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      US judge throws out criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James

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      A federal judge threw out the criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James on Monday, concluding that the prosecutor handling the cases was unlawfully appointed.Lindsey Halligan, who Trump named the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia in September, had “no lawful authority to present the indictment” against the former FBI director and New York attorney general, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, wrote in her opinion.“I conclude that the attorney general’s attempt to install Ms Halligan as Interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia was invalid and that Ms Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role since September 22, 2025,” Currie, who was appointed to the bench by Bill Clinton, wrote in her opinion. She added that “all actions flowing from Ms Halligan’s defective appointment” were “unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside”.The decision is a major win for Comey, who was charged with lying to Congress five years ago, and James, who was charged with mortgage fraud. Both unequivocally denied wrongdoing and said the cases were a thinly veiled effort by the Trump administration to punish them for opposing Trump.“I am heartened by today’s victory and grateful for the prayers and support I have received from around the country,” James said in a statement. “I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day.”Comey also praised the decision.“I’m grateful that the court ended the case against me which was a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence,” he said in a recorded video. “This case mattered to me personally, obviously, but it matters most because a message has to be sent that the president of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies.“I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again and my attitude is gonna be the same. I’m innocent, I am not afraid, and I believe in an independent federal judiciary,” he added.US attorneys must be confirmed by the Senate. Federal law allows the attorney general to appoint someone to serve on an acting basis for 120 days while a nomination is pending. Once that 120 day period is up, the law allows the judges on the district court where the prosecutor handles cases to appoint a top prosecutor.Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Siebert, began serving in the role on an interim basis in January. In May, at the end of the 120-day period, the judges in the eastern district of Virginia chose to extend his appointment. In September, Siebert was forced out of his role as it reportedly determined there was insufficient evidence to charge James with a crime. Trump installed Halligan, a White House aide with no prosecutorial experience in the role and Comey was indicted on charges of lying to Congress days later. Halligan then indicted James on allegations of mortgage fraud shortly after that.The Trump administration argued that the attorney general could simply revisit someone new every 120 days, but Currie said that would simply allow the attorney general to indefinitely appoint someone on an interim basis. The “text, structure, and history” of the law do not support the government’s argument she wrote.Currie dismissed both cases “without prejudice”, which means the government could theoretically try to bring the charges again under a properly appointed US attorney. But it is unclear if they could even do that in Comey’s case because the statute of limitations for the crime he is charged with passed on 30 September 2025.“The decision further indicates that because the indictment is void, the statute of limitations has run and there can be no further indictment,” said Patrick Fitzgerald, a lawyer for Comey. “The day when Mr Comey was indicted was a sad day for our government. Honest prosecutors were fired to clear the path for an unlawful prosecution. But today an independent judiciary vindicated our system of laws not just for Mr Comey but for all American citizens.”Halligan personally presented both cases to the grand jury and has been under intense scrutiny since taking her position. Last week, a judge overseeing the case questioned whether she had properly followed routine procedure in obtaining an indictment in Comey’s case. Prosecutors handling the case say they followed appropriate procedure.“The court’s order acknowledges what’s been clear about this case from the beginning. The president went to extreme measures to substitute one of his allies to bring these baseless charges after career prosecutors refused,” Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for James, said in a statement. “This case was not about justice or the law; it was about targeting Attorney General James for what she stood for and who she challenged. We will continue to challenge any further politically motivated charges through every lawful means available.” More

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      Surprise envoy pushing Ukraine ‘peace’ plan belies Vance influence on US policy

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      The US army secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration’s newest proposal to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine – but his ties to JD Vance have put a close ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president on the frontlines of Donald Trump’s latest push to end the war.Before his trip to Kyiv last week, Driscoll was not known for his role as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts at selling the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.His close ties to Vance, with whom he studied at Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more “respect” – now Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to cut a quick deal that local officials have described as a “capitulation”.After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump’s top advisers – including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.Vance has been a vocal booster of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.Vance’s early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia – while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow – were unsuccessful, and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches in which he accused them of “running from their voters” – who Vance said had anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump’s own constituency.But the new peace deal published last week closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration while the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin’s maximalist demands.In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote. “There is a fantasy that if we just give more money, more weapons, or more sanctions, victory is at hand.”“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people living in the real world.”It was also Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with bringing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.But his initial response to the deal was lukewarm: “Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend before the conference. “And achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.” More

