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      US university leaders challenge campus antisemitism claims in House hearing

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      Rich Lyons, the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, challenged US House Republicans on Tuesday as they questioned him and leaders of Georgetown University and the City University of New York in the latest hearing on antisemitism in higher education.The committee accused the schools of failing to respond adequately to allegations of bias or discrimination; however, the university leaders said that disciplinary action had been taken where appropriate and stressed the importance of protecting free speech.Lyons pushed back on the suggestion that antisemitism was more present on college campuses than anywhere else.“If somebody is expressing pro-Palestinian beliefs, that’s not necessarily antisemitic,” he said.Lyons, who has just completed his first year as chancellor, is also the first UC leader to face the House committee during the Trump presidency. In his opening remarks, he defended the campus’ commitment to free speech.“As a public institution, Berkeley has a solemn obligation to protect the quintessential American value of free speech,” Lyons said. “This obligation does not prevent us, let me repeat, does not prevent us from confronting harassment and discrimination in all its forms, including antisemitism.”The hearing was the ninth in a series Republicans have held to scrutinize university leadership over allegations of antisemitism on campuses after a wave of protests over Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, which has killed more than 60,000 people, in retaliation to Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack on Israel. Widely criticized testimony before the committee by the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University in 2023 contributed to their resignations.At Tuesday’s hearing, Democrats blasted Republican committee members for their focus on antisemitism while not speaking on the dismantling of the education department, which is tasked with investigating antisemitism and other civil rights violations in schools.“They have turned this hearing room into a kangaroo court, where they spend our time litigating a predetermined outcome to do nothing, actually, to help Jewish students, just make public theater out of legitimate pain,” said the California representative Mark Takano.Republicans said university leaders have allowed campus antisemitism to run unchecked.“Universities can choose to hire antisemitic faculty, welcome students with a history of antisemitism, accept certain foreign funding, and let the behavior of antisemitic unions go unchecked,” Tim Walberg, a Michigan representative and committee chair, said in his opening statements. “But we will see today they do so at their own risk.”The hearing was periodically interrupted by protesters, who shouted pro-Palestinian slogans before being removed by Capitol police. Randy Fine, a Florida representative, berated the college presidents and said they were responsible because of the attitudes they had permitted on their campuses.Republicans pressed the three college leaders on whether they had disciplined or fired faculty and employees for behavior they said was antisemitic. Elise Stefanik, a Republican representative of New York, pressed the CUNY chancellor, Félix Matos Rodríguez, on the employment of a law professor who worked on the legal defense of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist the Trump administration attempted to deport over his role in protests at Columbia University.Stefanik pushed Matos Rodríguez to answer whether the professor should be fired. Without responding directly, Matos Rodríguez defended CUNY and said antisemitism had no place at the school. He said any student or employee who broke CUNY rules would be investigated.University leaders also emphasized the importance of free speech on campuses for students and faculty.Robert Groves, the interim president at Georgetown, said that as a Jesuit university, fostering interfaith dialogue and understanding was a key part of the school’s mission. He said the university has not experienced any encampments or physical violence since the Hamas attack in October 2023.“Given our Jesuit values, we expose students to different viewpoints on the Middle East,” Groves said. “In addition to speakers on Gaza, we’ve hosted IDF soldiers, families of Israelis and Palestinians who’ve lost their lives. US families of US hostages in Gaza. Georgetown is not perfect, and as events evolve, we’ve had to clarify rules of student behavior.”Lyons, as well, said his campus has “more work to do” to prevent antisemitism.“I am the first to say that we have more work to do. Berkeley, like our nation, has not been immune to the disturbing rise in antisemitism. And as a public university, we have a solemn obligation to protect our community from discrimination and harassment, while also upholding the first amendment right to free speech,” he said. More

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      ‘Political theatre’: key takeaways from US universities’ House antisemitism hearing

