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      ‘It’s not safe in DC as an immigrant’: racial profiling surged during Trump’s Washington takeover

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      In the 30 days since Donald Trump took control of Washington DC’s police department and deployed national guard troops, the city has seen the indiscriminate detention of immigrants, the rise of racial profiling and the arrests of large numbers of people for low-level crimes.The US president claimed the takeover, which began on 11 August, was necessary because of violent crime in the country’s capital, especially after the attempted carjacking and assault of a former Doge staffer. “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,” Trump said during a news conference at the White House at the time.But although Washington DC has long struggled with gun violence, its violent crime rate is at a 30-year low, much lower than that of cities in red states. And the large majority of people affected by the federal takeover are not perpetrators of violent crime.Both groups targeted – immigrants and those accused of minor crimes – have been largely picked up by law enforcement through racial profiling and other tactics that experts say have instilled a climate of fear and a distrust of law enforcement.A White House official said on Monday that 2,120 people have been arrested since the start of Trump’s takeover, 20 known gang members had been arrested and 214 firearms had been seized. Although violent crime has decreased during this period, Washington residents say the impact has not been worth the overbearing law enforcement presence.View image in fullscreenFederal agents with numerous agencies, including Immigrations and customs enforcement (Ice), Customs and Border Protection, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Park Service, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the US marshals service have all been activated across the city. Often a single arrest will involve officers from multiple agencies and the local Metropolitan police department (MPD).Though the deployment of national guard troops from six states was the most high-profile aspect of the 30 days, the camo-clad troops, who are now armed, were largely focused on patrolling tourist sites and Union Station, the city’s main train station. With little work to be done, some were instructed to do landscaping and other “beautification” tasks.The Home Rule Act – which allowed Washington DC to establish a local government – only allows the president to take over the city’s police department for 30 days without approval from Congress, aspects of Trump’s actions are likely to continue past Wednesday. Mayor Muriel Bowser has issued an order for the MPD to coordinate with federal law enforcement to the “maximum extent allowable by law within the District”, and national guard troops reportedly may stay until the end of the year.Washington DC residents have pushed back against what many call an occupation, which is deeply unpopular in the largely Democratic city. On Saturday, thousands marched from Malcolm X park in Northwest DC to the White House in an event organized by Free DC, a community organization working to protect the city’s Home Rule that has trained thousands of people since 11 August.“Trump’s crackdown does not create safety, but its opposite,” said Scott Michelman, legal director for the ACLU of DC. “People are scared to go to their jobs, to drop off their kids at school, and to go about their daily lives because of the pervasive law enforcement and military presence that Trump has foisted on this city.”When Trump first announced the takeover of the local police department, he said cops will be allowed to do “whatever the hell they want”.Over the last 30 days, offenses that before 11 August would likely not have led to arrest have resulted in criminal charges, and federal law enforcement who have accompanied MPD have used policing tactics, such as car chases, check points, and stop and frisks, that MPD typically avoids and that experts say may violate the US constitution.“Anyone who has studied the history of policing in this country knows that that type of green light to pursue inchoate hunches, to use force, to stop people at random, falls most heavily on Black and brown people, and we have sadly but predictably seen that play out on the streets of the district,” Michelman said. “We’re deeply concerned that one of the primary effects of Trump’s surge and militarization of law enforcement in DC has been racial profiling.”While some communities, especially those that suffer from a disproportionate amount of violent crime, have been grateful for additional policing and patrolling, much of the activity has not targeted dangerous criminals.According to a Reuters analysis of records from Washington’s superior court from halfway through the takeover, the federal agents have been “converging in large numbers on low-level crimes such as marijuana use and public alcohol consumption”. More than half of the cases federal agents were involved in were minor offenses, including misdemeanors and felonies under Washington DC’s code, but not federal felonies.In the first two weeks, just over 30 cases were filed in federal court for more serious gun and drug-related charges. But many of the charges federal officials have tried to land have not stuck. Grand juries have refused to indict defendants at an unprecedented rate, and judges have also pushed back against the tactics.