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  • Bondi clashes with Democrats over Epstein, political retribution claims

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    WASHINGTON — U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi repeatedly sparred with lawmakers on Wednesday as she was pressed over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and faced demands for greater transparency in the high-profile case.

    Bondi accused Democrats and at least one Republican on the House Judiciary Committee of engaging in “theatrics” as she fielded questions about redaction errors made by the Justice Department when it released millions of files related to the Epstein case last month.

    The attorney general at one point acknowledged that mistakes had been made as the Justice Department tried to comply with a federal law that required it to review, redact and publicize millions of files within a 30-day period. Given the tremendous task at hand, she said the “error rate was very low” and that fixes were made when issues were encountered.

    Her testimony on the Epstein files, however, was mostly punctuated by dramatic clashes with lawmakers — exchanges that occurred as eight Epstein survivors attended the hearing.

    In one instance, Bondi refused to apologize to Epstein victims in the room, saying she would not “get into the gutter” with partisan requests from Democrats.

    In another exchange, Bondi declined to say how many perpetrators tied to the Epstein case are being investigated by the Justice Department. And at one point, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said the Trump administration was engaging in a “cover-up,” prompting Bondi to tell him that he was suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.”

    The episodes underscore the extent to which the Epstein saga has roiled members of Congress. It has long been a political cudgel for Democrats, but after millions of files were released last month, offering the most detail yet of Epstein’s crimes, Republicans once unwilling to criticize Trump administration officials are growing more testy, as was put on full display during Wednesday’s hearing.

    Among the details uncovered in the files is information that showed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had closer ties to Epstein than he had initially led on.

    Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) asked Bondi if federal prosecutors have talked to Lutnick about Epstein. Bondi said only that he has “addressed those ties himself.”

    Lutnick said at a congressional hearing Tuesday that he visited Epstein’s island, an admission that is at odds with previous statements in which he said he had cut off contact with the disgraced financier after initially meeting him in 2005.

    “I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation,” Lutnick told a Senate panel about a trip he took to the island in 2012.

    As Balint peppered Bondi about senior administration officials’ ties to Epstein, the back-and-forth between them got increasingly heated as Bondi declined to answer her questions.

    “This is not a game, secretary,” Balint told Bondi.

    “I’m attorney general,” Bondi responded.

    “My apologies,” Balint said. “I couldn’t tell.”

    In another testy exchange, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) pressed Bondi on whether the Justice Department has evidence tying President Trump to the sex-trafficking crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.

    Bondi dismissed the line of questioning as politically motivated and said there was “no evidence” Trump committed a crime.

    Lieu then accused her of misleading Congress, citing a witness statement to the FBI alleging that Trump attended Epstein gatherings with underage girls and describing secondhand claims from a limo driver who claimed that Trump sexually assaulted an underage girl who committed suicide shortly after.

    He demanded Bondi’s resignation for failing to interview the witness or hold co-conspirators to account. Other Democrats have floated the possibility of impeaching Bondi over the handling of the Epstein files.

    Beyond the Epstein files, Democrats raised broad concerns about the Justice Department increasingly investigating and prosecuting the president’s political foes.

    Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said Bondi has turned the agency into “Trump’s instrument of revenge.”

    “Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza and you deliver every time,” Raskin said.

    As an example, Raskin pointed to the Justice Department’s failed attempt to indict six Democratic lawmakers who urged service members to not comply with unlawful orders in a video posted in November.

    “You tried to get a grand jury to indict six members of Congress who are veterans of our armed forces on charges of seditious conspiracy, simply for exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” he said.

    During the hearing, Democrats criticized the Justice Department’s prosecution of journalist Don Lemon, who was arrested by federal agents last month after he covered an anti-immigration enforcement protest at a Minnesota church.

    Bondi defended Lemon’s prosecution and called him a “blogger.”

    “They were gearing for a resistance,” Bondi testified. “They met in a parking lot and they caravanned to a church on a Sunday morning when people were worshipping.”

    The protest took place after federal immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis.

    Six federal prosecutors resigned last month after Bondi directed them to investigate Good’s widow. Bondi later stated on Fox News that she “fired them all” for being part of the “resistance.” Lemon then hired one of those prosecutors, former U.S. Atty. Joe Thompson, to represent him in the case.

    Bondi also faced questions about a Justice Department memo that directed the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaged in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism” by Jan. 30, and to establish a “cash reward system” that incentivizes individuals to report on their fellow Americans.

    Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) asked Bondi if the list of groups had been compiled yet.

    “I’m not going to answer it yes or no, but I will say, I know that antifa is part of that,” Bondi said.

    Asked by Scanlon if she would share such a list with Congress, Bondi said she was “not going to commit anything to you because you won’t let me answer questions.”

    Scanlon said she worried that if such a list exists, there is no way for individuals or groups included in it to dispute any charge of being domestic terrorists — and warned Bondi that this was a dangerous move by the federal government.

    “Americans have never tolerated political demagogues who use the government to punish people on an enemies list,” Scanlon said. “It brought down McCarthy, Nixon and it will bring down this administration as well.”

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    Ana Ceballos, Gavin J. Quinton

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  • Lawmakers weigh impeachment articles for Bondi over Epstein file omissions

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    WASHINGTON — Lawmakers unhappy with Justice Department decisions to heavily redact or withhold documents from a legally mandated release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein threatened Saturday to launch impeachment proceedings against those responsible, including Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general.

    Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the omissions, while Democrats also accused the Justice Department of intentionally scrubbing the release of at least one image of President Trump, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggesting it could portend “one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

    Trump administration officials have said the release fully complied with the law, and that its redactions were crafted only to protect victims of Epstein, a disgraced financier and convicted sex offender accused of abusing hundreds of women and girls before his death in 2019.

    Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), an author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the release of the investigative trove, blasted Bondi in a social media video, accusing her of denying the existence of many of the records for months, only to push out “an incomplete release with too many redactions” in response to — and in violation of — the new law.

    Khanna said he and the bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), were “exploring all options” for responding and forcing more disclosures, including by pursuing “the impeachment of people at Justice,” asking courts to hold officials blocking the release in contempt, and “referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice.”

    “We will work with the survivors to demand the full release of these files,” Khanna said.

    He later added in a CNN interview that he and Massie were drafting articles of impeachment against Bondi, though they had not decided whether to bring them forward.

    Massie, in his own social media post, said Khanna was correct in rejecting the Friday release as insufficient, saying that it “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.”

    The lawmakers’ view that the Justice Department’s document dump failed to comply with the law echoed similar complaints across the political spectrum Saturday, as the full scope of redactions and other withholdings came into focus.