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      Lawmakers questioned the leaders of the University of California at Berkeley, Georgetown University and the City University of New York in the final antisemitism hearing the House of Representatives has held since the 7 October attacks and ensuing war in Gaza broke out in 2023.Georgetown University’s interim president Robert Groves, Cuny’s chancellor Félix V Matos Rodríguez and UC Berkeley’s chancellor Rich Lyons faced scrutiny from Republican representatives – who questioned the universities’ hiring practices, faculty unions, Middle East study centers, foreign funding and DEI initiatives.Congress’s preceding antisemitism hearings featured tense exchanges between Republican lawmakers such as representative Elise Stefanik, and precipitated the resignations of the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and Columbia.While denouncing antisemitism, Democratic lawmakers spoke out against the focus of the hearing, calling it “political theatre” and criticizing the Trump administration’s gutting of the government agencies that enforce civil rights protections.“I’d be remiss if I did not point out that this is our ninth hearing on antisemitism in 18 months,” said ranking member Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia. “I’ll also note that since this committee’s first antisemitism hearing in December 2023 we have not held a single hearing addressing racism, xenophobia, sexism, Islamophobia or other challenges affecting other student groups on American college campuses.”1. Campus leaders denounced antisemitismIn their opening statements, each of the university leaders present at Tuesday’s hearings began their remarks by condemning antisemitism, and in many cases listing actions their campuses had undertaken to prevent future antisemitism.Georgetown was one of the first campuses to condemn the 7 October attacks, Groves said, adding: that “Antisemitism is incompatible with living our mission; the same applies to Islamophobia and racism.”“Berkeley unequivocally condemns antisemitism,” Lyons echoed. He added: “I am the first to say we have more work to do. Berkeley, like our nation, has not been immune to the disturbing rise in antisemitism.”Matos Rodríguez shared a similar remark: “Our university has not been immune, but let me be clear: antisemitism has no place at Cuny.” He added that the university now has a zero-tolerance policy toward encampments, like those students established at City College and Brooklyn College in 2024.2. Democrats criticized the Trump administration’s approachDemocratic lawmakers and witnesses noted that the Trump administration’s decision to shutter federal agencies tasked with enforcing civil rights protections will not protect Jewish students on college campuses.“Antisemitism in America and on campuses is real” but “this administration’s approach is contradictory and counterproductive,” said Matt Nosanchuck, a former deputy assistant secretary for the education department’s office for civil rights under the Obama administration. He urged that “Congress must fulfill its core responsibilites” to give agencies appropriate resources, not conduct political theatre.In his opening remarks, Scott criticized his fellow committee members for saying “nothing about the firings attacking the office of civil rights” or the supreme court decision allowing the Trump administration to dismantle the Department of Education. The Trump administration closed seven of the office of civil rights’ 12 regional offices in March.“If the majority wanted to fight antisemitism and protect Jewish students, they should condemn antisemitism in their own party and at the highest level of government,” said Democratic representative Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon. “They have failed to do so. Multiple White House officials have ties to antisemitic extremists.”3. Republicans questioned faculty hiring and union practicesTo begin the hearing, Walberg said that the committee would “be examining several factors that incite antisemitism on college campuses” including faculty unions and faculty membership in the group Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.He later questioned Matos-Rodríguez about a Hunter College faculty job posting looking for candidates who could “take a critical lense” to issues such as “settler colonialsm, genocide, human rights, apartheid” and others. Matos-Rodríguez called the listing “entirely inappropriate” and said he ordered it revised immediately upon learning about it.Representative Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, focused her questioning on questions around faculty hiring and union practices. She questioned Matos-Rodríguez on the fact that the president of Cuny’s faculty union supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. She also questioned Lyons on Columbia’s hiring practices, which she said had allowed antisemitic faculty to join the staff.“We use academic standards to hire faculty. We don’t use ideological conditions to hire faculty,” Lyons said.4. Democrats called the hearings part of a greater move to defund higher education“I’m concerned by what I see happening here. Because instead of solving a problem, we’re watching some try to use antisemitism as a reason to go after higher education,” said representative Alma Adams, a Democrat from North Carolina.“Let’s not forget as we sit here today, the Department of Education is withholding more than $6bn in congressionally mandated funding from our K-12 schools,” she added.During her questioning Bonamici also questioned whether the antisemitism hearings were motivated by “plans to defund colleges and universities”.5. Tensions ran high between Republican and Democratic committee membersFollowing an exchange between representative Elise Stefanik of New York and Cuny chancellor Matos Rodríguez, California representative Mark DeSaulnier yielded his time so Matos Rodríguez could “respond to that outrageous attack by my colleague”.Stefanik had denounced the university for having on its staff an attorney also leading the legal defense fund for Mahmoud Khalil, who she called “chief pro-Hamas agitator that led to the anti-semitic encampments at Columbia”.Earlier in the hearing, California representative Mark Takano called the committee’s hearing “a kangaroo court”. More

