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    Bondi spars over Epstein but stays silent on Comey: takeaways from a tense hearing

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    In an often tense hearing before the Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, stood accused by Democrats of weaponizing the US Department of Justice, “fundamentally transforming” the department, and leaving “an enormous stain on American history” that it will take “decades to recover [from]”.Bondi criticized Democratic lawmakers in personal terms as she faced questions over the department’s enforcement efforts in Democratic-led cities, her mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, and inquiries into Donald Trump’s political adversaries. Here are the key takeaways from Bondi’s appearance.1. Democrats criticized Trump’s weaponization of the justice departmentBondi faced questions about her tenure at the department, as Democratic senators condemned the Trump administration for weaponizing the DoJ to investigate and prosecute Trump’s political enemies.“Our nation’s top law-enforcement agency has become a shield for the president and his political allies when they engage in misconduct,” Dick Durbin said. Durbin called Lindsey Halligan, the new US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, part of a “network of unqualified mega-loyalists masquerading as federal prosecutors”.“Attorney General Bondi: in eight short months, you have fundamentally transformed the justice department and left an enormous stain on American history. It will take decades to recover,” Durbin said.When asked by Amy Klobuchar whether she saw the president’s post on Truth Social, urging her to prosecute his political adversaries such as James Comey and Letitia James, as a “directive”, Bondi evaded the question.“President Trump is the most transparent president in American history,” Bondi said.She refused to “discuss personnel issues”, when Klobuchar asked about Bondi’s reported pushback to the president’s pressure campaign to remove Erik Siebert, Halligan’s predecessor. Bondi also refused to discuss the case against Comey, after Siebert said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the former FBI director.Adam Schiff said that the department, under Bondi’s leadership, had become Trump’s “personal sword and shield to go after his ever growing list of political enemies and to protect himself, his allies and associates”.Schiff is a noted adversary of the president, and served on the House select committee that investigated the Capitol insurrection. Bondi snapped at him when she refused to answer questions about the allegations against Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, for allegedly accepting $50,000 in bribes before Trump took office: “Deputy attorney general [Todd] Blanche and [FBI] director [Kash] Patel said that there was no evidence that Tom Homan committed a crime, yet now you’re putting his picture up to slander him.“If you worked for me, you would have been fired,” Bondi continued. “Will you apologize to Donald Trump for trying to impeach him?”2. Bondi refused to discuss the arrest of James ComeyIn a line of questioning by Richard Blumenthal, Bondi refused to discuss or disclose any conversations she may have had with the president in the lead-up to the indictment of Comey last month. Blumenthal said Bondi attended a dinner with Donald Trump, just days before the former FBI director was criminally charged.Bondi instead pushed back against the Democratic senator from Connecticut. “I find it so interesting that you didn’t bring any of this up during President Biden’s administration, when he was doing everything to protect Hunter Biden, his son,” she said.3. Bondi and Durbin sparred over EpsteinDurbin grilled Bondi as to why she made a public claim that the Epstein “client list” was “sitting” on her desk for review earlier this year, only to “produce already public information and no client list”.Bondi pushed back, saying she had “yet to review” the documents, and reaffirmed that there was no Epstein client list.Bondi sparred with Durbin, questioning why he “refused repeated Republican requests to release the Epstein flight logs in 2023 and 2024”. Durbin said Bondi’s claims were not accurate.“I did not refuse. One of the senators here wished to produce those logs, and I asked her to put it in writing, and she never did,” Durbin said, apparently referring to his Republican colleague Marsha Blackburn.4. Republicans focused on ‘Arctic Frost’ revelationsPam Bondi said that Operation Arctic Frost – an intelligence-gathering effort that led to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election – was “an unconstitutional, undemocratic abuse of power”.On Monday, several Republican lawmakers said the FBI gathered phone records from Republican senators. These records were obtained through a grand jury. Republicans have called this move part of the wider pattern of political weaponization of the previous administration.“This is the kind of conduct that shattered the American people’s faith in our government,” Bondi said at the hearing. “Our FBI is targeting violent criminals, child predators and other law breakers, not sitting senators who happen to be from the wrong political party.”Republican Josh Hawley also chimed in. “I’ve heard them say that Joe Biden never targeted his political enemies,” he said. “Huh? That’s interesting, because I could have sworn that yesterday we learned that the FBI tapped my phone.”5. Bondi said ‘national guard are on the way to Chicago’In a heated exchange with Durbin, Bondi refused to answer a question about whether she was consulted about Trump’s decision to send national guard troops to Illinois – the state that Durbin represents.“You voted to shut down the government, and you’re sitting here. Our law enforcement officers aren’t being paid. They’re out there working to protect you,” Bondi said, after declining to discuss internal conversations with the White House.“I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump. Currently the national guard are on the way to Chicago. If you’re not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will.” More