    The frustration had already sharply escalated late Friday, after Fox News Digital reported that the names and identifiers of not just victims but of “politically exposed individuals and government officials” had been redacted from the records — which would violate the law, and which Justice Department officials denied.

    Among the critics was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who cited the Fox reporting in an exasperated post late Friday to X.

    “The whole point was NOT to protect the ‘politically exposed individuals and government officials.’ That’s exactly what MAGA has always wanted, that’s what drain the swamp actually means. It means expose them all, the rich powerful elites who are corrupt and commit crimes, NOT redact their names and protect them,” Greene wrote.

    Senior Justice Department officials later called in to Fox News to dispute the report. But the removal of a file published in the Friday evening release, capturing a desk in Epstein’s home with a drawer filled of photos of Trump, reinforced bipartisan concerns that references to the president had been illegally withheld.

    In a release of documents from the Epstein family estate by the House Oversight Committee this fall, Trump’s name was featured over 1,000 times — more than any other public figure.

    “If they’re taking this down, just imagine how much more they’re trying to hide,” Schumer wrote on X. “This could be one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

    Several victims also said the release was insufficient. “It’s really kind of another slap in the face,” Alicia Arden, who went to the police to report that Epstein had abused her in 1997, told CNN. “I wanted all the files to come out, like they said that they were going to.”

    Trump, who signed the act into law after having worked to block it from getting a vote, was conspicuously quiet on the matter. In a long speech in North Carolina on Friday night, he did not mention it.

    However, White House officials and Justice Department leaders rejected the notion that the release was incomplete or out of compliance with the law, or that the names of politicians had been redacted.

    “The only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law — full stop,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche. “Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim.”

    Other Republicans defended the administration. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, said the administration “is delivering unprecedented transparency in the Epstein case and will continue releasing documents.”

    Epstein died in a Manhattan jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He’d been convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution in Florida, but served only 13 months in custody in what many condemned as a sweetheart plea deal for a well-connected and rich defendant.

    Epstein’s acts of abuse have attracted massive attention, including among many within Trump’s political base, in part because of unanswered questions surrounding which of his many powerful friends may have also been implicated in crimes against children. Some of those questions have swirled around Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had what the president has described as a falling out.

    Evidence has emerged in recent months that suggests Trump may have had knowledge of Epstein’s crimes during their friendship.

    Epstein wrote in a 2019 email, released by the House Oversight Committee, that Trump “knew about the girls.” In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to help him sexually abuse girls, Epstein wrote that “the dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him … he has never once been mentioned.”

    Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

    The records released Friday contained few if any major new revelations, but did include a complaint against Epstein filed with the FBI back in 1996 — which the FBI did little with, substantiating long-standing fears among Epstein’s victims that his crimes could have been stopped years earlier.

    Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the president’s most consistent critics, wrote on X that Bondi should appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain under oath the extensive redactions and omissions, which he called a “willful violation of the law.”

    “The Trump Justice Department has had months to keep their promise to release all of the Epstein Files,” Schiff wrote. “Epstein’s survivors and the American people need answers now.”

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    Kevin Rector, Michael Wilner

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  • Rabbi who knew Bondi Beach victim emphasizes importance of celebrating Hanukkah amid tragedy

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    HANUKKAH CELEBRATIONS ARE WELL UNDERWAY. AND TONIGHT A LOCAL CONGREGATION IS MAKING SURE THEY STAND TOGETHER IN THE WAKE OF A DEADLY MASS SHOOTING IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, TARGETING A HANUKKAH EVENT. ORGANIZERS AT THE MONROEVILLE LIGHT OF NIGHT CELEBRATION SAY THEY COORDINATED WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT AHEAD OF THE EVENT, COVERING ALLEGHENY COUNTY IN MONROEVILLE, PITTSBURGH’S ACTION NEWS FOUR REPORTER JORDAN CIOPPA HEARD WHY IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR THE JEWISH COMMUNITY TO KEEP THE TRADITION GOING THIS YEAR, DESPITE THE ANTI-SEMITISM OVERSEAS. IT’S THE SECOND NIGHT OF HANUKKAH, AND TONIGHT, THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN MONROEVILLE WENT ALL OUT WITH A MENORAH MADE OF ICE. PEOPLE. THE CELEBRATION EMPHASIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF SPREADING LIGHT IN A TIME OF DARKNESS. LET US DEDICATE THE LIGHTS OF THESE CANDLES IN THEIR MEMORY, SO THAT WE CAN ONLY INCREASE IN THE LIGHT. THE CONGREGANTS OF CHABAD JEWISH CENTER OF MONROEVILLE CELEBRATED NIGHT TWO OF HANUKKAH WITH THEIR JEWISH BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN AUSTRALIA. ON THEIR MINDS, JUST REALLY HEARTBROKEN. RABBI MENDY SHAPIRO SAYS HE WAS CLASSMATES WITH RABBI ELI SCHLANGER, ONE OF THE 15 PEOPLE KILLED IN AN ATTACK ON HANUKKAH CELEBRATION ON SYDNEY’S BONDI BEACH. SHAPIRO SAYS HE GREW UP WITH SCHLANGER IN NEW YORK AND HAD RECENTLY CONNECTED WITH HIM AT AN EVENT THERE. HE’S JUST A SPECIAL PERSON AND HIS MESSAGE, I KNOW THAT HE HE WAS THERE AT THIS EVENT, SPREADING LIGHT IN THE FACE OF ALL THE DARKNESS THAT’S GOING ON IN THE WORLD, AND THAT THAT’S SOMETHING THAT I KNOW HE’S BEEN TEACHING. SHAPIRO MADE SURE TO DO THE SAME MONDAY NIGHT. BUNDLED UP IN HEAVY COATS, HATS AND GLOVES, THE CROWD DIDN’T LET THE FRIGID TEMPS HINDER THEM FROM CARRYING ON BELOVED HANUKKAH TRADITIONS. WELL, FOR SURE, OF COURSE, WE’RE LETTING THE MENORAH EVERY NIGHT. WE ALWAYS HAVE THE BATTLE IN OUR FAMILY, WHICH IS WHICH WE LIKE BETTER. THE THE LATKES OR THE JELLY DONUTS. SO WE COMPROMISE AND DO BOTH. AND IT TURNS OUT THE COLD WEATHER MADE THE PERFECT ENVIRONMENT FOR THE MENORAH ICE SCULPTURE, WITH THE WEATHER BEING LIKE IT IS RIGHT NOW AND THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE THAT SHOWED UP, IT’S JUST IT JUST SHOWS THE IDEA OF COMMUNITY AND IT’S JUST A GREAT TIME. TO. THE CELEBRATION WRAPPED UP WITH CHOCOLATE COINS RAINING DOWN ON THE CHILDREN IN WHAT’S CALLED THE GUILT DROP THROUGH SMILES, LAUGHTER AND LIGHT. THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF MONROEVILLE SPREADING A POWERFUL MESSAGE THIS HOLIDAY, AND A WAY TO PUSH AWAY DARKNESS IS NOT TO FIGHT. IT IS TO BRING MORE LIGHT. AND WHEN YOU LIGHT SOME MORE LIGHT, YOU PUSH AWAY THE DARKNESS. ORGANIZERS SAY THEY’RE TAKING PRECAUTIONS FOR HANUKKAH DINNER ON THURSDAY AS WELL, COVERING ALLEGHEN

