The fight that scrubbed the world's most powerful AI models from the internet featured personality clashes, industry confusion, and international backlash.Why it matters: Anthropic's models are back online, but the impact of its 20-day showdown with the Trump administration will be long lasting.Behind the scenes: It began when Amazon, Anthropic's partner and investor, sounded an alarm that was later disputed by cybersecurity experts.It warned about a "jailbreaking" issue it found with the AI lab's latest models, Mythos and Fable — meaning a technical flaw that could have caused a failure of their guardrails.Amazon flagged its concerns to the administration, triggering sweeping export controls. A U.S. official said the government conducted its own tests once it became apparent that the issue needed to be addressed.Cybersecurity experts, however, later wrote in an open letter to the administration that other leading AI models have the same issue Amazon warned about with Anthropic.On June 12, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, at the direction of President Trump, called Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Lutnick made clear to Amodei the issue needed to be resolved fast and alerted the CEO that the company would be receiving a letter imposing sweeping export controls, the U.S. official said.Amodei called Lutnick back that night after receiving the letter, realizing it effectively meant the models would have to be taken offline — to which Lutnick responded that was indeed the goal.That decision led to a three-week, multi-agency crash course in AI safety.Anthropic deployed engineers to Washington D.C. According to a U.S. official, the company wanted to prove everything was already resolved and further changes were being fine tuned.But the federal Center for AI Standards and Innovation and the National Security Agency said those changes weren't good enough, prompting further fixes, according to the U.S. official.Gradually, various agency heads approved of the changes, and on July 1 the models were released, the official said.Out of all of the administration officials Amazon's Andy Jassy could have called, it was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who first heard about the jailbreaking issue found in the company report, according to a separate source familiar.Bessent was early to sound the alarm on Mythos, work with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to re-engage the embattled company, and help get a cybersecurity executive order across the finish line.While technical discussions to address the jailbreaking issue took place in D.C., it was Bessent who stood next to President Trump during the G7 where allies called for global cooperation on safety standards.At the center of the showdown was Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who also flanked Trump at the G7 meeting while his department's teams led technical discussions.National cyber director Sean Cairncross, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Treasury Department chief information officer Sam Corcos, and the NSA also all participated in technical discussions, according to various sources.Washington mobilized faster to hold scores of meetings and pulled in far more agencies than one would expect for a single technical issue, one source said.The tension spiraled amid personality clashes and poor communication.Anthropic eventually understood that in order to be successful they needed to be on the same side as the government, the U.S. official said.As discussions turned more technical, Anthropic policy chief Sarah Heck and Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown got more involved. Brown also had multiple conversations with Lutnick and Cairncross the weekend of June 12.There was never a moment where Dario stepped offstage and someone else replaced him, one source said, adding that Brown's technical expertise allowed him to sit in a room with government specialists and go line‑by‑line through how models behave under stress.Between the lines: It remains uncertain when and how Anthropic's models will be released to ally countries around the world — which proponents say is key to beating China — or how other labs from OpenAI to Google will release their latest models.OpenAI, whose latest model GPT-5.6 is on hold, did not have visibility into discussions between Anthropic and the White House and is engaged in daily technical discussions on the release of its own model, a source said.The bottom line: There's a lot of work left to be done on a framework for approving future models with a clear inclusive process that has transparency standards and timelines, sources familiar said.