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      Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act as Bondi faces Senate – US politics live

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      Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics as Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy more troops into Democrat-led cities.“We have an insurrection act for a reason. If I had to enact it I would do that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, adding, “if people were being killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure I would do that.”It came after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily halted a National Guard deployment in Portland although troops from Texas could be deployed in Chicago as soon as today despite a lawsuit from Illinois against the move.Meanwhile, Pam Bondi is likely to grilled over troop deployments as she faces the Senate judiciary committee. The attorney general is also likely to face questions over the indictment last month of the former FBI director James Comey, deadly strikes on boats believed to be carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, as well as the brewing controversy over the release of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Trump is also due to welcome the Canadian PM, Mark Carney, to the White House with trade talks expected to be the main focus of discussions.Later, he will meet American-Israeli former hostage Edan Alexander as the world marks the two-year anniversary of the 7 October attacks. In Egypt, indirect talks are taking place between Israel and Hamas over Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.And, of course, this all comes amid the backdrop of the ongoing government shutdown, now entering its second week. Stay with us for all the latest developments.In other news:

      A career federal prosecutor in Virginia has told colleagues she does not believe there is probable cause to file criminal mortgage fraud charges against New York attorney general Letitia James, according to a person familiar with the matter. The prosecutor, Elizabeth Yusi, oversees major criminal cases in the Norfolk office for the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia and plans to soon present her conclusion to Lindsey Halligan, a Trump ally, who was installed as the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia last month.

      The US supreme court has declined to hear an appeal from Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell of her sex trafficking conviction. Maxwell in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and related crimes.

      The Trump administration said that funds from a US government program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports are set to expire as soon as Sunday because of the government shutdown.

      Jimmy Kimmel emerged as more popular than Donald Trump after a spat with the president’s administration temporarily left the talkshow host off the air in September, according to a recent poll.

      Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has urged Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on his country’s imports and sanctions against its officials, as the two men held what the Brazilian presidency called a “friendly” video call. More

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      Trump sets sights on liberal mega-donor George Soros: ‘A chilling message to other donors’