    Rabbi who knew Bondi Beach victim emphasizes importance of celebrating Hanukkah amid tragedy

    Updated: 2:43 AM PST Dec 16, 2025

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    Members of the Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville near Pittsburgh celebrated night two of Hanukkah with their Jewish brothers and sisters in Australia on their minds. “Let us dedicate the lights of these candles in their memory so that we can only increase in the light,” Rabbi Mendy Schapiro told the crowd at Monroeville’s 10th annual Light up the Night event on Monday. Schapiro told sister station WTAE that he was classmates with Rabbi Eli Schlanger, one of the 15 people killed in an attack on a Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. The rabbi said he grew up with Schlanger in New York and had recently connected with him at an event there. “He’s such a special person and his message, I know that he was there at this event spreading light in the face of all of the darkness that’s going on in the world,” Schapiro said. “That’s something that I know that he’s been teaching.”Video above: Sacramento rabbi mourns family friend killed at Bondi BeachSchapiro made sure to do the same on Monday night. Bundled up in heavy coats, hats, and gloves, the crowd didn’t let the frigid temps hinder them from carrying on beloved Hanukkah traditions. “Of course, we’re lighting the menorah every night. We always have the battle in our family, which do we like better, the latkes or the jelly doughnuts? So we compromise and do both,” Michael Edelstein said. It turns out the cold weather made the perfect environment for the event’s menorah ice sculpture. “With the weather being like it is right now and the amount of people that showed up, it just shows the idea of community, and it’s a great time,” said Turtle Creek Mayor Adam Forgie. The celebration wrapped up with chocolate coins raining down on the children in what’s called the “gelt drop.”Through smiles, laughter, and light, the Jewish community of Monroeville spread a powerful message this holiday. “The way to push away darkness is not to fight it; it’s to bring more light. And when you light more light, you push away the darkness,” Schapiro said. Organizers said they coordinated with local law enforcement ahead of Monday’s event and an upcoming Hanukkah dinner on Thursday in the name of safety.

    Members of the Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville near Pittsburgh celebrated night two of Hanukkah with their Jewish brothers and sisters in Australia on their minds.

    “Let us dedicate the lights of these candles in their memory so that we can only increase in the light,” Rabbi Mendy Schapiro told the crowd at Monroeville’s 10th annual Light up the Night event on Monday.

    Schapiro told sister station WTAE that he was classmates with Rabbi Eli Schlanger, one of the 15 people killed in an attack on a Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

    The rabbi said he grew up with Schlanger in New York and had recently connected with him at an event there.

    “He’s such a special person and his message, I know that he was there at this event spreading light in the face of all of the darkness that’s going on in the world,” Schapiro said. “That’s something that I know that he’s been teaching.”

    Video above: Sacramento rabbi mourns family friend killed at Bondi Beach

    Schapiro made sure to do the same on Monday night. Bundled up in heavy coats, hats, and gloves, the crowd didn’t let the frigid temps hinder them from carrying on beloved Hanukkah traditions.

    “Of course, we’re lighting the menorah every night. We always have the battle in our family, which do we like better, the latkes or the jelly doughnuts? So we compromise and do both,” Michael Edelstein said.

    It turns out the cold weather made the perfect environment for the event’s menorah ice sculpture.

    “With the weather being like it is right now and the amount of people that showed up, it just shows the idea of community, and it’s a great time,” said Turtle Creek Mayor Adam Forgie.

    The celebration wrapped up with chocolate coins raining down on the children in what’s called the “gelt drop.”

    Through smiles, laughter, and light, the Jewish community of Monroeville spread a powerful message this holiday.

    “The way to push away darkness is not to fight it; it’s to bring more light. And when you light more light, you push away the darkness,” Schapiro said.

    Organizers said they coordinated with local law enforcement ahead of Monday’s event and an upcoming Hanukkah dinner on Thursday in the name of safety.

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  • Trump signs bill demanding his administration release the Epstein files

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    WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday night signed into law legislation demanding that the Justice Department release all documents related to its investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

    With little fanfare, the president announced the action in a lengthy social media post that attacked Democrats who have been linked to the late financier, a line of attack that he has often deployed while ignoring his and other Republicans’ ties to the scandal.

    “Perhaps the truth about these Democrats and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, but I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

    Now the focus turns to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, whom the legislation compels to make available “all unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials” in the Department of Justice’s possession no later than 30 days after the legislation becoming law.

    The action on the bill marks a dramatic shift for Trump, who worked for months to thwart release of the Epstein files — until Sunday, when he reversed course under pressure from his party and called on Republican lawmakers to back the measure. Within days, the Senate and House overwhelmingly voted for the bill and sent it to Trump’s desk.

    Although Trump has now signed the bill into law, his resistance to releasing the files has led to skepticism among some lawmakers on Capitol Hill who question whether the Justice Department may try to conceal information.

    “The real test will be, will the Department of Justice release the files or will it all remain tied up in investigations?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said at a news conference Tuesday before the House and Senate passed the bill. Greene was among a small group of GOP defectors who joined Democrats in forcing the legislation to the floor over Trump’s objections.

    The legislation prohibits the attorney general from withholding, delaying or redacting the publication of “any record, document, communication, or investigative material on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

    Carve-outs in the bill could allow Trump and Bondi to withhold documents that include identifying information of victims or depictions of child sexual abuse materials.

    The law also would allow them to conceal information that would “jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.”

    Trump directed the Justice Department last week to investigate Epstein’s links with major banks and several prominent Democrats, including former President Clinton.

    Bondi abided, and appointed a top federal prosecutor to pursue the investigation with “urgency and integrity.” In July, the Justice Department determined after an extensive review that there was not enough evidence that “could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties” in the Epstein case.

    At a news conference Wednesday, Bondi said the department had opened another case into Epstein after “new information” emerged.

    Bondi did not say how the new investigation could affect the release of the files.

    Asked if the Epstein documents would be released within 30 days, as the law states, Bondi said her department would “follow the law.”

    “We will continue to follow the law with maximum transparency while protecting victims,” Bondi said.