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      Trump administration seeks to end bond hearings for immigrants without legal status

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      The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to bar millions of immigrants who allegedly arrived in the US without legal status from receiving a bond hearing as they try to fight their deportations in court.The new policy would apply during removal proceedings, which can take years, for millions of immigrants who entered the country from Mexico in recent decades, according to a report from the Washington Post, which reviewed documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).Such immigrants had previously been allowed to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge, but Todd Lyons, Ice’s acting director, stated in a memo reviewed by the Post that the homeland security and justice departments had “revisited [their] legal position on detention and release authorities”. The departments determined that such immigrants “may not be released from Ice custody”, Lyons reportedly wrote in the memo.That new restriction, which is expected to face legal challenges, was issued on 8 July shortly after the Republican-controlled Congress provided Ice $45bn over the next four years to detain immigrants for civil deportation proceedings.“To be clear, [Ice’s] position here is laughable and is being rejected by immigration judges all over the US, and will soon be dismissed by actual federal court judges in habeas proceedings,” Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney and Emory University law professor, wrote on X in a post that alluded to challenges against one’s detention.In response to the Guardian’s request for comment on the reported new policy, an Ice spokesperson said: “The recent guidance closes a loophole to our nation’s security based on an inaccurate interpretation of the statute. It is aligned with the nation’s longstanding immigration law. All aliens seeking to enter our country in an unlawful manner or for illicit purposes shall be treated equally under the law, while still receiving due process.”The policy change would mark the latest significant departure for Ice, which during Joe Biden’s presidency provided a guide on how immigrants who are detained can post bond.“Judges see a lot of people every day,” the guide stated. “You can make your testimony stand out by speaking sincerely. Think about a story that will show the judge how much your family needs you. Explain to the judge why your detention hurts your family very much.“We hope that this guide provides you with helpful information when preparing for your bond hearing. We wish you the best of luck with your case!”The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for reducing immigration, defended the new reported policy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Detention is absolutely the best way to approach this, if you can do it,” Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Post. “It costs a lot of money, obviously.“You’re pretty much guaranteed to be able to remove the person, if there’s a negative finding, if … [they’re] in detention.”The Trump administration had already worked to limit which immigrants can post bond. Previously, people arrested after they had entered the US and placed in regular removal proceedings were eligible for a bond hearing, according to the National Immigration Project, a non-profit whose attorneys have defended immigrants facing deportation.But in May, the federal Board of Immigration Appeals issued a ruling stating that such people were subject to mandatory detention, meaning that Ice could jail them during removal proceedings and not provide them an opportunity to appear before an immigration judge and get a bond set. More

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      Republicans may slash $9bn for public broadcasting and foreign aid in days