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      Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, said “everything is on the table” and left it there. But Donald Trump threw discretion to the wind and was far more specific about his choice of enemy to go after.“If you look at Soros, he’s at the top of everything,” the US president said.The gathering with reporters took place in the Oval Office last month as Trump ordered a crackdown on “leftwing terrorism” and threatened to investigate and prosecute those who financially support it.There is no evidence linking George Soros, a 95-year-old billionaire who has supported democratic causes around the world, or Reid Hoffman, who helped start PayPal and the networking site LinkedIn, to terrorism. But both are top donors to the Democratic party. And both were named by Trump as potential participants in a vast conspiracy to finance violent protesters against the government.It is no coincidence, critics say, that the president is intensifying his attacks on Soros little more than a year before the midterm elections for Congress. The billionaire has reportedly contributed more than $170m to help Democrats during the 2022 midterm cycle. A justice department investigation could deter both Soros and other would-be donors in 2026.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “Anyone who contributes to the Democrats can expect Soros treatment if they’re giving a large amount of money. We’ve seen Trump quite skillfully using intimidation and threats to bring prominent law firms, major universities and others to their knees. This is another effort to cower opposition. The point here is to make it harder for Democrats to raise money.”Soros has long been a go-to bogeyman for the right. He was born to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, in 1930 and emigrated to London after surviving the Nazi occupation of his home country. He moved to New York and, in 1970, founded Soros Fund Management, which grew into one of the most successful hedge funds in history. In 1992, he was dubbed the “man who broke the Bank of England” after short-selling $10bn worth of British pounds during the UK’s currency crisis.View image in fullscreenSoros began philanthropic work in the late 1970s, funding scholarships for Black South Africans under apartheid. In the 1980s, he provided support to dissidents and pro-democracy groups in communist eastern Europe. This work evolved into the Open Society Foundations (OSF), now one of the biggest funders of groups that support human rights, government transparency, public health and education in more than a hundred countries.Soros has donated more than $32bn to the OSF but in 2023 handed over its stewardship to his son Alex, who this summer married Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton and herself the target of rightwing conspiracy theories. Within the US, the OSF has supported groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Equal Justice Initiative, Indivisible, MoveOn, Planned Parenthood, the National Immigration Law Center and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.Patrick Gaspard, who was president of the OSF from 2017 to 2020, coinciding with Trump’s first term, said: “It’s hard to believe but at one point George’s work had bipartisan support. Republican senators and Congress members would meet with George Soros regularly, openly. They would tout his work in helping to bring down the iron curtain and help instill democracy in western Europe. They were proud to have the association.”That changed in 2004, when, disenchanted by the Iraq war, Soros emerged as a major backer of Democratic candidate John Kerry during his unsuccessful presidential campaign against George W Bush. He has since been a major donor to Democrats, giving $125m to one liberal Super Pac in 2021, according to the campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets.Republicans have megadonors of their own, including Miriam Adelson, Charles Koch, Timothy Mellon and Elon Musk, whose donation of more than $270m to Trump’s presidential campaign dwarfed Soros’s input. Even so, Soros’s influence has made him a frequent target of criticism and conspiracy theories, especially from rightwing groups and authoritarian governments.Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman from Georgia, posted on the X social media platform in 2023: “No other person has undermined our democracy more than George Soros. Why is [he] still allowed to maintain his citizenship?”The critiques often play on antisemitic tropes. Emily Tamkin, author of The Influence of Soros, said: “You couldn’t imagine a more perfect cartoon villain than Soros because he’s a foreigner, he works in finance, he lives in New York and, I would say most saliently, he’s Jewish, which means that you can have all sorts of stereotypes and conspiracies take hold without ever saying the word ‘Jewish’.”When Trump ally Viktor Orbán of Hungary was running for re-election in 2018, he targeted Soros with antisemitic dog whistles, saying: “We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world.”View image in fullscreenTamkin added: “This idea of the rootless cosmopolitan or the greedy New Yorker obsessed with money. ‘Globalist’ is one you’re hearing a lot. I don’t ever need to say the word ‘Jew’ for antisemitic synapses to light up, which helps these conspiracies travel extremely effectively. That’s exactly what we’re seeing now in the United States and we should be clear about that.”Soros has long been considered a villain by Trump and his conservative base. In August, the president said without evidence that Soros and his son should be charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or Rico, because of their alleged support for violent protests.Last month, the New York Times reported that the justice department has directed prosecutors to consider possible charges against the Open Society Foundations. Soros’s office sent a letter to “friends and colleagues” stating: “Allegations that George or OSF are in any way engaged in unlawful activity or in fomenting or promoting violence are 100% false.”Then, in the wake of charges against former FBI director James Comey, came Trump’s remarks in the Oval Office, suggesting that Soros and Hoffman could be prosecuted for sponsoring “professional anarchists and agitators”. There is no evidence to support these claims.Gaspard is not surprised that Trump is once again seeking to demonise George and Alex Soros. “Everyone knows – you can set your clock to it – that when the midterm elections come, when the presidential elections come, that family is going to be involved in some fashion in politics with capital ‘D’ Democrats,” he said.“Trump and those around him are interested in making the name toxic, the investments toxic, and to then find ways to destabilise what should be a source of strength for progressives and the centre left. Then this thing happens where the work of the philanthropy gets conflated with the rights of the individual to participate in American politics and to invest in national politics. That conflation is dangerous.”The move against Soros comes as Republicans face an uphill battle in next year’s midterms, when the party that holds the White House traditionally suffers losses. The jobs market is showing significant signs of weakening, consumer prices remain stubbornly high and this week the federal government shut down.But Trump has already intervened to protect his allies in Congress by pushing for the redrawing of congressional district maps, seeking to purge voter rolls, taking aim at mail-in voting and ordering the justice department to investigate ActBlue, the Democrats’ prime fundraising tool. The assault on Soros could be aimed at choking off money from bigger donors.Rick Wilson, a cofounder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “Right now Trump’s in a lot of trouble across the board politically: the job situation is terrible, the economy is crashing out, the Epstein files are still dividing the party. All these things have led to a moment where they need some bait and they need some distraction out there.“Soros is a great target for that and I’m sure it’s also trying to send a chilling message to any other Democratic donor that they should watch out or he’ll go after them. If they don’t avoid transgressing against Trump, they’ll be in the same spot that Soros finds himself in.”Wilson, a former Republican strategist, added: “It’s absolutely about scaring people and freaking people out and causing fear and suppressing free speech. They do not want people to fund campaigns or Super Pacs or organisations that oppose Trump or Trumpism or their movement and so they’re going to seek to punish people and scare them off.” More

