Maxwell’s lawyer suggests Trump might be sympathetic to her case for a pardon
After Donald Trump reminded everyone on Friday that he is “allowed to” pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, a former associate of his who was convicted of conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom and sexually abuse girls, Maxwell’s lawyer suggested that Trump might be sympathetic to the argument that her conviction was unjust.
“We haven’t spoken to the president, or anybody, about a pardon, just yet,” Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, told reporters after her meeting with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche in Tallahassee, Florida.
“Listen,” Markus added, “the president said this morning he has the power to do so. We hope he exercises that power in the right and just way.”
Maxwell was reportedly granted a form of limited immunity for the two days of interviews with Blanche, unnamed sources told the New York Times.
Markus also explained that Maxwell’s appeal to the supreme court was based the fact that “the government at the time promised her, promised Jeffrey Epstein, that any potential co-conspirators would not be prosecuted. And so she deserves that promise.”
Markus was referring to a non-prosecution agreement offered to Epstein in 2007, after his initial arrest on charges related to sex with a minor, by the then US attorney the southern district of Florida, Alex Acosta. That agreement, which allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges in exchange for pleading guilty to lesser state crimes and serving just 13 months in jail, outraged the victims, who complained that the government had violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act when it resolved the federal investigation of Epstein without consulting with them.
A 2020 review of the case, published after Trump lost the presidency, by the department of justice’s office of professional responsibility concluded: “Acosta exercised poor judgment by deciding to resolve the federal investigation through the non-prosecution agreement and when he failed to make certain that the state of Florida intended to and would notify victims identified through the federal investigation about the state plea hearing.”
Epstein was then indicted in federal court in Manhattan in 2019 and arrested before being found dead in jail, in what was ruled a suicide. Maxwell was arrested a year later and then convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2022.
Her lawyer suggested on Friday that Trump might be sympathetic to the argument that the original non-prosecution agreement should have been honored by the government.
“I don’t think that President Trump knows that the justice department took the position that that bargain should not, that promise should not be upheld,” Markus said. “President Trump is the ultimate deal-maker. He knows that a promise made on behalf of the government should bind the government.”
“So we’re hoping the supreme court agrees with us that when the US attorney’s office in the southern district of Florida promised that no potential co-conspirators would be prosecuted that that bound the southern district of New York as well,” Maxwell’s lawyer added.
While Trump said on Friday that pardoning Maxwell is “something I have not thought about”, and suggested later that “this is no time to be talking about pardons”, his allies in the conservative media have raised the possibility in recent days that Maxwell might “just might be a victim”.
When Maxwell was arrested in 2020, Trump acknowledged that he had “met her numerous times over the years”, and offered some words of sympathy. “I just wish her well, frankly,” the president said.
Key events
Closing summary
With the president ensconced in his Scottish golf resort for the night, ahead of what he assures us will be not just a long weekend of golf, but “many meetings”, we are wrapping up our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
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After Donald Trump reminded everyone that he is “allowed to” pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, a former associate of his who was convicted of conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom and sexually abuse girls, Maxwell’s lawyer suggested that Trump might be sympathetic to the argument that her conviction was unjust.
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Trump is in Scotland, where he is spending the weekend at his golf resorts, and dodging questions about his long friendship with Epstein.
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) is preparing to send $608m to states to construct immigrant detention centers as part of the Trump administration’s push to expand capacity to hold migrants.
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California congressmen Ro Khanna and Robert Garcia on Friday sent a formal request to attorneys representing the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, demanding the release of a 2003 “birthday book” that reportedly contains a signed greeting from Donald Trump to the late sex offender.
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The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group known as Aipac, accused Bernie Sanders, the nation’s most prominent Jewish politician, of a ‘blood libel’ on Friday for his statement denouncing what he called “the Netanyahu government’s extermination of Gaza”.
