Bongino back at FBI after threatening to quit over Epstein row
FBI deputy director Dan Bongino returned to work yesterday and was expected at the office today, a federal law enforcement source told NBC News this morning, days after he had threatened to quit over a justice department memo that effectively ended the government’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
The source told NBC that Bongino was expected to stay on in his role, but that tensions remained high with the FBI, justice department and White House attempting to weather the storm in the hope that the controversy might die down over the coming days.
A source told NBC last week that the former podcaster was “out-of-control furious” after the memo was made public and had gotten into a heated confrontation with attorney general Pam Bondi over his frustration with how the justice department had handled the case.
He didn’t show up to work last Friday and had threatened to quit unless Bondi was fired, NBC News reported.
But Trump has repeatedly backed Bondi and also expressed support for Bongino over the weekend, saying they had spoken and he sounded “terrific”.
Related: How the Jeffrey Epstein row plunged Maga world into turmoil – a timeline
Key events
The day so far
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Mike Waltz had his confirmation hearing to become UN ambassador, where he said he has plans to “make the United Nations great again”. Democrats slammed Waltz over his role in Signalgate, saying he lied about aspects of the leaked chat, and excoriating him for “cowardice” and acting in a manner that is “disqualifying” for this position. Republican senators were far less critical of Trump’s nominee, instead confirming that his thoughts and decision-making would align with the president’s Maga agenda.
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Donald Trump and Republican senator Dave McCormick are set to announce $90bn in AI and energy investments at a summit at Carnegie Mellon University, near Pittsburgh, as his administration prepares more measures to power the US expansion of artificial intelligence.
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The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to bar millions of immigrants who allegedly arrived in the US without legal status from receiving a bond hearing as they try to fight their deportations in court.
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The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said that he has asked Israel to “aggressively” investigate the murder of an American citizen who was beaten to death in the occupied West Bank.
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Trump has continued to defend Pam Bondi, who has come under furious fire from the president’s Maga base, including from FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, who returned to work yesterday and was expected at the office today, days after he had threatened to quit over Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
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Trump said he is set to meet the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, during his upcoming trip to Scotland and refine the trade framework agreed upon by the two leaders.
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The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, said secondary sanctions could hit countries such as China, Brazil and India if Russia is not serious about peace talks to end its war on Ukraine. He also said Europe would “find the money” for Ukraine to continue defending itself from Russian aggression ahead of any peace talks.
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Inflation shot up in June as the impacts of Trump’s tariffs slowly started to show in US prices.
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A group of Republican lawmakers complained that smoke from Canadian wildfires is ruining summer for Americans, just days after voting for a major bill that will cause more of the planet-heating pollution that is worsening wildfires.
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A Biden-era plan to implement a gas-powered blast furnace at a steel mill in Ohio, which would have eliminated tons of greenhouse gases from the local environment year over year and created more than a thousand jobs, was put on hold indefinitely by the Trump administration.
Trump to announce $90bn in AI and energy investments for Pennsylvania
Donald Trump and Republican senator Dave McCormick are set to announce $90bn in AI and energy investments at a summit at Carnegie Mellon University, near Pittsburgh, shortly.
Trump will reveal details of the new initiatives at the event in Pennsylvania where McCormick is hosting the summit.
Dozens of industry leaders are expected to attend, including heads of ExxonMobil, BlackRock, Palantir and Google. Also expected are senior members of Trump’s cabinet and Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro.
We’ll bring you any key lines here.
Trump administration seeks to end bond hearings for immigrants without legal status
Eric Berger
The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to bar millions of immigrants who allegedly arrived in the US without legal status from receiving a bond hearing as they try to fight their deportations in court.
The new policy would apply during removal proceedings, which can take years, for millions of immigrants who entered the country from Mexico in recent decades, according to a report from the Washington Post, which reviewed documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
Such immigrants had previously been allowed to request a bond hearing before an immigration judge, but Todd Lyons, Ice’s acting director, stated in a memo reviewed by the Post that the homeland security and justice departments had “revisited [their] legal position on detention and release authorities”. The departments determined that such immigrants “may not be released from Ice custody”, Lyons reportedly wrote in the memo.
That new restriction, which is expected to face legal challenges, was issued on 8 July shortly after the Republican-controlled Congress provided Ice $45bn over the next four years to detain immigrants for civil deportation proceedings.
