Closing summary
This brings our live coverage of the second Trump administration to a close for the day. We will return on Friday morning. Here are the latest developments:
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Donald Trump’s long public campaign to get someone to bring criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director he fired in 2017, finally succeeded on Thursday, as the White House aide he installed as a prosecutor this week indicted the man Trump holds largely responsible for the Russia investigation.
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Trump celebrated the indictment of “One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to”, in a social media post that could be used as evidence that the prosecution is politically motivated.
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“I’m not afraid, and I hope you’re not either,” Comey said in an Instagram video statement. “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I’m innocent, so let’s have a trial.”
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Maurene Comey, the former FBI director’s daughter, who led the federal prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and was fired this summer without explanation, cited Trump’s hatred of her father in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed this month.
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Ilhan Omar, the Somali-born congresswoman from Minnesota, accused Trump of inventing a story he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, about having supposedly asked Somalia’s president if he would “take her back.”
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Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing the justice department and the FBI’s joint terrorism taskforce to investigate what he claimed is an organized campaign of political violence and domestic terrorism funded by Democrats.
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The House Democratic campaign arm believes their lawmakers have the advantage in the tense battle over government funding, after last week refusing to back a Republican plan to prevent a shutdown unless their demands on healthcare and other issues are met.
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We leave you with video of Hillary Clinton saying in a 2016 debate: “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.” He replied: “Because you’d be in jail.”
Key events
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Closing summary
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Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI director who prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein, cites Trump’s hatred of her father in wrongful termination lawsuit
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‘I’m innocent,’ James Comey says in video statement posted on Instagram
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How Comey, who helped elect Trump, got to the top of his enemies list
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Attorney general and FBI director welcome Comey charges
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Trump hails indictment of Comey: ‘Justice in America’
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Trump announces tariffs on trucks, kitchen cabinets and furniture
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Ilhan Omar says Trump made up story about discussing her with Somalia’s president
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Former FBI director and Trump critic James Comey indicted by prosecutor installed by president
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Trump directs FBI and justice department to investigate supposed funders of ‘organized political violence’
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House Democrat campaigners predict GOP ‘will be blamed’ if government shuts down over healthcare demands
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Trump signs memorandum directing federal prosecutors to seek death penalty for murders in Washington DC
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Trump says he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank
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Security at Ice facilities to be stepped up in wake of Dallas shooting
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Trump announces deal for US investors to take over TikTok in US
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Here’s a recap of the day so far
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Officials say shooter used ‘Ice tracking apps’ to monitor agents’ movements
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FBI special agent says suspect ‘intended to kill Ice agents’
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US attorney says shooter was targeting Ice personnel but there is no evidence he was in ‘any specific group or entity’
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Officials confirm name of suspect in Dallas Ice facility shooting
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Utah court appoints attorney to man charged with killing Charlie Kirk
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Trump’s false assertion that London could introduce sharia law is ‘nonsense’, says UK’s Starmer in rare rebuke
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DOJ official pushes prosecutors to investigate George Soros’s foundation – report
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‘Radical left Democrats’ are causing increase in political violence, says Trump
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Trump stays quiet about Comey indictment, calls former FBI director a ‘sick person’
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Trump blames government shutdown on Democrats, after White House memo tells agencies to prepare for layoffs
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‘We’re close to getting a deal done,’ Trump says on Gaza war
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Trump says he wants Turkey to stop buying Russian oil
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Trump begins meeting with Erdoğan
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Trump welcomes Erdoğan to the White House
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Controversial Oklahoma state superintendent to resign, joins conservative teachers non-profit
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Top Democrats say they ‘won’t be intimidated’ by White House memo ordering layoffs in event of government shutdown
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Union president says ‘federal employees are not bargaining chips’, as government shutdown looms
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Trump due to welcome president of Turkey to the White House
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Federal judge rules that fired inspectors general can’t be reinstated
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Federal prosecutors presented newly minted US attorney with memo suggesting not to file charges against Comey
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White House budget office tells agencies to prepare for mass firings in event of government shutdown – report
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Trump’s CDC cuts could threaten chronic illness and national security, experts warn
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Trump hangs autopen photo instead of Biden portrait in new presidential gallery
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Gunman wrote ‘ANTI-ICE’ on unused bullet in fatal attack on Dallas immigration office
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Former FBI director James Comey expected to be indicted on criminal charges, reports say
Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI director who prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein, cites Trump’s hatred of her father in wrongful termination lawsuit
Maurene Comey, the former FBI director’s daughter, who led the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and was fired this summer without explanation, cited Donald Trump’s hatred of her father in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed this month in federal court.