US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is reportedly planning to remove all the members of an advisory panel that determines what cancer screenings and other preventive health measures insurers must cover, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Kennedy plans to dismiss all 16 panel members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force because he views them as too ‘woke’”, unnamed sources familiar with the plan told the Journal.
A spokesperson for the health and human services department told Reuters that Kennedy had not yet made a decision regarding the 16-member US Preventive Services Task Force. “No final decision has been made on how the USPSTF can better support HHS’ mandate to Make America Healthy Again,” the spokesperson said.
In June, Kennedy, a long-time vaccine skeptic, fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of vaccine experts, replacing them with seven handpicked members, including anti-vaxers.
The USPSTF includes medical experts serving staggered four-year terms on a volunteer basis. Its role in choosing what services will be covered by insurers was established under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“USPTF offers recommendations for preventative health measures like breast, colon, and prostate cancer screening, aspirin use, etc. It’s a nonpartisan panel”, Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, posted in response to the report. “Every recommendation is preceded with this statement: ‘Recommendations made by the USPSTF are independent of the U.S. government. They should not be construed as an official position of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.’ Will it remain independent of HHS?”
Pro-Israel lobbying group Aipac accuses Bernie Sanders of ‘blood libel’ for denouncing ‘extermination of Gaza’
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group known as Aipac, accused Bernie Sanders, the nation’s most prominent Jewish politician, of a ‘blood libel’ on Friday for his statement denouncing what he called “the Netanyahu government’s extermination of Gaza”.
The original blood libel was the medieval myth that Jews used the blood of murdered Christian children as an ingredient in the baking of Passover matzah, but it is increasingly used by supporters of Israel to cast even factual criticism of Israeli violence against Palestinians as equally anti-semitic.
In his statement, which Aipac referred to as a “hate-filled rant”, Sanders wrote:
After 21 months of brutal war, the Netanyahu government’s extermination of Gaza is entering a new and terrible phase. America and the world cannot continue to look away. We must reckon with what is being done with our taxpayer money, our weapons and the support of our government.
More than that, we must act to stop it.
After many months of Israel blocking humanitarian aid, children and other vulnerable people are starving to death in increasing numbers. …
Having already killed or wounded 200,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, the extremist Israeli government is using mass starvation to engineer the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Don’t take my word for it, listen to Israeli minister Amichay Eliyahu, who said this week: “All Gaza will be Jewish… the government is pushing for Gaza being wiped out. Thank God, we are wiping out this evil.”
Despite these war crimes, carried out daily in plain view, the United States has provided more than $22 billion for Israel’s military operations since this war began. In other words, American taxpayer dollars are being used to starve children, bomb civilians and support the cruelty of Netanyahu and his criminal ministers.
Enough is enough. The White House and Congress must immediately act to end this war using the full scope of American influence. No more military aid to the Netanyahu government. History will condemn those who fail to act in the face of this horror.
If Democrats don’t respond to Republican gerrymandering, Newsom says, ‘there may not be an election in 2028’
As our colleague Sam Levine reported earlier, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, hosted six Democrats from the Texas state legislature as Republicans in their state press ahead with an effort to gerrymander congressional districts by redrawing the map of districts to make as many as 5 US House seats easier for Republicans to win in next year’s midterms.
The meeting comes as Newsom has threatened to retaliate by redrawing US House districts in California to tilt the scales in the direction of Democratic candidates.
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, was initially resistant to the plan pushed by Donald Trump’s political team, the Texas Tribune reported, but agreed to call a special session to redraw the maps after a call with Trump.
Two Democrats who represent California in Congress, Zoe Lofgren and Ted Lieu, were also present.
“Donald Trump called up Governor Abbott for one simple reason: to rig the 2026 elections”, Newsom said in a statement. “California’s moral high ground means nothing if we’re powerless because of it. This moment requires us to be prepared to fight fire with fire. Whether that’s a special election, a ballot initiative, a bill, a fight in court. If they proceed in Texas, we will be ready.”
