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    Saudi Arabia releases US retiree jailed over critical tweets

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    Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow US citizen Saad Almadi to return home to Florida, five months ahead of the scheduled lifting of travel restrictions and a day after Saudi crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman met Donald Trump at the White House.Almadi, 75, was sentenced to 19 years of incarceration in the kingdom in 2021 after he wrote 14 tweets critical of the Riyadh government. Two years later, the charges were reduced to so-called “cyber crimes” and he was sentenced to a 30-year ban on leaving Saudi Arabia.The announcement that Almadi, a dual citizen and retired engineer who had lived in the US since the 1970s, would be free to leave the country came after the US president delivered a speech touting US-Saudi ties, including arms sales and investment deals, during a second day of public events in Washington.“Our family is overjoyed that, after four long years, our father, Saad Almadi, is finally on his way home to the United States!” the Almadi family said in a statement.“This day would not have been possible without President Donald Trump and the tireless efforts of his administration. We are deeply grateful to Dr Sebastian Gorka and the team at the national security council, as well as everyone at the state department,” it added.The statement by Almadi’s son, Ibrahim Almadi, also thanked various non-profit organizations, including the James Foley Fund and Hostages America, and House speaker Mike Johnson for supporting the elder Almadi’s cause. He later posted on X that his father was on his way to the US.Almadi is one of a handful of American dual citizens facing exit bans from Saudi Arabia following a crackdown on online dissent. His son has previously claimed that Almadi was pressured to sign papers renouncing his US citizenship.The case against Almadi centered on social media posts in which he was alleged to have urged Saudi citizens to seek Lebanese citizenship and faulted the kingdom’s defenses against Houthi rocket strikes.More controversially he expressed approval for the renaming of a street in the US capital after Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist and Washington Post columnist killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.US intelligence reports released by the Biden administration later assessed that the crown prince had approved of a plan to “capture or kill” Khashoggi.Asked about the killing on Tuesday, Trump said the crown prince “knew nothing” of Khashoggi’s kiling. The Saudi crown prince has denied any wrongdoing. He said at the White House that Saudi Arabia “did all the right things” to investigate Khashoggi’s death, which he called “painful” and a “huge mistake”.US pressure to release Almadi and allow him to return to the US has been building since Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia in May. Many appealed to Trump claim that he is uniquely successful in repatriating US citizens detained overseas.When asked by a reporter in May about the case, Trump said he didn’t know about it but promised to take a look. A few weeks later, one of his national security aides, Gorka, met the younger Almadi at the White House.Johnson also met Almadi’s son. Johnson said: “President Trump is the president of deals and he loves to do business with the Saudis and we will win your father back.” More

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      Justice department will release Epstein files within 30 days, says US attorney general – US politics live

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      The US justice department will release files from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, attorney general Pam Bondi has said, after Congress voted nearly unanimously to force Donald Trump’s administration to make them public.The scandal has been a thorn in Trump’s side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he faced federal sex trafficking charges.At a news conference today, Bondi confirmed that the DOJ will release its Epstein-related material within 30 days, as required by legislation that passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate yesterday. “We will continue to follow the law and encourage maximum transparency,” she said.But that release may not be comprehensive, as the agency may have to hold back material that could impact Trump-ordered investigations of Democratic figures who associated with Epstein.The department will also protect the identities of any sex-trafficking victims whose names appear in the documents, she said.The FBI intercepted phone calls, texts and other electronic communications of people who work or have worked for the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, as part of a federal corruption investigation of his former chief of staff and two Democratic operatives, according to letters to the targets reviewed by The Los Angeles Times.The former aide to Newson, Dana Williamson was arrested last week on federal charges that she allegedly stole $225,000 from a dormant state campaign account of the state’s former attorney general, Xavier Becerra.According to the 23-count indictment, Williamson conspired with Becerra’s former chief deputy in the California attorney general’s office and ex-chief of staff Sean McCluskie, along with lobbyist Greg Campbell to bill Becerra’s dormant campaign account for bogus consulting services.Williamson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.Prosecutors said the investigation began three years ago, during the Biden administration.The legal notifications from the FBI, mandated by the 1968 Federal Wiretap Act, are sent out to people whose private communications have been captured on federal wiretaps after investigations.A spokesperson for Newsom’s office said the governor did not receive a letter and the governor is not involved in the case against Williamson. Newsom was not mentioned in the indictments against the three aides.As of 3.52pm ET, on a grey afternoon in Washington, we’ve yet to hear from the White House about whether the press will watch Donald Trump sign the bill directing the justice department to release unclassified documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.We’ll make sure to update you if that changes.The president has nominated a new director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), in a move that allows the current acting director, Russell Vought, who also serves as the director of the office of management and budget, to remain in his position and continue dismantling the agency.Trump’s decision to nominate Stuart Levenbach, an official in the budget office, as the permanent director provides a crucial loophole that allows Vought to stay put, three weeks before he would otherwise have to step aside. Federal law says that an acting official can only serve for 210 days, unless the president nominates another person for the position.Vought took over the CFPB earlier this year, and has consistently pushed for the watchdog’s elimination, including trying to fire most of its staff.Today, Elizabeth Warren – the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee – said that Levenbach’s nomination was “nothing more than a front for Russ Vought to stay on as acting director indefinitely as he tries to illegally close down the agency”.Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental activist who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, will run for California governor, he announced on Wednesday.The 68-year-old joins a crowded field of candidates seeking to replace Gavin Newsom, and in a statement released this week pledged to focus on the state’s intractable affordability crisis.“Californians deserve a life they can afford. But the Californians who make this state run are being run over by the cost of living. We need to get back to basics. And that means making corporations pay their fair share again,” Steyer said.With Newsom termed out from running again, several prominent Democrats have entered the race, including former congresswoman Katie Porter; Xavier Becerra, a former US cabinet member; Antonio Villaraigosa, a former state lawmaker who served as the LA mayor; and Betty Yee, who was the state controller from 2015 to 2023. Congressman Eric Swalwell is expected to announce plans to run.Porter was considered the frontrunner until October when video emerged of her appearing frustrated with a journalist during an interview with a local news outlet and threatening to walk out. In the aftermath of the incident, Republican Chad Bianco, the Riverside county sheriff who is running for governor, took the lead in polling. Steve Hilton, a former David Cameron adviser and Fox News host, is also running as a Republican.A majority of nationally registered voters said they would back a Democratic congressional candidate if the 2026 midterms were held today, according to a new poll by NPR/PBS News/Marist University.While 55% of respondents said they would support a Democrat, 41% would support the Republican, and 3% would back another candidate.Notably, 39% of the Americans surveyed said that they blame Democrats for the record-breaking government shutdown. Trump received 34% of the responsibility, while 26% blame congressional Republicans.