The suit explains that Maurene Comey was “abruptly fired” on 16 July 16 from her job as an assistant US attorney in Manhattan despite an “outstanding” performance review just months earlier.
The suit, which names the office of the president and the attorney general as defendants, says that they “fired Ms. Comey solely or substantially because her father is former FBI Director James B. Comey, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both.”
It goes on to allege that Trump’s hatred of her father, and the antipathy of Trump’s outside adviser Laura Loomer, were major factors in her wrongful termination.
According to the suit:
James Comey served as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2013 until President Trump fired him in 2017. For the past nine years, President Trump has publicly criticized Mr. Comey for his actions while serving as FBI Director, and because after he was fired, Mr. Comey (i) wrote a memoir critical of President Trump, (ii) continued to publicly criticize President Trump and his Administration, and (iii) in May 2025 posted a message on social media that President Trump and others in the Trump Administration claimed to perceive as threatening.
Following Mr. Comey’s May 2025 social media post and other critical statements, President Trump’s supporters called for Ms. Comey’s firing. Notable among those supporters is Laura Loomer, a social media influencer who, on information and belief, has political influence in the Trump Administration, including influence over the termination of federal employees. President Trump has publicly stated: “If you’re Loomered you’re in deep trouble. That’s the end of your career in a sense.” On May 18, 2025, Ms. Loomer called for Mr. Comey’s “liberal daughter” and her “Democrat husband” to be “FIRED from the DOJ immediately” “for being a national security risk via their proximity to a criminal [i.e., Mr. Comey] who just committed a felony by threatening to assassinate the President.” Ms. Loomer also declared that, “under [Attorney General Pamela] Blondi [sic], every Deep State Operator is being emboldened,” and she “question[ed] the impartiality of Maurene and Lucas [Maurene’s husband] in their prosecutorial roles, especially in high-profile cases, due to the undeniable bias and influence stemming from James Comey’s public criticism of Trump and the ongoing investigation into his Instagram post.”
James Comey’s son-in-law resigned as a federal prosecutor minutes after the former FBI director was indicted Thursday.
Troy Edwards wrote in an email to Lindsey Halligan, the former White House aide with no prosecutorial experience parachuted into the job as US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia this week that he was resigning “To uphold my oath to the Constitution and the country”.
Edwards , who helped prosecute pro-Trump January 6 rioters later pardoned by Trump, was deputy chief of the national security section, which covers the Pentagon and CIA headquarters, and handles some of the highest-profile espionage cases.
‘I’m innocent,’ James Comey says in video statement posted on Instagram
James Comey, the former FBI director, professed his innocence in a video statement posted on Instagram on Thursday after he was indicted by the former White House aide Donald Trump appointed US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia this week.
“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” Comey said. “But we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either.”
“I’m not afraid, and I hope you’re not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does,” he added.
“My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I’m innocent, so let’s have a trial. And keep the faith,” he concluded.
How Comey, who helped elect Trump, got to the top of his enemies list
Donald Trump’s long public campaign to get someone in his administration to bring criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director he fired in 2017, finally succeeded on Thursday, but the president has been so public about his loathing of the indicted man, and his desire to see him jailed, that it might be hard for prosecutors to convince a jury that the case was not brought for political reasons.
Comey was fired by Trump in 2017 after he reportedly refused a request to pledge his loyalty to the newly elected president, and then publicly confirmed to Congress that the FBI was conducting a counterintelligence investigation of Russian efforts to get Trump elected president in 2016.
