Former inspector general calls for audit of Epstein files release to be conducted ‘without undue influence’<\/p>\n
Mark Greenblatt, who was the inspector general for the US Interior Department before Donald Trump<\/a> fired him in January, has released a statement calling for the Department of Justice\u2019s office of the inspector general to carry out its audit of the justice department\u2019s compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act \u201cwithout undue influence\u201d.<\/p>\n Greenblatt, who was appointed as inspector general during Trump\u2019s first term in 2019, investigated the clearing of Black Lives Matter protesters from Lafayette Park outside the White House in 2020, for a photo op featuring the president holding up a Bible, and the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021.<\/p>\n In his statement, Greenblatt called the announcement of an audit of the partial release of documents from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, the late child sex offender who socialized with Trump for nearly two decades, \u201can important and much needed development.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is exactly the kind of independent oversight the American people expect, especially in a case involving powerful individuals, vulnerable victims, and deeply serious alleged crimes,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhen Congress mandates transparency, it is essential that agencies carry out that directive completely and without undue influence. This audit is a critical step in ensuring that the Department is meeting both the letter and the spirit of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n He added:<\/p>\n double quotation markIt is critically important the audit is thorough and independent. This effort must examine not just what information has been released, but how decisions are made about what is withheld or redacted.<\/p>\n The American people deserve confidence that these judgments are being made fairly and without political considerations. Independent oversight is most important when public trust is on the line. A rigorous, fact-based review will help ensure accountability and reinforce confidence in the process.<\/p>\n The stakes here are clear: whether transparency laws will be enforced as intended and whether the public can have confidence that no one is beyond scrutiny.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a019.01 EDT<\/p>\n Key events<\/p>\n Show key events only<\/p>\n Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature<\/p>\n Closing summary<\/p>\n This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration<\/a> for the day. Here\u2019s the latest:<\/p>\n The Department of Justice announced an internal audit of its compliance with a law mandating the release files from the investigations of Jeffrey Epstein<\/strong>, the late child sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump<\/strong> for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The Trump administration has moved to reclassify marijuana, more than four months after Trump signed an executive order<\/a> directing the attorney general to move it from schedule I to schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Trump, apparently abandoning his attempt to frighten Iran\u2019s leaders into negotiating by channeling Richard Nixon\u2019s \u201cmadman\u201d theory<\/a>, ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in his conflict with Iran.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Trump has decided to invite wanted war criminal Vladimir Putin<\/strong> to the G-20 summit in December at Trump\u2019s Doral golf resort, the Washington Post reports.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Trump confirmed that the government is considering a plan to bail out or \u2018\u201cjust buy\u201d Spirit Airlines, but confused Barack Obama with Joe Biden, and Jet Blue with People Express, which has been defunct since 1987.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n India\u2019s foreign ministry denounced comments from the rightwing US commentator Michael Savage<\/strong>, posted on social media<\/a> by Trump, which argued against awarding birthright citizenship to the US-born children of immigrants \u201cfrom China or India or some other hellhole on the planet\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a022.18 EDT<\/p>\n Backlash in India to Trump amplifying screed against birthright citizenship that calls country a ‘hellhole’<\/p>\n On Thursday, India\u2019s foreign ministry denounced comments from the rightwing US commentator Michael Savage<\/strong>, posted on social media<\/a> by Donald Trump<\/strong>, which argued against awarding birthright citizenship to the US-born children of immigrants \u201cfrom China or India or some other hellhole on the planet\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump also shared video of the monologue from Savage.<\/p>\n India\u2019s foreign ministry spokesman, Randhir Jaiswal<\/strong>, called<\/a> the Savage remarks Trump promoted, \u201cobviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste\u201d.<\/p>\n By endorsing Savage\u2019s diatribe against the American-born children of Chinese or Indian immigrants, whom he claimed are \u201ccoming here by airplane in the ninth month of their pregnancy\u201d and have \u201calmost no loyalty to this country\u201d, Trump appears to have ignored the claim to citizenship of several people close to him.