      The US justice department will release files from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, has said, after Congress voted nearly unanimously to force Donald Trump’s administration to make them public. At a news conference today, Bondi confirmed that the justice department will release its Epstein-related material within 30 days, as required by legislation that passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate yesterday. “We will continue to follow the law and encourage maximum transparency,” she said.

      However, the department may have to hold back material that could affect Trump-ordered investigations of Democratic figures who associated with Epstein. They could argue that releasing certain documents would be prejudicial.

      The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has said it will not release a full US jobs report for the month of October, following the country’s longest ever federal government shutdown. Instead, the available figures will be published with November’s data in mid-December, the BLS said. The October data is expected to show negative job growth after about 100,000 federal workers participated in the deferred-resignation program and formally left payrolls in late September during the shutdown.

      In federal court today, Lindsey Halligan, the president’s handpicked choice for interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, and another prosecutor acknowledged that the entire grand jury never saw the final indictment against James Comey. Halligan charged the former FBI director with lying to Congress in September. But when the prosecution was questioned by Judge Michael Nachmanoff today, they admitted that the a new version of the indictment was not presented to the full panel after it rejected one of the charges.

      The US has signalled to Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine must accept a US-drafted framework to end Russia’s war that proposes Kyiv giving up territory and some weapons, two people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. The sources, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the proposals included cutting the size of Ukraine’s armed forces, among other things. Washington wants Kyiv to accept the main points, the sources said.
      In federal court today, Lindsey Halligan (the president’s handpicked choice for interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia) and another prosecutor acknowledged that the entire grand jury never saw the final indictment against James Comey.Halligan charged the former FBI director with lying to Congress in September. But when the prosecution was probed by Judge Michael Nachmanoff today, they admitted that the a new version of the indictment was not presented to the full panel, after they rejected one of the charges. Instead, Halligan gave the grand jury’s foreperson an updated version to sign. “The foreperson and another grand juror was also present,” she confirmed to Nachmanoff.“There is no indictment,” said Comey’s attorney Michael Dreeben, arguing that this error is grounds for dismissal.A Republican attempt to censure Stacey Plaskett, a Democratic delegate, over her real-time texts with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein collapsed on the House floor on Tuesday night, prompting a confrontation on the chamber floor and accusations that party leaders had struck a deal to protect members on both sides facing ethics controversies.The measure, which would have formally reprimanded Plaskett and removed her from the House intelligence committee over her text message exchanges with Epstein during a hearing, failed by a vote of 209 to 214.Republicans Don Bacon of Nebraska, Lance Gooden of Texas and Dave Joyce of Ohio voted with all Democrats against the resolution, while three other Republicans voted present.When newly released materials exposed Plaskett, a Democrat from the US Virgin Islands, for exchanging real-time messages with Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing, all Democrats voted against her censure.Then, immediately after the vote, Democrats withdrew a planned censure resolution against Cory Mills, a Florida Republican representative facing allegations of stolen valor, financial misconduct and domestic abuse. Mills has denied the accusations.The sequence prompted Lauren Boebert, a representative of Colorado, to shout at fellow Republicans on the House floor, wagging her finger and at one point directly confronting Mills.Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican representative from Florida, attempted to raise a parliamentary inquiry asking Mike Johnson, the House speaker, to “explain why leadership on both sides, both Democrat and Republican, are cutting back-end deals to cover up public corruption in the House of Representatives”.“Get it, girl,” Boebert shouted in response.The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has said it will not release a full US jobs report for the month of October, following the country’s longest ever federal government shutdown.Instead, the available figures will be published with November’s data in mid-December, the BLS said.The October data is expected to show negative job growth after around 100,000 federal workers participated in the deferred resignation program and formally left payrolls in late September during the shutdown.The announcement will have major implications for the Federal Reserve, whose officials are debating whether to lower interest rates again when they meet next month.On this the New York Times notes: “Policymakers have grown more divided in recent weeks, with those inclined to cut rates emphasizing their concerns about the labor market and those hesitant to make a move focusing on the risks posed by inflation reaccelerating again. Typically, new economic data would help to resolve some of those differences. But the Fed will not have much new data in hand much new data before it has to make its decision on 10 December.”The US justice department will release files