“This is perhaps one of the weakest requests for detention I have seen and something that, prior to two weeks ago, would have been unthinkable in this courthouse,” magistrate judge Zia M Faruqui said on 28 August.Faruqui has also called out police for racial profiling defendants. In one incident, she claimed a Black man was singled out by police because he was carrying a large bag.View image in fullscreen“It is without a doubt the most illegal search I’ve even seen in my life,” Faruqui said, according to NPR. “I’m absolutely flabbergasted at what has happened. A high school student would know this was an illegal search.”Michelman of the ACLU said: “We’ve heard of a sharp uptick in stops that appear to be inexplicable except by the individual’s race or personal appearance.”Maryland resident Brandon Worthan told the Guardian he was subjected to what he claims was an illegal search when he came to Washington on 27 August.The 38-year-old was waiting for his girlfriend outside her soon-to-be-opened bar on a quiet stretch of H St Northeast at about 9pm, and said he was speaking to another Black man on the street when roughly 30 to 40 vehicles suddenly pulled up. “Out of nowhere, I just got blitzed,” he said. “All kinds of unmarked police cars, MPD, Secret Service, all kinds of cop cars just pulled up on me and they didn’t ask me any questions.” He said he later saw vests identifying agents with the DEA, FBI, Ice, the US marshal service, and troops in military camo.According to video from the incident and Worthan’s account, officers grabbed his arms, put him in handcuffs, searched his body, and found a bottle of alcohol in his back pocket. “I wasn’t drinking the bottle,” he said. “I didn’t have it in my hand.”Worthan spent the night in the central cell block, where defendants are held temporarily until their court appearance. He said the room was filled with people arrested for similar low-level crimes, including smoking weed and simple assault. “It was, like, 200 people going to court that day,” he said. Worthan said he never saw a judge, and was released by 4pm the next day, with no charges filed.“He’s targeting minorities and people from different countries,” Worthan said about Trump. “It’s just crazy to see it on social media and TV, and then when they actually do it to me, I’m like wow this is really what’s going on.”“I think what’s happening is it is getting people to be off the streets because everyone is just like: ‘I could get messed with by the police for standing outside.’”Shortly after Trump’s 11 August announcement about his intentions in Washington DC, attorney general Pam Bondi instructed the local police department to work with federal immigration enforcement officials.A large part of the Trump administration’s action in Washington over the last 30 days has focused on detaining undocumented people. They have gone about this by setting up Ice checkpoints at busy intersections in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods and patrolling in specific locations, such as restaurants, churches, and schools, that tend to employ immigrants.Ice has reportedly teamed up with local police to target delivery drivers on mopeds, and videos have circulated the internet showing arrests of construction workers and other laborers as they drive or go about their jobs.“We have documented, time and time again, people being pulled over simply because they may be Brown or Black, they may look like an immigrant, they may be speaking Spanish,” said Amy Fischer, a court organizer with Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid in Washington DC.View image in fullscreenThe increased enforcement has created a culture of fear among the city’s immigrants, with many saying they have been afraid to leave their homes, go to work, walk down the street, drive their cars or take their children to school.“People are very very scared and are doing what they can to simply avoid being in DC,” Fisher said. “There simply is an understanding that it’s not safe to exist in DC as an immigrant.”Immigration enforcement has particularly targeted the Home Depot in Washington DC, like in other cities, due to the large number of undocumented day laborers who often gather outside. Emily, who wanted to be referred to using first name, said her neighbor in the Brookland neighborhood was detained on 11 August when he took his white work van to Home Depot to buy materials for a construction project. Ice has reportedly been targeting laborers in white vans across Washington.The man, who has three kids including a three-month-old baby, is being held in detention in Virginia and hasn’t seen his family since.“It took three of four days for him to show up in the system and know where he was,” Emily said.His business partner, with whom he also shares a house, is now extremely scared to be out, and is driving minivans to work instead of his typical white van.The Trump administration has said it plans to replicate some of what it did in Washington DC in other cities, including Chicago where it says an operation targeting immigrants is under way.Fischer said she doesn’t expect much to change in Washington DC, either, now that the 30 days are up. “We still expect MPD to work with Ice and to do immigration enforcement and things like checkpoints,” she said, and immigration enforcement may become a regular presence across the city.As a result, immigrants are unsure when they will feel safe being out in the city. “At this point, we have more questions than answers,” she said. 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      Leaked Ice document shows worker detained in Hyundai raid had valid visa

