesday, a spokesperson for former president Barack Obama dismissed Donald Trump’s “ridiculous” accusation that Obama had committed “treason” in 2016, by directing his administration to reveal, after the 2016 election, that the Russian government had attempted to boost Trump’s candidacy.Here is the full statement from Obama’s spokesperson, Patrick Rodenbush:
      Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.
      Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.
      The statement came after Trump claimed on Tuesday that documents reviewed by his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, prove that Obama was “guilty”.But Gabbard’s accusation is based on the false claim that Obama and officials in his administration had suppressed “intelligence showing ‘Russian and criminal actors did not impact’ the 2016 presidential election via cyber-attacks on infrastructure”.Obama and his administration never made that claim. Instead they made the case that Russia had attempted to interfere in the 2016 election through a social-media influence campaign and by hacking and releasing, via Wikileaks, email from Democratic officials and Hillary Clinton’s campaign aides. That conclusion was borne out by special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report and by a bipartisan 2020 report by the Senate intelligence committee whose members included then senator Marco Rubio.Speaking in the Oval Office during a meeting with the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Trump deflected a question about Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender Trump socialized with for more than a decade, calling the uproar over Epstein “sort of a witch hunt”. He then added the baseless claim that, in 2020, Obama and those around him also “tried to rig the election, and they got caught”.“The witch hunt you should be talking about is that they caught President Obama absolutely cold”, Trump added.

      Despite the best efforts of Donald Trump and his allies to change the subject, the Jeffrey Epstein firestorm – which Trump today derided as “a witch hunt” – just won’t die. This morning, the justice department announced it hopes to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell to find out if she has “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims” of Epstein. Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said he anticipated meeting with Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking and other crimes, “in the coming days”. “We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case,” David Oscar Markus, an attorney for Maxwell, wrote on X, inspiring suggestions that Maxwell will seek for a pardon or commutation of her sentence from Trump.

      But the New York federal court handling the Epstein and Maxwell case said it would like to “expeditiously” resolve the Trump administration’s request to unseal grand jury testimony, but it could not do so due to a number of missing submissions. The justice department did not submit to the court the Epstein-related grand jury transcripts it wants to unseal, the judge said, and requested that the justice department submit the transcripts by next Tuesday under seal, so that the court can decide on the request to unseal them. The government had also not “adequately” addressed the “factors” that district courts weigh in considering applications for disclosure, including “why disclosure is being sought in the particular case” and “what specific information is being sought for disclosure”, the judge wrote.

      And despite the GOP’s valiant attempts to blame this all on the Democrats, there is ever more proof in the congressional pudding that this is very much a bipartisan issue (let’s not forget, it was Trump’s Maga base that kicked this all off). The embattled House speaker Mike Johnson (who is among those Republicans who have actually called for the evidence to be released) shut down operation of the chamber a day early, scrapping Thursday’s scheduled votes after the party lost control of the floor over bipartisan pressure to vote on releasing Epstein-related files. That means there won’t be any more floor votes until lawmakers return from summer recess in September.

      The House Oversight Committee also voted to subpoena Maxwell for testimony after recess.

      Trump announced that the Philippines will pay a 19% tariff rate following the conclusion of a trade deal with the United States.

      The New York Times defended the Wall Street Journal after the Trump administration decided to bar the global outlet from the White House press pool following its investigative coverage of ties between Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a public statement, a Times spokesperson said the White House’s actions represented “simple retribution by a president against a news organization for doing reporting that he doesn’t like”, warning that “such actions deprive Americans of information about how their government operates”.

      NPR’s editor-in-chief, Edith Chapin, has told colleagues that she is stepping down later this year. It comes just days after federal lawmakers voted in support of Trump’s plan to claw back $1.1bn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the umbrella organization that funds both NPR and the non-commercial TV network PBS.