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s father, for instance, was born to a non-citizen immigrant mother who arrived in New York five months pregnant only because her husband was denied permission to resettle in Bavaria, as she wished, because he was accused of dodging military service and the family was ordered deported.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s mother, an immigrant from Scotland, was also not yet a citizen when she gave birth in the US to his two older siblings.<\/p>\n More recently, the current second lady of the United States, Usha Vance<\/strong>, was born to Indian immigrant parents in San Diego, making her a citizen under the 14th Amendment to the US constitution, which Trump has challenged through an executive order currently before the US supreme court.<\/p>\n Although Trump\u2019s solicitor general, John Sauer<\/strong>, argued before the court that the order would not be applied retroactively, if it was to be upheld by the court (as seems unlikely), the citizenship of children born to non-citizen parents, even those on visas that give them a legal right to live in the US, could be cast into doubt.<\/p>\n A strict application of that order to repeal birthright citizenship could potentially be used to strip citizenship from not just the vice-president\u2019s wife but also Trump\u2019s 2024 rival, Kamala Harris<\/strong>, who was born in Oakland to parents on student visas.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Jeremy Barr<\/p>\n Dozens of protesters, including members of Congress, gathered along the National Mall on Thursday to protest an \u201cintimate\u201d dinner<\/a> being held by Paramount Skydance chief executive David Ellison \u201cin celebration of the First Amendment\u201d and \u201chonoring the Trump White House and CBS White House Correspondents\u201d, and attended by Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Paramount has faced criticism for the dinner, which has been seen by some as illustrative of the cozy relationship between the Ellisons and the White House \u2013 right as the Trump administration is weighing whether to approve the company\u2019s $110bn merger with CNN parent company WarnerBros Discovery. The dinner comes before Saturday\u2019s White House correspondents\u2019 dinner<\/a>, which Trump will attend. His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is expected to sit at one of the many tables bought by CBS News for the event.<\/p>\n Earlier Thursday, WBD shareholders voted \u201coverwhelmingly\u201d to approve the merger, which will still require approval from the Department of Justice and European regulators.<\/p>\n US representative Jamie Raskin, who has been vocal in his criticism of the Ellisons\u2019 ownership of CBS News, referred to the event as \u201ca lavish oligarch\u2019s dinner for Donald Trump\u201d.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump confirms government could ‘just buy’ Spirit Airlines, then confuses Obama with Biden and Jet Blue with People Express<\/p>\n Donald Trump<\/strong> confirmed that the government is considering a plan to bail out or \u2018\u201cjust buy\u201d Spirit Airlines, the troubled budget carrier that could be forced into liquidation by spiking jet fuel prices caused by his war with Iran.<\/p>\n Asked by a reporter if his administration was going to buy Spirit, an idea that was denounced by two Republican senators on Wednesday, Trump said: \u201cwe\u2019re thinking about doing it, helping them out, meaning bailing them out, or buying it- I think we just buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n But before the president got around the answering the question, he took a little excursion, by first misstating who was president when Spirit\u2019s proposed merger with Jet Blue was blocked by a federal judge in 2022, and then confusing Jet Blue with People Express, a carrier that went out of business in 1987.<\/p>\n \u201cSo Spirit is an airline that\u2019s had some trouble,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThey were going to merge with People Express or one of them a number of years ago and Barack Hussein Obama decided it was a bad idea. How did that work out? It was out bad for both of them. That would have been a natural merger.\u201d<\/p>\n To untangle Trump\u2019s confusion: Joe Biden<\/strong> was president in 2022, not Barack Obama<\/strong>; a federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan blocked Spirit\u2019s merger with Jet Blue, not People Express, which stopped operating 22 years before Obama became president.<\/p>\n In 1988, the year after People Express went defunct, Trump launched a failed airline of his own<\/a>, the Trump Shuttle, which flew between New York, Boston and Washington DC for two years before going our of business in 1990, when jet fuel prices spiked after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.<\/p>\n Earlier in the White House event on Thursday, as the ambassadors of Lebanon and Israel looked on, Trump responded to a question from a Lebanese reporter on the role of Saudi Arabia in the byzantine politics of Lebanon by praising the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman and then pivoting into a sharply partisan attack on his Democratic predecessors.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re the hottest country anywhere in the world,\u201d Trump said, repeating something he claims the Saudi prince told him last year. \u201cWe suffered years of abuse by people that were grossly incompetent, like Biden, like Obama. Obama was incompetent. He was a great divider,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a020.44 EDT<\/p>\n Trump discusses Los Angeles wildfire recovery with city’s Democratic mayor Karen Bass<\/p>\n Donald Trump<\/strong> posted<\/a> a photograph of himself meeting the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass<\/strong>, in the Oval Office on Thursday on his social media platform.