from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, attorney general Pam Bondi has said, after Congress voted nearly unanimously to force Donald Trump’s administration to make them public.The scandal has been a thorn in Trump’s side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he faced federal sex trafficking charges.At a news conference today, Bondi confirmed that the DOJ will release its Epstein-related material within 30 days, as required by legislation that passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate yesterday. “We will continue to follow the law and encourage maximum transparency,” she said.But that release may not be comprehensive, as the agency may have to hold back material that could impact Trump-ordered investigations of Democratic figures who associated with Epstein.The department will also protect the identities of any sex-trafficking victims whose names appear in the documents, she said.The US president says the United States is “going to be selling Saudi Arabia some of the greatest military equipment ever built” and says “the airplanes” would be “approved very quickly”.Yesterday, Trump confirmed the US would sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, marking the first sale of the advanced fighter jets to a Middle Eastern state other than Israel.Trump also says that $270bn in agreements and sales were being signed between “dozens of companies” today.Trump reiterates that he signed an agreement designating Saudi Arabia a major non-Nato ally at last night’s dinner with the crown prince.“We’re taking our military cooperation to even greater heights by formally designating Saudi Arabia as a major, non-Nato ally, which is something that is very important to them,” Trump said last night.The US currently has 19 other countries listed as major non-Nato allies, including Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.“A stronger and more capable alliance will advance the interests of both countries, and it will serve the highest interest of peace,” Trump said during the dinner.Donald Trump and Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, have been delivering remarks to the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center. I’ll bring you any key lines that come out of that here.The US has signalled to Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine must accept a US-drafted framework to end Russia’s war which proposes Kyiv giving up territory and some weapons, two people familiar with the matter have told Reuters.The sources, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the proposals included cutting the size of Ukraine’s armed forces, among other things. Washington wants Kyiv to accept the main points, the sources said.Earlier, we covered Axios’s report of a secret US 28-point peace plan, hammered out with Russia (and without any direct input from Ukraine and other European allies), that is now on the table to end the war. According to Axios’s sources, the plan’s 28 points fall into four general buckets: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future US relations with Russia and Ukraine.And this morning, Politico reported, citing a senior White House official, that “they expect a framework for ending the conflict to be agreed by all parties by the end of this month – and possibly ‘as soon as this week’”.Trump administration officials told the outlet last night that they were on the brink of a major breakthrough and it seemed as though the plan would be presented to Zelenskyy as a fait accompli.“What we are going to present [to Ukraine] is reasonable,” the senior White House official told Politico, with the mood in the administration one in which Zelenskyy, under pressure on the battlefield and at home in the face of a mounting corruption scandal, must accept what’s on offer.You can follow my colleague Jakub Krupa’s coverage of the war here:Lawyers for James Comey are arguing that the case against the former FBI director is nothing more than a personal attack, born out of Donald Trump’s desire to prosecute his political adversary.“This is an extraordinary case and it merits an extraordinary remedy,” Comey’s defense lawyer, Michael Dreeben, said today at a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Dreeben added that the president’s public comments about Comey are “effectively an admission that this is a political prosecution and not based on evidence”.A reminder that Comey is charged with lying to Congress in 2020, and has pleaded not guilty.On Monday, another federal judge found evidence of “government misconduct” in how Lindsey Halligan, the interim US attorney general for the eastern district of Virginia, secured criminal charges against the former FBI director, and ordered that grand jury materials be turned over to Comey’s defense team.Later today, we’re expecting a vote in the House that would repeal a provision tucked into the stopgap spending bill passed last week (which ended the record-breaking government shutdown) that allows senators to sue the federal government because their phone records were subpoenaed in 2023 by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Most Republicans in the House have derided the measure, while the Senate majority leader, John Thune, remained convinced it was necessary. “The House is going to do what they’re going to do with it,” he said of the lower chamber lawmakers. “It doesn’t apply to them.” However, a number of GOP senators have indicated they’re happy to do away with the provision. This even includes some of the eight lawmakers whose phone data the FBI sought and obtained as part of Jack Smith’s investigation.That vote is currently scheduled for 8:15pm ET.The Senate has now officially received the bill, passed in the House, which calls on the justice department to release the complete Epstein files. On Tuesday the upper chamber passed the legislation with unanimous consent – which means it now heads directly to Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.As I noted in my last post, we’re not clear on when that will be, since his schedule hasn’t been updated. More