      A US appeals court declined to lift restrictions imposed by Trump’s administration on White House access by Associated Press journalists after the news organization declined to refer to the body of water long called the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

      The state department claimed one of the reasons for the US’s withdrawal from Unesco was the organization’s decision to admit Palestine as a member state, which was “contrary to US policy and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization” [a charge the Trump administration frequently directs at the United Nations at large]. The state department also said that remaining in Unesco was not in the national interest, accusing it of having “a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy”. Trump pulled the US out of Unesco during his first term too.

      Elon Musk may return to US politics, Bloomberg News is reporting, citing SpaceX documents and people familiar with the content.

      Trump said he had received from CBS parent company Paramount $16m as part of a lawsuit settlement and that he expects to receive $20m more.

      A panel of judges in the US district court in New Jersey declined to permanently appoint Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba as the state’s top federal prosecutor, according to an order from the court.
      The editor-in-chief of the US public radio network NPR has told colleagues that she is stepping down later this year.Edith Chapin’s announcement comes just days after federal lawmakers voted in support of Donald Trump’s plan to claw back $1.1bn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the umbrella organization that funds both NPR and the non-commercial TV network PBS.Chapin informed Katherine Maher, NPR’s chief executive, of her intention to step down before lawmakers approved the cuts but will stay on to help with the transition, according to what she told the outlet.Chapin has been with NPR since 2012 after spending 25 years at CNN. She has been NPR’s top editor – along with chief content officer – since 2023.In an interview with NPR’s media reporter, David Folkenflik, Chapin said she had informed Maher two weeks ago of her decision to leave.“I have had two big executive jobs for two years and I want to take a break. I want to make sure my performance is always top-notch for the company,” Chapin told NPR.Nonetheless, Chapin’s departure is bound to be seen in the context of an aggressive push by the Trump administration to cut government support of public radio, including NPR and Voice of America.Trump has described PBS and NPR as “radical left monsters” that have a bias against conservatives. In an executive order in May, the president called for the end of taxpayer subsidization of the organizations.Trump later called on Congress to cancel public broadcaster funding over the next two years via a rescission, or cancellation, request. That was approved by both houses of Congress on Friday, taking back $1.1bn.In an essay published by the Columbia Journalism Review on Tuesday, Guardian writer Hamilton Nolan said that while NPR and PBS will survive, “the existence of small broadcasters in rural, red-state news deserts is now endangered”.Elon Musk, who infamously served as a senior adviser to Donald Trump before a very public – and very spectacular – bust-up with his former buddy, may return to US politics, Bloomberg News is reporting, citing SpaceX documents and people familiar with the content.The company added that the language laying out such “risk factors” in paperwork sent to investors discussing a tender offer, according to Bloomberg. It is also believed to be the first time this language has appeared in these tender offers.Earlier this month, Musk announced his decision to start to bankroll a new US political party – the “America” party – and suggested it could initially focus on a handful of attainable House and Senate seats while striving to be the decisive vote on major issues amid the thin margins in Congress.The tech billionaire had previously stepped back from his role in Trump’s White House as he sought to salvage his battered reputation which was hurting his companies, including Tesla.He then fell out with Trump over the president’s signature sweeping tax and spending bill, which Musk slammed as “bankrupting” the country (the bill also repeals green energy tax credits that benefit the likes of Tesla).Donald Trump said CBS parent company Paramount paid $16m on Tuesday as part of a lawsuit settlement and that he expects to receive $20m more.Paramount earlier this month agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with former vice-president Kamala Harris that the network broadcast in October.“We have just achieved a BIG AND IMPORTANT WIN in our Historic Lawsuit against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount… Paramount/CBS/60 Minutes have today paid $16 Million Dollars in settlement, and we also anticipate receiving $20 Million Dollars more from the new Owners,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.A panel of judges in the US district court in New Jersey declined to permanently appoint Donald Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba as the state’s top federal prosecutor, according to an order from the court.Habba has been serving as New Jersey’s interim US attorney since her appointment by Trump in March, but was limited by law to 120 days in office unless the court agreed to keep her in place. The US Senate has not yet acted on her formal nomination to the role, submitted by Trump this month.The court instead appointed the office’s number two attorney, Desiree Grace, the order said.Last week, the US district court for the northern district of New York declined to keep Trump’s US attorney pick John Sarcone in place after his 120-day term neared expiration. Sarcone managed to stay in the office after the justice department found a workaround by naming him as “special attorney to the attorney general”, according to the New York Times.Habba’s brief tenure as New Jersey’s interim US attorney included the filing of multiple legal actions against Democratic elected officials.Her office brought criminal charges against US representative LaMonica McIver, as she and other members of Congress and Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, tried to visit an immigration detention center.The scene grew chaotic after immigration agents tried to arrest Baraka for trespassing, and McIver’s elbows appeared to make brief contact with an immigration officer.Habba’s office charged McIver with two counts of assaulting and impeding a law enforcement officer. McIver has pleaded not guilty.Habba’s office did not follow justice department rules which require prosecutors to seek permission from the Public Integrity Section before bringing criminal charges against a member of Congress for conduct related to their official duties.Her office also charged Baraka, but later dropped the case, prompting a federal magistrate judge to criticize her office for its handling of the matter.Until March, Habba had never worked as a prosecutor.She represented Trump in a variety of civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found that Trump had sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll in a New York department store changing room 27 years ago.In 2023, a federal judge in Florida sanctioned Trump and Habba and ordered them to pay $1m for filing a frivolous lawsuit which alleged that Hillary Clinton and others conspired to damage Trump’s reputation in the investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.Donald Trump has said that the Philippines will pay a 19% tariff rate following the conclusion of a trade deal with the United States.