Alina Habba Is Back in Power Thanks to Shady Trump Move

President Trump is bending judicial rules to help his personal lawyer keep the job she’s woefully unqualified for.

On Tuesday, New Jersey federal judges decided to fire Alina Habba, refusing to vote to extend her 120-day appointment as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, leading to uproar from the right. Now, the Trump administration seems to have found a loophole to keep one of their most loyal operatives back into a powerful position.

To rig the system for Habba’s return, Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this week fired the first assistant U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Desiree Grace, whom a panel of New Jersey judges had voted to succeed Habba. A Justice Department official then confirmed Thursday that Trump withdrew Habba’s permanent nomination, and Bondi appointed Habba as first assistant. This allows Habba to become the acting U.S. attorney once again, as the position is currently vacant thanks to Grace’s ousting. It also allows Habba to bypass Senate confirmation, which is needed for permanent appointments.

The Trump administration is going to such lengths to secure Habba this position because she is a thoughtless foot soldier whose main priority is not the law of the land, but unwavering devotion to Trump. And she’s demonstrated that throughout her career.

As the president’s personal lawyer she unsuccessfully defended him in his hush-money and E. Jean Carroll defamation cases. In her first 120 days as U.S. attorney, she made headlines for claiming that the thousands of military veterans indiscriminately fired by DOGE were simply unfit and attempted to prosecute Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for trying to enter a local ICE detention center.

“Donald J. Trump is the 47th President. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General. And I am now the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey,” Habba wrote Thursday on X in a victorious tone. “I don’t cower to pressure. I don’t answer to politics. This is a fight for justice. And I’m all in.”

Elon Musk, the billionaire and former head of the White House’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” slapped away an olive branch extended by the president on Thursday, keeping the feud between them alive.

Earlier in the day, Trump had taken to his platform, Truth Social, to dismiss what he said was a widespread perception that he plans to “destroy” Musk’s companies by withdrawing “the large scale subsidies he receives” from the government.

On the contrary, the president said, “I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE.”

The apparent sign of goodwill came just days after the Pentagon awarded Musk’s company xAI a $200 million contract.

Musk challenged the veracity of Trump’s claims about subsidies and claimed that his ventures won their government contracts on merit.

On his own platform, X, the billionaire wrote: “The ‘subsidies’ he’s talking about simply do not exist. DJT has already removed or put an expiry date on all sustainable energy support while leaving massive oil & gas subsidies untouched.” Trump’s tax and spending plan, passed last month, included a number of unfavorable provisions for electric vehicle companies like Musk’s Tesla.

Musk also claimed that his space technology company, SpaceX, had earned its NASA contracts “by doing a better job for less money.”

In a subsequent post, Musk seemed to ridicule Trump’s promise not to “destroy” his companies, writing, “Phew.”

Trump and Musk have, famously, been at loggerheads since the billionaire, who formerly styled himself the “first buddy” to the president, ramped up attacks on Trump’s budget bill, which he called “pork-filled” and an “abomination.”

In the ensuing public clash last month, Trump repeatedly threatened to terminate government subsidies and contracts with Musk’s companies. He even suggested siccing Musk’s DOGE on its former handler, posting: “Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far…. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this?”

Musk’s jabs against Trump included threatening to create a new political party and alleging that Trump “is in the Epstein files.” Musk deleted the post in which he made the latter accusation (although it was corroborated by The Wall Street Journal’s report this week that the Justice Department, in May, informed Trump that his name appears repeatedly in the files).

While Musk has said some of his insults toward Trump went “too far,” the billionaire has continued, even since Trump’s attempt to make amends, to criticize the administration for its failure to provide full transparency on the case of the notorious pedophile (another former friend of the president). Notably, on the 2024 campaign trail, Musk had promised that the Epstein client list, which the DOJ said earlier this month is nonexistent, would become public under Trump.

Donald Trump privately fears that his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is about to detonate, Politico reported Thursday.

In the Oval Office recently, Trump was spiraling out over the next steps of addressing the fallout from his administration’s handling of the files on the child sex offender.