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      Pentagon investigating US senator over call for troops to refuse illegal orders

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      The Pentagon says it is investigating the Arizona senator Mark Kelly for possible breaches of military law after the federal lawmaker joined a handful of other Democrats in a video calling for US troops to refuse unlawful orders.It is extraordinary for the Pentagon to directly threaten a sitting member of Congress with investigation. Until Donald Trump’s second presidency, the institution in charge of the US military had usually strived to appear apolitical.In a statement on Monday on social media announcing the investigation into Kelly, a veteran, the Pentagon cited a federal law that allows retired service members to be recalled to active duty on orders of the defense secretary for possible court martial or other measures. Kelly served in the US navy as a fighter pilot before going on to become an astronaut. He retired at the rank of captain.The Pentagon’s statement suggested that Kelly’s statements in the video interfered with the “loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces” by citing the federal law that prohibits such actions.“A thorough review of these allegations has been initiated to determine further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures,” the statement said.In the video that was posted last Tuesday, Kelly was one of six lawmakers who served in the military or intelligence community to speak “directly to members of the military”.Kelly told troops “you can refuse illegal orders” – and other lawmakers said that they needed troops to “stand up for our laws … our constitution.”A statement on Monday from Pete Hegseth, Trump’s defense secretary, said Kelly was the only video participant who remained subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).“The video … was despicable, reckless and false,” said the statement from Hegseth, whose defense department has rebranded itself the war department. “Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline’.“Kelly’s conduct brings discredit upon the armed forces and will be addressed appropriately.”A statement issued by Kelly said he learned of the investigation into him when the Pentagon posted about it on social media.“If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work,” Kelly’s statement said. “I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the constitution.”Kelly’s statement alluded to having experienced combat during his military career as well as having served as an astronaut for the US space agency, Nasa.“I had a missile blow up next to my jet and flew through anti-aircraft fire to drop bombs on enemy targets,” his statement said. “At Nasa, I launched on a rocket, commanded the space shuttle, and was part of the recovery mission that brought home the bodies of my astronaut classmates who died” during the 2003 Columbia space shuttle explosion.“I did all of this in service to this country that I love and has given me so much.”The US Manual for Courts-Martial states that the military requirement to obey orders “does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime”.Nonetheless, Trump reacted furiously to the video in question, writing on his Truth Social platform that Kelly and the others had engaged in “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH”. The president also reposted another Truth Social user who wrote, in part, “HANG THEM”.Active military members in the US – whose oath is to the constitution rather than the president – can indeed face execution for the crime of sedition. Civilians, meanwhile, can be fined and imprisoned for up to 20 years if found to have engaged in seditious conspiracy.Generally, Republican allies of Trump have supported his response while his philosophical opponents have condemned it.Kelly has since said Trump’s accusation of sedition made him fearful of his family’s safety, especially after his wife, Gabrielle Giffords, narrowly survived an attempted assassination while she was in Congress and meeting constituents in 2011.“This kind of language is dangerous, and it’s wrong,” Kelly said on Friday on MS NOW’s Morning Joe, when he also alluded to a number of instances of deadly political violence across the US in recent months.On Sunday’s edition of Face the Nation, Kelly added: “We’ve heard very little, basically crickets, from Republicans in the United States Congress about what the president has said about hanging members of Congress.” More

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      Trump hints support for fringe theory that Venezuela rigged 2020 election