“It was a beautiful visit, and we concluded our Trade Deal, whereby The Philippines is going OPEN MARKET with the United States, and ZERO Tariffs,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos’s visit to the White House.“The Philippines will pay a 19% Tariff. In addition, we will work together Militarily,” Trump wrote, referring to Marcos as “a very good, and tough, negotiator”.On this subject, a US appeals court has declined to lift restrictions imposed by Donald Trump’s administration on White House access by Associated Press journalists after the news organization declined to refer to the body of water long called the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America as he prefers.The full US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit kept in place a 6 June decision by a divided three-judge panel that the administration could legally restrict access to the AP to news events in the Oval Office and other locations controlled by the White House including Air Force One.The DC circuit order denied the AP’s request that it review the matter, setting up a possible appeal to the US supreme court.In a lawsuit filed in February, the AP argued that the limitations on its access imposed by the administration violated the constitution’s first amendment protections against government abridgment of free speech.Trump in January signed an executive order officially directing federal agencies to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The AP sued after the White House restricted its access over its decision not to use “Gulf of America” in its news reports.The AP stylebook states that the Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. AP said that as a global news agency it will refer to the body of water by its longstanding name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.Reuters and the AP both issued statements denouncing the access restrictions, which put wire services in a larger rotation with about 30 other newspaper and print outlets. Other media customers, including local news outlets with no presence in Washington, rely on real-time reports by the wire services of presidential statements, as do global financial markets.The Trump administration has said the president has absolute discretion over media access to the White House.The AP won a key order in the trial court when US district judge Trevor McFadden, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, decided that if the White House opens its doors to some journalists it cannot exclude others based on their viewpoints, citing the First Amendment.The DC circuit panel in its 2-1 ruling in June paused McFadden’s order. The two judges in the majority, Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, were appointed by Trump during his first term in office. The dissenting judge, Cornelia Pillard, is an appointee of Democratic former president Barack Obama.Further to my last post, the New York Times is defending the Wall Street Journal after the Trump administration decided to bar the global outlet from the White House press pool following its investigative coverage of ties between Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.In the public statement, a Times spokesperson said the White House’s actions represented “simple retribution by a president against a news organization for doing reporting that he doesn’t like”, warning that “such actions deprive Americans of information about how their government operates”.“The White House’s refusal to allow one of the nation’s leading news organizations to cover the highest office in the country is an attack on core constitutional principles underpinning free speech and a free press,” the spokesperson said.“Americans regardless of party deserve to know and understand the actions of the president, and reporters play a vital role in advancing that public interest.”The White House is facing backlash after banning the Wall Street Journal from the press pool set to cover Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to his golf courses in Scotland.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the change was made “due to the Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct”, referring to the newspaper’s recent article alleging the US president sent Jeffrey Epstein a 50th birthday letter that included a drawing of a naked woman. The US president promptly sued the paper for $10bn. The WSJ has stood by its reporting.“This attempt by the White House to punish a media outlet whose coverage it does not like is deeply troubling, and it defies the First Amendment,” said Weijia Jiang, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, in a statement to the Guardian. She added:
      Government retaliation against news outlets based on the content of their reporting should concern all who value free speech and an independent media.
      We strongly urge the White House to restore the Wall Street Journal to its previous position in the pool and aboard Air Force One for the President’s upcoming trip to Scotland. The WHCA stands ready to work with the administration to find a quick resolution.
      Jiang said the administration had yet to clarify whether the ban was temporary, or if it was permanently barring Wall Street Journal reporters from the press pool.Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement to CNN:
      It’s unconstitutional — not to mention thin-skinned and vindictive — for a president to rescind access to punish a news outlet for publishing a story he tried to kill.
      But hopefully the Journal reporters who were planning to join Trump for his golf trip are relieved that they can spend their newfound free time investigating more important stories, from Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein to his unprecedented efforts to bully the press.
      It marks the second time the Trump administration has punitively barred a publication from the press pool in this way. Earlier this year the White House banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other exclusive access after the outlet declined to use Trump’s new moniker for the Gulf of Mexico. A decision for the administration to control the press pool came shortly after. More