“They’re going to accuse me of some funny business,” Trump warned, according to a Republican close to the White House who heard the president’s fretting firsthand.

In the Oval Office, Trump maintained that he had no involvement with Epstein’s alleged criminal activity but that it didn’t matter. “They’re going to fuck me anyways,” Trump said.

In recent weeks, Trump has come under increased scrutiny over his apparently quite close friendship with Epstein. The Justice Department released a memo earlier this month insisting that the alleged sex trafficker had kept no incriminating client list, despite Attorney General Pam Bondi previously claiming that she’d been in possession of such a document, sending Trump’s base into a frenzy. The memo also stated that no further evidence from the files would be disclosed, months after the Trump administration distributed “Phase 1” binders in February, lacking any new information.

Bondi and her deputy told Trump in May that his name had appeared in government files on Epstein “multiple times.” By July, the government had announced that so-called “Phase 1” would be the last.

Trump has continued to claim distance from Epstein, who once described himself as the president’s “closest friend.” Epstein orchestrated a child sex-trafficking ring in which he raped at least dozens of young girls and helped his wealthy and famous affiliates do the same.

Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book wasn’t the only time that Donald Trump left a personalized note for the child sex trafficking kingpin.

A book from Epstein’s personal collection featured the president’s signature sharpie scrawl, alongside a message once again calling Epstein a terrific guy.

“To Jeff—You are the greatest!” reads the inscription found in a copy of Trump: The Art of the Comeback. It is dated “Oct ‘97,” the month that the book was published.

Trump’s name appeared on a contributor list for Epstein’s birthday book, despite the president’s repeated denials that he was ever involved or contributed to a book of personalized messages celebrating the well-connected pedophile, reported The New York Times. The Times’s story backs up the bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal last week.

Trump was one of a dozen people listed as having been involved in the project, organized by Epstein’s longtime girlfriend and criminal associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The list also included other well-known Epstein associates, such as former Victoria’s Secret owner Leslie H. Wexner, Bear Stearns CEO Alan C. Greenberg, and physicist Murray Gell-Mann, reported the Times.

In an introductory letter to the birthday book, Maxwell wrote that the project’s intention was “to gather stories and old photographs to jog your memory about places, people and different events.”

“Some of the letters will definitely achieve their intended goal—some well … you will have to read them to see for yourself,” Maxwell wrote to Epstein. “I know you will enjoy looking through the book, and I hope you will derive as much pleasure looking through it as I did putting it together for you.”

Other evidence proves that Trump was undoubtedly in Epstein’s universe. Prior to his death, Epstein described himself as one of Trump’s “closest friends.” The socialites were named and photographed together several times—including at Trump’s second wedding. Trump 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.

On Wednesday, the Journal reported that the Justice Department had notified Trump in May that his name appeared several times in the Epstein files, despite his public dismissal of the case as a Democrat-led “hoax.”

A Canadian fisherman is sounding the alarm to stay far, far away from the United States-Canadian border, alleging that the U.S. Coast Guard detained him in Canadian waters, CTV News reported.

Sixty-year-old Eduoard Lallemand borrowed his friend’s fishing vessel near Venise-en-Québec, about nine miles north of the U.S. border at the northern end of Lake Champlain, where he has been fishing for decades.

Lallemand said he was surprised when he was approached by the U.S. Coast Guard, who instructed him to turn off his engine and told him he’d ventured into U.S. territory. He complied, but maintained that he was in Canadian waters.

“I said, ‘No, I’m very sorry, I’m in Canada,’” Lallemand recalled to CTV News. “And I said I’m polite enough to talk to you guys but you cannot arrest me. ‘You can’t come across the border and pick me up,’ but they did.”

Lallemand said that he told the agents he’d like to talk to them by the shore, starting up his engine again. He claimed that the Coast Guard then attempted to push his boat closer to U.S. waters, causing his boat to capsize and sending him into the waters of Lake Champlain.