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      Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to endorse the discredited conspiracy theory that Venezuela’s leadership controls electronic voting software worldwide and caused his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.White House officials have previously said that Trump’s increasingly bellicose policy toward Venezuela is driven by concerns about migration and the drug trade. But the president’s new comment, made on Truth Social, hints that his hostility to Venezuela may also be based on an outlandish, implausible theory ruled to be false by a judge in 2023.Fox News paid $787m in 2023 to Dominion Voting to settle a lawsuit that was based in part on identical claims about Venezuela’s supposed role in the 2020 election.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s remarks.Trump’s post came two days after the Guardian reported that Trump’s Department of Justice has been extensively interviewing conspiracists who are pushing the idea that Venezuela controls voting companies and flips votes to the candidates it favors.The US attorney in Puerto Rico, W Stephen Muldrow, has repeatedly interviewedthe former CIA officer Gary Berntsen and Venezuelan expatriate Martin Rodil, who claim to have proof of the scheme and the two have also briefed a taskforce out of Tampa. Berntsen, and author Ralph Pezzullo, were also guests on the podcast of far-right media personality Lara Logan on Friday.Trump on Sunday reposted the Logan podcast segment, and wrote:“We must focus all of our energy and might on ELECTION FRAUD!!”Trump did not specifically mention Venezuela, but the podcast was a rehash of the allegations and was built around a self published book called Stolen Elections, which recounts the theory.The post came as Trump has sent extensive military resources, including a navy aircraft carrier, to the region.On Monday the administration ramped up pressure, designating the Venezuelan-based so-called Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In July the treasury department had already named it a “specially designated global terrorist”.An indictment filed in 2020 alleged that the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, heads the reputed organization.“Who knows what the process is inside the White House,” said David M Rowe, a political science professor at Kenyon College who specializes in national security. “If it captures Trump’s attention, my understanding is it is part of the process. Trump needs to find justification in his own mind for war.”Rowe said that narcoterrorism claims about Venezuela have not resonated with Trump’s America First base, which has been reluctant to support overseas intervention. “As a kind of casus belli, a reason for war, narcoterrorism looks extremely weak. An attack on the American electoral system is stronger. If he can argue to the Maga movement that they did intervene in the US political system, it’s a stronger case for war,” he said.Berntsen, the ex-CIA officer promoting the theory, was asked by the Guardian on Monday about the president’s apparent affirmation of his theory, and replied: “The President knows this is NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORY, he knows the truth, evidence in possession of DOJ.”A Venezuelan opposition figure who supports strong action against Maduro but is dismissive of the election claims told the Guardian on condition of anonymity that proponents of the conspiracy theory are trying to take advantage of access to the administration. “I think there is someone inside the White House that these people have access to. They might be overselling this crap and there are people who refuse to let go of the 2020 election conspiracy bullshit.” More

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      Epstein survivors fighting for document release find themselves caught in party war