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      US House calls early summer recess amid turmoil over Epstein files

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      Republicans announced Tuesday that the House of Representatives will call it quits a day early and head home in the face of persistent Democratic efforts to force Republicans into voting on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.The chamber was scheduled be in session through Thursday ahead of the annual five-week summer recess, but on Tuesday, the Republican majority announced that the last votes of the week would take place the following day. Democrats in turn accused the GOP of leaving town rather than dealing with the outcry over Donald Trump’s handling of the investigation into the alleged sex trafficker.“They are actually ending this week early because they’re afraid to cast votes on the Jeffrey Epstein issue,” said Ted Lieu, the vice-chair of the House Democratic caucus.Republicans downplayed the decision to cut short the workweek, while arguing that the White House has already moved to resolve questions about the case. Last week, Trump asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release grand jury testimony, although that is expected to be only a fraction of the case’s documents.“We’re going to have committee meetings through Thursday, and there’s still a lot of work being done,” said the majority leader, Steve Scalise. “The heavy work is done in committee and there is a lot of work being done this week before we head out.” He declined to answer a question about whether votes were cut short over the Epstein files.At a press conference, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, insisted that Congress must be careful in calling for the release of documents related to the case, for fear of retraumatizing his victims.“There’s no purpose for Congress to push an administration to do something that they’re already doing. And so this is for political games,” he said. “I’m very resolute on this, we can both call for full transparency and also protect victims, and if you run roughshod, or you do it too quickly, that’s not what happens.”Questions surrounding Epstein’s 2019 death and his involvement in running a sex-trafficking ring that allegedly procured underage girls for global elites flared up earlier this month after the justice department announced its determination that he committed suicide in a federal prison, and he had no client list that could be released.The disclosure, along with the department’s statement that it would release no further information about the case, sparked an uproar among many supporters of the president, who believed he would get to the bottom of a supposed “deep state” plot to cover up Epstein’s ties to global elites. Some of Trump’s own officials had promoted such expectations, including Bondi, who in February told Fox News that Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review”.Congressional Democrats have sought to capitalize on the rare split between the president and his supporters, with an eye towards retaking the majority in the House next year. The venue for those efforts has been the rules committee, the normally low-key body that all legislation must pass through before it is considered by the full House.Democrats on the committee last week repeatedly offered amendments to unrelated legislation that were designed to compel the release of the Epstein files, forcing Republicans to vote them down – a politically difficult vote for many in the party, as it could potentially be used to accused them of wanting to keep the files secret.Frustration among the GOP peaked on Monday, when Democrats planned to use a rules committee hearing to offer more Epstein amendments, and the GOP reacted by refusing to vote on any more rules, essentially paralyzing the House floor. Johnson has attempted to stem the controversy by agreeing to allow a vote on a non-binding resolution on the file’s release, but that won’t happen before the August recess.On Tuesday, a House oversight subcommittee approved a subpoena proposed by Republican congressman Tim Burchett for the testimony of Ghislaine Maxwell, a close associate of Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence related to the sex trafficking case. The justice department is also seeking to speak with her, and it is unclear when she might appear before Congress.Meanwhile, Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican who has repeatedly broken with his party, and Democratic congressman Ro Khanna have collaborated on a legislative maneuver that will force a vote on releasing the Epstein files, though that is not expected to take place until after the House returns from its recess, in the first week of September.Joe Morelle, the number-two Democrat on the House appropriations committee, warned that cutting short the workweek costs time that lawmakers could use to consider spending legislation that must be passed by the end of September to prevent a government shutdown.“We haven’t done appropriation bills, and yet we’re going to take extra days off simply because we don’t want to go through the discomfort of pushing the president to do what he’s promised to do, what the attorney general has promised to do, what the FBI director has promised to do, that they’re now violating their pledge and their commitment to do,” Morelle said. More