<\/p>\n According to Trump, he met Bass and Kathryn Barger<\/strong>, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors \u201cto discuss the progress made on the horrific fires that ravaged Los Angeles, and the surrounding area.\u201d<\/p>\n After giving himself a large helping of credit for that progress, Trump criticized banks, and suggested that his administration \u201cwill be looking into their actions,\u201d and singled out Wells Fargo. \u201cThe Banks must treat those people, who so horribly lost their Homes in this tragic fire, very fairly and well,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n Bass and Barger issued a joint statement<\/a> on the meeting, which was illustrated, but only on the website of Barger, a Republican, by a photograph of them smiling as they stood on either side of a seated Trump. The two LA leaders said:<\/p>\n double quotation mark\u201cThis afternoon, we met with President Trump and Administration officials to advocate for families who lost everything. We had a very positive discussion about FEMA and other rebuilding funds, as well as the support of the President to continue joining us in pressuring the insurance companies to pay what they owe \u2013 and for the big banks to step up to ease the financial pressure on LA families.<\/p>\n \u201cOur job is to fight for our communities. When it comes to this recovery, our federal partners are essential, and we are grateful for the support of the President.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a019.45 EDT<\/p>\n Former inspector general calls for audit of Epstein files release to be conducted ‘without undue influence’<\/p>\n Mark Greenblatt, who was the inspector general for the US Interior Department before Donald Trump<\/a> fired him in January, has released a statement calling for the Department of Justice\u2019s office of the inspector general to carry out its audit of the justice department\u2019s compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act \u201cwithout undue influence\u201d.<\/p>\n Greenblatt, who was appointed as inspector general during Trump\u2019s first term in 2019, investigated the clearing of Black Lives Matter protesters from Lafayette Park outside the White House in 2020, for a photo op featuring the president holding up a Bible, and the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021.<\/p>\n In his statement, Greenblatt called the announcement of an audit of the partial release of documents from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, the late child sex offender who socialized with Trump for nearly two decades, \u201can important and much needed development.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is exactly the kind of independent oversight the American people expect, especially in a case involving powerful individuals, vulnerable victims, and deeply serious alleged crimes,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhen Congress mandates transparency, it is essential that agencies carry out that directive completely and without undue influence. This audit is a critical step in ensuring that the Department is meeting both the letter and the spirit of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n He added:<\/p>\n double quotation markIt is critically important the audit is thorough and independent. This effort must examine not just what information has been released, but how decisions are made about what is withheld or redacted.<\/p>\n The American people deserve confidence that these judgments are being made fairly and without political considerations. Independent oversight is most important when public trust is on the line. A rigorous, fact-based review will help ensure accountability and reinforce confidence in the process.<\/p>\n The stakes here are clear: whether transparency laws will be enforced as intended and whether the public can have confidence that no one is beyond scrutiny.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a019.01 EDT<\/p>\n Israel’s US-born ambassador, who met Lebanese counterpart in Oval Office, was part of extremist Jewish Defense League<\/p>\n As he attempts to wind down the regional war in the Middle East he kicked off in February by joining Israel in attacking Iran, Donald Trump<\/a> just hosted the ambassadors of Lebanon and Israel in the Oval Office, and invited television cameras in to capture the foreign officials praising him.<\/p>\n The ambassadors agreed to extend a ceasefire in Lebanon, which has been bombarded and invaded by Israel as it seeks to degrade the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and Trump pledged to support the Lebanese government\u2019s efforts to govern without the support of Hezbollah, which also has a political wing with significant support in the country.<\/p>\n As +972 magazine, an independent Israeli and Palestinian outlet, reported last year<\/a>, Israel\u2019s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter<\/strong>, was born and raised in the United States.<\/p>\n Leiter thanked Trump for bringing him together with the Lebanese ambassador and cast Israel\u2019s objective as \u201cliberating Lebanon\u201d from what he called Hezbollah\u2019s \u201coccupation\u201d of the country. Hezbollah is, however, a Lebanese movement which only came into being in 1982 in response to a previous invasion and occupation of Lebanon by Israel.