Lallemand said the agents were furious as they handcuffed him and brought him to the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, who detained him in his wet clothes for two hours.

The U.S. Coast Guard released a statement claiming Lallemand was 65 yards south of the U.S. border and that he’d capsized because he had “ignored commands” and made an “abrupt” turn, hitting their vessel. “The actions of the operator of the Canadian vessel are currently under investigation,” the statement said.

But Darlene Fielding, Lallemand’s wife, suggested that there was reason to doubt that her husband had strayed into U.S. territory. “We were told afterward that their GPS may not have been working properly,” his wife wrote in a post on Facebook.

“We treat our pets better than they treated him,” Fielding told CTV News.

Meanwhile, Lallemand is warning other fishermen to keep their distance from the United States.

“I want the people to know and to be aware: Stay away from the border,” he told CTV News. “Even if it’s 500, 600 feet from there.”

It seems that some Canadians were already keeping their distance. In May, there was a 25 percent decrease in legal border crossings between the U.S. and Canada.

This incident comes amid strained relations with America’s northern neighbor, spurred by President Donald Trump’s additional 35 percent tariffs on certain Canadian goods and 25 percent tariffs on aluminum and steel imports. Not to mention Trump continues to childishly feud with the leader of the northern nation, which he previously insisted should join the U.S.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell called out President Trump for lying about the cost of renovations to the Federal Reserve headquarters. 

Trump has been purposefully trying to increase the cost of the renovations so that he can blame Powell for mismanaging funds, as a pretext for firing him. 

“It looks like it’s about $3.1 billion, it went up a little bit. Or a lot,” Trump said to the press, while standing next to Powell wearing matching hard hats. “So the $2.7 is now 3.1.” 

“I’m not aware of that,” Powell interjected, looking visibly concerned. 

“It just came out,” Trump replied. 

“I haven’t heard that from anybody at the Fed,”  Powell said.

“It just came out,” Trump repeated, unfurling a piece of paper he had folded in his suit pocket and handing it to Powell. 

“This came from us?” 

“Yes. I don’t know who does that,” Trump said, pointing at the paper. 

“You’re including the Martin renovation, you just added in a third building is what that is. That’s a third building,” said Powell. 

“Well I know, but it’s a building that’s being built.” 

“No, it was built five years ago. We finished Martin five years ago.” 

“It’s part of the overall work.” 

“It’s not new.” 

“So we’re gonna take a look, we’re gonna see what’s happening, and it’s got a long way. Do you expect any additional cost overruns?” Trump asked.

“Don’t expect ’em. But we’re ready for ’em. We have a little bit of a reserve that we may use, but no, we don’t. We expect to be finished in 2027. We’re well along, as you can see.” 

Trump has targeted Powell for some time now, as the Fed chair has repeatedly refused to lower interest rates to help the president. Trump has made it known that he wants Powell fired, and this number fudging was purely antagonistic. At least Powell was there to fact-check him.

The commander in chief is not the only administration official with ties to the notorious late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

As President Trump is dogged by a scandal surrounding his relationship with—and perceived lack of transparency in the case of—the disgraced financier, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also facing renewed scrutiny for his Epstein connections.

Making the rounds again are photos of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at social gatherings with Epstein, which previously surfaced amid Kennedy’s short-lived 2024 presidential campaign.

In one photo, Kennedy is pictured chatting with Epstein at an event at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan in March 1994. Beside them is Kennedy’s late second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, who, he’s said, “had some kind of relationship with [now-convicted Epstein accomplice] Ghislaine Maxwell.”

In another, Kennedy appears to be seated at a table with Epstein at a 1994 fundraiser for the New York Academy of Art.

Kennedy also shares with Trump the distinction of appearing in Epstein’s “little black book,” which contains the names of various high-profile contacts.

Further, Kennedy has publicly admitted to having flown twice on Epstein’s infamous jet “before anybody knew about … his nefarious issues.”

He told Fox News’s Jesse Watters that he did so once in 1993, hitching a ride to Palm Beach to “visit [his] mom over Easter” and again, one or two years later, “to go fossil hunting” in South Dakota. Both times, he said, he was with family.

