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Second big batch of Epstein files includes many mentions of Trump

Three days after releasing a large tranche of Jeffrey Epstein documents that contained few mentions of President Donald Trump, the Justice Department disclosed thousands more files that included wide-ranging references to the president.

The documents show that a subpoena was sent to Mar-a-Lago in 2021 for records that pertained to the government’s case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice in sex trafficking. They include notes from an assistant U.S. attorney in New York about the number of times Trump flew on Epstein’s plane, including one flight that included just Trump, Epstein, and a 20-year-old woman, according to the notes.

The newly released documents also include several tips that were collected by the FBI about Trump’s involvement with Epstein and parties at their properties in the early 2000s. The documents do not show whether any follow-up investigations took place or whether any of the tips were corroborated.

In a statement Tuesday morning, the Justice Department said: “Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump” that it characterized as “unfounded and false.”

“Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims,” the statement said.

The documents were available for several hours Monday afternoon and evening on the Justice Department website but appeared to have been taken down around 8 p.m. The Washington Post downloaded the full set of files while they were accessible. The department reposted the files on its website shortly before midnight Monday night. It was not immediately clear whether officials had done any further redactions of the documents before posting.

The department did not immediately respond to questions about why the documents had been posted and then apparently removed. The White House also did not respond to requests for comment about the newly released documents.

Being mentioned in a mass trove of investigatory documents does not demonstrate criminal wrongdoing. Trump has not been accused of being involved in Epstein’s criminal activities. It has long been known that Trump had a years-long friendship with Epstein that ended in the early 2000s.

The president has said he did not know about Epstein’s criminal behavior, and his spokesperson has said he kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago Club for being a “creep.”

Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, died in 2019 while in federal custody awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.

The files include correspondence among prison officials about Epstein’s psychological assessments, with discussions about holding him in a special housing unit about two weeks before he died.

“We have supporting memorandums from the responding officers who indicated they observed inmate Epstein with a makeshift noose around his neck,” one of the emails stated.

At one point, the documents indicate, prison officials planned to house Epstein in a cell with Cesar Sayoc, a fanatical supporter of Trump’s who in 2019 was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he mailed explosive devices to prominent Democrats and media figures.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons did not respond to requests for comment about Epstein’s incarceration.

Also included in this batch of files are a large number of documents related to objections filed by Epstein’s victims in 2008 after Alex Acosta, the U.S. attorney in Miami, reached an agreement not to prosecute Epstein on federal charges in return for his pleading guilty to less-serious state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor.

There is a 22-page memo from the criminal division of the Justice Department to authorities in the United Kingdom, seeking to interview “material witness PA,” a reference to Prince Andrew. It outlines what has been uncovered about him and seeks a voluntary interview. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the brother of King Charles III, was recently stripped of his royal titles, including that of prince, because of his links to Epstein.

The files are being released in compliance with a law passed by Congress last month that mandated the disclosure of Epstein-related documents. Trump signed the measure into law, but on Monday, he repeated some of his long-standing objections to the disclosures.

Asked about the Justice Department’s release on Friday of photos of former President Bill Clinton with Epstein, Trump, who has called on the department to investigate Clinton and other Democrats, suggested that he had some sympathy for the former president.

“I don’t like the pictures of Bill Clinton being shown. I don’t like the pictures of other people being shown. I think it’s a terrible thing,” he told reporters during an event at Mar-a-Lago. “Bill Clinton’s a big boy. He can handle it, but you probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago. Many years ago. And they’re, you know, highly respected bankers and lawyers and others.”

Trump was responding to questions about Epstein at an event at Mar-a-Lago on Monday at which he announced he would be overseeing the development of a new class of Navy battleship named after himself.

“Everybody was friendly with this guy, either friendly or not friendly,” Trump said. “But I mean, he was around. He was all over Palm Beach and other places. The head of Harvard was his best friend — Larry Summers — and Bill Clinton was a friend of his, but everybody was. I actually threw him out of Mar-a-Lago.”

The wave of files released Friday had few documents that mentioned Trump, even while administration officials have acknowledged that the president’s name is included multiple times throughout the files.

The initial batch, however, included a number of photographs of Clinton, who appeared in a swimming pool and a hot tub, as well as in more formal settings or posing with Michael Jackson.

Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña suggested Monday that the administration had engineered the releases to shield Trump, something Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has denied. On Monday, Ureña issued a statement on X demanding that all photographs and documents related to Clinton be released immediately.

“What the Department of Justice has released so far, and the manner in which it did so, makes one thing clear: someone or something is being protected,” Ureña said in the statement. “We do not know whom, what or why. But we do know this: We need no such protection.”

The new documents at times provide a window onto what federal prosecutors had been examining, as well as their awareness of ties that Epstein had with Trump.

In January 2020, during Trump’s first term, for example, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York wrote an internal email about a review of flight records the day before as part of the government’s case against Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking.

“For your situational awareness, wanted to let you know that the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware), including during the period we would expect to charge in a Maxwell case,” the email states.

There were at least eight flights, the prosecutor wrote, between 1993 and 1996 in which Trump was a passenger. On at least four of those flights Maxwell was also present.

In some cases, the prosecutor wrote, there were passengers who could be called as possible witnesses in a case against Maxwell.

“We’ve just finished reviewing the full records (more than 100 pages of very small script) and didn’t want any of this to be a surprise down the road,” the prosecutor wrote.

The full reason for the subpoena to Mar-a-Lago was not immediately clear, but an assistant U.S. attorney had been seeking past employment records from Trump’s club that were relevant in the case against Maxwell.