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      Full grand jury didn’t see final Comey indictment, prosecutors admit

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      Federal prosecutors on Wednesday said they had never presented the final version of the indictment filed against James Comey to a full federal grand jury, a concession that adds to mounting challenges in their effort to prosecute the former FBI director.Prosecutors acknowledged the omission during a Wednesday hearing in which Comey’s lawyers argued the case against him should be dismissed because it was a selective and vindictive prosecution.Comey was indicted on 26 September on one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstructing a congressional proceeding in connection with testimony he gave in 2020 in which he said he had not “authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports” regarding Hillary Clinton.Court documents from September show that Lindsey Halligan, a Trump ally installed as a top prosecutor in the case, had sought an additional false statement charge against Comey, but that grand jurors had rejected it.Once the grand jury rejected the charge, Halligan could have had the full grand jury vote again on a copy of the indictment that only included the two charges they voted to indict on, or presented the judge with a three-count indictment crossing out the count on which the grand jury had chosen not to indict on. But, pressed on Wednesday by Michael Nachmanoff, the US district judge overseeing the case, Halligan confirmed that only the foreperson and another grand juror had seen the revised indictment that had only the two charges the grand jury had voted to indict on, CNN and Lawfare reported on Wednesday.Comey’s team therefore views the indictment as null. “There is no indictment Mr Comey is facing,” Michael Dreeben, one of Comey’s lawyers said in court on Wednesday. N Tyler Lemons, an assistant US attorney handling the case, argued that there wasn’t a problem because the final version of the indictment merely removed a charge rejected by the grand jury. “The new indictment wasn’t a new indictment,” he said, according to the Washington Post.Andrew Tessman, a former federal prosecutor in West Virginia and Washington DC, said he saw the issue as “highly problematic” and a “fatal flaw”. “This is just not how grand jury operates,” he said.Halligan is a former insurance lawyer who presented the case to the grand jury herself despite never having previously handled a criminal case.A transcript of the hearing in which the indictment was returned in Comey’s case obtained by CBS News shows some confusion over the indictment. The magistrate judge overseeing it said she had been given two versions of the indictment.“The reason we want to cross all of our T’s and dot all of our I’s in these situations is because the court is also going to take it very seriously for the same reasons. And if you screw up one step in this process, then you’re risking the whole case going away in an embarrassing fashion,” Tessman said. “The US attorney’s office is going to take this whole process very seriously, but the court is going to take it even more seriously. And if they see one thing wrong with how the case was presented to the grand jury, they’re going to err on the side of protecting people’s constitutional rights.”“It’s understandable. You pulled a random insurance lawyer off the street and you put her into the grand jury with no training and no other experienced attorney there,” he added. “It’s not surprising at all that some big mistake was made.”Nachmanoff gave the justice department until 5pm on Wednesday to further explain what happened.Before Trump installed Halligan, it was widely reported that career prosecutors believed there was not sufficient evidence to charge Comey with a crime. On Wednesday, Lemons said the deputy attorney general’s office had instructed him not to disclose whether a memo outlining the reasons for not prosecuting the case existed.Wednesday’s hearing came days after a magistrate judge handling the case said there may have been “government misconduct” and that Halligan made at least two “fundamental and highly prejudicial” misstatements of law to the grand jury. The magistrate judge ordered the prosecutors to take the highly unusual step of turning over grand jury materials to Comey’s team. That order is on hold while an appeal is pending. More

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      Is Trump’s remarkable run of fealty coming to an end?