In March 2024, Kennedy was roundly mocked online for defending his interactions with Epstein by, oddly, listing numerous other figures accused or convicted of horrendous acts with whom he’s also had run-ins, such as Harvey Weinstein, O.J. Simpson, and Bill Cosby.

That bizarre remark aside, the health secretary’s past connections to Epstein still were seemingly not as deep as the president’s, who had a storied friendship with the disgraced financier. In fact, Epstein once told journalist Michael Wolff that he “was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years.”

Still, Kennedy’s closet is full of skeletons, to use his own words. When Vanity Fair reported on a former babysitter’s sexual assault allegations against Kennedy, he did not deny them. Instead, the then-candidate said, “I am not a church boy.… I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that, if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”

There’s nothing wrong with being friends with child sex traffickers, according to Representative Tim Burchett.

Speaking with Fox News on Thursday, the Tennessee Republican tried to brush off Donald Trump’s reportedly cozy relationship with notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein by offering his own slimy admission.

“They knew each other, they ran in the same circles,” Burchett told the network. “It’s just like me, I know a lot of dirtbags myself.”

Trump’s allies have been working overtime to explain away the MAGA leader’s various ties to Epstein, as pressure mounts within his base to make public the records pertaining to the government investigation into Epstein and his sex-trafficking empire.

Trump has a well-documented history with the New York financier. 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 knew 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.

Earlier this month, Burchett offered more convenient cover for the Trump administration after the Justice Department directly contradicted its leader, Attorney General Pam Bondi, on the existence of Epstein’s supposed “client list.” Speaking with NewsNation, Burchett said that he believed the client list was “destroyed” by the Biden administration and no longer existed.

When pressed why Bondi would not have said so if that was the case, Burchett responded that it was because “she doesn’t have any proof of it.”

Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin just admitted that congressional Republicans are voting against efforts to release the Epstein files in full because they’re trying to give President Trump “cover.”

On Thursday, Mullin and Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego each put forth a resolution on the Epstein files that they claimed was transparent. While Gallego called for the DOJ to release all files in full without caveat, Mullin called on the department to release “all credible information” related specifically to Epstein’s sealed legal proceedings. 

“I’m sure this would be handled just like any other thing [the Democrats] have tried to go after like the baseless impeachments. Or the bases—baseless special counsels. Or the unbelievable amount of charges they tried to file against the president,” Mullin said while objecting to Gallego’s resolution. “I’m sure this would be handled the exact same way. What we’re simply wanting to do here, is give [Trump] cover.”

What exactly do Trump and his administration need cover for? And what is the current GOP obsession with disqualifying Democrats’ calls for an investigation into Epstein on the grounds that former President Biden didn’t do it? That is a weak, lazy argument. Trump was also a former president, and Epstein killed himself during his first term.  

Mullin dismissed Gallego’s resolution on the basis of it being political theater. But it remains unclear just what about it is so theatrical. Gallego’s resolution attempted to get answers on a case that the Republican Party has absolutely bungled. Trump and his Cabinet broke a massive promise on these files, and it’s no wonder his base is angry. But Mullin is using technicalities and old excuses to prolong the process and provide cover for his dear leader. 

“All of us want transparency. We want to know actually what happened, the American people want to know what’s happened, but what [Senator Gallego’s] resolution does, is it actually is a blurred line between the separation of powers,” Mullin said. “When we start dictating to the Department of Justice what they can and can’t do, there’s a clear separation of power. We’re the legislative branch. That’s what we do. We make laws. We can’t dictate other branches on what they must and how they must do their job.…  A.G. Bondi, and the president has both already called on the judges to release this information. 

“What my resolution is simply saying, is we agree with the president, we agree with A.G. Bondi, on the judges and calling upon the judges to release it,” Mullins concluded. 

Gallego responded. 