“To be clear, [Ice’s] position here is laughable and is being rejected by immigration judges all over the US, and will soon be dismissed by actual federal court judges in habeas proceedings,” Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney and Emory University law professor, wrote on X in a post that alluded to challenges against one’s detention.
The policy change would mark the latest significant departure for Ice, which during Joe Biden’s presidency provided a guide on how immigrants who are detained can post bond.
US ambassador asks Israel to investigate murder of American citizen in occupied West Bank
The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said that he has asked Israel to “aggressively” investigate the murder of an American citizen who was beaten to death in the occupied West Bank.
Relatives of Sayfollah “Saif” Musallet have been calling for the Trump administration to arrest and prosecute those responsible for his killing.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act. Saif was just 20 yrs old,” Huckabee said in a post on X.
The 20-year-old from Tampa, Florida, was visiting his family in an area near Ramallah, and was killed last week trying to protect their farm from invaders, they said at an emotional press conference in Florida yesterday.
Musallet was beaten with clubs and bats, and died in the same attack that killed a 23-year-old Palestinian man. Razek Hussein al-Shalabi was shot and left to bleed to death, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Hasem Musallet, Sayfollah’s uncle, said the settlers prevented ambulances from reaching the injured men, and that a brother watched Sayfollah take his last breath.
The attacks come amid a wave of increasing Israeli settler violence targeting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank – more than 1,000 Palestinian people have been killed there and at least 9,000 injured since the Hamas raid into southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
Trump says Bondi handled Epstein case ‘very well’
On that note, Donald Trump has continued to defend Pam Bondi, who has come under furious fire from the president’s Maga base over the perceived lack of transparency surrounding the justice department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.
“The attorney general has handled that very well,” Trump said of Bondi. “She has really done a very good job.”
Asked whether she had told him if his name appeared in a file related to Epstein, Trump said “no,” adding that Bondi has “given us just a very quick briefing”.
Trump claimed that the files were “made up” by his predecessors, though previously he has discussed the files, and his allies – from the vice-president, JD Vance, to Bondi herself – have called for their release.
“She’s handled it very well, and it’s going to be up to her,” Trump said. “Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release.”
Bongino back at FBI after threatening to quit over Epstein row
FBI deputy director Dan Bongino returned to work yesterday and was expected at the office today, a federal law enforcement source told NBC News this morning, days after he had threatened to quit over a justice department memo that effectively ended the government’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
The source told NBC that Bongino was expected to stay on in his role, but that tensions remained high with the FBI, justice department and White House attempting to weather the storm in the hope that the controversy might die down over the coming days.
A source told NBC last week that the former podcaster was “out-of-control furious” after the memo was made public and had gotten into a heated confrontation with attorney general Pam Bondi over his frustration with how the justice department had handled the case.
He didn’t show up to work last Friday and had threatened to quit unless Bondi was fired, NBC News reported.
But Trump has repeatedly backed Bondi and also expressed support for Bongino over the weekend, saying they had spoken and he sounded “terrific”.
Related: How the Jeffrey Epstein row plunged Maga world into turmoil – a timeline
Republicans move to block Democratic effort to force release of Epstein files
Edward Helmore
Republican lawmakers have moved to block a Democratic effort to force the release of the so-called Epstein files, a near-mythological trove of undisclosed information about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at the center of an internal political war among US conservatives.
Democrats had been pressing for an amendment to cryptocurrency legislation that would have forced the release of information and exhibits itemized in a list of evidence held by the justice department from the 2019 child sex-trafficking case against disgraced financier Epstein.
Donald Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, teased a full accounting of the Epstein evidence, including a purported client list earlier this year. But 10 days ago, she changed course when she announced that the Trump administration had reviewed the evidence, concluded that Epstein had indeed killed himself in jail, and decided not to release the contents that the justice department said included a thousand hours of video depicting child sexual abuse.
That set off a firestorm within Trump’s conspiracy-minded Maga movement that the president has since tried to calm.
Democrats had weighed in on the issue, hoping to force a release of the documents. “The question with Epstein is: Whose side are you on?” California Democratic US House member Ro Khanna, the author of the Epstein measure, told Axios. “Are you on the side of the rich and powerful, or are you on the side of the people?”
Khanna promised to introduce the amendment “again and again and again”.