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      As the Jeffrey Epstein scandal has once again become a millstone around the neck of the Trump administration and forced a rare split between the US president and his Maga base, one group has gained little attention for its steadfast commitment to keeping the story alive beyond politics: Epstein’s victims.Despite the frequent efforts of lawmakers to harness the scandal for political purposes, the victims of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation have been a strong voice in keeping the focus on the impact of sexual abuse and on Epstein’s wide circle of allies across all sides of the US political and cultural landscape.Their effort was clearly on display last week when more than a dozen women visited the US Capitol to advocate for a vote to release the federal government’s files on the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. Trump had opposed the vote but reversed position in the face of a rebellion in his own party.In a video from World Without Exploitation, they held up photos of themselves as young women. Some recited their ages when they first met Epstein. “It’s time to bring the secrets out of the shadows. It’s time to shine a light into the darkness,” they said, adding in a text message: “Five administrations and we’re still in the dark.”In the event, the measure passed both houses of Congress and was quickly signed into law by Trump, giving the justice department 30 days to make all of its unclassified records, documents, and communications related to Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell publicly available.But, despite the efforts of the victims, politics is still being played with the issue.Some Epstein survivors who spoke at the Capitol were unconvinced that Trump’s turnaround to support the Epstein Files Transparency Act was genuine. “I can’t help but to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” Haley Robson said. “So with that being said, I want to relay this message to you: I am traumatized. I am not stupid.”Faced with a rebellion on the release issue by congressional Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, the president soon returned to the theme that Epstein is an issue that should scare Democrats. “The Democrats were Epstein’s friends, all of them,” Trump said prior to the vote. “And it’s a hoax, the whole thing is a hoax.”In a video announcing her surprise decision to leave Congress, Greene explicitly referred to the Epstein drama as an example of entrenched political forces that shaped her decision. “ Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked and used by rich, powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States,” she said, referring to Trump.There have emerged dissenting voices on whether either political party can be trusted on the Epstein issue and if either truly serves the purpose of exposing and preventing the exploitation of women, including the politically active Epstein victims. When one Democrat in Congress was revealed to have been texting with Epstein during a hearing, she escaped censure as her party strongly opposed any measure to punish her.“All you have to do is close your eyes, wake up, the wind blows in the other direction, and suddenly it’s the other party that claims to the party of women that cares about abuse,” said Wendy Murphy, a former sex crimes prosecutor who serves as a professor of sexual violence law at New England Law Boston.“There is zero consistency because we know it’s across party lines where the abuse comes from. This is really a male problem and not party or political problem. Neither party actually cares about women and neither party actually cares about victims.”Epstein victim Rina Oh, who attended the Capitol gathering last week, said: “I feel stuck in the middle. Everyone is pulling me from each side and I refuse to side with anyone.“I just want criminals who prey on children brought to justice, and that’s apolitical, because I don’t think predators pick out victims based on what political party they belong to,” she added.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a post on X last week, Murphy stated it plainly: “Anyone who thinks this is a left-right issue is a fool.”After all, one of the main consequences of a recent release of an Epstein document trove was that former Bill Clinton treasury secretary Larry Summers was forced to step back from board positions and teaching at Harvard after damaging correspondence with the sex abuser was released.And, of course, misogyny crosses party lines very easily.Murphy points to incidences including the Anita Hill hearings when Democrats, under committee chair Joe Biden, worked to smear her during confirmation hearings for then supreme court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991.In the ongoing partisan political morass of the Epstein case, there is a political benefit to keeping the pot boiling because both sides are in trouble, Murphy says.When the government-held documents are released sometime over the next month, she predicted, “the odds of the public getting what it thinks it’s getting are effectively zero. Continuing to boil the pot should make all of us wonder what’s actually going on behind the scenes.”She added: “We’ll probably never know. Anyone who thinks they know is just naive.” More

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      The ‘war on terror’ has killed millions. Trump is reviving it in Venezuela | Daniel Mendiola

