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European law enforcement agencies investigating Jeffrey Epstein say the Trump Justice Department has refused to respond to their requests for evidence. Financial disclosures show Trump gave $45,000 cash gifts to Natalie Harp and two other close aides last year. A Somali man who was living legally in the Twin Cities was arrested by ICE and sent to Guantanamo Bay. And the fired managing editor of 60 Minutes says he and his colleagues were pushed out for refusing to insert White House talking points into their reporting.
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The only thing harder than getting Jeffrey Epstein’s associates convicted in America is getting them convicted somewhere else.
Law enforcement agencies in Poland, Norway and Latvia recently told the Washington Post that the Justice Department is not responding to their formal requests for mutual legal assistance in their investigations into Jeffrey Epstein.
Norwegian state prosecutor Marianne Bender confirmed that her office has been in communication with the DOJ, but that the department has not approved its request, stalling the investigations. In France, child protection advocacy group Innocence en Danger sued the government after its own Epstein investigation stalled.
Britain, which has requested unredacted copies of some Epstein files, has not publicly commented on its communications with the DOJ. Former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and former commissioner Peter Mandelson were arrested earlier this year on suspicion of misconduct in connection with Epstein, but both were released and no formal charges have been filed.
No one connected to Epstein has been charged in the United States. FBI Director Kash Patel told Congress last year that there was no credible evidence showing that Epstein trafficked girls, but the 2007 draft indictment sitting in his own department’s files would disagree.
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If you’re ever wondering what $45,000 in cash from the president buys, it buys you a spot in the motorcade’s trunk.
White House financial disclosure forms show Trump gave $45,000 cash gifts to executive assistant Natalie Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin, and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris. The disclosures described the payments as a “holiday cash gift.”
Harp, Martin and Harris take home $150,000 a year so the presents are equal to just under a third of their annual salaries. A White House official said the gifts were not tied to the aides’ official government work and were thus completely permissible under the relevant legal and ethical standards.
Harp has been a fixture at Trump’s side since joining his staff in 2022. Her allies during the 2024 campaign called her “human printer,” because she carries around a portable printer so she can give Trump physical copies of positive social media posts.
Harp once rode in the back of the presidential motorcade to be near Trump, and was one of a handful of aides smuggled off Air Force One in a catering cart last month after the Secret Service learned of a threat from Iran. The original plane left senior officials and the press pool behind.
Adam Abdullah is a 31-year-old auto mechanic from St. Paul with a work permit, a Social Security number, and no criminal record. He is currently being held at a military prison designed for terrorism suspects.
He was stopped by federal agents Dec. 12 during what the Trump administration called Operation Metro Surge. Abdullah said the agents told him they were immigration and asked for his work permit. When he asked them if they had a warrant, they told him they didn’t need one.
Abdullah had been in the U.S. since 2023 and had regularly checked in with ICE. After his arrest, he was initially held at the Freeborn County Jail in Minnesota before being transferred to detention centers in Kentucky and then Louisiana.
In Miami, officers told him he would be flown to Somalia after a refueling stop in Cuba. The stop turned out to be permanent, as he has been at Guantanamo Bay’s Camp Six for about two weeks.
Abdullah said that he is among eight people from Somalia being held at Guantanamo, including several who were arrested in the Twin Cities. His immigration attorney, Marc Prokosch, said calls with his client are limited to ten minutes and may not be confidential. He does not know when Abdullah will be released, or if he will be.
If you wanted state-run media you could just watch Russia Today.
Guy Campanile, who spent 34 years at CBS News and served as managing editor of 60 Minutes, broke his silence on Monday about the mass firings that gutted the program in May.
Campanile wrote in a private Facebook post obtained by The Guardian that he and his colleagues were fired because they refused to compromise their editorial standards. Campanile said the staff refused to insert “unverifiable notions or White House talking points” into their reporting, and objected when ordered to do interviews arranged by the administration.
The group includes correspondents Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi, executive producer Tanya Simon, and producers Cecilia Vega, Draggan Mihailovich, and Matthew Polevoy.
The firings were carried out by editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who was installed by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison in late 2025. Pelley was fired separately after clashing with Weiss and new executive producer Nick Bilton in a staff meeting, telling The New York Times that Weiss was “murdering 60 Minutes” and had been “brought in to kill it.”
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Ken Paxton’s Former Top Law Enforcement Official Endorses James Talarico. Former Texas Ranger David Maxwell, who spent almost 50 years in law enforcement, endorsed Democrat James Talarico for U.S. Senate Tuesday. Maxwell was Republican Ken Paxton’s director of law enforcement for almost a decade before reporting him to the FBI in 2020 for allegedly using his office to help a friend and political donor. Maxwell was fired after making the report, and later won a $6.6 million judgment under the Texas Whistleblower Act. Maxwell testified against Paxton at his 2023 impeachment trial, telling the Senate the attorney general pressured him to pursue investigations for the donor.
MAGA Merchandise Stores Are Going Broke Across the Country. Retail stores across the U.S. are witnessing a collapse in sales of Trump-related clothing and memorabilia, with sellers attributing the slump to the economy and a waning enthusiasm among Trump’s base. Donald “Whitey” Taylor, who runs Trump Town USA in Boones Mill, Virginia, said his store once brought in more than $15,000 a day at its peak in 2024. He’s now making $1,500 a day on average. The Trump Store in Manchester, Tennessee, shut its doors for good after huge discounts failed to sell its wares, with only about 12 customers a day before closing. A wholesaler in Washington, D.C., said his store has slowed its ordering of Trump merchandise because demand has dropped off.
** Pennsylvania Lawmakers Introduce Universal Health Care Act.** Democratic legislators in Pennsylvania have proposed legislation that would provide free health insurance to every resident of the state. The bill would establish a single-payer system administered through the Department of Health, covering medical care without copays, deductibles, or caps. The bill was introduced in the House by Representative Greg Scott, and Senator Nikil Saval and Representative Lindsay Powell are carrying companion efforts. The bill’s supporters say the federal government’s gutting of Medicaid has left families with no affordable options, and Pennsylvanians currently hold more than $1.8 billion in medical debt.
** West Point Agrees Not to Enforce Trump’s Speech Restrictions on Faculty.** The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has agreed not to enforce a policy that required civilian professors to get approval before speaking or writing publicly when mentioning their affiliation with the academy. Tim Bakken, the longest-serving law professor in West Point history, sued the academy last September, saying the policy violated the First Amendment rights of civilian faculty. In May, federal judge Cathy Seibel sided with Bakken, ruling the policy did not tell professors what speech would be allowed and what would be blocked.