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      Senate Republicans may as soon as Tuesday move to pass legislation slashing up to $9bn in funds Congress had earlier approved for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting, as part of Donald Trump’s campaign of dramatic government spending cuts.The GOP is racing to meet a Friday deadline mandated by law for the bill, known as a rescissions package, to pass Congress, otherwise the Trump administration will be forced to spend the money. The House of Representatives approved the legislation last month by a narrow majority.The package will cancel $1.1bn budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, and about $8bn meant for foreign assistance programs. But some Republicans have blanched at those cuts, and the Senate majority leader, John Thune, said he had agreed with demands to preserve $400m in funding for Pepfar, a program credited with saving millions of people from infection or death from HIV that was created under the Republican president George W Bush in 2003.“There was a lot of interest among our members in doing something on the Pepfar issue,” Thune told reporters. He added that he hoped for procedural votes on the bill to begin on Tuesday and “we’ll see how those come out”.Changing the bill will require it to again be voted on by the House, and earlier in the day, the speaker, Mike Johnson, urged Senate Republicans to pass the version his lawmakers sent them.“We’re encouraging our Senate partners over there to get the job done and to pass it as is,” he said at a press conference.Thune has described the rescissions package as “commonsense legislation” that will target “waste, fraud and abuse” in government spending, a term Republicans have deployed repeatedly since Trump took office to criticize programs they seek to cut. Some cuts, he said, were recommended by the so-called “department of government efficiency” downsizing initiative that was previously led by Elon Musk.“My Democrat colleagues may not want to acknowledge it, but we have a serious spending problem in this country,” Thune said during a floor speech on Tuesday. “And the very least we can do in response is to target some of the egregious misuses of taxpayer dollars that we are addressing today in this bill.”While Democrats can use the Senate’s filibuster to stop the chamber from considering most legislation they oppose, a rescissions package can be passed with a simple majority. The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has warned that the bill is the beginning of a push by the Trump administration to reshape government services.“This package, as bad as it is, is a piece of a larger puzzle for Republicans. Their goal is to use rescissions, impoundment and pocket rescissions to eradicate any bit of bipartisanship out of appropriations, and that will pave the way for deeper and more serious spending cuts on things like healthcare, food assistance, energy and so many other areas,” he said.It remains unclear if the bill has the support it needs among Republican senators. Susan Collins, who represents blue state Maine and is expected to face a fierce re-election challenge next year, has criticized the package for slashing funds for important programs, rather than those identified as wasteful by the Trump administration.“This rescissions package, for the most part, has nothing to do with the lengthy list of questionable activities identified by the administration that were paid for with prior year funds,” she said late last month, as she chaired a Senate appropriations committee hearing into the request.In addition to opposing cuts to Pepfar, she signaled wariness to defunding public broadcasters.While Collins said she agreed with her fellow Republicans that programing on PBS and NPR had had “a discernibly partisan bent”, she believed there were “more targeted approaches to addressing that bias at NPR than rescinding all of the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting”.Other Republicans from rural states, including Lisa Murkowski, a moderate representing Alaska, have expressed skepticism over targeting public broadcasters, arguing they provide an important source of information in the countryside. On Tuesday, Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota announced his support for the bill after assurances that broadcasters in Indian reservations would continue receiving funds.“We wanted to make sure tribal broadcast services in South Dakota continued to operate which provide potentially lifesaving emergency alerts. We worked with the Trump administration to find Green New Deal money that could be reallocated to continue grants to tribal radio stations without interruption,” he wrote on social media.Butall four Democrats in North Carolina’s congressional delegation have signed a letter to Senate leaders warning of the consequences of cutting public broadcasting, which they said provides “trusted, accessible, and crucial communication tools during natural disasters” such as last year’s Hurricane Helene. More

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      Democrats demand Pam Bondi and Kash Patel be summoned for Epstein hearing

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      Democratic members of the House judiciary committee on Thursday demanded that Republicans summon the attorney general, Pam Bondi, the FBI director, Kash Patel, and their deputies for a hearing into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s death and the sex-trafficking case against him.The letter from all 19 Democratic members on the committee to its Republican chair, Jim Jordan, comes amid a rift between Donald Trump and some of his supporters over the justice department’s conclusion, announced last week, that Epstein’s death in federal custody six years ago was a suicide, and that there is no secret list of his clients to be made public.The US president, who knew Epstein personally, has long claimed that there is more to be made public about his death and involvement in running a sex-trafficking ring for global elites. Last week’s report, together with the justice department’s announcement that nothing further about his case would be made public, has sparked rare criticism of Trump among the rightwing influencers and commentators who are usually among his most ardent defenders.In their letter, Democrats argued that the matter can only be settled if Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, along with Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, appear before the judiciary committee.“The Trump DOJ and FBI’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, and president Trump’s suddenly shifting positions, have not restored anyone’s trust in the government but have rather raised profound new questions about their own conduct while increasing public paranoia related to the investigation,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote.“Only a bipartisan public hearing at which administration officials answer direct questions from elected representatives before the eyes of the American people can restore public trust on the matter.”A spokesperson for Jordan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Democrats have sought to capitalize on the questions raised by the justice department’s announcement, and earlier on Tuesday, House Republicans blocked an attempt by the minority to force release of documents related to the Epstein case.Last week, most Democrats on the judiciary committee signed a letter to Bondi that accused her of withholding some files related to the financier to protect Trump from any damaging disclosures. It went on to call for the release of any documents in the Epstein files that mention Trump, as well as the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified materials.In this week’s letter, Democrats argued that only a congressional hearing would resolve whether there is indeed a cover-up over Epstein’s death, or if Trump was just promoting conspiracy theories as he sought an advantage on the campaign trail.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We must submit to public scrutiny President Trump’s and MAGA’s longstanding claims about the ‘Epstein files,’ new questions as to whether President Trump himself has something to hide, whether he is keeping damaging information secret to protect other individuals or to maintain future blackmail leverage over public and private actors,” the lawmakers wrote, “or, perhaps the simplest explanation, whether President Trump and his Administration magnified and disseminated groundless Epstein conspiracy theories for purposes of political gain which they are now desperately trying to disavow and dispel.”The reignited turmoil over the Epstein case has sparked reports that Bongino, a former podcaster who has long promoted conspiracies about his death, clashed with Bondi and is considering resigning his position at the FBI.Over the weekend, Trump defended Bondi in a post on Truth Social and pleaded with his supporters. “One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about,” he wrote. More