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      Trump administration orders release of Epstein court documents amid mounting pressure – US politics live

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      The US Department of Justice asked a federal court on Friday to unseal grand jury transcripts in Jeffrey Epstein’s case at the direction of Donald Trump amid a firestorm over the administration’s handling of records related to the wealthy financier.The move – coming a day after a Wall Street Journal story put a spotlight on Trump’s relationship with Epstein – seeks to contain a growing controversy that has engulfed the administration since it announced that it would not be releasing more government files from Epstein’s sex trafficking case.Todd Blanche, the US deputy attorney general, filed motions urging the court to unseal the Epstein transcripts as well as those in the case against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Epstein killed himself in 2019 shortly after his arrest while awaiting trial.The justice department’s announcement that it would not be making public any more Epstein files enraged parts of Trump’s base in part because members of his own administration had hyped the expected release and stoked conspiracies around the well-connected financier.Trump’s demand to release the grand jury transcripts came after the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday on a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album for Epstein’s 50th birthday.The letter bearing Trump’s name includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret,” according to the newspaper. The outlet described the contents of the letter but did not publish a photo showing it entirely.Trump denied writing the letter, calling it “false, malicious, and defamatory” and promised to sue. Trump said he spoke to both to the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its top editor, Emma Tucker, and told them the letter was “fake”.In other developments:

      Attorney general Pam Bondi called the case “a matter of public concern” in a formal request asking a federal judge to unseal grand jury transcripts from the 2019 investigation into Epstein, the late sex offender and longtime associate of Donald Trump.

      Dick Durbin, the senior Democrat on the senate judiciary committee wrote to Bondi to ask about the work of the 1,000 FBI personnel who reviewed approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in March. “My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned”, Durbin wrote. “What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?” he asked.

      Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.

      The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need. A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000.

      Marco Rubio, the secretary of state barred Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes from the United States in retaliation for the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil who has been charged for his role in allegedly leading an attempted coup following his loss in the 2022 election.