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    Ana Ceballos

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  • At Trump’s urging, Bondi says US will investigate Epstein’s ties to Clinton and other political foes

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    Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department, and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the Republican president wrote, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 election victory over Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Asked later Friday whether he should be ordering up such investigations, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I’m the chief law enforcement officer of the country. I’m allowed to do it.”In a July memo regarding the Epstein investigation, the FBI said, “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”The president’s demand for an investigation — and Bondi’s quick acquiescence — is the latest example of the erosion of the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House since Trump took office.It is also an extraordinary attempt at deflection. For decades, Trump himself has been scrutinized for his closeness to Epstein — though like the people he now wants investigated, he has not been accused of sexual misconduct by Epstein’s victims.None of Trump’s proposed targets were accused of sex crimesA JPMorgan Chase spokesperson, Patricia Wexler, said the company regretted associating with Epstein “but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” she said. The company agreed previously to pay millions of dollars to Epstein’s victims, who had sued arguing that the bank ignored red flags about criminal activity.Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes. He also has never been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s known victims.Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña posted on X Friday: “These emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.”Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, but was spared a long jail term when the U.S. attorney in Florida agreed not to prosecute him over allegations that he had paid many other children for sexual acts. After serving about a year in jail and a work release program, Epstein resumed his business and social life until federal prosecutors in New York revived the case in 2019. Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Summers and Hoffman had nothing to do with either case, but both were friendly with Epstein and exchanged emails with him. Those messages were among the documents released this week, along with other correspondence Epstein had with friends and business associates in the years before his death.Nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part, other than associating with someone who had been accused of sex crimes against children.Summers, who served in Clinton’s cabinet and is a former Harvard University president, previously said in a statement that he has “great regrets in my life” and that “my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”On social media Friday night, Hoffman called for Trump to release all the Epstein files, saying they will show that “the calls for baseless investigations of me are nothing more than political persecution and slander.” He added, “I was never a client of Epstein’s and never had any engagement with him other than fundraising for MIT.” Hoffman bankrolled writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against Trump.After Epstein’s sex trafficking arrest in 2019, Hoffman said he’d only had a few interactions with Epstein, all related to his fundraising for MIT’s Media Lab. He nevertheless apologized, saying that “by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice.”Bondi, in her post, praised Clayton as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country” and said the Justice Department “will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”Trump called Clayton “a great man, a great attorney,” though he said Bondi chose him for the job.Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, took over in April as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — the same office that indicted Epstein and won a sex trafficking conviction against Epstein’s longtime confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2021.Trump changes course on Epstein filesTrump suggested while campaigning last year that he’d seek to open up the government’s case files on Epstein, but changed course in recent months, blaming Democrats and painting the matter as a “hoax” amid questions about what knowledge he may have had about Epstein’s yearslong exploitation of underage girls.On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three Epstein email exchanges that referenced Trump, including one from 2019 in which Epstein said the president “knew about the girls” and asked Maxwell to stop.White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of having “selectively leaked emails” to smear Trump.Soon after, Republicans on the committee disclosed a far bigger trove of Epstein’s email correspondence, including messages he sent to longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon and to Britain’s former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Andrew settled a lawsuit out of court with one of Epstein’s victims, who said she had been paid to have sex with the prince.The House is speeding toward a vote next week to force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein.“I don’t care about it, release or not,” Trump said Friday. “If you’re going to do it, then you have to go into Epstein’s friends,” he added, naming Clinton and Hoffman.Still, he said: “This is a Democrat hoax. And a couple, a few Republicans have gone along with it because they’re weak and ineffective.”__Bedayn reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Chris Megerian aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.

    NEW YORK —

    Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.

    Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.

    Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.

    Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department, and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.

    Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”

    “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the Republican president wrote, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 election victory over Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    Asked later Friday whether he should be ordering up such investigations, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I’m the chief law enforcement officer of the country. I’m allowed to do it.”

    In a July memo regarding the Epstein investigation, the FBI said, “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

    The president’s demand for an investigation — and Bondi’s quick acquiescence — is the latest example of the erosion of the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House since Trump took office.

    It is also an extraordinary attempt at deflection. For decades, Trump himself has been scrutinized for his closeness to Epstein — though like the people he now wants investigated, he has not been accused of sexual misconduct by Epstein’s victims.

    None of Trump’s proposed targets were accused of sex crimes

    A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson, Patricia Wexler, said the company regretted associating with Epstein “but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”

    “The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” she said. The company agreed previously to pay millions of dollars to Epstein’s victims, who had sued arguing that the bank ignored red flags about criminal activity.

    Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes. He also has never been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s known victims.

    Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña posted on X Friday: “These emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.”

    Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, but was spared a long jail term when the U.S. attorney in Florida agreed not to prosecute him over allegations that he had paid many other children for sexual acts. After serving about a year in jail and a work release program, Epstein resumed his business and social life until federal prosecutors in New York revived the case in 2019. Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

    Summers and Hoffman had nothing to do with either case, but both were friendly with Epstein and exchanged emails with him. Those messages were among the documents released this week, along with other correspondence Epstein had with friends and business associates in the years before his death.

    Nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part, other than associating with someone who had been accused of sex crimes against children.

    Summers, who served in Clinton’s cabinet and is a former Harvard University president, previously said in a statement that he has “great regrets in my life” and that “my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”

    On social media Friday night, Hoffman called for Trump to release all the Epstein files, saying they will show that “the calls for baseless investigations of me are nothing more than political persecution and slander.” He added, “I was never a client of Epstein’s and never had any engagement with him other than fundraising for MIT.” Hoffman bankrolled writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against Trump.

    After Epstein’s sex trafficking arrest in 2019, Hoffman said he’d only had a few interactions with Epstein, all related to his fundraising for MIT’s Media Lab. He nevertheless apologized, saying that “by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice.”

    Bondi, in her post, praised Clayton as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country” and said the Justice Department “will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”

    Trump called Clayton “a great man, a great attorney,” though he said Bondi chose him for the job.

    Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, took over in April as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — the same office that indicted Epstein and won a sex trafficking conviction against Epstein’s longtime confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2021.

    Trump changes course on Epstein files

    Trump suggested while campaigning last year that he’d seek to open up the government’s case files on Epstein, but changed course in recent months, blaming Democrats and painting the matter as a “hoax” amid questions about what knowledge he may have had about Epstein’s yearslong exploitation of underage girls.

    On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three Epstein email exchanges that referenced Trump, including one from 2019 in which Epstein said the president “knew about the girls” and asked Maxwell to stop.

    White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of having “selectively leaked emails” to smear Trump.

