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Trump’s Relationship With Epstein Further Exposed in Bombshell Video

In resurfaced video testimony, Jeffrey Epstein was asked if he and Donald Trump ever spent time with young girls.

A photo of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and the phrase "President Trump: release all the Epstein files" are projected onto the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building in Washington, D.C.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
A projection on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building, directly across the street from the White House

Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein had a personal relationship, in Epstein’s own words.

In resurfaced footage of the pedophilic sex trafficker’s 2010 deposition, Epstein confesses to socializing with Trump—but refuses to answer whether or not they spent time with children.

“Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump?” the interviewer asked.

“What do you mean by ‘personal relationship,’ sir?” Epstein responded.

“Have you socialized with him?” the interviewer clarified, to which Epstein said, “Yes, sir.”

“Yes?” the interviewer pressed.

“Yes, sir,” Epstein repeated.

But Epstein wasn’t able to answer with such clarity when it came to darker topics.

“Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?” the interviewer asked.

After a brief pause, Epstein failed to answer in the negative, notably under the threat of perjury. Instead, he sidestepped the question completely.

“Though l’d like to answer that question, at least today l’m going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir,” he said.

There is mounting evidence that Trump and Epstein had a remarkably close relationship, though the president has vehemently denied any such connection since his administration became consumed by an internal scandal over Epstein’s alleged “client list.” A Quinnipiac poll published last week found that 63 percent of voters disapprove of the way the Trump administration has handled the Epstein case, which has so far included the Justice Department backtracking on the existence of certain documents and the president chalking up Epstein’s notoriety to a Democrat-invented “hoax.”

Prior to his death, Epstein described himself as one of Trump’s “closest friends.” The socialites were named and photographed together several times, Trump allegedly penned a salacious letter to Epstein for the pedophile’s 50th birthday, the real estate mogul reportedly flew on Epstein’s jets between Palm Beach and New York at least seven times, and the first time that Trump slept with his now-wife Melania was reportedly aboard Epstein’s plane, nicknamed the “Lolita Express.”

In a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein, Trump said he had known Epstein for 15 years and referred to him as a “terrific guy.”

“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump said at the time.

Pete Hegseth’s Signalgate Saga Somehow Gets Worse

We now know where Defense Secretary Hegseth got the information he shared in that infamous Signal group chat.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sits at a conference table with two other men next to him.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A new report pokes gaping holes in the Trump administration’s already unconvincing assurances that no classified information was disclosed during the March “Signalgate” fiasco.

The Washington Post reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s infamous Signal messages regarding strikes on Yemen—which were shared in a group chat that inadvertently included Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg—derived from a classified email from General Michael Kurilla, according to evidence obtained by the Pentagon inspector general’s office.

Notably, Kurilla’s email was classified as “SECRET/NOFORN,” with the “SECRET” label indicating material whose unauthorized disclosure “could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security,” and “NOFORN” (for “No Foreign Dissemination”) denoting information that is not to be disseminated to non–U.S. citizens or foreign governments, nationals, or international organizations.

Trump officials have, time and again, insisted that nothing classified was shared during the debacle. Hegseth, for his part, dodged questions about the classification level of the information he shared during a June congressional hearing.

During an exchange with U.S. Representative and Marine veteran Seth Moulton, Hegseth claimed that whether the information was classified was not something “that would be disclosed in a public forum.”

Moulton pushed back, observing, “You can very well disclose whether or not it was classified. It’s not classified to disclose whether or not it was classified. And in fact, DOD regulations state that any classified information has to be labeled with its classification—was it classified ‘secret’ or ‘top secret.’”

“What’s not classified is that it was an incredibly successful mission against the Houthis,” Hegseth replied, leading Moulton to conclude, “OK, so it was classified,” before asking, once more, if the defense secretary was “trying to say that the information was unclassified.”

“I’m not trying to say anything,” Hegseth said.

More on the “best people” Trump has hired:

Kilmar Abrego Garcia Is Finally Coming Home to Maryland (for Now)

While releasing him, a judge called some of the government’s accusations against Abrego Garcia “[bordering] on fanciful.”

Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura stands with protesters demanding his release
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A federal judge has barred ICE from detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia should he be released from custody in Tennessee, ordering Wednesday that he be returned to Maryland to “ensure that his case is handled as it would have been before he was wrongly sent to El Salvador,” in accordance with the Supreme Court’s prior ruling.  

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued a memorandum prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security from “taking Abrego Garcia into immediate ICE custody in Tennessee.” The judge added that Abrego Garcia must be restored to his ICE Order of Supervision in Baltimore.

The judge also ordered that if the government were to initiate proceedings to remove Abrego Garcia to a third country, as they’d previously threatened to do, they would need to provide 72 business hours’ notice to the plaintiff and his counsel. 

