Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on Wednesday condemned Bill Gates’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein, which began after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty to sex crimes in 2008. The billionaire testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Wednesday about his ties to Epstein. As the committee’s ranking member, Garcia noted that Gates was…
The next round of criticism from those hating on President Donald Trump’s planned UFC event at the White House focused on the custom outfits to be worn […]
The Trump administration is launching a "massive leak hunt" to find out who spilled details on a panicked conversation inside the White House.A new book by journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan has the Trump White House scrambling to find out who leaked details about the Trump administration's "freakout" over the release of the Epstein files, according to reporting by CNN. The New York Times published an excerpt of the book, "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," on Wednesday.The book's excerpt describes a meeting that Trump didn't attend or know about in the Situation Room. Included in the meeting were his senior aides, Vice President JD Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, last year to plan how to contain the fallout. Others present included then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel, according to reporting by The Daily Beast. According to an excerpt of Haberman and Swan's book, Vance "appeared panicked" about how the Epstein files would divide the president's base.CNN cited a person who "detected" the search for the leaker to confirm that the White House is now hunting them down.
Rep. Terri Sewell claims the GOP probe into ActBlue and CEO Regina Wallace-Jones is part of a pattern of Trump DOJ harassment of Black women in power.
One of the richest men in the world, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, testified about his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Wednesday. Gates told lawmakers he never saw Epstein engage in criminal conduct. Nikole Killion reports.
The Microsoft co-founder spent hours talking to lawmakers behind closed doors, where he also said Epstein used his marital infidelities to pressure him.
The Wall Street Journal is arguing that one detail matches its reporting about President Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein.In a new legal filing, lawyers for Dow Jones, the company that owns the Wall Street Journal, argued that Trump "cannot" dispute that a signature appearing on a typewritten note and a sketch of a naked woman sent to Epstein resembles his own.Trump sued the Wall Street Journal over an article about a book of letters compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. He alleged that the paper defamed him by noting that the letter and sketch bear his signature. Earlier this year, a court accepted the Journal's motion to dismiss because Trump couldn't prove actual malice in the article. Trump was able to revive a defamation claim, but Dow Jones's lawyers are again seeking to dismiss Trump's lawsuit in their new legal filing.The defense lawyers are telling the court to throw out Trump's lawsuit because "the article is true." After the Journal reviewed the letter and sketch with Trump's signature, Epstein's estate released the "Birthday Book" to the House Oversight Committee in September."The article is true because the description of the letter 'bearing Trump's name' in the article is an entirely accurate description of the letter as it appears in the Birthday Book," the filing read. "The article states that the Journal 'reviewed' the letter before publication and described its contents in detail (which exactly match the contents of the letter released by Congress)," the legal filing argued, adding that Trump doesn't even dispute the resemblance of his signature to the one in the birthday book "because he cannot."
Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune was noticeably absent from Wednesday’s Oval Office bill signing ceremony — but top House and Senate leaders — including Speaker Mike Johnson — were present, cheering on the president. Thune did take time to talk with reporters, where he tied Wednesday’s surging inflation numbers to Trump’s Iran war.The Washington Examiner’s David Sivak asked Thune directly why he wasn’t present at the president’s signing of the $70 billion reconciliation bill to fund ICE and the Border Patrol, or to talk about FISA legislation with Trump. Thune noted that Speaker Johnson is “down there anyway” and that he and Johnson “talk regularly,” Sivak reported. Thune appeared to suggest that there might not have been an invitation, adding, “I don’t know that we got asked, but I’ve got stuff going on here, as you know.”Thune spelled out the inflation connection to reporters, as Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio reported. “The sooner we get the situation in Iran stabilized, the Strait [of Hormuz] opened up, those [inflation] numbers will trend in a better direction,” he said. “But obviously right now there are important national security objectives we’re trying to achieve.”“The American people realize that if we’re heading in the right direction and the trendlines are good and the confidence is good long-term — which I [think] it will be because of all the other things we’ve done on the economy — then obviously people will start to see improvement,” he also said. “It may not happen overnight, but it will. But at least for now, we’ve got to do everything we can to keep the pressure on [in] getting the situation in the Middle East resolved.”Getting the situation in Iran resolved was not how President Trump appeared to approach Iran on Wednesday. “Iran’s Military is a complete and total mess,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore – They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action. The Bully of the Middle East is dead!!! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”In that Oval Office meeting, Trump also slammed Iran, saying that the U.S. would hit Iran hard again on Wednesday, and insisted the Iranian government is “playing us for suckers.”Thune has distanced himself from the president over time, refusing his repeated demands to pass the controversial SAVE America Act — legislation some call voter suppression — to kill the filibuster, and to fire the Senate parliamentarian. He has also opposed Trump’s intelligence nominee. Thune tried to persuade Trump to back Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), but the president endorsed Ken Paxton instead — and Paxton went on to defeat Cornyn in the May primary runoff.