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      “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody,” Donald Trump claimed in 2016, “and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” Coming two weeks before the Iowa caucus, it was an unusual message from a politician, but the last nine years have served to underscore the point.His “Make America great again” base, and the bulk of the Republican party, stood with him through (deep breath): two impeachments, children in cages, “very fine people on both sides”, 34 felony convictions, an insurrection, “shithole countries”, attempting to overturn an election, hush money payments to an adult film actor, “they’re rapists”, a brutal immigration crackdown, Four Seasons Total Landscaping, “grab ‘em by the pussy”, billions of dollars made by the Trump family, cosying up to dictators, “don’t look!”, mass pardons for his allies and friends, an unfinished wall, “liberation day”, presenting himself as a king, forcing Donald Trump Jr into the public consciousness, and more.Trump has enjoyed a remarkable run of fealty, both from his rank and file supporters and from an obsequious GOP. But nothing lasts forever. To paraphrase Batman, you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself lose party support over your handling of documents related to your former friend, a convicted paedophile.Yes, it is the Jeffrey Epstein saga that has led to the biggest fissure yet between Trump and his base. Trump wanted House Republicans to vote against releasing the Epstein files this week, but as many as 100 of them were prepared to defy the president, the biggest act of disobedience Trump has faced in his second term . That forced the president into an embarrassing U-turn: after telling Republicans to vote no on releasing the files, Trump abruptly ordered them all to vote yes.There have been signs elsewhere that Trump’s iron grip over his party might be failing. Trump was desperate for Republicans in Indiana to redraw their voting map so the GOP could pick up another House seat next year, but enough Republican lawmakers resisted that the old maps remain in place.
      Trump has responded to the insubordination in the ways he knows best: pettiness and cruelty.
      He wanted Republicans in the Senate to abolish the filibuster. That didn’t happen either, while there was uproar from rightwing figures last week over a proposal to introduce 50-year mortgages.Trump has responded to the insubordination in the ways he knows best: pettiness and cruelty.Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky who has defied Trump on several issues, was one of the first to feel the president’s ire. Trump, 79, responded to news that Massie had recently married by claiming that “[Massie’s] wife will soon find out that she’s stuck with a LOSER!”.Rod Bray, a Republican in the Indiana state senate, was dismissed as “weak and pathetic” in a Truth Social post, while Trump also bared his claws at Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman who broke with him over Epstein. Greene was subjected to a lengthy and confusing analogy about how, actually, her name should be Marjorie Taylor Brown, because “Green turns to Brown where there is ROT involved!”But as Trump has flailed around looking for someone to shout at, it’s the media, his familiar old foe, which has drawn the sharpest attacks .skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenTrump shrugged off the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House, telling a journalist who asked about it: “You don’t have to embarrass our guest.”“Quiet piggy,” he told a female reporter on Friday, after she asked him why, if there was nothing in the Epstein files, Trump didn’t want them released. On Tuesday, after an ABC reporter asked why he won’t release the files immediately, Trump called her a “terrible person and a terrible reporter”.The president added: “People are wise to your hoax and ABC is – uh, your company, your crappy company, is one of the perpetrators. And I’ll tell you something, I’ll tell you something, I think the license should be taken away from ABC. Because your news is so fake, and it’s so wrong, and we have a great commissioner, chairman who should look at that.”In the midst of the childlike insults, this one had some real malice. Trump was never likely to shoot someone in middle of Fifth Avenue, but he has waged a war on the media: pressing CBS News and Disney into coughing up $16m through lawsuits, threatening legal action against CNN, and lobbying for late-night hosts to be kicked off air.At a time when Republicans appear less likely than ever before to submit to Trump’s demands, it’s corporate media bosses who are seeming subservient. Plenty of reporters have, so far, stood up to the president. But with Trump increasingly angry and vengeful, will an independent press be able to stand firm? We’ll see. More

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      FBI worker says he was wrongfully terminated for having Pride flag at desk