But Republicans on the US House rules committee voted down the amendment that would have allowed Congress to vote on whether the evidence – which includes micro cassettes, DVDs, CDs including one labelled “girl pics nude book 4”, computer hard drives and three massage tables in green, beige and brown – should be released.
Yet the federal case against Epstein, which dates back to 2005 and involves a mysterious plea deal that allowed to the financier to plead guilty to Florida state charges of solicitation of a minor, continues to challenge what political hardliners on the right and left believe is evidence of a nefarious nexus of international power.
Trump to meet UK’s Starmer in Scotland to refine trade deal
Donald Trump said he is set to meet the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, during his upcoming trip to Scotland and refine the trade framework agreed upon by the two leaders.
“We are going to have a meeting with him, probably in Aberdeen. And we’re going to do a lot of different things, also refine the trade deal that we’ve made,” Trump said.
Trump plans to visit both his Turnberry and Aberdeen golf properties, and officially open a new 18-hole golf course at his resort on the North Sea coast at Menie, north of Aberdeen, on a trip expected to last from 25 to 29 July.
Rutte: Secondary US sanctions could hit China, Brazil and India ‘very hard’
Jakub Krupa
The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, has said secondary sanctions could hit countries such as China, Brazil and India if Russia is not serious about peace talks to end its war on Ukraine.
Speaking on the final day of his visit to Washington DC, Rutte also said Europe would “find the money” for Ukraine to continue defending itself from Russian aggression ahead of any peace talks.
He said:
“What happened yesterday was important. First of all that the US will now supply, massively, Ukraine with weapons out of [the] US; not just air defence, also missiles, also ammunition, paid for by the Europeans.
“And, secondly, that President Trump said basically if Russia is not serious about peace talks, [then] in 50 days, he will slam secondary sanctions on countries like India, China and Brazil.
“My encouragement to these three countries is … you might want to take a look into this because this might hit you very hard. Please make a phone call to [Russian president] Vladimir Putin and tell him he needs to get serious about peace talks.”
He added:
“We will find the money in Europe to make sure Ukraine is in the best possible position as soon as these peace talks start.”
Summary: Mike Waltz’s Senate confirmation hearing
In case you’re just catching up, here are some of the top lines from Mike Waltz’s Senate confirmation hearing to become the US ambassador to the United Nations:
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Waltz was critical of the UN’s approach to China and “antisemitism” in his opening remarks. He said the UN had drifted from its original peacemaking goals and should return to its founding principles – “peacemaking, not nation-building”.
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Waltz also pledged to “make the UN great again”, echoing Trump’s message for revamping America.
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It took over an hour before the Signal group chat leak was mentioned. The leak, which occurred when Waltz was national security adviser and inadvertently added an Atlantic journalist into a group chat about US strikes on Yemen, led to his removal from that role in May and current nomination as ambassador to the UN.
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Waltz said using Signal was “not only authorized, it was recommended” for government and personal devices. He also repeatedly claimed no classified information was disclosed.
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Democratic senators Chris Coons, Tim Kaine and Cory Booker were the ones to press Waltz about Signalgate. Booker in particular excoriated Waltz for “cowardice” and acting in a manner that he said is “disqualifying” for this position.
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Republican senators were far less critical of Trump’s nominee, instead confirming that his thoughts and decision-making would align with the president’s Maga agenda.
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Waltz stressed that the Trump administration’s diplomatic strategy would be focused on cutting costs to what he called “waste, fraud and abuse that are endemic to the UN system”.
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Democratic senator Jacky Rosen then cited that strategy when asking whether Waltz was still on White House payroll, despite being removed from his former role months ago, and said that could be perceived as a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Waltz denounces UN global reports that examined US domestic policy
Earlier in the hearing, the Associated Press reported that Mike Waltz stressed that the Trump administration’s diplomatic strategy would be focused on cutting costs to what he called “waste, fraud and abuse that are endemic to the UN system”.
“It’s worth remembering, despite the cuts, the US is by far the most generous nation in the world,” said Waltz, responding to concerns that the administration’s cuts to global programs hurt US influence.
Waltz added that some UN-funded research and projects were anti-American and received input from some UN members whom the administration considers adversaries.
“The UN’s radical politicization, such reports as ‘Stolen Native American Land’ reports and investigations, called the ‘George Floyd mechanism’, labeling American police and America systemically racist with input from countries like Cuba and Venezuela, is unacceptable,” said Waltz.
Mike Waltz’s hearing has officially concluded.