    Soon after, Republicans on the committee disclosed a far bigger trove of Epstein’s email correspondence, including messages he sent to longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon and to Britain’s former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Andrew settled a lawsuit out of court with one of Epstein’s victims, who said she had been paid to have sex with the prince.

    The House is speeding toward a vote next week to force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein.

    “I don’t care about it, release or not,” Trump said Friday. “If you’re going to do it, then you have to go into Epstein’s friends,” he added, naming Clinton and Hoffman.

    Still, he said: “This is a Democrat hoax. And a couple, a few Republicans have gone along with it because they’re weak and ineffective.”

    __

    Bedayn reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Chris Megerian aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.

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  • Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi dodges Democrats’ questions in combative Senate hearing

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    WASHINGTON  — Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi struck a defiant tone Tuesday during a Senate hearing where she dodged a series of questions about brewing scandals that have dogged her agency.

    Bondi, a Trump loyalist, refused to discuss her conversations with the White House about the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey and the deployment of federal troops to Democrat-run cities.

    She deflected questions about an alleged bribery scheme involving the president’s border advisor and declined to elaborate on her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

    In many instances, Bondi’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee devolved into personal attacks against Democrats, who expressed dismay at their inability to get her to answer their inquiries.

    “This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of Congress can get serious answers to serious questions about the cover-up of corruption about the prosecution of the president’s enemies,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said toward the end of the nearly five-hour hearing. “When will it be that the members of this committee on a bipartisan basis demand answers to those questions?”

    Her testimony came as the Justice Department faces increased accusations that it is being weaponized against President Trump’s political foes.

    It marked a continuation of what has become a hallmark of not just Bondi, but most of Trump’s top officials. When pressed on potential scandals that the president has taken great pains to publicly avoid, they almost universally turn to one tactic: ignore and attack the questioner.

    That strategy was shown in an exchange between Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who wanted to know who decided to close an investigation into Trump border advisor Tom Homan. Homan reportedly accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents after indicating he could get them government contracts. Bondi declined to say and shifted the focus to Padilla.

    “I wish that you loved your state of California as much as you hate President Trump,” Bondi said. “We’d be in really good shape then because violent crime in California is currently 35% higher than the national average.”

    In between partisan attacks, the congressional hearing allowed Bondi to boast about her eight months in office. She said her focus has been on combating illegal immigration, violent crime and restoring public trust in the Justice Department, which she said Biden-era officials weaponized against Trump.

    “They wanted to take President Trump off the playing field,” she said about the effort to indict Trump. “This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people’s faith in our law enforcement system. We will work to earn that back every single day. We are returning to our core mission of fighting real crime.”

    She defended the administration’s deployment of federal troops to Washington, D.C., and Chicago, where she said troops had been sent on Tuesday. Bondi declined to say whether the White House consulted her on the deployment of troops to American cities but said the effort is meant to “protect” citizens from violent crime.

    Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) asked about the legal justification for the military shooting vessels crossing the Carribbean Sea off Venezuela. The administration has said the boats are carrying drugs, but Coons told Bondi that “Congress has never authorized such a use of military force.”

    “It’s unclear to me how the administration has concluded that the strikes are legal,” Coons said.

    Bondi told Coons she would not discuss the legal advice her department has given to the president on the matter but said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “is a narcoterrorist,” and that “drugs coming from Venezuela are killing our children at record levels.”

    Coons said he was “gravely concerned” that she was not leading a department that is making decisions that are in “keeping with the core values of the Constitution.” As another example, he pointed to Trump urging her to prosecute his political adversaries, such as Comey.

    Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) the top Democrat on the committee, raised a similar concern at the beginning of the hearing, saying Bondi has “systematically weaponized our nation’s leading law enforcement agency to protect President Trump and his allies.”

    “In eight short months, you have fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain on American history,” Durbin said. “It will take decades to recover.”

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    Ana Ceballos

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  • In Trump’s ‘domestic terrorism’ memo, some see blueprint for vengeance that echoes history

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    At a tense political moment in the wake of conservative lightning rod Charlie Kirk’s killing, President Trump signed a presidential memorandum focusing federal law enforcement on disrupting “domestic terrorism.”

    The memo appeared to focus on political violence. But during a White House signing Thursday, the president and his top advisors repeatedly hinted at a much broader campaign of suppression against the American left, referencing as problematic both the simple printing of protest signs and the prominent racial justice movement Black Lives Matter.

    “We’re looking at the funders of a lot of these groups. You know, when you see the signs and they’re all beautiful signs made professionally, these aren’t your protesters that make the sign in their basement late in the evening because they really believe it. These are anarchists and agitators,” Trump said.

    “Whether it be going back to the riots that started with Black Lives Matter and all the way through to the antifa riots, the attacks on ICE officers, the doxxing campaigns and now the political assassinations — these are not lone, isolated events,” said Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff. “This is part of an organized campaign of radical left terrorism.”

    Neither Trump nor Miller nor the other top administration officials flanking them — including Vice President JD Vance, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel — offered any evidence of such a widespread left-wing terror campaign, or many details about how the memo would be put into action.

    Law enforcement officials have said Kirk’s alleged shooter appears to have acted alone, and data on domestic extremism more broadly — including some recently scrubbed from the Justice Department’s website — suggest right-wing extremists represent the larger threat.

    Many on the right cheered Trump’s memo — just as many on the left cheered calls by Democrats for a clampdown on right-wing extremism during the Biden administration, particularly in light of the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. In that incident, more than 1,500 were criminally charged, many convicted of assaulting police officers and some for sedition, before Trump pardoned them or commuted their sentences.

    Many critics of the administration slammed the memo as a “chilling” threat that called to mind some of the most notorious periods of political suppression in the nation’s history — a claim the White House dismissed as wildly off base and steeped in liberal hypocrisy.

    That includes the Red Scare and the often less acknowledged Lavender Scare of the Cold War and beyond, they said, when Sen. Joseph McCarthy and other federal officials cast a pall over the nation, its social justice movements and its arts scene by promising to purge from government anyone who professed a belief in certain political ideas — such as communism — or was gay or lesbian or otherwise queer.

    Douglas M. Charles, a history professor at Penn State Greater Allegheny and author of “Hoover’s War on Gays: Exposing the FBI’s ‘Sex Deviates’ Program,” said Trump’s memo strongly paralleled past government efforts at political repression — including in its claim that “extremism on migration, race and gender” and “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” are all causing violence in the country.

    “What is this, McCarthyism redux?” Charles asked.

    Melina Abdullah, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, said the Trump administration is putting “targets on the backs of organizers” like her.

    Abdullah, speaking Friday from Washington, D.C., where she is attending the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference, said Trump’s efforts to cast left-leaning advocacy groups as a threat to democracy was “the definition of gaslighting” because the president “and his entire regime are violent.”