      Democrats are condemning CBS for its decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, noting the news comes a few days after its host criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a $16m lawsuit with Donald Trump. Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who appeared as a guest on Colbert’s show on Thursday night, later wrote on social media: “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.”
      As Donald Trump tries to claim he was “not a fan” of Jeffrey Epstein, photos, videos and anecdotes paint a picture of their relationship, writes Adam Gabbatt:Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.She said Obama and senior officials in his administration had “[laid] the groundwork for … a years-long coup” against Trump after his victory over Hillary Clinton by “manufacturing intelligence” to suggest that Russia had tried to influence the election. That included using a dossier prepared by a British intelligence analyst, Christopher Steele, that they knew to be unreliable, Gabbard claimed.The post-election intelligence estimates contrasted with findings reached before the election, which indicated that Russia probably was not trying to interfere.In extraordinary comments calling for prosecutions, she added:
      The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.
      Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people.
      No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. The American people’s faith and trust in our democratic republic and therefore the future of our nation depends on it.
      Indigenous leaders have warn higher education institutions will close if the funding-slashing 2026 budget proposal passes, Meliss Hellmann reports:The former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison will testify at a US House panel hearing next week about countering China’s “economic coercion against democracies,” the committee said on Friday.Rahm Emanuel, the former US ambassador to Japan, will also testify before the House select committee on China.Relations with China, already rocky after Australia banned Huawei from its 5G broadband network in 2018, cooled further in 2020 after the Morrison government called for an independent investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 virus.China responded by imposing tariffs on Australian commodities, including wine and barley and limited imports of Australian beef, coal and grapes, moves described by the United States as “economic coercion”.Morrison was defeated in a bid for reelection in 2022. His successor, Anthony Albanese, visited China this week, underscoring a warming of ties.Away from the main story on the blog today, Japan’s top tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, said on Saturday he planned to visit Washington next week to hold further ministerial-level talks with the United States.Tokyo hopes to clinch a deal by a 1 August deadline that will avert President Donald Trump’s tariff of 25% on imports from Japan.“I intend to keep on seeking actively an agreement that is beneficial to both Japan and the United States, while safeguarding our national interest,” Akazawa told reporters in the western region of Osaka, according to Reuters.Akazawa was visiting Osaka to host a US delegation, led by treasury secretary Scott Bessent, that participated in the US national aay event at World Expo 2025. Akazawa said he did not discuss tariffs with Bessent.Here is the Guardian’s story on Donald Trump’s plans to sue the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over its Jeffrey Epstein report:Donald Trump has sued Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal newspaper reporters for libel and slander over claims that he sent the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a lewd letter and sketch of a naked woman.Trump’s lawsuit on Friday, which also targets Dow Jones and News Corp, was filed in the southern district of Florida federal court in Miami.The lawsuit seeks at least $10bn in damages.It came after the Journal reported on a 50th birthday greeting that Trump allegedly sent to Epstein in 2003 that included a sexually suggestive drawing and reference to secrets they shared.It was reportedly a contribution to a birthday album compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence in Florida after being found guilty of sex-trafficking and other charges in 2021.“A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair,” the Journal reported of the alleged drawing. The letter allegedly concluded: “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”Trump vehemently denied the Journal report and claimed the letter was fake. He said on Truth Social that he warned Murdoch, the founder of News Corp, the newspaper’s parent company, that he planned to sue.Donald Trump has sued Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal newspaper reporters for libel and slander over claims that he sent the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a lewd letter and sketch of a naked woman.In the filing, Trump calls the Wall Street Journal’s report “false and defamatory” and demands at least $10bn in damages and court costs from Rupert Murdoch, two Wall Street Journal reporters, News Corporation chief executive Robert Thomson and related corporate entities.Read the court documents in full at the below link:A lawsuit. Angry calls to editors. Public denunciations. In the wake of the Wall Street Journal’s story claiming Donald Trump contributed to a “bawdy” letter to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – featuring a drawing of a naked woman’s silhouette around a typewritten personal message – the president’s relationship with the outlet’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, appears on the surface to have deteriorated from temperamental to terminal.Just