Justice department told Trump in May that his name is in the Epstein files – WSJ
“When justice department officials reviewed what attorney general Pam Bondi called a ‘truckload’ of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times,” the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing senior administration officials.
I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
Key events
White House calls WSJ report on Trump being told name in Epstein files ‘fake news’
“This is another fake news story, just like the previous story by the Wall Street Journal,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement in response to the WSJ’s report that the justice department informed Donald Trump in May about his name being in the Epstein files.
In the WSJ’s report (paywall), according to the officials, attorney general Pam Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House in May that his name was in the Epstein files, along with many other high-profile figures.
“The meeting set the stage for the high-profile review to come to an end,” the WSJ reports.
The publication notes that being mentioned in the documents is not a sign of wrongdoing:
The officials said it was a routine briefing that covered a number of topics and that Trump’s appearance in the documents wasn’t the focus.
They told the president at the meeting that the files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past, some of the officials said. One of the officials familiar with the documents said they contain hundreds of other names.
They also told Trump that senior justice department officials didn’t plan to release any more documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender because the material contained child pornography and victims’ personal information, the officials said. Trump said at the meeting he would defer to the justice department’s decision to not release any further files.
Trump denied last week in response to a journalist’s question that Bondi had told him that his name was in the files.
Justice department told Trump in May that his name is in the Epstein files – WSJ
“When justice department officials reviewed what attorney general Pam Bondi called a ‘truckload’ of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times,” the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing senior administration officials.
I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
US district judge Robin Rosenberg wrote that the court’s “hands are tied” and said the government had not requested the grand jury’s findings for use in a judicial proceeding, pointing out that district courts in the US are largely prohibited from unsealing grand jury testimony except in very narrow circumstances.
The ruling mentioned in my last post stems from federal investigations of Jeffrey Epstein in Florida in 2005 and 2007, according to court documents.
It doesn’t affect two other pending requests by the Department of Justice that seek to obtain transcripts of grand jury proceedings related to later federal investigations of Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, in New York, both of which led to separate criminal indictments.
Yesterday, the New York federal court said it would like to “expeditiously” resolve the Trump administration’s request, but it could not do so due to a number of missing submissions.
The Trump administration filed the petitions to unseal transcripts of the grand jury proceedings last week. It followed days of mounting pressure and criticism across the political spectrum over the DoJ’s decision not to release any further investigative evidence about Epstein despite many earlier promises that it would be released.
Federal judge rejects bid to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts from Florida inquiry
A US judge has denied a justice department bid to unseal grand jury transcripts related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in South Florida, the first ruling in a series of attempts by Donald Trump’s administration to release more information on the case.
Reuters reports that US district judge Robin Rosenberg found that the justice department’s request in Florida did not fall into any of the exceptions to rules requiring grand jury material be kept secret.
The new photos and videos published by CNN have emerged today in a context of ever-rising frustration in Trump’s White House over its inability to make the Epstein story go away. Per Politico:
Donald Trump is angry. His team is exasperated. The Republican-controlled House is in near rebellion.
Trump and his closest allies thought they’d spend the summer taking a victory lap, having coaxed Congress into passing the megabill, bullied foreign governments into a slew of new trade arrangements, convinced Nato allies to spend billions more on collective defense and pressed world leaders to bow to various other demands from Doha to The Hague.
Instead, questions surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, who was found dead in his jail cell by suicide nearly six years ago, are overshadowing almost everything else.”
“POTUS is clearly furious,” a person close to the White House told Politico. “It’s the first time I’ve seen them sort of paralyzed.”
A senior White House official said the president is frustrated with his staff’s inability to tamp down conspiracy theories they once spread and by the wall of media coverage that started when attorney general Pam Bondi released information from the Epstein case that was already in the public domain.
“He feels there are way bigger stories that deserve attention,” the senior White House official said.
The frustration stems, in part, from an understanding that this is “a vulnerability,” said a White House ally. Trump has famously had his finger on the pulse of the Republican base for more than a decade but has, for now, lost the ability to dominate the narrative. That threatens to undermine the momentum and sense of invincibility the GOP felt at the beginning of the month when they were getting ready to boast about a slew of new tax cuts and border funding as their opening pitch to voters ahead of the 2026 midterms.