    “They are anti-Black. They are anti-people. They are anti-free speech,” Abdullah said. “What we are is indeed an organized body of people who want freedom for our people — and that is a demand for the kind of sustainable peace that only comes with justice.”

    Others, including prominent California Democrats, framed Trump’s memo and other recent administration acts — including Thursday’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey over the objections of career prosecutors — as a worrying blueprint for much wider vengeance on Trump’s behalf, which must be resisted.

    “Trump is waging a crusade of retribution — abusing the federal government as a weapon of personal revenge,” Gov. Gavin Newsom posted to X. “Today it’s his enemies. Tomorrow it may be you. Speak out. Use your voice.”

    White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, left, FBI Director Kash Patel and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi listen to President Trump Thursday in the Oval Office.

    (Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta noted that the memo listed various incidents of violence against Republicans while “deliberately ignoring” violence against Democrats, and said that while it is unclear what may come of the order, “the chilling effect is real and cannot be ignored.”

    Bonta also sent Bondi a letter Friday expressing his “grave concern” with the Comey indictment and asking her to “reassert the long-standing independence of the U.S. Department of Justice from political interference by declining to continue these politically-motivated investigations and prosecutions.”

    Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said the Trump administration is twisting Kirk’s tragic killing “into a pretext to weaponize the federal government against opponents Trump says he ‘hates.’”

    “In recent days, they’ve branded entire groups — including the Democratic Party itself — as threats, directed [the Justice Department] to go after his perceived enemies, and coerced companies to stifle any criticism of the Administration or its allies. This is pure personal grievance and retribution,” Padilla said. “If this abuse of power is normalized, no dissenting voice will be safe.”

    Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said it was “the highest form of hypocrisy for Democrats to falsely claim accountability is ‘political retribution’ when Joe Biden is the one who spent years weaponizing his entire Administration against President Trump and millions of patriotic Americans.”

    Jackson accused the Biden administration of censoring average Americans for their posts about COVID-19 on social media and of prosecuting “peaceful pro-life protestors,” among other things, and said the Trump administration “will continue to deliver the truth to the American people, restore integrity to our justice system, and take action to stop radical left-wing violence that is plaguing American communities.”

    A month ago, Miller said, “The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization” — a quote raising new concerns in light of Trump’s memo.

    On Sept. 16, Bondi said on X that “the radical left” has for too long normalized threats and cheered on political violence, and that she would be ending that by somehow prosecuting them for “hate speech.”

    Constitutional scholars — and some prominent conservative pundits — ridiculed Bondi’s claims as contrary to the 1st Amendment.

    On Sept. 18, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported that unnamed national security officials had told him that the FBI was considering treating transgender suspects as a “subset” of a new threat category known as “Nihilistic Violent Extremists” — a concept LGBTQ+ organizations scrambled to denounce as a threat to everyone’s civil liberties.

    “Everyone should be repulsed by the attempts to use the power of the federal government against their neighbors, their friends, and our families,” Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said Wednesday. “It creates a dangerous precedent that could one day be used against other Americans, progressive or conservative or anywhere in between.”

    In recent days, Trump has unabashedly attacked his critics — including late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, whose show was briefly suspended. On Sept. 20, he demanded on his Truth Social platform that Bondi move to prosecute several of his most prominent political opponents, including Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James.

    “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” wrote Trump, the only felon to ever occupy the White House. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

    Comey’s indictment — on charges of lying to Congress — was reported shortly after the White House event where Trump signed the memo. Trump declined to discuss Comey at the event, and was vague about who else might be targeted under the memo. But he did say he had heard “a lot of different names,” including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and George Soros, two prominent Democratic donors.

    “If they are funding these things, they’re gonna have some problems,” Trump said, without providing any evidence of wrongdoing by either man.

    The Open Society Foundations, which have disbursed billions from Soros’ fortune to an array of progressive groups globally, said in response that they “unequivocally condemn terrorism and do not fund terrorism” and that their activities “are peaceful and lawful.” Accusations suggesting otherwise were “politically motivated attacks on civil society, meant to silence speech the administration disagrees with,” the group said.

    John Day, president-elect of the American College of Trial Lawyers, said his organization has not taken a position on Trump’s memo, but had grave concerns about the process by which Comey was indicted — namely, after Trump called for such legal action publicly.

    “That, quite frankly, is very disturbing and concerning to us,” Day said. “This is not the way the legal system was designed to work, and it’s not the way it has worked for 250 years, and we are just very concerned that this happened at all,” Day said. “We’re praying that it is an outlier, as opposed to a predictor of what’s to come.”

    James Kirchick, author of “Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington,” which covers the Lavender Scare and its effects on the LGBTQ+ community in detail, said the “strongest similarity” he sees between then and now is the administration “taking the actions of an individual or a small number of people” — such as Kirk’s shooter — “and extrapolating that onto an entire class of people.”

    Kirchick said language on the left labeling the president a dictator isn’t helpful in such a political moment, but that he has found some of the administration’s language more alarming — especially, in light of the new memo, Miller’s suggestion that the Democratic Party is an extremist organization.

    “Does that mean the Democratic Party is going to be subject to FBI raids and extremist surveillance?” he asked.

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    Kevin Rector

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  • Who Might the Trump Administration Go After Next?

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    Andrew here. With the federal indictment of the former F.B.I. director James Comey, Trump is now clearly moving against his enemies. Among the high-profile names on his list are two titans of business: the billionaire philanthropist George Soros (whose former protégé Scott Bessent is Trump’s Treasury secretary) and the LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, both of whom are prolific Democratic donors. He spoke about going after them openly in the White House on Thurday.

    During past administrations, C.E.O.s in America showed a willingness to speak out against the president or his policies. Do Trump’s latest moves make it more fraught to do so? We have more on this, and other news below.

    President Trump has gotten his way, securing a federal indictment of James Comey, the former F.B.I. director and a longtime political opponent, despite concerns within the Justice Department over the case.

    The question is who comes next.

    Trump has already named potential targets: the billionaires George Soros and Reid Hoffman, both prolific Democratic donors, plus Democratic officials like Letitia James, New York’s attorney general.

    The Comey indictment came only after Trump put an ally in charge of the case. Lindsey Halligan, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, secured two charges from a grand jury before a statute of limitations ran out. Halligan, who has never prosecuted a federal case, failed to secure a third charge.

    Trump has already weighed in, declaring “JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” on social media.

    But the charges came after Halligan replaced Erik Siebert, who had privately expressed misgivings about the strength of the case, as U.S. attorney. Other Trump officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi (who The Times reported had also raised concerns about the case), publicly praised the charges.

