The Justice Department on Friday released transcripts of interviews its No. 2 official did with Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend as the Trump administration scrambles to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.
The disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from President Donald Trump’s base even as they continue to sit on other evidence they had suggested was being prepared for public release.
Here's the latest:
More military leaders are fired
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who was chief of the Navy Reserve, as well as Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversaw Naval Special Warfare Command.
That’s according to a U.S. official who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity to detail personnel changes.
Hegseth also has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered President Trump.
The reasons for their firings, the latest in a series of steps targeting military leaders, were not clear Friday.
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— By Konstantin Toropin
HHS moves to strip thousands of federal health workers of collective bargaining rights
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials confirmed ending union recognition for many employees.
It is the latest move by the Trump administration to end collective bargaining with federal employee unions. Previously affected agencies include the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The American Federation of Government Employees argues that strong union contracts support a stable workforce, especially in public health emergencies.
▶ Read more about HHS ending employees’ union recognition
Justice Dept. declines to defend grants for colleges with large number of Hispanic students
In a memo sent to Congress, the Justice Department said it agrees with a lawsuit attempting to strike down grants that are reserved for colleges and universities where at least a quarter of undergraduates are Hispanic.
Congress created the program in 1998 after finding Latino students were going to college and graduating at far lower rates than white students.
Justice Department officials argued the program provides an unconstitutional advantage based on race or ethnicity.
Trump names White House personnel director as ambassador to India
Trump says he’s naming White House personnel director Sergio Gor as ambassador to India and special envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs.
Gor had been tasked with vetting Trump’s choices for administration positions, including the president’s nomination of tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to lead NASA — a bid that was withdrawn in June.
Gor and Donald Trump Jr. also ran a publishing company, Winning Team Publishing, which published two of the president’s books.
Washington school system assures parents ICE banned from campus without a warrant or court order
With schools set to kick off a new year of classes Monday, D.C. Public Schools issued a message Friday seeking to reassure parents concerned that federal law enforcement or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would target schools with large immigrant populations.
The DCPS statement declared that all student records were protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and could only be shared “with parental consent and a lawful court order.”
The statement added that law enforcement action on any school grounds can only take place “with a valid warrant or a court order.”
DC courts seeing influx of criminal cases from Trump crime crackdown
Hundreds of people have been arrested on the streets of Washington, D.C., since President Donald Trump ordered a crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital. Some of those people are winding up in the same federal courthouse that was flooded with cases against Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol over four years ago.
At least eight cases filed in the district court for the District of Columbia appear to be related to the recent surge in patrols by federal agents and National Guard members, according to an Associated Press review of court records. Many others facing less serious charges are having their cases heard daily in D.C. Superior Court.
Some attorneys who practice at the neighboring courthouses are bracing for a bigger workload as the cases pile up. So far, however, the legal landscape is nothing like the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“I don’t think we’ve really felt the brunt of it yet, but I expect it to hit,” defense attorney Damon Catacalos said Friday as he waited for a client’s case to be called by a Superior Court judge.
The White House says over 700 people have been arrested since the operation started on Aug. 7. They’re facing a wide range of charges, including assaulting law-enforcement officers and illegal possession of drugs and firearms.
Trump praises new CBO numbers on tariff impact to deficit
President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform celebrated a new Congressional Budget Office update on the impact that tariffs would have on reducing the deficit.
The CBO on Friday issued a new blog post that states tariffs will lower deficits by a combined $4 trillion over the next decade. The latest update is an increase from its last projection in June, that predicted deficits would be reduced by $2.8 trillion over 10 years.
Trump said the CBO, which he called “Radical Left Representatives” had “admitted how incredible my Tariff strategy has been.”
Staffed by some 275 economists, analysts and other employees, the CBO provides Congress with objective, impartial information about budgetary and economic issues.
Its current director is Phillip Swagel, a former Treasury official in Republican President George W. Bush’s administration.
Trump says US will tariff imported furniture
President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform said Friday that his administration would complete a “major tariff investigation” into furniture imported into the U.S. and will issue a report on its findings within the next 50 days.
He said furniture coming from other countries into the U.S. would be tariffed at a rate not yet determined. The intent is to bring the furniture business back to North Carolina, South Carolina and Michigan, among other states, he said.
Putin praises Trump, says he’s ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’ for struggling relations
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised U.S. President Donald Trump Friday, describing the U.S. leader as “the light at the end of the tunnel” for struggling Moscow-Washington relations.