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      At least one of the Korean workers swept up in a massive immigration raid on a Hyundai Motor factory site in Georgia last week was living and working legally in the US, according to an internal federal government document obtained by the Guardian.Officials then “mandated” that he agree to be removed from the US despite not having violated his visa.The document shows that immigration officials are aware that someone with a valid visa was among the people arrested during the raid at the Hyundai factory and taken to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention for removal proceedings, where the people arrested remained on Tuesday before expected deportation flights back to South Korea.The document in question reports on the man’s case and was leaked exclusively to the Guardian. It was written by an Ice agent. The Guardian is redacting the identity of the man in question, who arrived in the US in June, because it has not been possible to reach him directly and it is unclear whether he has any legal representation.The document says that immigration agents from Atlanta “determined that [redacted] entered into the United States in [redacted], with a valid B1/B2 visa and [redacted] was employed at HL-GA Battery Company LLC as a contractor from the South Korean company SFA. From statements made and queries in law enforcement databases, [redacted] has not violated his visa; however, the Atlanta Field Office Director has mandated [redacted] be presented as a Voluntary Departure. [Redacted] has accepted voluntary departure despite not violating his B1/B2 visa requirements.”The internal file describes “an actual crime”, according to Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney based in Georgia – but with the crime allegedly being committed by the government, not the immigrant in question. Kuck, who is representing a number of people arrested during last week’s raid, said it is illegal to detain a valid visa holder in this way.“This is outrageous,” Kuck said.The document contradicts claims by the agency that all 475 people arrested during the raid were working illegally or violating their visas. Attorneys scrambling in recent days to provide representation to the men detained had already claimed that immigrants with a valid working status were swept up alongside the people allegedly working unlawfully, and placed in removal proceedings. That view was backed up by an agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive government matters.It is not yet clear whether other people with valid visas were detained in the raid, nor how many were actually alleged to be working illegally at the factory.Approximately 300 people arrested could be put on flights back to South Korea as early as Wednesday, according to one source familiar with events who requested anonymity to speak about what is going on behind the scenes. Non-Koreans arrested during the operation are expected to remain in Ice detention.Last Thursday, Ice led a raid at the Hyundai battery factory under construction in Ellabell, near Savannah, Georgia, and arrested nearly 500 people, the majority of whom were from South Korea, part of a $12.6bn investment program in Georgia by the company. Construction had to be halted on the plant that is designed to supply batteries for electric vehicles.A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the federal parent agency of Ice, said in a statement to the Guardian that: “This individual admitted to unauthorized work on a B1/B2 visa. He was offered voluntary departure and accepted it,” despite this being the opposite of what the leaked document says. When pressed for further clarification, DHS reiterated its first statement. Ice did not respond to a request for comment about legal workers being arrested.“This is a clear violation of the law in detaining somebody who is not lawfully detainable,” Kuck said. “That’s a crime – that’s unlawful imprisonment in the United States. This isn’t an accident. People go to prison for stuff like this.”According to the file written by an agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), an agency within Ice, the man entered the US “with a valid B1/B2 visa”, which allows for some business-related activities and tourism. He was at the Hyundai factory as a contractor with a South Korean company.“‘ Voluntarily’ means something different in immigration than it does in the real world,” Kuck said. “When you basically leave under Ice custody, then you have immigration consequences that come with that, including the loss of visa and possibly an inability to return [to the US].”After the raid, additional Ice officers and agents were sent to the detention facility to process the sheer number of people arrested, according to the agency official who spoke to the Guardian.Although officials say that the people arrested were in some violation of immigration laws, many others with valid legal status were offered voluntary departure, the official claimed. The official added that it is unclear what will happen with any legal immigrants who refuse to be deported voluntarily, since there is “no legal mechanism to remove them if they are not in violation” of US civil immigration laws. There is no suggestion that the Korean man in question has a criminal record in the US.“The arrest itself is illegal and this just might be a way of pushing up [arrest] numbers and covering up mistakes,” the official added.The raid angered the South Korean government, which announced billions of dollars of investment in the US following a new trade deal between the countries. On Sunday, the South Korean and US governments negotiated a deal to take the arrested workers home.“These workers were put in incredibly vulnerable positions,” said Samantha Hamilton, a litigation attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. She emphasized that the men have ended up imperiled simply by taking up the opportunity of work on what was an ambitious international project.DHS and Ice did not respond to requests for comment on allegations that they are pressuring the detainees to agree to be deported. More