“I have not been able to locate anyone who recalls [redacted] working at Mar a Lago in 2000,” the federal prosecutor wrote in an internal email.

The subpoenas issued to Mar-a-Lago were also included in the latest documents. Attached to one of the subpoenas was a letter dated Feb. 12, 2015, on Mar-a-Lago letterhead, in which officials of the club indicate that they don’t have the employment records from 1999 to 2001 that federal agents are seeking. They found an employee by the name they were seeking on a 2000 spreadsheet but could not confirm it was the same person without more identifying information.

Trump on Monday also grew annoyed with reporters who asked him about Epstein.

“What this whole thing is with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success that the Republican Party has,” he said. “Like, for instance, today we’re building the biggest ships in the world, the most powerful ships in the world, and they’re asking me questions about Jeffrey Epstein. I thought that was finished.”

December 23, 2025
7 home remedies to try for a sore throat

Woke up to a sore, scratchy throat? You may want to blame it on dry air, but it’s usually a sign your body is fighting a viral infection.

“The top five causes of a sore throat are a virus, a virus, a virus, a virus, and a virus,” said Elisabeth Fowlie Mock, a family physician and director at the American Academy of Family Physicians. The culprits that can trigger a sore throat include rhinoviruses (the most common cause of colds), influenza, coronavirus, and respiratory syncytial virus.

Throat pain is often your first symptom because viruses first latch on in this area of your body, said Benjamin C. Tweel, an assistant professor of otolaryngology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“The virus is getting into the cells lining the throat, and it’s probably causing an inflammatory response in your body’s immune system,” said Tweel, also the medical director for the department of otolaryngology at Mount Sinai Health System. When the body recognizes a viral intruder, lymphatic tissue in the back of the nose and throat swells and becomes inflamed, causing pain, the experts said.

“Every so often, your body fights it off, and you don’t get the full-blown thing,” Mock said. Other times, the classic symptoms of an upper respiratory infection follow, including a runny nose, congestion, and cough.

Throat pain from an upper respiratory infection usually gets better within one week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over-the-counter pain relievers such as ibuprofen or naproxen can help, and they may have an advantage over medications such as acetaminophen, Tweel noted, because they reduce pain and inflammation. And of course, there are some home remedies that may soothe your pain. Here are a few to consider:

Saltwater gargle

Salt water has long been considered a tried-and-true approach for sore throats, and there is some scientific research to support it. A small 2019 randomized controlled trial, published in the Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medical Research, found that people with nonbacterial sore throats who gargled with salt water had less severe pain and difficulty swallowing one week later compared with those who used thymol solution, a type of antiseptic gargle or mouthwash.

It’s possible salt helps reduce tissue swelling in the throat, said Cameron Wick, an otologist and neurotologist at University Hospitals. “When you do a saltwater rinse, it’s basic high school chemistry and the whole process of osmosis,” he said. “Some of the water in the cells in your throat actually come out of your tissue and go into the salt solution, so that decreases some of the inflammation.” Saltwater gargling “probably also helps wash out debris and virus particles,” Tweel added.

The research is limited, but saline gargling “is highly unlikely to be harmful,” Mock said. “It might help a little bit, and it’s probably not going to hurt.” A safe ratio is 1 teaspoon of salt for every 8 ounces of warm water, Wick said.

Saltwater rinses may have other benefits. If you’re experiencing thick mucus, congestion, or symptoms of allergies, an over-the-counter saline spray or nasal irrigation device can clear out your nasal passages for easier breathing, Wick said. These products also help hydrate the nasal passages and reduce swelling.

Only use water that is distilled, sterile, or boiled and cooled in nasal irrigation devices, since tap water may contain germs that are dangerous if they enter your sinuses.

Honey

Honey is known for its antibacterial properties, Wick said, and its thickness may shield your sore throat from further irritation. It should feel good on the throat or a mucosal membrane, he explained. Honey acts as a barrier, so the throat isn’t “exposed to the elements in general and passing liquids and air.”

There’s some research to support honey’s use for the relief of upper respiratory infection symptoms such as a sore throat and cough. One small 2023 study also found that gargling with honey — 15 milliliters of honey mixed in 5 ml of water — helped ease pain from a tonsillectomy, or surgery to remove the tonsils.

Honey can also be an option for children with sore throats and coughing who are at least 1 year old. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends it instead of over-the-counter medications for children, since there’s little evidence cold medicine offers much benefit to kids younger than 6.

“As long as they’re over 1 year old, a little bit [of honey] in warm liquid or a teaspoon of honey” may help ease kids’ sore throats and help them sleep better, Mock said. You should never give honey to babies under 12 months because of the risk of infant botulism, a rare but dangerous condition.

Tea

Sipping a cup of tea feels good on a sore throat, but not all types are recommended when you have an upper respiratory infection.

“Make sure it’s a non-caffeinated tea,” Wick said. “Black teas, those really tannic teas, often have a relatively high caffeine level, and caffeine does things to your kidneys that makes you urinate more and can actually dehydrate you.”

There have been limited studies linking herbal teas to reduced throat pain; chamomile, ginger, and turmeric tea are particularly good options, Wick said.

To give your tea a sore throat-soothing boost, squeeze in honey and lemon. The citrus fruit “adds vitamin C, which has immune support, and increases saliva production,” Wick said. The latter is beneficial because it may help saliva glands in your mouth and throat (there are “hundreds of minor ones underneath the mucosal surface,” he said) flush themselves, so “rather than thick, congested mucus, it’s thinner, and the body can handle it more.”

Warm beverages

If you’re not a tea drinker, other warm beverages such as warm water, bone broth, vegetable broth or soup may be similarly soothing. “There’s a kind of calming effect that occurs with warm water,” Wick said.