<\/p>\n Before he emigrated to Israel at the age of 18, and joined the Israeli military, Leiter was, +972 reported, \u201ca member of the far-right Jewish Defense League, a violent vigilante group founded by the extremist American rabbi Meir Kahane<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, stood behind Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday, flanked by Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, JD Vance, the vice-president, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n After moving to Israel, the same publication noted, \u201cLeiter joined<\/a> Kach, the fascist<\/a> political party and movement that Kahane had founded after his own immigration. Initially conceived as an international branch of the JDL, Kach eventually transformed into an authentic Israeli outfit that spawned its own political credo: Kahanism. Leiter was later nominated as a leader of the radical Jewish settlement in Hebron, before becoming a leader in the wider settler movement.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1994, after another American immigrant to Israel who was also a Kach member and Kahane follower, Baruch Goldstein, murdered 29 Palestinians at a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron, +972 explained, \u201cboth the Israeli<\/a> and US<\/a> governments classified Kach as a terrorist organization.\u201d<\/p>\n The US removed Kach from its list of foreign terrorist organizations<\/a> in 2022, during the Biden administration.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a018.45 EDT<\/p>\n Lebanese ambassador to US thanks Trump and says he can help ‘make Lebanon great again’<\/p>\n During an Oval Office meeting on Thursday, Lebanon\u2019s ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh Moawad<\/strong>, thanked Donald Trump<\/strong> for brokering a ceasefire to restrain Israel from bombing her country, and added a reference to Maga for good measure.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to really say thank you to the United States, under your leadership, for all your effort to help and to support Lebanon,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I think with your help, with your support, we can make Lebanon great again.\u201d<\/p>\n Video of the comments was quickly shared on social media<\/a> by the Trump White House.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump announces ceasefire in Lebanon to be extended by three weeks<\/p>\n Writing on his social media platform, Donald Trump<\/strong> just announced<\/a> that the ceasefire \u201cbetween Israel and Lebanon\u201d will be extended by three weeks.<\/p>\n The president said that the extension was agreed after he hosted an Oval Office meeting with unnamed \u201cHigh Ranking Representatives of Israel and Lebanon\u201d that was attended by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio<\/strong>, and the US ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon.<\/p>\n Trump also wrote that the US \u201cis going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah\u201d, the Islamist militant and political group backed by Iran that Israel has blamed for its recent invasion and bombing of Lebanon.<\/p>\n \u201cI look forward in the near future to hosting the Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, and the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n Benjamin Netanyahu, is a frequent visitor to the Trump White House the president addresses by his nickname, Bibi. Netanyahu, who reportedly convinced the president to attack Iran during his last visit, has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in connection with Israel\u2019s conduct in Gaza, but the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the court and does not enforce its warrants.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Trump intends to invite wanted war criminal Vladimir Putin to G-20 in Miami – report<\/p>\n Having said for years that ejecting Russia from meetings of the world\u2019s largest economic powers, over its annexation of Ukrainian territory in 2013, was a mistake, Donald Trump<\/strong> has reportedly decided to invite the Russian president, Vladimir Putin<\/strong>, to the Group of 20 leaders\u2019 summit scheduled for December at Trump\u2019s Doral golf resort in Miami, the Washington Post reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Post, citing unnamed administration officials, reports:<\/p>\n double quotation markIn a statement, the State Department said that President Donald Trump \u201chas been clear that Russia is welcome to attend all G-20 meetings as the United States focuses on delivering a successful and productive summit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo formal invitations have been issued at this time, but Russia is a G-20 member and will be invited to attend ministerial meetings and the leaders\u2019 summit,\u201d said a senior administration official.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant<\/a> for Putin in 2023, accusing him of responsibility for \u201cthe war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation\u201d. However, the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the court and does not enforce its warrants.<\/p>\n At the Group of 7 meeting in Canada last year, Trump brought up the issue<\/a> of Russia\u2019s exclusion, unprompted.<\/p>\n \u201cThe G-7 used to be the G-8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn\u2019t want to have Russia in, and I would say that that was a mistake because I think you wouldn\u2019t have a war right now,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it used to be the G-8 and now it\u2019s, I guess, what\u2019s that, nine years ago, eight years ago it switched over,\u201d Trump said, incorrectly, of the expulsion of Russia in 2014 over its annexation of Crimea.