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      A longtime FBI employee has filed a lawsuit alleging that he was fired for displaying a Pride flag at his desk, naming FBI director Kash Patel, the justice department and attorney general Pam Bondi as defendants.According to David Maltinsky, an intelligence specialist who had served with the bureau for 16 years, his wrongful termination earlier this year was “unconstitutional and politically motivated”.The lawsuit claims the FBI violated Maltinsky’s first amendment rights and took retaliatory action against him for engaging in protected speech. Maltinsky is seeking a court order to restore his job.Maltinsky’s 18-page complaint, filed on Wednesday in the US district court for the District of Columbia, alleges that he was dismissed from the FBI academy last month for previously displaying the flag at his workstation with the support and permission of his supervisors.According to the complaint, the Pride flag, which the bureau flew from its flagpole in front of its Los Angeles building, was given to Maltinsky in recognition of his efforts to support the FBI’s diversity initiatives.“From a young age, all I have wanted to do is serve my country and ensure its security alongside the brilliant and dedicated men and women of the FBI,” said Maltinsky, who joined the bureau in 2009 and spent more than a decade supporting public corruption and cybercrime investigations including North Korea’s cyberattack on Sony Pictures in 2014.“I displayed that Pride flag – which in 2021 flew in front of the Wilshire federal building – not as a political statement, but as a symbol of inclusion, unity and equal service. These are the values that once made the FBI strong. Now it is a place where people like me are targeted. I believe I was fired not because of who I am, but what I am: a proud gay man,” he added.Earlier this year, Maltinsky was accepted into the FBI special agent training academy at Quantico, Virginia, until what he described as his “abrupt dismissal just three weeks before graduation”.Maltinsky’s lawsuit alleges that at some point after Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, a co-worker reported an alleged concern to Maltinsky’s direct supervisor about the display of the Pride flag at his workstation.“Out of an abundance of caution, Maltinsky requested that the Chief Division Counsel for the LAFO [Los Angeles field office] review whether the display of the Progress Pride flag and placard was permissible,” Maltinsky’s complaint said, adding: ”The Chief Division Counsel advised Maltinsky that the display of the flag and placard did not violate any policy, rule, or regulation.”Nevertheless, on 1 October, Maltinsky was notified of his termination.In a letter cited in Maltinsky’s complaint, Patel wrote: “I have determined that you exercised poor judgment with an inappropriate display of political signage in your work area during your previous assignment at the Los Angeles Field Office. Pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States, your employment with the Federal Bureau of Investigation is hereby terminated.”In a statement released on Wednesday, Maltinsky’s lawyer Kerrie Riggs said: “This administration’s unlawfully firing him is part of a larger campaign to rid federal agencies of employees who may have different viewpoints, or are from marginalized groups, or who dare speak out against discrimination. David’s fight is not just about him, but about securing the rights and freedoms of all federal employees.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe FBI declined to comment on the lawsuit. The Guardian has also reached out to the justice department.Maltinsky’s lawsuit follows another one filed in September by three former senior FBI officials who said they were wrongfully terminated, alleging that Patel said he had been directed by the White House to fire any agent involved in an investigation into Trump.Meanwhile, the FBI fired a nearly three-decade veteran earlier this month after Patel reportedly became furious by reports that the FBI director had taken a government jet to attend a wrestling event where his girlfriend performed the national anthem.Steven Palmer, a bureau veteran since 1998, was removed as head of the FBI’s critical incident response group, which manages major security threats and the agency’s jet fleet. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel on Epstein files congressional vote: ‘Make no mistake – this isn’t over’

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      Late-night hosts celebrated the congressional votes to release the Epstein files and decried Donald Trump’s warm meeting with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.Jimmy KimmelTuesday was “a very big day” in Washington DC, said Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday evening, as both the House and Senate voted near unanimously to authorize the justice department to release investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.“Ultimately even [speaker] Mike Johnson voted yes on releasing the files,” Kimmel noted, meaning that the bill now heads to the White House, where it will probably66 be signed by Trump.“The goal was to have the bill pass by such a large margin that Trump can’t put his little orange thumb on the scale and give it the old Cheeto veto,” he explained. “But make no mistake: this isn’t over. He’s not giving up. If anyone thinks he’s going to release all of the Epstein files, I’ve got a beautiful East Wing of the White House to sell you.”That’s because even after the vote, “Trump cronies” in the justice department still have the power to withhold information to “protect ongoing investigations, protect innocent people or for reasons of national security”.“But they would never do anything like that, would they?” Kimmel joked. “They’re sworn to protect the constitution of the United States!“Something is fishy,” he added. “Trump rolled over faster than that dog Ghislaine Maxwell gets to play with in her country club prison.”On that note: “It is amazing the kind of special treatment you get when half of the most powerful people from the last 30 years don’t want to see you testifying in court.”Stephen Colbert“When it comes to Congress, it’s increasingly rare that things happen,” said Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s Late Show. Which made Tuesday, when the House voted 427-1 to release the Epstein files, all the more notable.The measure then headed to the Senate, which passed it unanimously overnight, after the Late Show taping. “Tomorrow, we might know everything he and his pervert buddies did,” said Colbert. “Meaning it’s Epstein Rockin’ Eve – stay up for a ball drop you’re gonna want to miss.”The vote marked “a huge loss for Trump, make no mistake”, he continued. “For going on four months now, Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson fought the release of the Epstein files with every congressional tool they had, and keep in mind: Congress is loaded with some major tools.”“But when it looked like Republicans were defecting en masse and they were going to lose big, they were suddenly all in, like they always were – right, Mike?”Colbert then played a clip of Johnson claiming that “Republicans support maximum transparency. We always have. The president of the United States supports maximum transparency.”“Yes, the president has always supported maximum transparency, a healthy diet of leafy greens and the understated androgynous sensuality of a flat-chested woman,” Colbert mocked. “The president would be here, but he can’t talk right now as he’s jogging to Bible study.”Colbert also criticized Trump’s chummy White House visit with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. And when a reporter brought up the murder of the journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi, which US intelligence concluded was authorized by the crown prince, Trump reacted angrily. “Things happen, but he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that,” he said. “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”“Yes, how dare you embarrass our guest!” Colbert mocked. “Now he’s going to feel all self-conscious when he tries to chop up somebody like you.”Seth MeyersAnd on Late Night, Seth Meyers returned to a meeting earlier this month between Trump and representatives from Switzerland, in which they gifted the president a special Rolex desktop clock and a 1kg personalized gold bar. “So now foreign officials are just openly giving him gold?” he wondered. “Trump’s turning into a live-action political cartoon. Next time, someone’s going to give him a big sack with a dollar sign on it.”In a new interview with a British rightwing news channel, Trump said that people will ask him: “What do you recommend for growing your children?”“I don’t know if I want advice on raising children from someone who doesn’t even know it’s called ‘raising children’,” Meyers said, laughing.In the same interview, Trump said: “I’ve never had a drink in my life, and I don’t take drugs.”“Maybe one of the best endorsements I’ve ever heard for drinking and doing drugs,” Meyers quipped. More