Warm beverages may also be easier to drink and thus can increase your overall hydration. “[This] is probably one of the better things you can do for a sore throat,” Tweel said. “The drier you are, the worse your throat is going to be.”

Plus, as long as it doesn’t contain ingredients that irritate the throat, soup can be comforting, Mock added.

Cool foods

Some people prefer cool foods such as ice chips or ice pops for a sore throat, especially if they’re experiencing more significant throat pain, Wick said. After a tonsillectomy, “kids get to binge on ice cream and Popsicles. Usually that is because the coolness calms down those pain fibers and nerve endings,” he said.

There’s little research on cold foods for sore throats caused by upper respiratory infections, but some studies suggest cooling therapies might help ease throat discomfort after medical procedures such as intubation and surgery.

Using a humidifier

Dry air can make your nose, mouth, and throat feel scratchy and uncomfortable. “This is part of the reason why people feel worse sometimes immediately after flying on a plane,” Tweel said. Running a cool-mist humidifier or vaporizer may ease some of that scratchiness when you have a sore throat.

The big caveat is you have to keep these devices clean. “I personally don’t use one because I find it hard to keep it sanitized,” Tweel said. Mold and bacteria can proliferate in portable humidifiers, and breathing in that germ-containing mist could make you sick.

The CDC recommends cleaning your humidifier regularly according to the manufacturer’s instructions, emptying the water tank daily, and using distilled or boiled and cooled water, which are less likely to cause germ growth.

If cleaning a humidifier feels too burdensome, you can get similar benefits from a steamy shower or inhaling the steam that comes off boiling water or a cup of tea, Tweel said.

Lozenges

For adults, lozenges or cough drops “help your throat produce more saliva,” Tweel said, which can in turn reduce dryness. “So much of the soreness [of a sore throat] is being dry or dehydrated,” he said, “so if you can do anything to combat that dryness, it will be helpful.”

There are many varieties available, and “essentially whatever feels good is worthwhile,” Tweel said, but some people are partial to the cooling sensation from menthol or eucalyptus lozenges.

Lozenges or cough drops shouldn’t be given to children under 4 years old, since they are choking hazards.

When to see your doctor for a sore throat

A sore throat typically lasts a few days, then starts to get better, Mock said. After that, you’re likely to have a runny nose and congestion, followed by a chest cough. “That’s a normal upper respiratory infection,” she said. “As long as it’s progressing and not getting worse, [the virus] can take a week or two to run its course.”

But a sore throat sometimes warrants a doctor visit. You should make an appointment with your primary care practitioner if you have a fever along with throat pain, severe pain, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, or if you notice white patches on the back of your throat or “any major asymmetry, meaning a size difference between your tonsils,” Wick said. These might signal a bacterial infection such as strep throat, which may require antibiotics.

Long-lasting throat pain is also worth getting checked out. “Should you have a severe sore throat for more than seven days? No, it should be getting better by then,” Mock said.

December 23, 2025
Trump warns Venezuela, announces plans for new Navy ‘battleship’

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump on Monday delivered a new warning to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the U.S. Coast Guard steps up efforts to interdict oil tankers in the Caribbean Sea as part of the Republican administration’s escalating pressure campaign on the government in Caracas.

Trump was surrounded by his top national security aides, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after a meeting at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. He suggested that he remains ready to further escalate his four-month pressure campaign on the Maduro government, which began with the stated purpose of stemming the flow of illegal drugs from the South American nation but has developed into something more amorphous.

“If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it’ll be the last time he’ll ever be able to play tough,” Trump said of Maduro.

Trump levied his latest threat as the U.S. Coast Guard on Monday continued for a second day to chase a sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration describes as part of a “dark fleet” Venezuela is using to evade U.S. sanctions. The tanker, according to the White House, is flying under a false flag and is under a U.S. judicial seizure order.

“It’s moving along and we’ll end up getting it,” Trump said.

It is the third tanker pursued by the Coast Guard, which on Saturday seized a Panama-flagged vessel called Centuries that U.S. officials said was part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry started evacuating the families of diplomats from Venezuela, according to a European intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

The official told the Associated Press the evacuations include women and children and began on Friday, adding that Russian Foreign Ministry officials are assessing the situation in Venezuela in “very grim tones.” The ministry said in an X posting that it was not evacuating the embassy but did not address queries about whether it was evacuating the families of diplomats.

Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yván Gil on Monday said he spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, who he said expressed Russia’s support for Venezuela against Trump’s declared blockade of sanctioned oil tankers.

“We reviewed the aggressions and flagrant violations of international law that have been committed in the Caribbean: attacks against vessels and extrajudicial executions, and the unlawful acts of piracy carried out by the United States government,” Gil said in a statement.

A new “Golden Fleet”

Trump also announced on Monday a bold plan for the Navy to build a new, large warship that he is calling a “battleship” as part of a larger vision to create a “Golden Fleet.”

“They’ll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Trump claimed during the announcement at Mar-a-Lago.

The ship, according to Trump, will be longer and larger than the World War II-era Iowa-class battleships and will be armed with hypersonic missiles, rail guns, and high-powered lasers — all technologies that are still being developed by the Navy.

Just a month ago, the Navy scrapped its plans to build a new, small warship, citing growing delays and cost overruns, deciding instead to go with a modified version of a Coast Guard cutter that was being produced until recently. The sea service has also failed to build its other newly designed ships, like the new Ford-class aircraft carrier and Columbia-class submarines, on time and on budget.