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      For the last two months, US forces have amassed outside Venezuela and carried out a series of lethal strikes on civilian boats. The Trump White House has ordered these actions in the name of fighting “narco-terrorists” – a label apparently applicable to anyone suspected of participating in drug trafficking near Latin American coastlines. More than 80 people have already been killed in these pre-emptive strikes, and war hawks are calling for expanded military action to depose the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.Watching this play out, I am reminded of a passage from the geographer Stuart Elden’s award-winning 2009 book, Terror and Territory. In discussing how to study the “war on terror”, Elden observed that it did not make sense to study terrorism as something unique to non-state actors.“States clearly operate in ways that terrify,” Elden said. “The terrorism of non-state actors is a very small proportion of terrorism taken as a whole, with states having killed far more than those who oppose them.”A large body of research supports this claim.Researchers with Brown University’s Costs of War project, for example, have found that US-led interventions in the “war on terror” from 2001 to 2023 killed over 400,000 civilians in direct war violence. They also show evidence that when considering indirect deaths – for example, people in war zones dying from treatable medical conditions after clean water or medical infrastructure was destroyed – death toll estimates rise to at least 3.5m. Moreover, even beyond direct war zones, a recent study in the Lancet found that sanctions during the same period were also extremely deadly, causing as many as 500,000 excess deaths per year from 2010 to 2021.In short, we have already spent decades terrorizing civilian populations around the world in the name of fighting terror. This is well known, and yet the Trump White House is reinvigorating the “war on terror” anyway. Still more, it is trying to do it with even less oversight on the president’s license to kill than has been exercised in the past.While on the surface Trump’s second term has been characterized by a disorienting barrage of executive orders and culture war polemics, the administration has in fact been running a cohesive authoritarian playbook aimed at conferring near limitless powers to the presidency. These concerted efforts have played out in numerous policy arenas from immigration, to higher education, to economics, to even determining who is a citizen.Consistent with this pattern, Trump is asserting the same unchecked authority over the violent capacities of the US military.As I have written previously, a key tactic of the Trump White House has been eviscerating the oversight of the courts, making it impossible to impede the executive branch from continuing to break the law, even when it gets caught red-handed. However, another frequent strategy – perhaps less visible, though equally anathema to a system of limited government – has been to simply sidestep oversight by asserting that, even when law in theory places limits on presidential power, the exercise of this power is still “unquestioned”; according to this thinking, the executive branch apparently has the prerogative to interpret what those limits are.Of course, in a serious constitutional system, this would be preposterous. In practice, there would be no limits to presidential powers, rendering the constitution moot. Nonetheless, this is exactly the type of power that Trump is asserting over the military, both at home and abroad.The court case related to Trump’s efforts to suppress protests in Chicago using troops sheds critical light on how this strategy works. Federal law allows a president to deploy troops domestically if there is a “rebellion” that is making it impossible to “execute the laws of the United States”. Accordingly, some lower court judges have reasonably blocked the deployment of troops, finding that the administration has been unable to prove that these conditions were met. Just look at the facts: protests had on average only been about 50 people at a time, and they have clearly not made law enforcement impossible since ICE – the federal agency being protested – has vastly increased arrests during this time.True to form, however, Trump’s lawyers have argued that these details are irrelevant. In their view, there is actually no need to prove a rebellion is happening because the president has the authority to define rebellion anyway. In other words, the law might impose limits on how the president can use the military, but the president gets to decide what those limits are.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile lower courts have so far prevented this nakedly authoritarian legal theory from taking hold, the argument itself is still massively consequential: first, because an extremely Trump-friendly supreme court will hear the case soon and could very well endorse these claims; and second, because this is essentially the same logic that the Trump administration has used to justify killing civilians off the Latin American coast. Indeed, just as the Trump administration is asserting the exclusive right to define “rebellion” regardless of the facts on the ground – thus eliminating any real limits on the power to deploy troops domestically – the Trump White House is similarly asserting the unencumbered right to define “terrorist”, along with the corresponding right to take deadly action with virtually no outside oversight.In public statements, Trump has defended treating drug smugglers as terrorists by citing the harm done by drug overdoses, in effect suggesting that drug traffickers are directly killing US citizens. Ignoring the fact that Venezuela doesn’t produce fentanyl, the main driver of overdoses in the US, Trump has even gone so far as to float the mathematically impossible claim that each boat strike has saved 25,000 lives. Of course, officials have provided zero public evidence that the boats attacked were carrying drugs at all, much less tried to explain how blowing up boats would have any impact at all on drug abuse in the US.But again, why would they? The whole point of the argument is that such facts don’t matter because Trump simply has the unchecked authority to use lethal force. In fact, the justice department has suggested that officials do not even have to publicly list which foreign organizations are classified as killable terrorists, much less provide evidence to support this designation.Ultimately, Trump’s actions in and around Venezuela are best understood as a new phase in the “war on terror” – an ongoing tragedy that has already had deadly consequences for millions – though now with even fewer guardrails. The bottom line: Venezuela is not just some chess piece in an abstract game of geopolitics, and we are doing a disservice to humanity if we let war hawks in government and media spin it this way. We are talking about real people, and as very recent history shows, countless lives are at stake.