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      The week in Trump absurdities: from Turkey’s ‘rigged elections’ to ‘your countries are going to hell’

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      In Donald Trump’s world there are weeks and then there are weeks. This one was a doozy. From declaring war on Tylenol to an escape with an escalator, Trump surpassed himself with his gaffes, outlandish statements and unhinged stunts – many of which involve decisions with real world consequences.This was the week in the theatre of the politically absurd:Saturday“Pam”, Trump wrote on social media, addressing Pam Bondi, the attorney general. The president demanded that Bondi pursue legal action against political adversaries including James Comey, a former FBI Director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, whose name he misspelled as “Leticia”.Pronouncing them “all guilty as hell”, Trump insisted: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.” But the president deleted his Truth Social post about an hour later, prompting speculation that he had been trying to send Bondi a direct message but hit the wrong button.SundaySpeaking at a memorial service for the killed rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, Trump delivered a message that stood in stark contrast to the event’s prevailing theme of reconciliation.The president recalled that Kirk had said he wanted his ideological opponents to know he loved them. “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” he said. “I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them, I’m sorry.”In another jarring moment during a singing of America the Beautiful, Trump performed a little dance as he stood beside Kirk’s grieving widow, Erika.MondayTrump directed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue new guidance advising pregnant women to avoid acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, citing an unproven link to autism.But “acetaminophen” proved tough to pronounce. “Effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians that the use of aceta – well, let’s see how we say that,” Trump said. “Acetam – enophin. Acetaminophen. Is that OK? Which is basically commonly known as Tylenol.”Pregnant women with a high fever should consult their doctors about taking a small dose, the president added. “If you can’t tough it out, if you can’t do it, that’s what you’re going to have to do. You’ll take a Tylenol, but it’ll be very sparingly. I think you shouldn’t take it.”A link between Tylenol and autism has not been established. Health experts pointed to a Swedish study published last year that tracked 2.4m births and found no evidence of an association between prenatal exposure to the drug and autism.TuesdayA decade after he descended a Trump Tower escalator to announce his run for president, Trump was stopped in his tracks at the UN headquarters in New York. He and his wife, Melania, had just stepped on an escalator when it abruptly stopped.In his address to the UN general assembly, Trump falsely claimed that he “ended seven wars” and bitterly complained that he never received a phone call from UN leaders. “All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that, on the way up, stopped right in the middle. If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen, but she’s in great shape. We’re both in good shape.”He added: “These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Thank you very much.”Trump also used the global stage to boast of US glory and chastise world leaders: “It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now. It’s – I can tell you. I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”WednesdayEscalator-gate escalated further. In a 357-word social media screed, Trump alleged: “A REAL DISGRACE took place at the United Nations yesterday – Not one, not two, but three very sinister events! This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”The escalator “stopped on a dime”, he wrote, expressing relief that he and the first lady “didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first”. Then, when Trump took the podium, his teleprompter went “stone cold dark”, he added.Then, after being forced to ad lib part of his speech to the general assembly, he asked his wife how he had done and she replied: “I couldn’t hear a word you said.”Trump demanded an immediate investigation, adding: “All security tapes at the escalator should be saved, especially the emergency stop button. The Secret Service is involved. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”The UN said a videographer from the US delegation who ran ahead of Trump may have inadvertently triggered the stop mechanism at the top of the escalator, while the White House was responsible for the teleprompter.ThursdayTrump kicked off an Oval Office meeting with the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by remarking: “We’ve been friends for a long time, actually, even for four years when I was in exile – unfairly, as it turns out. Rigged election.”Pointing at Erdoğan, he added: “He knows about rigged elections better than anybody.”During the meeting Trump also blamed the left for rising political violence, even though statistics show otherwise, and delivered a menacing warning: “I mean, bad things happen when they play these games and I give you a little clue: the right is a lot tougher than the left. But the right’s not doing this, they’re not doing it and they better not get them energised, because it won’t be good for the left.”Later, while signing executive orders, Trump veered off script to denounce Democratic congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who is Black. “Is she any relation to the late, great Davy Crockett? I don’t think so. Let me tell you before you even ask. She’s a very low IQ person.”Meanwhile he added a presidential walk of fame to the White House, featuring portraits of his himself and his predecessors – except for one. Instead of Joe Biden’s portrait, Trump hung a photo of an autopen signing the Democratic president’s name.FridayFour days from a looming government shutdown, Trump went to see US golfers take on Europe in the Ryder Cup. “The team is not doing so well,” he explained. “So, when I heard that I said, ‘Let’s get on the plane. We have to fly and help them.’”Trump also circled back to baseless medical advice, repeating his plea for pregnant women to stop using Tylenol. He also called for the measles-mumps-rubella combination vaccine to be split into separate shots, and for children not to get the hepatitis B vaccine, normally given in the first 24 hours after birth, before the age of 12 years.In a Truth Social post, the president wrote: “Pregnant Women, DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON, BREAK UP THE MMR SHOT INTO THREE TOTALLY SEPARATE SHOTS (NOT MIXED!), TAKE CHICKEN P SHOT SEPARATELY, TAKE HEPATITAS B SHOT AT 12 YEARS OLD, OR OLDER, AND, IMPORTANTLY, TAKE VACCINE IN 5 SEPARATE MEDICAL VISITS!”The advice from Trump goes against that of medical societies, which cite data from numerous studies and decades of practice. More