Historically, the term battleship has referred to a very specific type of ship — a large, heavily armored vessel armed with massive guns designed to bombard other ships or targets ashore. This type of ship was at the height of its prominence during World War II, and the largest of the U.S. battleships, the Iowa-class, were roughly 60,000 tons.

After World War II, the battleship’s role in modern fleets diminished rapidly in favor of aircraft carriers and long-range missiles. The U.S. Navy did modernize four Iowa-class battleships in the 1980s by adding cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles, along with modern radars, but by the 1990s all four were decommissioned.

Trump has long held strong opinions on specific aspects of the Navy’s fleet, sometimes with a view toward keeping older technology instead of modernizing.

During his first term, he unsuccessfully called for a return to steam-powered catapults to launch jets from the Navy’s newest aircraft carriers instead of the more modern electromagnetic system.

He has also complained to Phelan about the look of the Navy’s destroyers and decried Navy ships being covered in rust.

Phelan told senators at his confirmation hearing that Trump “has texted me numerous times very late at night, sometimes after one (o’clock) in the morning” about “rusty ships or ships in a yard, asking me what am I doing about it.”

On a visit to a shipyard that was working on the now-canceled Constellation-class frigate in 2020, Trump said he personally changed the design of the ship.

“I looked at it, I said, ‘That’s a terrible-looking ship, let’s make it beautiful,’” Trump said at the time.

He said Monday he will have a direct role in designing this new warship as well.

“The U.S. Navy will lead the design of these ships along with me, because I’m a very aesthetic person,” Trump said.

December 22, 2025
White House rebuffs Catholic bishops’ appeal for a Christmas pause in immigration enforcement

NEW YORK — Florida’s Catholic bishops appealed to President Donald Trump on Monday to pause immigration enforcement activities during the Christmas holidays. The White House, in response, said it would be business as usual.

The appeal was issued by Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, and signed by seven other members of the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“The border has been secured. The initial work of identifying and removing dangerous criminals has been accomplished to a great degree,” Wenski wrote. “At this point, the maximum enforcement approach of treating irregular immigrants en masse means that now many of these arrest operations inevitably sweep up numbers of people who are not criminals but just here to work.”

“A climate of fear and anxiety is infecting not only the irregular migrant but also family members and neighbors who are legally in the country,” Wenski added.

“Since these effects are part of enforcement operations, we request that the government pause apprehension and roundup activities during the Christmas season. Such a pause would show a decent regard for the humanity of these families.”

Responding via email, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson did not mention the holiday season in her two-sentence reply.

“President Trump was elected based on his promise to the American people to deport criminal illegal aliens. And he’s keeping that promise,” Jackson wrote.

Wenski has established a reputation as an outspoken advocate of humane treatment for migrants. In September, for example, he joined other Catholic leaders on a panel at Georgetown University decrying the Trump administration’s hard-line policies for tearing apart families, inciting fear, and upending church life.

Wenski highlighted the contributions of immigrants to the country’s economy.

“If you ask people in agriculture, you ask in the service industry, you ask people in healthcare, you ask the people in the construction field, and they’ll tell you that some of their best workers are immigrants,” said Wenski. “Enforcement is always going to be part of any immigration policy, but we have to rationalize it and humanize it.”

Wenski joined the “Knights on Bikes” ministry, an initiative led by the Knights of Columbus that draws attention to the spiritual needs of people held at immigration detention centers, including the one in the Florida Everglades dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. He recalled praying a rosary with the bikers in the scorching heat outside its walls. Days later, he got permission to celebrate Mass inside the facility.

“The fact that we invite these detainees to pray, even in this very dehumanizing situation, is a way of emphasizing and invoking their dignity,” he said.

December 22, 2025
Judge chides Ghislaine Maxwell for mentioning victim names in papers seeking to overturn conviction

NEW YORK — A judge on Monday scolded Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell for including confidential victim names in court papers seeking to set aside her 2021 sex trafficking conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said exhibits included with Maxwell’s habeas petition — which she filed on her own, without a lawyer — will be kept under seal and out of public view “until they have been reviewed and appropriately redacted to protect the identities of victims.”

Any future papers Maxwell files must be submitted under seal, the judge wrote.

He said he “reminds Maxwell, in strong terms, that she is prohibited from including in any public filings any information identifying victim(s) who were not publicly identified by name during her trial.”

A message seeking comment was left with Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus.

Maxwell filed the petition last Wednesday, two days before the Justice Department started releasing investigative records pertaining to her and Epstein in accordance with the recently enacted Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Maxwell contends that information that would have resulted in her exoneration was withheld and that false testimony was presented to the jury. She said the cumulative effect of the constitutional violations resulted in a “complete miscarriage of justice.”

Engelmayer said Maxwell has until Feb. 17, 2026, to notify him whether she plans to include any information from the so-called Epstein files in her petition and must file an amended version by March 31, 2026.

A slow, heavily redacted release of files

Protecting victim identifies has been a key sticking point in the Justice Department’s ongoing release.

The department has said it plans to release records on a rolling basis by the end of the year, blaming the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring victims’ names and other identifying information. So far, the department hasn’t given any notice when new records arrive.

That approach angered some accusers and members of Congress who fought to pass the transparency act. Records that were released, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs, court records, and other documents, were either already public or heavily blacked out, and many lacked necessary context.

The Senate’s top Democrat on Monday urged colleagues to take legal action over the incremental and heavily redacted release.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a resolution that, if passed, would direct the Senate to file or join lawsuits aimed at forcing the Justice Department to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted last month that required disclosure of records by last Friday.