New photos and videos highlight close ties between Epstein and Trump
Anna Betts
Newly uncovered photos and video footage published by CNN show more links between the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, including Epstein’s attendance at Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples at the Plaza hotel in New York in 1993.
The media organization said on Wednesday that Epstein’s attendance at the wedding ceremony was not widely known.
CNN also published footage from 1999 of Trump and Epstein attending a Victoria’s Secret fashion event in New York, where they are seen talking and laughing alongside Trump’s future wife, Melania Trump.
The outlet noted that the newly published material pre-dates any of Epstein’s known legal troubles.
CNN also published photos of Trump and Epstein at the 1993 opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in New York, where Trump is seen with his arm around two of his children, Eric and Ivanka, while Epstein stands beside them.
When asked for comment by CNN on the newly unearthed videos and photos, Trump reportedly responded: “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He then reportedly called CNN “fake news” and hung up the phone.
Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement to CNN that the videos and photos were “nothing more than out-of-context frame grabs of innocuous videos and pictures of widely attended events to disgustingly infer something nefarious”.
“The fact is that the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep,” Cheung added. “This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.”
Anna Betts
The Trump administration’s Department of Education announced on Wednesday that it has opened national-origin discrimination investigations into five US universities over what it described as “alleged exclusionary scholarships referencing foreign-born students”.
According to the announcement, the department’s office for civil rights has opened investigations into the University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Miami, the University of Michigan and Western Michigan University.
The department said that the investigations will determine whether these universities are granting scholarships exclusively to students who are recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, who came to the US as children, or who are undocumented “in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s (Title VI) prohibition against national origin discrimination”.
The investigation stems from complaints submitted by the Legal Insurrection Foundation’s Equal Protection Project, a conservative legal group.
The group alleges in the complaints that certain scholarships at these schools are limited to students with Daca status or who are undocumented, which they argue is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “and its implementing regulations by illegally discriminating against students based on their national origin”.
For the full story, click here:
Joseph Gedeon
The state department is opening an investigation into Harvard University’s eligibility as a sponsor for the exchange visitor program, the latest in the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on the university over alleged failures to combat campus antisemitism and inadequate support of Israel.
The department announced the probe will examine whether Harvard maintains proper standards for hosting international students, professors, researchers and other exchange visitors. All program sponsors must demonstrate “transparency in reporting” and commitment to cultural exchange principles while ensuring their activities do not “undermine the foreign policy objectives or compromise the national security interests of the United States”, the agency said.
“The American people have the right to expect their universities to uphold national security, comply with the law, and provide safe environments for all students,” the state department said. “The investigation will ensure that State Department programs do not run contrary to our nation’s interests.”
For the full story, click here:
Over 130,000 sign ‘Save Colbert’ petition ahead of NYC rally
Over 130,000 people, including politicians and former late night staff, have signed a “Save Colbert” show ahead of the petition’s delivery in a mass rally to CBS’s headquarters in New York on Wednesday.
According to the Progressive Change Campaign Committee which is behind the petition, tens of thousands of Paramount Plus subscribers have checked a box on the petition saying that they would unsubscribe.
“If CBS cares about their integrity, our democracy, and protecting free speech, they must heed our petition, reverse their decision, and keep Stephen Colbert on the air,” said Sydney Register, a PCCC spokesperson.
“It looks like political cowardice and corruption at a time when too many are pre-emptively caving to the anticipated abuse of power by a would-be dictator, and CBS employees are saying it will chill free speech in America,” Register added.
Behind closed doors at a New York City federal building, people are confined after being seized by officers on their way out of immigration court on the 12th floor. This rare look inside a closely guarded space captures part of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown:
Trump administration asks tiny Pacific nation of Palau to accept migrants deported from US
Prianka Srinivasan
The Trump administration has requested that the small Pacific nation of Palau accept asylum seekers currently residing in the US, amid a wider push from the US to deport migrants to countries they are not from.