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      Jump in US greenhouse gas pollution pushed global emissions higher – report

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      A jump in greenhouse gas pollution in the US helped push global emissions higher in the first half of this year. This could be an omen of what’s to come, with Donald Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda set to significantly slow down the emissions cuts required to avoid disastrous climate impacts, a new forecast has found.The “most abrupt shift in energy and climate policy in recent memory” that has occurred since Trump re-entered the White House will have profound consequences for the global climate crisis by slowing the pace of US emissions cuts by as much as half the rate achieved over the past two decades, the Rhodium Group forecast states.The US is still expected to reduce its planet-heat emissions by between 26% and 35% by 2035 compared with 2005 levels, according to the report. But this is well down from a 38% to 56% reduction by 2035, which Rhodium forecast just last year during Joe Biden’s presidency.None of these scenarios will be sufficient to allow the US, the world’s largest historic emitter of carbon pollution, to play its full part in helping the world avert a worsening climate breakdown coming from 2C (3.6F) or more in global heating.The US and other governments agreed a decade ago in Paris to avoid this threshold but are badly off-track in required emissions reductions, ahead of a key UN climate meeting in Brazil in November to thrash out new targets.Even under the best-case scenario, whereby fossil fuels become much more expensive and cheap renewable energy is swiftly deployed, the US will cut its emissions by just 43% by 2040, Rhodium found – well below Biden’s own pledged target, since jettisoned by Trump.In the worst case, in which clean energy is severely constrained by economic and political factors, US emissions could even tick up slightly at the end of 2030s, the report states.“That is very different to where we were before; it’s more than halving the pace of decarbonization we’ve had over the last two decades,” said Ben King, a director at Rhodium.“The US was already off-track in meeting its contribution to emissions cuts and this is now a fairly big step in the wrong direction. The emissions trajectory is now a lot worse because of this policy whiplash.”Under Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda, the federal government has thrown open vast areas of land and waters to drilling and mining, ditched the Paris targets and shredded almost all regulations that aim to limit greenhouse gas pollution and the emissions of other air toxins that harm people’s health.Trump has sought to hobble the clean energy sector in the US, signing a Republican spending bill that kills off incentives for new solar, wind and battery projects and instructing his administration to halt new renewables facilities, even if they were previously approved and nearly completed.“We don’t allow windmills and we don’t want the solar panels,” the president said recently. Trump, who has a longstanding animus towards wind after objecting to viewing “ugly” wind turbines from his Scottish golf course, has conversely praised “beautiful clean coal” and encouraged fossil fuel producers to bypass pollution rules.This stance towards renewables, despite the administration demanding more supply to meet growing electricity demand, has already had a tangible impact. Offshore wind farms have been halted, while plans for a battery factory in North Carolina have been canceled and a plant in Michigan has recently been closed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn all, nearly 65,000 clean energy jobs have been lost or stalled since Trump’s election, according to the Climate Power group, with household power bills rising as a result of the cuts to cheaper renewables.“Unfortunately, federal policy obstacles and restrictive mandates are threatening hundreds of billions in planned energy investment,” said Jason Grumet, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association, which last week reported solar installations had plummeted by a quarter in the first half of 2025.“The uncertainty created by new bureaucratic delays and unclear demands is having a chilling effect on the pipeline for future energy projects, stalling growth precisely when our nation needs more energy to power a growing economy.”The emissions impact of all of this will become obvious over the next couple of years, Rhodium’s King said. A preview of this can be seen in the first six months of the year, during which US emissions rose by 1.4% compared with the same period last year, according to Climate Trace.This bump in emissions, aided by a similar rise in Brazil, ensured that global emissions were slightly higher than the first half of 2024, a stark sign of the task ahead for governments in tackling the climate crisis without the leadership of the US, the world’s second largest emitter.“We won’t see the impacts of the Trump administration in the emissions data for a couple of years, I think,” said King.“But we are already seeing a slowdown in renewables installations and, to be honest, even a flatlining of emissions is a pretty bad indicator of the trajectory we need to be on.” More

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      Lisa Cook to remain at Federal Reserve while fighting Trump’s attempt to fire her, judge rules