“Instead of transparency, the Trump administration released a tiny fraction of the files and blacked out massive portions of what little they provided,” Schumer (D., N.Y.) said in a statement. “This is a blatant cover-up.”

In lieu of Republican support, Schumer’s resolution is largely symbolic. The Senate is off until Jan. 5, more than two weeks after the deadline. Even then, it’ll likely face an uphill battle for passage. But it allows Democrats to continue a pressure campaign for disclosure that Republicans had hoped to put behind them.

There were few revelations in the tens of thousands of pages of records that have been released so far. Some of the most eagerly awaited records, such as FBI victim interviews and internal memos shedding light on charging decisions, weren’t there.

Nor were there any mentions of some powerful figures who’ve been in Epstein’s orbit, like Britain’s former Prince Andrew.

Some files removed, then restored

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the Justice Department’s decision to release just a fraction of the files by the deadline as necessary to protect survivors of sexual abuse by the disgraced financier.

Blanche pledged that the Trump administration would meet its obligation required by law. But he stressed that the department was obligated to act with caution as it goes about making public thousands of documents that can include sensitive information. And he said legal precedent had long established that obligations to protect the privacy of victims permit authorities to go beyond deadlines to ensure they are protected.

Blanche, the Justice Department’s second in command, also defended its decision to remove several files related to the case from its public webpage, including a photograph showing Trump, less than a day after they were posted.

The missing files, which were available Friday but no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showed a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump alongside Epstein, Melania Trump, and Maxwell.

Blanche said the documents were removed because of a concern that they might also show victims of Epstein. Blanche said the Trump photo and the other documents would be reposted once redactions, if necessary, were made to protect survivors.

The Trump photograph was returned to the public webpage without alterations Sunday after it was determined that a concern by some government workers that victims may have been depicted in the picture proved unfounded, the Justice Department said.

“We are not redacting information around President Trump, around any other individual involved with Mr. Epstein, and that narrative, which is not based on fact at all, is completely false,” Blanche told NBC’s Meet the Press.

Blanche said Trump, a Republican, has labeled the Epstein matter “a hoax” because “there’s this narrative out there that the Department of Justice is hiding and protecting information about him, which is completely false.”

“The Epstein files existed for years and years and years and you did not hear a peep out of a single Democrat for the past four years and yet … lo and behold, all of a sudden, out of the blue, Senator Schumer suddenly cares about the Epstein files,” Blanche said. “That’s the hoax.”

December 22, 2025
Justice Dept. sues D.C. over ban of AR-15s and other semiautomatic guns

The Justice Department is suing D.C. police, calling the District’s ban on AR-15s and other weapons unconstitutional.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, government attorneys chastised the city for its code that bans most semiautomatic rifles and certain firearms from being registered with the police department, ultimately making any possession of those weapons illegal. Among the prohibited weapons are AK-47s and AR-15s.

Without registration, people who own these firearms for lawful purposes are subject to misdemeanor charges and fines, prosecutors said.

“Their decisions to deny certificates of registration for commonly possessed semiautomatic firearms runs afoul of binding Supreme Court precedent,” prosecutors said in the filing, “and therefore trample the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”

Prosecutors cited a 2008 Supreme Court ruling that held that people may possess firearms in their homes for purposes such as self-defense, invalidating a handgun ban that the District had in place at the time.

A D.C. police spokesperson declined to comment, citing active litigation.

In August, the Justice Department instructed federal prosecutors in D.C. not to seek felony charges against people who are carrying rifles or shotguns in the nation’s capital, regardless of the strength of the evidence. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro defended the policy in a statement to the Washington Post in August, saying that D.C.’s blanket prohibition on carrying shotguns or rifles “is clearly a violation of the Supreme Court’s holdings.”

The lawsuit comes as the White House has heralded gun seizures in D.C. as proof that the federal law enforcement surge ordered by President Donald Trump has been a success. A page titled “Achievements” on the White House website says that Trump’s D.C. crime crackdown resulted in the seizure of hundreds of firearms. And the Post reported that illegal gun possession was the most common charge among arrests involving federal agents during the crackdown. In the first four weeks of the surge, the Post found that one in four of those arrests involved gun charges.

Attorney General Pam Bondi posted near-daily tallies of gun seizures in the early days of the law enforcement surge and has touted Washington gun arrests as positive as recently as last week.

“Our federal surge in DC has saved countless lives, removed hundreds of illegal guns off the streets, and led to a dramatic drop in crime in our nation’s capital city,” she posted on X on Wednesday.

In a news release announcing the lawsuit Monday, Bondi emphasized her “ironclad commitment” to Second Amendment rights. “Washington, DC’s ban on some of America’s most popular firearms is an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment — living in our nation’s capital should not preclude law-abiding citizens from exercising their fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

The Justice Department wants city police to admit that they violated the Second Amendment, according to the lawsuit, and asks a judge to permanently ban D.C. police from arresting or fining law-abiding people for possessing assault weapons.

December 22, 2025
NSA employee sues Trump administration over transgender rights and ‘immutable’ genders

A transgender employee of the National Security Agency is suing the Trump administration and trying to block enforcement of a presidential executive order and other policies the employee says violate federal civil rights law.

Sarah O’Neill, an NSA data scientist who is transgender, disputes the legality of President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order that required the federal government, in all operations and printed materials, to recognize only two “immutable” sexes: male and female.

The lawsuit filed Monday says Trump’s order “declares that it is the policy of the United States government to deny Ms. O’Neill’s very existence.”

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The order, which reflected Trump’s 2024 campaign rhetoric, spurred policies that O’Neill is challenging, as well.