Palau, a country of about 18,000, is considering a draft agreement to resettle “third country nationals” from the US who “may seek protection and against return to their home country”. The draft agreement does not detail how many individuals may be sent to Palau, nor what the Pacific nation would receive in return.
“Both Parties shall take into account … requests by third country nationals for asylum, refugee protection, or equivalent temporary protection,” the draft agreement, seen by the Guardian, states. “The Government of the United States of America shall not transfer unaccompanied minors pursuant to this Agreement.”
A letter from Palau’s president Surangel Whipps Jr regarding the draft agreement and seen by the Guardian, makes clear the proposal is far from final and is subject to further discussion. It also states Palau would have “full discretion to decide whether or not to accept any individuals”.
The request to Palau marks the latest attempt by the Trump administration to remove migrants from within its borders. A supreme court ruling in June paved the way for the US government to remove migrants and transfer them to countries they are not from. Since then, the US has completed the transfer of migrants including South Sudan and Eswatini.
Trump advisers abandon effort to find new chief of staff to serve Pete Hegseth
Hugo Lowell
Donald Trump’s advisers have for now abandoned an effort to find a new chief of staff to serve the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, allowing senior adviser Ricky Buria, whom they once considered a liability, to continue performing the duties in an acting capacity, according to people familiar with the matter.
Buria is not expected to formally receive the White House’s approval to become the permanent chief of staff to Hegseth, a position that became vacant after the first chief of staff, Joe Kasper, left in the wake of major upheaval in the secretary’s front office earlier this year.
But the attempt by the Trump advisers to block Buria from getting the job has fizzled in recent months as the news cycle moved away from the controversies that dogged Hegseth at the start of Trump’s term and officials lost interest in managing personnel at the Pentagon, the people said.
As a result, Buria has become a regular presence in the West Wing for briefings in the situation room and with senior White House and administration officials, and secured his standing at the Pentagon, where he is widely referred to as “Chief Ricky”.
The developments are sure to also be a relief for Hegseth, who for months has been staring down the prospect of having his closest aide shunted aside because of concerns at the White House about a growing portrait of dysfunction in his front office.
White House officials may yet revisit installing a replacement for the chief of staff position, which plays a key role in managing Hegseth’s front office and setting the direction of the $1tn defense department that oversees more than 2 million troops around the world.
And it is uncertain if the extent to which senior White House and administration officials are now interacting with Buria is more because he is the only Hegseth aide empowered by the secretary to serve as his top staffer, rather than a vote of confidence by Trump’s advisers.
A spokesperson for the Pentagon referred reporting for this story to the White House. A spokesperson for the White House in a statement offered praise for Hegseth for “restoring readiness and lethality to our military and putting our warfighters first after four years of ineptitude and abject failure by the Biden administration”.
Dharna Noor
David Richardson, the acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), on Wednesday faced accusations that he had mismanaged his agency’s recent deadly floods in Texas.
“This wasn’t just incompetence. It wasn’t just indifference. It was both,” representative Greg Stanton, a Democrat from Arizona, told Richardson at the House transportation and infrastructure committee hearing. “And that deadly combination likely cost lives.”
The hearing came after a slew of reports saying Richardson was nowhere to be found during the flood. Earlier, the acting director, who has no previous response in disaster management, reportedly said he was unaware that hurricane season exists in the US – something the White House later said was a “joke.”
Richardson denied any agency wrongdoing in the Texas floods. “What happened in Texas was an absolute tragedy,” he said.
He and other Trump officials are aiming to restore the agency to its original goals, he said, encouraging states to take on more financial and logistical responsibility for disasters.
“Fema has lost sight of its original intent,” he said. “Under the leadership of the president and the secretary we are returning to this mission focus moving forward.”
In response to this argument, representative Rick Larsen, ranking member of the House committee, came to the hearing armed with the Congressional Research Service’s list of the 518 actions which fema is mandated to follow.
“Currently, Fema doesn’t follow all these laws,” he said. In response, Richardson said the agency had done it “own mission analysis.”