While Democrats have control over drawing the lines in Illinois, Newsom faces significant hurdles to redrawing California’s districts. Redistricting in California is controlled by an independent redistricting commission, not the legislature. Newsom has suggested he could try and put a quick referendum to voters to give the legislature the power to redraw the maps or try and untested legal theory and have the legislature draw the maps anyway.
“Trump knows his agenda is deeply unpopular, so he’s working to silence voters instead of win them over”, Lieu said. “It’s an attack on our democracy, plain and simple. If Texas moves forward, California will be ready to fight back in the courts, in the legislature, and at the ballot box. And every Democratic-led state should seriously consider mid-decade redistricting in response. We won’t let MAGA Republicans rewrite the rules unchallenged.”
Newsom’s office also cited statements from three fellow governors, Kathy Hochul of New York, JB Pritzker of Illinois, and Phil Murphy of New Jersey, who all suggested that they could redraw the congressional maps in their own states if Republicans press ahead in Texas and other states.
Pritzker also met with Texas lawmakers on Friday and said that he wants Texas Republicans “to understand that if they’re going to take this drastic action, that we also might take drastic action to respond”.
Speaking after the meeting, Newsom acknowledged that he had previously supported independent redistricting and believes that should be the national system.
“Things have changed, so too must we. And I believe that the people of California understand what is at stake”, Newsom said, if Democrats do not win the House in 2026. “If we don’t put a stake into the heart of this administration, there may not be an election in 2028”.
House Democrats demand Epstein birthday book that Trump reportedly signed
Lauren Gambino
California congressmen Ro Khanna and Robert Garcia on Friday sent a formal request to attorneys representing the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, demanding the release of a 2003 “birthday book” that reportedly contains a signed greeting from Donald Trump to the late sex offender.
The lawmakers are seeking a “complete and unredacted” copy of the book, which was compiled in 2003 by Ghislaine Maxwell, longtime associate who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually traffic minors. They have asked for the document to be handed over no later than 10 August.
“The public deserves to know the truth and the survivors and their families deserve justice,” said Khanna, who criticized Congress for leaving town without voting on his bipartisan bill to release the Epstein files.
Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for reporting that he contributed a bawdy message and signed drawing to the album, calling the document, said to have been reviewed by federal prosecutors, “fake”.
On Thursday, the New York Times published an image of Maxwell’s dedication of the leather-bound album of birthday wishes to Epstein on his 50th birthday from dozens of his friends and associates.
Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, echoed the call for transparency. “The American people deserve to know who was involved in Epstein’s trafficking network and if they are in positions of power in our government,” he said.
The lawmakers’ request comes as Democrats clamor for the release of files from the federal investigations into Epstein – accusing Republicans of attempting to shield Trump from disclosures about his close and well-documented relationship with Epstein, which appeared to end in 2004. House Republicans broke early for an August recess amid uproar over the Epstein controversy.
Lauren Gambino
In an interview with the Guardian, Angelica Salas, the president of the Los Angeles-based immigrant rights group CHIRLA, said Senator Alex Padilla’s new bill offered Congress a “simple” way to move past decades of failed negotiations over comprehensive immigration reform.
She said the old political calculation that had shaped past attempts at an immigration overhaul – increased enforcement in exchange for pathways to legalization – was no longer relevant after Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act turned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) into the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.
“The balance now is completely on the side of enforcement,” she said. “So it’s enough. It’s time to do this.”
After decades of pushing for changes to state laws and city ordinances, Salas said there was little more California or Los Angeles could do to protect immigrants without an act of Congress.
“We have done everything we can to protect our community,” she said. “And what has happened because of those protections, the federal government has come in to crush us. So we continue to ask more of our elected officials at the state and local level … but that’s not the solution. The solution is finally to have people legalized in this country, and that’s only an act of Congress.”