Since Trump initial executive action, O’Neill asserts the NSA has canceled its policy recognizing her transgender identity and “right to a workplace free of unlawful harassment,” while “prohibiting her from identifying her pronouns as female in written communications” and “barring her from using the women’s restroom at work.”

O’Neill contends those policies and the orders behind them create a hostile work environment and violate Section VII of the Civil Rights Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that Section VII’s prohibition on discrimination based on sex applied to gender identity.

“We agree that homosexuality and transgender status are distinct concepts from sex,” the court’s majority opinion stated. “But, as we’ve seen, discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status necessarily entails discrimination based on sex; the first cannot happen without the second.”

O’Neill’s complaint argues, “The Executive Order rejects the existence of gender identity altogether, let alone the possibility that someone’s gender identity can differ from their sex, which it characterizes as ‘gender ideology.’”

In addition to restoring her workplace rights and protections, O’Neill is seeking financial damages.

Trump’s order was among a flurry of executive actions he took hours after taking office. He has continued using executive action aggressively in his second presidency, prompting many legal challenges that are still working their way through the federal judiciary.

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December 22, 2025
Ted Cruz weighs another presidential run, setting up clash with Vance

Sen. Ted Cruz sat down with a longtime ally in November at an office near D.C.’s Union Station to discuss the future of the Republican Party. Before long, the discussion touched on his own future.

His friend Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization for America, told Cruz he believed that “Jew hatred and Israel bashing” was on the rise on the right — and that something had to be done about it. Cruz, who had begun a series of speeches decrying antisemitism in the GOP, told Klein he had been fielding requests from people urging him to run for president in 2028.

Cruz came across as someone “seriously” considering such a run, Klein recalled.

With the future of the party up for grabs in a Donald Trump-less 2028 primary, Cruz has in recent months positioned himself as a loud voice for a more traditional, hawkish Republican foreign policy. He’s also urging the GOP to rid itself of popular MAGA pundit Tucker Carlson, whom he argues is injecting the “poison” of antisemitism into the movement with his broadsides against Israel. Carlson has rejected that characterization.

As he feuds with Carlson, Cruz is weighing a second presidential bid, according to a person close to the senator and another briefed on his thinking, who spoke like others on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal conversations. A White House run would be politically risky for Cruz, 55, putting him on course to collide with Vice President JD Vance, whom many Republicans expect to enter the 2028 race.

Friction is already evident behind the scenes: Cruz has criticized Vance, a close ally of Carlson, to Republican donors, according to two people familiar with the comments. The senator has warned that Vance’s foreign policy views are dangerously isolationist, the people said. (Vance has been one of the GOP’s most prominent skeptics of U.S. intervention abroad.)

The emerging rivalry shows how much the party has changed under Trump’s leadership since Cruz arrived in the Senate in 2013. After rising to prominence as a rebel against the establishment, Cruz is now a vocal champion of some longtime orthodox GOP positions, as a new generation of conservatives is ascending with a different vision.

Some political observers are skeptical that another Cruz run would gain much traction. He can no longer run as an outsider and alienated some conservatives with his fight against Trump in the 2016 campaign. Still, Cruz has built name recognition and relationships with plenty of activists and donors across the country in recent years, and it’s far from clear what will animate the base in the next GOP primary.

“Can Ted help craft or meld together the traditional Republican approach with the new reality of what the Republican Party is now?” asked Daron Shaw, a political science professor at the University of Texas who overlapped with Cruz as a staffer on George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. “It’s a heavy lift.”

The day after his chat with Klein, Cruz called Carlson “a coward” during a speech before a group supporting Jewish conservatives in Las Vegas, again denouncing the “poisonous lies” of antisemitism. He said they were “blessed” to have Trump, who “loves the Jewish people,” in the White House right now.

“When Trump is not in the White House, what then?” he asked in his booming voice.

“Ted Cruz!” an audience member shouted.

The senator just smiled, then continued his speech.

“All of us hate Ted Cruz”

Anyone considering a run for the GOP nomination in 2028 faces a big obstacle: Vance.

The 41-year-old vice president leads early polls and is seen as a loyal lieutenant to Trump, who maintains high support from the party base even as the president’s approval ratings have plummeted.

But Trump has been noncommittal about endorsing his running mate as heir to his Make America Great Again movement, leaving an opening for an ambitious conservative with a different vision for the party.

“The Republicans will be fighting for their identity,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) said of the 2028 primary. Greene, a close ally of Carlson who represents the populist and isolationist wing of the party, added: “There’ll be Ted Cruz, I’m sure, running against JD Vance. All of us hate Ted Cruz.”

Cruz has adapted to changes in his party over several decades in politics. Following a stretch in the establishment during Bush’s 2000 campaign, he became solicitor general of Texas in 2003 and launched a Senate campaign in 2011 as a tea-party-infused change agent, defeating the lieutenant governor in the GOP primary.

“The best thing to happen to the Republican Party was to get its teeth kicked in in 2008,” Cruz said during a 2012 campaign event with the libertarian Ron Paul.

When he arrived in Washington, Cruz picked fights over spending and President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, sparking a government shutdown in 2013. Not everyone in his party liked his style. “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) joked at a 2016 press dinner.

Cruz brought his insurgent pitch into the 2016 presidential race, but Trump caught fire with an antiestablishment campaign that dramatically eclipsed the senator’s. After bowing out of the GOP race as the last major Trump opponent standing, Cruz told delegates at the Republican National Convention that year to “vote your conscience,” instead of throwing his support behind Trump, who had branded him as “Lyin’ Ted.” He returned to the Senate, where he is now chair of the Commerce Committee and has refashioned himself into a bipartisan dealmaker on aviation safety and other issues.