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      A federal judge has ruled that Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook can stay in her post while suing Donald Trump over his unprecedented bid to fire her.Cook is legally challenging the US president after he sought to remove her, citing unconfirmed allegations of mortgage fraud, amid an extraordinary campaign by his administration to strengthen its control over the US central bank.She asked US district judge Jia Cobb to impose a temporary restraining order against Trump’s attempt to “immediately” dismiss her, pending further litigation. The administration has argued that Trump is able to fire Fed governors “for cause” and appoint replacements.Trump has spent months attacking the Fed, where most policymakers – including Cook – have so far defied his calls for interest rate cuts. He has spoken of rapidly building “a majority” on the central bank’s board, calling into question the future of its longstanding independence from political oversight.Trump moved to fire Cook after one of his allies, Bill Pulte, whom he tapped to lead the US Federal Housing Finance Agency, alleged she had claimed two different properties as primary residences when obtaining mortgages in 2021.“How can this woman be in charge of interest rates if she is allegedly lying to help her own interest rates?” Pulte wrote on X. He referred the case to the Department of Justice for investigation.After Cook declined to resign, Trump tried to remove her from the Fed’s board. The justice department is now looking into the allegations of mortgage fraud.In a court filing, Cook’s attorneys insisted she “did not ever commit mortgage fraud” as they outlined their case.Multiple federal agencies were provided details of Cook’s mortgage arrangements when she was first nominated, by Joe Biden, to join the Fed’s board in 2022, according to her representatives. “The Government has long known about the alleged facial inconsistencies in Governor Cook’s financial documents,” the filing said.On one background check form, for example, Cook said that she had listed one property in Michigan as a primary residence and another in Georgia as a second home.On a separate questionnaire, she listed both homes as her “present” residence; the Michigan property as her “current permanent residence”; and a third property, in Massachusetts, as both a present residence, but also a second home and rental property, she said. More

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      US supreme court to decide on legality of Trump’s sweeping global tariffs

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      The US supreme court agreed on Tuesday to decide the legality of Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, setting up a major test of one of the Republican president’s boldest assertions of executive power that has been central to his economic and trade agenda.The justices took up the justice department’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that Trump overstepped his authority in imposing most of his tariffs under a federal law meant for emergencies. The court swiftly acted after the administration last week asked it to review the case, which involves trillions of dollars in customs duties over the next decade.The court, which begins its next nine-month term on 6 October, placed the case on a fast track, scheduling oral arguments for the first week of November.The justices also agreed to hear a separate challenge to Trump’s tariffs brought by a family-owned toy company, Learning Resources.The US court of appeals for the federal circuit in Washington ruled on 29 August that Trump overreached in invoking a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose the tariffs, undercutting a major priority for the president in his second term. The tariffs, however, remain in effect during the appeal to the supreme court.The levies are part of a trade war instigated by Trump since he returned to the presidency in January that has alienated trading partners, increased volatility in financial markets and fueled global economic uncertainty.Trump has made tariffs a key foreign policy tool, using them to renegotiate trade deals, extract concessions and exert political pressure on other countries.Trump in April invoked the 1977 law in imposing tariffs on goods imported from individual countries to address trade deficits, as well as separate tariffs announced in February as economic leverage on China, Canada and Mexico to curb the trafficking of fentanyl and illicit drugs into the US.The law gives the president power to deal with “an unusual and extraordinary threat” amid a national emergency. It historically had been used for imposing sanctions on enemies or freezing their assets. Prior to Trump, the law had never been used to impose tariffs.Trump’s Department of Justice has argued that the law allows tariffs under emergency provisions that authorize a president to “regulate” imports.
      “The stakes in this case could not be higher,” the justice department said in a filing. Denying Trump‘s tariff power “would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defenses and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe”, it added.Trump has said that if he loses the case the US might have to unwind trade deals, causing the country to “suffer so greatly”.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported in August that the increased duties on imports from foreign countries could reduce the US national deficit by $4tn over the next decade. More

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      Israeli-Russian graduate student freed after 903 days in Hezbollah captivity