“Our relationship with the United States is at one of the lowest levels it’s been since the end of World War II,” Putin said at an event in Sarov, a closed city about 370 kilometers (230 miles) east of Moscow that has served as a base for Russia’s nuclear weapons program since the late 1940s. “But with the arrival of President Trump, I think that a light at the end of the tunnel has finally appeared.”
Putin also commended Trump’s leadership qualities and said he hoped that the first steps had been taken to ensure the “full-scale restoration” of Russia-U.S. ties. He said that Russian companies were already discussing plans with “American partners” on opportunities for co-operation across the Arctic and in Alaska in areas such as liquified natural gas.
The comments come the same day as Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, appeared in a taped interview for NBC’s Sunday show “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” saying that there were no plans for a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – a proposal that Trump has repeatedly floated to end Russia’s three-year invasion of their neighbor.
Pritzker to Trump: Illinois wants ‘cheaper groceries,’ not ‘authoritarian power grab’ to cut crime
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker had a cool reaction Friday to President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Chicago might be his next target for a crime crackdown featuring the National Guard like that occurring in Washington, D.C.
The Democrat posted “Things People are Begging For” on X, including cheaper groceries and reversing cuts to Medicaid and food aid for low-income families but not “an authoritarian power grab of major cities.
”Trump has disparaged the Second City for years, repeatedly comparing it to Afghanistan and threatening to “send in the feds” to stem gun violence.
Violent crime in Chicago dropped significantly in the first half of the year, representing the steepest drop in over a decade, according to city data. Shootings and homicides were down more than 30% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same time last year, and total violent crime dropped by over 22%.
Hegseth fires general whose agency’s intel assessment of damage from Iran strikes angered Trump
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from U.S. strikes angered President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.
Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The firing comes a few months after details of the preliminary assessment leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the U.S. strikes, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
▶ Read more about Hegseth
Intel will give US a 10% stake, Trump says
Trump says Intel has agreed to give the U.S. government a 10% stake in its business.
Speaking with reporters on Friday, Trump said the deal came out of a meeting last week with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan — which came days after the president called for Tan to resign over his past ties to China.
“I said, I think it would be good having the United States as your partner,” Trump said. “He agreed, and they’ve agreed to do it.”
The official announcement is expected to come later Friday, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of an announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Maxwell was moved to a new prison following Justice Department interview
After her interview, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida where she had been serving a 20-year sentence to a minimum security prison camp in Texas.
Neither her lawyer nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move.
The Epstein case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financer’s social connections over the years to prominent figures including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Trump, who has said his relationship with Epstein ended years before.
House Oversight Committee receives first round of Epstein documents from Justice Department
The first batch of Epstein-related files from the department includes 33,000 pages of documents, according to committee staff.
“The Committee intends to make these records public after thorough review to ensure any victims’ identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted,” a spokesperson for Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said. “The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations.”
The committee subpoenaed files related to the late sexual predator following a public outcry over the administration’s handling of its promises to release more information related to Epstein conduct and demise. House Democrats seized on the issue and ultimately helped push Comer to subpoena the DOJ for documents along with every living U.S. attorney general as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton.
“The Trump DOJ is providing records at a far quicker pace than anything the Biden DOJ ever provided,” the committee spokesperson continued.
Maxwell recalls meeting Trump in the ’90s
Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News.
“I may have met Donald Trump at that time, because my father was friendly with him and liked him very much,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript.
Maxwell said her father was fond of Trump’s then-wife, Ivana, “because she was also from Czechoslovakia, where my dad was from.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is freed from Tennessee jail so he can rejoin family in Maryland to await trial
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges.
The Salvadoran national’s case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on criminal charges.
Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order.
▶ Read more about Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Justice Department issues transcripts of interviews with Epstein ex-girlfriend Maxwell
The Justice Department on Friday released transcripts of interviews its No. 2 official did with Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend as the Trump administration scrambles to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.
The disclosure represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from President Donald Trump’s base even as they continue to sit on other evidence they had suggested was being prepared for public release.
▶ Read more about Ghislaine Maxwell
Trump filing appeal after a judge said executive order violated law firm’s First Amendment rights
President Donald Trump is filing an appeal after a judge said his executive order targeting a prominent law firm violated the firm’s First Amendment rights.