The Texas senator, who has called himself a “noninterventionist hawk” and has long been a vocal ally of Israel, argues that an anti-Israel foreign policy could embolden terrorists. And he is a defender of the benefits of traditional capitalism at a time when some in the New Right are calling for a more populist turn.

“Those who are anti-Israel quickly become anti-capitalist and anti-American,” Cruz said in a brief interview about his decision to speak out against Carlson. “Tucker’s obsession is unhealthy and dangerous.”

By targeting Carlson and growing anti-Israel sentiment within the party, Cruz has hit upon a division within the GOP base that some believe could animate the 2028 primaries. Carlson is closely allied with Vance, a onetime Trump critic who is now an America First populist, embracing skepticism of some big-business interests and rejecting the U.S. foreign policy status quo.

Cruz is staking out positions against isolationism and antisemitism at a time when explicitly antisemitic figures such as white supremacist commentator Nick Fuentes are gaining an audience on the right.

Vance, by contrast, has rejected the suggestion that the right has a problem with antisemitism after Carlson hosted Fuentes for a friendly interview. (The vice president disavowed Fuentes months before the interview and has not explicitly weighed in on Carlson hosting him.)

It’s “kind of slanderous to say that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, is extremely antisemitic,” Vance said in a recent interview with NBC News. In a social media post last week, Vance criticized a news article claiming antisemitism was rising among young people.

“I would say there’s a difference between not liking Israel (or disagreeing with a given Israeli policy) and antisemitism,” he replied to one user.

Asked to respond to Vance’s comment, Cruz said he is not in agreement with “people who are anti-Israel or people who are antisemitic.”

“Every Hamas or Hezbollah or IRGC terrorist that Israel took out makes Americans safer,” Cruz said, referencing militants in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran that the United States designates as terrorist groups. “And those who don’t see that are not acting in accordance with American national security interests.”

The feud

In early July, Cruz sat down in Washington with Israel’s prime minister and delivered a dire warning. Over cigars at Blair House, Cruz told Benjamin Netanyahu that antisemitism on the right was rising to a level he had never seen before.

“No, Ted,” Netanyahu responded, according to Cruz, who recounted the conversation in a speech. “That’s Qatar, that’s Iran, that’s astroturf, that’s paid for.”

But Cruz said he was not placated. Replies to his social media posts were flooded with anti-Jewish bigotry from what looked to him like ordinary, real people. He began to fear that what he saw as antisemitism on the left was beginning to infect the right, he said.

In June, Cruz sat for an interview with Carlson that grew heated over the topic of Israel. Cruz suggested that Carlson criticizes Israel more than other countries because of bigotry toward Jews. Carlson said he has many Jewish friends who have the same questions as him and grilled Cruz with factual questions on the Middle East. In an uncharacteristic lapse, Cruz failed to identify the population of Iran. “You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?” Carlson asked.

Since then, the two have savaged each other in increasingly personal terms. Carlson has called Cruz “vulgar and dumb and reckless” for connecting U.S. military support for Israel to a biblical responsibility to defend the Holy Land and God’s chosen people. After Carlson hosted Fuentes on his podcast this fall, Cruz called on Republicans to repudiate the pundit.

Carlson “decided Jews are the source of all evil in the world,” Cruz said in a recent podcast. The senator also posted a digitally altered sexually suggestive photo of Carlson to critique his friendly stance toward Qatar, a U.S. ally with which Israel has clashed.

Since the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, internal battles about the future of the GOP have spilled into the open, many centering on the true meaning of “America First” as Trump spends time and political capital on Ukraine, Israel, and Venezuela. Carlson criticized Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear sites in June and has warned the president against pursuing regime change in Venezuela, a goal Cruz shares.

“What Ted is trying to do is say, this is where our voters are,” said one person close to the senator. “Trump and Ted are much more aligned on foreign policy than Trump and Tucker are.”

Few Republicans have publicly rallied to Cruz’s side.

“I can tell you, my colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrifying,” Cruz said in one speech on Carlson. “But a great many of them are frightened because he has one hell of a big megaphone.”

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) said he “applauds” Cruz for speaking out against Carlson. But others declined to weigh in.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R., Ala.), a close Trump ally, said he believes the back-and-forth is personal. “Sometimes when you get embarrassed, you get mad, get your feelings hurt,” he said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) said he is surprised but happy that Cruz has the “courage” to challenge such a powerful figure on the right. “To give Senator Cruz due credit, it requires some guts and gumption to stand up against Tucker Carlson,” he said.

As Carlson and Cruz have attacked each other, Trump has declined to take sides, calling Carlson a “nice guy” and Cruz a “good friend” in recent months.

Carlson has said he thinks “antisemitism is immoral, and I am against it.” He argues the feud is just politics. “All [Cruz] wants is to be president. That’s all he’s ever wanted,” Carlson said in an interview. “As a political matter, he somehow thinks that calling me a Nazi is going to get him the nomination because it’s going to hurt JD Vance.” (Cruz has not publicly used that word to described Carlson.)

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R., Mont.), who argued that Cruz damaged his credibility with conservatives after spurning Trump in 2016 but later recovered his standing, said Cruz “always has an eye on running.”

“Ted stakes out his position pretty well, and so were he to run, we know where he is,” Zinke said.

So far, there are few signs that Cruz is gaining an advantage. Hal Lambert, a major GOP donor who helped organize a super PAC to support Cruz when he ran for president in 2016, said he thinks a 2028 bid would be tricky for the senator.

“If JD Vance is running, I’m going to be supporting JD Vance,” Lambert said.