    Who else faces scrutiny:

    • Soros, whose Open Society Foundations nonprofit is explicitly the target of potential Justice Department investigations, The Times reported. Long a boogeyman on the right for his funding of liberal causes, the billionaire has faced heightened legal pressure in the wake of the Charlie Kirk shooting, though the Open Society Foundations said in a statement that its activities are “peaceful and lawful.” It also decried “politically motivated attacks on civil society.”

    • Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, venture capitalist and longtime Democratic donor who helped bankroll private lawsuits against Trump. Hoffman has stayed relatively quiet about politics since the presidential election.

    “I hear names of some pretty rich people that are radical left people,” Trump said on Thursday in specifically naming Soros and Hoffman, and suggesting more may come under fire. “They’re bad, and we’re going to find out if they are funding these things.”

    Trump has shown he’s willing to take the gloves off this time around. Remember that his administration has extracted millions in settlements from law firms, pulled billions in federal funding from Harvard, fired officials at independent federal agencies, moved to oust a Fed governor on mortgage fraud allegations and essentially threatened broadcasters over content Trump didn’t like.

    Several legal experts have said that the cases against Comey — as well as a mortgage fraud investigation against James — is flawed. Even so, the indictment is already sending a powerful message, and corporate America is already on edge.

    Microsoft cuts off the Israeli military from some cloud services. The U.S. tech giant found that Israel’s Defense Ministry was misusing its products to hold surveillance data on Palestinians, including about millions of phone calls. The move makes Microsoft one of the first tech companies to remove or disable services to Israel since the start of the war in Gaza. It comes as the U.N. announced the need for greater global oversight over the risks and opportunities of A.I., including mass surveillance.

    All living Fed chairs ask the Supreme Court to protect bank independence. Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen (as well as the former Treasury secretaries Larry Summers and Hank Paulson) filed a court briefing urging the justices to allow the Fed governor Lisa Cook to remain in her job while she fights President Trump’s move to fire her over mortgage fraud allegations. Their argument hits at a deep investor concern: Research shows that lower inflation and lower long-term interest rates are features of independent central banks.

    NBC warns some viewers that they could lose “Sunday Night Football.” NBCUniversal ran ads criticizing YouTube TV in the midst of fraught negotiations over what the Google-owned streaming service would pay for NBC programming. The network threatened a blackout of its programming — which also includes N.B.A. basketball and the “Real Housewives” franchise — on YouTube TV unless an agreement is reached by Thursday.

    A new wave of Trump tariffs are coming, and fast.

    They’re set to go into effect on Oct. 1, which investors had already circled in their diaries as the start of a potential government shutdown. But what’s striking is how broad these new levies are, targeting pharmaceuticals, semi trucks, and kitchen cabinets and furnishings, including, yes, kitchen sinks.

    The breakdown:

    • Branded and patented pharmaceuticals face a 100 percent tariff.

    • Kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities are set for a 50 percent levy.

    • Upholstered furniture will be hit by a 30 percent charge.

    • Heavy trucks will be charged 25 percent.

    Are semiconductors next? The administration is said to be formulating a plan to use tariffs to sharply reduce corporate America’s reliance on foreign-made chips and bolster domestic production, The Wall Street Journal reported.

    The levies could land unevenly. For example, President Trump said that drugmakers building U.S. factories (which he said included those that are “‘breaking ground’ and/or ‘under construction’”) would be exempt.

    Worth noting: The trade deal struck this summer between the U.S. and the E.U. set a 15 percent tariff on imports including brand-name medicines. Olof Gill, a European Commission spokesman, said on Friday that the agreement would protect European importers from these new taxes, but the White House didn’t clarify that point on Thursday.

    The new tariffs could complicate the Fed’s job. Levies that drive up the price of patented drugs are expected to increase Americans’ health care costs. They come as inflation remains well above the central bank’s 2 percent target. Friday’s Personal Consumption Expenditures report is expected to show that tariffs are beginning to nudge prices higher.

    A hot number could also scramble the outlook for interest rates. Fed officials are divided on whether to slow the pace of cuts to bring inflation under control, or take bolder action to revive a slowing labor market.

    • Elsewhere in trade: China, historically a major customer of U.S. soybeans, has stopped buying them — and is instead sourcing them from Argentina. That has outraged Republicans, especially as the Trump administration plans a financial backstop for Buenos Aires. That aside, Trump said he would like to use some tariff revenue to help struggling American farmers.

    It looks as if there’s finally a deal to keep TikTok operating in the U.S. But there are already questions about the valuation and one of the principal investors.

    The latest: President Trump said on Thursday that “American investors, American companies, great ones” would lead the consortium to take over TikTok’s U.S. operations from its Chinese owner, ByteDance.

    But one of the expected backers is the Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX. It would also gain a board seat, the latest sign of the Emiratis using their deep pockets and growing ties to the Trump administration to expand their global influence.

    Consider:

    • The Persian Gulf state has pledged to invest $1.4 trillion in the U.S. over the next 10 years, to not only purchase Boeing jets, but to branch into artificial intelligence quantum computing and more.

    • MGX is also a major player in crypto, bringing it closer into Trump’s orbit. This spring it announced a $2 billion investment involving World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency start-up founded by the Trump family and Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s international diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff.

    • Two weeks later, the White House approved giving the United Arab Emirates access to a vast cache of advanced A.I. chips, a Times investigation revealed, many of which would go to G42, a sprawling technology firm controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who chairs MGX. (There’s no evidence the crypto and chips deals are linked.)

    • On Thursday, the Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan asked inspectors general at the Commerce and State Departments to investigate whether these actions violated ethics rules.

    Wall Street is confused, too. Vice President JD Vance, who has led negotiations around TikTok, valued the deal on Thursday at $14 billion. Some analysts had pegged it at closer to $30 billion to $40 billion. The app’s ad revenue alone was estimated at $10 billion last year. In contrast, Snap collected about $5.4 billion in sales last year. Its market capitalization: $14 billion.

    “The number’s got to be wrong,” Brent Hill, a technology analyst at Jeffries, told CNBC. “It doesn’t make sense.”

    — Ken Griffin. The billionaire investor and longtime Republican donor, who recently spoke out against President Trump’s efforts to undermine Fed independence, has a new criticism: the Trump administration cutting deals with companies in exchange for tariff relief.

    Every week, we’re asking a chief executive how he or she uses generative artificial intelligence. Frank Ryan of the law firm DLA Piper, which has about 4,500 lawyers in 40 offices, told DealBook that the company was developing its own A.I. tools. His answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

    How do you use A.I. personally?

    I had a family member undergo surgery, and I took all of his results and put them into Perplexity — it was remarkable.

    What directives have you given your employees on A. I.?