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      Mike Waltz grilled over Signal chat during confirmation hearing for UN role

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      Just over two months after being ousted as national security adviser, Mike Waltz faced lawmakers on Tuesday during a confirmation hearing to be US ambassador to the UN, telling them that he planned to make the world body “great again”.“We should have one place in the world where everyone can talk – where China, Russia, Europe and the developing world can come together and resolve conflicts,” Waltz told the Senate foreign relations committee about the UN. “But after 80 years, it’s drifted from its core mission of peacemaking.”On 1 May, Waltz was pushed out as national security adviser and replaced by Marco Rubio after it was revealed that Waltz mistakenly adding a journalist to a private Signal chat used to discuss planning for strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. On Monday, the Associated press reported that he had spent the last few months on the White House payroll, earning an annual salary of $195,200.During Tuesday’s hearing, it took more than one hour for a lawmaker to bring up the Signal chat controversy.“I was hoping to hear from you that you had some sense of regret over sharing what was very sensitive, timely information about a military strike on a commercially available app,” said the Democratic senator Chris Coons of Delaware.“We both know Signal is not an appropriate and secure means of communicating highly sensitive information,” he added.Waltz responded that the chat met the administration’s cybersecurity standards, that “no classified information was shared”, and that the military was still conducting an ongoing investigation. He added that he and Coons “have a fundamental disagreement” about concerns over the situation.The New Jersey senator Cory Booker accused Waltz of lying about how a journalist was added to the chat.At the time, Waltz took responsibility even as criticism mounted against the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who shared the sensitive plans in the chat that included several other high-level national security officials. Hegseth shared the same information in another Signal chat that included family, but Trump has made clear Hegseth has his support.The UN post is the last one to be filled in Trump’s cabinet following months of delay, including the withdrawal of the previous nominee. Waltz, a former Florida congressman, was introduced by Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida as “a seasoned policy mind and skilled negotiator”.“With Waltz at the helm, the UN will have what I regard as what should be its last chance to demonstrate its actual value to the United States,” Lee said. “Instead of progressive political virtue signaling, the security council has the chance to prove its value, and settling disputes and brokering deals.”When nominating Waltz for the UN role, Trump praised him, saying he had “worked hard to put our Nation’s Interests first”.Trump’s first nominee, the New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, had a confirmation hearing in January and was expected to be confirmed, but Trump abruptly withdrew her nomination in March, citing risks to the GOP’s historically slim House majority.If confirmed, Waltz would arrive at the UN at a moment of great change. The world body is reeling from Trump’s decision to slash foreign assistance – affecting its humanitarian aid agencies – and it anticipates US funding cuts to the UN annual budget.“It’s worth remembering, despite the cuts, the US is by far the most generous nation in the world,” said Waltz, responding to concerns that the administration’s cuts to global programs hurt US global influence.Waltz added that some UN-funded research and projects were anti-American and received input from some member states, which the administration considers adversaries. More

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      How the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files became a vehicle for QAnon