<\/p>\n \u201cThey threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake, even though I wasn\u2019t in politics then,\u201d he added. \u201cI was very loud about it. It was a mistake in that you spend so much time talking about Russia and he\u2019s no longer at the table, so it makes life more complicated. But you wouldn\u2019t have had the war.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine by Russia, and Russia\u2019s invasion of eastern Ukraine through the use of proxy forces that year, started the war.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a017.37 EDT<\/p>\n Trump says he would not use a nuclear weapon against Iran<\/p>\n Donald Trump<\/strong>, apparently abandoning his attempt to frighten Iran\u2019s leaders into negotiating by channeling Richard Nixon\u2019s \u201cmadman theory<\/a>, ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in the conflict with Iran in response to a reporter\u2019s question on Thursday in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n Asked by a reporter during the event if his dark threats to end Iranian civilization meant that he would consider using a nuclear weapon, Trump said: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. We don\u2019t need it. Why would I need it?\u201d he continued before attacking the reporter for asking.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would a stupid question like be asked?\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would I use a nuclear weapons when we\u2019ve totally, in a very conventional way, decimated then without it?\u201d the president added. \u201cNo, I wouldn\u2019t use it. A nuclear weapon should never be allowed to be used by anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Video of Trump\u2019s remarks was later posted on social media<\/a> by the US state department and shared by the White House press secretary.<\/p>\n In the past, Trump has repeatedly expressed a horror of nuclear weapons, which he said stemmed from a warnings delivered by his uncle John, a longtime professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n \u201cMy uncle used to tell me about nuclear before nuclear was nuclear,\u201d Trump said during his 2016 campaign for the presidency.<\/p>\n \u201cI hate nuclear more than any. My uncle was a professor was at MIT, used to tell me about nuclear,\u201d Trump told Anderson Cooper<\/a> during a CNN town hall event in 2016.<\/p>\n During the second world war, John Trump<\/strong>, then serving on the wartime National Defense Research Committee, was asked to analyze a batch of technical papers found in the New York hotel room of Nikola Tesla<\/strong> when the Serbian-American inventor died in 1943.<\/p>\n Before his death, Tesla had publicly claimed to have invented a so-called \u201cdeath beam\u201d, so John Trump was asked to evaluate the papers \u201cfor the purpose of determining if any ideas of significant value in the present United States war effort could be found\u201d.<\/p>\n He reported<\/a> that Tesla\u2019s writings in the last years of his life \u201cwere primarily of a speculative, philosophical, and somewhat promotional character often concerned with the production and wireless transmission of power; but did not include new, sound, workable principles or methods for realizing such results.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a021.45 EDT<\/p>\n Trump boasts about 2019 speech in which he said US army ‘took over the airports’ in war of 1812<\/p>\n Donald Trump<\/strong> is now taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office, repeating his claims that the war in Iran is going well. He called a reporter who asked why the war is still going on \u201csuch a disgrace\u201d and noted that the war had not yet lasted as long as the Vietnam war.<\/p>\n Minutes earlier, while showing off plans to renovate the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the president made the odd decision to remind the public that he once gave a speech at the site, in the same location where Martin Luther King Jr<\/strong> delivered his famed \u201cI have a dream\u201d speech. As he has for years<\/a>, Trump argued that he attracted a larger crowd for his speech, at a Fourth of July celebration in 2019, than the civil rights leader did in 1963.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s decision to bring up his 2019 speech was unusual because the most famous part of that Trump address<\/a> was when, badly misreading remarks<\/a> on a rain-soaked teleprompter, he gave a wildly inaccurate account of US military history.<\/p>\n After claiming that the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary war was \u201cnamed after\u201d George Washington in 1775, he went on to say that, during the War of 1812: \u201cOur army manned the ampert, it ranned the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do\u201d.<\/p>\n Donald Trump spoke at the Lincoln Memorial during Fourth of July celebrations in Washington DC in 2019. Photograph: Joshua Roberts\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a016.33 EDT<\/p>\n Trump falsely said he had more people attend a 4 July event in Washington, DC years ago, than Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1963 March on Washington.<\/p>\n \u201cI actually had more people, but that\u2019s OK,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThey gave him a million people,\u201d adding the \u201cfake news\u201d media only said 25,000 people attended his event.<\/p>\n\n
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