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      Israeli-Russian academic and Princeton student Elizabeth Tsurkov has been released after being kidnapped by Kata’ib Hezbollah and spending more than two years in captivity, Donald Trump said in a post on social media.“I am pleased to report that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton Student, whose sister is an American Citizen, was just released by Kata’ib Hezbollah (MILITANT Hezbollah), and is now safely in the American Embassy in Iraq after being tortured for many months. I will always fight for JUSTICE, and never give up. HAMAS, RELEASE THE HOSTAGES, NOW!” the US president wrote in a TruthSocial post on Tuesday.Tsurkov went missing for months in Iraq in early 2023 and was confirmed alive in July 2023. She holds Israeli and Russian passports and entered Iraq using her Russian passport, according to the Israeli government, to do academic research on behalf of Princeton.Israel said she was abducted in Baghdad by pro-Iranian militants in March 2023. A video featuring Tsurkov was broadcast on Iraqi television in November of that year. The circumstances of her release were not immediately clear. Press reports from May of this year indicated the US and Iraq were in talks on her release with Iraq.After Trump announced Tsurkov’s release on Tuesday, her sister Emma Tsurkov – who has long been a vocal advocate for her sibling’s freedom – wrote on X:“My entire family is incredibly happy. We cannot wait to see Elizabeth and give her all the love we have been waiting to share for 903 days. We are so thankful to President Trump and his Special Envoy, Adam Boehler. If Adam had not made my sister’s return his personal mission, I do not know where we would be. We also want to thank Josh Harris and his team at the US Embassy in Baghdad for the support they provided to our sister and the team at the nonprofit Global Reach who advocated relentlessly for my sister’s safe return.” More

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      Trump calls release of suggestive note to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein a ‘dead issue’

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      White House officials on Tuesday doubled down on their assertion that a sexually suggestive letter carrying what appeared to be Donald Trump’s signature that was included in a birthday book for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had not been signed by the president.The letter, and its drawing of a naked woman’s torso around an imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein, was part of a batch of documents released by the House oversight committee in response to a subpoena after its existence was first reported in July by the Wall Street Journal.The release of the letter and the entirety of the birthday book only intensified a furore that Trump has been attempting to shut down for months – and hardened the White House’s resolve to claim the purported Trump signature on the letter was a fabrication or a forgery.At a press briefing, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, denied Trump’s involvement in the letter and added that the White House would support an expert review of the signature to determine whether it had been done by Trump’s hand.“Three separate signature analysts who said this was not the president’s authentic signature and we have maintained that all along. The president did not write this letter, he did not sign this letter, and that’s why the president’s external legal team is pursuing litigation against the Wall Street Journal,” Leavitt said.View image in fullscreenMultiple White House officials have sought to distance Trump from the 2003 note since it was released on Monday by suggesting the signature did not resemble recent examples showing Trump, in recent years, signing both his first and last name in sharp, angular figures.But officials have declined to address the fact that before his time in office, Trump regularly used only his first name in signatures, stylized with a line extending from the last letter – and Trump’s signature on a letter from 1995 closely resembled the one found on the note to Epstein.Earlier on Monday, Trump declined to address the letter in an interview with NBC. “I don’t comment on something that’s a dead issue,” Trump said.At the briefing that gave rise to questions concerning Epstein and the Trump letter on several separate occasions, Leavitt also denied a claim by Republican House speaker Mike Johnson that Trump had been an FBI informant against Epstein.“I can affirm that is not true and I think the speaker was referring to the fact that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago property for reasons the president has already discussed,” Leavitt said.With the clamor over the Epstein files reignited on Capitol Hill following the release of the Epstein birthday book and other materials turned over to Congress by the lawyers for Epstein’s estate, the White House may yet face pressure to release the extent of the documents held by the justice department on the matter.Despite staunch opposition from the White House and Republican leaders, a bipartisan resolution directing the justice department to release all of its investigative files on Epstein appears headed to gain enough backers to force action on the House floor, provided two Democrats win special elections later this month.Over on Capitol Hill, top Republicans have joined the White House in alleging that it is not actually Donald Trump’s signature on a suggestive poem and drawing addressed to Jeffrey Epstein that was made public yesterday.“The White House says it’s not true,” House speaker Mike Johnson told PBS News, adding that he has not seen the artwork from Epstein’s birthday book, which was released by Democrats on the House oversight committee.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Republican chair of the oversight committee, James Comer, who has been leading an investigation into Epstein and the justice department’s handling of allegations of sex trafficking against Epstein, said he did not plan to investigate the veracity of Trump’s signature on the document.“Twenty-two years ago was when that was allegedly sent. So, I don’t think the oversight committee is going to invest in looking up something that was 22 years ago,” Comer told CNN.Republican representative and oversight committee member Tim Burchett also doubted that Trump had made the drawing and signed it – even though Trump has a history of making sketches in thick black pen.“I’ve never known Trump to be much of an artist,” he told CNN, adding that it was “so easy” to forge a signature.The extent of any additional exposure for Trump is unclear. A lawyer for Epstein’s estate told CNN that they would turn over additional materials to the committee “on a rolling basis” in response to the subpoena, while the justice department is expected to produce more records of its own.Survivors have slammed the Trump administration’s promise to investigate Epstein further, with nine attorneys telling the Guardian they have not even been contacted by the justice department, suggesting it is merely interested in “whitewashing” previous investigations.Maga influencers largely dismissed the release of the birthday book, claiming Trump’s signature in it was a forgery, despite what other publications have noted is the clear resemblance to Trump’s signature at the time.Trump has repeatedly dismissed concerns about the wider collection of Epstein files, referring to it in general terms as a “Democrat hoax” despite having campaigned in 2024 on releasing the same Epstein files. After he took office in January, Trump’s department of justice declared that no “client list” linking powerful individuals to Epstein’s crimes existed. More