The executive order forbid the federal government from doing business with anyone who hires the law firm Susman Godfrey, citing the firm’s election-related work performed after Trump’s 2020 loss. Susman Godfrey was one of several law firms targeted by Trump’s executive orders, and the firm sued in April.
In late June, District Court Judge Loren AliKhan granted summary judgment in Susman Godfrey’s favor, noting that noting that by that point every court to have considered a challenge to the law-firm-related orders had found “grave constitutional violations.”
Department of Justice attorney Richard Lawson filed the notice of appeal in the D.C. Circuit Court on Friday. The President is also appealing rulings in other cases brought by law firms.
Hegseth calls arming the National Guard in Washington ‘common sense’
Acknowledging the change announced earlier Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tweeted a news story about his order for troops to carry guns and said, “Common Sense.”
The Pentagon has released few details about the shift or why it was necessary that about 2,000 troops in the nation’s capital for President Donald Trump’s law enforcement crackdown needed to be armed.
Trump expresses frustration that Putin-Zelenskyy peace talks haven’t been scheduled
“We’re going to see whether or not they have a meeting,” Trump told reporters. “It’ll be interesting to see. If they don’t, why didn’t they have a meeting, because I told them to have a meeting. But I’ll know what I am going to do in two weeks.”
Trump said he had begun making arrangements for a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting on Monday soon after concluding White House talks with Zelenskyy and European leaders and speaking by phone with Putin.
Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, made clear on Friday that Putin won’t sit-down with Zelenskyy until Ukraine agrees to certain concessions.
Trump says he called for Intel’s CEO to quit because of Tom Cotton
The president said he called earlier this month for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign after reading something written by Arkansas Republican senator.
Trump didn’t clarify what he was referring to but said that after he met with Tan, he liked him and felt he was “somewhat a victim.”
He backed off his calls for his resignation after Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter and met with Trump.
Trump repeatedly threatens DC Mayor Bowser
Muriel Bowser generally avoids directly criticizing President Donald Trump. Even when she is being harshly critical of Trump’s decisions — publicly stating that his declaration of a federal crime emergency in Washington “makes no sense” — Bowser sometimes seems to structure her statements so as to avoid actually saying Trump’s name.
Trump, meanwhile, seems to be escalating his attacks on Bowser.
In a 2 a.m. Friday social media post, Trump wrote, “Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City!”
Hours later in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters, “Mayor Bowser better get her act straight or she won’t be mayor for long.”
Local DC government leaders bristle at armed National Guard members
Some members of local government have bristled at the Defense Department’s order to arm National Members.
“Trump is once again putting armed military onto the streets of an American city. These are the actions not of a president, but of someone on the march to an authoritarian takeover,” District of Columbia Council Member Charles Allen said in a statement.
As a federal district, the local government’s powers are broadly delegated to it Congress, leaving local officials few avenues to formally block or protest Trump’s plan.
Members of local government have been walking a tightrope of engaging with constituents’ concerns without further antagonizing the administration.
City Council Chair Phil Mendelson wrote on social media that he’d discussed “the affects of the so-called crime emergency,” among other topics, with Washington residents at a town hall last night. Council Member Brianne Nadeau posted a link to report police misconduct to city officials shortly after the Pentagon’s announcement.
Trump displays Putin picture
During his event about FIFA, Trump unexpectedly pulled out a photo of him standing next to Putin during their meeting in Alaska.
Trump said Putin sent the picture and “I’m going to sign this for him.” He added that Putin has “very respectful of me and my country, and not so respectful of others.”
Putin invaded Ukraine more than three years ago, and Trump has been frustrated by his inability to resolve the war.
Speaking of FIFA, Trump suggested that the Russian leader wants to attend the soccer competition in the U.S.
“He may be coming and he may not, depending on what happens,” he said.
Referring to the photo, Trump said, “I thought it was a nice picture of him. OK, of me, but nice of him.”
Certain applicants targeted by pause on visas for commercial truck drivers
After Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a pause in providing U.S. visas to commercial truck drivers, the Trump administration says it applies to certain foreign applicants.
The State Department said Friday that the pause affects those seeking permission to drive a truck under visas for H-2B temporary nonagricultural workers, E-2 investors in U.S. businesses or EB-3 skilled workers.
It said the government is launching a review of the way it screens foreign drivers and that “enhanced vetting” will apply to those who don’t now hold valid visas.
“Applicants must demonstrate the necessary skills, experience, and English language proficiency required to safely operate these vehicles on America’s roads,” the department said.
The Associated Press