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      The release of the “Epstein client list” has long been the holy grail for the Maga movement. Supposedly, this list, once released, would incriminate a veritable who’s who of liberal elites complicit in Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex-trafficking operation and expose the moral rot at the heart of the Democratic establishment.The mystery surrounding the Epstein files also became a vehicle for QAnon conspiracy theorists to push their ideas about a “deep state” cover-up of a network of global pedophiles into the broader tent of the Maga movement.During his campaign, Donald Trump promised on several occasions to declassify the Epstein files, which would include the “list”. Before they joined the government, Trump’s FBI chief, Kash Patel, and deputy FBI chief, Dan Bongino, spent years on podcasts and TV appearances winking at QAnon and Epstein conspiracy theorists and demanding the files’ release, even suggesting that the Biden administration was withholding them to protect its own.Then, on the heels of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the justice department quietly dropped a bombshell in the form of a memo. A “systematic review” of the Epstein files by justice department officials “revealed no incriminating ‘client list’,” the memo stated, nor did they find evidence that Epstein blackmailed powerful figures. The memo also affirmed that Epstein died by suicide in his Brooklyn jail cell while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019.Since the memo’s release, Maga has been in turmoil – and some of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers have been in open revolt against his administration, accusing it of now being part of a cover-up and calling for the resignation of the attorney general, Pam Bondi, over her handling of the Epstein files.On Truth Social, Trump offered a stern rebuke to his detractors, claiming that the Epstein files were actually a hoax, because they were written by “Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration”.But not everyone’s buying it.“This is the worst response I’ve ever seen from President Trump,” said the rightwing commentator Benny Johnson. The disgraced former general Michael Flynn, considered a hero by the QAnon movement, wrote: “@realdonaldtrump please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR IS NOT GOING AWAY.” The rightwing commentator Matt Walsh called Trump’s statement “extremely obtuse”, adding: “We don’t accept obvious bullshit from our political leaders.”Maga’s obsession with the Epstein files is an indication of how the core ideas associated with the fringe QAnon conspiracy – that a shadowy cabal of government elites is working to cover up a global child sex-trafficking operation – have taken root in the broader pro-Trump movement.QAnon took a long tradition of antisemitic, “deep state” and “satanic panic” conspiracy theories, put them on steroids with a pro-Trump flavor, and assigned the enigmatic Q, supposedly a government official with top secret clearance and a penchant for posting on 8chan, at the helm of the movement.“The unique thing about QAnon is that you had an anonymous poster on an anonymous chatroom putting out clues for people to try to solve,” said Joseph Uscinski, a political science professor at the University of Miami specializing in the study of conspiracy theories.When QAnon emerged in 2017, allegations against Epstein had been swirling for over a decade.Epstein’s arrest in 2019 on federal charges was a boon for QAnon. The movement quickly sought to incorporate information about the case into their propaganda. The case also surfaced a trove of digital media that QAnon sleuths could pore over looking for “clues” – such as photographs of Epstein with various public figures (including many with Trump), Epstein’s flight logs and aerial images of his private island.“Epstein engaged in crimes, but I think there’s a whole fantasy lore surrounding it that goes far beyond any available evidence,” said Uscinski.Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s program on extremism, told the Guardian that as “QAnon and Maga have become increasingly intertwined in recent years, we have seen the embrace of increasingly fringe conspiracies and extremist narratives like ‘Pizzagate’ and ‘Save the Children’ by mainstream political figures.”These narratives turned out to be useful for Trump and his allies, who harnessed simmering suspicion of establishment figures and cast the former reality star as the only person brave enough to take on “the deep state”.“As Trump and other prominent Republican figures amplified QAnon content and used it as a political cudgel against Democratic politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, they were providing legitimacy and approval to the very same conspiracy theorists who are now decrying Pam Bondi and the justice department,” said Lewis.Tensions over the Epstein files have been building since February, when Bondi went on Fox News and said Epstein’s client list was sitting on her desk “right now for review.” A week later, at a press event at the White House, Bondi handed out binders that she promised contained “declassified” Epstein records to two dozen Maga influencers. The influencers quickly realized there was basically no new information in them. In response to the ensuing backlash, Bondi said that the FBI had failed to disclose a tranche of Epstein files, and that she had ordered Patel to compile them.Months later, in June, Elon Musk – amid the dramatic feud with his former friend Trump – claimed without evidence that the reason the Epstein files hadn’t been released in full was because the president was implicated in them. (Musk has since deleted the post.)The scale of the current Maga meltdown “certainly shows the significance of Epstein conspiracies within the broader QAnon pantheon”, said Lewis, and “should lay bare just how deeply the disease of the QAnon movement has seeped into a Republican party which has welcomed its most conspiratorial, antisemitic, reactionary fringe into Congress and the executive branch with open arms”.The backlash Trump is facing is a leopards-eating-faces moment for the administration.“This was a conspiracy that Donald Trump, Pam Bondi and these Maga extremists have been fanning the flames of for the last several years, and now the chickens are coming home to roost,” the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, told reporters Monday.Uscinski noted that’s “the interesting thing that happens when you use conspiracy theories to get into power”.“Because conspiracy theories should be aimed at the people in power, right? They accuse powerful people of doing something wicked behind the scenes,” he added.In Trump’s case, he “spent the last 10 years building a coalition of largely conspiracy-minded people in the US”, said Uscinski. “So in order for him to keep these people engaged and donating and going to his speeches, and voting for him and voting for Republicans, he has to keep pressing the conspiracy theories.”But experts are skeptical that this current Maga meltdown will have any lasting impact.Trump’s overall approval rating hasn’t fluctuated dramatically over the past week. In fact, it’s almost at exactly the same place it was at the same point in his first administration.“[Trump’s supporters] are disgruntled, they’re upset and they’re going to express that on social media. But they’re not going to abandon him, because he’s the only game in town for them,” said Uscinski.He compared the current moment to the backlash Trump faced back in 2021. After courting favor from anti-vaxxers, Trump was booed when he announced during a live Bill O’Reilly interview that he had received his Covid-19 booster shot and urged Americans to get theirs.Despite the importance of the Epstein files to the Maga and QAnon movements, Lewis thinks that “it’s unlikely this outrage will last”.“The culture war will move on to its next target … and the rage machine will follow with conspiracies and vitriol,” said Lewis. “It’s much easier to be angry at an immigrant than to wonder whether you’ve been lied to for the last eight years.” More