Trump’s firing of Comey backfired, however, because it helped convince then deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to, in his words “oversee the previously confirmed FBI investigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters”.
Although Mueller’s report, issued in 2019, concluded that his team “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities”, the investigation unearthed plenty of evidence that the Russian effort did take place and, in Mueller’s words, “established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome”.
Mueller added that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts”.
While Mueller ultimately elected not to charge Trump’s son, Don Jr, with violating campaign finance laws by soliciting derogatory information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government in a meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign, the investigation made it plain that the Trump campaign had been open to help from Russia.
When a publicist for the Russian oligarch who paid Trump to stage his Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013 wrote to tell Don Jr that a Russian prosecutor wanted to offer the Trump campaign “official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia, calling it “part of Russia and its government’s support to Mr Trump”, Trump’s son replied, “If it’s what you say, I love it,” and got Trump’s campaign chair Paul Manafort and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to attend the meeting.
The indictment of Comey comes as Trump seeks to use the power of the justice department to punish a man he sees as a central figure in the Russia investigation he has continually described as “a witch-hunt” and “a hoax”.
One of the ironies of the situation is that Comey, who cast himself as a rigidly non-partisan law enforcement official, played an outsized role in helping Trump to get elected in the first place.
It was Comey who, as FBI director in the summer of 2016, decided not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server to conduct official business while secretary of state, but took it upon himself to hold a press conference to explain his decision.
In that public forum, Comey said that while Clinton and her staff had been “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information” and there was “evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information,” he had concluded, as a former prosecutor himself, that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case”.
That news conference offered Trump, who was then running against Clinton, ammunition to describe her use of a personal email server as reckless. Trump embraced that line of attack with glee, particularly after WikiLeaks published emails from Clinton campaign aides that had been stolen by Russian government hackers.
Then, days before the November election, Comey suddenly announced that the FBI had reopened its investigation of Clinton’s own emails, after copies of some mail was found on the laptop of the disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, who was then married to Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin.
Although Comey then announced, before election day, that the review of the additional emails had found nothing of substance, Clinton dropped in the polls in the closing days of the campaign, and narrowly lost to Trump.
Another irony is that Comey, who has now been indicted by the new US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, is himself a former federal prosecutor in that office, who went on to serve as the US attorney for the southern district of New York, and deputy attorney general under George W Bush before later being appointed FBI director by Barack Obama in 2013.
Attorney general and FBI director welcome Comey charges
Donald Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, and FBI director, Kash Patel, welcomed the indictment of James Comey, who served as deputy attorney general during the George W Bush administration and was fired as FBI director by Donald Trump in 2017 after he told Congress that the FBI was conducting a counterintelligence investigation of Russian interference in the election of Trump as president in 2016.
A justice department press release sent to reporters on Thursday began:
Today, a federal grand jury has charged former FBI Director James Comey with serious crimes related to the disclosure of sensitive information. The indictment alleges that Comey obstructed a congressional investigation into the disclosure of sensitive information in violation of 18 USC 1505.
The indictment also alleges that Comey made a false statement in violation of 18 USC 1001. Comey stated that he did not authorize someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source. According to the indictment that statement was false.
The statement was followed by a quote from Bondi, which was posted on her official X account earlier. “No one is above the law,” the attorney general said. “Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case.”
“Today, your FBI took another step in its promise of full accountability,” Patel added. “For far too long, previous corrupt leadership and their enablers weaponized federal law enforcement, damaging once proud institutions and severely eroding public trust. Every day, we continue the fight to earn that trust back, and under my leadership, this FBI will confront the problem head-on.
“Nowhere was this politicization of law enforcement more blatant than during the Russiagate hoax, a disgraceful chapter in history we continue to investigate and expose. Everyone, especially those in positions of power, will be held to account – no matter their perch. No one is above the law.”
Despite the intensity of those accusations from the most senior officials in the justice department, the statement included the following disclaimer, written in italics at the bottom of the page:
“An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”
Trump hails indictment of Comey: ‘Justice in America’
In a sharp departure from the tradition that presidents should not comment on criminal cases, Donald Trump just celebrated the indictment of the former FBI director James Comey, in terms that could make it even easier for Comey’s lawyers to argue that he is the victim of selective prosecution.