“I just don’t understand what the platform would be,” he said of Cruz’s potential run. “The platform would be, I’m Ted, and that’s JD?”

December 22, 2025
Bondi Beach shooting suspect conducted firearms training with his father, Australian police say

MELBOURNE, Australia — A man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach conducted firearms training in an area of New South Wales state outside of Sydney with his father, according to Australian police documents released on Monday.

The documents, made public following Naveed Akram’s video court appearance from a Sydney hospital where he has been treated for an abdominal injury, said the two men recorded footage justifying the meticulously planned attack.

Officers wounded Akram at the scene of the Dec. 14 shooting and killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.

The state government confirmed Naveed Akram was transferred Monday from a hospital to a prison. Authorities identified neither facility.

The 24-year-old and his father began their attack by throwing four improvised explosive devices toward a crowd celebrating an annual Jewish event at Bondi Beach, but the devices failed to explode, the documents said.

Police described the devices as three aluminum pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing an explosive, gunpowder, and steel ball bearings. None detonated, but police described them as “viable” IEDs.

The pair had rented a room in the Sydney suburb of Campsie for three weeks before they left at 2:16 a.m. on the day of the attack. CCTV recorded them carrying what police allege were two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs, and two homemade Islamic State group flags wrapped in blankets.

Police also released images of the gunmen shooting from a footbridge, providing them with an elevated vantage point and the protection of waist-high concrete walls.

The largest IED was found after the gun battle near the footbridge in the trunk of the son’s car, which had been left draped with the flags.

Authorities have charged Akram with 59 offenses, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded survivors, and one count of committing a terrorist act.

The antisemitic attack at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration was Australia’s worst mass shooting since a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state in 1996.

The New South Wales government introduced draft laws to Parliament on Monday that Premier Chris Minns said would become the toughest in Australia.

The new restrictions would include making Australian citizenship a condition of qualifying for a firearms license. That would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa.

Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. A new legal limit for recreational shooters would be a maximum of four guns.

Police said a video found on Naveed Akram’s phone shows him with his father as they express “their political and religious views and appear to summarize their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack.”

The men are seen in the video “condemning the acts of Zionists” while they also “adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to Islamic State,” police said.

Video shot in October shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” on grassland surrounded by trees, police said.

“There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months,” police allege.

An impromptu memorial that grew near the Bondi Pavilion after the massacre, as thousands of mourners brought flowers and heartfelt cards, was removed Monday as the beachfront returned to more normal activity. The Sydney Jewish Museum will preserve part of the memorial.

Victims’ funerals continued Monday with French national Dan Elkayam’s service held in the nearby suburb of Woollahra, at the heart of Sydney’s Jewish life. The 27-year-old moved from Paris to Sydney a year ago.

The health department said 12 people wounded in the attack remained in hospitals on Monday.

December 22, 2025
Judge allows Kilmar Abrego Garcia to remain free while she considers immigration issues

GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge on Monday questioned whether government officials could be trusted to follow orders barring them from taking Kilmar Abrego Garcia into immigration custody or deporting him.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis noted that Abrego Garcia was already deported without legal authority once and said she was “growing beyond impatient” with government misrepresentations in her court. “Why should I give the respondents the benefit of the doubt?” she asked, referring to the government attorneys.

Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation and imprisonment in El Salvador in March has galvanized both sides of the immigration debate. The Trump administration initially fought efforts to bring him back to the U.S. but eventually complied after the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in. He returned to the U.S. in June, only to face an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee.

Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia released from immigration custody on Dec. 11 after determining that the government had no viable plan for deporting him. She followed that with a temporary restraining order the next day barring Immigration and Customs Enforcement from immediately taking him back into custody. The Monday hearing was to determine if the temporary restraining order should be dissolved.

The hearing was a glimpse into the complexity of immigration proceedings as Xinis tried to get information on the status of Abrego Garcia’s case. “I am trying to get to the bottom of whether there are going to be any removal proceedings,” she said as she questioned the government’s lawyer. “You haven’t told me what you’re going to do next.”

Xinis said she would leave the restraining order in place for now while she considers the issue.

“This is an extremely irregular and extraordinary situation,” Xinis told attorneys.

Abrego Garcia, his wife, and legal team were welcomed to the federal court building in Maryland by a boisterous reception that included a choir, bullhorn, and drum as scores of supporters cheered. Inside the courtroom Abrego Garcia sat with at least half a dozen defense team members while a lone government attorney sat across from them.

Before his release, Abrego Garcia had been in immigration detention since August. In that time, the government has said it planned to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and, most recently, Liberia. However, officials have made no effort to deport him to the one country he has agreed to go to — Costa Rica. Xinis has even accused the government of misleading her by falsely claiming that Costa Rica was unwilling to take him.

The government’s “persistent refusal to acknowledge Costa Rica as a viable removal option, their threats to send Abrego Garcia to African countries that never agreed to take him, and their misrepresentation to the Court that Liberia is now the only country available to Abrego Garcia, all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal,” she wrote.

In court on Monday, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys reiterated that he is prepared to go to Costa Rica “today.”

Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally from El Salvador as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to his home country, finding he faced danger there from a gang that had targeted his family. Although he is back in the U.S. now, Department of Homeland Security officials have said he cannot stay and have vowed to deport him to a third country.

In addition to the Maryland case, Abrego Garcia is fighting the human smuggling charges in Tennessee. His attorneys in that case on Friday asked the judge for sanctions after Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino made disparaging comments about their client on national news. The judge previously ordered Justice Department and Homeland Security officials to cease making comments that could prejudice Abrego Garcia’s right to a fair trial.

December 22, 2025