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      Does Kash Patel deserve to run the FBI? Of course he does – and I’ll take a lie detector test to prove it | Arwa Mahdawi

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      ‘Once upon a time, in the land of the free, there lived a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer.” That piece of verbal wizardry is the opening line of a children’s book trilogy called The Plot Against the King (aimed at children aged three and above) by a Mr Kash Patel. The first book, published in 2022, is like Harry Potter for conspiracy theorists. Kash helps King Donald battle Hillary Queenton and a “shifty knight”, who have been spreading lies about the king working with the Russionians. In the final book in the trilogy (The Plot Against the King 3: The Return of the King) a couple of villains called Comma‑la‑la‑la and Baron Von Biden make an appearance.Not so long ago, publishing deeply weird books about the president while also promoting wild QAnon conspiracy theories would get you put on some kind of watchlist. Now it gets you a top job as the guy in charge of watchlists. Patel is not just a children’s book author; he is also the director of the FBI. His chief qualification for the role appears to be his extreme devotion to President Donald Trump. He certainly didn’t have any FBI experience before getting the job as head of the agency.I don’t know if Patel suffers from impostor syndrome – a condition that normally afflicts overqualified women – but he does seem a tad insecure. Last week the New York Times reported that Patel’s FBI has “significantly” increased its use of lie detector tests to screen employees for loyalty. According to the Times, some people have specifically been asked if they’ve ever been rude about their boss; “disparaging Mr Patel or his deputy, Dan Bongino … could cost people their job”. Woe betide the FBI underling who admits that they think Patel’s official photo on the US Department of Defense website (which has been much-memed online) looks as if he’s just been caught smoking joints behind the bike shed and is trying his very best to act sober.Polygraph tests, which track physiological reactions (eg did your heart rate spike?) while you answer questions, are notoriously unreliable. They can be successfully gamed by people who know how they work and are adept at controlling their bodily responses in high-pressure situations. You know, people like FBI employees. That said, it’s certainly possible that the FBI is secretly in possession of infallible lie-detecting technology (called something like WaterboardingAI™?).While Patel may come across as insecure, paranoid and generally doolally, he is not always wrong. In his 2023 opus Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy, which is written for “grownups”, he writes about how power works in Washington.“I regularly used to tell people that the fastest way to move up in the government is to just screw up, and the bigger the screw-up, the bigger the promotion,” he writes. “Every person implicated in your mistakes has an interest in covering up what they did, so they will promote you. That means the people at the very top are usually the most immoral, unethical people in the entire agency.” No comment there.Anyway, I think I’ve screwed up myself. Like a dimwit, I’ve just realised that all of the above might sound a tad disparaging towards Patel. Which, as a British-Palestinian on a green card that’s up for renewal, was certainly not my intention. So, just to clarify, Kash, I’ve been writing in English-English. While American English tends to be blunt, the king’s English is a whole different kettle of fish.When we say, “That’s very interesting,” for example, we often mean it’s absolute tripe. When we say “quite good”, it means either that something was indeed quite good or that it was actually quite disappointing – you’ve got to read the room. Calling something “not bad”, on the other hand, often means it’s very good.And, of course, the British are also very fond of sarcasm, which Americans can sometimes miss. So, with the greatest respect, Mr Patel, I do not think you are an idiot. I think you are a “distinguished discoverer” and the greatest FBI director to ever walk God’s green Earth. And I’ll even take a lie detector test to prove it. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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