“Let me explain to the American people what just happened. My colleague from Oklahoma refused to join me in calling on the DOJ to release all the Epstein files. Instead he offered his own resolution calling on the courts to unseal the records. When I asked if we did both, which I am asking to do both—I wanna call for transparency, and of course we could ask the Justice Department and the courts—he’s also gonna object.” 

This same conflict occurred a week ago, when Mullin also chalked Gallego’s efforts up to theater. 

In an apparent effort to get out ahead of Ghislaine Maxwell’s testimony, Donald Trump’s media allies have decided to saddle up beside the prolific sex trafficker.

The Justice Department is reportedly meeting with Maxwell on Thursday and Friday, ahead of her scheduled deposition with the House Oversight Committee on August 11. The interviews follow weeks of mounting pressure on Trump from his base, who have clamored for more transparency regarding the Epstein files after the Justice Department contradicted prior statements from Attorney General Pam Bondi on the existence of Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed client list.

Offering Maxwell as fodder to Trump’s hungry followers is a fascinating carrot-and-stick option to alleviate some of that tension, but convincing her to talk would almost certainly require some kind of deal—an option that pro-Trump conservative media networks started to imagine this week.

On Monday, Newsmax host Greg Kelly had already started to dabble in the new media line, suggesting on air that Maxwell didn’t deserve her 20-year prison sentence and openly embracing the idea that the Epstein associate could be wrongly convicted.

“And then he’s got that girlfriend, Ghislaine—Ghislaine Maxwell,” Kelly said. “Right? She’s in jail right now for, like, 40 years or something crazy.” Maxwell is eligible for release in July 2037.

“And maybe she deserves it. Maybe she doesn’t. Again, not a very popular thing, but we’ll take a look,” Kelly told his viewers, even questioning if the child sex abuser had been legally tried in court. (She was.)

“She just might be a victim. She just might be,” Kelly said.

“How do you defend yourself?” he continued. “This is in the height of #MeToo. Does that sound right? Does that sound—maybe it’s legal.”

The 56-year-old former Fox & Friends co-host, who was investigated in 2012 on his own rape charges, also aired a clip of former Epstein attorney Alan Dershowitz, who claimed that Maxwell “shouldn’t be” behind bars.

“She is really serving Jeffrey Epstein’s sentence after he committed suicide,” Dershowitz said. “There was no one else to prosecute … so they went after her, and they sentenced her to a sentence that would have been appropriate for Epstein but not at all appropriate for her.”

Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 for playing an active role in Epstein’s crimes, identifying and grooming vulnerable young women while normalizing their abuse as Epstein’s longtime girlfriend and associate.

“She deserves to be out,” Dershowitz said, which Kelly repeated to his viewers.

But Kelly wasn’t the only conservative personality who had bought into the unsavory angle. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk—who capitulated to Trump last week when the MAGA leader ordered Kirk to stop discussing the matter as it riled his base—claimed that deposing Maxwell was “definitely” something that is “worthy of praise” and “encouragement.”

“Maybe she wants immunity, maybe she wants some sort of protection, I don’t know,” Charlie Kirk said on his show Tuesday. “We just want the truth.… Some people say, ‘Can we trust Ghislaine Maxwell?’ Probably, but also probably not.”

But not everyone on the right has bought in. Laura Loomer claimed last week that it wouldn’t be long “before some lobbyists try to cook up a possible pardon campaign” for the imprisoned sex offender. And Whitney Webb similarly warned that the Trump administration’s renewed interest in Maxwell was suspicious, claiming that scapegoating the Epstein associate would be the perfect way “to both avoid releasing the bulk of Epstein documents still held by the government and still seem like they are pursuing ‘justice’ in the case.”

“This could also pave the way for the ‘Pardon Ghislaine’ movement,” Webb, a prominent conspiracy theorist, wrote on X Tuesday, theorizing that Maxwell would only unveil the names she’s instructed to so that she doesn’t end up like Epstein.

Meanwhile, Trump was almost undoubtedly in Epstein’s universe. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department had notified Trump in May that his name appeared several times in the Epstein files.

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.