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      ‘May I meet you?’ is just the latest in horrible dating advice from billionaires | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Sit down and pay attention, because this column might change your life. I bring you tidings from the Nazi-filled wilderness that is now X, where Maga-adjacent billionaire Bill Ackman has generously decided to dispense romantic advice to the masses. Online culture, Ackman notes, has “destroyed the ability to spontaneously meet strangers”. The antidote to this, he suggests, are four simple words.“May I meet you?”That’s it. That’s the strategy. Ackman used this pickup line throughout his youth and, he says, it served him well. He didn’t even have to put “I’m a billionaire,” in front of the sentence – it was the syntax that women found sexy.“I think the combination of proper grammar and politeness was the key to its effectiveness,” Ackman mused. “You might give it a try.” And by “you”, he explains, he means everyone, not just young heterosexual men. “I think it should also work for women seeking men as well as same sex interactions,” Ackman proclaimed.View image in fullscreenA real man of the people, Ackman took time out of his busy billionaire schedule to add a little more context to his advice, which he explains is motivated by concern about the “next generation’s happiness and population replacement rates”. Per Ackman, you should try to be in motion while chatting someone up. This strategy “works much more effectively when you are moving”, he noted. “So on subways, elevators, escalators, airplanes, buses, and even walking down the street, it is most effective.”I have debased myself for numerous columns (just Google “Arwa Mahdawi accidental laxatives” or “Arwa banana”) but I do have my limits. Walking around the streets of Philadelphia asking women who set off my gaydar “may I meet you?” being one of them.But while I haven’t tried the Ackman approach myself, the advice has gone viral and various other people are giving it a whirl. It’s too early to do a quantitative assessment of its effectiveness but I hope that some enterprising social scientists are applying for funding for a future study. It’s perfect material for a future Ig Nobel prize.While we wait for a peer-reviewed analysis to come out, I must confess that I have my doubts that imposing yourself on strangers in the subway is going to do much to help “population replacement rates”. This may be a wild take but it’s possible that not supporting genocidal wars (Ackman has been a big cheerleader of Israel’s actions in Gaza) that have made prenatal care virtually nonexistent and killed an average of a child an hour, might be more effective when it comes to population replacement. That’s assuming we think all populations are equal, of course.Doing something about the exorbitant price of childcare, and the dire state of public schools in affordable areas of the US might also encourage more people to have kids. Since I’m churning out the hot takes over here, it’s also possible that young people might go out on the town more if the cost of living hadn’t become so expensive, and they had more disposable income. In short: solving underlying social issues that wealth-hoarding billionaires have exacerbated might prove more effective than a grammatically interesting pickup line.But what do I know, eh? I’m not a billionaire. Far better if plebs like me keep quiet and listen to our social and economic betters. So, in that spirit, and in the hopes of solving the population crisis, I have put together a few bits of relationship advice from the rich and infamous:1 Putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing: avoid at all costsOnce you have found your future spouse through the May-I-Meet™ method, you should try to hold on to them. According to our great leader Donald Trump that means avoiding a working relationship. “If you’re in business for yourself, I really think it’s a bad idea to put your wife working for you. I think it’s a really bad idea. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with [first wife] Ivana,” Trump told ABC news in 1994. RIP Ivana, who is now dead and buried under the first hole of Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.2 Sabotage your co-worker’s carFox News host Jesse Watters is not a billionaire like Ackman or Trump, but he lives in a mansion so is still worth listening to. During a 2022 episode of the panel series The Five, Watters boasted that he “let the air out of“ now wife Emma DiGiovine’s tires when he “was trying to get [her] to date” him. “She couldn’t go anywhere. She needed a lift, I said, ‘Hey, you need a lift?’ She hopped right in the car,” Watters recalled. The Fox news host was 43 at the time, by the way, and DiGiovine, who is his second wife, was 29 and an associate producer on his show at Fox News. After some backlash about “Deflategate” he claimed this tactic, which he said “works like a charm”, was a joke.3 Cozy up to a sex offender (DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT)The latest batch of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents to be released reveal that Harvard professor and economist Larry Summers spent years discussing relationship advice with the convicted pedophile. In one 2018 email, Summers forwarded Epstein an email from a woman and asked for advice on when to write back. “Think no response for a while probably appropriate,” Summers said. Epstein agreed: “she’s already beginning to sound needy 🙂 nice.” In another email Summers complained that attitudes to dating had become too woke. The “American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard,” he wrote to Epstein. “But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”4 Offer your sperm to strangers over supperIf one is simply concerned with increasing the population rather than meeting a life partner you can always go the Elon Musk route and donate your sperm willy-nilly. According to a 2024 New York Times report, Musk has “offered his own sperm to friends and acquaintances”. The same piece notes: “At a dinner party held at the home of a well-known Silicon Valley executive [in 2023] Mr. Musk offered to provide his sperm to a married couple he had met socially only a handful of times.” (Musk has denied this.) Or, if that sounds too exhausting, you can be like Russian-born billionaire Pavel Durov and fund free IVF treatments for women who use your sperm. Durov now has more than 100 biological children in 12 countries via sperm donation. Perhaps, in the future, one of Durov’s children will bump into one of Musk’s many children and ask: “May I meet you?” More