A longtime Democratic political insider secretly served as an informant for the FBI while working for California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Alexis Podesta, who was appointed by Gov. […]
Democrats are preparing a hostile audit of President Trump and his inner circle, intent on exposing — and ultimately ending — the most lucrative presidency in American history.Why it matters: Since winning the 2024 election, Trump has operated in a Wild West of his own making — monetizing the office to the tune of billions, while enabling family, friends and donors to cash in along the way.He and the White House have denied any conflicts of interest. Republicans, who spent years investigating the Biden family's business dealings, have shielded Trump from the same scrutiny.But Democrats see the presidential gold rush as corruption personified — and plan to bury Trump's orbit in subpoenas if they win the House in November's midterms.Zoom in: Trump's $2.2 billion financial disclosure is a 927-page roadmap for the coming investigations, itemizing every known venture that made 2025 the richest year of his life.A crypto business that barely existed when Trump took office minted him roughly $1.2 billion — eclipsing, in a single year, the real estate empire he spent decades building.His biggest single payday was $635 million in royalties from the $TRUMP meme coin, which has crashed roughly 95% from its inauguration-week launch — destroying billions for the small investors who bought in.Trump also reported tens of millions from legal settlements with major media and tech companies, plus new income from branded watches, sneakers, Bibles, fragrances and foreign licensing deals.Zoom out: For Democratic investigators, the ripest targets are the people around Trump: family, appointees and allies who, unlike the president, can be compelled to testify under oath.World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture launched by the Trump and Witkoff families, has become a magnet for foreign money, including a secret $500 million investment from a senior Emirati royal.A New York Times investigation found that Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and the sons of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have ties to at least 14 companies seeking $8.9 billion in federal support for critical-minerals deals.Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, has raised billions from Gulf governments while leading Middle East peace talks. In Albania, Kushner's firm won "strategic investor" status for a $1.4 billion luxury resort on a protected island — igniting mass protests dubbed the "flamingo revolution."What they're saying: Trump dismissed criticism of his financial disclosure on Wednesday, telling reporters his money is run by outside advisers in what he called a "blind account.""Everybody is profiting," Trump said, because "the stock market's going up."In a CNBC interview Thursday, Trump said he didn't know about many of the crypto gains disclosed in the filing because his son Eric and outside firms handle his investments. But he also argued that even if he had known, "there's nothing illegal with that," saying presidents cannot realistically recuse themselves from every decision that might affect their finances.Reality check: Trump's defense focuses on who manages his investments. Democrats are preparing to scrutinize the much bigger ecosystem around them: a portfolio that made more than 21,000 securities transactions in 2025, a family crypto empire, foreign business deals and other ventures that expanded alongside his presidency.The explanation also sidesteps broader ethics questions, including Trump's acceptance of a $400 million Qatari jet that entered service as Air Force One on Wednesday.Trump plans to keep the luxury plane — the largest foreign gift in U.S. history — for his presidential library after he leaves office.White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement: "President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media. There are no conflicts of interest."The big picture: Scrutiny of Trump's finances comes amid a growing anti-billionaire current in U.S. politics, exacerbated by a cost-of-living crisis the president repeatedly has downplayed.The number of democratic socialists in Congress is poised to more than double after the midterms, giving the left's anti-oligarchy message a bigger platform inside the Democratic Party.Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has made corruption the central theme of his re-election message, drawing 2028 chatter for his viral speeches detailing the Trump family's foreign windfalls.For Democrats, the bet is that Trump's profits can become part of a broader affordability argument: Washington works for the well-connected, while everyone else pays the price.The bottom line: It's no secret that Democrats intend to make life miserable for Trump and his inner circle if they win the midterms."They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they'll go after the president's family, the Cabinet, his donors and friends," House Speaker...
Former special counsel Jack Smith has been a constant target of fury and legal threats by President Donald Trump, dating back to even before the election, when the famed prosecutor was helming a pair of federal criminal cases against him.But Smith doesn't dwell much on the possibility that Trump's Justice Department will fabricate some charges against him, he told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace in an exclusive interview on Thursday. There's something he worries a lot more about."Do you think that this is a department that you could send someone to go work in, and they could be asked to indict you?" asked Wallace.Smith agreed "that could happen" — however, he continued, "in the Justice Department, even as we sit here right now, there are lots of people doing good work prosecuting violent crime, protecting their communities, doing the everyday work of being a prosecutor. And yes, it could happen. That could happen, and that would be unfortunate. And then you might have to step down." Nonetheless, he added, "I don't want to see people run from public service because of that possibility.""Do you expect to be indicted?" Wallace followed up, noting that Trump "said he would indict you."Smith replied, "I'll tell you, Nicolle, I honestly do not spend a lot of time thinking about the things he says about me and his threats about me."Instead of that, he continued, "I'm really focused on the people who I worked with, looking out for them. I'm really focused on how the Justice Department is going to be better going forward, things like that."What Smith worries about more, he made clear, is the future of the people he worked with who helped him do his job.Ultimately, Smith said, "I had an all-star team ... the agents on my case, if I were to walk you through all the awards they've won throughout generations of administrations, we would be here all night. These were superstars. I'm much more concerned that those people get to serve in the department, get to serve in the bureau again someday." - YouTube www.youtube.com