The proposed legislation, Salas stressed, was simple and would include all immigrants, as opposed to past piecemeal attempts to shield Dreamers or farmworkers. The veteran immigrant rights advocate, herself a naturalized citizen from Mexico, said she was realistic about the hurdles this legislation would face in a Republican-controlled Congress that answers to Trump. But she believes a shift in public sentiment will help.
“I ask everybody in this country, so what do you choose? Do you choose what you see on TV where you have men and women being pummeled to the ground, treated as less than human,” Salas said during her public remarks. “Or do you want to update your own law so people can come out of these shadows, out of this fear and into the formal recognition that they deserve? If you can trust them with your child, if you can trust them with your mother and your father, for us to take care of them, if you trust us to feed you, can’t you trust us of the American family?”
Lauren Gambino
During a press conference in Los Angeles on Friday, Senator Alex Padilla grew emotional as he thanked the immigrant rights community for their advocacy and their support during what he described as “ long, hard summer for all of us”.
In June, as tensions peaked over Trump’s decision to send national guard troops and active-duty marines to LA to quell widespread protests sparked by immigration raids across the city, the Democratic senator was forcibly removed and placed in handcuffs after he attempted to ask a question at a press conference held by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary.
“Your support over the last six weeks has been so much to me and to my family,” he said, his voice catching with emotion. Padilla was joined by Angelica Salas, the executive director of the immigrant rights organization, CHIRLA, as well as David Huerta, the California labor leader who was arrested while observing the protests and held in detention before being released on bond.
Among the speakers were Alejandro Barranco, a Marine veteran whose father, Narcisco, was detained by federal immigration officers while working a landscaping job he had held for more than 30 years; and Hazibi Johnson, whose brother was arrested and detained by Ice agents in June.
Barranco, who was deployed to Kabul in 2021 to assist with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, described his father’s arrest in June and detention, during which he said his father was “locked in a facility with nearly 100 others, no showers, no change of clothes, one toilet”. After being transferred to another facility, he was “forced to go 14 hours without any water, and became ill from the filthy conditions”.
His father has been released on bond. But Barranco said: “The trauma that day will never leave him – or us.”
Johsnon, whose brother Fermando, a small business owner, was arrested and detained in June, said his absence has shaken her family, especially her eight-year-old son who now panics when he sees black SUVs on the road.
“This is what injustice does. It ripples out far beyond the person being detained. It touches children, elders, entire families and communities,” she said. “The fear doesn’t disappear when someone is released. It lingers in the every day lives for those who love them.”
The press conference was held at the SEIU local 721 office in downtown LA, just a block from where masked Ice agents raided a Home Depot as part of the first wave of enforcement operations to target day laborers in the city.
Salas cited an analysis, based on data from the LA Rapid Response Network, that found recent immigration enforcement activities in Los Angeles county between 6 June to 20 July targeted areas where, on average, 80% of the residents were Latino.
“We can show a pattern of racial profiling, of blatant denial of constitutional rights, and a clear message to immigrants and US citizens alike that anyone at any moment could be a target,” she said. Yet Salas said the community remained “defiant”.
“Our families are more than tears and fear, we are loving human beings who fight to keep our families together,” she said. “We dream of a better tomorrow for future generations, and we believe in an America that is a multiracial democracy where we are all welcome.”
Lauren Gambino
Senator Alex Padilla on Friday unveiled legislation that would amend existing law to allow millions of immigrants to seek legal residency in the US – a long-shot effort by the California Democrat to confront what he called the Trump administration’s “extreme cruelty”.
During a press conference at the local SEIU headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, Padilla said he was “not naive” about the odds of passing a sweeping immigration bill with a Republican-controlled legislature and Donald Trump in the White House. But he said public opinion was shifting sharply against the president’s mass deportation agenda and even some Republicans in Congress were starting to speak out about the impact raids and enforcement operations have had on communities and key industries in their states.
“The United States of America is not the United States of America without immigrants,” he said, drawing loud cheers from the coalition of labor and immigrant rights advocates in the audience.