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      Trump picks his former lawyer to be top prosecutor, as he pushes Bondi to investigate foes

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      Donald Trump said he was appointing his former lawyer Lindsey Halligan to be US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia after an extraordinary outburst in which he overtly put pressure on his attorney general to more aggressively pursue senior public officials he regards as his political enemies.“Pam Bondi is doing a GREAT job as attorney general of the United States. She is very careful, very smart, loves our country, but needs a tough prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, like my recommendation, Lindsey Halligan, to get things moving,” Trump wrote on Truth Social post, announcing his decision.In an earlier online outburst that read as much like a direct message to Bondi as a public post, Trump demanded she appoint Halligan – his special assistant and a onetime beauty queen – to replace Erik Siebert, a former police officer and experienced prosecutor and US attorney who resigned after finding no grounds for prosecuting the New York attorney general, Letitia James.“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW,” Trump wrote.Halligan was among the lawyers who represented Trump in civil litigation after his Mar-a-Lago resort was raided in a search for classified documents.It was not immediately clear if Halligan would serve in the role on an interim basis before a confirmation vote by the US Senate.Prior to the announcement of Halligan’s appointment, Mary “Maggie” Cleary, a US justice department lawyer who once said Joe Biden’s presidential administration targeted her for being conservative, told colleagues she had been unexpectedly tapped for the post, according to an email seen by Reuters.Trump administration officials previously told Siebert that the president was frustrated his office had not yet brought criminal mortgage fraud charges against James, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The office is also involved in an investigation targeting James Comey, a former FBI director who like the New York attorney general is regarded as an enemy by Trump. That investigation is tied to the bureau’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.Regarding both officials, Siebert had previously said he did not believe the evidence was strong enough to bring charges, the sources told Reuters. More

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      Trump border czar Tom Homan reportedly accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents

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      The FBI reportedly recorded Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover agents who were posing as business contractors last year.A new report from MSNBC on Saturday reveals that the agents recorded Homan, six weeks before the 2024 election, allegedly promising to assist in securing government contracts across the border security industry during Trump’s second term.Six sources familiar with the matter told MSNBC that the FBI and justice department – then run by Joe Biden’s administration – had intended to hold off and assess whether Homan would follow through on his alleged promises after he was appointed as Trump’s border czar. However, the investigation stalled after Trump took office, and in recent weeks, officials appointed by Trump decided to close the case, according to MSNBC.According to the sources, a justice department official who was appointed by Trump called the case a “deep state” investigation.In a separate statement to MSNBC, the FBI director, Kash Patel, and the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said: “This matter originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and justice department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”They added: “The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations. As a result, the investigation has been closed.”The White House deputy press secretary, Abigail Jackson, told MSNBC the investigation was “blatantly political”. Jackson added that it was “yet another example of how the Biden Department of Justice was using its resources to target President Trump’s allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who flooded our country”.Homan was captured on video accepting $50,000 in cash at a meeting spot in Texas on 20 September 2024, according to an internal summary of the case reviewed by MSNBC and sources who spoke to the outlet.Four sources familiar with the matter told MSNBC that multiple federal officials believed they had a solid criminal case against Homan for conspiracy to commit bribery. However, since Homan was not a public official at the time he accepted the money and Trump had not yet become president, his actions did not meet the criteria for a standard bribery charge.Officials eventually decided to continue monitoring Homan once he joined Trump’s second presidential administration. MSNBC reports that officials had been looking at four potential criminal charges including conspiracy, bribery and two kinds of fraud, before Trump’s new justice department shut down the investigation.Homan, who was previously the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during Trump’s first term, was appointed by Trump to run what he has described as the “biggest deportation” project the US has ever seen. Prior to his appointment as border czar, Homan was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the Washington DC-based thinktank behind Project 2025.After the MSNBC report was published, Adam Schiff, a California Democratic senator and a former federal prosecutor, wrote on social media: “Border Czar Tom Homan was caught by the FBI accepting bribes – on camera – to deliver government contracts in exchange for $50,000 in cash. Pam Bondi knew. Kash Patel knew. Emil Bove knew. And they made the investigation go away. A corrupt attempt to conceal brazen graft.”In an angry outburst on his social media platform on Saturday night, Trump appeared to direct his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to appoint a White House aide, Lindsey Halligan, interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, so that she could seek criminal charges against Schiff and another of the president’s political rivals, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James. Trump has demanded that both Schiff and James be prosecuted on mortgage fraud claims both deny.On Friday, the prosecutor who was serving as the district’s interim US attorney, Erik Siebert, was forced out, reportedly for refusing to bring charges against James, due to a lack of evidence. Trump insisted on Saturday that he had fired Siebert for political reasons. Late Saturday, Trump announced that he would nominate Halligan, his former personal lawyer and a one-time contestant in the Miss Colorado USA beauty pageant now serving as a special assistant to the president, to replace Siebert. More

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      Judge rules ex-Trump lawyer unlawfully serving as US attorney in New Jersey

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      A federal judge ruled on Thursday that Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.In his order disqualifying Habba from prosecuting three defendants who challenged her appointment, chief US district judge Matthew Brann wrote: “The Executive branch has perpetuated Alina Habba’s appointment to act as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey through a novel series of legal and personnel moves.“Along the way, it has disagreed with the Judges of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and criminal defendants in that District about who should or may lead the office. Faced with the question of whether Ms Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not.”The judge found that Habba’s term as the interim US attorney ended in July, and the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep her in the role without getting confirmation from the US Senate did not follow procedures required by federal law.Brann said he is putting his order on hold pending an appeal.Habba, who unsuccessfully defended Trump in his New York fraud trial, also served as a frequent campaign surrogate for him in 2024.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAfter being appointed to the interim role in March, she said the state could “turn red”, a rare overt political expression from a prosecutor, and said she planned to investigate the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general.She then brought a trespassing charge, which was eventually dropped, against Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, stemming from a confrontation with federal agents during his visit to an immigration detention center. Habba later charged a Democratic representative, LaMonica McIver, with assault for resisting the detention of the mayor in the same incident, a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress other than for corruption. McIver denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.In late July, when Habba’s four-month temporary appointment was coming to a close, it became clear that she would not get support from home state senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, meaning her chances of Senate approval were nil.Trump then withdrew her nomination, and federal judges in New Jersey exercised their power under the law to replace Habba with a career prosecutor when Habba’s temporary appointment lapsed. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, retaliated by firing that prosecutor and moved to re-install Habba as acting US attorney.Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Washington DC and White House agree to scale back Trump ‘takeover’ of city police