The indictment came days after Trump forced out a career prosecutor in the eastern district of Virginia who had determined that there was insufficient evidence to charge Comey, and posted a public instruction to Bondi to replace him with a White House aide, Lindsey Halligan, who could be trusted to prosecute Comey and other officials Trump holds a grudge against.
“JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” Trump wrote on his social media platform. “One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey, the former Corrupt Head of the FBI. Today he was indicted by a Grand Jury on two felony counts for various illegal and unlawful acts. He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation,” the president added.
He then signed off with his political slogan: “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump announces tariffs on trucks, kitchen cabinets and furniture
As the legality of Donald Trump’s tariffs remains in doubt, the president announced three more on Thursday.
Writing on his social media platform, Trump said: “I will be imposing, as of October 1st, 2025, a 25% Tariff on all “Heavy (Big!) Trucks” made in other parts of the World. Therefore, our Great Large Truck Company Manufacturers, such as Peterbilt, Kenworth, Freightliner, Mack Trucks, and others, will be protected.”
In a separate post, he added: “We will be imposing a 50% Tariff on all Kitchen Cabinets, Bathroom Vanities, and associated products, starting October 1st, 2025. Additionally, we will be charging a 30% Tariff on Upholstered Furniture.”
Ilhan Omar says Trump made up story about discussing her with Somalia’s president
Ilhan Omar, the Somali-born congresswoman from Minnesota, accused Donald Trump of inventing a story he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, about having supposedly asked Somalia’s president if he would “take her back.”
Omar is a naturalized US citizen who was born in Somalia and raised in a refugee camp in Kenya, but Trump has frequently treated her criticism of him as an affront to the United States from someone he still regards as a foreigner.
Trump brought up Omar on Thursday in the course of a rambling answer to a question about Jasmine Crockett, a fellow Democratic congresswoman. When Trump was asked by a conservative reporter if Crockett should face “consequences” for saying, “When I see Ice, I see slave patrols,” the president repeated the racist claim he frequently makes about Black leaders who challenge him: “she is a very low IQ person.”
He then brought up Omar, whose name he mispronounced, unprompted.
“This is a low IQ person, who I can’t I can’t believe is a congressperson, between her and Ilman Omar,” Trump said. “I met the head of Somalia,” he continued, “And I suggested that maybe he’d like to take her back, and he didn’t want her.”
As Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, doubled over in laughter, and other members of his cabinet chuckled, the president said again: “He said, ‘I don’t want her.’”
The White House was so proud of this quip that Trump’s special assistant, Margo Martin, posted video of it on an official government social media account.
Omar responded by suggesting the president, who said last week he was not sure if Somalia even has a president, had made the whole thing up. “From denying Somalia had a president to making up a story, President Trump is a lying buffoon. No one should take this embarrassing fool seriously,” she wrote on X.
Somalia’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, was in New York this week to address the United Nations, but he the US official he met with was not the president, but his advisor on African affairs, Massad Boulos, whose son is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany.
Former FBI director and Trump critic James Comey indicted by prosecutor installed by president
Lauren Gambino
James Comey, the former FBI director and one of Donald Trump’s most frequent targets, was indicted on Thursday on one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstruction of justice, according to a person familiar with the matter, in the latest move in the president’s expansive retribution campaign against his political adversaries.
“No one is above the law. Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case,” Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, tweeted on Thursday.
The indictment came shortly after Trump instructed Bondi to “move now” to prosecute Comey and other officials he considers political foes, in an extraordinarily direct social media post trampling on the justice department’s tradition of independence.
Lindsey Halligan, the president’s former lawyer who was recently sworn in as the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, asked a grand jury to indict Comey for allegedly lying to Congress in testimony on 30 September 2020 before the five-year statute of limitations expires in the coming days. Comey’s testimony before the Senate judiciary committee was related to his handling of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
Halligan, who has no prosecutorial experience, was elevated to the post after Erik Siebert was forced out of the job for failing to bring indictments against Comey and Letitia James, the New York attorney general.