“Defendants have done little to assure the Court that absent intervention, Abrego Garcia’s due process rights will be protected,” she wrote.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys had previously requested a 30-day stay on his release from pretrial detention, claiming that he feared immigration authorities would immediately deport him again. DHS officials confirmed this was their plan but were unable to offer any details as to where they hoped to send him. 

Meanwhile, it seems that after months away from home, Abrego Garcia may finally be headed back to Maryland. 

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Tennessee denied a motion from the government to revoke a magistrate judge’s order for Abrego Garcia’s release Wednesday, ruling that the government had failed to meet the burden to prove Abrego Garcia was a flight risk or danger to the community. The judge said Abrego Garcia could be released on bond with conditions.

Crenshaw found there was evidence that Abrego Garcia had smuggled individuals from the border but not that he was a member of or affiliated with any gang, as the government claims. Crenshaw referred to testimony provided by a Homeland Security agent who said that Abrego Garcia transported Barrio 18 and MS-13 gang members, claiming it “cuts against the already slim evidence demonstrating Abrego is a member of MS-13.”

“For the court to find that Abrego is a member of or in affiliation with MS-13, it would have to make so many inferences from the Government’s proffered evidence in its favor that such conclusion would border on fanciful,” Crenshaw said. 

The Name You Thought Was in the Epstein Files Is in the Epstein Files

But now you can read all about it in a newspaper.

A person takes a photo as a message calling on President Donald Trump to release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein is projected onto the US Chamber of Commerce building across from the White House.
Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images
A message projected onto the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building across from the White House

Well, The Wall Street Journal has confirmed what has been apparent for quite some time: President Donald Trump’s name is in the Epstein files multiple times.

An exclusive Wednesday report in the Journal states that Attorney General Pam Bondi notified the president that his name was in the files back in May. The report directly contradicts Trump’s claim that Bondi told him he was not in the files, which he told reporters last week.

This revelation offers some explanation as to why the Trump administration, after years of promising to release the files, abruptly decided that there was no further work to be done on the matter. It also may explain why the president himself has been so quick to anger and defensiveness in recent days any time the subject of his friendship with the defamed sexual predator has come up. The confirmation of Trump’s presence in the infamous documents comes just as Speaker Mike Johnson ended a legislative session early just to avoid voting on whether to release more files.

All of the internal uproar over this, from FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino going AWOL at work, to Trump calling anyone who is still worried about this code red–level issue a “bad person” can be linked back to the fact that Trump does not want people to know that his name is in the files. If past is prologue, the administration will likely dismiss this report as “fake news” from a biased outlet. But those charges likely won’t stick with an issue of this magnitude. In fact, the president seems to only be driving attention to the story at this point, as each distraction Trump has brought up since he decided to close the case has only led to increased scrutiny from the press—as well as both his most vehement enemies and his most loyal supporters.

Tulsi Gabbard Starts Wild New Conspiracy About Hillary Clinton

While dunking on former President Barack Obama, Tulsi Gabbard also took a swing at Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign opponent.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard walks away from the podium in the White House press briefing room
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard went full Russian asset Wednesday during a wild White House press briefing. 

Standing behind a White House podium, Gabbard started quoting old Russian intelligence and claimed that Moscow’s foreign intelligence agency SVR was in possession of “high-level DNC emails that detailed evidence of Hillary’s ‘psycho-emotional problems, uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness.’ And that then-Secretary Clinton was allegedly on a daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers.”

That strange little detail came from the freshly declassified 2020 report by the House Intelligence Committee that Gabbard insists holds evidence that former President Barack Obama committed a so-called “coup” against Donald Trump by alleging Russian interference in the 2016 election. 

According to the report, ahead of Trump’s ascendance to the White House, Obama asked for an Intelligence Community Assessment to “review their work to date” on Russia’s influence campaign. Gabbard claims that issues with the production of that January 2017 report are evidence that the Obama administration plotted to spread a false narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin aspired to see Trump in the White House—a preference that the foreign autocrat readily admitted.  

When asked about it Wednesday, Gabbard could not account for why Trump had not declassified these supposedly damning materials during his first term. 

She was also unable to provide any explanation for why Trump’s secretary of state, former Florida Senator Marco Rubio, had made opposite findings when he spearheaded a 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report. That report found that Putin had directed an “aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election” and had done so with the intent of weakening Clinton’s campaign and seeing Trump elected. 

It’s also probably worth remembering that Trump’s first-term White House was reportedly “awash in speed,” handing out powerful sedatives and stimulants like candy.

It should come as no surprise that Gabbard is already parroting Russian intelligence because it’s exactly the kind of thing that concerned critics of her nomination—and enthused Moscow

Gabbard has previously defended Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, claiming that the U.S. had provoked Russian aggression and that Ukraine housed U.S.-funded biolabs that were developing secret bioweapons—a piece of foreign state propaganda that earned her the reputation as a Russian asset

Former Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger sounded the alarm about Gabbard on MSNBC in November, noting that, if confirmed, Gabbard would be responsible for putting together the president’s daily briefings and would likely include Russian propaganda.