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      White House officials and attorneys for Washington DC have agreed to scale back the Trump administration’s takeover of the city’s police department.Under an agreement announced early Friday evening, the US capital city’s Metropolitan police department will remain under the control of its chief, Pamela Smith, instead of Terry Cole, the top administrator for the Drug and Enforcement Administration (DEA), according to reports.A revised directive Bondi issued late on Friday referred to Cole instead as her “designee” for purposes of directing the DC mayor “to provide such services of the Metropolitan Police Department as the attorney general deems necessary and appropriate”.Those services, according to Bondi’s two-page order, would include assisting federal immigration enforcement, contrary to DC “sanctuary city” policies constraining metropolitan police department action on immigration.Friday’s pact would also allow the Trump administration to use Metropolitan police department officers for federal purposes in emergencies.It comes after Washington DC sought an emergency restraining order on Friday against Donald Trump’s takeover of its police department, dubbing it a “hostile takeover” of law enforcement in the nation’s capital. US district judge Ana C Reyes had signaled that she would issue a temporary restraining order scaling back the Trump White House’s takeover of DC’s metropolitan police if the administration did not alter the arrangement by Friday evening.Reyes, during oral arguments on Friday, expressed skepticism that the Trump administration has legal authority to run the city’s police force or that Cole could effectively take charge of the department as its chief.“I still do not understand on what basis the president, through the attorney general, through Mr. Cole, can say: ‘You, police department, can’t do anything unless I say you can,’” Reyes told a justice department lawyer.The District of Columbia attorney general, Brian Schwalb, filed a lawsuit on Friday morning, hours after the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, late on Thursday issued an order for the federal government to impose a new police chief on the city’s Metropolitan police department (MPD).Schwalb says the US president and his administration are going beyond legal federal power over the nation’s capital, and he wants a judge to rule that control of the police remains in district hands. The justice department and the White House haven’t commented.“By declaring a hostile takeover of MPD, the Administration is abusing its limited, temporary authority under the Home Rule Act,” the lawsuit says.The Trump administration named Cole as the “emergency police commissioner” over Washington DC – a move that further escalated federal control of the city – but were immediately challenged by local leaders, who then sued.Federalized national guard troops were ordered into the city four days ago as Donald Trump declared a crisis of crime and homelessness there, amid outrage from opponents.Bondi put Cole in charge of the capital’s police department, saying he would assume the “powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police”.She said police department personnel “must receive approval from Commissioner Cole” before issuing any orders. It was not immediately clear where the move left Smith, who works for the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser.Bowser promptly hit back, saying late on Thursday in a social media post: “In reference to the US Attorney General’s order, there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.”Bowser included a letter from Schwalb to Smith opining that Bondi’s order was “unlawful”and that Smith was “not legally obligated to follow it”.“Members of MPD must continue to follow your orders and not the orders of any official not appointed by the Mayor,” Schwalb wrote in the letter to Smith.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBondi’s directive came hours after Smith directed MPD officers to share information regarding people not in custody – such as someone involved in a traffic stop or checkpoint – with federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).But, as a so-called sanctuary city, DC police would still be prevented by local law from providing federal immigration agencies with the personal information of an undocumented person in MPD custody, including their release details, location or photos, and cannot arrest people on the basis of their immigration status or let immigration officials question subjects in police custody.But the justice department said Bondi disagreed with the police chief’s directive because it allowed for continued enforcement of “sanctuary policies”, and the US attorney general said she was rescinding Smith’s order.The DC power struggle is the latest move by the US president and his administration to test the limits of federal authority, relying on obscure statutes and a subjective declaration of a crisis to bolster a hardline approach to crime and immigration.Bondi also sent anti-sanctuary-city letters to the mayors of 32 cities and a handful of county executives across the US, warning that she intends to prosecute political leaders who are not in her view sufficiently supportive of immigration enforcement.Leaders in Democratic-led cities dispute the administration’s characterizations that their cities are overrun with lawlessness, including unhoused people with substance abuse and mental health issues contributing to an increase in homeless and tent encampments.They say that while Washington has grappled with spikes in violence and visible homelessness, the city’s homicide rate also ranks below those of several other major US cities and the capital is not in the throes of the public safety collapse the administration has portrayed.Trump earlier praised Smith’s directive to share information with federal agencies.“That’s a very positive thing. I have heard that just happened,” Trump said of Smith’s order. “That’s a great step. That’s a great step if they’re doing that.”Bowser, walking a tightrope between the Republican White House and the constituency of her largely Democratic city, was out of town on Thursday for a family commitment in Martha’s Vineyard, fetching her child from summer camp, but would be back on Friday, her office said.The Associated Press contributed reporting More