“What we did, and I can commit to, is that we developed eight mission essential tasks that we have to do by statute,” he said.
Study after study shows that flooding like this summer’s in Texas is becoming more severe and more common amid the climate crisis. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from Washington, DC, asked Richardson if he believes fossil fuels are the primary cause of the climate crisis, and if he thinks extreme weather is increasing.
Richardson was noncommittal in his answer. “What I believe is that we will address disasters regardless of their origin,” he said.
Nina Lakhani
Here is my colleague Nina Lakhani’s report on Zia, the Afghan wartime translator granted a US immigration visa after risking his life to help US troops who has been detained by masked Ice agents.
The case is the latest sign that the Trump administration is willing to flout legal agreements and promises to allies in pursuit of its unprecedented immigration crackdown, Nina writes.
Zia fled Afghanistan with his family after the Taliban takeover in 2021, and legally entered the US in October 2024 through JFK airport with humanitarian parole – and an approved special immigrant visa (SIV). This visa is a pathway to permanent residency, or a green card, for certain foreign nationals who have worked for the US government or military in specific capacities, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Zia is the third known Afghan ally who helped US troops to have been seized by Ice since Trump returned to power, amid growing outrage at the administration’s actions.
More than 70,000 Afghans were granted permission to enter the US under Joe Biden’s “Operation Allies Welcome” initiative, which followed the bungled America exit and subsequent Taliban takeover in 2021.
Some, like Zia, have a SIV and pathway to permanent residency, while about 12,000 or so have temporary protected status (TPS) – a type of work visa granted to people already in the US who cannot return to their home countries due to armed conflicts, natural disasters or other extraordinary events.
The Trump administration is seeking to terminate TPS status for multiple countries including Venezuela, Haiti and Afghanistan – despite ongoing unstable and dangerous conditions in those countries.
Top adviser to Netanyahu will meet US envoy amid spiraling Gaza starvation crisis
An official familiar with the negotiations has said today that US special envoy Steve Witkoff planned to head to Rome for talks with an Israeli official as the US tries to reach a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the Associated Press reports.
It comes as more than 100 aid agencies today issued a dire warning that “mass starvation” is spreading across Gaza and urged Israel to let humanitarian aid into the besieged strip to alleviate the growing man-made crisis.
“Just outside Gaza, in warehouses – and even within Gaza itself – tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organisations blocked from accessing or delivering them,” the agencies wrote. “The Government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death.”
The statement quoted an aid worker in Gaza who said: “Children tell their parents they want to go to heaven, because at least heaven has food.”
The letter comes as increasing numbers of people in Gaza have begun dying from lack of food, the result of a starvation crisis that aid groups warned for months was imminent. Israel continues to claim with no evidence that Hamas is stealing food.
Israel’s military assault on Gaza has killed at least 59,000 Palestinian people, thousands of whom were children.
You can find our live coverage of the crisis here:
State department opens investigation into Harvard’s participation in exchange visitor program
The state department has opened an investigation into Harvard University’s eligibility as a sponsor in its exchange visitor program, secretary of state Marco Rubio has said in a statement.
“The investigation will ensure that State Department programs do not run contrary to our nation’s interests,” he said.
Donald Trump has reiterated his criticism of Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell – who he said “just doesn’t get it” – amid his ongoing call for lower rates, and called on the central bank’s board to act.
“Our Rate should be three points lower than they are, saving us $1 Trillion per year (as a Country). This stubborn guy at the Fed just doesn’t get it — Never did, and never will. The Board should act, but they don’t have the Courage to do so!” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Earlier, treasury secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg TV in an interview that the Trump administration was not in a rush to nominate a new Fed chair to replace Powell.
The president can’t fire the Fed chair, but he has recently been trying to find a legal workaround, accusing Powell of potentially lying to Congress about the $2.5bn renovations taking place at the Fed’s headquarters in Washington.
Powell has asked an inspector general to review the costs of the renovations, which were originally slated to cost $1.9bn but rose to $2.5bn due to “unforeseen conditions”, according to the Fed’s website.