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      What is the truth about Trump and Epstein? The story keeps getting murkier … | Arwa Mahdawi

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      You have to keep this hush-hush, OK? I have top-secret information to share. You know Donald Trump has been reluctant to release the Epstein files? Well, it’s not because there’s anything nefarious going on. Trump may be an adjudicated sexual predator accused of sexual misconduct by at least 27 women (all of which he denies), who publicly boasted in 2002 about how his “terrific” pal Jeffrey Epstein liked women “on the younger side”, but you shouldn’t read too much into all that. Nor should you overanalyse a Wall Street Journal report claiming White House officials told Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the files. Or that House Democrats have now released a sexually suggestive letter and drawing sent to Epstein in 2003 for his birthday that appears to show Trump’s signature, the same note the president has denied writing. Nor should you worry yourself with the photo that has been released showing Epstein holding a novelty check signed by Trump with the suggestion that Epstein “sold” him a woman for $22,500.No, the real reason Trump is being weird about Epstein is … drum roll, please … because the president may or may not have been covertly operating as an FBI informant and investigating the disgraced financier.To be clear: I did not learn this information by scrolling conspiracy theory subreddits at 3am. It comes via the highest levels of government. Last week, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, told a CNN reporter that the president cares deeply about justice for Epstein’s accusers. In fact, when Trump first heard “the rumour” about Epstein, he “kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago; he was an FBI informant to try and take this stuff down”.Why would Johnson make such an explosive and weird claim? Is it because he reckons Maga supporters, some of whom are angry about the president’s handling of the Epstein files, are gullible? With conspiratorial thinking on the rise, is he playing into a proclivity among certain voters to flip Occam’s razor and believe in the most complex explanation? (Macco’s razor, if you will.)Honestly, I don’t know what Johnson was thinking. Nor does anyone else; even the Trump administration was reportedly perplexed by the claim. And on Sunday, Johnson’s office delicately walked back his assertion in a statement: “The speaker is reiterating what the victims’ attorney said, which is that Donald Trump – who kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago – was the only one more than a decade ago willing to help prosecutors expose Epstein for being a disgusting child predator.”The attorney referenced is Brad Edwards, who represents a number of Epstein survivors and said last week that Trump was “friendly” to the cause before doing an “about-face”. As per the Washington Post, Trump “helped” Edwards with efforts against Epstein in 2009. Not quite the same as being an FBI informant.To give Trump his due, he did, as Johnson claimed, bar Epstein from Mar-a-Lago. This reportedly happened in 2007, after the latter behaved inappropriately towards a club member’s teenage daughter. And he doesn’t appear to have been friendly with the paedophile after his sex crime conviction in 2008 – unlike Bill Gates, who met Epstein multiple times after that.Epstein and Trump were good friends for at least 15 years, but there’s little record of them interacting after 2004. Rather than Trump’s concern for abused girls causing the falling out, it seems a bidding war over a Palm Beach mansion may have been to blame. In July, Trump also said he rowed with Epstein because the financier “stole” young women who worked for his Mar-a-Lago spa. The president seemed rather more upset about his “property” being taken than the safety of the women Epstein “stole”.Whatever happened between the pair, questions about their relationship are not going away. The White House is saying the suggestive birthday note is FAKE NEWS and part of a “Democrat hoax” – but is that landing with Maga supporters? Maybe it’s time for Team Trump to sit down and workshop some better deflections. Perhaps blame the brouhaha on an extraterrestrial plot or Hillary Clinton’s emails; anything to stop people from coming to the simplest possible explanation for why Trump wants to bury this story. “Enigma’s never age,” a line on Trump’s supposed birthday note reads. But this Epstein enigma is ageing like raw milk. If only it would sour voters on Trump. More