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      What to know about the US Senate vote on releasing the Epstein files

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      The intensively discussed files related to the disgraced former financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein passed a significant milestone on Tuesday when Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of releasing them.After months of deliberate delays and manoeuvres, the House of Representatives voted by 427 to one in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, legislation which would, if enacted, require the justice department to release all unclassified materials on Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. The Senate has unanimously agreed to swiftly pass the bill, which would then head to the White House for Donald Trump’s signature.Tuesday’s sweeping passage was rendered all but inevitable after the president on Sunday reversed himself and called for the release of the files, declaring “we have nothing to hide” and labelling the controversy over the files a “Democrat hoax”.Trump’s volte-face followed the failure of intense White House efforts to persuade two female Republican members of Congress, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, to withdraw their names from a discharge petition to force the House speaker, Mike Johnson, to hold a floor vote on releasing the files.Faced with the prospect of numerous Republicans defying his wishes by voting with Democrats in favor of releasing the files, the president decided to cut his losses by bowing to the inevitable. Before Trump changed his tune on the files, Thomas Massie, the maverick Republican representative from Kentucky – who had co-sponsored the bill along with Democrat Ro Khanna – had predicted that 100 Republicans would vote for release.In the event, Trump’s green light appeared to have the effect of freeing even more GOP representatives of their previous inhibitions against joining all 214 House Democrats. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, a close Trump ally, was the sole member of the House to vote against the measure; five representatives did not vote.How did it fly through the Senate so fast? The bill appeared headed for at least some resistance in the Senate as of this weekend. John Barrasso, the Republican majority whip, had said he would “take a look” at the bill if it passed the House, but also told NBC’s Meet The Press that he thought Democrats were more interested in turning Trump into “a lame duck president than achieving accountability and transparency” .But that resistance faded in the face of the overwhelming vote in the House. The lopsided vote helped Democrats push the measure through by expedited procedure of unanimous consent, which does not require a formal roll call vote. “The American people have waited long enough. Jeffrey Epstein’s victims have waited long enough,” Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said in a floor speech on Tuesday. “Let the truth come out. Let transparency reign.” Will Trump sign it?Trump told reporters on Monday that he would sign the bill if it arrives on his desk. Yet despite this pledge and his late U-turn on releasing the files, Trump could still use his presidential veto power to block passage – though doing so at such a late stage would surely fan suspicions that he has something to hide.Could such a veto be overcome?Yes. A presidential veto can be overridden if both chambers vote to do so by a two-thirds majority. Both chambers already surpassed that in spectacular fashion. The only member of Congress to vote against the bill was Clay Higgons, a Lousiana Republican representative.What cards can Trump play if overwhelming congressional votes compel the justice department to make the files public?Even if Trump signs the bill – whether of his own volition or by force because House and Senate majorities override his veto – his recent announcement of a justice department investigation into prominent figures (other than himself) mentioned in last week’s trove of Epstein emails released by the House oversight committee have fueled fears that any version of the files released could be incomplete or selective.Last Friday, Trump instructed the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, to open an investigation into links between Epstein and former president Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, a former US treasury secretary and ex-president of Harvard University, Reid Hoffman, a venture capitalist noted for funding Democrats and liberal causes, and the bank JPMorgan Chase. The investigation could enable the justice department to withhold certain documents on the argument that releasing them would be prejudicial.In the final analysis, Trump could have ended all uncertainty by ordering the files to be released without waiting for Congress to force his hand. More