Former special counsel Jack Smith outlined his fears and beliefs about the direction of the country in a far-reaching interview with MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace, exclusively aired Thursday on "Deadline: White House."Smith, who prosecuted the two federal cases against President Donald Trump, told Wallace that it is important this 4th of July "to celebrate the public servants ... the people I spent my career working shoulder to shoulder with.""I loved being a prosecutor, and part of it was I loved being around these sort of people, and it angers me to see them victimized, to see them demonized for doing their jobs," said Smith, adding that it is critical to "stand up for them and let them know that there are a lot of people out there who back them and who are with them" as the Trump administration publicly attacks them and fires them for political reasons."There are a lot of good career prosecutors who right now are working under incredibly difficult circumstances, and they're still trying to do the right thing," said Smith. These prosecutors, he said, "are not self-promoters" and will not "crow about their achievements" on TV — and "We need to hold them up and celebrate them because they're part of what makes this country great."Smith also had a warning about the breakdown of trust in federal courts against Justice Department prosecutors, as judges come to realize the political appointees under Trump cannot be assumed to tell the truth in major cases."If you go to court and the judges don't trust you, you can't do the basic things that you need to do to represent the American people in court," said Smith. "And we have seen judges across the country say they can't trust prosecutors anymore. And that has such a cascading effect on any sort of case."Had that ever happened under a case Smith was prosecuting, he added, "one opinion like that in my career would have been seismic. People would not know what to do ..., and that's happening every day.""And so regardless of what you think politically, they're just not effective at doing their job anymore," Smith lamented. "They've jettisoned expertise. And so we have a situation where we've got rid of people who know how to protect our national security." - YouTube youtu.be
A security expert warned about the impact of Trump's latest move to send hundreds of FBI analysts to Georgia.CNN law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller broke down Trump's decision to send 260 intelligence officials to Georgia to investigate the 2020 election results. Miller said the move is "very concerning," especially as Trump pushes the Save America Act, a voter-proof-of-citizenship law."There is a through line when you combine the idea that he is pushing the SAVE Act and then, on a holiday weekend, calls in hundreds of FBI analysts," Miller said. "When law enforcement comes in and starts doing things like this...it creates this chilling effect towards election workers and others."He explained that Trump called in "staff operations specialists and investigative operations specialists to the Atlanta field office," and "this is the kind of people where it looks like you would be dumping a ton of paperwork, maybe ballots on them."The instructions to these hundreds of FBI analysts could even be to go through the ballots and investigate them "one at a time," Miller added. However, he cautioned that, "if they're doing a recount, that kind of usurps the election authorities of the state."Whether or not they find anything, Miller warned, "You're creating this atmosphere that there's something wrong there, and I can't see these two things being unconnected," again referring to the Save America Act and noting that this "could have been done last week."
The Department of Justice accidentally released the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on President Trump’s handling of classified documents in a legal case last month, according to a legal filing published Thursday. DOJ lawyers sent the sealed report to lawyers for Carmen Lineberger, who was charged with stealing the report by emailing it to herself disguised as a cake recipe. On June 3, DOJ officials handed over discovery items on flash drives to Lineberger’s lawyers. Included in those drives were documents embedded in electronic messages that were required to be disclosed. On June 9, the defendant’s attorneys reported they found three documents and contacted the government to confirm if they were supposed to be part of discovery materials.After they reviewed the documents, DOJ lawyers confirmed that they were actually copies of Smith’s report. Defense attorneys told the government they stopped reviewing the material before examining the report itself, deleted the discovery materials they had downloaded, and handed the flash drives back to the government. Thursday’s legal filing was to notify Judge Aileen Cannon, the judge presiding over Trump’s classified documents case.The accidental leak has to be embarrassing for the government, considering Trump’s successful effort to keep the Smith’s report hidden from the public after he won the 2024 presidential election. The defense counsel could have leaked the documents, but considering that their client was accused of improperly handling them, chose to follow the rules.The situation is ironic, considering Smith’s report was all about how Trump allegedly mishandled classified documents by keeping them at Mar-a-Lago instead of returning them to the government. Smith’s case wasn’t allowed to go to trial thanks to Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissing it on flimsy grounds. It seems that the public may never know the full details of what Trump did.