The bill, which will be formally introduced in the Senate on Monday, proposes a “simple update” to the Immigration Act of 1929 to allow legal residency for immigrants who have lived continuously in the US for seven years and have no criminal record, Padilla said. Advocates said the bill, if passed, could immediately open a path to legalization for as many as 8 million immigrants, including Dreamers, farmworkers and TPS holders.
Padilla emphasized that the last time the law was updated was under Republican president Ronald Reagan, who he quoted as having argued that expanding legalization was a “matter of basic fairness” when he signed the amendment into law in 1986.
“It creates an opportunity for people to have lived in shadows for too long, to be able to take steps forward, first towards legalization, as a step towards residency and potentially eventually citizenship,” Padilla said. “This is nothing new. It’s not a new bureaucracy, it’s not a new agency, it’s not a new program. It’s simply updating the cut off date.”
California congresswoman Zoe Lofgren introduced companion legislation in the House.
Maxwell’s lawyer suggests Trump might be sympathetic to her case for a pardon
After Donald Trump reminded everyone on Friday that he is “allowed to” pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, a former associate of his who was convicted of conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom and sexually abuse girls, Maxwell’s lawyer suggested that Trump might be sympathetic to the argument that her conviction was unjust.
“We haven’t spoken to the president, or anybody, about a pardon, just yet,” Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, told reporters after her meeting with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche in Tallahassee, Florida.
“Listen,” Markus added, “the president said this morning he has the power to do so. We hope he exercises that power in the right and just way.”
Maxwell was reportedly granted a form of limited immunity for the two days of interviews with Blanche, unnamed sources told the New York Times.
Markus also explained that Maxwell’s appeal to the supreme court was based the fact that “the government at the time promised her, promised Jeffrey Epstein, that any potential co-conspirators would not be prosecuted. And so she deserves that promise.”
Markus was referring to a non-prosecution agreement offered to Epstein in 2007, after his initial arrest on charges related to sex with a minor, by the then US attorney the southern district of Florida, Alex Acosta. That agreement, which allowed Epstein to avoid federal charges in exchange for pleading guilty to lesser state crimes and serving just 13 months in jail, outraged the victims, who complained that the government had violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act when it resolved the federal investigation of Epstein without consulting with them.
A 2020 review of the case, published after Trump lost the presidency, by the department of justice’s office of professional responsibility concluded: “Acosta exercised poor judgment by deciding to resolve the federal investigation through the non-prosecution agreement and when he failed to make certain that the state of Florida intended to and would notify victims identified through the federal investigation about the state plea hearing.”
Epstein was then indicted in federal court in Manhattan in 2019 and arrested before being found dead in jail, in what was ruled a suicide. Maxwell was arrested a year later and then convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2022.
Her lawyer suggested on Friday that Trump might be sympathetic to the argument that the original non-prosecution agreement should have been honored by the government.
“I don’t think that President Trump knows that the justice department took the position that that bargain should not, that promise should not be upheld,” Markus said. “President Trump is the ultimate deal-maker. He knows that a promise made on behalf of the government should bind the government.”
“So we’re hoping the supreme court agrees with us that when the US attorney’s office in the southern district of Florida promised that no potential co-conspirators would be prosecuted that that bound the southern district of New York as well,” Maxwell’s lawyer added.
While Trump said on Friday that pardoning Maxwell is “something I have not thought about”, and suggested later that “this is no time to be talking about pardons”, his allies in the conservative media have raised the possibility in recent days that Maxwell might “just might be a victim”.
When Maxwell was arrested in 2020, Trump acknowledged that he had “met her numerous times over the years”, and offered some words of sympathy. “I just wish her well, frankly,” the president said.
Fema offers $608m to states to construct immigrant detention centers
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) is preparing to send $608m to states to construct immigrant detention centers as part of the Trump administration’s push to expand capacity to hold migrants.