      Daniel Mendiola is a professor of Latin American history and migration studies at Vassar College More

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      Trump news at a glance: Democrats say they won’t be intimidated by president’s threats

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      Democratic senator Mark Kelly has said he refuses to be intimidated after US president Donald Trump accused a group of Democrats of “seditious behaviour punishable by death” in a series of social media posts.Kelly, one of several Democrats who released a message to military and intelligence personnel that they are not obligated to follow “illegal orders”, reiterated his call on Sunday, saying that Trump was “trying to intimidate us”. Kelly called on congressional Republicans to reject Trump’s threats.Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar condemned what she said was a “dangerous” response from the president.“What is dangerous is the president of the United States threatening these members of Congress with death,” she told Meet the Press on Sunday. “Literally, saying that they should be executed.”Here are the key stories at a glance.US senator slams Republicans’ silence on Trump’s violent threats to DemocratsSenator Mark Kelly on Sunday urged congressional Republicans to publicly reject Trump’s threats against him and five other Democratic lawmakers who stated that military personnel are not obligated to follow illegal commands.“We’ve heard very little, basically crickets, from Republicans in the United States Congress about what the president has said about hanging members of Congress,” Kelly, of Arizona, said on CBS’s Face the Nation.Read the full storyMamdani reiterates Trump is a ‘fascist’ days after cordial meetingZohran Mamdani has reiterated his view that the US president is a “fascist” and a “despot” just days after the pair had a surprisingly cordial meeting at the White House.Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the New York City mayor-elect was asked if he still considered Trump a threat to democracy. “Everything that I’ve said in the past I continue to believe,” Mamdani replied. “I think it is important in our politics that we don’t shy away from where we have disagreements.”Read the full storyMany prominent Maga personalities on X are based outside US, new tool revealsMany of the most influential personalities in the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement on X are based outside of the US, including in Russia, Nigeria and India, a new transparency feature on the social media site has revealed.The new tool – called “about this account” – became available on Friday to users of the Elon Musk-owned platform. It allows anyone to see where an account is located, when it joined the platform, how often its username has been changed and how the X app was downloaded.Read the full story‘That doesn’t exist’: Doge reportedly quietly disbanded ahead of scheduleThe “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has apparently been dissolved with eight months still remaining on its contract, ending a drawn-out campaign of invading federal agencies and firing thousands of federal workers.“That doesn’t exist,” the office of personnel management (OPM) director Scott Kupor told Reuters earlier this month when asked about Doge’s status, adding that it was no longer a “centralized entity”.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Jeffrey Epstein survivor condemns Trump for calling file release fight a “hoax”.

      ICE detained teenaged US citizen during school lunch break, family says
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 22 November 2025. More

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      in US Politics

      US senator slams Republicans’ silence on Trump’s violent threats to Democrats

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      Senator Mark Kelly on Sunday urged congressional Republicans to publicly reject Trump’s threats against him and five other Democratic lawmakers who stated that military personnel are not obligated to follow illegal commands.“We’ve heard very little, basically crickets, from Republicans in the United States Congress about what the president has said about hanging members of Congress,” Kelly, of Arizona, said on CBS’s Face the Nation.Kelly noted that both Donald Trump and Republican legislators had previously asked Democrats to moderate their language after the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September, asking: “What happened to that?”“His words carry tremendous weight, more so than anybody else in the country, and he should be aware of that, and because of what he says, there is now increased threats against us,” Kelly said of Trump’s accusations.Earlier in the week, Kelly and five other Democratic members of Congress released a video on X directed toward active-duty military and intelligence workers, stating: “Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.” All six participants have backgrounds in military or intelligence service. Kelly spent 25 years in the navy.Trump reacted on social media on Thursday, writing that the lawmakers should be arrested and tried for “seditious behavior”. In another post, he declared “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” and reposted a message saying “HANG THEM, GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!”In response, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic whip Katherine Clark, and Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar issued a joint statement condemning Trump’s remarks, emphasizing that “political violence has no place in America.”Kelly reiterated on Sunday that the president is “trying to intimidate us” and added: “I’m not going to be intimidated.”Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, in an interview on Meet the Press on Sunday, condemned Trump’s “dangerous” posts. “What is dangerous is the president of the United States threatening these members of Congress with death. Literally, saying that they should be executed,” Klobuchar said.Vice-president JD Vance also weighed in on Sunday, posting on X: “If the president hasn’t issued illegal orders, then members of Congress telling the military to defy the president is by definition illegal.” More