    You have to embrace new technology — you just do. We have 20 or so data scientists. We have a group developing our own technology.

    The public large language models provide you with some helpful responses. But given the precision that we require and that our clients require, we need something a bit more specific. So we’ve created our own data sets to look at different needs. We’ve got a great team that does red-teaming [trying to break through the safeguards of A.I. programs in an effort to identify their vulnerabilities]. We look at whether or not there are hallucinations.

    We’ve got great tools on both the transaction and the litigation sides of our business that try to predict outcomes rather effectively.

    Deals

    Technology and artificial intelligence

    • “Spending on A.I. Is at Epic Levels. Will It Ever Pay Off?” (WSJ)

    • Having laid off thousands in recent months, Accenture has warned employees that it plans to “exit” those who they feel cannot be retrained for the A.I. age. (FT)

    Best of the rest

    We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.

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    Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Niko Gallogly and Ian Mount

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  • Column: Trump’s D.C. takeover is a desperate distraction from Epstein files

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    Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi’s decision to appoint an “emergency police commissioner” in Washington is just the latest attempt to change an increasingly uncomfortable subject for the White House. Last month President Trump told the American people he was never briefed on the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein, who in 2019 was charged with sex trafficking minors. We now know that Bondi told the president in May that his name appeared multiple times in those files, which traced Epstein’s operation back to the mid-1990s.

    So — either you believe a city experiencing a 30-year low in crime is suddenly in need of an emergency police commissioner or you agree with Joe Rogan’s assessment: This administration is gaslighting the public regarding those files.

    Now there will be pundits who will try to say Republicans are too focused on kitchen table issues to care about the Epstein controversy.

    If only that were true.

    According to the Consumer Price Index, goods cost more today than they did a month ago. And prices are higher than they were a year ago. It would be wonderful if Congress were in session to address kitchen table issues like grocery prices. However, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) ended the House session early to avoid a vote on the release of the Epstein files — a vote that could have displeased Trump. Those are the lengths some in the MAGA movement are willing to go to prevent the public from knowing the truth about Epstein’s clients. That is the backdrop for what is currently happening in the streets of Washington. It’s not inspired by a rise in crime, but by a fear of transparency.

    It’s important to look at Bondi’s “emergency police commissioner” decision with clear, discerning eyes because the administration is purposefully conflating the issues of crime and homelessness in order to win back support from Trump’s base. While it is true that the district has made huge progress against crime, and the number of unhoused residents is far lower than a decade ago even though homeless populations nationwide have soared, the rise of conspicuous encampments around Washington is one of the reasons Virginia was almost able to lure away the city’s NBA and NHL teams. However, the nation’s capital was able to keep those sports franchises because of the leadership of Mayor Muriel Bowser.

    Instead of taking over the city’s police force, perhaps Bondi should ask Bowser for some advice that could be replicated in other cities nationwide. Ask the mayor’s office what resources it might need to continue its progress on homelessness and crime. But again, this really isn’t about what benefits the people, is it? It’s really about what’s in the best interest of one person.

    Now there will be pundits who will try to tell you Republicans are too focused on making this country “great” to worry about who is in the Epstein files. I ask you, when has trampling over democracy ever made us great? In Iran, we contributed to the overthrowing of Mohammad Mosaddegh in the 1950s, and we continue to be at odds with the nation. In Chile in the early 1970s, we moved against Salvador Allende, and it took 20 years to normalize our relationship again.

    Here at home, in 2010, the state of Michigan took over the predominantly Black city of Benton Harbor under the guise of a financial emergency. The City Council was prevented from governing as state officials tried to save the city from a crippling pension deficit and other financial shortages. There was temporary reprieve, but Benton Harbor is still on economic life support. That’s because the issue wasn’t the policies of the local government. It was the lasting effects of losing so much tax revenue to a neighboring suburb due to white flight. The explanation for Benton Harbor’s woes lies in the past, not the present.

    The same is true in Washington. The relatively young suburbs of McLean and Great Falls, Va., are two of the richest in the country. When you have the same financial obligations of yesteryear but less tax revenue to operate with, there will be shortfalls. And those gaps manifest themselves in many ways — rundown homes, empty storefronts, a lack of school resources.

    Those are legitimate plagues affecting every major city. What Bondi is doing in Washington isn’t a cure for what ails it. And when you consider why she’s doing what she’s doing, you are reminded why people are so sick of politics.

    YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

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    Perspectives

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    Ideas expressed in the piece

    • The author argues that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appointment of an “emergency police commissioner” in Washington D.C. serves as a deliberate distraction from the Jeffrey Epstein files controversy, rather than addressing any legitimate public safety emergency.

    • The author contends that President Trump misled the American public by claiming he was never briefed on the Epstein files, when Bondi actually informed him in May that his name appeared multiple times in documents tracing Epstein’s operation back to the mid-1990s.

    • The author emphasizes that Washington D.C. is currently experiencing a 30-year low in crime rates, making the justification for an “emergency police commissioner” appear fabricated and politically motivated rather than based on actual public safety needs.

    • The author criticizes House Speaker Mike Johnson for ending the legislative session early specifically to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files, suggesting this demonstrates how far the MAGA movement will go to protect Trump from transparency.

    • The author argues that the administration is purposefully conflating crime and homelessness issues to win back support from Trump’s base, while ignoring the actual progress Washington D.C. has made under Mayor Muriel Bowser’s leadership in reducing both crime and homelessness.

    • The author draws historical parallels to failed U.S. interventions in Iran and Chile, as well as Michigan’s takeover of Benton Harbor, arguing that federal takeovers of local governance consistently fail and represent an assault on democratic principles rather than effective problem-solving.

    Different views on the topic

    • Trump administration officials justify the federal intervention as part of a broader crime-reduction initiative, with National Guard forces working alongside law enforcement teams to carry out the president’s plan to reduce violent crime in the city[1].

    • The administration cited legal authority under Section 740 of the Home Rule Act, which grants the president the power to place the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control during a declared emergency, marking the first time a president has invoked this unprecedented authority[2].

    • Federal officials defended the directive as necessary for enforcing immigration laws, with the revised order specifically directing D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to provide assistance with “locating, apprehending, and detaining aliens unlawfully present in the United States” regardless of local D.C. law and police policies[1].

    • The administration’s approach focused on nullifying the city’s sanctuary city policies and ensuring that all Metropolitan Police Department leadership obtain federal approval for policy decisions moving forward, framing this as essential for effective federal law enforcement[2].

    • Following legal challenges, the Justice Department demonstrated flexibility by scaling back the original directive after meeting with D.C. officials, ultimately leaving the local police chief in charge while maintaining federal oversight for immigration-related matters[1].

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    LZ Granderson

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