The funds from Fema’s “detention support grant program” cover the cost to states and local governments building temporary facilities, according to an agency grant description. The agency has been accepting applications for funding since 9 July and states have until 8 August to apply for the funds, according to the grant description posted online.
The Trump administration has been encouraging states to build their own facilities to detain migrants. This program provides a way for the administration to help states pay for it.
The funds will be distributed by Fema in partnership with US Customs and Border Protection, according to the agency.
Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Friday that the state would apply for Fema reimbursement to pay for its new Everglades immigrant detention center it calls “Alligator Alcatraz.”
The facility will cost an estimated $450m annually, according to homeland security officials.
Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, has said her department will tap Fema’s $650m shelter and services program to fund Florida’s facility. Congress during the Biden administration directed the department, which includes Fema, to distribute the money to state and local governments to cover the cost of sheltering migrants.
That funding stream was separate from money Congress set aside for Fema to cover disaster relief. “Secretary Noem has been very clear that the funding for Alligator Alcatraz can be a blueprint for other states and local governments to assist with detention,” a Fema spokesperson told Reuters.
The grant program began accepting applications just days after lawyers for the department argued in court that the federal government could not be sued over Alligator Alcatraz because no funds from Fema had been used to pay for it and “DHS has not implemented, authorized, directed, or funded Florida’s temporary detention center.”
News of the new Fema grants for detention facilities came as Maryland’s Democratic governor, Wes Moore, vowed to take Donald Trump to court after the president denied the governor’s request for Fema disaster assistance relief following massive floods in May, calling it “not warranted”.
“It’s an insult to Marylanders and the community still suffering in the aftermath of this storm,” Moore said in a video response to the decision he posted on social media.
In recent weeks, Trump has boasted of approving Fema funds to flood victims in Texas and other Republican-run states that voted for him in the 2024 election.
Trump drives past protesters outside his golf resort in Scotland
Donald Trump has arrived at his Turnberry golf resort on the coast of Ayrshire, in south-west Scotland.
His motorcade, escorted by Police Scotland vehicles and ambulance crews, drove past a small group of protesters, and at least one supporter.
While Trump has spoken fondly of Scotland, where his mother was born and raised, the country has not always returned his warmth.
During a previous visit, in 2018, Trump was greeted at his Turnberry resort by a Greenpeace activist who paraglided directly over his head trailing a banner that read: “Trump: Well Below Par”.
Ahead of his visit, one local newspaper, the National, which supports independence for Scotland, ran a preview of the visit with the headline: “Convicted US felon to arrive in Scotland – Republican leader, who was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, will visit golf courses”.
Trump says ‘nothing’ remains to work out in trade deal with UK, as Starmer presses for ‘full implentation’
In his remarks to reporters at Prestwick airport earlier, Donald Trump was asked about his scheduled talks with UK prime minister Keir Starmer, which the White House has used to portray his mainly golf-themed trip as a working visit.
“Can you explain,” a reporter asked Trump on the tarmac outside Air Force One, “what is missing in the UK deal that you have to work out?”
“Nothing,” Trump replied. “I think it’s more of a celebration than a workout. It’s a great deal for both, and we’re going to have a meeting on other things, other than the deal. The deal is concluded.”
Trump previously suggested that the talks were to “refine” the US-UK trade deal. Starmer told Bloomberg News in an interview on Thursday that the UK is still pressing for “full implementation” of the deal with the US.
The sticking point appears to be that while Trump agreed to cut US tariffs on steel imports from the UK that currently stand at 25%, the tariffs have not yet been lifted.
Chris Stein
In response to the House ethics committee’s report into Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s attendance of the Met Gala four years ago, her chief of staff, Mike Casca, said:
“The Congresswoman appreciates the Committee finding that she made efforts to ensure her compliance with House Rules and sought to act consistently with her ethical requirements as a Member of the House. She accepts the ruling and will remedy the remaining amounts, as she’s done at each step in this process.”