a few days ago, the 94-year-old mogul was spotted among the president’s high-profile guests at the Fifa Club World Cup final. Following the publication of the article, however, Murdoch now finds himself on the president’s lengthy list of media opponents threatened with court action.In an unprecedented environment in which a sitting president regularly takes direct aim at the media, there have been numerous claims of big outlets making decisions that make life easier for their billionaire owners. Yet the Journal published the Epstein allegations even after Trump picked up the phone to its British editor, Emma Tucker, to demand that she ditch the story. Trump also claims Murdoch himself was approached to stop the article, to no avail.According to some media watchers, it is the latest sign that Murdoch is taking a different approach to Trump’s return than some of his fellow billionaire moguls. Even before the Epstein story dropped on Thursday, Murdoch’s Journal continued to criticise Trump from the right over some of his early decisions.The justice department said in the court filings that it will work with prosecutors in New York to make appropriate redactions of victim-related information and other personally identifying information before transcripts are released.“Transparency in this process will not be at the expense of our obligation under the law to protect victims,” Todd Blanche, the US deputy attorney general wrote.But despite the new push to release the grand jury transcripts, the administration has not announced plans to reverse course and release other evidence in its possession. Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, had hyped the release of more materials after the first Epstein files disclosure in February sparked outrage because it contained no new revelations.A judge would have to approve the release of the grand jury transcripts, and it’s likely to be a lengthy process to decide what can become public and to make redactions to protect sensitive witness and victim information.The records would show testimony of witnesses and other evidence that was presented by prosecutions during the secret grand jury proceedings, when a panel decides whether there is enough evidence to bring an indictment, or a formal criminal charge.The US Department of Justice asked a federal court on Friday to unseal grand jury transcripts in Jeffrey Epstein’s case at the direction of Donald Trump amid a firestorm over the administration’s handling of records related to the wealthy financier.The move – coming a day after a Wall Street Journal story put a spotlight on Trump’s relationship with Epstein – seeks to contain a growing controversy that has engulfed the administration since it announced that it would not be releasing more government files from Epstein’s sex trafficking case.Todd Blanche, the US deputy attorney general, filed motions urging the court to unseal the Epstein transcripts as well as those in the case against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Epstein killed himself in 2019 shortly after his arrest while awaiting trial.The justice department’s announcement that it would not be making public any more Epstein files enraged parts of Trump’s base in part because members of his own administration had hyped the expected release and stoked conspiracies around the well-connected financier.Trump’s demand to release the grand jury transcripts came after the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday on a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album for Epstein’s 50th birthday.The letter bearing Trump’s name includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret,” according to the newspaper. The outlet described the contents of the letter but did not publish a photo showing it entirely.Trump denied writing the letter, calling it “false, malicious, and defamatory” and promised to sue. Trump said he spoke to both to the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its top editor, Emma Tucker, and told them the letter was “fake”.In other developments:

      Attorney general Pam Bondi called the case “a matter of public concern” in a formal request asking a federal judge to unseal grand jury transcripts from the 2019 investigation into Epstein, the late sex offender and longtime associate of Donald Trump.

      Dick Durbin, the senior Democrat on the senate judiciary committee wrote to Bondi to ask about the work of the 1,000 FBI personnel who reviewed approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in March. “My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned”, Durbin wrote. “What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?” he asked.

      Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.

      The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need. A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000.

      Marco Rubio, the secretary of state barred Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes from the United States in retaliation for the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil who has been charged for his role in allegedly leading an attempted coup following his loss in the 2022 election.

      Democrats are condemning CBS for its decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, noting the news comes a few days after its host criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling a $16m lawsuit with Donald Trump. Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who appeared as a guest on Colbert’s show on Thursday night, later wrote on social media: “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.” More

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      ‘The ghost of Epstein is haunting Trump’s presidency’: inside the ‘Maga’ revolt

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